Fore and Aft

With the coldest winter weather a distant memory, I've spent the past week fighting off bronchitis or whatever is related to bronchitis and substantially worse. A perpetual, persistent cough coupled with an inability to get much-needed sleep has made the last week difficult and less-than-memorable, at least not in a good way.

With Kaia back in SF, at least for the time being, and both of us being sick, I've been skulking my way through my days and nights. I actually hit the office today to catch up on some work I couldn't bring home, and unless tomorrow's weather (as a result of tonight's anticipated snowfall) is awful, I'm heading back there again tomorrow for a while.

In the meantime, between the lack of sleep and the less-than-wonderful waking hours, I can't do much work on any one thing at any given moment, so I've found myself doing some writing, finishing up what is shaping up to be a monster project that should be finished sometime by summer. As for the writing, two major obstacles have appeared. The first is that my copy of Office 2003 took a nosedive when I transferred hard drives and did a system restore; everything of value survived except e-mail and Microsoft Word and Excel. Problem is I haven't been able to put my hands on the install CD, and until I do, I've been relegated to using alternatives while writing. I've got everything else I need to do work-wise on my home PC, but that's the only weak link in an otherwise strong chain. So once I get the copy of Office back on the home PC I should be in better shape to organize the 200 or so pages I've got committed to the hard drive.

Beyond the writing, I've been half in the bag, so I've been catching up on some Anthony Bourdain episodes accumulated on the DVR. I've mentioned Tony B. plenty in these pages so if you're not familiar, hit the Travel Channel and watch his show No Reservations. If you are familiar, which you should be, check out his visits to the Pacific Northwest and to Berlin. Food as an indicator of social and political culture, respectively speaking, isn't necessarily relevant to the world as we know it, but it certainly is interesting and a worthwhile, if alternate, perspective on life, especially with the recent news that Hilary Clinton and Mitt Romney won their respective primaries in Nevada. The news could, certainly, be better.

I'm sure I'll check back again, but before I head back to sleep I'm going to check in with my other half and make sure she's feeling decently. Stay warm, y'all.