little big moments

 as i pour and get started on a beer, i reflect on my son, who has just spent the five minutes helping me take down trash and recycling doing everything to hold on to his anger at being disturbed in order to fuel his will for the pvp minecraft battle he's now returned to.

...

we watched alien today. it was magnificent. not just because mr smear was engaged and entertained, but specifically because he was so appreciative of the quality of the production from an age where there was no computer assistance in special effects, and the peak computing that could be imagined at the time looked almost exactly the same as it was in real life.

and giger's artistic vision brought to life, of course. absolutely stunning.

afterwards, we joined our upstairs friends who let mr smear try on their rollerblades. they unfortunately didn't fit, but we had a blast getting him and their youngest into the swing of things, and mr smear not only started getting the feel of it, but he had a great time and is confident that rollerblading is for him.

here we go... 🤞

location matters

 i'm still feeling tired, after an hour and a half on the couch occasionally sipping my first coffee and almost passing out while reading stranger in a strange land. 

yesterday was a half-day of work for me, though a full day off for my israeli coworkers and my son. i spent it doing two important things: the first, determining that most of the current round of work i had tickets for could be safely discarded. the second, figuring out a way to share agent skills across different accounts and devices without checking anything in.

once i was essentially done with the work day, i took mr smear with me and we did a round of pre-chag shopping. there was a literal back-and-forth and we hunted down the more esoteric items on gd's list, but we got most of what we wanted in the end.

we came home, had lunch (and a really funny fight / battle over the mixed leftovers), and then big data came downstairs to help me install the blinds and shelf my mom and i picked up from ikea a couple of weeks ago. we didn't move very fast, but we did a good job, andwe now have good-looking blackout blinds in our living room and can consume media on our failing projector during the day 🤘

then the rest of his family came downstairs for a visit. gd wasn't too happy seeing us drinking beers - we need to find her gluten-free beers now, although in general we don't really drink beer at all - but we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon while the kids... well, their kids watched my kid playing video games. he begrudgingly gave them turns whenever i intervened, but i think he was just taking advantage of them being as desperate as him to have any kind of screen time whatsoever :/

the kids stayed over longer than their parents, during which time they entertained themselves playing fluxx, which mr smear insists that he hates (he's just not very practiced with it) so he antisocially read his kindle. meanwhile, i worked on an article describing my skill-sharing adventures, and then it was dinner time for everyone.

we watched - for the second evening in a row - infinity train, which is really fun!

mr smear's bedtime took a while and ruffled gd's feathers, but once in bed on a non-school night (it's shavuot, though, and i feel a bit weird about not doing anything special) i (finally) read some more of the colour of magic (we're so close to the end!) and then continued writing that article and researching better ways to sync.

i climbed into bed pretty late last night, just after 2am, after publishing a piece i was pretty happy with. and i may be tired, but i slept pretty well for the second night in a row.

this is good.

pulling the triggers

 it's after midnight, and i've just spent the past couple of hours working on my AI harness. but using AI, so also watching random shit on youtube. some of it important shit, like ex-climate activist speaks out - lucy biggers on triggernometry. some of it like angine de poitrine.

my AI skills skills are leveling up. i've got skill evolution and troubleshooting baked in to my project now, and i'm feeling just how much it's making my life easier.

burning down

 i'm replaying today over and over, and no matter which way i turn things over, i'm in shit. and it's absolutely my fault, regardless of context.

there's something magical about the accumulation of various anxieties and stresses, and bad decisions made under high pressure, and now i've just broken the cardinal rule of my employer by grossly misjudging my time estimates and having to ask my client for an extension, which i'm praying i won't need. this is literally me praying for a miracle, and lots of extra hours.

but my life doesn't allow for focusing. that's not how things go.

i spent most of my hours today laser focused, in high gear, generating reams and reams of code and then reviewing it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure i didn't miss anything with my own eyes. with one agent doing a fix-and-detect cycle, and another ensuring that the first agent's changes still fit into the grand scheme of things, a task that i thought would be quick and easy and had scheduled for sunday evening past, i finally completed its first subtask after 6pm on wednesday.

and this is just the prep-work so that i can get into the real stuff.

