I'm officially about two weeks behind where I wanted to be on two projects here at the day job. Luckily, the boss and clients seem to understand at least some of the delays (thankfully, not all of them my fault). Lack of dislike from others, however, does not make me feel any better about it. Or myself for it slipping through my fingers into "late" territory.

As such, the game night tonight at Casa De Tall People will be much needed.

Assuming I don't freeze solid on my way home or to there. Kinda chilly outside.

Ah, yes, now I remember where all that time goes.

It goes into that odd limbo of haze and lost focus that's been kicking in lately.

Two parts bad sleeping schedule and one part fighting off random bits of illness that inevitably try to take hold around this time of year.

Maybe a little bit of still fighting off whatever it is that I brought back down from NY that lead me to stay home a couple of days the other week.

I keep just kind of zoning out--too tired to focus enough to do anything, not quite tired enough to actually sleep... or at times when it would be a slightly bad idea to sleep... usually because it would get in the way of actually sleeping later...

Yes, it's those those little crashes that disrupt the flow of everything else. And have been doing so for a couple of weeks now.

I sit down with the full intent of doing stuff, and then the mind wanders off--sometimes leading the body, sometimes following it--into some near oblivion where it can think it's doing something but actually isn't. A fact that becomes painfully clear an hour or so later when it stumbles back in to that full consciousness and expects to see things completed.

This is especially problematic when trying to catch up on my TV shows... or at work. Probably ore so in the latter case, being that's something important.

So, I'm trying to reset the sleep schedule (again), make sure I get plenty of actual rest, and continue to try to fight off the ill-timed naps and whatnot.

The answer to where all my time's been going? Nowhere. Nowhere at all. And we just can't have that. Too much I want and need to do.

Anyway...

I am, however, a little closer to having a Halloween costume. Due to the lack of impressive stock at the local places I've been to, I'm having to order some stuff online. Just to keep life interesting, one of the things I was looking at on multiple sites over the last few days suddenly went out of stock on all of them. Thanks to a couple of nice search engines and listing services, though, I think I tracked down a reputable looking place that said they were still in stock. An order was placed, now we'll see if their site inventory was accurate. (If it's not, we'll see how their cancellation policy is... because, really, if they're not going to be here in time for me to use them this year, I really don't want to spend the money.)

The power kept going out at the office this morning. This caused some frustration as I was attempting to put together a bunch of stuff for a training/site inventory/migration prep session I had this afternoon at a client's office. All in all, things went well. Tomorrow's an online training session with another client. I'll be spending the morning trying to get use to DimDim, which I've never actually used before. Should be fun and exciting.

Especially if my brain decides to check out on me... *sigh*

Now, onward to a couple of other things that I want done. *looks at clock* Er... wanted done... crap...

I was planning on getting up and going into work this morning, just like any other Monday.

But when the alarm went off, my brain was sluggish and my throat was a wee bit sore. So I rolled back over.

When the second alarm went off, I thought about it for a minute, decided, "Yes, I will get up, go wait for the bus that may show up sometime, it being a holiday and all, and ride the deserted Metro into the city so I can more effectively run some errands after work. In just a minute."

Then it was suddenly 10 to 8 a.m. and there was no way I was going to rush around to try to make a bus that may or may not be there.

About 20 minutes later (no, I don't where that time went), I rolled over, popped open the laptop, fired up the work e-mail and sent a message off to the boss saying "Yeah, working from home..." then read and responded to a couple other messages, switched to a remote desktop connection to take care of one little quick thing before I got out of bed to have some breakfast and stuff...

Then it was nearly noon and I still hadn't made it out of bed. I hadn't even made it back to sleep. I was fighting with a style issue on one site, pulling stuff together in a template on another, and attempting to decipher, classify and properly post a handful of PowerPoint presentations for another... all before the conference call I had scheduled for noon (which I was pretty darn proud of, because I had just about everything the client had asked for on Friday done).

After nearly an hour on the phone, I was suddenly pulling together a whole new section of a site... in addition to training that particular client in how to use, well, everything... including some CSS and HTML, just for good measure.

By 1 p.m. I finally got up and got dressed in something other than what I sleep in, ate a sandwich that's been sitting in the fridge since I was going to take it in for lunch last week, and got as much done as I could before the 2 (thankfully moved to 2:30 p.m.) staff phone conference (where I was the only one who called in on the conference line, only to have that call interrupted by call waiting with a call from my boss who had manually conferenced in our other remote worker).

Between 3 and 4:30 I tried *unsuccessfully) to get what was supposed to be a leisurely, yet productive, schedule back on track. At 4:30 it was time to once again get on the phone with the same client form noon and get them trained more... that lasted nearly two hours.

