howeird | Entries tagged with books

Usually every other week on Wednesdays afternoon the highlight of the week is my 1-on-1 with the boss. He's not just the boss, we're also friends, we use the same model Nikon, we share an attachment to Thailand. He even built a house there.

But things are crazy for him lately, he is tasked with way too much paperwork and database building for the upcoming new product (work which other companies would hire two other people to do) and between that and family obligations he changed our last three sessions to Thursday. This week it was canceled entirely. :-(

I caught up on some audio analysis, and there was a follow-up needed from the Monday demo (I'd found a a couple of bugs in the code and needed to show Automation Guy so he could pass them along to the programmer).

And AG also reminded me there was a response to a code bug I had filed which claimed the script worked just fine when the coder tried it. Turns out the coder had made a mistake in the documentation, putting a lower case letter in a variable name where it needed uppercase. AG merely had to change the doc. Linux is funny that way, "Output" and "output" are different variables.

Spent a little more time browsing websites for CNN, BBC, KGO and whatever the local NBC channel is.

After work I killed an hour at the former batcave Starbucks, reading on the Nexus Kindle app, James Gunn's latest novel (he is 90), Transcendental, and it's quite good. Much, much more fluid writing style than that last China M. book.

Home, on the front porch was a small packet from Amazon, the Taylor Swift DVD, Taylor Swift: Journey To Fearless [Blu-ray] (2011). Popped it into the DVD player, and was amazed. I bought it to see what all the Grammy hype was about, and now I know. Not just a pretty face/body. It's the story of her 15-month world tour, and her show is almost as much a theatrical performance as a concert. Amazingly well directed, rehearsed and performed, many of the songs are more pop than country. Lots of costume changes, and the backstage stuff with the cast and her parents looks like the two or three best musicals I've been in, where lifetime friendships are the norm. Production values vary widely, range from home video to phonecam to HD music video and everything in between. Lots of segments with her mom, a few with her dad, many with her best friend, a couple with each cast member. It's a long show - they present it as a three-episode mini-series. Worth full price. It will be very interesting to see if she has a long music career or gets married, makes babies, and disappears. One thing I have to say to those bozoids who made fun of her Grammy performance, is she performs with a lot of passion, and doesn't need to scream to show it.

Somewhere in there dinner was Marie C, with Breyers' oreo ice cream for dessert.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe go downtown and see the all-female 1776. I'm not fond of the show, and even less fond of women playing men's roles in a historical piece, but I have so many friends in this thing I have to see it.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: WeirdHome

Up at 7:30, did my usual morning stuff except only took half a cooler of snacks. Out the door at 9, the street was wet, there were dark clouds wafting off into the distance, our first trace of rain in a month. It was only a trace, looked almost like all the sprinklers in the neighborhood had fired at once, for maybe a minute.

Got to work at the usual time, did some actual work (found two bugs in some automation code) and went home at lunchtime, dropping off a return at UPS along the way. Bed was due to be delivered at 3, which gave me some time to VPN to work, figure out what port I needed to unblock on Norton's firewall, and then VNC to my test machine.

At about 2 I was hungry enough for lunch, so I put Banquet spaghetti & meatballs into the microwave, which is when the phone rang. Delivery dispatcher confirming directions, said the truck would be there "imminently". From her questions about cross streets relative to the freeway I gathered they were 10 minutes away. Enough time to eat, barely.

They arrived at 2:30, and were done in 20 minutes. One of them gave me a demo on the wireless remote which I didn't need but let him finish on the off chance I would learn something new. Which I didn't.

Before work I had laundered the bedding, so as soon as they were done I installed a mattress protector, grabbed the bedding from the dryer, made the bed, got on it and started playing with the remote. In seconds this happened:
( Read more... )

And this answered a question: The bed is a foot higher off the ground than the previous one, and the height appears to be fixed, is Domino going to be able to cope with that extra foot above her pet steps? I guess so.

She hung in there like a champ, and did not want to let me get up.

But I had to, there was still more work to do.

