well, i switched to decaf coffee today… that didn’t take long… ;P

Zack gave me a lecture about how social pressure can be effective to conduce exercise. well, he might have been right. i went to the workout room this morning and there were these two people: a woman in her late 20s and an older woman, apparently her trainer. that girl talked non-stop, in one of those voicesthat encourages you to utter (in your head) ‘shut up!’ i pushed myself harder today than before, because the strain of working out almost drowned out her voice. group motivation at work.

The alarm went off at 6:25, to my discomfort. I slept poorly the night before, so I was tired and lethargic. During my usual wake-up routine, I was fighting the urge to go to the exercise room. After all, I didn’t wake up so early for no reason at all. Finally, my desire to stick to my plan won out and I walked down the hall.

I only spent about 15 minutes there; the first 5 were split between the row machine and some free weights. The final 10 were on the exercise bike. I have a real hard time exercising for the sake of health. I’m naturally efficient – I avoid work wherever possible!

After a morning meal, I headed down the hill into work. The weather was bright and sunny but not too hot. So started a typical Monday at Isilon. I read my email, checked the news, got some coffee, water, spoke with some co-workers, and began to work on my bug list. I fixed an easy one to start myself out on the right foot.

We had our usual morning scrum (meeting) a litte late, about 9:50. I started by stressing the quantity of bugs and the tightness in our schedule. I ended my speech with some ‘good news,’ a joke about switching to GEICO. No major news to report; everyone continues to work on their bug queue as best as they can.

I resumed my own bug queue for the next two hours and then broke to have a “1 on 1” with my PM. We have a meeting regularly scheduled on Monday during lunch but we had missed it the last few weeks. This time we spoke in depth about strategies for motivating one of our teammates who is key component but is producing sub-par work. I ate my grilled chicken caesar salad which I made the day before. It was a little soggy, but not bad.

Another hour or so of bug fixing (naturally, there is time lost in context switching) before the regular all-hands development meeting at 2. Paul had to remind our team so we arrived after most everyone else had and I sat in a different spot than usual. The meeting was pretty uneventful and I chatted with Kaya a bit afterwards.

3 more hours of bug-fixing; I made a break-through with the bug I had been working on. I had a more complex solution for fixing it all written but was uncomfortable. I then converted that to a trivial, 6 line diff, got quick approval and checked it in. During this time, as always, I was interrupted occassionally by my teammates.

At approximately 17:25, I headed down to catch the bus to class. I just barely made it; I was waiting to cross the street when the bus was coming. He had to stop to drop someone off and the light changed so I was able to board and find a seat near the back. I read my Japanese vocabulary (verbs) for a little while but was soon distracted by the sights (girls) and spent most of the ride staring out the window.

Japanese class was fun. We had full attendance (5) for the first time (this was only the 3rd class of this lesson). The skill level is pretty well split – there is a gentleman who is obviously behind and another who is obviously ahead. I lie smack dab in the middle and I’m not real pleased with that. I think it is obvious (at least to me) how much I enjoy going to class and interacting with the teacher. He’s Japanese, so I’m naturally curious.

Class was finished close to 21:00 and I headed across the street to catch the bus. It seemed to take quite a while and I was able to fight off my urge (caused by boredom) to eat a slice of pizza. Eventually it came and I sat in a tired daze until my first stop, at the Seattle Center. I then had to wait quite a bit (10-15 minutes) for the next bus to take me up QA hill.

Bailey seemed as happy to see me as I was her and after some affection I found some scraps to eat. I watched a little TV, then prepared for bed. I watched one episode of Seinfeld while flipping through my Geometry book. I had already seen it, but it was funny. After realizing I had already seen the second episode as well, I decided to skip it and concentrate on the book. I moved to my bed, read a few pages, and turned out the light about 23:30.

during the week i often think to myself how little time i have – yet today, i’ve done absolutely nothing. i took a nap, got some ice cream, read a book at the library, and dinked around on the computer (of course). now i see that the day has flown by. i played in the condo workout room a little; i think i’m going to start a workout routine. if i can follow through, i’ll start by working out in the morning on days which i’m not going to ride my bike (when i have Japanese class). i’ll start with something like 15 minutes and build up to my goal of an hour of good solid exercise. today is a scorcher. the condo is cooler than outside but the lack of a breeze makes it a little more warm than being outside in the shade. i think. ;P

Art asked me if I wanted to do some consulting work, setting up AIX machines. I said that would be sweet. We may start after I return from Japan, if it goes through.

another week has just flown by. i’ll try to recap some of the highlights:

• started level 3 in my Japanese class
• drank too much wine while babbling with Lisa
• had a fun picnic at work and played bocci ball
• continued to make good progress on my work stuff
• got less exercise than i should have
• received the final proof for my article, due Monday