And then, sometime after 6 when I was able to look at my computer again without cringing, I discovered that my office machine (logged on to via remote desktop) no longer had any connection to the local network in the office, leaving me distinctly disconnected from pretty much any file I needed to do any of the work I'd actually planned on doing today.

So... yeah... totally a Monday.

But the episodes of Castle were pretty good (watched last week's before the new one) and tonight's Heroes wasn't all that bad (some very poorly done exposition and issues of questionable travel time), but entertaining none-the-less.

Tomorrow, there is no question about having to go into the office. I need milk and food and if there's one thing I've learned it's that motivating myself to "just pop down the street" (anywhere from a 15 to 40 minute per way endeavor, depending on weather, temperature and mass transit) to do some shopping just doesn't happen, the only way to replenish the stocks is to hit the Giant after work.

Also need to hit Best Buy or something since the cooling pad that protects my lap from my laptop has completely died and needs to be replaced. Needless to say, it's been a very warm day on my lap. Which is just fine since it's been an otherwise chilly day out. ;)

After spending more of the day dozing on and off than working, I'm still a bit more stuffed up and congested than I'd like to be.

Hoping to make it in to the office tomorrow... or, at least, be more proactively productive.

We'll see how things are in the morning, I guess.

At least there was good TV on tonight. (And, I was disciplined enough to stay away from the DVR and Hulu.com until after normal working hours... small victories, don't'cha' know.)

I rolled back into town Sunday night/Monday morning at about 1:30 a.m.

By 3 a.m. I still wasn't tired and was fully dreading getting up in the morning to return the car and head into work.

Sometime around 4 I dozed off.

The alarm went off at quarter after 7. And again at 20-something after. I finally pried myself out of bed at about quarter to 8... and almost fell right back into bed.

The brain/body connection was not happy to be forced into cohesion after so little sleep. (And it's not like I was well-rested when I started that 5.5 hour drive back down here, either.)

I got the car back to the rental place a little later than planned, but then spent a good twenty minutes or so waiting for the people ahead of me to get taken care of (they have people out sick and on vacation--only two people running the whole office when I've been there, and one of them is running out and doing pickups and dropoffs), so I didn't feel that bad.

Amazingly, I got into work only a half hour later than usual and started right in slogging through the e-mail that had piled up since last Tuesday.

It was while I was doing that that the boss mentioned we had another site launching today. This was news to me (though I had started to get the inkling that something was up based on the e-mail exchanges I was reading).

And so, on little to no sleep and with no real time to re-familiarize myself with the project or really learn what had been going on with it not just over the week I've been gone but over the previous two or three while I've been buried in that other project.

Needless to say, it wasn't all that pleasant inside my head today.

But, I'm still employed, we're still getting checks from clients, and there's no sign of any of that stopping..

A break would be kind of nice at this point, though. Preferably one that doesn't involve 18 or so hours of driving over a four-day period.

Anyway, pictures and video from the wedding are coming your way soon. Exciting things this weekend and, maybe, some other little things.

Now I'm going to take a nap or something before I go to sleep... or something like that. ;)

Not sure if I'm going to be able to make this, probably going to still be chained to the desk at work, but some of you may find this interesting:


When:
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Where:
CDIA (map & parking)
1055 Thomas Jefferson St. NW
Washington, DC 20007

Oooh, That's Clever! (Unnatural Experiments in Web Design)

Clearleft visual design lead Paul Annett will help you find inspiration in the ridiculous. See technological quirks as opportunities. Try something previously unheard of with your site design. Laugh in the face of convention. Use and abuse CSS in ways never before imagined. Get away with it. And if it doesn't work, try something else instead.

RSVP at Upcoming.

Things are busy.

I'm behind on any number of personal projects and the day job is full to overflowing with stuff that kind of needs to be done now.

Coupled with the "seasonal" temperature/humidity mix, there's a palpable pressure all around. Not good, not bad, just... there.

And yet, today is downright crawling along.

I'm sure some of that has to do with many of my concerns being internal ones right now and my sleep patterns suffering because of it. Some more of it has to do with waiting on clients to get approvals and content to us for inclusion in the sites we're building for them. More still from the simple fact that it's Monday, after a Sunday that ended with some technical difficulties (ZipCar gas card just would not accept the driver ID# as planned... also completely flaked and thought the reservation ended at 8:30 instead of 8 p.m. so that just got a bit more expensive than planned).

But the day is rolling to a close. I do have a DC Drupal users meeting I had been planning on going to... reconsidering now, thinking catching up on stuff at the apartment would be a better idea.

