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perldiver at 07:38pm on 08/05/2010
perldiver at 07:38pm on 08/05/2010This was a great day, and it actually started yesterday.
Yesterday, late afternoon, I got a "checking-in" call from the client I'm currently subcontracting to. The ticket I'm working on is proving significantly harder than I estimated and is now more than a week behind schedule -- and that's with another developer helping out the last couple of days (by the way, he also is finding it significantly harder than he estimated). But, when I talked with Deb on the phone she was totally cool about it. They understand, and there's no fallout. I had been really sweating that for days, so this was a huge weight off my shoulders. Based on that call, I decided that I wasn't working this weekend. Which will be the first day off I've taken in two weeks, so it was needed.
Today, I woke up just enough before the alarm that I had time to write down the very nice dream I had just had. You have to understand, I don't have good dreams. I can remember exactly one non-nightmare ever aside from this one, but a whole bunch of nightmares, some of them recurring. So, waking up and getting a gift of warm fuzzies from my id is pretty darn amazing.
I had a good workout -- I deliberately set the numbers high to challenge myself, and I was barely able to walk after finishing the squats, but it felt great -- and knocked off half a dozen small things that have been hanging around, waiting to get done. Somewhere in there, yummygirl pinged me on IM and we caught up a bit. (Don't forget to congratulate her on getting her degree last week!) In the process, she offered to introduce me to a friend of hers who moved out here recently and pointed me at the friend's social networking profile. I don't know if anything will come of that, but the lady in question seems attractive and interesting, and even if it isn't a romantic fit, it would be great to know someone else in the city.
From there, I went and had lunch with my friend Don. Tasty food and a good time were had by both, and we hung out and chatted for a bit. (He always comes up with the most astounding stories, but today he topped them all -- and I don't think he's making it up. Not for this post, though.) From there, I hopped a streetcar to the Apple Store to exchange the laptop battery I bought back in CT (I accidentally bought the battery for the 17" MBP; I needed the one for the 15"). They took it back, no fuss no muss. The Mac Genius helping me was very attractive, and we chatted about displays, cool programs we use, etc. It was good. After concluding all business and making it clear I was about to leave so she wouldn't need to deal with me further, I made a very tentative offer of coffee, which she very delicately declined. II left, no harm done.
Next, over to Borders to burn up one of the gift cards that I got this past Christmas. I observed this shelving fail which amused me, and another macro-shelving fail: the SF section was hidden away in the corner, far from the manga which was far from the computer books. All three of these should be close together to encourage cross-genre impulse buys, since they appeal to the same general demographic. I mentioned this to one of the sales guys and he seemed really impressed — even said he'd mention it to a manager. I know it's not especially brilliant (after all, I stole the idea from Barnes and Noble) but that still did good things for the ego. The sales guy, Darren, and I had a good chat for a few minutes before he had to go help someone else; he's a concept artist for video games, and a nice guy.
I found a couple of books (Time Spike and City of Bones), and a science history book that I'm excited about (Entanglement, the history of the development of the quantum theory and specifically the research into entanglement). On my way out, I remembered that my shoe soles are almost worn through and so I went into Clark's and bought two pairs of very nice business-casual shoes (one set brown, one black). They are shipping the black ones, and they even shipped my old shoes to me for free so I didn't have to carry anything out -- talk about service!
After leaving there, I suddenly realized I was starving, so I hit the food court and had an amazing salmon-over-spinach-risotto. Fast, not too spendy for fish, very tasty. (Seriously? A mall food court that serves salmon and risotto??? Only in California.)
On the way out, I stopped to listen to a cellist. Seems an odd instrument for a busker, but it was a nice interlude and I tossed a couple bucks in the case in thanks. (I kept thinking "who was the violin maker who first said 'oh yeah? well I can make mine bigger!'")
Outside, I got stopped by a 20-something who was clearly down on his luck. He said he "needed BART-fare to Fremont," which might have been a scam but I decided to be optimistic, so I gave him the last $2 in my wallet plus an old BART card that didn't quite have a full ride on it. Now needing busfare of my own, I pulled cash and went into a coffee bar to break a twenty. There was no line except for one drop-dead gorgeous redhead in an LBD digging in her purse for a wallet. Since I already had my $20 in hand, I passed it over to the cashier and said "I got this." There was a little debate, but the redhead let me do it. I got a bottle of water for myself and started to head out, but she stopped me, introduced herself, thanked me, and insisted on giving me her card and letting me know I should call her. I told her she really didn't need to, she insisted, I said "well...ok, if you're serious, how about coffee some time?" She smiled and was totally for it, but not tonight as she needed to close the office and then deal with her younger brother who had just dropped in unexpectedly. We walked out together chatting and seemed to hit it off. In retrospect, I wish I had given the street kid more.
On the ride home, the streetcar driver actively refused my money (and that of the people getting on with me), my seatmate was very pleasant to chat with, and I managed to give good restaurant-and-park directions to a vacationing family, which made me feel useful and helpful.
Once home, I finished up all the things remaining on my TODO list for the day, then called up a couple friends here in the city and made a breakfast date for Dottie's True Blue Cafe tomorrow at 9am. Heaven!
Finally, while I was typing this, a friend of mine from long ago who recently got back in touch pinged me and we chatted on IM. She shared this lovely strip from The New Adventures of Queen Victoria which utterly cracked me up.
