infryq

Yesterday we went to the farmers market and got Bulgarian pastries, asparagus, rhubarb, broccoli, hard cider, brioche hotdog rolls, melomacarona, mushrooms, cilantro, lettuce, spinach, and strawberries. Lunch, then I made the strawberries and rhubarb into glop, had a meeting with my high school mentee, and started the lima beans par-cooking. Crossword, tossed the limas with oil, and set them to roasting. Went out to the garden and picked the rest of the snow peas, and cut the vines down to make room for the new pole beans. I picked and cut down the rest of half the snap peas as well, on the south edge. The other half are still going quite strong and aren’t too much in the way of anything so I left them. I planted lima beans, Mexican sour gherkins, picking cucumbers, and hyssop, and watered everything in. I came back in and stirred the limas, reduced the heat, and made a snack. Wiped off, then snacked over internet while the limas finished roasting.

The storm moved in after that, and it was a big one — the gusts shook the house, and one of the old casements left open downstairs slammed shut and shattered itself all over the front porch and yard. We covered it with plastic for now. The rain was so heavy at times I couldn’t see across the street, and there was some scary hail maybe half an inch in diameter. We lost power a couple of times, but nothing persistent.

The storm had largely passed before it was time for dinner. We ate, then played scrabble (741!, 1 bingo), then more internet and sleep.

Also for anyone picking up KJ Charles on my recommendation (I see you on goodreads)— they are excellent but also intensely, and with great enthusiasm, sexually explicit. Fair warning? Audible did find a terrific reader for them though, not everybody can voice-act scenes like that.

Discovery continues beautifully, with better communication than I remember. There’s still stuff they should be telling each other, but it’s largely stuff they avoid telling themselves, so that’s less itchy than it would otherwise be.

Yesterday I unpacked a bunch of staples that had arrived over the week: three kinds of lentils, two kinds of popcorn, wild rice, millet, split butter beans, split fava beans, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, and apple chips. While searching for storage options I decided fuckit and washed a dishwasher full of mason and bail jars that had grown dusty, and cleared some ancient ingredients from the pantry that were taking up space. After lunch we did the crossword, then I set up a batch of wild rice and lentils. I had a FaceTime call with mom, then snack and Atlantis, and packaged up the lentils. Dinner, more Atlantis, snack, and sleep. Weird dreams of trying to make spumoni in a library multipurpose room.

Yesterday I made some plots to elucidate the decline in survey responses since January and sent them to F, reviewed a slide deck explaining the new docker-based deployment system, went to a couple meetings, and attempted to reissue some survey data but got blocked by a bug in the code. I put off and put off reviewing D’s performance evaluation, but ran out of other things to do, picked it up, and it magically turned into a different kind of recommendation letter, one of my favorite things to do. So that was nice.

Dinner solo, Atlantis, crossword when P got out of class, more Atlantis, then snack and sleep. Dreamt of shopping for obscure types of fountain pens for C, baby spruce trees sent by my folks that got stuck in the mail, and a college campus maze.

The brickwork needs to be done this year; P found some new water damage in the study. If we can’t find someone who will take the paint off, it’ll have to just be repainted. Not ideal but better than the house melting.

Yesterday I figured out what size screws I need, and ordered them. I transferred all my notes for the 2020 letter into a zine maker, and came up with 14 pages, including space for a couple of illustrations. I just need to do those plus a front cover, then proofs, printing, addressing, and shipping. Crossword after lunch, then P and I measured the newly-clean foyer, shopped for rugs online, and ordered one. My back was pissed at me for doing so much computer work on what’s supposed to be a day off, so I spent the rest of the day prototyping some pouches to hold the screw thread gauges in some kind of tool roll. A box pleat isn’t enough, so I think I’m going to need to learn to do a gusset pocket.

Dinner, scrabble, SG-1, snack, sleep. Dreamt of the Boston T, group housing, facilitating conflict resolution, a slightly alarming stalker, building stringed instruments.

Ambassador 1 is done, with a surprisingly tidy ending that still foreshadows sequels. It’s a shame the character development and science system were such a shambles, since I don’t think I can take any more of that.

Started The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill, a historical fantasy navy intrigue set in an alternate Georgian period with an elemental magic system. It’s a little wordy so far but otherwise inoffensive, and the main character is an extremely competent young woman who captains a ship with a supportive gender-mixed crew. Quite cathartic.

