I got precisely jack shit done for work today, which might be fine if I didn't have a lot to do. Of course, I usually have a lot to do; but the problem is I'm not sure I've really accomplished much this week, and I need to get at least one or two things down for the weekly status. It's the Protestant work ethic in me, but I don't like putting "This week I stared off into space and read comic books" as my status line. It's not entirely true. I've done a few things: Monday morning I discovered a really obvious operational error--by reading an Operations monitoring page, which apparently they don't check--that probably contributed to last week's production seizure, and at the very least calls into question all the data and thinking we've done about the production service over the past few weeks. I noticed it in the error reports, which I haven't gotten in several weeks...so had the error reports been coming through, I would have seen it sooner...had I looked at the monitoring page sooner or more closely... At any rate, it was the sort of glaring error that no one really needs to comment on specifically, as it speaks for itself quite well.

I like my ceramics class. So far it's been all throwing stuff on the wheel, which is fine and fun, and it's not like I'm going to master it and get bored in these 10 weeks. My first four pieces got bisque-fired (a lower-temperature firing to turn it from clay to pottery; a second high-temperature firing is for glazes) and look pretty good, and I have another three pieces ready for firing. They're...yannow. No one will mistake me for a professional any time soon. I like them, though. I'll take some pictures next week.

Last night a few of us went and saw Cake at the Warfield in San Francisco, and I cannot recommend highly enough that you find a way to see them. The music is quirky rock, after a fashion, but composed and performed with such consummate musicianship and good humor that you'd probably enjoy it no matter what.

I think my body is busy fighting off everyone else's plagues right now. Oof.