That’s how many hours I worked last week – almost two extra days of work packed in to one week. Which means I haven’t had all that much to talk about, what with that being pretty much the only thing I’ve done. And we all know there’s no talking about work. In a general way, though, it has actually been quite interesting seeing what it takes to keep a whole group of people moving forward. Usually I just have to worry about myself, my two direct reports, and anyone with whom I am coordinating a project. But with my boss out and a massive deadline looming next week, it has been my job to keep everyone on my team and a couple of others on the right path, and I think I’ve done it. I’m also learning all sorts of new things, like what details you have to consider when arranging a video shoot.
So while it was a busy week, and certainly not easy, I would say it was a good one.
And then today I went downtown and joined in the anti-war rally for a bit, and then wandered over to the National Book Festival just in time to hear one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, speak. He was as interesting as I expected him to be, and quite funny as well. I’m so glad. It is always a letdown when you see someone whose work you admire and they turn out to be slow witted or surly or boring in person.
I have to admit, I felt oddly disconnected from the rest of the people at the peace march. I’m no sure why. It may be that John’s cynicism is rubbing off on me; while I was glad to stand up and be counted as someone who opposes the war in Iraq – and really, pretty much everything the Bush administration stands for or wants to achieve – I just don’t think the people running this country give a fuck about what the people want. I heard there were somewhere between 150,000 – 300,000 people there today, but there could have been a million, and it wouldn’t change a thing. They’ve got three years left and they are going to keep doing whatever they want. What are we going to do about it? We don’t have presidential recall elections or coups in the United States. And I don’t think they are all that worried about keeping people happy for the 2008 election. By then, the country will probably be in such bad shape that they’ll be glad to dump it in some Democrat’s lap.
Hi there,
I can't comment much because our political views seem to go in completely opposite directions, so in order to avoid lots of loud yelling (trust me, it's happened before), I am going to skip through my republican comments and move on to the book fair. Wish I could have gone to that, I want to go every year and something always comes up. But I wanted to see if you are familiar with the Litblog Co-op (http://www.lbc.typepad.com/). They try to get people to read books that have not been recoginized in the media. I read some of them and really loved them, so I thought you might like to check it out.
Hope to see you soon,
Val