tv

Prattling about Profound Productivity

Posted on by grahams

I’ve been really productive lately… Witness the complete success of my pulled pork experiment, fixing the sinlaws DirectTivo (I think I fixed it, at least), sprinting towards deadlines at work with reckless abandon, and traveling all over the place to be with family and friends.

I made a mad dash to get my project to Alpha release by the end of June, and managed to demo it at our weekly development meeting on the 30th. I think I impressed everyone in on the demo, I’m pretty sure several of the people who were doubting whether or not I could deliver on my performance and compatibility claims were put in their place. And really, while I referred to this as an Alpha release, imho it is Alpha-in-name-only. While it’s the first release to grace the hands of the testers, it’s feature complete and has been pretty well beat-upon by me and my fellow developer. Hopefully they will beat the hell out of it and track down anything I missed, but I feel great about the quality as it stands now (not quite shippable, but definitely branchable).

The pulled pork has been going over like gangbusters (with everyone besides , that is, who isn’t a fan)… I brought some coworkers home for lunch and each had a few sandwiches… For my entire life I thought Barbeque was some kind of voodoo art which required tons of specialized equipment, but it turns out you can make the real deal with stuff most people have access to.

Various Weekend Bits

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

and I spent most of the weekend hanging out around the house and plowing through the massive unpacking chores ahead of us..  Corinna finally had the opportunity to get the bedroom mostly in order, so the boxes of clothes are mostly gone and things are starting to find their “right place”.  I continued to sort through my stuff, trying to pare down stuff…  I’ve come across even more stuff to give away.. 

Eventually I’ll post a master list of stuff, but if you have the need for a Netgear 8-port 10/100 switch or a SMC 8-port 10/100 wired NAT firewall/router, or a PS1 without any cables or controllers, which I believe still works, but I haven’t touched it in years…  let me know. 

I ordered my TV, it’d be awesome if it came before the weekend, but I doubt that will happen…

Return of the Corn

Posted on by grahams

After

[info]coco_b

returned from South Dakota on Friday around Midnight, we managed to get a few hours of sleep in before piling into Hawkeye and heading down to NJ. 

[info]jerseyboop

was visiting from TN, and I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile (Christmas?).  I also used the opportunity to trade cars with mom for the week and bring the crap I’ve kept in their basement to the new place now that there’s room for it.  It was a really busy 36 hours or whatever…  Saturday night we all went out to Outback to celebrate Father’s Day a little early (since we were all in town at the same time). 

[info]tatyana

was accompanied by Stosh and her “stepkids” (she and Stosh aren’t married, but she lives with him and helps take care of the kids when they are with Stosh).  They are cute kids, but a handful, and totally reminded me why having kids is a bad idea… =)

Anyway, I was in the basement with Mom and Dad, who were helping me spelunk the basement for my stuff, and helping me bring it out to the car.  My dad was bringing out a box to the car when I looked into my plastic Rubbermaid coffin and noticed the infamous can of corn.  I quickly sprung into action, grabbing the can and bringing it out to the car with the intention of hiding it in his car..  Unfortunately, he caught me as I entered the garage, and quickly proclaimed “Damn it!!”  Apparently, he had just put the can in the coffin a few minutes prior..  This was extra special, because this is EXACTLY how this whole can fiasco started almost 10 years ago when I was packing up to move to RIT (in late August or early September 1997).  The ball is back in my court… for now…

On the way back from NJ we stopped over in Manhattan for a few hours to visit with Sara, Dave, Sappha, and Finn…  To save time, I drove directly to their place down by Battery Park, so we could just blast up the FDR when we were done as opposed to taking the PATH back to NJ then driving from there…  The Holland Tunnel was awful, but the TomTom got us there without too much hassle…    Sara made some awesome baked Mac & Cheese, and we caught up for an hour or two before we hit the road…  Mom’s Honda Pilot treated us pretty well, but I really don’t like driving such a big car, especially when I can’t see out the back..  Fortunately I didn’t have to do all that much backing up…

We got back to Watertown around midnight, and we quickly settled in for the final episode of The Sopranos..  What a way to go out, it was everything I could have hoped for…  Exactly the kind of way I had hoped the series would end, I mean, I wasn’t “expecting” how it turned out, but I really hoped many of the “all wrapped up nicely” theories that were floating around leading up to the finale were wrong…  I’ll leave this spoiler free for awhile, but I’ll try and come back to it at some point…