Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

July 31, 2003

Dear Everyone:

Greetings from California, the state that thinks the best way to solve its problems is to fire the boss.  This being a “non-election” year, the political pundits are having a field day with the “fruits and nuts” situation.  One columnist pointed out that the recall ballot could end up looking like a smorgasbord.  It only costs something like $3500 and 65 signatures to qualify to get your name on the ballot.

Which could make for a really unusual birthday present for that special hard-to-find-something-for person in your life.

And the weather around here has been almost as topsy-turvy as the politics.  Today, the temperature was in the 80’s… and raining.  Summer rain is considered normal in places like New England, but not here.  Here the days are supposed to be hot and dry, the nights cool and comfortable.  Oh for the good old days.

Meanwhile…

“Jeannie” and I went a little wild last weekend, buying DVD’s.  I got a DVD player (from Mother) for Christmas last year, but so far have only picked up a few movies.  “Jeannie” now has a player, along with a combo TV-VCR to go in her office.  She also has plans to acquire what she refers to as “a walking machine”, something the rest of us tend to call “a treadmill”.  The plan is, she will watch tapes and/or DVD’s while working out on the treadmill.

So we went to one of the big electronic warehouses to look for DVD’s.  We found ourselves in the TV Series Section.  Amazing.  Is there a series you really, really liked once upon a time?  Chances are, you can get it on DVD now.  I picked up the first two seasons of Babylon 5, a classic sci-fi epic.  I will loan these to “Jeannie”, once I come up with a suitable check-out/in system to keep track of them.

“Jeannie” wanted the first season of La Femme Nikita, a show she particularly liked when it was on the USA Network.  We also picked up the first season of Six Feet Under, for Mother.  And something I can’t mention until a certain person’s birthday takes place.

On the work front…

Two of my projects, the telephone operators, and the “Winks” department, have more-or-less been completed.  In the case of the “Winks” department, they sort of decided to handle the issue themselves, once they got the information that I could provide for them.  And the major push for the Global Document Management System has pretty much played itself out.  So, while I will continue to conduct training sessions, there will be less of that to do as well.

Consequently, I had (past tense) some time on my hands.  Until Tuesday afternoon, when a Project was shifted from a co-worker’s “plate” to mine.  I will be helping a “Tiddly” Group in London try to make sense of their filing situation.  Seems the FC (former Company) group had one filing system while the FAC (former “Another Company”) group had something completely different.  They did try combining some of their files, with limited success.  Add the manager’s own set of files, and you have four separate sets that need to be combined.

Does this mean a trip to London?  Too soon to tell.  I’m planning on calling the person in charge tomorrow morning (8:00 am Pacific Time equals 4:00 pm London time) for a little chat.  And to tell her I won’t be working on her Project much right away because I’ll be on vacation next week.

I’m flying up to Portland on Monday.  Mother has two appointments with the specialist on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I’ll hang around on Thursday to make sure everything is OK, then fly home on Friday.  I’m debating with myself whether or not to take the laptop with me.  That way, I could get some work done and stay connected with my email.  On the other hand, how much could I get done versus how much better it would be to relax and watch Six Feet Under with Mother?

I’ll let you know the verdict after next week.

Love, as always,

 

Pete

Previous   Next