...

gd's toe's looking and feeling much better, so much so that she decided not to see the surgeon today. let's hope it keeps getting better 🤞

...

mr smear had a good day today, although he's already doing his usual thing of latching on to any bad memory he can grab hold of and ditching the fun parts. his class went on their annual hike, a proper tour through the cave system at beit guvrin, and from the photographic evidence it seems like he had a good time in spite of himself.

...

i started my day today reading a bit more of stranger in a strange land. so far, it has not aged well. i'm now ending my day trying to make some progress on my AI harness, or climbing into bed at the earliest opportunity. i actually slept pretty well last night, which was amazing, and shocking too. but my lower back / hips were doing their thing all damned day instead, and i'm nervous about what tonight might bring. at least i was able to shower without triggering hell's itch again. i think i'm starting to peel now...

constructive

it's half-past midnight, and i honestly didn't realize it was so late already. i just put together and posted my hackathon presentation, and i'm actually quite proud of it :)

...

 i don't know what possessed me to "experiment" with moisturizer this morning - i thought it was over, but after i put a little on one of my shoulders, it burned terribly (while the other didn't) for at least a few hours afterwards 😫

i managed to make some progress on my side project this morning, but i got into a flow state and then suddenly it was a rush to get to the office before my team daily, so i stayed home until after the meeting and then went out. the work day was pretty good, but my own work was delayed by a fair amount of lending a hand to other projects.

and then i found myself consciously asking my boss the exact kind of thing that i suspect my now-ex teammate might have asked, and hoping that it's not giving a bad vibe. but i *did* find a reasonable workaround for something that's been bothering me - manual dashboard editing - and now i've got AI agents building and modifying version controlled dashboards even without corporate support.

so there.

i came home early (although having done plenty of hours), had a good leftover lunch, then got some more work done before we all headed out to catch a bus to the school for the parent/teachers evening.

peak rush hour. we managed to get off the bus a stop early and walked the last leg, which was a bit much for gd but we didn't really have a choice.

meeting mr smear's new homeroom teacher was encouraging. the problems he has are real, but the improvements are real too, and - as i said to gd and my mom earlier - he's no longer in crisis mode. he's got shit to learn, like discipline, and apparently some of his "funny" mannerisms are offensive to his teachers and peers (like his tendency to "air quote" when he doesn't agree with something), but from what we heard tonight he's doing okay.

although... we also have a follow-up meeting with the full team on sunday, so perhaps not? who knows.

the meetings with his art teachers went well, and it was then that the penny dropped that there's only one arts track from the sixth grade onwards, and mr smear is talking about switching to music which doesn't make any sense. i've got no clue how this story plays out, but even if they did accept him, which they probably won't, i don't know if we literally are able to afford the lessons :(

we had a really funny meeting with his math teacher - she called mr smear a "good student", and then gd and her both burst out laughing - and then light-railed and bussed back home. i got some more work done and mr smear showered while gd made dinner, then we ate and finished the highlander movie (which barely made any sense), chatted with my mom and got mr smear into bed. once that was done, gd helped me sponge bath myself to avoid triggering hell's itch again, and then i dived in to the presentation.

it's been one heck of a week so far. please god let me sleep tonight 🙏

sleep journal entry (sleep vs hell's itch)

 it was a miracle i was able to sleep at all. and i cannot begin to describe the depth of my gratitude that "hell's itch" only seems to be affecting the relatively small and accessible surface area of my upper arms and shoulders.

between uncontrollable, violent spasm reactions to the sensations, i tried moisturizing, damp cloths, and running cool water over it, but nothing helped longer than a few seconds. it got so bad that the thought of tossing myself out of a window crossed my mind, like, i can totally understand an experience like this driving someone to injure themselves (or worse).

