Keeping track of days...
While a soldier, back in the 1960s and 1970s you knew what day it was because you were in a countdown...so many days and a "wake up." Then you were gone. FTA all the way and all such stuff. At one point I kept track by hours which was probably overkill.
Yesterday I thought it was January 16th. Today is January 16th. At points I always new if it was Wednesday. That was the day the Powerball was picked and that would mean the end of going to work. Saturday was Powerball day, too, but it was clearly Saturday since I was not at work although there was probably some work ocurring.
In the absence of a real job, a dumb job the days do begin to flow together a bit. It's possible that this flow opens up the creativity a bit rather than compressing it between a start time and an end time or putting a bad taste on it in the concept of "really long work days."
For the last couple of days I set my alarm (iPhone) with the intention of getting up and getting to work, in all the contexts I've previously addressed. For the last couple of days when listening the the alarm, I "swiped" it to put it rest, thought about getting up and delayed the conversion from horizontal to vertical orientation. As a nerd I should have said moving from a landscape orientation to a portrait orientation.
I've also been obsessing about getting a haircut, not having had one for three months, and thinking that I might want to impress someone. At 63 I'm not sure that you can impress anyone positively on appearance but it's never been my style to be unkempt. Casual would be the standard. Formal the exception.
Walking Familiar Corporate Trails...Barbers
Barbers are important. With a couple of very brief exceptions I have two barbers in my adult life. The first lasted from 1973 until 2010. The second has been from 2010 through today. Nina was a recommendation from a co-worker at the 27-year gig and she was located close by and on the Skyway System. For those unfamiliar with downtown Minneapolis, all the primary buildings are connected with second floor corridors for pedestrian traffic and skyways between buildings.
Downtown Minneapolis is a thirty minute drive from our home suburb and parking is expensive. I decided to park in the Target store parking garage, make a quick trip to the barber and then buy $20 worth of miscellany at Target to get my hour of free parking. This happens to be the same building in which I worked from 2001 to 2013 of my 27-year gig. It was inevitable that I would encounter a former co-worker wandering the Skyway. I did.
It was an easy encounter with quick waves and a few words. He asked if I was coming upstairs to visit. "No." "Hey, everyone would like to see you." Not everyone would. I declined citing an appointment. That was true. I was on the clock trying to avoid $5-7 of parking fees.
Nina and I had a nice chat. She does a very professional cut and has a lot to say. We talked about our families, Facebook and good TV series to follow. She has blue hair. Always she asks me "are we going standard or what." I always respond "standard, I guess." I can only imagine what would happen if I suggested hair liberty.
When I left downtown I committed to Nina that I'd keep going to her for cuts. I'm not going to park in my old building next time. It felt bad, more of an old trail than something new and fresh.
So now I have a haircut and look good. It's Friday and I've been trying to get the same two projects done for two weeks. Friday AM I'm lining up some caffeine and putting in 2-3 hours before helping at the small business for an hour or so and then heading back to the home office. Given that it's Friday (the day before Powerball day) I may cut out early since I'm pretty much cut out all the time.
I have been thinking about Javascript and Ruby on Rails a lot.
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