When one door closes, another one opens.

As expected, Friday was the last day on my document production project. It was a good project: when I signed on, it was expected to last 3 months. It actually lasted 30.

I don’t think anyone was especially sad to see this project end. Sure, it’s been a good, steady paycheck. But the past few months have been so boring and unchallenging that I’ve been afraid my head might implode.

The saddest part of the end of the project was the way BigLawFirm acted. They never directly told us that the project was over: the oblique reference two weeks ago was it. They didn’t tell some of the staffing agencies, either, who had to hear it from us. They didn’t even tell their own employees, such as the Staff Attorney who asked on Tuesday whether his last day working for the firm would also be on Friday – and they didn’t respond to him until Friday around noon. And none of the folks who worked on the project – senior partners, junior partners, associates – ever came by to thank us for all our work or to wish us good luck in future endeavors or anything. Oh well: further evidence that I would never want to work for BigLawFirm or spend any unpaid time with any of its employees.

And the open door? We all found new document production projects, with most of us going to the same project that starts on Tuesday.

Recent reading.

I’ve been listening to Microthrills by Wendy Spero. I happily recommend it. I’d like to write as entertainingly as she does, but she has a head start, as she does standup comedy. And I like the fact that the author was the one to read the book. That seems to make books more interesting to me, as you know that the tone and timing is exactly what was meant. Similarly, I liked the CD version of In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson's book about his trip to Australia, quite a bit more because he read it.

As a timely example of contrary, I’m now listening to Loop Group, by Larry McMurtry. The person reading it is mighty distracting: she sometimes mispronounces words or “reads” the wrong word, and often puts emphasis. In a clearly wrong place. When the reader causes you shake your head and go “Whaaa?”, I’m guessing that’s not what the author really had in mind.

I’ve also recently been reading Awake In the Dark, Roger Ebert’s latest collection of reviews and essays. As always, very entertaining, and well written.

Ho, ho, ho.

Looks like my contract attorney job will be over at the end of the year. I suppose I can’t really complain, having worked 30 months on a 3-month project.

And, of course, I don’t know for certain that the job will in fact be over. The bubble-headed associate who is sort of in charge – although on a project of this size, she really isn’t – came over today for the first time in three weeks, to have us change the procedure we’ve been following for the past two months. “You’re doing too much. There’s no way you can be finished by the end of the year if you do all that. So instead, do this other thing which will accomplish only 1% of what you’ve been doing but at least you can get through all of the material. That way, you can be finished by the end of the year.”

This was, naturally, the first that anyone in the room – including our handlers – had heard the phrase “the end of the year” spoken with respect to this project, and it wasn’t entirely clear that she realized she’d said it. And there’s an outside chance that she didn’t really mean to suggest that the project won’t continue into next year – but no one has come forth to officially make that clarification.

Oh, well. We all knew the project would end sometime, and the end of the year is as good a time as any. And my understanding is that there are plenty of other similar projects out there to jump onto.

Reindeer games.

My neighbors are crazy. Oh, sure: not the “I’m Napoleon” kind of crazy. Or chainsaw murderers, that I know of. But crazy just the same.

Those are their illuminated reindeer above. Nothing wrong with illuminated reindeer, of course. The building I work in is surrounded by 75 or 100 of them. So what’s odd about these particular reindeer? They’re in my neighbors’ back yard. Visible only from their neighbors’ back yards, including mine, although my guess is that the least-obstructed view is coming down my driveway, looking through the gap in the trees that line the back of their property.

Okay, I can hear you saying, “Oh, isn’t that cute. It’s the overflow from their flock of painted wicker reindeer with white Christmas tree lights that they have in their front yard.” Sadly, no. That’s what makes it so odd. They have no decorations at all in their front yard. No lights, no inflatable carolers, no giant sleighs, no fake packages. Nothing.

It’s not because garish holiday decorations in the front yards are prohibited by restrictive covenant. (I could only wish. A neighbor two houses down from me proudly exhibits a 7-foot-tall Santa that looks more like a nightmare version of a South Park Underpants Gnome.) And it’s not because the backyard is their Testing Grounds – they’ve been there for over a week, more than long enough to decide, “Yep, it works, let’s move ‘em to the front.”

Someone at the office came up with a semi-plausible explanation: it’s for the grand-kids. Perhaps the Extended Family is coming for Christmas, and the grandchildren are concerned that Santa won’t be able to find them. So the solution was to put the illuminated reindeer in the back yard and then contact Santa, so he’d know what to look for in order to deliver presents to the missing grandchildren.

Nah, I don’t buy it either.

Time to go bowling.

No, no; not that kind.

