School ends in 13 days.

Boeing flight hardware schedules clutter my desk at work.

Space-DRUMS is back on-line.

GreyLogs is gaining momentum.

Journalizers is a little more fleshed out on paper.

And I don’t sleep nights. But hey. Sleep is for the dead.

You know, I think I’d reached my frustration peak when I wrote this. I remember now, as always, that anger, for me, usually pushes me towards inspired writing.

I just hope this will stop all the incessant “Can GreyMatter do …?” questions.

Yes, I know that I’m ever the optimist. But now, at least I have a screed at which to point such questioners.

Now that I’ve written that, and since I’m now staring at the alarm clock, which reads midnight, I’m going to try and go back to bed. [I tried to go to bed at 9:15, to no avail. Come to think of it, I'm not really tired right now, but Neil Cavuto is on Fox News Channel, and I already feel the drowsy-eyed goodness seeping into my orbital sockets ...]

GFM: How’s the job going? If you work on commission, I need a new sweater, and I’ll come by when I know you’re there.

Kat: It’s going pretty good. I don’t work on commission, but feel free to drop by Friday evening between 2pm-7pm. That’s when I’ll be working.

Kat: I feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of everyday because I’ve done something tangible. I’ve really missed that.

GFM: I’ll have to do that Friday. I know the feeling on tangibility. That’s why I like scheduling–I’m making regular data dumps to the customer and getting feedback.

Kat: Exactly. When I was working for Linux.com, I never felt like I was doing anything tangible and I never got that much feedback on what I was doing. It left me feeling a bit empty.

* GFM nods
GFM: I look at four years at TOTK.com … seeing articles and issues hit was the only thing that kept me going.

Kat: yeah, I just didn’t really have that. I had irc events that were rather intangible.

GFM: That’s why I’d like to be a bartender, I guess.

Kat: I honestly wouldn’t mind bartending. I certainly have a knack for remembering drinks.

GFM: Heh. We should start a bar. You, me, Sean, Todd. Eh?

Kat: Dude! That would so kick ass.

GFM: Eh?, the bar.

GFM: Where you going?
GFM: Eh?
GFM: What are you Canadian?
GFM: Nope. I’m going there, Eh?
* GFM cackles
GFM: TOO MUCH PROJECT SCHEDULING!

Kat: *laughing* Man, you crack me up. Next term, we’re going to have to start reinstituting weekly dinners and getting together more often.

GFM: No kidding. I am giddy. I had like four hours’ sleep last night.

Kat: well, that usually does it for me.

GFM: And I feel awesome. I’m like flying around.

Kat: okay, you’re scaring me now.

GFM: I’m scaring myself.

–

I usually do.

Blaker, this one’s for you, buddy!

Well, in an attempt to poke some fun about media biases and getting the opportunity to comment on the cloning of a human embryo, I’m linking to this story at FoxNews.com. It’s kinda obvious that, with all the attention focused on the dissenters, that this is biased against the concept.

That’s okay, I guess. I’m pretty ambivalent about it all, but the headline “Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong” on FN.c’s home page got me to chuckling. “We Report, You Decide”? On the TV channel, maybe. On your site? Bah.

So, how do you feel about this whole mess?

… but home may not be safe.

As I suspected, we left Mississippi yesterday. As we got ready to leave, my entire family–well, all 15 of them that were present at the time–told me they’d maim me if I drove on to Huntsville last night. So, I stayed over in Guin with my grandmother and drove on in this morning.

Of course, driving in West and North Alabama this morning was two hours of rain-filled fun. I spoke with Amy a few minutes ago, and she had to sign off of her computer because of rain storms causing brownouts in her area. The rain is here, but the nasty storms aren’t, although tornado warnings are cropping up all across North Alabama.

