Monthly Archives: September 2015

Hey Siri…

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Apple’s fall media event kicks off in about three hours. The fact that I’m home while the landscapers finish up the yard is purely a happy coincidence. Really. It is. I won’t bore apple-invite-sept-9-heroyou with what the Apple blogs are expecting to see this afternoon. Suffice to say I’m expecting to see at least one thing – and possibly two or three – that will eventually be showing up in my tech tool kit. God knows I don’t need all the things, but I do certainly want them. Whatever they are.

I wonder if this is what it felt like the day they rolled out the latest Sears catalog back when that was still a thing. Probably not. Sears wasn’t exactly a hype machine. Apple, on the other hand, is the master of making me want to gladly hand over fists full of cash.

In a world full of war, refugees, hunger, rape, murder, and all manner of pillage maybe that makes me a bad person. Probably. Still, the heart wants what it wants.

My lying eyes…

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As much as I’m a fan of crowing my successes, I’m not shy about calling my failures into account either. In this case, it’s a failure of whatever part of my brain is in charge of understanding spatial relationships. I just spent half an hour looking at a piece of the sidewalk that I was absolutely convinced was angled the wrong way (i.e. draining back towards the door). I wouldn’t quite say I obsessed on it, but I may have stomped around the yard checking it from all angles and becoming more and more convinced that it just wasn’t right.

I would have gone to bed tonight ready to pick a fight with the contractor tomorrow if I hadn’t remembered that I have a perfectly good level sitting out in the garage that would tell the real story. I’m glad my brain can be counted on for at least that much, because my eyes obviously lie. It may be ever so slightly sloped, but the walk does, in fact, drain the way it’s supposed to.

The stone edging and grass seed come in tomorrow and then all we need is a bit of rain to see if the effort and expense were worth it in the end. Despite my lying eyes, I think we’d be hard pressed to have made anything worse. Intellectually I’m sure we’ve made things much better. But I’ll feel better about the whole thing when I see it work… and once I’ve got more grass than dirt in the back yard.

I didn’t miss it…

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A few minutes ago I realized it was Monday. I also realized I hadn’t written a word since Thursday. Even if it’s not something I’m going to share, a four day break is awfully unusual. It’s even more unusual if you take into account I didn’t make any notes, didn’t proof anything, and didn’t so much think about anything that might be confused with writing. I didn’t miss it. And that’s what really surprised me.

It seems that the long weekend threw me utterly off the routine. I have no idea that getting back to work tomorrow will bring it all careening back into place, but at the moment it all feels like a big pile of “meh.” Maybe that’s to be expected as an appropriate end to a lengthy weekend. Besides if I ever found myself perfectly content with anything I’d be worried that it’s a sure sign of a stroke. As it is, I’ll just take it as a sign that it’s been another weekend governed largely by apathy.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Denali. Humans have been changing the names of places basically forever. In parts of the world that have been continuously populated for thousands of years it’s happened a lot. That’s why there isn’t currently a Sumerian city-state called Ur in southern Mesopotamia. That place is now called Tell el-Muqayyar and is located in southern Iraq. Five thousand years from now it seems pretty unlikely that it’s going to matter whether in 2015 there was a mountain in Alaska called Denali or Mt. McKinley. It seems to me that both sides are wasting a good deal of breath on something that just doesn’t really matter all that much.

2. Annual Training. Every new fiscal year starts the clock on the approximately 47,632 annual mandatory training requirements I’m supposed to take. Every year, I’m determined not to procrastinate in taking them. Every year I somehow find myself well into September and realizing that I’ve done none of them. Yes, it’s my fault that I procrastinated on checking those boxes… but perhaps if there weren’t quite so many that need checked I wouldn’t feel the need to avoid them for as long as humanly possible.

3. Do your damned job. If you’re hired to do a job and find that the requirements of the position demand something that that violates your moral or ethical code, honor demands that you resign from that position. Honor doesn’t demand that you make a spectacle of yourself by simply not doing the job (while continuing to draw salary). If your moral sensibilities aren’t troubled enough that you need to resign in protest, then they aren’t really troubled and all you’re trying to do is get your face on television. At that point you’re not a martyr to the cause, you’re a self-aggrandizing douchecanoe.

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…

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Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk, 1978.

Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk, 1978.

I’ve always had something of a temper. It’s a family trait. Over the years I’ve learned, mostly, to suppress the worst of it. I’ve got plenty of tells if you know what you’re looking for, but for the most part I get away with it. Any facial expression that ranges from indifferent to annoyed and you’ve basically strayed into the red zone. It’s hardly the work of a zen master, but it’s what I can manage.

My carefully cultivated facade cracked for a moment today. I found myself halfway down the hall in what could generously be described as a blinding fit of rage before that small voice of reason cut through to remind me that grabbing someone by the tie and bouncing their head off the closest available wall is considered inappropriate… and probably detrimental to my career. I reigned it it, walked it off, and seethed quietly for the next hour.

I’ve spent my adult life working on the art of mastering my temper and learning what I need to do to keep it in check. I slipped today and I hate myself for it – not so much that it happened but because it offered up a brief glimpse at what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Breaking eggs…

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Today was largely the part of the project where we shatter the eggs in hopes of making an omelette at a later date. Lots of concrete came out. Lots of shrubbery went away. The air conditioner is, somewhat precariously, perched a foot higher waiting on the backfill to arrive tomorrow. The window well is cleaned out and ready to be reset. Basically three guys did in eight hours something that would have taken me three months to plow through a few hours at a time. Is it worth the cost? Probably. But that doesn’t make it any less humbling.

Tomorrow the real digging is going to start. Trenching will crisscross the yard in an effort to redirect every possible drop away from the house. Combined with the improved elevation that should theoretically resolve most of what ails this particular side of the house. For the time being I’ll be satisfied with that – even while knowing there’s at least that much work to do in the front at some point.

Still, I’m willing to call the first day a success… even if the actual heavy lifting is yet to come. All in the name of a dry basement.