TheBanyanTree: Harvest Moon 2004

[Dale M. Parish]

Harvest Moon 2004


I've about burned out.  I'm told that the Chinese symbol for trouble
is the symbols for two women under under a single housetop.  Dunno if
that's true, or more myth, but I'm working half-time for two women,
both of whom expect more than half my time.  It's ironic in one sense
that they are both in the same boat in one sense-- I was assigned to
the project half-time reporting to the full-time team lead, so there
were one and one half of us working the software side.  Here at
"home," I wear three hats, two of which averaged 10-15 hours a week
each before I went on the project.  Now, my work is dragging, behind,
but the team leader to whom I reported was pulled "up" and my project
manager in Toronto has only half-time me to keep up one side of this
project.  My home boss has only half-time me to keep up the other 30
hours a week.  And I was trying to do it all for a while.  I do plan
to give blood this month, so they'll just have to get in line.

Last week, I had to go to Dallas for an all-day workshop at which the
participants who were not in Texas (Toronto, Oslo, Houston, Fairfax and
Calgary) were all dialed into a conference room speaker phone.  The
day was hectic, but when it ended, I decided that I wasn't driving
back to Beaumont.  Friday, I walked the Dallas Museum of Art, the
Dallas Sculpture Museum & Gardens, The Trammel-Crow Collection of
Asian Art, and the Texas State Fair.  My 'dogs were barking,' as my
grandfather used to say, when I finally got back in my truck and
headed back home Friday night, but it helped recharge my batteries.  

There was a special traveling exhibition at the Art museum entitled
CARBON-- a black & white photo collection of railroad bridges,
switches, yards, etc.  I thouroughly enjoyed it-- spent well over an
hour studying the detail in the detailed and sharply focused pictures.
My family built railroads when I was growing up, and I thouroughly
enjoyed seeing the details that I could tell the other patrons walking
by me never recognized.  There was no 'ribbon rail' in any of the
photos-- but there were lots of compromise bars, double-frogged
switches, broken rail, reversed rail, uniquely installed switch sets,
and many variations of railroad bridges that we don't see down here in
the flat country.  

I got some quizzical looks from some of the Houston folks who had
flown up, especially when I've got further to drive than they do, but
it's 30 minutes to the Beaumont airport, to which you're supposed to
be an hour earlier than departure time, then a 30 minute flight to
Houston, then usually an hour or more layover before the hour flight
to Dallas, then 30 minutes to the rental car place, and another 30
minutes into Dallas.  Not to mention that the security farce at
airports elevates my blood pressure, whereas driving relaxes me.  So I
drive.  Enjoyed the audio book Will In The World both ways and then
some.

Driving home Friday night, the full moon rising over my left shoulder
was pretty.  Thirty years ago, I had bought a gooseneck trailer from
an outfit west of Waco, and had to have a truck specially outfitted to
pull it.  I'd gone to Marshall, Texas in the truck to visit friends
over the weekend and that Sunday night headed west to pick up the
trailer.  An extremely bright full moon rose behind me, and somewhere
east of Waco, I stopped in a roadside park for a stretch, leak and
smoke, and when I got back into the truck, I drove for ten or fifteen
miles with no lights on in that moon, enjoying the darkness of the
Texas countryside under the moonlight before finally encountering an
oncoming vehicle.  Damn few places here you can do that any more.  

I had to miss my first major exam in my psych class to go to Dallas.
Which means that I'll have to take the comprehensive final to make up
for it.  Oh, well, I'm not in there for the grade-- just to learn.
It's been interesting.  She was supposed to hand out MTBI samples for
us all to take home and bring back to discuss next week.  I've had the
MTBI a dozen times, I guess, so nothing really missed there.  

Now, the rains have started.  We've been dry for so long, it's been
nice to be able to work on the dozer weekends and not have the
mosquitoes to contend with, or the mud.  

Saturday, I went down to the shop and worked cleaning out the
next-to-the last store room that needs it.  Ordered parts, maintenance
and operators manuals for the John Deere I bought through the want
ads.  The manuals cost $150!!  Most of the newer tractors have manuals
available in PDF format from the John Deere site for the downloading,
but I guess they figure there aren't enough of the older tractors left
out there to make it worth their time.  That hurt.  

Isn't this 'blogging?'  From what I read in Newsweek, it fits the
description.  Has the Banyan Tree become a blog of sorts?  

Hugs,
Dale
--
Dale M. Parish
628 Parish Rd
Orange TX 77632
(409) 745-3899 FAX 745-1581    
http://hal.lamar.edu/~dmp8910