February 7, 2005 Untitled No. 275 The "buzzer" on my new alarm clock is pretty mellow, as far as alarm clocks go. Sure, it's enough noise to wake me up, but not the obnoxious blaring of the last alarm clock. This one is like a gentle reminder, rather than a cymbal crash. I know this because the alarm went off promptly at 6am, whereupon I had to grab my workout clothes, brush my teeth, grab everything I'd put together for lunch, and head out the door to get to the Consulting Company gym before starting work. At that hour, the gym is so quiet. It's very nice, there wasn't another soul in either the locker room or the gym itself. I set the TV to the local news (did you hear the PATRIOTS WON THE SUPERBOWL? Because they did. The PATRIOTS, I mean. WON. The SUPERBOWL. And in other news, they'll be having a parade tomorrow to celebrate the fact that the PATRIOTS WON THE SUPERBOWL. Now back to our continuing coverage of the SUPERBOWL-WINNING PATRIOTS) and hopped on the treadmill. It's been a long time since I've actually taken a run, and I only managed about 2.5 miles before I pooped out. But still, I feel good for having broken that barrier. The glider is fine, but I like to be a runner, and I find that I lose more weight if I'm running as opposed to any other type of cardio. I found that I had just enough time to get through my run and take a shower before it was time to get to work. I don't know if this means that I'll have to get up fifteen minutes earlier in order to get in a better run once I work up to it, or if I'll opt for the extra sleep and a shorter run on Mondays. We'll see. Work was a hectic mess from the minute I walked into the department until about 4:00pm, when everything died. I managed to get a lot done, from designing a set of binder covers and spines (along with accompanying nametags) to submitting a new scheduling request form to be put up on the intranet (something that we haven't had before...now I just have to wait for the IT people to put together the corresponding CGI to make it actually functional) to giving two pseudo-disciplinary talks to two separate employees. (About which I certainly did not have an IM conversation (password required...it's the same as the last one for those of you who read the last one...if you didn't get the last one, leave a comment or e-mail me for it) about how to approach such things with anybody today. Nope. Anything you may read is 100% fictional. It all slowed down once the department was full of employees (of course), but that was okay with me. I had some documentation to do, and thinking about my next project, which will either be rolling out the image database (in a truncated form...mostly company logos and company-specific clipart) or trying to work out how to easily convert DVDs to web-ready movie clips. I've been playing around with a free demo, but all the DVDs I have have many episodes on one disk, which I think is interfering with it working smoothly. One of the consulting teams had given us a monster project just before Christmas, and it took us weeks of proofreading to get it perfect (basically comparing one database to another...dull enough to induce thoughts of suicide). To thank us for all our hard work, they gave us dinner. We chose Chinese food, which was a very good way to end the day. (The night shift got the first free meal; the day shift will get one tomorrow...the consulting team is being really nice.) I thought of stopping by Laurie's place after work, but I was just too beat to be that social, so I called her and we discussed How We Would Run Things If We Ran Things, which is one of our favorite subjects. Everything would just be so much more efficient if we ran everything, but nobody seems to give us the chance to do it. I have a busy "weekend" ahead of me. Tomorrow, Trooper goes to the groomer's because he's smelling pretty bad again. I'm sure it's because he's 14 and has cancer, but going to the groomer's will at least clean him up a little bit. Wednesday, I go to the dentist for the first time in way too long. I don't think I have any major problems with my teeth, but then again, my car knew about my bank account, so why not my mouth? I may also have one or two interviews with potential candidates at the office (which will keep up my perfect record of never working less than 2 hours of overtime [if I got overtime] every week this year. Not terribly grueling for most, but I like 40 hours a week!) Thursday, it's time to see Al, and hopefully with my new contact lenses, I'll be able to actually "see" him this time! It's also another potential interview day, depending on the schedules of the candidates. Somewhere inbetween those appointments, I have to print out and send out Unspoken Arrangements to a one-act play contest that I have bookmarked. I'd also like to get some playwriting done, because a 10-minute thing is hanging around in the back of my head. Maybe sometime soon, I'll start in on a full-length play. I have enough ideas, and if they don't get stolen (a la The Wedding Date, which looks like a horrible rendition of a script I had in mind forever, or Identity, which took one of my halfway-finished plays and decimated it by using the same premise in a much better-suited genre), I could try to get something produced by the end of the year. So many plans. I'm getting better at implementing them, but there's still so much more room for improvement.