Very weird day
Mar. 31st, 2017 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdWoke up way too many times overnight. Hgl was 96 during my usual morning test, which is not high enough to warrant so many trips to the loo.
Spook was all over the place. In the BnB, on the weird cat bed I put in BnB's old place by the hamper (weird because it is raised in the center, top and bottom), at about 6 she was lying alongside my arm. I had placed four of her toys in the cat tree bed on that side, and she knocked them all off.
Out early, new neighbors were working, and crew was arriving.
AG phoned while I was just starting out, we chatted till I got into the garage and lost the signal.
In the big building again, Tall Guy had three prototypes for me to test, but he had to drive back to his lab a few blocks away to get some stuff for them. Long story, but eventually he had me sit at his desk and use one of his monitors. He is about 6'27" and his desk was raised & the monitor positioned accordingly, so it was a bit of a strain. After we worked out some network issues I plowed through the tests on a board which is expected to become a set-top box while he set up a board by the same chip maker on the desk I had been using, which will eventually power a TV screen. Plan A was for me to test one and then the other, but I found so many show-stopper bugs that TG used the TV one to double-check, and he found the same issues in that one. Makes sense, because they share the same programming.
This time I was able to complete my testing by the end of the day because the show-stoppers prevented me from performing half the tests.
Lunchtime I went to the main cafeteria, tried one of their hamburgers. I'd like them better without the carbon coating. The black bean soup was the color of dog poop. It tasted slightly better. The desserts were labeled, but did not match the label. Pistachio Cup was actually a dot of cake with vanes of cinnamon sugar pushed into the top, all about the size of a quarter. For a change there were plenty of places to sit indoors, which was odd because the Corporate goons had moved all the chairs and tables off the patio onto the grass, and had built a temporary plastic covered tent structure in its place. Something going on tonight or tomorrow. At 2 pm, the goons started collecting chairs and folding tables around where I was sitting.
During the "hit go and wait" parts of testing I researched Helsinki some more. I need to check if I have euros left from my Belgium trip. Lots of ferry tours, I'm thinking the day trip to Tallinn Estonia plus a dinner cruise of the archipelago - the latter the evening the con ends. Once in Finland, no visas needed for Estonia or Sweden.
Shopped for lenses, didn't find anything better than what I already have, for a price I'm willing to pay. Thought I did, but it was not for an FX sensor.
Home, said hi to one of the #6 workers. An actual American. Wearing an actual American flag T-shirt.
Had to re-stake the BFs again, and the artificial stakes I'm using (a) aren't pointed enough to stay in the ground and (b) bend. So I drove to Lowe's. Took a while but I found wooden stakes. Loaded 4 into my cart, plus ties, plus a Round-up refill, and went to the human cashier. The stakes had no labels on them. After 15 minutes of four employees having no clue what to do for pricing, and the garden department person being "out to lunch" in the break room and unwilling to help at all, I parked the cart out of the way and walked out.
Home, looked online, and Home Depot has much nicer bamboo stakes for 1/3 of the price. Saves me the long trip to Yamagami's or the medium long trip to OSH.
Dinner was home made mac and cheese, using orange powder cannibalized from Kraft's box (I don't like the ultra-small macaroni they use), but it wasn't a huge success, even with the sliced turkey franks. Not enough water to dissolve the powder. Longans for dessert.
Scrolled through local TV channels, was thoroughly disturbed by how mercenary KQED has become. Five commercials, thinly disguised as supporters, two identical promos for a concert in LA built for pledge year, and a 5-minute high-def biopic of a local guy who did many Good Things®, such as drive for Meals on Wheels, and the kicker at the end is he died 7 years ago and left a big pile of cash to KQED, and here's how you can do the same. Gag me.
Loaded the dishwasher, and here I am.
Plans for tomorrow:
Manicure
Baylands Park, drop off my season pass info sheet (I got the pass 2 weeks ago)
Hang out there and read for a while if it isn't too windy. The wind has been brutal around here the past few days
Home depot - stakes
Home - stake the BFs.
Water the indoor plants after tossing many dying carnivorous ones. No more gnat problem, nothing for them to eat.
