slop machines

 the highlight of my work day was coming home for lunch and being present for the transit company reps to evaluate the state of our external-facing windows and doors. it looks like they're going to replace them (or subsidize the replacement), and they were very pleasant about it all. apparently, the construction (whenever it takes place) is expected to last about six months, and shouldn't be noisy at night 🤞

[we're still suffering trauma from 2017]

i moved desks twice, i'm now sitting with the AI specialists - it's nice, but also distracting :P

i spent all day babysitting AIs and PRs. the thing i did that made me feel the most productive was this:

slop machines

oh, yes - and i had to suffer through yet another team presentation that was put together with AI (zero shame about admitting it), from a guy that's going to be in my hackathon team on wednesday. i would feel haughty, but just as i asked him a question my phone rang with an unknown number, and i was on video, and i was so worried about it being urgent that i asked my question, muted myself and answered the phone, and only afterwards registered just how rude that was :/

[i just figured out what the call was about - they finally fixed the uncloseable tap i complained about when we went to the rink]

when i finally did manage to extricate myself from the office, i rushed home and got mr smear onto his rollerblades, and we went out for a spin. HUGE improvement, really exciting stuff! and until he feel in the park we'd both forgotten that he was supposed to be keeping his arm safe... fortunately he landed on his other arm :P

we had a great sushi dinner, watching infinity train, i read some more of alice's adventures in wonderland and then settled down to try and be productive. my intention had been to be productive on my AI harness efforts, but instead i spent about two hours alternating between random shit (and spire-slaying) and babysitting that damned PR.

i really hope i'm done with it for this round. i'm also becoming increasingly aware of the fact that i'm not completely confident that i understand more than just the gist of it, so i guess i'm going to need to address that in the morning. i think i'd be less uncomfortable about the way we're working if we didn't have an entirely artificial deadline looming that management's taking very seriously.

more than rough

 firstly, i've been so thoroughly exhausted today as to be dysfunctional. to be honest, i can't tell if this is because i didn't sleep last night, or because i'm just through-and-through sick.

in retrospect, i shouldn't have hugged our old neighbor when we bumped into her at the clinic.

oh gods.

after sending mr smear off to school, i accompanied gd to the clinic. the doctor was very understanding, and we booked an appointment with a surgeon. we went home, had a visit from our upstairs neighbor, who amongst other things informed us that they're going to get started working on building a metro station under our building and we're going to need to replace all the doors and windows for soundproofing.

after breakfast, i crashed for a very short nap and tried to get some work done, but was constantly distracted. some of the distraction was about my previous employer; the lead i felt betrayed by has apparently left the company (though he got some of his options), and someone i served with asked me about an opening so i told him what had happened.

then i was time to accompany gd to the surgeon. aside from his poor bedside manner, he didn't convince us that he understood the problem, nor that his solution made sense, so we thanked him and asked the receptionist for advice. she was very kind, and made gd an appointment with the surgeon i had been *hoping* we were going to see.

i'm going to remember his name this time.

so back home we went, i napped again, and got a little work done before we headed out a third time.

the surgeon immediately knew exactly what was going on - there were two possibilities, with the same treatment - and i advised gd to take his offer and get it taken care of immediately rather than wait for it to continue to fester.

we waited for a while, but he eventually arrived. he was clear in his explanations, and made me feel confident; unfortunately, when it came to the procedure itself things went south. the local anaesthetic did not anaesthetic, and i've never heard gd scream like that before. it was painful and nerve-wracking just going through it holding her hand, so i can't imagine what it was like. except that i would probably have fainted very quickly.

he bound up her toe, and sent us on our way. every step was agony, and only got worse as we proceeded towards the street. fortunately, we managed to order a taxi and jump in very quickly, and the toughest walk was getting her from the parking area to the couch.

in retrospect, i don't know how i managed to get any work done before dinner.

gd didn't manage to keep her dinner down, so that unintentionally accelerated her getting her teeth brushed and ready for bed (or rather the couch, i suspect), and fortunately i came up with the idea of wheeling her around in the office chair, which has made all the difference.

as the afternoon and evening have worn on, my nerves have worn thinner and thinner and my throat and my brain are clamoring for bed and threatening to keep me from sleeping again.

and it looks my mom's not doing so great either, health-wise, but at least she got back to cape town safely.

