Quiet day

Monday: Woke feeling pummeled. MB working at home. More sleep. A bowl of cereal, and coffee, fending off Gus. Emails. Shower. Down basement. A sandwich. Some guitar.

Off to work. A quiet day, and fairly productive, knitting some of my new code back into the larger structure. Worked until about 9:45.

Back home, and some fresh-out-of-the-oven Spanikopita with MB, she telling me about the book Gilead. Clean up. Some guitar with MB, working on C Major triads. Email.

Satsang

Sunday: Woke around 9 thinking I might go to KKC. Morning sitting took longer than expected, and so, I would have been late. Decided to take it easy and prepare for the meeting with my classmates at 1 PM. Shower. Breakfast. Cats. Tidying, and a few small projects in the basement.

MB returned from her trip around 12:30. We hung out in the kitchen. Wnd and Shawn arrived about 12:45. A very good first meeting of everyone local from the course last week. MB headed off to Kaya (where she had a BD opportunity). We wrapped up around 3:30. Cleaning up, and more stuff in the basement. MB returned around 6. I emerged and spent a little time with her before she left for the free circle. Time on the computer. Headed off to guitar circle.

A somewhat brief meeting tonight, with just MB Martin, Victor and myself. Played through the rep that we could muster without David. Called it a bit early, around 10:15.

Back home, more email, and more guitar.

Projects in the basement/Party in JP

Saturday: Rainy day, with no MB. Slept in, breakfast hanging with the cats. Watched an episode of 24. Shower, sitting in the dance room.

Spent a good chunk of the day doing little projects in the basement. Moved the drums back into the music room. Broke down the box in which my guitar was shipped. Covered some doors with fabric. Made a wooden sign. Had some food later on, listening to Rnd's oddness. Played guitar, working on the arpeggios for the course. Some other practice upstairs. Christine called.

Went out to a party in JP. I was dressed as a wall hanging. Dancing to classic rock. Talking about fractals. Avoiding second hand pot smoke.

MB to ATL

Friday: MB woke me as she headed out to the airport (trip to Atlanta on business). More sleeps. Email. Cats. Shower. Guitar. Some breakfast. Down basement. Got a message from MB saying her flight was delayed. Headed out, and mailed off CDs to Nordheim and Grf. Stopped in Union to drop a check at Third Life.

At work, a day that could have been more productive than it was. I was feeling sleepy, and having trouble focusing. Still, managed to get a good bit done. Got a burrito. Stayed until after 10. MB called to say she was OK, and had seen David and Claire.

Back home, CDs from Nordheim were in the mailbox. He's been listening to a lot of metal, it seems. Watched "24" eating leftover Chinese food.

Flipping the happy bird

Thursday: MB told me the rug cleaners had canceled. So, more sleep. Morning sitting in the dance room. Cats. Email. Shower. More puke on the rug downstairs. Lovely. Vacuuming in the basement. Pulled stuff together for this evening. Headed off to work.

Witnessed some aggressive driving behavior. I liberally made use of my middle digit. It was sort of funny, because I was feeling calm and friendly, even as I was flipping people the bird. Saw a man hanging signs (or the DVD release of Nacho Libre) and taking pictures of his work. I gave him my email address, thinking I might use his service at some point.

Work was good today. Still reworking some old code into a new context, and cleaning up some long standing deficiencies while I'm at it. Walked out and got a burrito. (The first place was out of tofu, so I exited.) Ali wrote to say she'd changed her mind, which didn't really surprise me. Left work at 7:33.

Three peeps in class tonight. A wide range of personalities. One fellow left quickly without saying much. Wonder what was up with him. K said he'd had a good session with a guide, which had helped him resolve some stuff with J. Interesting. Another fellow had some physical limitations which made some of the postures difficult.

Back home, hanging with MB. Did a quick run to the store to pick up some essentials. Cleaned the cat box. Email, and more email.

Ali G

Wednesday: Up and email. Shower. Cats. Down basement. More email. A bit of guitar. Cleaned some cat puke off the carpet. Paid a parking ticket.

In at work, took on looking into a bug that was assigned to B, while he was busy in a meeting. This gave me my gold star for the day. Then, reworking code that I wrote 9 years ago. Ali looks like she might be interested in co-leading with me. Had a long strange conversation with someone who I'd never spoken with before.

