And the fire is so delightful

[austin_dern]

Now, getting to work Friday since there was no chance of that being called off, what with Thursday not featuring a blizzard --- well, by coincidence I'd planned to work this Friday and last so that I could bank days of work for later this month. After agreeing to bank two extra working days, I got two snow days. I can't imagine timing that better except if the snow had hit for Thursday so as to create a five-day (counting Presidents Day) holiday). I suspect even if I hadn't jiggered my days off I'd have felt the need to come in Friday, based on my sense that I should be trying to be in the office four days a week.

Anyway, Thursday's snow day may not have been strictly justified by overall storm conditions, but given the pathetic attempt at street cleaning around the office, yeah, it was the right thing to do. While our overloaded parking lot was cleaned out, the streets around are what might be charitably described as packed snow. I think the city's going in for the ``eventually, snow goes away'' approach. (To be fair, it was a lot of snow, just days after a whole lot more snow; they probably had to prioritize and I can't expect the roads I need to be the highest priority.) And at that I only had a few blocks through it, since I took the highway around that adds a few miles to my commute but cuts several miles of intra-city driving.

Unfortunately, the thing is, there had been snow, and that brings out snowplows, which as heavy machinery capable of moving earth are the mortal enemies of Internet cables. So on entering the first thing I heard was that the Internet was completely out and could be expected to be out all day. (And it wasn't even a plowing problem near us; it was one somewhere in New York state that killed it.) This makes my policy of bringing in hefty tomes to read all the more sensible, since guess whose job to the extent it has responsibilities is wholly based on web thingies on servers not actually anywhere near the office building? It also makes wise the suggestion mongologue had of setting iTunes to download podcasts of old-time radio stuff, since I had banked on the local hard drive about ten hours' worth of ... mostly Gunsmoke and The Bob Hope Show, but still enough to listen to that I could stay audio-stimulated the whole day.

Trivia: The Grand Prix of Skiing, held on 12 February 1879, inaugurated a series of prestigious skiing competitions which fed into the creation of the Winter Olympics. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: The Maverick And His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr And The Making Of IBM, Kevin Maney.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I'm glad that the podcast OTR is workin' for you, especially in this situation.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It turned out pretty nicely. I'm surprised there aren't more old-time-radio comedy podcasts, but there are a couple that split between a drama and a comedy half, which maybe better balances things for a general audience.

[lexomatic.livejournal.com]

On Wednesday, my office was closed but I worked from home, having organized my VPN on Tuesday for just such an event. (Just organizing the VPN was an event, since my company's IT staff insists the home PC come to work -- they've had too many cases of self-installs going wrong -- and said PC is a full tower.) Gee, I feel so diligent and dedicated now. But since everybody was doing it, in all of the company's East Coast offices, I was variously rerouted from the datacenter in NYC to the ones in Kentucky or Texas.

On Thursday half the office was still out, most of them VPN'ing.

There were a few people in the office on Wednesday, but only the ones unlucky enough to live within walking distance (in two cases, on the same block).

Since my PC's CPU fan can't decide if it's whisper-quiet or turbojet-loud, my own musical preferences involve noise-cancelling headphones. And instrumental pieces exclusively; lyrics, even mostly-unintelligible Japanese ones, sidetrack my linguistic and touch-typing centers.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

My job would lend itself with stunning ease to working at home over a VPN, and they've even set up VPNs for a couple specialized purposes, and one guy who's cranky enough that everyone's kind of glad to let him work from home a couple days a week. But my occasional mentions to that effect haven't drawn any reaction other than a little chuckling.

I suspect that if I could get my current project moved forward (I have to use some software that just doesn't work) I might be able to make a stronger case for it, along the lines of how I got myself down to a four-day-a-week schedule.