Done this week (20121201 Sa - 1208 Sa)

[mdlbear]

OK, I guess that could also have been "done this month". Felt like it, too. Between a dentist appointment (crown prep, only I think I also ended up getting a root canal out of the deal), and some unexpected errand-running, I ended up missing about 6 hours worth of work. Managed to make up most of it, but not all. PTO would have been really nice to have had.

On the other hand, it was a pretty productive week, both at work and at home. So I'm not going to complain too much. I am going to complain, though. I Do Not Need the many kinds of stress that I had to deal with. No, I'm not going into details; you can probably figure most of it out from the notes.

There were some good things, though. Went to Alderwood Mall with Colleen, Emmy, and Naomi. Oysters for lunch at Anthony's -- yum!

On the gripping hand, with several restaurant meals under my belt (literally), my weight has crept up over 200. Do Not Like. And my blood pressure is edging up into the Not So Good range; both of these are probably related to my having run out of my BP pills, which include a diuretic. (Not to worry -- I'm still on one of my two BP-related meds, and will be setting up an appointment soon to deal with the rest of it.)

Found out that one of the developers in my "pod" is 25 years old. That's younger than my older daughter! No wonder he seems a little inexperienced...

Um...

The YD's laptop wasn't charging. She was freaking out about it for a day or so, until she noticed that the charging cord was badly frayed just at the strain relief. Problem solved, since it was a 19V charger and I had another in my Big Box of (power) Bricks. Win.

Quote of the week: "[I have] started thinking about the contradictions inherent in the fact that I like learning things, but am very uncomfortable when I feel that I'm out of my depth. Fallacy somewhere, I fancy."

Link of the week: The Wordsmith's Forge - Poem: "The Formless Ones". Very powerful; possibly triggery (nightmares and PTSD following rape). Part of Ysabet's "Path of the Paladins" series; I think it stands pretty well on its own, but you might want to chase links from her serial poetry page to the rest of it.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of An asexual YA heroine? Why not?. As I said in a comment there, " I have no idea where I am on the a/sexual a/romantic spectrum -- alexithymia will do that -- but it's more on the a- side these days, and a book like this would probably have done me a lot of good when I was a YA."

1201 Sa
  * up 5:45; W=199.6; d, n, t; laundry, dishes,... light
  @ Who 'Owns' Facebook? | LinkedIn users aren't customers, they're product.
  * ran a DW import -- the last was apparently 53 weeks ago. Eeep!  
  * 15min: hung a picture, put away the second Kitchenaid food processor, and
    identified some of the strays as belonging to one or more FPs that are not
    in the apartment and may not even be in our posession anymore.
  * Pay bills !!!
  @ Review: Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal a mix of promise, pain | Ars Technica
    Contains info on how to recover from possible boot lossage.
  * Alderwood Mall, BB+B with Emmy and Naomi.  Anthony's for lunch.  Oysters!  Yum!
    N had alder planked salmon, YD had breaded shrimp; Colleen had her oysters
    raw; mine were grilled.
    The women had make-up done at Macy's.  All-in-all it was a really fun trip.
  @ The 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar (phillip2637) 
  % 134/66 - that's getting into Not OK territory.
  : ~10pm distinctly fading; still took an hour or more before getting into bed.

1202 Su
  * up 8:15; W=199.6, BP=118/74, P=54; d, n, t; shower, exercise, hair, laundry, dishes
    Guess I needed the sleep.  Right shoulder hurting some.  
  : OUT OF COFFEE!  Waaaaaah!
  @ Open source anti-theft solution for laptops, phones & tablets – Prey
  * pay rent
  * grocery shopping with Colleen.  somewhere north of $200.
  * buy:  coffee, 
  * 15min:  cleared two boxes from the kitchen:  dragon plates, and sealed bottles
    ... and lots and lots of newspaper packing.  Consolidated several boxes
    worth of bubble wrap into a transparent space-saver bag.
  * clean piggie cage.  The new dustpan, which has a hard edge instead of the
    rubber strip on the old one, is very effective.
  * Office Depot's Jazz tablet is no longer on sale -- it is *not* a good buy at $130
    There are lots of pads in the $100-150 range, and a Nexus 7 is only $200.
  @ Review: Samsung’s new ARM Chromebook gets by without Intel inside | Ars Technica 
    Why I left my MacBook for a Chromebook | Open Source Software - InfoWorld 
    How to install Ubuntu 12.04 on the $199 Acer C7 Chromebook - Liliputing 
  @ Emacs - Android Apps on Google Play OK then.  Installed on my Nexus7
  * norwescon panelist info updated
  % 19:02:53) ***mdlbear has been standing a little too long, doing dishes.
    Oddly enough, I rather like doing dishes. 
  : (19:16:56) mdlbear: Emmy's computer isn't charging -- I'm reasonably
    certain the problem is the power connector.  Grump. 
    (19:20:05) mdlbear: ... I have just printed out Google's map of the nearest
    laptop repair places. 
  : YD freaking out about getting her computer repaired.  And about not being
    able to read a map.  Time she learned.  She wants to get a new one.  
    % I freak out sometimes, too.  Just at different things.
  @ Keeping Up With Kdenlive [LWN.net] plausible as a video editor
  & Decided to defer upgrading Cygnus to Ubuntu 12.10 Quantum Quetzal.  I don't
    really need to spend days chasing after wierdness 

