Off By One

Sweet zombie Jebus, I’m done!

Oh, the bliss of having weekends again; of being able to read guilt-free. Of playing games, of having days that end at 5 pm some of the time, even if not all of the time.

Oh, and the ~$20,000/year raise (as of monday) doesn’t hurt. Did I mention they hired me?

This is starting to be a March theme, I think. I get swamped, I get a bit behind, and now all of a sudden, despite my best intentions, I am staring at deadlines I might not meet, with workloads I can barely handle.

Only one month to go. Perhaps I’ll get to see a couple of episodes of Die Nasty this year, yet.

Well, I’ve returned from my Japanese Odyssey, and now I get to spend this whole week swamped with school work, work work, and un-jetlagging.

It’ll be grand.

I’ve got only three days before Ms. Charlotte and I take off into the blue yonder, across the pacific (a first, at least as far as reaching the other side goes — Hawaii doesn’t count) to Japan, where we’ll be roaming around and posting pictures (over at Morruz), as per SOP).

I’ve got just about everything taken care of, on this end; I’ve finished (as far as I’m going to) my paper for Cmput 401, I’ve got most of the written assignment for 414 finished, and a deferral on my 3000-word essay to a week after I get back.

On the work front, I’ve been putting in a bit of time off the books because I wanted to get some coding done, which wasn’t happening with all of the container management stuff I was doing. Oh, it pays the bills, but struggling with IBM’s toolset was one of the least fun things I’ve ever had the … pleasure … of doing.

So, that’s it.

I’m taking one of the few real vacations I’ve had in my life, since leaving home. Oh, I’ve been unemployed, and I’ve been off for a few days here and there, but this type of thing is rare, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to travel with Char; we’ve never done this together. Wish us luck!

Although it might appear to the casual observer that I am dead, or perhaps comatose, I assure you that neither is the case. Rather, I have been swamped with a combination, familiar to some of you, of school and work that has left me with little time even to prepare for my incipient travels (to be catalogued, as M&M’s are, at http://www.offlineblog.com/morruz).

Here’s a capsule summary of the last couple of weeks:

School. Work.

Really, that’s all.

I’ve been trying to exercise a bit more lately, which is probably a good idea. Char’s heavy into the yoga, and she’s had me join her a couple of times, which I have found relatively pleasant, and should probably get into more consistently. I’ve also actually used the gym that comes with our apartment, which is revolutionary in itself, and even more, I’ve actually worked up a sweat by choice. Will wonders never cease?

Uhm…

Well, nothing else.

How are all of you?

Oh, man, it’s been a while.

Yeah, I’m still here.

I’ve been working on school a lot, and work — I’m pretty stressed these days, and my time is at a premium, so I haven’t been writing as often as I want to. I’ll try to remedy that, but this won’t be the post that does

To all of my assorted friends, book time while you can!

A few things coming up soon;

• One, there’s a ski trip happening in a few days, on the 22nd, with much of my family that will be very fun (good idea, Char!).
• Two, Christmas. I’m short on gift ideas, so suggestions — to the extent that I’m getting gifts outside the family — are welcome. A particularly good suggestion might net you some swag, anyway. And yes, dear, I know what you want
• Three, school is done for the year tomorrow morning.
• Four, we’re about ready to release version 4.0.0 of our flagship product

It’s a busy, busy week.

It’s been, and will be, an interesting couple of weeks. I’m creating some genuinely nifty things at work these days, and I’m going to be assembling interesting code for school.

The former has been an introduction to the general concepts of LDAP; I’ve had to get at least a bit familiar with it in order to put together a critical piece of functionality for our client. The latter, well, I took the hard part of the project, as is my wont, and it’s been nifty, getting it all working.

So, there’s that.

Plus papers..

Plus presentations…

Plus finals, upcoming…

Mind you, none of this is on the scale of Simon’s workload. Congrats on the thesis presentation!

It’s sore, it’s stiff, but I have two arms, and therefore I can…

• Finish the assignment that was due last friday
• Finish the assignment that is due this friday.
• Do some real work on my project so as not to let down my team.
• Catch up on my paid work.

That doesn’t sound like too much fun. On the other hand, I can pull up my pants easier, now

Somewhere in there, however, I really need to find some way to thank Char for the fantastic way she’s helped me out throughout the first week of my slingery, when I really couldn’t do much for myself. Waking up at 7:30 is not something she enjoys, and she did it for me.

Well…

I just learned how to pack a parachute.

I’ve jumped from a plane twice in the last five days (yeah, not too much).

I’m turning in my second assignment of the school year.

I’ve survived my first ever round of layoffs.

I’ve got to start my project work.

I’m laying on a couch typing this.

I’m going to eat chili this weekend in the company of geeks.

I’m going to miss Char while she’s away this week.

I ate a lot of turkey last night.

I wish I was working full time.