The New Orleans Bowl. Rice is playing in a post-season bowl game for the first time since 1961 (in the late Bluebonnet Bowl, conveniently played at the Rice Stadium). A very minor bowl in the pantheon of minor bowl games. Played two weeks before that other bowl game played in New Orleans, the Sugar Bowl. But at least it will be on ESPN2, so I’ll be able to watch it.

And that will be the fourth Rice football game that I’ve watched on TV this year, doubtless a record for their national exposure. They’ve been on national TV sufficiently rarely in the past few decades – perhaps once every five years, most notably with their upset of Texas in 1994 – that starting off this season getting to watch their games against Cougar High, UCLA and Texas was fairly amazing. Of course, this may not be the best of omens: Rice lost all three games. Oh, well. “The fourth time’s the charm.”

The last time I saw a Rice football game in person, they lost to Duke. That was in September, 2003. Since then, Duke has won only five games.

It seems to me that I heard about 10 or 15 years ago that Rice held the NCAA record for bowl game futility – they then were the Division I-A school that had been absent from bowl games for the longest time. I think we're happy to pass that record on to someone else.

Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit, after all.

Good news for those who like the Lord of the Rings trilogy: it sounds as though Peter Jackson will direct The Hobbit and the oddly-conceived "prequel" movie set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring (you know, where J.R.R. Tolkien didn't think to write a book). It just won't be done by New Line, the company that produced the trilogy of movies. Their rights to do movies from the books expire sometime next year, and when the rights revert to producer Saul Zaentz, he'll bring back Peter Jackson and all his crew, and do it up right.

Peter Jackson NOT directing The Hobbit.

Nor, for that matter, is he going to direct a prequel to the Lord of the Rings. Yes, two separate movies, only one of which would be based on an actual book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Unless they're planning a movie version of The Silmarillion, which I would pay good money to watch.

Update: See above.

Guess which yard is mine.

Hint: My neighbor is retired, and raked his lawn on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday of this past week.

Not to be confused with the Heinz 57 Route 66.

So here’s an idea for financially-strapped municipalities: Sell “naming opportunities” for roads.

Not that it’s a completely new idea with Hazleton. On the Washington Beltway, they changed the name of one of the bridges crossing the Potomac River to the “American Legion” bridge, even though generations of drivers knew the bridge as the Cabin John bridge. But the commercial possibilities are staggering.

I look forward to driving on the Sherwin-Williams Blue Ridge Parkway.

(And the best part of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce Beltway? It doesn’t go all the way around Hazleton. It doesn’t go halfway around Hazleton. Not even a quarter of the way.)

A long time ago.

Went to my high school reunion last month. The Mumblety-Mumbleth. As I was walking from the parking lot to the main entrance of the country club where it was being held, I looked in the window and thought, “Gee, there are a lot of old folks in there. Wonder where my reunion is? Must be on the other side of the main entrance.” It only took another five seconds for me to realize that the group of old people was my reunion. Gack.

It was otherwise okay. Eventually those classmates of mine who have dyed their hair and done other things to make themselves look young showed up, so it didn’t feel quite so much like a meeting of the AARP. Oh, wait: My classmates and I are now all eligible for membership in AARP, aren’t we? Gack.

This year, for the first time, they invited teachers to the reunion, and a couple showed up. My favorite teacher from my senior year and her husband (who introduced me to Othello) were there. My classmates? In most instances, seeing them for 2 hours every five or ten years seems about right.

Every reunion, though, I find myself having a conversation with someone I haven’t talked to since graduation, and discover that they’ve turned into relatively normal people in the interim. This year’s conversation turned ominous when he said, a propos of nothing, that he already knows he won’t be able to make it to our next reunion. In this age group, that often means some sort of terminal condition. I had to ask though, preparing to cringe: “Okay. Why not?” Because he’s going to retire from his government job in about two years, and then he’s moving to Rio, where his government pension will allow him to "live like a millionaire.” And with no family in the area, he really doesn’t expect that this reunion will justify a plane trip from Brazil.

Yeah. Every five or ten years sounds just fine.

If you're going to wake us up, the least you can do is to bring us breakfast in bed.

That’s Mosby on the right, and her kitten Rebel on the left. Rebel is now six months old, and I’m guessing that Mosby is about a year and a half.

And they’re both available for adoption. Sami and O Henry will even kick in a bag of cat food to entice you to adopt them.

1-800-PHONE ME.

Or not.

Always intriguing to find out what I’ll do for amusement when I’m stuck in a traffic jam. In this case, stuck on an Interstate in the wilds of northeastern Pennsylvania, three miles away from where the two lanes of travel merge into one, while they’re fixing a bridge.

Well, okay. Nothing else to do but wait, so I’ll cast around for something to read. How about the truck immediately in front of me? (And yes, you’re really hurting for entertainment if you’re reduced to reading the back of a truck.)

