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Air conditioning and notepaper triage
Like most programmers, I generate a fair amount of paper. For any really complex program I like to have a printed copy before making changes. That way I can refer to What Has Gone Before while I'm in the process of making What Will Come Next. Of course, two days later, What Came Next will magically become What Has Gone Before, and a fresh printout will be required.
Since I'm marginally ecoconscious I reuse this paper by flipping it over, stapling it together into pads, and using it to take notes while I work at the computer. I jot down little reminders to myself while I work. It takes me several days to fill a page with these little notes, and I try not to have more than one page "in use" at a time - the idea is to reduce paper clutter. This means that sometimes when I need a fresh sheet I have to copy the items that haven't served their purpose yet onto the new page - sort of like carrying forward a balance onto the next page of the ledger.
Right now, my page of notes has three sketches of potential ways to install an air conditioner in a window (side view); a comment "Nibelung frame swap" which is another change I have to make to the Nibelung code (my sheet where I keep the list of CGI work to be done is at work); cheat codes for Half-Life (got an add-on with new levels yesterday, I'm stuck, and I had to go look up the codes on the web); cheat codes for Midtown Madness (not stuck there, but I need the codes to be able to drive the semi); a note about a page error over at Sleepwalker (which I've corrected); several URLs I keep checking in hopes they'll put up Descent 3 cheat codes (really stuck bad in that one); and a whole slew of notes about things I need to comment on in journal entries.
The last of those is really the point, but I took the long way around getting to it.
Some weeks I run low on things to say here, and some weeks they pile up. Right now they're piling up. (Probably because I've been playing all those computer games, right? I plead the fifth.) Here's what I've got:
Marc - dentist
gay men/Patsy Cline
Women's World Cup/McNamara
Cane Man appears
"Illustrators" vs artists
Dogg's Hamlet & fear of erudition
history, museums, shopping
when to hug
ETrade ad/Newsweek story
Polaroid ATM ad
air conditioning wild goose chase
Sigh. I'll never catch up, especially not if I prattle like this. I suffer from Shmuel Syndrome: I get an idea of what I'm going to say, sit down at the keyboard, and somehow end up writing something else entirely.
Well, I can at least get the last one done. Today it was ninety-nine degrees. Nonelvis, you understand, is a strictly climate-controlled creature. She has a comfort band of maybe five degrees. I just take heat stoically; I don't say I like it, but it's there and I can usually manage to come to terms with it. Not Nonelvis.
So today we ventured out into the heat to try to find a second window unit, so that we can cool more of the house than just one room. We were prepared. We considered which kinds of air conditioner could be mounted without making any permanent additions to the outside walls (hence the sketches). We measured the rooms and used the little chart in the June Consumer Reports and we figured out how many BTUs we'd need and what their recommendations were for that level. We did our homework, honey. Smart shoppers, that's us.
Ha! And again ha!
We went to four different places (or maybe it was five - I lost count once I started to hallucinate from heatstroke). There is not a single air conditioner to be had in the greater Boston area. There may not be one this side of Worcester. We did end up at a Sears where there were three units on display and a line of people to compete for them. That's right. A line, stretching across the appliance department, ready to fight to the death to capture an air conditioner if need be. We came up the escalator, walked around, and proceeded right back down again.
If it hadn't been for the sale we encountered by happenstance at Victoria's Secret, and the Coca-Cola Slurpees we scavenged on the way home, the trip would have been a total waste of an afternoon.
There. That's one topic I can cross off. See? If it takes me this long to talk about that one item, what hope do I have of ever catching up?
On the other hand, if I just said, "We went to find an air conditioner today. There weren't any," that'd miss all the fun.
I am obviously going to have to do some triage on this list. Let's see. Cane Man (another of the odd vagrants who wanders around our neighborhood) seems to have vanished. He had a head the same shape as Mr. Magoo's, but with W.C. Fields' nose - bulbous, with all the blood vessels broken from drinking too much. He had arms like Popeye's - musculature that looked misshapen, tattoos. He wore what looked like a set of blue hospital scrubs. And he had a steel cane, the kind which definitely is more orthopedic than dapper. And that's all I know about Cane Man.
As for Marc and his poor teeth ... well ... he tells it better than I do. (Pardon the silly titles; they're mine, not his.)
Dental Foreshadowing
Dental Rubicon
Dental Retrospection
Marc isn't as clueless as the second entry suggests; his dentist, for reasons we are unable to fathom, didn't see fit to warn him that a recovery period might be involved. On the other hand, Marc also didn't seem especially incapacitated; he was feeling good enough to go have snacks with me immediately afterward, and might even have been able to teach his class that night. On the third hand, he did take a Percoset while we were in the cafe, and since Marc, like me, takes no painkillers unless the need is dire, it's possible that he wasn't feeling as hale as he looked at the time. (After he reads all this on Tuesday morning, he will promptly write me with the True Facts ... so this speculation is even more pointless than usual, which is saying something.)
I'm also not going to say anything about gay men and Patsy Cline. (Sorry, Iain.) This grew out of a conversation I had with Marc right after his Dental Experience, when we were sitting in the cafe and he was trying to eat soup using only one side of his face without making any sucking motions. I wondered why all gay men liked Patsy Cline (Marc was singing along with the music in the cafe). However, later conversations with Patrick and others indicate that this may be an oversimplification. Clearly, more data is needed.
There. That takes care of the easy ones. After I stop to get a cool beverage, I shall work on some of the more recalcitrant ideas. Perforce. Forsooth. Zounds.
© Columbine
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