I’ve had a cold since the Fourth of July and I just can’t shake it. I keep getting better but it keeps hanging on. Even so, I felt really good today, better than I have in a long time.

Endo has been in Hong Kong on vacation so I am holding down the fort at work. Even though we had a long and dry summer, fairly active storms started rolling across the state shortly after he left. The thing about storms is they like to disrupt data services in remote cities. Things like power outages, water in telco equipment, etc. I’ve had to deal with quite a few problems, some of which can be solves remotely and some which require personal visits.

So last night I got a call at 11 pm that Rhinelander was down. I couldn’t do anything until 8 am so I set it aside. At 1 am I got a call that Tomahawk was down. I decided to wait that one out too. At 2 am Tomahawk came back up. I napped for an hour or two until 5 am when I had to switch over a circuit for a customer. Back to sleep at about 6 am. Up at 9 to check Rhinelander. It was still down and the people at the site couldn’t do anything to fix it. (Hey, they are lawyers, not system administrators. What can you expect?) So I hopped in the car and drove 100 miles north. I moved some power cables around and headed back south to my office in Wausau. I took care of various stuff that needed doing and actually got pretty much caught up.

So I should have been feeling pretty cruddy. A little sick, not much sleep… But I was actually feeling pretty good. While I was on the road I got to listen to a lot of the podcasts that were filling up my iPod. I saw my first Segway in person. (Apparently an Einstein marketing promotion of some sort? I was driving by too quickly to tell.)

More importantly, I was feeling good because I was being productive. It felt nice to be going places, fixing things, handling issues, etc. I was the only person that could handle these things and I was doing a damn good job of it. I haven’t done that in awhile and I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

When I wandered outside, there was a concert in the park next to our building. I stopped and listened for awhile. Then I drove to Barnes and Noble and read some of their books for free. I drove home listening to “Duo in E” by Jacques Offenbach. I almost never listen to classical music but when I caught that piece as I was flipping through the stations, something about it grabbed me. (The next piece of his that they played, “Les Belles Americaines”, has a more interesting backstory but wasn’t as interesting to me musically.)

I also heard Johnny Cash’s new album American V on the All Songs Considered podcast. Apparently he wrote and recorded it in the months prior to his death. He knew death was coming and he faced it in his songs.

They played part of “Like the 309” on the podcast. When it starts out he is singling slowly and quietly with few instruments. His voice is weak and it’s hard to recognize him as Johnny Cash.

It should be a while before I see doctor Death
So, it would sure would be nice if I could get my breath
Well, I’m not the cryin’, nor the whinin’ kind
’til I hear the whistle of the 309, of the 309, of the 309
Put me in my box on the 309

Then the song picks up, more instruments come in, and it takes on a different tone.

Take me to the depot, put me to bed
Blow an electric fan on my gnarly ol’ head
Everybody take a look, see, I’m doin’ fine
Then load my box on the 309
On the 309, on the 309
Put me in my box on the 309

It’s eerie to hear a man singing about his impending death and it certainly hit me a little hard. But it’s comforting somehow, the way he sings about it. He almost sounds cheerful about it.

So I am feeling healthier, more productive, and more clearheaded than I have in almost a month. Hopefully that will continue and I can take charge of things again rather than just kind of wandering around in a daze.