I'm not burning out...I just need a vacation!

We're in that most joyous time of the year...called the holly-daze.

It's the time of the year where normal rational adults because as crazed and psychopathic as a five year old on a sugar binge.  Work has been a treat with people just now wanting to order items that are clearly marked as shipping directly from our supplier and clearly marked as taking up to four to six weeks and getting irate when we tell them that "No, we can't guarantee delivery for Christmas."  C'mon people.  Get with the damn program.  Yesterday (Monday) was the last day to order for guaranteed delivery for Christmas.  Even with the USPS/UPS/FedEx...I would have set that deadline a week previous just for some cover yourself type room. 

Now having said all of that, work has been very different this year.  We are exactly two weeks before Christmas and we're just now starting to hit call volume levels that we saw before Thanksgiving last year.  A vast majority of our orders are now placed electronically.  Many participants email for customer service issues and some programs have the ability to do a real-time webchat with us.

It's been odd with the seeming lack of calls, but the volume of emails and webchats has definately made up for the difference.  It's been pleasantly steady.  We have the occasional hour or two here and there that get frantic as we get into calls holding...but overall, it's been actually pleasant this year.  I think the lack of calls/stress is part of the reason it just doesn't seem possible that we're two weeks out from Christmas.

Otherwise, life is going pretty well.  The weather has been decent to us.  It's been sunny with highs in the upper teens or low twenties (just about where we are normally).  The roommates are doing well and unless there's a big change in plans for the weekend, I will be going to the St. Paul Garou game on Saturday night.  I'm not sure how late I'll be staying, but I'll be there.

I'm slowly starting to pull things together for a project I've had brewing in my head for the last few months.  I actually downloaded and printed the documentation to a big piece of the software I'll be using for the project.  I'm going to be turning a spare machine into a dedicated piece of the project.  I'm rummaging around for a spare HD and I think I may wind up doing some creative juggling of my desktop machine to free up the one small drive in it.  It's a 20Gb drive, but for Windows 2000, the software I need and all the data/images I'll be creating and using, it'll be plenty of space.

Once I get more of the project up and running, I'll be posting more details on it and asking for feedback from many of you.  I will also be bringing

tc_weather

 into active status again as part of the project.  If all goes well, it should be up and testing by the start of the new year and ready to go live by the beginning of March.

Well, that's the update for now.