At work.

Taking a breather before I start my next project (the newsletter). I worked out today (cardio) and had lunch at my desk. Can of spagetti followed by a metamucil drink. The muscle ache is gone. I'm getting back into shape. Again.

Nothing major to report right now. I'm slowly getting used to using Outlook as my project tracker. While I like some of the functionality provided, it's actually harder to track projects. But I came up with a way to put all my notes to a project and made it legible. I'll start implementation next week.

No writing tonight unless I feel up to it when we get back from Knotts Scary Farm. I strongly doubt it.

Oh! Heard back from isbister, the makers of Time & Chaos (www.isbister.com). They provided a possible solution to my sync problem. Well, doesn't really matter now since I had take off the software from my work machine. I'll see how the home machine's working. Time & Chaos has suddenly become much more valuable at home.

At work.

Progress on my writing today. More than three pages and completed a chapter. Yeah.

My cynical view of human nature was reassured today while, simultaneously, my optimistic side diminished. A group of high school kids were gathered at the table behind me. While working on their homework, one girl expressed loudly her dislike of Asians. This included the apparently half-Asian, half-Caucasian boy sitting in the group. I was saddened as the discussion reminded me when I had been teased as a child. It seems that my view that humanity is more willing to applaud prejudices than learning about each other; "this is my fu*&$# opinion and I don't really care about your stupid feelings".

I am willing to listen to different views. But discourtesy gets my defenses immediately up. Courtesy is a losing art as humanity grows more willing to hurt and/or first, understand (and apologize. Maybe) later.

At work.

Hmmm. Since they can track what websites I visit, I wonder if I should be posting anything about work while I'm at work? I believe I am circumspect; I never mention, for example, the name of the company.
Will have to give it more thought....

Still learning about Outlook. Ugh. We stopped by B&N yesterday and I saw no books on the 97 version. Typical. Will have to go through all my old books. I believe I have Office 97 somewhere in my library.

One feature that I sorely missed and I wished MS would add to Outlook is a time stamp feature. I track my notes on projects that way. Right now I'm having to copy / paste any time stamps (e.g., when e-mails have been sent) into the Notes section of any events or even Notes(tm) in Outlook. Definitely slows one down. I now really wonder if all this effort is necessary. How many employees or even managers are still using non-standard, non-company approved, s/w on their company laptops?

Had dinner out last night. I didn't feel so hot at work and thought I had a cold. And the muscle snoreness...! Finally figured it's the food: those breakfast croissants are too greasy for me to tolerate. Had the same feeling last night after drinking my iced soy chai. The server must have used real milk instead of soy. Ugh. Fortunately, the Phazyme(tm)? worked. I feel much better today though tired. The latter is from lack of enough rest. (I usually get between 6-7 hours a night.)

After dinner and the coffeeshop, we watched anime. Specifically, Dual! Wow. Though I knew what was coming, it was amazing to see the ideas in action. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Now we're looking for more..."exotic"...anime. It's amazing what's available in the world via the Internet. Just like books, we could not watch all the anime we're interested in our lifetimes.

Sigh. Justification for immortality. I'll have to consider that for a future character in one of my novels.

At work.

Warned that the company is taking some...special...interests in workers who have non-standard, non-approved, s/w on their company-provided computers. STRONGLY encouraged that all such s/w not be on said machines on pain on termination (from job, not life. Yet.)

Frustrating. Just spent an inordinate amount of time transferring hard-to-obtain info on my various tasks to the clunky MS Outlook 97. While there are some neat features, the disads are considerable. Try, for instance, set up a Task in Outlook with a start date but no Due Date. And don't get me started how long it took to figure out how to recover the columns in the Task Pad in the Calendar feature. Yikes!

Spoke with Robin, the refi person. Provided her with more details. This refi looks good. Hope we can get it locked in the right rate. We've been burned before. Will be making calls tonight.

I continue to be physically sore. Especially my arms and back. Unfortunately, my chest is not sore. That means I did chest exercises wrong yesterday. Damn.

Have done cardio for three days in a row. I had hoped today's class would wipe out the soreness but it didn't. Damn.

4:45 PM 10/2/2002

Back. Just got off the phone. Going out to dinner tonight. Yeah. And then I hope to just sleep. The workouts are taking more out of me than I expected. But I have to get back into them. But not tomorrow. Working a split shift. When you then combine such a night with Friday's trip to Knotts Scary Farm...well, I'll need all the rest I can get.

At home.

I am very sore right now. Physically, that is. Did weights and cardio on Monday afternoon and tonight. And my body is protesting. I've taken a celebrex(tm) with food to ease the pain.
Ah. I had forgotten what it feels like when one works out after months of physical immobility (i.e., laziness). Must remind myself never to do that again.

Uh, huh. Anyway, the aches and fatigue are affecting me enough that I'm moving writing to tomorrow.

SO interviewed with that medical group this morning. The less said, the better.

Repercussions from the reorg yesterday are still making themselves felt across my co-workers. Kinda got caught in an e-mail battle that directly named me. I had to respond; there might have been...effects...if I did not. We'll see next year.

Finally got in touch with a refi person. Will get some info on our current loan but refi looks very promising. If all goes well, we'll be able to eliminate our debts and lower the monthly payments. And we need it: our income is smaller. (There's a silver lining, though. Since the bulk of our monthly costs is based on our eating patterns, our waistlines may shrink to normal with the decrease in income.)

Spoke with my sister Joci this afternoon. She and her husband and kid are doing fine. Work's keeping her busy. Poor thing.

Very pleased with my writing yesterday. Wrote two new pages in an hour. Would have written more except spouse wanted me. Hey! I know what are my priorities.

Right now I'm debating if I should go back and "layer" new material on prior chapters (i.e., setting info, background, character,) or hold off until I complete the first draft. I've received mixed advice from people and my own emotions are conflicted as well. Right now, I following the latter but I continue to wonder about the formal.

Despite being together for nearly nine wonderful years now, friction does happen. On Sunday, my spouse remind me how it hurt when I didn't come home from the hobby store within an hour. I pointed out that I had not specified a time limit I would be gone and, also, I had my cell phone and could have easily been reached. Hurt feelings were expressed, apologizes were grudging given (we're both stubborn when we know we're right but so is the other person), and the incident forgotten.

We've been through such situations. I always remember the "bad times" more often than the "good times", a legacy of my upbringing. But the habit persist. Fortunately, the mechanisms that make our relationship work kicked in immediately. But I always reflect after each incident and remind myself, "Never again. Don't always rely on such mechanism. Be pro-active and remind each other what to do to prevent such bad feelings in the first place."

I'd say a fraction of our "bad habits" have been eliminated this way (e.g., saying "irregardless", most of my mood swings,) but some still persist like the one above. While communication between the two of us has never been a major problem, I don't take this relationship for granted. I've seen many who were together longer than us break up. While it was usually sex and money issues, I know those were, as the cliche' goes, the "straw that broke the camel's back." Little things had been cracking those relationships long before the major one.

Keep vigilant. It's wonderful to be a great relationship, but they are work as well as pleasure.