Back home, and hanging out with MB. Some noodles and veggies, talking about Madonna's adoption fiasco. Email, email, email.

Return of yoga and guitar

Tuesday: Woke around 10, MB gone to work. Email. Cats. Shower. Cats. Down basement. More email, and setting up some stuff for ongoing contact with course participants. Putting away laundry. Watching how I get sucked into house projects.

In to work. Coffee. Deval Patrick looks like he's going to win. My Doolin guitar was waiting for me in a box covered with UPS stickers. Shifting gears back into the "writing to hard disk" project. This is the second or third time I've written this code, it seems. Took a break to go buy some lunch. Ran into a couple of street urchins. They claimed to be 18, but I think they were probably more like 14. I bought them sandwiches. Back at my desk, and more work. J is out sick today, which is unfortunate, since he's not able to test my recent changes. Worked until 6:40, then off to yoga.

Wendy worked us pretty hard tonight. Lots of sun salutations, with variations. After class I had a long chat with her about the center's finances, and what I could use as additions to its programming.

Back home, and hanging out with MB eating leftover Indian food, and talking about the horrible state of our government. Hanging out on the couch. I invented a new Buddhist plot line: Once there was a baby. It was cute and pudgy. It grew up, ate a lot, and pooped. And then when it was old, it died. The end. Playing in iPhoto.

Back

Monday: MB woke me asking where her keys were. I had left them in the basement after moving her car the previous night. After finding them, she drove off for a meeting with the pastor at OCBC. I picked up some water, which I took to Third Life (replenishing supplies) and dropped a check. Back home, and slept in. Up around noon, and putting things away that had been used on the course. MB working at home. Down basement. In at work, and found and fixed a bug that had been eluding us for quite some time. Also fixed some behavior for the guys migrating away from our API. Got a tofu burrito for lunch. Worked late. Back home, and some leftover Indian food, reading about the atrocities of the 109th Congress in Rolling Stone.

Thursday 19 - Sunday 22

Thursday: Finally heard from R&A around 1 PM. They had forgotten I didn't have their cell. Preview session in the evening. No new people for the course, but some good contacts made.
Friday: Hanging out with J and TL, then pulling stuff together. Gave TL a ride to H Sq. Very short day at work. Picked up TL. Raining. To Union and putting the space together. Evening 1 of the L1.
Saturday: Up at 7AM. First full day of the course.
Sunday: Up at 7AM. Course completion. Taking down the space. Putting things back and cleaning. R&A came back to my place for a visit. My friends depart from the basement. Decided not to go to guitar circle. Out with R&A for a sandwich. Sat with R while he drank a beer. Late night.

Exceptions

Wednesday: Woke around 8:40. Down basement for brief sitting and hello to friends. Cats. Got back in bed, but didn't sleep. MB headed out to an appointment with a banker. Up, shower, and so on. Email. MB returned, working at home today. I put the hammock and tiki torches away. Printed some flyers, and dropped them back at the house. Put some CDs in the mail to a friend. Off to work.

Working on the add-on issue that had been reported by a developer migrating away from our API, I found there was indeed a problem on our end. Nice fellow. I spoke to him in an overseas phone call.

Took a walk out and got some cash, supplements, an rx, pizza and coffee. The coffee has gone up in price by 15 cents, but they're giving us promotional mints. I offered back the mints if they would give me 15 cents.

Turned my attention back to the difficult to debug problem I'd been looking at last night (a by hand binary search of possible throw locations, since "break on all C++ exceptions" doesn't work in XCode.) Mrk suggested simply setting a low-level breakpoint at the library routine. After some head-scratching, we managed this, and within minutes I had found my bug. My question is, why doesn't XCode just do what we did, as its implementation of "break on all C++ exceptions?" Very weird. Fixed a satisfying and long standing bug with a very important provider-dependent class, with this new information. Started looking at some sort of possible better behavior for the add-on issue. Came up with one possible solution, but it didn't do the whole job. About that time the USB on my computer started flaking out (because I keep hot-swapping between Intel and PPC). Headed home around 10. Still no word from R&A, who were supposed to have landed this afternoon.

Back home, MB had just returned from a shopping trip. Helped her put away groceries. Some soup and potatoes. Email. Now some guitar and completing the day.

