The Trials and Tribulations of a Moonlighting Engineer
Oh, how crazy it has been the past few days. As opposed to the past few weeks? The past few months? Well, kinda, hahaha.
Let's see, Saturday was "write as much as I can before 3:30" for the February Challenge at sm_monthly because it was the last day for award eligible submissions. By 4:00, I was 4-1/4 stories short of finishing the whole month. Yeah! Too bad that last one was only 3/4 done before I absolutely, positively had to stop. I kind of liked it. ^-^ For those in sm_monthly who are not in the know, it was finished on Sunday and submitted for the spider web image theme. *wink*
So, I saved my work, and then went out to eat with J at Carrabas. After that, we killed some time at Best Buys and then went to the wonderfully fantastic Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) concert. Celtic Celebration was it's name, and in addition to the Pops orchestra, it had Irish Dancers, a damatic play throughout (Danny Finnegan?), a wonderful tenor soloist, an unbelievably stupendous soprano soloist (I am still amazed at her clarity...), and an instrumentalist who must have been part Bard. The ulleleigh (sp?) pipes must have been his specialty. Man he was good. He needed a bohdran player on that song, though... in my opinion at any rate.
So, Saturday was *happy sigh*. And then on Sunday I did all my housework and computer maintenance, IM'd with leni_ba for a bit, read, and voted for the January Awards at sm-monthly.
I was going to read all this week for February noms, but I had to go to Canton on Monday, and it ended up that I had maybe 30 minutes of free internet time in two days. My senior engineer and I left the plant at about 7:15 on Monday night and (after a stop and dinner) checked into the hotel at about 9:00. Yesterday, we left the plant about 2:00, drove a little further south to check out a different hotel, make reservations for next week and next month, and have lunch. We finally started driving home at about 4:00. I pulled into the parking lot at work shortly after 9:00. ^-^ Oddly, J was just leaving to go home, so I got to talk with him for a few minutes. I think I reached the house at about 9:45 or so. I caught up reading in rayas_and_rees and on my friends page as I ate two cheeseburgers and a small fry from McDonald's, but then it was bedtime. So, Ree, that's where your onee-chan has been. *sigh*
Now I'm two days behind on reading for noms. Oh well. If I can, I will nom. I kept up for about a week or so... And like most months, it tapers off towards the end. But, with dinner tonight with J and choir practice tomorrow night and midmonth bills to get done, I'm not holding out much hope.
And I may have to go back to Canton on Monday. And my boss' retirement stuff starts next week. And I have to live in Canton for at least two weeks in April. And... I will have the weekends off, though. At least Sundays. My team leader was that nice to me... And only 10-11 hour days, not 12-14. Much better than the last time I had to work a major outage down there. Too bad I have to either leave on Easter afternoon or early Monday morning to get there.
Okay, enough whining. ^-^ On the bright side, we picked the best possible time for a road trip, weather wise, unlike our visit in February. Beautiful warm temperatures, bright sunshine, and dry roads as opposed to sleet, freezing rain, snow, and semi-plowed conditions, hahaha. Yes, I drove through the Valentine's Day storm. It is going to get cold(ish) again this weekend. *sigh* I can't wait for real spring!
And now, lunch is over, and still no reading for noms. But it is time to get back to this slowly shrinking pile of work. Maybe, if I am very, very productive, I can take Friday off the way I had planned? I might have a shot at noming then! Wish me luck!
Ja ne~
Let's see, Saturday was "write as much as I can before 3:30" for the February Challenge at sm_monthly because it was the last day for award eligible submissions. By 4:00, I was 4-1/4 stories short of finishing the whole month. Yeah! Too bad that last one was only 3/4 done before I absolutely, positively had to stop. I kind of liked it. ^-^ For those in sm_monthly who are not in the know, it was finished on Sunday and submitted for the spider web image theme. *wink*
So, I saved my work, and then went out to eat with J at Carrabas. After that, we killed some time at Best Buys and then went to the wonderfully fantastic Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) concert. Celtic Celebration was it's name, and in addition to the Pops orchestra, it had Irish Dancers, a damatic play throughout (Danny Finnegan?), a wonderful tenor soloist, an unbelievably stupendous soprano soloist (I am still amazed at her clarity...), and an instrumentalist who must have been part Bard. The ulleleigh (sp?) pipes must have been his specialty. Man he was good. He needed a bohdran player on that song, though... in my opinion at any rate.
So, Saturday was *happy sigh*. And then on Sunday I did all my housework and computer maintenance, IM'd with leni_ba for a bit, read, and voted for the January Awards at sm-monthly.
I was going to read all this week for February noms, but I had to go to Canton on Monday, and it ended up that I had maybe 30 minutes of free internet time in two days. My senior engineer and I left the plant at about 7:15 on Monday night and (after a stop and dinner) checked into the hotel at about 9:00. Yesterday, we left the plant about 2:00, drove a little further south to check out a different hotel, make reservations for next week and next month, and have lunch. We finally started driving home at about 4:00. I pulled into the parking lot at work shortly after 9:00. ^-^ Oddly, J was just leaving to go home, so I got to talk with him for a few minutes. I think I reached the house at about 9:45 or so. I caught up reading in rayas_and_rees and on my friends page as I ate two cheeseburgers and a small fry from McDonald's, but then it was bedtime. So, Ree, that's where your onee-chan has been. *sigh*
Now I'm two days behind on reading for noms. Oh well. If I can, I will nom. I kept up for about a week or so... And like most months, it tapers off towards the end. But, with dinner tonight with J and choir practice tomorrow night and midmonth bills to get done, I'm not holding out much hope.
And I may have to go back to Canton on Monday. And my boss' retirement stuff starts next week. And I have to live in Canton for at least two weeks in April. And... I will have the weekends off, though. At least Sundays. My team leader was that nice to me... And only 10-11 hour days, not 12-14. Much better than the last time I had to work a major outage down there. Too bad I have to either leave on Easter afternoon or early Monday morning to get there.
Okay, enough whining. ^-^ On the bright side, we picked the best possible time for a road trip, weather wise, unlike our visit in February. Beautiful warm temperatures, bright sunshine, and dry roads as opposed to sleet, freezing rain, snow, and semi-plowed conditions, hahaha. Yes, I drove through the Valentine's Day storm. It is going to get cold(ish) again this weekend. *sigh* I can't wait for real spring!
And now, lunch is over, and still no reading for noms. But it is time to get back to this slowly shrinking pile of work. Maybe, if I am very, very productive, I can take Friday off the way I had planned? I might have a shot at noming then! Wish me luck!
Ja ne~