Exhausting Week
Over the week I finished up the last major elements of Skotos' move to the cloud. The biggest element left had been moving email to a new machine, which was not quite of much as a pain as I'd feared, but only because I'd extensively prepped it in advance. Still took me at least two full days of work. I have a scrap piece of paper with over 20 steps that were required in the process.
This coming week I'll be spending a couple of days polishing up the move, primarily in cleaning any remaining elements off the old machines ... and then I'm taking a four-day weekend from Thursday-Sunday and I'm going to do my best to do no work, not even the "fun" work I usually do in my free time. (I've ensured I can by finishing up my DnDClassics writing through the 27th and my Hasbro writing into July sometime and getting as much as I can out of the way for Designers & Dragons.)
I lost my post-Hawaii calm sometime in April (I think), and I'm now hoping to get it back. Fingers crossed.
Friday was a very busy day. Work all day. Then I was held over because I couldn't get the last element of the mail move done and it kept me late. Then Kimberly and I went out to dinner. Then I ran some other errands. Then I biked out to BART and hopped on a train out to Pleasant Hill. Got there a bit after 8.
The goal was to hang out with Bill F., who used to be in our gaming group, but moved away years ago. He's out in SF this week for a conference for his job. So Dave S. kindly put together a BBQ and picked Bill up and invited everyone over. His house is 8 minutes from Pleasant Hill BART, so it was easy enough to get there (after braving the BART train, which was still too crowded at 7.30).
The BBQ was nice. I supplemented my pre-BBQ dinner with a tasty bacon-wrapped hot dog and corn on the cob. Tasty! It was nice to hear what Bill was up to and nice to see Chris and Corina, who've been absent from gaming since their child was born. I must admit I shook my head at how many of the gamers spent the whole time playing with their iPads. Ah well.
A bit after 10.30, Bill decided he needed to head back to SF, since he had to get to the conference early, and so I headed out too. After a busy,somewhat stressful day, I treated myself by riding some of the great bike trails in the eastern county on my meandering way home. I rode an EBMUD trail to the Canal Trail to the Iron Horse Trail and took that down to Walnut Creek. It was really beautiful riding them at dark, something I've wanted to do for years, but never found the opportunity. About two and a half miles on the trails. I thought about continuing on from Walnut Creek to Lafayette and maybe even Orinda, but the trails are much more sporadic after you head west from the Iron Horse Trail, and riding streets at night just isn't the same, so I opted out. Probably a good idea, as I was pretty tired by the time I rolled in at home around midnight.
On Saturday K. and I had planned to go to a collage art show in the City, but unfortunately her headaches prevented us from doing so. Instead we had a very pleasant day hanging out. I wrote, edited and read most of the day.
I try to have one day out on my own each weekend, and that was today. I opted for a long bike ride, about 34 miles. I went out to Hilltop Mall, then out to the Knox Miller Regional Shoreline (getting a bit lost between the two in neighborhoods one should not get lost in). The ride was beautiful, but the Shoreline was way too windy, something I should have thought about given how windy it was at home. It was too windy for reading(!), but I managed to do a bit of writing and some editing, though my MacBook Air got blown around a little(!). I also did a bit of relaxing in the sun.
The ride home turned out to be challenging too, due to the wind. I was really tired when I got home! (Again!)
Next week I am looking forward to less exhaustion. Work should be low-key as a I tick off the final issues related to the move and hopefully start turning machines off, in preparation for emptying the colo the week after. And then starting on Thursday my only obligation is a pre-lunch appointment with my cardiologist. I plan to spend the rest of my time reading and biking. Not even writing if I can manage to go cold turkey!
(We'll see!)
