Well, today was every bit as hot but somehow not quite as miserable. I took it
slow but did manage to eke out over 10K. (Note to SWWooP: Actually, I don't get up
at 5:30 to row. I get up at *four*, and have dressed, driven to the lake, carried
the boat and oars down, and am on the water promptly at five.) (Second note to
SwooP: I've never quite gotten the acronym. Shouldn't that be SWWoP? For "She Who
Was Once Phelps"? Or even SWoKaP, if you want to stick in a "known as", Prince-
style? Just curious.)
Here is the big news: the weather forecast I
just checked is predicting double-digit temperatures here this weekend -- highs
well under the 100s. On Sunday, the low is supposed to be 72. This is worth
celebrating. Too bad none of those cool breezes made it in time for this morning's
row, though.
In news that a more rational person would consider even
bigger, I have accepted a position offered to me by the company I work at. The
drawback is that I have to become a real employee instead of a contractor, which
translates to a fairly major pay cut. (The company has great benefits but they
don't really make up for hard cash, though I will enjoy getting 3 weeks/year
vacation.) The advantage is that I'll be getting a lot of useful training and
experience and will be working on some interesting stuff -- though I think there
will also be plenty of opportunities to be a visible part of a fairly spectacular
failure. I'll try to avoid that -- not so much the visibility as the failure. And
this is supposed to lead to lots of new opportunities. Of course, that's what they
told me at the last job, but this company has a far better track record. Plus,
even after the pay cut, they'll be paying me more. I've said hat I don't want to
start until the end of next month, which (my secret motive) gives me an extra two
months to sock away that contractor pay, in addition to allowing me to finish up a
bunch of stuff and stay here through a major upcoming audit (the public
motive).
So I'm looking forward to that, but mostly I'm just happy to
be looking at a weekend where I can go outside without feeling like I've stepped
onto a frying pan. Tomorrow Rudder and I are headed back up to the property for
the day, to cut down the bigger trees that have succumbed to bark beetles. This
will entail use of a chain saw, something I had hoped to avoid. (I'm not sure if
Rudder has used one. He's from Oregon and appears to have logger genes -- not to
mention a grandpa who still splits his own two cords of wood and then more for the
neighbors -- so he may well have.) We've got some obnoxiously bright orange Kevlar
chaps to keep us from slicing off any legs, so all should be well, though if you
haven't heard from me by Monday you can speculate about what's happened to my
fingers.
Later addendum: Odd. Just went to get lunch, planning to
post this while eating. In the cafeteria a total stranger just told me the "shape
of the back of my hair is cute", Sort of strange, since it's in the early stages
of grpwing-out-hell. At the moment I've been encouraging it to curl, with a good
bit of gel, so it's a very boyish look -- not that it wasn't already -- and the
longest bits are maybe 3" long. I'm still ambivalent about the whole growing-out
thing; I think I have been since spotting a woman at the GBS concert last month
who was looking awfully cute in hair as short as mine had been. I wish that
growing it out took longer, or that I could put up long hair so that it looked the
way it does short.