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Today I gave in and turned on the air conditioning for the first time this summer. I was doing okay with just using fans and open windows up until lunch today, when I went out and ran a few errands on my bicycle. After pedaling around about five miles in the hot sun and humidity, I got home and was dripping with sweat... even after showering, I decided it was time. Happily, the AC started right up without complaint. Working in a comfortably cool house this afternoon was very nice. * * My Personal PA is away this weekend competing in one of the season's most prestigious golf tournaments: the Advil Open. Along with a little golf, it involves a lot of beer drinking around a campfire in the evenings. I went out with our mutual friends S&R this evening. As we were walking to my car, I turned my ankle in a large crack in the pavement. I gracelessly stumbled sideways, bashing into the car next to mine (but I was fine). S was concerned. "Oh, are you okay?" R pointed out: "You'd better be okay, because your PA is drunk right now." "Yeah he'd really appreciate a call, 'I need a drunken diagnosis over the phone!'" "Oh he's used to it, we do that to him at football games all the time." * * I'm heading to Chicago for the weekend. I haven't made it there since January or so, so I am really looking forward to seeing my family! I picked up some little presents for the kiddies, so I can be the Cool Aunt. I also have presents for my brother and sister, since we are going to celebrate belated birthdays. Mom and Dad get no presents, because I already gave them something when they were visiting here last month. It will be really weird traveling without my work laptop. I haven't done that in... well I don't remember how long. I'm looking forward to it. Tags: family
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I made it home - yay! It's been awhile. I just counted, and out of the past 16 days I've been at home for only two of them. I really shouldn't complain too much, as I've also been doing some really wonderful vacation travel on top of my business travel.... It's just been rough combining work travel and vacation travel. I've been working for ten of those sixteen days, despite only being home for two of them (and the days I was home were work days). Tomorrow, for the first time in nineteen days, I will be both at home AND not working! I am sooooo looking forward to it. My tentative plans are "do nothing". Of course that will turn into "something" before the day goes very far, but the good thing is that I don't HAVE to do anything. Much like when I was vacationing in Portland last weekend. M and I happily spent hours making plans and schedules to follow, then we just as happily ignored them and did whatever the heck we wanted. That will be me this weekend. I have scheduled two events I will definitely attend, and other than that I will spend the weekend making plans and gleefully disregarding them. I actually had a dream about this a couple of nights ago. I was lying in bed, caught in some haze between wakefulness and sleep. It was saturday morning, in the dream. I was trying to remember where I was going. Was it Chicago? Florida? Milwaukee? Every weekend in the recent past has involved me being somewhere or doing something. Suddenly it hit me: I didn't have to be anywhere. I was at home and could stay there indefinitely. I was filled with this great pleasure and relief. Then my alarm went off, I saw the hotel room around me and I realized, "Crap, I'm still in Lebanon and I have to go to work!" Spending this weekend at home (or near home) will be a much-needed break. I'm so thrilled that my colleague arranged for me to fly home today rather than tomorrow, as we had originally scheduled things. It will be great to crawl into my own bed tonight. It will be great to reacquaint myself with a cat or two for company. I had two awesome trips on the last two weekends, and I've spent lots of quality time with friends and family. It's great that I've been able to do all that, even if it did wear me out. I have more awesome trips coming up in future weeks, with more family and friends time to enjoy. This weekend will be just what I need to refresh myself and get ready for the rest of the summer's fun travel insanity! Tags: travel
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FridayM and I met at the airport on friday morning. We had a 9:30am flight to Manchester NH, which left right on time. I was worn out and had gotten up early (like 6:30!), so I had a bit of a snooze on the plane. By the time we got to NH though, I was ready to go. Unfortunately we had another couple of hours drive before a whole lot of excitement could happen. We got a cute little red car quickly and got on the road. Crossing into Maine, we found a place off the highway to stop for lobster rolls. Pretty touristy, but yummy anyway -- especially since by then we were starving! Eventually we made it to Portland and found our hotel. It was a good room, kind of in the middle of town, with a pretty view of the water. After we got settled in, we decided to go exploring. First