r o b o t m i n i o n

Comfested

Tomorrow, we are having a cookout to celebrate Comfest. The one weekend every summer when our neighborhood is invaded by hippies who won't pay to park their cars to go to a free festival in Goodale park. Before you accuse me of harshing on their vibe, let me just say that after living in the Victorian Vilage hood since 1999, and trying to move during Comfest weekend my first year here, those Comfesters who take up all of the neighborhood parking have a special spot in hell reserved for them and their entire drum circle. I was an innoccent and had no idea what Comfest meant. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a parking spot during Comfest weekend, let alone a parking spot for a U-haul?

This year, I can relax and enjoy Comfest from the luxury of my 2 CAR GARAGE. To celebrate Comfest and also to sacrifice various meats to the Gods of Off Street Parking, we are going to have a Comfest cookout on Sunday from 2 to 5. If you're one of the 5 people who read this, know where I live, and would like to bring beer to fill up the washing machine beer dispensery, feel free to stop by. Anything that doesn't move fast enough gets grilled. Look out Turkey...

Don't Call it a Comeback

So Amsterdam was awesomely great. No gory details for the interweb, but my pictures are up on Flickr. These pictures represent about 10% of the total taken on the trip.

About that office move... I knew from sporadic email updates the wek before, that the move was supposed to happen on Monday June 13th. I guess it turns out that it took until Thursday evening to get everything moved. There are still a couple of things that haven't made it over yet, including my bookshelf and my fish tank. I think those will be moved early next week.

Tuesday morning I walked into my new office in Smith Labs unsure of what I would find. It was a little like starting a new job. Because I didn't have time to paint my office before I left, my co-workers had thoughtfully asked the movers to pile everything in the middle of my office. It would have looked like a higher ed bonfire, except that STEELCASE furniture from the early 70's probably wouldn't burn that well.

I spent all day on Wednesday painting, and since then I've been moving things around and trying to assemble the rest of what I might need to make my office functional again. Today, that included getting throw pillows for my couch (which has greatly reduced the sinkage effect, it being an old couch). I predict things will be back to normal by September.

Amsterdam

View from a canal bridge
Originally uploaded by robotminion.

The past two weeks has been non-stop crazy. Last week I had to pack up my entire office to move across campus. Saturday night I was at work until almost midnight. I'm glad that we are getting new offices but it's been at a high price of sanity.

And then I left the country.

This week we're on vacation in Amsterdam. We're still adjusting to the time change, but the beautiful sunny weather and outdoor beer cafes sure help with the adjusting.

100 Days

Baby Grace
Originally uploaded by robotminion.

Last night we had a traditional Korean dinner at a friend's house to celebrate his daughter Grace's first 100 days. The food was great and the soju was strong. It's a Korean tradition that after 100 days, the baby can meet friends outside of immediate family, and it was an awesome way of introducing Grace to the world.

My Name Was Clearly Marked in Black Sharpie Marker

Today was a very bad day. It is a good thing that I work with technology and not anything dangerous because by the end of the day I was almost shooting fire out of my eyes. Remember that Steven King movie with Drew Barrymore? My mother would never let me watch that movie and obviously it was because she knew in her soul that her first born daughter posessed that same combustible quality.

The details of my bad day are not really interesting or important. What is important is that during the middle of this very bad day, a day where I was too busy to go out and actually purchase lunch, a day when I was both physically and mentally exhausted, I went to the break room freezer to get out my emergency frozen too-busy-to-go-get-lunch, lunch and it was totally and absolutely not there. My faith in humanity today = 0. Somebody stole my mother fucking Lean Cuisine.