Late night with MB

Monday: Woke around 10. Email. Attended to Gus. He puked his vitamins on the bed. Brief sitting. Headed over to KKC, jumping the car in the garage... Filled water bowls, and cleaned the floor. Saw Tsunma-la briefly. Stopped at the donut shop and got an egg-bagel, which I ate in the parking lot. Back home, put away laundry, then headed for work.

Fairly good day in the office. Made a couple of important decisions for the project I'm on, and got some code written. Talked with a third-party developer about a strategy they are looking into. Took a walk out to the CD store. Talked to Wnd and MB. Figured out with K how to send email messages to her cell-phone. Headed home around 10:30.

Back home, made some coffee and cheese toast for MB and myself. We listened to the CDs I'd bought her for Valentine's Day. The two Barrys. Down basement for transplanted practices. Set up shelves in the storage room. Some exercise. Email. Back upstairs, now 4 AM... and juice and chocolate with MB.

Snow day/Gus treatment/storage room

Sunday: MB and I both slept in, until noon. Gave Gus his first in-home saline treatment, and his other meds. We both trundled downstairs, and had breakfast together, eggs, frozen waffles, soy sausage, coffee, tea and juice. It had snowed considerably in the night... really the first big snow of this winter.

After cleaning, we got suited up and went out front to shovel. Light and fluffy snow: easy to lift, but it blows around, and doesn't stack up. Our neighbor Bill had shoveled our walk for us several times already. The plow trucks came by a couple times while we worked. Down basement for exercise and practices.

I came up around 5:30. MB and I cooked a late lunch/dinner together: a quick stir-fry of frozen vegetables and tempeh, buckwheat noodles, and steamed buns (with lotus bean filling). MB packed lunches for tomorrow and made an Apple crisp. My mom called while we were cleaning up, and gave me a report about the very wonderful LRS fund-raiser she had attended last night. When I hung-up, MB and I called her parents, and heard about their plans to travel to Hawaii. Some guitar. Laundry.

Back downstairs for more practices. Also, pulled quite a lot of stuff out of our "storage room", cleaned the floor, and began setting up the new shelves. This will be a week-long project, no doubt. Some email.

Back upstairs, MB was folding veils, and planning to be up late working. Ate some cheese toast. Email. Diarizing.

Return of the Gus

Saturday: Woke around 8:30. MB headed out earlier to drive down to RI for some BD related business stuff. Had a lazier morning than I should have, doing minimal practices, eating breakfast and watching the rest of "The Island" before heading out to pick up Gus around 11:20. Dropped my excise tax check in the mail. Dropped off the dvd.

The news about Gus was not so great. He hadn't shown any signs of improvement, as far as his blood-work was concerned... but he seemed better. They gave me a demo of how to administer the saline treatment.

Back home, MB had returned from RI, and was about to head back out to her dance classes. She headed out, but I threw my coat on, and caught up with her. It was a bright sunny day. We walked up the hill to the bus stop, and I waited with her. After the bus came, I walked back down and around to home.

I played a fair amount of guitar in the afternoon, working out an approach to the bass part for Chrysanthemum. Spent some time IMing with an internet friend who lives in Canada. Feeling a bit out of it. Down basement for exercise and practices.

MB returned from her classes around 6:30, and headed back out sometime after 8 to a BD gig in Winthrop. I reheated the last of the Indian food, and watched some of Return of the King. Then, headed out to Home Depot, and bought some shelves. One of the units I bought bore the slogan "Being Organized is Bliss."
Back home, unloaded the shelves, and put my car in the garage, so MB could park in the driveway. A snow emergency has been declared for Somerville. Watched the rest of Return of the King. Weepy. MB got in around 1:30.

Welcome to the Machine

Friday: Woke around 9. Web. Shower. Breakfast. The house seems a little empty without Gus here. Down basement and to work. A bit more focused than I had been recently. My exercise is paying off... feeling stronger. Upstairs, and packed a box to return a shirt to LL Bean. Wrote out another check to send to my luthier. Dropped both the box and the check at the PO on my way to work.

