Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged weekend
Post Cold Update
Oct 16th
Time for an update. I’m still working on getting over the cold I contracted earlier in the week. It’s been pretty mild except for Wednesday where I had to call in to work on account of being very tired and a little dizzy. It was one of those colds that just went straight to your head. Thankfully the cough situation has been mild, but knowing me, I’ll probably have a lingering cough for a few weeks. It’s how I operate.
Speaking of Wednesday, that was the day the apartment complex maintenance guys decided to actually do some maintenance. On the roof. Above my bedroom. And then when that was done, the punk kid who lives across the hall (but our bedrooms share a wall) apparently discovered techno music which he enjoyed playing ridiculously loud with the bass turned way up. People really need to understand the physics of sound and subwoofers when they move into an apartment…
So needless to say, my day of rest wasn’t so restful. But despite it all, I’m feeling better and want to actually be productive this weekend. I haven’t done much non-class graphic design stuff in a little while, so I want to get back to working on my mom’s website and trying to finish that design this weekend. I also really want to do a theme for this blog/my personal website at some point to make it look less…generic. Maybe I can poke at that a bit this weekend too.
Speaking of school, things are going well there. I can’t believe it’s roughly halfway through the semester right now. Time’s been flying by and I’ve been busy working on my projects. We’re recreating one page articles now from magazines and I found a review of Dream Theater’s latest album in my Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine. It looked fairly simple when I chose it, but it ended up being…complicated. Lots of images and text boxes and lines that I had to spec out and measure. I’m about ready to start working with it on the computer though. Making some good progress and my grades are good as well.
Looking forward to a (hopefully) productive weekend.
More Meetings Than You Can Shake A Stick At
Sep 22nd
This week is turning into an ordeal.
Normally at work I don’t get too pulled into meetings. I can go about my business without wasting too much time. Except this week I have 3 meetings to deal with. One happened today already and tomorrow I have 2 meetings. One a training session on the new thingy I’ve been working on and the second a status update meeting on the same thingy.
What made this even more of an ordeal was the fact that the training session that I thought I was just sitting in on…as it turns out I’m actually doing the presenting for that. Yeah. Fun. Wish somebody would have told me before now about that little hiccup…
So yeah, there’s a gigantic roadblock between me and the weekend which is unfortunate because this weekend I’ll be traveling out to Philadelphia to see Porcupine Tree and King’s X in concert. Been looking forward to that. Well, actually mostly looking forward to getting out of town for a weekend. The concert is just a bonus at this point. The venue kinda sucks so I’m not expecting being able to see anything or for it to have great sound quality. I just want to go and hang out with my friends and have a good time.
Longest. Morning. Ever.
Aug 4th
This morning is one of the longest mornings ever because in an hour I get to leave work. And then 3 hours after that, my friend Wassy and I leave for Albany to catch a show on the Progressive Nation 2009 tour. As I mentioned earlier.
It felt a little weird last night since it didn't really seem like we were going to be going to a concert today, but here we are. I've got my ear plugs ready and the GPS all programmed and I'm ready to go. Just need to get out of work so I can run my errands and get everything all set for the trip out.
Didn't report much on the goings on of this weekend because it was a lot of relaxation. It was double XP weekend in City of Heroes so Wassy and I (Jay's been really tired recently so he excused himself from the festivities) did some CoH-ing. It got me more interested in playing the game so I've been dabbling back in from time to time since. We also did some Rock Band/Guitar Hero which has been a long time in coming. Nothing much interesting to the outside observer I suspect, but some much needed relaxation for me.
I hope to post again tomorrow with a ProgNation update.
Ahhh…3 Day Weekend
May 26th
It's Memorial Day weekend here in the United States which means a 3 day weekend for most working folks. Which includes me.
It was a very laid-back, relaxing type weekend for me. There was a lot of lounging around and playing video games/recharging. I intended to finish Star Ocean 2 on the PSP, but it got annoying, hard, and very un-fun so I put it away for a while and switched to Final Fantasy IV on the DS.
As far as productive activities goes there was a couple of things. I tried to progress a little further on my AI chat bot that I'm programming, but it's being very buggy at the moment and I wasn't making any progress in tracking down the bug. It gets stuck in loops every so often which causes it to say the same couple words over and over and over again). I also came to the conclusion that it's about time for me to get a little more seriously into some areas of graphic design/layout that I've been interested in and have been neglecting. But I'll save that post up for tomorrow…
Lastly, activities. Memorial day was pretty activity driven. I went over to Wassy's Dad's for a cookout type lunch that I was invited to. I ended up spending most of the time that we were there playing with her sister's kids. Blowing bubbles, pushing them on the swing set and down slides, all that stuff. They seemed to latch onto me pretty quickly for some reason, which is a little strange because I always feel a bit uneasy around kids. Seemed to work out pretty well though.
After a little while we left and set up our own memorial day foodstuffs. Grilled burgers and hot dogs, as is the custom.
