Miscellany
Mar. 26th, 2008 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieSo many times this week, I've opened the LJ update window, started to type something, and given it up as boring to everyone who has the misfortune to read it. But what the hell; tonight I'm going to put all those half-started entries into one and throw it out there. Beware.
*
This morning, my mother and I had the following conversation, paraphrased:
MOM: Argh, why are you always wearing white socks with your work clothes?
ME: *takes off shoe and wiggles bare foot*
MOM: OMG, those are your feet?! [perhaps with fewer internet acronyms and excessive punctuation]
Heh. And now I have proved my point that white socks or tights are actually at least as close, if not closer, to my natural skin tone than tan hose are. I WIN AT PALENESS. (Excepting for the albinos out there, I guess.)
*
I have to teach my team how to interpret specifications tomorrow at work. Fun times! My tack is essentially going to be, "See these ten pages? All they're doing is saying, 'We need elevation drawings and wiring diagrams. Oh, and some info on how to install and maintain this equipment we just bought would be good too, kthxbai.'"
Actually, reading through specs might be one of the more enjoyable parts of my job. The flippancy above aside, it probably is the most challenging aspect, often they do want weird things that, okay, most of the time we can provide, haha. The project managers have to figure out how to provide it. I'm glad I don't have their job.
*
I meant to talk earlier about my trip to UT last Friday, but never quite got around to it. In short, my impressions were: concrete, construction, and orange.
Heh. Okay, seriously, UT has a perfectly pleasant campus. It's smaller than I expected, actually, although I probably didn't see all of it. I of course chose to visit during their spring break, so NOTHING was open, which was a bit unfortunate, but I did get something of a sense of the campus, anyway. Knoxville was bigger than I thought it was, too; I had thought it was the same size as Chattanooga, but no. Not really. Uh, sorry Knoxvegans? (BTW, is TN the only place that turns placenames ending in "ville" into "vegas" with creeping regularity? I can't think of another state where cities have that done to their names, although I'm betting there's an Ashevegas in North Carolina. Hmmm.)
Pictures soon. Really.
*
I've recently been reading a lot of Richard Russo. Three novels, in particular (Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs, and Straight Man), which all pretty much tell the same story about the same characters in the same town, with all the names changed. And really, that's been okay, because Russo tells this one story very, very well. And let's face it, I eat up quirky, darkly mysterious stories set in small towns with a giant spoon, so this fills my need nicely.
However, I would say he needs to change a few more details than he has been--one that comes to mind is that EF and BoS both are set in a town with a dying or dead factory which, in times past, used to dump dye-filled runoff into the town river, and you could tell what day of the week it was by what color the river ran. That's such a fantastic (if cancerous) image, and it really sticks with you. Perhaps one ought not to use it twice in two books published over a span of seven years. Another repeated detail is that in EF and SM, there's a tragicomic sad old man character who (usually when drunk) continually refers to the main character as a "peckerwood" in an ambiguously agressive/possibly joking way.
I feel like I'm damning with faint praise, but really, all three books are very good. Straight Man is by far the funniest, and involves academia, which is always a plus. Bridge of Sighs seems to be the most well-done, probably because it's the most recent. Empire Falls was the one that won the Pulitzer, though.
*
New BSG next Friday! Woot!
*
This morning, my mother and I had the following conversation, paraphrased:
MOM: Argh, why are you always wearing white socks with your work clothes?
ME: *takes off shoe and wiggles bare foot*
MOM: OMG, those are your feet?! [perhaps with fewer internet acronyms and excessive punctuation]
Heh. And now I have proved my point that white socks or tights are actually at least as close, if not closer, to my natural skin tone than tan hose are. I WIN AT PALENESS. (Excepting for the albinos out there, I guess.)
*
I have to teach my team how to interpret specifications tomorrow at work. Fun times! My tack is essentially going to be, "See these ten pages? All they're doing is saying, 'We need elevation drawings and wiring diagrams. Oh, and some info on how to install and maintain this equipment we just bought would be good too, kthxbai.'"
Actually, reading through specs might be one of the more enjoyable parts of my job. The flippancy above aside, it probably is the most challenging aspect, often they do want weird things that, okay, most of the time we can provide, haha. The project managers have to figure out how to provide it. I'm glad I don't have their job.
*
I meant to talk earlier about my trip to UT last Friday, but never quite got around to it. In short, my impressions were: concrete, construction, and orange.
Heh. Okay, seriously, UT has a perfectly pleasant campus. It's smaller than I expected, actually, although I probably didn't see all of it. I of course chose to visit during their spring break, so NOTHING was open, which was a bit unfortunate, but I did get something of a sense of the campus, anyway. Knoxville was bigger than I thought it was, too; I had thought it was the same size as Chattanooga, but no. Not really. Uh, sorry Knoxvegans? (BTW, is TN the only place that turns placenames ending in "ville" into "vegas" with creeping regularity? I can't think of another state where cities have that done to their names, although I'm betting there's an Ashevegas in North Carolina. Hmmm.)
Pictures soon. Really.
*
I've recently been reading a lot of Richard Russo. Three novels, in particular (Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs, and Straight Man), which all pretty much tell the same story about the same characters in the same town, with all the names changed. And really, that's been okay, because Russo tells this one story very, very well. And let's face it, I eat up quirky, darkly mysterious stories set in small towns with a giant spoon, so this fills my need nicely.
However, I would say he needs to change a few more details than he has been--one that comes to mind is that EF and BoS both are set in a town with a dying or dead factory which, in times past, used to dump dye-filled runoff into the town river, and you could tell what day of the week it was by what color the river ran. That's such a fantastic (if cancerous) image, and it really sticks with you. Perhaps one ought not to use it twice in two books published over a span of seven years. Another repeated detail is that in EF and SM, there's a tragicomic sad old man character who (usually when drunk) continually refers to the main character as a "peckerwood" in an ambiguously agressive/possibly joking way.
I feel like I'm damning with faint praise, but really, all three books are very good. Straight Man is by far the funniest, and involves academia, which is always a plus. Bridge of Sighs seems to be the most well-done, probably because it's the most recent. Empire Falls was the one that won the Pulitzer, though.
*
New BSG next Friday! Woot!
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 03:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 05:46 pm (UTC)I too have been asked if I'm wearing white tights. (With shorts??) Alas.
In short, my impressions were: concrete, construction, and orange.
Welcome to Knoxville! That's... pretty much it. But if you're lucky, the orange construction barrels will rearrange themselves occasionally!
It's smaller than I expected, actually, although I probably didn't see all of it.
It... hides? Seriously, it's very spread out and mingled with the city. That's how I learned most of what I know about it: I kept tripping over it on my way to other stuff in Knoxville.
You gonna visit Boston anytime soon? That should be fun.
(no subject)
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