only I didn't say 'crud'

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I was driving home the other evening (an hour later than usual, as I'm doing some overtime) and passed the Bat-Virgin. There's a Catholic church with a little shrine out front, and the two spotlights on the statue in the freestanding alcove cast dark shadows behind it, like bat wings. So, naturally, I wanted to get a picture of that, and naturally, my camera was counseling patience and second thoughts, so naturally I didn't get the shot. I called the camera a piece of crud for the millionth time and resolved to try again another night.

I didn't know it was the millionth time at first, but when balloons and confetti started dropping down and a celebrity spokesman came out of the back seat, I began to realize. I won a bunch of things, mostly gift certificates, so it wasn't all that big a deal. I asked if I'd won a camera that would take pictures when I press the button and not at some unspecified interval after. The answer, naturally, was no.
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catchup

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So now I drive great distances to and from work. Still not as much as all those poor darned souls going up and down 64 in Virginia, but to me it's a great distance. I tried exploring a little the other morning, getting off at the airport exit and seeking out 187. I found 75, which ran parallel to it, so you'd think that by turning left, I'd encounter it. I got into stranger and stranger territory. Finally I called the office. "I have a work-related question," I told my co-worker. "How do I get to work?"

Sarah's got the flu now. She'll be out of school the rest of the week. She's hot, and she doesn't want to take her medicine or a bath. Nice to see the illness hasn't dampened her spirit any. She usually greets me pretty enthusiastically when I get home, but she was watching an all-new episode of her favorite show today. I can dig it.

I continue to be somewhat snowed under at work. We've had a couple of talks about it, and I was able to express what's happening without undue emotionalism or hesitation, and my concerns are addressed. Mostly it's the phenomenon of people coming up and putting more things on my desk before I've finished the last pile of things people came up and put on my desk. A more sensible method of establishing workflow is being worked on. In the meantime, the press guy who used to work in the graphics department has been helping out some too. Today was a pretty much acceptable day. I didn't do exceptionally well, but I didn't do badly (and they tell me I'm not doing badly, which is something I need to hear). At the end of the day I had one of those scathingly brilliant ideas about the main color printer; the one that is the bread and butter of the store, almost. Two proofs are needed for just about any job, and the system was always giving one proof. If it took ten minutes for one proof, it took another ten minutes for the second. So I rooted around in the control panel and found a way to change the setting to default to two proofs. That means if it takes ten minutes for the first proof, it takes ten minutes and ten seconds for both proofs. Yes, it's not easy, but I do amaze myself.

Gotta eat food now. Sorry I forgot to change my icon on Sunday. I just gotta be me.
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1livejournal

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My tip for the day: acting on sudden inspiration, I renamed selected bookmarks in Firefox to put numerals in front of the names. Now I can access my favorite websites with a couple of reliable keystrokes. Alt-B opens the menu, and hitting a digit (ow!) instantly opens the names that start with those digits. I used to just use the alpha shortcuts, but some of them conflicted with items at the top of the menu (like manage bookmarks, that sort of thing). No menu items start with numerals, so now I have "1lj-login" and "2bloglines" and so on for my most frequent items. Then I can tab a couple of times and I'm in the login field. Zo zimple.
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