Yet again, I'm said to see the weekend go…it always seems so short when it's actually happening…
Randomly Walking Through Nature
May 11th
It's been another good weekend for me, and as per usual lately, I forgot to write about it. I'll try to get back into the habit of keeping this up to date again. I started doing it then the move happened and I didn't have time and I never got back into the habit… Ah well, time to start again.
Anyway, the Friday party was a success. Lots of relaxation type stuff happening when it was much needed. Some City of Villains being played, some Rock Band and Guitar Hero. And much unhealthy food and drink was consumed.
Which is why I decided that on Saturday, I'd head back to the gym to try to get a habit going again, especially now that I have my iPod Nano. I had a good workout but I realized that I would probably need to get an armband thingy. The Nano has the headphone jack on the bottom and it makes it hard to set it down on machines while I'm exercising.
After the Gym, most of the day was spent up in the office working on my C# programming. I ended up doing a lot of good work on FrostBot, my AI chatbot project. On sunday I actually got it talking…sort of. It needs some improvements, but it actually works!!
Returning to Saturday though, Guitar Hero: Metallica came in through GameFly…a game that I was waiting to play. Wassy and I played some of that in the evening. It's a very very good game. All the songs I played were fun, the atmosphere is awesome and it even has the orchestra in it! All together, I think I'll be buying it. I'll play it enough to make it worth while.
Oh yes, I also started restocking my 20 gallon fish tank on saturday. I went out fish browsing with the intent to research things out, but the fish store had 2 bleeding heart tetras in stock and I had a school that was severely lacking in members, so I bought them. They integrated well with the existing fish and now I have a little school of 4 tetras swimming around in there. I want to get one other school of stuff before I'm finished.
Sunday, aside from finishing off FrostBot, my friends and I wandered around in search of a good place to walk. We ended up stumbling upon a local town park that has a really cool nature trail that isn't too far away. Win! We'll be going back there for walking frequently through the summer I think. It's a nice walk through the woods and it even runs along a creek for a little ways. The creek has a ton of tires and crap it in it…but it's still a creek!
That's about it for the weekend. Like I said, I'll try to write more frequently if I can. Hopefully I can at least get back to at least a couple posts per day.
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A Very Welcome Weekend
Apr 27th
Last week was pretty darn crappy, so the arrival of the weekend was very welcome. A chance to catch my breath a bit and do a little relaxation (while still getting some work done) was needed.
The fun started on friday when Wassy hinted she was working on a little art related project for me. She had just gotten a set of Copic Sketch Markers and she wanted to try them out on something. So she took one of the sketches she had been working on for an upcoming piece for me (using the markers) and did a ink and marker test run with it. Of course she didn't tell me that right off the bat. Just hinted she was up to something and made me guess what it was. I'm really impressed by how it ended up looking using the markers. I'm looking forward to the full piece and to seeing more copic colored pieces in the future.
It's just really nice to have a crappy week end with a little gift artwork. I really appreciate it because she was extremely busy with her school work and other commissions, so to take that much time out of that stuff and work up something for me means an awful lot to me.
Techy paragraph time: I decided this weekend that I wanted to learn C# and .NET. I never really got around to looking at .NET seriously and C# seems to be in demand these days, so I figured it was time to update myself. If you're into software development it's really necessary to update your skillset every couple of years to keep up with the ever advancing march of technology. So I figure it's time to get on the bandwagon and check it out. Went out to the store and picked up a hefty book and I've been working my way through it pretty quickly. It's a cool language and I'm starting to see why people like using .NET so much.
In less techy news, my friends and I were going to have this braised chicken recipie and I was sent in search of the fresh vegetable type ingredients on friday evening. I had some trouble finding a chili pepper though. I've never had to go buy one, you see, and when I went to the store nothing was labled correctly. I ended up getting two peppers, neither of which ended up being the correct peppers. We had no idea what they were, so naturally, we made Jay try them out. He's got a high tolerance for spicy foods, so we figured this was the best option.
He took one bite out of the first pepper and was fine. Then one out of the second pepper and was fine again. And then…he took a second bite and dove for sink for a glass of water. It seems that this pepper was "really f'ing hot". I thought he was kidding for a second there, but then realized that his eyes were watering…oops. I do feel bad about it, but it was EXTREMELY entertaining. I need to bring more random peppers home sometime…
Overall, a very nice relaxing weekend.
The Precipice
Apr 20th
Two basic things that are being mentioned today.
First off, the wine and chocolate festival that I went to on Saturday was very awesome. There was much sampling of wines, and a few new wineries discovered which is always good. Upstate New York has a thriving wine country which is handy for me since I enjoy a glass on occasion and there's a lot of good stuff being produced right in the area.
We ended up buying a bunch of bottles for future consumption. Lakeland Winery had some really awesome fruity wines. Especially a melon flavored one. And the other big find was Tickle Hill for their Peach Fuzz and Hector Nectar. And a bunch of other things too. I'm doing this from memory and I can't remember them all.
