Golden Light 1

Monday: Up around 10:30. Web. Gus treatments and food for the cats. Down basement, morning practices and drums. Did some tidying. Email. Got a call from the cat sitter, who took on a strangely argumentative attitude. Talked to the fraud division and found someone had been trying to run charges on my CC. Ordered stuff for Gus. Upstairs, and shower. Made a caffeinated smoothie.

Off to work across town. Stopped for a coffee at Starbucks. In the office, spent most of the day diffing changes in preparation for checking in. A false alarm from an important user. Left around 6:30.

KKC for what turned out to be P1 of a transmission from Lama Zopa. For the first bit I was sitting in a spot with an obstructed view. Didn't mind though. A brief break, then more. A diversion into the Discovery Channel. And Wal-Mart. A neighbor complained about our cars even though they were legally parked. Things ended around 12:45.

Stopped at the CVS on the way home. Back at the ranch, hello to MB. Brief hanging out, then down basement to complete the day. Email.
Stopped

Dinner with the Lama

Sunday: MB woke me around 10. "Yuck!" she said, pointing to some kitty litter on the bed. Then she headed out to give away milk. A lazy morning. Gus treatments. Fed G and O. Breakfast of eggs. Down basement for morning practices and drums. Continued my work in translating documents from AppleWorks format. Worked on the furnace doors, cutting and screwing in some jams, and then fitting and hanging the doors themselves. Just some molding, and the project will be done. MB came back as I was starting to clean up. Sweeping then vacuuming. Putting away tools.

Quick shower, then headed towards Davis Sq, to Martsa on Elm St to have lunch with a group from KKC, including Lama Zopa. The ordained contingent arrived about an hour late. They had waited for Geshela to return from Germany. In the meantime we occupied tables making sure there was space for them when they arrived. Quite a group. Yummy food. Conversation about web development and trivia. Lama Zopa sent around desserts to everyone's table saying he guaranteed we would all like it, and indeed we did. The dinner when on until 11 or so. Lama Zopa paid for all of the non-ordained people.

Back home, stopping on the Somerville hill. MB was out dancing. Down basement and more document conversion fun. Evening practices. Hello to MB. She started many sentences with "I was giving out milk and..." Soon to complete the day.

Album name: Hell's Toupee. The sad thing about Google, is it can instantly tell you when others have already had your dumb idea.

Two gigs and a blessing

Saturday: Woke around 10. Contemplated getting a little more sleep, but no. MB was coming in from doing some dance work at 3rd Life. Gus treatments. Down basement for morning practices. Drums. Email. Upstairs and shower (MB having just cleaned the tub). MB and I had a nice breakfast together (eggs etc). Pulled gear together got directions and MB and I headed off to gig number 1.

The skies opened up, and a downpour began. We picked up Shawn, and headed for Roslindale, to the party of Bill and Ruby. We wound up being the first band on, and since no one else was chomping at the bit, we played quite a few more songs than we had originally anticipated. MB danced. Somewhat shaky on my end, but not terrible. Interesting tranny couple. Made a couple of nice connections. Heard a story about a double decker outhouse. We left around 3:30.

Again the skies gave forth. Driving on the Jamaica was quite an adventure, with foot-deep puddles and more water coming down than my wipers could keep up with. Made it homes safely. MB and Shawn made root-beer floats while I checked on the basement and got some more gear together. The basement was dry, but I moved some stuff on the floor just in case. Back upstairs and enjoyed a float with the crew. Packed Gus into a carrier and then we headed for Medford. There and been an accident that blocked traffic on Mystic Ave, so we detoured up 93 one exit. KKC: Animal Blessing with Lama Zopa. Many dozens of people circumanbulating a miniature stupa in the back-yard with hundreds of cups of saffron water and cookies, sacred texts statues, and almost every person with a companion animal of some sort. Cats and dogs, a parrot, frogs, lizards. Someone had a big batch of crickets. All the animals seemed very peaceful. There was no growling or fighting, or even any barking or whining. We joined in with Gus, passing Lama Zopa on each revolution. He was chanting Om Mani Padme Hum, in a beautiful resonant voice, occasionally broken by hysterical laughter. The parrot seemed to especially delight him. Wnd showed up as well. Saw many of my KKC friends. After perhaps 15 minutes I realized we needed to leave. So back to the car and back home.