oh! and just prior to gd's procedure, my boss - my actual employer - called to ask me how i'm doing. i asked how he thinks i'm doing, and suggested that we schedule a sync. i hope i'm not in shit...

heavy dust

it's the end of the weekend, and i'm feeling totally drained. my brain's pretty much offline, and i'm praying that i'll get some decent sleep tonight.

we had a massive dust storm today, so bad we put masking tape over the wonky balcony door. the only time anyone went outside was to take out recycling or trash.

today was, for the most part, about constructing two wardrobes. i started the first one by myself, mainly because i didn't feel comfortable asking big data for help before i knew what was required, and then i kinda got into the mode of doing it. i completed most of the build with a little help from mr smear, invited big data (and his son) to help, and the rest of the build and the next one went relatively fast.

with minor breaks, for vegan cookies his son made, and for gd to angrily wash the floor again after mr smear forgot to take his shoes off when coming into the house (in his defense, he's not used to not wearing shoes in this apartment).

gd and i had an argument over punishing mr smear for sneaking upstairs to play roblox (when neither of the kids was supposed to be on screens), and i compromised. i hope the two day punishment doesn't detract from the lesson 🤞

i have to say that in addition to making my wife happy and enabling us to move forward with the unpacking, it's remarkable how much space there seems to be in this apartment now that our stuff's in here. it felt much smaller before.

...

my legs are hurting in a way they haven't for a while. is my body regretting not maintaining last week's insane level of physical activity?

i'm a bit nervous about this coming week. financially (closing our accounts and getting our deposit for the old apartment back), health-wise (gd's going to the doctor tomorrow), and work-wise (i've got to figure out how to manage this weirdness, and i'm praying that the code i delivered was actually good enough).

...

i don't know if it'll help, but i've put the three sets of imagine (the amazing youtube channel that was deleted) AI covers up for torrenting. i feel like i've become the keeper of a sacred artifact from a parallel universe, like something out of the movie yesterday:

imagine - the battles.torrent

imagine - boogie sabbath.torrent

imagine - synthknot.torrent

breaking stuff

i'm finally in bed, it's really late, and i'm panicking because the window guy cut into the beautiful cupboard doors i promised the landlord i wouldn't touch.

and everything is coated with a super-fine dust.

...

the morning was okay, although it turned sour when the extra-insurance people got my details and i got cold feet realizing that there was every red flag in the book that i was being scammed.

i asked on facebook and apparently it's not a scam, just really stupid behavior that trains people to fall for scams.

at least, i hope that advice isn't wrong.

the ikea delivery arrived, just watching the huge guys carrying made my sciatic nerve twitch. and seeing that they damaged a corner of one of our units... and then i had to move them around a bit, and of course my sciatica is now up to a light burn.

my mom's aliyah story now has a new complication, so i guess it was a good day for yad l'olim to ask how we're coming along...

work was busy, but i was also really distracted. and i ended up embarrassed by a couple of PR comments :(i finally got into a flow after the plumber had returned and fixed two small leaks, but then the handyman was coming and i needed to be there to let him into the building.

...

apparently two of mr smear's friends got into an argument and one of them pulled out a knife 😭

oh, and we've agreed to let him visit another friend in a dodgy part of town on shabbat, a friend whose family makes us nervous...

...

the nice "junior" handyman who managed to do the job before the job grew, waiting for hours (doing a massive hardware store run with mr smear) for the window guy to arrive, who assured me there'd be no dust and that the work would only take a couple of minutes.

half an hour later the neighbors were getting upset, and then we said goodbye to him and his workers, and then we wiped and swept and discovered the damage.

good night

"hummus thursday"

 "hummus chamishi" - lipgirl's started a pretty dangerous tradition. miraculously, i was fully functional during the post-lunch meeting in spite of it, and i only began to crash around 4.3pm when leaving the office for the weekend.

i taught mr smear how to construct beats in the morning.

it was a tough day, although less than the previous ones since my wednesday night achievement, and us agreeing that the other stuff on my plate was more "nice-to-have" than bona-fide requirements.

our friends' son's barmitzvah was intimate and pleasant.

[writing paused to write a complaint at the discovery that all the construction noise today is from a new project]

this morning so far has been mostly alright, although there was a bit of a meltdown over writing a mother's day card (i still haven't got a clear answer as to why there was yelling and tears). i woke up and used the massager this morning, and my neck's still tender but feeling markedly less so.

