Patience is not always a virtue

All this week the network's been getting progressively slower and slower...a real frustration when you're trying to access the Internet, answer email, answer the phone (which is voice over IP, of course), save documents to your H: drive, fix computer problems remotely, etc., etc., etc.

Now, maybe I'm too patient sometimes, because I just chalked it up to the fact that I know they've been working on the network this week and figured it would eventually get better. A few people who are less patient, however, called the Help Desk and complained, and lo! we were visited this afternoon by a member of the telcomm team. He replaced a small gadget in the switch, rebooted the switch (which didn't want to come right back up but apparently eventually saw things his way), and voila! We have a network that appears to be working at a reasonable speed.

Go figure.

Anytime the network goes down it's fascinating to watch how people deal with it. We're so used to working on email, Internet, etc., and folks just generally seem to be at a loss when that's taken away. I fortunately, was working on a document that was local on my machine, so I was able to keep working, and it was kind of nice not to have email or phone interruptions for a few minutes.

I was not, however, able to watch the pandas. Bummer! The news from San Diego, though, is that their little girl is now officially named Zhen Zhen (which means "Precious"). Congratulations to the staff of SDZ & especially to mom Bai Yun & dad Gao Gao!

Who's organized?

Ah, a dreary and rainy Monday. What better way to start the week?

I need to take a break from tedious detail work, so thought I'd pop on here - it's been too long since I posted anything! Seems like I'm always catching up with something.

Well, Thanksgiving is over, and now we have the crescendo toward Christmas. Am I ready? Not even close! I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics last week waiting to have fabric cut and the woman in front of me (who was buying tulle to wrap baskets) allowed as how when the baskets were wrapped she had all her Christmas stuff done. BEFORE THANKSGIVING. That's just wrong.

Ah, how I aspire to that sort of forethought and organization! If I were that organized, my house would be clean, my desk would be clean, and I would have time to wrap baskets, too. As it is, I'm still in the "what are we going to get so-and-so for Christmas?" stage.

What's kind of funny, though, is that a lot of people look at me and think I'm organized. I guess there are all sorts of organization; I can put a catalog in order without thinking twice and I can really plan something out if I put my mind to it. For example, I'm stage managing for our next theatre production (On Golden Pond) and I've got organizing for a show down to a science. My notes are all in order and I have all the information collated, color coded, and coordinated. The director thinks I'm highly efficient (and so far in this case, I am); I think I might even scare him a little.

With all the organizational tools there are in this day and age, why is it that I can't organize gift giving for Christmas? One of my former supervisors did her shopping all year round; as she found stuff she would buy it for the various people on her list and put it away in these nice little bins she had specifically for that purpose. The thing with that is that you need a) the bins b) the place to store them and c) to remember that you had put stuff away. I tried that technique once (minus the bins, unfortunately) and ended up with multiple things for certain people. I also forgot I had put gifts away and found them the following year, which sort of worked, too, but it kind of defeated the purpose.

Oh, well, I guess I should just be grateful that I can organize some things well and leave it at that. Who wants to be totally organized? That doesn't leave any room for spontaneity - and what fun would life be without that?

In other news - they're naming the little girl panda at the San Diego Zoo today!