Tablesaw!

When debugging, trust the logs. A few times recently, I've tried to understand the broken code first, and it never goes how I think it should. Only the evidence of what actually happened helps.

And thanks to the past coffee who wrote the logs!

Pretty boring month, right?

OK, so let's see what's been happening.

Well, I voted in the Democratic Primary on Super Tuesday. That was three weeks ago; it's the same month. I don't even have time to get into that whole mess.

On March 5, I was already starting to get anxious about what I was hearing about COVID-19. I work in a coworking space, and while I had my own office (shared with one other person), I spent a lot of time in the community kitchen, and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I told my boss I was going to work from home starting the next day. I work at a small startup, where a few people already work remotely, but my CTO and I have tended to work closely in person. At the time, I had planned to work from home on Friday and Monday, then return for the staff meeting on Tuesday on site, to make further decisions there.

On Sunday, March 8, I saw my parents, sister, and nieces in person, for what may be the last time in a while. My oldest niece had a basketball game, and I watched with the family. Afterward, we went to Olive Garden, where we we had an alcove to ourselves and washed our hands. Later that day, I got an email from work, the CEO and CTO had decided that the whole company would be working from home. It felt good to get a head start on social distancing.

On Monday, March 9, I had tickets to see House of Games with David Mamet in person. I was pretty anxious about going, it would probably be a crowded space, but it wasn't a thing I really wanted to miss. A mishap with our cars meant that I ultimately couldn't make it, which was a bit of a relief.

My five-year wedding anniversary was on Saturday, March 14, and we'd planned a small weekend trip to Catalina. If you don't know, Catalina is a small island 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, easy to see when the air is clear. But it's a little isolated, the only way on or off the island is via ferry. And in the week leading up to the trip, I was increasingly anxious. Psyche wanted to go, practicing social distancing and cleaning/sanitizing as we go. I wanted to cancel, increasingly convinced that I had been exposed, and worried that symptoms would manifest while we were on the island, cutting off access to the ferry and stranding us away from our well-stocked home.

Psyche won out. She finds it easier to relax while out of the house and was more confident in our ability to stay responsibly isolated. And a somewhat rainy weekend meant the village was pretty empty, making it easy to give everyone a wide berth. On Saturday, we did a golf-cart rental to drive around the island for an hour taking in the views looking toward Long Beach. We spent a lot of time making plans for the next time we go and can do things that require closer quarters, like the mini submarine for reef viewing.

In the last week, restrictions have gotten progressively tighter, and we've avoided going out. We ordered delivery on Tuesday, which was a wonderful moment of normalcy, even if we had to tell the delivery person to leave the bag outside the door, and wait for him to leave. On a trip to our post-office box to pick up some delivered supplies, I grabbed In-N-Out on the way home (they've had a sock-day policy since before the pandemic). The PO service is going through some changes too. They're an essential business, so the can (and according to service agreements, must) stay open to receive mail, but they have contingency plans for progressively worse scenarios. I signed up for a "virtual mailbox" service, where they email pictures of all mail and packages, so we can avoid trips to pick them up unless they are critical.

We also went to Psyche's office to pick up some supplies as she's working from home now too, and on the way back, we tried to find a place along the way home to get out and breathe. But as you may have heard Angelenos who had been told that social distancing in nature was okay all headed out at the same time to many of the same places, defeating the purpose. At a usually quiet beach, we saw a small crowd of people (and possibly the remnants of a classic car show that had decided not cancel?), and as we drove along the coast, most of the vista points had a few dozen people. We did eventually find a spot with only a handful, where we could stay several yards away from the others, and the views were incredible. The rain, combined with reduced car use has kept the air cleaner than I think I've ever seen, and from Rancho Palos Verdes, I could not only see downtown Los Angeles, I could pick out individual buildings.

Today, we made a trip out to bolster our grocery supplies, particularly our fresh vegetables. We went to a local Japanese market, because there have generally been reports that businesses run by and geared towards Asian Americans have been hit with the extra damage of racism. They still seemed well stocked, but most of the stores around here seem to be doing well. Regardless, it was quiet, and it was easy to keep distance from other patrons.

For dinner, we made minestrone, and paired it with bread that Psyche baked yesterday. Both were delicious.

Some other things I've been doing:

( Movies, TV, Music, Puzzles )

Phew. What's next?

The office shut down for the last week of the year, and I spent almost all of it at home, sleeping far too late, and playing videogames. It was perfect.

There's been a lot of stress in the last month. We're buying a house, the national political landscape continues to shift, and there was friends and family to visit in and out of town. We tried to cut down on extra stresses (this was the first time in my life I didn't decorate a Christmas tree, and we abandoned plans to travel to Boston for the Mystery Hunt), but it was still tough.

In addition to all this, I've been stuck on some intractable problems at work, which had been decimating my "agile velocity" and generally demoralizing me. I knew I was getting burned out, but I knew the winter break was coming, so I held out.

