One more Espresso shot

Three years. Three years and the vendor cannot fix two typos in a key piece of automation. But they can add "My favorites." However, my favorite groups is not actually my favorites, not actually user adjustable, just another setting that wastes time for my team. See, because My Favorites can only be set and updated by a system admin.

Argh. Also, why after two demonstrations does a team need to see a third demonstration? Did they fail to take notes? No, I will not be writing your team's documentation for you.

In other news, brewing goes exceeding well. The Pumpkin Ale took the place of the Scottish Ale in the secondary. The Scottish Ale was bottled. I took a reading and it appears the Scottish Ale is a bit light on the alcohol content, but it smelled fantastic. Three weeks before I get to try it.

The mead continues to sit in the secondary and be tempting. I had some of the Nut Brown Ale yesterday. I brought one bottle with me, so I will try it later this week. I also found three bottles of Grand Cru hiding, so I am very excited to have some more of that.

At least it is not snowing here, but I would rather be home.

Mixed City/Freeway driving: 29.8mpg
95% Freeway: 34mpg

The furnace works and it no longer sounds like it is going to launch through the house.
It apparently needed a new exhaust blower.

But I did test the anti-lock brakes of the rental 2008 Dodge Charger. They work very well. I was traveling East on 27/18 at a leisurely 70 mph and I saw the signs to watch for cross-traffic. I was watching for cross-traffic. I saw the fuel truck slowing down in front of me and turned off the cruise control and braked lightly. Then I realized the truck was stopping to make a left into the service station. I don't fucking care how fast the Charger goes 0 to 60. What I care about is that it goes from 60 to 0 very fast without skidding or losing control.

Dodge/Chrysler cannot build a decent commuter car, but let them build a heavy, powerful, cruising car, and they do a pretty good job. A couple weeks ago it was a rental 2008 Volvo S40. This is the one that Ford is building on the same frame as the Ford Focus? and Mazda 6. It looks like the other "S" models, but compared to a friends slightly older S60, the S40 is crap. Lots of road noise and nothing very impressive. The dash is not presented well, and the combo heat/AC/fan/stereo controls are on a fake-wood front panel that has wasted space behind it. Also, when you put on the defroster (windshield), it kicks the fan to full. And you cannot put heat on both the floor and the defrost Crazy.

The Charger does not get great mileage. 21 mph City, 28 mph Highway. But it has low road noise, and very smooth to drive. And as I mentioned, good brakes. It has a comfortable cockpit and mostly easy to access controls. Except the wiper blade controls are on the left side of the steering wheel instead of the right.

Compare either of those to the Mazda 3. Now that is crap. Cramped cockpit, knees jammed against the console and window-roller. And for a car 10-years newer than mine, had just as much road noise.

Which is better than being pissed on.

Had a beautiful day, lovely time at the MN History Museum, a nice dinner a Fujiya. Walked out to the car and found the driver's window smashed, the stereo ripped out and my camera gone. This is my 10 year old Civic, with a stereo that is 6 years old, and a five year old digital camera. None of this is high-value. Some cowardly pig-fucking, diseased donkey ball licking, troll-fisting cum stain broke my window for a 6-year old stereo, and then discovered the camera under the seat. In the process, as I mentioned, this shit-sucking fucktard also smashed my window and broke various plastic bits to get the stereo out. Asshole! Motherfucking asshole! I really want to introduce this person's ribs and knees to a nice piece of hickory. Like an axe handle or Louisville slugger.

Yep, rugging is every bit as painful as I remember.  Eight hours yesterday and two today.  One room left and some metals (thresholds).  No knife wounds, but I have some carpet-burned knuckles.  4 rooms complete!  One easy bedroom, another easy bedroom with a closet, a more difficult bedroom with closet and entry, and a landing "L" shape (which is like working in one long closet). 

Thankfully, my buddy Ken was around and willing to help me. 

One room left.  Largest room, with "entry."  But, no closet, and it is not that large *cringe*.  The pad is down and we need to get a remnant to put in there.  Also, need to put the metals down, but that will not be so bad.  Tack strip is down, pad is down, just the carpet and the kicking...

