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a good day and a heavy load
Wednesday, December 7 2022
Today I was determined to have a complete Wednesday, so I started the morning with a 150 milligram dose of pseudoephedrine and began painting a small painting of a snail, using another old credit card for a canvas. This painting would "buy" me (under my personal booze rules) the ability to drink alcohol today. I then elegantly solved a problem in the remote workplace involving duplicate records. It was my last task of the sprint, and it was good to put into QA. (That is, the process of quality assurance. To avoid conflicts of interest, QA is always done by someone who did not do the actual development.)
Every third Wednesday in the remote workplace is a day filled with meetings, most of them related to the end of sprint in the Agile task-completion work methodology we employ. Despite days off for Thanksgiving and my reduced productivity from illness, the team managed for the first time (at least since I began working with them ten months ago) to complete all of our tasks. Just me completing all my tasks amounted to a huge milestone in my assimilation within the web team. Remember, I've experienced repeated occasions of self-doubt and what some might characterize as burnout. This because of the steep learning curve I experienced when trying understand the arcane inner-workings of software designed to interact with the different taxing regulations of diverse American municipalities. But feeling like I was finally carrying my weight on the team was exhilarating. It made me feel great for the rest of the day, even if the only actual coding I did lasted about an hour (what I mentioned in the first paragraph).
At noon today, I went to the white ash I'd cut up just west of where the Stick Trail crosses the Chamomile and assembled a backpack load so heavy that I was in danger of collapsing as I climbed the mountain goat path behind the woodshed. After getting the backpack down to the ground in our yard (a process that is basically a controlled fall), I lay on the ground for awhile to give my heart and lungs a chance to recover from the enormous ærobic assignment I'd given them. I was so exhausted (and sweaty, given the continued unseasonable warmth) that I didn't split the wood until later. All of it went directly into the woodshed; I haven't had to burn any firewood for a few days.
The only booze I had to drink during the sprint retrospective (which I always treat as a happy hour) was scotch, but it was perfect for the mood. It's more a chance to socialize than anything else, and we were all in a somewhat celebratory mood because, for the first time anyone could recall, we'd completed all our tasks. At some point Joe the lead developer posted picture of former Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer drenched in sweat, saying that he was a big fan of cocaine. "Cocaine is a message from god that you have too much money," I observed. This isn't an original statement from me, but nobody else on the team had ever heard it before, so Joe was sure to include it in the part of our interactive mural (provided by mural.co) for action items in our next sprint.
I'd sobered up enough by the end of the workday to drive to the Hurley vet to pick up more medications for the dogs. Ramona came along with me, though Neville was with Gretchen at the bookstore. While I was out, I went to the Ghettoford Hannaford to return some cans for deposits and buy a few staples (soup, Ben & Jerry's icecream, oat milk, broccoli, spaghetti, Cherios and Special K cereal, tostadas, saltine crackers, oyster crackers, and a 12 pack of Hazy Little Thing IPA). I then bought a half gallon of gin from JK's Wine and Liquor.
This evening I was mostly watching the chaotic third season of Love is Blind, though when Gretchen returned home, we watch Jeopardy!. Later, 150 mg dose of diphenhyrdramine knocked me out while was watching more Love is Blind, and I didn't wake up until a little after 11pm. Gretchen assumed I'd been drinking booze all that time, and asked "are you wasted" when I eventually emerged from the laboratory. "No," I said truthfully, and went to bed.
Today's snail painting.
A double-flip version.
A bit of the mural.co mural during today's sprint retrospective, showing part of the "what went right" quadrant. I finally figured out how to colorize icons, which allowed me to tell the story of a large wolf who ate a hapless human via doodled icons. There's usually at least one fart icon, which (in this case) Joe posted and I elaborated upon with colored icons "sent to back."
The Chamomile, running strong from recent rains, viewed from the northeast as it crosses the Stick Trail. The bluff I've been getting wood from is in the background.
Click to enlarge.
The west end of the stone wall at the Stick Trail today.
Click to enlarge.
The stone wall today, viewed from the south.
Click to enlarge.
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