Log files & giant lizards

I'm sitting at work, babysitting a device and its log file, waiting for it to screw up (again) in a particular unpredictable way. Gotta love intermittent faults. They keep life interesting, if nothing else. I get to deal with another engineer, from another company, on the opposite coast, who talks about a million words per minute and assumes I'm fluent in their diagnostics suite. Awesome.

I've begun visualizing my project as a robo-Godzilla, storming through the streets of Tokyo, stomping on everything in its path, leaving death, destruction and mayhem in its wake. ... It's calming, really, imagining my robot as a source of great catastrophic power. Kinda like putting your carefully crafted Sim City into multiple-distaster-mode and just watching the whole thing burn to the ground or get tossed around by a magnificent tornado. It's rather freeing. I'd say it's very Zen, but it's a bit too destructive for that.

Of course, this isn't a simulation or a game. It's real life, with real consequences, and real risks, and real customers with real expectations, which is why I'm sitting here staring at an ever-growing status log, waiting for an aberration to announce itself.

I feel mildly que sera sera about work. Some day--I hope--this will be over. I'm no longer hoping for a particular day, or week, or month. Just that there will be an end. Likewise, I'm happy if my day ends in progress of any variety, however big or small.