Bar bee queue num bar tue

Today involved a grand total of four things.  See if you can spot them in the post below!  Lesser things done whilst being exhausted don't count.

I woke up at 10:00 AM, puttered for a few minutes, and decided that I needed to get out, get running, and do my weekend long run.

The plan was to go for about 6 miles. I decided that this might best be accomplished with the aid of Fresh Pond. Whippin' out my Gmaps Pedometer, I figured out that from my apartment to Fresh Pond, twice around the pond, and back to my apartment was 6.7 miles. That seemed appropriate - if I couldn't make the whole thing, at least I'd be sure to get the six in.

So around 11:00 AM, after looking up said route and getting myself ready, I set out.

The first trip around the pond (and the preceding mile or so to get there) was fine. The second one started getting a tad rougher, but I made it. It wasn't wicked hot out or anything, but it was definitely warmer than I would have preferred. By the time I made it around the pond the second time, I'd seen a bunch of people multiple times on their way around. On the way back home, I made it as far as the corner of Concord and Walden. At that point, I was quite happy to be done.

After I got to the corner, I cooled down for a bit at the edge of St. Peter's Field/Park/Thing off of Walden.  Turns out I made it approximately 6.2 miles.  Not bad!  I got the whole six in!  I think this is officially the longest run I've ever done.  Next weekend I'd like to push it up to seven, perhaps.  I think I can do it.

This also gives me a sense of how the Boilermaker's going to go.  Julia and I signed up for it yesterday.  I think if I keep training towards it, it'll go fine, but ~9 miles or so feels like a stretch if they're like today's.  By the end of this one I was feeling pretty beat.  That may have something to do with having a good deal of alcohol yesterday, as well as the heat - I don't know.

Anyway.  The run was awesome, and I'm thrilled.

After I got home and cleaned myself up, I grabbed my bent-spoke wheel and wandered over to Ace Wheelworks.  They said they could fix it in 20 minutes or so, so I walked back to Cafe Zing and got myself some coffee, sat for a few, and then returned.

Turns out they didn't think I should actually do anything to the wheel.  The spoke isn't that bent, and the gentleman helping me out said that it'd probably be worse to unbalance the wheel to replace it than it would be to just leave it.

Replace it when it breaks, he said.

Okay then!

So I bought another tube and a patch kit, then went home and patched my other tire.

First patch!  And it seems to have worked!  (I'll find out for sure tomorrow morning, I imagine).  Getting the tire and tube back on the wheel proved to be an adventure without any tools.  I got it after a bit of a struggle, though.

After getting everything back together, I took Mr. Surly out to JFK Park for a celebratory ride, sat down under a tree, and finished Bird by Bird again.  What a great book.  It's very motivational, in its own weird way.  

Around 5:00 PM, whilst sitting under said tree, I decided maybe I should look up and see when Daniel's BBQ was supposed to start.

2:00 PM, said my e-mail.

Dah!

Picking myself up, I biked up to Somerville through Union Sq., around the mountain, and eventually found my way to Daniel's place.

Ahh, what sights, smells, and tastes awaited me!  What glorious fare!  What delightful desserts!  What pungent punch (read: sangria)!  Wonderful.  They always throw excellent parties.  I stuck around there until around 8:15 PM or so, when it started to get dark.  Then I biked myself down Highland Ave. back to Davis Square, backtracked, and shuffled into my apartment.

And then I promptly sat around going "Uuhhhh" for a while as a day full of activity finally caught up with me.

I played a little of some iPad MMO.  Not half bad.  Good interface.  Something something Legends.  Little Legends?  Happy Legends?  Neither is correct.  Something like that, though.

And now I'm going to pass the feck out.

Bee bee queue.

Today was Mike and Ria's barbeque. Yesterday was a tofu stir fry at La Casa del Wagner.

It makes me happy that I can define these days by the food that they included.

Yesterday was also Friday, which included a lunch at "Za" - a pizza and salad joint that recently moved into an apartment/condo building near our office. It is, unfortunately, rather mediocre. You'd think that a place might be able to do something creative with a mac and cheese pizza, but no, they did something completely tasteless instead. Bummer. I went there with Mike, Daniel, and Erik, and I think the only reason any of us were remotely happy was because one of the pizzas had goat cheese on it which gave it some salty flavor. Double bummer.

Julia and I also went for a run Friday morning, which was great. A little less than 4.5 mills, I think. Tomorrow I needa go for about a six mile run. Yum.

I didn't get to the bike shop today... Hoping to do that tomorrow morning.

Earlier today, we went kayaking on the Charles out by 128. It was great! Lillies and their pads everywhere, and minimal power boat traffic. Great!

We (Jason, Kat, Eric C and his friend Angela) also went to Target and Best Buy for all sorts owe stuff. I think I spent upwards of $160 on household stuff, a capo, running gear, and shaving equipment. Soooooo worth it.

