Old Decathlon Olympics Journal

October 4th, 2004: What a day!

October 4th, 2004

Oh, what a day I have had today.

My husband didn’t get home till shortly after seven o’clock this evening. He was offshore being shuffled around between three different rigs fixing their communication systems. Most of the problems are actually nothing much more than operator error. He had to explain things like, “If you want to talk to the other rig it would be advisable that you both be on the same channel.” And I am especially fond of his having to instruct a barge master, or a tool pusher that it is first necessary to turn the system on, if they want it to actually do what it is suppose to do. It seems that technology is way ahead of some of the old men of the sea, even though most of these guys are younger than my husband. I can definitely relate.

My better half is the highly technical one, while the majority of my duties require me to be more of an idea person, a gopher, chief cook, laundress, and all around get-it-done-while-he-is-at-work person. My husband is a workaholic. I was once, so I totally recognize the symptoms.

My husband is much better at time management than I am, but I have CRS (Can’t Remember S*&t), and he doesn’t. I am doing really well just remembering to post my required daily entries into this journal. Since the Olympic Decathlon officially started four days ago, I am very proud of the fact that I am right on track with my daily entries, and the first of the Decathlon events.

Since I am talking about the first Decathlon event, let me add that the poetry form, Pantoum, is seriously challenging for an already confused individual such as myself. The Pantoum requires that you repeat lines in each of the following stanzas that are in the preceding stanza. And of course, repeating one’s self is considered to be a symptom of mental incompetence. But the poet people don’t stop with just repetition. Oh no! There is a twist in the last stanza of a Pantoum that requires that the first line of the preceding stanza is the first line of the last stanza. The second line of the last stanza is the third line of the first stanza. The third line of the last stanza is third line of the preceding stanza, and finally the last line of the last stanza is the first line of the first stanza.

I wrote the preceding paragraph in hopes that the Olympic Decathlon judge, whose job it is to actually read this entry, would experience a little of my pain. Of course, The Train Contest is not restricted to just Olympians, so it is my hope that the pain and suffering is wide spread. I hate to suffer alone.

I had some computer problems today. I was delighted when my husband came home, because I knew that he could fix it. Well, it was not really a technical glitch. Seems in trying to remember everything I need to do for the Olympic Decathlon, I forgot to pay the DSL connection bill. Of course, if the DSL people had tried to call, all they’d have gotten is a busy signal. I also keep a back-up dial up connection because I just like having options. Now, I just wish there was a cure for -- CRS!