Firstday

My first day back at work almost got off to a disastrous start.

I got to bed fairly early, around 9:00, but couldn't fall asleep. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, finally dozed off, and then I woke up again around 11:00. Then 12:00. Then at 1:15, I woke up to the sound of a titanic electrical storm. Thunder crashed, lighting flashed, and I was wide awake. I looked at my clocks to check the time. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep again.

An exceptionally loud thunderclap rolled. I looked at the clocks again - and watched them wink out.

It was just for a few seconds, but it was enough. One of the clocks faded back on - it has a battery backup. So did the clock on the VCR. But my clock radio began flashing "12:00...12:00...12:00..."

"Yeah? Well screw you, too," I thought, to no one in particular. Actually, that's not exactly what I said, but if you're familiar with John Carpenter's The Thing, I think you know the line. Grabbing a trusty battery-operated atomic clock, I reset the clock radio and went back to sleep.

(Turns out our phone lines didn't fare so well, and according to the phone company the phones may be out of order until Friday. Strangely, the DSL connection works just fine.)

The rest of the day went pretty much the way you would expect for someone who has gone from a beige-collar semi-cushy office job where I would be on a computer and a phone more than half the day to being in a blue-collar production job where I'm on my feet 10 out of 12 hours. Actually, today was a really, really, unusually hectic day, according to the people I was shadowing. And it was nice having tangible, immediately observable results from my work.

So I need to go to bed soon. 3:00 will roll around mighty early, and I want to be ready for it.