Dropped Gus off, and picked up the electric rig. Got on the road to Martin's Luau. Stopped for gas. Enjoyable conversation about the nature of love and reality. Got off 95 one exit too early, but figured things out thanks to Google-maps on my cell. Arrived around 7:30. Things were running late so, no problem. Connected with the drummer, whose kit we'd be borrowing. Shawn MB and I tried a venture out onto the water in a paddle boat (an electronic artist named Banter/3.1 on stage), but the boat kept going in circles. The rudder was broken. We got a tow back into shore by a young girl. And soon, it was time to set up. Some little technical problems gave the set a slightly rough feeling beginning. Some looping, and then we were off. A fairly strong set, getting better towards the end as I relaxed. This material is so challenging that nerves really undermine my ability to play it reliably. If the artistry is in the recovery, then I was quite an artist tonight, as there were many bobbles, but no wrecks. Some sort of grace descended in Chrysanthemum, and I played it better than I ever had before in a performance context. There were a few things that helped me tonight: MB dancing. Feeling connected to Shawn. Remembering "Release all concern for playing the right note, then, play the right note." Being in the music, instead of thinking about the technicalities. Some young dudes, making the devil sign and moshing around to Thrak... Feeling that confidence builds on itself. Shawn played great, and thunderously. I couldn't pay much attention to MB's dancing, but I'm sure it was lovely...

After our set, we packed off. The next band was a fun sort of jazzy "James Bond Theme Music" band, of bass drums guitar and sax. I cooked some veggie burgers on the still hot grill, then ate, commenting that the scene was quite pleasant. A large red moon hung in the sky.

The drive back to Boston was mellow. Talking about the direction of the band. MB nodding off. Dropped Shawn in Central Sq at a pizza joint. Back home, unloading, saying goodnight to MB, and now to complete the day.

Lama Zopa

Friday: Woke around 10. Web. Back to bed and slept into the afternoon. Much needed. Shower. Gus treatments. He seems to be more arthritic today, but still hanging in. MB had already fed the cats, but Gus wanted some more. Quick bowl of cereal. Down basement, morning practices, drums. The 2x3s I had used for hinge anchors for the furnace closet doors, were warped, so I chopped each into three pieces. Headed off across town. Sunny hot and humid.

Short day at the office. Got the UI code up and running. Perhaps not ideal, but each alternative had its down-sides as well. Quick burrito. At 6:30 I drove to Porter Sq to attend the launch of Lama Zopa's new book. Found parking. Not as full as I would have expected, but there wasn't a lot of publicity. He spoke for about an hour. Wnd was there, so walked out with her. I got some green tea ice cream and she picked up some Japanese noodles. Walked her to her car. Drove home stopping at the Somerville hill.

MB and I chatted a bit in the dance room about Circulation Project logistics. Then, we took a walk down to the donut shop. Weird vibe in the air tonight. Two doors down, a group of Hispanics were hanging out on the front steps, eating ribs, raising children, and throwing trash into the street. At the donut shop, bikers and meth addicts. Then, we walked to the shopping center and picked up some groceries, including the ingredients for root-beer floats.

Back home, MB cut mold off a big block of cheese. Grilled cheese and root-beer floats. Mmmm. Down basement, changed the strings on my electric. An hour of practicing, in headphones. Soon to complete the day.

Long rehearsal

Thursday: Woke around 10, which didn't add up to much sleep. Considered sleeping more, but, I was too awake. Web. Gus treatments. Shower. Fed G and O. A nice breakfast of coffee-smoothie, eggs and toast. Down basement for morning practices. Drums. Loaded up my car with both my electric and acoustic rigs. Off to work. Quite a lovely day.

Saw Dnd on the street selling newspapers. Walked and got a large iced coffee. Gave Dnd $5. At work today, completed pushing the new formats through to the other parts of the program. Nibbled on some greens and pizza that MB had packed for me. Burned a CD for Shawn of some of my favorite tracks from the last two Rush albums. Met him at 7:30.

