Done last week (20160522Su - 28Sa)

[mdlbear]

Kind of a rough week. My main accomplishments, such as they were, were a result of puttering around the house: finishing the third box of shredding from the garage, clearing out a couple of boxes from the cubhouse (and finding quite a lot of stuff that I'd been looking for), things like that. Progress at work, but not as much as I would have liked. Stress is not conducive to anything that requires concentration.

More stress than I would have liked, too, though things have gotten a lot better since Monday. I think I've managed to noodle on the guitar for at least a few minutes every day -- it seems to help.

QOTD: As affirmations go, "I have not yet failed" is probably never gonna compete with "All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well" but some days it's the one that really resonates. -- Ursula Vernon. Maybe quote of the year.

Along the way I've upgraded a couple of laptops, and (I hope!) finished tweaking my xmonad window manager configuration. Most laptops in the house are now running Ubuntu 16.04; a few are still on 15.10. Upgrading laptops and tweaking config files isn't really productive, but it's somehow comforting and gives the illusion of productivity.

Notes & links:

0522Su
  * up 6:16; W=195; dishes
  * completed Cygnus upgrade; no problems.
    Well, xmonad+gnome seems somewhat broken, and logout from gnome insists that some
    updates won't be applied until the system is restarted.  Which is false.  But
    basically it's ok.
  * Barnard just needed to have its keyboard cable reseated.  Not recognizing my password,
    though.  Weird.  Oh.  Still a few keys messed up.  :P
  * brought up more shredding:  last of the second box.  One more.
  * Found the phone charger battery I bought for g.
  * found my phone charger, which I had lent to g when she couldn't find hers.  Behind the
    coats on the kids'-side bench.  Where I'd looked, but apparently not closely enough.
  * Out with Colleen to Westwood Village - cat litter and treats, laundry detergent, diet
    coke, etc.
  * More shredding.  Finished with the second box.  A large portion of the third, which
    goes back to the '70s, is stuff that doesn't need to be shredded -- old instruction
    booklets (what was I *thinking?*), service records of cars I haven't had for decades,
    that kind of thing.  A few brought back memories, though.  That's always hard.
  * Ordered  Chinese for dinner, since G and N had gone out.  N came back with goodies
    from the woodworking store.  I forgot to turn on the rice, so it was late.
  * Finished my bag of shredding.  There are now three recycling bags of shredding on the
    couch; g asked me to save them for guinea pig litter, so I've been extra careful about
    taking the staples out.

0523Mo
  * up 6:15; W=197; laundry, dishes
  % ROUGH day.  Blow-up involving the family members at home (caused in large part by bad
    communication on my part) left me practically a basket case for most of the work day
    (Although I did, in fact, manage to diagnose a problem I was having, it would have
    gone faster if I'd been able to concentrate)
  % 8:30 drifting.  Probably wallowing.  I am also not getting enough sleep.

0524Tu
  * up 6ish; W=198; laundry, dishes
  * Team lunch at work.  It was followed by a larger group event which I blew off because
    a) I figured I have too much to do, and b) I did not feel social.
    % Of course, if I'd gone I would probably have had a good time, and a better dinner
      than I found waiting for me at home.  Because depression, anxiety, and burnout.
  % Disturbing thoughts around the edges while walking.
  @ QOTD: As affirmations go, "I have not yet failed" is probably never gonna compete with "All
    will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well" but some days
    it's the one that really resonates. -- Ursula Vernon
  @ Border Guards  by Greg Egan (alatefeline)
  & Somehow, "For Amy" seemed to be the right thing to sing.  Didn't tear up; I'm not
    grieving, exactly.
  * more hacking on xmonad, etc.  Now using dzen on top and xmobar on the bottom.

