01 April 2009
Title
31 December 2008
Out with the old, in with the new
So the last four months have just blown by. In those four months, I've had a new baby. Which, in and of itself, really explains why I've been so busy. But on top of that I've gotten some new responsibilities at work and our company launched a major new project that took up an inordinate amount of my time. The "busy-ness" due to that project ebbed and flowed but during the ebb times I had to cram in all my other responsibilities so I stayed busy all the time.
I still managed to participate in NaNoWriMo (what was I thinking?) and almost drove myself into the ground, but "won" anyway. So there!
The new year is going to bring even more responsibility at work which is both good and bad. More responsibility = recognition (yay) but it also = more work/stress (meh). Yet I'd rather have it than not, all things considered.
I will also be having fun watching my kids go through another year and trying - trying - to get more writing in. I was able to do NaNo because it was a fixed amount in a fixed time but the stress of doing that on top of a major project at work with a month old baby at home when I hadn't been doing much writing before that was unfun. It just emphasized to me - again - that it's better to do some every day to stay in the habit and if I do some extra that day, yay!
With all that said, Happy New Year's Eve. See you on the flip side.
I still managed to participate in NaNoWriMo (what was I thinking?) and almost drove myself into the ground, but "won" anyway. So there!
The new year is going to bring even more responsibility at work which is both good and bad. More responsibility = recognition (yay) but it also = more work/stress (meh). Yet I'd rather have it than not, all things considered.
I will also be having fun watching my kids go through another year and trying - trying - to get more writing in. I was able to do NaNo because it was a fixed amount in a fixed time but the stress of doing that on top of a major project at work with a month old baby at home when I hadn't been doing much writing before that was unfun. It just emphasized to me - again - that it's better to do some every day to stay in the habit and if I do some extra that day, yay!
With all that said, Happy New Year's Eve. See you on the flip side.
11 September 2008
Quarter, shmquarter
I really should stop saying things like "next quarter should be easier" and just accept that it won't. We're becoming the go-to team around here and while that's a nice compliment, it means that we're ALWAYS busy with new projects. And probably will be for the foreseen future. At least the overtime has gone down a bit.
Still not getting much writing done, but am experimenting a bit with Google Docs to see if writing for a few minutes here and there at work (during lunch, breaks and whatnot) will keep the pump primed and motivate me to write when I get home.
Still not getting much writing done, but am experimenting a bit with Google Docs to see if writing for a few minutes here and there at work (during lunch, breaks and whatnot) will keep the pump primed and motivate me to write when I get home.
30 June 2008
Another Quarter, Another Post
Yes, I know I haven't posted in awhile.
This past quarter has been somewhat easier than the last three. Somewhat. Talk about damning with faint praise. The stress level was way down, but the need to write hasn't come all the way back yet and what there was, was allocated towards actual writing and not blogging. Blogging has always been a "leftover" thing for me. In other words, whatever energy I had leftover when I was done writing for the day went to blogging.
In a lot of ways I'm only doing this post because I feel somewhat obligated to report on another quarter after my last post, and at least acknowledge that it was much easier.
I've been doing some writing. Not much, but it comes under the category of "plugging away". A couple hundred words here, a thousand there, etc. And not even everyday either which is what I'm more disappointed in than any word counts. I'd be happy with 50 if I was writing everyday. Need to get back to that.
This past quarter has been somewhat easier than the last three. Somewhat. Talk about damning with faint praise. The stress level was way down, but the need to write hasn't come all the way back yet and what there was, was allocated towards actual writing and not blogging. Blogging has always been a "leftover" thing for me. In other words, whatever energy I had leftover when I was done writing for the day went to blogging.
In a lot of ways I'm only doing this post because I feel somewhat obligated to report on another quarter after my last post, and at least acknowledge that it was much easier.
I've been doing some writing. Not much, but it comes under the category of "plugging away". A couple hundred words here, a thousand there, etc. And not even everyday either which is what I'm more disappointed in than any word counts. I'd be happy with 50 if I was writing everyday. Need to get back to that.
03 April 2008
Sigh of Relief
Oi. The Quarter From Hell is now over.
After my last post, my boss came up to me and said, in essence, "That project you planned to do over 3 months - yeah, that one - now needs to be done in a month and a half. Oh, and you still have to do all your other usual work as well."
Gee. Thanks.
All I can really say is - I survived. At least I didn't have to work TOO much overtime. Maybe only 20 hours total. Mostly due to the fact that, appearances to the contrary, I really am pretty organized at work and was able to just work faster. Problem is, my stress level hit TILT. But only just. It wasn't at TILT like it was last December. What helped was that two very minor assignments got waived to the second quarter which really helped in the overall scheme of things because even though they're minor, they still take awhile to do right. And they're the kinds of things that if you don't do them right, it's very noticeable. Naturally that was time I didn't have available due to Project Which Must Be Done At Ludicrous Speed.
Thank goodness I have a wife that understood why I vegged out in the evenings when I got home. I've been a much more pleasant person to be around since that project was completed, I hope.
Needless to say, there was slightly less than No Chance that I got any "recreational" writing done. I have high hopes of this changing this quarter because my boss has sworn in blood that I won't have a PWMBDALS this quarter. Hope springs eternal, as they say. We shall see.
After my last post, my boss came up to me and said, in essence, "That project you planned to do over 3 months - yeah, that one - now needs to be done in a month and a half. Oh, and you still have to do all your other usual work as well."
Gee. Thanks.
