wires crossed

Monday: Up at 9ish. Shower. Down basement. Brief drums. Eggs. Fed Oscar. Pulled some documents together. Headed off to the chiropractor. After the session, stopped at a PO to mail some stuff. Then in to work. More analysis of the bug I was working on last week. Al looked at it, but we got our wires crossed, and he left in a huff. I partially fixed the issue, but then realized that undo and other operations could cause a similar slow-down (something was happening that was quadratic, and in this case there were 1,300 elements, or 1,690,000 operations.) A design meeting was going on, and I stuck a toe in. Left around 8.
Stopped at the Market Basket on the way home and did a little shopping. Back at the ranch, put away the groceries. Did some exercise. Ann called, and we'd had some miscommunication in an email exchange. Now, guitar, food and to complete the day.

Feng Shui

Sunday: Up around 9, breakfast, and Ann caught a cab to South Station. Snow on the ground. At 1:30, a gathering. Msha showed up. Hadn't seen her since Sept, but I got the feeling it was really great for her to be here today. Cheese and tea. Everyone departed around 6. Some guitar practice. Off to guitar circle. A full group rehearsal. A bit shaky. Stopped and got a veggie burger on the way home. The Wire and cheesy-tots.

Saturday: Ann and I spent the day with RDC. An interesting process, but quite taxing. Napping, evening practices, then sleep.

Friday: Up at 9, feeling cold, and off to the Chiropractor after morning practices and a light breakfast. In to work, and chasing bugs around. Left at 5. Back home, setting things up. Ran a class beginning at 7:30. One person from Maine had worked for Osho for years. A friend of Smnt's told me about an interesting healing technique called Tong Ren. Kicked everyone out at 11pm, and picked up Ann from Davis Square.

6 out of 100

Thursday: Went to bed late last night, so slept in, with a brief awakening around 9. Watching vids in bed. Shower. Down basement and morning practice and drums. Drumming today I was working on doing slow 5-stroke rolls, while counting in 4. Setting new batches of disk copies flying. Made another RAID set to hold my music library. Quick breakfast of yogurt and such. Fed Oscar. Trying to find a notary, but decided today was not the day. Emailing about the class tomorrow.

In to work. Ran into Rbt in the elevator. He said I liked my haircut and asked me how my personal life was going, and I told him. Spent the first part of the day regressing the bug I had fixed yesterday, hoping to see more of exactly what was going on. I learned a bit more, but didn't learn so much more. Did a bit of testing and then checked my changes in. Fixed about 4 or 5 more bugs, including one that seemed to only happen on PPC machines, but was actually being caused by the tester's preferences. Burrito. Stayed until 10.

Decided not to make lasagna tonight. Put out the garbage. Oscar came in briefly. Putting away laundry. Ironing. Copying the music library. Now to complete the day.

100 bugs

Wednesday: Woke at 9... not quite enough sleep. Lazed until 9:30. Shower, and down basement, setting more copying going. Morning practices, drums. Put some laundry in. Yogurt and coffee. Fed Oscar.

Headed over to the Chiropractor, then to work. A truck was parked in my spot. Spent most of the day going through Al's bug list. I swiped about 1oo bugs from him. DR went down with me to try to clear up a problem with the card keys and garage access... no luck. Burrito and coffee. Browsed in Newbury Comics. Began working on a few at the end of the day. Turned an old struct that had been a handle for years into an object. Headed home a bit after 10.

Laundry. Down basement and watched The Wire on the treadmill. Tending to file copies. Evening practices. Upstairs and snacks while videoing. Soon bed.

Someone sniffs the bake

Tuesday: Woke around 7, and attempted various vectors back towards sleep without success until 9. Up, shower, down basement, morning practices and drums. Reconstructed the hard-drive arrangement around the studio Mac. I now have 4 terabytes of storage, configured as 2 1 terabyte drives (RAID Level 1). That's pretty sweet. Realized my chiropractor appointment wasn't until 1:45, so suddenly I had some extra time. Juiced clementines and carrots, making a big mess in the process. Also made an oat-bake with some leftover apples. A couple of eggs for breakfast. Set the bake in a box outside to cool. Oscar and two other cats that were looking to be in heat were having some fights in the back-yard.

Stopped at the video store dropping off a DVD. Then to the chiropractor for more back crackery. In to work, and some consultation with Al. It turned out there were two bugs, one masking the other. A cache was not getting flushed, and mix-ups with too-easy implicit conversion between the ID spaces. Got a taco salad. Found an in-house-add-on was corrupting its data. For some reason the third parties now want me to help them develop using Apple's APIs. Ugh. Checked my stuff in and left around 9:30.

