Chris Schmidt's Journal

So not ready for Japan. And I thought I was underprepared for the Cape Town trip!

Still taking photos. Now participating in photowump: a 'photo class' like thing that a friend is doing as a favor to a few of us who have cameras but don't use them enough. :) Looking today, I've taken 3500 photos in the last month -- 4000 in the last 5 weeks. I think that means I've taken more pictures in the last 5 weeks than I have in the previous 3 years...

Picked my first 'pic of the day' that I don't really like technically yesterday -- I got a portion of the cart in the bottom right corner of the pic that kinda ruins it for me. Still, overall, I like the colors and the lines in it, so I'm sticking to it.

I leave for Tokyo Friday morning. I'm going to miss Halloween, which I'm sad about. :( Hopefully all goes well for the family in the week I'm gone: I'm sure that Jess would love for people to hang out and spend time with her here to help out with stuff, if you're free sometime next week.

Wow. Japan. Still kinda going 'wow' over that. :)

Everything else in life is just a rush to get things in line at work so I can leave at the moment, so I apologize if I'm somewhat boring.

Borrowing some gear from a coworker for the rest of the week -- including a 100mm macro lens, which I'm having fun playing with. (Most of my pictures from yesterday were taken with that one.)

I've also got a Speedlite 550ex which I'm going to try and do some playing with -- I don't think I'm at the point yet where flash is what I want most, but it's something.

With that in mind, yesterday's photo ended up being a macro shot of the back of the flash that I took while I was playing around with stuff... This could become a dangerous hobby if I end up keeping it up...

9 days until I leave for Japan.

(Also, since I missed it: Monday's image, which I wasn't as happy with, but is not that bad.)

Ali is sick. She brought it home from school, and definitely gave it to Jess, and possibly gave it to Lynne as well (since she was over on Monday). Other than that, life on the home front is much the same... Though I do need to let my parents know I'm going to Japan... oops... (You'd think I'd have learned after my last mistake.)

Got started on a new/interesting Python/JS project with a friend in my copious spare time. It's nice to have a project which isn't 90% done: the limitations that places on you are so annoying. Doing the last 20% always sucks. I'm much better (and way more efficient) at the first 80%. Wish that I could actually find a job that was about the first 80% -- OCTO was supposed to be that way, but it never really did work out like that.

What should I be writing about here? You all think I'm dull as rocks, I think. Anyone got an interest in helping me improve that?

Time to go back to work today. Luckily, I think that 3 days is about the right amount of recovery time for this kind of trip: I actually feel relatively rested (thank goodness for small favors). So, back to the office I go.

Luckily, it seems like not much fell apart during my absence. Also, that word looks totally wrong.

After having a couple conversations with David and Dan, I think I've come to the conclusion that a part of my lack of technical chops for my photography is actually because of the camera and lens, rather than entirely tied to my lack of skill, as I had previously assumed. I'm thinking of buying a new lens on David's recommendation to solve this problem. Specifically, there is a 50mm 1.8 lens which he recommended, and I'm liking the idea of it.

For one thing, a non zoom lens (fixed focal length) would force me to frame my shots a lot more carefully. Also, a major factor in most of my photography is low light: something which would help account for that would be nice to have as well. Lastly, it's less than $100, which is in the range where i'm not utterly distraught if it doesn't help that much, and also not going to suffer too much if it fails to work out well.

Maybe I can even have Schuyler pick one up for me at B&H before my trip to South Africa. ETA: Yay, he's going to stop there this afternoon.

For those of you who don't actively follow my flickr account (probably most of you), I've been uploading some of the stuff I have, both in the current set and also from years back, moving over my old self hosted galleries to flickr. Also, if you have access to Jess's photo pool, I uploaded a few more pictures to that as well.

Anyway. That's today's drive: time to get back to work.

Driving time.

Sleepy. Been getting sleepy around 11 lately, suppose that's not exactly suprising given 6.30 am wakeups with the girls back in school.

Was kind of hoping for a fun storm this weekend, but didn't get what i was hoping for; the 495/95 loops looked like weather barriers on the radar, with a clear bubble effect around boston.

Have recently been amazed by julie's continued ability to read anything she wants, from the text on sides of the comcast usual, to the menus on computer screen drop downs. She is now able to read long books by herself, quickly, and has almost no cases where she ever gets stuck. Compare this to last year at this time, where she could barely read the alphabet.

Not having a shoulder to cry on when I need it at the moment sucks. With Jess exhausted from school and falling asleep around 8.30, i've been having a couple hours a night where i'm alone with myself and my thoughts, which is somewhat ... Unfortunate with my current state of mind.

Such is life in the fast lane.

Kristan left the state on the last Thursday in August, heading for her mom's place in Texas.

