2 October 1998: Planning the Unplanned

Friday, 2 October 1998:

Planning the Unplanned

Kind of a nothing day at work today. However, I have learned that a piece of software that I've largely developed over the past year works way faster than people seemed to have expected. It cranks through around 1000 records per minute, which is more than satisfactory for what it'll be used for. So I'm pretty happy about that - even if it does seem slow to me!

Biking in was hard, though, since I did it on back-to-back days. (Yeah, whadda wimp I am.) It was also pretty fricking cold out this morning, and I can see that gloves are in my future for my rides. Still, as far as my endurance goes, I'm still making progress; I biked farther than I have before without resting.

I'd like to do a longish ride this weekend, but it sounds like we're in for rain-and-lots-of-it over the next several days, even if it is going to get warmer.

(Funny, the word 'fricking' is not in BBEdit's dictionary.)

I went downtown to read this evening. Picked up a couple of CDs, and while walking to the gyro shop for dinner I passed a Take Back The Night march. That was kind of peculiar. I decided to stand and gawk for a little while, and eventually I went inside and ate. Take Back The Night is one of those feminist things that has never successfully penetrated my brain. I mean, I understand what the goal is (or I think I do), but I don't really go for symbolic things, which seems to be what these marches are intended for.

On the other hand, they seem not to be intended for me, which I guess is the key here.

This morning I realized that this month's book discussion is this Thursday, not next Thursday. And I haven't even finished my current book, much less started the discussion book. So I need to blow through a bunch of that this weekend. But I'm otherwise trying to keep my weekend unscheduled and open. I'd like to do some birthday shopping for my mother and sister, and a local electronics warehouse store is having their annual big sale (which is a really good sale), so I might go to that.

But the key is that I don't want to feel pressured into doing too much stuff, or forced into doing things in lock-step due to specific plans. I need a nice weekend of being a lazy ass.

Lord knows why, though, since I'm a lazy ass much of the time anyway. Or, maybe not, since two different people have recently written me e-mail saying (words to the effect) that they don't understand how I get so much done with my time. Me, I feel like I get about half as much done as I'd like to get done, but maybe I need to adjust my expectations.

Or maybe I just have grass-is-always-greener syndrome.

Excuse me, I must go. The cats are being cute.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)