Areas of Unrest

6 January 2000 - Life Stress Scale

QOTD: "It's really hard to argue with success. Roaches have been around for 350 million years. They have a robust and flexible design." - Daniel Porter

Reading: Dolores Johnson, Wash, Fold, and Die

Listening to: Dr. Didg, Out of the Woods

You know those life stress scale lists that assign points for everything from taking a vacation to getting divorced and changing jobs and use the point value to predict how likely you are to suffer a major illness in the next year? I think that half the people I know are trying to have heart attacks. One friend has adopted a child from overseas and started a new business (leaving his old job) and remodeled his house. And one of my colleagues is retiring from the military and starting a new job and trying to close on a house he's buying, all in the same year that he has adopted three children. We decided that we should print out a chart of these stress events and rate him on it to present at his retirement dinner.

The major source of stress in my life continues to be travel. Next week is going to have me seeing far more of I-25 than I really want to, as I have a meeting in Colorado Springs in the middle of a week of having work to do in Boulder. In good weather, that's about a 2 hour drive. But this is January, so who knows?

I also have a business trip to Sunnyvale coming up, as well as two personal trips - one to Las Vegas and one to Cleveland. The first is easy enough to explain, as a lot of new hotels have opened since the last time I went to Vegas and I want to catch up on the architectural kitsch. (I am particularly looking forward to seeing their version of Paris.) Cleveland is happening because I decided that I absolutely have to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, if you are willing to go to horribly cold places in the winter, the fares are low.

In other news, I saw Toy Story 2 tonight - finally. I had really been planning to see Liberty Heights, but it was only showing at 7:20 and I'd already gone through the hassle of finding a parking spot at the Century City mall and I did plan to see Toy Story 2 eventually so I figured I might as well. It was very enjoyable - at least as good as the first one. I particularly liked Tour Guide Barbie.

While I was there, I ran into the bookstore and was relieved to find that there's a new Lilian Jackson Braun cat mystery in paperback - just in time for my mother's birthday. I think the plots are terribly thin, but the cats are cute. And, more to the point, Mom loves this series. I also picked up a book I'd been looking for (a guide to museums in Los Angeles) and found that Neil Gaiman's Stardust is also just out in paperback so I had to get that too. All in all, a pleasant evening, sure to cancel out at least a few points of life stress.