A Vacation Day at the Office

It's the last Friday of my week of vacation, so naturally, I am driving into the campus to spend the day there. I have a committee meeting that has to take priority, and which is scheduled for half the day, and then I'll spend some time getting my inbox whipped back into shape so I'm somewhat prepared to hit the ground running on Tuesday, after the holiday. Also, my colleagues and I take the days when the President is out of the office in turns, as "administrator in charge." I keep drawing the short straw with regard to Friday shifts.  I think the system is rigged, to be honest.

Waking at 5:45 to the dark of pre-dawn (is it already that time of year? Soon I will be back to using the flashlight app on my iPhone to creep out of the room without disturbing my wife or tripping over the dogs), I felt only cranky and tired.  By the time I had showered the dawn was breaking and by 6:30 as I drove in, the sky was fully lit. In this case, that meant it was deep blue overheard (with a glowing crescent moon almost directly overhead), fading to very pale misty blue just above the trees and mountain peeks, changing to a peachy-rosy glow at horizon level.  Cars parked outside had a heavy coating of morning dew.  I left the top down for the drive in, but did add a little heat via the vents to take the edge off the morning's crispness.

The theme of today's drive seemed to be trucks in a hurry.  First it was an enormous Chevy thing that had to border on barely-road-legal-monster-truck category, flooring it's diesel engine and flying down the arterial and into Lynnwood proper. Then it was a small older Toyota pick-up flying down another arterial, trolling a length of green string out the back of its bed.  Towing a gang-troll lure around a lake was the primary mode of fishing we did growing up, so I know you troll at a slow, steady, fixed speed. I feel certain that at the speed that truck was moving he wasn't going to catch anything, but I kept my advice to myself.  As Ben Franklin is reputed to have said, of advice: "Everybody has it, nobody wants it, fools won't take it, and wise men don't need it."

The music was up and down tempo this morning (or, to be precise, down, way down, up, swinging, really up, down). The Jazz Networks was, to the best of my knowledge, a one-album project of some very good jazz musicians covering Disney tunes from the classic animated films. He's a Tramp, of course, coming from Lady and the Tramp, swinging loose and sultry.  A great album if you love jazz, one of my absolute favorites.  Don't be put off by the seeming kitch of the song selection.  And how can you listen to The Night I Punched Russell Crowe without smiling?

So, between good music, humorous lyrics, and beautiful skies, cranky had given way to reasonably good spirits for a vacation day at the office.

• Lewis & Clark soundtrack: Juice of the Barley (Downriver to the Sea)
• Eugene Friesen: Vocalise
• Brendan James: Green
• The Jazz Networks: He's a Tramp
• Gaelic Storm: The Night I Punched Russell Crowe
• Andrew Bird: Section 8 City