quick note for today

[kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker)]

Last night, I got home around 18:45; consulted with Marilyn about
household chores, and then did laundry, vacuumed the bathroom, the
living room, and the basement, and watered the plants.

I finished around 20:20 and went right to bed and right to sleep.  I
woke up about half an hour later and couldn't get back to sleep until
midnight.

I set my watch alarm for 04:00 this morning, but it failed to wake me.
I woke at 04:30 or so, took a shower, got dressed (waking Marilyn
briefly), and drove to work around 05:07.  I stopped at a Waffle House
for a (very greasy -- but what did I expect?) sausage, ham, and cheese
omelet, some toast, and some grits.  I ate all of everything; I was
most grateful for the grits, which seemed to buffer the grease of the
omelet enough to keep me from vomiting.

I enjoyed watching the Waffle House cook do his work; he was as deft as
a gymnast as he simultaneously cooked several omelets, toast, and egg
dishes, quickly switched tasks to scrubbing the floor with great vigor,
and quickly switched back to cooking when more orders came in.

Once I got to work, I discovered that I had left a door unlocked the
previous night -- very bad news, as it's a violation of security
policy.  (To be exact, only one of the two combination locks on the
door was locked; the other one had been left open.  No classified
material was out of the safe, fortunately, and the safe was locked, so
there was no possibility of compromise.  Things were just protected
with two locks instead of the usual three.)  I locked it (at 05:54) and
finished my PowerPoint slides I'd left unfinished the night before.

Then I went back to the locked area, unlocked the door, and completed
some testing I wanted to get done before my presentation at 09:00.

Doug came in at 08:51; I showed him the slides.  He thought they were OK.

The presentation, subsequent demo, and subsequent meeting lasted from
09:00, when I showed up with the xeroxed slides, until 10:30 or so.
Doug told me later he thought the presentation was very professional,
and the folks I was presenting to seemed pleased with my work on the
NITF conversion program.

My whiteboard is proving useful as a tool for keeping track of what
needs doing.  I should get one for home too.

I haven't read Usenet much in the last few days (surprise, surprise).
I have got an inquiry from a guy who says he wants me for a mentor to
learn how to be a hacker.  I agreed, directed him to ESR's
Hacker-HOWTO, and suggested he read SICP and Knuth.

I read the Kernel-Hacker-HOWTO yesterday (some of it as I was driving
home, but mostly as I was folding laundry at home).  Seems like a
useful set of tips.  I wonder if I'll write any kernel code.

Brought in some Blenheim ginger ale and gave some to Tammie and Doug;
Doug hasn't opened his bottle yet, while Tammie gave up on drinking her
shot.

Talked to Brad a bit, which was nice.  Caught up on reading email; on
FSB, many interesting discussions of patent-poison-pill licenses and
patent pooling to prevent patent-induced free-software doomsday.

Oh, and Jesux turns out to be a hoax.  Pretty cool idea, nevertheless.

Printed out some extensive documentation on some image analysis
algorithms we're going to be working on integrating into COSMEC
(documentation I didn't know I had!) and gave some to Jim Lange.

I had lunch at Asia Palace -- delicious pho'' bo` ta'i and cha' gio'.
(If I were using VISCII or Unicode, I might be able to spell those
right :).  I came back quite stuffed and drank a bottle of Blenheim's
Ginger Ale, a nonalcoholic beverage that is nevertheless stronger than
anything you really want to consume casually.

Going to go see Donna today to discuss life further.  Still haven't
made that psychiatrist appointment.