I need a break while I focus on the new job and regain some sense of balance. I will be back, so keep your hands off my stuff!
While I’m gone, feel free to browse through the archives… there may (or may not) be a secret treasure map encoded in previous posts… anything is possible…
Logos con carne 
October 28th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
I need to catch up on my blog reading before you start posting again! Enjoy your hiatus!
October 29th, 2012 at 2:16 am
“Enjoy” may not be exactly the right word, but thanks! I’ll try!
October 28th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
You will be missed!
October 29th, 2012 at 2:16 am
Aw, what a nice thing to say! Thanks!
October 29th, 2012 at 6:28 am
See you when you return. Good luck at work!
October 30th, 2012 at 8:55 am
Thanks! I need it… it’s turned out to be a soul-sucker. 😦
October 29th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Color bars… you’re so awesome, Wyrd. I’ll miss you while you’re gone… come back soon!
October 30th, 2012 at 8:58 am
Ah, yes, you have some background and would recognize them! Thank you for the nice words!! I couldn’t find any bars I liked online, so I rolled my own. (If you ever want to borrow them, just let me know. The original is in 800 x 600 size.)
October 30th, 2012 at 5:21 am
Sounds like a plan, man! New jobs can be stressful so I can definitely appreciate the need (Heh. I almost typed mead!) to regroup and get focused! Be well, Wyrd! When you’re ready come back refreshed and ready to blog! 🙂
October 30th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Thanks muchly, Telly! I’ll be back when I feel the desire to write rather than feeling like a ought to or (worse) must.
November 3rd, 2012 at 10:26 am
You know what they say about all work and no play…of course you know and I bet you know exactly who said it! 🙂 Hope your new job is everything you want it to be. Hurry back!!
November 4th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
I think it goes: “All work and no play makes you rich?”
Wait, no, maybe: “All work and no play makes you really good at work?”
That’s not quite right, either… lemme think…
Just to be serious for a moment, it’s not knowing stuff so much as being able (and willing!) to look it up or “do the math.” Plus, maybe, some sense of when new information just doesn’t quite sound right; the numbers seem out of wack or the ideas don’t quite line up. A lot of that is just experience; time in the saddle.
Case in point: experience knowing that Einstein is one of the most misquoted people ever gives those quotes an automatic red flag. Combined with a reference to “technology” (seems an odd reference for the era), plus the man’s general gentle nature (not prone to insulting ordinary people), made it worth checking out.
(The dilemma then is—having satisfied one’s own curiousity—whether one shares the research with others. One risks discovering an unfavorable balance between being in error versus learning new stuff. For me the balance is basically a slam-dunk on the new stuff side, so it’s sometimes hard for me to accurately gauge in others.)
The new job is now literally trying to kill me (or at least injure me). I tripped on an unmarked curb Friday, took a hard fall on concrete, and now my left hand and arm (which took the brunt of the fall) are messed up. Ice packs and IBs… fun. 😦
November 5th, 2012 at 11:26 am
Is your new job really more important than this blog is to your fans? Only kidding, one has to eat, after all. Looking forward to your return.
November 6th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Considering that the new position appears to be a soul-sucking slice of hell (and not from the better neighborhoods of hell),… I’m gonna go with no.
But, as you say, there’s that whole eating thing (a habit I just can’t seem to break), and if I can stick it out for another 29 weeks and 3 days, I can retire decently. (Not great, but I’ll settle for decently at this point. I’ve gone from loving my work to utterly hating every moment of it.)
November 7th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
At this (accident prone) rate you’ll just finish the 29 weeks and 3 days before you croak! Might wanna get rid of that hate and frustration. You are a magnet for more of it…
Mama P. 😛
November 7th, 2012 at 8:04 pm
29 weeks and 2 days now… (and, yes, I am counting!)
November 7th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Oh shucks, how I would have missed you if I was still here every day also! I’m so glad this is not the case… I just popped in to say Hi, I have not forgotten you…
I’m also staying away because of work because blogging is not a one-hour affair per post for me and it’s not a priority. Income is!
A la prochaine…
November 7th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
No, I know… same here. Many posts take a day to get right, and there is so much writing in the new position that I’m written-out, so to speak. Nice to hear from you, though! I was wondering what you were up to these days.
November 21st, 2012 at 1:31 am
Hope the job is improving for you! If not, well, the days are counting down, and retirement sounds awesome.
The internet will be waiting for you whenever you decide to return. 🙂
December 2nd, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Not, no improvement, and, if anything, the more I’m there, the more I see there, the more I find myself shaking my head (which unfortunately does little to relieve the “my head’s gonna explode” pressure). The amount of waste, the lack of oversight, the poor communication, the nutty way the work process is set up, the actual physical working environment… in all regards, I’m in a goddamned Dilbert cartoon.
Well, now there’s exactly six months on the clock. If I can keep my head from exploding for just six months, I’m free. Best of all, protocol is announcing two months prior, which means I get to tell them on April 1st! Now, that’s an April Fools I can get behind!! 😀
November 21st, 2012 at 1:32 am
And I WILL get to more of your archive in coming days and weeks. Lots of good stuff on here. 😉
December 2nd, 2012 at 12:14 pm
I hope you’ve had the chance to poke around! While the job’s no better, at least now I’ve gotten a sense of what it is, and that helps with the equilibrium. The problem now is that there still aren’t enough hours in the day for a full time job and full time blogging (or anything close to it… a post is usually a four-hour minimum and some take much longer… and then there’s the social side to being in this community… many more hours).