Not a terribly productive day. I did some design work, and played with some code that I'm going to need to interface with. One of the design principals I've come to trust over the years is, it's a bad idea to put implementation in an abstract base-class. The code in question was guilty of this in several ways, and I was working at reducing this... but I ended up ditching my work. A bad API is a mysterious thing. Ate a sandwich at my desk. Got a coffee later in the day. Talked to the vet, and we decided to have Gus stay another night. Left work around 9. I noticed that someone had folded the notice to hide my little addition from the Ministry of Information.

Gave MB a call. She's working late up in New Hampshire. Picked up "The Island." Back home microwaved a bean and corn-bread instant meal, and watched some of the vid. Tired of watching the bad guys chase the good guys, and fired up the laptop. MB called to say she was coming home soon.

Here's a fun vid
What would the world be like, if everyone, or even just a lot of people, suddenly said "Hey! I don't have to play this game anymore. Let's climb a tree!"

Gus goes to the hospital

Thursday: Woke at 8:30... only a couple hours sleep. The vet called, and we decided to have Gus stay for a day or two at the kitty hospital, so they could give him a good dose of IV fluids. This reshaped how I'd planned my morning. Quick shower, and boxed PRS in the car. It was cold, so didn't bother trying to start the car, but just hooked up the booster charger. Car running, put Gus in the cat carrier, and in the trunk. Dropped him off at the vet's. Asked if they wanted a deposit, they said no... and I said "You have my cat, anyway!" Drove over to Medford and shipped off the PRS. They wouldn't have taken it if it was customized for one-of-a-kind. Stopped at the donut shop, hoping for a quick breakfast, but they put bacon on the sandwich, even though I had said "no bacon," so I had to go inside and have them make me another one. Ate this with the coffee sitting in my driveway. Exercise and then a slightly truncated practice. Tidied a drawer. Packed my electric rig into the car, and off to work. Made a call on the cell en-route, determining the staff was going to lunch at Spice.

Lunch with the guys... talking about guitars, more than technology. J was there as well. A real blast from the past. More bug fixing. Tracked two subtle ones down: One was the result of some pre-roll that was not correctly repositioning a sub-system (put in by DJS), and the other was a long standing bug in a clutch system I'd put into generation. Talked to the vet at some point. Got a coffee. Talked to Alx who was surprised that I don't use the Apple supplied email and web software (I prefer Eudora and Firefox). Shawn called with some sad news about the woman who owns the house where he lives. Our rehearsal was canceled as a result. Headed home around 9.

MB was off at a BD gig. Ate some noodles and toast while watching Return of the King. Leo seems a bit lonely without Gus around. Then, down basement for the completion of my practice. Spacing out a bit, made it difficult. Lack of sleep, in part. More RotK. MB got back from her gig, and we sat awhile talking. She's upstairs listening to music and typing. Soon bed.

And you ask every passing stranger in the shopping mall, “Is all this fucking necessary?” Only to discover that you are in an isolation chamber, a vacuum, a void in which no one can hear your voice at all. They are sleepwalking. They are shopping.

packed PRS

Wednesday: Slept in. Had a few errands to run. Fed cats. No milk in the house. Decided to do the minimum practice up front, then drove out and bought a large cardboard box and some bubble-wrap, listening apologists for the Bush administration on NPR defend warrantless wiretaps, without being able to say why the existing mechanisms that have oversight are insufficient. Ate a food bar and some nuts for breakfast, then headed to work. Stopped on the way and mailed a package for MB. Bug fixing. Updated our API for external devices to include a new parameter. Updated the three add-ons that we ship to allow accessing this parameter as well. They are "tightening security" in the building I work in, such that if you accidentally swipe your pass-card twice heading into, or out of the garage, it will lock you out. If this happens after hours, there is a $100 fine. I appended to this note, which had been posted in the lobby "Also, we are switching from e-mail to pneumatic tubes. Thank you. The Ministry of Information."

