ljplicease | rc3: another day in the life of robert cobbler (Reply)

Note: I originally wrote this early in the morning on August 4 for another site, but I am particularly pleased with it, so I am reposting it here to get total coverage. I've only made a few additional corrections.

I did this once before, almost ten years ago. Thought it was time once again to write about my old friend RC.

rc3: another day in the life of robert cobbler

3 August 2004 / August 3, 2004

By the time I got into my car to... I would say go to work... but the fact that I am going to work today seems almost incidental... but anyway, by the time I get into my car to go to work I have already been up for almost 3 hours today. I got up extra early to photograph a still life for my second assignment which was really due yesterday, but I had forgotten to take the film out of the fridge last night so I spent an hour going through my writing desk searching for the title to the Toyota so that I can get Green's Auto to haul the thing away so I don't have to spend money on it. Right now that car is costing me money just sitting in my driveway and it has to come to an end. By the time I have confirmed that I really don't have the damn title anymore and that I will have to deal with DMV, the film is ready to shoot, but I still am not. I can't think of what to shoot. The content of my writing desk is scattered across the floor neatly organized into categories. The largest pile is stuff to throw away. The batteries I found stored in the desk are lying about and I imagine the Energizers confronting the Duracells in a medieval conflict. A couple of candles become castle towers in my mind. It seems the dumbest thing I can think of, but I arrange this ten second fantasy into my still life assignment.

I finish photographing the still life on time, and this is when I get into my car to start my day which already seems to be progressing. What I have to accomplish seem to add up to something larger than 24 hours, and even so I manage to forget three somethings in a row, each time having to turn around and drive back home to get it. Each time I seem to get further, which seems like progress, although it is really more work because it's longer to drive back. First I forgot my medication. Then it was my Australian passport application. Then it was the CD I had sold on half.com and had to post today.

I drive all the way to Poughkeepsie to drop off my film, because that is the closest professional lab, and the only which will get my E-6 processed quickly enough. As often is the case when I get into the lab there is no one there. I wait a few minutes. I say "Hello." I walk over to the door sensor and stand in its way to make it beep again. I say "Hello" again. There is some rumbling. Finally one of the guys who I recognize by face but not name comes out to get my film. "This one needs to be pushed one stop. That's four o'clock, right? And this one is just regular, that's three, right?" Round trip is about an hour and I am only about ten minutes late, by the time I get to work.

I've been dreading this week's one-on-one with my manager because I don't have much to show as far as accomplishments. Parallel still doesn't work and I haven't started working on reports. I had rushed to check in some code yesterday (also a busy day) so that I could make the pretense of having accomplished something. Happily, my manager is not in his office so I go back to my workstation to finish my breakfast already in progress.

I try calling the Australian consulate in New York City, because an appointment is required to submit my application for Australian passport. Sadly there is a menu, but no way to talk to a real person. This is Australian Bureaucracy in all its glory.

We have a department meeting at eleven. These things seem pointless to me at the best of times, and in my current mental state, these are far from being the best of times. My manager and the team leads find great difficulty in finding a working Ethernet port. I will not point out how ridiculous this is. A large technologically advanced computer firm and we can't even afford to pay for more than one working Ethernet port for two conference rooms. A green Ethernet cable snakes over the wall, through the flimsy ceiling from one room to the other, and even that one doesn't work. It's sad.

After the department meeting, it's lunch time, but I don't have time to eat. Instead it's off to the DMV, but first have to stop by the Hopewell photo to get some over priced film (they don't have what I need so I leave empty handed), and then I stop by the post office to post my most recent half.com purchase order: The Big Lebowski sound track. Finally I am off to the DMV.

