Thursday: Things I should have done like two months ago.

1. Get a new driver's license.
2. Get my car re-titled.
3. Get my car registered.
4. Register to vote.
5. Change the oil in my car.

6. Have pizza.

But now that is all done, and although I still need to change my plates, all the difficult stuff is sorted.

• Now they get a BBQ place.
• This guy shouldn't have a job.
• I should have chosen a career path that involves giving drugs to animals.

Saturday: A productive day.

I took out the trash, the recycling, and a bunch of moving boxes.  I got the laundry and dishes done last night, although I probably should have waited until today (since I bought a new hoodie).  I decided I was never going to find a night stand I liked, so I should just get one I didn't hate.  I did, and now I don't have to worry about rolling over onto a bunch of things in the night.  But perhaps the most important thing I did was this:

"Did you know they put mac and cheese in a breadbowl at Panera?"

I did not, until I watched last night's Minecraft video.  Ryan discovered this, and Michael immediately noted that that's what he always gets.  It's not quite as good as they built it up to be, but it's M&C in a bunch of bread.  I got a soup as well, so I could dip the bread when I was done.  Maybe I just needed a soupier M&C.

Then shopping, then trash and such, and finally, after taking an ill-advised nap because it meant dinner didn't happen until 10:

Pot roast.

Or, more specifically, "basically a stew."  The meat is good, I probably put too many veggies in it (a bunch of potatoes, half a bag of baby carrots I needed to use up, an onion, like a pound of mushrooms), I should have added more salt, it didn't really need gravy, but dumping the liquid down the drain seemed like a sin so I thickened it with a quick roux.  I have a lot of leftovers, so this is probably lunch for next week.

• I was reminded of the "firefox/clear you cookies" comic today.
• While I was putting together my new night stand, I looked out at the lanai, and thought about squirrels, and how to get squirrels to visit.  This page suggests good foods for them to enjoy.
• And Amazon conveniently sells that stuff.
• Would have been nice earlier, but it's good to see someone improving.
• Now I want korokke.
• And, wow, a recipe for koppe pan.

Friday: So close. Also: Always triple down on your revenge. That's the best solution.

I almost had my first big merge at work today.  But then review took too long, and subsequent testing took too long, and I had to leave work at six.  This was probably good, as people noticed that there was incomplete stuff that snuck through.  So that's next week's plan.  Plus this gives time to sort out all the documentation.

I had to leave at six because I had a ticket to see Titus Andronicus in Madison, NJ.

At the theater specifically for that.

It was a gym, as well.

I had good seat.  In the front row.  Dead center.

Thanks, robot seat-mo-tron.

Titus Andronicus is the story of one guy who should have been smarter, some baddies, and the revenge that happens.  It's a tragedy, so, obviously, everyone dies.  This was a good show.  I think this may be my favorite Shakespeare play now.  There are obvious story issues that probably wouldn't fly today.  Aaron the Moor is a bit...let's say "dated."

And then I came home, and it was quarter after midnight.  I should go to bed.

Saturday: everything hurts

It's a combination of walking more fitting the week than I have in a long time, sleeping on the floor, and spending theth hours this evening putting together IKEA furniture.  Still, the first is probably a good thing, the second is improved more than I expected by the shikibuton I bought this week, and even though I don't have anyone to sit yet, having any furniture is an improvement.

 The fabled IKEA.

 Planning a couch. My original design was going to be too wide. So love seat plus chaise.

 I had to have meatballs.

 Plusle and Minim? Ok.

 Pandy nursery.

 So that's where that picture in the one apartment I looked at came from.

 But eventually, I got the TV stand built, and all the network stuff sorted.  I think I'm going to try and upgrade the TV computer tomorrow.

 Two bookshelves. The plan is to have these before the couch, possibly with a floor lamp.  I haven't found one I like, though.

 U have a lot of recycling to take out tomorrow.  And then dinner.

 Samosas.

Lamb vindaloo.

Tomorrow is cookie day, and I bought all the ingredients for that.  If I'd been smart, I'd have gotten milk and bacon so I could make pancakes and eggs tomorrow for breakfast.

Sunday: More apartment viewings

It's not terribly fun, and always seems to take longer than it should.  I want a better tour, and I don't think my questions are that crazy that you couldn't have anticipated them.

At least the good news is that I'm hopefully signing a lease tomorrow, so a lot of the stuff I did this weekend was just activities to keep myself busy so I didn't spend the whole weekend camping out in bed, watching TV and reading tumblr.

Not that that would have been so bad.

The morning started with me wanting to go check out a breakfast place.

They literally own "pancakes.com".  How cool is that?  Plus they have everyone's favorite:

Chicken and waffles.

The chicken was excellent.  Probably some of the best I've ever had.  I would have liked some butter, though, and they kind of burned the waffle a bit.  It was good, though, and I'll probably be back.