Now that I'm on the other side of the break, I can tell how stressed I was and how direct the solution is.

I'd already noticed some changes, since transitioning from general office work to programming. One was that I have been doing a lot less puzzling since problem-solving became my job. Another is that I haven't had as much time for leisure during workday downtime. I never really felt like I *needed* a vacation, so I saved up time (non-salaried) and felt fine. Even at my last job—programming with friends on a team, taking long convivial lunches—I got to dispense with a lot more stress than I realized.

So I'm trying to hold on to the change I feel between now and two weeks ago to remember to take the sustained time off. Even if there's nowhere I need to travel to. Because, while I hope to end up in another workplace with more day-to-day destressing, I'm probably not going to want a less-demanding job any time soon.

Short version:

I've been laid off again, and I'd like help taking a month or so catching up with technology and programming, most likely with the goal of starting a new career, but also for my own fulfillment.

OK—deep breath—let me elaborate.

At the beginning of February, everyone in my department was called into a room at the same time despite being in offices across the country, and we were informed that our department was being outsourced. This has happened before. The last time it happened, I ended up working temp assignments pretty much immediately, and I worked continuously (though at temp-job salary) for about a year, when I got a permanent position. It was a good permanent position with a good salary, but everything's come around again, and my last day of work is on Friday.

I've been putting off planning what I'm going to do next, because up until last week, I'd been busy planning a wedding (mine, yeah, happened last week, sorry I didn't mention it here). But now, satisfactorily wedded, I'm turning my attention to the empty days ahead, and what I need right now is a lot of help.

See, I know that if I wanted to, I could go back to the placement agencies and go through the same cycle again, but because I do a pretty niche administrative job, outsourcing seems eternally inevitable. And it's not a job I particularly enjoy; the thing it had most to recommend itself was stability, and it's clearly lost that. I'm looking toward something new.

I'm skirting around this paragraph, because it feels like I'm giving into cliche. I want to get into programming!!!1! That's the hot new thing, right? I was at this pool party and a man leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Programming," and now I'm going to do something on the World Wide Web!

But it's more than that. I started programming when I was six, but I stopped in college when I shifted focus to arts and performance to help ease my growing depression. And as time went on, I fell more and more out of sync with things. The world became plug-and-play, and I got complacent. Through it all, I missed programming, but felt like I never had the time to bring my programming expertise literally out of the twentieth century. I know how to code, I just don't really know anything to code in any more.

The last time I was laid off, a friend encouraged me to shift to web development, and I was just about to start looking at Rails, but the temp work came in fast, and I let it all slide. I don't want that to happen again, so I'm telling the placement agency that I'm taking a month for myself to learn new skills. I've got a cushion from the severance package, so I don't need to worry about income immediately, certainly not for a month. So I'm looking at April, at least, as a catch-up month.

And now, I get around to the help. I am friends with lots of very smart people in all areas of technology and programming (psst, that's you), and I'm hoping that I can both get lots of help, but also spread that amongst a bunch of you, so I don't feel like I'm leaning too hard on anyone. Some things I'd like to hear your thoughts about right now:

• What sort of programming should I be looking at doing? As I said above, I have a good friend who's pushing me strongly into doing webdev, which seems promising. But I know I have firends (who don't see me every week for gaming) in other fields who might want to stump for their own specialties. Any thoughts?
• What references/manuals do you recommend? I'd like to get any books I should look for sooner rather than later.
• What sort of technology am I going to need? I've got a cheap, basic prebuilt desktop computer that I bought at Staples five years ago. It has been intimated that I might need a laptop or something stronger.

But knowing myself, I think these next two are the most important:

• What sorts of challenges can I set up for myself to drive learning?
• Can I bug you for help and encouragement?

I know that I learn best when I can apply techniques to a specific problem, and it's hard for me to invent those out of thin air. And I'm always a little anxious about making direct contact with folks, so knowing that it's okay will help a lot.

I don't really know what's going to come of all of this. It's possible that at the end of all of this, I'm going to go back to doing the same kind of job, or shift to an administrative IT position, but I just want to feel like I'm caught up with everything.

Thanks for everything.

This has been a week for musicals. On Sunday, I saw Reanimator: The Musical. I missed this in its initial run last year, but I am so glad I saw it now as it prepares for a tour to the New York Musical Theatre Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. If you have the opportunity to see it in any of those places, you absolutely should. The staging is uniformly excellent, with Grand Guignol effects as horrific and cheesy one would expect. But I was constantly surprised by the show. The music was better than I expected, in writing and performance. I also didn't realize that the show was created by the same creative team responsible for the Reanimator movie. But mostly, I never thought I would get to see George Wendt as a lobotomized zombie slave on a small stage. That was pretty awesome.

Though it's generally comedic, there are only a few cheap jokes, which makes them stand out all the more. When a large bunch of zombies make their entrance, they do the Thriller dance, of course. And while most songs are original, one is a knock-off version of "My Way." But on the whole, it's an excellent show.

