Whacked

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!