Yesterday I did the laundry, made kale chips, and submitted a batch of recommendation letters for M. There are more to go; doing the one for Columbia wore me out since they require university letterhead (wtaf?). The cloth wrap from Handmade Arcade had arrived, so I also wrapped a few gifts. The post office is pretty tanked everywhere so they may not make it for actual xmas, but we’ll get close.

After dinner we did some research into under-sink water filtration systems, to see about retiring the pitcher for drinking water and the kettle for neti pot water. While we’re at it we’ll replace the main faucet with a pull out one for conservation of sink holes, but that will require more research since faucet reach is a primary issue for me.

Scrabble (612 board score, and we hit all eight TWs), snack, sleep. Snacks are starting to get weird; it may be time to try chiwda again.

Finished Throne of Dragons (terrible ending, just gave up), started Born of Dragons.

Yesterday I went to the farmers market and got Bulgarian pastries, sweet potatoes, kobocha squash (why did I get more squash, we have the kraken squash at home), eating apples, cooking apples, mushrooms, rye bread, napa cabbage, kale, carrots, peppers, and winter radishes. Home, then P walked to Pigeon for a bagel sandwich and I made my lunch. Lunch these days is mushrooms, polenta, carrots, peppers, peas, and cranberries, cooked up as a sortof pottage. It’s good. We did the crossword, then stripped the bed and flipped the mattress. I had a call with my mentee, then made kale chips. Meanwhile, the weather picked up, and the power went out. That is the one unbeatable argument for keeping the gas cooker; it works when the power is out. P went to campus to finish grading, and I cut out some dish towel blanks. I read some of the inkmaking book P got me for my birthday, and when the light started fading at 5 I started mujaddara for dinner, since it wouldn’t involve opening the fridge. I miscalculated how quickly it would get dark in the kitchen and wound up doing most of the prep by candlelight. Throwback to my first week in the efficiency when they flubbed the transition paperwork and it took ages to find a notary and get the electric company to turn the power back on. Anyway the power came back midway through cooking, and I left enough for P and then watched Protector under covers. I don’t think I can hem dish towels and still read subtitles so that will have to wait until I’ve finished the series. Snack, sleep, dreamt of a recipe that was also a puzzle.

I finished Planet of Exile and started City of Illusions.

Yesterday the aggregations failed again so I more-permanently turned off validation. I did the laundry and P helped get it on the line. I ordered more drink mix from DripDrop; their flavors are good and it’s easy to dose for everyday use. We had a video call with P’s folks for D’s birthday, which was a bunch of fun. We lit candles and blew them out, and A&M’s new-ish dog co-starred; very cute. Lunch, then P and I rearranged furniture in the work room so now it’s possible to move around in there, plus there’s another flat surface for maybe starting some hand sewing projects. Took in the wash, threw in some sheets, then put a couple hours in on the White. The rheostat is not what I expected; there’s no carbon stack and I suspect it’s not even really a rheostat, just a fat resistor with three settings. Took apart most of the knee lever to be sure, and yeah — it’s just a SP4T rotary switch. So that settles it, definitely replacing the whole shebang with a triac+diac and a continuous pot. Next I have to figure out how to build the circuit correctly so nobody gets electrocuted, which will require some unfamiliar calculations. I need a book.

Hung the sheets out, then dinner, which was challenging. Early period (23 days is some bullshit) plus humidity was either the sum cause of or exacerbated whatever nausea, which did the normal thing of coming in waves until I had a panic attack, worst in a while. Crossword, then did not return to Lucifer but instead started watching Kipo, a kids show about post-apocalyptic earth with tons of mutant/large/talking creatures. A++, would recommend. P helped take in the sheets, then I played Two Dots until I’d exhausted the panic engine, then sleep. Dreamt of debugging fancy drinks machines and being unprepared for an orchestra rehearsal.

I’ve been sleeping later and skipping my morning internet routine (which includes journaling) to make up for it. Mostly this is caused by going to bed later than I should, so it’s less cause for alarm and more failing willpower saves. Working on it.

Yesterday I rotated the mattress, changed the sheets, and helped P mix up some lye solution to clean the reusable coffee filter. Then I got to work on the White.