For the next couple days, it didn't really affect me. volantwish staying with us for the weekend kept me busy with entertaining -- trip to Six Flags, taking the kids to the park, doing food, watching TV, etc. The social activities that I'd always done with Kristan weren't something I felt like I was missing, because I was busy doing other things.

On Wednesday, when I took Julie to school, I drove by Kristan's office (as I typically do)... and realized that there was no one there for me to wave to. (Of course, it's only as I type this that I realize it was Wednesday, and not Tuesday as I had thought, so she wouldn't have been there anyway, but I digress.)

It's not the big things that I miss, when someone who has been an integral part of my life leaves it. It's the little things. It's waving hi as I drive by in the morning -- even though I know no one is waving back. It's watching an episode of House without Kristan being there for me to bug her about who *that* guy is, and why he's acting like *that*, and what Season is this anyway? and why is House on a cane, I thought that happened later?

It's the things like chatting about the episode of Doctor Who she caught. It's things like watching an episode of Criminal Intent, and seeing Jessica Walter and trying to explain how, exactly, she's playing the same kind of role without being able to show it.

Not all these things would really be different with Kristan here: we lived 45 minutes apart, so there were times when we wouldn't see each other in person for a week or more at a time. But there is always the possibility of spending time together; of having a spontaneous trip one direction or the other to hang out.

It's not the actual things I miss out on, but the sense of disconnectedness from someone who I've always had the opportunity to spend time with.

I spent the first couple days after Jana split pretty much unable to concentrate on anything. It sucked. I've gotten to the point where I'm adjusting now -- life is largely back to urn of the mill -- but I do feel very set adrift at the moment, and not really sure what to do about it.

Kristan plans to come back to New England in about 9 months. I hope that she does, but I also hope that to some extent, I can gain a social network which isn't so deeply tied to one person in the interim. I don't want to replace Kristan: she's been a huge part of my adult social life, probably one of the biggest influences outside of Jess. At the same time, branching out is important -- for both of us, I expect, though I think Kristan has a harder time of it than I do. A lot of what I said before about Jana leaving applies here too, but so much more so because of the deeper connection. When Jana left originally, it was giving up the possibility of developing a friendship; with Kristan, it's something that's just always been there for years, and giving it up is hard.

Regardless of how acerbic she is, I hope that she does well in Texas, and then gets her ass back to New England, cause as it stands now, I have no one to watch the next season of Top Chef or Doctor Who with. :)

I seem to be coming out of my brain funk, which is nice. I'm actually somewhat cheerful for the first time in a while.

I printed my PGP key signature on the back of some of my business cards last night. The likelihood that anyone will ever care to sign my key are nil, but hey, a guy's gotta try, right? And I think I'm less likely to lose a business card than some thin strip of paper.

I was just looking at some of my old photography, and remembering how much I love taking pictures. I need to do more of that. (I say this like every 4 months, I think.)

Wheee, positive mental energy!

(And! I got salmoned from this post. Hooray for random people conversation things!)

Have *no* ability to concentrate over this last weekend. I've been bouncing like a rubber ball between things that I have going on, pinging from one place to another constantly, with no ability to stay on any one thing for more than a couple minutes at a time.

I did successfully watch an episode of Nova (on the DARPA Grand Challenge), which was cool. I also followed the advice of a commenter on Hulu and tried to find more Nova on the PBS site, and even found a great one to watch (The Car Talk guys doing an episode about the future of automobiles), but was disappointed at the fact that it was in quicktime. I've gotten spoiled by the current generation of flash-based video players.

I went with Kristan to the place where she's catsitting for an hour last night, and borrowed an Asimov book while I was there. (The person she's cat sitting for has 4 full book shelves of mostly sci-fi. I suffer so much book envy any time I'm there.)

The girls and I cleaned the house yesterday -- to the point of actually moving all the furniture, sweeping under it, etc. The kitchen is still a bit of a tip (is that phrase used right? I think I've heard it before...) but the living room and dining room were swept clean, all stuff picked up, etc. I like having clean floors.

I don't know what I want to do with my day. Ali is going to Canobie Lake with her dad as a birthday thing, so I'll just have Jess and Julie in the house. Maybe I'll just find a spot in the sun and read my book.

I'm thinking I might go with Kristan to Six Flags on Wednesday. (This is the last chance I'll get to go on a Wednesday before she leaves for Texas, and Wednesdays are usually the least crowded day to go.)

Babble babble. I don't think anyone even reads these anymore other than Jess. I wonder if there's something I could write about that would change that. I suppose I could invent sexual escapades. Or just put things behind a cut that says "TMI, don't click."

My evening, in haiku form.

Went to Boston's local weekly LJ meetup at the Common Ground in Allston. Was a good time.

Girls are in NH through the weekend, and Jess isn't feeling up to much; I might be up for going out again tomorrow if she falls asleep early again. Anyone local interested in hanging out?

