Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Like clockwork...

Tomorrow we head out on the road for Florida and MEGACON. The house is clean, Cat Nanny, Lindsey and our neighbor are looking after our hyperactive Cats. Van is loaded. Audio books procured.

And then the phone rings...

At this point you'd like I would have learned not to answer the damned thing. But I, like Pavlov's dog, am well trained.

It's my friend Rupp.

He's early. His site shouldn't crap out until I'm at least 500 miles from home. Preferably in another country. Surrounded by headhunters.

I fire off some emails to determine what's up with his website. Then another client calls. He's been dragging his feet for MONTHS on a project and now he has an overwhelming urge to get the thing done TODAY. I spend several hours on the phone with the client, more in a chat session with support people, another hour on hold before talking to a real human. All culminating with the certain knowledge that the pinhead at my clients bank ignored all the instruction we gave him months ago.

A developer call me back. We've been talking about trying to find out what makes my friend Rupps site crash. We settle on doing a pretty serious upgrade. Settle on a price.

Call Bank, bark at moron.
Call Rupp, get approval for project.
Call Developer, green light upgrades.

Clicky-clicky on computer. Set up everything.

And now, I leave. Tadaa!

I'm sure that nothing at all will go wrong.

Monday, March 03, 2008

The memory of snow...

When the snow came last week I stayed inside. Work to do.

But at last I could no longer stand being cooped up and I walked out to the shop. The moment my shoes hit the snow I had the strangest feeling of deja vu. Or maybe not deja vu. Maybe the strange sensation of knowing this snow. Of having felt it before.

It's almost impossible to explain this to someone who hasn't lived in a Northern clime. They say that the Eskimos have 50 different words for ice (which I doubt) but there are many kinds of snow. It can take on many textures and weights. From a fine powder to a packable mess. And as I stepped out into the cold air I remembered the last time I had felt that exact snow before. It was the winter of 77/78.

You can go and look up records for that year. You can see pictures of people in Buffalo digging down 6 feet to find the top of their cars. I made a lot of money shoveling snow that year and spent a lot of time out doors. And since that year I have not felt snow exactly like it. It's crunch, it's stickiness. After some 30 years or so.

Strange.