In this issue: . the week was slower than normal . I got more bird pictures . the weather was nice in the beginning of the week . it was not as nice at the end . the beaches in florida are like a hanging chad compared to the ones in mombasa . other things that i forget.
Monday was typical in all but one respect: I overslept. I made up for the hour we lost, in any case. The alarm went off, and I remember thinking to myself, "What in the world is that sound?" Then I turned it off and slept for another hour. No rebellion intended, honest; it just happened. I went to the chiropractor, worked, taught, slept.
I also got a present I had ordered for Dad.
Tuesday was slow. K had auditions all this week, too. She was admitted to one school (congrats) and got auditions for a couple others rather unexpectedly, so she spent most of the week studying obscure pieces of music. Pressure makes a perfect diamond. As a result, I didn't have to teach. I had left my camera at karate on Monday, however, so I drove up to the studio to get it. I swung by a place near Valley Forge to take pictures, and most of them really did not come out well. That night, I pulled out one of Dad's photography books on taking nature photos. I haven't read that much of it yet—I have been reading a lot of other stuff lately.
It was Dad's birthday, officially, so I handed off a couple books I had purchased for him. He seemed to like them.
Wednesday was a slower day, also. Just a visit to the chiropractor and that's all, really, outside of work. I read most of the evening, I think, though it was rather heavy and distracted me from the logo work I wanted to do for the Pinnacle patch. I still have to do it, actually, and will probably spend at least part of today trying to finish it all up. I'm sure I also did some work from home on Wednesday, because Thursday is a strange day.
I also finally got an email from the Kenyan Contingent, basically detailing the extreme amount of things that had kept them busy while they weren't emailing me. They recommended a trip to Kenya sometime after their orientation, which is July 6-24. This is good, since it falls considerably after the black belt test, where I'll be abusing people more than I'm usually allowed.
They are hoping to hit the beaches at Mombasa, which L says make the beaches in Florida look like a hanging chad by comparison. He's been in Florida plenty of times (his mother lives in Orlando, I think), so I assume he knows. I personally am not a huge fan of the beach, or of Florida in particular (at least not for living), so I am interested to see if his boast lives up to expectation.
Such a trip, however, may (will) interrupt my plans for a road trip to Calgary. I may have to fly there instead, which I'm more or less just as amenable to. We'll see how things turn out, though. I'm still not sure exactly what the future will hold.
Thursday was all wonky. I intended to spend it as usual, teaching and so on. I was unfortunately kept late at work. I needed to leave at 3:30 to get to the chiropractor on time, and I didn't leave until 3:50. Now it usually takes about an hour to get from the back doctor to the studio. Classes run from 5-7 on Thursday (a blessedly short night), and so when I got out of the doctor's at about 4:35, I decided to skip karate. I did not have a particularly happy week, and I was not terribly inclined to drive an hour and a half to teach for an hour and a half when there was already help there. I feel bad about it now, since they had a rather large group of people who needed more one-on-one interaction.
I spent most of the night working, frustrated that some code integration tasks were not going well. I got them worked out on Friday (more on that below, too), but spent most of the evening pretty unhappy with how little progress I was making. However, the Buckeyes won, and so did the Flyers, having owned Atlanta this season. That's a small bright spot. And the fact that our youngsters really are contributing a lot. I think we're going to be a lot better next season. I hope we acquire a couple good vets during the off-season, though.
Friday was busy. I got into work a bit later than usual, though I answered several emails before I took a shower and went in. So I got into work and starting pouring my heart and soul into getting this code integrated. I sent out a couple emails to the mailing list, got some help, and poked through things again. As I'm toiling away, we got a phone call, which D answered. He yells, "It's for you!" which is usually a sign I'm about to spend half an hour or so talking to a customer about a problem I know next to nothing about.
Instead, it's one of the list members, calling me from Hong Kong (he had Vonage, $19.95 for 500 minutes). It was midnight there, and he said sticky and warm. In any case, he spent roughly half an hour with me going over several things. He was extremely pleasant, very kind, and was able to get through it all with me. I was tickled pink at the call—it was completely unexpected and really gave quite a lift to the day. He's a retired gentleman who works on XML for fun. He lives in Hong Kong, and pronounces "again" as "a-gain," with a long A sound rather than the schwa.
It was certainly a highlight of the day, and enabled me to finish up that quite annoying project.
We also got a new 64-bit HP Itanium system on Thursday; it's a Blade server and has no VGA output. Instead, I'll have to figure out how to administer it using the serial port interface. That's going to be somewhat unfun, but it's a different project than what I have been working on lately, and so I'll be glad to put my hand in (yet) another pot. The Blade is so loud that the boss asked if it came with a muffler. It also disperses heat like you wouldn't believe.
