A daring adventure, or nothing

I didn't expect much from my latest play in the stock option lottery.

But I expected more than 56 cents per share.

I seem to have stress-reactive kidneys. Immune response to a virus? Pee twice an hour. Work stress building? Pee twice an hour. Migraine, even medicated? Pee twice an hour.

It's like my kidneys are peril-sensitive, and they want me safe in the bathroom when the plasma blasts start flying.

This post was brough to you by the number 1, and the letter P.

In the immortal words of Isidor Isaac Rabi, "Who ordered this?"

I have two copies of Adobe software that I remember ordering, and one that I can't for the life of me track to a source. Did someone out there ask me to order a copy of CS3 Production Premium for Mac? If so, when?

I just realized something.

We bury seeds in the ground. Later, they change, and begin clawing their way out of the dirt, and they only "die" when we remove the root.

Vegetables are zombies!

This message was brought to you by the moth that only let me sleep for four hours.

My PC has been having some shutdown issues lately. Whenever I run certain graphically-intensive games, it would simply turn off. I'd have to turn off the switch at the back of the power supply (HELLO! FIRST CLUE!) then turn it back on and hit the power button to get the PC running again.

Last time encountered a mysterious system shutdown, the heatsink was not secured properly, so I went out to Office Despot to pick up a tube of decent thermal gel, and re-secured the heatsink. Figuring the new graphic card might also be an issue, I pulled it out, gave it a thorough inspection, and checked my system against its requirements. It demands a 400W power supply, and I had 450W available.

Stumped, I looked up local computer repair places. I've seen two come and go, and even used one, when my computer had its first "spontaneous shutdown" episode. The new place I found was called CompuTreat. It wasn't exactly the most professional set-up I had seen, but it was the only game in town, so I brought the box over.

16155 Ashland is, in fact, a mass-produced single-family dwelling. George Ruan operates the business out of his garage, or at least what's left of the garage when his wife's SUV is parked in it. I sighed and handed over the box, wondering if I should take down the license plates I saw.

The next day, George called, and explained in great detail that the 450W power supply was not sufficient to run the graphics card *and* the rest of the system combined. He showed me parts of the system requirements that I had missed, including the current demanded by the card (26A) and the current available from my power supply (20A). A quick trip to Fry's bagged me an open-box-special on an 850W power supply, and after a few screws had come and gone, I was back in business. No shutdowns since. $80 saved me the $200 I was ready to spend on a new CPU.

I also recommended CompuTreat on Yelp.

Holy crapski I'm tired.

I had adequate sleep on Sunday after inadequate sleep on Saturday, which was manageable.

Last night, I went to bed at 10:30, and couldn't get to sleep until after 1:00. Then I woke up at 4:00, and couldn't get back to sleep until 5:00. Then I woke up at 6:00, and decided that I'd rather get to work early so that I can leave early.

So. Here I am.

If you're a software engineer with a QA focus, and looking to work in Palo Alto, VMware might have a job for you. I can pass contact along if anyone's interested.

The robot uprising has begun.

It's time to call Old Glory Insurance.

I had a migraine that started at about 2:00 yesterday. I sicced fioricet on it right away, but the struggle between the two forced me out of the office at 4-ish.

The battle was still smoldering when I woke up this morning, so I sent in the Tylenol reinforcements. Now my brain is wrapped up in cotton wadding with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" spraypainted all over it.

I've already told my team that I'm working from home today. I figure I'll start at noon.

Because Mary liked the Siamese Elephants sketch so much, I made her a pair for her birthday.

Details on the construction process will come soon...

I have my new bike, but the experience was slightly soured by the behavior of the cashier who didn't help me buy the accessories I needed. I was sufficiently peeved that I submitted feedback through their website.

This afternoon, a few minutes before 4:00, I picked up a bicycle I had ordered from the San Francisco store. I also chose a headlight/taillight combo pack, and wheeled up to the register.

Because there were no other customers in line, I stood by the "line forms here" sign rather than trying to wheel my bicycle through the switchback. While I waited, two other customers arrived.

When the cashier completed his transaction, he gestured to one of the other customers. I approached and said, "I didn't want to make a mess with the bike." He replied, "I'm sorry, that's where the line is," and proceeded to take the next customer.

This irritated me to the point that I left the lights I was planning to purchase on the bench by the door and left. I will instead buy these lights through some other retailer.

I don't imagine my anger with REI will last long -- everyone else in the store was extremely helpful and polite, but I need a light for my bicycle sooner than I'll be able to overcome the sour feelings this caused.

Thank you for your time and attention,

-c.

Today's photo of the day makes the accompanying article criminally misleading.

( PNG Image, 772x429 pixels )

The endorphins are wearing off!

...the train can't leave.

