MacBook arrives

Tuesday: Woke around 9, but thought better of it, and back to bed. The 4 to 10:30 routine turned into a 5 to 11 one this time around. Another nice day out, and feeling in quite a good mood. Down basement and morning things. Screwed the dishwasher back in under the counter.

Headed in to work, driving across town. Avoided getting stuck behind a garbage truck. Got some pizza and energy drink for breakfast. Another not so productive day, looking into PPC weirdness. Completing the removal of a libraries copies of the new and delete operators proved slightly more involved than I had thought it would be. My new laptop had been delivered. I knocked a halogen lamp off my desk while unpacking it. Didn't really do much with it, since I was going to give a brain transplant in the evening anyway. Checked in, and then headed off at 7 PM.

Arrived a bit late for yoga. A strenuous class tonight, doing 4 sun salutations, with some unusual variations thrown in. One posture I didn't even want to try, as it felt like it would put too much strain on my knee. Met the monk from Mexico that is staying at the center. Headed off a bit before 9 PM.

Back home started the internal drive of the new laptop duplicating off onto an external hard drive. Had a good call with my workshop mates. One fellow is getting ready for a tour of Europe, with some good advice for me as well. At 10:20, came up and ate lasagna, salad and bread with MB. After dinner, I started my brain transplant on the MacBook: Pulled out the pre-installed RAM and disk, and upgraded to 2 and 120 gigs, respectively. This process was really quite simple. Put the MacBook in target disk mode, and copied back all of the pre-installed data. It booted without a hitch. Then put my old laptop in target disk mode, and copied over all my old data. This was what was going on as I began the diary entry. In the meantime, MB and I looked into some travel options. I played some guitar and she showed me a choreography she'd come up with to Chrysanthemum. Checked on the progress of my new guitar: the neck is on. Time for frets and finish. Soon down basement.

no anesthetic

Monday: Another 4-10:30 sorta night. Strange dream about revealing
inner truths by illustrating overlays on projected images of cookies.
Got up and efficiently carried out my morning things. MB was working
at home today. Then, mowed the grass in the backyard. Had some coffee
and a bowl of cereal. Some guitar. Talked to MB's grandfather for a
while. He's 96, and annoyed that he hasn't bounced back more quickly
after a gall-bladder operation. Headed out. A latch on my car that I
had stuffed with a paper napkin had to be unstuffed. Quite a lovely
day out today.

Stopped at KKC and filled water bowls. Ngawang was asleep on the
couch when I arrived. Things that seemed like they were going to go
quickly took a long time. As I was leaving, saw Wendy and someone I
had not met before named Bt arriving having just done a set of three
nyung-nes at Milarepa center. Somehow the talk turned toward being
operated on without proper anesthetic. And then I left.

In at work, fixed a couple of little things, but the most pressing
bug required that I venture back into PPC land. And this involved
updating my OS install, and lots of other installing and rebuilding.
Took a walk out to the print shop, and then stopped at the stationary
store. A nice lunch at my desk thanks to MB. Still some strange stuff
going on with the new and delete operators. Headed home around 10:30.

Said hello to MB. She had gone shopping, and had asked me to make a
lasagna, so I did, using up some mushrooms, "soy ground beef" and
crushed tomatoes. Some guitar. A long wait for my laptop to reboot
after software update did its thing. I've just upgraded it to 10.4.6,
in preparation for its sale.

Sunday in some parks

Sunday: Woke at 8:45. Thought briefly about getting up and going to Kurukulla, but sleep won out. Woke again at 11. Very good. Last night was another 4 AM +. Oy. Up, cats, shower. MB was hanging around. Down basement around 11:30. MB was going to be gone by the time I came back up. Quite a lovely day out today!

More work on a website. MB returned. She made us some salad, which we ate.
Drove around to H Sq. Went to the pharmacy, then walked to the print shop (which was closed). Down to the Charles, where Memorial Drive was blocked off. Some sort of festival was wrapping up. In to work for about an hour. Looked at a few bugs, but nothing much to sink my teeth into. Drove back home, across town.

Took a bike ride. Decided to go exploring. Up and over a pedestrian walk across McGrath, through the new supermarket parking lot, under 93 to Assembly Square. Found a path along the Mystic River I'd never known was there. The path ultimately led to "The Winter Hill Yacht Club"... and then to a park. People fishing in the river. Saw some kids catch a fish... All under the watchful eye of the Everett power station smoke stacks. Made my way back home, up over Ten Hills (which is a funny name, because there is a hill, but just one of them).

