November 17, 2003
New Crib, Better Buffer, Now With New Vomit!entry,
While cleaning one's office does not, strictly speaking, qualify one to claim to have a "new crib," it sure does feel that way.
The chain of events ran something like this. Shortly after uploading the last entry, I sat down to scan. Now, as I mentioned a week ago, I've got a new PC. Although not much has changed in terms of software, the new PC disagrees with the old (nay, ancient) scanner. I hung hard several times in the process of uploading new and nifty sketches for the Premium Gallery (a subscription thing).
(As an aside, in this age of obscene unsolicited mailings I gather that you can PAY to get hung hard, though I'll pretend I don't know what's being sold here.)
Well, I've known this day was coming. I was READY for my old scanner to throw down the gauntlet and say "it's him or me." I whipped out my credit card, surfed around for 20 minutes, and found a replacement. It was an open-box special, which saved me $100. I spent close to half that savings on overnight shipping, and sure enough, I had a shiny new HP Scanjet 8200 by midday on Friday. The Schlock Mercenary business account had been drained to the tune of $442.73, but thanks to careful planning (for which Sandra gets the credit) the kids still get Christmas.
But I digress... with the new scanner, I needed to reorganize things a little bit. THAT project began Saturday afternoon, and didn't finish until after my workspace was rebuilt, and the office had been cleaned and (gasp) vacuumed.
That musty smell is gone. My cave no longer seems quite so subterranean. The moles and the bats have fled for darker crevices. Indeed, it feels like a whole new office.
Does this mean I'm in a better mood than I was when I wrote my last entry? I think so. The buffer jumped to 14 on Saturday, held steady on Sunday, and I've still got stuff in the pencilled hopper to work on. Better yet, I'm in the mood to tackle it.
On the down-side, everyone else in the house is sick. On the up-side, I'm well enough to take care of them.
On the down-side, taking care of them meant running the vomit-pots through the dishwasher TWICE on Sunday afternoon. But hey, they're CLEAN. And on the up-side, it's not ME doing the vomiting.