Fill the hummer feeders
Flip the calendars
Prank TBA
Spook was all over the place. In the BnB, on the weird cat bed I put in BnB's old place by the hamper (weird because it is raised in the center, top and bottom), at about 6 she was lying alongside my arm. I had placed four of her toys in the cat tree bed on that side, and she knocked them all off.
Out early, new neighbors were working, and crew was arriving.
AG phoned while I was just starting out, we chatted till I got into the garage and lost the signal.
In the big building again, Tall Guy had three prototypes for me to test, but he had to drive back to his lab a few blocks away to get some stuff for them. Long story, but eventually he had me sit at his desk and use one of his monitors. He is about 6'27" and his desk was raised & the monitor positioned accordingly, so it was a bit of a strain. After we worked out some network issues I plowed through the tests on a board which is expected to become a set-top box while he set up a board by the same chip maker on the desk I had been using, which will eventually power a TV screen. Plan A was for me to test one and then the other, but I found so many show-stopper bugs that TG used the TV one to double-check, and he found the same issues in that one. Makes sense, because they share the same programming.
This time I was able to complete my testing by the end of the day because the show-stoppers prevented me from performing half the tests.
Lunchtime I went to the main cafeteria, tried one of their hamburgers. I'd like them better without the carbon coating. The black bean soup was the color of dog poop. It tasted slightly better. The desserts were labeled, but did not match the label. Pistachio Cup was actually a dot of cake with vanes of cinnamon sugar pushed into the top, all about the size of a quarter. For a change there were plenty of places to sit indoors, which was odd because the Corporate goons had moved all the chairs and tables off the patio onto the grass, and had built a temporary plastic covered tent structure in its place. Something going on tonight or tomorrow. At 2 pm, the goons started collecting chairs and folding tables around where I was sitting.
During the "hit go and wait" parts of testing I researched Helsinki some more. I need to check if I have euros left from my Belgium trip. Lots of ferry tours, I'm thinking the day trip to Tallinn Estonia plus a dinner cruise of the archipelago - the latter the evening the con ends. Once in Finland, no visas needed for Estonia or Sweden.
Shopped for lenses, didn't find anything better than what I already have, for a price I'm willing to pay. Thought I did, but it was not for an FX sensor.
Home, said hi to one of the #6 workers. An actual American. Wearing an actual American flag T-shirt.
Had to re-stake the BFs again, and the artificial stakes I'm using (a) aren't pointed enough to stay in the ground and (b) bend. So I drove to Lowe's. Took a while but I found wooden stakes. Loaded 4 into my cart, plus ties, plus a Round-up refill, and went to the human cashier. The stakes had no labels on them. After 15 minutes of four employees having no clue what to do for pricing, and the garden department person being "out to lunch" in the break room and unwilling to help at all, I parked the cart out of the way and walked out.
Home, looked online, and Home Depot has much nicer bamboo stakes for 1/3 of the price. Saves me the long trip to Yamagami's or the medium long trip to OSH.
Dinner was home made mac and cheese, using orange powder cannibalized from Kraft's box (I don't like the ultra-small macaroni they use), but it wasn't a huge success, even with the sliced turkey franks. Not enough water to dissolve the powder. Longans for dessert.
Scrolled through local TV channels, was thoroughly disturbed by how mercenary KQED has become. Five commercials, thinly disguised as supporters, two identical promos for a concert in LA built for pledge year, and a 5-minute high-def biopic of a local guy who did many Good Things®, such as drive for Meals on Wheels, and the kicker at the end is he died 7 years ago and left a big pile of cash to KQED, and here's how you can do the same. Gag me.
Loaded the dishwasher, and here I am.
Plans for tomorrow:
Manicure
Baylands Park, drop off my season pass info sheet (I got the pass 2 weeks ago)
Hang out there and read for a while if it isn't too windy. The wind has been brutal around here the past few days
Home depot - stakes
Home - stake the BFs.
Water the indoor plants after tossing many dying carnivorous ones. No more gnat problem, nothing for them to eat.
Fill the hummer feeders
Flip the calendars
Prank TBA
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Date: 2017-04-01 07:36 am (UTC)Estonia just like they said they would."
---Bob Dylan.