Mike and Ria's party was great. Tons of people. So tired. So mostly tipsy.

Time to crash.

Sippin' on gin and... gin.

Today worked out pretty well. Got up at 6:30 AM, went for a run around 7:00 AM from Julia's.  Ran from my place to hers, ended up with about a 4.5 mile run, all told.

Got to work by around 9:30 PM, and had a fairly productive day with branding kits.  Finished off the rest of my Tofu Yellow Curry for lunch, which was delightful.  Around 3:00 PM or so, Mike, Mark, Eric and I (Hereafter known as The iPad Crew) took a trip to the mall to get coffee and wander briefly through the Apple store looking for various things.  I wanted to get a sleeve for my iPad so I can actually, like, take it somewhere without worrying about scratching it.

Alas, no decent case/sleeve was to be found.  Bummer.  At least, not for anything cheaper than $40, which is absurd.

The rest of the day went without incident, and I left around 5:30 PM or so.

I took the train back to Harvard Sq., and then walked up to Porter from there, reading Bird By Bird as I went.  It was a great walk - very pleasant!

Upon arriving home, I went into cleaning mode after a quick snack-o-dinner.  I put away all the dishes, put away my clean clothes, and sorted, trashed, and filed every single piece of paper in my possession.  That last one feels spectacular.  Normally I end up with a stack somewhere... not this time!  Bwaha.

Ahem.

Since then, I've kinda been hanging out, playing a bit of Warpgate, mentally preparing myself for tomorrow.

Which, I think, I'm going to go physically prepare myself for by going to sleep.

All together now! (All together now!)

I want my bike back! I just haven't had time to go get a patching kit yet.

Needless to say, I took the train to work today. On the way, I stopped in Central to cancel my BSC membership, finally. After that, i stopped into Carberry's for some coffee, which was delicious. Work ran a bit long with a short lunch - just how I like it. I ended up leaving around 6:30 pm or so. By the time I got home, Jason, Kat and Allie were all waiting for me at my apartment. Music night!

We played a few songs (All Together Now and some Clash tune) before deciding to call it quits cause it was crazy hot. My downstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling once.
I don't like those people. At some point, we were all like, "What's that smell?!" We turned off the amps and started sniffing tinges to see what was burning. ... Turns out it was the living room TV. Doh! Poor thing went "Poof!" and died.

Julia showed up around 9:30 after what sounded like a long day. She's currently taking a bit of a nap. I think that's about it for this Wednesday.

Oh. And it was Eric M's last day. Major bummer.

Nine Twenty-Five, Press Return

Yesterday was your average sort of between-projects sorta day at work. Lots of jumping from thing to thing, trying to get a few other things done in the meantime.

After work, we went for a run down to Harvard and back up Oxford. It was wicked hot. I've run in hotter, but this was, I think, our first like... 80+ degree run of the year, and I was feeling it. Somewhere close to Porter I dropped my pace a little. Bummer. But that's okay, there'll be more runs.

The wanderlust has been returning the past few weeks, I've noticed. It seems for most of the last year or so, I was very content with my current situation and activities. Maybe it's the end of the school year, but I find myself thinking about all the things I could be doing again.  It's an exciting feeling as always, but it's also concerning. It's distracting, and generally, there's little to be done for it.

Maybe it's just summer - I don't know.  I think I probably need some sort of absurd vacation that'll remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing.

That's all I got!

Pretty standard day.

Got in to work at about 9:30 AM. I brought my guitar with me, which I got a chance to play around lunch time out on the roof deck. Lots of people out there at lunch - was a good time!

Around 6:00 PM I left work and headed home. Called my parents on my way back. Mom was out, but I had a nice chat with Dad for a while. After said chat, I drove myself over to Jason and Kat's for the evening. We had pizza from Thyago's, talked about jobs, played iPad games, watched some Dr. Who, and generally relaxed. Nice.

And now I'm back here. Fan in the window. It's been a pretty nice night.

Whoah, Mt. Holyoke.

Huh, last post was Tuesday. Crazy.  That's sorta unexpected.

Lets see what I can remember.

I don't have much for Wednesday left in my brain.  I seem to recall most days last week leading up to this weekend's trip out to Western Massachusetts for Mt. Holyoke's reunions/graduation proceedings.  On Thursday, Jason came to interview here at work, which was fun.  Afterwards, he and I raced back to my apartment - he in his car, me on my bike.  I won by a few minutes, which was pretty gratifying.  Unfortunately, it seems that I blew out my back tire in the process.  I woke up Friday morning to find my front tire with a bent spoke (which happened, I think, prior to the race), and my back tire completely flat.  Bummer.  I need to make it out to Ace or somewhere to get a new tube.

After the wee little race, Jason and I went out to dinner with Kat and Eric Fields (I almost beat her to my apartment too).  We had some tastiness at Christopher's.  After that, around 9:00 PM, I hurried out of the place and hitched the Red/Green lines down to Fenway to meet Julia at the House of Blues for drinks with some of her MHC friends.  A good time was had by all.

