November 6, 2007: Planning for the UK

I updated SGL’s WordPress engine to 2.3.1 today. We now have tagging support even though the theme that I am using does not support tags yet. But eventually they will appear for you and it will be very exciting. Trust me.

It was a perfect morning today. Cold and rainy. I had a sesame seed bagel from Airlie and I walked outside in the rain in my black trench coat and Callaway baseball cap. It wasn’t a heavy rain but just enough to bring out the grim, urban look that I like so much. Walking down Commerce with the autumn leaves strewn about in dirty puddles and the half-barren trees shielding only the slightly bit of rain – this is how I love the city.

Work was work. Nothing special. Dominica had a crappy day – finding out that when she was hired they had lied to her about where she was going to be working. They had hired her to work at the same location that she had been working at for the last several months but they claimed that they needed her to temporarily work further away from home. She put up with it because it was only temporary but today she found out that that was not the case and that there were no plans to move her back to the site that she had been hired for. That is in addition to the lack of mobility within the company for female employees.

Ah the perils of working for big businesses.

I ended up working a long day and was quite tired by the time that I headed for home.  Dominica didn’t feel like going out tonight so we ordered in some Italian from Nino’s.  We watched some Buck Rogers in the Twenty Fifth Century and pretty much just went to bed.  It was a quiet night.

I looked at my Java class and it would appear that there is no more homework being assigned and I am pretty sure that my final exam is going to be made available this weekend on Saturday which would be awesome because it would mean that I will have plenty of time to complete it and even relax for a couple of days before flying off to Europe next weekend.

Dominica put in a ton of work getting hotel reservations today.  We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Belfast.  We have a room for London at the Sleep Inn for our main big of time there.  And a night at the Comfort Inn at Heathrow for our last night before flying home.  For our opening weekend in the country we had hoped to be able to stay out in the Cotswolds but we were unable to find a place to stay there so our current plan is to stay in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire which is, unfortunately, a major tourist destination getting three million tourists a year but that is also why we were able to find a hotel.

Now if the dollar can just make a bit of a comeback we might be able to afford the trip…

November 5, 2007: New Life for Commerce Street

Time to get back to work. I really enjoyed my relaxing day yesterday. There is some sight chance that I have no more homework for my Java class at RIT. I am pretty sure that there will be one more assignment but the last one was due on Saturday and we had all of Sunday off – a first for this class – and nothing has yet been assigned this morning. And my previous assignment is not graded and reviewed yet so I am wondering if there is enough time for another project before the semester wraps up at the end of next week.

Scott, Linnea and Ryan playing Chu Chu Rocket

Oreo was ready for daycare this morning. On most days he gets up, eats his breakfast and then crawls back into bed to wait for Dominica to prod him into getting up and moving for the day. But today after breakfast he laid in our “bedroom hallway” and watched us – waiting for someone to take him to daycare so that he can run with his pack.

It was a busy day at the office today. They kept me hopping all day long. I barely had time to eat my lunch which I didn’t manage to get until quite late. Fortunately my workload dropped off almost completely at the end of the day so I was able to make a getaway quite easily.

Dominica and I both commented today on what a difference the Prudential Center (aka “The Pru”) has made in our area of Newark already. Because of the enormous crowds that seem to be descending on downtown Newark every night areas like Mulberry, Clinton, Market and Commerce are full of people all through the night when just a few weeks ago they were deserted after six or seven in the evening. Suddenly what were dark and lonely streets are now lively and populated. Where there was little police presence there is now constant surveillance.

The impact of “The Pru” has made our whole area completely safe. Dominica could now walk Oreo in the middle of the night with complete confidence. At no time are you ever out of sight of an on duty police officer. The parking lots are all manned late into the night with staff and security. Restaurants are staying open later, lights are on more – this place is “happening.”

We were both in the mood to go out tonight so we walked over to Scully’s Publick House for dinner. We have discovered over the past several weeks that the “just getting going” feeling over at Scully’s isn’t changing. At first we were pretty forgiving about the place (other than the disgusting fish fry) based on the fact that they were new and hadn’t “gotten it together” yet. Much of the staff was still in training and had never worked in a restaurant before. But this restaurant is owned by another just a few blocks away so there is very little excuse for not having the overall operations in place. But they are still out of almost everything that you order and the temporary, almost bare, dessert menu has gone from being a sad apology to business as usual. Overall the food is only so-so and there are better pubs just a few minutes farther away. We’ve decided that Scully’s is basing their business on the “one timers” coming in from New York City to see a Devil’s game and that they aren’t looking to impress people enough to make Scully’s a “destination” in Newark. So, for us, it won’t be. It isn’t awful and going there with “the gang” is fine but going there for the food is a waste and a disappointment.

I did some SGL work tonight and managed to recreate almost all of the SGL Podcasts since having moved over from Podomatic about a year ago. There were some shows in the high twenties that had gone amiss. But they are all there now. And number four was categorized incorrectly so it was nearly impossible to find. There are still a couple of early shows missing. Three through five, I believe, that have pages but no audio. At least one of those is truly missing but I believe that I may have files for the other two. Maybe I can get to that later this week.