Drove across town. Gassed up the car. Picked up some beans at the store. Picked up another disk of The Wire at the video store. Back home and evening practices. Disks still churning. Some animal had taken a sniff at my oat-bake, but hadn't eaten it. I scooped the sniffed at part out, and put it back in the oven to kill any germs. Made some refried bean burritos and watched The Wire. Now, guitar and to bed.

Two fixing the bugs of one

Monday: Slept in. Part of the time NPR was on, and led to dreams about food distribution. Up, web, shower. Down basement and morning practices. Drums. Started another batch of files copying to the new RAID. A big breakfast, also feeding Oscar, who look particularly grubby this morning. Headed off to work.

In the office, continued looking for a way to fix the thing broken by Al's work of several months back. Finally decided that adding a constructor argument wouldn't be so bad. Spent the rest of the day refining this, and then got back to the place I'd been before, investigating an assert after a particular editing operation. Sent some emails back and forth with Al about this. Both Dv and I are more or less fixing his bugs at this point. Still, we're better off that he's at the company than if he weren't. I just wish he was better about testing his work. Headed home around 11.

Went right down basement and did my evening practices. Upstairs and ate a veggie burger. Video watching and web surfing. Soon bed.

An NYC trip

Sunday (NYC): Had a coughing fit in the night, so didn't feel very rested in the am. Did morning sitting as Ann got ready to go to the gym. Toast and tea. Email. Continued with practices. Nap. She returned, and some hanging out, eating leftover Middle Eastern food. I left at about 2:20. To the bus depot in Chinatown. Back to Boston, napping en route. Took the T to H Sq to get my car, then drove to Guitar Circle. Just Victor, myself, David and Martin tonight. Some good work, with tangible progress on several pieces. Headed homeward, stopping to pick up a DVD (Sunshine) and a eggplant sub, which I consumed, hanging out with the cat.

Saturday (NYC): Lazy morning, then off to Brunch at Fairway. Back to the Apt and watching Creature Comforts on the iPod. Met my mom and a friend of hers at Avery Fisher Hall, then got coffees and treats at the Mozart Cafe. The service wasn't so swift, and so running late, we jumped a cab to the Port Authority. No signs were posted listing the correlation between bus and gate, so we had to run around like mad. Got on-board just in time. Out to NJ to visit Ann's sister T, and family. A lovely meal and hanging out with the kids. D gave us a ride back into the city. A poorly timed reference led to a long discussion.

Friday: Woke at nine. Shower. Packed the backpack. Down basement brief drums. Breakfast and fed Oscar. Headed out, a sunny day. Dropped a DVD at the store. Chiropractor.
H Sq. got a haircut, the guy talking about picking up women in Brazil. Got a cup of coffee. In at work, and a short day. Arguing with Al about the best way to fix an important class that was broken by some changes of his. Left a little after 3. To the bus, and down to NYC, arriving around 8:15. Felt adventurous and figured out how to take the subway to the apt. An evening with Ann.

2.5 Terrabytes in the trunk

Thursday: Slept in. Shower. Down basement, and drums. Breakfast (mushrooms eggs greens) and fed Oscar. Guitar, working on the accompaniment line of LiG. Tidying. Headed out.

At work, revamped a system that had been a "singleton" that should not have been. Ran into bugs that I didn't have the juice to tackle, so headed home.

Made a RAID 1 array with two 1 TB disks, and set a heap of video to copy. Some food, watching The Wire. More guitar. More Wire. Now to complete the day.

Trading a Grocery Store for a Police Station

Wednesday: Sleep was shallow last night. Woke around 8, earlier than I had intended. Downstairs, and had eggs for breakfast. Fed Oscar. Shower. Heard Oscar complaining, wanting to go out while I dressed. He'd rather be in the snow than feel trapped. Down basement and morning practices. Brief drums.

Over to the chiropractor again. A sunny day. Then, in to work. Answered some emails. A barrage of bugs landed in my in-box. I fended some of them off, and then found a couple to dig into. Feeling sleepy, got a coffee and a burrito before really getting down to it. My first approach wasn't successful (wanted to do a low-level fix to make the whole thing more fool-proof... but this was proving difficult, and most places are already handling the API correctly at a higher level.) Talked to my mom. Left on the early side (for me). Back home, re-organized the stuff under the sink in the basement. Did the evening practices early. Put out the trash. Took a walk out and got some pizza. My next-door neighbor works at this pizza-place. We talked about the woes of shoveling snow. The aging grocery store is closing, and I asked them what's going in in its place. Apparently a police station.

Back home, watched a couple episodes of The Wire. Applied a screen protector to my cell-phone. Soon bed.

Adjustments

Tuesday: Around 6:30am was woken by the loud sound of a helicopter, hovering... It hovered for an hour. Took some photos of the dawn. It left, and back to sleep. Hanging around in bed. Shower. Down basement (no drums today). Very quick breakfast of yogurt. Headed out. A bright sunny day. Had another chiropractic session. My neck is too straight. Adjustments.

