April 26, 1989
Dear Everyone:
We are having the strangest weather here. Two weeks ago, I had the air conditioning on; this week it’s the furnace. This is the last week in April and there’s SNOW on Mount Diablo. Yesterday I looked out the window of my office on the 13th Floor to see if it was raining – only a few sprinkles. Still, I took my umbrella with me for insurance; and by the time I’d reached the ground floor the skies had opened up. Rain was bouncing off the pavement.
Not that I’m complaining, mind you. We need the rain. The drought has been officially cut back to 15% (meaning cut your consumption by 15%) from 25%; but it would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about it at all.
Saturday it rained and the air smelled so good that I opened all the doors and windows (ignoring the fact that it was only 63 degrees) to let the fresh air in. Then I sprinkled carpet fresh everywhere and did a super vacuum job (super vacuuming means that you move light pieces of furniture instead of just going around them) and was so inspired that I cleaned both bathrooms and the kitchen stove.
I guess that was this year’s Spring Cleaning. Don’t expect it to happen again for another year.
I also moved my wind chimes on Saturday. “Rowena” had talked me into buying them when we were at Costco a few weeks ago. After I got them hung from the balcony over my patio, I discovered that my patio is so protected from the wind that they never chimed. I had though about placing a new hook in the balcony but there are two problems involved.
Problem 1: Since I paid for the place, I am loath to put holes in it.
Problem 2: Placing a hook in the balcony requires using the step ladder which is not tall enough. So you put the yellow pages on the top step of the ladder. Then, because the yellow pages can be a little slippery, you put a small piece of board left over from some project on top of the yellow pages. Then you stand on tip toe on top of the board and try to drill a hole in the wire mesh in the balcony.
With an electric drill that has a penchant for getting stuck in whatever you’re trying to drill into. Necessity is a mother.
(Memo to self: Buy a decent step ladder. 6 feet or higher.)
However, before I drilled any more holes, I thought I would try a simple switch. I put the rainbow wind sock on the hook where the wind chime was and the wind chime where the wind sock was. Because the wind sock is very light, even though it’s near the patio wall, it still dances in the breeze. And the wind chime, being in the center of the patio now catches the wind gusts that go by – and it chimes!
But not too often. I wouldn’t want to drive my neighbors, not to mention myself, crazy. These chimes are (relatively) heavy metal rods that take more than a slight breeze to move. And when they do ring, they sound like bells. Not at all like someone incessantly stirring their iced tea at 3:00 in the morning.
In other news…
Schedule Rewrite Project. This time we barely got one line into Scenario 4 when “Holtz” went charging down a side path like Alice after the White Rabbit. We never did get back to the main subject. At this rate we’ll never finish (there are 17 scenarios and the list grows every week).
However, it may be that something is going to be done about this. We’ve been informed that we should not show up for tomorrow’s meeting (Reprieve!!!); “Holtz”, “Sue” and “Rowena” are going to review how the project is going and possibly map out a different route for us to follow (and maybe find a way to keep “Holtz” on Planet Earth).
Last Monday, I was in a meeting with some people in ETD (“Enabling Technogiggles Department”). We expected about 9 people; but the thing “mushroomed” and there were more like 2 dozen there. They are one of the groups who are bankrolling the “IDHS” project. For those of you who threw away your copy of the Glossary of “Company” Terms, “IDHS” stands for “Integrated Document Handling System”. It’s an electronic indexing system for keeping track of records.
They have a Central File Room and 25 “satellite” file rooms and want some guidance on starting up with “IDHS”. “Murray” and I will be working most closely with “Terri Riggs”, their Records Coordinator. “Murray” will handle the Records Retention Schedule aspect of it, and I will work on their Active Files and actually using “IDHS”.
Our liaison with the “IDHS” Project Team, and therefore the person to ask questions about “IDHS”, is our old friend “Holtz”.
Oh, frabjous joy, I thought, I get to work DIRECTLY with “Holtz”.
Ask this man the time of day and you get a detailed schematic on how to build an atomic clock, the history of time pieces up to the present day and predictions of the direction that time-keeping technology will follow into the next century. He is incapable of give a simple, straight-forward answer to a simple question. Ask him if the sun rises in the East, and you get a menu of options to choose from.
Then I remembered that “Terri Riggs” is also on the “IDHS” Project Team. And she probably knows as much, if not more, about how “IDHS” works as “Holtz”. So I can get her to answer my questions.
Another reprieve.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |