Dale Miller

I can’t say that I had a bad day, because the day was actually pretty nice. I can, however, say that I was in a bad mood all day. I’m becoming more and more depressed, and less willing to do anything about it. I had a talk with Guil about that this afternoon. He had constructive suggestions which I may consider. Guil was eager to deal with my most obvious, fixable problem. He’s quite practical that way. One of my worries is that I owe too much money. That’s a combination of buying a house, buying land, and lending money to someone that didn’t pay it back. Whatever the cause, I’m having to deal with the results. My credit is still good, I make all my payments on time, and my debt is slowly shrinking, so there’s nothing there that is really terrible, except that I don’t have money to spend on “fun” stuff. I really think that I’m using the “worrying about debt” as an excuse to not examine the deeper problem — that I’m simply not enjoying life. I’m a middle-aged computer nerd who hasn’t kept his skill sets up to date. It wouldn’t take me more than a couple of months to correct that, but I just don’t have the incentive to do so.

Let’s see, what did I get done today? I set up the last two machines for Aramark (UALR’s new food service provider), figured out what was wrong with the server for their registers, built Guil a temporary cable to plug in the new SAN disks (he needed 2 L6-30Rs, but the physical plant work order hasn’t gone through yet). I re-worked a web lookup for Tammy so that Financial Aid can use it. Oh, and I think I finally straightened out a problem on the mail system that was causing some messages to not de-queue. We shall see on that one. That was pretty much the excitement for my day.

Yesterday I went out for a bit of benchmark hunting, but I haven’t gotten around to posting my finds. I still haven’t posted the ones from two weeks ago, either. It really wouldn’t take much time, but I just haven’t done it. It goes along well with the “I just don’t care” philosophy that I seem to be developing lately.

I slept poorly last night, for no good reason I could determine.

Today is going to be no fun. I just want to go back to bed. Is that different from my usual Monday?

Isn’t it fun when an abbreviation is used twice on the same sign to mean two different things?

I planned to go to Discovery tonight. I had a nap this afternoon, ate a late dinner at Sufficient Grounds, and then headed down there at about 11:00. Somewhere in between Kavanaugh and Cantrell I decided that I was insufficiently psyched for a night at a club, so turned left and headed home instead. I think it was probably a good decision.

I killed another lawnmower. It was the same as the last one. I hit a stump (not even a very big one) and the shaft bent. I’m definitely taking this one back to Wal-Mart. I may not get any satisfaction, but at least I’m going to try. Now I’m quite frustrated to go along with being depressed.

I don’t usually do these, but I’m in a strange mood this morning.

The following is snagged from x_sky_child_x

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

Not all connections which appear to move data are necessarily of this type: The data might be a flag used to control certain aspects of the execution of the other module, or it might be a “branch address” to be used if certain conditions arise.
– Structured Design, 1976, Ed Yourdon

Had I been at home rather than in the office, it would have been from a mystery novel.

I was feeling puny yesterday, along with really sleepy. I cam home and could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed early, but then tossed and turned until almost midnight. I needed a good night’s sleep, but it was not to be. I awoke at around 3 A.M. to something wet and acrid. Yes, Oreo had decided that my bed (with me in it) needed some cat urine. So I had to strip the bed, start the bedclothes in the laundry, and clean up the mattress. Since I don’t have a spare mattress pad, I just bundled myself up in a long robe and tried to get back to sleep. That, of course, didn’t work very well. I ended up staying home from work today, since I would have been useless if I had gone in. Once I remade the bed and managed some sleep I was feeling mostly human again, but still depressed. I’m going to have to snap out of this somehow. I have scheduled a week of vacation in July, but I have no idea yet if I’m going to go anywhere or just stay around the house.

I have spent the afternoon watching RahXephon. I made the mistake of starting it with the English soundtrack. It’s just not right. It just feels different to have the original Japanese and subtitles. It’s partially the voices they use for the English, and partially the rewording of some of the script.

… I still haven’t seen Belle. I haven’t given up, but it’s not looking good.

There is such a strong temptation to call in sick and climb back in bed.

This morning I awakened abruptly from a pleasant dream, realized that it was only a dream, and started crying. That’s not a nice way to start a day.

… still no sign of Belle.

I’m worried about Belle. She wasn’t here when I left for work this morning, and I haven’t seen her this evening. I don’t like it when my kitties disappear.