In to work, and casting about for a bit. Had a salad. Updated my fancy cell-phone to the new revision of its software. Checked my stuff in, and promptly found a bug with it. Spent much of the day tracking this down (job tree corruption). Took a walk out to get a coffee and talk to Jan R on the phone. (Looks like I'll co-lead a course with her in March.) Fixed a few small other things. Left around 11. Mitt R won the Michigan primary.

Back home, ate some steamed greens and a soy "chicken" patty. Hanging out with Oscar (who doesn't like all the snow on the ground). Replying to emails.

Chiropractor. Snow. Long day at work

Monday: Woke at 8. Called the chiropractor and asked if his office was open today, despite the snow. Yes. Trundled out of bed, and went to shovel the walk and the drive. Shower. Down basement and brief drums. Quick breakfast of eggs and so on. (Fed Oscar, who seemed temporarily happy to be out of the snow). And headed out.

Got a little turned around, since most of the street signs were obscured with white. Finally had my initial consultation. Follow up tomorrow. Heading to the office, used the toll transponder for the first time. At work, found the bug with the add-on that was causing unending activation. Took a walk out, bought clear tape, dropped things in the mail, bought a cup of coffee. Slush slush slush. A guy asked me if I could spare a minute of my time for the environment, and I said "no." Fixed the decimation bug, eventually settling on two float scaling ranges for positive and negative. Profiled with good results. Then turned my attention to the other problem I'd been working on the previous week. Found and fixed a bug, then encapsulated some code to allow the auxiliary ports to be displayed, but not actually be active, when running in the lower priority mode. A taco salad. Bn asked for help, and I initially sort of brushed him off, but then actually gave him some decent advice. At the end of the day when I was heading out when B stopped me and I looked over Bn's shoulder a bit more, found he had to rebuild something, and then diagnosed a bug with some of Al's code.

Stopped at the video store and traded D1 of the Wire (which I'd picked up accidentally) for D2. Shopping. Back home, and putting the groceries away, listening to the BBC. Ate some microwaved Indian food, then ice-cream. Now to complete the day.

Home Computering

Sunday: Woke around 10, and the morning slipped away. Made some vegetable juice (beets, parsley, carrots etc) and remembered what a pain it is to clean the machine. Lazing about. Fed Oscar. Shower, down basement, drums. An actual breakfast, eggs and so on. Mom called while I was fixing it. Crushed some nuts and added them to melted chocolate, making my own Improvised Candy-bar Device. Quite a batch of computer related activities in the afternoon. Reading teaching materials and giving feedback. Designing a flyer. Promotion etc. Bought some hard-drives for video and audio work. Did some work on LiG, and then, off to guitar circle.
Six of us tonight (Victor, Alex, David, Martin, myself, Chris). Ran through most of the material for the show. My first time experiencing the new sound-system. An improvement. I think we may have blown a speaker in Thrak. Recorded a couple of passes of Life-Lite on the laptop. Had forgotten about our day-long mini-retreat, and double booked. After circle, stopped for a fast-food veggie burger, which I ate back home. It turned out I'd gotten the wrong disk of The Wire. Updated some parts of the KKC website. Gotta get up earlyish, so soon to complete the day.

Measuring

Saturday: Slept in, and some lazing around. Shower. Down basement, and drums. Breakfast with Oscar. Measured around the outside of the house and on each floor, making diagrams for an upcoming project. Gave the refrigerator a thorough cleaning, listening to NPR. Watching some vids. Practicing guitar while watching "Eastern Promises." Thumbs up. Ate a pizza (frozen, then heated in the oven). Now to complete the day.

Repair

Friday: Slept in. A rainy day, wind outside. Web, shower, down basement, morning practices, brief drums. Breakfast (eggs, coffee etc) Fed Oscar. Sorted through some piles of papers. Began updating some legal documents. Headed off to work, across town.

D found my fix of yesterday wasn't quite. Also found an unanticipated gap in the other design I'd implemented yesterday, and spent several hours trying to find the best work-around. Still wasn't quite there by days end, around 9:30.

Stopped at the video store, and picked up a couple titles. Back home, and a mellow evening in store.

Practice and Loop Listening

Thursday: Slept in, and an abbreviated morning. Breakfast of cheese-toast, soy sausage and vitamins, ate standing by the sink. Send a package off to MB, dropped vids at the store.

At the office, working on connections forcing the RT run environment. The problem I ran into was, that the sockets weren't created until the thing was made, so how do you know if the plugs will be connected before you make it? When you're feeling boxed in, its a good indication that you need to think outside it. Some taco salad action. Completed the code, but didn't get a chance to run it.

Picked up Shawn. At my place, ran through our material. My playing was better than last week, but not where it needs to be. We also listened through our improv material, bouncing snippets. Gave Shawna ride home. Late night shopping. Putting away groceries. Ate a veggie burger watching Dane Cook on DVD.

