There She Goes Again

On of my oldest Bay Area theater friends is on FB and goes on emo jags where she posts every self-pity picture she can get her hands on. Some of them are very tragic, many are just plain tacky, more than one a week is overkill.

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Kept dozing off at work this afternoon, only for a second at a time, but still. I blame the prescription strength allergy meds. They help me not cough at night, but I was given the 24-hour version. No more for me until I can get the 12-hour ones.

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Did not complete a single test case at work. Two big ones didn't work because the person who wrote the instructions got some critical details wrong, and since the document was written,  the syntax has changed for the command I needed. The ones Boss suggested last week which I looked at today all needed special equipment which I don't have access to. I'll work with the expert for the first two tests tomorrow morning. I give him a 50-50 chance of figuring out how to make them work.

Lunchtime, went to Fry's for lunch. Worst pastrami sandwich ever. 3/4 gristle. Food in the big electronics store's café is always iffy. The reason for pastrami is I figured if Jews went to Chinese restaurants for Christmas, it was only fair to have Jewish food on Chinese New Year.

I was at the store to buy a wireless repeater, they had the one I wanted on sale, and as an added bonus all the ones on the shelf were returns, which meant another $5 off.

9 am meeting day, so I bailed at 5:30. Home, headed straight for bed. Only got an hour's nap. Watched TV in bed till 9, when it was "must make pickles now" time. I'd left the cukes in plastic bags, which was a mistake, a couple of them had started to melt, I had to wash all of them thoroughly.  These ones were too thick to fit three in a jar, so I sliced all of them into spears. Sterilized the jars & lids, started the mix to boiling. Watched Tivo while I waited for all that. Was about two spears short of the 7th jar being full, but that's okay. The mix was only enough for 6 jars, so I took the jar of way-too-spicy pickles from two batches ago out of the fridge, heated up the juice and used that for jar 7.

I'm not too sure these will come out well. I had turned the heat down on the canning pot after I took the sterilized stuff out, and forgot to turn it back up when I put the full jars in. They are supposed to be in boiling water for 10-12 minutes, but they were in sub-steaming water for that long, and after I turned up the heat it got to a boil in maybe 5 minutes. I'll find out when I'm back from Seattle.

Speaking of which, I added Wednesday to my hotel reservation. Plan A had been to rent a car and drive to Bremerton Wed afternoon (plane lands at 2:30) and find a motel, then continue to sister's place in Kitsap County, spend the day there Thursday and drive to the hotel that evening. But it seems like a better idea to stay by the airport overnight and do the whole trip Thursday. Conflikt starts Friday.

Set up the wireless repeater, but can't tell if it is working. The lights say it is. Cell phone showed a full strength signal before and after firing it up atop the piano.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Pack

Let's Get Packing

All the hard pre-trip stuff is done. Cats have lots of food & water, litterboxes changed and an extra one put out just in case. Meds loaded into their not-so-little 1-week plastic container thingie. Non-refrigerated diabetes supplies staged for later packing. Camera batteries & GPS charged & lenses laid out. Portable GPS for the rental car is charged, new firmware installed and map is being updated as I write this.

The netbook is already charged and updated.  

I've put the non-metallic buckle on my belt, though last time they made me take it off for the scanner. Go figure.

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Work was work. I got the engineer who wrote the non-working instructions to help me figure out how to burn the programs into the two flash cards, and sure enough, he had not updated the doc in 3 years. Lots had changed. Plus even back then he had a couple of things wrong which were show-stoppers. We were successful in the end

A dozen of us went to Cooking Poppa for a near-Chinese New Year lunch. The place was packed, and very noisy. Four of the gang are Chinese, so they did the ordering. It was a major banquet for $15 each. Next time we'll go at 1 pm, early is too busy.

Home, did a lot of prep for tomorrow's trip. Will pack everything except refrigerated meds & toiletries after dinner.

The pickle spears look promising. All the jars sealed well, which means they probably cooked for long enough. I used a mix which yields pickles edible in 24 hours, but I'll let them stay on the counter untouched till I get back.

My sister emailed that we're meeting at the  Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, near her office. I'll stay at the con hotel tomorrow night, then in the morning drive around Tacoma and Bremerton hoping to get to the museum by noon. Should be fun.

The rest of the week is Conflikt, which has been a laugh riot each time I've gone.