Friday was mostly an exercise in waiting for the weekend and trying to get all sorts of things done.  It, unfortunately, did not involve biking to work.  Booo.  Jules and I went... somewhere... that night.  OH!  Right!  We went to a play put on by the kids at her school.  Tumbleweed.  It was probably the best school production I've ever seen - they did a great job.  We also had a brief adventure through Trader Joe's.

Saturday morning I bummed around for a few, packing up some things to bring with me to Western Mass.  Meanwhile, Julia was out at another kiddo's soccer game.  Around 1:00 PM, we got in the car, drove through Watertown, and got onto Interstate 90W.  After a pleasant drive, we arrived at my cousin Shauna's place around 2:30 PM or so, and chatted with her briefly before heading down to MHC's campus for the afternoon.  We walked along the horse/running trails, took a tour of the campus, saw a bunch of friends and acquaintances, and generally took in the whole experience.  The evening saw us at the Hangar for a drink with a bunch of her teammates from track/cross country, after which the two of us went to Basta e Pasta in... Amherst... for dinner.  Which was quite good.  And then there was ice cream.

There's always room for ice cream.

Sunday morning we got up, Julia went down to graduation, and I hung out with Shauna, Yem, and the kids for a bit.  It was cool - I got to teach them a bit of guitar stuff.  I need to ask Dave what the most effective thing to try teaching a nine year old is.

Around 12:30 PM I walked from Shauna's down to MHC and met Julia at the top of the amphitheater.  We wandered around for a bit meeting/congratulating people before heading back to Shauna's for lunch.

A bit later, we said our goodbyes and went on our way.  We decided to take route 2 back, instead of 90. Good choice, kids.

Route 2 was much more pleasant.  On the way, we stopped at Mt. Skinner, drove to the top, looked around at the world, and went on our way.  Then we saw a rainbow, chased it (in the car), found Mt. Sugarloaf, drove to the top, and once again checked out the world.  Hey, world.

The rainbow was still there.

Sooner or later, we found our way back to Boston.

It was a great weekend.

This is a post on an iPad. Booyah.

Today began around 7:00 AM. I got myself together around 8:30 or so, maybe a little later. I had a lovely bike ride into work - I decided to take Cambridge Street in, which is becoming my new go-to route. The work day was pretty good, if somewhat fragmented. I feel like I worked on four different things. I probably did work on four different things.

After work, I rode down to the river and decided to head home that way. I stopped briefly at Julia's school to see if she was still around (I later found out she wasn't). After which I moseyed my way back towards West Cambridge. Somewhere around Harvard Sq. I decided it'd be easier to coordinate the evening with Julia in person, rather than over the phone from my place, so I stopped in to say hello. We agreed that a run would be a great idea, that the Pressure Cooker concert wasn't going to happen, and that we both really needed to get food from the grocery store.

So all that happened.

We went for what was probably a four mile run, after which we took a little trip to Shaws for some food. I'm thrilled! Food again! Finally!

And then we came here and ate it all. Or, well, a reasonable amount.

And that's about it. Whew. Made it through - it's not terrible typing on this, but it ain't easy either.

Common trend lately.

Long, crazy couple of days.

Friday.

Right.

The highlights of Friday involved a lot of studying for jazz related things. As I recall. OH.

And I got my iPad that day, and took a long ride home along the river. Hung out with Julia in the evening. I recall that it was raining a lot. Yeeeees.

Saturday morning I got up at 6:30 AM so I could get over to NEC by 9:00 AM. Arrived 15 minutes early, which was perfect.

Found my room (356) in Jordan Hall, got in before anyone else, and greeted all the instructors as they filed in. Spent a few minutes making sure all the evaluation spreadsheets were working, and then we got into it. Played my two things with Joel and a gentleman on drums whose name I didn't catch. Joel was playing bass. There were three others in the room who were kind enough to give me their comments.

I didn't really get to do the chordal parts. Just the soloing. This was probably easier on me. Meh. But... not quite as planned.

After my evaluation, I walked around to the other two rooms and made sure everything was going smoothly. It was like 9:20 AM.

I then left, got on the #1 bus, and took it back to Harvard Sq., where I met Julia at Dado. We got some coffee and breakfasty foods, (her: scone, me: bagel + apple).

We ended up at her place for a few, I took a nap, and then around noon we walked to my place, got in my car, and drove down to South Bay St. in Boston to the food bank, and hung out there volunteering until 3:30 PM. Afterward, we hung out with some Mt. Holyoke people in the volunteer room, and then drove ourselves back. We hung out at my place for a few, and then walked to Porter and took the T to Broadway and walked out into Southie to go to a gallery opening. LaMontagne Gallery. It was an opening for a friend of hers, Monica. We found Eric Fields and Brian Kane there, chatted, drank some PBR, and then hitched a ride with them back to Cambridge.