My train went out of service at Montgomery, two stops short of where I usually get off. A couple of my team members were on the same train, and they were surprised at my decision to leave the station and bike straight to the office.

It turns out that they were, as always, the sensible ones. It's another 3/4 mile from Montgomery to Adobe, and I've been sitting on my ass for most of a week. This is why I need to ride more often.

I had a meeting at 10:00, 18 minutes before I finally dragged myself into the building. By the time I went to the third floor, where it was scheduled, and from there to the fourth floor, where the meeting actually happened, the meeting had concluded. Also, my legs were made of lead-flavored jelly.

EDIT: oooh, there's the endorphins...

I've booted the UBCD, and it's about an hour into a five-hour virus scan. I instructed it to delete any infected files. So far, it's up to 14. I'm posting from the Wii.

I've been sick for the last two days, but I can't say how much of that stems from an actual pathogen versus a combination of sleep deprivation and stress. I took an Ambien, my third ever, to ensure that I slept through the night. It worked as expected.

I forgot to take my Wellbutrin before I left this morning. This is distressingly common.

Yesterday, while looking for a screen capture solution that would take audio directly from the sound card, rather than recording through the microphone, I appear to have given my home computer a rather nasty virus. It's off now, and I'm building the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows on my work machine to clear it up. This particular virus is very quick to cripple any antivirus or anti-rootkit app that I install, so I'm going to have to do this hazmat-style, from non-writable media.

I'm running on kleenex and caffeine today.

I test-rode the K2 this afternoon. The unit that REI had in stock had suffered minor damage to the rear axle during shipping, so they were unable to let me have that particular bike, but after riding it for a mile, I ordered another.

The shifting is noticeable, but very smooth, even when it shifts under load. The ride itself is amazing after years of rigid-frame road bikes. There are no shocks on the bike, but the parallelogram seat post soaks up just about everything that the shocks would, anyway. The tires are kinda wide and unresponsive for my taste, but that's a very solvable issue.

I forgot to lift the bike and see how it would feel going up the stairs at Bart, but while I was riding it, it felt much lighter than my old Schwinn. I will definitely need to get a headlight for it -- I almost took a left turn to the face during the test, and I saw another rider who had to stop for three cars making a left at him. This is why I was so reluctant for so long to drive in San Francisco. There's so much attention to pay, and so few drivers who will spend it.

My old bike is at REI, getting a tuneup. It's much older than the one pictured in that link.

The tuneup will cost $70, because they're also going to figure out why it gets slow leaks when I put in new interinner tubes. I'm selling it for $125, unless someone I know wants it, in which case I'll let you have it for the price of the tuneup.

We're also selling a decrepit old BikeE recumbent that we got at a white elephant potlatch many moons ago. In good shape, they go for $200. I'll try to get $100 on craigslist unless someone here wants it for $50.

My next bike, I hope, will be a K2 Easy Roller. It's not only blingtastic, but it has only one exposed cable, and that's an electrical line powering the self-shifting hub. Yes, this bike has an automatic transmission! When I checked at REI yesterday, they sales crew had no clue what I was talking about, but when I gave them the exact model name, they discovered that they had one, in size XL, in the stockroom. I said, "Great, I'm size XL!" and they set to building it. When it's ready, I'll take it for a test drive, and perhaps ride it home that very day.

When you're trying to find something small in a small area, you use a magnifying glass. You don't use a hammer. Do you know why you don't use a hammer? Because you won't find anything, and because it would be fucking stupid.

When you're trying to find the truth in the mind of the enemy, you use interrogation and incentive. You don't use torture. Do you know why you don't use torture? Because you won't find anything, and because it would be fucking stupid.

All torture does is exact pitiful, impotent revenge against an enemy who probably hasn't done the specific harm you're avenging.

I got five hours of sleep last night. I stayed up reading until after midnight. At 5:00, I woke up from a very bizarre dream in which mactavish was rolling around in garden soil and demanding that I scratch her back with progressively more destructive tools. Finally I forced her at the point of a weeding tool (the threat to not use it might have been more effective) to shower the dirt from her torn and battered skin.

When I described this dream to her, she found it strangely appealing.

In any event, I am done ere the day's begun.

Adobe is looking for another QA engineer, this time with a focus on coding and white box testing, especially in Coldfusion (which I learned in two weeks. It is Very Not Hard, especially if you've experienced PHP) and test automation. If you're interested, shoot a resume to:

cgrimm

@

pobox.com

It turns out Endless Ocean creates its own code, called a "Wi-Fi Connection" or WFC code.

Mine is 1966-0054-8033, as I've posted in a few comments. If you have one, feel free to leave it here. I'm going to go diving for about an hour, and I'll leave my ladder down. :)

From a voicemail left on my work number:

"Hi, I don't know if you remember me, this is [redacted] from Tuh... Tuh-sola."

