The Aerie
Okay, something is seriously wrong with time today.
Got up planning a big, productive day at work. Work has given me a useless, thankless makework job, taken from someone more skilled Fortunately the guy I'm helping out is an excellent chap, and I'm happy to make his life easier with this crappy task.
So I planned to go to work and do that, but instead my wife asked me for our household paycheck.
Agh! It's the 16th already! I had to send out bills, write checks, pay taxes, etc. Somehow I'd lost track of what day it was, and now my bills were all due.
In the midst of all this I was reminded that my printers stopped working after I rearranged my office on Sunday. I was reminded of this when I tried to print one of the bills, reports, or invoices and I started to try to print them and nothing came out.
Now, this is me trying to be all cool and hip and use Linux as a desktop machine, and let me tell you, Fedora Core ain't ready for prime time (not that most would say it is, but...) Example, I found myself rooting around, up to my elbows in Python code in the queueTree subroutines, trying to get my printers working. When you're trying to print a mailing label and you find yourself debugging code, you've gone badly astray.
But even with that waste of time, the day unaccountably vanished like a zephyr in a hurricane. Suddenly it's 6:00 p.m., and time to take my youngest out for the evening. So today will probably be the first (and only?) day this month that I miss going to the gym.
Meanwhile the work didn't get done - but it's not due til Tuesday, so that's not too bad. Meanwhile, I've got a job interview tomorrow, and somebody from my current contract workplace just called to offer me even more work.
Crazy!
Well, off for Dad 'N Kid day with the youngest. We'll probably go see Batman and catch some dinner....
[later]
Well that was interesting. Offered the opportunity to see the new Batman movie, the boy chose instead to see "Howl's Moving Castle" for the second time. A lad with discriminating tastes!
We had a very nice time at the movie. On second viewing it was a lot better, the plot hints were all more visible, although some were astonishingly subtle. The coming war is hinted at, for instance, when a woman returns from the future enemy city with a fancy hat, decorated with gun-turrets. "It's all the rage!" she exclaims.
The lad is amazingly perceptive. He leaned over a couple of times during the film to inform me that the score - of which I was entirely unaware - was very similar to that in "Spirited Away," or that a certain voice was the same as one from "Princess Mononoke". He's 10 and he's a film critic.
As we were leaving "Howl's" in stylish Uptown, we waited at a red light and from the left along comes this fellow, maybe 22 years old. He's rollerskating wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and of course the skates.
He's 20 yards from the light when it turns yellow. He accelerates.
He's five yards from the intersection when the light turns red. I reach over, slap my hand over my boy's eyes as this cretinous moron defies Darwinian law by barreling through the red light wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. Four lanes of cars were driven by attentive drivers that day. Four lanes of cars watched patiently as this idiot skates arrogantly by. Nobody happened to be chatting on a cell phone and accelerated into him.
But it'll happen.
Went to Yucky Cheese, only to learn they were closing. The boy blew through $10 of tokens in lightning speed - I hope he never takes up gambling! I practiced ski-ball, best score only 450 but I don't claim to be any good.
Then we grabbed some Arby's and now it's off to bed!
Posted by Albatross at June 16, 2005 6:14 PM