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interrupt-driven environment
Saturday, September 29 2012
There is still much work to be done on the web project that I've been working on since May (which has already blown the hardest of its deadlines), and to take care of some lingering issues, the guy I report to thought that the frontend guy and I should come into the office. The original idea had been to do that on Friday, but that was the day that Gretchen went into the city, and (what with Ramona's propensity to shit the bed) it had seemed best that she not be left unattended. So I'd rescheduled the get-together for today, a Saturday. I'd forgotten that today was also the day that Deborah would be moving yet again, and that (as always) she'd conscripted me to help. But I'd helped her for two of her other moves, so I didn't feel bad flaking out this time.
I caught the 7:30 AM bus into Manhattan, which proved relaxingly uncrowded. As has become my recent habit, I got a bagel with vegan cream cheese at Bagels on the Square on Carmine Street, ate my breakfast before an audience of pigeons at Father Demo Square, and then walked to my workplace near the corner of Broadway and Houston. As it happened, I arrived a full hour before my boss showed up, so I ended up sitting on the floor in the hallway waiting for him to show up and unlock the doors (while some contractors installed sheetrock walls in a nearby office). Luckily I could get a WiFi signal, which allowed me to do what I mostly do all day anyway.
Me, my boss, and a frontend guy ended up spending five unbroken hours working on various issues. I have to say, though, that it is hard in such a highly interactive (interrupt-driven) environment to develop the concentration to debug anything much more complicated that an glaringly-self-explanatory software glitch. Throughout those five hours I tried to deal with two issues that were considerably more complicated, and I had to end up shelving them for later.
[REDACTED]
After the workday ended at 4:00pm, I strolled back to the subway down reliably-festive Bleecker Street. For some reason I decided not to duck into any of the many bars I passed for an IPA. I was in a hurry to get home, and buses don't run as frequently on Saturdays.
The bus I caught from Port Authority was absolutely packed, and I found myself sitting next to the kind of guy who just sort of sprawls out of his seat without any concern for the limited spacial resources available (women never do this). Happily, though, he got off in New Paltz, which meant I had a half hour on the bus with nobody sitting beside me. It was only then that I began to eat a dreary container of greasy Asian noodles I'd bought from that heating lamp place in Port Authority.
After getting off the bus in Kingston, I bought a sixer of an unknown IPA from the new beer store across the street from the Trailways Station (in the place that used to be a Friendly's).
I also bought three rolls of duct tape from the new CVS adjacent to the station to replenish my now completely-depleted supplies. I always want to have a roll of it available in the boiler room (for emergencies), another in the shop, and third in the laboratory. I surprised to discover that these days a good-sized roll of duct tape costs nearly $8, which seemed expensive to me.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?120929 feedback
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