Well…I just have to say…

It’s been a KILLER two weeks at work. Tons of things have been breaking, but I’ve been totally in control.

HANDLING it.

That is a very good feeling

From Homage to Catalonia

It will never be possible to get a completely accurate and unbiased account … …, because the necessary records to not exist. Future historians will have nothing to go on except a mass of accusations and party propaganda. I myself have little data beyond what I saw with my own eyes and what I have learned from other eye-witnesses whom I believe to be reliable

There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.

Another article talked about how people can get very discouraged by the abstract nature of their jobs.

What does it really matter, what most of us do?

And all those TPS reports!

This article says that the rise in home improvement projects is in part motivated by society’s desire to see a real end result of real labor.

my comments are working again. What do you all think? What keeps you motivated at work? Or do you save motivation for home?

I have been hearing the word ‘neocon’ bandied about the last few years. It was said with loathing and warning. But I could never get a good explanation of what it was.

“You know…Like George W. and Cheney.”

But what specifically about them was neo conservative? Just that they happened to be conservative in the ‘neo’ now?

I finally saw an article that talked about neocons.

WSJ again. “The Neocons and Iraq.“

I hope this link works for everyone.

Man oh man. The PMBOK is a masterpiece of english literature. I cannot say that strongly enough.

It’s like a legal document, but one meant to reveal rather than obscure or confuse.

Which is not to say it does not obscure and confuse. wow. The language and clauses are like nothing…and I mean nothing…I have ever seen before.

The utter lack of poetics in and of itself makes it marvelous. I think I remember hearing about John Cage, that crazy composer, doing a piece of music where the melody was created by playing all the OTHER notes. The absence of the melody note was supposed to create the melody.

So, the absence of poetics in the PMBOK is kinda like that. DENSE meaning, Maybe not so beautiful
Or maybe incredibly so on the third or fourth try.

I’m still on the first try. Chapter 3, to be exact. The chapter begins by introducing the 5 process areas of Project Management:
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring & Controlling
Closing

It goes on to explain that these five relate to the (footnote here) Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.

the what?

Excuse me?

Well, frankly, there was no time to figure that one out, even though it was as close to a metaphor as the esteemed PMBOK writers got.

On to learning about what exactly the 5 process groups were.
They were substantial.

But, the ACTUAL assigment for my class is to read the study guide. I am a bit offended my the simplistic view of the assignment: how the hell does a study guide help if you don’t attack the primary SOURCE?

I am a big fan of primary sources.

I staggered up along Sisyphus and read the source. Finished that (TWO DAYS for THIRTY PAGES! I have NEVER taken that long to read something! After this, I’m reading Ulysses). Now I back to the study guide, which is much more approachable.

Guess what study guide says? “Oh, it’s just like Plan-Do-Check-Act!”

WHAT THE %&( is PLAN DO CHECK ACT?

I tried to parse it out. I did. I read it several times. No meaning to be had.

THen I remembered the footnote. And I asked the internet.

WIKIPEDIA TO THE RESCUE!

PDCA

I bless the olympians of wikipedia for their honesty. They freely state that ‘do’ and ‘act’ mean the same thing in english.

That was my main problem with understanding it. That and the lack of will to care. I mean, I had no db field in my brain populated with Plan-Do-Check-Act. Why bring it up now?

That’s the way it goes with academic discourse, though. It’s always like walking into the middle of the conversation, and looking like an idiot while you catch up.

But thank god for wikipedia.

Last night I made a planter box. I’ve been meaning to get a whole bunch of them.

But I have 1 (one) box today.

2 feet by 4 feet. It is solid and unpainted. And It doesn’t have any dirt in it yet.

I bought the seeds. I will have carrots, romaine lettuce and potatoes. Those are the three vegetables that my husband eats.

I haven’t actually got potato seeds…The internet is all against the idea of using supermarket potatoes as seeds.They say that you must have seed potatoes and that using supermarket potatoes is just asking for trouble, and you shouldn’t .I don’t know…maybe I will anyway.

I can grow the carrots and harvest them in april, then plant watermelons.

I got a little seed germinating kit, with peat pellets and a roof to make it kinda like a greenhouse. It will take at least a week for the seeds to grow, and in that time I hope to buy the dirt and put it in my planter box.

I found a cool website that helps me figure out what plants I can grow. Southern California has a longer growing season than a lot of places.

No, not “Revenge of the Nerds.” That’s not it at all.

Movies about science and smart people figuring figuring it out. I love those kind of movies:

Apollo 13
A Beautiful Mind
And the Band Played On
A Bridge too Far
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Conversation
Proof
3 Days of the Condor
Independence Day
Thomas Crown Affair (the original and remake–i like the remake better)

And there are more, I’m sure. They are not the usual types of movies. I’d like to find more of them.

My flowers are blooming. They smell really nice.

FUnny thing about these flowers, they last longer when they are cut.

but I don’t remember any of them.

I was working in San Diego today. On a very tight schedule. I was thinking thoughts, but couldn’t write them down. I was going to blog about them. They seemed blog-worthy.

But I have forgotten.

I spent the evening studying the PMBOK.

My neighbor, who wants to get her california teaching certificate, came over to study.

“This is ridiculous. Why do I have to learn this stuff? ‘Sausserre asserts that the word and its referent are arbitrarily connected’?”

“You don’t have to learn things. You have to pass through the arbitrary hoops that the academic system demands. And so will your students. So taking this test makes you qualified to demand arbitrary knowledge from your students.”

We studied for an hour, and then had a glass of wine.

Chris was off playing basketball with his league. He came home and was telling me about it.

“You’re not listening. Should I not talk to you?”

I looked at him. “I have had a glass of wine. I am listening, but slowly.”

“What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

“Blogging.”

“You’re drunk blogging!”

I wish I could remember the three interesting thoughts I had.

Just as soon as I sign up for a major class, work starts to explode with busy-ness.

That’s just the way it always works..