I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to go camping and hiking in the White Mountains for 5 days. I've got a trip planned out that I'm hoping will have me hitting 9 4000 footers:

• North + South Kinsman
• North + South Twin
• Little Haystack
• Mount Lincoln
• Mount Lafayette
• Galehead Mountain
• Cannon Mountain

We'll see how well it goes.

I'm staying at Lafayette Campground, in Franconia Notch. I've got a bunch of gear all packed up and ready to go. Need to finish packing up today, and get onto buying food and other things that I haven't got yet.

I haven't been camping in about 7 years. I'm looking forward to it a lot.

I'm going on my own. I'm hoping that the time gives me a break from technology (I'm bringing my computer, but only so that I can get photos off of it, hopefully) and a time to clear my head and come back relaxed/refreshed.

I'm also going to stop by the Globe Corner Bookstore and look for maps; you can never have too many maps.

And, since I've already promised to several people: I don't plan to get eaten by a bear. :)

I used the grill my parents got Jess and I for our anniversary for the first time tonight. I made burgers (ground beef).

Couple observations:
* Trader Joe's charcoal isn't briquettes. This is weird to me. I've never seen charcoal that wasn't briquettes. But it did smell pretty damn good.
* Charcoal Chimney? AMAZING. Seriously, if you've ever cooked with charcoal and dealt with the "how can we help it stay lit?" problem, the charcoal chimney is seriously incredible. No work at all.
* The grill we have is too big to have the charcoal we need to cook 'look right' for only two people -- we only need like 2 pounds of charcoal, and it ends up looking lonely in our giant grill :) However, if we were cooking for four or six, I think we would have needed to put a lot more charcoal in the chimney, and it would have looked closer. (Also, burgers don't really require a lot of heat compared to something like steaks, I don't think. So this is good.)

Kristan fried squash, and I cooked burgers, and they came out really well.

I'm very happy with the gift, and looking forward to using it more.

Pictures of the grill on flickr, and ones of the charcoal chimney are under 'fire'.

I think I just killed my computer.

So, I have a computer that I've been using for the past 7 years. It was originally a pretty powerful desktop machine, and has slowly migrated from Windows to Gentoo to Debian to Ubuntu. It's gone through roles as my primary webserver -- on Windows and Linux -- to mail server to file server.

It's gotten upgrades from a single 80GB hard drive with a CD player to 500GB of space with a DVD reader and DVD burner.

Earlier tonight, the 'big' hard drive -- a 300GB Seagate -- bit the dust. I wasn't sure if it was the expansion SATA card or if it was the drive, so I was doing some futzing about...

and in the process, I broke a fan blade on my CPU fan. Shit.

In general, this wouldn't be such a bad thing, but this broken fan blade is causing the fan to vibrate like crazy -- enough to vibrate the whole case loudly enough that I can't really leave it on. So not only did I lose a 300gb hard drive which was mostly movies, I've also now got a computer that I can't really turn on.

Sigh.

I think that it may be time to replace zeus with something slightly more suitable for being a fileserver. It had really become a frankenstein over the years, and it may be time to move on. But even so, it is a bit sad to look at moving on from something that I've had just under 7 years of history with.

So, I think I'm going to spend tomorrow figuring out what I want to do for a new computer. I think I want something that's quiet enough to keep in the living room, and has enough space that I can stick in cards for video out and (eventually) some kind of TV input for MythTV-like stuff or something. The *idea* of an AppleTV appeals, but the practicality of dealing with not having a 'real computer' for this feels like it would bug me. This might be silly, I'm not sure. Also, the AppleTV isn't really a DVR, which would be nice to get eventually.

Ah well. So life goes.

Driving through Harvard Square during Harvard graduation? Not so fun.

Finally got a new charger for my cell phone. (end result for my adoring fans? More useless crap to read!) Nobody in town carries name brand nokia chargers, apparently, and the generics literally did not work at all. So i overpaid for a real noe direct from nokia.

This also means that i get drive time music again, which i'd missed. Kristan will tell you I don't give a shit about music -- but that's not really true. I don't care about what music I'm listening to, this is true, but i love music. I love listening to it. I love just laying back with some music on and enjoying it while i read a book, while i'm writing, while i'm coding, etc. It's important to have a soundtrack to my life: it's just not particularly important to me what it is.

Speaking of music, i'm going to the dave matthews band concert in Hartford in 8 days. I've never been to the venue in question - I actually don't think i've ever stopped anywhere in CT for anything I can think of.

Jc leaves tomorrow night: we'll be doing a going away gathering tonight. As far as I know, anyone who wants to come is welcome. Drop us a line if you plan to come.

I did some exploring a couple nights ago of the various ways that LiveJournal has of finding people, and found out that they all suck. Sure, if you only care about online interactions, they're something resembling usable, but as soon as you want to do a search on something combined with a location, you're screwed. I could not, for the life of me, find a way to find people in cambridge interested in some particular interest, for example. The directory search looked like it might work... But then adding multiple filters seemed to just cause it to take the first one. Kinda unfortunate.

