pre-birthday birthday

 as my birthday falls on a monday this year, we celebrated it today. it wasn't a *perfect* day, but i honestly couldn't have asked for a better one! after completing my work for the hackathon, we headed down to the pool where mr smear demonstrated his newfound ability to actually keep himself afloat. we stayed just long enough for me to get a *little* sunburned, then went to the waterfront to pick up an ethernet cable (to save myself the trip tomorrow), purchase the illustrated edition of the second harry potter book, take a spin on the ferris wheel (mr smear loved it), have lunch and ice cream, do a little bit of shopping (glad we got it done, but at some point i just needed to get the hell out of the mall), and finally return home for another - even better - round of gd's vegan sushi and the incredibles 2.

all in all, it was an excellent way to celebrate my 40th time around the sun. i'm feeling extremely blessed.

unfortunately, it looks like i was right about being ghosted, so i'm trying to rush a couple of scripts before i crash so that we have something to show tomorrow. it's kinda fun and it needs to be done, so definitely not a day-ruiner :)

outside

the past two days have been much saner. or wait... have they?

yesterday was a whirlwind, i dropped off mr smear at school, then drove through to the waterfront to pick up an ethernet cable. i managed to beat the black friday rush - i'd forgotten it was black friday until i walked in the doors - but forgot to pick up a universal remote control while i was there.

setting up the new network cost me a confused hour and a half, and as excited as i was when everything seemed to be working much better than before, i was even more deeply disappointed when i needed to help a coworker from my "corner office" (the farthest little corner of the apartment from my wife and the cleaning lady) and the line kept dropping.

so i rushed off to my mom's, getting stuck in black friday traffic along the way. it's 2020. not only is black friday not really a south african thing, but most of our population has been unemployed for a good chunk of this year. where are all these people coming from? don't they have jobs? and if not, where are they getting the cash??!

anyway, i arrived at my mom's and immediately went to pick up lunch. the nori rolls were delicious, but i totally overate and spent the rest of the afternoon regretting it. in total i got about two hours of work done, which might have been two and a half if i hadn't taken a walk to pick up a drill bit so i can install the network device properly.

which i need another cable for, anyway...

aside from gd feeling horrible yesterday, it was really nice evening.

i've spent a good chunk of today finishing up my part of the hackathon project which is due on monday. unfortunately, i don't think my teammates are doing very well on their and the thing needs to be presented on monday :(

we all went to the police station around noon to file a complaint against a company that's been harassing gd for a couple of years, and which has begun to call her multiple times a day over the course of the past two weeks. mr smear was quite unhappy there and after giving them all the details we were finally informed that they couldn't help us, only the cyber crime department can and that's only open during the week.

huh.

after dropping gd and mr smear at home, i went on a mission that took me to gardens centre, sea point, and then the wellness centre. i'd shared an exciting video with gd about making plant-based sushi in the morning, and my reward was gd's first sushi making experience - the results were absolutely brilliant!

after my mom left, we watched the incredibles, put mr smear to bed and then i dived back in to the hackathon stuff. i completely sidetracked myself (not that i didn't have fun doing so), and i'm just finishing up a small piece and hoping to be able to complete my part first thing tomorrow so that i can jump in to the rescue on the other aspects.

i have a feeling that one of the guys has ghosted us already.

oh, and we've had a couple of issues with the new neighbour downstairs smoking on his balcony. i went down to have a chat, and the dude actually came up afterwards to give me his number so i can let him know if it happens again (not sure if it's his friends, tenants or flatmates, but whatever). hopefully we'll be cool.

normalizing

firstly: i hope i'm not being too eager, but i'm thrilled to report that the agency that arranged gd's police clearance IS able to request a new document without us having to do anything, and for a much lower fee than before will get it authorized and forward it to the israeli consulate. with the holidays approaching, i expect we'll get everything beginning 2021 and hopefully things will be much smoother going forward.

secondly: today involved a lot more sitting at my desk than is healthy, but it was ultimately very productive. like, excitingly so. and i feel like it went a long way towards improving my coworker's disposition.

