Author: cdwan

Just got back from excellent Korean food. Waaaaaay too much chili in there though. I can already tell that I’ve evoked the wrath of the belly gods. Only one solution: Ice cream, stat!

We bought a catnip plant at the farmers market, and gave the cats a little hit off of it this afternoon. Maia immediately started doing her “roll around, oh God yes” routine, and Merlot ate hers and then hooved in on Maia’s. Based on the amount of fun we had with those two little leaves, this plant was a total steal at $1.50.

Spent the afternoon doing manual chores outside (since it was stunning, again). Took a pile of scrub and scrap to the compost center, mowed, weeded, and otherwise made myself useful. Cleaned the car (which it needed badly), and touched up the paint on the Toyota, since Jen felt that the primer overspray from my previous attempts looked ghetto.

Does anyone have good ideas for preventing build-up of shells and bird crap under a birdfeeder? I really like the cardinals, titmice, and chickadees attracted by sunflower seeds, but within a couple of weeks I have this steaming mound of shells and baby plants in the center of the lawn. The thistle (nyger, whoops, nyger) feeder doesn’t have this problem, mostly because the squirrels and grackles don’t perch and strew. We’ve considered pre-shelled seeds, but they tend to be heinously expensive. I need to save that money to power my planet destroyer these days.

The plan, for those who were wondering: Load into the moving truck on the 25th of June. Close out of the saint paul house on the 28th of June. Drive. Close into the new house on the 1st of July. Have the moving truck arrive on the 2nd of July.

Did I mention the Ypsilanti water tower? Dude. It’s just not right.

Finished “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. It’s a fun read, very quick. I took three days, mostly because there has been so much else to do. I understand that some folks have a really big problem with the book. Doom on them. Read the jacket: It says “a novel.”

And with that, I must close. I’m rebuilding a bunch of software and my laptop is growing uncomfortable warm on the ‘ole lap.

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

My egg bot is somehow buggered. Bruce generously gave me the frame, and I’ve been trying to get the circuitry to work. It’s clearly been about a decade since I tried to think coherently about electronics.

Back to trying to figure out where my 5 volts are leaking out of the system. I put in 12V from the power supply, regulate it down to 5V for the control logic, and run the motors off the 12V stream. As soon as I plug it in, it drops to about 7V. Gah. Debugging hardware is much trickier than software, at least for me.

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

Okay, now my mind is stuck. I did a google search on “phallic water tower”, and the top hit is a reference to the Ypsilanti structure. Apparently it won an informal contest and was dubbed the most phallic building in the world.

Disturbingly, there were a lot of really solid hits on this query. Many people have written about this previously, and now I’m one.

There was, however, only one response to the “image search” on the same query. Compare and contrast with “happy baby” or “cute kitten.”

Originally published at chris.dwan.org. You can comment here or there.

jwz made a post some time ago that applies to my day. There’s a response a ways down the thread that reads: “The more I keep dealing with computers, the more it resembles a bad redneck romance, constantly flipping between “I love you so much!” and “Baby, why you gotta make me hit you?”

Yeah. That.

If you were in the middle of a stressful and confusing situation, and five of your very best friends showed up, would it help the situation? If you answered ‘yes’, you’re probably an extrovert. I’m not an extrovert.

When I mow the lawn, I end up chasing the rabbit around. He hides in the long grass, which seems like a good idea without the global knowledge that that’s the very worst place to go if you want to avoid the mower. Jen claims that I’m exercising him. He seems to dislike being exercised.

I’ve been married for four years now, and committed to the same person for something close to ten. Woah.

The thing that disturbs me most about the political venom that’s being flung this year is that both sides seem to be accusing the other, fundamentally, of a lack of good intentions. The decisions that led us to Iraq (and all the other dumb things we’re doing right now) did not stem from a lack of good intentions. Really, I believe that (terrifyingly), the Bush camp really believes that they’re trying to make the world a better and safer place, and that our current foreign policy is the very best way to accomplish that. Similarly, we get some of the very dumbest excesses of affirmative action from unthinking good will. Good intention unrestrained by critical and analytic thought is a Bad Idea, no matter which party you happen to follow.