Ah well. I'll just have to suffer, i guess.

I'm tired. I want a vacation.

Said Goodbye to volantwish last night: She's graduating on Thursday from Harvard, but since she'll be spending the next couple days with Family and Boyfriend, this is the last time we'll get to see her before she runs away to NYC.

It's been a somewhat sad friendship the past couple weeks: Although Jana has come over before now, in general, we'd never spent a lot of time together. In the past month or so, we've ended up spending a lot more time together... and realizing that it's the kind of friendship we really should have expanded on earlier.

Watching goofy movies (think Baz Luhrmann), curling up in a ball on the couch, playing around with the kids, working on CS problems (she's getting a CS Degree at Harvard), watching silly television (Gossip Girl, anyone?), etc. etc. These are things that I don't do much with Jess -- we have very different tastes in popular culture, and it limits the number of things we can do together in that regard, and our physical closeness has always been different than the one that I experienced with pie_is_good and other friends of that era -- something that Jana and I fall into somewhat more naturally.

This is all well and good... except that she's running away to NYC for the summer. Although she'll state otherwise, I don't expect to see her again this summer, and after that, she's off to Sea Semester in the fall, so looking at it, it seems somewhat unlikely she'll be heading back to Cambridge after that.

Finding good friends -- people whose personalities mesh well, who aren't freaked out by my tendancy to be physically close, people who enjoy the same kinds of things I do -- is somewhat difficult for me (doubly so, because my time for such things is so limited with the kids and wife to take care of). Finding someone like that, who has been living just down the street for the entire time I've lived in Cambridge, but not finding out until about 2 months before I'm never going to see her again... well, 'sucks' would be one way of putting it.

Goodbyes in that kind of situation are hard, but I prefer them immensely to never having realized what I was saying goodbye to in the first place. There are many people in the area who I should probably be spending more time with -- and even if it was just for a couple weeks, I'm glad that I got to spend time with Jana that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Currently chilling outside zaftigs waiting for "Chris, party of 4". It's quite nice out. Met a nice teacher who teaches gis as part of an environmental studies for high school age kids too.

Anyway, breakfast time. Just mentioning that today is a pretty great day.

I almost never have the urge to post, and when I do, it always comes in bunches. It's weird.

jc is in town. He got in last Saturday, and although I'll admit we have probably not been the most exciting hosts in the world, it seems like he's enjoying his trip to Boston.

The weather has been simply gorgeous. The perfect high 60s/low 70s for most of the week (ever since a scary lookin' storm front came through Tuesday afternoon). I spent most of yesterday morning working from the front porch of the house simply because it was too nice outside not to.

I lost my cell phone charger in CA: I haven't yet been able to find one locally that actually charges my phone (including at the T-Mobile store). I bought one last night (very overpriced) from the Nokia store, but I'm just tired of dicking around and trying things out that don't work. This is the first time generic products have failed me so utterly. (Well, Generic potato chips have similar problems.) This is one reason why my recent regular posting went away: no more drive-time entries. Maybe they'll come back once I have a cell phone again.

Now time to take girls to school.

Flew out of Boston yesterday for San Francisco. JetBlue plane had an oil leak coming in that they couldn't fix, so we left two hours late due to needing a new plane; landed about one hour late. Made my way through a Very Hot San Francisco -- 95+ degree heat is somewhat unusual for this city. Overall, travel was easy, if slow.

Made it to Neil's, chilled out, caught up on email, prepped a bike for travel to UPXIII, where dinner was. I did question whether biking to UPXIII was the best plan for a flatlander like me. After making it to the house, I decided that it definitely was an ... interesting idea. The house is essentially on Bernal Hill; this means that I was biking up a pretty damn brutal hill to get to the house. In the end, I made it without stopping, but it was definitely a hard push, and it took me about an hour to really recover completely.

Dinner was fantastic. A four course meal for 15 people cooked by the people themselves (though I mostly stuck to doing dishes). Soup, fruits, sea scallops, lovely dessert. All in all, the entire thing was probably some of the best food I've had outside of a restaurant; and some of itw as actually better than I've had in most restaurants. (The experience actually reminded me of Craigie Street Bistrot, which I've been to once-and-only-once.)

Got back around 1am -- 4am body clock time -- and slept for about 4-5 hours.

Currently sitting around, catching up on various things. Looking like my plan for the day is to hack in the same meatspace as Rich and Schuyler (possibly at crucially's, I guess?) and then hit up The Dubliner, over in Noe Valley, starting around 7/7:30, for hacking with other geo-minded folks.

Conference starts tomorrow in Mountain View; need to arrange a way for me to get there before then :)

Got release out yesterday and left work at 6, as per plan. Somewhat stressful when customer called during downtime to ask why she couldn't demo to $Boss, but live demo was abandoned; "oops", but nothing to be done. Also found that I like writing tools for doing data entry more than i like data entry - shocking, I'm sure.

