Make It So, Mr. Data

First of all: You guys are so nice.

The comments you leave on my posts and my Facebook page make me smile. And please know that because only, like, 12 people read this blog, every single click and like and comment means a million times more to me than blogs that get a million times more traffic.

So thanks.

Totally.

On to today's blather.

I did warn you that this week would be all about the house and the move. I wasn't lying.

This afternoon I worked at home because the contractor came out to fix our foundation. Which is funny, because if our foundation weren't jacked up, they wouldn't have to come out to jack it up.

That's North Texas clay soil humor. Thank you to those nodding your head in perfect understanding.

J.R. knows. J.R. gets me.

Praise the Lord and pass the cyanide capsule, this should be the last contractor that comes out before we close on the house next week. Otherwise...well, my new, unlived-in apartment is on the fourth floor and has a balcony ripe for swan-diving.

Let's just assume it won't come to that.

Anyway, for the last week I've been working on data management for a big project at work. Specifically, I've been downloading hundreds of files and sorting them into dozens of subfolders in a bunch of folders located on a server halfway across the country.

It's been a long, slow, tedious process. And I was a little trepidatious (which I'm declaring totally a word, despite spellcheck and my online dictionary calling bullshit on it, because I'm not a woman to be trifled with, dammit) about continuing the process at home, because it meant accessing the remote server even more remotely, via my home network. I did not have high hopes for my productivity. And I wasn't too excited by the prospect of spending a lovely afternoon at home yelling at my stupid computer, either.

So imagine my surprise when I got on my wifi, accessed the remote server, and proceeded to fucking blaze through files like a cyber-knife through cyber-butter, if you get my cyber-drift.

I was taken aback by the efficacy of my connectivity,
as it were.

In four hours I was able to get done what most likely would have taken two full workdays to accomplish at the office. Granted, my kitchen wasn't populated with twentysomethings who apparently can't think unless they have an earbud jammed in their head and are eating bandwidth via Pandora. But still, I was impressed by what my little home wifi connection was able to handle.

I mention this mostly because, due to getting so much shit done, I was also able to arrange internet and TV service at the new apartment this afternoon. I got a good deal and a free equipment upgrade, so at the new place, I'll have internet that's twice as fast as what I experienced today.

With that kind of speed, I will literally be able to digitize myself and live in the goddamn cloud.

That's right. Just like this.

OK, maybe not literally. But I'm definitely going to have a great big bucket of data sitting in my living room, ladling out squirrel gifs and "Conan" sketches as if they were free soup at a homeless shelter.

Possibly an insensitive simile. I apologize to the homeless and squirrels.

I like the internet, basically.

Next up: Ordering checks with my new address on them. Checks, LOL.

I'm just old school that way.

Dream Symbolism for the Extremely Dense

As I grow older, my dreams seem to be dropping all attempts at nuance or complex symbolism in favor of slapping me in the face with the Trout of Obviousness.

It's the one on the right.

Last night, following a bout of imsomnia likely brought on by hours of anxiously waiting to hear that Precocious Daughter had landed safely in New York (she did, after a 90-minute delay), I was delivered a whopping Captain Obvious-fueled dream about my life. Freud would have seen interpreting this dream as an affront to his professional dignity.

"I can't even with this dream. smh. lol" is I believe what
he would have said.

So, I dreamed I repeatedly jumped or fell from a crumbling structure and plunged into deep water, struggling - but always managing - to swim to the surface before I drowned.

Sometimes I was foiling a crime. Sometimes I had sidekicks. There was a sighting of the late Omar Sharif. But that was the scene that played out in my sleeping brain, with minor variations for dramatic effect, over and over until my alarm went off.

My subconscious is being unsubtle. Presumably it's had enough of my nonsense and is reduced to screaming "YOU GOT THIS! GEEZ!!!" from inside my head.

Perhaps you agree with my subconscious on this. I am sounding like a broken record these days.

This one. It's probably a disco record, and it's
endlessly skipping on the Bee-Gees singing
"Ah-ah-ah-ah, st--Ah-ah-ah-ah, st--"

Jumping, crumbling, plunging, struggling, surviving. What does it mean?

Sometimes you gotta hit in me in the head with the message. Or with a door.

Here's another part of my dream: I was invited to a party on a boat. There were two access points: One led to people talking and laughing, the other would allow me to explore a different, but empty, part of the boat. I took the latter. But it turns out that what I thought were two entrances to the same boat were actually two separate boats, and the one I was on came loose from its moorings and started to drift. When I drifted into view of the party boat, my boat capsized, and the people just laughed at me and went back to their party.

I woke up before I could discover whether I survived that misadventure.

But I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

Show Me (What to Do with) the Money

So on the one hand, I got an unexpected bonus at work today.

Not a fortune, but a nice little sum and a very nice surprise.

On the other hand, I had an absolutely brutal day at work.

Part of me feels that I need to just blow that surprise bonus on fun, fun, fun. Because I deserve it, and because it would help to justify the crap I have to go through on days like today.

But another part of me sees the extra money as a valuable addition to my little nest egg, the one that very soon will enable to me to get on with my life.

Because yesterday I found out that our current situation is much harder on Precocious Daughter than I previously suspected. That's from her own mouth. She wants to move on.

In that case, every dollar counts. And less fun now will help us both find more happiness in a little while.

Of course, all the money in the world won't buy me courage.

But I'm leaning toward the nest egg. Because to me the future looks bright, and I want it to get here as soon as possible.

What do you think, Drunkards?