I figured I would start some useful Googling today and see if I could find any sign of any of the foster kids that lived with me over the years, just to see what they may be up to these days. I've been curious and had some extra time this afternoon, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Oh and by the way if you have not yet seen googlism, check it out.

Sure enough, the one kid I thought I might find (well, not a kid anymore...) was notably mentioned many times in newspapers and athletic department results for his rodeo championships. Wow. This was a kid who, with his brother, was literally left at someone's house by a parent with a promise to pick them up that evening, and then no-show. Two weeks later they came to live with me for quite a while, til suddenly the other parent was found in a different state and was able to take them in. Now there he is, successful, in college, and apparently still a never-give-up kind of guy: He broke his neck/back on a bareback ride and kept competing in the state finals, then on to college. Newspapers wrote about it. Yep, that's him, and I am sure he did it all with a smile on his face. Literally. Just the kind of person he is.

It's good to see one of those kids following his dreams, being successful. I hope he kept playing baseball, too. But horses - that was the thing. Good for him. :)

- g

News.com has made some changes to the way they are doing things to go along with their "birthday."

Of interest: "... The one big feature we are debuting is "Get Up to Speed," which helps you, well, get up to speed on--and make sense of--the six technologies and trends we believe are getting the most notice in the tech world: Enterprise Security, Open Source, Utility Computing, Voice over IP, Web Services and Wi-Fi ..."

Well, at least on the web services and security subjects, they'll have my attention for at least a while longer. Cool.

- g

So I have been thinking about what I should do during my vacation time that I need to take between now and the end of the year (the ol' use-it-or-lose-it thing), and I keep thinking back to what seems to happen every time I take a vacation: I invariably get really tired after a couple of day, sleep way more than usual for a few days more, and then have maybe a day or two feeling like I might actually be able to get to a point where I could feel clear-headed and rejuvenated, if only I could start my vacation the next day.

And if you add any kind of travel to the mix, it just extends the initial critical recovery time.

Which leads me to realize that in order to have a worthwhile vacation, I need to schedule it like this:

a) Four days off work, but not yet going anywhere. This will allow me to catch up on laundry, think of what I need to go wherever I am going (remember, my brain is not working well at this point), actually find the things I need, pack, and clean the house so it's at least presentable when I get back (nothing quite as bad as coming back from vacation to a mess stress). Plus one day at work to deal with whatever they forgot to throw at me and which has now become an emergency.[elapsed = 5 days]

b) One extra day to rest before I have to go anywhere. Those first five days nearly killed me. [elapsed = 6 days]

c) One more day to do all the last-minute things I forgot about in the first four days but remember now because of the time I took on day five. [elapsed = 7 days]

(there goes 40 hours...)

d) One day to travel to wherever I am going. [elapsed = 8 days]

e) Three days to mostly sleep and do some vacation-like things but without enough energy, and I won't remember them very clearly anyhow, so this should be the time for all those shops and crap that people seem to like. [elapsed = 11 days]

f) Now vacation starts. Seven days to see the sites, relax and have some fun [elapsed = 18 days]

(Uh oh we hit 80 hours of vacation in there somewhere)

g) One day to travel back home. Invariably at this point I come down with a sore throat and sinus infection. [elapsed = 19 days]

h) Sleep for 24 hours [elapsed = 20 days]

i) I now require one week to unplug the phone, turn off the computer, and do nothing but home projects. This is what finally clears my mind and makes me ready to go back. [elapsed = 27 days]

So, looks like 4 weeks should do it. I'll need the extra day to find my office anyhow, if I am gone that long. Of course, that's 4 weeks in a row. And 160 hours of vacation time (which, conveniently, is slightly more than I have to burn between now and the end of the year).

Hey, no problem, right? I am sure my projects will just lead themselves and everything will magically work out in the end.

Later, I'll explore the possibilities of spreading that time out, and look at the implications of that plan.

- g

So, I get a call from someone at work late in the afternoon, turns out they need me to work all night. For real. This is starting to turn into an Office-Space moment, I think... "Uh, yeaahhhh... so, we're gonna need you to work this weekend... uh, yeah...."

Ugh.

It's an important thing they need me for, but man oh man, I am so ready to say "I told ya so" on this one. Could have been prevented. But since everyone is big time stressed and it would do no good to say that, I am keeping my mouth shut. In this particular case it's better that way.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good, and by 10:00 this morning I was wiped out. It's been a really long week, and it's only Tuesday. Wow. Not sure I wqill make it through the end of the week at this rate. especially since today and tomorrow are realy one big work day.

I gave a presentation today at work. It sucked. Definitely not my day. It's so extremely unusual for me to have a bad day presenting - and everyone walked out of there confused. Not good. Now I will have to go back and recommunicate all this information, which takes up even more of their time and mine. Ugh again.

Oh well. Tomorrow may be better.

- g

Of course, I forgot them. Even after typing myself a reminder. Sheez...

I'm finding very quickly that I sleep much better when it's raining outside. Must be the background noise or something. I only woke up once last night, and I actually feel fairly well rested right now, which is a nice change. I might even remember my glasses when I walk out the door today.

- g