jimsjournal
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I've not updated all week -- have just had no time at all -- as I mentioned in my previous entry I've been swamped with work, trying to get a project all wrapped up before the middle of next week -- and my personal goal has been to get it finished by this weekend. Well, here it is, it's the weekend and I'm still working on it...
A week and a half ago I thought I would succeed by Friday (yesterday) with maybe just a few loose ends to tie up, but then I got some up-dated material to be included from my co-worker on this project. These updated graphics are intended to replace some material from the old version of this course plus add new information related to the newest release of the software product that the course is about. The old material was based on about forty or forty-five graphics and I expected that this new material would replace those plus add perhaps ten or fifteen new ones. Uh, would you believe 180! This more than tripled the size of my task (arranging them into our course template, setting up OLE-embedding from FreeLance to WordPro, redrawing a few, combining some, using some as text instead of as a picture, writing some appropriate student notes for some of them, and writing instructor notes for all of them.)
So I worked here at home a bit last Saturday and a lot on Sunday. Monday I was in the office working a full day plus an extra hour or so after I got home. Tuesday I began working at home around seven a.m., took a break for a workout and a shower and went shopping with Nancy for a china cabinet she'd seen in a store in town (Wakefield is accumulating a lot of antique stores and consignment shops, etc.) then a quick lunch (turkey, lettuce, celery, onion, tomato, red and green peppers, sprouts, tabouli salad... in a tomato-basil wrap... yummy), take part in a three-way conference call about this project, then off to the office, getting there around three... and then worked at the office until a bit past one a.m. Wednesday Sean and I helped with the delivery of the china cabinet at eight a.m., then I went to the office and worked until about five, came home, was too tired to run so went for a walk with Nancy, ate dinner, booted up the laptop and worked for a couple of hours. Thursday, started working at home, had a doctor's appointment (annual checkup with my ears-nose-throat guy), off to the office, then back home to work some more after dinner. Friday... a long day in the office until past six.
Lots of Nancy's brothers and sisters are in town this weekend, partly just to get together on a nice summer weekend, partly 'cause her brother from Chicago is visiting, and partly to repair the backporch roof on her mother's house. Last night Nancy and I met them at Joyce's Family Pub, a bar along the shore in Matunuck (and I mean that quite literally, go out the back door and you are on the beach) for a few brews. Well, they had a few, Nancy and I just had one each 'cause I really am trying to get my weight down and 'cause Nancy had a 7:30 a.m. tennis match. It's a nice bar, a slightly seedy neighborhood kind of place (but most of the neighborhood is a maze of beach houses and summer rentals so the neighbors are people who are feeling laid-back and on-vacation)... decorated with beer ads (Guinness, Bass, Harp, etc.) and such (one sign reads "Beer: it's so much more than just for breakfast.") the band last night was two guitarists and a singer (with barely enough room to fit them behind a corner of the bar) doing old Paul Simon and Eric Clapton and Kingston Trio and Jimmy Buffett, etc. Fun.
I had planned on running in a 5k race down in Matunuck this morning but when I got up I wasn't feeling great.. stuffy head and scratchy throat... just allergies or maybe a cold coming on? (or maybe just from the smoke in the bar last night?) and I knew I have a huge amount of work to do... and figured I have more t-shirts now than I know what to do with... so instead of driving there and paying eighteen bucks and maybe pushing myself too hard and ending up exhausted and sick... I'd just start working and later on, if I felt better, I could just go out for a run on the bike path... So I ended up going for a run around noon time... hot and sunny... I ran what would normally be my five and a half mile route: run half a mile and get on the bike path about a quarter mile before a mile marker, then go two more mile markers down the path, turn around and come back (yeah, you can see why I also frequently do a three and a half mile run)... so I was running fairly strongly for the first three or three and a half miles or so... and then the heat began to get to me and I slowed down... and then reached the five mile point and decided that it would be wiser to walk the last half a mile home. Whew! I had hoped that running would clear up my head but it didn't quite do so.
We had dinner at Nancy's sister's house -- along with all of the visiting siblings and spouses and kids -- Nancy baked a bunch of stuff (brownies and cupcakes and cookies) and I brought a mesclin salad and another sister brought manicotti (yum!) and salads and the host cooked burgers and hot dogs and there was corn-on-the-cob and chips and veggies and dips and lots and lots of stuff to eat... oh, yeah, and to drink... I brought a 12-pack of Rolling Rock (not my favorite but lots of people at the party like it) and a six pack of Buzzard's Summer Ale (mmmmmmm) and Nancy brought some MudSlide mix for after dinner (and there were people with Strawberry Dacqueries (how do you spell that?) Oh, and somebody made some lady fingers burried under mounds of fresh blueberries and a big bowl of real whipped cream to put on top.
Uh, yeah, I may have slipped off my careful diet this evening... Actually, I was not too bad, a burger and some chips... and some manicotti and some salad... and two beers... uh... oh yeah, the blueberries and whipped cream...mmmmmmmm. *sigh* But I had not eaten much earlier in the day... fruit and cereal for breakfast... a low fat sugar free yogurt for lunch with a few pretzels and a banana for lunch... and I did run five miles...
Okay, Nancy's asleep, Sean is online and watching tv (simultaneously), Jennifer is off to work, Lia has gone to bed... I've been working a little bit and writing this (on laptop) but now I'm too tired to run a line over to the phone jack and post this... it will have to wait until Sunday to get onto my website.
previous entry