Accomplishments for November 24, 2004:
- Awoke at 7:00 a.m. and, after an Instant Breakfast, walked and jogged briefly (about ten minutes). There was my exercise for the day. I also did some basic strength training with my isometric exercise device.
- At work, completed five formal action items. This is much less work than I’d like to have done, though I’m partly limited by a lack of other things to do.
- Wrote about 150 words of The Old Man, a Hallowe’en story about an old man and a young boy who are both lonely, and find temporary solace in each others’ company. I think.
- Painted my upstairs closet door a section of wall in my upstairs bathroom. This completes painting of the upstairs bathroom. The closet door will need a third coat of paint.
- Read the last third of 1 Corinthians. It’s remarkable how often I’ve been
mis-taught this book. It’s all about grace and getting along! - Baked a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, as well as a batch of biscotti for tea. I also noticed a recipe for essentially cinnamon rolls in one cookbook; I might be able to make those for Saturday mornings instead of relying on Pillsbury. I also prepared the bread crumbs for the stuffing tomorrow, and noticed that I have no celery. Hmmm. Will the stuffing be okay without celery? Too late to buy any more.
- Reviewed my primary Japanese language book for a few minutes while waiting for the biscotti to bake. I’d like to spend a bit of time learning Japanese most days in the immediate future.
- Reviewed Don’t Just Do What I Tell You! Do What Needs To Be Done, a business book with a lot of good advice. The advice is in the form of platitudes, but they’re true platitudes which I would do well to follow despite their banality.
- While unable to go to sleep, I wrote one page of a Welcome document for new Otherspace Productions employees. I’ve found that I can’t remember to tell each new employee everything that needs to be said. Hopefully, this Welcome document can introduce our values and culture clearly.
I couldn’t get to sleep on time; I think I was too distracted by my Thanksgiving preparations. I’ve never done it before, and I get nervous whenever I do something for the first time, especially when I’ll be doing it for an audience.
Chris asks: “If one does not have self confidence, how does one get self confidence?”
That’s an excellent question. Fortunately,
I know of two consistent solutions. The first is to start out by faking it. Pretend that you have
Secondly,
And now, more VR story:
Thomas allowed himself to straighten out, planted his left foot, and—barely noticing the sparks and shrapnel flying from the gunfire landing on either side of the store—pitched his triangular missile directly at Grey Hackle with a throw that would have made any pro baseball pitcher proud.
Grey Hackle’s brain registered the bit of shelving half a second before it hit him in the stomach, which gave his arms just enough time to swing slightly inwards. Then it hit, and his body doubled over as his fingers clamped reflexively on the triggers of both guns, so that the pavement around him exploded in a Roman Candle of bullets. Kino and Karl dove away and scurried into a nearby alley, then Grey Hackle’s body slumped and the guns went silent.
Adrenaline seared Thomas’ veins as he drew in ragged breaths. Beads of sweat popped out all over him. He was staring straight at the huge trench