the eponymous Hat

Life is starting to settle back down. I've been chatting with Hanque over a chess game a little and I thought I would post some:

1) We've moved! Our house sold in a day, which was good, although settlement was a pain in the ass. Everyone is so freaked out about mold these days - is it really a surprise when a 40 year old house with an open french drain basement in a fairly flat neighborhood has a little mold in the basement? I think that mold testing and mold remediation companies are basically a giant scam to capitalize on people's fears, and that's just crappy. Although, it was amusing to hear the mold fella describe their techniques of how they intend to clean it up : "We apply a biocide and use a cloth wiping technique" ie, they will spray some bleach on the wall and wipe up with Bounty, the quicker picker upper.

2) Moving sucks! Most of our stuff is in storage. The stuff that came along to the apartment mostly made it in one piece; there was a cheap shelf that got 'sploded and a lamp shade that got dropped. But hopefully there won't be much damage when stuff gets pulled out of storage in a few months.

3) We have a hole in the ground where a house will grow! We are building a new place out here in west-of-Philly and that's exciting. It will kick ass and have a lot of things that we'd always wanted, such as a bathroom you can fit two people in and not have them constantly tripping over each other, and a kitchen with the same property. Also there is a basement and I expect it to remain much drier than the last one. Also, the bathroom has a soaking tub. Awesome. Currently, though, it is simply a hole. They keep saying they are going to build it on schedule. I don't know. Everyone everywhere says that Never happens. We're okay to stay in the apartment for a while tho so it's all fine either way.

4) My job is still fun. There were some financial scary moments this spring, but it seems like we've pulled through. I'm still learning at a furious rate. I'm getting more and more perspective on just how Screwed Up my last place of employment was. I'm also getting more perspective on the fact that there are things that aren't super-dandy-peachy all the time at the new place, but at least there are systems and people in place that can be used to deal with those problems and overcome them, as opposed to letting them fester and get worse.

5) I've been really busy in general, and therefore not very good at keeping up with people - sorry about that, everyone. I haven't even been reading my friends list much so if you've posted a lot over the last 6 months I've likely not seen it yet. I think it's a sign of me liking my job that I have less time and inclination to sit mindlessly at my desk, waiting for the day to end, and reading the internet from cover to cover.

6) I made banana bread today and it smells good!

It's November now, anyone taking part in National Novel Writing Month? The goal is 50,000 words (~175 page novella) by November 30th, from scratch.

I've always wanted to participate and yet never gotten around to it. I think the major problem I have in writing is to keep going, keep churning out pages, without obsessive rework and deletion. I think having a very tall goal to reach would help me over that hurdle. Now I just need a plot. Maybe some characters.

Have you been following the Jack Thompson story? The vengeful power of the internet, do not disrespect it. Maybe he will end up disbarred.

If you have not, here is a quick summary. He's a flaming asshole attorney with a serious bone to pick about video games. He's been making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims, and most recently a 'satirical' proposal that involved a challenge and a charitable donation. When the challenge was met, he backed out of his charity half. Penny Arcade ended up donating the amount in his name. Various angry emails were exchanged. The legion of PA fans are now flooding the Florida Bar Assoc with complaints, and the FBA are in the process of reviewing the situation (which indeed may result in absolutely nothing) but it gives one hope, in a way.

Would my Boston-living friends care to comment on life in or around that area? Cost of living, quantity of fun, character of the people, musings on the weather, frustrations or little regional gems of goodness, housing market, availability of decent Mexican food, local music scene, outdoors activity, seething underworld of mafia and politcal machines, potential to foment rebellions against the state, likelihood of attack by Cthulu, wood destroying insect reports, prevelance of pink flamingo lawn decorations, unintelligability of local native fauna and their mannerisms, quantity of attractive Catholic priests, whatever strikes your fancy. Outside chance I might be moving there, curious as to what the place is like.

various things:

(1) My boss's boss's boss's boss (albeit, former, now that we've been acquired) is blasting off into space today. No, really. He is the Greg Olsen that is awaiting primary thrusters firing away in the middle of steppes of Kazhakstan. Tim's having a going away party of sorts. I think there will be beer involved. Is it stupid or just wrongness-exemplar that in a 50 person company, I can say things like boss's boss's boss's boss?