BGFE mle292 put pad down, hammered in tack strip, helped carry carpet, purchased all the stuff, and provided food and beverage, which was very nice of her, considering she could have been in the basement getting other work done.

No I do not do it professionally, and I do not have my own tools, so I cannot help you.

Home sick, working from home.  I was catching up on some laundry, moving it from the washer to the dryer, so my head was down at about top-of-the-machine level when a very unexpected and powerful sneeze hit me.  Nose, meet corner of washing machine, corner of washing machine, meet nose.  No stars, but holy fucking shit does my nose hurt.  I have a nice bump where my glasses indent was, and my I hope the ibuprofen starts diminishing this new headache.  If I still wore glasses, not sure if they would have survived or not, or if I would have lacerations in addition to the bump.

Ouch.

Another goodly amount of snow has fallen. 
I managed half of the driveway before the the snow thrower ran out of gas.  BGFE mle292 and I cleared the corner so I could get the Honda out and I ran to Home Depot to get the mix-oil and then to the gas station to fill up. Big sign at Home Depot announcing they were SOLD OUT of snow throwers and snow-shovels.  Fortunately, they still had plenty of the oil mix packages.  I bought extra this time. 

When I got back, MLE had finished the path from the street to the front door and all the way back to the garage!  I filled up the snow thrower and finished the driveway and cleared what the plows had left on the alley so it will be easier to get in and out.  Hopefully the neighbors plow service will be by soon to clear their portion of the driveway and make even easier.  I imagine their service is a bit busy and so I do not really expect them to be by until later.

And in other news, MARSCON!  Soon I will pack and do the last minute Con things and then off to the hotel.  Assuming, of course, that I do not need to be in Jury duty, which would suck, but I find the probability of them calling additional jurors on Friday afternoon with half the city shut down to be a very low risk.  I'll know in half an hour...

You can tell it is a snow day, as the VPN is slammed.  See, I wanted to update my Out Of Office, which I forgot to do last night when I left....

It is almost cold enough outside to run superconductivity experiments, but that must make the Department of Revenue computers run faster - they posted my return yesterday.  It took all of 7 business days since e-filing to get it into my checking account.  After the Fed return posts, I will 0 out my credit card for the first time since... well, at least 2.5 years.  And then, then the HELOC is going down.

Friday night - caught the early bus home, read email and headed out with jschmidt and S for Indian food followed by Deadwood and Night Watch. Deadwood is a very good HBO series. Night Watch is a fun Russian "World of Darkness" movie. BGFE mle292 took TehDae to Saxophone lessons and then they had dinner and watched some TV.

Saturday started with Yoga. I was the only student at the class, so I got some good corrections and we (the instructor and I) were able to just go for about the first 30 minutes and not stop. After 30 minutes we went into balance and headstands, then some more poses, then crunches and stretching, then half-lotus. Stopped by Microcenter and found a USB (1.1 and 2.0) WiFi adapter (802.11b/g) for TehDae's computer - sure beats running a cable to long away around her room, or up and over or another in the basement). Got home and then mle292 and I went to the hardware store to look at tile for the bathroom and get some items she needed to update the outlet in TehDae's room. Suddenly it was 5pm-ish and groceries needed to be purchased and things needed to be done in Robbinsdale, so I played WoW for a while and other people ran around.

Sunday - got up late again and got ready for PotC:DMC. We went to see it and met jschmidt and S there. Afterwords I had to run home and grab stuff I forgot then run out to the Wayzata Yacht Club, where my friend's boat is docked. Sailed around Lake Minnetonka for a few hours. What a blast! Learned about lots about sailing, even ran the port jib winch for a while (the tell tales will haunt me for a while :). Ohh, and we switched from a working jib to a genoa for more speed so I got to work the jib halyard twice. I also learned some knots. Er, well, learned is a bit strong. How about it was demonstrated, and i was able to make the knots with help. Got home and watched the last two Dr Who's, so I would be spoiler free when mle292 and TehDae got home from watching them. The timing was great - I had 4 minutes left of Doomsday when they got home.

Now I am at work and all the progress I made last week has hit a wall. Fill out three more forms. Have another request denied. Escalate to Manager. Explain escalation to my manager. Different issue - Database connection failed. Make another request. Argh. Coffee break. Doing much better now.