The bed, by the way, is adjustable. The wireless can raise the head and/or the feet, and can also do something they call "zero G" which raises both slightly by bowing (rhymes with Boeing) in the middle. Very comfortable position and allegedly mitigates sleep apnea. There is also a vibrating function with separate head and foot engines, with three levels of vibration-ness for each. Not something I'm really into (can you say "magic fingers"?) but I'll see if I can get used to it. Over time. Baby steps.

At about 5 I went out to get the mail, and the little not-so-old lady I thought lived next door was on her porch and struck up a conversation. Turns out she is a caregiver who comes over a few days a week to care for the invalid little old lady who does live there, but whom I have not seen.

Batted 1000 with the mail, all three items were addressed to "occupant". None of them said "Darling, I love you and I cannot live without you. Marry me, or I will kill myself."

Dinner was baked breaded clam strips and mixed veggies. I watched the latest episode of Elementary which is improving every week. They have somehow broken free of the urge to make complex personal relationships into a soap opera, the way The Mentalist's writers have done. And while the photography is too dark, the images are also very carefully composed. The Other Guys do lighting like a boss, but can't create a tableau worth beans.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe home early, because UPS is delivering a recliner and it would be nice to have it inside with the help of the driver.

And now I am off to bed, where I will be mechanically inclined and do some reading. James Gunn's The Listeners. Suggested by Brad at

basfa, whose literary opinions I have come to respect greatly.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Furball Hall

NovaBak support had no answer to my question. Some bozoid named Jack sent the canned response, and when I explained that this was not the answer, he replied that he sent me the instructions. I replied that he did not answer my question, which I restated. And that's where he left it.

Downloaded Acronis, to be installed when I get home from work.

Work - some attempts at scripting. TBC
Lunch at Carl's Jr because it's close and they have shakes and there are no Burger Kings close by
Fry's, returned the bogus Nexus cover/stand. Idiot returns person kept asking me if my iPad worked. As if I had an iPad. As if it mattered if I did.
Home, spent some patio time with David Gerrold's Voyage of the Sea Wolf and thankfully I was right, after he got the scipt-like scene setting out of the way, it's a fast-moving adventure.

Watched some of the Titans-Atlanta game, was pleased to see Tenn. win handily.

Installed Acronis, it doesn 't back up RAID 5 drives, so that's a FAIL.

Set up a backup with Norton Security Suite, but it's full backup only. FAIL.

More research needed.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
??

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Home

Slept in. Went online and ordered leopard-pattern velour car seat covers. I may or may not actually install them. Also ordered replacements for the failing pumps in the cats' two water fountains.

Lunch was a Costco Croissant.

1-ish went to the Sunnyvale Historical Museum, a place I did not even know about. Weird because it is right behind the community theater, where I have performed and seen shows many times. The occasion was a local author's event, 40+ writers displaying, chatting about and hoping to sell their books. Theater friend Ande was there with her book about her parents. I bought a copy.

They had authors 2 and 3 to a table, most of them outside under tents on the lawn (it was a beautiful day) but some on the dront porch, and upstairs on the balcony, and Ande was upstairs in one of the display rooms which had been marked as the children's section but there were only 2 out of a dozen books up there which were in that category and 3 or 4 on the lawn tables which were.

It was a wonderful event, well-attended, and my only complaint is they made no attempt to put similar works together. So it was kind of embarrassing to be having an exciting conversation with the woman who wrote a book about her husband, who invented the space shuttle's heat tiles, while the woman with the tiny booklet of poems sat next to her with no one interested in her.

I had expected to only be there half an hour, and then go see the Tonto movie, and then coffee with Janice at 5. But I left at almost 3, and it was too late to see a movie and be out by 4:45.

So I went home via a gas station, 7-11's ATM and a slurpee and sandwich. Sat on the patio with the food & drink & started reading Ande's book.

Then to *$'s and Janice. And home again.

Dinner was pot pie.

Spent some time troubleshooting the USB 3.0 card, Win7-64 just doesn't like the drivers. Pulled the card. While the machine was open I saw I did not have enough SATA data connections to install the two additional drives I bought, so will probably buy a SATA card. Low priority because blue screen from the conflicting USB drivers last week made me system restore to prior to installing the backup software, so I need to do that 3-day backup all over again. :-(

But not right now.

