So Much Fun

Even with the halvah I had an early morning Hgl crash, in the 50's. Boo, hiss.

The good news is it was very soon after bedtime, so by the time I needed to wake up the afterlag was gone.

Took some extra time making sandwiches for lunch so I didn't need the microwave in case going to lunch early meant fighting a crowd in the break room.

Morning to work by the back-most roads, then 101. The last 3 miles was at 65mph. Talked to AG on the way, we both got to work at the same time.

Grabbed a banana, hb egg & coke from next door. One of the engineers beat me to it - he lives in Campbell, here is no way to predict that commute. One day an hour, another day 15 minutes.

A couple of facilities guys came by way earlier than scheduled, did a quick check of the doors. I went next door at 12:30 to have lunch, it wasn't crowded, I warmed up the sandwiches and had some thin mints for dessert.

Back to the hole, the real locksmith was there at 1 (instead of 1:30) and we chatted till Boss arrived. She was early too. turns out she wants to make the first floor a series of labs for partners, each with a coded lock.

After locksmith was gone we had a sync, and she gave me a pre-pre-release box to beat up. Filed about a dozen bugs on it, some of them were doozies. More to come because as I was about to leave, it decided it didn't want to boot up at all. It was sending logs to my linux machine, which means I can probably fix it over USB.

Meanwhile another partner manager wanted me to run a test and grab logs for something not on the formal test plan. I know how to do it, but have to finish the project I'm on first.

Final snack, at my desk, a couple of squares of mango treat.

Left on time + 10 minutes, thinking I would have dinner and leave at 8 for the auditions at 9. Changed my mind when I got home. Had a Kind bar and some soda.

Delivered was the two paw paw trees, saplings, actually. Dormant, dried out bare root, as promised. I think I need to soak the roots before planting them. Maybe tomorrow.

In the mail was the Global Entry card. It's ugly. The holographic seal covers most of my photo. Had to go online to activate it. Gotta hand it to them, they make it dead easy. I'll park the card with my passport, since they would be used together. Or not. Maybe I should fly to San Diego or somewhere like that for a weekend. Alaska & Southwest have my number on file.

But not this weekend, planing on going to the rodeo in Castro Valley Saturday.

7:45 got antsy, drove to the audition hall which I remembered as being half an hour away. But it was just a dozen minutes, I was there before 8 for a 9 o'clock call. Parked behind in the back lot, fired up Ingress and found a portal down the block, which I hacked. It was already fully charged green, but there was nothing for it to link to. The theory is I get extra credit for hacking in a new area.

This is the rehearsal hall we used for Anything Goes, and I tried out for Hello Dolly there too. It's a nice space in a horrible neighborhood alongside the freeway. Since I was there last, the other side of the street has become a homeless dump. Not a shelter, just a long row of shopping carts. bicycles, trash and items left there by homeless people. One guy parked in the lot in a red Mustang was obviously living in his car. He started out parked on the street, moved to the lot, then drove off as I was done auditioning.

Auditions were super organized. A receptionist took the forms, checked them, handed out a number tag. Then said wait outside till 8:55. After returning, everyone was lined up in numerical order as 8 pm victims straggled out. Then we were let in, lined up in front of the ballet mirror wall facing the staff. We gave our names and were told to take seats on the side benches, and come up one by one to hand music to the accompanist and sing. I was second up, and I liked my performance, and by the applause I guess others did too.

Next, we were called up to form two rows, and the choreographer taught us a way too complex but [where's my thesaurus?] short routine, which we did following her about 37 times, then to music twice as many, and then half of them were told to sit down and the rest of us did the routine once in the front row and once in the back row. And then the sitters danced and the dancers sat. I could not follow the logic of the dance routine. After 5 times through, I stopped trying to keep up. I do not want to be doing that choreography on stage. It will look great, but it's more stylized than I care for. I just hope they will allow for a non-dancing butcher.

When it was over, the director said email would go out inviting people to call-backs and co-director added that only certain roles were needing callbacks, so don't panic of you aren't called back. Callbacks are Wednesday and Thursday.

As we left, the 10 pm group was gathering. 8 pm had more people, they took the full hour, we were out of there in 45 minutes.

Home, gave Spook some treats, made a Boston Market beef & noodles dinner, ice cream w/walnuts for dessert.

Did I mention that yesterday I ran windows update on the laptop? It needed it. But not for the ransomware thing - that was installed months ago.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Break the new box some more
Check my email for a callback notice.
Maybe wok up the beef slices being tenderized in the fridge. Which means I need to steam some rice.