Which is all to say that I need to find a way to part-time blog. Try to just do one post a week or something. At least for the next six months!
December 4th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
I’ve been distracted with a couple other projects, so I’ve been a bit slow poke around on the blog. Still going to do so though, because I want to read your full post on infinity. 🙂
Sorry to hear the job isn’t going so great and that you’re feeling drained. 😦 That’s a serious bummer. But having an end in sight helps. Either way, your blog wont blow away in your (partial) absence, nor will we forget about it. 😉
December 9th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Thanks! I was expecting the stream of readers to trickle out and dry up, but it hasn’t. I’ve had some time off to reset my head about the job, plus I can walk away in just under six months. And for now, at least I have a good sense of the kind of hell I find myself in. It’s hard for me to not care or to not give my all on a project, but that seems the survival mode necessary. Keep my head down, keep my mouth shut (ah, that’s the hard part), do the best I can with what the situation allows, and in 25 weeks (at least three of which will be vacation weeks) I’m home free.
December 1st, 2012 at 3:18 pm
I have been wondering where you have been! I hope your hiatus is going well!
December 2nd, 2012 at 12:20 pm
It’s been good to not have felt “responsible” for posting and commenting. The blogging is one thing, but once you enter the social sphere, you have even more connections to maintain. Back in August and early September I had that kind of time, but the new position is decidedly full-time (as with many career positions, no clock, and I do probably put in a bit more than 40 hours per week). And this new position involves a huge amount of writing and communicating, so it’s draining my tank in that way, too. Being a hard-core introvert, I need that alone time away from all connections.
So, bottom line, yeah, it’s been good, and I think I’ve at least gotten my equilibrium back (if not my energy or any time). I have a huge number of [New Posts] to catch up on today, but I’m going to try to start writing again RSN (Real Soon Now)! Only one post in November… gonna see if I can’t bump that number here in December!!
Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I hope things are going well for you, too! Each day another step closer to your farm life!
December 8th, 2012 at 10:55 am
Congratulations on the new position! My blog writing frequency certainly ebbs and flows with how busy I am in “real” life :-). I had a wonderful friend of mine tell me that she missed my posts, she encouraged me to set realistic expectations of myself and only post once a week. What wonderful advice that was for me! And how nice to know that I am really touching people with the words I write.
I don’t ever like to feel responsible for other peoples expectations, as soon as I feel those social pressures I completely shut down. I then remember why it is I was called to blogging in the first place, I just have a lot to share! When I think about it that way, I enjoy it again. I don’t like feeling like I have to do something.
Anywho – good luck with your new position and please don’t feel obligated to read and comment on my posts, though I certainly do love it when you share :-).
And yes, my farm is getting closer and closer 😀
Mary
December 9th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Hey Mary; good to hear from you! Exactly!! Right now work involves a ton of writing, and blogging feels too much like work both in being more writing and in my feeling of obligation. And for me, blogging is very time consuming (writing takes long enough; reading and commenting takes time, too!), so between work and blogging, there wasn’t much room for other stuff. I need a better balance than that!
And just as you say, I’m not going to shoot for more than one a week or so for now. It’s possible I can consider blogging as a more full-time pastime this coming June (if I take early retirement)!
December 5th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
Sounds like you’ve got your hands full with work?! Good luck! 🙂
December 9th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Thanks! I do data systems integration work, so if I’m engaged at all, I tend to have my hands full. It’s one of those complex fields with a gazillion details that have to go right, plus there are always multiple parties in my kitchen trying to tell me how to make the stew. That part I’m used to; it goes with the territory.
What sucks here is how the work process is designed; much waste and inefficiency, and for my particular kind of work, almost unworkable. I spend my days doing so much communicating trying to line up all the ducks that I have little of that sort of energy left for communicating with others. That’s the real bottom line right now: all my communication energy is sucked up by work. Off the job I’d rather do something non-verbal.
December 10th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Totally hear what you’re saying, Wyrd! Enjoy your downtime and do exactly what is going to relieve some of the work nonsense you have to deal with for most of your day!
December 12th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
[non-verbally nods (vehemently) in reply]
December 13th, 2012 at 3:07 pm
Hahaha! =P
December 8th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Ha – I love this. I only just recently recommenced writing my draft novel, which is the whole focus of my blog – and ‘hiatus’ was my headline.
I think it’s great when bloggers honestly acknowledge they just need a break, but they’ll be back – rather than coming back & apologising black&blue.
Like your blog name too!
December 9th, 2012 at 5:30 pm
So I see. Wow; you’ve walked quite a path—kudos!!
I started “this here joint” back in 2011 (oh, so long ago), got off to a good start and then petered out. Work and life stress mostly. Then they eliminated my job, and I had all kinds of time to blog. Plus considerable shock energy driving me. I found a new position, but it’s sucking up my time and writing energy. I’m trying to get back to it on a lighter schedule now! Got some Christmas-related posts, so there’s a time deadline!
Thank you for reading and commenting! Always nice to meet a new reader!!
p.s. Didn’t I see you talking to Janice (Cafe-Daily Dose) about skydiving? It’s the bee’s knee’s ain’t it?! If you go to my Reading List page, near the bottom are my skydiving posts. I still dream of doing it again someday!