2 4 1

So. Yesterday. Spook was on the bed in the space next to the pillows, close enough for me to pet, both nights. But she disappeared around 6 am after I made a pit stop.

Nothing to say about work, really. No April Fools jokes, except I wore suspenders with a flame pattern. Looked like they were ripped from a TransAm. I found some lists on CNN and Mashable of corporate joke pages, but my company has no sense of humor and no products which are that spoofable. Part of that is a Good Thing® because the reason they are not spoofable is they are already bleeding edge to the point where the tech sheet for the product I am working on looks like some insane engineer's idea of the future. Which it kind of is. Except he is not insane, just very smart.

None of the jokes I saw tweaked my funny bone enough to stand out, so I'm not sharing here. Amazon's was completely lame, they mocked up a 1999 cover page. It sucked pretty bad.

I wanted to pay Discover for the sleep number bed, but it wouldn't let me pay more than what had been processed. The bed's charge was still pending.

But when I saw what my balances looked like, on the way home I stopped in at Lowe's to see what a dishwasher would cost with their 10% sale. The number in my mind was $699 from what I saw online, so the $710 price tag on a Kitchen Aid unit I liked convinced me. I knew about the $150 installation fee, which was reduced to $127, but the extra charge for a power cord and a water line were a surprise. One would think those were standard, interchangeable. The $60 3-year warranty sounded okay, and add tax, which went up April 1, so magically the $710 became $1008. Ouch, but still okay. But no way will I be replacing the fridge. They said there was an icemaker which could be added, and installed. L8r.

The dishwasher was a special order, so they will call in a week to schedule delivery.

Home, I tried to build the DVD again, but Nero's DVD creator sucked, it was designed to slap several small movies into a compilation, and add chapters at each movie. Roxio choked on the second page of chapters, and Corel dies when I ask it to burn - it chokes on compiling the project, doesn't even touch the disc. This was using the original VHS resolution clip. Very frustrating.

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Thursday was unbusy. My 32GB upgrade was approved by boss, after I made an effort to justify it. You would think that $200 would be a no-brainer.

Lunchtime was a trip to Fry's, where I bought an NVidia-based 2GB video card to replace the unsupported-since-2013 ATI-based 1GB card in the PC. ATI was gobbled up by AMD, and it has been downhill from there. The theory is maybe it was the video card which was choking the DVD project. There's a $20 rebate, which is nice because the price was about the same as Amazon.

Did not eat lunch out, bought some applets and cotlettes at Fry's, and I had a pair of hard boiled eggs and some peanut butter & jelly in a small tub. Ate at my desk.

The usual frustrating boring meeting about the new product got a lift as April 2 began a new branch of testing.

I spent hours on the current product's next release, trying to prove a bug, but instead proved that the clips we have for testing have very ragged loop points, which makes the machine misbehave in an expected way. I have one more setting to try, but have to ask the engineer if it's a bug or "as expected".

Forgot to call the denture clinic...again.

Remembered to look up cruises of Halong Bay. Very affordable, once I get to Hanoi. Thinking of taking most of a month in November to go to places I missed or was rained out of 10 years ago. N. Vietnam, Mekong delta, Angkor Wat, Laos. Maybe Chengdu panda farm. Not Malaysia, not Indonesia/Bali, probably not Burma. Chantanaburi on the right (gem market) day. Laem Ngop.

And at the last minute boss asked me to add a complicated test result to a document for the old old product. Tomorrow. I probably have to write a test case.

Home, tried the DVD one more time, no joy.

After a lot of other stuff which needed to be done, it took a couple of hours to uninstall Roxio, which intrudes everywhere, removed the 1GB card and installed the 2GB card. It's smaller, quieter and popped right in there. The 1GB card had a huge dust bunny in the fan blades, I am surprised it didn't fry.

It took about 90 minutes to uninstall the ATI drivers and install the NVidia ones. I'm not seeing the expected speed increase, but the video is sharper.

Corel DVD choked again, so I'm stuck. Need to go to their support pages and get an answer.

Delivered was a universal AC adapter, so now the little LED lamp Janice gave me is charged.

Also delivered was a single navy blue blackout curtain which has replaced the one in the bedroom which Spook had swisscheeseified. I thought I was getting a pair, but there was only one. And it's thinner with no pattern. The original was burgundy, with a pattern. Same manufacturer, though.

Dinner was a strawberry-banana smoothie, with some vanilla added. I almost grabbed the olive oil by mistake. Microwaved a few pieces of cotto salami for a snack an hour later. Had a half a glass of fume blanc wine and a couple of pieces of 85% chocolate.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Call the denture clinic
Contact Corel support
Toyota, have the car unbeeped
Lowe's, look into the icemaker thing

Weird Dream Channel

First World Problems nightmare time, dreamed my credit rating had dropped so low the car salesman not only refused to sell me the car, he repossessed my house and everything in it.

Still have a headache from that three hours later. :-(

I Really could have skipped today completely

Decided to save water by not taking a shower. This made me early to work. Friday is donut/bagel day, they alternate every other week. Used to be they put them next to the coffee machine, but about a year ago they started putting them way down the hall in the engineering section, on a table which can be seen from the coffee machine.

I am not a coffee guy, I take the turn prior to the machine to get my morning Diet Coke. This morning I saw no bagels.

Turns out I was too early. Around noon as I was en route to checking the plumbing, which is on the other side of the hallway from the coffee machine, I saw there had been bagels. But they were all gone. :-(

Not a lot of work at work, mostly because Boss was not there to explain what he wanted in the doc he asked me to add to. It's too long and NDA-ish to get into.

Lunch was at Pizza Hovel. I asked for a pan pizza, but got a cheese-filled crust. Horribly sweet. Ate three pieces, boxed up the rest, but ended up throwing it away after work.

One reason is I didn't want the car smelling like bad pizza for my 6:30 appointment at Toyota of Sunnyvale. Once again they proved they don't actually look at the appointments which are made online. It took 10 minutes for a guy with a clipboard to get to me, even though there was only one car ahead of me, and then another 5 minutes for an actual rep, who said they don't have anyone on staff after 5 who knows how to program the annoying beep beep beep out of the car's reverse mechanism. It can't be that hard. And then it took another 15 minutes to get out of the one-way pathway because he chose to do all the paperwork for the guy ahead of me.

Tomorrow I will call one of the other Toyota places and see if they can do it. I wouldn't be surprised if none of the computer-literates work weekends.

Called the denture place, they are now closed on Friday. I left a message.

Got a call from sleep number delivery, they will install the bed next Friday. And will call a couple of days ahead of time to tell me which 4-hour window. As if it matters. Probably will take the day off. Also got a call from Lowe's, they expect the dishwasher to be in stock Monday. If it is, I'll try to get the install set for Friday as well.

Home, the DVD was hung at the same 35% as it was when I left for work. Grrr. Decided the heck with the fancy chapters & titles, just burn the video straight to the DVD. That meant using the video app instead of the DVD app. Or so I thought. Turns out the video app calls up the DVD app, but an embedded version. And it told me what was wrong - the default temp directory doesn't have enough free space. o I changed it to the 8TB drive. But it still wants to create a real DVD, even with no chapters chosen. And at 11:30 the project I started at 9 is only at 38% but it seems to still be counting up.

Plans for tomorrow
There's a total lunar eclipse which will peak at 5:03 am. I have not set up the telescope. Not really planning on getting up for it, because it will be COLD and windy.
Call Toyota places about the beep
Find a photo op
Fill the windshield washer tank