Done last month (20150726Su - 0801Sa)

[mdlbear]

Bad week. Everything is falling apart at once.

The house has water damage in several places -- insurance will hopefully cover the immediate damage from the washer with the broken door seal, but the ancient drain pipes have also out, and the pre-existing damage *isn't* covered. And the upstairs washer is so full of wadded-up lint that it's not worth fixing; not clear whether a stuffy or something came apart in there, or it's just the same lint we've been gettig. Flawed design. The appliance guy didn't help, by not showing up TWICE, and not telling us about the problem on either of his two previous visits.

We brought Curio's ashes home yesterday. He's now sitting on the top shelf of the (appropriately enough) curio cabinet -- he can finally stay there as long as he wants. They also gave us a little clay tablet with his pawprints, and his name stamped into it. That's in the cabinet with his collar and the little packet of his fur, under the watchful eyes of the ceramic flying pig.

I'm secondary oncall at work this week (my first time; I somehow managed to avoid it so far), and feel like I've been falling farther behind every day despite working flat-out. I feel like I'm failing.

Not to mention the fact that I stupidly locked up my work laptop by typing my home machine's password at it, too many times, before I'd finished my coffee this morning. Because I stupidly set my screen background to the same picture of Curio as my home computer. I'm going to have to go in and get my account unlocked. (Added: the desktop worked -- apparently only the laptop was locked, because it wasn't on the VPN at the time -- so I was able to do the deployment I had scheduled, which went encouragingly smoothly; I'll get the lappy dealt with when I go in tomorrow morning.)

The fact that my psych meds were ineffective until we changed them a month ago didn't help, either. I was walking around in a fog of depression and apathy.

I'm burned out. I long to retire -- it would also help a lot to have somebody at home -- but don't see how I can afford to at this point. It will be next to impossible to get a new job at my age, no matter how much I need one, but I'm working on it, because $A is killing me.

The only good news is that my back seems to be pretty much back to normal, though I still have to be careful. And that, after I spoke with my TPM, I'm going to get some help with my late project. Things might not be as bleak as I feel. Might. Dinner and a talk with my Mom helped, too.

0726Su
  * up 5:30ish; W=201.2, p=.5;
  * print Sasquan setlist: make directory, symlink lyrics from 2 different sources into
    Lyrics (some difficulty because lgf has scripting), print (some difficulty printing
    from nova to trantor -- seeems to lock up, so copied to trantor.)
  * The Samsung Unified Linux Driver Repository to the rescue
    cups doesn't let you rename a queue, but the control panel does.
  : apparently I reconfigured gnome-panel to allow it to run via ssh - everything's on the
    left.  Whatever.
  * (G's coworker) Ed and KC over for music.
  ! worried sick, literally.

0727Mo
  * up 4:45; p=.2;
  * Credit secondary oncall this week
  * Received a callback from JimmyZ appliance
    ... but they didn't show.  Again.
  * p=2 after bus ride; brief spikes to 3.  Walking brings it down.
  @ Stagefright: It Only Takes One Text To Hack 950 Million Android Phones - Forbes 
  * screen background hacking: curio + affirmations, in the Gimp.  Would have been simpler
    with something that would do the compositing directly.
  : Water damage in the basement.  N. called Safeco

0728Tu
  * up 6:15; W=201.2; 
  * noon Colleen dentist, teeth cleaning
    -> took TriMed because nobody was home and I still can't handle the scooter.

0729We
  * up 4; ;
  * oncall was, really, more than I could handle.  Don't have the skills or the
    knowledge.
  % got through the day on about three cups of coffee between wake-up and dinner.
    Oddly enough, it actually feels good.
  % 9:20ish sleepy.  This is not surprising.

0730Th
  * up 3:30; W=198.4
  % At this rate of not eating and sleeping I'm probably going to kill myself.  That might
    be an improvement.  Meanwhile I'm enjoying the weight loss -- if I do live through
    this...
  * Spoke to my TPM, finally.  I will get help with the late project.  It's not the
    disaster I expected it to be, though it's pretty clear that even without
    procrastinating I'll be struggling to keep up.  And I'll have to get a lot done.
  * N. called to say that Curio's ashes are ready to be picked up.
  * Fun talk at work on FFT, with a totally new (to me) approach based on multiplying
    polynomials and nth roots of unity.  Which is how sine/cosine get into it, of course.
    Led naturally to a wikipedia dive.
  % Back was good all day, but now rather unstable.
  % 9:30 sleepy.  Not surprising

0731Fr
  * up 6:15; W=199.4;
  : more last-minutude at work.  And both oncall and a planning session pointed out
    forcefully how much slower I am than the other people on my team, even when I'm
    working flat out, and how little I've learned.
  @ Elements - Experiments in Character Design
  * Hugo voting deadline
  * Work

0801Sa
  * up 3:45; W=198;
  : Gmail suddenly went wonky and ignored the category tab -- turned out to be another
    interaction with PrivacyBadger.  :P
  * work
  * 12:15 went with N to pick up Curio's ashes.  They had also included a little clay
    tablet with his name and pawprints.  We put his ashes in front of Shirley's, and the
    other mementos in the breakfront (curio cabinet) under the watchful eyes of the flying
    pig. 
  * update Stephen.savitzky.net, resume with "will not locate" flags