Kristan came over, and we watched The Doctor's Daughter (so Mary Sue; great ep anyway) and then the Jeruselem episode of Cities of the Underworld.

Jana (not in t9: how sad) pinged me on aim, saying she was having problems with her final paper for one of her classes. I went over and grabbed her, and dragged her to our place. She researched for a bit, but generally got herself worked up over the fact that her paper wasn't writing itself.

After watching the latest
top chef, it still wasn't flowing, so I took matters into my own hands, and had her dictate the rough sketch of her paper to me. (a blank page is the scariest part of writing, after all.) in the end, she had about 1000 words in incomplete sentences. If she can't pad that into the 3000 word paper she offer, she doesn't deserve a liberal arts college degree. ;)

Watched Gossip Girl with her as a reward -- it was how i got her to work on her paper -- and then took her home. Stayed up for another hour or so hacking on OSM, went to sleep around 4.30. Was up 2.5 hours later, and here we are.

I have a feeling gossip girl will be added to the list of TV I steal from Kristan every week from here forward. Yes, I am a gay man inside, despite loving women and all their feminine wiles.

Off to another day.

Had a somewhat shitty weekend. Most of it was work related; due to a deadline decided Friday, we had to change priorities to get a release out by the end of the day today. This wasn't a huge deal for me, since I finished most of my chunks a week or so ago... But integration time always finds new bugs, and this was no exception, so i was sort of "on call" all weekend. So not only do i not get credit for working all weekend, i had to work all weekend anyway. Ah, software development.

On the plus side, i made done for the family several times this weekend successfully, including breakfast in bed for Jess on mother's day. I also had my first breakfast bacon at home in a long time. And man oh man was it tasty. I actually got to a point when i couldn't eat any more bacon: i made about a half pound, and no one else wanted more than a piece or two, so I ate what I figure was probably about a third of a pound on my own.

Did some API development for openstreetmap yesterday afternoon, as well as watching an hour of Casino Royale, which Jess bought me as a gift, while the kids were off at a playdate. We traded an hour and a half of peace and quiet with a parent down the street, which worked out well.

Also worked a fair bit on the yard this weekend, though Jess did a lot more than I did, and the front is starting to look reasonable, though I need to get some of the remains out of the yard; still have a big pile of branches to dispose of at the moment.

I guess, looking back, the weekend was rather productive, but it still hasn't left me in a cheerful mood, so i don't know if that's a win or loss.

Ah well. Back to life.

Awesome things: cities of the underworld series on the history channel. Totally great episode this week on "secret soviet bases". Watched it last night with kristan, after watching the office.

Full hour season finale of the office next week! I'm excited about that.

Yes, i'm a tv whore these days. Monday is cities of the underworld, thursday is office, and saturday is doctor who (torrented an hour or so after the show ends).

Going out to San Francisco next weekend for wherecamp. May have mentioned this already, can't remember. That should be fun. Still trying to decide what I should do on Friday in San Francisco.

Took a nap in Aerin's sitting room yesterday while waiting to give her a ride over to school for a final presentation. It's nice to be away from the stressors of home sometimes, lets me relax a bit easier without having to think "Oh, I should be cleaning." and so on.

My headphones finally gave up the ghost yesterday at work. Need to see if i can find the other pair that had been floating around, but i haven't seen them in more than a week.

Also, having juicy secrets is hard. I don't have many of them, so this obvious fact has been somewhat unknown to me until relatively recently. I'm sure i've had this problem in the past, but I'm typically so open that secrets are not really part of my life. At least, not juicy ones ;)

Yet another drive time entry written from my phone.

Passed out early last night, around 8.30, i think. Woke up for a couple hours around 1, back to sleep around 3.30, but apparently turned my alarm off this morning at 6.30. Girls were both late to school, but thats life, really.

Huh. There's a tractor trailer student driver in harvard square. As much as i realize the need to practice in the confines of a city, that seems like asking for trouble.

Some people drink pepsi, some rel drink coke. The wacky morning dj says democracy's a joke.

Towing day for part of my drive back from school. I feel like it's got to be possible to design a street cleaning system that doesn't result in dozens of cars getting towed every day in Cambridge. Perhaps a community effort: stickers that say "call this number if you see my car about to be towed", for warning/communication to people who are about to be towed...

Anyway. Done driving now. Time to start my day.

Weather outside today! Incredible. I see clouds to the south and north, but here in cambridge, it's just awesome.

Interesting, a volleyball team is practicing in the outdoor park next to my walk home. I don't think i can remember seeing outdoor volleyball practice other than on the beach.

