Headed out to MassArt last night for the inaugural season opener of the Boston Derby Dames.
We ended up trekking out to Sunset Cantina on Comm Ave, thinking a mexican restaurant probably wouldn’t be that hammered on St. Patty’s Day… It was busy, but I’m sure not as busy as any of the pubs in Southie or even the rest of Boston, which was good. Afterwards Corinna and I headed back to the apartment and crashed.
Continuing the “I am a Jackass” theme of late, this weekend I was doing some of the aforementioned home improvement and managed to smash the shit out of my thumb with the hammer… A beautiful blood blister formed but I don’t think I did any serious damage. The trim around the front door looks quite a bit better now, and will look even better once it isn’t Primer White. Next up: Stripping and painting the radiators! FUN!
I’m finally writing code at work again, but only because I am forcing the issue…. I’m auto-generating my ICD/Design document via Doxygen, hopefully that won’t make anyone here blow a gasket.
A year ago yesterday I broke my leg! Tomorrow I’m going to see Dr. Schena for a one year checkup, which I presume will probably be my last.. It’s also just about my 2nd anniversary here at Goodrich! And this weekend was the CSH 30th anniversary! All kinds of anniversaries lately..
The 30th was great, mas kudos to everyone involved in planning it… The trip back wasn’t too bad, although it is a grinding trip no matter what way you slice it. As soon as we landed in Boston we drove over to Audra’s to watch the Oscars… Pretty predictable, although I hadn’t seen “Crash”, so I wasn’t able to place it in the categories it competed in… People seemed surprised that it won Best Picture, guess I’d better see it…. :)
Yesterday I finally got my final clearance… It only took two years…. =)
Looking forward to this weekend, tons of fun stuff is going on…
Last night before bed I noticed the beginnings of a sore throat, so I popped back some Cold-Eeze. Around 5:00am I woke up with a terrible sore throat, and got up to get some water as well as another lozenge. I went back to bed and tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back asleep, so around 6am I decided to just get up, shower, and get to work. I got to work at 7:15am, which I believe is a new record for me at Goodrich.
I cancelled my subscription to Audible subscription yesterday… I had the plan where you get 1 audiobook and 1 subscription a month (which I used for Car Talk), but I haven’t been listening to the audiobooks during my normal commute, so they’ve been piling up.. I still love their service, and will eventually buy books piecemeal once I plow through my backlog, but the subscription is a bit too much in this age of podcasts… Not to mention Howard Stern… :)
Yesterday I bought a Sirius Satellite Radio receiver for my car with my Christmas cash.. I hadn’t been listening to Howard very reliably during my commute because my commute was just long enough to get two blocks of commercials and one block of content, which was pretty frustrating… I had been eyeing Sirius for a year or two now, but Howard is definitely what pushed me over the edge.. The best part was after I installed it in my car, I turned on Howard 100 and they just so happened to be doing a studio gear test at that moment with most of the crew, so it was like a little preview show. I’ve heard rumblings that the show will still have commercials, which would disappoint me (and probably cause me to drop my subscription, if they were overbearing), but hopefully they won’t be there (or at least won’t be bad). I figured the price of the Sirius subscription is less than what I was paying each month for Audible, so it’s a bit easier to justify. The other reason, besides Howard, was that without listening to the Radio anymore I was discovering less new music, so hopefully this will rectify that as well.
I had been avoiding Brokeback Mountain because it seemed like it was a gimmick movie. All the press and attention I had heard had been focused on how great it was that it was a gay cowboy movie. But pickin’s for this past weekend’s film club were slim, and I had heard some really good reviews of the film, so I picked it for the club. Turns out it really was a great film.. It was tasteful, not over the top, and just a really well put together film and story. Heath Ledger is as good as everybody says he is, and even Donnie Darko did a good job…
Getting much better at flying the helicopter.. I’m able to hover it for 30 seconds or more without having to touch it down again… Back at work this morning, it’s slow going trying to get back into the swing of things after 11 days of vacation… =)
Sunday I caught King Kong (2005) with the film club. It was better than I had expected, and while there was one glaring plot point (the “kid” on the ship) that was left hanging by the end of the film, it was pretty tight overall (which is surprising given the 3 hour runtime).. There were obviously points of the film that were slower than others, but they all seemed in place (except for the aforementioned subplot, which should have either been trimmed altogether or at least followed through).
I am getting antsy for the holidays, counting the days until I get to drive home and enjoy 11 days off!
Tomorrow is the Goodrich christmas party, which hopefully won’t be lame. Last year was OK, and Corinna’s volunteered to be DD, so I can take better advantage of the open bar this year… I have convinced more of my coworkers to go, so hopefully we can at least make an oasis of cool..
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..
Friday night I hung out with a bunch of friends from work… It was John’s birthday and he had a bunch of people over his house and then we went to watch some Minor League hockey. The game was terrible, we left after the second period, but it was good spending time with these guys (and gal) outside of work for a change.. I didn’t get home until past 1am…
Saturday
Today the two of us took a walk in the snow “storm” and grabbed some lunch at Moogy’s. I had the film club tonight, while she had to stay home to resume her schoolwork. We saw The Ice Harvest. It was OK, but it was a little too predictable. It straddled the line between slapstick and serious, and I think if it veered a bit closer to slapstick it would have been better (and the predictability wouldn’t have been as noticable). I got home and found that one of the traps I set out for our little “mouse friend” had been successful. I had set out both spring and glue traps, because I wanted the little bugger gone, and he wandered into one of the glue traps. I’m not a fan of them, because they seem a bit like torture, but it got the job done, and I dispatched the poor guy as soon as I found him. I have more traps out in case he has any friends..