Over to Arlington for a long rehearsal. Made up set lists for Saturday and decided which pieces should be acoustic and which electric. Played almost everything through twice and some three or four times. Shawn said that he was feeling disconnected from the music... I commented that this can actually be useful. It's good to know that you can do your job: play your notes, even if you're not "feeling it." Sometimes even though things feel wrong, your playing just fine. Knowing this can help despair from settling in. And then, perhaps you'll reconnect. Overall my wrist was feeling OK tonight. I still have a scar on my thumb from the screwdriver bit on the drill, but its mostly healed.

Gave Shawn a ride home listening to some of the disk. Looks like he's moving to Porter Square. Headed home, stopping briefly at the top of the Somerville hill. MB already asleep. I ate leftover eggplant from our Italian dinner. Down basement to complete the day.

Dance freedom

Wednesday: Woke fairly early. Web. Groggy. Gus treatments, then back to bed. Definitely needing to catch up on sleep. Woke again in the early afternoon, feeling quite a bit better. Shower. Fed G and O. Breakfast of smooth smoothie and cereal. Down basement and morning practices and drums. Put away laundry. Headed off to work, across town on a lovely day.

In the office, continued my slogging. Another display bug. MB called and we made plans. Burrito from the place around the corner. MB showed up around 8 PM. We walked over to a church on Garden St and attended a free-dance event. Fun, but sweaty. Back to the office, sending MB home, around 9. Worked until a bit after midnight, adding some UI elements to allow users to control the feature I've been working on for quite some time now. Two little check-boxes.

Drove the long way around. A pleasant cool night. Arriving near my street, I found my passage was blocked by a policeman and work crew. I asked if it would be OK to drive the wrong way up my street. Yes. So after a an excursion to get around, back home. MB was asleep, I took out the recycling. Down basement for email. Now guitar and to complete the day.


Mike Gravel is... a performance artist?


Mike Gravel explains "The Rock"

Warped

Tuesday: Fair amount of sleep. Stiff neck. Web. Gus treatments. Fed O and G. Down basement, morning practice. Drumming felt very energizing today. Did some woodworking, and found that one of my hinge connectors was too warped to make a good fit along the jam. Upstairs and had a chunky smoothie for breakfast, then off to work. A lovely day out. Stopped to drop something in the mail to Wnd.

At the office, continued my slogging. Lunch at my desk. Did some research into why a user's file was not opening, and following on from that fixed a bug and also put in some defensive code. Found and fixed several other bugs related to my recent work, but most of them were pre-existing. When I get to the point that I'm finding and fixing other people's bugs, I know that my code is almost done. Burrito, made by a burrito maker in training. Stayed until about 11:30.

On the drive home, hit traffic and a detour. Luckily it was a nice night for a drive. Back home, hello to MB. Talking about the YouTube presidential debates, and Lindsey Lohan. You know, the stuff that matters.

Now, down basement for some guitar and to complete the day.

The house down the street

Monday: Woke at 7, the phone ringing. MB asked, "why would someone be calling?" Ah, the plumbers. Called them back, and indeed, yes. They sent a guy over and I met him. An hour and $200 later, my momentary lapse of attention had been put right. Finding myself quite sleepy, I very successfully took a nap in the basement, waking around 1 PM. Morning practices and drums. MB looked in saying she was heading out for awhile. Web work, laundry. MB was back sooner than expected. A sort of lumpy-smoothie for breakfast with yogurt, coffee, milk and protein powder. Headed off. Saw R from across the way, and asked her about the house she's put up for sale. It sounds in pretty bad condition, and they are asking quite a lot for it.

Off to work. Raining. A focused but not terribly productive day. Debugging can be slow when each one you find launches you off on a mini-project. But, my sense is that the number of new stumbling blocks will be dwindling now. Had a chat with B at the end of the day. Hard birth for a new product. Left a bit after 11.

Back home, MB was still at her language class. I had some leftover noodles and a glass of milk for dinner. Guitar. MB returned. We made the bed. Laundry. Down basement to complete the day.

GCNE day-long circulation project

Sunday: MB had gone to 3rd Life to dance. I woke when she returned, around 9:20. Gus treatments while she was gardening. Shower. Down basement for morning practices. Drums. just enough time to have some coffee and eat oatmeal, as our guests arrived.

