Man at Work

Many a time in a blog post I've blurted out about how busy I sometimes get at the office. Well here it is again, for the last several weeks it's not just being overly busy but has become much more intense as well. Ever since I've had this job every day seems to fly by, mostly because I enjoy what I do and generally there's a lot of it to do. Doing graphic design within an environmental engineering firm encompasses everything from graphs and charts in reports to covers for project proposals. PowerPoint slide shows and visuals for company sponsored events, the list goes on. Co-workers are actually my "clients", they email, call or drop by my cube for a variety of reasons some of which are beyond producing graphics for their project or proposal, such as removing the date stamp from a photograph, making changes or extracting things from PDF files, sign for a job site, oversized phone list for older eyes. So besides being busy for 23 years I find it hard to be bored but the amount of work I've seen over these last few weeks has been cranked up several notches. The real problem that contributes to the intensity is the effect it has on being creative, adding just the right touch to something that make a visual more effective. I find myself just churning out basic stuff that meets the need, just not as good as it should be. A couple of weeks ago I had my annual review, it was a good one. My manager (not a graphics person) every year is looking for ways of challenging me since as a senior graphic designer I'm at the end of my career path in the company. This is not a problem for me as the items I mentioned near the beginning of this post are what drives me - well that and a paycheck, sick and vacation time come in handy too. He tries hard to come up with things for me to do over the next year though it usually ends up with me being too busy to accomplish those ideas. Regardless I’ve been told I’m getting a raise and that I’m presently working at the increased amount. I’ll figure it out when I get my pay stub.

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated (Mark Twain)

Breaking News – GAME ON! Amazing but true in spite of not having a horse in the race for the NCAA Men's Championship, myself and two other people are the only ones with a chance to win the office bracket pool - and I'm presently leading in points?!? There are points awarded at each round of the tournament and up to this time I have the most and one outcome in next round will determine whether I win or it's between the other two. Here is how it will end:

• Connecticut wins the national title - J.W.
• Connecticut loses the title game - B.S.
• Connecticut loses to Kentucky - me
  

$260 on the line. My original picks had Ohio State and Kansas in the finals, I was mistaken in my earlier post about having Connecticut in the finals. So if Kentucky wins neither of the other two will acquire the points to overtake me. It's pretty unusual how the whole tournament played out not having any of the No.1 or No.2 seeded teams making it to the finals thus allowing some strange scenario such as this to play out. Adds a bit of spice to the whole thing... don't you think?

As the ball bounces

Usually during the time between the end of the NFL Superbowl and the start of the Redsox and Major League Baseball season I go into a kind of semi-hibernation of sports interest. I pay some attention to NASCAR, a bit to the Boston Celtics (NBA), Boston Bruins (NHL) and even some of the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament known as March Madness. This year, for the first time I filled out a bracket for the tournament (at the office, $5) and my attention level has swung to the upside of the "got my attention" meter. What began as 68 teams playing a single game elimination series of games brought the winners of two games each to this weekend known as the "Sweet 16". A lot of these games have come down to victory being decided in the last few seconds, even some in overtime. Though I picked a few losers in my bracket I still had my final four intact - until the first round of this weekend. Ohio State lost in a close game, then in yesterday's second round games Florida lost to Butler but UConn beat Arizona, both very close games. Today my remaining final four pick, Kansas takes on VCU. If they can win and with UConn the following round next weekend they'll face each other in the final (my pick is Kansas). I barely follow college Basketball in the regular season and if someone was to ask me who the best teams were before the tournament began I wouldn't of had a clue. That said the way the game is played by these young men is exciting with hardly any sign of the whining/complaining about referee calls you see from NBA games. Regardless I think I've received more than $5 worth of entertainment.

UPDATE: Well Kansas lost, that breaks my bracket as I had them winning it all. Better luck next year. Since one of the teams I'd picked to make the the Final Four, University of Connecticut, made it I'll root for them to win it all - GO HUSKIES!

On the brink of spring...

... and we get 3 inches of snow first thing today. At least it covers up the old melting, dirty snow.

Knowing that the temperatures would be rising throughout the day I cleaned off the deck in case it took until tomorrow to melt the fresh stuff. No way was this to deter us on our plans for the day. RV and campground show at the Augusta Civic Center.

We had a great time looking around, particularly at several models we liked a lot though the Air Stream shown in the picture would be way out of any price range we have in mind, $63,000.00. Where's that lottery ticket?!? We then left to visit a couple of the local shopping plazas, I was able to check out a Barnes and Noble for my first time and picked up Joel Shepherd's "Breakaway", the second novel in the Cassandra Kresnov trilogy. Also, there were a couple of B&N's e-readers, the Nook available to try out. Meanwhile Carol had gone to the neighboring Michael's to stock up on cross stitching supplies. The next stop included another craft supplier and I picked up a couple of dog items next door.

After working up an appetite we stopped at long-time Augusta lunch icon Bolley's Famous Franks and both of us consumed a sandwich basket of which mine was a hotdog, fries and coleslaw. Carol went with the haddock sandwich. We then finished our travels with a long ride south along the west side of the Kennebec River to Bath then picked up Route 1 to Yarmouth and thereafter home. Oh, all the new snow was gone by the time we arrived home.

Crystal Daze

We had a little freezing rain yesterday, here's what it looked like early this morning.





Surprising in spite of a sunny day and mild temperatures there was a fair amount of ice still clinging to the the surrounding branches.

Getting technical with The Technician

Last weekend I finished reading "The Technician" by Neal Asher. A story that stands on it's own though part of the history took place in a previous book "The Line of Polity" with bits spread among other Asher books. The type of stuff readers of Asher's books revel in. The story reads a little different than most of Neal's books as there isn't as much all out action earlier on as is common in his writing but often as I'd plan on putting the book down after completing a chapter or a point of view section I found myself sneaking a peek beyond and lingering a little longer. Not to say there wasn't a spot of action here and there but there was a fair amount of groundwork to be laid. Sure enough plenty of action was to be had as the story progressed and the twists in the story began to come together I found myself at times reading faster than necessary. Anyone interested in gabbleducks, hooders, clever AIs or millions years old ancient civilizations won't be disappointed. As with all the other of Neal Asher's books I've read I enjoyed it immensely.