thirdly: i successfully resolved the dynamodb issues a little earlier and can finally move forward with the hackathon project. i feel good about this.

our new, very expensive wifi device arrived so early this morning i had to get out of bed to take it from the courier. it requires two ethernet cables to operate. it comes with exactly zero. fortunately, it looks like we're back to "normal" as of tomorrow morning so after dropping mr smear at school i'll be heading out to find a couple.

i hope this thing works as advertised.

dance dance revolution is amazing. i'm as happy with what it's getting me to do as i am amazed at what a powerful (and engaging) tool it is for mr smear. the only thing it lacks is a larger library of music, but there's enough good stuff that we'll be just fine.

dammit

i've just spent hours struggling with something really simple, after a long and somewhat frustrating day at work, and it was a combination of what appears to be some kind of regional aws service outage and me misunderstanding a fundamental limitation of dynamodb.

at least there's an easy solution to the limitation, but it's been a long night getting there that i really didn't need. 

interrupted by a phone call from montreal informing me that we do, in fact, need to start the whole police clearance thing again because the jewish agency wasn't clear (i double checked earlier in case it was me missing something) about their documentation requirements. i'm praying that there's some kind of shortened process for recent clients.

oh, yes. and one side of my jaw's suddenly swollen and sore. is that a covid symptom? 

late to bed again

 why the **** is it SO hard to do such basic things? aside from an unproductive couple of work days, and some behaviour issues with mr smear (but also some great times, at least there's a balance), i've spent an inordinate amount of hours (ie i haven't been recording my time as usual) getting to grips with CORS support in CDK, integrating it into our hackathon project, updating other projects along the way and eventually giving up on publicly available tools and writing my own API tester that does what someone who's testing an API would need.

one major hassle is that my bedroom corner network, which i rely on to be able to work during lockdown conditions, has been acting up and i've now had to sink another couple of thousand rand into a solution that i *hope* will work as advertised. i'm so over bullshit products... why are the standards so substandard?

gd and i have watched a bit of the queen's gambit, which has a couple of annoying aspects but is mostly brilliant, and i watched a few episodes of cobra kai with half an eye this evening and we're both thoroughly enjoying it.

dance dance revolution is excellent. if i ever become good enough to complete tracks on difficult level i will be insanely proud of myself, that shit is hard.

stuck and tired

 i don't know if me feeling so wiped out is a covid symptom, or just general exhaustion. but here we are, monday morning, after what i guess was a pretty good weekend - good hackathon progress, next steps taken on the graphic novel, and my dance dance revolution investment is paying off nicely. and we finished the first season of the utopia reboot, which was GORGEOUS.

i feel like i'm forgetting something, but whatever, i guess.

quarantined

 today started off pretty well, then came to a screeching halt as we learned that our therapist has tested positive for covid. we immediately went to pick up mr smear from school, alerted everyone we've since been in contact with, and spent the rest of the day figuring out what to do (or not to do) and preparing mentally* for the coming week... hopefully not more.

* cursing a lot

 what we've learned from our doctor today:

1. it takes about 48-72 hours to become infectious, so even if we did catch it it's unlikely we passed it on in less than 48 hours.

2. while it's recommended that we self-quarantine for 10 days, people we've been in contact with (contacts of contacts) shouldn't be concerned unless we begin to show symptoms or test positive
 

3. there's a lot of conflicting info floating around, but it seems like getting tested less than 7 days after exposure isn't meaningful.
 

4. it's not recommended to get tested unless we show symptoms. 