(2) DDR-E2 arrived. The song mix is okay I think so far, but the steps are freaking difficult. Most songs of 7 feet and above have some seriously tricky 1/32 and 1/16 patterns that make sight reading hard. The 'normal' play mode is nice in that it defaults to no stage limit; you just keep going until you are done. If you fail, you just drop back to the song selection menu. They've also put in a points system, where one gets said points by completing songs, and spends them on new songs (I guess) but nothing is in stock in the shop, so ... hmm. Strange though, the starting points value is actually higher for Light mode songs than difficult or heavy; So far though, more goodness of the sameness.

(3) I forget what three was going to be.

(4) Oh, right, now I remember. I've gone and picked up Picaresque by The Decemberists. It's a very odd and interesting album. I would be tempted to describe it as show tunes; but darker; maybe like the freak carnivale soundtrack you could imagine in a Tim Burton movie. Lots of interesting arrangements, both musical and lyrical. I would say check out 16 Military Wives, The Mariner's Revenge Song, and The Infanta, if you were interested in a sample. I think I might have to get some older stuff of theirs and see how it all adds up. On a related note, I am sad that I have already heard all of Rilo Kiley's available works. They are my new favorite band. Plane Crash in C (on Take Offs and Landings) is of particular note.

na naaa, na na na na na naaa, na na na na naaaaaaaa.
Katamari Damacy was strange and wonderful. We Love Katamari has taken the strangeness and extended it. And much of the introduction seems to be Namco saying, chidingly, "What? You actually liked that first game so much we made another one? What drugs are you on? Can we have some? 'Cuz we ran out, in the process of making these things. No, really."

I would say the only difference is that you can push the katamari up ledges if you persistently roll straight into them; other than that everything is the same all-singing all-dancing goose troop of weirdness that the first one was. <3 Katamari.

Also picked up in sequel land, Burnout 4 (3.5?). Should be fine, but I haven't played it yet.

Being depressed is expensive for video game habits.

Neat dreams last night; Jen and I were on vacation in South Africa, which I realized in a GoogleEarth kind of flyby with nice labels telling me where we were. Except many of the names had a definite New Zealand tone to them; I think I rationalized this in the dream as a result of European expansionism / colonialism influencing both countries (never mind that the words that were throwing me off were totally Maori ones)

We walked out of some building and started hiking. I think we passed some small bike rental shops and ended up biking up a trail for a while. Eventually we crested some bluff and this vast Serengeti-esque plain spread out in front of us. There were animals everywhere; things that looked like wild boars, then a chimpanzee. I wanted to see a giraffe. Lo and behold, there one appeared in the distance. Then he ran right in front of us. There were lions sleeping in the grass about 10 feet in front of us. I turned around and looked at the row of condominiums that backed onto the bluff, and thought how interesting South Africa was. We walked along the bluff, eventually back into a market street like place. Some big set of ticket taking booths was in our way, and we had to pay some unknown amount to move on, I think we just shoved some random bills at them and they were happy. We got directed into a little tunnel that I had to hunch over in, and it took us to a low ceiling, round room with a narrow window along the bottom, with a mirrow above it so you could look down. The little room was on some kind of track, and it moved out into the forest or whatever. I think maybe it was a preserve or a park or a zoo - I don't really know; we didn't have a very good view of the mirror. Then we remembered the bikes that we had rented and left at the bluff. I think we decided to give up on them, figuring someone would have walked off with them at this point. Somehow we end up in a beach front condo. There was a deck that was half stained, half ruined (obvious echo of our own deck refinishing woes there) and I think we went swimming. I was confused for a moment this morning, looking at our real deck out back, caught in the transistion between things I thought I remembered and things I knew.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day -

Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Jen's loom is arriving today. Actually, it was supposed to be here on Tuesday, but it got pushed off to today because they couldn't figure out, on Tuesday, how they were going to get it off the truck.

Which makes me scratch my head a bit. They're a shipping company, right? Don't they have to unload stuff once in a while, and not always at a loading dock? Granted, it's a 550 lb crate, but cripes! Apparently it actually _costs more_ to have them put the dern thing on a lift gate equipped truck. This seems a little silly.

