Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

May 1, 2003

Dear Everyone:

Last week I actually completed a project.

This is amazing because, in the past, projects never got completed.  They just got moved to the back burner until they faded from sight.

Of course, this was only a little “rainy day” project, some clean up from a much larger project that I had nothing to do with.  Mostly, it consisted of finding certain Web pages from the merger with That Other Company and getting them into one of the electronic document management systems.  Something I would work on when not busy with “more important” stuff.

But last Friday, I realized that I was this close to finishing.  So I stayed late and got the last one transferred and now the project is officially completed.  I’m feeling such a sense of accomplishment.

Not like with “Jeannie’s” computer-printer issue.  We haven’t done anything with that since last week.  Mostly, we got our hair cut and went to the movies last weekend.  So the printer issue is still sitting in a bag on “Jeannie’s” living room floor.  Better luck next weekend.

However, I have an appointment with my Homeowners Association board of directors Saturday morning.  Starting at the ungodly hour of 9:00 a.m., we’re going to do a tour of the grounds to look at landscaping.  We’ve done this twice before; in fact, that’s partly how I wound up on the board to begin with.  It shouldn’t take much more than an hour or so.  We walk through the complex, looking for plants that are old, or aren’t doing too well and “advise” the gardener as to what to do about it.  (“What kind of bush will grow well there?” we ask.  Then we recommend that the gardener plant whatever he suggests.)

As for work, apart from the miracle of a completed project, I’m still hip-deep in the document management system.  In addition to training, I’ve been helping out with testing some enhancements.  Now I’ll be working on revising the training materials to deal with the enhancements.  Then we need to schedule special training sessions to teach the people who’ve already been trained on how to use the new enhancements.  And so on, and so on, and so on…

Did I mention we went to the movies?  We saw Identity.  It stars John Cusack and Ray Liotta and a lot of other good, if unknown, actors.  Through a series of seemingly unrelated events, a group of strangers end up together in a place from which they have no escape.  Soon, people begin to die.  Think Brian De Palma meets Rod Serling, with lots and lots of rain.

Cusack plays a limo driver who used to be a cop.  Liotta is also a cop.  So when people begin to be murdered, they naturally start investigating.  Mysterious things happen.  More murders.  Just when you think you’ve figured out whodunit, “Darn!  My best suspect just got killed.”

Then comes a twist that would have made Hitchcock proud.  Best I’ve seen since The Sixth Sense.  No matter who you think the killer is, you’re wrong.  Except for “Jeannie” who claims to have figured it out five minutes into the film.  Personally, I like to let the suspense drag on a little longer than that.  Definitely worth the price of a matinee.

Love, as always,

 

Pete

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