jducoeur

A fabulous demo: Yes, it got its own entry. But it has still left me in a better mood than I have been in a while. I'm keyed-up, in a good way.

Anticipation of another: Fingers crossed, tomorrow is the MIT Midway, and it's high-stakes. Carolingia is very dependent on MIT, and the results of this demo will largely determine whether we get to continue using it. So I'm hoping for good results. (And for managing to actually *retain* some of the ones we attract, which is another and more difficult problem.)

Good pizza and champagne: Today was the official move-in lunch for the company, with pizza from Flatbreads (yay!), champagne for all (yay!) and nice short speeches (yay!).

Game night: You'll probably hear this one periodically, but reasonably regular attendance at a good game night is quite good for my head. I enjoy modern games every bit as much as period ones, and it's been teaching me that, while I'll never be a strategic genius, I am really pretty good at picking up a game and running with it. There's something satisfying in being a quick study.

Being contactable: One side-effect of the move is that I finally have a phone on my desk. Given that cell coverage in this building is iffy at best, this removes another stressor...

Having a card key: Okay, it's mundane, and a little sad that I need one. But it means that I can now get into the cafeteria without having to scratch at the door like a stray puppy.

Demo season arrives: And my adrenaline levels go through the *roof*.

It illustrates the nature of my stress and burnout, really. I'm slightly dreading the return of dance practice, because that's become a "job" in my brain -- the feeling of *needing* to be there, of being in charge, of having to make all the decisions: four years in that role is enough. But demo season is all short-term, and low-responsibility. I typically find out about the demos with too little notice to really get stressed about them (finding out about today's Duncharloch demo this morning isn't unusual), and I'm not in charge per se, just a loud helper.

So despite the sudden arrival of demo season with only about six hours' notice, throwing my day into utter chaos, I'm really quite looking forward to it.

Having a sufficiently flexible workplace: Yay for being able to tell my boss, "I'd really like to take a short day; can we move this meeting back to 2pm?", and not getting flack about it.

The project revs up: My noontime meeting today was with the product manager for the system I'm working on, as the VP of Engineering and I sat on him to push things out. I feel for him -- he knows the subject area really well, and has never been a product manager before, so he is for the first time learning the distinctive pain of trying to decide what *really* needs to be in the first hands-on demo, what can wait until later in the cycle, and what will just have to wait for a later release.

But that said, the fact that we're down to doing the first serious prioritization pass of the story stack shows that the project is starting to become Real. After months of talking and speculating and negotiating and designing, we're now starting to really *build* the thing. Drawing the sketches is never quite as much fun as taking the chisel in hand and starting to carve out the sculpture.

Less healthy food: Okay, you remember yesterday's salad? There is a certain joy from knowing that I can now eat reasonably healthily. There is an entirely *different* joy taken from a fresh pasta dish. Oh, it pretends to be healthy, putting a veneer of peas and tomatoes in for cover, but the reality is that it's comfort food. (Anything that involves pasta and cream sauce is by definition comfort food.) Having that *also* to hand doesn't suck either.

Walking to Work: As I was driving home yesterday, it occurred to me that, while the route is a smidgeon hilly for biking (given that I am a tad out of shape), it's just fine for walking. I measured it and found that it's only 4.5 miles. So today I opted to walk to work.

I'd call it a qualified success. It's a *very* pleasant walk, and good exercise. I'm rather looking forward to the walk home this evening. But walking 4.5 Real Miles on Real Road takes quite a lot longer than doing 4.5 Theoretical Miles on the elliptical machine -- it took a good hour and a half to get here at a solid medium walk. (Not rushing, but not a slow saunter either. Crossing a lot of streets slows things down a bunch.) So it's not for every day, but a nice change of pace.

Nice enough weather to walk to work: We're now hovering around my perfect time of year, when it's just cool enough for the sun to feel glorious but isn't really chilly during the day. It was a cool 54 when I left in the morning, but the walk warmed me enough that I didn't miss not bringing a jacket. And it should be upper 60s on the way home, which is just perfect.

New Capes: My acquisition from Council last night was a couple more cast-off capes from Henry V. One of them is Florian's shiny white one. No clue what I'll do with it, but I'll have to find an excuse for something so flashy and fun.

A decent luncherie: The campus has a cafeteria. The cafeteria has a good salad bar. I can't express how happy that makes me.

The thing is, I almost never pack lunch. It's never become part of my mindset -- I've always bought what's available near work. Unfortunately, in the company's old West Concord location, the only thing "available" was the Papa Gino's across the street. And while their Eggplant Parm panini may not be the *least* healthy thing possible (and is rather tasty in a fast-food kinda way), it's not exactly a good diet.

But the cafeteria here has all the trimmings for the sort of lunch I like and should do more often. Spinach and chickpeas and edamame and peppers and mushrooms and *real* balsamic and yum. With a good salad bar, you really don't need much else.

Being part of the world: Wonder of wonders, I am (perhaps fleetingly) caught up on LJ, and have a clue what is going on with my friends. Not the same as getting to see them more often, but at least it's something...

Okay, this is a good habit -- I was in it for a while and lost track of it, but I'm going to try to follow mermaidlady's example, at least occasionally.

1) Moving to a new office. Simply on general principles, this is fun. I'm a novelty-centric lifeform, and I find it refreshing to be in new digs. (And for my money, the new digs are an improvement in just about every respect.)

2) Moving to a new office that is much closer to home than my old one. The new commute is < 25 minutes even if I go a bit out of my way and stop at Starbuck's. For the first time in decades, msmemory and I are working close enough that we can get together for lunch.

3) A desk with a crank. One of my biggest complaints about the old office was that my desk was *way* too high relative to my chair, even with the chair cranked all the way up. Now I can raise the chair and lower the desk, so for the first time in months I am Ergonomically Correct.

4) Alternate ports. As we move to the new office, the company is switching from a blacklist-oriented to whitelist-oriented IP policy -- that is, everything is blocked unless they say otherwise. I believe they're going to be reasonable about it (I've chatted with them), but of course the IT dept is currently swamped dealing with the move, and don't have many spare cycles to fix the firewall right now. Fortunately, it turns out that AIM runs over port 80 if you tell it to do so. So for the moment, I'm contactable via AIM and Yahoo (which is the company's in-house IM), under my usual handle.

5) A stressor out of my life. Suffice it to say, a particular workplace issue that had been rankling me almost from the beginning took care of itself, without requiring me to take any action.