I was wicked late this morning. 

I had a what I thought would be a quick doctor's appointment. I know that probably sounds silly, but I really thought it was just going to be a quick Q&A before work. I didn't even bother to tell work I had the appointment. I figured I might be about 15 minutes late for work, but that's usually okay around here as long as it's not every day. But I end up waiting longer than I ever had at the office and then, suddenly it's a good idea to get some blood work going. What? 

To top it off, I get downstairs to the lab and they have this big sign: Due to a new computer system, please expect significant delays in being called. Does that even make any sense? You're new system is making things more difficult?!? Holy cow. 

I think I got out of the office at about 9:30, but that wasn't the worst. For the most inexplicable reason, 128 is a parking lot. It's 9:30! WTF?!? Today is the day everyone is late for work. Luckily, my exit wasn't that far from the backup, but --unfortunately-- at that point, every street in Norwood is packed with cars. 

I didn't get to work until after 10. 

This Place is a Morgue 

That's about it. 

Don's gone; I think everyone else took a half day or something. 

I just walked to the bathroom and back and saw exactly one other person in the building. It's freaky-quiet over here in production. I can hear someone on the phone in the other department, but it's downright creepy here. It doesn't help that it's overcast outside and when I turn around it's dark and empty. 

If I didn't have actual work to do, I might see about skipping out --except I think one of the Big Kahuna's is in and they sometime troll around on Fridays to see who's in and who's cut out. So, by "skipping out" I actually mean, "leaving 5 minutes early". 

I'm such a rebel. 

I think we're averaging about one day of sunshine for 40 days of rain now. Everything is grey and overcast and it seems like it's been that way forever. I swear I've forgotten what raw sunlight looks like now. Yesterday, which was Nor'easter, the wind and rain was so bad along the main drag of Norwood it snapped off sapling right into the street. The wind almost ripped the awning off a storefront as we ate lunch. 

On top of that, it's only been in the mid-50s the rain making it seem colder. This is June?!? 

Going home last night took an extra 30 minutes because the roads are all partially flooded or big, gaping holes appear that eat SUVs. Out near Canton, they have this nice little dam and waterfall area. There's a tiny park with a bench next to the stone wall that's overgrown with plants. The whole area was flooded out as water was coming over and through the rocks. Closer to home there's another, bigger version of this and the runoff area was a torrent of violent water crashing into the rocks right before going under the roadway. The spray mist alone was like rain.

It's all very freaky.

Well, it turned out to be a real Evil Tuesday anyway. 

During a production cycle at work, artwork (which is sometimes a most generous term to call it) is often done first, sometimes a month or more before I touch text. But this particular project I got the artwork done way before the book even launched. So it sat there for almost 3 months before I needed it, which turned out to be today.

Only the folder is empty. Empty! 

Okay, so I call down to the tech guys and see about restoring a backup. Only it isn't on the tapes. What? They start going through the monthlies and come up with zip. Holy shit, 20 hours of work just fucking evaporated. They go through everything downstairs and I scour every where it might be on my system (which is nowhere, because I don't work locally). At one point I go to check the hardcopy, because 3 months of blank backups start me wondering if I'm somehow misremembering doing it in the first place (which did happen to me once, when I first started). But the printouts are normal, they even have the date and file locations printed on the bottoms. 

In the end, I'm just screwed. No files, no backups, nothing. A fucking mystery. Now, I have to start over and jam 20 hours of work into about 8 and somehow not blow a budget. 

Here's my obligatory 666 entry.

 

Ooooo, it's evil! EVIL! 

And a Tuesday.

The second installment of Myra is up and running. Which advances the story all of about ten seconds. I also changed the numbering scheme for the serial from a double-decimal place to a single. That's mostly because I'm not sure that it won't top over 100 and it might look funky if it does. Plus, I've run the numbers and drop cases as individual images. So 1.1 is actually three different .gif files. Doing this means I don't have to worry about uploading any graphics as the entire run of them is already online. Yeah, it's exciting isn't it?!? I also corrected a bad break in 1.1. I'm already thinking there could be some minor edits as I go along, but I wonder if I should bother posting what I've changed?