The timeline of my day. That is what we are here to talk about. And why? Because that is exercise number 15 in my thirty-one day blog challenge. And for the record, let me say once and for all, when this thirty-one day challenge is over I shall not be doing another one. At least not like this. Goals are fine. Challenges that ask us to go beyond our comfort zone and stretch a bit are fine, but challenges that really don’t have something to be 
gained by the steps as well as the finish are not so fine. That is where I am with this. I am doing this exercise to get my writing muscles back in shape a bit and to develop some regularity to my writing. But, I should have investigated the content of the exercises a bit better before signing on. Because of that I am left doing exercises like “Timeline of your day.” My fault.
Anyway, back to class folks! My timeline varies drastically, as it does for most people, depending on whether or not we are talking about a workday. Since there are 5 workdays per week to every 2 non-workdays, I shall choose to educate you on my normal workday. Only seems fair and democratic.
My basic workday goes something like this:
5:45 am – Get up. I try to get up on time, though occasionally I fail miserably. I use my iPhone as my alarm clock, and every once in a while I forget to set it or have turned the volume off or just sleep through it. So I get up, take a shower, dig through the laundry baskets for something to wear, curse my lack of matching socks, let the dogs and cats in and out multiple times, and then finally stumble out of the door hopefully by 6:40. It takes approximately 20 minutes to get to my parking garage, therefore our next step is …
7:00 am – Park in the MUSC Harborview Tower parking garage and take the shuttle bus from there to my office. My wait for the bus can be anywhere from basically nothing to more than 15 minutes. It just depends on the way the universe is spinning.
7:30 am – With any luck I am in my office and at my desk by 7:30. The goal is to actually get there by 7:20, because, as people get tired of hearing me say, if you are on time, you are late.
Oh, and if the earlier time at home went well, I will have eaten breakfast at home. If not, I’ll either grab a protein bar out of my desk drawer or make a quick stop-off at the cafe downstairs for some breakfast. Either way, I usually end up grabbing a Diet Coke or Diet Mountain Dew from there. Yes, I know they are bad for me and I am seriously trying to cut down. Like most programmers though I have an extreme caffeine addition. And while most people would drink coffee, I prefer my caffeine like my revenge – as a dish best served cold.
From here on for the next eight hours or so, plus an hour for lunch, I am at work. I do coding, web development and Mac support. I also do a bit of Linux and Windows server administration, user support, graphics work, SharePoint intranet design, and “other duties as required.” The nice thing is that it is mostly all interesting work with good people who also care about what they are doing. And it is for a good cause. You can’t get much better than supporting a pediatric hospital – unless it is helping to support a pediatric teaching hospital where they are training the future crop of doctors to take care of kids. Again, hard to find fault with that.
Along the way we eat lunch. We love our lunches as anyone who follows me on FaceBook or Foursquare will know. Charleston is a fantastic place to eat, and we make the most of it. And if it is Friday then there is 9 am donut time with the rest of the staff. And, thanks to my pal David Geddings, before donuts there is Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit time. But this is only on Friday. Hey, I told you we like to eat!
4:30 pm – I am back out the door of the office and waiting for the shuttle bus to the parking garage. This should, except in days of heavy rain, get me out of downtown before the worst of the rush hour traffic hits.
I normally stop at my post office box and check the mail and then get home well before 6pm. Occasionally other errands or traffic will delay me until after six, but that is rare. Then, of course, dinner with the family. As has increasingly become the standard fare for meals in the US, this takes place in front of the television watching the evening news. I will give you that watching TV while eating dinner isn’t a great thing, but we do in fact end up having a meal together which is getting increasingly rare for most families, and we watch the day’s events together which often prompts some family discussion. I will take it.
After dinner I retreat to my computer. I am not much of a TV fan, what TV I do watch is mostly recorded and watched on the weekends, and I usually have some form of work to do. Some days it is web development, some days it is writing, other times it may be computer repair. Every once in a while I have no work to do at all and can just surf the net. Usually it is work I am putting off, not that I don’t have any.
11:00 pm – Finally, when I am done working and surfing and writing and cursing, I grab a book or a magazine and head for bed. It may be a bit later than eleven when I get to bed, but it is rarely earlier. Usually I get to sleep quickly, and in a little less than 7 hours I will start it all again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw
