Today didn't really go as planned, and involved a lot of sleeping.
I originally woke up at 6:00 AM and stumbled around for a bit before we decided to skip the run and go back to sleep.
Then I slept until 8:30 AM. As mentioned yesterday, I was coming down with a cold, so I had resolved that I wouldn't expose everybody at the office to it today. I ended up trying to work from home for the day, but was feeling kinda whacked out for part of it, so I'm not sure how productive I really was. I think I ought to just chalk it up to a sick day.
Eventually, this evening, I went over to Dave's place for a lesson. We talked about software and stuff, and eventually got down to the business of "Wave" and bossa. Yay bossa.
The rest of today mostly involved nibbling at various random foods that I found around the apartment.
Oh, and at some point I downloaded Warpgate for my phone. Fun little game. Reminds me of Escape Velocity.
Umm. Yeah. Here's hoping tomorrow makes more sense. Today was just sorta frustrating.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuenesday
Oops. There's yesterday, too. And today. That, to me, makes Tuenesday.
Yesterday I recall going for a run. I believe it was four miles. I believe it started at 6:30 AM or so, and I believe that it was pretty good, all around, except for the part at the beginning where I couldn't remember how to run.
Stretching, right. Going to go do that after this.
Work yesterday was an exercise in trying to meet deadlines. It went pretty smoothly, and by the end of the work day, I was feeling like things were in pretty good shape, if somewhat rushed.
I left work around 6:00 PM or so and met Ms. Julia at the Porter Square Bookstore. Whilst waiting, I started reading a book about the Gardner Museum heist. Looked like it could be a good read.
From the bookstore - which was merely a meeting place - we walked over to Shaw's and got some groceries, then wandered our way back to my place, where we both proceeded to get things done. I continued where I left off when I left work earlier in the day. I did this until... 10:30 or so, at least.
We resolved not to try going for a run this morning, and to take it as a day off this week. Instead, I got up all early and got to work by around 8:30 or so. I drove in, such that I could drive up to Demandware's offices in Woburn later in the day. I parked on a side street. I used some of my quarters in a meter.
Exciting stuff, let me tell you.
The meeting up at the Dee Dub went pretty well. I was, ultimately, there in a support capacity. We saw some of our former coworkers - Debi, Vinod, Larry, and Adam. It was cool to see them. Seems like they're enjoying the place.
After leaving their offices, I drove back to Cambridge and decided to just drive myself home, rather than go back to the office and deal with parking meters for the rest of the day. Worked from here for a while, before... inexplicably getting really sleepy. I was having Kat, Allie, and Mark over for music tonight, so I took a long nap before they got here at 7:00 PM.
Turns out, maybe I was tired because I was sick? I don't know. Shortly after they arrived, my throat started feeling kinda scratchy, and at this point, it's quite clear to me that I'm sick.
Damnit.
After everyone left, I went back to Jazz software land for a bit. I really, really need this to just be done.
Argh.
And... yeah, now I guess I'll go to sleep. We're going to play the morning by ear - not sure how I'm going to feel when I wake up. Given that this is like stage 1 of this, I may try to work from home tomorrow.
Still looking forward to a summer off from extra things. Just need to convince the world to let me do it.
Yesterday I recall going for a run. I believe it was four miles. I believe it started at 6:30 AM or so, and I believe that it was pretty good, all around, except for the part at the beginning where I couldn't remember how to run.
Stretching, right. Going to go do that after this.
Work yesterday was an exercise in trying to meet deadlines. It went pretty smoothly, and by the end of the work day, I was feeling like things were in pretty good shape, if somewhat rushed.
I left work around 6:00 PM or so and met Ms. Julia at the Porter Square Bookstore. Whilst waiting, I started reading a book about the Gardner Museum heist. Looked like it could be a good read.
From the bookstore - which was merely a meeting place - we walked over to Shaw's and got some groceries, then wandered our way back to my place, where we both proceeded to get things done. I continued where I left off when I left work earlier in the day. I did this until... 10:30 or so, at least.
We resolved not to try going for a run this morning, and to take it as a day off this week. Instead, I got up all early and got to work by around 8:30 or so. I drove in, such that I could drive up to Demandware's offices in Woburn later in the day. I parked on a side street. I used some of my quarters in a meter.
Exciting stuff, let me tell you.
The meeting up at the Dee Dub went pretty well. I was, ultimately, there in a support capacity. We saw some of our former coworkers - Debi, Vinod, Larry, and Adam. It was cool to see them. Seems like they're enjoying the place.
After leaving their offices, I drove back to Cambridge and decided to just drive myself home, rather than go back to the office and deal with parking meters for the rest of the day. Worked from here for a while, before... inexplicably getting really sleepy. I was having Kat, Allie, and Mark over for music tonight, so I took a long nap before they got here at 7:00 PM.
Turns out, maybe I was tired because I was sick? I don't know. Shortly after they arrived, my throat started feeling kinda scratchy, and at this point, it's quite clear to me that I'm sick.
Damnit.
After everyone left, I went back to Jazz software land for a bit. I really, really need this to just be done.
Argh.
And... yeah, now I guess I'll go to sleep. We're going to play the morning by ear - not sure how I'm going to feel when I wake up. Given that this is like stage 1 of this, I may try to work from home tomorrow.
Still looking forward to a summer off from extra things. Just need to convince the world to let me do it.
Monday, April 26, 2010
My mind is ablaze with GENIUS!
Today began at 7:00 AM or so.
I shaved; now, suddenly, smooth faced and lookin' youthful. Or something. It's weird!
I made it in to work by around 9:30 AM or so, intent on finishing this damn parser today. For all intents and purposes, I did. That gives me tomorrow to wrap everything up.
Mr. Daniel, you are a god and/or a saint amongst men. Thank you.
I was wicked hungry today. I had a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, soup and a sandwich for lunch, then some pretzels, then some animal crackers, and a bunch of cheese and crackers around dinner time. Oof.
Otherwise, work involved my plugging away listening to Aesop Rock the whole time. Or, well, most of the time. I originally tried to take the T in to the office this morning, but after getting down to Porter and to the tracks, I discovered that the train was just sitting there, the platform was full of a million people, and no one seemed to be going anywhere. When the train finally pulled up and they said it was disabled and out of service, I just decided to go home and get my bike.
Which I did.
So I rode to work.
At the end of the day, I left around 5:30 PM to try to beat the rain. I didn't go to class tonight. Sigh. Instead I just came home and kept working on Jazz junk for Dave.
Argh. I don't think I can keep doing this all summer.
While I was working, at least I got to watch something amazing. Eric was watching "The Secret of Kells" - an animated film about the Book of Kells. It was awesome. Beautiful visuals. Great music. Awesome characters. I highly recommend it if you can find it. It's, apparently, not even for sale right now. Like... at all.
After that, I just kept working. This thing is almost done, I hope. It needs to be, and now.
Tonight Julia and I talked about a bunch of races. Is a group of races a herd of races? A pod? A pack? I propose none of these terms. Rather, I think it should be called a rocket of races, because it's late and I'm tired.
The current tenor of the discussion re: our current rocket of races on the docket, is an excited, "Hmmm!"
And now, sleep.
Oof, once more.
Oh, and I don't really know what that ablaze with genius thing is all about. I just felt like saying it.
I shaved; now, suddenly, smooth faced and lookin' youthful. Or something. It's weird!
I made it in to work by around 9:30 AM or so, intent on finishing this damn parser today. For all intents and purposes, I did. That gives me tomorrow to wrap everything up.
Mr. Daniel, you are a god and/or a saint amongst men. Thank you.
I was wicked hungry today. I had a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, soup and a sandwich for lunch, then some pretzels, then some animal crackers, and a bunch of cheese and crackers around dinner time. Oof.
Otherwise, work involved my plugging away listening to Aesop Rock the whole time. Or, well, most of the time. I originally tried to take the T in to the office this morning, but after getting down to Porter and to the tracks, I discovered that the train was just sitting there, the platform was full of a million people, and no one seemed to be going anywhere. When the train finally pulled up and they said it was disabled and out of service, I just decided to go home and get my bike.
Which I did.
So I rode to work.
At the end of the day, I left around 5:30 PM to try to beat the rain. I didn't go to class tonight. Sigh. Instead I just came home and kept working on Jazz junk for Dave.
Argh. I don't think I can keep doing this all summer.
While I was working, at least I got to watch something amazing. Eric was watching "The Secret of Kells" - an animated film about the Book of Kells. It was awesome. Beautiful visuals. Great music. Awesome characters. I highly recommend it if you can find it. It's, apparently, not even for sale right now. Like... at all.
After that, I just kept working. This thing is almost done, I hope. It needs to be, and now.
Tonight Julia and I talked about a bunch of races. Is a group of races a herd of races? A pod? A pack? I propose none of these terms. Rather, I think it should be called a rocket of races, because it's late and I'm tired.
The current tenor of the discussion re: our current rocket of races on the docket, is an excited, "Hmmm!"
And now, sleep.
Oof, once more.
Oh, and I don't really know what that ablaze with genius thing is all about. I just felt like saying it.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wonderocitinessfulism
Yesterday and today, I think. I don't see much else happening here!
Yesterday was lovely. Got up early (7-ish?) and drove Julia down to the SMFA before her gig at 9:00 AM, then returned, bummed around for a bit, took a shower, chatted with roommate Eric's brother, who is staying with us, and then around 11:15 AM or so, headed back out (via T this time) to the MFA.
I showed up on the Green Line at the Museum of Fine Arts stop precisely as Julia walked up to the stop at 12:15 or so. I got off one car, saw her, and we got back on the second car. We couldn't have timed it better if we'd tried. Like clockwork, I tell you. We took the train out two stops to Brigham Circle, where we had a delightful little lunch at The Penguin. I had a slice of Aegean pizza. She had a slice of... something with sausage on it (I think). Their slices are ENORMOUS - like 1/4 a pizza. There was diet coke, because, you know, yay caffeine.
After walking Jules back to the SMFA, I began to wander. First I wandered to the back of the MFA, where there were children and yeuts doing sidewalk chalk drawings. I sat there and read Bird By Bird for a little bit. I was in the shade, which was kinda cold.
There was this couple there - I'm certain they must have just gotten engaged or something - with a photographer, taking all sorts of cute pictures against various backdrops. The kind of sickeningly cute pictures which only the pair of them and their parents could enjoy. But, well, cute none the less. They seemed to be having fun.
After a bit of a read, I got up and walked along the fens for a bit and checked out the World War II memorial. The couple was there - this time beneath a blooming tree, he carrying her in his arms, photographer snapping away. See what I mean?
Post-memorial, I walked back along the side of the MFA, and there they were again. This time just up against the side of the building. I started to feel like they must think I was stalking them. I hurried by, went around to the front of the building and sat in the sun for a little while, basking. Very nice.
Eventually, after I'd had my fill of sunshine, I walked up Huntington to Symphony, and then up Mass Ave. to Daddy's Junky Music, where I proceeded to get an electric guitar case and strap. It was time. From there, I walked up to Hynes Convention Center T stop, thought about taking the #1 up to Cambridge, walked down Newbury a bit looking for a coffee shop I could chill in, didn't find one, walked back, thought about the bus again (it had come in the meantime), and just got on the train (Inbound) instead. This was approximately 3:00 PM.
By 3:45 PM or so, I was walking home from Harvard Square - case in hand - chatting with my dad on the phone. I had tried to sit down in Dado, but it was full up.
By 4:30 PM or so, I was passed out in bed. I took a nap until 7:30 PM, when I woke up and subsequently got a call from The Julia right as I was trying to remember how to dial my phone to call her.
We ended up getting together with Paul and his girl at Wagner Manor for pizza (which he made, and which was awesome) and Blazing Saddles. And salad. And a bit of wine. And, clearly, good company.
So, through all of this, I was quite conscious of the fact that we were all scheduled to run a 5k today, Sunday.
We all went to sleep at a reasonable hour (except Paul, apparently, who it seems stayed up. More on the impact of this later), and got up around 7:00 AM to get ready. After some milling about, we piled into Paul's car and drove down to BC for the race, which was starting in the middle of campus. Pre-race, we got our gear together and Jules and I went for a 0.7 mile warm up, whilst Paul did his thing. More on this later.
The race was, basically, great.
It started promptly at 9:00 AM. The beginning third of the race is mostly downhill, which is a fun way to start. Makes you feel fast. I lost sight of Julia pretty quick; turns out she was just a smidge behind me the entire way, sending good vibes.
What one buys at the beginning, one has to pay back at the end.
The race went out of the campus, down Comm. Ave., around the reservoir, back up to campus, and finished where it started. That long hill at the beginning was balanced out by a pretty short one right near the end. Funnily (that's a word!?), I found the hill easier than the long, flat part in the middle. So! Right near the end, I hear Julia coming up behind me! We have a little chat before she spies her target - a woman a bit ahead of us - and she takes off. My thought process was something like, "Oh! There she goes! I'll keep up- wait, wait, oh, no, guess I won't. Wow." She passed the woman. I finished about where I was, though I had a little bit of energy to kick it up a bit.
Final results: 48th out of 267. 40th out of the men (something like 128 of them). 22:46 total. 7:20 miles.
I'm basically thrilled, as this is about 30 seconds faster, per mile, than the last race I was in back around St. Patrick's.
After the race, we went for a 2 mile cool down run around campus and the reservoir. Nice. Paul disappeared.
Oh, so Julia was 45th overall, 7th for the women. (Awesome!). Paul, Mr. 4 hours of sleep, was 2nd. Overall. Complete, unassuming badass!
So! That was that. After our various cooldownnesses, we went to City Sidebar & Grille for the results, free Harpoon, and apps. Rockin'. We were there for a bit, before returning to Che Wagner for some Paul Wagner pancakes. I nearly fell over for lack of food prior to this (the apps were pretty much all meated). I ate my vegetable curry from last Wednesday's jam session. It was delightful.
After all this, we watched some Old School, and then took a multi-hour nap, from which I woke up an hour or two ago. I called my parents when I got home, just to say "Hi!" and tell them how it went. And now, here I am.
I'm going to try to get some stuff done tonight - mostly, so far I've just been able to catch up on life, rather than get ahead in it. Working on that. Time for some music, code, and productivity, I think.
This was a wonderful, great weekend.
Yesterday was lovely. Got up early (7-ish?) and drove Julia down to the SMFA before her gig at 9:00 AM, then returned, bummed around for a bit, took a shower, chatted with roommate Eric's brother, who is staying with us, and then around 11:15 AM or so, headed back out (via T this time) to the MFA.
I showed up on the Green Line at the Museum of Fine Arts stop precisely as Julia walked up to the stop at 12:15 or so. I got off one car, saw her, and we got back on the second car. We couldn't have timed it better if we'd tried. Like clockwork, I tell you. We took the train out two stops to Brigham Circle, where we had a delightful little lunch at The Penguin. I had a slice of Aegean pizza. She had a slice of... something with sausage on it (I think). Their slices are ENORMOUS - like 1/4 a pizza. There was diet coke, because, you know, yay caffeine.
After walking Jules back to the SMFA, I began to wander. First I wandered to the back of the MFA, where there were children and yeuts doing sidewalk chalk drawings. I sat there and read Bird By Bird for a little bit. I was in the shade, which was kinda cold.
There was this couple there - I'm certain they must have just gotten engaged or something - with a photographer, taking all sorts of cute pictures against various backdrops. The kind of sickeningly cute pictures which only the pair of them and their parents could enjoy. But, well, cute none the less. They seemed to be having fun.
After a bit of a read, I got up and walked along the fens for a bit and checked out the World War II memorial. The couple was there - this time beneath a blooming tree, he carrying her in his arms, photographer snapping away. See what I mean?
Post-memorial, I walked back along the side of the MFA, and there they were again. This time just up against the side of the building. I started to feel like they must think I was stalking them. I hurried by, went around to the front of the building and sat in the sun for a little while, basking. Very nice.
Eventually, after I'd had my fill of sunshine, I walked up Huntington to Symphony, and then up Mass Ave. to Daddy's Junky Music, where I proceeded to get an electric guitar case and strap. It was time. From there, I walked up to Hynes Convention Center T stop, thought about taking the #1 up to Cambridge, walked down Newbury a bit looking for a coffee shop I could chill in, didn't find one, walked back, thought about the bus again (it had come in the meantime), and just got on the train (Inbound) instead. This was approximately 3:00 PM.
By 3:45 PM or so, I was walking home from Harvard Square - case in hand - chatting with my dad on the phone. I had tried to sit down in Dado, but it was full up.
By 4:30 PM or so, I was passed out in bed. I took a nap until 7:30 PM, when I woke up and subsequently got a call from The Julia right as I was trying to remember how to dial my phone to call her.
We ended up getting together with Paul and his girl at Wagner Manor for pizza (which he made, and which was awesome) and Blazing Saddles. And salad. And a bit of wine. And, clearly, good company.
So, through all of this, I was quite conscious of the fact that we were all scheduled to run a 5k today, Sunday.
We all went to sleep at a reasonable hour (except Paul, apparently, who it seems stayed up. More on the impact of this later), and got up around 7:00 AM to get ready. After some milling about, we piled into Paul's car and drove down to BC for the race, which was starting in the middle of campus. Pre-race, we got our gear together and Jules and I went for a 0.7 mile warm up, whilst Paul did his thing. More on this later.
The race was, basically, great.
It started promptly at 9:00 AM. The beginning third of the race is mostly downhill, which is a fun way to start. Makes you feel fast. I lost sight of Julia pretty quick; turns out she was just a smidge behind me the entire way, sending good vibes.
What one buys at the beginning, one has to pay back at the end.
The race went out of the campus, down Comm. Ave., around the reservoir, back up to campus, and finished where it started. That long hill at the beginning was balanced out by a pretty short one right near the end. Funnily (that's a word!?), I found the hill easier than the long, flat part in the middle. So! Right near the end, I hear Julia coming up behind me! We have a little chat before she spies her target - a woman a bit ahead of us - and she takes off. My thought process was something like, "Oh! There she goes! I'll keep up- wait, wait, oh, no, guess I won't. Wow." She passed the woman. I finished about where I was, though I had a little bit of energy to kick it up a bit.
Final results: 48th out of 267. 40th out of the men (something like 128 of them). 22:46 total. 7:20 miles.
I'm basically thrilled, as this is about 30 seconds faster, per mile, than the last race I was in back around St. Patrick's.
After the race, we went for a 2 mile cool down run around campus and the reservoir. Nice. Paul disappeared.
Oh, so Julia was 45th overall, 7th for the women. (Awesome!). Paul, Mr. 4 hours of sleep, was 2nd. Overall. Complete, unassuming badass!
So! That was that. After our various cooldownnesses, we went to City Sidebar & Grille for the results, free Harpoon, and apps. Rockin'. We were there for a bit, before returning to Che Wagner for some Paul Wagner pancakes. I nearly fell over for lack of food prior to this (the apps were pretty much all meated). I ate my vegetable curry from last Wednesday's jam session. It was delightful.
After all this, we watched some Old School, and then took a multi-hour nap, from which I woke up an hour or two ago. I called my parents when I got home, just to say "Hi!" and tell them how it went. And now, here I am.
I'm going to try to get some stuff done tonight - mostly, so far I've just been able to catch up on life, rather than get ahead in it. Working on that. Time for some music, code, and productivity, I think.
This was a wonderful, great weekend.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Moving, Little League, Dragons, and various beverages
Yesterday was pretty good all around.
Woke up at 6:00 AM and went for a run, 3.something miles, I think. During the second half I was wicked tired, but made it through. I eventually shipped myself off to work where I got some shtuuuff done until around 3:00 PM when we were scheduled to move the office around.
My move involved Graeme (our CEO) moving my desk six inches.
So I tried to help everyone else a bit instead. I was looking forward to moving, too! But so long as the environment has shuffled around, I figure it's like moving to a new spot.
Post move, around 3:30 PM or so, there was bourbon, pretzels, and beer. Delicious. Julia and I planned to meet up on Sixth St. to go to one of her students' little league games for a bit - just to make an appearance. Around 6:00 PM or so, after getting some more work done, actually, I headed out and met her somewhere up there.
After stopping in with some encouraging words, we made our way back to Cambridge Street and had a little dinner-snack at Atwoods. Pretty good. It was around this time that we started coordinating plans with Eric Fields and Gwen. They were already eating somewhere near Inman. They went to Harvard Sq. for dessert. We were up north of Kendall.
Eventually we took the 86 bus over to Harvard Sq. and met them at Dado tea. On the way down Church St., we ran into an unexpected friend of Julia's, who ended up joining us at The Dado.
We stuck it out there until 9:45 or so - 15 prior to closing time - and then walked over to the Harvard Square movie theater thing, where upon we have some disagreements over what movie to see.
Gwen and Eric had no desire to see How To Train Your Dragon. Jules and I didn't seem to have any desire to see anything else. Oh! And we met two more friends of hers' outside the theater - though this time it was planned. Jillian and... Justin? Someone correct me if that's wrong. Sorry!
So we ended up seeing different movies. Everyone was happy.
Afterwards, Gwen went home, and the rest of us headed up to Porter to get a drink at Christopher's. The bar staff seemed sorta off their game. But that's okay, it's Christopher's.
We stayed at Christopher's for a while, and eventually went out various, separate ways. The end!
Woke up at 6:00 AM and went for a run, 3.something miles, I think. During the second half I was wicked tired, but made it through. I eventually shipped myself off to work where I got some shtuuuff done until around 3:00 PM when we were scheduled to move the office around.
My move involved Graeme (our CEO) moving my desk six inches.
So I tried to help everyone else a bit instead. I was looking forward to moving, too! But so long as the environment has shuffled around, I figure it's like moving to a new spot.
Post move, around 3:30 PM or so, there was bourbon, pretzels, and beer. Delicious. Julia and I planned to meet up on Sixth St. to go to one of her students' little league games for a bit - just to make an appearance. Around 6:00 PM or so, after getting some more work done, actually, I headed out and met her somewhere up there.
After stopping in with some encouraging words, we made our way back to Cambridge Street and had a little dinner-snack at Atwoods. Pretty good. It was around this time that we started coordinating plans with Eric Fields and Gwen. They were already eating somewhere near Inman. They went to Harvard Sq. for dessert. We were up north of Kendall.
Eventually we took the 86 bus over to Harvard Sq. and met them at Dado tea. On the way down Church St., we ran into an unexpected friend of Julia's, who ended up joining us at The Dado.
We stuck it out there until 9:45 or so - 15 prior to closing time - and then walked over to the Harvard Square movie theater thing, where upon we have some disagreements over what movie to see.
Gwen and Eric had no desire to see How To Train Your Dragon. Jules and I didn't seem to have any desire to see anything else. Oh! And we met two more friends of hers' outside the theater - though this time it was planned. Jillian and... Justin? Someone correct me if that's wrong. Sorry!
So we ended up seeing different movies. Everyone was happy.
Afterwards, Gwen went home, and the rest of us headed up to Porter to get a drink at Christopher's. The bar staff seemed sorta off their game. But that's okay, it's Christopher's.
We stayed at Christopher's for a while, and eventually went out various, separate ways. The end!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
La la la la life goes on
Lying in bed. Laying in bed? The one that doesn't involve being untruthful.
Looong feeling day. Really, it can't be that long, because I'm pretty certain that all days are roughly the same length, and that one particular day in April is highly unlikely to be the longest.
They have leap seconds to correct that sorta thing.
Today began with a 3.somethingsomething mile run at 6:30 AM, as it often does. Or, more precisely, 6:40 AM. Or there abouts. It was a great run, I thought. Felt really good.
After that, I biked myself to work after a breakfast of yogurt and granola. And a banana.
Work involved making a lot of existing code make sense. Major refactoring for the purposes of continued maintenance, readability, and non-blobness. I feel much better about it all now.
I eventually left work at 5:00 PM or so and biked myself home. It had just finished pouring down rain, so everything was all wet, but half the sky was blue. Crazy. Not a bad ride back, though.
From 5:30 PM until 8:00 PM, I worked on NEC's evaluation software thing. It works. At 8:00 PM, I left for a lesson with Dave, which we pushed back 20 minutes or so because he was running late. We talked about reading lead sheets and sight reading. Good stuff. I need to get better at that.
After our lesson, we talked about the software for a while, and we came up with a list of 30 or so things that need to be changed.
Ouch.
Mostly minor stuff, but... ouch. I'll have to see when I can get it done. Oi.
I eventually got home at like 11:00 PM.
And now I'm doing this laying thing, and I don't know that I can actually get up to go brush my teeth and get myself ready for the sleeping.
Guess I'll find out!
Looong feeling day. Really, it can't be that long, because I'm pretty certain that all days are roughly the same length, and that one particular day in April is highly unlikely to be the longest.
They have leap seconds to correct that sorta thing.
Today began with a 3.somethingsomething mile run at 6:30 AM, as it often does. Or, more precisely, 6:40 AM. Or there abouts. It was a great run, I thought. Felt really good.
After that, I biked myself to work after a breakfast of yogurt and granola. And a banana.
Work involved making a lot of existing code make sense. Major refactoring for the purposes of continued maintenance, readability, and non-blobness. I feel much better about it all now.
I eventually left work at 5:00 PM or so and biked myself home. It had just finished pouring down rain, so everything was all wet, but half the sky was blue. Crazy. Not a bad ride back, though.
From 5:30 PM until 8:00 PM, I worked on NEC's evaluation software thing. It works. At 8:00 PM, I left for a lesson with Dave, which we pushed back 20 minutes or so because he was running late. We talked about reading lead sheets and sight reading. Good stuff. I need to get better at that.
After our lesson, we talked about the software for a while, and we came up with a list of 30 or so things that need to be changed.
Ouch.
Mostly minor stuff, but... ouch. I'll have to see when I can get it done. Oi.
I eventually got home at like 11:00 PM.
And now I'm doing this laying thing, and I don't know that I can actually get up to go brush my teeth and get myself ready for the sleeping.
Guess I'll find out!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Ob-La-De, hah, hah hah!
So... woke up at 8:00 AM after two lovely 15 minute snoozes beyond my initial alarm for 7:30 AM.
Groggily walked around. Had a bagel and cream cheese. Biked into work. Got there around 9:30 AM, as I recall.
Work went alright - slowly made more progress on my parser. It's a time consuming process, unfortunately. I think I'm maybe... 85% there? I dunno, something like that.
There's really not too much else to say there. Had a nice lunch with Mark, Mahmoud, Daniel, and Erik out on the roof deck. Sun was actually, like, hot.
The afternoon went similarly to the morning. I left the office at 6:00 PM and biked home via Cambridge St to Beacon, rather than the straight shot up Hampshire/Beacon. I think I like it more. Feels like there's less annoying lights, and you can just hook an easy right onto Beacon once you get there. Mark and I were following each other most of the way, as he was heading up to Arlington.
Once I got home, I quickly cleaned some stuff up in preparation for Allie, Kat, and Mark (her brother's) arrival. We played music! Woo! Everybody showed up at 7:00 PM or so, and we spent a little time getting ourselves situated and settled. Then a little bit ordering food from Le's. I had vegetable curry. Tasty. Then we got down to business, shuffling our way through The Beatles Ob-La-De Ob-La-Da, which was a good time. We played that a bunch, just kinda getting a feel for it all. Eventually, peeps got going around 9:00 PM or so. We may choose a different place to play next time, I think. My little room here is kinda small.
After that... I sat around a bit. I set up Google Reader (awesome). I posted this. I thought about sleep. I slept!
Goodnight!
Groggily walked around. Had a bagel and cream cheese. Biked into work. Got there around 9:30 AM, as I recall.
Work went alright - slowly made more progress on my parser. It's a time consuming process, unfortunately. I think I'm maybe... 85% there? I dunno, something like that.
There's really not too much else to say there. Had a nice lunch with Mark, Mahmoud, Daniel, and Erik out on the roof deck. Sun was actually, like, hot.
The afternoon went similarly to the morning. I left the office at 6:00 PM and biked home via Cambridge St to Beacon, rather than the straight shot up Hampshire/Beacon. I think I like it more. Feels like there's less annoying lights, and you can just hook an easy right onto Beacon once you get there. Mark and I were following each other most of the way, as he was heading up to Arlington.
Once I got home, I quickly cleaned some stuff up in preparation for Allie, Kat, and Mark (her brother's) arrival. We played music! Woo! Everybody showed up at 7:00 PM or so, and we spent a little time getting ourselves situated and settled. Then a little bit ordering food from Le's. I had vegetable curry. Tasty. Then we got down to business, shuffling our way through The Beatles Ob-La-De Ob-La-Da, which was a good time. We played that a bunch, just kinda getting a feel for it all. Eventually, peeps got going around 9:00 PM or so. We may choose a different place to play next time, I think. My little room here is kinda small.
After that... I sat around a bit. I set up Google Reader (awesome). I posted this. I thought about sleep. I slept!
Goodnight!
Lasagna Recipe
I found this recipe on our Allurent wiki. I wrote it October 31, 2007 for our Halloween '07 Potluck Lunch.
Makes one 9 x 13 or 9 x 14 casserole of Lasagna. Ingredients are on a "as much as you need or want" basis. It ends up a bit different every time. Note the quotes around "recipe" in the title.
Ingredients
1 block of sharp cheddar cheese. (I bought a 1 lb block and used 3/4 of it)
1 block of Monterey jack cheese. (I bought a 1 lb block and used 2/3 of it)
1 jar of pasta sauce.
1 or 2 yellow squash of a good size
1 or 2 large zucchini of a good size (Not a cucumber!)
1 bag of spinach
1 can of olives
A dozen delicious mushrooms
One package of lasagna noodles. You want at least 12 noodles in there. If your package only has 9, that's probably not enough. The Joy Family Recipe calls for whole wheat noodles (though what we ate at the Pot Luck were not, because I couldn't find them!)
Directions
1. Chop vegetables up into delicious morsels.
2. Grate some cheese. Grate more if you need it as you go along.
2. Pre-cook squash, zucchini, and mushrooms.
3. Separately (or together if you think you can time it right), cook the spinach.
4. In a large pot, cook all the lasagna noodles to the tooth. Drain and wash with cold water so they don't stick together while you're preparing everything.
5. In your casserole, put down a layer of pasta sauce.
6. Layer 3 lasagna noodles across the bottom.
Makes one 9 x 13 or 9 x 14 casserole of Lasagna. Ingredients are on a "as much as you need or want" basis. It ends up a bit different every time. Note the quotes around "recipe" in the title.
Ingredients
1 block of sharp cheddar cheese. (I bought a 1 lb block and used 3/4 of it)
1 block of Monterey jack cheese. (I bought a 1 lb block and used 2/3 of it)
1 jar of pasta sauce.
1 or 2 yellow squash of a good size
1 or 2 large zucchini of a good size (Not a cucumber!)
1 bag of spinach
1 can of olives
A dozen delicious mushrooms
One package of lasagna noodles. You want at least 12 noodles in there. If your package only has 9, that's probably not enough. The Joy Family Recipe calls for whole wheat noodles (though what we ate at the Pot Luck were not, because I couldn't find them!)
Directions
1. Chop vegetables up into delicious morsels.
2. Grate some cheese. Grate more if you need it as you go along.
2. Pre-cook squash, zucchini, and mushrooms.
3. Separately (or together if you think you can time it right), cook the spinach.
4. In a large pot, cook all the lasagna noodles to the tooth. Drain and wash with cold water so they don't stick together while you're preparing everything.
5. In your casserole, put down a layer of pasta sauce.
6. Layer 3 lasagna noodles across the bottom.
7. Realize that you should preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
8. Put a little sauce on the noodles. Not too much. Load up with veggies, then load up with cheese.
9. Layer noodles on top of all that going across the dish the short way.
10. Sauce them. Cheese them.
11. Noodle back the first way. Sauce, veggie, cheese.
12. Noodle one last time. Sauce it. Cheese it up until you can hardly see the sauce for all the dairy goodness.
13. Note: Layer order from steps 8 to 11 is really up to you. The random layer of noodles/cheese in the middle seemed like a good idea at the time. It's hard to screw this up.
14. Throw the whole thing in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cheese on top has started to brown a little.
Notes
1. Don't over sauce. If you do, you'll end up with a soup. I used approximately 3/4 - 4/5 of a jar of pasta sauce for a 9 by 13 casserole. At the same time, try to get the noodles a little moisture from the sauce around the edges - that's what makes them tasty.
8. Put a little sauce on the noodles. Not too much. Load up with veggies, then load up with cheese.
9. Layer noodles on top of all that going across the dish the short way.
10. Sauce them. Cheese them.
11. Noodle back the first way. Sauce, veggie, cheese.
12. Noodle one last time. Sauce it. Cheese it up until you can hardly see the sauce for all the dairy goodness.
13. Note: Layer order from steps 8 to 11 is really up to you. The random layer of noodles/cheese in the middle seemed like a good idea at the time. It's hard to screw this up.
14. Throw the whole thing in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cheese on top has started to brown a little.
Notes
1. Don't over sauce. If you do, you'll end up with a soup. I used approximately 3/4 - 4/5 of a jar of pasta sauce for a 9 by 13 casserole. At the same time, try to get the noodles a little moisture from the sauce around the edges - that's what makes them tasty.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Bidness
Got up at 6:00 AM this morning, went for a run at 6:30 starting from my place. We went a modified Oxford route, swinging by The Craigie on our way back up to Richdale. ~3.4 miles, apparently.
I biked into work, got there by about 9:15 AM or so. It was kinda a frustrating day, as I wasn't able to get my new and improved parsing approach to work, and instead just opted to go back to what I was already doing. This took about half the day to decide, unfortunately. Oh, well. If it'd worked, I think it would have been better and saved me some time - as it stands, I just learned a lot instead about the Java compiler (type erasure), JAXB, XJC, XSDs, and Java XML binding annotations. Coolness.
Around 5:00 PM or so, Julia and I started up our plotting again from where we left it off this morning. Going to the grocery store figured high on the list. We decided to meet out in front of the 2nd Street Cafe.
With that in mind, I left work at 6:00 PM or so. M'Lord was outside, messing with his car, and after a few minutes Daniel came out for some roller bladin'. I said he should follow me up to 2nd Street to say "Hi" to Jules. He did! We all stood around for a few minutes with our various forms of transportation and shot witticisms at the breeze. After a few, Julia and I got on our way, taking a winding, back road route through Cambridge up to my place, where we stashed our bikes and gear and took a little walk over to Shaw's.
Yay, foods!
Ahem.
After descending on the supermarket like a two person plague of... shoppers... we wandered back, refrigerated that which needed refrigerating, had a pleasant dinner of salad and cottage cheese (MMMM.) and then got down to the business of bidness.
I spent some time working on this Evaluation site for NEC. Julia made some lovely grid drawings. I have one sitting here, drying.
She left around 11:30 PM or so, and... here I am. I'm trying to work on this NEC thing, but my poor eyes are getting tired and kinda refuse to stay open. I think I may have to just give it a rest. It's so close though.
I'm ready for summer.
I biked into work, got there by about 9:15 AM or so. It was kinda a frustrating day, as I wasn't able to get my new and improved parsing approach to work, and instead just opted to go back to what I was already doing. This took about half the day to decide, unfortunately. Oh, well. If it'd worked, I think it would have been better and saved me some time - as it stands, I just learned a lot instead about the Java compiler (type erasure), JAXB, XJC, XSDs, and Java XML binding annotations. Coolness.
Around 5:00 PM or so, Julia and I started up our plotting again from where we left it off this morning. Going to the grocery store figured high on the list. We decided to meet out in front of the 2nd Street Cafe.
With that in mind, I left work at 6:00 PM or so. M'Lord was outside, messing with his car, and after a few minutes Daniel came out for some roller bladin'. I said he should follow me up to 2nd Street to say "Hi" to Jules. He did! We all stood around for a few minutes with our various forms of transportation and shot witticisms at the breeze. After a few, Julia and I got on our way, taking a winding, back road route through Cambridge up to my place, where we stashed our bikes and gear and took a little walk over to Shaw's.
Yay, foods!
Ahem.
After descending on the supermarket like a two person plague of... shoppers... we wandered back, refrigerated that which needed refrigerating, had a pleasant dinner of salad and cottage cheese (MMMM.) and then got down to the business of bidness.
I spent some time working on this Evaluation site for NEC. Julia made some lovely grid drawings. I have one sitting here, drying.
She left around 11:30 PM or so, and... here I am. I'm trying to work on this NEC thing, but my poor eyes are getting tired and kinda refuse to stay open. I think I may have to just give it a rest. It's so close though.
I'm ready for summer.
Monday, April 19, 2010
A brief synopsis
Oh, crap, it's late.
Uhh! I woke up this morning at 8:30 because I got to bed at 1:30 AM.
I got myself together and went into work, where I proceeded to do what I do every day, Pinky. Nothing particularly of note, except the part where I realized there's a much better way to do the thing I've been working on for the last week or two. That's frustrating. Argh.
I left work around 5:15 and headed over to NEC for class. Theory went well - Joel approved of my solo assignment from a few weeks back. Ear Training was a little rough.
After class, I came home, had a snack, and... sat here. Playing Zoo Kingdom and We Rule.
It's that sort of evening.
Oh!
And our high school reunion is apparently being planned. Crazy. I'm kinda looking forward to it.
Uhh! I woke up this morning at 8:30 because I got to bed at 1:30 AM.
I got myself together and went into work, where I proceeded to do what I do every day, Pinky. Nothing particularly of note, except the part where I realized there's a much better way to do the thing I've been working on for the last week or two. That's frustrating. Argh.
I left work around 5:15 and headed over to NEC for class. Theory went well - Joel approved of my solo assignment from a few weeks back. Ear Training was a little rough.
After class, I came home, had a snack, and... sat here. Playing Zoo Kingdom and We Rule.
It's that sort of evening.
Oh!
And our high school reunion is apparently being planned. Crazy. I'm kinda looking forward to it.
I just had a two second, waking nightmare about an ANT script that generates a baby in the build directory once it's done, and every time the script runs, there's another baby sitting there. Like... an actual, human child. Part of those two seconds included the thought of the script running in an automated, unchecked fashion on a release engineering server, and it terrified me.
Clearly, I need to lay off the sauce.
Clearly, I need to lay off the sauce.
Birthdays, albums, Amtrak, and... so, so tired and wanting to sleep and things and stuff.
What a loooong day. It was my brother's birthday!
I woke up at 7:something AM to a little boy asking me, "Uncle David, will you get up?"
I believe my first response was "No." No one was offended.
But, over the course of the next half hour, as two four year olds decided to climb into bed on either side of me and ask me any number of questions to which they could immediately turn around and respond, "Why?", I eventually got myself out of bed.
Whew.
There was then coffee, oatmeal, and Eggo waffles. There was then, shortly after, St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.
This was a new experience for me. Wow. Thems crazy in a good way. Crazy fun, crazy open minded, crazy, and possessing of crazy good food, with a crazy good choir (of which Aleksandra is a member). Whew. Afterward, while Aleksandra went to the store, Chris, the boys, and I hung around the church playground for a bit.
A little while later there was cake baking and present wrapping. The grandparents showed up around 2:30 PM, and we had a delicious lunch of potato/egg salad, actual salad, and garden burgers. And some wine.
And a little while after that, there was cake. Oh, was there cake. And brownies. I had my fill. Then I had some tea. Greatness.
Afterwards, Chris, Dad, Lucas, and I all went for a walk around East Rock. We went all the way to the Eli Whitney museum and its associated waterfall. It took about an hour and a half, and it was approximately 6:30 PM by the time we got back.
Mom and Dad left around 7:30 PM, or so, I think. Maybe a little earlier.
Eventually, I had to get ready to get on my train back to Boston. It was at 9:08 PM. Supposedly.
Chris brought me to the station at an appropriate time (8:40 PM or so), and I discovered my train was 15 minutes delayed. Supposedly.
So I waited a bit.
To my unending surprise, Amtrak didn't lie, and the train was actually about 15 minutes late. Not half an hour late. Not an hour late. Not secretly canceled, but honest to goodness as late as they claimed it was.
I don't mind that.
The ride back to Boston was uneventful and pleasant. A short trip on the Red Line from South Station brought me back to Porter.
Oh! And whilst getting my brother a birthday present, I got a new Joanna Newsom album (or rather, triple-disc album), Have One On Me. I listened to it on the train, but will need a few more listens to actually pick out any specific songs.
Oh, I'll just note that I didn't realize when I bought the album that the inside cover featured a bunch of photos of Ms. Newsom - one for each CD and one for the liner notes - displaying a copious amount of leg, clad merely in some strange, short dress that's vaguely reminiscent of overalls (weird, but she's a weird one). I can hardly complain, though; I am but a man.
I woke up at 7:something AM to a little boy asking me, "Uncle David, will you get up?"
I believe my first response was "No." No one was offended.
But, over the course of the next half hour, as two four year olds decided to climb into bed on either side of me and ask me any number of questions to which they could immediately turn around and respond, "Why?", I eventually got myself out of bed.
Whew.
There was then coffee, oatmeal, and Eggo waffles. There was then, shortly after, St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.
This was a new experience for me. Wow. Thems crazy in a good way. Crazy fun, crazy open minded, crazy, and possessing of crazy good food, with a crazy good choir (of which Aleksandra is a member). Whew. Afterward, while Aleksandra went to the store, Chris, the boys, and I hung around the church playground for a bit.
A little while later there was cake baking and present wrapping. The grandparents showed up around 2:30 PM, and we had a delicious lunch of potato/egg salad, actual salad, and garden burgers. And some wine.
And a little while after that, there was cake. Oh, was there cake. And brownies. I had my fill. Then I had some tea. Greatness.
Afterwards, Chris, Dad, Lucas, and I all went for a walk around East Rock. We went all the way to the Eli Whitney museum and its associated waterfall. It took about an hour and a half, and it was approximately 6:30 PM by the time we got back.
Mom and Dad left around 7:30 PM, or so, I think. Maybe a little earlier.
Eventually, I had to get ready to get on my train back to Boston. It was at 9:08 PM. Supposedly.
Chris brought me to the station at an appropriate time (8:40 PM or so), and I discovered my train was 15 minutes delayed. Supposedly.
So I waited a bit.
To my unending surprise, Amtrak didn't lie, and the train was actually about 15 minutes late. Not half an hour late. Not an hour late. Not secretly canceled, but honest to goodness as late as they claimed it was.
I don't mind that.
The ride back to Boston was uneventful and pleasant. A short trip on the Red Line from South Station brought me back to Porter.
Oh! And whilst getting my brother a birthday present, I got a new Joanna Newsom album (or rather, triple-disc album), Have One On Me. I listened to it on the train, but will need a few more listens to actually pick out any specific songs.
Oh, I'll just note that I didn't realize when I bought the album that the inside cover featured a bunch of photos of Ms. Newsom - one for each CD and one for the liner notes - displaying a copious amount of leg, clad merely in some strange, short dress that's vaguely reminiscent of overalls (weird, but she's a weird one). I can hardly complain, though; I am but a man.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
A few days here and there
A couple days of catch up to do.
Thursday, I believe, started with a run at the usual time. Something like five miles. Rockin'. The other major event of the day was Julia's opening/reception thingy at CCTV for the show she has there, Can't Be Shy Here. She has nine pieces up in this corner space in the building with two glass walls looking out onto the street. Awesome.
We met up in Central around 6:30 PM or so to get some supplies together (i.e., Red Stripe, PBR and snacks), in preparation for peoples' arrival around 7:00 PM. Over the course of the next couple hours, a whole bunch of people swung by, stayed for a while, chatted, examined the delightful things up on the walls, and chilled out. A good time, I think, was had by all. Afterward, we swung by The Field (across the street) for a bit for some conversation.
Friday morning I wasn't feeling particularly great (or rather, I didn't sleep very well during the night, either), and called in sick to work for a few hours so I could get myself together. It would have been rough if I'd tried to make it in earlier - as it was I was feeling a bit off most of the afternoon. I eventually checked out around 6:00 PM or so, as I recall.
Upon getting home, I spent some time cleaning and organizing. I got all my CDs back in their proper cases (sometimes they tend to get mixed up if you're switching CDs in the car frequently whilst trying not to drive off the road). Things were looking pretty spiffy, I think.
In the evening, around 8:30 PM or so, Julia and I got together and watched Chariots of Fire, which I'd never seen. Great movie! We also ordered Vietnamese food from Le's, which was also great in its own, food-like way. Vegetarian Pho and some sorta tofu/cabbage salad stuff, along with some fresh summer rolls. I love vegetables.
Today started, ultimately, around 11:30 AM for me, though I'd been sending and receiving text messages for hours beforehand, and also woke up at 4:30 or so to see Julia off for the day on her trip out west. These Mt. Holyoke people - early travelers.
At 2:00 PM or so, Eric (roommate) and I met Jason and Katherine at the Deluxe Towne Diner for a late-ish lunch/breakfast. I had a Deluxe Colossal Hungry Person Special. Again. Oh man. Delicious.
After getting back from the DTD, I gathered myself up with what I'd need for Sunday, and went down to Harvard Sq. to get my brother a birthday gift. It was apparently like... record store appreciation day? Or something? Newbury Comics had live music. Around 4:45 PM or so, I got a call from Chris saying that they'd made it to Adam and Lizzie's in Arlington, so I took the train back to Porter and then hopped on the 77 bus.
You see, the plan for the weekend, which I've thus far failed to convey, involved a lovely birthday party for Adam tonight - in Arlington - and another party tomorrow for Chris - in New Haven. Thus, I resolved to bus it out to Arlington for tonight's shin dig, and then hitch a ride with Chris and Aleksandra back to New Haven' for Sunday's thaaang. Thus, this is how I now write to you whilst lying on their couch-a-foldy-bed-thing.
But, anyway, around 8:30 PM or so, we hopped in the mini van and drove back to New Haven. We got here around 11:30, I think. And now, I'm over due for some sleepage.
Thursday, I believe, started with a run at the usual time. Something like five miles. Rockin'. The other major event of the day was Julia's opening/reception thingy at CCTV for the show she has there, Can't Be Shy Here. She has nine pieces up in this corner space in the building with two glass walls looking out onto the street. Awesome.
We met up in Central around 6:30 PM or so to get some supplies together (i.e., Red Stripe, PBR and snacks), in preparation for peoples' arrival around 7:00 PM. Over the course of the next couple hours, a whole bunch of people swung by, stayed for a while, chatted, examined the delightful things up on the walls, and chilled out. A good time, I think, was had by all. Afterward, we swung by The Field (across the street) for a bit for some conversation.
Friday morning I wasn't feeling particularly great (or rather, I didn't sleep very well during the night, either), and called in sick to work for a few hours so I could get myself together. It would have been rough if I'd tried to make it in earlier - as it was I was feeling a bit off most of the afternoon. I eventually checked out around 6:00 PM or so, as I recall.
Upon getting home, I spent some time cleaning and organizing. I got all my CDs back in their proper cases (sometimes they tend to get mixed up if you're switching CDs in the car frequently whilst trying not to drive off the road). Things were looking pretty spiffy, I think.
In the evening, around 8:30 PM or so, Julia and I got together and watched Chariots of Fire, which I'd never seen. Great movie! We also ordered Vietnamese food from Le's, which was also great in its own, food-like way. Vegetarian Pho and some sorta tofu/cabbage salad stuff, along with some fresh summer rolls. I love vegetables.
Today started, ultimately, around 11:30 AM for me, though I'd been sending and receiving text messages for hours beforehand, and also woke up at 4:30 or so to see Julia off for the day on her trip out west. These Mt. Holyoke people - early travelers.
At 2:00 PM or so, Eric (roommate) and I met Jason and Katherine at the Deluxe Towne Diner for a late-ish lunch/breakfast. I had a Deluxe Colossal Hungry Person Special. Again. Oh man. Delicious.
After getting back from the DTD, I gathered myself up with what I'd need for Sunday, and went down to Harvard Sq. to get my brother a birthday gift. It was apparently like... record store appreciation day? Or something? Newbury Comics had live music. Around 4:45 PM or so, I got a call from Chris saying that they'd made it to Adam and Lizzie's in Arlington, so I took the train back to Porter and then hopped on the 77 bus.
You see, the plan for the weekend, which I've thus far failed to convey, involved a lovely birthday party for Adam tonight - in Arlington - and another party tomorrow for Chris - in New Haven. Thus, I resolved to bus it out to Arlington for tonight's shin dig, and then hitch a ride with Chris and Aleksandra back to New Haven' for Sunday's thaaang. Thus, this is how I now write to you whilst lying on their couch-a-foldy-bed-thing.
But, anyway, around 8:30 PM or so, we hopped in the mini van and drove back to New Haven. We got here around 11:30, I think. And now, I'm over due for some sleepage.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Benches, Brazilians, Buses, and Bed
Today started with the usual, but not quite. I woke up at 6:30 AM, got out the door by 7:00 AM or so. A few minutes later found me in front of Ms. Julia's place. I stood for a few, I stretched, I considered the time, I resolved to go ring the bell.
... And there she was! So we went on our way towards the river, though the request was made to walk it. So we did. Crossed Memorial, started on our way towards JFK Park... still at a walk.
"Oh, what a nice bench!" someone said. I don't really recall who. So we sat down and watched the boats for 35 minutes or so.
And that was the end of the run. Tada!
Post "run," we wandered back, heated some water for tea/made some coffee, and I ended up leaving before it was done cause I realized I needed to get on my merry way. A short bike ride later found me at home, a little bit of preparation and T traveling found me at work.
The work day progressed slowly, I think. I've been working on this same piece of code for a while now, and I'm starting to stare through it at times. I hate when that happens. Focus, kid. Git 'er duuun, as they say in the vernacular. I think. That is, I think that they say that. Those people. In the vernacular. Yes?
Ahem.
I ended up leaving the office a bit early to make time to go home, practice a bit, and get to my lesson at 7:30 PM.
At 5:30 PM, just sitting down to an English muffin, cottage cheese, and orange juice (... okay, I agree, that's a weird meal. But it's what I felt like - don't judge me!), I got a call from Dave. He informed me that he screwed up the schedule a bit, and my lesson slot was actually at 6:30 PM. Doh! I said no problem - cause it wasn't, really - and ate my dinner, gathered myself up, and got out the door by 5:55 sans practice. Bugger. I'm glad I left when I did, cause it took me all 35 minutes to get across town to Brookline.
The lesson went well. We talked about Jobim and Brazilian music. Awesome. I can kinda play a bossa rhythm.
I listened to Explosions In the Sky - loud - both on the way to Brookline and on the way home.
Oh! At work, I bought an Amtrak ticket for this weekend. On Sunday, I'll be taking the train from New Haven back to Boston. Saturday, I'll be hopping in Chris and Aleksandra's van to get down to CT for my brother's birthday party on Sunday. Ticket wasn't too bad - $48. That's practically what I'd spend on gas, and only a little more expensive than the bus. But! With two benefits:
1. The train ride is one hour shorter.
2. It's a train damnit! WOO.
The rest of this evening has been blissfully unproductive. For the most part.
I played some Plants vs. Zombies, and that's about the most I can say.
And now, early to bed.
... And there she was! So we went on our way towards the river, though the request was made to walk it. So we did. Crossed Memorial, started on our way towards JFK Park... still at a walk.
"Oh, what a nice bench!" someone said. I don't really recall who. So we sat down and watched the boats for 35 minutes or so.
And that was the end of the run. Tada!
Post "run," we wandered back, heated some water for tea/made some coffee, and I ended up leaving before it was done cause I realized I needed to get on my merry way. A short bike ride later found me at home, a little bit of preparation and T traveling found me at work.
The work day progressed slowly, I think. I've been working on this same piece of code for a while now, and I'm starting to stare through it at times. I hate when that happens. Focus, kid. Git 'er duuun, as they say in the vernacular. I think. That is, I think that they say that. Those people. In the vernacular. Yes?
Ahem.
I ended up leaving the office a bit early to make time to go home, practice a bit, and get to my lesson at 7:30 PM.
At 5:30 PM, just sitting down to an English muffin, cottage cheese, and orange juice (... okay, I agree, that's a weird meal. But it's what I felt like - don't judge me!), I got a call from Dave. He informed me that he screwed up the schedule a bit, and my lesson slot was actually at 6:30 PM. Doh! I said no problem - cause it wasn't, really - and ate my dinner, gathered myself up, and got out the door by 5:55 sans practice. Bugger. I'm glad I left when I did, cause it took me all 35 minutes to get across town to Brookline.
The lesson went well. We talked about Jobim and Brazilian music. Awesome. I can kinda play a bossa rhythm.
I listened to Explosions In the Sky - loud - both on the way to Brookline and on the way home.
Oh! At work, I bought an Amtrak ticket for this weekend. On Sunday, I'll be taking the train from New Haven back to Boston. Saturday, I'll be hopping in Chris and Aleksandra's van to get down to CT for my brother's birthday party on Sunday. Ticket wasn't too bad - $48. That's practically what I'd spend on gas, and only a little more expensive than the bus. But! With two benefits:
1. The train ride is one hour shorter.
2. It's a train damnit! WOO.
The rest of this evening has been blissfully unproductive. For the most part.
I played some Plants vs. Zombies, and that's about the most I can say.
And now, early to bed.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Not sure what I learned tonight, but hopefully it'll translate into something useful in the morning.
Woke up at 6:30 AM. Out the do' for a run by 7:00 AM. Went for a 3.1 miler with Teh Wags. 24 minutes later, back at the apartment. Sub-8 miles? I'm comfortable with that.
Stretchingness ensued (as it always does). Finally gathered myself up and got myself out the door by about 9:30 AM. Rode over to work - beautiful day, if just a trifle chilly. The thermometer said something like 36 when I woke up. I love it when it does that, and then proceeds to increase by entire degrees every half hour or so between when I wake up and when I walk out the door.
At work by 10:00 AM-ish. I made pretty good progress today. I had some things that needed refactoring to encourage reuse, and some other things that needed refactoring because they sucked. I think I did a lot of code reviews today. Ended up leaving the office at 7:00 PM and taking the long way home. The long way, for future reference, is taking Third Street down to Kendall, hopping over to the river, and following Memorial all the way back to Harvard, and then cutting through the neighborhoods (The "overland route") back up to home. Always a pleasure. Especially at a pleasant temperature.
Upon arriving home, I threw some laundry in the washer (won't be needing winter's flannel sheets anymore!), made myself a bagel, veggie burger, gorgonzola, salsa, and cheddar sandwich, grabbed a Guinness, and had a lovely little meal.
After that, I bummed around for a little bit, then resolved to get some guitar practice in. This is what our esteemed headline is referring to. Hopefully something will come of it tomorrow.
For now, though, day two of try-to-get-plenty-of-sleep.
Stretchingness ensued (as it always does). Finally gathered myself up and got myself out the door by about 9:30 AM. Rode over to work - beautiful day, if just a trifle chilly. The thermometer said something like 36 when I woke up. I love it when it does that, and then proceeds to increase by entire degrees every half hour or so between when I wake up and when I walk out the door.
At work by 10:00 AM-ish. I made pretty good progress today. I had some things that needed refactoring to encourage reuse, and some other things that needed refactoring because they sucked. I think I did a lot of code reviews today. Ended up leaving the office at 7:00 PM and taking the long way home. The long way, for future reference, is taking Third Street down to Kendall, hopping over to the river, and following Memorial all the way back to Harvard, and then cutting through the neighborhoods (The "overland route") back up to home. Always a pleasure. Especially at a pleasant temperature.
Upon arriving home, I threw some laundry in the washer (won't be needing winter's flannel sheets anymore!), made myself a bagel, veggie burger, gorgonzola, salsa, and cheddar sandwich, grabbed a Guinness, and had a lovely little meal.
After that, I bummed around for a little bit, then resolved to get some guitar practice in. This is what our esteemed headline is referring to. Hopefully something will come of it tomorrow.
For now, though, day two of try-to-get-plenty-of-sleep.
For future reference
David, you feel much better - all day - when you get eight hours of sleep.
Just, you know, think on that.
Just, you know, think on that.
Monday, April 12, 2010
More or less schleepy.
Woke up at 6:30 AM, went for a run with Jules at 7:00 AM.
I could not figure out how the hell to run. Geeze. It's like I'd forgotten how. Regardless, we ended up doing a 3.2 mile route in 26 minutes. I felt like crap. Or, well, at least, I felt like I must be able to do a lot better, because that sucked.
Anyway, at least the company was awesome. She didn't seem to mind my grumbling. (Thank you!)
After that, I had myself a little breakfast of an English muffin and some yogurt with granola/Craisins in it, cleaned m'self up and shipped myself off to work. It was a beautiful morning for my various commuting walks.
Work was... fragmented. By the end of the day I felt sorta grumpy and ineffective. I'm planning on sleeping right after this in an attempt to make sure I'm bright eyed in the morning.
I didn't end up going to class today, either. I felt like crap on my way home, and just wanted to sit and not think. It would have been a rough set of classes.
Instead, I will admit that I vegged out. I booted up Windows, I spent some time installing Starcraft II, and played one little game of it against the Very Easy computers. I won, needless to say.
And... that's about that. As said, I think I'm going to go crash. Maybe 8 hours of sleep will do me some good.
Ugh.
I could not figure out how the hell to run. Geeze. It's like I'd forgotten how. Regardless, we ended up doing a 3.2 mile route in 26 minutes. I felt like crap. Or, well, at least, I felt like I must be able to do a lot better, because that sucked.
Anyway, at least the company was awesome. She didn't seem to mind my grumbling. (Thank you!)
After that, I had myself a little breakfast of an English muffin and some yogurt with granola/Craisins in it, cleaned m'self up and shipped myself off to work. It was a beautiful morning for my various commuting walks.
Work was... fragmented. By the end of the day I felt sorta grumpy and ineffective. I'm planning on sleeping right after this in an attempt to make sure I'm bright eyed in the morning.
I didn't end up going to class today, either. I felt like crap on my way home, and just wanted to sit and not think. It would have been a rough set of classes.
Instead, I will admit that I vegged out. I booted up Windows, I spent some time installing Starcraft II, and played one little game of it against the Very Easy computers. I won, needless to say.
And... that's about that. As said, I think I'm going to go crash. Maybe 8 hours of sleep will do me some good.
Ugh.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Running low on battery power: The weekend
The title here is not a description of the weekend, but rather, a description of the state of my computer after this weekend.
Saturday... is a blur. This is, I think, why I try to do this every day. Fail.
OH.
Yes.
On Saturday, I woke up at 7:20 AM and rode down to Julia's, and we went on a 5+ mile run along the river and through Back Bay from her place to the northeast corner of Boston Common. Then we went on a 5+ mile walk back to her place via Mass. Ave., Prospect, Broadway, and through Harvard. With a mile bike ride on either end, just for good measure.
That was pretty epic. My legs are tired today. Not sore - just tired.
After that, or rather, on the way back to Julia's, we stopped at Carberry's for some coffee/breakfast. We ate it at her place. Eventually, I got back on my bike and rode home to get a few things done with the day.
Like a two hour nap.
But first, on my way in, I ran into Eric and his friend Demarcus (I think that might be how it's spelled?) who were heading to Jose's Mexican Restaurant for some lunch. I decided to join them. I had a Burrito con Mole. I ate half. The rest I brought home and saved for dinner.
Prior to this, Julia and I had decided to make plans to watch The Triplets of Belleville at 7:30 PM or so. So with the intervening 6 hours or so (our lunch began a little after noon), I got a few things done, took said nap, and made a quick trip to the store for ice cream and beer, just to try to be a good host.
Not half bad. As always, a good movie. Eric watched it with us. And Paul showed up half way through! That was cool!
After the movie, the four of us went over to Christopher's for a late dinner-ish thing (I had eaten the rest of my burrito around 5 PM). Julia and I had yuppie nachos and beer. The dudes got... I can't remember what else.
And then there was sleep, basically.
Sunday morning, Julia and I headed over to the Deluxe Town Diner for a late brunch (which makes it sound more like a lunch, I suppose). This was around noon, I think. We had to wait for 20 minutes or so, but it was worth it. We sat at the counter. We had coffee. We had orange juice. We had Deluxe Colossal Hungry Person Specials, which include pancakes, hash browns, toast, two eggs, and some form of meat or soy-meat product. I finished all of mine, somehow. Julia finished most of hers, tried to take it home, and we forgot about it in the restaurant.
Hopping back in the car, I drove her home, and then went back to my place to prepare for tonight's Ars business. That, and take a 25 minute nap before leaving for Pete's around 5:00 PM. Jason and I carpooled (I picked him up). The session went pretty well, I think. Lots of thinking, a little action.
Holy crap, sleep now.
Saturday... is a blur. This is, I think, why I try to do this every day. Fail.
OH.
Yes.
On Saturday, I woke up at 7:20 AM and rode down to Julia's, and we went on a 5+ mile run along the river and through Back Bay from her place to the northeast corner of Boston Common. Then we went on a 5+ mile walk back to her place via Mass. Ave., Prospect, Broadway, and through Harvard. With a mile bike ride on either end, just for good measure.
That was pretty epic. My legs are tired today. Not sore - just tired.
After that, or rather, on the way back to Julia's, we stopped at Carberry's for some coffee/breakfast. We ate it at her place. Eventually, I got back on my bike and rode home to get a few things done with the day.
Like a two hour nap.
But first, on my way in, I ran into Eric and his friend Demarcus (I think that might be how it's spelled?) who were heading to Jose's Mexican Restaurant for some lunch. I decided to join them. I had a Burrito con Mole. I ate half. The rest I brought home and saved for dinner.
Prior to this, Julia and I had decided to make plans to watch The Triplets of Belleville at 7:30 PM or so. So with the intervening 6 hours or so (our lunch began a little after noon), I got a few things done, took said nap, and made a quick trip to the store for ice cream and beer, just to try to be a good host.
Not half bad. As always, a good movie. Eric watched it with us. And Paul showed up half way through! That was cool!
After the movie, the four of us went over to Christopher's for a late dinner-ish thing (I had eaten the rest of my burrito around 5 PM). Julia and I had yuppie nachos and beer. The dudes got... I can't remember what else.
And then there was sleep, basically.
Sunday morning, Julia and I headed over to the Deluxe Town Diner for a late brunch (which makes it sound more like a lunch, I suppose). This was around noon, I think. We had to wait for 20 minutes or so, but it was worth it. We sat at the counter. We had coffee. We had orange juice. We had Deluxe Colossal Hungry Person Specials, which include pancakes, hash browns, toast, two eggs, and some form of meat or soy-meat product. I finished all of mine, somehow. Julia finished most of hers, tried to take it home, and we forgot about it in the restaurant.
Hopping back in the car, I drove her home, and then went back to my place to prepare for tonight's Ars business. That, and take a 25 minute nap before leaving for Pete's around 5:00 PM. Jason and I carpooled (I picked him up). The session went pretty well, I think. Lots of thinking, a little action.
Holy crap, sleep now.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Dragons and We Rule
Today went pretty well. Julia and I went for a run this morning at around 7:10 or so. Approximately 3 miles-ish. The Oxford/Mass Ave route, with a few slight additions. It was perfect weather - it wasn't raining, but it was very damp and misty. Maybe 50 something degrees.
After that, we stood around, drank water, and ate fruit. Wonderful.
Upon getting myself together, I trudged off through the morning mist to work. Work went well, if slowly. I thought I was awake in the morning, and by afternoon I was kinda beat. I ended up leaving a little after 6:00 PM, and trudged through the formerly-mist-now-rain.
A dinner of cheese, crackers, and hummus ensued. It doesn't get much better than that. I sat around for a bit and played this little iPhone game called "We Rule". It's very relaxing. You make a little kingdom, plant crops, tax people, build fun structures, and compare cities with your friends. Pretty simple, but nice. Things grow over the course of hours in it, so you're continually coming back later to check on your shtuff.
Around 8:30 PM or so, Eric and I got in the car and drove out to Natick to watch How To Train Your Dragon, which was superb. Really, really awesome. The animation on the main character dragon was just gorgeous - such wonderful facial expressions. Cutest thing ever in dragon form.
The movie lasted until 11:00 PM or so, after which we drove home. And here I am.
After that, we stood around, drank water, and ate fruit. Wonderful.
Upon getting myself together, I trudged off through the morning mist to work. Work went well, if slowly. I thought I was awake in the morning, and by afternoon I was kinda beat. I ended up leaving a little after 6:00 PM, and trudged through the formerly-mist-now-rain.
A dinner of cheese, crackers, and hummus ensued. It doesn't get much better than that. I sat around for a bit and played this little iPhone game called "We Rule". It's very relaxing. You make a little kingdom, plant crops, tax people, build fun structures, and compare cities with your friends. Pretty simple, but nice. Things grow over the course of hours in it, so you're continually coming back later to check on your shtuff.
Around 8:30 PM or so, Eric and I got in the car and drove out to Natick to watch How To Train Your Dragon, which was superb. Really, really awesome. The animation on the main character dragon was just gorgeous - such wonderful facial expressions. Cutest thing ever in dragon form.
The movie lasted until 11:00 PM or so, after which we drove home. And here I am.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Where in the world is Wireless Passwordiago?
Look at me! It's the day that I'm talking about.
Today started at a very leisurely pace. Julia and I met at Dado in the morning for a little chatter, a little coffee, and a little scone. Nice. After that, I scurried off to get to work. I was having some really, really annoying issues with my computer today. The hard drive somehow got corrupted a bit, and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to track down what was going on and clean it up. I ended up bringing my backup drive in as well, so I could do a backup immediately upon getting things solved (the last one was in February, and a lot has happened since then). The backup was also having some corruption issues, and... yeah. What a mess.
Regardless, in the afternoon I dug into the next (last) big piece of this integration I'm working on. Hopefully it'll go smoothly - I don't see any real reason why it shouldn't.
I left work around 5:00 PM, surprised at how cold it had gotten. I walked down to the T and took the Red Line to Park, and the Green (D) Line out to Longwood for my lesson. Not the greatest lesson - I didn't feel very prepared.
BUT.
Coming out of it, I have a really strong sense of what I think I need to do. Maybe that makes it a better lesson than I let on, I don't know. Regardless, not so bad.
After arriving home around 7:45 or so, I proceeded to install Windows 7 on a partition on my machine. Unfortunately, I can't find the damn wireless password for our router here. I've looked everywhere. So... I'll just be done with that effort, for now. Grr. How frustrating. I wanted to get that out of the way.
Instead, well, I'm sorta sitting here. I think I may head to bed shortly - I'm wicked tired.
Today started at a very leisurely pace. Julia and I met at Dado in the morning for a little chatter, a little coffee, and a little scone. Nice. After that, I scurried off to get to work. I was having some really, really annoying issues with my computer today. The hard drive somehow got corrupted a bit, and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to track down what was going on and clean it up. I ended up bringing my backup drive in as well, so I could do a backup immediately upon getting things solved (the last one was in February, and a lot has happened since then). The backup was also having some corruption issues, and... yeah. What a mess.
Regardless, in the afternoon I dug into the next (last) big piece of this integration I'm working on. Hopefully it'll go smoothly - I don't see any real reason why it shouldn't.
I left work around 5:00 PM, surprised at how cold it had gotten. I walked down to the T and took the Red Line to Park, and the Green (D) Line out to Longwood for my lesson. Not the greatest lesson - I didn't feel very prepared.
BUT.
Coming out of it, I have a really strong sense of what I think I need to do. Maybe that makes it a better lesson than I let on, I don't know. Regardless, not so bad.
After arriving home around 7:45 or so, I proceeded to install Windows 7 on a partition on my machine. Unfortunately, I can't find the damn wireless password for our router here. I've looked everywhere. So... I'll just be done with that effort, for now. Grr. How frustrating. I wanted to get that out of the way.
Instead, well, I'm sorta sitting here. I think I may head to bed shortly - I'm wicked tired.
Focus, foooocus.
Perpetually one day behind, lately.
This is for Wednesday, April 7, 2010.
As foreshadowed in Tuesday's post, Wednesday began with a lazy puttering around the Wagner household, chatting with Grace and Julia, and then a spirited bike ride back to my place to shower and get ready for the day.
Work went well enough - it kinda felt like a maintenance day. Or, rather, a "sharpening the saw" sorta day. I did some documentation, some estimating, some task definition, some communication, and a smidge of actual coding. Eventually, I checked out around 5:00 PM-ish. It was like 80 degrees outside, I had my bike, and I had the desire to use it whilst daylight remained.
So, I set out from the office, rode down to the river, and headed in the general direction of Washington state. (That'd be west, for the geographically challenged. [That'd be away from work back towards home, for the directionally challenged.])
On my way, I took a little detour to Julia's school - rode by, surprised her a bit as it seems, and then continued on my merry way to JFK Park. There, I proceeded to sit for a few (until maybe 6:20 or so), made a little house of twigs, and then leisurely rode myself back home.
Not. Bad.
After I got home, chatted with Jules for a moment, re: my very short and abruptly ended visit, and we arranged for another working evening to try getting some stuff done. I think we're both feeling a bit behind. Plus, there was left over ice cream from Monday night.
So we hung out, she did some reading, I did some programming, and all was well. I did find out, however, that my backup hard drive seems to have some sort of error on it, cause Time Machine can't back up to it. This is extremely frustrating, as I refuse to install Windows 7 via Bootcamp until I know I have all my stuff backed up somewhere. I've been trying to fix it today in the background, but with no luck.
This is for Wednesday, April 7, 2010.
As foreshadowed in Tuesday's post, Wednesday began with a lazy puttering around the Wagner household, chatting with Grace and Julia, and then a spirited bike ride back to my place to shower and get ready for the day.
Work went well enough - it kinda felt like a maintenance day. Or, rather, a "sharpening the saw" sorta day. I did some documentation, some estimating, some task definition, some communication, and a smidge of actual coding. Eventually, I checked out around 5:00 PM-ish. It was like 80 degrees outside, I had my bike, and I had the desire to use it whilst daylight remained.
So, I set out from the office, rode down to the river, and headed in the general direction of Washington state. (That'd be west, for the geographically challenged. [That'd be away from work back towards home, for the directionally challenged.])
On my way, I took a little detour to Julia's school - rode by, surprised her a bit as it seems, and then continued on my merry way to JFK Park. There, I proceeded to sit for a few (until maybe 6:20 or so), made a little house of twigs, and then leisurely rode myself back home.
Not. Bad.
After I got home, chatted with Jules for a moment, re: my very short and abruptly ended visit, and we arranged for another working evening to try getting some stuff done. I think we're both feeling a bit behind. Plus, there was left over ice cream from Monday night.
So we hung out, she did some reading, I did some programming, and all was well. I did find out, however, that my backup hard drive seems to have some sort of error on it, cause Time Machine can't back up to it. This is extremely frustrating, as I refuse to install Windows 7 via Bootcamp until I know I have all my stuff backed up somewhere. I've been trying to fix it today in the background, but with no luck.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Perpetually Post-Dated.
I seem to be one day behind.
This is for yesterday, Tuesday, April 6, 2010.
Woo.