Another Fun Day In Para dice

Slept like a log. Spook almost didn't let me get out of the shower, she was in such a hurry to contemplate the drain. Or so I thought. She batted at something, probably water droplets, on the far wall, and rushed out again, sat down and licked the water off her tail. Her tail was stolen from a raccoon, I think.

Hgl was a comfortable 119. 

Out the door half an hour early. Traffic was miserable on 101 until I got to my exit, and discovered the whole mess was because drivers kept moving to the right lanes as they became exit-only, for not-their-exit.

Quite a crowd in the break room, grabbed a banana, HB egg and diet Coke, and a Kind bar, and a big bag with almost no actual caramel popcorn in it. The bag's marketing blurb says this is a feature - packing less Bad Stuff in a snack bag. Gag me.

The morning started with troubleshooting three different devices, almost simultaneously. Two STBs and a TV. Was asked to test a new-to-me feature called Talkback, where the TV does text-to-speech on anything you move the focus to. It's one of the accessibility features allegedly for the blind, except it is impossible for a blind person to turn it on herself, because it's a long series of clicks on the remote. They tell me this will be fixed with a simple key combination. It speaks 84 languages, some more than others. I need to file a feature request because the Thai voice is too soft. I won't be filing one about the Hebrew voice being too polite. ;-)

Boss says for now just test English, we have localization testers for the other languages.

Lots of people passing by on their way to and from the company store. Developer conference check-in was today, a couple of miles away at the city amphitheater. Many of them carrying out the incredibly plain company paper carrying bags. No color, no logo, just a line of text.

Lunchtime, the break room was almost empty, just the people who stock the snacks, two women who usually take a lunch break there and one very tall slender woman eating something unidentifiable in the brown cardboard containers Google provides instead of leak-proof food containers. She spent the whole time standing, her meal on one of those tall tables.

No break today, because just before break time a worker bee came by and installed a combination lock on my door. He had instructions to do three, but was unclear on where to put the other two.  Actually, he was supposed to install 5, plus pick the lock on a 6th door and re-key it. I messaged Boss, she will sort it out. Meanwhile, my 3-digit code is in my memory and in my Keep app. At first glance I thought it was the number of degrees Kelvin which equaled 0° F or C, but I was off by a lot. The best mnemonic device turned out to be an area code. The city with this area code is both easy to remember and has no connection at all to me or the company.

Chances are I'll forget the city before I forget the number.

One of those three test devices was supposed to update, but it didn't. It's a European box, so probably will do it on their time zone. Hopefully it will be updated by the time I get there tomorrow.

Email arrived inviting me to callbacks for Fiddler, for Lazar Wolf. There is one other guy called. Cleverly hidden in the callback schedule is the name of the guy playing Tevye, I'm 90% sure he was pre-cast. Which is not a bad thing, in this case. I have met him, and I think he's an excellent choice. Looking forward to reading/singing with him tomorrow night. Once again I drew the 9 pm slot, but this time we're in the theater, a far far better environment than last night's tryouts. They will do dance callbacks Thursday there, I am not called for those.

Planning for the future, advance ordered a bunch of saffron crocus bulbs which will ship mid-August. The theory is they bloom in late fall, are easy to cultivate, and the reason saffron is so expensive is one flower doesn't produce much. So I ordered 45.

Also ordered was a thermometer/barometer/hygrometer for work. It has a remote for outdoor temp/humidity which I may or may not set up. There's something wrong with the climate control in my room, but I need objective data. 

Home, traffic was a mess, even the back roads. 101 was a parking lot. Checking the map, what I thought might have been an alternate escape route on the near side of 101 is a loop back to the alternate back road via the outline of a golf course.

After taking care of some online biz, I took the beef out of the marinade, washed it off, set it aside and put some rice in the cooker. It took a lot of rinsing to get the dust & bran off of the rice.

Chopped up half an onion and some garlic, put a tiny bit of peanut oil in the wok, and little by little built my trademark green curried beef recipe. Had a panic moment when the first carton of coconut milk had gone bad and the second was coconut creme, which needed to be mixed with water - no problemo because the stuff in the wok was creating enough of that. Bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, green peas, baby corn, water chestnuts and half a small packet of curry paste (about a tablespoon).

First serving was over rice, and it was so delicious I went back for seconds, but without the rice this time.

Mango agar treats for dessert (left over from non-break at work).

I need to pack up the rest of the rice and freeze it, same for the main dish. I think there are two more dinners left.

Printed out the sides and music for tomorrow. The music is a little higher than I remember it. The script is the same, but I'm a better actor now, and have some ideas.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home
Auditions II