Author: cdwan

Mmmmmm, cute girl with frappuchino. Was she talking about social justice or something?

Thanks for the pointer, mcniadh:

Ever wonder about that dried food that we feed our pets? Ever wonder if they like it? If you could handle the same level of routine, dry food “scientifically formluated to” whatever?

I hadn’t, really, but this guy apparently thought about it a lot: The Monkey Chow Saga

My insane surge of energy and creativity continues. The work situation is shaping up nicely, though it’s not nearly resolved enough to write anything concrete. The short form is that I’m getting most of what I want … and I seem to be leading development of a real live product that will do all sorts of good things, both for scientists and for our cash flow.

At karate last night, we did some light sparring and grappling. The sparring was good because my blocking has gotten much better. My forearms are covered with small bruises … but my torso and head are not. Good stuff. The grappling was wild. I can only hope that I never end up in a wrestling match with someone who knows what they’re doing.

My primary web server is offline, due to mistakes that I don’t understand made by someone other than me. Grrrr. This means that both and the institute for hyperdimensional physics are also offline. Sorry guys, doing the best I can. If it’s not back by tomorrow morning, we’ll change IP addresses and be back online by tomorrow afternoon (aka, I’ll take my server and put it in my corporate IP range).

I’m going to a superbowl party in East Providence on Sunday. I’m in it for the commercials.

Since redmed will be in California, I plan to go have dinner at the local Masonic lodge on Tuesday.

By popular request: The recipe for Potato Garlic Soup

I’m on a mass mailing list for NASA folks, through the consulting work I’ve done down there. Just got an interesting email:

here it is

Three whole heads of garlic.

Two and a half pounds of two different kinds of potatoes.

A recipe from Cooks Illustrated.

The winter doldrums are going bye-bye. We’ve got a fire going, and potato-garlic soup on the stove.

I subscribe to the cute overload feed, and it’s usually good for a smile every now and then. I do *not* usually make noises like “squeeeeeeee!”

However, in this case, I made an exception:

Sorta like the “get off my face” video from a while back.

I got home from yoga, made a quick dinner, and settled in to waste the evening. Then Dustin called, indicating that he and Tara were going to the rock gym, and that I should come along too. Okay fine. It was college night, which meant that the ambient level of attractive was a bit higher than I usually have to put up with (working from home, and all), but other than that it was okay.

Climbing update: My hands are weak and I have no endurance. Technique came right back … but most of my moves totally didn’t work because my hands were weak.

Next: I decide to procrastinate on finalizing this proposal for work until after I’ve slept. But first, I worry about it for a little while.

On a whim, I went to Yoga. This is a two hour “Vinyasa” yoga, in which they crank the heat to about 90 degrees in the room. Honestly, I may have just wanted to be warm.

Indeed, I was warm. Like “wow, the yoga mat is totally slick with my sweat” warm. I can dig it. I think I want to go back. I re-discovered that (a) I’m in pretty darn good shape (b) I’m really not all that flexible (c) I have decent balance (d) yoga can be made arbitrarily difficult, simply by doing it right.

I managed a “crow” pose, by sort of falling into it before realizing what I was doing. Just following instructions, you know, and all of a sudden I’m in some crazy yoga position, balanced on my hands. I think that what I’m trying to say is that the instructor was really good.

In any event, there’s a punch line. The class ended with meditation. I find that I can slip into a calm / abiding state of mind fairly easily these days. It was even easier after all the stretching and exertion. As my mind relaxed, I started feeling a little lightheaded. Heat … remember? Anyway, I had a fleeting thought that I might levitate right off the ground. Don’t some swamis claim to have achieved that? Almost instantly, a very clear thought spiked through my consciousness:

Well, duh. There you go. Calm abiding leads to omniscient knowledge. Thanks for bringing me back to earth, universal consciousness.

Hippity hop.

So, it’s The Future here at Casa capital_l and technolope.

They have a nice projector, as opposed to a TV. It projects a nice, bright image on an entire wall of their apartment. We watched pieces of a DVD, then plugged it into the video out from my laptop to watch some music videos, funny video clips, and pieces of TV shows … all downloaded for free (mostly) over a wireless internet connection. Now, we’ve settled down and are listening to XM radio, also downloaded over the internet. Should anyone like a particular song, I right click on the title, and itunes opens up and lets me buy it. I’m expanding my music collection by leaps and bounds.

This is what the future was supposed to be like, dammit. Are we there yet?