I love the town where i live. I really need to get out and take pictures at some point soon. Trees are blooming all throughout cambridgeport, and it's damn pretty.
Also, downloaded the new nin album from their website today: CC licensed, and released directly by the band/trent. I like it (though less than some of their older stuff), but i wonder where the money is in that... Radio stations? Touring? And don't most artists sell their souls to record companies early on? Why can nin release cc licensed music?

The houses in my neighborhood are so charmingly eclectic. One day, when i win the lottery, i want to own a big eclectic house in this area or another like it.

Jess is feeling better this morning, having had a root canal yesterday to fix a tooth that was in bad shape. No clue how we're going to cover the multiple thousand dollars of dental cost, but it is good to have her say that her mouth feels better than it has in weeks despite only having one of the two problem teeth taken care of. Such a shame that dental health coverage is in such a sad state: have heard stories of people having only the option of paying more for premiums than their annual maximum coverage. And i thought normal health insurance was bad!

Also, continuing to enjoy an upswing in Jess's overall mood, the duration of which is longer than any in my memory, the entire time we've been together. This is a major good thing, and i hope that it continues long term. It's an excellent example of an upward spiral: getting things taken care of results in more optimism, results in more ability to get things done, results in more optimism, etc. I have seen short bursts of this over the years, but never one so prolonged or effective in the entire time that Jess and i have been together.

Did a software release yesterday, (OpenLayers) have a couple ideas for other projects to ponder in my 'free time' in the short term. Also looking to probably cast about for some contract work related to my mapping work, if anyone is aware of anything i could help out with.

IRS is finally paid off from both 2005 and 2006, (thanks to 2007 return)which is probably my biggest mental relief in my life right now. Yes, i'm still broke, but I don't owe the government any more money, which is a pretty great feeling. Having uncle sam come after you is not a very happy feeling.

I really enjoy having the N95, especially with the latest firmware. Right now, making a gps recording, listening to mp3s through the jetta tape adapter, writing this entry and getting email updates from work. Can your phone do that? Didn't think so. :)

Okay, passing Harvard Square now, which means traffic will move at more than 2 car lengths per minute. Time to drive.

Tell me something joyful or different that you're doing today, or in the near future.

For example, today I'm going to be hanging out and doing a bug squash at work til late. I like things like this, despite it being work, because the people at work are some of the most interesting and entertaining technical people i've had the pleasure of meeting.

This weekend, I'm going to be buying more fish, I hope: more tetras, and a second dwarf frog to keep our current one company.

It's the little joys that make life special, and i want to know what everyone else is experiencing small joys over.

Is today some kind of national fishnet day or something? Seen 3 chicks wearing fishnets in a 10 minute drive.

Have copied mp3s to n95. Maybe not as fancy as an ipod, but has several hours of favorite mp3s. Quite nice for the driving of children to school.

Life is generally good. Although my recent entry about life still applies, I'm slightly more upbeat about things.

Work has been better. I've been concentrating on the server side, where my skills are a better fit, and concentrating on building good APIs so that the specific UI matters less: hopefully this will allow us to build custom UIs against our current project more easily in the future, by not concentrating all our API design around a single client.

Going to Illinois next week to see family for Easter. Also, apparently I turn 24 a week from today. I just realized this.

Kristan's here. We're going to watch 24. Starting Season 5 now...

8:30am: Drive Jess to therapy.
9am: Call Gastro number that Mt. Auburn gave us and insist that they give Jess the appointment they promised they would try to give her tomorrow.
9:45AM: Accept defeat, and deal with the fact that her appointment will be on Tuesday instead.
10AM: Take Jess back home from Therapy.
11AM: Drive north to get the kids from Jason's.
1PM: Return home with kids in tow. Presumably having stopped at McDonalds or the like on the way home in order to pacify them.
2PM: Go into work in an attempt to make up for lost time.
2:15PM: Get call back from Gastro person telling me that they can fit her in today after all
2:45PM: Take Jess to doc
3:00PM: Get told that it was really just a mistake, and they'll have to see her tomorrow.
4:00PM: Curl up in a ball and whimper.

Jess got a CT scan. They found nothing. She had an extremely rude doctor who didn't consult her chart tell her that there was nothing wrong with her and that the pain medication she was on was unnecessarily strong. (This, when the morphine wasn't even able to alleviate the pain? Thanks.) He talked to the gastro department, which promised an appointment for tomorrow or the next day when we call tomorrow. Which means next month, based on past experience, but whatever.

As a result of the CT scan, we had Jay keep the girls overnight, so I'll be going up to get them tomorrow. We eventually got home around 6:30 after arriving at the ER at 1. Not the worst ever. (Better than staying overnight, in my opinion, since the drugs they were giving Jess weren't helping anyway.)

I crashed out for a couple hours -- didn't get much sleep last night -- and then went out to Cindarella's for a late dinner. Which was damn good, although my stomach disagreed and decided to get rid of it as soon as I got home.

