One of my favorite childhood books is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Amazing story full of witty language use, amusing to me even now. Who knows -- maybe his character of Mathemagician is what sparked my life-long fascination with all things geek. Anyway, near the beginning of the story, the main character Milo gets stuck in a land called the Doldrums, until Tock the Watchdog comes by to get him (and the story) moving again. Things are a bit like that here just now – long summer days, wrapping up one project, starting research on new designs, making plans for future endeavors. All important and useful, but a far cry from the hectic endgame days, or the intense crunch-time hours when deadlines are looming. Plus, a lot of people are out of the office, so it is much quieter than usual.
The issue with me blogging about things being slow in the office is that my wonderful, handsome, well-dressed manager may use this as a reason to give me more to do. I have plenty to do, Jeff! It’s just slow-going to feel like I’m making progress right now.
There actually is a real place called the Doldrums – it is in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, also called the Sargasso Sea . The Sargasso Sea has a number of claims to fame, not the least of which is that it is where most (all?) North American and European eels are born. It used to be quite a mystery where eels came from, since no one had ever seen a baby eel, which gave rise to all sorts of conjectures of how eels came into being. So no, I’m not stuck in the mid-Atlantic. I’m here in San Francisco but in the doldrums none-the-less. (If I was more motivated today I’d find something clever to say about being two places at once.)
Instead of waiting for a giant talking dog to shake me out of the doldrums, I am taking a few days off to go to Los Angeles to see what trouble I can find down there. So far, my plans include sitting on the beach and to going to the Kwik-E-Mart. What? Didn’t you know about Kwik-E-Mart? Elise Thompson for LAist site posted a pretty piece on it. I wonder if there will pig hoofprints on the ceiling? I figure when I get back next week I’ll be recharged and ready to bang out these designs. A few days of letting my subconscious work on them can only help.
I need to pack. Actually, I packed this weekend, except for the shoes. Always a challenge to pack enough shoes. Ahhh, shoes (caution, some less than prim language in the video.) (also caution, this song may be get stuck in your head for days).
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Really? Jeff thought this entry was my "finest work to date". Even though I was too busy to mention how intelligent and generous he is.
Fine, I'll blog next about software releasing and Augi meetings and not give an update on the trouble I found in LA.
Posted by: Ursula Sadiq | August 02, 2007 at 06:23 PM
I'm not totally clear on how this captures the spirit of plant design.
Posted by: TG | August 01, 2007 at 06:19 AM