Hmm, yes. There’s the “Wide Turn” sign. And the obligatory “How’s My Driving?” sign. Except – just where do you suppose you’re supposed to call to comment on his driving?

Not that his driving was bad, you understand. For about a half-hour, his driving was impeccable. No one could have been motionless in the left lane better than he was.

Oh, and the most delightful part of the traffic jam? The Pennsylvania highway department very helpfully put up a sign – one of those movable message signs – that said something to the effect of “BRIDGE WORK AHEAD. ONE LANE TRAVEL. CONSIDER ALTERNATE ROUTE.” They placed the sign after the last exit prior to the bridge being worked on.

The Library at Boston.

Other than visiting with friends and eating good meals, one of the most fun things I did was to visit the JFK Presidential Library and Museum. Lots of good information – you could watch JFK’s acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic convention and his Inaugural Address in their entirety, and pieces of the presidential debate or quite a few other speeches – with a lot of lighter information to keep the visit enjoyable, such as rotating exhibits on gifts to the President and an in-depth examination of JFK’s trip to Ireland. And it was all presented in a way that seemed academic and nonpartisan, as befits a Presidential Library (unlike, say, the Nixon Presidential Library, which misrepresents objective historical fact and is overly defensive).

Leaving the JFK Library, it really struck me that, since JFK’s death, this country has not had a President who was an active, effective leader. What a shame that breed has disappeared from the national landscape.

A bridge too far.

On the other hand, there are a number of the nice things about going on vacation off-season: No crowds, for one. No hordes of leaf-peepers jamming the highways; no waits at good restaurants. (Well, provided they're open.)

And those who make their living in the tourism industry are more willing to go out of their way to ensure that tourists have a good time. Here, for instance, someone understands that one of the things tourists enjoy doing in New England is seeing and crossing covered bridges. And if you aren’t willing to go way out of your way to see a covered bridge? They’ll bring one to you.

Weather forecast: crummy.

It turns out that there are some good reasons to avoid going somewhere on vacation off-season. Crummy weather, for one. During the nine days of the trip that I was north of the Mason-Dixon line, I saw a total of four hours of sunlight. The rest of the time looked no better than this photo: overcast. Or drizzling. Or light rain. Or the occasional snow. Never quite so crummy that you couldn’t drive somewhere to do something indoors, but almost always too raw to want to do something outside. And during that same nine days, it never got over 45 degrees.

No, I wasn’t expecting shorts-and-t-shirt weather in New England in late October. But clear-and-chilly would have been a nice change. (And I understand that it cleared up quite nicely, once I got back home.)

I've been polled!

Well, almost. While I was on vacation, I was called by WUSA (Channel 9 in Washington), and the Caller ID says "WUSA9 NEWS POLL". I was, alas, unable to take part in that poll, and presumably they didn't leave a message asking me to call back because it would have been a week too late to be included.

I've been getting the usual barrage of phone calls; this year, from both sides. And I'm really tired of it. Thank heavens for Caller ID.

I got an absolutely repugnant voicemail message over the weekend, from some "nonpolitical" right-wing nutjob group, ironically called "Progress For America." Their message was that the best way to fight terrorism was to vote on Tuesday, because if you don't vote, the terrorists win. Or something. About every fifth word was some variant of "terrorist." If you look at their website, it's absolutely clear that it's a front for the Republicans, about as nonpolitical as George Allen's noose. And about as subtle. The saddest part was that they conned the parent of someone who died on 9/11 to be their spokesman - what an incredibly twisted way to gain his fifteen minutes of fame, besmirching his son's memory to flack for the invaders of Iraq.

Mower or less.

I celebrated the return from my trip by raking the front yard. Well, okay, “celebrated” probably isn’t the right term. But, strictly speaking, neither is “raking.”

On Sunday, I was guilted into removing the leaves from my front yard by my neighbors, both of whom had raked their front yards earlier in the day. And I didn’t want to be The Guy Who Doesn’t Rake His Leaves, so they blow into other people’s yards.

Not that it really mattered all that much: the fallen leaves I collected probably account for less than 20% of all the leaves produced by the neighborhood trees that will end up on my yard this year, and within two days, enough new leaves had fallen to make it impossible to discern who had already raked once this year, and who had not. Still, both of my immediate neighbors saw me out raking, and that’s enough to gain me the appropriate Neighborhood Brownie Point.

And I don’t actually rake my leaves any more. I tried that once, four years ago. It took me three and a half hours to do my front yard, and I sprained my wrist so badly that I couldn’t write for two weeks. So now I do like everyone else in the neighborhood, and “rake” leaves with my lawnmower. Much easier on the wrists – but a much sillier feeling when you’re running the lawnmower in December, when the grass has not grown at all since the last time you mowed/raked.

