Yesterday I unpacked the nuts.com order, diced and roasted most of the rest of last week’s apples, washed robes and towels, and otherwise watched Avatar and hemmed dish towels. I am On Vacation and it is Great.

The crossword was a miserable slog, but I dreamt of being creative director for a fashion magazine version of Conflict Kitchen, so that was fun.

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Yesterday I found some weird behavior in the cases and deaths signals, went to the all hands led by C, which went great and we’re going to try rotating the meeting chair from now on. The afternoon went primarily to one on one meetings, which continue to be a delight. Got to meet and chat with P, our user experience researcher. Late in the afternoon D found a bug that’s causing integration tests to fail in the main branch of the API repo, though for some reason it didn’t stop auto deployment nor seems to be affecting behavior of the system in production. I’ll be picking that up on Monday.

Dinner, then we did a Zoom call with P’s folks (they’re all doing fine, though they’re having to carefully limit their news exposure, which is understandable).

The crossword machine had been acting up for a while, and P took it in for service on Thursday. Turns out the battery was bad, and the way they fix that is to just swap the whole device out for a new one and have you restore a backup onto it, then the old one goes in for recycling. The new iPad was ready yesterday, so P picked it up and it spent the rest of the day updating itself and installing the backup. It was ready just in time for crossword before I start turning into a pumpkin. Friday puzzles are getting harder, but we made it through with just a couple of sticky spots.

I watched more Tales of the City, which is still lovely and heartwarming and models good consent and handling of bids for attention without losing the context of relationships which are sometimes messy and people who sometimes make mistakes.

I finished mask #2. Not sure if I’ll make another.

Snack, sleep. Dreamt of some kind of complicated problem solving but the details have faded.

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Yesterday I went to the tutorial session where some of the Fellows talked about what the different rules do, and asked a bunch of questions. I wrote up some documentation for the API changelog on yesterday’s fix, got it reviewed, and merged to trunk. I answered questions about the back-issue uploader and how issues are defined in the different indicators, coordinated some remaining work on getting the tests indicator automated, and reviewed some remaining edits on the requirements doc for the logging and alert system and the first draft of the design doc for same. I went to the vis meeting where we decided not to release a hotfix for a minor style change, and also get me an understudy to learn how the CMS works and pick up some of the publishing duties. I started reorganizing a cross-repository project board that will maybe help keep track of what we’re all working on, then it was time for foods.

Dinner, crossword, Alias Grace and figuring out how to add wires to the mask prototype, snack, sleep. Dreamt of superheroes, villains, busting up the bridge at the lake, Christmas lights, fish-shaped fruity ice cubes, Rice Krispy treats, rescuing melted chocolate that seized, driving.

The Book of Koli continues to impress. I suspect it will becomes more of a character/coming of age story as we go on.

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Over the weekend I made another batch of nut and seed bars, deep-cleaned the stovetop, voted, roasted turnips, squash, carrots, and apples, finished the elastic on the mask prototype and started a second draft with an extra layer, and cleaned up the garden somewhat. P was on duty for the market and mailed my ballot, and also handled the laundry, since it was too rainy for the clothesline.

Everything for work is on fire this morning, so that will have to do.

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Yesterday I turned the furnace on. 65 is my limit as far as interior temperature goes. I took apart the naked-seeded pumpkins and roasted the resulting pepitas with olive oil and salt. They puff themselves up pretty good in the oven, and they’re delicious— definitely will grow these again. P and I did the laundry and hung it out on the line, and I opened packages from the jewelry supply and modeling supply places. The tubing I had sized so carefully didn’t fit, and P was headed in to SqHill anyway for wine, so he picked up a couple better options from the art store. I started practicing with the new tools. I found a bunch of ways that didn’t work to center punch on a rod, but eventually got a hole started. The mini bench vise was a very good call. The pin vise is difficult to clamp on straight. I might look for a better one, or for bits with a constant-diameter shaft. 0.5mm is too small to practice with. I was able to get a 0.7mm bit straight enough to give it a try. I was able to drill a hole through the rod! But I was so surprised when it worked that I broke the bit. Welp, that’s what practice is for.

