&#034Learn to write well, or not to write at all.&#034 -John Sheffield, first Duke of Buckingham and Normandy

It&#039s freezing in here. Since our secretary is out, I&#039m sitting at her desk here in the lobby, and I have to say that the lobby would be more appropriately termed a refrigerator. I&#039m trying to keep warm by editing this manual some more. Normally, editing gets me all worked up to see so many glaring errors and inconsistencies and the like, but this project isn&#039t so much editing as it is updating, so I can&#039t get all riled up at the grammar and format. I mean, I&#039m still picking it apart, but it&#039s not as exciting as a student paper where subject-verb agreement is a figment of the imagination and where if run-ons were car accidents, these kids would have their licenses revoked. But, at least I&#039m keeping busy.

I think that things would be better if I had had some tea this morning. I was going to fix myself a mug once I got here (I was dragging ass at home and didn&#039t have time to fix some there), but I got landed in this chair and have hardly moved since other than to direct people to particular offices. I need my caffeine!! I&#039ll get some at lunch which will hopefully be in about twenty minutes. I should run by the bank first though. I have two bucks to my name plus loose change. Plenty to buy tea, not enough to actually eat (though caffeine is more important, in my opinion).

<Sigh> I suppose that I really ought to get back to editing this thing. I&#039m relatively close to finishing it off completely (well, this particular chapter at least), and it would be cool to be able to hand it off to be approved and then gone. I need caffeine. I don&#039t need to worry about commas or hyphens. Caffeine! Caffeine is great. I don&#039t know how I&#039ve gotten this far in the day without it yet. <Shrug> Well, I guess it means that I can last another fifteen minutes.

Posted: June 7, 2004 at a quarter to noon.