I have a safe place to be, of course; living on the side of a mountain makes those easy to find. So I thought I’d drop a note before connectivity may become an issue; and then I’m going to sleep my afternoon away, I think. I don’t sleep well when away from home anymore, for whatever reason, and I drove 1050 miles on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and another 150 to make 1200 for the four days ending today. My bed is calling me …

The bitch of it all is this: I forgot my cell phone charger *and* my spare battery [like an idiot] when I left Wednesday. My cell phone battery is down to one bar, and dangit, I’m here for another day.

So I get to go shopping with all the fools today. What fun *that* is going to be! But I’m also going to swing by the electronics section and get an idea of how much a new car stereo would be. I’ve had too much fun with my grandmother’s 6 CD changer in her car [guess what--I'm the only one who uses it!] not to consider getting one.

I don’t know whether I’m leaving for Huntsvegas today or tomorrow. It all depends on when my grandmother wants to go back. If she’s ready to go, well, I’m the chauffeur! Either way, I have to be back in Huntsvegas Saturday night for 1) hockey and 2) sleep before church on Sunday morning. No, they can’t do without me. I keep telling them that they can, though …

Off for Day Three of the Road Show. Doug needs the computer before he goes to work. [And yes, MODEMS SUCK!]

LIVE … from Petalllll, Mississippiiiiii … it’s the IJSM Road Show!

Happy, Doug?

[Making entries with someone reading over your shoulder is, indeed, rather weird. Doug's laughing as I write this. It's ... ethereal.]

Anyway, the drive was fine. My grandmother didn’t drive me up the wall, and I got to meet my new aunt and step … cousin? Blech. I hate trying to figure out familial relation terms. I don’t know a first cousin thrice removed from a fourth cousin … oh hell. [Can someone find a resource on that etiquette crap of familial relations? Please? Garh!]

I guess I better motivate towards the shower and get ready to drive out to the country, where Ray and Sheila live. Don’t know who all will be there, but hey.

And Doug just flipped it to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Raise your hand if, like me, you hate the MTDP? Thanks, both of you. I’ve hated it my entire life, and I’m sure as hell not going to pretend to like it just because it’s in NYC and all that’s happened there. Yeesh. It’s commercialism at its worst, and I mean, Santa appears in it. I mean, shouldn’t he be busting his ass up at the North Pole making toys? The world’s population ain’t gettin’ any smaller, yo!

[I'm ranting on Thanksgiving morning. I must be one ungrateful fool. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.]

For lack of a better term, I’m going home tomorrow.

Home, for me, as a former military brat and probably a future itinerant, is wherever I am at the time. No more, no less.

But, anyway, I’m going to South Mississippi, where my dad’s famiy has roots. Dad’s family is big: he has 52 first cousins on his dad’s side alone. We’ll be with his mother’s family for part of the time, which will be tough; Aunt Agnes finally passed on recently. I wish I’d gotten to see her last Thanksgiving, but that was spent in Tennessee, thankful most of all that Mom was still alive and with us.

I’ll board with my brother, which is always fun … for a while. We know we should never live together long term, but for a few days, we’re okay. I’ll get to see my uncle and his new wife … #4 … whom he’s been married to since February [?], yet I’ve never met her, nor, I think do I even know her name.

See what I mean? It’s home, of sorts. The people are familiar, but they change. Those closest remain the most steadfast in not changing. Perhaps that’s home … ?

I have my new little musical obsession: a C diatonic harmonica. Unfortunately, I can’t play it tonight, because Todd’s about to sack out before his trip to California.

John Wilson, it’s all your fault!

The other day, when Aaron found out he had three-way calling on his home phone [and had been paying for it for months, without ever knowing], he had to use it before it was finally cancelled [and his bill was lowered]. I mentioned that he could call Amy and I, because we already know each other and would probably make for an entertaining phone call.

I think we did.

One of the things we talked about were various Web projects on which we are working; Amy noted that, to get such things publicized, she thinks that we need to have our own online test.

In spirit of the “let’s post the results of my online test in my ‘blog” theme, I present this:

[Link stolen from Darcie. Thanks, Sweater Girl!]