And after that, I'm hoping there will be less stress in my life. The major changes to Skotos that were required this year should be done, the stress of moving all of Skotos' software should be done, and hopefully K. will be on the mend from headaches when she finishes her physical therapy & gets new reading glasses (I mean, unless they get her glasses wrong four times in a row, but that would never happen ... and yes I am waiting for pair #5, and I felt totally justified in rejecting yet another pair when I got to the doctor's office and first saw that the eye chart was literally a smear with my right eye and then had the doctor say "Hey, this right lens just isn't as sharp" when he looked at it with his magic microscope device ... but I'm probably going to refuse to pick up the new pair this week, unless they come in first thing Monday morning or something, in which case I'll be conflicted ...).
This coming week I'll be spending a couple of days polishing up the move, primarily in cleaning any remaining elements off the old machines ... and then I'm taking a four-day weekend from Thursday-Sunday and I'm going to do my best to do no work, not even the "fun" work I usually do in my free time. (I've ensured I can by finishing up my DnDClassics writing through the 27th and my Hasbro writing into July sometime and getting as much as I can out of the way for Designers & Dragons.)
I lost my post-Hawaii calm sometime in April (I think), and I'm now hoping to get it back. Fingers crossed.
Friday was a very busy day. Work all day. Then I was held over because I couldn't get the last element of the mail move done and it kept me late. Then Kimberly and I went out to dinner. Then I ran some other errands. Then I biked out to BART and hopped on a train out to Pleasant Hill. Got there a bit after 8.
The goal was to hang out with Bill F., who used to be in our gaming group, but moved away years ago. He's out in SF this week for a conference for his job. So Dave S. kindly put together a BBQ and picked Bill up and invited everyone over. His house is 8 minutes from Pleasant Hill BART, so it was easy enough to get there (after braving the BART train, which was still too crowded at 7.30).
The BBQ was nice. I supplemented my pre-BBQ dinner with a tasty bacon-wrapped hot dog and corn on the cob. Tasty! It was nice to hear what Bill was up to and nice to see Chris and Corina, who've been absent from gaming since their child was born. I must admit I shook my head at how many of the gamers spent the whole time playing with their iPads. Ah well.
A bit after 10.30, Bill decided he needed to head back to SF, since he had to get to the conference early, and so I headed out too. After a busy,
On Saturday K. and I had planned to go to a collage art show in the City, but unfortunately her headaches prevented us from doing so. Instead we had a very pleasant day hanging out. I wrote, edited and read most of the day.
I try to have one day out on my own each weekend, and that was today. I opted for a long bike ride, about 34 miles. I went out to Hilltop Mall, then out to the Knox Miller Regional Shoreline (getting a bit lost between the two in neighborhoods one should not get lost in). The ride was beautiful, but the Shoreline was way too windy, something I should have thought about given how windy it was at home. It was too windy for reading(!), but I managed to do a bit of writing and some editing, though my MacBook Air got blown around a little(!). I also did a bit of relaxing in the sun.
The ride home turned out to be challenging too, due to the wind. I was really tired when I got home! (Again!)
Next week I am looking forward to less exhaustion. Work should be low-key as a I tick off the final issues related to the move and hopefully start turning machines off, in preparation for emptying the colo the week after. And then starting on Thursday my only obligation is a pre-lunch appointment with my cardiologist. I plan to spend the rest of my time reading and biking. Not even writing if I can manage to go cold turkey!
(We'll see!)
And after that, I'm hoping there will be less stress in my life. The major changes to Skotos that were required this year should be done, the stress of moving all of Skotos' software should be done, and hopefully K. will be on the mend from headaches when she finishes her physical therapy & gets new reading glasses (I mean, unless they get her glasses wrong four times in a row, but that would never happen ... and yes I am waiting for pair #5, and I felt totally justified in rejecting yet another pair when I got to the doctor's office and first saw that the eye chart was literally a smear with my right eye and then had the doctor say "Hey, this right lens just isn't as sharp" when he looked at it with his magic microscope device ... but I'm probably going to refuse to pick up the new pair this week, unless they come in first thing Monday morning or something, in which case I'll be conflicted ...).