Anyway, I was really bummed yesterday morning when I woke up and realized I had left my copy of San Juan at the Shipwright Arms, where Swiggers has their Wednesday night gaming sessions. Forgetting things is an annoying habit of mine. And then as I was about to go to work, I realized that I had forgotten my running shoes at the Bloomsbury fitness club on Tuesday night. That really put me in a pissy mood. Usually I wait more than 48 hours between forgetfulness episodes.
Then I got to work and my boss Ziheng popped in to inform us that the entire cluster, which had been down for two days, was still down, and he think there's an error with the hard drive that has his data, my data, and Richard's data. He's "very happy" that he backs his data up every day.
I'm not very happy. The good news is that on Monday the last of my 3-week long jobs had finished, and I had copied all the needed output from the Linux cluster to my PC, so I could push it through Excel into something that would make a nice graph. The bad news is that the actual data is gone.
Working backwards, I talked to Richard before he left, and realized he still had all the alignments on his machine. Yay!
Then I went to the gym last night. I walked in and asked if they had my sneakers/running shoes/trainers. Nope, they said. *sigh* I'm out a $75 pair of New Balance shoes (which are more expensive here). Anyway, I get into the locker room and there are my shoes, on top of the lockers. Yay!
And when I got home, I got an email from a fellow Swigger who said he had my San Juan. Yay!
Looks like there's not all that much selection pressure against my forgetfulness. The world is quite happy to store my things for me, and let me collect them later.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Patriots 24 Chargers 21
I really didn't think the Patriots were going to win this game. San Diego was beating them up on both sides of the ball, and had cruised to an easy 14-3 lead. And then the Pats did one of their patented 2-minute drives to get a TD right before the half. Suddenly, after 30 minutes of football completely dominated by the Chargers, they were only up by 4 points.
Then, because I didn't want to be riding the N18 back to Harrow to get home at 3 a.m., I left the sports bar. I follwed the end of the game on a sopcast feed. Wow. Marty Schottenheimer really lived up to his reputation yet again. He's a great assembler of talent and great at winning regular season games, but just cannot win in the postseason. He's not good enough - it's that simple. There's no way the Pats should even have had a chance of tieing the game at the end, much less winning it with a FG. Given how thoroughly the Charger running game was dominating the Pats, how did the Chargers only score 7 points in the second half? Usually a team with a dominating running game just keeps running the ball, controlling the clock, and beating the other team to death. The final score should have been something like San Diego 35, New England 13.
Wow. It's weird watching the Pats have this run. As a Red Sox fan, I'm used to the jinx being on my team. Now with the current version of the Pats, they seem to have an anti-jinx, whereby they repeatedly win games that they don't quite dominate.
Cool.
Then, because I didn't want to be riding the N18 back to Harrow to get home at 3 a.m., I left the sports bar. I follwed the end of the game on a sopcast feed. Wow. Marty Schottenheimer really lived up to his reputation yet again. He's a great assembler of talent and great at winning regular season games, but just cannot win in the postseason. He's not good enough - it's that simple. There's no way the Pats should even have had a chance of tieing the game at the end, much less winning it with a FG. Given how thoroughly the Charger running game was dominating the Pats, how did the Chargers only score 7 points in the second half? Usually a team with a dominating running game just keeps running the ball, controlling the clock, and beating the other team to death. The final score should have been something like San Diego 35, New England 13.
Wow. It's weird watching the Pats have this run. As a Red Sox fan, I'm used to the jinx being on my team. Now with the current version of the Pats, they seem to have an anti-jinx, whereby they repeatedly win games that they don't quite dominate.
Cool.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
the leaky ceiling and the cats
So, I get back to the UK on Thursday the 4th, and I'm horribly jet lagged. I nap an hour or two, unpack a bit, watch a bit of TV, and then try to get to sleep. At about 1:00 in the morning I start to hear a drip, drip from the kitchen.
I've noticed in the past that the kitchen ceiling tends to drip a bit from time to time. But this time it's really bad. After I put a pot under it to catch the water, I try to get back to sleep.
But the dripping is a bit too loud. After about 15 minutes, I get up and dump the water out - the pan has filled. Hmm...this doesn't bode well.
I look up at the ceiling and poke it a bit. Bad idea, now the water is literally streaming from the ceiling.
Have I mentioned that it wasn't raining and my flat is on the ground floor, with another flat upstairs? So it's a bit unusual to see water flooding into the kitchen.
At about 2 a.m., I think of my options and decide to call the landlord. In my mind, this qualifies as an emergency. He's annoyed but he agrees to come over. But first he has me wake up the guy upstairs to see if he (Steve) can see what the issue is.
So I wake Steve, who talks to the landlord, and assures him that there's no flooding upstairs. Steve then dashes upstairs and the dripping mysteriously starts slowing down.
I'm thinking Steve knows what is causing the dripping, but I cannot say for sure since I didn't go upstairs myself.