...

not that i needed much help with being distracted today.

i at least enjoyed some success with the hackathon project, and mr smear and i played some dance dance revolution before dinner.

my mom and i tried to use caribu again this evening - what an incredibly awful app! we eventually settled for a whatsapp video chat while she read, which worked out much better.

gd and i have been watching the utopia reboot, and it is *gorgeous*. about halfway through i remembered that our grocery store delivery today came with a free heineken 0.0. it's 0.03% alcohol, is called non-alcoholic, and... is not for sale to minors. gd's comment: this world is being overrun by stupid people. who are not, to paraphrase utopia, earning their place in this crowded world.

past my bedtime

 it's been a busy week, but relatively relaxed. gd's documents are on their way to canada, we had a really nice date night yesterday, work's been alright, i've just made some progress on the hackathon project, and i discovered today that i'm very lucky that i didn't brick this macbook i haven't finished paying off by updating to "Big Sur". it's an old macbook, but still very expensive.

the physio *hurt* me today, she focused on my legs and i ended up in shock and laughing hysterically. we suspect the reason my "rls" situation has regressed is because i haven't been standing and working as much, so i guess i need to start doing that again.

oh, and the new series of utopia is AMAZING. we're three episodes in and we actually prefer it to the original.

page 9!

 almost forgot! and we've finally produced page 9 of the graphic novel adaptation ^_^

the last of the staycation

 it's a lovely sunday afternoon, and i'm pleasantly drained after a really nice visit to kirstenbosch with my mom. i'm not not ready to get back to work tomorrow, but i must admit i've barely relaxed and i've barely gotten things done.

that aliyah application anxiety? we finally determined that we've been wasting months and money getting things authenticated locally when the only validation they'll accept is from within canada. so here we go again with expensive couriering.

last night i joined vfmp for my first among us experience - and it was fantastic! i now see what all the fuss has been about :)

the weird thing is that i was able to purchase it on steam and install it on windows, but the steam installer for mac is broken and the only way to play it is via bluestacks. at which point i - or my OCD, at least - decided to upgrade to macOS Big Sur, which apart from being slightly uglier has the simple but powerful feature of allowing me to prioritize wifi connections. FINALLY! this has been driving me crazy for months and i'm amazing at how much impact this little change has had.

indoorsy and outdoorsy

on sunday, i wrote down the following:

i mean, i *did* go outside yesterday to help my mom at her coffee shop, and i *did* go out for a short walk this afternoon which ended with me purchasing the gas station store's last marmite (there's a national shortage due to alcohol production being slowed down, and for vegans marmite has similar post-apocalyptic value to booze).

anyway, the weather's been miserable, and we've mostly been at home, i've read quite a bit (i was intrigued enough to buy "a man named ove" and i has to push through a few chapters before it became interesting), and i have no idea how many hours of ffix i played today.

i'd intended to complete that and post it, but i was distracted. this week has been a bit crazy, while i have had some respite it's mostly been filled with all manner of Things That Need Doing. we're having more trouble with gd's aliyah application, which is causing me a lot of anxiety, and i'd guess that i haven't done 90% of the things i had on my holiday to-do list... but i have resumed rewatching BSG, played some more ffix, read a fair amount, and generally had a good time. i've even napped at random times, and those naps have been good.

exhaling

 this past week was considerably more relaxed than the previous ones, but i still worked long hours with little to no exercise* or fresh air and was so focused on catching up on one system that i got practically nothing done on my main goal.

* although a few days this week the weather was nice enough to get in the pool for a bit.

and then yesterday morning, after consulting with my boss, i realized i need to publish the release we've been working on and the entire day was a mad rush to figure out how to do it and troubleshooting the process. with some much-needed assistance from a couple of coworkers and an encouraging amount of good fortune, it was finally published and tested by 6pm.

and now i'm on holiday for a week. i have a few things i'd like to do, but no pressure to do anything other than enjoy the now, read books and play video games. i'm kinda keen on getting back into ffix :)

gd's documents are finally on their way from pretoria, so one of the things to do this week is submit everything and try to get her aliya interview arranged. this has been one heck of a challenging process, i'm praying things go smoothly.

regarding the US elections: it's been hard not to follow the news on this, but i'm not exactly sure why as i don't know how significant it is which of these guys is elected. i have read a couple of fascinating articles, though, on why so many americans are voting for trump and these ring true: the americans have some underlying issues that they need to address sincerely, otherwise things are only going to get worse for them.

