Mar. 12th, 2018

howeird: (The Gov - book throw)
Sleep was inhibited somewhat by OCD, I stayed up till 1 am turning all the clocks ahead. Or so I thought. Some had DST buttons, some could change the hour but a couple needed to scroll through the entire 60 minutes. The microwaves needed the new time punched in.

When I got up this morning I saw that I missed one - there is a weather station on the night table - it shows barometer, indoor and outdoor temps and (always wrongly) displays a graphic of the current conditions (clouds, clouds with rain, sun, etc.) and it has a clock I forgot to push forward.

Woke up at DST 8 am, then again at 9:30. When I ask Google Home the time, it adds "Daylight Saving Time", when I ask Alexa, it does not.

Breakfast was an omelet with lox, white cheddar, mozzarella, and I plucked some mint and oregano from the garden and ground them in the spice blender. 

Spent some time on FB, and on the city parks site, looking for the season pass form for Baylands Park. None there.

Took out the macro lens and captured some pix of flowers in the garden.

It was a brilliantly sunny day, the opposite of the forecast, so I drove to the park, paid the $25 pass fee, got a sticker, and a form to be returned next time I'm there. I had brought my camera with zoom and macro lenses, and parked on the opposite side from my normal drone-flying area, since they have a drought tolerant garden and I figured there would be flowers.

There weren't.

But there was a newly built therapy zoo. Very ornate, apparently the city had donated the land, including the garden, and just by chance I was there the one day of the month it was open to the public. I'm thrilled with the project, but hate that they fenced off the gardens, because they did not need/do not use that space.

They have a variety of animals: chickens, doves, pigs, goats, alpacas, donkey, Shetland pony, rabbits. Today was a major volunteer work day, dozens of middle school kids helping to make signs and building stuff.

two-headed alpaca.


This pretty hummingbird flitted around in the garden area for 5 minutes before I got a good shot. One major reason I'm miffed at the garden being fenced off.

After making the rounds, I drove to the other side of the park, but there was nothing flying, so I went on home. But on my way I finally stopped at the NetApp parking lot and got pictures of a spectacular work of art which can be seen from the road.






Home, snacked a little, Facebooked a lot. Watched some mindless TV on the Animal Planet channel. And an episode of Graham Norton from Christmas. No idea why it just showed up on Tivo, one I had not seen.

A friend on FB was saying his Thai basil & holy basil were doing great, and was puzzled why mine kept dying. Looked at the time, and there was 90 minutes before I needed to leave for rehearsals. So I drove to Lowe's, bought three of each plus three chocolate mint plants (all very small ones), made a space for them in the compost pile, watered them and then headed for the theater.

Got there 15 minutes early, only to find that the previous show was being struck, so no way would there be rehearsals there. Email from producer apologizing - turns out the rehearsal was at a park's community hall most of the way back home, and it started at 6.

So I walked in a bit more than half an hour late, sat in the back where Basses usually sit, but something was very wrong as I found my place in the score. More than one something.

First something is the tenors were in the back. Second something is the leading roles were seated with their voice group, not at the front like a normal rehearsal.

Lucky me, this was the first sing-through, the whole cast was there, and we did the whole show. Or they did, I came in at song 11 (out of 18).

At intermission the vocal director had me move up front, and also made me sing up an octave. There is no bass part, just low, medium and high parts for both men and women, and the score is a mess, parts leap to different staves depending on how much harmony. Also, she has the off-stage chorus singing a lot of the on-stage ensemble's parts. That's fine, except where it's above my range.

It was a pretty good rehearsal, I am impressed with the ensemble, but not the leads. It's early days yet, though.

She let us out early, kept the on-stage ensemble for the last bit.

Stopped at Lucky's,  found frozen meals for lunch, checking sodium levels. Also bought some mochi chocolate ice cream, and chicken broth (low salt).

Home, dinner was ad hoc chicken soup with shrimp, won tons and matzo balls. And the last chunk of Banquet chicken.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Check jury web site at 11:30
Whatever 
howeird: (Default)
Slept well, up at 6:15, rolled over and slept till 7:30. No Spook.

On the road early, traffic was light until the last exit. As usual. Ran out of washer fluid on the way home last night, put it on my groc list for this evening.

Reply from the producer asking for a link to La Cage rehearsal schedule was I will not be needed, they have enough low voices previously added to the on-stage chorus. Kind of pissed me off after the misdirection and confusion of last night. But there really is no bass part in the score. I also was not impressed with the leads. One less commitment. Added [livejournal.com profile] consonance_con back to my calendar.

Brought my own banana. Grabbed an egg and a gold Coke from the break room, and a tangerine.

11:30, jury duty page said to check again after 5 pm.

The day was spent manually testing a TV using Big Name Company's test rig. Product manager came by to update the firmware, just as I was about to do it myself for the second time - first time failed because the instructions were wrong.

Worse after the update, until I noticed the update erased the Big Name Company's app and replaced it with an outdated version.

Lots of testing. The few failures were mostly due to the Big Name Company's rig trying to test formats which the TV doesn't support.

Lunch was Saffron Road's salmon bowl, slightly curried. A tiny bit spicier than I like my salmon, but Asian veggies FTW. A brownie for dessert.

Had two phone calls from recruiters, the one I sent to VM was for an FTE job, the one I answered was for a contract. Boo, Howard, you changed your voicemail to get rid of the contract offers. The full time one was ridiculous, tech support for an unnamed product, but video/streaming was only listed as a "nice to have". And it was a one-person tech support "team" which required early mornings to support Europe, and a quarterly trip to Romania. Not a country I ever want to go to.

Boss scheduled a surprise sync at 2:30, but she didn't show up until half an hour after I pinged her on Hangouts. She's looking into making me a vendor instead of a contractor. I'm looking into FTE with benefits, which she is clear about not being a possibility at Google.

She brought two more boxes to test, which is excellent, and said sometime in the future, maybe April, we will all be testing a couple of devices which are out of the usual line of products for me, and will be a deep dark secret while we are testing. OK.

After 5 pm, jury duty page said check tomorrow after 11 am. Two more sets of people were called for tomorrow - Santa Clara & Palo Alto. From the structure of the page, if I'm called it will be PA.

5:30, unexpected downpour. Headed for MV Target to buy some washer fluid, because RainX, and also got 4 each shampoo and body wash. And efferdent because they didn't have the right kind of polident. And dental floss. The 4 shampoos got me a $5 gift card.

Home, the rain was just scattered drizzles. As soon as I got home I emptied the La Cage score into the paper recycle bin. Kept the binder, of course. Put the 2nd washer fluid jug in the shed (I filled the reservoir with the other one in the Target parking lot). Putting the body wash away, I saw I still had 3.

Delivered was a HUGE box, inside of which was a large box inside of which was a 3-pack of kitty litter cartridges; and a medium sized box, inside of which was a 5-pack of 44 Dixie plates. Also a tall narrow box which I expect has the two murals, which I will attempt to install on the pediment (I think that's the right word) above the office door this weekend.
Forgot to mention I watched the XFiles yesterday. Total rip-off of the Chuckie genre.

No PTI tonight, watched the news instead.

Dinner was stuffed cabbage & rye bread. Mixed frozen fruit for dessert.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Check the jury page
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howard stateman

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