Ora et Labora

It’s the end of the day and I’ve only just now gotten to this. I need to set up the Obsidian system I have on the laptop on the mac mini so I can easily do this at 9AM when I’m at the office desk.

Today: I really do wonder how many of those who claim they were hoodwinked by the University of Austin’s promises were genuinely naive and how many are just trying to cover themselves after the fact.¹

Status: I spent the day organizing some things that have sat around for the six months since the move. The guest bedroom now have a TV and a PS3 that seems to have a dead WiFi card.

Reading: I’m 40 pages from the end of The Blood in Winter, which is now what I owe the library until I return it.

Listening: Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It’s a absolute shame Waters has gone completely off the deep end in the last decade or so.

Last Watched: The weather because we’re apparently going to get some actual winter this weekend. Hooray for 4-8 inches of snow and for the frigid temperatures that will keep the possibility of over an inch of ice well to our south.

The cat demanded his treats this morning sounding like a beached whale and decided to not stop until he was acknowledged. So no sleeping in on the long weekend.

Today: The annual day off where people pretend to care about MLK Jr. but not actually grapple with or consider what he stood for or did.

Status: Far sleep, minus the wakeup, so not bad overall.

Reading: We should all be Luddites

Last Watched: They’re showing the Lord of the Rings trilogy in theaters this weekend and next for the 25th anniversary. I fell asleep when watching Fellowship in the theaters when it first came out and never rewatched it or the other two. Now I’ve seen Fellowship. It was fine.

Today:

McKinsey wants to hire you, but only if you train the AI that will replace you

Status: I’ve started to remember to regularly take Flonase before bed and it really does help reduce the morning crap. The downside is when I forget, like last night, it kind of sucks the next morning.

Reading: I have two books overdue at the library and yet I read Le Carre’s Constant Gardener on the bus. Although in my defense, it was an ebook and didn’t require turning on the overhead light.

Listening: The classic rock from the bus driver this morning. First day back on the shuttle and I left the headphones in the office.

Last Watched: The Naked Gun, Liam Neeson version. It was fine, although putting the best joke about OJ in the trailer was a really terrible idea.

Slow start, largely brought on by the renewed annoyance that there’s simply too much out there to read and process.

Status: Grading syllabus quizzes and trying to clean out reading materials everywhere I look.

Reading: Made no progress on Blood in Winter, sorry people at the library waiting on it, but I did start the history of the Edmund Fitzgerald…that’s due today.

Listening: Have you ever appreciated how weird Sting’s solo catalog is? Because it is.

The lingering cold kicked any ideas of productivity yesterday, but did manage to organize some basic things and read about the worst season in TV history

Today: Lincoln dies and we talk about Oklahoma’s geology in lectures

Status: The Mac Mini decided it didn’t want to log in yesterday and it was looking dicey if it’d survive without a trip into recovery mode and a time machine backup. Unplugging everything made it work so at some point need to diagnosis what exactly the issue was.

Reading: Made no progress on Blood in Winter, sorry people at the library waiting on it.

Listening: Panic World went to Minneapolis and boy is it a depressing listen.

Last Watched: I started Mad Men before the Christmas Break and really need to finish the first season.