After work cleaned up a bit and welcomed Emily’s parents for their visit this weekend. They arrived just as we sat down to a nice quinoa and chickpea dish that Emily made. I swear with her cooking I might even be willing to try vegetarianism. Maybe.
We got caught up and Emily’s parents gave us a belated first anniversary present: a pair of very fancy crystal whiskey glasses. They match the set we had already and now we can have as many as four people drinking whiskey out of fancy glasses. I need to meet some more people who drink whiskey.
After a long week everyone was exhausted so it was time for bed.
After work I made spaghetti with ground turkey sauce for dinner. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
Finally watched Citizen Kane from Netflix. I say “finally” both because I had until tonight lived over 28 years without having seen it, and because it’s been sitting on my mantle for three or so weeks. I think it would be tough after 70 years to come up with anything original or profound to say about this movie, so I’ll just say that I enjoyed it and that it belongs on all of those “Best Movies Ever” lists that constantly place it at or near the top.
Started testing bip out as a replacement for my long-time SSH+screen+irssi always-on IRC solution. I’ve been using XChat with the irssi proxy module since I joined Canonical because with IRC being the primary means of communication with my coworkers I wanted to have desktop notifications to make sure I knew when someone wanted my attention. However irssi’s proxy module doesn’t provide a backlog of messages received while you aren’t connected so I would end up connecting to my screen (actually byobu) session to read the old messages anyway. Now I can just connect with whatever client I wish and I have both my missed messages and fancypants notifications with a single step.
Up early; long walk before work. Really long walk actually, since I got lost in my own neighborhood. Not exactly my proudest moment, but I did eventually find my way home.
After work met up with Greg and Emily at Blue Dust for dinner and a quick beer before heading across the street to see the new Captain America movie. I really enjoyed it. The style they adopted for the scenes in the ’40s (most of the movie) worked really well and helped create a feel that was a mix between old war serials and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (which I’ll admit to enjoying). The post-credits teaser was a bit of a disappointment compared to the other recent Marvel films, as it was just a commercial for the Avengers movie coming out next summer.
After work Emily and I met Oskar at Yo Rita in the South Side for some farewell tacos, as he’s off home to Sweden on Monday. I tried the potato, braised chicken, and calamari tacos. All three were tasty with just the right amount of kick, but the chicken was definitely underwhelming compared to the other two. They went great with an East End Big Hop.
Home to pack for the trip to San Luis Obispo this weekend, and cleaned up my desk. It’s mostly in a usable state, just in time for me not to use it for a few days.
Emily made baked pasta with summer vegetables for dinner. I’m going to nom the hell out of those leftovers. Very tasty.
We took a walk to Rita’s on Forbes for some of their custard and Italian ice. It’s a bit cooler out than it’s been so the walk was mostly pleasant but the frozen treats really hit the spot.
When we got home I decided that I don’t have enough challenges at work so I’ve upgraded my work laptop to the development version of Ubuntu, which isn’t due to be released in October. The upgrade went well, and there’s lots of nice new bling in this version. Most of it even works! It’s nice to be keeping up with Ubuntu development again (my work is mostly with released versions).
Flew to Boston for a developer sprint in the Canonical office. Flew to Boston in a tiny plane, then rode to the hotel in a swanky limo.
The sprint starts tomorrow, so I had some time to kill. I walked all over the neighborhood around my hotel looking for a decent restaurant or a book store. I found neither, and came back covered in sweat for my trouble. On the bright side, I felt justified in ordering a pizza from the brochure in my room. Turned out to be a good decision. Tasty pizza.
For lunch I poured the leftover turkey/spaghetti sauce from last night over some also-leftover rice form last week. Surprisingly tasty. I should start a bizarre-leftover-combination food blog.
Emily made chicken with pierogi and peas for dinner. Yum.
Went for another walk after dinner. This time with Emily. Walked in the other direction just to mix things up.
Played around a bit with Google+. I like the user interface. It’s really well thought-out. it doesn’t get in the way as much as I remember Facebook doing. The interface actually reminds me quite a bit of Diaspora*, which makes me sad in a way because now it’s even less likely to take off. Still, the ideal outcome for me is for Google+ to become king of the hill, then start supporting OStatus, so I can leave it and communicate with everyone from my StatusNet account.
Made spaghetti with ground turkey and Newman’s Own Sockarooni sauce for dinner. Delicious, if I do say so myself.
Worked a little on a hobby project. One of the things I like least about application programming is how you don’t have much to show off before you write the UI. And I don’t like writing UIs.
Finished off the evening with some Mass Effect. Only a couple of missions left. Then I don’t know what I’ll do with myself.
Spent much of the day dealing with some new-job-related administrivia I’d been putting off. Health insurance, 401k, etc. Finally got it straightened out.
Also submitted feedback on the training materials. Impressed by how quickly my comments were addressed.
Spent the rest of the day attempting to reproduce a certain software configuration from a previous project. The mechanics are easy. The more challenging aspect is coming up with useful and interesting test cases.
Walked to Giant Eagle after work to get some exercise and some groceries. This could be a good habit to get into.
