It is Saturday morning, and I am trying to remember Friday. It was not that interesting of a day. Quiet. People ask me how I remember the details. I try to replay the day by remembering those items that frame the day, often meals, and then try to recall the moments between the frames–often events flow together. I usually remember something after I am done writing and add it (frequently causing some wording issues that I often fix). Some things don’t surface until a day later (often something not part of a narrative); I have some regrets when I recall the missed events, but I move on. It is the nature of a narrative that some events do not make it into the writing. Purposely or not, editing has to happen. Now, let’s see if I can recall yesterday…
I rose from my blurry dreams and soon was at my office, logging into my work and personal accounts. I hurried and nearly ran to the kitchen to start a NYC bagel (thanks, Joyce) and liberal coffee in my French press. I found dishes in the sink, a few were mine, and put them in the dishwasher. While all that started, I hurried to the bedroom, found the small amount of laundry, put it in the new LG appliance, and started it. Time for another test run on my stuff. Just under three hours for the whole thing, the LG estimated.
I returned to the office with coffee and a bagel and started the 7 staff meeting. The meeting is early to better overlap with a reasonable time in India. Oregon is on the opposite side of the earth from India (look at any globe map someday; it is remarkable to see the reason for the time difference), so we are an inconvenient 12 and 1/2 hours difference. India spans one and a half of a physical time difference. Still, to stop the confusion of having more than one time zone, India declared a special larger local time zone that is thirty minutes offset, thus the 1/2 in the twelve hours difference.
The meeting was run by my new boss, Rajani, who is still trying to figure out what to do with me. I have a 1-1 to discuss that on Monday. Rajani covered a lot of dates and processes. We are in the between phase of the project, with a go-live this summer and then a nearly two-year experience to expand our solution to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA in Nike-speak).
It was a quiet day, and I read and researched mainly on Friday. I attend and support a few remaining process meetings. I was looking into how the database works, how it is new and all-memory, and how it pages memory. There was another annoying meeting (the same one that made me unhappy last time), and I tried to keep quiet. I was aggressively ignored by the same folks. Predictable.
I made soup for lunch, beef stew from a can, and added some noodles. I ate this while listening to the meeting. The LG was spinning and drying, which was more interesting in many ways, and I am confident the results were more profitable to me. I had only one bowl of stew.
I watched some interesting YouTube videos for my lunch break. Battleship New Jersey is in dry dock, and today’s video was about hull features missing from models of the old battlewagon. There is a small keel structure that I did not know was there. Ryan, the curator and spokesman, showed shots of this. He suggested that someone should produce a 3D kit to upgrade the USS New Jersey BB-62 models in various scales to include the keel structure. Ryan says he gets lots of contact from modelers with questions Ryan was happy to answer–he is a modeler, too. When answering most questions, he has to ask what year of BB-62 life they are building as the ship has changed on various reactivations and refits. An excellent video of Battleship New Jersey in dry dock.
I also watched ShipHappens, which is progressing toward rebuilding its WW2 ship. Everything went wrong for them this week, but it was still an interesting episode. If you like wood boats, look and learn why I build models and do not own one.
I had another meeting, reviewed a few documents, and approved the changes. I did have to edit one document to make the change more transparent, but I did not change the content, just the presentation of the change. Mariah texted me and thought having dumplings at the Washington Square Mall, Din Tai Fun, was a good idea. I agreed. Corwin could not make it.
It was so quiet that I updated the LG software and changed some settings. When it starts, there is a nice Spring flash page, and the finished music is now Beethoven’s 9th. Now, I can status and control my LG from my iPhone. Yes, I was reprogramming my washer. It was a very quiet day, indeed.
I boarded Air Volvo at 3 something and headed out; most of Friday was done at the shoe company. I managed to cross Beaverton without incident or attracting Beaverton’s Finest. I parked at Macy’s and soon discovered I had created the longest possible path for me to walk. That is not a bad thing as I could use the walk. The second thing I discovered, or re-learned, as it has been a while since I have been in a swanky mall, is that the younger gals wear underwear as clothing and want you to have no illusions about what is underneath. It took me a moment to refocus, and I realized this was the norm, and I tried not to be distracted. I don’t want to be that guy.
I had my Kindle app and read my book until Mariah showed up. We waited for a table, and then Mariah liked what she saw of the bar, so we just sat there. Our waiter was a young gal in the black uniform for the place and took our order. She explained the menu and processing in a friendly but obviously unthinking way. More robot than human, but once that was over, the human took over again–a cyborg. I suggested an appetizer. Mariah ordered a great cocktail while I had Japanese beer, Sapporo. Mariah then ordered the rest of the food when I gave her a blank look, and soon, we were buried in dumplings and steamed rolls–all perfectly set in bamboo steamers. I added some spicy wonton and vinegared ear mushrooms appetizer and, as I said, did not finish it all. It was wonderful.
We chatted, ate, and drank. It was a pleasant dinner. Soon, I recrossed the mall, found Air Volvo, and returned to the Volvo Cave. The traffic was light, suggesting that soccer games for the kids were already in progress. It was a lovely afternoon, and I suspect many folks cut out early.
The forecast changed, and it was sunny and dry. I found Corwin’s truck was outside with Andrew helping. They had changed the oil, spilling only some of it, and the sparkplugs on Corwin’s older model truck. The truck was running now, and they were cleaning up. Apparently, the first attempt with the sparkplugs had one pop-out. Corwin was lucky as they could be remounted the sparkplug, and it stayed in. The process of fixing that is intense and time-consuming (and expensive). Soon, my lawn no longer looked like an ad hoc repair shop, and Dawn soap removed the oil stain.
I made a pot of tea and started to write. I also updated more account information for my “I’m Dead. Now What?” book. All this will be ready for my surgery on 20 May 2024, and it is unlikely it will be needed. I wrote and rewrote part of my Dungeons and Dragon adventure, which I wrote about back when 4E was new. It was my first adventure in that version and for first-level characters. It is a pleasure to write 5E again. I had to get all the books and even the websites.
The translation of 4E to 5E is easier than 3.5E, for example. In 4E, most things that use the rules have to be revised–I rewrite it all, but in 3.5E, the rules some things are unchanged, but actually, everything needs to be revised. You can easily leave some in 3.5E terms, as the wording makes it look like 5E. So, with more rewriting, it is easier overall to translate 4E to the new version.
I wrote until 10PM and then started getting tired, even with the tea, and read. I finished my book,
After that, with a few texts from friends still up, I tried to sleep. Benadryl was called for as I was having hives from the pollen. I soon drifted away in a mist of caffeine fighting Benadryl–the pink pill won.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 