Daily Archives: July 27, 2007

Excellent!

I just broke time and space to do an insane amount of work that could not possibly have otherwise fit into the workday.

I am awesome.

I could keep pushing, but it’s been a really, really draining week, what with the sick and the urgent project etcetera, so I am going to be good to myself. I’ll do a couple of hours while Liam sleeps tomorrow, and another couple on Sunday, and then things will be all ready for the final check and delivery on Monday, a day ahead of schedule. Of course, the deadline is kind of moot since the client still hasn’t provided me with the finalized files as they were supposed to do last week (“they are delayed! maybe within a week!”), but they’ll be reminded that I am not responsible for maintaining a contractual deadline if they haven’t provided me with the complete material. If they’re delayed, I’m delayed; it’s as simple as that.

I’m pleased that a workday that began in such a ghastly fashion turned around so completely.

July 27 Friday Five

1. Favorite pastry?

Erm. Nothing with custard or fruit. Petit-fours? Meringues? Marzipan animals? I’m blanking. I don’t eat things like that a lot; they’re expensive and unless you find a really top-notch pâtisserie they’re bland and flat and soggy. There’s a pastry place somewhere around here that makes incredible chocolate cream millefeuilles; I should ask the friend who used to surprise me with them where it is.

2. How do you like to waste time?

Clicking aimlessly through on-line journals and websites. eBay and online bookstores are particularly bad — not that I actually buy lots of things, but I research and compare and think and good grief did I just lose two hours? I don’t consider reading wasting time.

3. How would you describe your complexion?

Fair. Porcelain-like, or ivory I suppose as it has a slight warm undertone. Since I had the boy, the general condition of my skin’s improved a lot (thank gods), but ironically I’ve developed persistent eczema that verges on psoriasis in certain places. You can’t win.

4. What do you hang on to that you should really get rid of?

Vivid memories of people saying things to me that hurt years and years ago, and the belief that they must hate me (and remember the same incident as vividly as I do). Piles of emotional baggage. Socks with small holes in them. Jeans that are way too big for me but I keep just in case.

5. What is the last thing that made you hurt?

The boy stomping on the side of my foot with his running shoe, all thirty pounds of him coming down hard as he danced in excitement at the door to my office, calling, “Maggie, Maggie, come out, Maggie!”.

From Fridayfiver.

Wiktory!

Maybe it was the purposeful look in my eye and the screwdriver in my hand as I approached the tower with the intent of removing the hard drive, but I gave it one last try, and voila — the desktop is functional again!

(Perhaps I will just never turn it off again. Why it worked this time and not the countless other times I tried in the past ninety minutes, I do not know.)

Yes, I have already backed up all my work files to my Gmail account. All my important personal writing stuff is already on the thumb drive I carry in my purse, and… no, I didn’t save the latest Pandora stuff to it last month. I will remedy that immediately.

Then… to work!

Hello, Wall

Guess whose desktop computer won’t start up this morning?

*headdesk*

It turns on. No start-up sequence. Not even a system check. Everything was fine when I shut it down last night. No viruses were found in the virus scan I did at dinner yesterday. It must be a hardware failure of some kind.

And did I save the files I need to be working on to my thumb drive? No, I did not. I’ve asked the client to send me the last copy of the first file I returned to them last week and the original copy of the third so that I can pick up where I left off and work on the laptop. Hopefully Blade will be able to do something about the computer tonight, otherwise the second (and complete) file is stuck there unless we take the drive out and plug it into another computer to take it off. The good news is that I work with a partioned drive so that if we have to reinstall Windows (again) I don’t lose any of my important stuff, just programs and time. If the drive is dead, well, I’ll just have to completely redo the second file. And it will serve me right for not making an external backup, but still — argh, I DO NOT need that right now.

Rosy, smack me upside the head for NOT LEARNING.

And I was so optimistic about the day, too.

Needless to say, my access to email is going to be limited today. If you know my work Gmail address, use that instead, or leave me a shout here to contact you; I’ll be checking comments regularly.