Convergence

I've been fumbling through our existing style guide for the past few days. In keeping with a long-established pattern, I poked and prodded the thing off and on since I was hired. Now that I've committed to a date, I perched lightly on the cusp of disaster and this morning became fairly serious about the whole thing. I like where it's going. With some polishing it will be a much more usable--and hopefully a more used--document than it has been.

We're swimming upstream here. With the style guide comes a package of macros that make the documentation process fairly painless, in theory. The difficulty lies in this: change is reality. People are much more open-minded about theory. They can scratch their chins, sagely level an unfocused stare at a convenient meeting of ceiling and wall, or at their shoelaces, and ponder the impact of a given course of action.

Moving beyond theory to adoption is a different scenario entirely. It entails setting aside established habits and surplanting them with actions that will become new habits. If nothing else, the reality of change requires doing something long enough to say with some validity, "this sucks." Otherwise, one is singled out as a whiner.

The groundwork is laid to make the documentation process much more efficient. Now, to make it a reality...

Unwelcome Reviews

Like an artist with a varied pallette, Pookums worked in an interesting medium this weekend: bile on tile. Orange Gatorade is so much more interesting when displayed on ceramic with added texture. Premature forays into solid foods yielded more moving results. As they say, "This too shall pass." In Katie's case, all consumables headed for the nearest available exit on Saturday. Today, things seem to have subsided. I thought it was turning into a relay race and I'd just been handed the baton, but a nap and general slothfulness seem to have turned the tide, as it were.

Aside from those spontaneous reviews of meals so recently past (or passed, I suppose), it has been an uneventful weekend of a little bit of work, a few movies, and curative slumber. Now it's back to work to face impending deadlines and the normal chain of events that comprise a standard week at Casa Coal Bear.