Well, it’s just about over, my vacation. I’ve had a week and change off from work, and it’s felt pretty darned good, but it’s about to come to an end. I have to head in to work again tomorrow. And while I’m not especially looking forward to spending the day sorting through email from last week, it shouldn’t be too bad.
Today, I’m planning to finish up a few things I started around home during the past week. No big projects undertaken, but a lot of little things. I managed to finally finish cleaning the bathroom (the ceiling needed washing, and that was just enough of a hassle that I never seemed to get to it), just in time to start filthing it up again. I cleared away three shredders full of old bills and stuff from the dining room table. I flattened and bundled about six months of amazon.com boxes. And I tore out the lumber surrounding my garden and mowed down the weeds (and all of the backyard while I was at it). I’m not sure if I’ll have a vegetable garden next year or not, but I’ve decided that the current location was not where I want it to be if I do decide to plant one.
Today I need to cut that lumber from the garden down into manageable chunks so I can dispose of it. I need to pick up my mail that’s been held at the post office for the past week and sort through it. And I need to catch up on laundry, dishes, trash, and other junk around the house so I’m ready for a work week again tomorrow.
In all, it’s been a pretty enjoyable week. I needed some time away from the job. And while the road trip was fun, I’m also glad I cut it short. It was nice having the time around home, especially since I didn’t have any big projects planned. That meant I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about basically being a hermit and working on whatever I wanted, rather than feeling obligated to tackle a big list or go out and “do stuff.”
- I’ve started posting the photos and notes from Dave’s 2007 Road Trip. The photos will continue to trickle in over the next week or two, and I hope to finish the writeups before the end of the month.
- The ACLU has a Surveillance Society Clock. Hmm. I’m not sure what time I think it should be, but I guess I’m not going to argue about it reading just before midnight. [metafilter]
- Interesting: K5 Becomes “Gated Dysfunctional Community”. Rusty’s started charging $5 for a membership, with everyone with an existing account grandfathered in. If someone is abusive or breaks the rules, they’ll get banned (after a warning) and will have to pay $5 to get back in. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, and maybe it’ll be the thing that gets me reading K5 regularly again.
- In a related note, k5 is alive is an essay talking about how a smaller community is a better thing. The money quote:
All in all, k5 is easily the most intelligent community that I’ve ever found on the internets. Horsecock and all.
I’d like to think that the past couple years of experience at k5 would serve as educational for other online communities having troubles, but I suspect I’m the only overlap, and I don’t really want to help dysfunctional online families “fix” themselves.