A murder of crows

The first noises I hear in the morning besides the customary "meow meow" are bird calls. Loud, piercing, talkative chirps and whistles. Obviously, I'm eavesdropping on a complex language with lots of nuances, but I don't understand it. My first guess is that it has something to do with communicating the whereabouts of food. Or maybe the position of a prowling cat. If these sounds were prevelant in past years, I don't remember them. It also seems that I'm seeing more birds now. As I go to work, I've noticed flocks of pigeons congregating on the eastside of the Interstate along the concrete I-beams that support an overpass. At first, this struck me as an odd place to perch. But I've begun to think it is a very ingenious idea: the slightly concave shape of the beams provides a certain amount of protection; the eastside offers the morning sun; the concrete soaks up the heat supplying additional warmth; the dirt and grassy area under the overpass becomes a great place for snacking; and the entire setup is infrequently visited by pesky humans.

At work, I hear the almost constant cawing of ravens and crows. Again, I don't recall such sounds from previous years. I keep thinking of Hitchcock's movie and wondering if an attack is imminent.

Work was unusually hectic today. First, the web server ran out of free space in the night and started rejecting e-mail messages. Next, I had to decide what files to delete, always an onerous task. Then, I began to proof some work only to discover that the second hardcopy did not match the first, which of course I had already used. Next I had to go on a wild goose chase for graphics. One of the sources I use is a proprietary database, but the graphics are intended for print, which means hugh file sizes. Even with a T-1 connection, I may as well plan on reading a couple of chapters of "Gone With the Wind" while a file downloads. After lunch was even worse. Part of the statewide backbone was down when I got back. Anything on the backbone was inaccesible. This meant I could connect to a site on Easter Island but not to the server in the next buidling. Then I got word that there were some last minute changes that needed to be made to some schedules, including one for tonight. I think my next job will involve large, inanimate, and inert objects. Do they have an opening for a night watchman at Stonehedge?

As Scarlet says "Tomorrow is another day." See! See! I've already spent enought time waiting for downloads that I'm at the end of the book.

PAX!