All I can really say is - I survived. At least I didn't have to work TOO much overtime. Maybe only 20 hours total. Mostly due to the fact that, appearances to the contrary, I really am pretty organized at work and was able to just work faster. Problem is, my stress level hit TILT. But only just. It wasn't at TILT like it was last December. What helped was that two very minor assignments got waived to the second quarter which really helped in the overall scheme of things because even though they're minor, they still take awhile to do right. And they're the kinds of things that if you don't do them right, it's very noticeable. Naturally that was time I didn't have available due to Project Which Must Be Done At Ludicrous Speed.
Thank goodness I have a wife that understood why I vegged out in the evenings when I got home. I've been a much more pleasant person to be around since that project was completed, I hope.
Needless to say, there was slightly less than No Chance that I got any "recreational" writing done. I have high hopes of this changing this quarter because my boss has sworn in blood that I won't have a PWMBDALS this quarter. Hope springs eternal, as they say. We shall see.
Labels: work
24 January 2008
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I know I haven't posted in awhile. That's due to this, that, and the other. Mostly laziness if the truth be known.
Been writing pretty well, though, for the most part. Finally won Nano last November after 4 years of trying. The bad thing is, I had the post-Nano hangover. That, plus work being hell in December, contributed to me writing a grand total of 0 words in December. Bad, me.
Doing better in January so far.
Been writing pretty well, though, for the most part. Finally won Nano last November after 4 years of trying. The bad thing is, I had the post-Nano hangover. That, plus work being hell in December, contributed to me writing a grand total of 0 words in December. Bad, me.
Doing better in January so far.
Labels: writing
12 July 2007
Death of a Laptop
Yes, indeed, my old and trusty Toshiba Satellite laptop died recently. I am now writing this from my brand spanking new Toshiba Tecra.
The Satellite was already starting to hiccup a bit due to a dying FL inverter. I merely....er....hastened it along, shall we say, by having a double mishap. I tend to use my laptop at work a lot since it has Apache, MySQL, and PHP on it. And, no, the computer at work doesn't - long story which doesn't need to be told now.
At any rate, so I was working away at some code and someone called for my attention, so like an idiot I scooted my chair away from the desk without first making sure of the location of the computer power cord. There was this thud and I looked back at my desk to see the laptop on the floor, swooning. The monitor had flopped down to "fully open" - essentially parallel to the floor. The DVD drive drawer had popped out. Arrrrgh.
I pushed the DVD drive drawer back in, fiddled with the computer for a bit, and concluded it had survived. So I resumed my usual computing.
Only to repeat the same exact procedure two days later.
*bang head on desk*
That was too much for the hard drive. It didn't break...exactly. It started acting its age, though, and had a tantrum and refused to work as fast as before.
That, combined with the monitor issues, was enough of that. I ordered a new computer Monday of last week and got it Friday of last week. I've since then been busy catching up with all the things I needed the laptop to do. Fortunately, the old laptop is still working - somewhat and under severe protest, but working - so I was able to hook it to the monitor of the desktop (yes, the FL inverter finally and completely died) and get my data off of it.
Big sigh of relief.
I do have backups, but it had been a little while since I'd done one due to hecticness on the home front what with the house buying process. Things had been busy at work so I did have quite a bit of un-backed-up stuff. If I had lost that stuff, it would have bitten the big one.
HOUSE UPDATE:
We've closed on the house and will be moving in a few days. Once things are settled down on the home front, I'll have more time to write. I'm still managing to get a few hundred words a day done - not really that much on a day-to-day basis but in the grand scheme of things it's good because I'm trying hard not to break the habit of writing something every day and so far so good.
The Satellite was already starting to hiccup a bit due to a dying FL inverter. I merely....er....hastened it along, shall we say, by having a double mishap. I tend to use my laptop at work a lot since it has Apache, MySQL, and PHP on it. And, no, the computer at work doesn't - long story which doesn't need to be told now.
At any rate, so I was working away at some code and someone called for my attention, so like an idiot I scooted my chair away from the desk without first making sure of the location of the computer power cord. There was this thud and I looked back at my desk to see the laptop on the floor, swooning. The monitor had flopped down to "fully open" - essentially parallel to the floor. The DVD drive drawer had popped out. Arrrrgh.
I pushed the DVD drive drawer back in, fiddled with the computer for a bit, and concluded it had survived. So I resumed my usual computing.
Only to repeat the same exact procedure two days later.
*bang head on desk*
That was too much for the hard drive. It didn't break...exactly. It started acting its age, though, and had a tantrum and refused to work as fast as before.
That, combined with the monitor issues, was enough of that. I ordered a new computer Monday of last week and got it Friday of last week. I've since then been busy catching up with all the things I needed the laptop to do. Fortunately, the old laptop is still working - somewhat and under severe protest, but working - so I was able to hook it to the monitor of the desktop (yes, the FL inverter finally and completely died) and get my data off of it.
Big sigh of relief.
I do have backups, but it had been a little while since I'd done one due to hecticness on the home front what with the house buying process. Things had been busy at work so I did have quite a bit of un-backed-up stuff. If I had lost that stuff, it would have bitten the big one.
HOUSE UPDATE:
We've closed on the house and will be moving in a few days. Once things are settled down on the home front, I'll have more time to write. I'm still managing to get a few hundred words a day done - not really that much on a day-to-day basis but in the grand scheme of things it's good because I'm trying hard not to break the habit of writing something every day and so far so good.
