Month: August 2001

Well, I’ve managed to find some internet access – not on my laptop, but at least I can check e-mail and blog! I bought the neatest book yesterday – “How to Speak Dog”. Pretty soon I’ll be able to put on my resume that I’m multilingual – I speak English and Doggish. :) Actually, it’s a really good book – I couldn’t put it down last night. Which explains why I’ve been yawning through every presentation so far today. Or, maybe they’re just that boring… Actually, the conference hasn’t been that bad, but it’s not really what I expected. I’m just looking forward to going home and spending the long weekend working on those christening gowns!

I’ve Had It!
Ok, I had to dial in to work just to get my email and blog. I’m finding it extremely difficult to believe that I’m at a “Web Services” conference with no internet access. OpenSource had a (free) wireless network setup all throughout the conference area. The focus of that conference was not the web, but they understood the need for easy internet access. This web conference doesn’t even have walk-up machines to go read news or anything with. Is it just me, or is that bizarre?

Late Monday
<rant>Why do people have such a prejudice against macs? I’m taking a Java tutorial and when I have issues, the instructor assumes right off the bat that it’s because I’m using a mac, not because I’ve typed in a line of code wrong. I’m not one of those mac users who tries to convert pc users – I firmly believe that whichever platform you want to use is the one you should use. But (and not to offend the 46% percent (all 3?) of you who read this on a pc) I think windows is buggy and akward, and I can’t understand why sane people think that it’s easier to use than a mac.</rant>

Monday
Day 3 and no internet access in sight. I’m starting to go through withdrawal – I guess this means that I’m getting too dependent on technology. It’s frustrating to have to watch the weather channel to find out about the forecasted high instead of hopping onto weatherunderground.com and getting the info in less than 10 seconds. It probably doesn’t help that we have a wireless network in the house – I’m connected everywhere in the house, on my property, and even at the neighbors’ houses. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll dial in to work later just to get my email fix. :)

Sunday
We walked the freedom trail today, although we didn’t go into many of the buildings – more out of lack of time than anything else. We met some friends for lunch and walked along the Charles for a while. Unfortunately, my allergies (or cold?) are getting the better of me, so I’ve been dragging today.

Saturday
Highlight of the day: we went to see the “make way for ducklings” bronze statues… They were pretty cool! It was neat to watch all the kids playing around them, too. Trinity church had some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I’ve ever seen, but my camera was not interested in taking pictures of them. Oh, well. Probably a tripod would have helped. We wandered around Newbury Street, went to Quincy Market, ate dinner at the “Barking Crab”, and took a horse drawn carriage ride around the financial district. Pretty nice day, in all…

<insert sigh of relief here>
It’s Friday!!! And I’m leaving for Boston extremely early (i.e. the flight leaves at 6:50 A.M.) tomorrow morning. Yes, I know, most sane people aren’t even close to awake at that hour on a Saturday, but I’ve never been to Boston, so I’m eager to get an early start. Of course, I’m not too sure how much internet access I’m going to have while I’m there, so I don’t know how much I’ll get to blog, but it’s a web services conference – you would think there might be web access around somewhere…

Plus, I got the laundry done, made progress on the gowns (no inside-out seams anymore) and made extensive progress on my master’s project last night. I’m in a very happy mood, la la la. Now if I can just get to bed early so that when the alarm goes off at 4:30 I don’t turn it off, we’ll be all set.

Under Pressure
(…and the song now gets stuck in your head – sorry…)

Between working long hours, trying to make progress on my master’s project, and creating two christening gowns, I’m not finding much time for sleep – or anything else… I’m headed to Boston for a week in, oh, about 44 hours, and I realized I have no clean clothes, nor any idea what I’ve got to pack. This is a problem…

I was so distracted last night while I was working on the gowns, I sewed one piece on inside-out. I discovered this after I had trimmed the seam allowances… I somehow managed to salvage both pieces even though I had to rip out a seam – no small feat when you’re working with fabric as flimsy as organdy! Unfortunately, taking one stitch out at a time involved 25 minutes of holding my breath and praying frantically that nothing would rip. Argh. On the positive side, I now know that the seams my sewing machine sews are very strong.