Off to go uncrate and move in a few minutes.

Hmm. We've been acquired. We are now (now meaning, in 30 days) a part of Goodrich which is related to but no longer the same people as the tires or the blimp.

I thought initially that my personal gain from this transaction would be minor; then I received a nice letter informing me of an additional bonus, then I learned that my estimates of price/share were off by ~ factor of 10; so I've gone from irked, to confused / elated, to disappointed, in the space of 24 hours.

Fun times.

I went kayaking for a few hours yesterday. Tim is thinking of buying one, so we went to the EMS in Bridgewater and rented a couple for the afternoon, since we had a half day off work. We tried a "recreational" boat, the Acadia 12.5 (feet), and a "light touring", the Tsunami (a 14' boat). The Acadia had a rudder (or "skeg" as the kayak people say, I guess) and drove up to Spruce Run resevoir / recreational area. We were originally going to go to Round Valley Rec but one needs a fishing license to kayak there. Go figure.

But Spruce Run is actually a more interesting place to be: here is the overhead shot of it:
Spruce Run

That seems to have been taken at a drought, as the water level was a bit higher when we were there. We paddled around 4 miles I think, switching boats a couple of times. I liked the Tsunami - it was longer and hence faster, and easier to get moving - it had a bit more keel to it, so it tended to stay pretty straight, and it was narrower, which made it feel a bit more stable to me. It was just a fun boat to paddle around in. The Acadia was much broader and flatter on the bottom, and with the rudder in it was very agile, and easy to make sharp turns in. But it waddled a lot, so actually paddling in a straight line was fairly difficult and energy consuming.

I had forgotten how much fun it is, just to be out on the water - this, sailing, whatever; it's just very peaceful to be floating along. A very nice way to spend a Friday afternoon. I don't think I'd buy a kayak; I don't know that it's something I'd do often enough to warrant it. The Tsunami is about $1000, probably a little more when you've bought all the things you need to buy; plus you have to store it somewhere. While renting is a little bit of a hassle, it's only $40 for the day, so really, quite a good deal.

Woo, version 1, beta.

If you are a weaver or know a weaver, feel free to direct them here. Or if you just feel like trying it out, and telling me what you think in general, let me know. No printing yet, but that's on the todo list. Along with some fancier editing (cut, copy, paste, for example).

Gah. Performance review time. I need a list of "shit I've done since last time we did this" ... but the last time we did this was 6 months late; so is it shit since then or shit since when it was supposed to be?

It's like a resume all over again. My biggest problem in working, or in resume writing, or intraoffice political maneuvering, is that I hate trumpeting my accomplishments. I mean, I'm happy and proud about the stuff that I do, but I feel like a schmoe going "whoo, hey, lookie here at this fancy thing! Don't you all just love that? Because _I_ did it!"

Which is what one really needs to do to move ahead in the business world, apparently. Sigh.

I wonder if I turned in:
"I did a lot of shit. Some shit was shitty, and some shit was the shit. The good shit was good, and the bad shit was bad shit, bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good. But there was much more good shit than bad shit. So gimme some more money n' shit."

Would I get fired? Reprimanded? Or more money n' shit?

First screenshot, whoo!
( Read more... )

Firefox, you are joyous. Microsoft, you who spit loudly on standards, your damned music store won't work with Firefox. Is this some sort of idea to keep people using IE? That's just irritating. I have found my reason to switch over to ITMS for all my musical medlification. I've been a reasonable defender / supporter for a while, not a knee jerk MS hater, but you, my friends, are treading on thin ice.

I will now go complete the purchase of Outkasts and Secret Machines that started me on this train of thought.

One of my father's favorite books is James Clavell's Shogun. I've been reading it, and I'm about halfway through. It's the story of an English naval pilot that crashes ashore in 1600's Japan and the ensuing political turmoil that follows. There are some interesting crossover points from Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy, as the eras overlap, and there are similar items from a trade and geopolitical context (for example, the Spanish "Black Ship" that sailed from Macao to Japan and thence across the Pacific for California once per year) but by far, the most interesting thing for me is trying to contexualize the book in the timeframe it was written. I don't know how to find out, but I wonder what the prevailing sentiment and opinion and general level of knowledge of the Japanese culture was like at the time this book was written, and to what extent this book and (presumably) others like it either created or paid homage to that sentiment.