Then, we quickly went to Shaws for some habaneros and jalapenos. And then to the liquor store for gin and beer.

And then we walked back to my place, got in the car, and drove to Jason and Kat's in Watertown, where we proceeded to watch Up (spectacular movie!), have nachos, and drink beer. Awesome.

We ended up going home around 11:00 PM, I think.

Sunday morning we met Jason, Katherine, Justin, Ali, and Jamie at the Deluxe Town Diner for brunch around 11:20 AM. It was delightful and delicious. I had an omelet and a single flapjack. And some hash browns. And some rye toast. And awesome coffee.

After that, I took Julia home and proceeded to clean my room(s) for the next five hours until around 6:00 PM. I rearranged my bedroom. I thoroughly vacuumed everything. I organized my magic cards. I made the whole place make more sense.

Champ.

Around 6:30 or so, Julia and I went to Danehy Park out back a block or two from my apartment, sat on a blanket, ate chips and hummus, and hung out until just after sundown, watching the sky turn red across the track and football field in the park. Niiiiiiice.

After that, we went to Jose's for guacamole and margaritas. At some point thereafter, we walked back to my place, chatted with Eric, Travis, and his wife about piercings, and then it became sleep time.

This morning, I woke up at a decent time and took the T in to work. The day was pretty straightforward. Learning about all my new projects (of which there are several). Trying to finish up my filter logic parsing thingy. Got some excellent help from Daniel, who was kind enough to improve it for me. I love code reviews. Things are always just better afterwards. Such a great idea.

After work, I went off to NEC.

Oh, and I spent some time studying for my Jazz Theory exam here and there during the day.

The quiz went okay... not quite as good as I might have hoped. It's difficult recognizing common jazz patterns in eight random bars of the form. Crazy.

After class, I took the #1 bus back to Harvard Square. It took 35 minutes (!!!!!). I think I need to start taking the bus, rather than the Green/Red lines.

From Harvard I wandered over to Julia's, and she was kind enough to let me share her dinner while we watched Wall-E. And that, as they say, is that.

Weekend over.

Class (basically) over.

Day basically over.

Stress basically over.

Bring on summer!

I've been reading Bird by Bird again. It really makes me want to get back to writing. Kinda can't wait. Now I just need to block off some time.

Goodnight, world!

Duuuhhhh... whahh?

Whew.

I just e-mailed out the last piece of this jazz evaluation day software stuff.  Been working on it for the last four hours.

I'm so, so, so, so ready for this week to be over.  And by over, I mean Sunday morning.

Yesterday was... a whirlwind.  I got some stuff done at work, I'm pretty sure.  Then I went home and studied and played music until Julia got here at like 10:00 PM, after which we both commiserated about our days.

Today felt about the same, except when I got home I got a call from Dave Z saying he was wicked sick, and that he needed to cancel my lesson for the night.  This, it turns out, was probably a really good thing, as it took me the aforementioned four hours to get this evaluation thing together and e-mailed off to everyone.

Ugh.

So no studying for me tonight.  Or... something.  Maybe I'll pick up a guitar for a few, but my effing hands are tired already from all this mousing and typing.

Oh, and I had two very, very lovely bike rides to and from work yesterday and today.  Went home by the river on both days.  That's about the rest of what there is to say.

Dun-dun-dun da dun duh do-do do, dobitty-do do do-be do do

Today I slept in until around 8:00 AM because I ended up getting to sleep kinda late last night, and didn't feel like being exhausted all day at work.  Smart on me, cause I felt pretty good all day instead.

I had a lovely bike ride into work this morning, pleased with myself for noticing the giant effing truck in front of me was going to make a right hand turn across my path without using his blinker before he actually did it.

Anyway.

Got to work a smidge after 9:00 AM, I think, and proceeded to spend most of the day finishing up documentation for this 'ere project I've been working on for what feels like forever.

Finally finished it up around 4:00 PM, and amazingly moved on to something completely unrelated for the first time... I don't really remember.

YAY.  


Ahem.

Booyah.

Left work around 7:00 PM, after spending an hour mid-day working on some music stuff.

Biked home via the Charles for a bit of relaxation, got home.  Figured if this job of mine isn't going to help make me a rockstar, it can at least buy me some dinner.  Ordered some Indian from India Castle.  It arrived around 8:30 PM.

Spent the next few hours working on West Coast Blues.

Am exhausted.

Playing a bit of Warpgate.

Grumbling at Apple for not telling me "Your iPad's at the store!  Come get it!"

Punks.

That's okay - the next few days will have their highlights.

Sunmonday.

Sunday began with an early morning trip out to Arlington to hit up Mr. Eric M's tag sale.  Jason and Katherine arrived at my apartment around 8:45 AM, and we carpooled over to look around.

