reading

26. The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny Volume Two

In this volume of the collected stories we see Zelazny really hit his stride. He's still exploring mystic and mythic themes, but they get toned down somewhat by more concrete and practical plotting. It makes a good combination because he still manages to squeeze in references and allusions without leaving us mere mortals lost.

This volume finishes up with "... And Call Me Conrad." Which was later expanded into the novel length "This Immortal". I read the novel version back in high school, but really didn't remember that much of it. I was blown away by the novella. Zelazny mixes in a lot of different things to make a very rich flavorful story. There are hints of murder mystery like Death on the Nile. There are the obligator references to Greek myth. There are throw away references that turn out to be critical later. The writing and plotting is just stunning.

time flies

It has been a crazy month and a half.

Item 1: Family Visits
Derien's family came to visit first. Right after I got back from camping, Derien's brother, his wife, and the niece arrived along with a stray aunt. They left in stages and we had I think three days before the stray aunt came back. The day after she, left one of my sisters arrived in state. She stayed until the day before my other sister arrived with my niece. During the visits various parties got to visit with other local or semi-local relatives and we did some showing of the benefits of Maine as possible.

All the visits were good. My family hadn't gotten together in years and I think Derien and I pulled off a passable job visitor appropriate of hosting. We managed to mostly walk around the minefield of divergent political orientations and lifestyles. Having everyone come at different times was good because we could visit with each group, but it did take up a lot of the summer. And honestly, we haven't had a chance to relax since the solstice.

Somewhere in there we managed to get the garlic harvested and put 3 1/2 cords of wood into the wood shed. Derien's family got to enjoy peapods from the garden and my family got some radishes and garlic from the garden.

Item 2: Work

For three years now my group at work has been trying to find and implement new employee scheduling software. We did vendor selection and started initial meetings with the selected vendor, but it very quickly became apparent that they couldn't meeting our needs. So we went back to vendor selection and the sales team for the second vendor we selected assured us they could do all the things we itemized as required. We were supposed to go live with that solution in January, but last fall it became very obvious that they couldn't do all the things we needed simultaneously (there were solutions which would meet each of our requirements, but they weren't all the same solution). We burned a lot of time trying to make their software work for us.

With no solution from the first two vendors and no likely third vendor, we set about building our own solution. We've been building and testing that solution and all the related interfaces to users and other systems for the last six months. We went live with that system last Tuesday evening, almost precisely 24 hours after the last of our visitors left (see item 1 above). Last week was of course crazy. The preparation for implementation was rushed because I had time off from work the prior and the tasks I expected would be done in my absence were not done. The implementation was rough from my perspective, although it sounds like the impression to the employees and leaders was still good. It was long days all week.

After all of that I was totally and completely knackered.

Yesterday we had our first real day off in ages. So we spent it doing housework. Laundry, check. Splitting and stacking wood, check. Mowing some of the lawn, check. Brush burn, check.

Unfortunately, this morning I woke up to the knob on my right wrist being swollen, sore, and limited wrist mobility/strength. Not sure what I did to it. It might have been when I was pulling things during the brush burn. Or I might have hit it without realizing it. Either way, it's a pain in the arm. Unfortunately, it's the opposite arm as the frozen shoulder, so I have one arm that doesn't work at the shoulder and another that doesn't work at which doesn't work at the wrist. I need more arms.

Today, I want to finish mowing the lawn, if at all possible. It has been months since we've managed to get it all done. Portions are long enough to bale.

I want to get two more cords of wood (seasoned this time) to supplement the wood up put up last fall and ensure we don't run out this winter. Then the wood for this winter and next winter will be done.

If this is scattered, it's because I'm scattered. I probably need a week of sleep before I'll be completely coherent again.