on the agenda was a drink at Gritty McDuff's. After that, we went in search of the waterfront. We had read that there was a decent fireworks show on the water, so we went wandering to the beach then walked along it until we found the park. Upon finding the park, we decided to explore more. At this point we got a little turned around, and we couldn't find a good place to get dinner. My feet, looking cute in their impractical sandals, gradually got more and more tender. Eventually they became a continuous mass of pain, and the walk was no longer fun. Finally we made our way back to the waterfront, settled onto my blanket, and I got to get off my poor blistered feet. At that point, the evening got better. We relaxed on the hill, enjoying the weather, boat-watching, and people-watching.  ( Read more... it was a long weekend! )Tags: dating, holidays, travel
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Don't you hate it when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that when you implemented the AttributeValueFilter, you forgot to take the DictionaryProperty into consideration as well? Yeah, me too. I had one of those nights last night were I couldn't turn off my brain, and it kept puzzling over the things I'd been working on during the day. This isn't too strange, because when I'm trying to solve a puzzle during the day, I can't very well just decide to stop mulling it over just because it is six o'clock. The odd thing is that, during the day, I could barely concentrate, couldn't stay focused on my task, and kept looking at other things. So why would I suddenly be fretting over it at night? Anyway today I implemented the property filter thing, and that's all green. I now plan to spend the day working on a resolver for reverse attributes, which should be interesting. (I don't know why I'm in the mood to drop work jargon into this post, but I am! Sorry.) Sadly our VNC is still vetoed due to a virus, but that's okay because a kitten ate my headphones anyway. Also I seem to have left the other ones in Newark. Oops. Time to go shopping. I was talking to my cousin a couple days ago about a possible trip I was thinking of taking to Milwaukee in mid-August. "I can't decide now though," I said, "because that's way too far away." "It's really not that far at all," she pointed out. "Just a little over a month." "Yes, but before then I have to get home from New Jersey, go to Maine, go to New Hampshire, then to..." I twisted my face thoughtfully. "I think Chicago is next, then Florida, then Belgium. It's just too far away to think about." "Oh. Well, when you put it that way, I see what you mean." On the plus side, tomorrow I go on a mini-vacation before my colo that starts monday -- YAY! Tags: travel, work
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I went skating today during lunch. Since I went skating last thursday, we could stretch reality a little bit and say I went skating twice in one week! Good thing, since I won't make it back out for at least two weeks. It was kind of frustrating today. Both of my knees were bothering me, and I just felt tired and wobbly. I know I'm worn out from the weekend, but I still would like to do better. I need to skate more to get to that point, but I barely am able to make time for the skating I do now. I suppose I should do some strengthening exercises when not on the ice or biking/running/whatnot, maybe that would help. On the plus side, I was doing my moves relatively well. I just didn't feel smooth and natural during transitions on the ice -- and my stupid knees were hurting (each one in its own special way!). I like skating, but there is a whisper in my head wondering if I should just give it up.Or maybe I'm just tired and crabby. Good thing it's a short week! ...with luck, I'll feel energetic enough to do the club ride tonight. Personal PAs everywhere recommend bicycling for knees! [ Edit: apparently there are supposed to be storms a'comin', so the ride leader emailed us to say it's been canceled. He also included a link to information on lightning safety, so I guess he's serious!] Tags: skating
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I haven't been reading much recently. Not sure why, just been busy with other stuff I guess. Maybe my reading materials just haven't been captivating enough. I have a pile of books waiting to be read, hopefully I'll find something that gets me motivated again. 15. Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon - Third in a series, and better than the second. Loaned by a friend who loves them, these books are a little too "romancy" for my tastes, but they can be entertaining anyway. 14. Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow - Read on my Treo, a "future warning" kind of book about an out-of-control Department of Homeland Security that doesn't seem too faraway of a future. 13.5 - Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam - I only made it through a bit over half before I gave up renewing it and returned it to the library. Interesting discussion, a little too statistics-filled. Tags: books
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