My office is messier than yours

I'm not proud of this claim, and we're working to fix it, but it's true. Yeah, I know, plenty of writers say the same thing, but the thing is, they're wrong.

I'll prove it. My home office measures about 24 by 30 feet, with a deep closet that's about 10 by 20 feet (but with a roof sloping down so it's mighty short on the rear side). You'd think with that much space I'd have tons of room for everything, but as I'll prove today, enough stuff can overcome any amount of space. (The closet, by the way, looks worse than the office; I won't even show it to you here.) This is also not a recent phenomenon; the office was last completely orderly in about 1990. I am not kidding.

Don't believe me? Fine. Check out these photos.

In the rear, near the corner, that's Sarah on the library ladder, just to give you a sense of scale.

Yes, I know I need to catalog and file a few books and DVDs. Did I mention I'm a bit behind?

Two of those monitors, by the way, are 30-inch units, and the other is a
24-inch display; they just look small amongst the clutter.

Now, here's the room from another angle. That inflatable Godzilla is about six feet tall. Don't ask why he's standing on a big pile of stuff. There's always a reason.

I'll tell you this, though: He can scare the bejeezus out of new visitors who enter when the room is dark, say at twilight.

I warn some folks.

Some.

In this final shot, you get a sense of the state of many of the bookcases--bookcases that are about 12 feet high; the room peaks somewhere around 15 feet high.

One day in the next year, this room will be orderly--or so the plan goes, and Elizabeth and Gina and I hope to realize this long-held dream. The few empty shelves you see are the first signs of the order still to come.

Until then, don't feel bad about the state of your office, and definitely don't whine to me about it. You'll get no sympathy here.

The tormenting buzz

Some electronic demon in my home office has taken to buzzing at apparently random times. (I say "apparently" because I believe the randomness is an artifact of my lack of understanding of what's going on.) You might think such a demon would be easy to kill: go to the source of the noise, pick up the offending device, and punish it appropriately (perhaps by a temporary servicing, perhaps by tossing it on the junk heap).

Not in my office.

I know the source of the noise is somewhere on the left side of the U of Power. The problem is, that area of the office contains three computers, a monitor, a NAS device, a cable modem, a wireless router, a gigabit switch, a few power strips, at least two UPSes, a printer, and a copier. The wily demon is also quick--before I can get close enough to locate it, the noise stops.

I expect much cursing ahead.