Yesterday, while I was watching football, I was trying to fix a program called, “Jeweltoy,” for my mom. It doesn’t store the high scores properly, but I’m not all that good at programming on the Mac. So it was mainly a lot of fooling around and repeatedly playing the game until the score got to be about 1000 and then seeing if the high score thing would work. I sure wish I knew how to use the debugger as well. In any case, I say, “Trying,” because I never did get it to work correctly.

Today I moved memory around in other computers and then I tried to figure out how to invest in my 401k. I shouldn’t say, “How,” when I really mean, “Where.” I just wanted a nice S&P index fund, but I didn’t see one offered. So now it’s spread into a lot of random places. It’s not like a normal person should know how to predict the future.

OK, so I’m not really wicked. Or maybe I am. I’m just quoting a David Byrne song that has a nice dance remix. I actually left work on time, and I was going to head to the gym, but I was tired from all of the weirdness at work. Sitting and babysitting computers while they ran odd, uninteresting programs. And what am I doing doing instead of exercising at the gym? I’m actually watching three computers compile programs on three different windows. All sorts of scrolling geeky text. For some reason I find it comforting.

I’m trying to figure out how to run a virtual machine on my new computer so I can compile a different release of NetBSD. What that really means is that I sort of promised a guy I’d give him my spare computer and I’m trying to figure out how to cut down the number of running computers I have in the basement. I still have to make sure I can keep my sister’s blog updated and that’s why I have to go into the virtual machine mumbo-jumbo. It also makes me seem cooler than I am, doesn’t it?

The snow never stuck around so I had to go to work today. I left at 11:42PM and got back at 7:45AM or so. I tried to leave early today, but it was another day of babysitting computers while they ran. I think it was around 8PM when I finally left.

This overabundance of work is not making the job look any better. There’s nothing interesting coming down the pike, just more work. Ah, well, that’s probably why they give me money to show up.

I’ve told myself that I’m only killing myself to finish the first round of data and any amendments or fixes will have to happen on a regular schedule, but I bet I’ll get more grief about it all. Well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. It sounds like it will be black ice on the roads.

So I never made it to the gym tonight, mainly because it closes at 11PM and I’m writing this at 11:15PM FROM WORK. It’s supposed to snow, so I figured I’d better get some stuff done if I’m not coming in tomorrow. Well, lots of things have gone wrong, the thing I was supposed to get done can’t be done because we don’t have the proper “licenses” for the software we’re running, and I’ve had to cobble together tools to get things going as well as I have (which is not very well).

When is the last time a normal person had to use FLOPPY DISKS to work on brand new computers? Fifteen years ago? More? I’m in a lab and I can’t find a screwdriver to save my life. Sheesh.

In any case, there’s some good news. Let me think of what it could be. My dinner, perhaps? A Payday bar covered in chocolate? (And who thought they needed to improve the Payday bar, anyway?)

Looks like it might actually snow again, and so I might have to work late tomorrow to make up for not showing up the next day. That means blowing off the gym, but Dave the Trainer is off in NYC this week anyway. Good enough reason for taking a week off, or at least screwing up my own schedule. Of course work is doing their best to screw up my schedule and I can’t say that it’s unexpected. That’s just the way the high-tech industry is. Life is for the company.

In any case, I’m counting on more continued misery this week. We’ll see how it goes.

I noticed that I was having trouble writing a coherent sentence yesterday night and I awoke today feeling like I had a cold. I also noticed that the football game to watch was the one I missed last night between Seattle and Dallas. I suppose that’s just what I get.

So today I spent some time eating Advil and wondering if my cold would get worse. I did, however, make it out to see a video at a friend’s house and this reminds me that one of the friends there was supposed to come up with a New Year’s Resolution for me but so far there’s nothing. Maybe I should resolve to eat at least one piece of fruit every day. That sounds OK.

OK, so my job is pretty darn cushy compared to most, but I do recall a conversation that, paraphrased, went sort of like this:

“Do you think you can do all this by next month?”

No way in hell.

“Great. You’ll be working weekends until it’s finished.”

You can probably guess that most of the stuff isn’t even working yet, and we’re coming up on a deadline at work. I got to stay at work until after 8PM on two consecutive days. The second of those days was today, Saturday. I’m lucky because I’m just running some programs and recording the results. Other people in my group don’t have any results to show.

Yesterday my buddy Greg was working late, too, so we had dinner together after work. Today, not so much fun to be had. For some reason, I’m really tired from this little bit of extra work.

Oh, well, maybe this means we get to keep our jobs. We’ll see.

Yesterday I tried to go to bed early, but I don’t think this one week of trying to change my schedule is working quite yet. And today at the gym I thought I was going to pass out. What was it that one of the club managers said? “Oh, is some woman working in with you? Are you going to put some more weight on there before you use that machine?” Everyone’s a critic.

