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First day back to work since the 24th. Got there at 9:07 (left home at 9:00, took the freeway, which is not practical before 9, and may not be after this weekend). Not much to do, but luckily the guy with the next product's test matrix spreadsheet was in, and he emailed it to me, so I spent most of the day perusing it and comparing things to the specs. Not to bore you, but it's a complex product, and figuring out how to translate the specs into a test plan is going to be a long, challenging process. I'll do some more of that tomorrow.

Gave calendars to boss and the two cow-orkers who were there. Left one on each seat of those who are on vacation. I still have 3 left, so if you didn't get one and want one, send me a snailmail address. First come...

Nails were due for a fill, at 1:20 I phoned for a 2 o'clock appointment, was told there were no more openings, but come at 1:30. I rushed to get there, and the front of the house was empty. The staff was in the back having lunch and the owner was at the bank. I offered to come back at 2, but they said to wait a few minutes. Owner did my nails, and gave her 2 o'clock client to another staff member until she was done with me.


I had been doing some research on sleep apnea and mattresses. This was precipitated a couple of weeks ago when I changed the sheets and saw that my 2-year-old discount mattress was starting to come apart on top in the area I use the most. When I went to flip it, there were two issues: 1) it has no handles and 2) the bottom is not like the top, it is not a sleeping surface it is a box spring contact surface.

All the info I have read on sleep apnea regarding beds had been useless and vague, saying that the mattress doesn't make a predictable difference, it's a personal issue. Everyone is different. But that can't be true, everyone's airway is basically the same, and there are only so many triggers for apnea.

European Sleep Works up in Berkeley has some solid info, they make a bed which they say helps, and an "oxygen pillow" which also helps. But they are hella expensive, too far to get to during work hours, and the only day I could get there would be Saturday. So I penciled in Saturday for a trip there, but meantime looked around other places I know about. Mattress Discounters is out, they sold me the piece of crap I have now. Sleep Train is out, they over-advertise and they have been constantly beating us up with ads begging for $$ for their foster children program. California has a pretty generous pay out to foster parents, so there's some special interest Sleep Train is scamming here. That pretty much left Mancini's Sleepworld as the last name brand local showroom.

I went to the Sunnyvale branch, big showroom, only one staffer. But Kevin knew his stuff, answered my questions, did not try to up-sell or hard sell me, and shared that he has severe sleep apnea, and the reason the sleep apnea sites were vague about mattresses is the real help is to have and adjustable frame which can elevate your head and feet a little bit. He made sure I thoroughly tested the five mattresses which would work with an adjustable frame and were designed for folks like us who get too warm on a standard mattress. And I played with the adjustable frame for a while on a nice mattress. And he found out that the best mattress in the place was due to be replaced by a 2014 model, and got me the floor model at a huge discount, and a new adjustable frame at half off. Checking online, those were good prices, made better by the free delivery/set-up and hauling away the old mattress & frame.

So that will be delivered Wednesday, they will call with a time window on Tuesday evening. Easy enough to work from home.

Home, Domino was perched on the arm of the sofa, not one of her frequent flyer spots. And got some stuff done:
- Moved the officecam to the other side of the room, where it can see me from the back, and Domino's favorite parking spot. This entailed installing a multi-plug outlet, moving the Midi keyboard out of the way, drilling holes and inserting plastic screw thingies, and losing my computer reading glasses.
- Watched the first half of the Sugar Bowl
- Hunted for my glasses. Finally found them on the floor of the office closet where they fell off while I was putting tools away
- Made a TV dinner
- Watched the second half of the Sugar Bowl, but missed an Oklahoma TD where the Tivo had rebooted when I turned off the circuit breaker to install the multi-plug outlet. And it did not add an hour as instructed, so I missed the last 4 minutes.
- Gave Domino her traditional half-can of Fancy Feast. Last night she left half of it over. If she does that again, we go to 1/4 can servings
- Updated my cats page on http://howeird.com/cats.html to reflect the singlehood of Domino and return of Kaan
- Updated my http://howeird.com/webcams.html page to reflect the change of Comcast IP address, and added camera. All cams have a guest login of "hacker" with no password.

