Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Panic time or why do anything before the last minute?

The report MUST be finished Friday. It is only 6 months late, however the meltdown of the global economy in the meantime, makes it academic at best so the delay was not the end of the world for the client. Besides I work cheap and usually give them twice what they pay for.

My kids have inherited my work habits. Put it off until you can't any longer. My creativity works better under pressure and so does my kids'. Their mother always did everything ahead of time and the rest of us drove her crazy. I have on several occasions hauled a kid to class at 8:30 to drop off a paper due at 8:30. Said kid then returned to bed having not slept for 24 hours.

Number 1 son would have everything read, and then mull the ideas over in his head for days, writing and rewriting the paper mentally while appearing to do nothing. Then at some early hour of the morning before, he'd sit down at the computer and crank out his paper. One night, back on the old 386, he woke me up in a panic. The computer ate his paper. Dad to the rescue. Dug out the recovery program and found it easy enough but it was scary.

Flash drives make it easy to back up work but how often do you remember to do it?

Today we took a break and went into town. Tanya took the material for our downstairs bedroom drapes to the custom draperist (is that a word?). She had measured out everything yesterday and had drawn up a plan. Then we bought two pillows for which they would make covers to match the drapes.

Ran into Andrei, Tanya and Masha out shopping. Baba Tanya took Masha into a shop to buy her a small key ring with a heart on it. While we were in there I bought my FOURTH French Press coffee maker. The least one managed to last two days before I broke it. The previous one a week. Everything needs to be made out of steel!! Don't they know that?

While we were downtown, one of the clothing shops phoned my Tanya. Spring/summer jackets were in and she had one that might fit me. $70 CAD later, I finally have a light jacket that fits. Size 64. 64 what I don't know but that is what it says. Laid flat it is as wide as the mains'l on Jack Aubrey's HMS Surprise.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Dad,

    I remember that night so clearly. I clicked n instead of y when exiting out of Word Perfect.
    I almost puked. I didn't know anything about file recovery up until that moment. Thanks for saving my mental and physical health as I don't think I could have done it all over again.

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  2. I am generally hated at grad school for my ability to start a project the night before and still do really well. Some people just work differently than others.

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  3. 1. "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow" (and get somebody else to do, if you're lucky).

    2. You're obviously not "im-pressed" by he quality of French coffee makers in the Ukraine. Can you import one from France, or would that cost you a fortune (in Canadian, French or Ukrainian money)?

    3. Glad you got a good jacked. A substantial jacket. As a "man of substance" a larger version would be helpful. It would even suit you -- except you didn't get pants with it.

    OK, I'll leave now.

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