friday random elevenish: “realizations and diminishing resources” edition
This week; just kind of flew on by, in part because I’ve been so darned busy working to put as many entries on the ‘to-do’ list to bed before the end of the work year as possible while the pool of available resources to answer my questions drops like a steeply dropping graph of people burning through use-or-lose leave at the end of the calendar year.
Still, I got a ton of stuff done, even if each unit of “stuff” was replaced by one-point-something units of new stuff, but at least those are due later. Such is the life of the de-facto deputy head of the program management center in a mid-sized public sector organization.
And that’s really what I’m coming to understand my job to be; whenever somebody needs to talk to my boss, they call me because they know they’re not going get hold of him because he’s always triple-booked, and they know I can probably find their answer anyway.
It could also be that several people told me straight off they consider me “second in command” or something like it over the last couple of weeks.
At least that likely means my job is secure, and the boss has indicated that my efforts will be remembered come evaluation time (which has actually passed now, and I’m waiting for the paperwork to catch up to see if that is indeed the case).
Yeah.
Otherwise, there hasn’t been a heck of a lot happening. I’m hiding shipped-in Christmas presents, taking brisk walks in the park (twice this week followed by stops at a watering hole for an interesting seasonal brew or two) and trying to get myself invested in this new Cory Doctorow book, and not quite getting the results I’m hoping for.
That, and trying to decide if I like these bluetooth earpod things I got a deal on the other weekend. They work okay, I guess, when they decide to stay in the ears like they’re supposed to. The sound quality is decent enough, though if I want some real fidelity and dynamic range, my big Tascam cans are just there on the shelf to my right.
In fact, I’m listening to this week’s algorithmically-generated playlist of things Spotify thinks I would like on them right now. It’s a lot of 80s and 90s “alternative rock” or whatever we called it then this week. I expect that next week will be weirder, as I’ve been choosing to listen to a bunch of Japanese Breakfast (discovering the concept of the “royal road chord progression” in the process) and Punch Brothers. Whatever the case, I’m still digging this week’s jams, even Ace covering Cream there at #8, and of course, Zappa and crew there at the end, because it’s me:
- “Dim” – Dada
- “Gloria” – U2
- “Swingin'” – Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
- “Down” – Son Volt
- “Blues from a Gun” – THe Jesus and Mary Chain
- “Hoover Dam” – Sugar
- “Makes No Sense at All” – Hüsker Dü
- “White Room” – Ace Frehley
- “Sail On Sail Away” – Moxy
- “Never Say Never” – Romeo Void
- “Voyager” – Gamma
- “Oz is Everything” – Oysterhead
- “Directly From My Heart To You” – The Mothers of invention