Purchases included (for all of us):

$20 worth of baked goods.
A yamaha (I think?) keyboard for Kat.
A $5 box of legos that we purchased without looking inside.

Not bad.

I almost bought Eric's amplifier (Fender, pretty nice), but couldn't justify it at the time.  I'm still sorta undecided.  It'd be a lot cheaper than buying one new, but... I just don't have the need right now.

Unfortunately, I realized this morning, that I forgot my jacket at his apartment.  Dah.

Wait, did I forget to blog about Saturday too?  No, I just missed Saturday night, I think.

Backing up.

Saturday night, I had a lovely dinner with Julia, Paul, and their Mom at their apartment.  Then we watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  Crazy movie.  Then I wandered on home.

Anyway, Sunday.

After the morning's sale run, I ended up taking a two hour nap, or so, between noon and 2:00 PM.  After that, I biked over to Julia's and we spent some time greasing bike chains, attempting to re-align her handle bars, and generally doing some bike maintenance.  Mine is all stealthy and silent now - it's delightful.

After that, we walked to Harvard Square, took the T to Central, went to Payless, went to an art store in the area whose name I've unfortunately forgotten, and then walked across the Mass. Ave. bridge to Boston.

It was effing cold.  On the Back Bay side, we wandered through Urban Outfitters briefly, tried a few things on, and then took the green line over to Park to visit DSW for some shoes.

I got me a pair of flip flops.  Finally.  This is thrilling to me!

Post-DSW, we took the green line back to Hynes and had dinner at the Otherside Cafe, which, unbeknownst to me until I walked in, is apparently fixed-gear-hipster central.  Damn.  The food was excellent.  I had a veggie chili burrito with all sortsa stuff.  Julia had some crisp, delicious carrots/beets with some sort of nutty pate.  And there was beer.

Following dinner, we took the #1 bus back to Harvard Square and stopped in to CVS.  And emerged, separately, each clutching a bunch of candy.

I love Reese's Pieces.  Just sayin'.  I'm bummed that I realized they're full of trans fat.  Grr.

The rest of the evening involved some quiet reading around Julia's apartment.  Nice.

This morning, I got myself together and made it over to work by around 9:30 AM or so.  The T was running kinda slow, and one train was taken out of service before I could actually get on one.  I expected to get there earlier.  Bugger.

Today was a fairly productive documentation day.  Around 10:00 AM I suddenly got really nervous about this stupid jazz evaluation later in the week.

It's kinda silly.  There are a few things that will get me really freaked out, but a sense of impending dread over the possibility of publicly embarrassing myself in front of people I respect and would rather impress is one of them.

In a way, it's sorta interesting to observe in myself.

I felt vaguely ill, I didn't feel like eating anything, and part of me would have been much happier either sitting with my back to a corner looking out at the world, or hiding under some blankets.  Except for the food thing, the rest is still kinda there and has been all day.

Clearly, it's not an overwhelmingly strong fear, as I seem to be mostly capable of ignoring it, but all of those elements are definitely in there.

Life will only get more interesting as the week progresses, I'm sure.

I spent the last hour and a half pulling together NEC evaluation data so Dave could review it.  Just to reiterate again for my own, future benefit:

David (me), don't volunteer for programming projects in your spare time.  You don't have the time to do it and get anything else done.

Seriously.  Don't do it.

No lie

This jazz stuff is cool and all, but I really don't like how it makes me sick with worry sometimes.

Friday, The Iron Man-ith and Saturday the Sleepith of May

Yesterday was overshadowed by that which was planned to occur around 9:30 PM.

Iron Man 2.

Woo!

So I woke up around... 8:00 AM.  Made myself ready and got in by 9:30 PM.  No run in the morning, as Julia was still in New York, and I recall being up pretty late the previous night.

Work went pretty well, I got some good documentation written, and made a few key improvements to the integration that made it work all the gooder.

Gooder, yes.

Lunch involved the roof deck, my guitar, the sunshade, and excellent company.  Oh, and some Tofu Yellow Curry over brown rice.  Delightful.  Ow, my fingers hurt as I type this.  (See later in the post, re: the last few hours)

It was slightly windy, but quite nice.

I ended up leaving work around 6:00 PM, as I recall, got home, got some foods, and then drove off towards Flamingham to stand in line for the movie.

I got there at the same time as Eric O., and we walked in together.  Bradd, Carl, Bradd's sister, and her boy (whose name I missed) were all there, camped out in line.  We joined them, and proceeded to chill out for the next two hours or so.

We ended up getting pretty much ideal seats for the movie, which I thought was an awesome spectacle.  Good on you, Mr. Robert Downey Jr.

After the movie, everybody stood around for a little while, and eventually broke up and went home.  On my way back, I stopped at Julia's place for a late night "Hi!".  We sat in the car for a few and chatted, and eventually went back upstairs and I chilled in the corner while she cleaned up around the house for a bit.  Yes, this was approximately 1:00 AM.