So I biked myself home in the morning, around 7:15 AM, took a short nap, and then got myself into work by about 9:00 AM. Not bad. The day went fairly well, as I recall. I sorted out some bits with the integration I'm working - the majority of it is in pretty decent shape now. I stayed at work until approximately 6:00 PM. I was scheduled to meet Julia and her friend Grace at 6:30 PM in Central. I left the office at the same time as Hillary - she on foot, me on my bike - and she had the very smart idea that I ride over to Central along the river, rather than through the city streets. Excellent. I took her advice, and decided part way there that I'd just show up at Julia's school to meet Grace and her, rather than stand around Central waiting for them.
So I biked on over, stood around for a few, got a call from Jason, re: Magic cards at Newbury Comics, and then got a call from Julia.
They must have walked right by me - cause they were already at Central. I said a quick, "Oh! Be right there!", and biked up Magazine to Central, and found the two of them standing around near the corner of Mass Ave. and Prospect.
I tied my bike up to a tree on Prospect, and we went to The Field for some food and bee-ahs. I'd never been in there! Nice little spot. We got a rockin' table in the corner. I had a veggie burger. It was Morningstar Farms, far as I could tell. Their fries were good, though. (And the burger wasn't bad, just not really noteworthy either).
After an hour or so, Julia/Grace's friend Devin showed up as well, and we all hung out for a while longer. At some point we took our leave of The Field (and Devin - she had to go) and took the T back to Harvard, then walked over to Julia's place. There was a bit of drinking of the whiskey. Rather than bike home, I just resolved to spend a second night over there. Yay, path of least resistance!
This is for yesterday, Tuesday, April 6, 2010.
Woo.
So I biked myself home in the morning, around 7:15 AM, took a short nap, and then got myself into work by about 9:00 AM. Not bad. The day went fairly well, as I recall. I sorted out some bits with the integration I'm working - the majority of it is in pretty decent shape now. I stayed at work until approximately 6:00 PM. I was scheduled to meet Julia and her friend Grace at 6:30 PM in Central. I left the office at the same time as Hillary - she on foot, me on my bike - and she had the very smart idea that I ride over to Central along the river, rather than through the city streets. Excellent. I took her advice, and decided part way there that I'd just show up at Julia's school to meet Grace and her, rather than stand around Central waiting for them.
So I biked on over, stood around for a few, got a call from Jason, re: Magic cards at Newbury Comics, and then got a call from Julia.
They must have walked right by me - cause they were already at Central. I said a quick, "Oh! Be right there!", and biked up Magazine to Central, and found the two of them standing around near the corner of Mass Ave. and Prospect.
I tied my bike up to a tree on Prospect, and we went to The Field for some food and bee-ahs. I'd never been in there! Nice little spot. We got a rockin' table in the corner. I had a veggie burger. It was Morningstar Farms, far as I could tell. Their fries were good, though. (And the burger wasn't bad, just not really noteworthy either).
After an hour or so, Julia/Grace's friend Devin showed up as well, and we all hung out for a while longer. At some point we took our leave of The Field (and Devin - she had to go) and took the T back to Harvard, then walked over to Julia's place. There was a bit of drinking of the whiskey. Rather than bike home, I just resolved to spend a second night over there. Yay, path of least resistance!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Being for the benefit of April 5th
This is for yesterday.
Yesterday was an awesomely productive day.
Like, whoa.
I woke up at 9:15 AM. For a moment there I wrote PM, and that just didn't sound right at all.
I promptly set up my new/old whiteboard above my dresser and made myself a little list.
I think, during the course of the day, I finished every reasonable thing on the board.
I spent some time cleaning the apartment. I finished my taxes. I put away my laundry. I finished and sent off my Lady Bird solo well before class time. I found out what I needed to do to cancel my BSC membership. I had a delightful breakfast and lunch. I cleaned out some old boxes and things and threw out a ton of cardboard products I don't need. I consolidated some Magic card boxes. I recycled a giant stack of New Yorkers. I started our census form and left it out for the other guys to notice (and they did). I think I got some work done on the evaluation page for Dave, though I can't remember. More on that later anyway.
At around 5:30 or so I left the apartment and headed over to NEC for class. Both went pretty well, though some of the stuff around minor 2-5-1's was kinda confusing. We're getting good penetration into the NEC community with Noteflight, far as I can tell. Like half the class submitted their Lady Bird assignments using it. Joel seemed totally okay with that.
After class (8:35 PM), I high tailed it back to Cambridge, snagged some ice cream from Gourmet Express, and rode over to Julia's for Focus, Get Shit Done, And Eat Ice Cream time. (My name for it that I just came up with, not the agreed upon name.) And we GSDAEIC. Pretty good! I worked more on the evaluation page(s), Julia read some articles for her class. Around 12:30 AM or so, I resolved to just stay there for the evening rather than bike home.
Yesterday was an awesomely productive day.
Like, whoa.
I woke up at 9:15 AM. For a moment there I wrote PM, and that just didn't sound right at all.
I promptly set up my new/old whiteboard above my dresser and made myself a little list.
I think, during the course of the day, I finished every reasonable thing on the board.
I spent some time cleaning the apartment. I finished my taxes. I put away my laundry. I finished and sent off my Lady Bird solo well before class time. I found out what I needed to do to cancel my BSC membership. I had a delightful breakfast and lunch. I cleaned out some old boxes and things and threw out a ton of cardboard products I don't need. I consolidated some Magic card boxes. I recycled a giant stack of New Yorkers. I started our census form and left it out for the other guys to notice (and they did). I think I got some work done on the evaluation page for Dave, though I can't remember. More on that later anyway.
At around 5:30 or so I left the apartment and headed over to NEC for class. Both went pretty well, though some of the stuff around minor 2-5-1's was kinda confusing. We're getting good penetration into the NEC community with Noteflight, far as I can tell. Like half the class submitted their Lady Bird assignments using it. Joel seemed totally okay with that.
After class (8:35 PM), I high tailed it back to Cambridge, snagged some ice cream from Gourmet Express, and rode over to Julia's for Focus, Get Shit Done, And Eat Ice Cream time. (My name for it that I just came up with, not the agreed upon name.) And we GSDAEIC. Pretty good! I worked more on the evaluation page(s), Julia read some articles for her class. Around 12:30 AM or so, I resolved to just stay there for the evening rather than bike home.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
A Nor'Easter? Except without the snow.
Doh. 12 seconds too late to post on Sunday.
Oh well!
Today was, I think, productive for a Sunday. I hear I probably wasn't supposed to work today, but I did, a bit. Pretty good.
I woke up at 9:15 of my own volition, stumbled downstairs to my parents' living room, had a lovely little breakfast of yogurt and granola, and then set about considering what I might do with my morning.
I eventually ended up working a bit on the evaluation PHP page for Dave, as well as pulling together some stuff for yonder Lady Bird solo. I also played a bit of Starcraft II (Protoss) against some computers. At least I can win that.
Around 1:00 PM, Mom and I took a short drive down the hill to Starbucks, cause I wanted coffee. Then we had a nice chat in the car for a few minutes before taking the Overland Route back up to their house. I almost just said apartment for some reason. Augh, I've spent too long in the city.
Sometime in the afternoon I helped Dad fold up some big piece of netting he was using to keep birds off his strawberries.
For dinner, we had a stir-fry inspired by the one I made the other day. It was tasty - good job, Dad!
In the evening I talked to Mr. Zoffer twice to ask him random questions about the PHP page I'm making. Around 6:40 I talked to Chris and we decided I wouldn't bother to go over to his place - by the time I got there, the boys would have been asleep, and Chris said there was probably no guarantee he wouldn't be as well.
At 7:30 PM or so, I decided it was about time I got on the road back towards home so that I could have Monday to get stuff done around the city. By 8:15 PM, I'd packed up the car and gotten myself ready to go. I said my goodbyes and hit the road with less than half a tank of gas.
There was a surprising number of random traffic jams, but otherwise fine traffic. It ended up taking me until 11:30 PM to get home, with a stop for gas. That's an unacceptable amount of hourage. Ouch. Oh well, it was a nice drive. I listened to Andrew Bird, My Brightest Diamond, and Violent Femmes along the way. I think there was something else I started in on briefly, but I can't remember it.
Anyway, home now, with all the windows in my room open. BEAUTIFUL out. Someone replaced our shower curtain with a greenish blocky one with palm trees on it, and put my white one up in the closet.
I approve.
Oh well!
Today was, I think, productive for a Sunday. I hear I probably wasn't supposed to work today, but I did, a bit. Pretty good.
I woke up at 9:15 of my own volition, stumbled downstairs to my parents' living room, had a lovely little breakfast of yogurt and granola, and then set about considering what I might do with my morning.
I eventually ended up working a bit on the evaluation PHP page for Dave, as well as pulling together some stuff for yonder Lady Bird solo. I also played a bit of Starcraft II (Protoss) against some computers. At least I can win that.
Around 1:00 PM, Mom and I took a short drive down the hill to Starbucks, cause I wanted coffee. Then we had a nice chat in the car for a few minutes before taking the Overland Route back up to their house. I almost just said apartment for some reason. Augh, I've spent too long in the city.
Sometime in the afternoon I helped Dad fold up some big piece of netting he was using to keep birds off his strawberries.
For dinner, we had a stir-fry inspired by the one I made the other day. It was tasty - good job, Dad!
In the evening I talked to Mr. Zoffer twice to ask him random questions about the PHP page I'm making. Around 6:40 I talked to Chris and we decided I wouldn't bother to go over to his place - by the time I got there, the boys would have been asleep, and Chris said there was probably no guarantee he wouldn't be as well.
At 7:30 PM or so, I decided it was about time I got on the road back towards home so that I could have Monday to get stuff done around the city. By 8:15 PM, I'd packed up the car and gotten myself ready to go. I said my goodbyes and hit the road with less than half a tank of gas.
There was a surprising number of random traffic jams, but otherwise fine traffic. It ended up taking me until 11:30 PM to get home, with a stop for gas. That's an unacceptable amount of hourage. Ouch. Oh well, it was a nice drive. I listened to Andrew Bird, My Brightest Diamond, and Violent Femmes along the way. I think there was something else I started in on briefly, but I can't remember it.
Anyway, home now, with all the windows in my room open. BEAUTIFUL out. Someone replaced our shower curtain with a greenish blocky one with palm trees on it, and put my white one up in the closet.
I approve.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Backwards Day
Got back to my parents' place about half an hour ago. I'd been at my brother's, hanging out, watching YouTube videos of John Zorn in his various incarnations through the years. On the way home I listened to Melt-Banana, as it reminded me of him.
I got there after the boys had gone to sleep; Aleksandra was still out at an Easter service, so we sat and talked about some books we'd been reading.
On the drive over, I listened to Joanna Newsom, in stark contrast to later-in-the-night's Melt-Banana. Prior to the drive from Oxford to New Haven, I took myself a lovely little hour nap from 6:30 to 7:30 or so. It was great. Part of me didn't want to bother to get up. It had been a long afternoon. We went to a little church out in Easton at noon for their annual Blessing Of The Easter Baskets, which is apparently an eastern European tradition. After the service, we went to Aleksandra's parents house for a lunch of blessed food. I became blessedly stuffed. After a little lunch, we went out into the yard and kicked a few soccer balls around. The boys came and went periodically - usually when they caught the ball they just held on to it and ran around.
For a few minutes, we played tag, with them trying to tag me with the ball. Being the master dodgeballer that I am, and being so good looking and fleet of foot, eventually they had to tell me I couldn't run. Then they told me to slow down.
It's not lost on me that they're only four. I just didn't want to get tagged!
I also took two separate, small, short naps at Aleksandra's parents' house. They were wonderful too, though less effective with all the activity.
In the morning, I had a little bowl of yogurt, Craisins, and granola for breakfast. I also installed Starcraft II on my dad's laptop and played half of a game against some computers. I was going to win - I can tell. They were listed as "very easy" computers, cause that was the only option.
I woke up today around 9:15, feeling pretty good. Turned out to be a pretty nice, beautiful day.
I got there after the boys had gone to sleep; Aleksandra was still out at an Easter service, so we sat and talked about some books we'd been reading.