Two Sleeps

Monday: Woke around 8:30, up, made a pot of tea and took it down basement to my friends. Morning practice. Gave Gus his treatments. Loaded some of the scanned photos into my laptop. Back to bed for some more sleep. Needed, but left me feeling cramped up for the rest of the day. Up, part 2, shower, had a quick breakfast of cheese and crackers. Said bon voyage to my friends, as they headed up to Salem for raw food.

In to work. Talked to the folks at the coffee shop about how they're going to handle being shut down for 6 to 9 months. Looked a bit deeper into the add-on issue. The sneaky guys added a debugger killer to the example they gave me. Made debugging a bit difficult. Made one small satisfying bug fix involving f8 getting stuck into the wrong byte offset. Wrestled for a long time with a mysterious bug involving registration ripple effects. A terrible debugger didn't help matters any. My friends called from downtown Boston, needing navigational help.

Headed home around 11. Realized I'd forgotten to bring the water boiler thing for my friends, so back to pick it up. Back home, and hello to MB. Not much in the pantry. Hello to friends. Had a lovely starch filled supper with MB of pasta and instant mashed potatoes. A bit of guitar.

Course is on

Monday: Up at the crack of 9:30. Talked to Richard and said the course was a go. Planning. Basement. Cats. Drove off, it already being quite late, to the vet for saline, then to KKC. Water bowls had been filled. Picked up my keys. Headed to a place of much stuff. Ate at Panera. A young child complained about their computer going bonkers. The photo shop called to say they were going out of business, and I should pick up my slides. Peir 1 also had no screens.

In to work, Rbt opening the garage door manually, in front of me. The main thing I did today was talk to B about cars, and answer a question from a third party add-on guy, who is migrating away from our API. Also walked out and didn't find screens, but did find some nice wall hangings. Many emails relating to the course. Call from my friends from the road. Headed out and finally found some screens at the Japanese store in the Porter Exchange. My friends had arrived. Drove back home and got them settled in.

MB returned home. After more settling in and conversation, hung with MB, who'd had a day of woe. Conversation about life stuff. Watched an episode of The Wire. She headed upstairs, and I went down, to hand with friends, and then do practice.

Brunch with Wnd

Sunday: Slept in a bit. Phone calls. Cats. Down basement, drums and morning things. Made plans to have brunch with Wnd. MB returned from OCBC, just as I was heading out.

Our first choice was too full, so went to the Bickford's. Nice in a trashy sort of way. Took a little walk around, then went shopping over in the land of too much stuff. And as usual didn't find much of what I was looking for. Bookends.

Back home and some hanging out. Cleaned out the small fridge I bought for my friends. Made some tweaks to posters. MB headed off to the free circle. I drove off and looked for some screens. Didn't find them, but bought a rug. I asked the youth at the pizza hut in the Target if they had slices, but what I should have asked him was "Do you have slices without nasal effluence?"

Stopped in Boston and dropped the posters. This experience was a bit like something from the movie Being John Malcovitch. Then to the circle, where we were putty in MB's hands. Martin doesn't appreciate having to jump like a frog.

Back home, and work on fixing up the basement. Put down the rug, etc. It was a late night.

Goodwill

Sunday: Up late (two episodes of The Wire), so slept in. Shower, cats. Down basement and had a long conversation with my friend Wnd, whose birthday it is today. Had some breakfast/lunch with MB (I had eggs, she, leftover Chinese). Back down basement, drums, "morning" things.

Worked in the garage, packing up the stuff that didn't sell at the tag sale, and noting down what it was. Made list of everything with price estimates. Loaded it all into the car, except for the stuff to be trashed. Printed some stuff. Stopped and made some copies at the local convenience store (where the instant numbers always are in motion). Drove to Davis Square and donated the whole lot of the stuff to Goodwill. Phone calls on the cell. A couple of slices of pizza. Flyers. Decided to head back home.

Hung out with MB for a bit, and before long it was time to go out. We drove over to Third Life, and saw an interesting performance of dance and sound. But first, a donut. After the show, back home (eating some little Japanese crackers). Watched an episode of 24, and then, down basement. Some drums and other stuff.

Shawn sent me this link. Who is that furry guy with a limp right hand?

Table

Friday: Slept in a bit, email, cats, shower, more email in the basement, drums, morning things. Quick breakfast, then off to work. Quite nice out.

