Dog days

It’s another lazy summer lunchtime, and this year (like last year), my plans have been foiled by work. Normally I try to plan to have June, July and August with a very light work-load so I can dothings like go to Saints games, take mid-afternoon siestas, go for rides on my trike, and just generally enjoy the summer in Minnesota (on days when the weather isn’t brutally hot, anyhow). But onceagain, I’m spending the summer working for a client who always plans to ship the newest release in May, but ends up not being done until August. It’s a chronic problem in the software game, and I guess Ishouldn’t be surprised, but it really doesn’t work very well for me, as I’m usually busy trying to have a life.

And that “having a life” thing, for whatever reason, seems to take a lot more timefor me in the summer. Part of it is obviously the 5 hours or so per Saints game (two hours of pre-game tailgating, which includes visiting with the gang, cooking, having a beer or two, and thencleaning up before gametime, plus roughly three hours for the game itself), but there’s more than that. I generally wake up between 6 and 8 am, all year round, so there’s enough time to get in a full day’sworth of work before going to a ballgame. It just never seems to work out that way. I spend a couple hours in the morning putting together Dave’s Picks for the day. Then I spend an hour catching up onthe overnight and early-mornging email. Add another hour for a shower and breakfast sometime in there, and if I’m waking up on the late end of the scale, the morning’s already gone.

On days whenthere’s a ballgame, I also usually need to go do some shopping. Gotta buy fresh meat, side-dish, and some beer for the game. Or I’ll realize that I’m running low on gas for the grill. Or one thing oranother will necessitate a trip to the store.

You’d think I’d have a lot of extra time on days when the Saints are out of town, wouldn’t you? I thought that the first couple years, too. But it...