Afterwards, I drove through Princeton and looked around.  Then I saw a sign telling me about the farm that made the cider I had earlier in the week.

With predictable consequences.

 I probably shouldn't have eaten three doughnuts, and drunk half that carton.  Probably.

Then some more futzing around, and a final apartment tour, and I think I've decided to just go with the one that's available, since it has everything I want, isn't so much more expensive, and is available.

And then I succumbed to the siren call of the burrito.

Now I'm either hungry or not, and I can't decide.  I bought a Korean pear, and I kind of feel like I should have something that isn't candy.

• So what you're telling me is that by missing the Squirtle event, I didn't really miss anything?

Saturday: I'm pretty sure if I didn't have these blog posts, I'd forget what day it was.

Today was a two shower day.  Which suck.  Because it means you got up, got clean, then did something so horrible that the only solution was a second shower.

That something horrible was cleaning stuff, and I'm glad my only collecting vice is books.  You can get rid of books easily.  They're heavy, but they're also generally clean and not stacked under a thousand other things.

Maybe I should get a third bookcase when I get an apartment.  Hopefully the apartment I messaged about last night.  It has all my preferences, and is cheap.  I'm early in the game, so hopefully that's a good thing.  We'll see.

I always thought this grease stain in my old parking garage looked like a fat birb.

• Nnedi Okorafor's Wakandan Berbere Lamb.

Thursday: It's cold.

Like in the 60s cold.

Not pictured is the ambulance that had backed into the first floor.  I had to squeeze past it when I came home.

• I only need one link today.  A squirrel poem.

Saturday: 1e12 easier.

Ages ago, I should have applied for Pre-Check or something, and for at least the past 18 months, Julie has been saying I should get Global Entry, which is basically the same price and also makes international travel easier.  Today I finally completed all the hoops for that.

Although I initially had to schedule my interview in San Francisco, on December 28th, because they are totally random with how they do interview things.  After two reschedules, I was able to get today at 2:15, in Honolulu.  I printed out and brought all the documents and papers and everything that the webpage said, and then checked yelp, because apparently yelp is where the government assumes information on how to get to their offices will be located.  Luckily, Jamila was there to do that, telling me where to drive like it feels like you're not supposed to, and where to park.  I went in, gave my passport to them, waited like two minutes, went in to do the interview that basically was "Are you a criminal?  Do you still live where you said you live." And that was it.  No video (maybe they don't do that anymore?), and by the time I was home I'd received the "yeah, you're in the program" confirmation email.  So hopefully that means not having to bother with the slow airport security crap.

Followed by a celebration burger.

Then, since I was there, Target, and then, since I wasn't there, a long drive back to town via H-3.

Where I was informed by Colby that he'd caught a legendary Pokemon.

Pokemon Go has been broken since this last major update.  Gyms don't turn over as much as they used to here, and it doesn't feel like it's worth bothering unless there's a big group to play with, so you can stomp on the full gym and fill it completely with your team.  This effectively means all gyms are full, and it's a pain to try and do anything about it.

Plus, my Go Plus just doesn't work anymore.  It associates ok (sometimes), but doesn't do anything.  It doesn't notice stops, it doesn't notice Pokemon, it sometimes does the long red buzz of "I'm worthless," sometimes trying it a few times before disassociating again.  This makes going for walks less fun, because instead of being able to pay attention to walking, I have to actively play the game again.

So, when I was returning home, I saw a massive crowd of people at the park down the street.  There's a gym there now.  I started the app up when I got home:

Damn it.

I had to try, I guess.  Besides, there was a huge crowd of people when I drove past.  There was less of a giant crowd when I got there.  I waited until someone said, "who wants to join?" and then joined.  Unfortunately, that was with only like 20s left in the countdown timer, so I had to quickly spend it replacing the worst auto-selected garbage from my team.  I don't think my CP400 Wobbuffet is going to be much help.

And due to the other people, was able to actually beat the raid.

I didn't capture the stupid thing, though, because that would make the game too much actual fun to play.  You have to find a gym, find people to battle with, beat the stupid thing, and then you have a chance to catch it.  Plus, you can't try things again once you beat it.  I don't understand how they could have earned more than a billion dollars, and still not know what they're doing.

• I mean, JFC.  You plan big catch thing, and you don't schedule additional cell coverage?  Or set up wifi?  Or actually plan how to handle that many people?
• When I saw this story, I thought, "hey, it's cool that they have a place where people who really like trains can go pretend to run trains.  People should be able to do whatever they think is fun."
• Then my brain immediately flashed to a meme from late last year of Icarus saying, "I'm going to fuck the Sun," and immediately added "within reason."
• The sea otter.
• Dog, we both know that you're technically following the rules, but come on.

Oh, also I got dinner at the place down the street because I could walk there, but it actually probably would have been faster to drive to Hawaii Kai for Jersey Mike's because they're really slow.

