Moving Day

Jan. 16th, 2014 11:28 pm
howeird: (Default)

My 1-on-1 was moved from yesterday to today. Then my nails appointment was moved from today to tomorrow. And finally my trip to Ardenwood was moved to next Thanksgiving.

That latter bit goes like this: I recommended the butterflies walk to my boss, who lives maybe 10 minutes from there but has never heard of the place. I went online to find the hours, and instead found this:
Read more... )



The irony here is that when there were a thousand, around Thanksgiving, I had time off and could have gone, but my notes said the last time I was there and saw a lot of monarchs was in January. :-(

Did some more work at work, and was assigned a bug which I had lobbied hard against. And the one guy who had the hardware was gone by the time it was assigned.

Another move: The demo which I was planning for Monday at 10 had to be moved to Tuesday at 11 because Monday is MLK day, another religious holiday for someone else's faith. IMHO, he is the most overrated figure in American history and deserves a holiday named after him about as much as Walt Disney. One thing which separates the two, of course, is Walt wasn't assassinated until this year, and only on cellulose.

The demo couldn't be scheduled for 10 because the guy I couldn't find today has the room reserved from 10-11.

Lunch was supposed to be at the bad Chinese fast food place next to Jamba and Starbucks which is eye candy central, but there was no parking, so I went to Boston Market instead. I liked the brisket, the mashed was okay but the creamed spinach had coagulated. Their soft drink glasses are hard plastic and huge.

Straight home, after doing some email I took the telescope and a tripod out onto the end of the driveway, but the moon had set. Venus and maybe one of the big planets was visible so I thought I would try those, but the outside light is on a motion sensor and kept going out, and I was having trouble fitting the quick-connect mount on the scope to the tripod, so I brought it inside. Seems to be the wrong size, so I put the one from the tripod onto the scope, and that seemed to work. But then I couldn't find an eyepiece which fit. Digging in some of the carrying case pouches I found one, but that's when the scope fell off the tripod. It didn't appear to be damaged, but the quick connect was way loose. Decided I need to do this in daylight, and maybe even read some instructions and/or go to the San Jose astronomy group and ask for help.

Watched some American Idol. The new judges are not as solid as the old ones. And they mostly agree with each other. And once again the show wastes way too much time on the truly horrible, and does not spend enough time on winners. They also would do well, I think, to run it like musicals auditions with an accompanist and contestants required to bring music in their key.

What else? Yesterday there was a note in my "tube" (under the mailbox, for the park's magazine and park business) saying my bigger garbage can will be delivered Monday and not Feb. 3 as originally told to me. I need to print out a note and tape it to the current can so the helpful person next door doesn't wheel it back onto the carport after the garbage is collected. I may need to do it in Tagalog.

Blood sugar has been closer to normal lately, for no apparent reason.

Been reading the Potlatch Book of Honor: The City and The City by China MiĆ©ville. Imagine a city where people have learned to not see inhabitants of a different culture, and to believe that those people actually inhabit an entirely different city, in the same space as yours. The concept is very intriguing to me, but we learn about this strange construct by way of a murder investigation. I'm not a fan of murder mysteries, and MiĆ©ville is not very good at writing them from what I have seen so far. The plot moves like mole-asses and I'm not getting any feeling for the characters. For the first chapter I thought the detective narrating the story was a woman, but then he starts referring to himself as male. I usually get this when the writer is a woman trying to write a man's character, but China is definitely not a woman:


It's going to take me a while to finish the book.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Nails

howeird: (Dr. Howeird)
Up way early, but still managed to only get to work 30 minutes early for the 9am meeting. Short meeting, we're mostly in between product releases, and are mostly verifying bugs have been fixed. I managed to look into 4 and finish 3 before it was time to go to Kaiser and have my eyes dilated. New in the doctor's office is an electronic picture frame, displaying a large series of photos of him & family in a wide array of travels. They were slightly randomized, so I saw some several times and probably missed others. I recognized Yosemite, the Alaska inside passage cruise, Stonehenge, Mayan temples, night shots of something which was either a huge mosque or the Taj Mahal from the back. Also something which looked like The Alhambra, a Roman amphitheater, the Roman Coliseum, architecture in Turkey, Tussuad's wax museum and someplace in Italy which was not Rome or Venice. But most impressive was his daughter in a cap & gown, either high school or college. When I first started seeing this doctor, that daughter's kindergarten crayon drawings were on his wall.

Preliminary eye exam shows my non-dilated vision is even better than last year, one line better than 20/20 in both eyes. No glaucoma. The dilation exam was also better than last year, still some retinopathy but smaller bits. See him in a year.

Since my eyes weren't safe to drive and I was in the big clinic I went to the walk-in office and got an appointment to see a doctor about the rash on my foot. The verdict was summer eczema, he prescribed a cream. Picked that up at the pharmacy, then went downstairs and grabbed something resembling lunch at the cafeteria. It was about 3 pm, so there wasn't much to choose from.

Now good enough to drive in the overcast weather (sun would have killed), went to UPS and picked up the pair of beep-free belts I'd ordered. Then to Sunnyvale Toyota to find out what the deal was with not having my license plates back yet. Turns out my salescreature blew it. She was supposed to take them off the old car and give them to me before I left with the new car. I saw her take off the front plate, but the rear plate was a challenge because it was mounted with inset bolt-head screws which needed a thin socket wrench (the plate was behind a backup cam built into a frame).

The nice man at the front desk called around, the service manager was gone for the day already, so he was left voicemail, the used car salesman said there were no plates there, but he would call the person they sold the old car to to find out if my plates were on the car, and he checked with the DMV person in the business office who said there were no plates there.

Tomorrow I should hear from the used car and service folks, then we'll take it from there.

Next stop, the 7-11 to pick up my new Kindle Paperwhite from the Amazon locker. Then home, let the cats out to the patio and parked myself there eventually after setting up the Kindle and downloading the book I am reading on the non-lighted model.

Then off to BASFA, which was lightly attended but fun.

Home again, took the older Kindle out of its cover/stand and put the new one in. And was surprised by it coming on by itself, and refusing to turn off. A little experimenting, and it seems the magnet built into the base of the stand to hold the folding pro-up bit in place was triggering the power and keeping it on. Which is when I noticed that the Paperwhite doesn't have audio. The only connector is the USB, and there is no mention of audio books in the Guide. Not that I have ever loaded any... But the magnet thing is strange. Also missing on the PW is the pair of contacts on the back for dock charging. Which I've never used, either. But I'm thinking the magnet thing might be a side effect of having designed an inductance charger (lay the Kindle on a flat pad charger, no wires between them). More research is needed.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
Follow-up with Toyota
Pick up coasters and kitty crack at UPS (delivered too late today to pick up)
???

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howeird: (Default)
howard stateman

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