so believe me when i say that i have no idea how i alighted upon the idea of "confusing" my nerve endings my lightly brushing or tickling my fingers over the affected area. i had to do that for a long time (most of an hour), and i was expecting to just have to keep doing that until i passed out from exhaustion, but i was able to actually get to sleep in spite of having to position myself uncomfortably to do so.

i woke up twice in the night with the sensation returned, did the same thing again, and ultimately slept until about twenty minutes to my alarm clock. i'm feeling pretty beaten up this morning, but also magnificently relieved. i hope this part of the story is done - or at least, almost over - and i pray i never, ever feel anything like this again as long as i live.

hell's itch

 i've never experienced anything like this. according to dr google:

hell's itch is a term used to describe an agonizing, agonizingly intense, and relentless itch that occurs roughly 24 to 72 hours after a sunburn. victims frequently describe the sensation as feeling like "fire ants" biting beneath the skin, or a stabbing, deep pain that worsens dramatically if scratched. 

while a standard sunburn is painful, this specific condition is a form of severe, non-histaminergic neurological nerve malfunction triggered by UV damage. 

FML. 

expanding to fill the hours

psychologically, i'm really struggling. it wasn't a bad day, i think, but it was mentally tough and now that it's just about 10pm mr smear's finally gotten into the shower after only just finishing his hebrew homework. it has been extremely trying for me, even though i did finish my first ascension in slay the spire 2 while i sat behind him alternately coaching and chiding him.

i got a surprising number of hours in at work today, in spite of the fact that i had to take two hours to bus to the other side of bnei brak and back for a (literal) two-minute ultrasound.

it's always an experience seeing how those people live. bnei brak, a city as beautiful as its people. i arrived there with the back to the future theme in my head :P

my coworker who i spoke to for a couple of hours last week pitched some ideas this morning. this afternoon, our manager contacted me for a quick meeting and informed me that that coworker is no longer with us :(

the explanation he gave seemed reasonable, but didn't quite match with what my now-ex coworker said in a linkedin message (his company slack had been disabled by the time i found out).

apparently i'm okay? i guess we'll see.

we had a Q&A with my client's COO, which was edifying, but really, really long and boring. i'm really glad my client is not my employer, i'd be nervous for sure.

["i'm done showering!" | "really? the water's still running" | "well, if that's how you define if someone's still showering, then fine"]

i came home to hound mr smear (his homeroom teacher informed me today that he was trolling the hebrew teacher about his assignment which he'd claimed to have completed), and then we took a break for dinner (and highlander), and now...

... i have so much stuff to do, but i'm tired, and i don't feel like it. also, it's been two days and i'm sooooo damned sunburned it's ridiculous.

morning vibrations

 bad vibrations, that is. not only did the last month hurt financially a lot more than i was expecting - it's been a while since i was this stressed, and we have summer camp expenses to worry about - but it appears there's been some kind of mix-up with our municipal fees so i have to deal with that now.

[chokes suddenly for no apparent reason]

and then i just spent more than half an hour fighting with my new headphones only to come to the realization (after upgrading the firmware) that the microphone is dogshit and i get better results from my laptop mic. i was finally getting through a really good recording, with good flow, when a series of honking horns and ambulance sirens wailed, because i live on a fucking highway.

so i guess i have to record my hackathon "ad" at night only, then.

...

gd seems to think her toe's doing a bit better, and i don't know if i should be relieved, or concerned that a new surprise is in store.

sleep journal entry

 it was still difficult to sleep because of my sunburn, but iron and magnesium supplements seem to be helping with the lower back / hip discomfort.

i got up early this morning, even after waking up much earlier and trying to sleep in. i've subsequently learned that mr smear *did* complete the assignment his name was on the board for (that caused concern last night), and that we have a mystery pooper in the house (nobody will admit to having used the bathroom last night before i discovered it in the middle of the night).

unexpectations

 what a weird day. it began with me walking in on mr smear brushing his teeth to angine de poitrine, gd's not a big fan but the two of us were loving it. i watched their davie504 response (mr smear hasn't seen it yet) and it's pretty freaking cool :)

i spent some time making a change to my AI harness that i was proud of, but discovered later already has a better cross-IDE solution. so 🤷‍♂️

we managed to get gd an appointment with the doctor, but we had to wait quite a while so we walked across to the mall and i got some work done. halfway through, i was having trouble concentrating so i went and bought myself a new headset, like i've been meaning to do for a while now.  ugreen studio pro, pretty good and not too expensive.