Friday: It was kid night at Target.

I sorted out one thing at work so it's ready to run next week, and then discovered that I still don't understand the data for the other thing.  It looks like there's a angle dependent wobble that is partially screwing up things.  Also there's a pile of scatter suggesting that the radial component isn't really a simple clean function.

Anyway, back to kid night at Target.

I took this picture to make sure I told their stories.

Kid 1: "But it's a notebook, and I really like drawing!"

Later:

Kid 2, walking around with a Hello Kitty clipboard, looking like she's taking inventory of the Target.

Even more later, waiting at the checkout:

Kid 3, picking up a watercolor set at the checkout: "This?"

Mom: "No, you have paints at home."

Kid 3, putting back watercolors, picking up Twistable colored pencils: "How about these?"
Mom: "No, you have paint at home!"

Kid 3: "But these aren't paint!"

Mom: "You have paint at home!"

Kid 3: "These aren't paint, they're different!"

Mom: "You can't have that either!"

Kid 3, putting back twistables, picking up and inspecting the glitter crayons: "how about these?"

Mom: "No!"

Kid 3, trying to sneak the crayons into the cart: "Please?"

Older sister: "No!"

Kid 3, kind of being dragged back to Crayola's trap by her older sister, sad to not get any art supplies: "They're not paint."

Apparently Friday night is the far better time to go to Target than during the day on weekends.  I hadn't planned on it, but I needed to pick up stuff, and I was concerned I'd run out if I put it off.

Unfortunately, making this plan at the end of the day meant that I forgot to print tax stuff so I could finish my taxes this weekend.  It looks like I get a whopping $29.33 back from the federal government.

Target is close to Wendy's, and I felt like having a frosty.

• Ok, so then what was the fucking point?  Be a whiny tantrum jerk?
• Wow.  Pokemon Sun and Moon not pulling any punches.
• So the animation Oscar is going to be even more meaningless.  Great.
• I don't think I've backed something with Indiegogo, so I may just wait for the proper release, but I saw this today, and it looks like a cool book.
• Exactly this.  Everyone should be able to survive.
• Everyone should be able to survive.
• Cat problems.
• Just point one here.  The Addams family owns Central Park.  Googling tells me that Central Park is 36.7e6 square feet, and that Manhattan land goes for something like $1000/sqft.  This one thing they own puts them just outside the top ten billionaires.
• Dick Allcocks from Man Island.
• Taco Squirrel.

Sunday: The long drive.

Since it's a long weekend, I figured it was a good day to drive forever to get lunch.  So back to HI-BBQ.

It was good.

Not perfect, and it was better last time.  First up, I had to wait like twenty minutes to get my food.  This gave me time to look at my Pokemon Go journal, because my Plus had been buzzing constantly while driving.

FML.

When my number was called, I picked up my food, and got my pop (and a free extra water for the wait).  I had to take it back, because they didn't have my sausage the first time (so free extra sausage for that hassle).  I suspect they got hit with a big rush today, because they were out of brisket and one type of the sausage.  They also didn't have any rice cooked when I ordered, which was the source of the delay.  I would have preferred them to have delayed it a bit more, because the rice wasn't fully cooked.  The pulled pork was also a bit overdone in places.  So, not perfect, but still tasty.

Then a bunch of traffic.

But I stopped to get a Dole Whip.

It was a good addition to the trip, but it was super busy there too.  They really need to just have a Dole Whip express lane, because that's what 99% of people get, and most people get confused with too many options.

The chicken was out of frame.  The train was there when I sat down.

Then I spent like twenty minutes taking down this gym.  It's far easier with more people.

I like how Kingler shows up in this shot, too.

 Then to Target, because I needed shampoo.  Which they didn't have in the size I wanted.

And I don't know what the deal was, but I don't know that I've ever seen this many spawn at once.

 When I got home, I remembered that I was doing sports crap again this year.

Hrm.

Not as bad here.

I did better last year, I think.  If I did the math right, I have 66 points, HotC has 60, and at the same time last year, I had 78, but had maxed out.

• Bird.
• I read it as "Heal Thy Burgers" too.  Now I want a burger.
• Cats.
• It seems like her plan worked perfectly.
• I guess ineptitude is a good thing.
• Dog.
• I just the idea that in the advancement of inventions, there are things that were perfected long ago, and there is no further development possible.
• Drifloon.
• A cool theater.
• Oatmeal raisin.

Then I used a lucky egg, and evolved twenty six Pokemon.  A lot were new.  A cut because of all the pictures.

Sunday: Hiking is tricky.

The plan for today was to climb Diamond Head.  This is not as simple as it should be.  There really isn't sufficient parking there, so they just stop admitting people to the park.  We tried to get in, but were turned around.  We decided to try and kill some time by driving around the outside.

