Short and sweetened

In the one piece of good news today, I picked up the refund check from Toyota for their botched backup cam installation, and was pleased that it was for the full amount, the overpriced camera and the way overpriced installation charge.

I guess there was another piece of good news, Michelle the manicurist was made up and dressed very sexily, wearing a thin knit top pulled down to bare her left shoulder, and much of the dragon tattoo there. She is so beautiful.

Work was not so sweet. Boss had suggested four test cases for me to prepare for automation, one is still stuck on "is it a bug or a feature?", one has been sent to automation to finish, two turned out to have already been automated by others on my team. And they had been marked as such months ago. Corporate training still has not fixed the link to the class I want to take, so I basically had nothing useful to do most of the day.

Tivoed the 9ers' pre-season game from work because I had not known it was this soon.

On my way home I wanted to shove the Toyota check into an ATM, but there was a major backup in both directions on the road to the nearest one, so I just went home. Waited till 6:45 to go to band practice, watched the game until I left.

At band we practiced mostly music we have not played in a while, some of it illegible because of cuts and cut-and-pastes. Two pieces were just too fast for me to play. Baritones are not made for clarinet scales. And one of my valves kept sticking, not because it needed oil but because my finger pushes it at an angle. It shouldn't do that, probably needs to be re-plated. I think I'll go down to Starving Musician and see if they have a simple 3-valve used horn for a reasonable price, and if they might want to buy mine.

After practice I went to the CU and deposited the check, and since Safeway was next door I went shopping. On my list was ice cream (including Klondike bars) because for two mornings in a row my morning blood sugar levels were low, and ice cream is the perfect antidote because the fat slows down the metabolizing of the sugar. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Also, I get flavors which can be eaten without teeth, because if I'm having a low Hgl in the morning I probably haven't put in my dentures yet. Also bought some frozen meals, and a couple of bags of frozen fish fillets. And could not remember if I had tartar sauce so I bought a bottle of that. 

Home from practice, made a small frozen dinner. Then another. Then had some coffee ice cream. All this while watching the 9ers game. After the first half, it was clearly a game to fast forward through. Poor offense on both sides. I hear the Seahawks kicked butt in their game.

Oh yeah, Toyota customer relations woman was out of the office today so no progress was made on the missing license plates. She emailed the same people I had emailed a month ago, so that's not going anywhere. It really needs her to actually go and LOOK, and not rely on the word of people whose answer is "Huh?".

And in other news, after three days on one level of Candy Crush, it broke out of its rut and moved to the next level. Then two more almost instantly. And it dawned on me that online there was probably a hint which would help. And there was. Turns out what I thought was the point of the game wasn't, and what I thought was a graphical glitch was actually the whole point of the game on 40% of its levels. 90% of the lower levels. I'm not doing any better at the game, but at least now I know why.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

 

Today is Reno Worldcon's LJ birthday

Big whoop.

Last night was another late one, thanks to rehearsals, and then dinner, and LJ. And pain. My left knee is at it again, very sharp deep pain started to be random, now it's all the time I am walking. And when I am in bed and roll over. Took 3 night-time tylenol, which knocked me out so well that despite the usual waking up to pee it was 10 am before my head was clear enough to get up and go to the office.

Not that there was much to do. And I had to really dig & be inventive to do a weekly report which wasn't mostly white space.

One of those things was trolling YouTube for tutorials and deeper info on the new video compression, called HEVC aka H.265. There was a lot of crap from last year's trade shows, but I did manage to fine three things worth reporting on in my weekly. None of which any of the three of you reading this would be interested in.

Went to Denny's for lunch, I really like their buttermilk pancakes, and the one I go to for lunch has fast service.

Candy Crush has become a minor addiction. I can quit any time, I swear. I don't care anymore if I get to the next level, I just enjoy watching the little icons move and morph and explode, and since the only intelligence I apply is looking for opportunities to make 4 or 5 in a row by moving just one, it's pretty mindless entertainment.

One thing at work I don't know whether to be pissed about or pleased about. One of the other testers stole one of my bug verifications, and it was one which takes about 2 hours minimum to do. I could have used the work. So I'm pissed that I didn't get to do that one. But I'm pleased that he was able to follow my very long step-by-step instructions and verify they fixed the bug.

A Facebook friend in Morro Bay (whom I met because he managed a jazz band down there which played at the SLO station for National Train Day a few years ago) posted that he could see the humpback whales from his patio. I was at his house for a concert/party and he lives quite a ways from the water. So I checked with the one whale watching boat down there and they said they were having some engine problems but they should be fixed by Sunday. I was planning on a Monday trip, since there is so little to do at work and I have about 2 weeks' PTO accrued. I'll leave after coffee with Janice Sunday and stay overnight somewhere close enough to make it to the 8:45 am show-up time.

I would bail on Janice, but we missed the last 2 weekends, and she is off to Fiji next week.

Plans for tomorrow? None yet.

One nice thing about being late this morning is when I opened the patio blinds, there was a hummingbird feeding from the catmints plants. First hummingbird I've seen on this side of the apartments.