Cntl - Alt - P for "Panic"

After some examination, I believe I am suffering from what they call "total fucking exhaustion". For most of the week I've been persistently tired and unable to maintain a proper energy level at work throughout the day. It's hard to stay interested in work for 8 hours at a time when you're writing documentation. Much less documentation for a client who behind my back claimed I "didn't have the stamina" to complete the assignment simply because I didn't want to work 17 hour days.

Work has been supporting, but there doesn't seem to be a break in sight. Once the documentation is behind me, there's remote work to be done contracted out until early September. Other clients are already scratching at the gate. Granted, I should be overjoyed that in this lousy economy I have the job I have and demand is high. I should be, but instead I feel empty and broken.

There was a time when my mind seemed a rich landscape of ideas and projects. Now when I dare to look inside, more often I see nothing at all. No ideas, no projects, nothing but an infinite blank on which there is neither ink-mark or pencil-scratch. It would be understandable if this had gone on for a few days or weeks when I was particularly stressed out, but this has gone on for almost a year.

I've tried to push the now rusty gears of my creativity into motion, but any attempt is laced with the hopeless futility that there isn't any time or energy. When I'm not working, I'm at the gym. When I'm not at the gym, I'm recovering from work and being at the gym. When I'm not recovering, I'm dragging myself to bed to start the damnable cycle all over again. 

Often I feel everything is flying apart at the seams. My health has been deplorable this year. The latest hormone problem is just another in a laundry list of problems that should have been delt with simply and easily. Many of my physical possessions have worn out or broken including my desk (repaired), my satellite radio (unrepairable), my car (minor, ignorable), my bike (repaired twice), the and the stylus for my wacom tablet. The final stroke was my laptop which has been since gutted and now sits forlorn on my dusty kitchen table.

Originally, I had thought rei would last about two years before I had to replace her. Some months ago I had decided against that as I wanted to save for surgery. That would have been just over three years, a typical lifespan for my previous systems. That estimate might have been overly optimistic as all my previous systems were desktops and had not seen as much abuse as rei. I tried to be careful with her, but you can only protect a laptop so much at an airport. 

For the moment I've decided not to buy a new system. Work has kindly provided me with a more than acceptable laptop, the only issue is how to protect my information privacy. Toward that end, I've partitioned the drive, installed linux, and created an encrypted virtual file system. The encrypted drive is basically a 20gb file that can be mounted as a device after providing a password. Truecrypt provides this solution for both windows and linux, making it a multiplatform solution. In windows I have a hokey configured, Cntl-Alt-P, that forces an unmount, wipes the password cache, and exits truecrypt. I'm not fearful of my company finding my files as much as a client that requires a virus scan prior to connecting to their network.

I think I can get away with using my work laptop for personal ends. The systems are provided for trainers to go out on assignment. Understandably, most people would only bring one system. Some non-work use is always expected in that case. I'm good to my systems, IT gives me a wide berth because I take of what I'm given and try to fix things myself. Hopefully that'll be enough to key people looking the other way.