… and I can get back in bed. The euphoria I felt after finally having my headache go away has been replaced with a dull feeling of fatigue. I could easily sleep right now, but I have a presentation to make and a paper to drop off in class. I’ll blow off Statistics to stay in bed; I hope to hell this is just a one-day thing, because if I don’t get to see my family for Thanksgiving, I’m going to be pissed.

“Are you alive?” Todd asked, coming out of his bedroom. I was sitting in the floor of the hall bathroom, with a much calmer stomach but an unbelievable throbbing behind my eyes.

I actually woke Todd up with my nausea. That’s scary. He’s gone to go get me something to kill my headache; after that goes away, I think I’ll be all right. Unfortunately, sinus headaches usually give me nausea; this is unfortunate, as I get them often. But if my head would stop killing me, I’d be all right enough to go in to work and then on to class.

Yes, I’m stubborn.

I’ve been fighting something the past few days. Unfortunately, I feel like I did when I had the flu a few weeks back: a killer sinus headache, very sporadic fever and chills, and constant nausea. But this time, I have a paper to turn in [which I just finished, thanks; I have to polish my citations, but that's cake] and a presentation to make.

Of course, I had a presentation last time, but I don’t think they’ll believe me having something flu-like twice in a row; perhaps if I emptied my stomach into a trash can?

Okay, enough bitching. I need to get to work, and to do that, I need a shower first.

Well, I had another sleepless night [though why this time, I don't know]; I’m glad I didn’t get up for the Leonids, because evidently they weren’t as great as they were predicted to be.

I have to be at church in 90 minutes. That’s one reason I’m awake right now. The other are the jerks upstairs, who must be engaging in full-contact parenting, because the ceiling is shaking pretty hard. Twice already, the vent in my bedroom has rattled because of it.

It’s really too bad that Blake needs some sleep; if not, I think I’d have to do a speaker test.

-ding!-

I really need to get the RSS feed for IM.o up and running, no? Well, I have a new entry up and going, which is the real reason I’m awake at this time of night and watching long-form pieces on CNN from Afghanistan and other such fun places.

I have a couple other things to write about soon: namely, why I listen to the music I do, and my frustration with the glee newscasters had when it was found that Mohammed Atef was dead in Afghanistan. However, at this point, I think I’d just like to get back to sleep.
(more…)

Dr. Boucher, my Western Civ I professor, has a word of the day every day in class. Usually it’s something arcane he’s run across in our text or in the media that might be unfamiliar to us.

Today, his word was: “procrastinator”.

Predictably, I worked hard to keep in my desk while I was laughing.

I’m going to do the paper tomorrow, though, because waiting until Sunday is suboptimal. I’m singing a solo at 8:30, staffing the 9:45 contemporary service, and singing in the choir at 11:00. Then there’s Todder v. Ant-Dawg II over at the IcePlex Sunday night … have to keep my schedule clear for that, yo!

When I arise in the morning, I’m going to just get this damned thing out of my hair. Four to six pages, double-spaced? Please! My Exponent columns are almost that long.

Okay, this is Exhibit #4914 on “Geof’s Baseball Writers are Stupid” case: Roger Clemens won his sixth Cy Young Award. He won it with his W-L record only; sad thing is, there’s a pitcher in the same staff with a better ERA who just didn’t get the run support that deserved better [Mike Mussina].

Trust baseball writers to get stuck in the “golly gee whiz!” of a guy going 20-3 and realize that, in a lot of games, his offense kept him in the ballgame.

The best pitcher this year? Either Mussina or Freddy Garcia, in my book, although a case could be made for Mark Mulder. But Clemens? He wouldn’t have even made my ballot.

If it’s any indication: in a year when run scoring was down, Clemens has the second-highest ERA [3.51] ever for a Cy Young Award winner.