Actually wrote some code today. Walked out and picked up a job from the printer's for MB. Tower records in H Sq is closing.Then in to Boston to run an errand. Horrible traffic. What should have taken an hour took two. Back in the office, resorted to booting off my PPC in target disk mode to debug the issue that was only occurring on J's G5. More code.

Home around 11:30. MB was already asleep. Ate some spaghetti watching "The Wire." Down basement, installed the hanger-rod in the armoire. Checked out my purchase.

Executioner in a bunny suit

Thursday: Woke around 10. Groggy but not as bad as yesterday. Email. Cats (Gus playing coy on the stairs). Down basement and promo stuff. Some drums. Morning stuff. Walked out and picked up a few things at the convenience store. Odd weather. Not sure if it wants to rain. Talked to someone about buying a massage table. Ate a strange breakfast of corn chips, leftover lentil soup and hot sauce. Got the small fridge out of my car. This video haunted me for the rest of the day.

Headed off. Got a little done today. Ate a $1 burrito, courtesy of the guy that dropped the napkins on my head. Found a class that does the exact opposite of what its name implies. Talked to Alx about this. Puzzled more over the problem building on this particular G5. No luck. Left at 7:30.

Over to Union Square. Presented my class to one peep tonight. Often I don't feel like giving this class, but when it works, as it did tonight, it's a profound privilege. This fellow took notes. Very encouraging.

Stopped for some Chinese food on the way home. Hanging out with MB, talking about the future. Email. Tucked her in with the cats.

Aspiration

Wednesday: Woke around 10, feeling quite lethargic. MB was working at home today. Shower. Some breakfast of the last of the fritatta. Coffee. Richard called to say that their B&B was not going to accommodate them. MB offered help. Down basement, email, drums and morning stuff. She was gone when I came up. The CDs from the Atlanta Level 3 arrived! Also, the jacket that I left in a hotel in California made its way back to me, stuff in pockets intact. Packed car with electric guitar rig. Put away laundry. Headed out.

Slightly more productive day at work today. Got back to my old job of rewriting an important sub-system. Got my pay, and walked out to deposit it. Later, got a tofu burrito. While I was waiting for it to be made, one of the employees pasted me in the head with a bundle of paper napkins. I saw a pedestrian angrily strike a car with a small carry-on suitcase, because it had not stopped at the sign. Coffee. Did some more experimenting trying to figure out why I could not build on the machine last night. Walked out to meet Shawn at 7:35.

We drove to Watertown and picked up a small refrigerator for $25. Craigslist rocks. Then to the rehearsal space. I had burned a couple of CDs (birthday and b-sides) which I gave to Shawn, along with the L3 disc. We worked on our repertoire, playing with metronome. Called it early. Gave him a ride back to his place. Rainy. Drove home, passing the Somerville castle. Some lentil soup and toast, hanging with MB. Email. Transferred a cassette tape of a Richard Feynman lecture into the computer for her.

Stymied

Tuesday: Up around 9:30. MB had gone to work. Shower. Cats. Talked to Richard about the course. Down basement, and drums and morning stuff. Bowl of cereal and coffee. Boxed up my guitar. Drove out and tried to send it off via UPS. I’d forgotten that UPS doesn’t take shipments at their center. You have to schedule a pick-up. Drove to Home Depot and bought some screws and a few pieces of 2x6. Back home to drop that stuff off. Then in to work.

Still no pay. Spent much of the day trying to get remote debugging working. My guitar did make it off into the wild blue. Gave up on remote debugging, and switched to simply trying to build the project on the machine in question. Even this simple task proved unassailable. Worked until about 11, then gave up, ending one of the most frustrating days on record.

On the drive home, hit a big patch of traffic on Storrow. Backed up off an on-ramp, and fled. Back home, had a strange but satisfying sandwich of cheese and soy-meaty tomato sauce. Down basement for evening things and email. Some guitar on the old Ovation.

ConstantContact

Monday: Another good shot at catching up on missed sleep. Some leftover frittatas for breakfast. Spent most of the day in the basement, learning the intricacies of ConstantContact... which was a shame, since it was lovely out. Drums also. Laundry. Fixed some holes under the basement sink. MB was working at home today, then headed out around 6 PM to teach her BD class. Watched an episode of 24. Morgan called, and we reminisced about other drunks we've known. I told him he should take Grf a bucket. He gave me Randy's email address. Talked to Christine, and then to MB's parents. Ate an improvised meal of potato, leftover Indian food, and strange chutneys with MB. Another 24. Down basement and updating the KKC site.

