i read this article on sleeping a couple of nights ago, and i've been dropping my pillow on sleeping on my arm since. and it seems to be helping.
...
this past week has been... really horrible. my neck and shoulder were simply awful for two days, and have been threatening to seize up again since. to make matters worse, i've spent days trying to figure out how to deploy code so that i can troubleshoot the thing that seemed broken, and over the weekend it began breaking frequently. so lots of stress, loads of repeating the same actions with minor tweaks and praying for a different result. when the alarms continued ringing on sunday, i decided to change tack and use a different OS to deploy (i've been working on a mac). i began setting up my windows machine but that started getting overly-complicated, then make the decision to completely wipe my old laptop and install linux on it.
this turned out to be a good idea for two reasons:
1. i discovered, during installation, that it was never a 32-bit machine! my whole struggle with it a few months back was unnecessary, the idiot who owned it before me installed 32-bit windows which reported it as a 32-bit machine (because windows), and running 64-bit debian on it is surprisingly performant.
2. as of this evening (after an hour or two troubleshooting with a coworker), i finally managed to deploy. the big lesson: the combination of serverless, docker and python is heavy and insanely expensive compared to CDK.
...
the weekend was mostly good, although there was one unpleasant incident of arguing about arguing. also, mr smear's been all over the place, his main cry this past week has been "don't boss me around" and "stop forcing me" and when he's not being generally fun to be around he's *really* testing us and pushing boundaries as much as he can.
...
i finally went to the traffic department today to renew my license, i had everything on the list. photos were not on the list, so i ignored the warning from security and walked on through. i waited my turn, supplied my documents, and... it turns out the list is wrong. after telling me what should be on the list, the clerk sent me to speak to a supervisor. the other clerk insisted on hearing what i had to say, then argued facts with me until i read the document out loud and explained that what she was saying isn't how english works. she fetched her supervisor. who not only agreed with me, but explained that the traffic department has been requesting an updated form from the department of transport for over a year now. she gave me a different list of requirements. i have to go back tomorrow again.
...
my side-project presentation is in two days, i feel like it crept up faster than expected. i'm *this close* to a functional product, and i'm really hoping that the others will be excited enough to participate.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
it was good while it lasted
i mean, i'm still feeling grateful and all. life's alright. heck, i tried a new pillow last night and actually slept well (crazy dreams about a burning man event in a montreal university notwithstanding). then this morning i made the mistake of trying to flatten my hair a bit before heading out, and my neck and shoulder went into spasm and have made today one long, arduous battle.
after dropping off mr smear, i drove gd to the mall to get her new sewing machine fixed (turns out it was nothing serious, just a rookie mistake), and tried to get some work done while she was being attended to. that didn't work out so well due to wifi issues :(
yesterday, my first day alone at the helm of our cloud solution, was full of surprises. the first being that one of our customers is having issues that we didn't anticipate, and the last (and biggest) being that i discovered that i didn't have access to our production infrastructure - and i did *not* want to have to harass my counterpart on his vacation. fortunately, with literally two minutes of assistance this afternoon, i managed to sort out my access which was a huge relief.
after dropping off mr smear, i drove gd to the mall to get her new sewing machine fixed (turns out it was nothing serious, just a rookie mistake), and tried to get some work done while she was being attended to. that didn't work out so well due to wifi issues :(
yesterday, my first day alone at the helm of our cloud solution, was full of surprises. the first being that one of our customers is having issues that we didn't anticipate, and the last (and biggest) being that i discovered that i didn't have access to our production infrastructure - and i did *not* want to have to harass my counterpart on his vacation. fortunately, with literally two minutes of assistance this afternoon, i managed to sort out my access which was a huge relief.
so i've spent most of today sore and unfocused. i got gd to watch hannah gadsby's nanette this afternoon, which meant i rewatched it too, and it was just as powerful the second time. mr smear told me a great story at bedtime because i couldn't read to him, gd and i watched the first episode of good omens which is brilliant, and now i'm going to bed early-ish and praying that i'll be functional in the morning.
