I woke up this morning to find a warm cat balanced on my hip. Outside there was lovely hoarfrost in the trees, and my windshield was coated with ice.

For breakfast, ate a nice piece of leftover stollen as I was e-mailing a mead recipe to one of my co-workers. For lunch, popped open a can of orange soda and ate a sandwich at my desk.

Payday tomorrow. Giving $50 to tsunami relief.

Three-day weekend coming up. But till then I'm stuck in the basement, running backup jobs and installing Windows 98 again.

It's snowing outside. Everyone else has gone home early. And I'm out of chocolate. Send help!

A.K. Odinsdottir
2004-12-30

This morning I emerged from my basement office to go two out of three falls with a wayward Brother HL-8e laser printer.

There I was in the elevator, thumbing through a fifteen-year-old technical manual in search of PCL escape sequences... ...And singing a Ricky Martin song.

Yup, I'm livin' la vida loca, all right. Think I'll liven things up by cleaning another box of keyboards...

A.K. Odinsdottir
2004-07-16

- Take eight slightly insane housebound cats and two female geeks.

- Pick up 26 stud-length 2x4's (two trips in '89 Cavalier and numerous disbelieving looks from lumber yard personnel).

- Add 75 linear feet of heavy-duty screening; seven pounds of nails; and pot of strong black coffee.

- Swear when it starts to rain.
- Swear at mosquitoes.
- Hit thumb with framing hammer. Swear if desired.
- Go for ice cream.

- Remember that you promised co-workers cookies for summer solstice. Start baking at 8:30 on Sunday night. Collapse in kitchen chair at quarter to midnight; doze off in bathtub; stagger to bed.

- Deliver cookies to co-workers and offer pagan holiday greetings. Try not to think about gazebos.

- Repeat until gazebo is standing and cats forgive you.

A.K. Odinsdottir
2004-06-22

Ah, Saturday afternoon shopping. Six more pre-owned CDs and a new stuffed toy for my collection. It's a ground squirrel. Saw him two weeks ago at the bookstore but a three-headed dragon won my heart that day. Promised I'd come back for him, and I did.

Good heavens... I'm making promises to stuffed toys in stores? I really have to get out more.

Or was 'getting out' how I got into this mess in the first place?

(cranks up German heavy metal CD; sits up and sniffs air; whistles along to "Ich Will," all the while keeping an eye out for large mallets overhead)

A.K. Odinsdottir
2004-04-24

Well, last night I did it... Edited my home page and deleted my whole CV. Don't wanna be an MCSE no more. Don't wanna be a CNE, either. And I don't need an A+ to do hardware.

Sick unto death of the Certification Polka. If I never set foot in a testing centre again, it'll be too soon.

And to think that I used to *teach* this stuff. IT burnout, next three exits (Keep right, please).

A.K. Odinsdottir
2004-03-23