Since then, I've just been dicking around online. I did get some good news about presenting at FOSS4G this fall, and was able to book hotel room with a coworker on Friday, so I'm excited about that.

Nothing much going on other than that.

Jess is in the hospital again. This time, they're going to do a CT scan. So, we're here for at least another couple hours. Fun fun.

Organization of sock drawer: (post requested by beginning

My socks are matched, and then top half folded down, making the socks approximately half size with a small tail of toe hanging out. In general, they are then shoved into the small drawer in the top right of my dresser -- this drawer is full of things like handkerchiefs as well, so it's never particularly well organized. Underwear is stored in a different drawer, because I have a ton of it.

In general, I don't keep a lot of socks matched/folded -- especially in the summer, when I'm only wearing Tevas -- but even in the winter, I mostly match on the fly, rather than doing a lot of pre-matching. We have a seperate sock storage container -- the sock bin -- much like we always did in my parents house, where we had the sock basket.

The girls have lots of socks, and they're very small, so they get doubled over totally. They're differentiated by the different color toe band -- pink for Julie, Purple for Ali, though Julie is growing into a purple color as well.

Jess's socks are a mystery to me. I don't know anything about them -- they just appear and disappear at random, it seems.

I'm tired. I wonder if I can get a hospital bed to take a nap in :)

Jess and I have significant disagreements as to how long sheets can remain on the bed before they need to be changed. She feels that sheets should be changed weekly, and that when you get to two weeks you are being negligent in your sheet changing duties.

I, on the other hand, grew up with a mother who believed that changing the sheets once a month was fine.

When I was living on my own, I changed them once every two months or so... but I realize that was pushing the limits of stinkiness, etc.

(Yes, using LJ Polls to resolve relationship conflicts is a bad idea. I'm just full of bad ideas.)

Poll #902178 Bed Sheets
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 59

How often do you change the sheets on your bed?

If less often than monthly, explain?

This week, my old college roommate y3t39 came out to Cambridge. He showed up last Saturday, and left yesterday.

Things we did:

• Walked the Freedom Trail, start to finish.
• Ate at Union Oyster House
• Visited the USS Cassin Young (the Constitution was closed)
• Ate breakfast at Zaftig's
• Toured Harvard Square
• Toured MetaCarta
• Walked around Central Square

Things Pete did:

• First Night, in Boston
• Toured MIT
• Drink at the Plough and Stars

All in all, I think that he got a good taste of Boston/Cambridge considering how long he was here and how busy we were. Other things which kept us busy:

• Julie has some kind of undetermined bacterial infection that was giving her fevers of 105 (again). She's on antibiotics for it now.
• School starting again for Julie and Alicia
• A giant snafu with my web hosting provider/server which sucked up about 2 days of my brain cycles.

Things I did not do:

• Celebrate New Years in any particularly exciting fashion.
• Sleep.
• Make new years resolutions.
• Make long thoughtful reflective posts about the past year.

I need some new userpics. I suppose this one will do for how I feel about this week -- stretched in 15 different directions.

This morning, I found street parking in Back Bay.

Right next to a McDonalds, and across from the Dunkies I wanted to be at.

Right by Mass Ave.

Oh, and since the meter was out of order... I didn't even have to pay.

Oh, and it was a couple spaces in a row, so I didn't even have to parallel park.

I swear, it must be a cold day in Hell today.

My iPod has been lost somewhere in the house. Last time I saw it was when aajwind was playing with it a week and a half ago. I did get some more of the house clean, and Emmy is making amazing progress on the downstairs of the house.

I'm really tired.

Rent is mailed though, and the DVD selection has been cleaned up to the point that we actually know where things are (shock! Horror!) and we've got netflix flowing again so Jess and I are going to be watching the Sopranos tonight.

I think I'm probably going to be posting a lot of entries today.

Easy like Saturday morning.

Julie slept in Jess+my bed last night. I have no idea why, as I don't remember when she came into our bed, but it means that I couldn't chill out in bed this morning - not enough room. So, I'm downstairs, chilling out, and watching the very quiet world as it starts to wake up.

Snow yesterday was weird. There was an inch or two of snow, but then the snow started turning into sleet/rain. This actually made it so that most sidewalks were clear of snow if they'd been shovelled at all, or were melted to slush otherwise. I went out around 1/1:30, and at that point the rain started turning into hail. When I was walking back towards the house around 3pm, about 4 inches of snow were on the ground again, and traffic everywhere had pretty much ground to a halt.

How rain turned to sleet turned to hail turned to 4 inches of snow in two hours, I'm not quite sure, but it definitely made walking home more difficult.

Signed on for another 3 months with Ning. That job is so great for me, I hope they want to keep me forever. After this, all "real jobs" are going to suck :) I have been keeping an eye on what's in the area for when we do have to part ways, and I don't think getting a job will be too terrible - the tech field around here is good, and although I hope that I'd be able to make it on my own doing web development, I know that's pretty unlikely.

