Chris Dwan

Category: Uncategorized

  • Productive!

    Good day. Before I forget it, click here for the Jedi answer to Brokeback Mountain, courtesy of jrtom.

    Woke up and went to morning Pilates workout with redmed. It was a good time, except for the “you’re hurting yourself” pain on the leg lifts. Either I was doing them wrong, or I’ve never worked that muscle / tendon in my entire life. Either way, I bailed on those exercises.

    Then we came home, and I took down the holiday lights and then went in the crawl space under the bedroom to put down plastic sheeting (against moisture) and install insulation (against cold). For the insulation, I used this spray crap called Great Stuff. This crap is amazing. You put the little nozzle into a gap in your foundation / wall / whatever and fill it with foam. The foam adheres to anything (masonry, wood, metal, ceramic, flesh) and expands like crazy. It’s also this awful yellowish color.

    While down there I looked around and saw that there was one corner where the cobwebs were blowing and billowing in an icy breeze. I found the source, Great Stuff’ed it, and the breeze stopped. It could be my imagination, but the bedroom floor feels warmer already to me.

    Then I continued the document apocalypse. More shredding, more destroying. Stumbled onto a cache of letters from my girlfriend from High School. They passed the “do I feel even a twinge of a desire to hang on to these” test, so they lived. The corporate credit card statements from eight years ago were not so lucky. I removed another three big filing boxes from my life. Go me. Less to move, less to care if it gets ruined.

    Went to a work party for redmed‘s job this evening. More rich food, too much wine, and guarded conversation. More wearing a tie. It was fun and all, but I need to either build social connections with these people outside of these formal events, or stop liking them.

  • Beer!

    My beer approaches! Come to me, beer!

    SHREWSBURY, MA, US 01/06/2006 11:08 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
    HODGKINS, IL, US 01/05/2006 2:38 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
    HODGKINS, IL, US 01/04/2006 6:39 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
    EAGAN, MN, US 01/04/2006 2:51 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
    EAGAN, MN, US 01/03/2006 11:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
    MINNEAPOLIS, MN, US 01/03/2006 10:22 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
    01/03/2006 9:03 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
    US 01/03/2006 5:01 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

  • Conspiracy theories

    The hard-line Israeli prime minister turns centrist and quits his party to form a more conciliatory one. Within weeks, he dies of a brain bleed (not that he’s dead yet, but he’s certainly out of commission). I want to know the whereabouts of every Mossad agent. This is CLEARLY an assassination from within. Wait for the Zapruder-style film and the “magic bullet” theory about how a very angry, 270 pound, 77 year old man just happens to have a stroke.

    12 miners are trapped by an underground explosion. Initial reports indicate that they survived, but suddenly Those In Power change their tune and all the miners are either dead or in a coma. CLEARLY something sinister is going on. I believe that they stumbled onto a cache of alien technology (as shown in the documentary film Alien Arsenal). Initial efforts to rescue them turned “black” once the authorities realized that a “cleaner” was required. Plus, did you notice how none of the miners was Jewish? Just like 9/11 More Mossad at work, I betcha.

    Finally: Abramoff leads a lucrative career, taking from the Indian tribes and peddling power with the Congress. Suddenly, he’s on trial and squealing like a little piggie. What happened to his money? What happened to his influence. CLEARLY something sinister is going on. How do you get a man like that to confess all of a sudden? Why aren’t his pet politicians protecting him?

    More news to follow. That’s just what’s on the front page today.

  • Warp drive

    Dear Lazyweb: This warp drive is clearly BS. Why?

  • Whine

    Whine complain moan bitch gripe.

    details

  • Humanity

    Home again, home again. And tomorrow, on the train to Boston. Ungh. At least real rock stars get cocaine and groupies. Class went well. Tomorrow, I plan to verify that … oh who the hell cares? I’m going to be a geek again tomorrow. Any questions? No? Good. I’m going to bed.

  • Bethesda

    Color me surprised, Bethesda doesn’t suck nearly as much as I remember it sucking! There’s a Rock Bottom brewery around the corner from my hotel, plus six or seven really yummy smelling Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. Plus, the streets are populated with semi-drunken 30-year-old fratboys. This means that it’s totally safe out there, as long as I present a less appealing target for molestation than a drunken fratboy. I had the Barley Wine, which was remarkably similar to the one I made. Stopped at one, lest I become one of the herd. Also, crabcakes. Can’t come to MD and fail to get the crabcakes.

    Class today was fun. My colleague taught, and he’s entertaining. He kept saying things like “fundamentally, computers are boring unless they’re doing something cool for someone smart” and “grid computing is mostly hysterical lies backed up by misleading press releases.” I hope to be so inspiring for my bit tomorrow.

    Excitement is in the air: I ordered two beer kits (plus a new bottling wand and a new capper to replace the ones that finally crapped out). We’re making cherry stout and the “tongue splitter” west coast ale. After the kits arrive (supposedly the 9th, according to UPS) all are welcome to a day of wort boiling debauchery!

    As part of my “not really a resolution, but it seems like a good idea to try to stay in good shape” for the new years, I busted out the Navy Seals Workout DVD. I have fallen far. I had that damn thing well in hand. Now I struggled to even get through each section doing some of the exercises from each set, much less keep up. I am, to put it lightly, quite sore.

    I will return to peak form. I’m not going to get in shape only to let it slip away. Dogs of maniacal working out, to me!

    Oh yeah, looks like I get to be an author again, provided that I can slap about 40 pages of well intentioned but poorly worded text into a presentable form in the next week. Hooray for collaborators who see that I can write and that I know the topic and are all like “this is way behind schedule, wanna fix it and be my co-author?”

  • On the road again.

    At the airport, headed to Bethesda, MD for a two day training gig. This should be fun, since I actually get to work with one of my colleagues. He will teach a one day course on the cluster queuing system, and then I get to teach my “intro to The Software” session. Audience of eight, with one guy from Apple auditing. We plan to sit in and support each other, which will be relaxing. I love teaching, especially in small and highly interactive formats. Interestingly, this is one of the first times that I’ll be working directly with anyone else from my company. We tend to work alone … and I don’t think that this guy has ever actually seen me teach.

    Of course, this makes three business trips in as many weeks … which is tiring but sustainable. Business is psycho-good, and it looks like we’ll be back to “travel as much as you want to” for the next couple of months.

  • New years

    Happy New Year. I glanced back at the 2005 entry for Jan 1. The salient bit (which still holds true, by the way) was:

    Me, this morning: “So this is 2005, huh?”
    Jen: “At least it’s sunny.”

    The party

  • 2006

    Help…

    Already not in control for the new years…

    Oh well. Here we go…