So.
I’m currently sitting at my desk at work. It’s 12:37 AM, Sunday, November 18th. I got out of bed at around 6:00 AM, Saturday, November 17th. I expect to next be in bed at around 4:00 AM this morning.
Why?
Well, I can give legitimate reasons for why I got up yesterday morning at least. The cats were hungry and I had to get to Greenville to shoot Furman’s final game of the season. Had a lovely time, in fact (although my purple guys lost and ended up with the school’s worst season in 18 years). I managed to get my shots delivered to the Greenville News well before my deadline and all was good.
Got home at around 9:30 and *tried* to take a nap, but just couldn’t fall asleep.
Now why am I at the office in the middle of the night? That’s a much more difficult question to answer. Ostensibly, I’m here to help out with a systems upgrade, scheduled to run from midnight until sometime between 2:20 AM and 6:00 AM. My actual participation in this upgrade, however, amounts to about 5 minutes of work to be performed somewhere around 2:00 AM. At least that’s the projected time – and previous upgrades have been notoriously poorly projected.
There are, in fact, 6 people from my team participating in this upgrade – none of whom actually do much of anything. All of the actual work is being performed by one database administrator and two software engineers. My boss, however, is adamant that he wants “butts in chairs” during the upgrades.
So why am I here? I haven’t got the first clue. Chalk it up as just one more reason that I hate this job.
Since I’ve got to be here and awake for the next several hours, I guess I’ll write something in this here blog. Good plan, huh?
The game today, although a bust athletically, was pretty good photographically. The camera that I’ve had for the last 10 days is the new Canon 1Dx – an incredibly piece of machinery that doesn’t seem to have any flaws. I just did some browsing about it – looking for lower prices (I am not at all opposed to gray market purchases) – and was unable to find any. It appears that I’ll be shelling out about $6,700 sometime next year for the camera body. An unheard-of amount for me to pay earlier in my digital camera “career,” but after having shot with the thing for the last three games, I am so in awe of what this camera is capable of doing that I’m willing to spend most of my 2013 bonus to own it.
Of course, I might get that bonus and use it for something more normal – like paying off a few bills – but, somehow, I’ll be shooting next season on the 1Dx. It quite literally opens up high school games (and dark college games) like nothing I’ve ever seen before; and that includes the high-end Nikons that have, until the arrival of the 1Dx, dominated the low-light wars.
We’re nearly two hours into the upgrade now, btw. I still haven’t done anything. Have been web surfing and talking photography with one of the guys on my team.
After tonight’s over, I’m almost out of the woods for a while. I’ve got a concert tomorrow afternoon with the GBB (that’s gonna be fun….I’ll be 80% asleep), but then I’ve got 8 days off. Monday will be mainly a day of sleep, housekeeping and packing. Tuesday, I’ll head to Waukegan for 5 days.
This trip may hold some heart palpitations for me, as it seems likely that Amy and I will be spending some time with most of her family on Friday. I’ve met her folks before (don’t think I horrified them or anything), but now I’ve got to try not to make a fool of myself in front of her siblings, their spouses (spice?), and any of their offspring that come along. “Terrified” is probably not too strong of a word to use here – but neither is “anticipatory.”
I’ll also get to meet (I think) her boss at the music store where she works. My impression is that he might be more protective of her than anybody else, so that should also be an interesting experience. But hey, I need some cleaning brushes for my horn, so I’ll be able to make a good impression by actually buying something from the store….
Switching gears completely, I’ve got a little paint program on my tablet called “Fresh Paint,” and I’ve been having a blast recently by playing around in it and trying to paint Bob Ross style landscapes. For those of you who hate public television, I should explain that Bob Ross is the guy who hosted “The Joy of Painting” for God knows how long on PBS. Although he died several years ago, reruns of Ross’ show still air all the time, and I record them to watch on Sunday mornings. I’ve become convinced that I could go out and buy paint supplies and do a passable landscape painting on my first try simply because I’ve seen Ross do it so many times. I’ve literally come to understand the technique….whether I’d actually have the talent to make something that doesn’t look ridiculous remains to be seen.
Having said all that, it is necessary to point out that a computer paint program is in no ways similar to actual painting, so the whole “Bob Ross on a Microsoft Tablet” experiment is just something that make me laugh – and something that I find both relaxing and enjoyable. I give you, “Swiss Goat Mountain.”
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| “Swiss Goat Mountain” – a painting by me |
It is now 2:54 AM and I have completed my part of the upgrade, which was to push out a new version of a monitoring client to the enterprise. Technically, I have nothing left to do, but I may need to stay here for several hours while other work is being done. I don’t really know why. To make matters interesting, however, there is someone on the call – I swear I am not making this up – who has fallen asleep and is snoring happily. Wish I was.
I think I’ll call this a finished entry for now (at 3:11 AM). Hopefully, I’ll be able to get out of here before too much longer.
TWD