1203 Mo
  * up 6:15; W=202; d, n, t; laundry, 
    Dishes done last night.
  @ Your digital body language: Don't ignore it. | LinkedIn email etiquette
  @ 8 Cool Raspberry Pi Projects for Diminutive Computing Fun | Wired.com
  @ Here Comes the First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android 
  * Got some real work done for once, now that the database side of things is
    working.  I'm finding real bugs now.
  : There's a hell of a lot of shim code; I get the feeling that 90% of it could
    be automagically generated from the database schemata and the API URLs.
  * 15min:  cleared a mostly-empty box of cheese and tea equipment.
  % 10:15 drifting.  Says something when I'm sleepy enough to be confusing
    Colleen's typing with the piggies' gnawing.  Not sure _what_ it says.

1204 Tu
  * up 6:30; W=200; d, n, t, h, l; exercise, dishes
    demoting laundry to "l" because it's pretty much a constant now.
  " Wheeky wheeky wheeky!  You must have been reading wheekipedia.
    (the piggies' "excited" sound is called "wheeking")
  * Actually got *programming* done today.  Or at least, debugging.
  @ Buddhist Scholar Says Norquist Pledge Is Treason, Goes Viral @therealspaf
  * 9ish over to N's to do dishes.

1205 We
  * up 6:20; W=201, BP 126/74, P=53; d, n, t, l, d; exercise
  * humira
  & Pick up Chaos amd take her to N's
  * 10am dentist Crown replaced.  May have gotten a free root canal; they didn't
    mention it but I suspect it from what was going on in my mouth.  Huge cavity.
    Colleen had 2 fillings; I'm getting mine in 2 weeks.  Gleep!
  * hot+sour soup, shrimp fried rice for lunch,  Brief conversation with YD on
    bus betwee  153rd and 145th
  ! somewhat stressed.
  * pick up Chaos and go with the family to Yu Shan.  
  * amused to see that the integer part of my checking account balance is 1337
  % 22:07 BP=120/70; P=63.  So, not too bad considering that most of what we had
    for dinner tasted salty to me.
  * pay bills (YD education loan)

1206 Th
  & awake 6ish; snuggle.  I like it when we're awake at the same time.
  * up 6:20; w=202.2; d, n, t, l; exercise, 
  @ Hagfish Slime Makes Super-Clothes : Discovery News It's protein fibers!
    Researchers Tap Hagfish Slime to Make Renewable, Non-Petroleum Fabric
  * Another day where I got to work after noon, this time due to driving a
    friend to an unexpected appointment.  Worth it, and it wouldn't have
    worked if I hadn't left my phone at home and had to walk back from 137th st
    to get it.  At least I got a bit of a walk in.
  : I could sure as hell use some PTO this week.  Just sayin'  Being a contractor...
  : THIS WEEK IS FIRED

1207 Fr
  * up 6:15; W=201.2; d, n, t, l;
  @ xkcd.com - Tags some of the comments are also excellent
  * buy:  AAA NiMH batteries for kitchen phone
  * breakfast at Third Place because City Hall doesn't open til 9am
  * parking ticket!!!!!!
    As it turns out, I could have sent the docs to the court by email even
    though the hearing is Monday and the website says 3 business days.  I
    hand-carried it.
  : So it turns out that the process (mscorsvw.exe) that's eating my Windows
    box's CPU every morning is "precompiling .net assemblies".  IDIOTS!
    Mostly it gobbles up huge chunks of memory and makes the system thrash.
  % (21:47:08) ***mdlbear has started thinking about the contradictions inherent
     in the fact that I like learning things, but am very uncomfortable when I
     feel that I'm out of my depth.  Fallacy somewhere, I fancy. 
  % 10ish - drifting off to sleep
  * went off to bed 10:40

1208 Sa
  * up 8:12; W=201.2, BP=126/74, P=56; d, n, t, l; exercise, light
  @ New Firefox Command Line helps you develop faster ✩ Mozilla Hacks – the Web
    developer blog (via LWN)  Freakin' cool.  Shift-F2
  @ The perils of big data [LWN.net]
  * 1p to Sky Nursery (Aurora just N. of 185th) and Central Market with Colleen.
  * 4p to Target (for a boom box) and a Christmas Tree lot with Naomi.  Piggie
    food at Petco.
  @ rj_anderson | An asexual YA heroine? Why not? (ysabetwordsmith)
    comment: "I have no idea where I am on the a/sexual a/romantic spectrum
    -- alexithymia will do that -- but it's more on the a- side these days,
    and a book like this would probably have done me a lot of good when I was
    a YA." 
  @ ontd_science: Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality? (thnidu) 
  % cut myself (very slightly) with the bread knife splitting an English muffin.
  @ The Wordsmith's Forge - Poem: "The Formless Ones" Possibly triggery.
    Extremely powerful.  Part of a series, so you may want to catch up later,
    but I think it stands on its own fairly well.

Comments

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I appreciate the signal boost. Yes, "The Formless Ones" belongs to the series Path of the Paladins.