Off limits button

Sunday: Another lovely sleep-in, waking about 10:30. Then more sleep. Yum. Various cats poked various parts of my upper body, but not persistently enough to be a problem. Lazily up, and email around the time MB came home from dance rehearsal at Third Life around 12:30. Brunch of leftover frittatas, soy sausage and toast. Down basement, morning stuff, drums, promo. Was going to take a ride by myself, invited MB, then decided to go by myself. The clueless fellow who bought and trashed my old computer showed up at this exact moment to reclaim a music CD he had left in the trashed computers drive. A lovely bike ride, that I didn't enjoy much, up over 10 hills, across the mystic river, and back around through the Phragmites. Back home, and rapprochement, while paying bills. Walked up the street, dropping them in the mailbox (now a farther walk), being thwarted in an attempt to bank due to lack of pens, and picking up two slices of pizza. Back home, more "24" with MB (who gets very agitated watching this show)... She headed off to the Middle East. Down basement for guitar and evening things.

Promo in the basement

Saturday: Gloriously slept until 10am. MB got up to go to a spa appointment. Shower. Cats. Had some breakfast listening to Car Talk. Down basement. Drums and practices. Called my friend Crln. Spent the day working on promotion. Some lunch with MB, listening to an early David Bowie album. Recorded a CD for my luthier. More drums. Made a frittata for dinner. Veggies and toast also. Ate with MB, then watched some "24." Back down basement for more promo.

What to do?

Friday: Up around 9:30, feeling groggy. Email, shower, cats. Down basement, some drums and sitting. Cleaning folks arrived, and I went over a few things with them. Headed off, stopping at the donut shop for an egg sandwich.

In at the office, still having trouble getting my paycheck from last month. Continued working on bugs. Several I've not been able to reproduce. This is always a tough situation... I can't fix what I can't see happening. Found a glaring problem with some code I'd written a few months back. Can't believe we didn't catch it until now. Walked out and picked up a print job for MB. Too crispy pizza. Wandered through Newbury Comics but didn't see anything I wanted. My favorite little print shop has changed its name. Sleepy. Headed home around 6:30.

MB was just getting home when I got in. Nap. I vegged in front of the tube for much of the night, watching several episodes of 24. Made some spaghetti. MB went out to a BD gig, but turn out was light, so she came home around 10:30. Hanging out. Guitar. Said goodnight to MB. Now, down basement.

Absent/Connections

Thursday: Slept in a bit. Email. Cats. Still feeling like I'm reconnecting with life. Some breakfast. Down basement. Drums. Email. Morning practices. Tidying. Too much to do. Headed out.

In at work, continued bug hunting. Ignoring data that is meant only for synchronization. Lunch at desk. A bug has surfaced that would be in the domain of two people that are no longer here. I'm working on a bug of someone else who is no longer here. Coffee and a free pastry. Left work at 7:35.

Over to Union. Said, punning, "How do?" Later "Without some success it is hard to have a daily practice, but without a daily practice, there is no success. So, something more is needed." A student that I hadn't seen in a few weeks showed up. Then MB! A good class. Many synchronistic connections with this student. Then, off for Indian food with MB, who had just been filmed for local cable TV.

Back home, and an episode of 24. Email. Guitar. Now, down basement.

Day back

Wednesday: Landed at 6:30 AM. At the baggage area, suddenly I was standing in a different world. Cabbie told me of exploits at Foxwoods. Back home, and hello to MB. Sleep. Getting things going again, waffles with MB, then in to work. DS quit while I was gone. Back on bugs, and fussing with computer configurations. Went to the unfortunate pizza place. They kept me waiting too long. If bad-but-quick food is not quick, it's just bad. Got a tofu burrito instead. Off to work with Shawn at 7:30. Laughing about terrible things we did as preadolescents. Arlington, and new space-mates had caused some confusion. Working with the metronome. Gave him a ride home. Back at the ranch, taking the garbage out. Setting up new (very inexpensive) drum stools. Email, and more email. Had a cheese sandwich while MB ate ice-cream. Now, down basement burning a DVD.