I saw the shortest little snowstorm at the end of my walk to work this morning, about 30 seconds of the lightest flurries I have ever seen then nothing… It was like a teaser trailer.
We caught Blade Runner: The Final Cut last night with the film club.. It was refreshing to see a director treat the revisiting of an earlier, classic film with the respect they should. Great crowd last night, afterwards we ended up at Fugakuyu, which was a bit pricey for the film club…
On the way home from work yesterday I had another flat tire… Fortunately, this time around I was able to get it off the car myself and replace it with the donut spare. By the time I got home all the tire places were closed, so I was forced to take care of it this morning. Unfortunately, I had plans to meet up with some of my family at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.. It’s a 3 hour trip over there, and the air show starts at 2pm, so I just don’t think I can make it now.. We’ll see when I get out of here, though… But that is likely impossible now, as I am still sitting at the tire place and they are doing the alignment now (it was needed for awhile now). I had them replace the other two tires, since one went a few months ago and one went yesterday, I didn’t want to have to worry about the other two. Thank god for free WiFi at this place…
I can’t help but think that Hawkeye is jealous that my new job will cause me to require less of his services… One week left at Goodrich, this week was tough. The Critical Design Review for the project I’ve been working on for the past year is this week, and so everyone is scrambling to polish off documents, make slides, and make sure we are well-researched for any questions that come up from the customer. Even though it will suck to have my last few days at Goodrich spent in meetings, I feel good that supporting the team through CDR and then leaving is a clean break. All of the documents for my software are in order, including requirements, design, and interface control specs, so whoever is assigned to pick up where I left off. I would feel better if they let me know who was taking it over so I could transfer some knowledge personally, but I’m not going to worry too much about it. My design is pretty comprehensive, not only specifying the software architecture but the individual algorithms required for each calculation, I did my best to hold the programmers hand (mostly because I’ve been thinking about leaving for quite some time and was hoping that I wasn’t going to be that programmer :P).
What surprised me the most about the past week was that while “short time” status always stinks, the worst part has been the commute. Traffic wise, it has been the same as the past 2.5 years. But since I almost drive past my new job 3 miles into my commute, it really punctuates how much I hate the remaining 24 miles until I arrive at Goodrich. But I got my September bus pass in the mail yesterday, and after 5 more days the commute will be much more bearable.
Update: Damn, there is some abuse of the language in this entry… I guess it was a combination of anger, sleep deprivation, and writing in a mechanic’s waiting room… I leave it as-is for posterity…
The 5-6 inch storm that hit Boston was a 12-14 inch storm in Chelmsford where I work. It was snowing when I woke up yesterday, and although it was enough to disrupt traffic, it wasn’t enough to keep me from trying to get into work. It took 1:45 to complete my 27 mile commute, most of that was getting through Brighton and Cambridge and to the highway. Looking out the window all day at work I knew the commute home was going to be a nightmare, and I was right.
I sat on Route 3 for about 45 minutes without moving at all… For some reason the plows intermittently plowed the right hand lane, which caused all kinds of traffic as people merged. This, combined with the usual traffic of people getting on 95 north (I go south) meant a nightmare commute. It ended up taking me about 2 hours to get to Alewife. I decided to park my car at Alewife over the weekend so I didn’t have to worry about the parking situation on the street here. It’s only 5 bucks a night, and since it is supposed to be above freezing the next few days I figured it was a small price to pay to wait out the snow. If the situation seems less grim here tomorrow I will probably go get it and bring it back. I took the Red Line to Harvard and then took the 86 bus to Brighton Center. My commute home ended up being 3 hours when I walked in the door to our apartment.
In a stunning bit of serendipity, I had decided to make a stew in the crock pot, which was a pretty comforting meal after such a cold day. I had put it in the pot before I left for work in the morning, so it was pretty much all ready to go when we got home… We just kinda chilled last night, both of us had pretty bad days..