driving...so, so weary

So, what I have to do is...be in Houston at 9:30. I finally get up at 5:30am. I tried to make a backup for Forrest last night. His e-mail was up and it corrupted a file. I think anyway. Anyway his mail (we use Netscape) won't come up and show the inbox and crashes. I finally got it all back.I had just fallen asleep when he told me what I'd perpetrated. Then I was a little slow. First I restored it to no inbox to come up and get his mail (after showing him the mail on the web). Then I got yesterday's back from my backup. Then I came downstairs and had the brilliant idea that I'd try taking the latest mail file, delete the summary and see if it would rebuild it. I did this on my machine and then transferred the newer messages to another folder to his machine. So all this could have, maybe should have taken five minutes and took an hour.

Meanwhile FFP was fretting about the audacity of a bankrupty court to demand, in the matter of a client who filed, that we pay back several months of advertising cost in the months leading up to the filing, money to pay for advertising contracted for before we knew they were going to file, prior to the point, I dare say, where they knew it unless there were big boys sucking it dry. Yes, money taken in good faith when all seemed to be going well and used to pay for advertising that ran, that most ephermeral of worthless assets as soon as the airwaves stop, well, waving. All prior to the first we heard of bankrupty (at which point they escaped a significant payment for which we had to pay the relevant media). Lawyers and clients who go bankrupt. Our laws favor them. Laws should favor, nay, reward, solvency and a nonlitigious nature. I can't find unlitigious or nonlitigious in my dictionary but the antonyms of litigious they suggest (agreeable, compliant, easygoing) don't fit my meaning here. Laws will favor lawyers and scallywags as long as lawyers and scallywags make the laws. Enron? Arthur A? Tip of the iceberg.

So it's one of those nights when I was tense, I have trouble going to sleep early anyway and then something, some things, conspired to make me toss and turn. Although, when I heard of this bankruptcy thing and when I saw this corrupted mail file, I felt myself consciously choose to not make too much of it. In the larger scheme of things, not such a big deal. Worthy of a shaking of the head, a mild complaint, one's most innocent four-letter words and forget it. Bigger fish. To fry.

FFP makes me a pot coffee. I show him all his mail is recovered, fill two Nissan stainless commuter cups with coffee and take off, entertained by a taped Mario Puzo novel. I only fall asleep a couple of times. I get to the Houston in time to go to the bathroom, get some coffee and hook up my computer. I sometimes forget how much my company's home office seems like a 'model' campus. People come and go like ants, some riding campus bikes. Someone skims the ponds. You have to swipe your badge now to get near the elevators and to leave as well. Things look all high-tech and modern. (Well, the cowhide-lined elevators are another matter.) Zeroes and ones adorn the glass panels. Cafes with stainless steel chairs and bright decorations are here and there and the basketball court has this giant strange mural. This would make a good movie set, I think. A way for the company to make a few extra bucks? They've already sub-leased some of the building.

And, so. A meeting.