• why "trumpism" isn't going anywhere
• a culture of immediate gratification and cognitive dissonance
• tribalist tensions rising
• losing the technology war (which translates to a weakening economy, amongst other scary things)
  

celebratory chill

 friday was intense and full of surprises, but ultimately successful and we enjoyed a good few hours of real teamwork. i mean, what are the chances of our test server's certificate expiring halfway through our tests?

by the time we were ready to report on our findings, i was exhausted but satisfied. i'm excited for next week - we have uncovered a ton of friction points in our processes and this is the opportunity to reduce them - and i'll be handing back responsibility to the coworker who's returning from his month's leave and preparing to take a week off myself.

the weekend has mostly been good. yesterday morning i occupied myself with coding puzzles and guitar hero (i'm definitely getting better), an hour or so by the pool, then an afternoon relaxing and at some point picking up on ffix which i haven't touched in waaaay too long. mr smear was really getting into the battles, he loved the music :)

this morning was an early sunday, rushing to ready ourselves, pick up a gift and another kid and head out to a jumping castle birthday party. funny thing about buying books for birthday parties, is we find it impossible not to pick things up for ourselves. so today gd got ben brooks - the impossible boy and i grabbed a copy of the graphic novel adaptation of animal farm.

i've never read animal farm. i flew threw it in the afternoon and found it utterly brilliant.

the party was cool, much more relaxed than the previous year (bounce world was empty except for us), and the kids had a good time. we were taken by surprise when dropping off mr smear's friend and his mother offered to keep mr smear for a swim, we've never done something that spontaneous with him before and we enjoyed a plant lunch followed by a relaxing hour at home.

aside from an unpleasant meltdown in the late afternoon, the day has been great. we were able to watch my cousin's wedding on a live stream (much better than a hundred people in zoom), and we found the ceremony and their speeches really touching.

it made me realize that there're a number of us who've gotten married over the past few years without big family celebrations, and maybe we should all do something special together when the plague slows down sufficiently...

the fog of looming deadline

 this week has been mental. we came into it with a plan, and that plan fell apart yesterday evening after three days of grueling battles with bash and bamboo. i'm not sure if my head's feeling full of wool because of allergies, because i'm coming down with a cold, because i'm exhausted, because of my neck, or because of all the stress... or maybe it's a combination of a number of those. either way, my neck's been threatening to spasm and i really haven't been sleeping well.

but today, in spite of all this and losing two hours of my day to taking gd to the mall, we actually managed to complete a round of testing a day before deadline, giving us tomorrow to be more thoroughly certain that the release i'm responsible for is safe to go out.

and, along the way, we all learned a lot and have built some neat additions to our tooling. this is good.

aside from being relieved, i'm actually excited to complete this release cycle and write up all the lessons learned, and the big reward will be spending next week with the team making sure that the next release is a lot less stressful.

i think i'm just about ready to call it a night.

borat subsequent moviefilm

no way. but... i mean, of course. then again, no way.

sbc is not the hero anyone wants, but he's definitely the hero they need. and i'm just as impressed by maria bakalova who deserves at least as much credit!

remembering what nature smells like

i started my day writing up a couple of things i've been thinking about recently, then played some guitar hero before heading out. i took mr smear to kirstenbosch today for the first time in more than a year (according to my blog posts), it wasn't great weather but it was perfect for a light hike and we had a good time.

a migraine loomed on the way home, i'm pretty confident it's all in my shoulder / neck. i managed to keep it together, though, and it seems to have calmed down. the afternoon was mostly pleasant, i read some more of the swamp thing reboot (which is amazing) and lounged about. mr smear and i had a couple of turns at dance dance revolution - he's improving! - and everything was fine until dinner was over and it was time to shower.

i'm fast arriving at the conclusion that my son's pretty spoiled, and it looks like we're going to have to change tack quickly. it doesn't help that his behaviour upset both gd and myself, and then things escalated... now everyone's unhappy. a great way to spend a sunday evening after a generally good weekend.

mixed-bag saturday

 i slept alright last night, waking up at some point to write down the following: "why did the ambitious dancer join a studio for giants? because the bar was higher."