A day of circulation. C Maj, up 3 octaves, down 2, changing to 5th position up 3, down 3, back to first position, up 2, then back down 3 to the beginning. This pattern served as a template for much of our work today. Then with alternating F# and Bb with an octave of all naturals after each. And so on. A lunch break. Quite lovely in the backyard. The Invention 1 team did some work in the afternoon. My wish is that we not perform at all on the upcoming course. I don't want to give those fuckers the satisfaction. Then more circulation, of a more improvisational nature. A rotating double circulation, and so on. We concluded just after 7 PM. No one seemed interested in dinner.

MB and I shuffled around a little, then went out to "Vinny's." Salad, broccoli rabbi, fettuccine. MB had the stuffed eggplant. More discussion of life trajectories. We took a walk out and watched some of the local sporting activity: Softball, basketball, baseball. MB offered up a pen to the softball team.

Back home, some cleaning up. Now down basement to complete the day, and get to bed on the early side.

Doctors remove polyps from Bush's colon

Does this mean Rove, Cheney and Gonzales are looking for work?

Sudden Water

Friday: Woke as MB got ready to go to work. Found sleep was not finding me. So, web. Gave the land of nod another shot, but no doing. Gus and Oscar got food. Had a nice breakfast: Spinach and cheese scrambled with eggs. Gave the lawn a quick mow, as the lovely weeds were getting a little over enthusiastic. Practiced guitar for some bit. Ran a 2x3 across the table saw without losing any digits. Pulled the sides and door edges down basement. Began screwing one of the sides in place. Suddenly water was shooting out. The screw had hit the hot water line for the baseboard heat. Un-did my work, shut the line down. Consulted some plumbing books I had. A simple fix did not look likely. Tried heating up the line, perchance to solder, but nothing doing. Decided to call the professionals. Upstairs, and shower. Back down basement for morning practices and drums. Cleaned the screen of my computer. Headed off to work, driving across town.

A productive day at the office. Implemented an alternative preview mechanism when only interested in one part of the total. Did an experiment, turning off implicit conversions on an opaque int wrapper, and found a few questionable uses. Renamed a collection of methods to be more explicit in their meaning. Removed an unused struct. Left work around 9. Back home briefly, for some personal practice. Then dinner with a friend. MB was off dancing.

dice and cards

Thursday: Slept in again. Interesting dreams about dice, brocade and cards, but who was the dealer? Web. Gus treatments. Shower. MB had fed O and G. Down basement for morning practices and drums.

During sitting this morning, the thought that the aphorism "Each part does the work of that part, and no other" can be applied to organizations. But, how does this apply to the "small business model" where everyone scrappily wears many hats?

Headed off to work, raining a bit again today, stopping to drop a check in the mail. Got an egg sandwich and a coffee from the donut shop in Harvard Sq. Some consultation with Al, which didn't really lead anywhere. Eventually tracked down a bug that had been proving most illusive. Went on to the next one. I think this is how it will be for the next week or so. Salad and sandwich at my desk. The dressing proved a little un-contained. At 8, down to meet Shawn.

Over to Arlington for rehearsal. Pretty good considering my wrist and gouged thumb. It'll be nice when we're back in top form again. Hopefully by next week! Shawn has a good thing going with EotN now. Spent a little time on a new piece of mine that is still in the formative stages.

Gave Shawn a ride home, then back to my house, stopping briefly at the top of the Somerville hill. MB hadn't returned yet, so, practices in the basement. When she got in, so I helped her unload groceries. Hanging out in the kitchen. The lack of technological understanding is a huge problem in business, it seems to me.

Down basement. This. Now to complete the day and get some sleep.

pencil

Wednesday: MB woke me as she headed out to a massage. Managed to sleep until noon. Lovely. Web, waking up. Gus treatments. Decided to not do any woodworking. Shower and down basement for morning practices. Drums.

Headed off, raining a bit. Stopped at the donut shop for an egg sandwich. Then across town to work, hitting three yellow lights on the way. Got the pencil working today, but the summary view is still not being computed properly. Surprising how much effort this took. My mom called and we talked about her art class. Salad and pizza at my desk for lunch. Walked out and picked up dental floss and an energy drink. MB called and I headed home around 10:20.

