August 18Still no work. Yesterday, three weeks after submitting it, 10 work days after the manager returned from vacation, I asked about reimbursement for purchasing Flash. (I'm sure the background is on this page somewhere.) Well ... it seems there is a problem. Not that he told me about this, so now I'll have to pay off the $450 charge myself. Here's the mail:
Now, what do we see wrong with this? Has anyone ever returned software? I've installed the software; what do you think? The software was bought because a potential client wanted a Flash developer; do you think there is a use for this product? Finally, it's been three weeks since I interviewed with the client; I've probably figured out that we didn't get the job. (Dennis, by the way, is the lying salesman, and would have no reason to talk to me.) Manager thinks "we" have a communications problem. In good news, Devo is driving Beach!I have a shooting pain in my back and a bad attitude. Returning from vacation is always depressing. Returning from the Jersey shore to no work and bad management is really depressing. Were it not for a dentist appointment this evening, and the possiblity of dinner with Devo, I would have driven straight to the Turnpike from the train station after coming home Monday night. It's a long time until October. There's too much to do at home: Jorj's party, resumes, the Vegas page, various projects still half completed, biking. There is nothing to do at work. The shore, however, was just beachy. Lots of biking -- we dropped in on the houses at 32nd and 35th streets, getting to see Lisa and Eric; Ruth, Randy, Amy, Justin and Justin's new 'Stang (_I_ had a '79 Ford Granada that leaked oil into the sparkplugs, and that arrived _after_ graduation); George and Manny; Carol and Anne Marie; and Paul, Louise and Ricky. Lots of walking -- insomnia hit, so I walked the boards from 3rd to 22nd street, then back down along the beach. Saw the family. Hung on the beach (finally, a tan!) while Jorj played pinball and gamed on the laptop. Dinner at Smitty's. Lots of drinking, _including_ finding a bottle of Himbeer-Geist at a Circle Liquors; got Nick to try it and he made some comment about drinking grain alcohol or paint thinner. Wuss. Nick's driving has calmed down a lot; very disappointing. However, he did threaten to take Lincoln Drive at 35 in his Crown Victoria, because I allegedly disparaged his driving. Had to explain _again_ that his driving is quite thrilling and enjoying, and, anyhow, I used to take Lincoln Drive at 45 mph in the Granada during rush hour. He took the challenge and the ride looked promising until Jorj made some comment about not wanting to die. Wuss. Run away with me ...This October, Jorj is taking another bike trip. Yes he just returned from the last bike trip. He's taking another, in Ireland, with Greg, for 11 days at the end of October. One day, Jorj is telling me how he's always been jealous that Greg has traveled all over and can take off at the drop of a hat, and the next day Jorj is telling me he's leaving! Ah! Therefore, I'm looking for a partner(s) in crime, willing to drive ... anywhere ... in this country with me. Qualifications:
Send me e-mail: susiej @ christmas - baking . com or talbutt @ seas . upenn . edu. Yes, I'm being paranoid about spam. Back from VegasThe write up is over at the MartNet site. It's half finished. There was a reason for it not being here -- oh yes, the profanity. This page has too much connection with the Christmas cookies site. Friday, June 15Suzy and I met for lunch today. Last night, Nicky and I met for dinner. Monday, Devo and I will do lunch. The common thread to all this: We're going to Vegas. This is a lifestyle vacation, I told Suzy, over bruschetta (winter tomatoes) and salad (shrimp for me, Ceasar for her). I've got a soundtrack and get to pretend it's a movie with lots of choreographed violence and improbable explosions. The consumption of champagne will rival that of a trip to Germany. Johnny plans on renting a Ferrari and my sunglasses need replacing. Suzy is still her goddess self; Chris has given up caffeine but not chaw; Jorj is still working too hard. Me? I'm going to Vegas. I've got plans for this trip. Big plans. First, I'm going to drink a lot of champagne. Nick says the hotel is five minutes from the airport and thirty seconds from a liquor store open until midnight. (I like this place already.) And, because it isn't Pennsylvania, I should be able to get some good stuff for less than the cost of shipping it from California bottle by bottle. Second, I'm half looking for a job (see below), although the chances of finding a software house dedicated to software engineering methodologies is slim. Third, place in the top half of the coffee contest (you can work suburban housewifery into anything). Devo's motto: This weekend, we're 31337. All of this was discussed at Pod last night. Pod is the restaurant every web site wants to be. Simple graphics, simple colors, very American-Japanese. The menu could have been designed for HTML; I could almost guess the hex triplets for the colors used, and most of it #FFFFFF, including the walls, chairs, tables, menus, rice, plates, and bathrooms. The furniture is also simply shaped, lots of right angles and broad curves, stuff that anti-aliases well. There wasn't a serif, literal or metaphorical, in the place. In addition to a variety of sakis, the bar offers six specialty mixed drinks, named Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and (probably) Violate, none of which, after reading the descriptions, was remotely appetizing, but you know what I like to drink (see above). Strangley, the drink colors matched the colors of the (backlit) doors to the (unisex) bathrooms. Pod is a lifestyle restaurant, as much about the experience as the food. A nice place for a short while, before returning to the real world. We're going to Vegas. Tuesday, May 22I like the written word. In writing, I am more eloquent than is possible in speech. Pauses for the correct word, the clearest phrase vanish with a press of the delete key. You, the reader, see none of the editing that perform. Even on the web, written words acheive some permanency; even after the next update, these words may be archived in Google for generations -- or until these pages are next crawled. Much to my dismay, I find myself now working with people (clients and colleagues) who prefer to talk. By it's very impermanence, talk leads to more talk. ("What did you say?" "Do you remember?" "Have we discussed this yet?") Without a storyteller or bard for the group, talk leaves us with no authoritative source of information. Talk relies on who has the best memory, or the most persuasive argument in this moment. Talk sucks. And I have spent much of my time talking, talking, talking about writing. The permanence, the authority, the efficiency of writing. I am, however, overruled. Talk appeals to the do it fast first, do it right later personality. All the decisions, the reasoning will be written down, later, for history. History doesn't care. I care. I care while writing (again!) code. Unwilling to rely on a very bad memory, I turn to my notes. Meant only to jog memory until a more permanent home was found for the ideas discussed and decisions made and action items assigned, they are often vague and incomplete. Like talk. Writing forces the writer to think logically and coherently. (There is some doubt in my mind whether thinking implies logic and coherence; I think not, and will let the adverbs stand as being not redundant.) Sure, the first few hundred writings are circular in structure, but by forcing the writer to laboriously review and rewrite, the writer learns how to write better prose in less time. Talk is like a word processor, with automatic corrections and the quickness of the backspace key, a typist may never learn to type correctly quickly. The typist may learn to type badly quickly, and to correct those typos quickly, but the typist will never reach the 60 to 70 wpm speeds seen in the days of the manual typewriter, it was faster to do it right first, than to correct it later. Writing software is like working with a manual typewriter: it is faster to do it right first, than to fix it later. The unwillingness to think bothers me the most. This horrifies me as much as I imagine it would Hercule Poirot. The time for brainstorming sessions is over; there is no need for anyone to witness your thought processes (such as they are). If you cannot explain the problem or idea clearly to me, you do not have a clear understanding of it yourself. I will not think for you. If you can't think, I find writing helps. What I'm reading
What I'm listening to
The Vegas listTo take with
To get ready
Soundtrack
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