journal for 2004-01-08
cardiff: still raining
It’s been a little misty since I arrived. It’s Britain, after all. Today’s been the nastiest day by far, but it’s not so bad. There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain, but both were pretty mild at all the times I had to go outside. The walk from the hotel to the office was a bit unpleasant, but I got there unsoaked.
Yesterday, we got piles of discussion done, and it was good. Today wasn’t even close to yesterday in terms of productivity. While the UK guys were busy with local matters, though, I did get a bit of coding done. It wasn’t anything exciting, but there were some bugs that needed fixing. So, it wasn’t a wash.
I also taught Duan to play Martian Chess, which was good. He beat me soundly at our second game, though I like to think it was because I made a few serious mistakes in the early game.
I went to the gym twice yesterday, once betfore work and once after. I was pretty happy about that, even though I found the gym clerk a bit snitty. I did about a half hour on the bike and about fifteen minutes of lifting. Today, I woke up with plenty of time to do some morning work, but my arms felt really sore, so I skipped it. At work, I think I ate too much for lunch. Then I ate too many chips after lunch. Then I stayed late, skipped the gym, and ate a few pieces of gingerbread cake. Damn.
My arms still hurt, but I am fully going to get into the gym tomorrow morning. I do not want to get back to the states weighing more than when I left. Of course, I must say, my eating habits here vary so wildly from my eating habits in the state that it’s hard to know how things compare. Then again, I think it would be foolish to think that today would compare favorably with an average day.
It might’ve all been worth it, though, for that ginger cake. It was really good. It had a much more gingery taste than I had expected. Speaking of sweets, when I told Godfrey and Jay about white and dark chocolate Kit-Kats, they were surprised and said, “We only ever got orange and mint over here.” Wuh! I’m going to see if I can’t find those and bring them back to the states.
I ordered a copy of iLife ‘04. I don’t use iPhoto, though I’m open to looking at the new version. Until it has nested groups, though, it can’t match what I’m doing with my image just using jGal and directories. I won’t use iMovie or iDVD, since I have no video camera and no DVD burner. (Well, I can record movies with the iSight, but that would be too weird for any serious-length work.) iTunes is free. So, I really bought it for Garage Band, which I think will just be a ton of fun to play with. I used to really like playing with Screamtracker, back in the day, and I think this can take the place of ST3.
Ok, well, I don’t feel like thinking about the events of the last two days any more, so I’m going to shut down and wash up and turn in. More news tomorrow.
Oh, I will note this: the pringles of which I ate too many were “Spanish Salsa” flavor. Wuh! They’re not bad, but they’re really weird.