Specifically, I guess I am referring to the way Clavell describes and (perhaps) idolizes the stereotypes of honor, duty, sacrifice, women's roles vs men's roles, in fact, every Bushido stereotype you can think of. Many pages are adorned with mincing porcelain dolls smiling and serving tea; quiet and manipulating strategic geniouses, or quick tempered, easily offended violent warriors. I was reminded of the spoken word / comedienne / speechifier woman that played at Pomona one year; she was Asian and spoke at length about the white men that wanted to date her because they wanted her to be that 1600's courtesan / geisha stereotype; I think she recalled a date where the guy asked her to don a kimono.

And then just to top of this swirl of thoughts, I watched Kill Bill 1 again last night. One of the words that the main character of Shogun has learned is "honto", meaning (variously) "it's true". When O-Ren-ishi has her head shortened a hair, she says "Honto, Hattori-Hanzo kantana naginata" or something similar - truly, this is a Hattori Honzo sword. I felt neato for learning a little tiny bit of Japanese. Wakarimasu-ka?

Well, the last beach tourney has come and gone. There was a great turn out, 15 teams in the 2B. Tim and I ended up in a pretty tough pool though - third, so we didn't move on to the finals. I think that we could've been in second if we'd been a little more energetic, but the fact that both of us are recovering from flu still is probably a little bit of a factor. I kinda threw my shoulder out on the last dig of the last game though. Ouch.

Oh well. Fall indoor leagues start in a month or so. That if we can get a team together, though, so ...

Gah.... second summertime flu in less than a month. Is it stress? Why has my immune system gone on vacation, and left me here? I really really really need to be healthy for Saturday; this is the last 2's beach tourney for the summer and I really want to win. But given how wiped out I'm feeling still, it's going to take a miracle to summon enough energy to play volleyball all day. Hopefully the weather won't be too punishing. Maybe I should go home and sleep until then. At least I wouldn't be working.

I suppose it is a sign of my geek-atude that I happily spent a good deal of the weekend (with some breaks for volleyball and yard destruction) recreationally programming. Learning Java and having a couple projects to muck about in have made coding fun again in a way that hasn't been true since high school. Something about the CS classes I took kinda wore me out; but now that I am doing less and less programming work for work, I have some energy to think about fun stuff and try it out. I think also, philosophically, I'm happiest when I'm learning things, and work hasn't been providing a lot there lately, so learning Java is filling the gaps.

I'm going to try to put some more development entries in here as I go; I guess it will balance out the volleyball laden entries a little (last summer tourney this upcoming weekend!)

Current project: Weaving pattern planner

A nice applet for specifying color, threading, treadling, and tie-ups for (initially) 12-heddle counter-marche looms, to render and preview the pattern in real time and also provide a printout to help with threading.

Currently I am learning the ins and outs of the swing.table package, and I am completely stuck on the columnModel, as it seems to have broken everything else.

Yet more volleyball. A bunch of us went to the Bob Bertucci 3 day volleyball camp for masochists. 3 hours on Friday evening, 3 3 hour sessions through Saturday, and one last 3 hour session Sunday morning. We covered all the basics, had a lot of team play, a lot of drilling. As a person that was never on the volleyball team or ever had formal instruction, this was incredibly helpful - although it's going to take a while to incorporate all the 'proper' things and unlearn the terrible things. Also we got to talk a little about tactics and positioning. I need to figure out whether I want to practice more as a middle block or an outside hitter. Or even a setter. I don't know yet.

One of the coaches was the middle block on the gold medal winning Chinese Olympic team. He helped me learn how to properly do a top spin serve. He was also a gazillion feet tall. Yowza.

But the painful part is that, with drilling and running, and trying to really squat to get under the ball and bump and dig properly, my quads are basically useless sacks of pain today. The rest of my body hurts, but ... wow. I don't think I've ever exerted myself to quite this level before. Clearly, though I thought I was in pretty good shape, I need to be doing a lot more lunges, squats, and jump squats. Must train the legs! Must ... ow! Must stretch!