News flash: Domino has also abandoned the crystal litterbox for the clumping litterbox. I'll use my Petco discount to order another one and retire both crystal ones. It was fun while it lasted.

Over on

basfa's FB page I posted that I'm not going to boycott the Ender's Game movie just because the book's author/screenplay writer is an ardent anti-homosexual bigot. The book has nothing to do with the subject, and it has a superb cast. One BASFArian said he was boycotting so this author would not get more work in Hollywood, so I looked up the author on IMDB, and this is his 18th screenplay. Kind of too late to have an effect on that.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
BASFA (I have valuable auction items)

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Stayed up way too late last night, totally forgot there was a memorial service I wanted to go to, stayed in bed till 10, played fetch with Kaan after I made it clear that we don't play with tie wraps and he brought me his pretzel toy. Did some stuff online till 12:30, was falling asleep at my desk so shut down the computer and took a nap. Woke up at about 2 with my left hand on Domino and Kaan just out of reach on my right.

Forced myself to pretend it was a nice day, I should be outside at least a little. Drove to the Mercado, thinking to grab an outdoor seat at Starbucks, but hunger won and I went into Subway and got a pastrami sandwich in honor of St. Schwartz's Day. It was as close to corned beef as they had. Finished 90% of it till it started making me sick. I rarely go into Subway, much prefer Togo's. But I did sit outside while eating, and reading another chapter on the Kindle from The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination: Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius which I am enjoying very much. Each chapter is a short story by a different author, and so far there have been no clinkers, not even the one from

seanan_mcguire. :-)

And then the Kindle gave me a low battery message, and I trundled over to Starbucks where there was a huge line and nowhere to sit inside or outside. So I relocated to the lesser-known one near Lucky's on Mathilda. My apartment is about halfway between the two. Got a good seat, stayed a couple of hours, kept forgetting to look up from the laptop to check out the eye candy.

Was searching for a convenient mailbox service, but the only one I found had a negative rating on Yelp from about 20 people. I have a bit of a dilemma, and that's that I don't know if the sale of Moto will mean a move for us. Boss' boss says he doesn't think it will, and has been lobbying against it, but OTOH he as put plans to upgrade the labs on hold until after the sale, when he can ask the new owners what they have in mind. Most of what I order online is UPS or Fedex, so just a PO box won't do. I may get one anyway....

Some of the stuff I did online today included ordering a GoPro camcorder, which will be for cats at first, and this summer I may take it on bike rides. There will be no theater projects this summer, I want to enjoy the sunshine.

Also ordered a half dozen bottles of dried kafir lime leaves. I'm tempted to get a small lime tree for the patio, but not yet. Anyway, the leaves are amazing for Thai cooking. Any cooking, actually. Soups, stews, curries, etc.

Emailed the headboard people and told them their canned "pack it up, put a return label on it and bring it to UPS" solution is not feasible. I need the piece of junk picked up and repacked. And I need a 1-hour pickup window.

Did my taxes in TurboTax, and e-filed both federal and state. I may need to amend the cost bases of a couple of stocks, one which split 1 for 7 and then lowered the price by 90%, which makes the math convoluted.

But that's the last time for that - I've sold all my stocks and am now invested only in a small sampling of tax free bonds and cash reserves. If I retired today, that would buy me lunch for weeks.

Today's cooking project was one last go at Tod Mun Pu, Thai style crab cakes. I mostly followed a recipe I found online, with some minor changes. One thing I learned is these need to be fried in oil on high heat, not medium as my recipe book author friend recommends.
( Recipe hidden here )

Ate about a dozen for dinner, while watching Channel 4's I'm Witless News.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Patelco CU - close account
Rehearsals - two more scenes where I am just a warm body.
P/U a delivery at the 7-11 Amazon.com locker

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Washed the whites last night, put them in the dryer late, decided they can stay till tomorrow, I have better things to do.

Work was another adventure in automation. Automation Guy told me that a script I wrote in Jython to upgrade the firmware is going into his library. Brownie point for me, I guess. Finally discovered how to make a Do While loop with our scripter program - turns out the loop feature is all I need.