On the way home, stopped and did a quick run to the grocery store. Filled the tank of my car. Back home, heated up left-over Indian food for MB and me... we ate. Took out the recycling. Packed my PRS, which went quite quickly. Cleaning up after that. Exercise and daily practice. It was early morning when I was done.

time warp

Tuesday: Slept in a bit, with MB heading out early. She's been being quite a super-hero lately, staying up till all hours, doing work. I was not very focused once up. Fed cats and gave Gus his antibiotic, etc. Shower. Breakfast. Played guitar. Dilly-dallied. Down basement for exercise and practice. Must have entered a time-warp, because I think I didn't come up for three hours. When I did, I threw things together and got out the door as quick as I could.

In at work, more sorting through bugs. Found one had been caused by a new guy, naively extending some code, not realizing that a particular historical container class did not implement standard C++ copy semantics. An old program is full of manholes like this. We fill them in as time permits. I thought the Wiki was Dnlizing my code, and had a little snit about it, but then found it was just removing line-breaks willy-nilly. Sold my PRS guitar on Ebay, after talking to the buyer for a half hour or so. Ordered food from India Palace, which I picked up on my way home, around 10 PM.

MB (who had just gotten back from Franklin, where she taught a BD class) and I had a nice dinner, and then she got back to work in the upstairs office. Guitar and some web surfing. We took a little break for coffee and rice pudding. Listening to the 2003 Repertoire Project Luau recording, and making Leo dance to Calliope. She's back at her work again. It's 1 AM.

Coccyx

Monday: Up at 7:30 to NPR. MB was already at the computer, but I didn't notice right away. She headed out, taking her car to the shop and getting a loaner for her drive to work. I remembered I forgot to give Gus his antibiotic last night, so did that. Fed cats. Took a shower. Cereal and coffee. Dilly-dallied a bit longer than I should have, and so I had to rearrange my plans. A brief sitting. Down basement for tending to things and exercise, then tidied up a stack of papers, and packed Gus into the car. Car needed to be jumped.

Then to the vet. They took more blood, and gave him some fluids. Dropped him off back home, then headed to KKC. Dropped off the cards I'd had printed and laminated for Tsunma-la. Filled water bowls. Tsunma-la came out, and she gave me a report on the wildlife in the backyard. I offered back the payment for the cards. She gave me some blessed water for Gus and a CD of prayers for the time of death. She suggested I bring the cats over to meet Geshela sometime, and to be blessed. This may sound silly to us, but to Buddhists, all beings are equal. Stopped for a small coffee at the donut shop.

Back home and gave Gus some blessed water, and encoded the prayer CD into MP3 format on the iMac in the room where he's been hanging out. I left it playing on repeat for the rest of the day. Drank my coffee. Down basement for my morning practice.

In to work, and a discussion about an alternate data inscribing methodology that will need to be developed. The rest of the day was spent bug fixing, or weeding through bug reports. Lunch at my desk. The Spanikopita tasted a little refrigeratory, so later on I got some pizza. While things were building researched "Mr Pibb" and "Red Vines." Wnd sent a note saying her computer was fixed (again). Headed home around 10.


MB was in the office, with the prayers still going. I turned them off. They'd fixed her car to the tune of $800. We got caught up on each other's days... then I headed downstairs for email. Now maybe a little guitar.

Speedy "Torture Boy" Gonzalez played fast and loose with the constitution in front of congress today.

OK, 9/11 was a nasty business... but how many people died? 3,000ish?
40,0000 Americans die every year as a result of cigarette smoking.
157,000 Americans die every year in traffic fatalities.
What is the absolute worst that al Qaeda could do? I say, don't pay 'em any mind, it just encourages them.

Watch this.
Then read this.

President Bush proposed a $2.77 trillion budget on Monday calling for increased spending on the military and domestic security and substantial cuts in domestic programs as disparate as education, farm subsidies and the national parks.

Hello? Is anyone home?

Oh, this is good too.

