When you are busy, your mind has no time to register time passing so when you are done with your day, your mind says “Wow, that day went fast!” When you’re not busy, your mind notes the passing of time far more often and after so many recognitions that time is passing, it gets to noticing that the time is not passing as fast as it does some time and you are left wondering if the day will ever end!
Today flew by. I had meetings to discuss the development that I am over in the UK doing, as well as meetings to discuss tangential duties I have. These last meetings were held by conference call with people back in the states so they were rather late in the day. Between the meetings, I had a couple writing assignments to complete and, oh yes, I snuck out to sit in the memorial garden at St. Nicholas’ church for a few minutes to eat some lunch. It is a lovely day out, as I notice every time I have a chance to look outside.
Nicely punctuating the day (and filling-in around the edges of some of the other projects I have had today) were the calls from one of my co-workers in this office.
“Don,” she said on one of these calls “I need a word that means: To Have Faith In.”
“Believe?” I asked?
“Okay.” She said, hanging-up.
Later, she called and needed the name of A Large Group. “Cherry Poppin’ Daddies?” I suggested. “No,” she said, “one word. Preferably a short one.”
“Oh, okay. How about swarm.”
“What is A Main Port in Yemen ending in an ‘N’?”
“Are you doing a crossword puzzle?” I asked (while quickly Googleing “main port in Yemen”)
“Ah…” Came the response “It’s a slow day.”
“According to Google it is Aden.”
I really didn’t mind the clues… I wish I had been able to do more of them, but it was a busy day. On the way back from lunch I did take time to help with a puzzle that I have never worked before. It was pretty cool, actually. They take a completed crossword puzzle and divide it into twenty five even pieces with three letters to a side (nine letters in each block) and then scramble the pieces. They then give you the clues for all the horizontal words (but none of the vertical ones) by line. So it might say:
Line One: The Queen’s Seat; Early Day
Line Two: Not Big
Line Three: Mosquito-Borne Illness; Wagner’s Work
You then have to find the correct square pieces in the jumble to fine one that on line one gives you both “Throne” and “Morning” while (without moving the five pieces after you have those words) also spelling “Minute” on line two and “Malaria” and “Composer” on line three. Additionally, the completed solution cannot have any additional words on those lines and must have blank spaces after and/or before the words as placed. To further confound you, there may be more than one block of nine spaces that will fit in any single place on the grid and give you valid horizontal words for the clues but not fit so that they spell valid words vertically. It is challenging. It took me about half-an-hour to get the twenty-five pieces of the puzzle into the correct orientation.
It was only later that I discovered that over here the book these puzzles came from offered cash prizes to people who successfully completed the puzzles. I told my coworker that I wanted a cut should they win anything.
Anyway, after my last meeting of the day I took a stroll back to the hotel and sat down to get a few things done. I have now, that I have finished all the final paperwork of the day, I can get my computer shutdown. I’ll post this when I next get online. For now, it’s time to get the heck out of here and go have…
Uh… what is a three letter word that means Fermented Alcoholic Beverage Containing Malt And Hops, Similar To But Heavier Than Beer?
I hope you have a great day wherever you are today!
Don Bergquist – 05-May-2005 – Hampton Court
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