Complex Numbers

As you wish.

susanL sez: Okay okay, your links are educational and funny and outragious. I like em all right. Just write too, deal?!?

Be careful what you wish for.

I spent my evening thus:

4:30-6:00 I went home and napped. I don't sleep well at night. I sleep better during the day. I prefer sleeping in the morning and waking up at the crack of noon. Since I work, however, I have to get up at around 7:30.

Well, actually, I have my alarm set for something like 7:00, and I hit the snooze button until I simply can't, anymore, and finally get my ass out of bed.

This is true no matter what time I went to bed the night before. It could be 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, or freaking 3 am. I just plain can't get up when the alarm goes off.

I never will understand the people who smugly get up at first light - or even before - and then treat it like it's some sort of moral superiority. Check this: It isn't. Not ever. It's simply a lifestyle choice, and my lifestyle choice is to get up between 9 am and noon.

So the early bird catches the worm? So what? I don't like worms, and the second mouse gets the cheese. MMMMMMMM. Cheese.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. This leaves me exhausted most of the day, and I usually want a nap when I get home.

6:00 - 8:00 There's this subdivision plan I did when I worked for someone else, as opposed to working directly for clients with my own company. It happens to be located within a mile of my office, about 2 miles from my house. It wasn't built according to plan - not the end of the world, but now the new homeowners are experiencing drainage problems. I don't like having my name on a set of plans where the homeowners have problems; it's rude. So I went out and met with one of the homeowners, a heart surgeon at UVA Hospital.

Now, I decided to be a civil engineer instead of a doctor because when I make mistakes, generally, people don't die. Except when there's water in their basements and they get that nasty black mold.

Well, nobody's died yet, but I know about water in your basement. I've lost a lot because of water problems, including a first-pressing Cold Spring Harbor album by Billy Joel, complete with Alvin and the Chipmunks voice. susanL knows what I'm talking about.

So I met with this guy for two freaking hours while trying to figure out how to make the drainage work so it doesn't get into this guy's basement - and being a heart surgeon, he probably has stuff even more valuable than mine. But he's not a civil engineer, so there I was.

8:00 - 10:00 I sat on my back deck, drank an entire bottle of Vouvray, and talked to a friend of mine on the phone who used to be on this site. She put up with this shit. A saint, she is. Hopefully, when my wife comes home, she'll put up with it, too.

See, like I said, most of the time when I do something professionally, if I make a mistake, no one dies. When it's made clear to me that this is not necessarily the case, I don't care to face the resulting responsibility. Now, the particular situation was more a matter of the contractor not following the plans - but still, my name's on the plans, and that's what people will see when digging into records.

The only rational solution is to drink, really.

10:00 - ? Nicely pickled, I sign on to find this in my gmail inbox:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm

Which is currently playing in the background, and freaking me out, even though I can identify certain mythological and symbolic errors made by the narrators. But it includes a bit by George Carlin which I've always liked. The damn thing is over 2 hours long, and I'm just in the mood to watch - or at least listen to in another window - the whole thing.

And then I find the above comment to my last blog entry, and now, aren't you glad I actually wrote something and only included 3 links?

Oh yeah, the other two links.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/tesla-motors-ha.html

Tesla Finally Hires Someone Who Knows What He's Doing

Tesla Motors has hired one of Detroit's sharpest engineers to spearhead development of the four-door electric sedan it says will be rolling off an assembly line by the end of 2010.

Long-time readers will recognize Tesla Motors as the architects of my dream car.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

It's electric, and there's no way for me to get one right now, but as a middle-aged man, I claim this as my mid-life crisis car.

Want.

Really, really want.