Monday, July 20, 2020
one more time, with feeling
it's past midnight, time for a quick memory dump before another night of trying to sleep without hurting myself. the past few nights have been abysmal failures.
the past week was hardcore. my counterpart has taught me as much as he could before leaving for vacation, and as of yesterday i'm now the only person available if anything breaks and i feel like we've barely scratched the surface. the next two weeks will hopefully be much quieter than i'm anticipating, and i suspect my low-level anxiety has been triggered more by my previous work experience than anything real.
my side-project's going pretty well, over the course of the weekend i've figured out another piece of the puzzle and i feel like i have enough to get the critical functionality ready before presenting it in a week and a half.
i spent a couple of hours sorting out my great-aunt's computers, and i'm really proud of the fact that they got back to her with the changes feeling familiar enough for her to be enthusiastic about them ^_^
yesterday's mission to the mall: three and a half hours of supporting gd, entertaining mr smear, and spending a month's rent on a sewing machine. it was exhausting, but we shared a lot of good moments too.
on friday evening i noticed a box that gd had "hidden in plain sight", it was my swag from the beta-program i've been working on as my "side project". mr smear was particularly excited by the lego stars wars hover bike, so we made that together yesterday morning and he's been obsessed with it since:D
i don't recall what made me watch hannah gadsby's nanette, but i'm glad i did. it's pretty powerful, and while there are a couple of nuances i disagree with i think it was brilliant.
i feel like there was something else important that i needed to put down, but if there is it's escaped me. i guess overall i'm feeling pretty grateful right now. life's mostly excellent at the moment. fairly tough. occasionally infuriating. generally gratifying.
the past week was hardcore. my counterpart has taught me as much as he could before leaving for vacation, and as of yesterday i'm now the only person available if anything breaks and i feel like we've barely scratched the surface. the next two weeks will hopefully be much quieter than i'm anticipating, and i suspect my low-level anxiety has been triggered more by my previous work experience than anything real.
my side-project's going pretty well, over the course of the weekend i've figured out another piece of the puzzle and i feel like i have enough to get the critical functionality ready before presenting it in a week and a half.
i spent a couple of hours sorting out my great-aunt's computers, and i'm really proud of the fact that they got back to her with the changes feeling familiar enough for her to be enthusiastic about them ^_^
yesterday's mission to the mall: three and a half hours of supporting gd, entertaining mr smear, and spending a month's rent on a sewing machine. it was exhausting, but we shared a lot of good moments too.
on friday evening i noticed a box that gd had "hidden in plain sight", it was my swag from the beta-program i've been working on as my "side project". mr smear was particularly excited by the lego stars wars hover bike, so we made that together yesterday morning and he's been obsessed with it since:D
i don't recall what made me watch hannah gadsby's nanette, but i'm glad i did. it's pretty powerful, and while there are a couple of nuances i disagree with i think it was brilliant.
i feel like there was something else important that i needed to put down, but if there is it's escaped me. i guess overall i'm feeling pretty grateful right now. life's mostly excellent at the moment. fairly tough. occasionally infuriating. generally gratifying.
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
circles under my eyes
it's 2am and i've been up for an hour after being restless for about an hour... i've really been struggling to sleep the past few nights. last night was because no matter what i did i was hurting my neck, tonight because i'm now trying to learn how to sleep on my back.
this is hard.
i worked from my mom's on monday morning, installing heaters but remaining cold as the doors, windows and vents still need fixing. gd joined me for lunch, though, which was nice.
yesterday mr smear's teacher sent a panicked message making sure that his fake cheese wasn't nut-based. every time we have an incident like this it makes us really angry, because other kids' allergies are being taken seriously whereas nobody gives a shit if contact with dairy might kill our son. that's fucked up. i told her so when i dropped him off in the morning, but it's not like she's going to be able to change anything.
you can tell how difficult it was for me to get motivated today by the fact that i finally hung the mirror we "inherited". i got sucked into grocery shopping after picking up mr smear, picked up an obligatory cup of coffee from my mom's coffee shop, and after finally working out and documenting the steps to a new process i joined an onboarding call for a couple of hours - at the end i registered that i was caffeined up to the gills and totally wired...
today our little neighbour came over to play with mr smear, and she asked why we don't drink dairy. we gave her the for-kids version - that cow's milk is for calves, and what happens to dairy calves when they're born - and i'm very curious to see if her mom's as okay with us answering questions as she claims :P
*sigh*
i've now refactored some of my side-project code, hopefully it'll all run so i can go to bed with a clear conscience...
this is hard.
i worked from my mom's on monday morning, installing heaters but remaining cold as the doors, windows and vents still need fixing. gd joined me for lunch, though, which was nice.
yesterday mr smear's teacher sent a panicked message making sure that his fake cheese wasn't nut-based. every time we have an incident like this it makes us really angry, because other kids' allergies are being taken seriously whereas nobody gives a shit if contact with dairy might kill our son. that's fucked up. i told her so when i dropped him off in the morning, but it's not like she's going to be able to change anything.
