Throwback Friday ... me and 5th grader Archer Castle reading The Yarn of The Nancy Bell by W. S. Gilbert.

Hello, world.  It's late and I'm sleepy but I feel like making a short post and kick the tires on 1PW (OPW?).  Formatting looks good (hello italics and bold).  I can post a link to my art, and a picture:

Took me a second to realize I could drop it right here in the middle of the paragraph.  Great idea, Tom.  Pretty cool.

I have a craving for some cheese.  A piece of mozzarella, then crash time.  See y'all tomorrow.

(Edited to fix the damn picture placement.  Took a couple of tries but I figured it out.)

Things are, largely good.  Professionally I am finally in a place where "The Colleagues" don't dis me from the start, continuously and condescendingly.  They don't expect me to do all the work they don't want to do.  They don't expect me to clean up after them, in any sense of the word and they listen and consider what I've said if I'm impelled to speak up.  I am contributing in ways I can see are helpful and ways that nobody else does.

It may be Ironic that this respected and included situation is actually taking advantage of something women are more socialized to enact - I am cleaning up some stuff, making some computer housekeeping  happen.  The fact that I'm still new to the team means I haven't got a lot of entrenched projects or responsibilities, and that helps me look up from the ticket queue and notice things that ought not be - like a situation with customer expectations crashing into what one of the colleagues (the lower case, external contract colleagues) did and communicated.  (A variant of the "we're not gonna do that for you" "oh, ok I'll do it myself and break all your crap," scenario.) I can see structural problems everyone else accepts, because I'm "not from there."

At my old job this kind of thing earned me nothing good.  I had some very good ideas there that were never acted on, until someone else "magically" came up with this really great thing we could do that we'd somehow "never thought of."

This is a huge deal for me, professionally, from a confidence perspective and emotionally.  I am not drained and depressed after work every day.  Sometimes I can't wait to get up and go back because I Got Stuff To Do.  I never dread interacting with The Colleagues.  I think I have heard one possibly insensitive comment since I started - a complaint that the aspect ratio of our "signature graphic" for presentations is wrong, and makes the lady in it look short and frumpy.  You know, like me.  I gave a little jab back about us short women not winning and we all had a laugh.

It's pretty great.

Dealing with CVEs just sucks.  That is all.

Oh, and with all the funky formatting here, we need a preview.  And how come my Firefox built-in spell checking does NOT werk here?

At The Flash in Kennett Square, 8:00.  Or just watch one of our delightful videos!

Oh it is ON.

I think I'm going to take some advantage of the low-key nature of OPW and talk a little more freely about myself than I might otherwise.

I'm a depression sufferer.  Hi.  I'm also treated by fibromyalgia, which my neurologist tells me is maybe not a separate issue.  I am not offended by this idea.  I'm also diabetic, which probably is a separate issue, but who knows?  Anyway, I take tramadol three times a day to keep both the pain and the dark clouds at bay... mostly, in both cases.  So there's that.

I only bring this up because this week has exceeded the capacity of my usual regimens to keep me from going nutty.  Robin Williams, and frankly a lot of nonsense about depression thereafter, check.  Ferguson, MO (and New York! And L.A.! And whoever's next!), check.  Massive stress because classes start Monday -- I'm not a student, I'm the sole UNIX admin for a computer science department at a state university, so this is crunch time, basically -- check.

And so here I am using up my daily post (my first one, at that) complaining that I feel lousy.  Well, so it goes.  This is pretty much where my head is this morning, and hopefully that will pass (which is not to say I intend to shrug off the goings-on in Ferguson and so forth, just quit needlessly curling up in the fetal position, I guess) and tomorrow I'll be able to think of something else to write about.  Or not!  It's not like we're required to post daily.

And now, obligatory meta-talk: I sent out some feelers to people I think might be interested in OPW, so maybe I'll do a little inviting in the near future.

There is a bike trail on both sides of the Schuylkill river. You can pedal from Spruce Street in Center City all the way to Falls Bridge, cross the bridge, and return on the West Philly side, terrorizing joggers and geese all the way. At no point are you terrorized by cars. It's a seven-mile trip.

And that's nothin'. You can keep going. The ride through Manayunk is a pain, but then there's the towpath trail. And a mile of gravel, after which you come to 20 miles of gorgeous paved trail to Norristown.

And on to Valley Forge.

And on to Reading. I haven't tried that bit.

Tonight I just needed to get my ya-ya's out. I've been in the house too much this week. So I did that seven-mile loop. And I did my best to notice how lovely it is.

I'd be all agog if I discovered it while visiting a city I don't live in. Human nature is funny that way.

I wasn't entirely successful in seeing it with new eyes, but I did remember to count the cormorants hanging out on the wire just behind the dam. (There were seven.)

"Yes, yes, but what's new on One Post Wonder today?"

The coolest thing is probably this post by Anne Galvin. (OK, that was yesterday.)

Oh, you meant new features? Got those too:

• When you click someone's name, and are taken to their personal blog, you'll always see a "plus" button you can click to follow them. Even if they haven't posted yet.
• When you visit the personal blog of a mutual friend, you'll see a new "Jane Doe's Friends" button. Click that to see a list of people that Jane is following. You can visit their blogs, or just follow them on the spot.

For you alpha testers, I'm probably the most profitable person to click on right now. For a lot of people this page won't have too many names on it... yet.

I do see that some of you are inviting a person or two. Feel free, and if you run out of invites, just give me a nudge.

Next up, I think, will be an easier way to discover new comments on your posts, and posts that you've commented on.

I'm seeing folks begin to invite friends and post interesting things. Yes! IT LIVES!

Then again, isn't everything? 

I am really tired. I was on my feet at work for most of the day. Thought about going to bed early, but I'm hungry, which means I have to cook, which means I have to clean the kitchen. I could order out, but I'm trying to keep an eye on my sodium levels and calorie intake BUT I BURNT 988 CALORIES TODAY SHELVING VIDEOS and that's worth at least one cheeseburger but I'm also thinking about how food affects one's mood. 

So, I'm going to go downstairs and listen to podcasts and clean the kitchen and try to make something to eat. 

Things I did today of which I'm proud:

Responded to an e-mail from an agency, sent a cv and bio, got rejected. so, I'm proud of myself for risking rejection.  

Shelved a lot. Walked a lot. 

I don't feel like that's enough so that's why I want to clean the kitchen. 

I think scrambled eggs are going to be dinner. 

Tom might as well put his answers to all our questions on the OPW page itself.