infryq

This week at work we reviewed everyone’s goals for fall. A fixed the convex solver for the day-of-week adjustments for the doctor visits signal, but we haven’t figured out how to install it yet with M still away at her internship. One of our cases and deaths providers changed the URL of their dataset without telling us, and made it so that pandas requests got routed to 403:Forbidden, which was annoying. It did give us the chance to start archiving the raw data files though, so, silver linings. I met with a pile of folks from Amazon to start the process of seeing if Redshift will be a good choice for us. I pair programmed with G for a couple hours and together we developed the SQL syntax for some of the queries the API server will need to run on the interim system. Next is figuring out how to make the existing query builder generate that syntax, which could be tricky. I got A started writing a new indicator to track vaccination data published by the CDC. I led the all-hands meeting, which was short since we didn’t have a Big Picture talk scheduled.

In the kitchen this week the best news is that I opened the white grits I ordered from Anson Mills and, wow. The texture is irregular and amazing, creamy but gently toothsome. Fantastic in chili. Doesn’t take as long to cook as they claim, either, though that may be because I prep a container with the grits in it that also contains damp ingredients like diced nectarine and green beans and tomatillos, so it has a chance to hydrate a bit before cooking. Second best is that if you par-cook brown rice using the pasta method on the same day you make soup, you can use the drained-off starchy rice liquid in the soup, and it’s a very good idea indeed.

The new desk is excellent and lets me sit in way more different positions than before. It is commensurately less sturdy though, so my second monitor bobbles when I jog the table. I can live with that though.

I’ve been watching the new season of Wynonna Earp. There’s gore, but it’s largely avoidable and there’s plenty of comic relief. Relationship drama may cause a mild allergic reaction but it looks like a lot of it is going to resolve soon.

P has been doing better on the new meds, but still in it.

Weather hot and humid. We’ve both been spending most of our time in the AC.

Some creature ripped up a bunch of the staples holding the garden fence in place, and had a party with their whole family, so there’s not much left of the garden. The squash has one leader left so is likely to recover, but the beans and kale won’t. The cucumber vines are still small and largely escaped the carnage, some flowers but no fruits yet. Wellp. It was a good run.

Yesterday I made another batch of lentils and millet, cleaned out my clothes closet, and cleared off the futon in the nest, aka The Coldest Place. Dew point was hideous all day.

P had a wretched night. He tested negative for COVID on Monday but if we don’t hear back from the doctor today I may have to call them.

Yesterday we released the new sheet-based metadata system, and I put all my remaining free time into the process mapping report. The API struggled with performance issues all day, going back to 1AM so we know it wasn’t the metadata release. The fix we tried resolved the one error we were able to find, but not alas the performance problems. I met briefly with J to go over the edits requested by the journal reviewers and talk about a documentation project some of the girls want to help out with, then called it good.

P made a telemedicine appointment for this afternoon, but was otherwise feeling much better except for a low fever in the evening. I let B know we may have to cancel dinner plans Saturday.

Dinner, crossword, Expanse, snack, sleep. Dreamt of hotels, food shopping with friends, bus routes, trying to see a play but being unable to remember the PIN to any of my cards, a VR game about planning a wedding in a bizarre sortof frontier context.

Yesterday was mostly catch-up, but I got through nearly everything so I’m pretty pleased. I had a desperately needed therapy appointment that was three quarters ranting and the rest turned into a joyful list of everything good recently. P had a dentist appointment to get a cavity filled, and they were slammed and compensated with extra novocaine to speed things up — so it took all afternoon for it to wear off. Dinner was good, then crossword, reading, and sleep. Bizarre dreams about my childhood home, a magic sword, some kind of slavering monster we had to hide the sword from, but also a somewhat goopy kitten with coordination problems. You had to hang onto her or she would kindof squid out into empty space and fall.

Yesterday I finished the second round of raised chain stitch and started a filler stitch to make the irregular width look intentional. At work I ran some more data once the narrative made better sense of what I already had. I met with M, and we talked through how his project will fit into the existing system architecture. P called out of his morning classes, but went in for his afternoon one. Minis are so short it’s hard to justify skipping a class. Home, dinner, crossword, Outlander, snack, sleep. Dreamt of solving a murder by being the only one to notice someone had stolen a rich person’s enormous plate glass back window. Also got chased by a peacock and made friends with a cat.