0525We
  * Up 5:25; W=197.6; laundry, dishes
  : Looks like both $BOSS and $GRANDBOSS are willing (and indeed eager) to interpret my
    short-term goals rather loosely to accommodate my notoriously bad estimating skills,
    significant requirement churn, and the fact that most of the planning and design work
    was done almost a year ago.  The result is that I am very likely to still be at
    $EMPLOYER when my next batch of stock vests on June 15th.  This reduces my anxiety
    level quite a lot -- we're looking at a substantial chunk of change and a longer
    period when I don't have to panic.  A certain sense of urgency would still be helpful
  " Xmonad is configured in Haskell, and custom layout algorithms may be implemented by
    the user in config files. A principle of Xmonad is predictability: the user should
    know in advance precisely the window arrangement that will result from any action. "
    (from the apt package description) It's true, and speaking as someone who has long
    missed his old ctwm configuration with its pre-defined layouts and tabbed overlapping
    windows, it's something I greatly appreciate.
  : Crap.  I appear to have chipped a tooth on an unpopped popcorn kernel.  Ugh.  Doesn't
    hurt, though.
  * 15min:  last batch of shredding brought up.  (There's going to be more, once we start
    going through the boxes of Shirley's files and the family stuff)
  * As expected, about half of it was tax instruction books.
  @ High Functioning Depression: We Can’t Overlook the Overachievers | The Mighty 

0526Th
  * up 4:35; W=197.2; laundry, dishes
  * Frustrating day at work, but I got the damned thing properly functioning to the point
    where I can start debugging the *real* problems.  Deployment issues.  Much of the work
    was done during a boring all-hands monthly meeting.  That ended with a glass of wine
    (which I needed) and a burger (which I really didn't)
  * Family dinner.  Several things got hashed out.  I will be getting a washer, probably
    at Home Depot.  $600 base price.  (might have been 650, but I'm being conservative)
    It'll go up a couple of hundred with extended warranty and delivery.

0527Fr
  * up 6:30; W=195.4; dishes
  : I think I have xmonad pretty much where I want it now.  The work setup has gnome-panel
    on the main screen (in fact, I made an icon to run xmonad --replace).
    dzen2 bottom bars.  Trantor has a trayer on top and xmobar on the bottom.  Other
    systems are pretty much all over the map from there.  But I can finally (I think) stop
    tweaking and start doing other things.
    I'm also coming to appreciate simple layouts with large-to-huge windows.
  @ Why I won’t use Dropbox’s Project Infinite if it’s not open source | CIO 
  * 15min 8:15pm shredding done!
  & N heard me noodling Ship of Stone, invited me down to teach me:
  @ "The Hardest Part Of Love" Chords from Children of Eden @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com
  @ Stephen Schwartz - The Hardest Part of Love Sheet Music - OnlineSheetMusic.com
  : Somewhat surprisingly, there is no laundry up in our closet.  Nice for a change.
  % 11ish - sleepy.

0528Sa
  * Up 5:10; W=195.4; shower, dishes
  * upgrading Blackroot to 16.04.  Disk is tight; there's a lot of junk installed.
    Disk usage got up to 99%; 94% after cleanup; 92% after restart; 70% after clean
    Purging old kernels will get back another 10% or so -> 48% used now.
  * 15min:  pulled some boxes out of the cubhouse; there is now room to turn around.
    cleared the box of CDs and sales racks; all known 2-disk sets are out.
  * Found the box of Pittcon swag, which also has a bottom layer of kitchen-drawer
    contents from the Starport (including most of the missing wine tools, and the rest of
    the iced-tea spoons), plus a long-missing cane and iGo charger.
    -> cleared by decanting onto the kitchen island.  
    A box of mostly empty pendaflex folders also yielded a couple of years of taxes.
  @ Min Is a Minimal, Open-Source Web Browser for Linux (written in javascript)
    Releases · minbrowser/min
    -> *very* minimal -- alt brings up the menu bar; forward and back are keys only
       Won't open directories.  Plausible match for xmonad.
  * YD + SO(YD) are here.  Staying for dinner - she's asked for tortellini alfredo.
    I'm making the alfredo sauce, because the stuff in jars is horrible.
    -> went over very well.  
  * Fixed the keyboard on Barnard.  Reseated the connector.  I'm thinking it or Purple
    upstairs.  Maybe.