v2.6 - Hump This!

Morning folks,

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Today''s musing is brought to you by the letter L, the number 23 and an XL Double Double from Tim Horton''s (not free).

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ahh

I had a really hard time waking up and coming to work this morning. It wasn''t because I stayed up a little bit later than usual last night. Oh no. My reasons for not wanting to get up for work has a lot to do with work being, well, work.

The definition of work is: Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.

So whether you''re sitting there thinking about work or whether you''re at work doing the physical job, you''re still working? If that''s the case, I work 24 hours a day.

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I don''t consider myself over burdened at work, however, I do have quite a few high priority responsibilities. One of which is the backbone of our entire call center here in Calgary; our web based call tracking system. I also am in charge of our internal/external web server and web pages (yes I do web design here at work as well). I''m also the lead on all Linux work we get here along with being the lead for our entire internal Network. This isn''t to say I''m a lone man in all of this, there are other individuals who assist with the various areas with the exception of web and call tracking system.

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So a physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something. That is actually quite interesting when you break it all down and look at it. For starters, what are physical and mental efforts?

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Let''s do an exercise shall we? For this exercise you will need a sheet of paper and a #2 pencil (preferably sharpened) or some form of writing tool (cave wall and a stone will work as well).

I want you all to think of one thing that could be considered a physical effort, and then one thing that could be considered a mental effort. Write each of those things down on a sheet of paper. Then I would like you to think of something that would be considered productive and something that would be considered an accomplishment. Write these down as well.

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Look at your list of things. What have you just defined?

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Well if you did it properly you have exhibited the the definition of work. You have thought of something and taken physical actions toward it. You have written something down on paper therefore you have been productive and you''ve accomplished something. What have you accomplished? You, my friends, have defined the last word in the above definition. That''s right, page up and take a quick look.

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You have all defined SOMETHING. The key word in that entire definition is the last word. In other words, something could be anything.

Something: An undetermined or unspecified thing.

Anything: Any object, occurrence, or matter whatever.

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Oh man, you guys are all sitting back going, "What the hell just happened here?" :) I assure you, if you look deep enough you WILL see something.

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I'd like to perform one last exercise with you all; same requirements as before (hell, you can even use the same sheet of paper or cave wall). I would like you to replace the word "Something" in the above definition with your current job function (or title if it fits). How does it sound to you? Now replace that same word with something you like to do (ie Gaming, Reading, etc). Chances are, if you''re the majority of the people in North America, the first one would describe your job and the second one would describe your hobby. You didn''t know you had a hobby? You need to work less :)

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Folks, I won''t delve into the depths of your beings today, but I''d like you to spend several moments looking inside yourselves. Most of us work because we need to and our choice of jobs are limited and/or unexplored. Myself, I KNOW I should be looking for other work. I KNOW I should get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. However, my problem is fear. I fear I won''t be able to perform as well at another job. I fear I will lack the job security I have here which is something that helps me to sleep at night. I fear for my family and the ability I need to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads.

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If not for that last point, I would be activly looking for work as I type this. My family will always come before everything else and when our security and well being is challenged, I will be the first person in line to defend it.

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Enough about all that. I think I''ll partake of my morning smoke a little early this morning. I''m feeling, CRAZY!!! (watches collective musing readers nod their heads)

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Be back soon...

{moments pass}

Ok, back.

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Last night I had intended to play WoW for a little bit with Katie. I didn''t, however, intend to play for so long. The main goal for the evening was for me to gain some cash so I could respec (retrain) my talent points on my Hunter. Since I had already respeced my talent points once already, the cost to respec a second time was going to cost me 5g. For those of you who play WoW, 5g is a lot of cash to just drop down on a respec; unless you''re level 60 and have tons of gold. I logged in and found I only had 4g on my character and realized I needed to increase that a bit before respecing. We did some quests, we farmed for some items and did quite a bit of exploring. As the evening progressed our goals somewhat changed a little bit. Since my character was getting very close to its next level, I decided to stay online until I at least hit level 45. Of course, setting goals is never a bad idea :)

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We ended up logging out around 11pm and accomplished quite a bit. We did quite a few quests all over the realm and I was able to respec my Hunter''s talents. I also bid on a few nice items, put a few items for sale on the Auction House, made level 45, finished my Dragonscale Leatherworking quest and logged out with just under 8g on my character. A good night I would say, except for the amount of time I spent online.

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As the weather gets nicer, I can see myself spending less time online in the evenings. Yesterday I was sitting outside and thought how nice out it was. I was tempted to pick up my book and sit outside and reading for a bit. Of course that didn''t happen, but it was a good idea :) (back to our definition of Work)

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I plan on putting up some more screenshots on my Gallery today. I also plan on doing a bit of organization of the WoW screenshots to make them easier to navigate and view. This world is so beautifully done, I like to capture scenes whenever I can to share with everyone. You can view my screenshot gallery at http://ralic.fiendz.net/gallery

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Well gang, must run and get some "Work" done today :) Keep your heads up and watch for falling ice. Fight the fight and finish the race. You are all amazing and wonderful people.

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{roll up the rim}

DAMMIT!!!

Cheers,

Al