Apr. 22nd, 2005

ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)
I was up much too late last night. Why am I always tired these days?

I'm going on a trip next week, so I will agonize at length about what to take along and all the things I need to do before then. What worries me most is what I'm going to read.

I did something indicative of mild domestic incompetence, but no serious harm done.

At lunchtime I went for a walk. The campus is very pretty this week, but it's too hot. Some more flowers are out, and last week's have faded. I took lots of pictures, and posted some thumbnails below the cut.

I had a vague idea about the novel I'm not writing.

I finished reading a book a couple of days ago. I enjoyed the language and the descriptions of the setting, but was unconvinced by some of the details. The book displayed many of the author's usual quirks. The plot confused me a bit. Something was not quite right about the pacing, but I don't know enough about literature to be more specific. It reminded me of half a dozen other things I've read in the last few years; I'd like to go back and re-read some of them, but I can't because I have a backlog and am a slave to my plan to reduce it.

I have ordered / am impatiently awaiting the arrival of / have taken delivery of more books.

I have a new gadget. It is very shiny; the shininess reminds me of less shiny gadgets from the last couple of decades, and this makes me wistful for the days of my youth.
ellarien: Blue/purple pansy (Default)
The day started out hazy, which may have been partly due to the wildfire in the desert to the northwest, and got steadily greyer.

I spent much of the morning tidying my desk. I have two desks; a smallish one for the computer, where I spend most of my time, and a big battleship-grey thing that's mostly a repository for stray papers and other assorted detritus like junk mail and empty Amazon boxes. I cleared a bit of working space on both, and then reinstalled the keyboard that got sprinkled with coffee a couple of weeks ago. It worked fine, so now I am colour-coordinated -- but rattly -- again, and I've given back the nice new grey one.

The lunchtime walk was brief and frustrating. I've been watching the buds on a giant prickly pear down by Old Main for the last couple of weeks. Today a couple of them were finally open -- and my camera batteries went flat before I'd got a really good shot. My fault; I knew they were low yesterday, and completely forgot to recharge overnight. The light wasn't much good anyway.

About 6pm, the greyness reached its height, and suddenly there was a furious wind blowing dust and a spatter of moisture up the street. Half-a-dozen dead fronds came flying off the big palm tree across the intersection, and the mountains disappeared. Ten minutes later, all was calm again, and the mountains were back. I don't know it that was the sum total of the rain we've been half-promised, or if there's more to come.

Oh yes: one of my colleagues expressed interest in reading Steven Erikson, after I mentioned that I was reading a 1000+ page volume. (He travels a lot.)

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Reading, writing, plant photography, and the small details of my life, with digressions into science and computing.

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