Grind, grind, grumble, grumble. Sometimes, I feel that my goodwill is being sucked out of me.

Some progress made today. My task list for the day is manageable. Sharing gripes with a manager near me about Performance Management, the process and how badly it seems to work here, both for the manager and the employee.

Putting some finishing touches on the resume, getting to apply for two internal positions.

A meeting in the afternoon, and some conversation with the rapidly increasing crowd of pre-divorcee's. Depressing. An on-time departure is prevented by someone else's semi-emergency. I swear, never again.

Still having an unpleasant conversation in my head. Frustrating.

When frustrated, mow the lawn. If still frustrated, wash the bedclothes. If still frustrated, clean the litter box. If still frustrated, do the dishes. If still frustrated, practice. If still frustrated, play. Now, less frustrated.

Organized the day, following the recommendations from class last week. Also, signed up for a conference that is occurring during my intended vacation. An opportunity I don't want to pass up.

Shopping at lunch, related to the L4AAD theme.

Struggling this week. I declared last year, at my 35th birthday, that I was starting my mid-life crisis, and it would last the next 20 years. I was only half-kidding (perhaps only a quarter). I can feel the vestiges of MLC, see them in the periphery, hear them in my head as I walk around. I'm not happy with the conversations I'm having right now inside my head. They don't bode well.

Home for dinner and walkies. More Olympic madness, including beach volleyball on Telemundo, badminton, more swimming. Not at all upset that the well paid NBA team lost (they looked so sad).

2004.08.14 - Saturday
My first non-work day in over 2 weeks. Slept in, as we were up late after taking our nephew to see the Yu-Gi-Oh movie. Not bad considering the low-level murmur of all the 7 to 13 year-olds in the audience. The only annoying thing was the trio of early teens tittering through the entire movie. Afterwards, dinner at the Golden Dragon, home to pick up the dog, and drive Addy home. Some time with Addy's mom.

Basically, the day was pretty low key. Did some shopping and let Lisa nap. Assembled a shrimp dish, and then went down to my sister's for a niecely birthday party. Fairly quiet (not all that many kids). Did my best to keep up with piggy-back rides. Some mellowness while watching "Dumb and Dumber". Home again to find that I had forgotten flowers for my sister.

90 minute practice yields a fairly complete piece of new music, with some other sections lurking. A nice piece with a bass that did something very unexpected. A dash upstairs to get it into PowerTab, due to unfounded fears that I might lose it.

Rest of the (late) night spent watching the Olympics with a break for "Wolf's Rain". Why would you show sailing without the sound?

Tuesday found me geting my lease replaceent for my work laptop. Joy! I can finally retire this wheezing beast and replace it with some new hotness. Amazing the things that can make me happy. Volleyball in the evening (lethargic, pathetic showing) and back to work to complete some work that turned up because others ability to plan is non-existent.

Wednesday was relatively quiet, and I managed a normal length workday. A friend reminded me of a conference in Boston that I wanted to go to. Inquiries sent out. Registered for the PMP prep class in Morristown, New Jersey in November, and my PMP exam in December. Also sent in my registration for the graduate center.

Thursday found me in a Frankin-Covey training class, teaching me how to adequately utilize my new Franklin planner. Good class in general. Home, and catching up with the things I missed during the day, as the Hotel wireless connection was for shit. An invitation from Victor to perform with the current version of the NEGC/NERP. Now, to practice, and then to bed.

A few minor issues pop up after the upgrade, including one very unexpected one regarding how Domino handles URLs. This is resolved quickly (fortunately) with the help of third party support for the affected application.

I noticed a habit yesterday. As I leave work, I put my badge in the console of my car, so as not to forget it. Now, this is an intentional habit, one that I have created so I will not forget my badge, and thus never be locked out of my building or my office at work. This might fall into the category of "good" habit, as it allows me to come to work without worry about being admitted to the building. Upon reflection, I notice that it is a "bad" habit, in that I am allowing myself to forget where my badge is. I don't need to remember, since it's right where it belongs. This is bad, in those occasions where I don't put my badge in the console, and I get to work (an hour later) without being able to enter the building.

Good news arrived in the e-mail today: my application for the PMP exam has been approved. All I need to do now is schedule the exam prep class, and the exam itself. I can also see the Themes II site. A good day indeed.

"Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. There are positive consequences when we live in harmony with principles; there are negative consequences when we ignore them. Principles apply to everyone, whether they are aware of them or not. The more we know of correct principles, the greater our personal freedom to act wisely."

Got home, and the backups were still running. They didn't finish until after 1:00 AM, and then some other oddities have dragged this out. It's now 3:00, and I'm most of the way there.

It's cold this morning. Perfect weather for October, not the beginning of August. I just flashed back to summer camp. I can imagine how miserable they are right now, given that it was hot and humid at the start of the week.

Checking the AAD site, there is a notice that I never saw for Phase II of the themes. Thus, I wasn't participating. An e-mail to the Themes mentor has hopefully addressed this. Hope returns.

Hope dwindled to zero. More work, and a new twist to a process for tonight means I must take more time...

Through concerted effort, most of my task list for work has been attended to. One more thing that can clearly be completed today, and there will be but three things left on the list, some of which require others to take action before I can complete them. After a day of despair yesterday (which left me in bed at 8:30 PM), I've managed to shake the feelings and move on. This is good, as I face work items for the whole weekend, most challenging being the upgrade of an application server. The challenge isn't the upgrade; this is the straight-forward part. The challenge is in completely backing up the system, in case of failure, and marshalling other resources to test once the upgrade is complete.