Mittag und immer noch blasse Sonne. Wasser, Knäckebrot, Ankämpfen gegen alte und neue Müdigkeit, während Bälle landen und Parallelität von Themen langsam zusammenfließt. Hausmeister diskutiert mit dem Postboten, tiefer in der Straße, unhörbar und doch beide sichtlich erregt. Gegenüber wird am Küchenfenster geraucht, an der Haltestelle wartet eine Gruppe von Ferienkindern auf den Bus, die lauten Arbeiten der Umgebung ruhen für ein paar Minuten. Auch: Tauchen in die Untiefen eigener Ablagen. Gefunden werden alte Technik, alte Daten, alte Gedanken. (Man durchmustert alles, dreht und wendet Dinge, schwankt in einem unsicheren Drang, auszusortieren, und legt dann doch alles wieder dorthin, wo man es schon lang liegen weiß. Meist stört es dort ja nicht. Dann knacken Lautsprecher, man betritt den nächsten blauen Block, und der Takt treibt einen weiter.)
Humility (noun): The strategy of being careful not to blame people for technical issues observed unless absolutely, totally, full sure not to be responsible by oneself for whatever problem arose. Lack of knowledge and procedure included.
(Also: Too slow, repeatedly, to use the second factor to correctly authenticate. And still not used to, still in an utterly uncanny way touched by receiving a phone call by a huge corporation to be granted access to machinery.)
Past 8am. Architecture, technology, complexity. And the idea of adding more layers to cope with the ever-increasing burden of getting all this secured. Too: There's an amazing load of room of what could be understood left and right of what has actually been said or even written down. Cleaning up on different levels. Including ones own mind.
3pm. Cautiously moving forth. Noticing that weird, grinding sound to eventually track it down to one of the computer fans. Unsure whether to watch, listen or actually do something about that. Maybe starting with a rudimentary backup beyond the usual eventual, random copying of files. (Or a late coffee after all.)
Even before 8am. Things that get one back to real-world operations reliably and fast, too: Accidentially removing uncommitted changes in a semi-critical system. Next is testing backup. Or, more specifically, recovery.
10am again, already. White clouds just cautiously peeking across the roofs. Sounds of janitors busy on the stairs and in the backyard. A neighbour shouting at someone, lack of response suggests it's some call that doesn't work as expected. (Another coffee, to keep the day moving. Odds and ends, and too little items already checked today to be pleased.)
9am and on: Of error messages, copied instructions, misplaced whitespaces - changes that only derail late in the flow. (Even checking things twice sometimes doesn't keep one from missing the obvious. Wondering whether this is about too much or too little caffeine, or a general creeping degradation of focus.)