If relaxation doesn't work, try tension. If tension doesn't work, try relaxation. If neither work, try alternating between them.

brain stem

Sunday: Slept in a bit, while MB headed out to the dance studio. She gave me a call, saying her car's "check engine" light was on. We decided she should just drive it home when she was done, and drop it at the shop tomorrow. A mellow morning hanging with the cats. Shower. Down basement briefly. I was up making breakfast around noon when MB returned. I split my food with her so we both had something to eat (scrambled eggs with Spanikopita, soy sausage, toast). I noticed her nose looked a little dark, and she then realized that the heating system at the dance space was malfunctioning, and she had been inhaling soot. She described some of the work she'd been doing on the planning for her dance performance.
After clean-up and some more email, down basement for morning (afternoon) practices. When I emerged, MB and I decided to go visit LzH at her new condo in Roslindale. MB put some plant cuttings in a vase, and we were off.
The condo is on a main drag, with the commuter rail right behind. Met Lz's new guy friend, and a co-worker. Saw the newly painted kitchen. This was promoted as a house-warming, but they've been living there since August. Sat watching the 'pre game' show at the Superbowl. Making Stevie Wonder do medleys... but clearly this is not about the music. It's all so packaged and rushed. It's a spectacle, nothing more. They ought to just blow stuff up. Ate cheese and crackers and cookies. The dog knocked a block of cheese on the floor with his tail. Stayed about an hour, then left.
Back home, paid bills as MB worked. Played guitar, reviewing Invention Number 1 and warming up a bit. Off to guitar circle.
David locked himself out, so missed a bit of the beginning. Eye of the Needle, Askesis, Third Relation. We did quite a bit of work on Invention 1, making it through perhaps 4/5ths of the piece. A break, which turned into a political discussion (by way of Zappa). Some talk about MB's project.
Back home, noodles, orange juice and tea. MB is staying up late again working.

After mentioning the tarot card "the fool" in an email yesterday, and picking it for the title of my diary entry, I found a brief article in Tricycle magazine of philosophical musings on the same. It's a sign!

the useful fool

Saturday: Slept in, and MB up, and off to her day of dance classes. Muddled around for the morning. Answered some work related email. Cereal and coffee. Down basement in the early afternoon. Put my Marshall stack up for sale on Craig's list. Answered questions about the PRS. Took up the bridge pickup and collected some info. Polished the frets. Talked to the vet about Gus, and we came to an understanding about how to proceed. He's still looking better than he was. Cleaned out my electric razer. MB returned around 6:30 or 7. Email. Later, I made a mushroom casserole with the second harvest. MB made some salad. Dinner. Bits of guitar practice interspersed here and there. Some text chat with a friend I've made who lives up in Canada. MB came down from working in the office. I made us some bowls of ice-cream and we watched a bit of Lord of the Rings. Now, completing the day.

Bad news for Gus

Friday: Slept until 10... not so bad considering I didn't get to bed until 5! MB had left long before. Decided to allow myself to have a lazy morning, after last night's heroics. Looked in on Gus. Not a happy camper. Made some eggs and so on for breakfast. The coffee squirted on the floor again, and this time also on my shirt. Shower. Email. Down basement and exercise and morning (now afternoon) practice. Physically felt pretty strong today. The daily exercise is paying off. Cleaned the coffee spill from the inside of my car. Off to work.

But first, to the CVS, and then to Gnomon copy. The guys there now me, and so I was handed my completed job (the one I handled for Tsunma-la) without having to ask. Also gave them a couple of books that I'm having converted to "lay flat" binding. Then to the ATM to deposit pay.

At the office, going through the bug-list. Gave Dnl a high-five for our tag-team efforts. We did indeed go beta today. Found and fixed a crash bug introduced by my fix of last night. Tried to reproduce another bug, but could not. My mom called and we chatted for a bit. She used the gift-card I had given her for Christmas, and her purchases exactly equaled its value. Got a call from the vet about Gus. He's pretty sick. Probably just age related kidney failure. She's recommending putting him in the cat hospital for a couple of days. Talked to MB, who is also working late. Headed home around 8 feeling a little blue about Gus. What is "feeling blue?"

Back home, Gus was looking a bit better. He was curled up with Leo, and then was happy to sit on my lap. He ate some wet food, and generally acted a little less pathetic than he had over the last few days. Computering. MB gave a call to say she was on her way. Diarizing. MB arrived. Ate some dumplings and potato listening to the WMMR session with the LoCG from 1987.

late night bug fix

Thursday: Slept in a bit... 10 or so. MB did as well, saying that she had missed her slot at the dance studio. I had some cereal and coffee for breakfast. The French Press squirted hot coffee out the side and onto the floor. Down basement for morning practices. More mushrooms harvested. Put away laundry. Shawn wrote saying we were on for the evening. Packed guitar and so on into the car.