Tsola is pronounced "SO-la". The T is silent. Anyone who worked there would know that. Also there were fewer than 25 employees at Tsola's peak. I remember everyone who worked there.

I'm sure he looked at my public profile on LinkedIn, ignored the three places where I say, "Recruiters, do not contact me at this time", and thought he'd be "clever". I no longer list my current employer on LinkedIn. It's just not worth the hassle. Frankly, I wonder if LinkedIn itself is worth the hassle, or whether it will go the way of Facebook and MySpace, where I am a happy to be a former customer.

Thursday, the web QA team had a SIX. HOUR. meeting to discuss our Myers-Briggs types.

SIX.

Six. HOUR. meeting.

I was on edge until Saturday. At one point, someone asked me, "Are you sure you're an introvert?" I replied, "Yes, and for the next couple of days, I'm going to feel like I just played a full game of football. I will feel like I have real bruises."

Friday, at simplykimberly's place, I basically collapsed on the couch for the bulk of the evening. David got some fine shots of me burying my head in pillows.

One of our exercises was to split into Introverts and Extraverts. We were evenly split, which I found surprising for an engineering team. Each group came up with three things we valued about the other group, three challenges we had dealing with them, and one question to ask them. The introverts went off on the extraverts, and it was all I could do to tone our content down to merely "confrontational". When we were finished, I tried to hide before our team could select a spokesman, but to no avail. I had to basically rewrite everything we had written on the fly, presenting it in more diplomatic terms.

The extraverts group had included as one of their questions, "How do we get you to answer our questions?" I replied, "First, ask your question. Then, stop talking!"

Firefox patch (requires Stylish or Greasemonkey) to fix the "defaced videos" bug in YouTube.

The bug: Due to an error in how the YouTube server handles form data, it is possible, and in fact extremely common, for visiting users to deface videos with random, poorly spelled "comments", including derogatory statements about the video and often about each other. While this fix doesn't completely prevent malicious users from spewing hate speech under your video, at least you don't have to look at it.

Andy: http://www.galactanet.com/cnn-oops.jpg
Andy: You know what? This whole state is a deathtrap.
Andy: Shut it down.
Casey: It's a surprisingly dangerous state.
Casey: "June 17, 1892"
Casey: This is not a new problem.
Andy: See?
Andy: Shut it down.
Casey: Shutting down Minnesota now trivializes the tragedies of those who have courageously endured The Deadliest State for over a century.
Andy: But how long can we endure losing more good men and women to this unjustified and illegal state?

Casey: After two hours of downloading updates, I'm 0% complete.
Audrey: cue scary sounding mechanical voice: "You are incomplete."

This triggered a compulsion to photoshop a lolborg.

( 90k 801x501-pixel jpeg )

I came up with a story while in the shower this morning. The premise is that a man gets new glasses, and discovers that they should have gone to... someone else.

( Cut for length )

Will I ever finish the basic plot outline? Dunno. It probably won't look much like this anyway, because the whole "shadow government" angle is getting tired. ;) Maybe I'll write Scene 3 a few times, and see what works best, then back-calculate what the antagonists would look like in Scene 1.

Christina Ricci has always been one of my favorite actors, because she has faced and conquered the Hollywood stereotype that successful women must be size zero. She has to work harder than some women who showed up wafer-thin in their first few movies, but she goes to the auditions, she pushes her agent, she faces rejection and moves on.

"I don't worry about it anymore. I've been around long enough that people know what the f**k I look like."

She lost weight for Black Snake Moan, but claims it was her choice and her idea, specifically to make the character look unhealthy.

I thought she looked a little skinny in the Speed Racer trailer, but that might have been digitally altered in post-production, like just about everything else in that film.

Oh, you bet I'm going to see that one. Christina Ricci as a thrillseeking helicopter pilot? Yum. I understand she works with a race driver, but he's some kind of supporting character.

When there's a slow leak, it gets a bit nutty. My legs are made of clay. I'm going to take my bike to REI next time I ride to work, and have a general tune up, including new tubes and tube liners. The rear derailleur is persnickety about getting into seventh gear. Also, I have too many gears. Why did I buy a 21 speed? I only ever use three of them.

There was something else, but I currently lack the brainpower to cling to any given concept for more than five minutes.

Edit: OH RIGHT! I have Endless Ocean for the Wii. It's surprisingly fun. Very low-key, very not hardcore anything. It has a WiFi mode, but I'm not clear on how it works. If anyone else has it, and would like to try a tandem dive, leave me a Wii code, and I'll respond in kind. :)

I got a big box at work today.

Daylight time doesn't save energy. It costs energy.

This could be the joyous death-knell for the ill-conceived abomination that is daylight time.