...

we're retaking gaza. we should have done this well over a year ago, instead of pandering to the american left and letting the situation get worse. all the land from egypt to jordan belongs to israel, it's in everyone's best interests that we reclaim it and put this jihadist's wet-dream of a  "palestinian" experiment to rest.

yom ha'aztmaut 2025: everything is on fire

the devastating eco-terrorism fires set yesterday seem to be relatively under control, so we can at least open the windows and go outside for yom ha'atzmaut.

this is a tough one.

a beautiful prayer has been written for it: a prayer for yom hazikaron and yom haatzmaut 5785-2025

saturday:

mostly resting, with mr smear finally feeling better. watching big, which has aged surprisingly well. an afternoon walk which turned sour, but managing to rescue it by the skin of my teeth (and a mix of forcefulness and letting some shit slide).

explaining to mr smear that there are four types of authority (power, knowledge, leadership, and dependency).

sunday:

a really good night's sleep

waking up to surprise renovations downstairs while trying to get stuff done, including lots of time on the phone learning that my debit card issuer can't cancel our debit cards

successfully getting our freelancer to deploy, then discovering that my son had informed his therapist and mother that he was suicidal. a long, serious but mostly positive talk with him and gd at schnitt's

homework help: after some fighting, establishing that he'd done the book report properly, making a lego pizza slice

spending the evening mindlessly doing minesweeper quests until way later than i should have

monday:

a very positive morning after a short but relatively good night's sleep. surprisingly good yoga start. surprise water outage, but at least an apology / acknowledgement from the apartment owner that he should have warned us beforehand

a reunion lunch with my previous teammates, no vegan options but a manager who took the feedback well

rushing to get the car and pick up gd and mr smear, surprise trucks blocking the pick up point after mr smear misunderstood that "meet us here" meant "meet us here now", parking too early, gd getting an answer about her toes (her toenail seems to be disconnected from the matrix, and might be infected)

fucking up the installation, a panicked hour or two with my lead on the line trying to help him (through his panic) to do stuff he doesn't want to do while simultaneously trying to get anydesk to work so i could rescue the machine i'd auto-deleted from our vpn

leaving the office around 9pm, getting on a bus with a suspicious package and getting off at the next stop because the driver didn't care. the next bus driver doing me a favor by dropping me off where he shouldn't have

getting myself cleaned up and then diving right back into work. making some progress but grinding until 3am before giving up

tuesday:

3.5 hours sleep, good quality sleep but waking up feeling broken

crazy day of non-stop support and phone ringing, exhaustion, napping before a sezchuan lunch, everything still broken but eventually somewhat successful (our test site, at least), the simpsons and pushing bedtime back a half hour (possibly a bad idea)

our whole family at the door putting shoes on to rush to the shelter before realizing that the siren was for yom hazikaron

an early-ish night

wednesday:

a proper good night's sleep

starting the day with a massive wake-up fight (see previous comment about possibly bad idea)

a clinic mission after dropping mr smear off at school

visiting the bank on the way to work: "you could have just sent me a message". getting the cards cancelled pretty quickly.

my son the asshole ("secretly" erasing the board every day, then threatening the kid who told him not to - the kid whose mother he insulted, and whose artwork he tore up, and who he hit with a rock - then calling gd in tears to say he was being bullied by the whole class, then kicking "the usual" bully, then telling the teacher she's an idiot that's being manipulated, then finally apologizing)

jesus fucking christ.

over the course of the day i managed to defuse the situation with my lead by agreeing to walk back a change he was unhappy about, and we're going to have to find a different way to approach it. and i expect that we'll know soon enough if that was what broke the deployments...

ordering lunch was a mess, wolt took the wrong payment method and the two agents i spoke to were completely useless. but the lunch itself was absolutely delicious (yellow curry), and i should only have eaten half of it.

the rest of the workday was smooth, cursor's "assistance" was a mixed bag (90% of the code was ai-generated, but it was also 90% wrong and needed a lot of iterating). i learned a lot about kubernetes, though :P

on the way home i needed to mask up because of the ash

a long "family meeting" that was very intense. parenting is hard.

a quiet start to yom haatzmaut playing minesweeper and slay the spire and thinking a lot about everything.

today so far:

mostly quiet, but now heading out with mr smear. we had a fight about heading out - as usual - but this time i warned him that we won't tolerate this shit any more. if he doesn't change this behavior, i'm going to start deleting his game accounts, like roblox and minecraft. i'm done.