Where we stopped to take some pictures at a nice overlook, and where some jackass got upset because we were standing in a location that blocked his view of "the surfers," all of which were little more than tiny dots on the ocean below.  Get a better hobby than "spying on people from my car like some kind of freak" jackass.

Anyway, the second attempt was no more successful, so the real advice isn't "get there early so you can hike before the sun rises too much and makes it hot" it's "get there early because otherwise you won't be able to hike at all."  I don't remember this much trouble the last time I tried to hike it, but maybe that was a weekday.

Alternate plan: Makapu'u Point Lighthouse Trail.  It was also crazy busy with no place to park.  Except for the one open space that suddenly appeared after we skipped around a Nissan that was stalking some imaginary space.  It seemed like this would work out, even though the breeze is a bit inconsistent on the trail.

But there is a nice view that I should make a mosaic of.

However, there are no restrooms anywhere, so when that became an issue, we decided to cut the hike short (apparently it's only 1.5 miles roundtrip, but since it's mostly all uphill, it seems worse).  The next stop: Costco.

Which really is a good place to stop while on vacation.  They sell local stuff at Costco prices, and although the checkout is always busy, they have pretty decent pizza you can have for lunch.  Solves many problems at once.

Then more beach time in the afternoon, most of which I didn't take pictures of, not even when Ramona met three Japanese grandmothers in the ocean, and began to talk and splash with them, despite not knowing a mutual language.

The sun was a bit excessive today, as there were no mitigating clouds.  One result of this was a desire to be lazy and not drive very far for dinner.  Since there's an Eggs and Things on the next block over from the hotel, this wasn't too hard to do.

Kalbi and eggs.  I still don't really like eggs.  The kalbi was good, though.

And a nice sunset.

 Followed by a bit more Pokemon.

I found a Pineco.

And hatched a Larvitar.

Stuck my on-brand Cloyster into the gym we defeated.

And then fought a Xatu that wouldn't give up and stay in the ball.

Unfortunately this is their last night here, and after the hectic days before, it was good to have one that was somewhat more focused on relaxing.  Let's see how much we can stick into the last few hours tomorrow.






Since we had planned on hiking today, I froze four bottles of water overnight, and planned to use them as after-hike drinks, as well as keeping other things that shouldn't be frozen cold.  I took one of my canvas shopping bags, lined the bottom with a towel, put in all the stuff to keep cold, and then covered it with a second towel.  I assumed this would stay cool for the hike, but didn't think it'd last much longer than that.

When I got home tonight, three of the bottles still had significant chunks of ice in them.  That means that over the course of about 13 hours, there wasn't enough energy transfer from the outside to my trunk and then into the "cooler" I'd made.  A bottle of water contains 500 ml, so 500g, which requires 166500 J of energy to melt (ignoring temperature changes within a given state).  This works out to an energy transfer of about 3.5 W.  I was unable to find a useful table to compare this to before giving up on writing more of this post. 

Monday: Hamilton is too long.

I came up with a great plan this morning.  I was going to drive to Mililani, get Five Guys for lunch, drive back to town, take H-3 to the other side of the island, and then drive back around the long way to Hawaii Kai, where I'd pick up a sandwich at Jersey Mike's for dinner, and then drive home.  "This will surely be a long enough drive that I will finally be able to hear all of the Hamilton soundtrack, even if it will be broken up into a few segments due to the stops.  I am sure I will get through it all.  I mean, it's only 142 minutes and 13 seconds.  Google is telling me this trip will take nearly two and a half hours, and I can always add on a quick trip out to the airport if I get close to home and it's not done yet.  That will add like another 15-20 minutes to the trip.

I should have known I was in trouble when I got here, and I was only at "Right Hand Man." 

I assume part of the problem is that Google assumed there'd be traffic, and with the holiday today, there wasn't really any traffic.

Similarly, not being done with the first disk by the time I got here wasn't a good sign.

 I haven't heard the whole thing before, but I have enough passing knowledge to know that there was a lot of his life to get through, and I just wasn't going at an acceptable rate.

"Schuyler Defeated".  I should have realized I was defeated at this point, too.

I added the extension to the airport, but I had to admit it wasn't going to work by that point.  I sat in the car to let "The Election of 1800" finish, but stopped there.  Alex is still alive, his son isn't, and Jefferson is president.

• Look at this dog.
• This would have been a far better version of Luke Skywalker.  "Tell him, Threepio.  Tell him he is stupid as fuck.  In those exact words, Threepio."
• The internet.
• "It's me!"
• A great disguise.
• Cat.
• I just like this.

ETA: I just checked my google maps search, and it claimed 2:38 for that trip, but I just noticed that in click-dragging to make the long way trip to Jersey Mike's, I clicked the wrong segment, so it had me doing the H-1 through town segment four times.  That's why I wasn't able to finish the soundtrack.