you can tell how difficult it was for me to get motivated today by the fact that i finally hung the mirror we "inherited". i got sucked into grocery shopping after picking up mr smear, picked up an obligatory cup of coffee from my mom's coffee shop, and after finally working out and documenting the steps to a new process i joined an onboarding call for a couple of hours - at the end i registered that i was caffeined up to the gills and totally wired...
today our little neighbour came over to play with mr smear, and she asked why we don't drink dairy. we gave her the for-kids version - that cow's milk is for calves, and what happens to dairy calves when they're born - and i'm very curious to see if her mom's as okay with us answering questions as she claims :P
*sigh*
i've now refactored some of my side-project code, hopefully it'll all run so i can go to bed with a clear conscience...
Monday, July 13, 2020
circles
another week down. this last one was cold and stormy.
mr smear going back to school has been an *enormous* relief. it may be tough getting up at 7 every morning (in utter darkness) but the payoff in hours of being a functional adult is immense. in combination with me now able to work from our bedroom (the wifi repeaters are good!) i was actually really productive. and gd made me awesome pyjamas that are so comfortable i forgot to change before my first work call on friday.
tattoo 10/154 is done! i'm very happy with these last two, i have a solid idea for filling in the gaps, and our plans for the next two are quite exciting.
after two months of stress, gd's fingerprints are finally in the mail. next step: mr smear's passport renewal...
reevaluating how we deal with mr smear's regressions
leyning: i did alright with yesterday's torah reading, but i get so nervous that i tend to stop breathing properly after a couple of verses...
mr smear bashing his head on a boom yesterday, then on my mom's couch today :(
side-project achievement unlocked - as of today, infrastructure and security are taken care of and i can finally focus on the core functionality with no distractions :)
harry potter rewatch + a few more hours on the lego game. loving them all the more.
Monday, July 06, 2020
after midnight
yep, it's 1am and i've been restless then up for a while now. so much for a good night's sleep...
we rented the invisible man last night, it's an excellent concept with great production, but there are parts of it that were so poorly written that i spent them raging with disappointment. there are infinitely better ways to move a plot forward than to rely on characters being completely ****ing stupid. there were a number of great scenes that make it clear that the writers were just lazy, as opposed to incompetent.
today was a much better take on "anniversary". we dropped mr smear off at our cousins for a few hours, went to plant for an enjoyable lunch date, chilled at home (i completed a chunk of my side-project, and we re-watched some of bill burr's paper tiger), and then spent about four hours picking up mr smear.
it was late by the time we returned home, and in a few hours we'll be getting up for his first school day since march 12th.
i hope we've got everything we need.
we rented the invisible man last night, it's an excellent concept with great production, but there are parts of it that were so poorly written that i spent them raging with disappointment. there are infinitely better ways to move a plot forward than to rely on characters being completely ****ing stupid. there were a number of great scenes that make it clear that the writers were just lazy, as opposed to incompetent.
today was a much better take on "anniversary". we dropped mr smear off at our cousins for a few hours, went to plant for an enjoyable lunch date, chilled at home (i completed a chunk of my side-project, and we re-watched some of bill burr's paper tiger), and then spent about four hours picking up mr smear.
it was late by the time we returned home, and in a few hours we'll be getting up for his first school day since march 12th.
i hope we've got everything we need.
Saturday, July 04, 2020
wooden day's eyes
happy fourth of july! it's our 5th wedding anniversary, and we've spent the day celebrating by watching over mr smear and our neighbour's kid while gd's allergic reaction to the physio's kinesiology tape drives her nuts and i half-heartedly play games and work on my side-project.
tomorrow might be more "anniversary-like" :P
it's been a weird week - aren't they all, these days? - and i spent the remainder of it working from home and making stop-start progress on a wide variety of tasks. i've been sleeping really badly - including last night - usually waking up around 3 or 3 in the morning and finally being able to rest from 5-ish. not so great.
the big news from this week is that i'm finally able to continue the tattoo project! sonnet 9's pretty darned cool, and i'm quite excited about sonnet 10 which is scheduled for tuesday ^_^
tomorrow might be more "anniversary-like" :P
it's been a weird week - aren't they all, these days? - and i spent the remainder of it working from home and making stop-start progress on a wide variety of tasks. i've been sleeping really badly - including last night - usually waking up around 3 or 3 in the morning and finally being able to rest from 5-ish. not so great.
the big news from this week is that i'm finally able to continue the tattoo project! sonnet 9's pretty darned cool, and i'm quite excited about sonnet 10 which is scheduled for tuesday ^_^
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