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Renovations Fun

Posted on by grahams

So the contractor eventually showed up yesterday and begun demolition of our bathroom. Corinna waited around all morning for them to come, they were supposed to show between 8 and 9am, but didn’t show until 2pm… The guy doing the demolition got most of the wall down (which is a tall order since it is all steel-backed plaster) and came back today to finish the job. I will be taking pictures each day as I did for my parents’ renovations. I will also be showering each day at work, which should be interesting.. Fortunately I won’t be spending the next two weekends in Boston, so I don’t have to figure out a showering procedure for when I’m not at work.

Attended a great lecture today on some interesting image processing algorithms developed by a colleague at our parent division (Goodrich Optical & Space Systems).

Fucking Hippies!

Posted on by grahams

Today a hippie inconvenienced me. I walked from my desk to the vending machine to grab a Coke, and when I got there I found that the machine was rejecting my perfectly good dollar bill. I examined the bill, and found what I presume is the culprit. A stamp near George Washington’s mouth with a cartoon speech bubble reading “I Grew Hemp”. I tried the bill in all possible orientations, but all were rejected even though it was in tip-top shape. And since I had just brought enough for a drink, I had to hike back to my desk to obtain a non-patchoulli bill.

A Noted Harvard Symbologist

Posted on by grahams

I’ve been killing myself trying to finish this design document at work and I finally was able to send it out for review on Friday afternoon. Hopefully people won’t have too many comments about it, because I’d really like to write some code sometime this year.

Got my Powerbook back on Friday, it was shipped out, fixed, and back in the apple store in less than 72 hours. Seems to be working great now, I had forgotten how nice the keyboard backlight was after going without it for a few months. If I had known how fast the turnaround would be on the repair I would have had it fixed ages ago.

Pretty laid back weekend, saw The DaVinci Code with the film club last night. As I expected it was way better than the book, which is a worthless steaming pile of shit. That said, it isn’t a GREAT movie, just a good, entertaining flick. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, and I’m not entirely sure why the critics have been so harsh on it… Maybe they are all in the pockets of Opus Dei.

Oh….. Fudge…..

Posted on by grahams

I was pulling into my neighborhood yesterday and heard the dreaded sound of a flat tire. The tire had a slice on it’s sidewall on the INSIDE of the tire, which I don’t even understand. I pulled off to the side of the road to swap it out, jacked up the car, took off the lugs, and couldn’t get the wheel off. I called , who brought me a hammer and some work gloves. Wacked on the wheel with the hammer, stomped on it with my (lame) legs, and did everything I could to get the fucker off to no avail. I called AAA, who came in record time (10 minutes or so), but they couldn’t get it off either, and the tire wouldn’t hold air, so they called in a tow truck, which towed my car across the street (about 45 minutes later). So now I am waiting at home for them to call me, they estimated that it would be before noon, but who knows..

Microsoft Spies

Posted on by grahams

I have become extra-sensitive to surveillance and reconnaissance issues since working for Goodrich SRS, but today caught me completely off guard. I was driving home from work and I noticed an SUV coming towards me with all kinds of strange equipment on it’s roof. It looked like two cameras 90 degrees from each other pointing towards the front corners of the car. It’s possible there was another pair of cameras pointing towards the rear corners of the car. The car was also equipped with some antennae, and had some companies’ logo on the sides that sported some text about surveying or somesuch.

After the car passed me I continued to look in my rear-view mirror and noticed that the entire back window had a huge Microsoft Windows Live Local logo across the back. My guess is that MS is doing some of their “Street Side” imaging of storefronts, etc.

Screw All People

Posted on by grahams

Headed out to MassArt last night for the inaugural season opener of the Boston Derby Dames. and I were meeting a bunch of people from work there.. As we were walking from the bus to the venue, I got a call from John telling us that they had been waiting on a long line and by the time they had gotten to the front of it, the show had already been sold out! So we were totally screwed out of the event I have been waiting for weeks to see…

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.

“Layla” : Music :: “Full Metal Jacket” : Film

Posted on by grahams

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.

Anniversaries out the Ass

Posted on by grahams

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…. :)