My new Storytellers Unplugged essay is up today. It’s called How far would you go for a critique?
Today also marks twenty-one years that I’ve been working for the same company. It’s had a few different names over that time, but it’s essentially the same business. A back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that if I make it another six years I’ll have spent half my life working here. I’d have to work another 25 years to duplicate the longevity my father had in the paper mill, though. He got a head start on me, going to work for them when he was seventeen.
There was an article in the NY Times today about a 103-year-old judge who was still hearing trials. He doesn’t walk up the five stories to his office any more, and he wears a nasal cannula to deliver oxygen when he gets short of breath, but otherwise he’s keeping active. His main concession is that he will no longer agree to adjudicate trials that look like they will be long. “I don’t even buy green bananas any more,” he said. One defendant who appeared before him wondered if he was catching everything that was going on and how sharp he was. Then he realized they were probably wondering the same thing about the same judge twenty years ago.
I’m giving my website a bit of a facelift. I found a new theme that allows pulldown menus and supports all the widgets I like to use. Then I put my mediocre image manipulation skills to the test and created a collage banner. I don’t think it turned out too bad. I’m working on the look of some of the static pages, many of which I have basically ignored since I created them.
Last night was a wasteland when it came to television. There was nothing worth watching. Even Wipeout was a rerun. I turned to a channel that was airing Twister and pretty much ignored it while I read more of The Devil’s Company and worked at a jigsaw puzzle. You might be surprised by how much of a handicap partial colorblindness is to working on one. Especially this one, which has a lot of trees.