We also sampled the cheese, chocolate and olive oil/hot sauce booths. Found some really awesome champagne cheese which I was tempted to buy, along with some all natural fudge sauce and actual fudge which I REALLY wanted to buy. I managed to hold off because I knew that if I did actually buy it, it'd be gone in about 3 hours. Which would be ungood for me. I did get their card though, so I know where to go if I ever do want some for something.
Sunday was mostly spent relaxing and watching South Park. I made my chicken alfredo for dinner which went over really well. I'm still getting used to the stove so I had the sauce done a lot faster than the pasta, but I'll adjust that one and get it right the next time I do it.
Now for the second thing. We've got some impending staff reductions going on at work today. I hesitate to say this, but I'm not terribly worried for my job considering the big projects that I just started. But you never know with these things. I won't know much of anything until this afternoon and even then there's a company meeting tomorrow morning so it probably won't be totally over until then.
We'll see what happens…
Racing The Rain
Mar 8th
Yesterday was fun. My friends and I, tired of winter, decided to take one of the few nice days to come our way in a long while to head outside and do some walking.
The plan was to head out to the zoo in Syracuse to wander around and look at some animals while we cured our cabin fever. The plan was complicated by the fact it was going to rain sometime in the afternoon so we were in a race against the rain pretty much. Thankfully, it held off until we were done walking around the zoo. There were lots of animals to be seen, and lots of kids too. It was way busier there than we thought it would be, but I guess we weren't the only people to have the idea to get out while the getting out was still good.
The most notable thing at the zoo was the lions. They were right up next to the glass so you could literally stand inches away from one of them and see all the little details. That was very, very neat. The penguins were actually wandering around outside too and even did some swimming around. We also saw a pair of very frisky otters. Well, one of them was frisky. The other seemed totally disinterested. Also, one of the lemurs was moving and they never move. I still think it was a robotic lemur…
After the zoo we went out and did some shopping and then headed to Chili's for dinner. Which was excellent. I've never had ribs but I wanted to try them so I stole one from the plate of one of my friends (well, with permission of course) and mmm…tasty. I think I'll have to have some next time we go out that way.
After the food we went back to their place and hung out for a while. Clerks was on which I hadn't seen in a while. But by the end of the movie I was falling asleep, so I made my way home. All this outdoors stuff really tires you out.
Hopefully real spring doesn't take too long to come. I'm getting very sick of all this winter and snow.
The Weekend. Encapsulated
Mar 2nd
This weekend was pretty low key from the activities standpoint, but very nice and relaxing.
I, as usual, went over to do some hanging out with my friends this weekend. We wanted to get out and about a little bit so we decided to pay a visit over to the local art gallery and browse around for a bit. The last time I was there half the gallery was closed for renovation so it was nice being able to get into the places where I wasn't able to go before.
After that we wandered back to their place for some hanging out activities which were quite fun. We did some City of Heroes again, watched some TV…you know…basic friends hanging out sort of stuff.
Sunday was more of a working day. I got in some work with jQuery on Wassy's website doing some back end, administrative stuff to make the images in the gallery a little easier to manage. I really, really enjoy the way jQuery works. It makes Javascript stuff so easy to do and a lot more understandable for a Javascript newbie such as myself. Looking forward to playing with it more. I also did a little more C++ work and I'm starting to really itch for a simple yet expandable project for me to start poking at. I had the idea for an AIM chat bot type thing but I dunno if I'm nearly as interested in that right now as I was. We'll see what I do…
In any case, it feels good to be back doing more programming for fun.
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Long Weekend Wrapup
Feb 17th
Here in the US, Monday was president's day which means that some people have a 3 day weekend. And this year for some strange reason, I was one of those people. We usually don't get president's day off (at least I can't ever remember us getting it off) so I was a bit surprised when they came up with the holiday list this year.
So my 3 day weekend started by going out to the movies with my friends. We went off to see Coraline in 3D and it was very good. Excellent visual style, engaging story and very nice use of the 3D factor. There were no old people talking like the last couple movies which was a very, very good change of pace. And it was a nice non-thinking type movie after having the brain work overtime while watching Revolutionary Road and The Reader. Highly recommended.
I also received an omelet lesson on how to make them all fluffy and good. So that should help my breakfast for dinner aspirations.
Sunday was a half relaxing half working day where I did my chores and a little bit of C++ programming and then I did some relaxing City of Heroes playing. I also spent a good portion of the day watching episodes of Firefly on DVD. Wassy mentioned Sci-fi had Serenity on the other day which made me want to watch Firefly and Serenity again. Which I did.
Monday was intended to be a programming day but instead of working on C++ stuff like I had intended, I ended up spending a good portion of the day (while watching firefly) moving Wassy's website from one host to another. It took about 2 hours longer than I expected it to take, but it ended up all going smoothly in the end. After that I was pretty much programmed out, so I just relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Hoping I can get through another chapter in my C++ book this week and maybe get started on a small little project with practical applications.
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