My DigiKey order came in, including a new toggle switch, pliers and side cutters that actually fit my hands, and red/black/white wire in 18AWG and 20AWG. I removed the 16AWG leads from the lamp receptacle and replaced them with 18, which works much better. Installed the toggle switch and soldered on the leads. Added new 18 gauge leads to the motor, and connected them to the screw terminals in the plug assembly. Temporarily installed the motor, plug assembly, and lamp assembly, and measured the lamp leads for length. Wrapped up the lamp leads in some expandable tubing so they stay together and look nice, and installed the ends into the plug assembly. Attempted final installation, but ran into a problem: with the lamp receptacle strap where it logically goes, it gets in the way and the screws don’t line up. Rotating the strap so it clears the screw holes, the screws holding the strap in place aren’t long enough to reach it. I suspect this particular strap was not original; when I originally took this assembly apart it was in the wrong side of the plate and thus not actually holding anything in place. I can either switch to just one screw holding the strap, and retain the other one with a nut just for looks, or take a dremel to the strap and carve off the bit that’s in the way.

Snack, then I did a turn through the garden and picked beans and gooseberries, and tied up a wayward squash plant. At some point I suspect I got tagged by a nettle; it was rill angry last night but has chilled out since.

Dinner, crossword, finished She-Ra (why is there not a 🥺😊 emoji), then paged through selections of heat-shrink tubing, which I forgot to include in the order last time. Depending on the state of the rheostat I may be making another order for quadrac parts, so they can go in then.

I finished Wicked As You Wish and started it over again, and while it was certainly enjoyable the first time it’s even better the second. More stuff makes sense, and the frenzied name-dropping works as setup instead of “here let me just paste my worldbuilding notebook for you to read directly”.

Snack, sleep. Dreamt of a Pittsburgh/Wville mashup with a tiny adorable fiber festival and catching a late bus ostensibly to the Strip but actually on a tour of the woods, a carnival ride set up for someone’s wedding the next day, a very small T learning to do somersaults at the beach but insisting on doing them too close to the water and getting upset when he ended up wet, nilla wafers, setting up alcohol-free events for young professionals.

Yesterday we delivered 1.4.1 to marketing for cross-browser testing. I started implementing multiple-signal support in the covidcast API, then got stuck on the output format and bounced back to vis for feedback. I went to the big group meeting, which was blessedly short. Lunch with P on a Tuesday for a nice change. Drafted a job description for an infrastructure/devops engineer, and had B take a look. Met with Engineering, also short. Spent the rest of the day on a real nasty git rebase, still in progress, and getting the historical USA Facts data into its final name in the database.

The electrician came at 8AM and installed the new lights over the sink. They’re now the brightest lights in the room, which is lovely, and they’re temperature-adjustable which will be extra useful in the wintertime.

P and I made pita; AP + 1T gluten per cup +whole grain spelt puffed better than without the gluten, but still a bit ornery. Dinner, crossword, noodled around in the Internet, snack, sleep. Dreamt of time travel mysteries, signing in as a visitor to a high school, suspenders and tutus before elastic, long walks in West Seattle, stage plays, tech rehearsals, grandma’s sewing machine, coconut muffins.

Yesterday there was a validation error with the aggregations which took ages to resolve, but I eventually got them up by like lunchtime working in between meetings. I washed my hair, met with Indicators, including a new observer D who is an experienced project manager, then worked on fixing the aggregations and catching up on slack and the issue tracker. Lunch, met with L for the weekly anomalies report, and met with P from the viz team and discussed coordination and the current release. Did some tests to check that the data releases will go off as planned, which was a good idea because there was stuff to fix there. Got introduced to J at the INI to coordinate the hackathon we’re planning for the 19th. Nowcasting had their new signal with standard errors ready end of day, so built the release candidate demo and sent it out.

The first AC company came to do an estimate just before lunchtime; P handled most of it. Because of city building permit schedules, we are unlikely to get AC before August, which sucks, but them’s the breaks. He was also reluctant to consider high-velocity mini ducts, in favor of a simpler traditional ductwork solution that would cool the top two floors and let the ground floor cool passively. Most of the ductwork would end up in closets, with a bit in the staircase and second floor landing. Acceptable, but not ideal; I’m interested to hear if the second company recommends similar.

Dinner, crossword, DS9, snack, sleep. Dreamt of trying to function on campus with social distancing. Not fun.