You have big plans for the weekend?

I usually am not fond of this question. I get it a lot at the gym like this morning. I told her I was trying to decide whether to hang around 45 mins and wait for Papa Murphy's to open before I headed home to Pioneer Square. "Oh, you aren't worried about the Sounder traffic?" ???

The Sounders (who play in the stadium across the street) had moved their game time up to a fairly unusual noon start ... without telling me! I thanked her profusely and tossed 'next time' out to Papa Murphy's and headed on home. Indeed, the crowds were already gathering. The sun is out and the Sounder fans are grabbing it. I was really glad I didn't linger. I can get pizza another day.

I made the most delicious scrambled eggs and had them with a half an avocado. So I'm good. My tracker says I've reached my goal for the day. My USPS email says there's only junk going to be in my mailbox so no need to go check that. All is under control.

The Mariners played extra innings last night and passed up more than several chances to win it. It was so frustrating that I finally turned off the sound and listened to my book where the protagonist got thrown in the terrorists jail and was basically rotting. I turned off the book and I turned off the TV and I went to sleep and slept an hour and a half longer than usual. The Mariners lost and I'll watch again tonight. My protagonist is more than likely still in deep shit, hopefully, I can rescue her tonight. So much to do.

I like hearing clock chimes every 15 minutes. Bonus for hourly chimes as well. For years and years, I've had software that does that on my PC. It has not been upgraded in a decade and it does not like Windows 10. At all, not one bit. It will run for an hour or two or maybe a day and then fail with either really distorted horrible sounds or just stop and I get nothing. I found another app that did ok but it also goes silent randomly. It's also really old. And... I can find nothing else. Nothing. I've looked and looked and looked. The days of millions of small, clever, programs for Windows are, apparently over.

There are a few android apps but none are great. There was a fairly decent one but it's been taken down. Plus, I'd need to keep an android device plugged into a speaker and basically devoted to the project.

So, this morning, I went to Amazon and bought a clock with chimes. It's a free return so if it's not perfect, back it goes. It's not a style I like but less offensive than others I could find and I don't need a clock - just the chimes but we'll see. Monday.

Zoey is getting into trouble it sounds like in the bathroom. Lately she's on a knocking shit off the counter quota. At least I've learned to make sure 1. to use only plastic glasses and 2. if I'm going to leave one on a counter, make sure it's empty.

My tweets

• Sat, 09:55: This is true. I just got mine and learned that there's no need for me to go to the mailbox today... all junk. I LOV… https://t.co/jsfk69BG5S

Continued

I really did love my new job. I threw myself into it in part to counteract the feelings I got at home from the marriage I was ignoring but part of it was just because there was something new and cool nearly every day.

One day not terribly long after I started at the job, I was having lunch with a group from my team and one of the managers said 'oh we finally got those home terminals in, anybody interested?'

I had not one single clue what he was talking about but did that stop me from shooting my hand up in the air?? Heck no! 'I sure am!!' Turns out the IT people were trying out remote access to the plant's mainframes and they were particularly interested in non-engineering types. And that's how I got first did home computing.

They gave me a 3101 ASCII Display Station and a 300 baud coupler modem. Just like the ones pictured here.

I had a phone extension installed in our spare bedroom which became My Room. I would go in there and close the door and spend hours at that terminal. I could access the PROFs system so I could do work but mainly I just explored. There was a kind of IM called Tell and using it, I would 'chat' with sys admins around the world. Anyone who had some free time was delighted to talk to a chick. I also just entered commands to see what they would do. Mainly I learned that I could mostly try whatever I wanted and not bring the system down so I tried everything.

It was just fun and way funner than my marriage.

The other thing I discovered at work was speech writing. We had a speech writer on staff and he went on vacation one time. The head of the plant needed to address the employees at a special all hands meeting about some corporate something or another. The speech writer had written the speech but it needed some last minute tweaking.

My boss's boss asked me if I would take a stab at it. I said 'sure!' I'd never even seen a written speech script before but how hard could it be? Turns out it was hard BUT, turns out it was fun. And the head of the plant was impressed with what I did. Before the speech writer got back from vacation, he asked me to write him some remarks for a lunchtime speech he had to give.

He told me what he wanted to say and then sent me to talk to some other people who could explain stuff and add ideas. So off I went. It was really fun and he liked the speech a lot and I found a new niche for me. LOTS of very excellent corporate writers hate speech writing. It can be kind of thankless. And if the speaker scores a win with your speech, the speaker gets the credit. If the speaker bombs, he/she and everyone else blames the speech writer. But I loved it.

To Be Continued

Nice day

I did a little sewing. I did a little knitting. I did a little of nothing. And now I'm watching the Mariner game. Not too bad a day in my book.

Tomorrow will be a rerun - with the game in the afternoon instead of the evening - and that's fine by me.

Here are the dolls and the bear.