Back at the ranch, we hung out in the kitchen, then ate artichokes, which she'd set boiling earlier. Had a good conversation about life and so on. Clean up. Composting. Took out the recycling. Guitar for a bit. Helped MB get set up with an iTunes account. Down basement email and to complete the day.

Aztech

Tuesday: Not as much sleep last night. Strange dream about Leo being alive, then both cats dying at once, and then coming back to life. Up and some email. Gus treatments. Had some eggs and coffee. Down basement and lots of emailing. Morning practices, drums. Did a bit of woodworking, attaching hinges to studs. Shower.

Headed up Broadway and over to Watertown. Dropped off a mouse amp, a 4 track cassette, and a 8 track reel-to-reel at the fix-it shop. Strangely the conversation turned to Monkey Urine.

Quite a lovely day out. Over to the office. Quite productive today, getting the program linking, and began the process of stepping through code and finding bugs. Lunch at my desk thanks to MB. Took the opportunity to vacuum out my computer keyboard. Stayed until about 10:30.

Back home, hanging with MB in the kitchen. Made some salad and quick pizza. Some guitar. Gus was in my guitar case looking content. Now down basement trying to make a freakin "ico" file.

have sleep

Monday: Slept a glorious 8+ hours. Stiff neck, but otherwise feeling quite a bit better today. Web. Gus treatments. Down basement and morning practices, drums. Email and web updates. Made a web page for the visit Lama Zopa Rinpoche is making to Kurukulla. Ran out of time to do anything with the furnace door. Put the shower curtain in the washing machine and applied a layer or clear tape to the rod to prevent the aluminum oxide build-up.

Off to work, across town. A productive day in the office. I got through the rest of the compile errors that I had created by disambiguating a central file handling API. Back and forth with Apple on some XML questions (helping RPT). In the evening, I went around shutting down computers that were left on. The power is being cut tomorrow morning for maintenance.

Back home around 11:30. MB had just returned from her language class. We had some snacks (I had some salad and wheat toast, she made some yogurt and fruit). Feeling a bit buzzy from late in the afternoon coffee. Guitar for 45 minutes or so: A new composition, and C Major modes. My left hand is hurting quite a bit.

furnace door, part 1

Sunday: Woke around 11, which should have been plenty of sleep, but, alas, I didn't get to bed until almost 6 AM... So, still haven't caught up. Computers are evil things. So of course I had to check my email. MB had given Gus all his goodies except for saline. She returned from doing some dance practice, and we had breakfast. I made a big omelette and she made yogurt parfetts. After cleaning up down basement for morning practices and drums. Some more web work... MB headed out to run some errands. Quick shower, then got down to business with the doors for the furnace. Pulled the old doors off. Measured etc. Discovered the base had a 3/4 inch tilt from one side to the other. No wonder the old doors had never quite hung right. While installing a leveled footer, I managed to harpoon my thumb with the Phillips attachment on the drill. Ow! Got the sides (where the hinges will go) cut and routed, and the doors cut. MB told me it was 6 PM and brought me a coke and some chips. I wrapped things up for the day, got showered and dressed, did some more cleaning in the basement, and then, off to guitar circle.

We didn't play any repertoire tonight, but just worked on circulating C Major in different patterns, and with various other side-exercises. MB said "I need some way to ventilate my ass." to which I replied "Most people just fart." In a discussion about "The only mistake is to not learn from your mistakes" Martin asked "What if you just keep not learning from a mistake over and over again?" to which I replied "Well, then you're just a big boobie." It was joke night, I guess.

Headed home, took a wrong turn and was funneled out towards Logan, but managed to right our course. Stopped for gas. Back at the ranch, eating yogurt and chatting with MB. Gave her left shoulder a massage. Carried old recording gear and a "mouse amp" out to my car. Some emailing in the basement, and now to complete the day.

php rss whoopee

Saturday: Up at 9ish. Groggy. Gus and Oscar got their goodies. Web. Shower. Said bye to MB. Down basement briefly. Headed out.

Stopped for coffee and a bagel. Arlington by 11. Rehearsal with Shawn. Wrist hurting a bit, but we played pretty well. New ideas for the drum part to EotN worked well. Shawn got some hardware to allow him to turn a floor-top into a kick-drum.

Back home around 2. Hello to MB. Feeling groggy, down basement with the intention of napping. Wound up spending quite some time learning about web implementation.