Back home. I think maybe a skunk has died under our shed. More typing and whatnot. In the evening, changed strings on my guitar while listening to "Duty Now for the Future." MB changed her strings. Her high G broke and we didn't want to break a new pack to get a spare. I hadn't cut the old one of mine, so I strung it back on her guitar. She headed out.

Down basement for the rest of the days work. MB returned while I was still down. Emergence, then some guitar, and noodle soup. Crackers whose package proclaims they are free of cholesterol and saturated fat, led to fun:
Now completely free of Strontium 90, asbestos and cyanide!
Now with less rat turds!
And in honor of Alex Kelly:
Now virtually free of pecker shmeg.

More email stuff, and the day is done.

a lovely nap

Saturday: Woke around 10, continuing the prevailing sleeping pattern.
MB was off doing stuff. The cats got in a big fight, and got me out
of bed in a start. Wote a to-do list for the weekend in bed. Tried to
get back to sleep, as I was feeling a bit off, but no. Gave Gus his
ministrations. Shower. A bowl of cereal and some coffee. Guitar. Down
basement, and practices. Email and such.

I was just starting to make a flyer for the July 7th gig, when MB
returned home. We spent a pleasant afternoon together. After a bit we
went out to have some Mexican food at Rudy's. Rain. Stopped at the
video store on the way home and picked something out.

Back home, I took a long, very lovely nap. The cats kept me company,
and I slept soundly for two hours. When I woke, I worked on a
website. Played a bit more guitar. Coffee. MB and I watched our DVD:
The Brother's Grimm. So-so, but I watch anything by Gilliam, so it
had to be done. Not a terrible diversion for the evening. More
website work. MB headed to bed. A snack, then down basement for the
completion of the day.

signature required

Friday: Back to the 4 AM to 10:30 AM sleeping schedule. Last night
before heading to the basement, I took a walk up the Broadway hill,
and found the only shop open was a donut shop. Somerville is a city
with an early bed-time. I guess I could also have had a beer, if I
drank. Had a coffee and a terrible donut, and bought some coffee for
the morning. Then down basement for practices. A bit of guitar.

Woke around 10:30. I guess I already said that. Shower cats and so
on. Left a note, anticipating the UPS man. Down basement.

Still rainy today. In to work across town, stopping to buy gas. $48.
Continued bug whacking today. Got a haircut (trim really) a coffee
and a scone. Things are looking pretty good, and I suggested that
we're close to releasing a beta. We got together and bounced this
idea around and there seemed to be consensus. Al made a comment about
some MetroWerks stuff I'd removed and I said "I don't care" A little
later in the meeting I apologized for this, and asked him to limp
along as best he can. Lunch at my desk thanks to MB. Received
confirmation about a teaching opportunity. In the evening walked out
with B and had some food a the burrito place in The Garage, talking
about bugs, and the shifting landscape of restaurants in Harvard
Square, which we have both now watched and experienced for some 13
years. Headed home a bit after 9.

Back at the ranch, a long conversation with MB. Then we played some
guitar working on Eye of the Needle, maintaining a constant tempo
through chord changes. Third Relation. Made some coffee. The UPS man
hadn't left my package, as they required an in-person signature. More
guitar on my own. Email. Soon down basement.

Circle meeting with Shawn

Thursday: Woke around 7 AM as MB headed out to do some dance practice
at Third Life. Lazed in bed for a bit, and then up. Broke the
sleeping pattern last night, getting to bed around 1:30 AM. Web,
shower, cats. Down basement, and a slightly longer morning practice.
Upstairs and put away laundry. Said hello to MB. Packed my guitar in
the car, and headed out. Raining. Stopped at the donut shop for an
egg sandwich and some coffee.

In at work, more bug fixing. Fixed one where long integers were being
slurped from a type-less data-blob. They needed to be byte reversed
on Intel. Fixed another place where a struct was a different size
under XCode that was breaking file IO... This was pretty funny,
because the struct size wasn't even being used for anything except to
multiply a count on write, and then divide it again on read... Out to
lunch with the guys, mostly talking about the real estate market,
which everyone agrees has stalled. Got some quick pizza at 6:45. Left
work around 7.

Drove to Arlington, and a circle meeting, plus Shawn. David and
Martin. Victor came later. We worked on a good bit of shared
material, mostly GC repertoire. Interesting experience: a new
rhythmic spotlight on the circle's strengths and weaknesses. Victor
had some good feedback for Shawn given the added guitar parts.