In at work, chasing more bugs. Consulting with Dnl about an bug we've both been hunting for several days now. Lunch at my desk, thanks to MB. Left around 7:30. Got a coffee. The lid didn't fit quite right, and I spilled some in my car.

Over to Arlington, and a session with Shawn. Worked on the new tune and ran through the other stuff. One good version of Chrysanthemum. Half-hearted looping. It's becoming clear that some of this material wants to be played on acoustic guitar. Gave Shawn a ride home.

Called MB on the cell, and we decided we both wanted to keep working. So, back to H Sq and more work. Dnl had checked in some fixes. Gave him a call, and managed to catch him. I did some deeper analysis based on his feedback, and discovered the underlying bug: In an important place, I was using the originating time, where I actually needed to be using the resultant time. Checked that fix in and headed home, around 4 AM.

Back home, completing the day. Heard MB's alarm go off for "Friday." Thought Leo was in my lap and Gus was running up the stairs, but, not surprisingly, it turned out to be the other way around.

Gus to the Vet

Wednesday: Up around 8:30, and brief web, shower, then breakfast. Guitar. Down basement and dilly-dallied a little more than I would have liked, but still got a good bit done. Took Gus to the vet at noon, arriving about 5 minutes late. Now we're waiting on test results. Back home, and some more practices. Laundry.

Driving to work, I sat stopped in traffic for 15 minutes. Some workmen were loading a small tractor onto a flatbed truck, and not letting anyone pass. In at work, spent most of the day sorting through bugs. Wrote a long email that I deleted, replacing the entire text with the phrase "Quite an optimist, you are." Dnl found some odd behavior in the parameter sequencing. I spent the rest of the evening working on a solution to this. In the end, the solution fixed his test case, but not the larger issue we are trying to address. Back in his court. My mom called and told me her tale of woe, involving switching from AOL to a local high-speed internet provider. It's pretty confusing stuff to her. Also got a call from Wnd with some interesting developments in her personal practice. Headed home around 11:30.

Arrived back home just as MB was getting in. She'd stayed late at work as well. We're both tired. We ate a microwaved potato and some bean soup from a can. Quite tasty, actually. Gus seems to be doing a little better. I'm to give him antibiotics twice a day for a week. They also gave him a little fluid treatment, which seems to have perked him up.

Looking for a recording of Third Relation. The Luau CD from the repertoire has laser rot, and won't play. The version from the L3 (Jakes 2) suffers from the same thing that most of that material suffers from: Frantic. (What were we thinking?) MB asks what the name means, and I counter that the full name is "Third Relation Axial Antelope," hoping that would settle the matter. It didn't, so I suggested she ask Tony G.

dissonant convergence

Tuesday: Woke around 10. MB was in the office, and I didn't disturb her. Shower, then down basement. Afterwards, made an appointment with the vet for Gus, who is looking rather sickly these days. An icy drizzle falling, I drove across town to work.

Brief day at the office today. I was hunting a bug, and first thought it was not in my domain, then thought it was, then proved it wasn't. That was pretty much my day. Oh, one other thing: Had a long discussion with RT, where he used the same phrase to describe the situation in the office, that I did in my diary yesterday: "It's not healthy."

Drove over to KKC for yoga. Tsunma-la button-holed me, and gave me a project related to an upcoming trip of Geshe-la's to Mexico. Then yoga. Seemed particularly strenuous tonight. Perhaps Wendy is serving us double since we are only meeting every other week these days. Chatting afterwards with her and Wnd. Then, out for a late dinner with Wnd at a local Italian chain. Talking about her ailing laptop. She's been going through rather a lot lately, taking care of her mom after her father's passing, and trying to help her friend who is suffering from mental and emotional disturbances.

On the national front, today seemed like some sort of convergence point: Coretta Scott King died, Judge Burrito was sworn in, Chimpy Flight Suit gave the State of the Dis-Union screed, and Alan Greenspan served his last day as Fed chair.

"The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves;" (full article)

Back home, and hanging out with MB. Perhaps some guitar.