chag sameach.

the dusting

 i feel like i managed to clear a lot off my plate the past couple of days, which has made me a lot less anxious. having said that, my morning plans were thoroughly disrupted when gd instructed me to go on an urgent pharmacy run right before my dentist appointment...

mr smear woke up still coughing his bad cough, so he stayed home again today. we're really hoping he'll be going back to school tomorrow, both because it's effectively his last day with his teacher before she goes on maternity leave, and because i really need to work from home and i don't really feel comfortable doing that when he's around.

on the way to the pharmacy, i crossed the same intersection that i'd had trouble with yesterday, and two cars - one a taxi - didn't stop. i think i need to make more noise about this.

fortunately, the wait for the pharmacy was unusually short. i made it home in time to pick up my bag and hop on a bus to the dentist.

while i was waiting, my number was called for a different room, so i launched myself across the offices thinking that they'd changed my room and that someone else was taking my turn. instead, it turned out that their system uses duplicate numbers, which i complained is confusing. the receptionists don't see anything wrong with that :/

i didn't really appreciate the dentist's sense of humor, nor did his assistant, but whatever. the experience overall wasn't unpleasant, he removed a mark on my reconstructed incisor and assured me that the nerve pain i occasionally experience isn't actually from the tooth's filling, but rather from the exposed root and gum.

great.

...

the bus to work got stuck in traffic and had to take a detour. i walked into the office that was practically empty because all the smart people were working from home. i worked really hard until i was finally able to take a late lunch - i found a good falafel place close by - and then returned late for a very important meeting that i hadn't realized was in my calendar.

my suspicion of narcolepsy yesterday was strengthened by another attack during that meeting. i need to get myself evaluated.

by the end of the afternoon, it was clear to me that we should have been strongly discouraged from coming to the office while the renovation is taking place, and that all of our desks should have been covered in plastic before they began. what an absolute shit-show. i hope i didn't ingest any asbestos. i'm always nervous about that because that's ultimately what killed my father, and i've been exposed a number of times.

...

i came home just after gd left for her acupuncturist, who's apparently excellent. i did a little work in between helping mr smear with a maths exercise he was struggling with, and while we had one of our usual arguments about him restarting it whenever he made a mistake, we both communicated much better than usual and he eventually heard me out and tried it my way. with a little twist of his own: it's an exercise that requires the child to have a good handle on multiplication tables, and when he made a mistake with a number he then practiced the multiplication table entries for its factors before trying again.

and it worked! he was clearly proud of himself for getting through it, and i told him he'd earned each and every star on that one ^_^

just before dinner arrived we did his hebrew reading, which wasn't as much of a struggle as usual but he still didn't want to do it before he eventually did it and felt good about doing it.

we never learn :P

...

dinner was great, very salad-y but delicious and enjoyed by all. and then it was bedtime, and me and gd watching monk time, some of which i passed out for. then she went to bed and i watched a bunch of stuff on youtube (mostly political these days, but some ai and inscryption strategies too), and now i'm posting this and considering my next move. bed? reading? gaming? probably nothing too practical.

narc-olepsy and hydra-tion 2

 [part 2 / 2 because of the label limitations]

over lunch i was asked about being vegan, and i made a conscious effort to not be preachy. it was hard :P

narcolepsy. i'm considering the possibility that my occasional mid-day sleep attacks are a symptom of narcolepsy. which, according to dr google, can present in my general sleep disturbances and rapid entry into a dream state. i wonder if i should get tested for this?

one of my coworkers was introducing me to a whole new set of things, speaking rapidly, for a long time, while i tried desperately not to fall asleep and out of my chair.

i spent a bit of time on the phone with my insurance broker dealing with pension arrangements and health coverage...

in spite of everything else i did manage to do a little work during my day at the office. in the late afternoon, contractors came in and began bashing down a wall, and i pretty quickly decided that i needed to get the hell out of there. i really hope i didn't inhale any asbestos...

gd and mr smear appear to have had a pretty good day, she tried a new arrangement with screen time between homework / chores and it seems to have worked out well.

i managed to get a bit of work done in the evening, and mr smear did a little bit of hebrew reading before dinner which went well.

i hesitated for a while before deciding not to go rollerblading tonight. instead, i played some inscryption, gd and i watched another episode of monk, and i did dishes. now that i'm done with my mind-dump, it's just struck midnight and i think i should probably go to bed.