Also, don't want to melt on the way there. :)

I've still got stories to tell from the weekend...

It's official: I'm back to mass transit and ZipCars after this weekend.

My awesome friend who's been kind enough to lend me her Jeep since October is taking advantage of that Cash for Clunkers program ASAP, before it runs through its funds again. I kind of figured that would be the case. My parents rushed to trade in their old truck a week or so ago, right before the first batch of money ran out... and I know my friends are at least as savvy as my parents when it comes to such things.

It was an unexpected and much appreciated gift to have something approximating my own wheels for so long.

But now I have to get out of all the bad habits I've slid into. A lot is going to have to be cut back on, excursion-wise. Everything is going to take me longer to get to, and some things are going to be un-get-toable on a regular basis. I still have the ZipCar option, but I'd be an idiot to use it as much as I did the Jeep. (I made that mistake back when I first got into the ZipCar thing... ended up spending waaay too much money to do way to few things while I had the car... really can't beat the ZipCar program, though... it saved my ass more than once.)

In other news, there's work being done on my bathroom ceiling. Since pretty much right after they last sealed it up, another pipe sprung a tiny leak. There's been an ever-growing damp/mildew spot above the tub for months and months now. When I went in on Monday to confirm that I was, indeed, renewing my lease (because, really, I can't afford to move--security deposits, rent deposits, time, comparable $/square foot ratio... this place is still the best deal in town), I ran down a list of things (almost all water-related, unsurprisingly) that should be fixed.

They cut a hole in my bathroom ceiling yesterday. They had the water turned off in the building today. When I got home there was a new note up outside saying that the water will be off on Friday, too, and a note inside telling me that the plumbers would be taking care of things on Friday. This leads me to believe that, once again, the mess of pipes for this building are in worse shape than they expected.

But things are getting fixed and more of my stuff is in plastic containers every week or so.

Of course, when I was dozing off earlier tonight, I noticed there's a water stain on my bedroom ceiling. I wasn't aware there were any pipes running where it is. If it gets worse over the next 24 hours or so, that'll be another thing added to the list.

Work for the next few weeks is going to be crazy. The boss left for a vacation in Africa on Wednesday. We've got three major projects going on simultaneously, all with September (or sooner) launch dates. And, of course, other clients who think they're the only ones in the world and/or manage to have the most inconvenient emergencies. At least they all pay their bills... I just have to be sure everything gets logged to the get charged properly. :)

I'm a little concerned that my sarcoidosis may be coming back. There's an odd soreness along some of the same areas that swelled up something fierce before. No real swelling yet, and some of it could be attributed to other things. I'm keeping a vigilant eye on the joints and tendons. Was already planning on (what was supposed to be my final visit) a doctors appointment by the end of the month. Still paying for that stay in the hospital. Would really like to avoid that again.

There are other things on the horizon... many much better than half of what I just spewed out. Some of them I'm not at liberty to talk about just yet--but as soon as I can, oh boy, will you all hear about it. :)

Welcome Friday... I only wish I were meeting you with more sleep behind me...

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

For a few weeks now, we've been having numerous phone calls come in from a couple of different numbers that only come up on our caller ID as "800 Service".

They never leave messages.

Of course, that means they're telemarketers of some sort.

Today I got fed up and actually answered the phone.

Me: [company name], this is Chris.
TM: ...
Me: Hello.
TM: ...
Me: HELLO!
TM: ...
Me: HELLO?
TM: Hello.
Me: Yes?
TM: I'm calling from the US Do Not Call Registry...
Me: You're calling from the US Do Not Call Registry?
TM: Yes.
Me: The US Do Not Call Registry has been calling incessantly for the last week?
TM: I'm sorry, I didn't know that was happening. We're calling to let you know that we can stop your business from receiving unwanted telemarketing calls.
Me: You're calling as an unwanted telemarketing call to let me know you can stop unwanted telemarketing calls?
TM: Yes, but...
Me: Why don't you not call back and take us off your list. Bye. *click*

A few hours later, the phone was ringing again. Another "800 Service" number. Another of the ones that's been ringing regularly.

Me: [company name], this is Chris.
TM: ...
Me: Hello?
TM: ...
Me: Hello?
TM: ...
Me: HELLO!
TM: (barely audible) [My boss's name]?
Me: Who's calling?
TM: (much more audible) I'm calling from Registrar.com to let you know that some of your services are expiring.
Me: (refraining from calling total bullshit on the caller as 90% of our services are through Network Solutions) For what site?
TM: [Main company website] has... let me see... private domain registration expiring in one month. I can renew that right now for you.
Me: (Still being nicer than I probably should) We take care of that all online. Don't bother calling us back. Bye. *click*

Yeah. At least it's not robo calls. I hate those even more because they're not even keeping people employed.

