Words are inadequate

Crap crap crap. Had a post about two-thirds written about the tail end of the Los Cabos trip and the computer crashed on me, and now it's gone and I can't find it in me to rewrite it.

It was a good trip. Restful. Maybe the first trip I've taken where I wasn't ready to just be home at the end of it. I can't claim my brain has fully regrown but it may be getting there.

( Bullet points! )

And then work got very very stupid last week. On occasion they need to light a fire under the developers, so they pretend they're going to be shipping software to customers in a week. This is obviously false but it's from higher-ups so it has just enough plausibility that we have to get everything ready to go out. Then it doesn't ship for two more weeks anyway. Oh well.

This week hasn't been so bad; mostly it's been reorienting to being home and to a normal schedule. Yay.

In addition to accomplishing a handful of things off my List, yesterday was a day for two major achievements.

First, I updated my computer-building credentials by successfully replacing the memory and hard drive in the work laptop. This involved popping the keyboard out and replacing it without breaking any of its flimsy plastic clips or losing any of the keys (except Home, but who uses that anyway?). My small hammer with several different screwdrivers built into the handle is now officially my go-to computer disassembly tool.

... excuse me, a little brown sparrow just landed on my open window, cheeped at me a few times, and flew away.

Where was I? Right. Secondly, and more importantly, I convinced/shanghaied/bullied uilos into going to the doctor for the persistent crud she's had since before Origins. Likely this only worked because she'd given it to me as of Satyrday morning, and by yesterday I was in pretty miserable shape. But we now have a regimen each of amoxycillin and an irritation at the need to submit claims to the insurance company. Just like home. (BC has a waiting period so we're safe from the dangers of socialized medicine for another couple of months.) The amoxy seems to be doing its job; I'm much more functional today.

Yesterday I also reread the first two ABC books[1] in reverse order, since B is technically a prequel to A, while C is a direct sequel to A that builds on backstory from B. I'm not sure whether I recommend this reading order or not. Probably not; it feels better to let the backstory fill in the gaps in the 'main' story. (In other non-news, if you believe in reading Magician's Nephew before LWW I have nothing to say to you.) Also, reading in pub order means you don't get "how Muire met Kasimir" twice in a row (it's the start of A, and also the last thing that happens in B).

Onward, with reinstalling a bunch of software for work. Yay fun.

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[1] Also known as Elizabeth Bear's Edda of Burdens series: All The Windwracked Stars, By The Mountain Bound, The Seas Thy Mistress. A, B, Sea. What? Stop looking at me like that.

So I went to Key West with uilos last weekend, and had a really good time. I also got a reasonably bad sunburn on my nose and scalp despite slathering the former in sunblock and buying a hat for the latter. Too little too late, but at least I have a hat. I did not see any tiny purple octopi (octopodes, whatever), sadly.

I am also drowning in work and will provide an actual trip report later. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Worst case, sometime the week after Labor Day. (Well, worst case is I never get around to it, but then you'd never get to hear about the stingrays who wanted to come to dinner.)

Mostly this is in the nature of I ATEN'T DEAD. So, yeah.

One of my favorite paintings, explicated: from rbandrews, who notes, "It just makes more sense as a triptych."

Interview with Danny Trejo: You know Danny Trejo, he plays the mean-looking Mexican in like a zillion movies. Here he talks about a bunch of them.

Shambling Mound: "To the tune of 'Ramblin' Man' by the Allman Brothers." The archives are pretty good too.

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I dunno, everything's been rather slow and dull lately. Biding time until I run off to the beach for a week of gaming. Work has been crazy with trying to ship an iPhone version of the software, and a server infrastructure that can deliver reports to same, in an exceedingly compressed timeframe. Writing, eh, somewhat, I've started a couple of things that may or not ever come to actual endings.

Running is easier when it's less humid. The temperature was fine this morning, it's just that inhaling nontrivial quantities of water along with oxygen causes my lungs to get cranky and stop wanting to work. Plus not being able to sweat efficiently leads to overheating, which as we all know leads to slower movement (not to mention erratic targeting and potential internal damage). So, ick. And it only gets worse from here.

Perhaps a week at the beach will revitalize me. I can hope.

Now that all the flu symptoms are gone and the stiff/sore neck has almost unloosened, I'm not really "sick" per se. Just easily tired pretty much all the time, and with the attention span of a . . . um . . . one of those things over there. You know, running up the walls and eating the neighbor's birdseed. Makes me want to shout "You damn kids, get off my lawn!" Anyway, Lyme disease reminds me a lot of mono. Only without the fun parts, where you get the disease in the first place. Of course my bout with mono didn't have any of the fun parts either. I came down with it several weeks after a four-hour trip to get dumped.

Right, focus. $manager is awesome and allows me to work from home. Of course, today that meant I had to come in for half a day to put out the fires that sprang up in my absence (which consisted of reading the email thread that was rather amusing in its increasing franticity, writing to a half-dozen people to say, 'It doesn't really matter to me, so go with that one,' and convincing all my co-workers that I haven't died yet) and set up the work computer for VPN/VNC access. This did convince me that I probably oughtn't be trying to do eight hours' worth of work in an eight-hour period, since four in four nearly wiped me out. Thankfully working from home means I can do eight in more like twelve, allowing for breaks for things like letting my eyes glaze over for ten minutes or so, or forgetting where in the red-pen-covered document I am in converting changes.

If I'm not back to at least functional by Monday I will be displeased. I suspect $boss will be as well but I might be making that up. I don't really know.

On Monday Patient First in Laurel gave me a prescription for ten days' of doxycyclene (antibiotic) which they filled there (the max that they'll fill), and another for eleven days to complete the three-week regimen. I tried to fill the eleven-day prescription today. Turns out United Health Care, my insurer, won't cover the second prescription until next Monday. It's "too soon." Stupid bloody insurance system.

Origins post next. Probably tonight or tomorrow.