For another day: check the links on the howeird.com links pages, and add stuff to http://howeird.com/grammar.html

Plans for tomorrow:
Work. Weekly report
???
howeird: (Default)
Just did something I should have done years ago: got my sheet music, music books and lyrics sheets separated out. This stared as a hunt for the music for Edelweiss from The Sound of Music which it turns out I do not have. So much for using it at auditions tomorrow.

The morning started too early. I decided to go back to bed for an hour after the 7 am alarm, an hour being plenty of time to get ready for the 9 am earliest possible mattress delivery. I was up and prepped and dressed by 8:15. The truck arrived at 8:30.

They had not trouble with my request to haul away all the old stuff, including the ugly broken headboard. They were done in 10 minutes. I made the bed before I remembered I had left Domino locked in the office (the litterbox it there, but not food & water).  She was parked in her usual spot for when I'm on the PC:


It's also her fave spot to sun herself.

SInce I had gone to bed late and gotten up early I decided to try out the new bed, after going online and seeing that the talk I wanted to go to at Convolution was not till 4 pm. It takes 45 minutes to get to the convention hotel from my place on a weekend. Weekday is more like 90, since it is one exit from SFO.

Managed to get some sleep, but the mattress is a lot more firm that the one in the showroom, and I don't think it is really the model they had in the sleep clinic. I'll give it a few more days before hunting for a softer one. Posturepedic has three models, and I am not sure which one the sleep center had. It's also possible my mattress cover is the culprit. I got up to work on the PC for a bit, and the fixit guy came to collect his blower. This meant finding something to wear in a hurry. I also had him look at the toilets, he agreed they are not doing the job.

On the road a little after 3, but the parking garage was big, the walk to the registration desk was long and there were no signs, and the registration setup was for a convention which was only expecting one walk-in every 10 minutes. So I got to the talk with 3 minutes to spare.

It was worth it. [livejournal.com profile] kproche is an excellent speaker, he had understandable Powerpoint slides, and had a backup plan for when he found out that the convention's program rooms had no internet connection. The talk was 90 minutes (I was thinking 60) and it could have gone longer. Somewhere late in the talk some ringer came in who started asking questions he already knew the answers to. Annoying. I asked a couple of stupid questions, and got smart answers. Bottom line: I learned stuff.

There were no panels/talks after 6, and the only place in the hotel serving food was the overcrowded, noisy bar. I sat under an aircon vent, the only seat available, and was eventually served a pretty good fish & chips with garlic fries while watching USC not quite be a match for Oregon.

The only party advertised was the Klingon Dark Hole, which I went to for about 15 minutes. There were only two places to sit, and those were taken. Small room. I saw a tweet from [livejournal.com profile] johno which got me making the 2-mile hike to the pool pavilion for the Doctor Who themed burlesque show.  It was packed, I found a seat by the back door. The good news is there were a series of very clever striptease skits which all had a legitimate Whovian hook. The bad news (YMMV) is all the performers were plus+-sized women, well beyond Rubenesque, which I do not find attractive. The rest of the audience loved it, though.

I left to go to the masked ball, on the opposite side of the hotel, scheduled for 9 pm, but at 9:15 no one was there, there was no music, no nothing. Everyone must have been @ the burlesque show. So I paid the exorbitant parking fee and drove home.

This con is an attempt to salvage the fandom which Baycon has managed to alienate. I think it was a good first try, but they really need to find a 3-day weekend for it, get a Big Name or two as guests of honor, and fix some of the newbie mistakes like lack of signage, under-equipped/understaffed registration desk, too many panels crammed into too short a time frame, and insisting the hotel keep their café open for dinner. Oh yeah, and fix the wi-fi in the events areas.

Home, I watched some college football, gave Domino her whipped cream treat which she barfed a few minutes later, played on FB and wrote this.

Plans for tomorrow:
Shop for see-though drawers of shelves or racks to fit in a 3-foot-wide space in the bedroom so I can finally empty some boxes of things like sweats, linens and electricals which had a home in the old apartment but not here.
Identify  & Practice my audition piece
Audition
Meet Janice for coffee
Maybe something after

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howard stateman

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