The master’s project is going nowhere at the moment. I knew I was getting into a gray area when I decided to write it for os X, but this is getting ridiculous. Every time I try to do something it’s like pulling teeth to get it to work. I finally gave up at midnight last night when I had searched the entire internet trying to find someone who had gotten ImageMagick working for os X… It sounds like people have, so I haven’t lost all hope, but they didn’t bother posting the magic incantations required. Maybe I should call Miss Cleo – I might have more luck. :)

…And speaking of songs getting stuck in your head, why is it that people say things like “guess what song I’ve had stuck in my head for days?” and then start singing it for you? Thanks. Now it’s stuck in my head, too…

Blogger is fast this morning! :)

Lucky
I must be really lucky. I have seen, over the past few days, an average of two ladybugs a day – in my house! I have never seen so many ladybugs in my life! The weird thing is that they’re almost all in my kitchen. We have a sliding glass door, but when it’s open there’s a screen which is in fairly good condition – no big holes or anything… So how do they get in? It’s the most bizarre thing. I’m slightly worried that I’ll come home one day and find my kitchen crawling with little ladybugs. I think they’re trying to move in…

I guess I’m not supposed to blog right now – IE just crashed. Boom. Of course, it probably doesn’t help that while I was typing out my blog I kept updating and reloading the javascript code I’m trying to fix at work. I think I reloaded the buggy code one too many times. I just don’t understand where those pesky bugs come from. I mean, I don’t write the bugs into my code!

So, is it Friday yet?

Weekend Catch-up
I meant to blog this weekend, but my computer was in limbo. Honest! Actually, Denis went and totally cleaned up my hard drive and re-installed everything for me. Of course, this is a rare thing to have to do to a mac, but I had about 4 different installations of different versions of the operating system lurking around my hard drive – now I just have Mac OS X. (Well, and 9.1 for “classic” apps.) So the only time I spent on the computer this weekend was to work on my master’s project. Which I have made huge progress on! I’m actually starting to get excited about it again – I was starting to feel like I’d never get it done, but I’ve finally connected all the pieces, and from here on in it’s only a matter of spending every night and weekend coding and documenting between now and the end of fall quarter. :P

I also did some work on those christening gowns. Yikes! This might take a while. But they’re really cute so far. Maybe when they’re a little more substantial I’ll figure out how to post pictures of them.

And when I wasn’t busy writing code or working with ivory fabric, I made several dozen chocolate mint cookies. I wanted to make something for the new neighbors, and I’d forgotten how many cookies the recipe made…so I doubled it. When all was said and done, I ended up making 16 dozen cookies. That’s a lot of cookies. Especially when only 15 go into the oven at a time, for 12 minutes a tray. Two-and-a-half hours later, with cookies cooling on every flat surface in my kitchen and dining room, I never wanted to see another chocolate mint cookie ever again!

Mmmmm….
I’ve just been introduced to the best bagels ever to be had on this planet. I mean, I’ve had NYC bagels. They’re good. Rochester bagels, well, they’re better than no bagels. But Brownstein’s bagels are the best. It’s a really good thing they’re nowhere near on my way to work, or I’d be shaped like a bagel by Christmas time!

Yippee!
It’s that time of year again…football season! There is nothing I like better than coming home from Wegman’s on Sunday morning, putting on a pot of chili, and sitting down just in time for the kickoff… Of course, it’s really only pre-season, and a little too warm yet for chili, but just watching football is cool. Now if only I recognized any of the Bills this year…

Oh, and Denis reminded me that I am also genetically predisposed to worrying. About anything, everything and nothing. In fact, I’m worried right now about waking up for work tomorrow. Guess I’d better go to bed!