the appointment went alright, but it was good i was there. then we walked to the bigger clinic to try and arrange the prescribed ultrasound, but discovered that wasn't possible and gd didn't want to see the surgeon without it. unfortunately, we found out later that the earliest opportunity for an ultrasound is months away, and she just can't wait that long :/

aside from desperately needing a nap - i'm so grateful we have our bean bags - and an interesting conversation about our company hackathon which i unwittingly signed up to lead a team for - i managed to get a fair amount of work done.

after mr smear got home and ate something, i took him to the oral hygienist. overall, the trip was positive, minus narrowly averting an incident with his phone, and we were in good spirits and chatting away the whole time. right until we arrived home, when i saw his bike, parked across the walkway chained to itself, with his helmet over the handlebar.

i cannot believe my son a) is such a dumbass, and b) lied to my face when he came upstairs yesterday and i asked him about it. i mean, maybe i can believe it. maybe he is a little bit brain damaged 🤦‍♂️

anyway, the evening was nice, dinner was surprisingly delicious (another really good gluten free pasta), and we finally resumed watching highlander.

i did some more work after getting mr smear into bed, although it was mostly me squaring off against google's AI and losing dramatically (notebooklm fails). i guess i'm going to have to do the hackathon presentation myself...

sleep journal entry

i think i got a reasonable amount of sleep last night, but as i'm very sunburned, while i didn't get out of bed i did spend a lot of time awake and physically uncomfortable.

i feel so freaking stupid.

pain and shame

 washing the floors was a real mission, and it took so long for mr smear to be ready that we had to pause towards the end for dinner, during which time gd threw a fit because she didn't like how unclean the uncleaned floor was 🙄

we finished dinner late (it was partially davie504's fault) and then i had to complete the floor after mr smear went to bed.

that was when i started understanding just how sunburned i am. i am burned. it's not just painful, but it's embarrassing. i can't believe i'm so freaking dumb.

anyway.

i'm nervous about tomorrow. i have two weeks to complete an enormous amount of work, but tomorrow begins with taking gd to the clinic and then the surgeon.

productive lazy afternoons

 i didn't lie down, i did have a beer, and i managed to finish the PoC for my AI harness in time to play some more slay the spire 2 before kiddush. and i just had another beer now, that's two down and too many to go :P

we watched some random videos over dinner, one of which led to us watching a bob ross episode in awe.

we ended up going to bed very late, with me getting into bed just after saying good night to mr smear.

then i woke up in the middle of the night for an hour and a half...

this morning started off alright, but turned sour after mr smear not only broke the screen time rules, but hid in his room to continue breaking them after he'd been given a warning. so he lost his privileges for the day, which led to drama... gd didn't agree with me entirely, but at least she understood (and explained to him) why it was important and i wasn't undermined.

then nystire messaged to say he and his family were going to the port, and i managed to herd mr smear out and onto his bike, and we arrived at the port in good time and with only mild complaints. until we crossed a bridge, at which point the complaints became a total meltdown. once he'd calmed down (a bit), i agreed that we can give rollerblades a try, but that he has to have wheels.

and if that doesn't work out, then maybe his bike just isn't a great bike and we need to invest in a good one.

the afternoon with nystire was very pleasant, we sat on the edge of the beach while his kids played in the sand and mine read under some shade, but unfortunately i never did get around to putting on sunscreen and i ended up getting pretty burned :/

after we split up, i took mr smear for a laffa, which we both enjoyed immensely, and then he - true to his word - walked his bike the entire gorram way home. walking on rollerblades gets painful, and i think he knows that, and i was done by the time we finally made it home.

so i showered quickly, cracked open that beer, and now that he's showered i'm waiting for him to be ready to help me wash the floors...