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While using my lunch hour to test the setup for the upcoming conference call that my business is having tomorrow, I was asked a highly amusing question. I had a Polycom conference phone set up at the table in front of me, on which were the voices of four other people at our different sites who were all discussing the technical requirements for the meeting. At the same time, I had a laptop open in front of me showing a WebEx meeting with streaming video of a tech from one of the sites as we tested that functionality as well. As I sat listening intently to the discussion and playing around with WebEx since I'd never used the software before, I was approached by someone to ask "Are you in the middle of something?" Oh, no, not at all! I just thought I'd monopolize a cafeteria table and borrow my company's five-hundred dollar speaker phone to chat with a few buds. It's fortunate that this was amusing, because I have such a stupidly large amount of stuff that I need to be doing there that the occasional touch of comic relief (provided nine times out of ten by the end users I deal with) goes a long way toward keeping my sanity points from burning away faster than a Miskatonic University undergrad's who's just bumped into Nyarl-hotep washing a load of his underpants down in the dorm laundry room.

I put the new belt onto the wash machine today after work. "But Storm: didn't you do that already?" Well, yes. However, the new belt was a little too large so my mate picked up a slightly smaller one today. The washing machine seems to be running much more steadily with it. The lack of burning rubber smell caused by a slipping belt is also a plus. I also felt oddly good about myself as I watched the churning guts of the machine and mapped out in my mind how the thing operated. "It's really not that complex a device" I though to myself. "I think I could actually fix this thing, and not just the belt." I was surprised to realize that, rather than the motor continually switching directions to agitate the clothes as I expected it would, the motor actually runs in one direction continually and there's an electrically actuated transmission that switches from unidirectional rotary motion for the spin cycles to alternating bidirectional motion for the wash cycles. That's really cool! I also realized, as the drum began to shake back and forth with stronger and stronger motions, nearly throwing itself right out of the uncovered back of the machine, that there's probably a reason beyond aesthetics that the back cover is bolted on so tightly.

There has been a lot of stress in my life of late. Driving down to visit lisagems on Wednesday night was absolutely not part of it. I feel so much better after spending a few hours in pleasant company. She introduced me to Firefly which I was very much impressed with. What a marvelous show! I am therefore not at all surprised that it didn't last on TV. *sigh* After just the pilot and the first episode, I'm hooked nearly as well as I was on Babylon 5, and that's saying something. Beyond that, Lisa provided some fantastic food which I enjoyed, even though it had sweet potatoes which were a little bit scary. And, odd as it seems, I really enjoyed being able to hear the noise of the steam heating system. I don't think I've ever been that close to a functioning steam radiator and it was really neat! I didn't get home until slightly after midnight and dragging myself out of bed in the morning was a real task, but it was worth it. Thank you for brightening my week Lisa!

And now, I'm going to play my hour of DDR that I've missed for the last two days. After the mouth-watering gorgonzola-alfredo pasta that my very talented chef of a mate prepared for our anniversary today (yes, three years to the day [give or take a few hours] since we met!), I definitely need the work out.