Dan Szymborski, if you’re reading, yes, I think I need some therapy…

Me, in an email to Brad: “I’m pissed with the Flyers. They should have put Lindros out. Pussies. :D”

Brad: “Bobby Clarke should’ve laced up the skates. :)”

Damn right.

You know, every once in a while, we wax philosophic about questions like, “Why does [foo] act that way?” or “Why is [so-and-so] a sonofab—h?” Well, the answer is, “We really don’t know.”

But we know SOB’s when we see them. Take a look at this photo and decide for yourself which one is the SOB.

[FYI, these guys are on the bomb squad.]

Honestly, I haven’t had much to say in the past day-and-a-half. I’ve got some new work to do at work: interfacing with our customer [Boeing] and our manufacturing guys to provide a schedule that flows from the former to the latter. It won’t be hard work: it’s simply making sure we’re all speaking the same language.

The good thing is, it’s nice, steady work, and the Guigné work … isn’t, unfortunately. I can be the Schedule Nazi for a while around TBE. I could even be happy enough doing it for a few years while I get on with the rest of my life.

We’re on edge. I had to be the bearer of bad news for today’s airplane crash to Amy and John via ICQ and AIM.

My TV was on in my office before I could even get here. We know the drill.

Assuming that this is just a plane crash–and it’s amazing that we can call anything “just a plane crash”!–we as Americans will be … relieved.

What a world we live in today.

Well, unfortunately the roommates are gone this weekend. Todd’s already down on the farm, and Blake will soon leave for Virginia to try out for a professional inline hockey team. Part of me wants him to make it, part of me doesn’t want to lose a roommate.

Home hockey weekend: the Purple Eagles of Niagara. We better be the One-Eyed Purple Eagle Eaters, or I’ll be mad. Sean is coming out for Saturday night’s game, and we’re going to have a testosterone-filled morning auto-crossing the Integra. Should be fun.

Well, I think I hear my truck calling me, and I’ve been at work long enough today. Time to go to lunch, then class, then have some serious ol’ fun. Will post sporadically through the weekend, I’m sure. Maybe even semi-seriously.

I haven’t chronicled this in a while, so I should …

“they also serve who stand and wait”: There are always a few who hit this every month. Yes, John Milton is actually a good poet. But then I liked “Paradise Lost”. YMMV.

“greymatter and frederick”: I use the former and have a friend who’s last name is the latter. What’s yer problem, eh?

“recursive loop”: I get in them, usually at hockey games.

“sympathy pain”: I get it, just not for you.

“bad roommates”: Not anymore. Justin, I still can’t believe you were dumb enough to loan J-rod money.

“borg panentheism”: Ol’ Marcus has some good ideas, though I think he takes it a bit too far.

“boston sports management”: sucks. NEXT!

“caedmon’s call mp3″: This is not Napster. I love the band, I have MP3’s of theirs, but they’re all ripped from my personal CD collection. Buy yer own.

“crowdsurf”: Do you see 300-lb. men crowdsurfing? Not often.

“fae fuel-air images”: Move to Afghanistan. I hear the viewing is lovely there this time of year.

“funny bowling photos”: We got ‘em. You find ‘em.

Well, I got me a nap in. -groan- I should have resisted. There’s caffeine in the house. But I am sleepy, and I should be soon to bed.

The new Third Day CD was pretty nice on the first listen. In the tradition of Time, Come Together is some musical play-around, rather than anything destined for radio airplay. I hope that this doesn’t end up hurting 3D, as I personally would miss them on my music landscape.

I sure am glad I’ll be able to rip this to MP3 at work tomorrow. I have a backlog of CD’s to rip while I’m working away in the morning … and afternoon. Unfortunately, I have a 3:00 meeting to go to, so I’ll go to class and then back to work. Ugh. I hate doing that, but they’re paying me good money to do so, so I’ll hush up and do it.

Off to bed for me. Hopefully it won’t be a seven-entry day tomorrow. =)