Feeling human again (sort of)...
Oct. 15th, 2001 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI managed to grab 5 hours of sleep after forcing myself to stay up until the post office opened. I'd come home around 6, made the necessary changes to my return (I found the receipt with the number I thought I'd need to call about), printed it out, attached all the ancillary paperwork, and had it ready to go by 7:50, expecting I'd be right on time for the opening of the post office.
Except that the local post office opens to the public at 9. Aargh!
Anyway, I managed to get the return sent off and then went back to the house and to sleep.
Upon rising, I assembled all my clothes (which are dirty) and did a laundry run.
Have any of you ever washed a shirt with a fountain pen still in the pocket?
I can now claim this accomplishment to my everlasting, undying credit. Fortunately, the pen had a sense of humor and did not void its contents all over my clothing. (Not that it would have mattered, as most of the items in the washer were one shade of blue or another to start with.)
* * * When machines spontaneously reboot, the cause is likely a situation called a memory leak.
What happens is that some application (or combination of applications) repeatedly asks the operating system for a chunk of memory in which to do something, and then neglects to tell the operating system at some later time that the memory is no longer needed. Eventually, there's just no more memory left, at which point a number of things can happen. Spontaneous reboot is one of the more common (certainly, the most noticeable) consequence. Lockup is another.
Looking at the Surveyor site tells me that I'm not the only one who has experienced sudden reboots while using Webcam32. I've taken the advice posted in one of the messages on the support forum and downloaded something that's supposed to solve the problem (a third-party shareware memory manager called MemTurbo II). I might try it out tonight, if there is time.
* * * A call on my cell informed me that my schedule had been changed. Again.
Tonight (more accurately, tomorrow morning), I am to start at 1 am and work until 9 am. Then, I return at 11:30 pm on Tuesday for a reasonably normal shift that goes until 8 am on Wednesday. So far, so good.
Then it's back to marathon mode. On Wednesday night, I go in at 11:30 pm and then home nearly 12 hours later, at 11:15 am Thursday. I'll have all of 7 hours and 15 minutes in which to drive to and from work, prepare for and rise from sleep, and sleep, because I'm to be back at 6:30 that night for a shift that lasts until 5:45 am on Friday.
I guess that means I'll have all day Friday to do anything I want, until the hour nears midnight, again.
Good thing I did laundry.
Cheers...
Except that the local post office opens to the public at 9. Aargh!
Anyway, I managed to get the return sent off and then went back to the house and to sleep.
Upon rising, I assembled all my clothes (which are dirty) and did a laundry run.
Have any of you ever washed a shirt with a fountain pen still in the pocket?
I can now claim this accomplishment to my everlasting, undying credit. Fortunately, the pen had a sense of humor and did not void its contents all over my clothing. (Not that it would have mattered, as most of the items in the washer were one shade of blue or another to start with.)
What happens is that some application (or combination of applications) repeatedly asks the operating system for a chunk of memory in which to do something, and then neglects to tell the operating system at some later time that the memory is no longer needed. Eventually, there's just no more memory left, at which point a number of things can happen. Spontaneous reboot is one of the more common (certainly, the most noticeable) consequence. Lockup is another.
Looking at the Surveyor site tells me that I'm not the only one who has experienced sudden reboots while using Webcam32. I've taken the advice posted in one of the messages on the support forum and downloaded something that's supposed to solve the problem (a third-party shareware memory manager called MemTurbo II). I might try it out tonight, if there is time.
Tonight (more accurately, tomorrow morning), I am to start at 1 am and work until 9 am. Then, I return at 11:30 pm on Tuesday for a reasonably normal shift that goes until 8 am on Wednesday. So far, so good.
Then it's back to marathon mode. On Wednesday night, I go in at 11:30 pm and then home nearly 12 hours later, at 11:15 am Thursday. I'll have all of 7 hours and 15 minutes in which to drive to and from work, prepare for and rise from sleep, and sleep, because I'm to be back at 6:30 that night for a shift that lasts until 5:45 am on Friday.
I guess that means I'll have all day Friday to do anything I want, until the hour nears midnight, again.
Good thing I did laundry.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2001-10-15 08:27 pm (UTC)Your schedule seems so chaotic I can't even wrap my head around it. Are there actual, good reasons for such an odd schedule or are they just bad managers?
no subject
Date: 2001-10-15 10:45 pm (UTC)This, of course, pushes the question back one level. However, consider that the ground would - given their druthers - prefer not to screw with the crew's schedule; everyone's already got a heck of a lot to do, both on orbit and on the ground. However, some things - like EVAs - have to be scheduled to coordinate factors such as the station's being in sunlight or shadow, being over Russian ground stations, the station's attitude, and so on.
In the final analysis, my schedule is wild because there's also not enough people around who have the skill and training I have to do the job.
On the one hand, that's good, as it's about as fine a case for "job security" as I can put together. On the other, as you note... it is chaotic.
Cheers...
Re:
Date: 2001-10-15 10:52 pm (UTC)And cheers for the job security, too ;)