Live from Los Angeles

Today I drove the 25+ miles to work and thought I had entered the Twilight Zone. Not only was there no traffic, there were also no cars around when I pulled into the parking lot. Now, you gotta understand that I am usually one of the last of the Sideshow staffers to arrive in the office (what can I say, I'm bad with time... but I always stay late, plus work from home a lot so don't gimme a hard time, alright?), therefore I thought I was going crazy and had accidentally come in on the weekend or a holiday or something dumb like that. Nope. It turned out that there was a power outage in the area around our offices. Everyone else had gotten a telephone call except me and two other relative newbies. Great, I feel so important.

It was pretty cool to arrive and see the IT guys huddled in a bunch just inside the back door with their coffee, waiting for the electricity to come back on (which still hadn't happened by 6pm). Anything that adds some excitement and change into my day is very welcome. I was told to go back home and work from my laptop... so I did. Not all of my colleagues embraced responsibility though... I know a few took it as an excuse to sit around the pool drinking margaritas (ahem... don't want to name names, but you know who you are... and yes, I'm jealous).

It's amazing how much time driving to and from work takes from my day. Not having to drive the 45+ minutes (on a good day) home from work this afternoon made me much more productive. Normally, after spending that amount of time sitting on my ass in a car during rush hour traffic, I get a pounding headache and my brain absolutely convinces the rest of my body that I can do nothing other than lay on the couch as soon as I set foot back into my apartment. Commuting and traffic are very very bad for productivity and motivation levels. I haven't been to the gym in months.

But that's beside the point. My point is that I was much more productive with my day today. I worked. I got the leaky faucet fixed since I was home all day and finally able to let the plumber in. I watched some Angel. I took a nap... oh wait, scratch those last two items off the productivity list. Where was I? Oh, I finally caught up with some blogs. And was inspired to get even more productive by reading about Magazine Man's basement adventures today. So I started cleaning out the apartment's office area, which looks like this:



currently. There are a couple more pictures in the set that really scare me. Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing contained within the mess that is even worth giving away, so alas, there will be no fun free junk party. There are a few important things hidden away in that pile 'o shit though, such as bill and bank statements, paycheck stubs, and magazine subscription info:



So that's what I did tonight. I'll post some "after" pictures if I ever get around to finishing the clean-up. As it stands, I'm still staring at piles of paper on the floor (at least they are now organized by company and date)... my cats are going to have a field day with those tonight I'm sure. To do: buy new Rubbermaid filing drawers.

And before my battery runs out:

busblog turns four

Welcome Art Lad!

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