Lunar Mood Lighting

There are times when I really am my own worst enemy. This morning on my way to work I was going to stop and buy some breakfast as per my usual routine. When I went to check to see how much money I had, I found out that I had left my money at home. I knew exactly where the money was at that time. Instead of in my pocket it was in another pair of my pants lying on the bedroom floor at home. Knowing where the money was didn't help me though.

Starting the day hungry is not pleasant for me. When I am hungry, I can not think and it makes me irritable. My entire being focuses on the fact that I am hungry and I do whatever I can to curb the hunger. Today's temporary remedy was a Snickers bar from the evil vending machine. The worst part of all of this is that I have done this to myself before.

Vending machines are evil to me, because they take advantage of poor souls like myself who have no real amount of money except some change leftover from doing laundry. They taunt me with overpriced candy bars and small bags of chips. None of what they offer is nutritional or filling, its just expensive and readily available.

I had plenty of time to spare when I got to work, because I had decided to take the freeway to work this morning. My new route shortened my commute by about fifteen minutes which was nice. The freeway was better paved than the city streets and for the most part a fairly smooth ride. Of course my early arrival gave me ample time to dwell on the fact that I would be hungry for most of the morning.

Due to the recent heat wave here in Wisconsin, the power company is asking that people use less electricity whenever possible. People are to turn off lights that are not needed, raise the temperature of their air conditioning and so on. To do our part, Nick, Tony and I decided as a group to turn the lights off in our room. Other parts of the building had partial lighting as well, so we didn't look that odd. Then on the other hand, people started calling us mushrooms and moths.

The three of us worked in the glow of our monitors and I didn't mind. Working under these conditions seemed better to me than our usual setup. The computer screen was sharper without the glare of the florescent lights shining down from above. The sharper screen in turn made my computer wallpaper more impressive. At the moment I have a photo of the earth as seen from the moon proudly on display. The reduced amount of light also gave the small illusion of night which made the day less stressful and more productive in my mind. Both Nick and Tony agreed with me.

Now that I think about it some more, the network people where I used to work had a room in the basement without any kind of overhead lighting. All of the light in the room came from the lights built into their cubes and the glow from their monitors. Granted these were nice twenty-one inch monitors and there wasn't a door on the room to block any exterior light, so it may not have seen as extreme to them. I should also mention that they weren't any cubicle walls in the room. All of the desks were open and this let the light get more evenly distributed. The room was subdued not a cave in terms of lighting.

Those people had it good for the amount of work that they did. Their environment was far more laid back than the one where I am now. I wonder where they ended up after the company went under?

A minor issue arose at work today. The majority of the women were wearing shorts, but none of the men were wearing shorts. Soon the subject of discrimination jokingly came up. Why could the women wear shorts, but not the men? Does the company have something against hairy legs? The matter was slowly forgotten without any more discussion.