Rrrrrrrr.

I'm supposed to be awake? I kept waking up last night. Too hot with the quilt, too cold without...that was part of the night. Just plain restless was another. Vague fragments of dreams, can't remember if they were good or bad exactly now.

They kept interspersing with my waking, with reality, so that at one point I thought I had to roll out of bed onto the floor in order to accomplish something in my dreams. Fortunately, I also woke up enough to regretfully realize I couldn't make myself go out into the cold (it didn't occur to me to take the quilt with). I struggled with my "laziness" for a while in a half-sleep before falling all the way asleep again.

It's going to be a long day....

GOOD morning!

Radio says there should be a nice storm (rain; wind; snow in the mountains) later today. I love fall.

Outside my window, the trees are evergreen, red, reddish-orange, fluttering in a mere heavy breeze, the clouds low and heavy (but only medium-gray, not dark yet) behind the most-distant evergreens I can usually see (even on a clear day). No low fog lef: I can see the rest of the scene clearly.

The light is soft, muted, smothered. It rained earlier, and probably still is, very lightly, as it was when I walked in. The gentle light reflects off the parking lot opposite.

I love my office. Little things make workdays easier.

And I didn't arrive to any calls from N. which, since she's setting up for training with a "questionable" install CD (ack!), is a very good thing.

Here's hoping it goes well all day!

*sighs* Ooopsy.

I got a request for a review of some interfaces, and a time estimate to do them, on Friday afternoon about 2.

On Friday afternoon about 2, I was trying to get together all the pieces for a CD and make them work. The email said he needed this by Tuesday, so I figured all was good.

Except. My boss is out of the office this week. And I have no idea how long it will take to do these.

So I'm guessing, and telling him I'm guessing, and I have a couple requests out to people (one didn't answer his phone; the other works in my office and isn't here today, and I hope he's not out of the office today also) to get some information to try to fine-tune my estimates a little.

Ugh. Nothing like a request from sales for information to make me feel clueless....

Oh, well. Next task, until I can get info to help with that one (or hit the time deadline, and just send it out), is to write up technical information for some of our people, on stuff I actually do know. This is better. This is much better.

Ummm. Bad allergies, or cold, or whatever.

I'm sneezing. *sulks* Sneezing is very annoying. It's not hard sneezes, it's not uncomfortable, but it's over an hour after I took my antihistamine and I should not be feeling the urge to sneeze.

Oh, well. Life is. I'm alive, and sneezing is fairly minor in the scheme of things, no? But I do think I'll try some hot cider to go with everything else, yes.

*sighs* Whee! So....

N. called. They had a workstation with two ip addresses, which caused all sorts of problems. (Two cards: but our "auto-detect" stuff only works if there's just one.) So I walked her through getting the ip address (unfortunately, both interfaces were retrieving an ip address, so we had to us ipconfig and with our luck the poor person will have it fail later when their ip changes), and inputting our settings so it would use just that one, and it was all fine.

Then I sent a query email to someone who can help me with the questions I can't answer confidently, and went to finally get my cider. I have my cider, and have prepaid for lunch, which I will pick up in 45 minutes. (I could have gotten it now; however, I will get a test page in the next half hour and I prefer not to have my lunch interrupted by it.)

I got back to find my juniormost team member had to field a call from a project manager who wanted to know Who Are You And Why Did You Bill Hours To My Project.

Next time, lady, read your frickin' email. Like, the one I sent marked urgent, high-priority, last Monday, telling you I needed your feedback on items, that the items would be billed to the project, and that, absent any instructions to the contrary, we would begin later that week. Notice that, next to each item, I gave you the name of the person who would be working on it. Notice that the guy you were just demanding "who are you?" of was mentioned on over half the items, by his full name.

Good. Grief.

News topic: I'm glad I don't work in a post office....

Okay, now this is a bit more unnerving. It's still not a major danger to random computer programmers, etc., I would think.

But it doesn't make me want to work for the post office....

*shivers* Especially that post office.

More than the outbreak of anthrax, what I find scary is the fact that there are people who would do this. Who would think it's a reasonable action for any reason. And they're living on my planet, in my universe.

Ugh.

Yay.

Put in a request for matching funds to get a laptop. The company has had some "issues" with the Vaio, and also one of my coworkers said she'd seen an analysis (a relative works doing that) which suggested it wasn't the best for our purposes.

I seriously doubt it's at a disadvantage, but I'm equally happy with either the IBM Thinkpad or the Sony Vaio, so I'm letting them steer me toward the Thinkpad, which seems to be offering me more configuration options, anyway.

It's going to seem dirt-cheap, with 50% matching (okay, up to a max of $1000 from the company, but still...).

I'm such a geek. And I'm so excited at the thought of getting a lighter, cooler, better (better processor, more memory, more drive space, more options, more...) laptop.

Now to see if I can get it locally, instead of having to order it direct from IBM. Yipe.

Weather. And temperature control.

I put this in a reply to a comment first, then felt the need to share it:

The weather is absolutely beautiful. Storm coming in and the sky is dark gray, my window (despite the roof overhang) is wet, the trees are fluttering (still lightly).

And the D*** building A/C is on, which gives me the wonderful thrill of feeling like I'm right out in it!

*GIGGLES*

"I would promptly shave my head bald, scream like a little girl, and try desperately to have her destroyed."

No, I'm not going to explain where that quote came from. It was said by someone other than myself, it amused the HELL out of me, and I would love to see if anyone reading this entry has any ideas what might have caused someone to say that. Please leave a comment, if so.

*giggles* I just like it, it's FUNNY.

The ways you don't care to die.

"List the ways you don't care to die."

I'll lj-cut so you're not exposed to my answers, before you think through your own, if you want to.

I had a bit of fun with this one.

( My list. )

Evenings.

I didn't get a whole lot done tonight, online or off, really. I sat here and read LiveJournal posts, tried to answer a few support questions because I could, bounced into Ashes and dsicovered that Avalanche had done all that came up, logged back out.

I logged Zulaikh in briefly, started to scene, and realized I wasn't sure why she'd stay around in that scene. Then I realized I also wasn't very focussed or coherent, so I went ahead and had her leave, so I could log off and stop trying to pretend to rp.

I hung out a lot with friends and chatted, and made several people laugh. ...actually, that was well worth it, "getting a lot done" or not. I like the people around me being happy (when it's genuine, please!), and I enjoy being able to add to it.

Oh, and I did some shopping, 'way at the beginning of my evening. More dental gum, more non-dental trident (hey, I like it, and it's not that bad for you to chew), and some new scents of shower gel. I'm looking forward to finding out how many of 'em I hate, and how many I don't. *grins*

Wrote a couple lists. I got a journal the other day (when I got the Mercedes Lackey book, which I reread bits of tonight also!) which is all a set of list prompts, one per page. They're kind of fun - little things about your life and whatnot.

I posted one here. I may post more, depending on if the mood strikes me. And whether it strikes me near a computer.

While I was at the store, I got a stretchy-fabric "glove" (no fingers, really) designed to help prevent repetetive strain injuries at the computer. I figured it was $10, I'd see what it was like.

So far, I like it. My hand position is more proper, whether I want it to be or not. But I'm not sure if it's actually any good. We'll see. If I like it enough, I might get another one, just to encourage it, 'cause I know I hold my hands in fairly abysmal angles and ways.

Okay, so maybe I got more than I realized done tonight. Just less quantifiable. Maybe I'll unload the dishwasher before I go to bed, so I have something more "useful" to point to as done.