SBCL (Separated by a Common Language, or any of these things).

I work in public sector information technology, which means that TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) run rampant; it’s one of this career path’s joys. I’m pretty sure if I felt like putting in the effort, I could probably knock out a paragraph or three in perfect grammar, composed solely of acronyms.

What can I say, I have a particular set of skills.

Sometimes, though, those skills can be limiting. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on scheduling a test with a new software system that wants to interface with our bit of ancient code. Back and forth, back and forth, everybody talking past each other.

This morning I finally figured out why: we’ve been using the same acronyms, but referring to completely different things. Once I figured that out, we quickly came to happy arrangement (or at least a better understanding of each other – the arrangement is still in flux because of all kinds of other externalities). It actually took a bit of a load off; and I’ve been carrying a hell of a load these last couple of weeks (as anybody who reads this space can attest). Said load isn’t gone, by any stretch, but a bigger-than-I-thought piece of it has been mostly disposed of.

Which leaves me with some mental processing cycles to deal with all kinds of other crap, like mono-directional HDMI to DP cables, and how going one way costs three dollars and going the other way costs $85. Guess which one I need? I came up with an alternate solution, but really? All I want to do is attach a monitor I had lying around to my laptop to extend my screen real estate. Geez.

Oh well; it’s been a week. Beyond the stuff above, I’ve been doing some really tedious work stuff: horribly authored online training, and spinning webs of bullshit for a justification document for something that’s already been approved at the highest levels, but some bureaucrat needs to get one more lick in on an issue that I’ve been enlisted to clean up.

There’s been some better stuff, though. Before the rain started, I knocked out 50 miles or so of solid trail time on the bike, have mostly got my recording/streaming/home computer rig (and the lovely spouse got her sewing space back, just in time to take on a lucrative side project for a bit of cash) back after moving the eldest out last weekend. I was able to successfully record my short set for the Dragonon Filk Track virtual panel/content stuff Wednesday night, which took 15 minutes, and the rest of the hour involved a very welcome conversation with the track director, who’s a wonderful friend who in the best of times, I only get to see one or two times a year. I think we both needed it.

Oh, yeah, there was that whole announcement on Tuesday. As I indicated in the past, I like Senator Harris just fine, and I think she’ll do a great job as VP. Also, she seems to have the competition flustered a bit (even if she was the obvious front-runner for quite a long time), as their opposition thus far has been disjointed and falling back on the stereotypical attack lines; it took less than six hours for “Most Liberal Member of the Senate™”* to get trotted out, as well as the usual misogynistic crap we all expected. I think she’ll be good for the ticket, and I like having her on deck for 2024. GenX has maybe one shot, at best, to be represented in the White House (there just aren’t enough of us); I think Kamala will do our slacker, latchkey generation proud.

This weekend? Eh. Who knows. I do know that it’s going to be a little longer than average, because I’m taking Friday off (hence this piece posting Thursday); partially because I need a mental health day, and because a kid only turns 13 once. We pulled a limited, socially distanced surprise thing at the dance school earlier this week before class, but we’re working on making the day sorta special in this especially crappy time.

Anyway, tunes. Spotify wandered a little off the usual path this week on the Discover Weekly, though, y’know what? I’m okay with it; there’s some good stuff there. Plus, I admire the chutzpah of that band at #2 naming themselves that:

1. “Monkey Trick” – The Jesus Lizard
2. “Who’s My Eugene” – Tropical Fuck Storm
3. “Boxcar” – Jawbreaker
4. “Sensitive Artist” – King Missle
5. “Millersdale” – William Doyle
6. “Anna” – Mdou Moctar
7. “These Are The Days” – Lift to Experience
8. “When I Get Up” – Tim Heidecker
9. “System Preferences” – Tera Melos
10. “Battle of Who Could Care Less” – Ben Folds Five
11. “Oh Slime (live) – Fishmans
12. “Minnesota Girls” – The Shackeltons
13. “Horripilation” – Do Make Say Think

* – This is so standard, it’s practically expected. Jim Inhofe or Ted Cruz would get called this if they, in some demented timeline, ended up on the Democratic presidential ticket.