At my conference breakfast this morning, I saw someone wearing a company-branded shirt. Between the viewing angle and the way it bunched around his shoulder, though, it looked like he worked for "Gloomberg." #SREcon26

Woke up around 3am and gave up trying to sleep more. Got to the airport, bag drop, and security by 4:30. Hiked to the gate at the end of the terminal (literally: A4). Caught up of my magazine backlog. But….

Some venison on the hoof this morning in my backyard.

Another year, another repost: Roses are red, Gender is performative. Mass market romance Is heteronormative.

I have successfully adulted: I slept in until 7am (late for me), filled up the car's gas tank (yes, with gasoline), ran into Costco to get some stuff to replenish the pantry, and brought the emptied garbage and recycling cans back into the garage. I am now done adulting for the day.

Posted without context: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjNc....

The First 4 Words (Or if you're gonna be pedantic and say "4" is a number and not a word, then "The First Words You.")

Well, that was annoying: I went to the dentist to get my permanent crown. We got about 90% of the way through the procedure... and then they realized they needed to remake the damned thing due to a defect. They're closed for the holidays, so I'm stuck with the temporary crown for another two weeks.

(1/3) Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon I drove 100 miles ish out to my father's widow's place to pick up "a box of stuff" that was really four smaller boxes, and the stuff was mostly but not entirely photos. Instead of heading home I went via Lansing to have a late dinner with a friend.

Something is definitely off: Saturday afternoon, nap. Saturday night, ~11 hours of sleep (and in socks because I was shivering without 'em). Sunday morning, another nap. Now? I'm tempted to nap again.

"I: You out of luck today: banks closed. C: Oh? Why? I: Columbus Day. C: Uh, we going out on that joke? I: No, we do reprise of song. That help. C: But not much. I (overlapping): Not much, no." — Stan Freberg

Productive morning: By 7:30am I'd showered, started a load of laundry, had maple bacon for breakfast, and did the dishes. When I went to pull the clothes out of the dryer, its light didn't stayed dark and my generator started (for about three minutes). Thanks for the outage, @dteenergy.bsky.social

The bruising is finally visible about 72 hours after my fall. It doesn't hurt (and hasn't since about 12–16 hours after). but it sure looks pretty nasty.

My trip is starting out in regular Amtrak fashion: my train is 4 minutes late out of Troy, 12 out of Royal Oak, and 17 out of Detroit. It’s currently at Dearborn and we’re the stop after that.

In other news, my annual dryer vent cleaning is scheduled for next week. They offer our community a 40% discount off their regular (fair) pricing so it's pretty much a no-brainer. I made two phone calls today. I'm done adulting.

Yesterday one of the tension cables for my garage door failed. I moved the car to the driveway and carefully closed the (no longer level) door. Today I called the folks who replaced the springs ~15 years ago. They can come out tomorrow morning to replace the failed cable (and possibly its sibling).

Happy workiversary to me: Seventeen years ago today I started working at my current employer. In my tenure I've had five presidents (including interim appointments), six deans (including interim appointments), and five different supervisors. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Generally successful CLAW, both of my classes went well (though with very light attendance at both), didn't spend too much at the market, and haven't had too much food (yet; dinner's still on the horizon).

One time password Two factor authentication Three times a lady Four score and seven years ago Five golden rings Six flags tickets Seven Nation Army Eight. Miles. High. Nine Inch Nails

I didn’t know the conference venue was Baptist.

As the sun rises over the Bay Area, it's time to get dressed and head down to breakfast at day two of #SREcon. (And I'll be giving my conference talk in about five and a half hours, too.)

Want to get a better understanding of writing and testing disaster recovery plans? I'm talking about that in "Running DRP Tabletop Exercises" on Wed Mar 26 at SREcon25 Americas in Santa Clara! www.usenix.org/conference/s... will have slides and video after the fact.

(1/2) Roses are red, Violets are blue, That's what they say, But it just isn't true. Roses are red, And apples are, too. But violets are violet. Violets aren't blue. An orange is orange, But Greenland's not green. A pinky's not pink, So what does it mean?

Roses are red, Gender is performative. Mass market romance Is heteronormative.