Spent the rest of the afternoon watching Umbrella Academy and continuing to hem the linen dish towel. Dinner was slightly different (zucchini green beans carrots cranberries lentils, oregano and smoked paprika), then brought in the laundry, did the crossword, finished Umbrella Academy but not the hem, snack, sleep. Weird dreams of distant family, shapeshifters, sprinklers, a robot controlled by the temperature of its power pack, then a morbid turn of death notice after death notice.

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Yesterday I wrote up and posted getting started information for all the Fellows for their first day, went to the team leads meeting where we discussed a possible collaboration with COVID Act Now on their test positivity scraper system, and kicked off the back issue ingestion for the new HSP signal. I went to a doctors appointment for my usual seasonal medication adjustment and also got a flu shot, and let me tell you that is the first building I’ve been inside other than my house since March, and boy was it spooky. Afterwards, met with B to coordinate Fellows onboarding, did some hiring paperwork, made a plan with A for public release of the new Wave 4 survey signals, and discussed with D how to navigate his dual identities as Delphi founder/admin and Fellow contributor.

Dinner, crossword, Umbrella Academy and sewing (I’m hemming some crinkly linen towels), snack, sleep. Dreamt of designing spacecraft, secret engineering societies, locked room puzzles, and virgin mojitos.

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Yesterday I washed the curtain fabric in 10-yard segments and dried it out on the line, made another batch of nut and seed bars, and otherwise chilled with GBBO. Afternoon crossword, submitted the orders for tools from a hobby miniatures supply place and brass stock from a jewelry supply place, dinner, sewing and October Faction (inserted elastic in the top casing and started stitching it down) (unnecessarily gory but works so far since most of my attention is on stitching), snack, sleep. Dreamt of dorm life, trying to remember a book I’d borrowed, pandemic protocol, car repair.

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Yesterday I bagged up the last of the frozen pepper paste dollops, so one bushel of red Carmen peppers plus two pounds of jimmy nardellos plus two pints of damson plums plus assorted chiles makes four and a half quarts of densely reduced pepper paste.

I did another round of prototyping on the White speed control mechanism, actually laying out and measuring how big each part should be. I’m nearly ready to order supplies for the final version; just need to figure out fasteners and make sure manufacturing and installation are both physically possible.

I finished sewing the second edge of the waistband, and started the line of stitching that will define the two elastic channels. My wrist is starting to crap out, so it may be time to take a break from hand sewing for a bit.

Dinner, submitted the vegetable order, crossword, Originals, snack, sleep. Bizarre dreams of a combination antique shop, elderly dog care center, ballet studio, and tropical fish aquarium, all subpar.

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Yesterday I prepped and roasted the rest of the peppers, cooked the damsons and removed the pits, and began skinning peppers and sorting out the ones that needed more cooking. I washed the masks and dish towels, and did some sewing over Originals, getting about halfway around attaching the first side of the waistband. Lunch was good, dinner was good, easy crossword, more sewing and Originals, snack and sleep.

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Yesterday I rescued autobot from its confusion about what git branch it was supposed to be on, notified the appropriate people about some stale data in the API, and went to the all-hands meeting, went to R’s office hours to sit in on a discussion with A about next steps for the new google symptoms product. After lunch I had a work meeting with D to rebase the geo aggregations refactor branch, which ended up taking almost the full hour, but it was 100% worth it — we rewrote dozens of squirrely development commits into three tidy blocks covering the data processing code, the resulting static mapping files, and the actual code for the utility. The rest of the day went into final prep for being gone next week, getting our new Google tech lead started in the codebases and process docs, and starting the state and national clearance applications for working with FRC students.

Pulled some more tromboncini from the garden but left two large ones to mature. Dinner, crossword, sewing and Originals (finished felling the side seams of the waistband and started hemming), snack, sleep.

Vacation: start!