Lunch was stupidity. Four of us went to a new Korean chicken place - it took 15 minutes to get there, half an hour to get a table, 20 minutes to get food after ordering. I keep telling these guys not to go at noon on a Friday. At 1 there were plenty of free tables. We're not on a schedule, we can make lunch hour any time we want. The chicken was very good. The cole slaw was okay. They didn't need to put the cubes of what looked like Jicama in a little bowl on the plate. The stuff which was actually a radish.

After work I got my nails done. Vanessa was busy, she called Joy over. Joy is Asian, speaks Vietnamese to her co-workers, and no-accent American English to the customers. When I mentioned Thailand, she asked if I speak Thai. Turns out she is half Thai, was born there and left when she was 4. We chatted a little in Thai but she was more comfortable with English.

Next stop, the McDonald's nearest the nail place. It looks great on the outside but inside it's a lot older than the one I went to yesterday. Wi-fi was better, but there were no AC outlets. I got a chocolate shake, and sat down to write a book review. After about half an hour, the beeper on something in the kitchen went off, and it just kept getting ignored. Finally drove me out of there, I went home, put the doc on a thumb drive and ported it to the PC to finish it.

It is on its way to

johnnyeponymous for one of his ezines.

Got email from the Brigadoon producer, with a rehearsal schedule. No weekend rehearsals except for the Saturday before we open. This means I won't miss much going to

conflikt (they already know I'll be gone) and I can go to

consonance_con. So I printed a check¹ and an envelope and those will be on their way to Dr. Jim tomorrow. Yay!

Went to reorder litterbox refills, and Amazon has stopped selling them, with a note that there have been many complaints about defects. Yup, I noticed the quality of the last batch sucked. So I found someplace called "wag.com" and ordered from them for about the same price for a 6-pack.

12:15 am noticed I had not eaten yet. Heated up a bagel & yellow cheese-like substance after unwrapping it individually from a sheaf of plastic. Slapped on some lox. Yum. The cats both thought so too.

Everything online tonight took too long, missed the strip club. Must go there tomorrow, I am almost out of 1's. I ran out at work yesterday, had to go to the car and steal some parking meter quarters.

Plans for tomorrow:
Sleep
Spend quality time with my socks
Football games don't start till 1:30, 49ers at 5. Should be done at a good time for Cheetah's.
¹ Actually, I printed 10 checks. The first 3 were alignment adjustments I was too lazy to make when I first created the check design, then I noticed it still had my old address, and the rest were adjustments to the positioning of the payee, amount, memo and signature lines. I have several tons of blank check paper which came free with the check designer software.

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: Home

Had a fitful night, arthritis pain, thought I had a fever but the thermometer said no. Took acetaminophen, back to bed at 4 am. Woke up well after the alarms, Kaan was curled up against me. He has successfully taken three doses of his antbiotics mixed with kitty crack, and when I talked to the vet this morning she said he's also still covered by the shot she gave him.

Work was tedious, I found a significant bug, which stopped my automation scripting for a while. Tested a related bug which the engineer said was fixed, but he obviously didn't actually run the test. Marked it "not fixed".

Lunch was going to be at Starbucks, but the place was packed. My guess is lots of unemployed now that the holiday shopping season is over. Had bad Chinese food next door.

Home, stopped off to pick up a package & put Kaan on the rental agreement, and show phone photos of him to the staff.

Plugged in the laptop and did some FB on it, thinking it also needed updates but it didn't.

Gave Domino her treats and Kaan his dosed crack. Dinner was some celery, dolmathes and pieces of fried chicken discovered in an archaeological dig of the freezer. Watched the latest episode of The Mentalist, and Undercover Boss.

Pulled out the Motophone and found a few apps which needed to be loaded onto the new Samsung. Bar code scanner, Tivo, speed test, eljay reader. The Moto had been unplugged for days, still had 100% charge.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe write a book review for The Drink Tank. Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jennifer Lawson. aka The Bloggess. Micro-review: she is funnier on her journal. Worth BASFA auction.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Location: Home of the Lost

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Writing Wrongs

Annoying The Neighbors Since 1950

Entries tagged with books

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