Chris Dwan

Tag: diary

  • Lazy day

    Not much to report today. I’m totally procrastinating on writing more benchmark code because, well, I suck. Need to get these things done. The machine goes back on Friday.

    Went to the zoo today, in a futile effort to calm my favorite stressball. We hung out in front of the Snow Leopards for a while. They were active today with very recognizable cat-play going on. All the standard games of hide-and-pounce, stare-fixedly, and sit-high-up were in evidence.

    The concert last night was fun, if something of a bummer of a venue. It was at a Thai restaurant in Salem, which is just trying to establish itself as a place to come for music. As such, there were lots of people noisily eating dinner, and a few of us listening to the the music. Things cleared out substantially before the third set, and she was actually willing to play some of her own stuff. I can respect the urge to crank out covers as long as you’re competing with clanking crockery and loud patrons. There were around 8 of us left for the third set, which was wonderful. Even more impressive, as I was leaving, Anna came over, remembered my name, and thanked me for making such a long drive to see her. Hello? We (a) were at the same school at nearly the same time about a decade ago (b) chatted briefly during a set break <at a gig nearly a year ago. I should make such an effort to remember names and faces. I have trouble identifying myself in the mirror most mornings.

    I got totally lost trying to find Salem, by the way. For reference, it is just northwest of Boston. You take 107 there. If you find yourself on 1 going north out of Boston, you have made a wrong turn. Do not attempt to bushwack East to the coast, guess which of North or South leads to Salem, and then hack around. This does not work.

    One more thing: I found a truly evil little search engine at ljseek.com, which searches only livejournals. All of you who think you’re being clever and sneaky, you’re not.

  • Productive!

    Last night, went into Roslindale for sushi with friends. Sat up talking until 11, and then turned into pumpkins like the old people we are, and drove home. Thud. Asleep in moments.

    This morning, measured the bedroom as well as the space between the rafters in the dark and terrifying part of the attic (17′ by 14′, 15″ spaces). Purchased 6 rolls of R-25, 15″ wide pink insulation for a total of about 198 square feet. Hauled it upstairs, and rigged up a light by which to see, and a half sheet of sub-flooring on which to sit. It’s not so bad, once you get the proper infrastructure in place.

    The space is rectangular, with the roof too close to stand up. In one corner (occupying about 1/3 of the total space) is this hole. No rafters. At first it seemed to be filled with roofing trash. This is the part over our little hallway leading to the bedroom. Eventually, I realized that it was the old entryway to the house, a little roof-let over what had previously been a small back porch. I installed as much insulation as I could, prior to dealing with that.

    Yes. They built the addition around the old structure, and never bothered to remove the old porch roof. I love these people.

    I wound up totally destroying the roof-let with the Wonder Bar, a saw, and a fair amount of grunting and kicking. I left a bunch of the structural stuff in place in case it was somehow holding up the house or something. Then I stuffed insulation into the spaces around and between what was left. Insulation ain’t rocket science.

    Pictures are here

    After that I made a large batch of applesauce. 9 pints. Preliminary reports are that it’s pretty tasty.

    Meanwhile, there a study session for the OB-GYN board exam going on in my dining room. The other husbands and I during residency summarized the noises that come out of these sessions as “blah blah uterus, blah blah placenta.” That’s been triply true today. The most entertaining part was when they were reviewing genetic oddities leading to ambiguous gender. For them, it was very serious to distinguish between the various and very specific forms that this takes. To me, it started off vaguely amusing and descended to hilarious.

    I’m going to go, before I reveal too much.

  • Everybody else is doing it …

    If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want–good or bad. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or moritified) about what people remember about you.

  • Weekend

    Went a halloween party last night with redmed, capital_l, and capital_l. Pictures are here. Fun was had by all. It’s nice to finally be developing a social circle around these parts. We’re right now missing the demolition derby, but that’s okay with me. I can’t find any mention of the schoolbus demo, so we may have missed that too. Oh well.

    For about a year now, I’ve been wondering why my basement is warm, instead of being cold like most basements. I’ve previously attributed it to the fact that the furnace sucks, and throws heat like a mo-fo. Today I added a little bit of detail to that observation. My house is heated by a nightmare tangle of copper pipes that carry hot water from the furnace through various radiators in the rooms. Along the way to the rooms that they’re supposed to head, these pipes are exposed in the basement. We picked up about $50 worth of pipe insulation at the Home Despot today, and I think that we might be just a teensy bit more efficient in heating the house now. Since putting in the attic insulation we’ve already noticed that the house tends to stay warmer. Plus, when I stick my head up in the attic, I now notice that it’s cooler than the mail level. Hopefully, the combined effect of failing to heat the attic plus the new hotness of failing to heat the basement will offset the recent heinous increases in the price of heating oil.

    I tossed a bunch of grass seed on the lawn this afternoon. A flock of dark eyed juncos is currently eating it. They’re cute little grey birds with white bellies, so it’s okay.

    Here’s the wikiquote entry for JWZ. My favorite for the day: ‘Browser compatibility problems are nature’s way of saying “stop trying to be so fuckin’ clever”.’

    Okay, back to benchmarking.