Yesterday at Megacorp my new manager of 3 days told me I might want to think about looking for another job. Just for comparison, mind you (or so he said.) Today, he’s assigned me to be the “owner” of a project. Mixed messages, I tell you. I’ll just keep doing my job and see how bad I really end up. I wonder if they’ll give me credit for how much weight I can lift.

I did almost nothing on vacation and I had much more fun than being at work because I WASN’T AT WORK. Heh. I don’t know why some people don’t understand that. After getting up at 9:30AM every day for two weeks, it was torture to hear the 6AM alarm clock. And they started in on me early, because the project leads are all leaving for different sections of Megacorp and they want to have their parts of the project complete. I’m probably going to be the only one left in the group just before they lay off everyone in the group.

I had a hard time getting going at the gym today because I was tired, and because there were so many people I hadn’t seen for a while. The start of the year is always a popular time for people to come back to the gym. I’m too chatty, so I had to say hello to everyone. And when I should have been going home I got sucked into watching a boxing match on ESPN. It was an old fight of Muhammed Ali’s and I was pretty sure he was going to win but he took his own sweet time at it. I don’t really like watching boxing, but I get sucked into watching lots of sporting events when I shouldn’t. Ah, well, it kept me from staring at the women, which I know is rude but what else is there to look at while you’re stuck on the cardio machines?

Well, I had two weeks off and I wonder if I completed everything I was meaning to. I screwed up some plumbing, put together a computer I didn’t really need, played a lot of Solitaire, and watched a lot of football. I had several things on my, “to do,” list and I can’t remember what they were, but I did finish them.

I’m not sure what do to about my New Year’s resolutions. I should probably do something that I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t gotten around to, like seeing the Grand Canyon or making it back to Japan, and maybe add some nerdy goals like writing a program that lets me play Bedazzled for free. I haven’t seen the people who usually make my goals for me, and I’m surely not going to listen to the only phone call I’ve gotten all year, which was a recorded message that told me I should do more with my membership at Gold’s gym. I already pay a personal trainer. What more can I do?

Oh, maybe I should take some yoga classes or start running again. Those are resolutions I could have.

Yesterday was incredibly exciting, where I spent all sorts of time gathering computer equipment for recycling. A friend wanted to take it all to freegeek to get rid of it and I had it all ready go to on Thursday. But he postponed until Friday, and then until Saturday, and they weren’t open on Friday. Perfect. So to consolidate some of the crap, I took apart all the computer cases, separated out all the electronic bits from the plastic and the metal, and took the metal in for recycling. The plastic is garbage, and the electronic bits have to be taken to the people who deal with electronic bits.

For some reason this really tired me out and I went to bed at 7PM. I didn’t get up until 8:30AM. While the first bit took some effort (I kept waking up in the evening) the rest wasn’t so bad.

Which leads me into tonight, New Year’s Eve. I did go out to lunch with friends where we had dim sum. Unless you were one of the picky eaters and then you just watched the rest of us eat the dim sum. On the way out of Portland’s Chinatown, I picked up some roast duck. Just like in A Christmas Story, it came with the head attached, but I only ordered half so the guy cut it up for me. He then started talking to me in some language I do not speak.

After dinner I had to start making all my year-end donations, because I forgot to do it last week. My sister asked if I do it for the tax break, or if I do it to be a good person. Honestly, I don’t give enough to be a good person and my selection process is a bit off. Besides, I’m a good tax-and-spend liberal and I don’t believe we pay too much in taxes. I’m kind of a worrier, so instead of thinking about all the horrible things that happen and how I could alleviate the suffering in the world, my selection has a bit more basis in things that I find funny. St. Francis Dining hall, for example, feeds the homeless and really annoys their neighbors because they attract homeless people to the neighborhood. They get a donation from me. I haven’t donated much to environmental causes, but it seems like 1000 Friends of Oregon are always ticking off the developers, so they get a donation from me. I’m pro-choice, of course, so NARAL and Planned Parenthood are on my list.

I suppose there’s nothing really annoying about the American Red Cross, or Doctors Without Borders, or Mercy Corps, or International Rescue Committee, or Oregon Food Bank, or Oregon Heat, or American Friends Service Committee, so it’s not all about annoying people. I did have to call VISA and have them unlock my account because they were afraid someone had stolen my card and started giving donations to all these charities. In total, I don’t think I hit my yearly target of a couple of thousand dollars, but whatever. I’m trying not to be a worrier about it all.

I’m not going to like my VISA bill next month, am I?

Besides playing with my computer and going to the gym, I do mostly nothing. I am on vacation after all, and I don’t have to do much else. Today, however, I did end up going on a quest, of sorts, with Dave the Trainer. I told him about a hot dog stand in the neighborhood, and he was all set for a chili dog or a Coney Island. But the stand was gone, probably on vacation for the holidays. We ended up going all the way from NW 24th and Vaughn to SE 45th and Hawthorne (across town anyway) to a weird little hole-in-the wall that I can’t even remember the name of. My sister had been there, and she’s kind of a food snob. The dogs were quite good.

Really, the only other thing I did was play with my computer. I think I need to get out more.