And it sleeted literally all day on Friday. From the time I got up in the morning to when I left work (early), it sleeted. It sleeted through the afternoon and while I was helping Mom shovel the driveway after dinner. It must've been at least four or five inches of the stuff. The birds were out in droves, all over the suet and other goodness Mom's hung up. I took a lot of pictures, but most of those didn't come out. Birds were in front and in back, and just packed in. Probably at least fifteen of them out all at once in back, and at least ten in front. No fear of the cameraman, either.
It is considerably brighter today, and the sleet has stopped. I got some good pictures of birds, and because it was so bright, I was able to get some good in-flight pictures. They're pretty flippin' sweet, as the doof would say.
I plan on getting some work done on the Pinnacle patch logo, so we can finally get GOOD patches printed instead of the rather nasty options we have now. We're also going to see Amazing Grace in the theater for Dad's birthday and hit up the Bonefish Café afterward. Wilberforce has a university named after him near where the Doof lives—the world premier was actually at that university, but she didn't go because she is a big loser.
I'll also try to get some reading done. My reading lately is getting very heavy (weighted down with a lot of philosophy and theology), and while it's enlightening, it's about time to switch the Arabian Nights back on. Nothing like Arabian adventure stories! And another friend is going to send cigar boxes, self-roasted coffee beans, and math book recommendations. Life is going to be busy busy busy for a long time, I suspect.
Tomorrow will probably be a fairly typical round of church, sleep, video games, then back to the grind. Happiness ensues.
6 comments:
Yay, you quoted me! Flippin' sweet.
And boo, I didn't go to the premiere because I was in NEW YORK, thankyouverymuch. Punk.
Re: not comprehending the alarm-I do the same thing if I am deep enough in sleep.
I got called in to work one morning and as the call had woken me from a pretty good sleep I had no idea what they wanted or how to answer the phone. I actually got up and ran around with it before I figured out where the talk button was, heh.
So now your dad has more cool books that you can lay claim to. Is that akin to buying a bowling ball inscribed with homer? :-P
Hey if you don't go to Calgary, you won't pass through Regina. Aw bummer. I just found out Regina has a Speaker's Corner in Wascana park-even more reason to visit...I don't know how much speaking people do there, but hey it's the only one in Canada if you can navigate killer honkers trying to peck you to death.
As for the Arabian Nights, what version are you reading of it? Wait don't tell me you are reading it in Arabic, please!
Actually I have always thought that Hebrew and Arabic would be worth learning for the calligraphy alone, they are the most beautiful looking languages they are both left hand friendly.
Anyway I only read part of the Arabian Nights online-I've decided I can't read online. I think I could make good use of a letterpress to print all the books that are out there; one could build an impressive library. Only problem is that letterpresses aren't so easy to come by any more.
Edmonchuck is better than Calgary. It's more proletarian and hated by Ontarians. You could hang out on Whyte ave...no, actually you might like the science centre. I haven't been there in a long while, but they have a cool planetarium. :)
I see they've renamed it though. Ah must. NOT. Rant. About that...
Maybe your version of the Arabian Nights is the Haddawy one, it's cheap but it is meant to be fairly good. Hope you enjoy the time off from the heavy "learning" reading.
Edmonchuck is Edmonton's Ukrainian name. On the prairies, everyone has some Ukrainian, German or Indian somewhere in their background.
I am glad Sophocles did not literally make you vomit. Emesis all over your text books would probably have lost you your book deposit for the year.
The book I especially reviled in school was Dracula-with the very legitimate reason of it being terribly written. Almost every movie version (but esp Nosferatu) is better than the book. The worst thing was that our class actually chose it to read.
I enjoyed most literature because I would tear apart and deconstruct everything so there was fun to be had even in running down terrible books. I remember arguing with my teacher that Iago was the real main character of Othello.
Honkers are geese. In the east they have cute little Canada Geese-probably not that much bigger than a pigeon come to think of it. In the west however the Canada Goose takes the form of the large and rather cantankerous honker. Wascana Park is well known for having a little goose problem-they poop everywhere and sometimes attack people or animals.
It sounds funny, but they could probably do a lot of damage (ie broken bones) so if you happen to see a gaggle of angry honkers coming at you, damn the absurdity of the situation and run.
It's just as well speaker's corner belongs to to the honkers anyway, since most of the speaking people would do in SK would be about as erudite as the geese saying "aahonnnk!"
Maybe a little less so.
Lol, more acrobatics than Spiderman.... :-P I suppose it's half true.
I hope the trip goes well. :) I am most definitely jealous... but also pleased at your opportunity. :) I also hope you do not mind my occasional cyber stalking. It is limited, I promise.
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