Week in Review and Quarterly Update
This was an insanely busy week, partly because of all the stuff I'm trying to get done at work before taking a few days off. On the plus side, I finally figured out how to approach a task I've been floundering on for weeks. It was interesting because I had this insight while I was asking somebody else for information that I thought cold be helpful. Nothing he said was actually relevant, but the process of talking it out led me to an "aha!" moment.
While I'm on the subject of work, I learned something cool this week. See, a lot of pure metals form crystalline structures that grow into "whiskers" that can then short out electronics. Tin is the most notorious (and has been a big problem in space systems, having caused the failures of a few commercial spacecraft). But the same thing can happen with several other metals - silver, cadmium, and zinc to name a few. I read an article this week about computer failures caused by zinc whiskers. It turned out that the raised floors in computer rooms were responsible, as the floor tiles had pure zinc coatings on their undersides.
I actually made it to a game night on Monday night. That's too rare an occurrence. I had a good time playing Pandemic (which we actually won - an even rarer occurrence), Guillotine, and Chrononauts. The latter was probably my favorite of the night.
Tuesday was a day for catching up on sleep. It was also farmer's market day. My bounty provided a nice meal in the form of a green salads with balsamic vinaigrette, fried zucchini, a frittata filled with onions, fennel and mushrooms with a bit of shaved parmesan cheese, and black raspberries for dessert.
Wednesday night was Bollywood dance. It was a disappointing class because there was a substitute teacher whose choreography I don't like as much. I was somewhat tired to start with and didn't think I got a great workout.
Thursday night I did household stuff. That included buying some theatre tickets (the Signature subscription, a 6-show pass for the Fringe Festival because I looked at my calendar and gacked, and the Shakespeare in Klingon).
On Friday, I needed to kill some time between work and meeting up with the Flyertalk crowd for drinks, so I went to see Toy Story 3. It was very good, though the 3D was not essential enough to really justify the extra four bucks for it.
As for the weekend, I did a Volksmarch in Towson, Maryland yesterday morning. The walk description had suggested that part of the route was actually on the grounds of the Hampton Historic Site, but the actual walk just skirted the site. It was pretty much all through an upscale - and very hilly - suburban neighborhood. It was a nice enough walk, but the hills were a real killer given the heat and humidity. Still, it counted for the cemetery special program (which was the reason for doing it) and now I've finished that!
Today was far lazier, with errands and the Sunday paper. I still have a bunch of stuff to do in the next day and a half, but it feels reasonably under control.
As for progress on my 2010 goals:
1) As noted above, I finished the Volksmarch cemetery program
2) I'm about 20 pages into The Apocrypha
3) I've been doing a good job of keeping on track with respect to dance classes
4) I have only one more major league ballpark to go to a game at (Minneapolis) and have tickets for that in August
5) The briefcase I had been using had a catastrophic strap failure on the way to work one morning. So I've been experimenting. I'm using a conference briefcase right now. I like the design (and the European Space Agency logo) but it's a little too small, so it won't be a good long term solution.
6) I've either barely started or done nothing about my other goals so far. But the year is not quite halfway over, so plenty of time, plenty of time.
While I'm on the subject of work, I learned something cool this week. See, a lot of pure metals form crystalline structures that grow into "whiskers" that can then short out electronics. Tin is the most notorious (and has been a big problem in space systems, having caused the failures of a few commercial spacecraft). But the same thing can happen with several other metals - silver, cadmium, and zinc to name a few. I read an article this week about computer failures caused by zinc whiskers. It turned out that the raised floors in computer rooms were responsible, as the floor tiles had pure zinc coatings on their undersides.
I actually made it to a game night on Monday night. That's too rare an occurrence. I had a good time playing Pandemic (which we actually won - an even rarer occurrence), Guillotine, and Chrononauts. The latter was probably my favorite of the night.
Tuesday was a day for catching up on sleep. It was also farmer's market day. My bounty provided a nice meal in the form of a green salads with balsamic vinaigrette, fried zucchini, a frittata filled with onions, fennel and mushrooms with a bit of shaved parmesan cheese, and black raspberries for dessert.
Wednesday night was Bollywood dance. It was a disappointing class because there was a substitute teacher whose choreography I don't like as much. I was somewhat tired to start with and didn't think I got a great workout.
Thursday night I did household stuff. That included buying some theatre tickets (the Signature subscription, a 6-show pass for the Fringe Festival because I looked at my calendar and gacked, and the Shakespeare in Klingon).
On Friday, I needed to kill some time between work and meeting up with the Flyertalk crowd for drinks, so I went to see Toy Story 3. It was very good, though the 3D was not essential enough to really justify the extra four bucks for it.
As for the weekend, I did a Volksmarch in Towson, Maryland yesterday morning. The walk description had suggested that part of the route was actually on the grounds of the Hampton Historic Site, but the actual walk just skirted the site. It was pretty much all through an upscale - and very hilly - suburban neighborhood. It was a nice enough walk, but the hills were a real killer given the heat and humidity. Still, it counted for the cemetery special program (which was the reason for doing it) and now I've finished that!
Today was far lazier, with errands and the Sunday paper. I still have a bunch of stuff to do in the next day and a half, but it feels reasonably under control.
As for progress on my 2010 goals:
1) As noted above, I finished the Volksmarch cemetery program
2) I'm about 20 pages into The Apocrypha
3) I've been doing a good job of keeping on track with respect to dance classes
4) I have only one more major league ballpark to go to a game at (Minneapolis) and have tickets for that in August
5) The briefcase I had been using had a catastrophic strap failure on the way to work one morning. So I've been experimenting. I'm using a conference briefcase right now. I like the design (and the European Space Agency logo) but it's a little too small, so it won't be a good long term solution.
6) I've either barely started or done nothing about my other goals so far. But the year is not quite halfway over, so plenty of time, plenty of time.