On the drive over, I listened to Joanna Newsom, in stark contrast to later-in-the-night's Melt-Banana. Prior to the drive from Oxford to New Haven, I took myself a lovely little hour nap from 6:30 to 7:30 or so. It was great. Part of me didn't want to bother to get up. It had been a long afternoon. We went to a little church out in Easton at noon for their annual Blessing Of The Easter Baskets, which is apparently an eastern European tradition. After the service, we went to Aleksandra's parents house for a lunch of blessed food. I became blessedly stuffed. After a little lunch, we went out into the yard and kicked a few soccer balls around. The boys came and went periodically - usually when they caught the ball they just held on to it and ran around.
For a few minutes, we played tag, with them trying to tag me with the ball. Being the master dodgeballer that I am, and being so good looking and fleet of foot, eventually they had to tell me I couldn't run. Then they told me to slow down.
It's not lost on me that they're only four. I just didn't want to get tagged!
I also took two separate, small, short naps at Aleksandra's parents' house. They were wonderful too, though less effective with all the activity.
In the morning, I had a little bowl of yogurt, Craisins, and granola for breakfast. I also installed Starcraft II on my dad's laptop and played half of a game against some computers. I was going to win - I can tell. They were listed as "very easy" computers, cause that was the only option.
I woke up today around 9:15, feeling pretty good. Turned out to be a pretty nice, beautiful day.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Beautiful day for a drive to Connecticut
Today was wicked long.
It started at 6:00 AM. I woke up and got ready for our run at 6:30 AM or so. By 6:41 AM, I started to wonder where Julia was. I swore she had said that we should leave from my place in the morning at 6:30. Apparently, now that I look back at it, she said "how about leaving your place at 6:30," which implied I should leave my place at 6:30 to get to her place so we could go for a run from there. Oops.
So at 6:42 AM or so I was beginning to have an inkling of this, so I hopped on my bike and rode over on a hunch, figuring that if she was on her way over, we'd run into each other along the way.
Needless to say, I found her outside her apartment wondering where in the world I was.
Oops.
So!
We went for a run. From her place down along the river to Western Ave., then up Western to Green Street, back along Green towards Harvard Square, ending at the corner of Mt. Auburn and JFK. It was at this point that Julia offered to buy us some coffee/pastry, lovely girl that she is. I happily agreed to her proposal. At this point, I was getting annoyed at my legs for their general inability to run properly. It was kinda annoying, and I was glad to convert brewing annoyance into brewing coffee.
After that, we walked back to her place, sat around for a few with our breakfasts, listened to a few tunes, and then around 8:20, went along our merry ways. I started to ride back home, and decided on a whim to ride over to Fresh Pond instead.
I took the back roads over to 16 and then found my way in, and had a wonderful time riding around the pond. It was great - the weather was absolutely perfect.
After that, I rode home, showered, and set about packing up some stuff to head down to Connecticut for the weekend.
I always kinda like it when you're going to your parents' place and you have no clothes to wear, because you can usually just throw all your dirty laundry in a thingy, throw the thingy in the car, and leave without bothering to pack a thing.
This is what I did.
Well, with respect to clothes, anyway.
I brought a guitar and computer, otherwise, along with my leftover stir-fry from the other night for lunch.
At approximately 10:02 AM I set out from my apartment, took route 2 out to 128, 128 to 90, 90 to 84, 84 to 8. I got here in about two hours and fifteen minutes (which is pretty good). I arrived at, well, 12:15 PM or so, much to my parents' surprise. They thought I'd probably still be sleeping at that point.
I hung around home for a while, almost took a nap, and went with my Dad to the grocery store instead. We got supplies for tomorrow.
After that, there are a few hours that are kinda a blur. I talked with Mom for a while about Facebook. I played a little Braid. Chatted with Julia on the lines. I played some guitar. Oh! I did my laundry (woo!).
Around 6:00 PM or so we had a little dinner of some sandwiches made out of some crazy bread my Dad baked (garlic, cheese, onion bread). It had just come out of the oven and was delectable. Delectable.
After that, we went over to Chris and Aleksandra's! Got there around 7:00 PM or so. The boys were still up - I read them a story about Napkin Rabbit before they went to sleep. Aleksandra was out at a choir rehearsal, but eventually came home and we had a tasty dessert of ice cream, cinnamon bread, and some crazy fruit/lemon meringue stuff my Dad made (also today). It was great.
Then the Canasta tournament began.
Chris and I, on a team, got pummeled. The score was about 5000 to 4000 at the end after 3-4 rounds, and it was only that close because Chris and I got 2400 points all at once in the last round. We were utterly destroyed the other three rounds. Bad, bad luck.
Anyway, after that we drove back to Mom and Dad's. And now I'm here. The end. Holy crap I'm tired.
It started at 6:00 AM. I woke up and got ready for our run at 6:30 AM or so. By 6:41 AM, I started to wonder where Julia was. I swore she had said that we should leave from my place in the morning at 6:30. Apparently, now that I look back at it, she said "how about leaving your place at 6:30," which implied I should leave my place at 6:30 to get to her place so we could go for a run from there. Oops.
So at 6:42 AM or so I was beginning to have an inkling of this, so I hopped on my bike and rode over on a hunch, figuring that if she was on her way over, we'd run into each other along the way.
Needless to say, I found her outside her apartment wondering where in the world I was.
Oops.
So!
We went for a run. From her place down along the river to Western Ave., then up Western to Green Street, back along Green towards Harvard Square, ending at the corner of Mt. Auburn and JFK. It was at this point that Julia offered to buy us some coffee/pastry, lovely girl that she is. I happily agreed to her proposal. At this point, I was getting annoyed at my legs for their general inability to run properly. It was kinda annoying, and I was glad to convert brewing annoyance into brewing coffee.
After that, we walked back to her place, sat around for a few with our breakfasts, listened to a few tunes, and then around 8:20, went along our merry ways. I started to ride back home, and decided on a whim to ride over to Fresh Pond instead.
I took the back roads over to 16 and then found my way in, and had a wonderful time riding around the pond. It was great - the weather was absolutely perfect.
After that, I rode home, showered, and set about packing up some stuff to head down to Connecticut for the weekend.
I always kinda like it when you're going to your parents' place and you have no clothes to wear, because you can usually just throw all your dirty laundry in a thingy, throw the thingy in the car, and leave without bothering to pack a thing.
This is what I did.
Well, with respect to clothes, anyway.
I brought a guitar and computer, otherwise, along with my leftover stir-fry from the other night for lunch.
At approximately 10:02 AM I set out from my apartment, took route 2 out to 128, 128 to 90, 90 to 84, 84 to 8. I got here in about two hours and fifteen minutes (which is pretty good). I arrived at, well, 12:15 PM or so, much to my parents' surprise. They thought I'd probably still be sleeping at that point.
I hung around home for a while, almost took a nap, and went with my Dad to the grocery store instead. We got supplies for tomorrow.
After that, there are a few hours that are kinda a blur. I talked with Mom for a while about Facebook. I played a little Braid. Chatted with Julia on the lines. I played some guitar. Oh! I did my laundry (woo!).
Around 6:00 PM or so we had a little dinner of some sandwiches made out of some crazy bread my Dad baked (garlic, cheese, onion bread). It had just come out of the oven and was delectable. Delectable.
After that, we went over to Chris and Aleksandra's! Got there around 7:00 PM or so. The boys were still up - I read them a story about Napkin Rabbit before they went to sleep. Aleksandra was out at a choir rehearsal, but eventually came home and we had a tasty dessert of ice cream, cinnamon bread, and some crazy fruit/lemon meringue stuff my Dad made (also today). It was great.
Then the Canasta tournament began.
Chris and I, on a team, got pummeled. The score was about 5000 to 4000 at the end after 3-4 rounds, and it was only that close because Chris and I got 2400 points all at once in the last round. We were utterly destroyed the other three rounds. Bad, bad luck.
Anyway, after that we drove back to Mom and Dad's. And now I'm here. The end. Holy crap I'm tired.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Attempts and success
We attempted to go for a run this morning.
We really did.
Julia ran up to my place from her's (good on her!), and then we set out down Mass. Ave. towards Harvard Square. Somewhere around Linnean, there was a solid yellow talk-to-the-hand crosswalk signal staring at us very sternly, so we took a right down the street. Coolness - yay adventure.
So we were heading down Linnean for a piece, and passed this massive oak tree.
I mean, it was effin' big.
So we stopped.
And we walked up to it.
And Julia tried to hug it for fun, but it was so big and had such large roots she couldn't even get in close.
... And then we just never quite started running again.
Instead, we took a leisurely stroll through West Cambridge, looking at the houses and flowers (of which there were many. Of both.) Very pleasant.
Eventually we made our way back to my place, briefly discussed Wilco, and then she grabbed her bike from the other day and we went on with our days.
Following that, I got my act together and shipped myself off to work on the T, after a brief stop in Harvard Square (Yes, Dado) for coffee and a scone. Reena was working (I believe that's your name! I apologize if I'm off! It was a while ago when I heard it). She gave me lots of coffee. This served me well.
Work went pretty well - I didn't really take any time for lunch - I wolfed it down in like 5 minutes before a meeting (penne pasta from 2nd Street! It was quite delicious). The meeting ran from 12:00 noon until 1:00 PM. After that, I made some great progress on my project (hooked up a whole catalog feed export/FTP system. Rockin'!), so I eventually decided to take my success and head home a smidge early. This time was well spent. It gave me a few hours to work on some software for Dave so he can 21st Centurize how NEC collects information prior to student evaluations. I made some good progress.
At 7:30 PM or so, I left home and headed over to Brookline for a lesson. We actually ended up talking about software and such for about 40 minutes, then had only 20 minutes of lesson cause his next student showed up on time. Doh. Well, we'll make it up sometime. I'm sure he's aware of it.
Anyway, now I'm back home. I got some lovely lemon ginger tea at the store the other day, which I've been sitting here, sipping. But, given the time, I do believe it's getting close to bed time. I think we're going to try to go for a 6:30 AM run tomorrow, rather than 7:00 AM. Watch out, now!
We really did.
Julia ran up to my place from her's (good on her!), and then we set out down Mass. Ave. towards Harvard Square. Somewhere around Linnean, there was a solid yellow talk-to-the-hand crosswalk signal staring at us very sternly, so we took a right down the street. Coolness - yay adventure.
So we were heading down Linnean for a piece, and passed this massive oak tree.
I mean, it was effin' big.
So we stopped.
And we walked up to it.
And Julia tried to hug it for fun, but it was so big and had such large roots she couldn't even get in close.
... And then we just never quite started running again.
Instead, we took a leisurely stroll through West Cambridge, looking at the houses and flowers (of which there were many. Of both.) Very pleasant.
Eventually we made our way back to my place, briefly discussed Wilco, and then she grabbed her bike from the other day and we went on with our days.
Following that, I got my act together and shipped myself off to work on the T, after a brief stop in Harvard Square (Yes, Dado) for coffee and a scone. Reena was working (I believe that's your name! I apologize if I'm off! It was a while ago when I heard it). She gave me lots of coffee. This served me well.
Work went pretty well - I didn't really take any time for lunch - I wolfed it down in like 5 minutes before a meeting (penne pasta from 2nd Street! It was quite delicious). The meeting ran from 12:00 noon until 1:00 PM. After that, I made some great progress on my project (hooked up a whole catalog feed export/FTP system. Rockin'!), so I eventually decided to take my success and head home a smidge early. This time was well spent. It gave me a few hours to work on some software for Dave so he can 21st Centurize how NEC collects information prior to student evaluations. I made some good progress.
At 7:30 PM or so, I left home and headed over to Brookline for a lesson. We actually ended up talking about software and such for about 40 minutes, then had only 20 minutes of lesson cause his next student showed up on time. Doh. Well, we'll make it up sometime. I'm sure he's aware of it.
Anyway, now I'm back home. I got some lovely lemon ginger tea at the store the other day, which I've been sitting here, sipping. But, given the time, I do believe it's getting close to bed time. I think we're going to try to go for a 6:30 AM run tomorrow, rather than 7:00 AM. Watch out, now!
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