A couple hours later, up and MB had put out some snacks. Then, we took off on a drive. The first futon place was closed. Over to H Sq, and found one open. Dropped the new futon home, and to home depot. Some lumber, hardware and mulch. Rented a truck and drove the stuff home. Dropped the truck back. Over to Inmann Sq and Indian food. There was a lot of rice on the floor under the table at the booth where we were first seated. When I pointed this out, the seated us elsewhere. Then, rather than cleaning it up, they just put some less fussy people there. I think there was some tension in the wait-staff. Food was pretty good though.

Back home. More web stuff in the basement. At 11:30 MB and I watched SNL. So-so. Arcade Fire. One funny bit about very awkward people interacting in an office... that somehow disintegrated once they started drinking and acting "crazy." Got MB some saki. Down basement and more web stuff... learning how to manipulate and display rss feeds with php.

burning hairlines

Friday: Woke feeling energized, after some lazing. Web. Gus. Shower. Reheated coffee while feeding the cats. Some cereal. Guitar. Wrist is definitely feeling better, but not 100% yet. Down basement. Email, and web design. Morning practices. Drums. Cleaned out the drawer of the basement desk.

Headed off to work. The highway looked busy, so I retraced my steps and went up and over the Somerville hill, and across town. The good news of the day was that I hit upon a solution to the "two in one" files issue that I'd been dealing with before (a writer not getting the full compliment of datum). I created a link between reader and writer allowing for cache coherence to be maintained. Lunch at my desk thanks to MB. A disappointing fig. Took a walk out and got some iced coffee and pizza. Stayed until midnight.

Back home. For some unknown reason, the smell of burning hair was heavy in the air around the neighborhood. This smell is not very different from the smell of a steak cooking on a grill. They're both burning protein, after all. More email and web design. MB got in from dancing at the Kasbah around 1:50. Some hanging out, now to complete the day.

Fixed internet

Thursday: Woke at 8, the doorbell. Alna, picking up her cleaning supplies. Back to sleep. Up again a bit later. Shower. Gus. MB was working at home. She'd made some oatmeal. Coffee. Bowel of cereal (having forgotten about the oatmeal). The RCN guy showed up. He found the problem with the internet quickly. I watched eating my cereal and drinking coffee on the front steps. Down basement for morning practices. Drums. Some tidying. Goodbye to MB and headed out. Another beautiful day, driving the long way around.

At the office, took a step backwards in my project. Spent the rest of the day focusing on a smaller, but more crucial set of problems. MB had made me a lunch. Some consulting with Dv and B about "UI focus." Burrito later on.

Back home a bit after 10. MB was having some food. Guitar for an hour or so. The left wrist was cranky at first, but felt better near the end. That's encouraging. Some time with MB. Down basement. Email, soon to complete.

Ratatouille

Wednesday: Up around 9. Email. Gus treatments. Shower. Fed the cats. Bowl of cereal. Down basement for morning practices and drums. Internet still not working. Set up a service call for tomorrow.

Took Gus to a vet appointment. His kidneys are not in great shape, but the antibiotics have improved his state otherwise. He's gonna have another week of them. Dropped him back at the house. Drove the long way around to the office. Good thing I took the back alley way to get to the garage, since there was a crane blocking the street. The disappearing window had been fixed. Spent some time fruitlessly researching an aspect of the Mac Carbon/Cocoa APIs. Walked out and went to the pharmacy, then got an iced coffee. Spent the rest of the day working on my "n-way-stream" project, that had never been fully completed. Feeling woozy.

Around 8, headed home. Picked up MB. Our thoughts are with our neighbor today, who is having surgery. Over to Revere. Ratatouille. Two thumbs up. Saw an opossum while driving away from the theater. Back home, chatting about life issues over sparkling water. Doing some internet work, leaching off a neighbor's wireless. Soon to the basement to complete the day.

opossum

Tuesday: Slept in a bit, but up late, so probably a wash. Web. Gus was waiting, so treatments, and MB had already fed G and O. Put away some laundry from the trip. Shower. Down basement, morning practices and drums, feeling somewhat hobbled by my sprained wrist. Email. The internet went down. There were guys outside working around the telephone poles, but I don't know if that had anything to do with the failure. Made a pb&j sandwich for breakfast. Folded up the tent, which I'd been letting dry. Vacuuming in the basement.