I think I ultimately got to bed around 2:00 AM after said cleaning, and some laundry was put in the machine.

Got up at 7:00 AM!  Briefly, cause the alarm went off!  Then slept until 8:30 AM., at which point I got up to be helpful and drive Julia over to her modeling gig at the SMFA.  At 9:15 AM, back at home, I resolved to go back to sleep, or rather, allowed myself to... and woke up again at 12:05 PM.

Ouch.  I had planned to get some stuff done this morning.  Dah!

Well, at that point, I wandered for a moment, groggily, before Eric and I decided to go to the Deluxe Town Diner for breakfast (late lunch).  We got there around 1:00 PM, got in around 1:15 PM, and were done by... 2:25 PM.  Delicious.  I had a spinach, broccoli, and feta omelet, and a single, wonderful pancake.

At that point, we high-tailed it back to the apartment, because I was expecting Allie, Kat, and Mark to show up at 2:30 PM for a wee little jam session.

They, luckily, all arrived around 2:40 - 2:45 PM or so, right after I'd gotten back.

We played a few songs (Ob-la-de, ob-la-da and All Together Now, messed around on E for a while, went crazy on a midi drum kit, and generally enjoyed ourselves in a loud, mostly-coordinated way.  I'm glad they came over!

And, now, here I am, around 5:30 PM, after everyone's left.  Julia's coming back over to collect her laundry and things, and I think we're going to go have dinner with her mom, who's in town.  (That whole Mother's Day thing!).  Should be a great night!

Pending evaluation

Today began around 7:30 AM or so, I think.  No run this morning - I think we're both feeling kinda overly-busy and crazy through next weekend.

Instead, got ready and wandered out the door a bit late.  We met Mr. Eric Fields (by chance) at the Porter T stop, and I freaked him out by wandering up unannounced and close-walking next to him.  Sorry, Eric!  I think it confused him for a piece.

Said my goodbyes to Julia and Eric at the Kendall stop - they were going on to South Station to catch a bus to NYC for the day.  (Crazy, they know.)  I made it into work by around 10:00 AM.

Felt kinda messed up today.  I don't know what I did, but I just did not eat right, or something, and felt completely wacky until around 4:00 PM when my brain/body chemistry finally evened themselves out.  Frustrating.  Managed to get a few things done, though.  Not as much as I would have preferred, but we do what we can.

Left work around 5:30 and took the T back home.  Had a bite to eat and beat Plants vs. Zombies adventure mode (!!) while I ate.  Around 7:30 PM (I don't know where the time went) I moseyed over to Dave's for a lesson.  We got started maybe 8:20 PM.  Or, rather, we got talking around 8:20 PM.  I think we got to the lesson bit around 9:00 PM, and that lasted until around 10:00 PM.  So I got back home around, I think, 11:00 PM or so.  Maybe a touch earlier, I don't know.

So we talked a lot about what I'm supposed to do for my evaluation next (not this) weekend.

Play West Coast Blues with folks - melody, comping, and solo.
Play Tune Up with folks - ditto.
Learn a few bars of a Wes Montgomery solo for WCB.  Play it at the beginning of my solo thang.
Play Eb Lydian for people.

This is scary.

We broke the whole thing down into tasks, cause Dave's awesome.  Basically... a bunch of stuff I need to do between now and next Friday night.  I think I need to re-prioritize a few things this next week to make room.  It just kinda... has to happen.  I need this to go well, and for me to feel like I actually did a good job, as opposed to just kinda squeaking by.  Or, at least, did the best I was able to.

I'm trying to figure out if there's some way I can get some practice in during the workday around lunch time.  Bleh.  Maybe I can roof deck it... I dunno.  I can't think of anywhere in the building I could actually practice.  I kinda need to, though.  Urgh.

So once home, I rearranged a few things in here.  Tried putting the whiteboard in a portrait orientation on my little black desk/table, rather than on top of my dresser in crazy-landscape-ness.  It feels much more natural, even though the tray is running vertical and, thus, useless. It fits in the space better.

What is all that bass?  Tell me you people are going to give it a rest.  Ugh.  Sounds like a drum corps somewhere near by.

Anyway, I think that's about all the steam I have for the day.

Tomorrow is Friday?  Holy crap.

Day of the iPad

Woke up today at 7:00 AM or so.  Had a lovely bike ride into work, except for the car that almost cut me off, and sat down at my desk around 8:55 AM.

I've come to the conclusion that I really like writing Java code in Eclipse.  It's just so satisfying.  That said - I mostly lost track of time today as I worked through cleaning up this parser I've been writing.  It's lookin' pretty good now, and feels safer.  Coolness.  We had a great lunch out on the roofdeck with Daniel, Erik, George, Shan and I.  We talked about glossy vs. matte screens.  George and I brought our laptops outside (mine glossy, his matte) and compared them for Erik's benefit (he started the conversation asking what we prefer).  Good times.