Afterwards, gave Shawn a ride home. Then home myself. MB returned a
bit later. Down basement, then bed.

ships in the night

Wednesday: Slept again between the hours of 4 and 10:30 AM. Woke a
little as MB headed for work. Another rainy day. Cats, shower,
downstairs and fed the blighters, and had some breakfast myself. Some
guitar. Down basement and morning practices. Paid bills.

Drove out, stopping to pop some envelopes in the mailbox. Wet. It
looked like the front driver's side tire was low on air, so drove to
the gas station and checked it. It was actually OK, but I put a few
more pounds of pressure in just in case, and checked the other side
too. More wet.

In to work late. B wasn't in today. Some consulting with Dnl about
the memory issue. Some consulting with Al about a time-stamp problem
(something needed endian swapping). My mom called, and we had a nice
chat, although I was a little distracted. Fixed our support for a
third party API by updating to the latest dev kit, which added Mach-o
and Intel support. Stayed until around 8 PM.

Drove home on Storrow, which was a bit of a wild ride in the rain.
Back at the house, a private belly dance lesson was in progress. Down
basement for practices. When I emerged, MB had gone to bed. Took out
the garbage. Emptied the dishwasher. More guitar. Email.

Yak-away

As we drive along,
I wonder what went wrong,
With this chick, whose blowin' chunks at the side of the road.
As we drive along,
I think of the things she done
To get her crouched over and streaming a load.

She's pukin in the rain,
Tears are fallin' and I feel her pain,
Wishin' she were vomit free
To end her misery
And I wonder--
I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder,
Why,
Why, why, why, why, why she's hurlin' her lunch
Did she drink too much?
Does she have the flu?
Did she get car-sick?
Was it some bad seafood?
My little yak-away,
Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak-away.

She's pukin in the rain,
Tears are fallin' and I feel her pain,
Wishin' she were vomit free
To end her misery
And I wonder--
I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder,
Why,
Why, why, why, why, why she's hurlin' her lunch
Did she drink too much?
Does she have the flu?
Did she get car-sick?
Was it some bad seafood?
My little yak-away,
Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak-away.
Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak-away.
Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak-away.

human damaru

Tuesday: The "to bed at 4, sleep until 10:30" routine continues. Shower, cats. Some time in the dance room. Ate a bowl of cereal. Had a small lesson in equitable business practices on ebay, which I did my best to clean up this morning. Down basement and brief practices.

Headed to work. Quite nice weather today. Had a discussion with Dnl and B about the memory allocation problems we're having with GCC 4 and Tiger. Dnl gave me some help with P4V... which continues to be a thorn in my side. Some talk with Kth about a bug. An interesting hummus sandwich c/o MB. Left work early: 5:30 PM.

Lots of traffic. Stopped for some cookies and flowers a the grocery near Kurukulla. Arrived by around 6:20. Set up for the ceremony, with the help of Hm. Dlrs was also there. Ngawang continues to torment me with Tibetan. Afterwards, helped clean up. Headed out by 8:55.

Back home and my weekly phone-call. Interesting stuff going on in Australia, and some discussion about their rather odd laws around sexuality and commerce. Some hanging out with MB. Ate leftover artichokes, and some bread. Guitar practice. Recorded a quick version of Chrysanthemum for MB. Email. My new laptop has been shipped. Soon down basement.

theory of mind

Monday: MB pulled an all-nighter last night. I went to sleep around 4
AM, and she was till going strong. Not sure what time she left for
work, but I woke around 10:30. Cats, shower, and so on. Briefly down
basement. Some guitar, working on articulation. Headed over to KKC,
waved at the sea of saffron and maroon, watching TV. Filled water
bowls. Stopped and got an egg sandwich and a coffee, then in to work.
Spent all day working on the new and delete issues I had tried to
straighten out over the weekend. Unfortunately, due to the way the
shared C++ runtime works, template expansions that perform new and
delete operations that are linked to in the shared runtime are not
effected by our headers, and so, the wrong versions of those
operators get called. This solution is unworkable. It took me all day
to figure that out. Delivered the news to B, and we spent a little
while assessing our options. Lunch at my desk, a beanie, tomatoish
posta thing c/o MB. I sold my Lexicon PCM 91 on Ebay. Got a coffee
and a free cookie. Called Shawn and set up a rehearsal for Wednesday.
Headed home around 9.

Sent out an email about Wednesday. MB returned home with groceries.
She reported her class went well tonight. Helped unpack. Emailed
about course ideas for the Roundhouse in November. Some hanging out
with MB. She told me an interesting thing about birds that she read
in Science News. The way they hide food indicates they have a "theory
of mind" of who is watching them. More guitar. Soon down basement.
What do we think about this?

