Close, but far

Thursday: Up as MB headed out. Sitting in the dance room. Cats. Web. Shower. A snack. Down basement briefly. Moved the snow shovels to the shed. Another outstanding day, in the weather department. Drove across town to work.

The gang had already left for lunch when I arrived. I went out hoping to catch them. Ran into Adm. Found my buds at Spice, but they already had their food. Bought a sandwich at Au Bon Pain. Consulting and bug fixing. Mrk told me about a feature of Verilog where you can specify constants with "x" bits that don't get compared. Fixed a whole class of crash bugs. But some puzzling things came in from testers. Got some pizza. Bad news on the other driver front (why so expensive at 2x?). Listened to a spoken word tape that MJ gave me at last weekend's retreat. Left around 9, feeling a bit discouraged.

Back home, and hanging out with MB. Made some espresso. Guitar. Then down basement.

Top down

Wednesday: Slept in a little, and a relaxed morning. Cats, shower, breakfast (cereal, espresso). Guitar. Briefly down basement.

Very nice out today. Warm and sunny. At work, continued bug fixing. Took one off Al's list, since he's on the XCode port now. Helped Dv. Got a burrito. Stayed late, deciding to keep working rather than go to KKC. Headed home around 9:40.

Back home, MB was cleaning up after a drum class, and making Apple crisp. She headed out to the Middle East, to return a drum someone had left, and to get paid for a gig. Down basement, but dawdled rather than applying myself. MB returned around 11, so I resurfaced. We hung out, and I ate a little food. She to bed, and me back downstairs.

Oooo Math is Hard

Tuesday: Slept in a bit, and a typical morning. Cats, shower, sitting in the dance room. Breakfast of cereal. Fired up the old espresso machine. Quite nice out.

At work, more bug fixing. Fixed a bug caused by a previous fix. Fixed the last critical bug on my list, though other bugs remain. Left around 7:45

Got a little lost on my way to Victor's. Mapquested again. There by 8:30. Victor, me, Martin and David. MB was to arrive later. We ran through most of our material. Pretty rough in spots. Lark's is still giving me rats. MB arrived around 10:15. A couple of runs through Invention 1, then David left. Eye of the Needle sounded quite good tonight, although there were plenty of little gaffs. My concentration was off.

Back home, some hanging out with MB, then down basement.

Later than intended

Monday: Wanted to wake up early, but after getting up briefly, found I needed more sleep. The yoga of Sunday was putting the hurt on my body. So, then, cats, shower, brief morning practices in the dance room. Made little labels for the unalphabetized categories in the CD collection. Ate some breakfast (leftover omelette). Brief basement visit. Some emailing. Packed the car with music gear, and headed out.

Over to KKC. I was too late to fill water bowls. Found Jf in the basement on the computer. Headed in to work. Got a large coffee. B and Dnl were talking when I got in. Dnl and Al are being pulled off to the XCode port. A good thing. Talking. Down to the business of bug fixing. Flush when bypass toggled. Checked in fix for the lost data at start bug. Made a fix for the "clean data tagged as dirty" bug. Left about 7:45.

Arlington, and a good session with Shawn. Worked on the new material, and then all the old stuff as well. Talked about where to go from here, and came up with some ideas about how to proceed.

Back home, MB was very sleepy but perked up. Ate some pizza and salad for dinner, while she talked about office politics. Also talked about a insider blog on Microsoft. Vista is Msft's Copeland. Down basement, and practices.

Yoga, and BS

Sunday: Wanted to wake around 7, but slept in until 8. Still was intending to get more done than I did. Shower. Cats. Suddenly it was 9:40. Headed off to the last day of the yoga workshop.

Arrived on time, or at least, less late than many people. Just because something is painful, does not mean it is good for you. At our lunch break, we were each assigned a topic to hold the conversation from sliding into idle chatter. Mine was "death." I suggested "Spice" (Thai) and it seemed an agreeable choice. In the afternoon one of the instructors blew her stack at one of the other instructors. Then they immediately justified it by saying "it was their enlightened level of intimacy that allowed them to have such direct communications." Looked like good-old-fashioned anger to me. Students take on the flaws of their teachers. They gave us some time to freely move to music at the end, and one fellow twisted his ankle. Not such a nice note to finish on.

Back home, put away laundry, ordered a pizza. MB came home. We talked about our days. She'd been down at a BD workshop with Bn and company. We picked up the pizza, ate then hung out a bit. I made coffee. Guitar. Email. Down basement for completing the day.

Men's Yoga/José Mateo's 20th

Saturday: Lovely sleep in, as MB headed off to her 4 hour women's yoga session. Up, email, brief sitting, shower. Fed cats. Reheated some of yesterday's omelette for breakfast. The new French Press doesn't seem very well made. Some guitar. Laundry. Down basement and morning practices.

Off to my 4 hour men's yoga. Parked in the office lot and got there right on time. Talking, yoga, then some trust, presence and intimacy exercises. It ran a little late.