Not that I'm bitter, mind you.

It's not so bad.

I've had no more than six hours of sleep any night this week, with an average of less than five. It's too early to arrest Wellbutrin, but police are calling it a chemical of interest.

Last night, I rode my bike home from work, after leaving it in the parking garage since Monday morning. In my sleep-deprived state, I didn't have the coordination necessary to keep my front tire out of the old light rail tracks. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet, and I have seven years training in "How to Fall Down". That training kicked in even before I left my seat, and I rolled over my laptop bag and to my feet.

A fellow Adobe employee was walking out of the office, and she ran out to see if I was hurt. Being a dork, I replied, "We're all fine here." She noticed that I had "dropped" something, and it was the front reflector from my bicycle, which was the only item damaged in the fall. I have a headlight, so I wasn't terribly concerned about its absence. The laptop wasn't even scratched. As I write this, I realize that I never tested my MP3 player, so I'll check that as soon as I'm not in meetings.

In other news, I'm in meetings all morning. They're not exactly consuming my attention.

What is it about my birthdays and sleep? I woke up at 3:30 this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep.

In other news, I've started taking Wellbutrin in the hopes that if I can get my stress response under control, I can restore some of my focus at work, and perhaps avoid my avoidant behavior for a while.

I have lost.

Specifically, I have an idea for a Flash game, and would like to solicit help from Actionscript coders and artists who might want to help me make it, in exchange for Adobe software and credit.

Any takers?

I had a migraine last night. I suspect the primary culprit is the change in my optical prescription. I took fioricet at 9:00, and was asleep by 10:30.

This morning, I emailed my team to let them know I'd be working from home until my head cleared. I did as much as my limited focus would allow, then mactavish drove me to Bart at 11:30.

Now I'm still a bit sketchy in the brain regions, but functional.

My new glasses are heavier than my old glasses. Aside from having both lenses, they're larger and slightly thicker. My astigmatism prescription is stronger, and I now have a .25-diopter correction in my right eye. I can occasionally feel my nose falling asleep.

I also got prescription sunglasses, because Adobe's vision coverage rocks like Yngwie Malmsteen. Unfortunately, someone dropped the rock while making the optics. The left lens is either misaligned or the wrong strength. When I first put them on, I thought maybe I had to get used to the new prescription. Then I put on the regular glasses, and the world was crystal clear. Switching to the sunglasses causes very obvious distortion in the left eye.

I've called the optometrist, and if there's a cancellation on Saturday, they'll try to wedge me in.

"Stranded on a planet far, far from home, these two space-trippers make an unexpected and hilarious landing in your flowerbed or back yard."

Lesson 1: I should make sure my bicycle is usable before I need it.

Lesson 2: I'm in worse shape than I thought.

palecur: what is the orbital radius of the earth/moon system
deyo: 250,000 miles.
palecur: TOO LONG
palecur: fix it
deyo: FIRING MOON-GRAPPLES!
palecur: is the lightspeed delay 1.5 seconds each way or roundtrip
palecur: math = hard
deyo: Each way
deyo: 3 second ping time.
palecur: I guess math x hard or math + hard would betray less mathematical knowledge and thus be funnier
palecur: But also harder to parse
deyo: math % hard

no man page found for what

"We are looking for a technical test manager to build and lead the [redacted] test team in Dublin, Ireland."

So. Um. Is there anyone here who, unlike me, is a manager, and who, unlike me, wants to live in Dublin, Ireland?

And by "endless", I mean "three days now". I've already taken one day of paid leave for it, and I might have to strain my telecommuting priviledge if it's not gone by Monday.

Lying down is profoundly uncomfortable, because my throat and sinuses are raw and they hurt when I'm horizontal. Being awake is decidedly losing its luster. I've shared my bed with NyQuil for the past two nights, and will probably for the next two as well.

Adobe's web team is looking for another senior QA engineer, with strong database skills.

The position involves both manual and automated testing.

Anyone? Anyone?

Washington Mutual takes $30 dollars away every time one of our four accounts goes a penny negative. I can practically hear the cackling when I spend another $6 before all charges go through, and $60 in "pending debit" shows up the next day.

Even if I catch it the same day, and make a transfer to cover the overdraft, there's no guarantee I'll dodge those fees.

Citizens Bank of Nothern California advertises an automatic transfer service. Does anyone I know have a CBNC account? Do you know how much they charge when this service is triggered? Do you know how much they charge customers for cashier's checks?

As is usually the case, some of my most coherent leads come in after I start a new job. If anyone is looking for a senior QA job, either manual or automated, with some white-box work, I can refer you to a direct employer. On request, I'll also refer to recruiters, but I've been somewhat jaded regarding recruiting agencies of late.