After lunch, Erik and I wandered over to the Apple Store to look around; he at laptops and me at iPads.

I want one.  There, I said it.

Sigh.

One of the kind employees - Sarah, so her name tag told me - was kind enough to chat with us about laptops, and give her well informed opinions on the glossy vs. matte issue.

She agreed with me - glossy's better cause you can turn down the brightness and check yourself out.

We all eventually agreed that matte seems kinda fuzzy lookin'.

So Erik, I think, eventually decided on the glossy.  And then he went to get some candy.  And then we stood and played Plants Vs. Zombies on the iPads in the store for a while.  And then we went back to ask our friend Sarah if they had any in stock.

"No" was, of course, the answer.

So I signed up to reserve one.   Hah!  They should, supposedly, get another shipment in in a few days, and there'll be one waiting for me if I choose to come get it.

... I probably will.  Cause they're pretty cool.

Slick.

Eventually I left work around 6:30 PM and took the scenic route home (i.e., the river).  Right as I rode past Harvard Square, I decided to turn back and hang out at the Dado for a bit.

Whilst there, I salvaged all my tasks and to-dos out of OmniFocus by opening up its raw data files and paring them down until I could see what I had in them (it's difficult to actually remember what you recorded, simply because the whole point of recording it all was so that it wouldn't be in your head!).  So I made a big, current to-do list, which felt great.

I also had a chai bubble tea and a red bean mochi.

Around 8:30 PM or so, I rode home and nearly ran over some cops on my way up Garden St.  Oops.  They weren't crossing at a crosswalk!  Sorry, y'all!

And here I am.  Drinkin' some beer out of a growler provided by Matt.  Thanks, Matt!

And, simultaneously, some grapefruit juice.  They go surprisingly well together.

That's that, I think.

The second bi-yearly (as in once every two years) Legal Test Kitchen dinner

Woke up this morning at the usual time.  I took a little jaunt by myself this morning (roughly 3 miles, all told), as Julia was conserving her time for some classwork.  The first part of my run took me down Raymond, over to Mass. Ave via Linnean, down to Harvard Square, back up Brattle and Berkeley, and to the Craigie.  Stopped in for a few, said hello, and then moseyed my way back up Raymond to home.

I took a little sprint at the end, just for kicks... and found myself lacking as much energy as I would have liked.  It was an unexpected bummer.

Got myself in to work by 9:30 AM or so, and spent the morning pulling together some documentation on this 'ere integration.  Had vegetable curry with coconut rice (!!!!!!) for lunch, which was delightful.  Daniel, Erik, Rick, Mike, Mahmoud, Jim, and I all sat out on the roof deck under the sunshade.  It was quite nice - the perfect temperature.

In the afternoon (1:00 PM) I had a little meeting with Daniel and Marty to show them this integration business.  We only had a few changes come out of it, which was nice; good suggestions, though.  I'm expecting to use the remainder of the week to wrap those up and write up some documentation on the whole thing.

I left work, eventually, around 6:20 PM or so and made my way over to the Legal Test Kitchen down on the waterfront by the Bank Of America Pavilion.  I left like right after the crazy rain stopped.  Fortuitous.   There, I met up with Konrad, Jen, Aleksandra, and Adam, and we had a great dinner.  My meal was some root vegetable sorta thing, which was okay, but it looked like everyone else had great stuff.  Mine could have used some more interest.  It was kinda one dimensional.

Afterward, Jen and Konrad were kind enough to drive Adam and I back to South Station, and we then took the Red Line back to Cambridge; I got off at Porter, and he took it out to Alewife.

Once home, I sat down - laid down, rather - and surfed around for a while.  Ended up on failblog.org.  Laughed till I nearly cried at a few of them.

Almost bought an iPad tonight, as I increasingly think of utilitous use cases for one in my every day life. Utilitous - it's a word now.  Unfortunately they seem to be mostly sold out, and if I'm going to buy a new toy, I don't want to wait two weeks to get it.  I want it now!

And that, I think, is about that.

Mundaneday.

Hopefully I can actually post this.  Our Internet tonight has been horrendously slow.  Like... less than 5 KB/sec slow.  Geeze.

Anyway.

This morning I woke up at 7:00 AM and got myself into work by 9:00 AM.  Not bad.  Worked straight through until 5:15 PM or so, and got a number of little details figured out on my lovely integration project.  Felt pretty good.  I think the thing is pulling itself together, mostly.

It was wicked hot today.  Or, well, it seemed to be, anyway.  I think it was hotter on Sunday.

Anyway, after work, Erik and I walked north to the Green line and took the train from Lechmere instead of walking to the Red line.  Kinda cool - you can actually get a seat if you catch the train there.  Turned out to take about 40 minutes anyway for me to get from work to class, but... eh.  I think I've done it faster, but it was easy, at least.