Finished the leftovers from Hanukkah for breakfast so dinner tonight is going to be cioppino. The mise en place is almost done and I don't need to start cooking for another two hours.

Last night was dinner with the family: Shrimp cocktail with homemade cocktail sauce, honey baked ham with a mustard dipping sauce, crispy parmesan potatoes, fruit-stuffed acorn squash, baked apples, and a strawberry trifle. (I have leftovers of everything except the shrimp and squash.)

A friend was kind enough to take me out to dinner tonight. We each had miso soup and salad, then we split a sushi deluxe and four rolls (California, spicy salmon, spicy tuna, and one with baby shrimp, crab, avocado, and eel, with spicy tuna on top).

I got some work done that I wanted to do yesterday but couldn't, then clocked out for breakfast (two scrambled eggs and four strips of maple-cured bacon). In an hour I have to head up to campus for the Winter Innovation Expo where (among other things) I'm presenting a poster.

Mom's butcher had a sale on maple-cured bacon so she picked me up a pound. I baked some of it off this morning for breakfast alongside a couple of microwave-scrambled eggs with cheddar and mozzarella. My brother was right; that bacon is addictive.

Welcome to my new followers, many of whom have known me (and vice versa) for longer than I want to think about.

I spent much of today deep cleaning the house: Bathrooms (hall and master), dining room, kitchen, laundry, library, living room, and master bedroom all got dusted, vacuumed, and sanitized as appropriate. Did a load of laundry. Remade the bed with clean sheets.

This morning at 3:30am, the bedroom smoke detector tripped (not the low-battery chirp but the full on alert triggering all the other wired-in detectors to go off). It’s not that old — I bought and installed them all in September 2023, so just over a year — and it’s only the one detector tripping.

I just watched a video where the speaker thought "Nostradamus" was "Nosferatu."

This afternoon they tore out my front walkway, the bottom of my driveway, and some sidewalk. And the city has yet to pour concrete for the street repair.

Got the call: My driveway repair could start as early as tomorrow, so I've moved my car out to the neighbor's driveway (with permission) for probably a week. I wish it weren't raining though.

"On the twenty-first day of the month of September, in an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence." HAPPY LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS DAY!

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #373,612! First 4%!

I intentionally let the bananas over-ripen so I could make banana bread.

Happy blogiversary to me. 22 years ago today I created my LJ account... and despite having moved long-form blogging off to Dreamwidth, I kept my permanent account there.

My quarterly event was smaller and more chill than expected but still fun. I have no leftovers from the stuff folks brought, just enough fried chicken for two more dinners. Most folks left by 6:30pm, and the house is mostly reset to normal (I need to re-swiffer but that can wait until tomorrow).

Guess who has two thumbs and remembered to put "lunch meat and cheese" on his grocery pickup order yesterday, but not realize until this morning that he forgot to put "bread" there too?

Holy crap: My Bacon number for Kamala Harris dropped to two yesterday, when my best friend from childhood met her at her Detroit rally.

Apropos of some content on my feed lately: Name: Stop Height: Giving Sexuality: Away Sign: Your Piercings: Personal Tattoos: Information Favorite color: To Drink: Marketing Food: Companies Animal: Already

A tender reveal party where you finally get to see the boat to carry you between the island and the cruise ship.

A friend posted this on The Other Place. I don't know if it's original to him.

This morning I mailed in my state primary ballot, had blood drawn to see whether the new meds are helping, and filled up the car's gas tank. It's not everything I need to accomplish but it's only 8am.

Bah. Comcast outage took out both TV and internet.They texted it was fixed; it’s not.

Following a successful Voices of the Staff Annual Meeting (which we've been planning for the past 8? months), I decided to treat myself to Meat On Swords for dinner, and now I'm stuffed and likely to just go to bed.

Today I'm going to be a little more disconnected than I planned: I expected not to be at a keyboard for most of it, doing tech setup for tomorrow's Really Big Shoe, but it seems I left my phone at home instead of bringing it with me. Oops.

Awake early. House prepped for vacation. Packed (except for the laptop). Now to kill an hour and change before heading to the train station....