This ties in with something I learned while trying to teach people to sing: Nobody sings badly on purpose. If they’re singing (governing) badly, it’s either because they don’t know where “better” is, or they don’t know how to get there. Just saying “sing better” is a waste of time and annoys the pig. Or something like that.

Then again, WRT politics, I’m reminded of the Eli Weisel quote: “Muslims can talk about Allah, Christians can talk about Jesus, and Atheists can talk about nothing.” I’m still hoping to vote for the man who will get the least people killed over the next four years. Still can’t tell who that is.

simianpower has ranted in the past about the Mexican Polka and its detrimental effects on property values. It’s 10:20pm, and the older teens from the yeshiva next door (a boarding school for orthodox Jewish boys, ours is named “Shalom Home”) are zipping around on their brand new scooter. I do have to hand it to them, these guys know how to have fun.

In other news, the inspection went okay. There are one or two things we’ll push for them to do before handing over the keys, but it’s lookin’ real good. Here are some house hunting pictures.

I’m on a train, heading in to Boston for my job interview. This is with the Broad Institute, a collaborative venture of MIT, Harvard, and Whitehead. I don’t really know what position I”m even interviewing for. One of the group leads suggested that I’m perfect for his group, but for what reason? I don’t know. Guess that’s what I’ll ask during the “do you have any questions for us” part of the interview. Reality is that he’s a wicked talented guy, and I hear he’s fun (if demanding) to work with. I think I could use an intense phase of my career at this point.

If I take the job, this would be my first experience with a serious commute. So far, the commuter rail seems pretty nice, even if the seats are small. I can clicky-clack to my heart’s content for an hour each way. Assuming that I can muster the personal discipline to (a) get to the train on time in the morning and (b) save tasks that can be done on the train for doing on the train, I think it might just work out. I might even be able to barter my parking benefit (if there is one) for a monthly train pass.

The big news is that we made an offer on a house in Rhode Island. The location rocks (near water, quiet street, all that good stuff). When we first went to look at it on Monday, we had to make our way through throngs of people at the Memorial Day parade for the town. I’m having trouble coming up with anything more idyllic or picturesque as a scene for looking at a prospective place to live. It was basically love at first sight. The yard is large (okay, fine, it’s Rhode Island large…but a quarter acre in the city is nothing to sneeze at) and includes a bunch of different species of tree. There’s even a Red Maple. Love those trees.

The house itself has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full dining room, a living room, a sizable kitchen, and a sunny porch for my plants. I think it’ll do nicely. The basement is unfinished, and the stairs into the basement are a little bit narrow. Okay, they’re a lot narrow. Neither Jen nor I is a really large person, but if either of us puts on 100 pounds, the basement will be denied us. I’m really not sure how they got the water heater and stuff down there. That’s one of the questions for the inspector.

It’ll need some work. The paint sucks, the wallpaper sucks, the carpets cover hardwood floors…it’s the standard stuff that comes with a house that would ordinarily exceed the budget, except for its condition. Jen is running the inspection today. I hope that we find some superficial stuff that’s negotiable for some extra cash, but nothing major. A rotted out roof or termites would be deal breakers. The other fun fact is that the house is apparently in estate. I think that changes the negotiating style somewhat. It’s not like the dead have any particular schedule for dealing with getting their house sold.

While cleaning radishes
Grown in my garden
I found one different
Unique, unlike
Alone.
No pigment
White, not red
Anyways, it tasted
Just like the rest.

Today was a good day for wildlife

Long nap after work this evening, and now it’s midnight and I’m uselessly awake. We’ve got a decent thunderstorm going on, so the cats are freaked out. Running rapidly up and down the stairs. I’m trying to harness some of this time to break down furniture for the move and to catch up on bills and paperwork (ha!). The reality is that my mind is going in tight little circles, and will continue to do so until about two hours from now. History suggests that I would be as well served by playing some Starcraft until my lids droop as anything else. I’ve tried to write code or otherwise work when I’m like this, and I always end up redoing it the next day.

Other news: A pretty accurate synopsis of today’s meetings ( summary