Sound-bites

Sunday: Slept later than I intended; until around 10:20. Too late to
go to Kurukulla. MB slept later than she intended as well. For some
reason my first thoughts on waking were about the last day of my
father's life. He didn't know it was his last day. As he was dying,
he didn't know he was dying. This is strange, but commonplace. Up
brief email and such while she was taking a shower and getting ready
to head out. Quick bowl of cereal. Shower. Fired up the electric rig
and did some practice. I've been neglecting my electric guitar
playing, so it was good to put some time in on it. I was playing
Moving Force and putting my attention in my right hand, and suddenly
it became clear, as in a direct experience, that playing the piece
well had entirely to do with developing the sensation of the fine
muscles inside the wrist and hand. MB headed out. Wnd swung by on her
way home from KKC, and we went out to lunch together: Sound Bites in
Ball Square. We both had the "Green Eggs, No Ham" (Spinach Eggs
Benedict). Pretty good, although I usually like my yolks firm. Back
home, no MB. More guitar. Dropped a check in the mail for the GCNE's
gig at Third Life. Down basement for some practices. MB returned.
Came up and said hello. More guitar. At 7:45 we headed to guitar
circle, in South Boston. On the way, as MB was playing me a song she
liked (a guitar ensemble playing "Runaway") I saw a woman heave a
prodigious stream of vomit from the passenger side of a car. At the
Dojo, Victor had us do some stretching. Worked on Thrak. He
rearranged the circle, putting me on the opposite end. This changed
my hearing of Eye of the Needle considerably, and I found it
difficult to play in time with the leads. Martin gave me a very
thoughtful, if belated, birthday gift. Back home, MB is making
cookies. After eating one, down basement.

overpass

Saturday: Slept in a bit, MB headed out to do some dance rehearsal. A
semi-lazy day. Raining. Personal practice in the basement. Some
discussion about taking responsibility for communication. A bit of
guitar. Later, off to work. Rebuilding lots of stuff as a result of
prefix changes. Drove down to Norwood. A truck had hit an overpass,
and the resulting mess was causing some traffic. Hung with Wnd,
getting some Indian food and watching an episode of "Mystery." Back
to the office and wrapping up my changes. Some unit tests are
failing. Will have to look into this later. Back home, and MB was
already there from the Kasbah. Soon bed.

Neck

Friday: Woke feeling a bit beaten down. So, a lazy morning. Shower.
Cats. Down basement. Victor arrived at 11. I had just made some
coffee and was warming up. We worked on Loadstone for about almost
two hours, making it through the middle part. Off to work. Overcast
today. Last night I turned on the AC in the house just a little to
dry things off.

More head-scratching on the operator new bug today. After a few
failed attempts, I finally emailed my contact at Apple, and got a tip
from him as to how to fix it. Good stuff. Booked a gig for the
GCNE/CoFD at Third Life on July 7th.

Back home around 8. MB and I walked out and picked up a DVD.
Conversations. We made a frozen pizza, and I made stuffed artichokes.
Watched the vid: 40 Year Old Virgin. Two thumbs up. Coffee. Email.

I don't know about you, but I think the Lesbian Batwoman is really hot!

Puppet Karma

Thursday: Woke at 8 AM, and out of bed in a jiffy. Brief email,
shower, cats, then down basement for morning stuff. At 11 had a phone
conversation with my friend Richard until a little after noon. Tried
to resurrect my old turntable. It gave a final spin and cried, "no
more." Said hello to MB, who was working at home today. Packed the
car with my electric rig and headed out.

Had some pizza for breakfast. The lady behind the counter was
handling raw hamburger, and while she did remove her plastic gloves
to fetch my slices, I was left with a queasy feeling. Spent most of
the day researching a mysterious bug, where the OS is using our
overridden version of the new and delete operators. Got a cup of
coffee and a scone in the late afternoon. Consulting with B and Eln
about the mysterious bug.

I picked Shawn up at his new digs near Central, and we drove to
Arlington. Quite a productive rehearsal, running through all our
material, and then working for a good chunk of time on Thrak. Dropped
Shawn back at the Porter T, then home.

Boiled some corn, while MB made pear crisp. We ate, and I played a
bit of the ELP "Trilogy" album for her, just for kicks. She told me
about some experiences she'd had on her L2 in Argentina that were
interesting, and that will have long reaching repercussions. Some
clean-up. Took stuff out to the compost. Soon bed.