I get those at home.

Mostly from collections agencies and places offering me a great deal on my mortgage refinancing.

The collections calls are never for me and I live in an apartment.

How's you're day been? Any crazy calls?

The other week, I was looking for a singer and a pirate voice for a project we were putting together at the day job.

Well, that project is done and officially launched, so now I can share it. We did the Flash animation and the site design. I really didn't have much at all to do with this project except for the shout-out for talent (and thanks for the good response, by the way--all y'all rock).

Here you go: Traitor Joe's, a little bit of activism and info from Greenpeace.

(Also, I need a better icon than this for good or indifferent work stuff... will have to keep an eye out for something useful.)

In conjunction with the last help wanted call, we're also looking for someone to pirate it up, voice-wise.

This is for a flash-based web project we're doing for one of our clients (an internationally known environmental activist organization).

If you think you've got what it takes to lend your voice to an animated pirate, drop me a line at my work e-mail (cconroy@4site.tv) and I'll pass your contact info on to my boss.

Yarr, this be a paid gig.

Here at the office, one of our clients (an internationally known environmental activist organization) has us working on a project that involves a parody of an Amy Winehouse song.

Seeing as we're web-designing folk and not singers, we're in need of some vocal talent to belt out some Winehouse-esque lyrics. The audio will be used in a little flash presentation we're building for the client's campaign.

If you're interested in this paying gig and can sound a bit like that tattooed trainwreck, drop me a line at my work e-mail (cconroy@4site.tv). If you know someone who may be interested and able, pass on the info.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. :)

If your company has been contracted to, say, do some roofing and other repair work on a building that has multiple households there are a few things that the person you send out to do that work should be able to do.

1) COMMUNICATE WITH THE PEOPLE THERE. Seriously. I don't care if English isn't his first language, the dude should at least be able to understand "Yes, you are at the correct building. That name is the person who lives on the top floor. No, the buildings on the other sides of the fence do not have the same number. No, that person does not live in that building over there. No, really, you are in the right place."

2) Be able to figure out, without a call back to the main office, that the thing that needs fixing may not be visible from the ground. Especially since the company contracted to do the repairs is a roofing company. (And again, should be able to understand "I think those windows may be all the way upstairs... since that's where the person named on the work order lives.")

3) Be able to figure out that, no, the big gate in the back doesn't need to be open because, really, there's no space for your truck back there with the two cars already parked there.

4) I don't have a four yet. But I'm sure I will soon enough. I think he's still up on the roof doing... something.

*sigh*

Would have also been nice if I had known anything at all about someone showing up to do work on the building. Not sure my boss even knew. Just lucky I found the right set of keys to open the gate (no matter how unnecessary that turned out to be).

For anyone out there interested in the Drupal content management system, come out to Stetson's on U Street tonight at 7 p.m. for the monthly meeting of the DC Drupal user's group. More info here.

My only real challenge today is staying awake. Rolled in way too late/early last night and, by the time I wound down enough to sleep, it was after 3 a.m.

But, tired as I will be, I'll be at that meeting tonight. Why? Because at the day job we're doing some exciting things with Salsa Labs and Drupal. More on that as it develops. :)

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

Aside from the (getting back to) regularly scheduled posting at The Searcher Journal and How to Crush Without Being Crushed, I've been a bit quiet online lately.

Mostly because "real life" has been super busy.

( Read More... )

This whole daylight savings time thing always messes me up.

Not even close to tired right now... and so far behind on a number of personal projects that I really don't want to sleep. Feeling creative and useful and stuff.

But, there is work tomorrow where there are many things to be done, not the least of which is making sure things are scheduled well around the two follow-up doctor visits I have during the week. Neither should be that big of a deal, one should consist of, essentially, nothing other than walking in, since that's pretty much what the first appointment was--walking in and walking out to go to the emergency room at the hospital.

Last week's DrupalCon DC was impressive. I'm still absorbing and processing a lot of the information I soaked up there. There are many ideas percolating, some of them for work proper, others for my own personal projects. Now that I've got Durosia.com all moved over to the new server (and the new version of Drupal), I'm going to have to dive in and write stuff up from the conference. I don't know how much of that I'll bother crossposting, since I'm planning on doing a post on every session I went to and that would just clutter things up for most of you with no real interest in the whole web-dev/CMS thing. Those of you who are interested, well, you're all savvy enough to make your way over to another website, right?

Three things from the weekend:

1) Watchmen: very good, indeed.

2) Coraline (in 3D): also very good.