Back to the office, and freshened up and changed clothes to go meet MB at OCBC. This was the José Mateo Ballet Company's 20th Anneversary celebration. Sat with OCBC folks, and had an enjoyable meal. Many thanks from the podium. Unveiling of a lovely statue. A new walkway had just been built to one end of the rehearsal space. After food, to the next room, and a brief dance performance, mostly to Latin music. Dessert. MB and I headed home in separate cars.

The cats had made bad smells. After taking care of that, worked with MB on Third Relation. Leo puked. Ah me. Made MB laugh by moving my mouth while playing "Larks." Saw a bit of Prince on SNL. Email. Soon bed.

Taxes, Deida's odd 4

Friday: Woke at 9 AM, giving me a grand total of 3 hours sleep. Up, cats, shower, very brief sitting in the basement, then off with MB to Porter Square by 10 AM. MB commented on the gray day. Our tax preparer was a spunky Asian woman, who ripped right through our deductions, expenses, incomes and annuities. MB got us some coffees and muffins (that were suspiciously donut-like.) A funny moment of office politics, when the woman from the neighboring cube came over while our woman was busy, and said "You don't have to come back to her next year. She's been saying that to everyone."

We stopped for breakfast at Kelly's Diner on the way home. Their omelettes are too big. Back home, some tidying, putting away papers. Then M showed up for house-cleaning. She told us about her loss at a televised popularity contest sort of thing. MB headed out. Down basement for practices. Said goodbye to M, and headed to work.

Hit some traffic on the way in. Finally saw what the slow-down was about: a large rental truck had found its way onto Storrow, and apparantly driven full speed under a low bridge. The top was peeled back like a sardine can. It didn't look like anyone had been hurt. At work, found a bug in Dv's code, that he thought was a dead-lock. Actually, it was just a code-path that had never been tested. It contained the line:
a - b - c;
This line does nothing. I'm surprised the compiler didn't warn us about it.
Looked into a bug report that the compensation code was not functioning, but actually it looked like the smoothing code had a bug. Other consultation with Alx. Worked until about 6:30, then dressed into yoga clothes and headed out.

Walked around and found "4 Brattle Street"... In this case, "4" is on the odd side of the street. How odd. Attended a yoga workshop. MB showed up after about the first hour. Was going to go out to dinner with my friend Jn and his partner, but he got caught up talking. MB and I left and had a tasty, if someone hasty dinner at the Bombay Club.

I walked her back to her car, and she gave me a ride back to the office. She hit her "tiredness wall" somewhere in there. Not surprising, given she'd also had a (routine) medical exam, and had her hair done. When I got back home she was in the shower. Gus had made a tremendous stink so I cleaned out the cat box. MB cleaned it out again. She's gone to bed. Me soon too.

Two new ones

Thursday: Slept in. Brief sitting upstairs. Shower. Wrote a note to Nyima. Cats. Packed car with gear. Briefly down basement. Feeling quite good. Lovely day out. Stopped at the PO and mailed the CDs.

In at work, coffee and a muffin. Stopped in on my cousin-in-law Adm three floors below my workplace. He and his boss were busily coloring in parts of a design for a golf resort in Idaho. In the office, did a lot of talking today. Reviewed my fix of my fix with B. Also reviewed some code for A. Made a fix for a third party developer involving positioning info during preview. Headed out at 7:30.

Arlington, and a good session with Shawn. First half of the evening: Lodestone. Quite a lot of energy this piece has, now that I hear it with drums. Then, Moving Force. Interesting playing this one on electric guitar. Then some other of our repertoire. Elt showed up at the end, and we chatted a bit about basketball and Guitar Craft.

Back home, MB arriving just after me. Some food (Eddamame, noodle soup, yam). Pulled info from the home office then down basement. Organized the papers for tomorrows tax session. Completing the day. Even though I swore I would get to bed earlier tonight, it is now 5 AM.

Broken press

Wednesday: Slept in again. Typical morning. Broke the French Press coffee maker, so decided to skip breakfast. Guitar. Down basement.

In to work. Not feeling hungry. Burned some CDs for my friend Nyima. Found out that there were some bugs in my fix from yesterday. Used humor. Very effective. Went out and bought a replacement coffee press. Suddenly very hungry. Ate my lunch back at my desk.

Back home around 11. Put out garbage. Fed cats. MB was off at a BD gig at the Middle East. Pulled together tax info. Updated the calendar and website for Kurukulla. MB returned home. Some hanging out. A hearty laugh about "Snakes on a Plane."
(here and here).
Then down basement for completion.

Pre-web fix, No Geshela at the airport, Chelsea

Tuesday: Slept in after a very late night. Web, and cats. Shower. Guitar. Had a breakfast of coffee yogurt and cereal, then down basement for morning practices. Tidying.

