Frustrations galore

It began this morning when I set out to quickly upload Ulla's and my submission for the conference in Aberdeen next April. First I discovered that I needed a 100 word summary -- that heavens for the delete key! That done I uploaded the first piece -- horrors, the text space is black and the only way I can see what I've put there is to highlight it -- but any editing is done "in the dark." Never mind, I have a clean word document, so I cut and pastde it in, clicked on an icon that looked as if it would let me preview (designers believe in icons without words) -- oops! "Thank you for your submission" is the result. Now I can go to the conference page and, with everyone else, view it (if only I could read the faint letters showing through the black page. I printed it out. Oh dear! there are no paragraphs or liine breaks between references -- everything runs together. So I search all the conference-related web pages for a contact to email -- nothing! In desperation I Google (check the Goog -- it's NASA's birthday today) the institition of the program organizer in Aberdeen, Scotland -- no faculty listings -- but, eureka! a department administrator (thank heavens for admins!) with an e-dress! An email, a quick response from her, and I'm soon corresponding with the person in charge -- I send him the abstract and he will take care of it. Then he tells me the website needs to be viewed with Foxfire (or is it Firefox?)! The whole exercise took more than a two hours. (And the submission looks good -- you can check it for yourself from the designconnexity website)

That was my time allotment for research for today, so I turned to the task I've been avoiding for weeks -- assessment reports for the AACSN maintenance report. A couple of hours on that, and I was feeling frustrated again.

So, I did what many "good women" do in such situations -- took on extreme bathroom cleaning! Some time later, the "creaping crud" was at bay, my hands smelled of bleach, and my mind was at peace.

I must have attoned for my attitude, because a good wind came up --12-15 knots from the SW. We went for a great sail, round Latimer Light, down to Gates Island, back avoiding Ellis Reef and into our harbor again. About 6 miles on the chart and no frustrations with the wind! Sorry about the glare on the photo, I put saran-wrap over the page so I could write on it.

I don't think I'll push any more frustration buttons this evening!