The Library at Tuckahoe.

It’s in my genes: my mother was a librarian. So it’s probably no surprise how much I enjoy hanging out in libraries and bookstores.

And it’s probably no further surprise to learn that the closing of my local library three months ago threw my book-reading routines out of whack. Sure, Henrico County has plenty of other libraries around that I could go to instead, and the closest is only two or three miles farther than “my” library. But it’s a smaller library with a smaller selection of books and some strange ways of shelving their collection – they shelve the books on cassette tape with the books on CD, all mixed together, for instance, so you have to pull the plastic box down off the shelf and open it to see whether it’s a tape or a CD, only one of which I can play on my computer.

But all is well with the world again: my local library has reopened. In a new building, and all the modern library accoutrements: They’ve put RFID chips in all the books, so you can do a check-out or check-in on your own, without bothering the librarians. There are lots of computers. Lots. They’ve weeded out a lot of old books, and replacing them are many, many new books and books on disk, and two rows of shelves full of DVDs. There are small meeting rooms, and a computer training lab. To me, the biggest surprise was the addition of a café in the library, where you can get coffee, muffins, sandwiches, and the like. Food in the library? Sacrilege!

The most fun, though, was going to the library on the day it opened: Because this library had not been checking out books for two months (as it was closed) while everything that was previously checked out had come due and was returned, all the items in their collection were present in the building: all the bookshelves were full, including all the books on disk and DVDs. You could make sure that the library had all the volumes in a series before starting in on it, you could see what books they have on disk, to make it easier to decide whether you wanted to read a book or listen to it. Getting to wander around in the library before anything had been checked out of it was like having the entire library be mine.

Workday antics.

Exciting doings at the full-time job as contract attorney. On Wednesday a week ago, the local partner in charge of the project paid a visit to our lowly digs, and told us that the project was going to end on Friday. (Not much notice, sure. But the usual notice on this kind of project is a phone call from your staffing agency when you get home in the evening, telling you that today was your last day and you don’t need to go back. So 2 and a half days notice was actually a lot.)

He thanked us for his hard work and flattered us with outrageous statistics (e.g., the normal “error” rate for this kind of project is about 5 to 8 percent, and our error rate was 0.125 percent), and told us that we could continue to come in and be paid through Friday. He didn’t quite wink, but the point was clear that we really weren’t expected to work all that hard between Wednesday and Friday.

And oh, by the way, two little caveats: 1) they were going to have a small group of 10 or 12 people continue on, doing clean-up and record-keeping work on the project and taking care of any small productions that might come through, and that group would continue on for some 4 to 6 weeks; and 2) if bigger productions came through or if expected (or perhaps "hoped-for") new clients came through, they’d call folks back in, as needed.

Given that there were 65 or so people on the project, having 10 or 12 people stay on wasn’t all that reassuring to most people. And for those who thought they might be among those continuing, neither did subsequent remarks from the associates that the continuing portion might last 2 to 3 weeks, or maybe 6 to 8 weeks.

By Thursday afternoon, though, I’d been asked if I would be willing to be one of those who stayed on. Hmm: Did I want to be employed? Or unemployed? This struck me as one of those questions that answer themselves. Yes, please. (I have to be able to purchase catfood.) Okay, but keep it under your hat that you’re staying on, at least until we’ve got our 10 to 12 lined up.

Fine. We were all pretty good at not revealing whether we were staying on – at least in part, not to rub it in to those who were leaving. Not that that kept us from speculating who the fortunate dozen were. Or from asking, "What are you planning to do next week?" (There was a lot of yard work to be done, the responses indicated, and a lot of applying for unemployment.)

So Monday morning, those of us still on the project showed up with a bit of suspense as to who the lucky twelve would turn out to be. To our surprise, there were twenty of us. Only a couple of surprises in who was kept on, and only a couple of surprises in who wasn’t there. (The non-returnees included folks who had been asked to stay on, but turned the offer down.)

Still, the project is as well-run as always. There’s work to be done, but the folks in charge can’t seem to get it to us in a steady flow, and there are often sizable chunks of time when we’re forced to look like we’re working instead of actually working. Well, that’s okay: we’re getting paid by the hour, not by the piece.

That instruction to look busy came in handy Friday afternoon, when BigLawFirm bigwigs escorted a couple of strangers into our work area, pointing out the space and storage areas – "more than enough to hold all your documents" – and answering the strangers' questions about the software we use to view document images and the like. It seemed less like a sales pitch and more like an implementation visit.

From what we could overhear, it sounds like this is a new project that will come our way, and probably before the current one is completely over. So it's likely that there will be continued employment, probably a good thing.

How geeky am I? Very, it would appear.

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