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ocelotOriginal: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2000/12/11/223112/34
Sickness, food, Madeline L'Engle, stupid clients, wizards, cookies, pistachio cream.
I stayed home sick today. Whether I was actually sick or not is open to interpretation. Not that I was ditching - I had a scratchy throat, and that seems to be the first symptom of the Cold of Death that's been making it's rounds through the office. So I decided it was smarter to stay home and attempt to head it off with rest and Vitamin C and/or not expose my co-workers if it really was the CoD (as if any of them haven't been exposed already).
I don't think it is. I haven't really gotten any worse over the course of the day, and it's pretty typical for me to get a scratchy throat that lasts through the winter. I'm still loading up on vitamin C and echinacea and zinc and all those other things that are supposed to help the immune system, though.
So I'm currently drinking that nasty Sobe drink that tastes like sunscreen but is supposed to be good for the immune system, and eating fish chowder in a bread bowl, which is yummy :) And some pistachio cream stuff for dessert.
It's dangerous having a grocery store with a decent deli a 30 second walk away.
I'm pretty sure the scratchy throat was actually caused by the heat being off last night. Our electic bill was huge last night ($200+, as opposed to about $100 this time last year), so we decided to turn off the heater. With a down comforter, I was plenty warm, but I suspect my throat didn't like the cold air.
Most of the day I sat around reading A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle. If any of you feel like reading about the prosecution of geeks before computers were in widespread use (it also refers to punchcard computers at one point :), this is a good book for it. I think I'll get the boxed set of those books - the copy of AWiT that I currently have is a paperback from 1973, and I'm afraid it's going to fall apart on me. Checked in on email from time to time, and was fairly glad that I didn't go to work, as it's much less of a disturbance to yell at idiot clients in the comfort of your own home. This one guy has had it explained to him at least 3 times by two different people that he needs to call Wolfram tech support in order to get his Mathematica license renewed, and that we can't do it for him, and he writes again saying for us to send him the license code when we have it ready. What part of "You need to call them yourself because we can't do it" does he not understand?
I'm trying to figure out what to do about the wizard on the MOO I supposedly run who went and quit. Not that I blame him - I'm barely active myself, and it appears that his reasons are at least somewhat the same as my own. I am a bit annoyed that he apparently has told only me, and hasn't really discussed anything of his reasoning. Even if it's insulting to me or something, things aren't going to change unless people are aware of what the problem is. And yes, I'm quite aware that you read k5 and therefor may be reading this, unnamed-wizard :) Anyway, i guess I'd better deal with that tonight, since I've been sitting on it for the past week. Mainly because I have no clue who to replace him with. He made a few suggestions, and some of them I really have my doubts about.
I baked cookies yesterday (given a very broad definition of bake - I used premade dough), intending to bring them in to work. But I think that it is not meant to be - they turned out tasting ok, but hard as rocks, and I slightly burned half of them. Plus, I just don't feel right about feeding stuff to co-workers that I cooked the day before I got sick (do-it-yourself biological warfare!)
Hmm, pistachio cream is kinda gross. I was afraid it might be, but felt I had to try it. It reminds me of the stuff we used to feed this kid in the severely handicapped class I used to work with who was on a ketogenic (low carbohydrate, high fat/protein) diet because of seizures. Her diet consisted of scrambled eggs (usually with sausage or something) in oil, mayonaise and cheese, and for dessert, whipped cream with a little bit of cantelope. Poor kid. I wonder how she's doing.
Sickness, food, Madeline L'Engle, stupid clients, wizards, cookies, pistachio cream.
I stayed home sick today. Whether I was actually sick or not is open to interpretation. Not that I was ditching - I had a scratchy throat, and that seems to be the first symptom of the Cold of Death that's been making it's rounds through the office. So I decided it was smarter to stay home and attempt to head it off with rest and Vitamin C and/or not expose my co-workers if it really was the CoD (as if any of them haven't been exposed already).
I don't think it is. I haven't really gotten any worse over the course of the day, and it's pretty typical for me to get a scratchy throat that lasts through the winter. I'm still loading up on vitamin C and echinacea and zinc and all those other things that are supposed to help the immune system, though.
So I'm currently drinking that nasty Sobe drink that tastes like sunscreen but is supposed to be good for the immune system, and eating fish chowder in a bread bowl, which is yummy :) And some pistachio cream stuff for dessert.
It's dangerous having a grocery store with a decent deli a 30 second walk away.
I'm pretty sure the scratchy throat was actually caused by the heat being off last night. Our electic bill was huge last night ($200+, as opposed to about $100 this time last year), so we decided to turn off the heater. With a down comforter, I was plenty warm, but I suspect my throat didn't like the cold air.
Most of the day I sat around reading A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle. If any of you feel like reading about the prosecution of geeks before computers were in widespread use (it also refers to punchcard computers at one point :), this is a good book for it. I think I'll get the boxed set of those books - the copy of AWiT that I currently have is a paperback from 1973, and I'm afraid it's going to fall apart on me. Checked in on email from time to time, and was fairly glad that I didn't go to work, as it's much less of a disturbance to yell at idiot clients in the comfort of your own home. This one guy has had it explained to him at least 3 times by two different people that he needs to call Wolfram tech support in order to get his Mathematica license renewed, and that we can't do it for him, and he writes again saying for us to send him the license code when we have it ready. What part of "You need to call them yourself because we can't do it" does he not understand?
I'm trying to figure out what to do about the wizard on the MOO I supposedly run who went and quit. Not that I blame him - I'm barely active myself, and it appears that his reasons are at least somewhat the same as my own. I am a bit annoyed that he apparently has told only me, and hasn't really discussed anything of his reasoning. Even if it's insulting to me or something, things aren't going to change unless people are aware of what the problem is. And yes, I'm quite aware that you read k5 and therefor may be reading this, unnamed-wizard :) Anyway, i guess I'd better deal with that tonight, since I've been sitting on it for the past week. Mainly because I have no clue who to replace him with. He made a few suggestions, and some of them I really have my doubts about.
I baked cookies yesterday (given a very broad definition of bake - I used premade dough), intending to bring them in to work. But I think that it is not meant to be - they turned out tasting ok, but hard as rocks, and I slightly burned half of them. Plus, I just don't feel right about feeding stuff to co-workers that I cooked the day before I got sick (do-it-yourself biological warfare!)
Hmm, pistachio cream is kinda gross. I was afraid it might be, but felt I had to try it. It reminds me of the stuff we used to feed this kid in the severely handicapped class I used to work with who was on a ketogenic (low carbohydrate, high fat/protein) diet because of seizures. Her diet consisted of scrambled eggs (usually with sausage or something) in oil, mayonaise and cheese, and for dessert, whipped cream with a little bit of cantelope. Poor kid. I wonder how she's doing.