Class was pretty good tonight.  Theory made sense, I did our little exercises fine, and I felt effective in Ear Training.  We did this exercise where we went through all the chords of Blue Room, Rani would play the chord and a single melody note, and we had to tell him what the note was in relationship to the chord, as well as what note it actually was.  It was great practice - I think we should do more of that sorta thing.  It gets you to think about intervals and reading, as well as to give you some practice with the keys involved.  Nice.

After class, I walked up to Hynes and caught the #1 bus from there across the river.  Took the bus to near Harvard Sq., and then walked home from there.  I think I got home around 9:40 PM or so.  I stopped at Gourmet Express for some hummus, trail mix, and grapefruit juice along the way.  

Oh!  And taboule.  Which is okay.

Anyway, I guess I'll try to post this.  Hopefully it actually works.

And I can't stop looking at iPads.

Help.  (Either by telling me to stop, or telling me to buy one.)

People using power tools directly beneath my chair for hours at a time make me upset.

Whiling Away the Weekend

A few days to catch up on here.

Friday morning began with a lovely 4.1 mile run along various bridges around the river.  In general, it felt great.  The day proceeded with a whole lot of Dogpatch Labs people running around like crazy building furniture.  All told, it was pretty distracting and annoying, but what're you going to do?  They've got to build it all sometime.

I ended up having some nice vegetable curry with tofu from The Similans for lunch.  Basil.  Delicious.  We sat out on the roof deck under the shade, and it was more or less perfect.

After work, Daniel and I met Julia at The Border Cafe in Harvard Sq. for drinks (read: margaritas) and dinner.  She was on foot, so we took the long way there from Kendall, along the river.  It took us thirty minutes to arrive.  Once we were all there, it was another thirty minutes or so before they could get us a table, so we stood in the bar with our margaritas and enjoyed.  I was about to say I don't know why The Border's chips are so good, but then I realized I do: salt.  So salty.  So delicious.

Eventually we got a table, and I procured myself some vegetable fajitas, which I just now realized I ended up leaving in Julia's fridge on Friday night.  About 8:30 or so, while we were still in the restaurant, Jason and Katherine wandered in to say hello!  It was awesome, and a surprise.  Glad they dropped by.

After leaving the Border and discussing various, potential hiking trips, Jules and I got some ice cream and hung out at her place for the evening (thus the fajitas in the fridge).  Overall, an awesome Friday.

Saturday involved a few fun things.  In the morning I took Julia down to the SMFA for her Saturday modeling gig, and made it back to my apartment within like 30 minutes.  It's amazing, sometimes, how quickly you can get from place to place in Boston.

After that, I hung around for a few hours, took a nap until 11:30 or so, and then went up to Davis Sq. to meet Dave FR prior to his Morris dancing performance.  We ended up getting ahold of Mike and Ria and having lunch at Mike's (the restaurant) there in the center of Davis.  I had a "small" calzone, which was enormous.  And awesome.

Around 1:00 PM, Dave met up with his dancing group in the center of Davis, and danced around for the next two hours.  Eventually, Mike, Ria and I took our leave and went back to their place, where Mike and I proceeded to play Mr. Jack and Clans.  Mr. Jack is... difficult, to say the least.  But only if you're Jack.  The inspector has it easy.  After four games, Jack never once got away.  I suppose if this were an accurate depiction of real life, that's how you'd want it.

Clans was fun.  Especially since I won.  Booyah.

Aaaaaaaafter that, I went home, bummed around for a bit until 7:00 PM or so when Julia showed up and we had a little dinner.  Or, rather, she had dinner and I had some water and a spoonful of peanut butter because I was still full from lunch.  Oof.  Still delicious.

Around 8:30 PM, we biked up and rode out to Cambridge St./Prospect St. to meet up with Eric Fields and Gwen for a project night at her place.  Good times.  Tasty wine.  Delicious cupcakes.  Some productivity and conversation in equal measure.

Oh, and the night just keeps going.

We left Gwen's around 11:00 PM and rode down to Central's Improv Asylum (I think that's what it's called, there across from CCTV?) for the evening's comedy.  At the end of the night, Julia's friends (The Good News Bears) were performing a sketch comedy bit called iPocalypse Now, about all our iPhones rising up against us.  It was awesome, and hilarious.

Okay, yeah.  And then, after that, around 1:00 AM, we walked our bikes from Central to Porter, and finally went to sleep.  Whew.

Sunday was a lazy day, spent (mostly) bumming around enjoying the day.  At 6:00 PM or so I drove out to Sudbury to hang out with the boys and play some Magic.  I had a good night - won every game I played (including our big four player free for all).  Not bad at all.

And now I'm here, sitting in the heat, telling y'all about it.  And my computer tells me I have 9 minutes of battery left.  Perhaps, I think, it's time to call it a night and a weekend.

Spectacular.