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Feeling the wheels unwind
2007-02-15 - 2:10 p.m.
I've been trying to get involved in cycling. It's still my goal to do
the STP this year (ride from Seattle to Portland, about 200 miles, in
two days). The weather has only recently gotten good enough that I can
get outside and ride without being miserable. So far this season I've
gone on two 50+ mile rides. I'm thinking I can do this. I can get in
shape and do this. But I'm having a problem. The problem is my eyes.
After each of my rides they've been very painful. The first time I went
out wearing my contacts and a pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses wrap
around a bit, but they're not super fancy or anything. That time my
contacts quickly got dried out and everything was blurry for most of the
ride. By the time I got home my eyes were bright red and hurt pretty
badly. I figured the dry contacts were what made my eyes so sore. So
for my second ride I didn't wear my contacts. I just wore my glasses,
which are small and probably don't block much wind at all. And by the
time I got home after that ride, things were worse. Bright red, very
painful, and everything was blurry through my right eye. That night
Lolo and I watched a movie and I fell asleep in the middle because my
eyes were too painful to keep open. Two days later, the vision has
cleared up and the redness has pretty much gone away, but they still
hurt. I made an appointment with my optometrist for this afternoon. I
don't want to tell him that I think the cycling may have caused this. I
don't want him to tell me to stop cycling. Normal people can ride a
bike without losing their vision.Yesterday was Valentine's Day.
Lolo had to work EOR but I was scheduled for project time so I just went
to work at the same time as him. It's only the third time since we've
lived together that we've been able to go to work at the same time and
two of those have been because I was project and went in with him. I
wish our scheduler would take us into account a little more so we could
carpool. But we didn't get done with work until late and I had to work
early this morning so we didn't go out to dinner or anything like that.
He bought me flowers and a card and tickets to a play this weekend. I
bought him a card and a book (The History of Love by Nicole Krauss) and
a couple of CDs (the new Norah Jones and The Little Willies (lead
singer: Norah Jones)). At any rate, things continue to go well between
us. We've set ourselves a deadline: our apartment must be clean by
March 1st. That will be three months here. That ought to be enough.
Really, though, it's pretty clean. It just has certain problem
areas.My parents' birthdays were both last week. My brother and
I pooled our money and bought them a new TV. It's a flat screen LCD,
not too big because the room they put it in isn't huge. They took
pictures of it and I think it looks good. They both seem really happy
with it. I think Lolo and I need to get a new TV one of these days.
Ours isn't horrible, but it's not good either.Lolo and I are
going to Hawaii in just over a month. I'm still twelve pounds over my
weight goal. Obviously I haven't been trying too hard to get there. I
think I'm going to start trying hard again though. Or at least medium
hard. No, hard. I may not lose twelve pounds in a month, but I could
definitely get closer to goal. And besides, even if I don't make it to
goal before Hawaii, getting to goal after Hawaii wouldn't make me
sad. And I hear not being overweight makes it easier to pedal a bike up
a hill. I sure could use a some help getting up those hills.One
of my biggest headaches at work is writing the technician schedule.
Yes, I volunteered to do it and no, I'm not ready to give it up yet, but
it is so relentless. It's never straightforward. There's always
something going on. There's always somebody who's not happy and lots of
people who could be happier if I could figure out how to tweak things
just so. Recently they fired one of the techs. Sure, she was
incompetent, but is that any reason to fire someone? It doesn't seem to
be usually. Honestly, I think we're better off in the long run without
her, but I don't know what actually happened to make them let her go.
One day she was here and the next she wasn't. I disagree with
management's methods on that one. Suddenly I have six weeks of
schedules tailored to fit 40 technicians when we only have 39. That's
thirty shifts that are now uncovered with all of my techs already
scheduled to full capacity. What am I supposed to do? I ended up just
posting a huge list of open shifts and letting the techs sign up for
overtime. If nobody signs up for it, we're short and we scramble. But
I don't see how any of that is my fault. The other issue has been
vacation. With summer coming up, more and more people are asking for
vacation. Which means that I'm having to deny more and more people
vacation time. I can only have so many techs gone at one time, there's
nothing I can do about that. Then there's my tech who buys airplane
tickets to Israel during the busiest month for vacation and then
requests the vacation time after I've already denied the time to six
other people and nearly has a heart attack (literally--imagine him
clutching his chest and staggering around) when I tell him I don't know
if I can get him the time off. How is that my fault? And these are
just the major headaches I've been dealing with recently. There are
three or four little headaches to deal with every day.
Relentless. But, for the most part, people seem to be happy, and that
makes it worth while. I think.
One Good Thing: I'm reading a very good book
Song of the Day: Finding My Way Back Home - Lee Ann Womack
One Year Ago Today: No entry! :-(
8 weeks, 3 days
2012-04-05
8 weeks, 1 day
2012-04-03
6 weeks, 4 days
2012-03-23
6 weeks, 2 days
2012-03-21
5 weeks, 6 days
2012-03-18