Stopped at the donut shop again for a wheat bagel and iced coffee. Drove the long way around to work. Hot and sunny. Gave Dnld $12. A box was sitting on my desk. I figured out what the problem was with the 3rd party driver, with a little help from Mk. Sent an email out explaining. The guy in France who I'd shamed yesterday (he'd been pestering me to find a bug in my code, and I discovered it was blatantly in his) wrote me an embarrassed response. I got my rendering stuff working, using the insight I'd had while driving home yesterday. Dv checked something in that caused the main window in our program to stop opening. Great. Some consultation with RPT. Headed home around 9:45. Heard a freaky story on NPR about a certain type of cheese that they have in Italy that is cultivated with live maggots.

MB had made some yummy stir-fry and rice, which we ate. I made a cappuccino which I enjoyed with some of the strawberry shortcake stuff MB had made a couple days back. Cleaning up. An opossum was eating cat food on the back porch. The internet still wasn't working, so called RCN. There's a service outage. Guitar with MB, EotN, 3rd Relation, Askesis. Showed her some more of IGBE. Telling her goodnight. Down basement to complete the day.

Dramatic Prairie Dog

Monday: Slept in a bit. Web. Gus. Morning practices, drums. Unpacking. Ate a little food standing in the kitchen. Shower. Headed out.

They've cut down one of the big trees on the street. Odd seeing the gap there. It used to form a sort of tunnel, connecting with another large tree directly across from it.

Stopped at the donut shop for iced coffee and a wheat bagel. Hot out today. Around the long way to work. Tied up some loose ends in communication today, and found that a bug that a developer had been pestering me about was definitely on their side. Did some work activating an existing feature with my new data path code. Stayed until around 11.



Back home and some yogurt with nectarines, hanging with MB. Feeling pretty wiped out.

Returning

Sunday: On returning from my trip, guitar circle. RSI/wrist problems. 7 people in the circle (including Dev). Various work with C Major in circulation. Askesis.

Three Potato Salads

Wednesday "our nations birthday": Slept in a bit. MB was up and about. Web. Gus treatments.

Downstairs and made us some breakfast while MB did her sitting. Fried eggs, coffee etc. Down basement for morning practices. MBs car tire was very flat. Next door neighbor B had put a sign on our door alerting us to this condition. Spent some time working with HTML and CSS. I'm pretty clueless. Morning practices. Unloaded camping gear from my car. Neighbor across the street was trimming the hedge. Said goodbye to MB and headed off to work, across town. Everything was pretty deserted.

Saw Crs arrive just after me. Held the elevator for him but he was going to lunch. A fairly productive few hours, regressing one bug (and finding it was probably B's) and fixing another. Met Shawn at 4:30. Over to Arlington and a concise rehearsal. Shawn sounded pretty good, but I made a bunch of mistakes. Overall we were pretty tight. Gave him a ride home.

Stopped on my way home at the Somerville Castle. Some kids were hanging out, and then they were getting hassled by cops. Bored cops = big trouble.

Back home, helped MB put the "donut tire" on her car. She had made three types of potato salad and banana nut bread. We made some veggie burgers and had a little salad judging. After we cleaned up, I went down basement and paid bills, and did some more web work.

MB and I drove over to the Blockbuster video and picked out a movie: Little Miss Sunshine, which strangely neither of us had seen yet. Back home, I called my mom while we put together little dessert plates. Mom told me about her recent adventures seeing Shakespeare and her experience learning how to paint with acrylics. MB and I had some banana nut bread, rice pudding and coffee while watching the movie. Two thumbs way up, but I think we're probably the last people in America to see this film. I changed the strings on my guitar while watching a little of "Young Frankenstein." "Ovaltine?" Goodnight to MB, now down basement and to complete the day.

Camping gear

Tuesday: Up around 9. Lazing. Email. Gus. Put on some hot water. Shower. About to make breakfast, but realized no bread. So: whole wheat crackers and eggs. Yum. Some guitar. Down basement, email. The vet called... Gus' blood-work looks like it is about the same as 3 months ago. Morning practices and drums. Laundry.