Waving, Lunch with Irv

Wednesday: Woke at 8:30. Dozed for a little longer. About 4 hours sleep last night. Ugh. Shower. Fed Oscar and had some breakfast. Down basement and morning practices and drums. Put away laundry.

In to work, and a speaker-phone call with some developers, basically telling them the bad news that they had a bunch of work to do. Lunch with Irv at the Chinese place next to OCBC. The Tibetan shop near OCBC is closing. Fixed a few bugs during the rest of the day. B checked in his changes, meaning our eggs are all pretty much in the same basket, finally. Took a walk out and got a cup of coffee and some CDs. Finally checked my stuff in. Left around 8.

Back home, the house cleaner had come, and left a nice note. Took out the garbage and the recycling. Watched the rest of the six feet under documentaries while eating some vegetables and pizza. Also watched a very gross and odd movie that I'd been wondering about for some time.

Now some guitar and to complete the day.

Installing things

Tuesday: Up around 10:30. Snot. Got a call from RA at 11. Good conversation. Spoke until about 12:15. Breakfast. Shower. Paid bills. Down basement, and drums. Headed to work. Stopped for a coffee at Starbucks. They couldn't sell me a medium coffee. They only had enough coffee for a small. I said "This is a coffee shop, right?" Most of the day was spent dancing around the politically expedient way to tell some third party developers that they have some work cut out for them, and trying to figure out how to get a subsystem not to freak out on unwinding in an abort condition. Hillary and McCain won the NH primary. Drove homeward on Storrow. Stopped at Home Depot and bought a dimmer. Back home, installed the dimmer to replace the one in the bedroom (had to play a guessing game with the fusebox). Installed the old single shower head. Installed a new battery in my laptop. Got a bowl of ice cream. Down basement and added some credits to the vid of Shawn and I bashing around (see below). Now to play some guitar and complete the day.

Eleven Days Around the New Year

Monday: Some fussing about. Unpacking. Affixed the toll transponder to my windshield. Down basement for morning practices and drums. Decided to leave asap. Stopped at the donut shop for an egg sandwich, but they were out. Picked one up near work instead. Some brush-fires to put out at work. Good rapport with B today. He was sick also. Back home, and watched the last episode of Six Feet Under. Quite emotional. Guitar, running through most of the GCNE material for our gig. Now to complete the day.

Sunday: A breakfast of odds and ends. Took a cab to the bus, and made the 1pm. Back to my house by 6. An evening of Six Feet Under, the final three, save one.

Saturday: Feeling better, but not 100%. Did a little shopping in the afternoon, and had lunch at a fun Middle Eastern place (Nanoosh). "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." A dinner of odds and ends.

Friday: Woke feverish and sweaty. Canceled the trip we'd been going to take. Spent the day watching videos.

Thursday: Had the last of the mashed potatoes and mushroom soup for breakfast. Packing. Feeling a little off. Headed to work. Realized I'd left my ear-buds at home. Took at cab back to the house, and told him to wait. Arrived at South Station just after 4. Next bus wasn't until 5. Donut. Dozed on the way to NYC. We made it there, without stopping, in 3 hours and 40 minutes. Very cold out. Rejected from one Chinese restaurant, found another and took refuge. Buddhist Delight. Feeling pretty sick. Ann called and I took a cab to meet her.

Wednesday: Back to work. Depositing money. Going to the druggist. (Long lines one place, so to the other location). After work, picked up Shawn. We edited video for several hours in the basement. Tried to find a place to have dinner, but it was almost midnight. Dropped him off and had some leftovers back home.

Tuesday (NY Day): After breakfast, put Ann on a bus back to NYC. She managed to slip on just as one was leaving. Spent the rest of the day watching HBO shows on DVD.

Monday (NY Eve): A lazy morning, then headed off to do some errands with Ann. Stopped at the Circuit City store and looked at TVs. In Boston, wandered around downtown. Stopped at the Whole Foods near Fresh Pond and bought more delicious things. Back home Ann did some more cooking. A late supper, and marking the new year.

Sunday: Ann was feeling ill, so we just hung around and watched movies most of the day.

Saturday: In the morning Ann and I went shopping at the Whole Foods near the Charles. She spent the day in the kitchen working on a recipe she's thinking of making for her family, while Shawn and I were in the basement. A break for lunch, leading to a minor calamity in the kitchen. Filming. Also ran most of our material. Shawn left around 6. Yummy soup and tempeh. Went to a party at Cath's, but didn't stay too long. Peter B chatted with Ann.

Friday: Stopped in Boston to make an important purchase. A day at work. Ate a "taco salad" late in the day. Picked up Ann at the bus stop. Back home, and a discussion about the meaning of gift giving.