By the time the landlord shows up, the dripping which had been a stream fifteen minutes earlier, is now petering out. On the whole, something like 2-3 gallons came out of the gap between the wallpaper and whatever else is going on there.
In any case, the net effect of the landlord visit is that he notices the odor and the cat litter all over the place. He doesn't like it.
Yesterday evening I get notice that he wants his flat back in two months. *sigh*
I've never been evicted before.
Anyway, I left a message on his machine and we've pushed his resistance back to the level of I can stay until July, when this job is up, but the cats have to go. At this point I can kind of see his point - the flat was reeking of urine all week. The cat sitter who had been visiting didn't really do a great job keeping the odor down, and since it's the winter, I haven't had the windows open much for ventilation like I did in the summer.
So now I'm faced with the choice of finding a cat-friendly flat for 5 months (I think that would be impossible), convincing the landlord that the cats should be allowed to stay (I'm not optimistic) or finding a home for them from March to July.
Ain't life great!
The most curious thing about all of this is that I finally got a refill for my anti-depressants yesterday, so all I could think as I was going to sleep was "You know, I should feel much worse than I did 24 hours ago, but I feel much better." Chemical control of moods is a very strange thing. (BTW, SSRIs are not euphoric, like anti-depression medication used to be. They just mop up the crappy feelings. And they take a while.)
At some point I'll do a longer post about depression.
I've noticed in the past that the kitchen ceiling tends to drip a bit from time to time. But this time it's really bad. After I put a pot under it to catch the water, I try to get back to sleep.
But the dripping is a bit too loud. After about 15 minutes, I get up and dump the water out - the pan has filled. Hmm...this doesn't bode well.
I look up at the ceiling and poke it a bit. Bad idea, now the water is literally streaming from the ceiling.
Have I mentioned that it wasn't raining and my flat is on the ground floor, with another flat upstairs? So it's a bit unusual to see water flooding into the kitchen.
At about 2 a.m., I think of my options and decide to call the landlord. In my mind, this qualifies as an emergency. He's annoyed but he agrees to come over. But first he has me wake up the guy upstairs to see if he (Steve) can see what the issue is.
So I wake Steve, who talks to the landlord, and assures him that there's no flooding upstairs. Steve then dashes upstairs and the dripping mysteriously starts slowing down.
I'm thinking Steve knows what is causing the dripping, but I cannot say for sure since I didn't go upstairs myself.
By the time the landlord shows up, the dripping which had been a stream fifteen minutes earlier, is now petering out. On the whole, something like 2-3 gallons came out of the gap between the wallpaper and whatever else is going on there.
In any case, the net effect of the landlord visit is that he notices the odor and the cat litter all over the place. He doesn't like it.
Yesterday evening I get notice that he wants his flat back in two months. *sigh*
I've never been evicted before.
Anyway, I left a message on his machine and we've pushed his resistance back to the level of I can stay until July, when this job is up, but the cats have to go. At this point I can kind of see his point - the flat was reeking of urine all week. The cat sitter who had been visiting didn't really do a great job keeping the odor down, and since it's the winter, I haven't had the windows open much for ventilation like I did in the summer.
So now I'm faced with the choice of finding a cat-friendly flat for 5 months (I think that would be impossible), convincing the landlord that the cats should be allowed to stay (I'm not optimistic) or finding a home for them from March to July.
Ain't life great!
The most curious thing about all of this is that I finally got a refill for my anti-depressants yesterday, so all I could think as I was going to sleep was "You know, I should feel much worse than I did 24 hours ago, but I feel much better." Chemical control of moods is a very strange thing. (BTW, SSRIs are not euphoric, like anti-depression medication used to be. They just mop up the crappy feelings. And they take a while.)
At some point I'll do a longer post about depression.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Friday, December 15, 2006
back in the USA
Wow - the sun is in the sky, and it has actualy elevation.
I think my moods tend to be affected somewhat by a mild case of seasonal affective disorder. Or to put it differently, I find living in London in December a living hell (and found the same to be true in Heidelberg). I think there's some maximum latitude I can live at during the winter months, and it's somewhat south of the 8-hours-of-sun-per-day level.
Finland is right out.
Got to enjoy a nice game of American football on the super-sized HDTV last night. The Seahawks failed to put away the 49ers while they were dominating and, as happens so many times, a team that's been allowed to stick around for three quarters finally figures out how to move the ball in the fourth and sneaks away with a victory.
I think my moods tend to be affected somewhat by a mild case of seasonal affective disorder. Or to put it differently, I find living in London in December a living hell (and found the same to be true in Heidelberg). I think there's some maximum latitude I can live at during the winter months, and it's somewhat south of the 8-hours-of-sun-per-day level.
Finland is right out.
Got to enjoy a nice game of American football on the super-sized HDTV last night. The Seahawks failed to put away the 49ers while they were dominating and, as happens so many times, a team that's been allowed to stick around for three quarters finally figures out how to move the ball in the fourth and sneaks away with a victory.
Friday, December 01, 2006
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