Stopped to fill the tank on the way to work. At the office continued looking into the behavior that had kept me up late last night. Realized that my problem was in the way I was flushing the pre-web (it doesn't track the event pairs). Just dumping the pre-web into the web, then doing the flush solved the problem, and my fix then seemed to yield the expected result. Walked out to get some pizza at one point. Talked with B. Punted a bug to Dv. Fixed a couple other things.

At 9:20 I headed to the airport. Once there, ran into Sn and his buddy Jf in heading for the terminal. We waited, but didn't connect with Geshela. His flight had arrived earlier. Headed home. Took a strange route through Chelsea, involving an industrial no-mans-land, and an illegal left turn.

Back home, MB was really sleepy. Convinced her to go to bed rather than stay up sewing a veil. Some coffee, email. Now down basement and completing the day.

Late night at work.

Monday: Woke around 10, MB already gone. Up and cats, shower, no breakfast. Down basement. Inevitable. Filled out and sent a form disputing the traffic ticket I received on Saturday.

Drove to KKC. Waved to Jf as he drove off, otherwise didn't see a soul. Filled water bowls. No saffron. Stopped at a donut shop and got a coffee and an egg sandwich.

In to work. Spent quite a lot of time tracking down a redraw bug. In response to a change message someone was doing something "global" when they should have only been doing things specific to the item. Walked out and got a haircut. Deposited some money. Talked to B about the XCode work. He gave me an event flushing bug to look at. Worked on this for some time. Ran into some strange behaviors that I am now investigating. It's midnight.

CD Re-org

Sunday: MB woke me on her way out to do some dance work at Third Life. After that she was heading to OCBC. I slept in until after 10. Web. Read that the father of a high-school friend had passed on. Cats. Shower. Had some cereal for breakfast. A little guitar and then down basement.

Heard MB come in around 1 PM. Came up and said hello. We spent quite some time reorganizing the CD collection: listening to odd things, weeding out stuff we're no longer interested in. I invented a dance move where you bend forward at the waist, hook your hands under your armpits, and then wave your elbows in circles while walking forward.

We had some tempeh burgers for lunch. Olives.

People like to get to the bottom of things. Once you've gotten to the bottom, you can stop digging. It allows the mind closure, and to move on. But, if you thing about it, there really is no bottom. What's under the floor? What if you keep digging? Our minds cannot fully grasp that we live on a ball in space. We feel at a deep level there must be a bottom. There must be a limit. We want closure.

After clean-up, and wrapping up the CD project, MB had a nap, and I went down basement for more practices. Emerged a bit before 8. Reheated some coffee. Went over Invention 1. And on our way.

Arrived in South Boston a bit late. We should do a better job of getting there on time. Improv. Some older pieces. Quite rusty. I need to work on Lark's and Moving Force. Right hand speed has not been my focus for a while. Tonight playing Moving Force I had a sense of letting go in my upper arm. It was interesting watching how I clenched up there, for no reason at all. This brought a greater sense of ease to my picking. I was more of a sense of the weight of my hand, and of the up and down direction of its travel. A break and MB gave us some choreography. This seemed a lot more fun than last week. Invention 1 was significantly improved this week. We didn't play it without error, but we made it from beginning to end several times, and once or twice with only minor errata. Talked with Martin about the 60 MPH birth of one of his daughters.

Back home, hot cocoa with MB. Some soup and toast. Email. Soon bed.

Unicorn Books

Saturday: Slept until 10. Cats. Shower. Breakfast with MB (eggs). Down basement for brief sitting. Headed to the vets. Picked up some saline and food for the cats. Wandered around doing some flyering. Also looked at the old Disc Diggers location. To Porter, and spent some time in "Unicorn Books." My car got a ticket, but I will dispute it. The meter wasn't working. Drove to KKC. Burned some CDs of teachings requested by Ven. Nyma. Back home, MB had just got off the phone with my mom. We ate some leftovers. Then I headed down basement for more practices. Afterwards, spent most of the rest of the evening playing guitar, adding parts to the ensemble version of Chrysanthemum. Close to being done. MB had gone to sleep while I was at it. Late night on the couch.

CGT

Friday: Slept in a little. Usual morning stuff, a bit lazy.
In to work, driving around on 93. Fed CDs borrowed from Shawn into my computer. Collaborated with Eln on the deep data feature. Checked that in, and a possible fix for an illusive bug I've been trying to find. Started looking into a third party hardware bug where output was stall, but couldn't really reproduce it. At 7:15 or so, headed to the Charles Hotel. David K and Martin B were both there with families. I arrived before MB, so bought two tickets. Wound up sitting with Bll B. Pleasant conversation. CGT: Perhaps not their best night. It felt like it was a bit of an odd room for them. A man sitting to my right kept making little annoying bits of commentary "It sounds like Simon and Garfunkel with layers." After the show, didn't stick around too long. Helped get some change for the merch table, which was manned by Bert and Martin, and was doing a brisk business. There was another show at 10, but was feeling sleepy. So home. MB gave me a ride back to the office. Then we drove home separately. Back at the house, made some soup. Guitar, recording Lodestone. Down basement for completion.