Work

As of today I've been at my job for exactly two years. Wow. Unlike every other job so far I've yet to be bored with this job or to have grown to dislike it. Myr and I, a long time ago talked about an "18 month" rule with tech jobs, where techies get bored and start looking for greener pastures. Well, here I am half a year past that point and none of that has begun to set in. Sure there are annoyances and the occasional morning where I'd rather stay in bed, but I am not constantly annoyed and waking up with a cloud of doom over me because another odious day lurked ahead.

My rule of thumb for when it is time to change is when fleeting thoughts like, "If I got hit by a car and broke a leg, I could get out of work for at least three days," run through my mind on the way to work on a regular basis. After two years here I'm not even close to that.

Vancouver Lights

Vancouver Lights By Earle Birney, 1941 About me the night moonless wimples the mountains wraps the ocean land air and mounting sucks at the stars The city throbbing below webs the peninsula Streaming the golden strands overleap the seajet by bridge and bouy vault the shears of the inlet climb the woods toward me falter and halt Across to the firefly haze of a ship on the gulf's erased horizon roll the spokes of a restless lighthouse   Through the feckless years we have come to the time when to look on this quilt of lamps is a troubling deligh Wlling from Europe's bog through Africa flowing and Asia drowning the lonely lumes on the oceans tiding up over Halifax now to this winking outpost come flooding the primal ink   On the mountain's brutish forehead with terror of space I stir of the changeless night and the stark ranges of nothing pulsing down from beyond and between the fragile planets We are a spark beleagered by darkness this twinkle we make in a corner of the emptiness how shall we utter our fear that the black Experimentress will never in the range of her microscope find it? Our Phoebus himself in a bubble that dries on Her slide while Nubian wears for an evening's whim a necklace of nebulae   Yet we must speak we the unique glowworms Out of the waters and rocks of our little world we cunningly conjured these flames hooped these sparks by our will From blankness and cold we fashioned stars to our size and signalled Aldeberan This must we say whoever may be to hear us if murk devour and none weave again in gossamer:   These rays were ours we made them and unmade them Not the shudder of continents doused us the moon's passion nor crash of comets In the fathomless heat of our dwarfdom our dream's combustion we contrived the power the blast that snuffed us No one bound Prometheus Himself he chained and consumed his own bright liver O stranger Plutonian descendant or beast in the stretching night— there was light

( The Larger Picture )