Slippery Summer
The Summer is slipping away quickly, but I have begun to over-schedule to defend against the randomly disappearing days. Some weeks go by without registering on my time keeping radar. One morning I notice it's Monday, so I hurry down to start work. I look up, and it's 2pm - and time for a late lunch. I look up again and it's Thursday night. I often fritter away weekends in a daze as well, but usually it's a happier daze.
This weekend is one of those weekends where the new shape of the world comes through clear.
On the social front we overbooked our weekend and spent a few whirlwind days catching up with old and new friends. I enjoy the IDEA of hanging out with groups, but I often find I dread actually preparing for parties and group gatherings. For some reason my grumblier self rears his head just before I have to go to social events. Usually this subsides as soon as I find myself in good company, and this weekend was no exception. I was reminded how seldom I see people other than the two or three usual suspects: the Knights of Bag'el (or 'Jason's People', as they are currently known).
Hanging out with people almost reduced my obsession with getting house stuff done before we do our Summer road trip. For about six months I've been thinking that we should convert the garage into a new living space by bricking up the garage doors with glass brick. Then we could move a number of things around and still have room. Sometimes I think I'm obsessed with this idea because it's one part of the house where we could do wild things without too many compromises. So Rory started making calls and a parade of contractors came over to measure things and talk about ideas. We got an absolutely preposterous bid from one guy. He missed our budget by an order of magnitude, and seemed uninterested in adjusting his numbers. I don't mean he wasn't willing to bargain - I didn't even get to that stage with him; I mean he wasn't willing to even change the scope of the work to fit our needs. So, despite liking his record and communication skills - he's on the discard heap. I think we've found a fencing company to repair/replace the fences in the back. We may also have found a contractor/handyman who can work on the garage conversion with us. We should also be getting our neon address number from Lightbulbs Unlimited this week.
On the work and weekend front I had to spend lots of time thinking about Kung Fu Panda. We went with a group on Saturday afternoon after a quick financial meeting. We were basically late getting there. I went into the film feeling like I was already sick of it. (I've been working on DVD extras for the film for roughly four weeks.) I walked out of the theatre surprised and thoroughly entertained. Jack Black is usually only funny to me in small doses, but here I think he found a good role. The art and combat choreography were rather nice for a kids' animated film. It inspired me to buy some new animation software and begin playing around with some ideas of my own.
We have roughly five weeks left before we do a road trip back out to the West Coast. We'll do a week of tooling around the west in general, and then a week in LA leading up to an office retreat to Big Bear on the last weekend in June. Hopefully bringing my wife and child will keep me from getting into too much trouble. ;-)
This weekend is one of those weekends where the new shape of the world comes through clear.
On the social front we overbooked our weekend and spent a few whirlwind days catching up with old and new friends. I enjoy the IDEA of hanging out with groups, but I often find I dread actually preparing for parties and group gatherings. For some reason my grumblier self rears his head just before I have to go to social events. Usually this subsides as soon as I find myself in good company, and this weekend was no exception. I was reminded how seldom I see people other than the two or three usual suspects: the Knights of Bag'el (or 'Jason's People', as they are currently known).
Hanging out with people almost reduced my obsession with getting house stuff done before we do our Summer road trip. For about six months I've been thinking that we should convert the garage into a new living space by bricking up the garage doors with glass brick. Then we could move a number of things around and still have room. Sometimes I think I'm obsessed with this idea because it's one part of the house where we could do wild things without too many compromises. So Rory started making calls and a parade of contractors came over to measure things and talk about ideas. We got an absolutely preposterous bid from one guy. He missed our budget by an order of magnitude, and seemed uninterested in adjusting his numbers. I don't mean he wasn't willing to bargain - I didn't even get to that stage with him; I mean he wasn't willing to even change the scope of the work to fit our needs. So, despite liking his record and communication skills - he's on the discard heap. I think we've found a fencing company to repair/replace the fences in the back. We may also have found a contractor/handyman who can work on the garage conversion with us. We should also be getting our neon address number from Lightbulbs Unlimited this week.
On the work and weekend front I had to spend lots of time thinking about Kung Fu Panda. We went with a group on Saturday afternoon after a quick financial meeting. We were basically late getting there. I went into the film feeling like I was already sick of it. (I've been working on DVD extras for the film for roughly four weeks.) I walked out of the theatre surprised and thoroughly entertained. Jack Black is usually only funny to me in small doses, but here I think he found a good role. The art and combat choreography were rather nice for a kids' animated film. It inspired me to buy some new animation software and begin playing around with some ideas of my own.
We have roughly five weeks left before we do a road trip back out to the West Coast. We'll do a week of tooling around the west in general, and then a week in LA leading up to an office retreat to Big Bear on the last weekend in June. Hopefully bringing my wife and child will keep me from getting into too much trouble. ;-)