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March is supposed to be in like a lion, out like a lamb... but I feel as if I am dragging into the month. Here it is the 3rd and I am just now getting around to putting up an entry. Was just too busy this week, especially with teaching Mon. thru Wed., although I did actually manage to get up an entry for Leap Day, didn't I... Wednesday I was exhausted by the time I sent my students off, certificates of completion in their hands... I had been telling myself that I was going to take off as soon as they left... in fact, all I brought with me to eat was an orange, anticipating that I would be leaving by two p.m. to work at home the rest of the afternoon, but made the mistake of wandering up to our office area and getting into Lotus Notes and discussions of various training issues and working on the problem I've been having ordering extra memory for my new laptop... and my new manager (whom I've never met because I was out of town during her visit in January) arrived in the afternoon so I wanted to meet her... I called her my manager but actually she is my second-line manager who is also filling in as my first-line manager... I like her, she seems sharp and logical and reasonable. So it was probably after six p.m. before I left. Thursday I had planned on working from home, but since she was in town and was holding a dept. meeting, I came into the office around eight a.m. and *sigh* left the office around 6:40 p.m. so after stopping to buy gas on the way, I didn't reach home last night until quarter past seven.
Today I worked from home all day... which meant no time wasted commuting... so I was working from about 7:30 a.m. until around 4:30 p.m. Now I did take coffee breaks from time to time to check email and visit a few journals; on the other hand, I worked through lunch because I was reading (WebSphere Application Servers: Standard and Advanced Editions) while I ate my clam chowder. (What else would you expect a Rhode Islander to eat for lunch?) What I'm trying to do is cram as much WebSphere information as I can into my brain, plus work on Java (and various flavors of Java Beans) and HTML and TCP/IP and object-oriented analysis and design, etc. as I can before I get into another Java class and eventually into WebSphere classes. The WebSphere 2000 conference is coming up at the end of the month and I have been told to attend it and to take advantage of some classes and workshops being given there. I am going to be tied up the week prior to that with a five day class that I will be teaching. Thus, any studying will have to be done now and for the next two weeks. Although I don't have any teaching duties for the next two weeks, there will be lots of other things to interrupt my efforts. There are a couple requests for me to present some classes in the U.K. and so there's a good chance I will have to go to England this spring (either to London or to Hursley, not sure which at this point) and that will mean some technical preparations here plus some administrivia like ordering copies of books and manuals and arranging for shipment, coordinating the efforts of a systems progrmmer in England to load the requisite COPYLIBs, etc. that will be needed. Plus, there is some new information that is still being developed that I need to know as soon as the developers come to some decisions about future product migration paths because I need to enhance my courses with that information... and besides which, I will need to do some course customization to meet the needs of one of the customers. I think between now and mid-summer I'm going to have to do a bit more traveling than I would like but I've already made it quite clear that there is a block of time in June when I cannot travel because Jennifer will be graduating from high school.
My previous entry was for Feb. 29th, so I've only skipped two entries, but from the 29th to the 3rd just sounds as if more days are involved.... The funny thing is, during the past couple days I have posted comments to four different discussion boards run by other online journalers... enough writing altogether to have made both Wednesday and Thursday entries... Where? Squishy and PiperDane and Hourglass and somewhere else but... well, frankly, the house is now filled with teenagers and loud music and I'm not sure now... I had headed off to the store about 4:30 to buy some food and when I got back at 5:00 Jennifer was cooking herself a Gardenburger (one of those imitation hamburger things made from soy and whatever) because she was heading off to go rollerblading with friends. Nancy had to chaparone a seventh grade dance at the school where she teaches, so I had planned on fixing hamburgers (at her request) because she wanted to eat quickly and get on her way. But then Jennifer invited Sean to join her and her friends so he took his burger wrapped in aluminum foil... leaving just Nancy and me here...
Nancy left for the dance around six p.m. and I was here alone until about quarter past seven when at least seven or eight teenagers (counting my own) noisily invaded the house as I was typing the previous paragraph... but after about fifteen minutes of noise and confusion and loud music they left again... (Don't get me wrong... I love having my kids and their friends here even if it can be noisy... it's just that it's difficult to concentrate when they are filling the room!) Well, I think I'm going to post this to my webpage, check email, etc. and go study some more.
The Spreak Freely FebruaryCollaboration theme was Valentine's Day. There are a half dozen entries listed (including mine)... check 'em out. (I would have hoped for a better response rate than that. Could it really be that only six out of the sixty-five journals signed up in the Spreak Freely Webring had entries during the month of February that were in some way related to Valentines Day?)
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