Rub eyes and think of my soft pillow...

I'm at my office very late tonight installing Linux on some computers for one of my companies. It's the last thing I want to be doing right now. I think this photo says it all.

(PS... If you look closely, you can see today's Far Side calendar. It's a gooder.)

________________

UPDATE #1 2:09 AM PST: I fucking hate computers. I'm going back to an abacus, paste-up, letraset, papyrus, stylus, cuckoo clocks, scissors... damn near anything that doesn't involve a keyboard, mouse, monitor and alternative OSs. Kill me now. I'm going home shortly and crawling into bed before I have to put in another day at the newspaper.

UPDATE #2 2:52 AM PST: One more kick at the can. If this fails, I'm out of here and a big F.U. to... well, anyone who conspired to keep me here this late!

On Going Mental

I've been going mental. Not rubber room quality, yet. But, just a little crazy.

I can't say I don't like it. I actually do. I've been really busy with work and it doesn't show any signs of letting up. Not that I can afford to let it let up.

I don't really want this blog to be about my job(s). I want this to be about who I am and where I'm at in life. While I won't talk about the companies I work for, I will talk about how I am dealing with the results of my work. Such as...

I've recently discovered that I have a war waging inside me that crosses back and forth between being very driven and very lazy. It's driving me nuts, quite frankly. Thus the "going mental" remark.

I look at friends and business associates and see many who are very goal-oriented -- people who know what they want and are putting in the hard work to get it. It's really inspiring! It makes me want to work hard and accomplish the dreams that I want. Then, I go to bed very late at night and...

...then the alarm sounds. And then I don't want to get up. I want to stay home, be by myself and read a book. Honestly, I could probably be really, really happy for the rest of my life if I was quiet and alone with a good book in my hands. Re-reading what I've just typed gives me all sorts of alarm as it makes me sound like I'm some sort of depressed freak who is a complete hermit. Sure, I deal with depression all the time, but this is different.

I'm just not that goal-oriented. That's what I've discovered lately. And suddenly everything that I've gone through in the last few years makes all sorts of sense!! I make goals, but then I'm kinda ok with not meeting them strictly. They're more like suggestions than rules, as it were.

And this is bothering me. I want to be wildly successful and well-regarded in who I am and in what I do. But, I'm afraid that I'm going to do a very, very good job sabotaging that if I don't make my goals more rule-like.

...

More on this at another time.

The Studio on Duncan Way

A couple of months ago, I got into a conversation with my good friend Keela about office space. In the course of about two minutes, I was convinced to share an office with her. She's very persuasive!

Anyway, it was the best decision and I absolutely love working there and Keela and I pretty much laugh all day long... except for today as she's working very, very diligently and is a little preoccupied about a trip to Peru. She works for an NGO called Opportunity International, a micro-credit organization helping make poverty history, as their media and PR rep.

The real questions is: do we get any work done? Yes!! I have been super productive in the last couple of days and Keela is ignoring me and typing furiously, so we must be getting something done. If fact, we were so productive a few weeks ago that we had time to come up with our very own list of what goes on here:

Top 20 things to do in our office

1. Kick the bottle (and catch in air)
2. Catch fraudsters
3. Make lists
4. Check email
5. Watch Snakes on a Plane clips on YouTube
6. Get water
7. Think of witty things to write
8. Check email
9. Watch Sam pretend to know what he's talking about on the phone to his business associates
10. Joke around with the staff downstairs
11. Endlessly discuss how to decorate office
12. Chair dance to Jamiroquai
13. Check email
14. Watch Sam fire half his business associates over the phone
15. Take photos standing on the swivel chair
16. Steal rad music
17. Ponder how Keela can contort herself around her desk and chair
18. Check email
19. Watch dog walkers out the window
20. Discuss how our office eschews the confining practice of keeping lists to multiples of 10
21. Forward killer spam
22. Talk shit

Yup, it's a fun place to work.