Now I'm going to kick back, relax, and watch some TV with a glass of Buttershots. What an awesome day.
Yesterday, late afternoon, I got a "checking-in" call from the client I'm currently subcontracting to. The ticket I'm working on is proving significantly harder than I estimated and is now more than a week behind schedule -- and that's with another developer helping out the last couple of days (by the way, he also is finding it significantly harder than he estimated). But, when I talked with Deb on the phone she was totally cool about it. They understand, and there's no fallout. I had been really sweating that for days, so this was a huge weight off my shoulders. Based on that call, I decided that I wasn't working this weekend. Which will be the first day off I've taken in two weeks, so it was needed.
Today, I woke up just enough before the alarm that I had time to write down the very nice dream I had just had. You have to understand, I don't have good dreams. I can remember exactly one non-nightmare ever aside from this one, but a whole bunch of nightmares, some of them recurring. So, waking up and getting a gift of warm fuzzies from my id is pretty darn amazing.
I had a good workout -- I deliberately set the numbers high to challenge myself, and I was barely able to walk after finishing the squats, but it felt great -- and knocked off half a dozen small things that have been hanging around, waiting to get done. Somewhere in there, yummygirl pinged me on IM and we caught up a bit. (Don't forget to congratulate her on getting her degree last week!) In the process, she offered to introduce me to a friend of hers who moved out here recently and pointed me at the friend's social networking profile. I don't know if anything will come of that, but the lady in question seems attractive and interesting, and even if it isn't a romantic fit, it would be great to know someone else in the city.
From there, I went and had lunch with my friend Don. Tasty food and a good time were had by both, and we hung out and chatted for a bit. (He always comes up with the most astounding stories, but today he topped them all -- and I don't think he's making it up. Not for this post, though.) From there, I hopped a streetcar to the Apple Store to exchange the laptop battery I bought back in CT (I accidentally bought the battery for the 17" MBP; I needed the one for the 15"). They took it back, no fuss no muss. The Mac Genius helping me was very attractive, and we chatted about displays, cool programs we use, etc. It was good. After concluding all business and making it clear I was about to leave so she wouldn't need to deal with me further, I made a very tentative offer of coffee, which she very delicately declined. II left, no harm done.
Next, over to Borders to burn up one of the gift cards that I got this past Christmas. I observed this shelving fail which amused me, and another macro-shelving fail: the SF section was hidden away in the corner, far from the manga which was far from the computer books. All three of these should be close together to encourage cross-genre impulse buys, since they appeal to the same general demographic. I mentioned this to one of the sales guys and he seemed really impressed — even said he'd mention it to a manager. I know it's not especially brilliant (after all, I stole the idea from Barnes and Noble) but that still did good things for the ego. The sales guy, Darren, and I had a good chat for a few minutes before he had to go help someone else; he's a concept artist for video games, and a nice guy.
I found a couple of books (Time Spike and City of Bones), and a science history book that I'm excited about (Entanglement, the history of the development of the quantum theory and specifically the research into entanglement). On my way out, I remembered that my shoe soles are almost worn through and so I went into Clark's and bought two pairs of very nice business-casual shoes (one set brown, one black). They are shipping the black ones, and they even shipped my old shoes to me for free so I didn't have to carry anything out -- talk about service!
After leaving there, I suddenly realized I was starving, so I hit the food court and had an amazing salmon-over-spinach-risotto. Fast, not too spendy for fish, very tasty. (Seriously? A mall food court that serves salmon and risotto??? Only in California.)
On the way out, I stopped to listen to a cellist. Seems an odd instrument for a busker, but it was a nice interlude and I tossed a couple bucks in the case in thanks. (I kept thinking "who was the violin maker who first said 'oh yeah? well I can make mine bigger!'")
Outside, I got stopped by a 20-something who was clearly down on his luck. He said he "needed BART-fare to Fremont," which might have been a scam but I decided to be optimistic, so I gave him the last $2 in my wallet plus an old BART card that didn't quite have a full ride on it. Now needing busfare of my own, I pulled cash and went into a coffee bar to break a twenty. There was no line except for one drop-dead gorgeous redhead in an LBD digging in her purse for a wallet. Since I already had my $20 in hand, I passed it over to the cashier and said "I got this." There was a little debate, but the redhead let me do it. I got a bottle of water for myself and started to head out, but she stopped me, introduced herself, thanked me, and insisted on giving me her card and letting me know I should call her. I told her she really didn't need to, she insisted, I said "well...ok, if you're serious, how about coffee some time?" She smiled and was totally for it, but not tonight as she needed to close the office and then deal with her younger brother who had just dropped in unexpectedly. We walked out together chatting and seemed to hit it off. In retrospect, I wish I had given the street kid more.
On the ride home, the streetcar driver actively refused my money (and that of the people getting on with me), my seatmate was very pleasant to chat with, and I managed to give good restaurant-and-park directions to a vacationing family, which made me feel useful and helpful.
Once home, I finished up all the things remaining on my TODO list for the day, then called up a couple friends here in the city and made a breakfast date for Dottie's True Blue Cafe tomorrow at 9am. Heaven!
Finally, while I was typing this, a friend of mine from long ago who recently got back in touch pinged me and we chatted on IM. She shared this lovely strip from The New Adventures of Queen Victoria which utterly cracked me up.
Now I'm going to kick back, relax, and watch some TV with a glass of Buttershots. What an awesome day.