An archive of my old LiveJournal
I’ve spent the entire morning anticipating the monthly release of patches from Microsoft. The lack of announcements or even commentary struck me as odd, until I realized that while June 1 was the second day of the work week, it was actually Wednesday. Today isn’t the second Tuesday of the month, it’s the first.
Back to web development….
The restrooms where I work have automatic sinks. In theory, motion detectors determine that your hands are below the faucet and turn on the water, then shut the water off when you pull your hands away. In practice, you tend to wave your hand around trying to get its attention, give up and move to the next sink over…at which point the first sink starts running. I keep meaning to draw up a 4-panel cartoon to illustrate this, but I’m not sure my limited drawing skills are up to the task.
I have actually washed my hands, gone over to the towel dispenser, dried my hands, opened the door, and walked out…with the sink still running (and no way to turn it off).
These sinks have been made worse in recent weeks. You see, someone decided they needed to turn up the water pressure. The faucets are angled slightly outward. Placing your hands under the faucets provides a surface for the water to bounce off of, and it splashes forward… over the edge of the sink… landing just below the belt.
Then, of course, there’s dealing with people who don’t wash their hands. It’s easy enough to use an extra paper towel on the handle, but what do you do when there are no paper towels? The place I went for lunch today had an air dryer, complete with the usual blurb about how much more environmentally sound and sanitary air dryers are compared to paper towels (which I think is mainly there to give you something to read while you wait for it to actually dry your hands), but the restroom door opens inward, with a handle on the inside. I walked in and there was a guy standing next to the sink, as near as I can tell waiting for someone to open the door so he wouldn’t have to touch the handle!
At lunch I stopped by the bank to pick up some rolls of quarters for laundry. (The next time we move, a washer/dryer hookup will be part of our criteria.) For some reason, the teller was acting really nervous. When I asked to withdraw two rolls of quarters, she stammered that I should swipe my card while she went to get them.
This in turn made me nervous. I watched her talking to one of the other tellers, wondering what was going on. Did I have a doppelganger on the FBI most wanted list? Was I acting suspiciously without knowing it? Was I just really jittery from all the coffee I drank this morning? Is there some unwritten rule about how many rolls of coins one may reasonably withdraw at a time? Was I going to spend 20 minutes talking to the security guards before they were satisfied that all I wanted to do was withdraw some cash from my own account?
She came back with the quarters, I evidently managed to mistype my PIN, but I got it right on the second try, and the transaction went fine (except for her pronouncing my name wrong)—though I decided to keep my hands in plain sight, just in case. All told, it was an odd experience.
A few days ago I realized my tendency to randomly spoonerize names and phrases should not be applied to Fuddruckers.
Plans/goals for weekend:
1. See Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (tickets already arranged for tonight).
2. Get a replacement hubcap (oh, i haven’t been posting the car saga, have I?).
3. Finish posting Hawaii photos.
4. Get some sleep.
Re: #1, we tracked down a copy of Clone Wars Volume 2, which is much heavier on story than volume 1, and looks like it leads up to about 5 minutes before Episode III begins.
There must be some in-between state…
Yes, you really do notice different things on foot than in a car. For instance: after the heavy rains this past winter, all the empty lots in the Irvine Spectrum area are full of weeds. But in spring, when the weeds are green and in bloom, those fields look an awful lot like meadows.
The lot (or meadow) in front of the Ford building, in particular, had so many birds wheeling and swooping above it that I stopped to watch, and also spotted butterflies and a ladybug that zoomed past my hand to land on the bag of allergy medication I always carry whenever I go somewhere to eat. (I moved it over to the hedge I was standing next to and waited for it to jump off.) A bit later in the walk I started to notice bird songs, and something I couldn’t quite identify as a very loud cricket, a frog, or just a gravelly-voiced bird.
Not all the empty lots look like this. The one nearest the building where I work is, at this very moment, being reduced to stubble by some guy on a power mower.
Re-Watch Episode I: Check
Re-Watch Episode II: Check
Watch Clone Wars: Check
Pre-order tickets for Episode III: Check
I’m kind of annoyed with myself for actually being excited about this movie.
Thursday: Went out for Cinco de Mayo Sushi. (We figured the wait would be shorter than if we actually went out for Mexican food.) Realized I’ve never actually had a Corona. It’s probably just as well. Came home to find UPS had tried to deliver our copy of Mac OS X Tiger, but there was no one to sign for it. Naturally, they only try to deliver at times when no one is home. Ah, UPS!. Redirected it to my office, since I’ll actually be there when they show up.
Friday: Fought with UPS to clarify why they think I gave them the wrong address and determine whether they tried to deliver Tiger again today or not. Theoretically should arrive at the office on Monday. B5 and comics for the evening. (alenxa and I are trying to stay a couple of episodes ahead of the viewing parties with maldis and andrea_wot.) Brakes are definitely making a funny sound. This is really annoying since I took the car in for a full inspection last weekend.
Saturday: Slept in too late to take the car in and get it back earlier than 5:00. Wasted time cleaning out my inbox and random websurfing. Dropped by local comic store for Free Comic Book Day (and to get new comic bags) and picked up the Keenspot Spotlight. Made up for lack of Mexican food on Thursday. Re-watched The Phantom Menace in preparation for Revenge of the Sith, which is starting to look like it might be worth seeing. Neither of us had watched the movie on DVD before, just the special features, so it was a surprise to us that Lucas actually made changes to this movie too. Two brief exchanges were added (I can only remember the second one, just after arriving on Coruscant, where Jar-Jar calmly(?!?) remarks to Anakin that Queen Amidala is being awfully nice to them). He may have dropped the scene where they return to Naboo and notice the blockade ships are gone, or I may have just blinked.
Incidentally, Episode I is a rather different experience with beer involved.
Sunday: Responsible Adult Day. Many hours of laundry, calling mom for Mother’s Day, packing up the computer parts I recently sold on eBay (and discovering that of the dozens of boxes I’ve saved from Amazon and eBay purchases, the motherboard and cpu won’t fit in any of them), etc. And staying up late to post another in the series of much-slower-than-I-intended Hawaii reports.
Tomorrow I’m taking the car in on the way to work. I figure this guarantees that UPS will deliver Tiger before I get there. Fortunately there are other people in the office, and they don’t necessarily need my signature, just a signature from a live person.
OK, at this point I no longer care that it’s 45 minutes before I usually leave for lunch. My stomach is actually growling, therefore it’s lunchtime.