I'm thinking about learning Lisp.

Took the kids to the park yesterday afternoon. Was actually a lot more crowded than I thought it would be: This was cool because the parents all helped out. When kids were fighting, a parent stepped in, regardless of whose they were. When Julie wanted help getting on a swing, she got it, even if I was typing on the powerbook 100 feet away. When Julie wanted to push some kid in a little car around in circles, she got to.

This isn't something I've ever seen before: when I went to parks, the other parents stayed out of the way, and my mom had to take care of us: especially hard since at the time, she was typically watching somewhere between 5 to 8 kids.

Is this normal? Do most neighborhood parks have parents all over them helping out all the kids?

Alicia even got to help some lady who was playing tennis: she tossed balls to her to help her practice her swing. (I think she was a Brit of some kind: definite accent, but I don't have the experience to tell where.)

Family in town. Did some sightseeing, took them to fire and ice. Behaved ourselves and themselves. Seeing them again tomorrow: funeral/spreading of ashes of my great grandmother.

Very tired. But hoping to hang out with the communistas tonight: the family room is clean enough that I can sit in it without stressing out about the fact that it's a mess, courtesy of our familial preparations.

Kristan found a job. Jess got a callback from the Harvard something or other bar. Jenn has two interviews this week. I've got contract work, and am in communication with old high school/college friend and looking to possibly pick up a piece of some action he's going to be bringing to bear. We may actually be able to afford August rent at this rate ;)

Living in Cambridge is expensive, but worth it. I definitely am looking forward to when I have a little bit less on my mind so that I can take full advantage of the location: dropping down to the pit on weekends or something and checking out what's going on, or hitting up the museums. On that note, we did get our Museum of Science Basic 5 memberships in the mail today, so we can spend time there now. Looking forward to that.

Still no internet: current setup is using the powerbook as a wireless receiver from the somewhat weak unlocked access point which seems to get better reception in the front of the house, then using an ethernet cable to drag that back to the router (atlas) who can then rebroadcast it over ethernet or over wireless to the rest of the house. I fear what will happen when I need to set up our non-wireless computers (zeus, hermes), since I have a feeling neither one of them is going to live anywhere near the router, and neither one of them has any space for a PCI card for wireless. Anyone have any experience with USB->WiFi adapters?

You know what would be cool? Internet over bluetooth: a CAT5->Bluetooth dongle that could rebroadcast from the router to the mac mini... oh, shit. I forgot that it probably wouldn't go that far. I'd have to get that other class of bluetooth device... ah well. It still sounds cool.

The girls love the new house. Jessie loves having our own room, and the free space. Alicia got to come up into the attic and see the space up there last night. The kittens have been doing well and being playful, while not running out of the house much.

I love Jess. She's been extremely tolerant of lots of stress and long hours from me lately, and she's been helpful in everything from getting plates on the car to getting everything we need to survive into the house lately.

I love our roomates. Whenever I've needed help: had the last straw with the kids, needed help moving shit around because I was too exhausted to lift even one foot to go up the stairs, or whatever else needed to be done, they've been there.

I love the girls. They have adapted wonderfully, loving everything from walking everywhere (although Alicia did whine that we never take the car anywhere anymore) to taking the T: Julie announced stops on the red line as the recorded voice did earlier today, and has simply been a joy to have around and be around.

I love this place.

People who want to come over: Please do so! We don't have much in the way of furniture, but we do have some space now, and we have food, and we can just show you how the place is. I like it here, and I'm looking forward to meeting more locals.

I was thinking this morning about my schedule for the rest of the week, and realized I was off an entire day. I kept saying that today was Wednesday. That really fucks up a lot of my plans.

Verizon's 45 seconds to 45 day wait time for installations is really getting on my nerves. *Still* no phone line at the house, which means *still* no DSL, although we did get the Speakeasy modem in the mail this morning. Since we already have the one from MV (Which is nicer), I may end up dropping it onto eBay once we're sure the old modem can do the job.

Commute time this morning (in which I didn't get lost at all):

Erie St. to 93: 12 minutes (6:48->7:00
93 to Mass/NH border: 19 minutes (7:00 -> 7:19)
Mass/NH Border to wedu: 26 minutes (7:19->7:45)

A large chunk of that time was spent coming around 293: I think I got on 2:93 at 7:37, but it was a mess: crowded, and some guy almost drove into me trying to get ahead in a merge.

So much work to do. My parents are getting in today at noon thirty, and wanted me to stop by the farm tonight, but I'm thinking that I'm going to have to be late at work tonight, so that's not going to happen.

Amusement of the day: Some porn site apparently added a bunch of random email addresses to a mailman list. The first I got from it was a bounce message, before I even got the first message sent to the list. I've since gotten a half dozen bounce messages, some spam, and one "If you don't take me off your list, I will fuck your server up, you understand?"

People amuse me.