Dominica and I watched an episode of Buck Rogers in the Twenty Fifth Century and were off to bed.

SGL Podcast Playlist

This is the complete playlist of music from the SGL Podcast. All in one place so that you can track down your favourite tunes.

Episode 56

Episode 54

Episode 53

Episode 52

Episode 51

Episode 50

Episode 49

Episode 48

Episode 47

Episode 46

Episode 45

Episode 44

Episode 43

Episode 42

  • Whitney Steele – Crazy
  • Alice Maria – Bring the Guitar
  • KidMusic – Love After Love

Episode 41

Episode 40

Episode 39

Episode 38

Episode 37

Episode 36

  • Option 42 – Raindrop Rhapsody
  • Lynn Julian – Ham for the Holidays

Episode 35

Episode 34

Episode 33

Episode 32

Episode 31

Episode 30

Episode 29

  • SkyKarR

Episode 28

Episode 27

Episode 26

Episode 25

Episode 24

  • Sub-Level 2

Episode 23

Episode 22

Episode 21

Episode 20

November 4, 2007: Murder on the Mississippi

Happy 32nd Birthday to Francesca Grice!

Francesca Bowling at 1180

Because my homework was due last night instead of today like normal and since my next homework assignment has not yet been assigned I actually have something similar to a day off. It isn’t quite a day off since there is still a lot to be done like being the on call and being online with the office all day and doing house cleaning and stuff. But it is the closest thing to time off that I have gotten in a month or two so I am very happy.

Oreo was the first one up this morning – undaunted by the time change last night he poked his head from beneath the covers and say the rays of sunlight streaming past the bedroom window. He was up like a flash to head to the living room to investigate the sunspot situation. After about fifteen minutes he came back and looked at me from the open doorway and then ran back to the living room. When I didn’t follow he came again to make it clear that he needed my assistance. So I pulled myself out of bed and headed out to see what was the matter. It turned out that his pillow was in a shadow and he wanted it moved into the sun for him. Simple pleasures.

Dominica slept in for another hour or two but was awake long before I had expected her to be. She cooked breakfast and then got started on her homework. My project for the day is to finally start playing the classic adventure game “Murder on the Mississippi” for the Commodore 64 from 1986. I have been wanting to play this game since I first read about it in Commodore Magazine when it first released. I never had a Commodore 64 or 128 to play the game on, though, so that was never a possibility.

“Mississippi” is a graphical adventure game somewhat along the lines of King’s Quest, Deja Vu or Five Days a Stranger. A very early game in the genre and one of the very first to make use of an interface that did not require any typing.  Today this game is insanely dated – it is actually hard to imagine that people used to play games like this.  But at the time this was a really amazing game that was very exciting for the Commodore 64.

Not having anything in particular to do today was a genuinely strange situation for me today.  I was at a real loss to figure out what I should be working on today!

I am definitely getting off to bed early tonight so that I am nice and rested for the week.  This will be one nice change!

November 3, 2007: DST Part 2

Last night Dominica and I went out to the pub with Kevin and Pam (who just happened to randomly be in the SGL pic of the day yesterday) for dinner. That pretty much summed up our evening. Dinner and then home and off to bed. This is a busy weekend so we need our rest.

Scott Alan Miller with a Coors before Chu Chu Rocket

Today is a “primary on call” day for me which means that I pretty much am logged in at work all day long. It is also my due day for my Java homework this week so I have to work on that and get it in by midnight.

For breakfast Dominica and I walked over to the Airlie Cafe on Commerce, right across the street, and got sandwiches and some food for later. We got coffee and ate there while I watched my BlackBerry. It is handy that it is so close – just a hundred feet from my front door so I can eat there and relax and run back in case I am needed. We ran into several people from Eleven80 while we were at Airlie. It is a popular spot as nothing else is open until ten and only Food for Life at that point.

My afternoon and evening really came down to nothing but Java homework and a little work for the office. As the primary on call person I have some assigned duties in addition to keeping a watchful eye on the environment.

Min and I played with our new iPods a bit today. So far we are really liking them. The automatic organization provided by iTunes does make them a lot more usable in a lot of situations even if the iTunes software itself is a horrible pain to use. And luckily since we do everything in MP3s and not in Apple’s own file formats we have complete flexibility and can move songs around easily. I have loaded up my iPod with all of the music that I have purchased from Amazon’s MP3 service as well as all of the music from the SGL Podcast. I have to say, the more that I hear from the SGL music the more I like it. A lot of my favourite music is in that collection.

I wrapped up at a decent time and am really happy with how my homework project turned out. I had to build a complete Notepad replacement in one day which isn’t too bad but is a bit of work since I am not a full time programmer. I wrapped it up and took Oreo and we turned in for the night. Dominica stayed up watching Veronica Mars for hours after we went to bed.

Don’t forget that Daylight Savings Time ends tonight.