In the course of my work, I have to prepare "notices to proceed" for contractors on a regular basis. This is just a simple letter instructing them when a project is supposed to start.
That's the easy part.
The hard part is trying to tell them when to stop.
Every contract has a total calendar day duration, and so you have to add the requisite number of days to your start date, and that gives you your end date. Now, I can usually do a pretty good job of counting days up to around 31 or 32 or so, but since I don't have access on my computer to any of our construction scheduling software (don't ask me why), anything with calendar days past about a month reduces me to trying to add several months together in my head, ticking back or forth with a pen to the start date, and then finally to the end date. Or something. For those of us with severely diminished smartness capacity, a simple task like this amounts to a Saturn V launch. Especially when it's something oddball like 350 days or something. Or the phone rings. Or the guy's standing there waiting on you to add numbers. Or you hit yourself with a hammer.
Anyway, today I had one of those long ones with 350 days.
Being that I don't know anything, but I usually know where to look for the answer, I got to wondering if there was a handy tool on the Web that I could insert the start date, tell it how many days, and then let it do all the ciphering and give me a finish date.
Lo! And beHOLD! Three seconds of typing calendar date calculator into Google got me one such neat handy tool from timeanddate.com. (Very inventive URL, by the way!)
Anyway, it works very well--much better than spending agonizing minutes looking like a monkey with a seizure disorder trying to add up months in my head. Just another one of those tiny things that makes life pleasanter.
In other news--it's a very pretty day outside, and I love bunnies and kitties!
Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 1, 2009 03:20 PMJulian calendar makes adding days pretty easy if you can't reach the interweb. Just download one and hang it on your cubicle wall. You'll look ever so smart!
Posted by: Nate at October 3, 2009 12:47 AMYeah, can you imagine the mental gymnastics if you counted today as 16 Tishrei, 5770? Oy vey! [link - http://www.chabad.org/calendar/default_cdo/jewish/Calendar.htm]
It's been awhile since we've had any Flash (the world's most expensive free cat?) updates. And speaking of attack animals, I don't know if you get the same commercials we do here in Mayberry, but on Marty Stouffer's "When Animals Strike" they briefly show a possum in full attack mode. Scary stuff. The preview clip at the DVD site [http://store.discovery.com/detail.php?p=85361] is interesting, but does not show the wild possum.
Posted by: Marc V at October 4, 2009 05:56 PMLook ever so smart!? Sorry, Nate--there's not a calendar in the world that can do that for me.
Thus why Marc's suggestion is even more daunting. I have enough trouble with the calendar we've got without going off and getting someone else's!
As for Lightning, he's still doing okay, and gets along much better with Patches now. We can let him out and run around the backyard, and Patches doesn't try to nibble a taste of him anymore.
And yes, I've seen the Marty Stouffer video ad, but never noticed the possum--I'll be sure to look for it next time and see if I can get any pointers on how to act.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 5, 2009 07:42 AM