Headed out. Drove over to the Cambridgeside mall. Went to Sears and bought some cheap camping equipment for my weekend adventure. Funny bit in the elevator with this fellow who kept pointing out to people getting on that it was traveling in the opposite direction from their intention. Off towards work. Stopped and got an iced coffee at Starbucks.

At the office, spent the day on bugs. Was able to reproduce and fix most of the stuff that had been illuding me yesterday. Took a walk out and deposited my check. Looked in at EMS (outdoor supply store) but didn't see anything I wanted to spend money on. Picked up some pizza. Ate back at the desk. Pointed a but out to B. Took a walk out to try and pick up a print job, but they were closed. Stayed until 10:30, making a couple of check-ins.

Back home, no MB. Fed Gus. Down basement and some practices. MB returned home, having gone shopping. I came up and made us some soup. More guitar. Slit drum. Foot rubs. Down basement, now and to complete the day.

iPhone in person

Monday: Woke around 9. A little lazing, and a relaxed morning. Email/web. Gus treatments. Breakfast eggs etc. Shower. Guitar. Down basement and some more email. The DVDs from Cleveland arrived via UPS. Morning practices. Grabbed Gus and stuffed him into the cat carrier.

Over to Davis Square and the vets. A young child inspected Gus. I told Gus he wasn't winning any beauty contests. A very reasonable vet. Gus is now on antibiotics as well. Dropped him back home. Drove to the CambridgeSide mall. At the Apple Store, I spent quite some time playing with an iPhone. Very cool. Amazing. Revolutionary. And also, annoyingly limited in some ways. My credit card almost snuck out of my wallet, but I somehow managed to leave the store without making a purchase. I'll wait until I actually need a new cell-phone, I think. Went to a "nutrition" store to pick up a supplement. The guy gave me such a hard-sell I left without buying anything. Went to another place and bought what I was looking for.

In to work. A bunch of bugs had piled up. I spent the day working on my list. Unfortunately many seemed to be unreproducible. A leftover slice of pizza for lunch. Fruit by the foot. Later on, a burrito and coffee. There's a rather lively set of topics on the Apple iPhone discussion board. Stayed on until 11.

Back home. Gus treatments. Down basement briefly. MB returned home. Some hanging out, she telling me about her work-day, and office dynamics. Goodnights, and back down basement.

Unclaimed Baggage

Sunday: Woke at 6:30. MB showering while I went about my morning practices. Then I showered while MB did her sitting. Packed and left the room around 7:25. The bunch had gathered downstairs waiting to go to breakfast. Some chatting and goodbyes. MB and I back up to the room, completed packing, and a few minutes with the Moving Force. Downstairs, and took the shuttle to the airport, the very polite woman driver of the van referring to MB as "Ma'am" and me as "Sir."


We had a meager and expensive breakfast at the airport. We were delayed going through security by a large group of mostly Japanese young people, who had just participated in a Karate competition, but otherwise we passed through without incident. A short and sleepy flight to Reagan International in DC. We avoided eating any more airport food as we waited for our transfer. We saw the Pentagon and the Lincoln Memorial as we took off. A bit of turbulence as we neared Boston, but made it back safe and sound, around 2:20 PM.

At baggage claim, a sea of unclaimed baggage awaited us. We never found out where all these bags came from, where they were going, or who they belonged to. A sign proclaimed "Don't leave your baggage unattended." I dare say there were a few hundred people who would have liked to have followed that recommendation. Eventually our bags came out at another carousel.


Drove back to Somerville, and picked up some thin-crust pizza at the place near the public works department. Back home, Gus was still kicking. The cat lady had left us a lengthy report. We ate, and then took a nap. Later on, MB went out to pay the cat lady and retrieve her key. Unpacking. Made some coffee. Piano and slit drum. Down basement and email.

At 7 PM, MB and I played guitar for a bit over an hour. We worked on C Major triads, then played a bunch of repertoire, ending with a little work on Driving Force. Down basement and work on the last of the three DVDs. Around 10, back upstairs and noodles, hanging with MB, started the dishwasher. Gus is purring a lot. He seems to get sweeter, the more frail he becomes. He's just skin and bones now. Back down basement and more DVD work. Soon to complete the day.