Someone debuted a tool very similar to one I was working on except with the added bonuses of having an awesome publicity stunt, better name recognition, some novel features, and a company that someone has heard of backing it.  People I’ve told responded as if I lost a child to measles or whooping cough and I thank them for their courtesy but, much like someone kicking over your sand castle or someone coming up with a similar song hook, it at least tells me that I was on the right track (or they shared my wrong one).

Briefly, I had something neat to work on that was mine.  I do again but it isn’t mine in the same way as this one will require more collaboration and involves a lot of me tugging on people’s pant legs and saying “what’s a good algorithm I can use to find the K-th nearest neighbor within an arbitrary point cloud in 4-space?”

Scene: Me, sitting in front of work computer, staring blankly, listening to a beep.

Boss:  Uh, Terry.
Me: Yes?
Boss: What are you up to?
Me: Mourning.
Boss: Mourning?
Me: Yes.  Hear that beeping?
Boss: Yes.
Me: That’s the sound of the UPS for my computer failing.  The first time, it went off, it was before a save point in the 20 page work order I was doing.  I rebooted the computer once power returned to find the auto-save copy nearly empty as it had occurred either during a cut/paste or while I was pulling pieces together from other documents, erasing my progress.  The second time occurred just now and I figure the most productive thing I could do is stare blankly at the screen until my urge to kill subsides.
Boss: Sounds good, I’ll check in with you later.

I love having an understanding boss.

My split-timing has led me to want to take out years of annoyance about lab quirks on their unsuspecting possessors.  One fellow has a sign on his fume hood sash that reads “Please keep closed when not in use.  THIS MEANS YOU.”  I asked my boss what would happen if I added a “Don’t post passive aggressive notes in the viewing area of fume heads.  THIS MEANS YOU” sign next to it.  Response:  You’d have a lot more free time.

Someone at work asked me to fix their printer as it was a legacy from our previous owners that someone had pulled from the garbage.  The power outage reset the print servers and the device was no longer showing up properly so I set to work.  One of the fellows told me I had it set up to print through the locally connected computer but I didn’t see that as the settings.  After dicking around I was asked:

Bob: Don’t you remember what you did?
Me: Nope, not a clue.
Bob: But you seemed so confident last time.
Me: Well, I have one of four methods of dealing with it.  I’m not sure which will work.
Bob: You mean you don’t diagnose it and then fix that?
Me: No, not at all.  I guess until something works.
Bob: YOU FOOL!
Me: What?
Bob: NEVER GIVE AWAY A SECRET LIKE THAT.
Me: What are you talking about?
Bob: If you had said “yes” and said there was a technical issue, we would have never known.  Now we know you’re bumbling through it like the rest of us.
Bob #2 (there are two Bobs in the machine shop):  *nodding head* We never would have known.
Bob:  You bake a lot, so I’ll keep your secret.
Me: Thank you (?)

I’m an unabashed time-user at work.  If I have no task, and no value-added ancillary task, I will happily occupy myself with chatting or doing Scout stuff until something more pressing pops up.  If something that I think is both important and has a deadline appears, I can turn into a robot.  A coworker asked me to look at the specs of a PC he wished to buy, and the following ensued:

Him: Terry, do you think you’ll get to the… thing today?
Me: Nope.  I have work to do.
Him: Oh, I get it, what kind of work?
Me: The kind you’re watching me do.
Him: Ok, and then?
Me: And then I’m going to go home.
Him: Will you do it there?
Me: No, I’m going to go to bed so I can wake up early.
Him: To do it then?
Me: No, so I can drive back in and finish what I’m doing now.
Him: You’re serious.
Me: Yes.
Him: You’ve changed.

The fudge from yesterday was quite good.  Not “salvage an otherwise shitty day” good, but nonetheless good.

I headed to Chris Fosmire’s house with the parts of the Bucktail for assembly and adviserly merriment.  I got there and laid out the parts and 1/2 the group assembled inserts while the rest of the group folded.  If I had my stuff together, I would have collated the center sheets and either stapled them or at least sorted them.  Midway through, we realized that some of the households were to receive two copies of the newsletter which happened because of a glitch in my formula for determining if the two people had the same address.  Finally, someone noted that some of the content was cut off by the fold because of how much paper was in the middle.  I was hoping this was going to be my last Bucktail, the magnus opus of newsletter generation for Ajapeu Lodge and the last time I’d have to fabricate content on behalf of a youth but I can’t let my legacy end with such obvious flaws.

I look forward to seeing what I will have done wrong in 2012 to keep me on until 2013.

I received a list of about 20 tests to perform to characterize a product and I started picking them off one by one but had a question and walked over the requester’s office where he was happily munching on the fudge I brought in.  He asked me if I had tried any of the fudge brought back from a meeting, I told him I made it and he froze up.  I asked him about a test method and how tricky it would be and he told me to not do it, so I returned to the list.

About 2 hours later, I had another question and went to his office to find him drinking a Pepsi Max.  I told him it was odd that we both liked Pepsi Max and brought in 20 oz bottles as well, he said he got it from a meeting so I pressed him for the location.  He said the refrigerator and again froze up on finding out he was consuming something of mine.  He again told me to skip the test about which I had a question as well as two others.

I wonder if I could convince him that I supplied the building’s toilet paper.

I woke up at about 4:30 AM with the hope of getting to work at around 6:00 but was stymied by

I was happy to find out that the large branch on my car was not also in my car.  The network of side streets that comprises my commute was a no-go so I stuck to main roads at about 20 miles per hour and arrived around 7.  I thought nothing of fire engines on the road but found out they were from when the transformer that fed our building exploded leaving work with no power, which would very much complicate my printing.

Power returned around 7:30 but our print servers had reset so the first 20 copies were consumed into the ether.  I got rolling around 8 AM with very few in and one of them was a secretary that had some light copying to do.  My mission was clear, to make small talk until my printing was done.

Me: It looks like we’re the only ones who made it in, where did you drive in from?
Her: Oh, I’m somewhat local.
Me: Have you been in the area long?
*an hour later*
Her: And that’s how we got the second ferret.

By then the printing was done, and the strength of my bond to Scouting had been confirmed.

A year or so ago the security chief at work was replaced and the new one has been really on top of snow delays generally posting building open delays the night before.  I checked the emergency line near midnight and the building was scheduled to be open on time meaning the plows would be running overnight.  I came into work today and the parking lot was a mess and the walk was unsalted.  Only around 9 did people start coming in as the building had a 2 hour delay notice that had been posting this morning, so I talked to the head of security.

Me: When did the delayed open go out?
Security Chief: 5 AM this morning.
Me: Why not the day before?
Security Chief: It was actively snowing so we weren’t sure if we’d do a delay or a close.  Besides, what idiot would drive in under the conditions we had this morning?
Me: Yeah, what idiot.

I’m rapidly trying to tie up loose ends as I transition to a change in work but it’s going to take me a bit to really finish everything off as I keep finding projects I never finished clashing with my nature as a completist so I asked my work-giver if he’d be taking time off for the holidays.

Him: I may be taking a longer than usual time for the holidays this year.
Me: That’s nice, how long?
Him: Probably Christmas and the day after.
Me: That’s it?
Him: I’m stretching it this year.

Stupid cyborgs.