mr smear woke me up this morning and after teaching him to make a bowl of cereal for himself (he was so excited!) we played dance dance revolution and both had fun. afterwards, i tried to figure out how the DLC works, and while evaluating the options suddenly began a migraine. panado did nothing, but an hour of lying down and crying (just pain tears, so not crying per se) at various angles seems to have helped a bit.

i'm really feeling betrayed by my neck this past few weeks :(

stop.

 layer cake. a good, but deeply unsatisfying movie. i've just watched it as a fitting end to a weirdly unsatisfying week. my neck's still griefing me but i have this strange feeling like my mobility might be improving. i'm getting better at guitar hero.  i discovered yesterday that fifteen minutes of dance dance revolution on even the lowest settings is very real cardio.

for about a week now, mr smear has been singing the chorus (correctly) of of monsters and men's little talks. it's awesome to hear him, it's a little annoying to be perpetually stuck with the earworm ourselves, and the timing of its subject matter seems a bit creepy.

i finally completed a chunk of work today, but it wasn't as interesting as a brief moment at the end of it when i demonstrated to our older, old-school and very set-in-his-ways linux guru the value of writing detailed comments above every regex string. meaning i typed the whole thing out myself, and promptly found a bug.

the geese have been pooping in and around our pool. it's getting hot, and i wanted to go for a quick dip... but no.

anyway, i haven't been feeling too well this past week or two, some of it due to my neck, some of it due to sleeping badly (as usual), and a lot of it due to the emotional swings brought on by krybabie's passing. i'm hoping that maybe this weekend will be easier.

deep breaths

this past week has been a real rollercoaster. tonight was the last night of prayers for krybabie, it's been an emotional week and it's far from over.

our physio left me feeling beaten today, second time in a row. i really need to figure out how to hold my head correctly. i'm failing at something we evolved for at least two million years ago. i'm pretty confident nerve pressure is the reason i've been feeling tired, headachey and queasy since friday :(

fingers crossed, i'm hopeful that our canadian documents will finally get to the right people in the next few days... we're very lucky that one of gd's conversion group works for a courier company and has offered assistance!

my work week's been a bit weird, i had plans but for three days have been caught up investigating a bug and (as always) trying to make sure nobody gets stuck with the same nonsense twice. at least i've learned a lot of different things.

our dance dance revolution mat arrived yesterday! so we're set for the next lockdown, which sadly looks imminent...

our programmable banking beta program has a hackathon going on with some pretty amazing prizes, and i'm actually quite excited about what we came up with this afternoon! not that i've had headspace for much these days...

tears for krybabie

 he was diagnosed less than two months ago with an aggressive variety of cancers, and passed away on wednesday a handful of days after his fortieth birthday, leaving behind a devastated mother, sisters, wife and two small kids as well as a massive hole in his community.

although our mothers have been best friends for ever, the two of us haven't been close for two decades... but as teenagers we were inseparable and the past few days are proving tougher to process than i would have expected. it's absolutely heartbreaking to think of what his family is going through, it's honestly making my head spin.

and speaking of things this brings perspective to, my sister has finally remembered that life's too short to put up with her horrible third husband.

so it's been a dramatic week.

 ...

i've been becoming increasingly frustrated trying to plan our holiday trip in december, and my last two workdays were thoroughly unproductive due to all the crazy stuff going on, so i'm feeling VERY glad and grateful that i made sufficient hours before hump day (which also happened to be invoice day for me). and getting our documents back from the apostille feels like pulling teeth, and there's really nothing we can do about that...

...

on a positive note, swimming season's pretty much here (even if we're contending with egyptian geese for use of the pool), mr smear is obsessed with minecraft (and on an even more educational note, i managed to find rehov sesame videos teaching hebrew letters that he enjoys), and whenever i get a chance to play guitar hero live: omg, it's hardcore. for me. and i'm only trying to play on "regular"... it's great fun! even if i do feel terrible whenever the crowd boos or throws things at me.