Noogler, Day 8: Fragmented Day For Fragmented Minds

It was a pretty short day today. I had one goal: get through the series of exercises to learn the version control system.

This would have been easier if I had known the difference between the "Snooze" button and the "Off" button. As it stood, I apparently shut off my alarm clock, and promptly slept until sometime after 10:00. No big deal; I don't have classes this week, so I'm not worried about the clock too much. I just don't want to slack off, but after last week, I'm a bit ahead of the curve.

Anyway, after doing all the usual morning things, and driving in, I got there about 11:20. I figured I'd have an early lunch (or, as I would be calling it, "breakfast"), and then hit the office for some uninterrupted study.

There seemed to be some sort of activity on the patio in front of Charlie's today. Well, I didn't notice that as much as the smell. All sorts of food-smells, but the most prominent one from my angle of approach was that of rosemary.

After a bit of investigation, I found that there was a July 5th celebratory dinner. I picked myself out a bit of grilled chicken (which was the dish with the rosemary marinade) and made a sandwich out of it, and pulled as sides some red potatoes with garlic and parmesian, corn grilled in the husk (which was INCREDIBLY fresh, which makes corn taste much different; much sweeter), and a smoothie made from lots of different berries. After that, I found a table near the stage where the band was setting up, picked out a seat under the shade of the umbrella (I'm peeling a tiny bit from getting sunburned in the interviews), and sat down to eat.

A young man whom I didn't recognize asked if he could join me. I said sure, and he put down his plate then went to get a drink. When he came back, he pointed out that our team (apparently he's on my team?) was seated as a group elsewhere, so we picked up our food and went to join them.

This was the first meal I'd had with my team-mates. The new table was far enough from the stage that we could talk while we ate, and so we did, about all sorts of topics except our jobs. The closest we got to talking about work was when somebody asked what the colors on the name badges mean (red for contractors, green for interns).

After lunch, I went upstairs to start on the exercises. This was what I was after today, after all, right?

I took a few minutes to catch up on email first. The most notable thing in there is that my boss has given me a starter project. This is an actual project, but a simple, short one; it's supposed to help me get acclimated to the development environment and process. I'll be working with a guy named Jason on that one. I haven't really talked to Jason much, if at all; I think I've just said "hi" once when I was meeting everybody, and that's it. He didn't talk about a schedule there, and I haven't talked to Jason yet.

A few more emails... catch up on some technical discussions I was following... okay, done. Now it's time for those exercises!

I got a little ways along them, but it was soon time for me to go to the gym. I made a special effort to get there early. I've lately been showing up later than I want to; I like to have time to change, warm up, and stretch before my time slot. There's usually no-one after me, and my trainer is good about running long, which makes up for lost time. Today I even had to cut her off at 70 minutes into a 60 minute workout, because I needed to get back to work!

After my workout, there was a missed call on my caller ID, but no voicemail. When I called it back, I didn't recognize the business name, and the recording simply told me to call a different number for their main line. I couldn't keep the number in my head (I wasn't near paper, since I wasn't expecting this), and anyway, I figured it was an unsolicited sales call, so I left it alone and went back to work.

About an hour later, I got a call from that same number. I picked it up, and it was a delivery company. I had completely forgotten that I was having a chair delivered today! (It's for my downstairs computer desk; it was rather hard to find one that would be comfortable for using a computer, but still fits into the decoration. They had been at my house, and were on their way away now. (The first call was probably supposed to be a reminder call, since it came before the designated delivery window.) I told them I could meet them there in 15 minutes, told Karl I'd be back in half an hour, and took off.

I made it in my promised 15 minutes— exactly— thanked the delivery men, put the chair inside, and went back to work to study some more.

About 6:20 or so, I was supposed to meet Scott for supper, but he texted me that he couldn't make it. I said we'd do it another time, finished the exercise I was on, and went to get the next one in the series. Yay, I had now learned what I had set out to do!

This is something that had been weighing on me for a while, since it's where I was most visibly behind schedule. It's kind of just a personal milestone I had set, since it's really necessary to know the VC system— at least the basics— before you can start programming, or even looking at other peoples' programs. So, quite happy was the Piquan who left work today!