Now, a lot of people dread the DMV. I've dealt with the organization formally known as the INS, which is by far more bureaucratic, and by far more under funded, and the employees are by far less sympathetic. Today, I have to admit is a pretty good day at the DMV: the line is short and the lady behind the counter is very helpful despite the fact that I have inadvertently brought the wrong form with me. While I am furiously filling out forms, she is entering other forms into her computer so that she doesn't have to send me away. I moved several months ago, and I need to update my address, and renew several documents, including my driver's license. I get back to work, only about fifteen minutes behind schedule.

When I walk into my partner's office at work, his officemate says "Here he is..." ominously.

"Uh oh" I reply. "What I done this time?"

Turns out last night when I checked that rushed code in that I broke the build. This is a bad thing, for those of you who are not software engineers. My partner tries accepting the blame. I have to say, that my partner in crime, earm... I mean in parallel, is a good guy. Everyone on the team is. They are totally professional and decent human beings. If I didn't have an aversion to socializing with the people I work with I would have no problem calling any of them my friends.

So I sit in his office for about three hours looking at our parallel problem, while people come in and out pestering me about having broken the build. It doesn't help, of course that my partner's office mate is responsible for the build process, I suppose.

I finally get back to my office, which I haven't been in since before lunch (incidentally, I didn't have time to actually eat). I am going to leave pretty soon, but I check my work e-mail and there is one here from the team leader reminding me to look into a work item that someone else has to finish. I've been having trouble coaxing this guy into showing me how to get the data into our requirements web page. I call him up and talk to him for a few minutes. I hang up feeling as though he has maneuvered out of actually showing me how to do the thing I need to know how to do once again. Zero progress there too.

Then it's back up to Poughkeepsie to pick up my film. Happily this is on my way to school, which is my next destination. Between those two spots I stop at Mole-Mole for dinner, where I order the Chili Relleno. While I am waiting for my food to come out, I stuff my slides into slide sheets. The food is excellent, and I feel stuffed when I leave.

When I get to school for open lab hours, Johanna is there. She was in my last class at Dutchess too, the lighting class. She's also hot. I don't have time for that though. I pick out eight slides and I scan them. I should have brought paper to print some stuff out, but of course I have forgotten to bring it.

It's 7:30pm when I get out of the lab, and I am actually ahead of schedule. This is because I decided to skip one of my objectives, and that was assignment number three, which is due tomorrow. There are a couple of hours left in the day, so I go to the mall and shoot 30 frames of a 36 roll which I am hoping to pass off as assignment number three and take them to the one hour place. I dread giving my film to places like this, but I simply do not have time to take the film anywhere else.

I leave there at about 8:30pm. I've been up since 6:00am or so. I call my mum up on my cell phone so that I can chat with her as I drive home. It's the only time in the day that I can talk to friends and family. I carp that I am becoming annoyed that my father's attitude toward America now that I am an American citizen. I never thought this would happen, but my feelings toward this country have altered somewhat now that I am a citizen. I carp that I don't like the way my father says that he thinks Bush and Karry are much the same so that it doesn't matter what happens in November. I actually agree with this analysis somewhat (although I would still like to see one of those candidates loose in November, I won't tell you who), but I don't want some foreigner telling me that. My dad isn't really a foreigner though... because thanks to recent legislation in the Australian parliament, I retained my Australian citizenship when I became an American.

I stop by Hanaford to get some cornflakes for breakfast tomorrow. Mum watches the news summary while I am in the supermarket.

When I finally get home, I check the mail, and take the camera and computer equipment I have been lugging around all day out of the car. I don't want to leave it in there because it will get quite hot in there in the morning. Someone has stuffed enormous bags of garbage in my garbage can. This means that I won't be able to put any trash out for collection on Friday. Needless to say, this pisses me off.

I get off the phone with my mum. I have a headache. I take the vitamins which I did not have time to take this morning when I left, and two ibuprofen. I check my personal e-mail and I see that I have made another sale on half.com. I wish that people would make several orders in one day, instead of one order each day. It would make my life easier.

Finally I go to sleep; hopefully not to dream.

Note: The original RC can be found here.