Holiday Over

[lagilman]

A lovely holiday break, capped by a day spent with the immediate family, talking and walking and eating (and drinking a marvelous 1995 Brunello my b-i-l had in the cellar, oh, yum.) But I kicked my sister out this morning (ok, she kicked herself out), and was back at the desk by 7am.

Actually, at 7am I said to myself "self, get to the desk" and then yelled at myself for beating myself up because Dog, woman, it was only SEVEN!.

This week - counting from today through next Friday - has massive stuff on the to-do list, starting with recovering from both the holiday and the laptop being in the shop for a full body changeover (I think they're a little terrified of how hard I am on keyboards. It was suggested that I get a new desktop, with a separate keyboard. They're probably right). Lots and lots of work, and errands, and OMG and Ack.

Oh: Because of the aforementioned delays, yesterday's scheduled Practical Meerkat's 52 Bits of Advice will be going up on Sunday. Grrr. Also, argh. But it will go up.

Meanwhile, this morning I hit - and passed - the 15,000 word mark on "From Whence You Came." I was estimating 20-25,000 words, and it looks like that's about right. We're currently a grand total of $593 away from being fully funded/making it happen.... *squeaks*

Caution, and prudence, were called for.
Caution and prudence had never met Deshai Harini.

[remember: back the project now, and your account won't be charged until (if) we hit goal on 2 January!]


And y'all? What're you facing, on this post-holiday weekend?

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good Thanksgiving. We're facing work and more work (I am doing lessons over Skype for someone in the Middle East) up until 8 pm this evening, then back to work tomorrow, plus writing. It's all good stuff, though.

[cepetit.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

On the computer front, I recommend just getting an external keyboard with a USB interface and plugging that into the laptop.* (Do I hear whispers of "Northgate" from my fellow ghostly geeks? I do, but for the USB interface, and converter-dongles don't play nice with laptop USB ports.) That way, you'll only be using the laptop keyboard when you're on the road... and you can choose your favorite keyboard separately ("Noooooooooooorthgate.... give me my hairy and indestructible Noooooooooooorthgate....").

Of course, you can also go all the way and set up a "virtual desktop" by adding an inexpensive monitor and trackball/mouse to the setup. The eldest remora thinks this is the best of all worlds, especially for gaming... and for working in multiple foreign languages, since we can plug-and-play with keyboards that have keycaps in English and multiple Arabic layouts (since the keyboard layout in Egypt is not the same as that used in the Gulf nations...).

* Wireless is a nonstarter for people who type extensively. For one thing, you'll go broke on batteries...

[lagilman]

Oh, I have an external keyboard - it's how I was able to use my laptop, before they were able to effect repairs. I found it was tolerable for short periods, but to make it long-term feasible would require rearranging my desk set-up. Again.

Having a desktop would also mean having access to the larger screen, which I have to admit I've missed, for page layout. Right now, my b-i-l the engineer is messing with the innards of the defunct Dell, to see if we can Frankenstein it. That would be the cost-efficient solution that would make everyone happy... (and it's already set up with a French keyboard, which is all I need).