3) Sushi: I've had it now and, while plenty tasty, I don't get the mystique of it all. I guess I'm lacking some sort of Otaku gene or something that prevents me from getting the same amount of enjoyment out of anime and stuff as a lot of the rest of you. Ah, well, that means more for all y'all. ;)

Going to try to get back on track with Metaphysical Mondays and Hump Day Crushes. Also have a slew of Toob Talk chatter I want to get out there.

See... I could just stay up writing all night... but that would be so counterproductive when that alarm goes off... *sigh*

Yeah, this was expected. After one day at DrupalCon DC, I'm feeling more than a little out of place.

See, I don't live and breath this stuff, but I can see its potential. I can't make it do everything it can. I'm really not even interested in getting to know the inner workings well enough to be able to make it sing.

What I am, though, is an evangelist. This technology--a solid open-source, easy to use, extensible and well-supported content management system--is just plain awesome. Working day to day with static sites, I've grown to appreciate CMS-based sites more and more. And Drupal has been the best CMS I've come across so far.

But at this conference I'm surrounded by the people who are building it. People who live and breath to bend it to their wills and make it do amazing things for their clients. They see the inner workings and potential of the system in a light and with a driving passion that I just can't seem to muster.

This is often the case, no matter the venue or topic. There are a good many things I have some amount of passion for... but very rarely does that passion sustain when the situation takes me away from the direct need to work with such things. Oh, it always returns when my hands are on the keyboard or the situation sparks an idea... but it's not a sustained drive to create or recreate like I see in the eyes of many of the convention attendees. (And convention, for that matter.)

We'll see how I feel after another few days of this. Right now, there are just a lot of thoughts mixing with a ton of information, percolating toward insight. I hope.

Yeah, yeah, another week without a Metaphysical Monday. Probably won't be a Hump Day Crush, either.

Looking quickly at what's gone through my work e-mail over the past week I've been "away", and noting that I have DrupalCon DC starting on 4 March, the next two days are going to be absolutely insane.

*sigh* Good thing I have no lingering ick from the hospital stay. Now I've just got to quick-jump into a solid "work" mindset ASAP.

Being up at 1 a.m.? Probably not the best way to start that... damn... ;)

I landed a doctors appointment for Tuesday morning with Solomon M Swierdsiol, MD.

The first try, for a doctor with a slightly more pronounceable name, was foiled due to the fact that his office closes at noon on Fridays.

Here's hoping the quick and cursory research I did doesn't lead to me getting worse. ;)

(Geeze, does this mean I need to come up with a medical icon now? I've avoided the need for those for so long...)

Good news is, the knees are less swollen today (bending much easier) and the feet themselves are in about the same state as yesterday. Same with wrists.

Bad news is, left ankle now looks like a damn bad sprain what with the swelling and redness and the left elbow is a bit sore for no good reason. Couldn't quite get the shoes I've been wearing on (hiking boots, since they can be looser than the new shoes I bought), so I've been working from home today. And resting. Mostly resting, which, really, I should be doing a little less of during work hours.

But, I'm well on my way to meeting the deadlines I've been fearing all week, so all is not lost.

Gah... three instances of Technology Fail! today.

First there was the whole remote log-in to work thing. Turns out the computer there was turned off. Must have done that on Friday instead of rebooting or logging off like I thought I had. Either that or the power went off over the weekend at some point.

Then, when corpse_light and I wandered down to Silver Spring proper to catch Gran Tourino (highly recommended!), I went and got my ticket from one of the electronic kiosks. On my way up the escalator, I checked it and it said it was for Defiance... which was distinctly not what the screen had said. I figure, OK, maybe I hit the wrong button, I'll eat that ticket price and just turn around and get the right one. Well, that second ticket comes out as one for Dog Hotel... and a child ticket, at that. Obviously, their machine is frakked. Up to guest services I go... and get in line behind a half dozen other people who've had the same thing happen. Behind me is at least another half dozen. Good news is, all straightened out right quick.

Now, about twenty minutes ago, I just noticed that, when moving The Searcher Journal the other day, I mis-keyed the URL on my new web hosting account... meaning that the site has been down for three days.

I only figured it out now because I went to crank out a Metaphysical Monday post and got... nowhere.

Site should be back up as soon as the IP gets directed correctly in the DNS... or something.

*sigh*

Technology fail, indeed.

There was also shopping failure as I was unsuccessful in my attempt to get new shoes. Couldn't find what I liked in my size and the right color (black). I could, at best, find something with two of those factors, but not all three.

This, of course, is the story of my life. ;)

Tomorrow is the inauguration. Going to be watching it online through Facebook/CNN.

Wednesday is back to work in the office.