Tonight, I went to the last show of the East West Players' season, A Little Night Music. Though the text remained the same, the production took its design cues from 1910 Shanghai. I've never seen this musical in its entirety, and I really enjoyed it. I also recommend it, though sadly, unlike Reanimator, it does not have a Splash Zone in the audience.

---

The 9:00 a.m. alarm continues to be a good schedule making me more productive in terms of job search and general doing of things. I've gotten in touch with a staffing agency, and tomorrow I'll be doing a phone interview with a company that is looking to hire a legal word processor for four or five months. If that goes through, it will be a surprise. I was just getting used to the idea of having lots of free time. (I've only learned to cook one new thing!) Still, it'll give me a chance to keep the cash flow going while looking for something more steady.

So this week didn't work out so well.

After an initial flurry of activity filing for unemployment insurance and sending a few e-mails to staffing agencies, I fell into a funk of avoidance, leading to a mini freak out on Thursday. I talked with friends and family who reminded me that it's ok to be freaked out about being unemployed for the first time in over a decade, and that a few days of not doing anything productive is fine.

I'm going to try to set myself onto a daily working schedule come Monday. While it's nice to sleep in until 11 or noon, I'm not actually productive when I stay up late. Once it nears sunset, I start feeling like my work day is over, and I stop doing other things. I think that forcing myself to at least be awake by nine every morning will add a few hours to my "working" day, at the very least. More measures will probably be forthcoming.

I did manage to do a lot of nonproductive things, though. I entered a local crossword puzzle tournament and participated in a sudoku contest at Logic Masters India. boardgaming night (played Roll Through the Ages), role-playing-game night (beta-testing a game by Josh Robern), a party to read and mock Fifty Shades of Grey as a group, and an NPL party. And in addition to that, I saw a bunch of friends at different times. I joined the site Quora despite its "real names" policy, by hacking together a form of pseudonymity out of its nascent system. And I sauteed chicked without freaking out.

Starting Monday, I'm going to add DW to my list of daily things to do. For reals.

I'm heading out now to my postponed holiday weekend, which means today's my last weekday as an employee of the firm before I get fired and rehired by a new company to do the same job for less. And it was pretty busy today, to boot. Luckily, I happened to put on Felicidade Mixtape #3 from Breath of Life as the day was winding down, which has done a great job relaxing me, to get ready for my days off.

. . . Felicidade sim

Since I had business on the second floor, I decided to climb my way back to the sixteenth, to see how my body was doing.

I have to admit, I've been slacking on my exercise routine. I haven't been using my stationary bike as hard, or remembering to do other exercises as often. I haven't been sleeping as well, so I haven't gotten up early enough to lengthen the walking part of my commute.

On the other hand, various lifestyle changes have kept this slacking from turning into giving up entirely. My main focus has been my exercise bike, which I keep parked in front of the TV, and I've gotten fairly good at watching TV or playing videogames while on the bike instead of the couch. So when I'm "slacking," I'm not finding the energy for a full high-speed, high-tension workout; but I do still sit on the bike and pedal more leisurely, sometimes for two or three hours. And I still find time for wall push-ups, though with less rigor than I used to have.

Walking up the stairs, it was harder than I'd like it to be, but even though I felt like I was going to give up after about four flights . . . I didn't ever actually have to. I didn't even need to stop for a breather. It helped wake me up a bit too. In fact, if I hadn't had to get back to work, I probably would've kept going up.

I've said before that I have a tendency to slide into slothfulness. I don't really gain much pleasure from exercise, and I don't know that it's ever going to be something I seek out. But I'm glad that I've put a stopper on how far back I can slide.

For a while now, the people around me, in the office and friends, have been falling to the flu, colds, and all manner of sicknesses. Through it all, I've stayed remarkably healthy.

Except.

For the past few days, I've been getting headaches forcing me into bed early, like 8 o'clock. It's a kind of sinus thing, but it doesn't demand anything but a glass of water and some sleep. And I feel good in the morning after sleeping for ten to twelve hours. And then I start to get a headache again . . .

So maybe I am sick? I certainly might as well be for my supervisor, since I had to call in sick to get more sleep on a day I was already leaving early, adding up to an entire day home because I wanted to keep my eyes closed.

I guess I'll know more in a few hours.

I woke up to the sounds of helicopters hovering overhead. That wasn't a good sign.

A man trapped underneath a Red Line train in Hollywood was rescued Tuesday and taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, authorities said.

How the man, said to be in his 50s, ended up on the tracks is still being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The man was lucky to have landed in the large gap between the tracks, otherwise his injuries would have been more serious than the bruises and contusions he suffered, said Luis Inzunza, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

A moving train "would have cut him in half," Inzunza said.

The track the train was on was shut down during the rescue operation. All trains north of the station were stopped, but those traveling south were still operating.

—LA Times blog post (with video)