Entries this day: Dream First_MT3_scene_recorded First_half_of_Work Lunch_meeting Second_half_of_work Yurika_lesson

Dream

6:37am JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

In some sort of space military, we were engaged in battle, but for some reason our spherical ships were offline for the moment. The battle was going on, and each soldier was in his spherical ship, waiting for them to be released. The ships were inside a larger ship, with rows of ports where each sphere connected.

Many ongoing discussions, and then suddenly all the spheres began to come to life, like the had all just been charged up and turned on. Inside one sphere, I witnessed it clunking out of its port into a groove with all the other spheres, and then each in turn rolling down toward the launching chute and shooting out into space to engage the enemy. The spheres didn't roll, or if they did our point of view remained steady within them. But they did have full manueverability when we got into space. Could just go anywhere any direction we pleased. Could shoot the bad guys with lasers launched out from our feet.

When our spheres went online, there was a lot of excited chatter on the radio as we went into battle. For me, the battle inspace lasted only a few minutes, and then I was inside a facility, with the sphere on my back, but it was just a heavy round energy pack I carried around. I still had pretty decent manueverability, but it was using my legs walking around on carpet instead of in the freedom of space.

A superior (by several years) was training me, and I was a bit cocky liek, "yeah yeah I can do dat" I saw a bad guy walking through the hall (indicated by red numbers floating under his feet as he walked). If I killed bad guys with red numbers, I would get that number of points added to my score. If anyone with green numbers was killed in my vicinity, I would lose that number of points from my score.

Walking toward the library, away from the bad guy who was being handled by the older soldier, I could hear people commenting about my slow pace and squeaking boots that sounded like squishing water with each labored step I took. The weapon on my back was quite heavy, and forced my posture to like a 45 degree angle as I walked. The squishing sound was leather squeaking boots.

I arrived in the library and walked in by moving a shelf open like a door instead of walking in where everyone else did. I wanted to surprise any bad guys by coming in quickly and unexpectedly. I didn't see anyone with numbers, red or green, but I did notice a woman make eye contact with me, so I began making my way over there, aware that it could be a trap, and even if not, the corner of every eye in the place would be watching me, so I maintained a professional, polite, killer face, keeping my eyes on the room as I wound around the quietly crowded tables to get to her.

Everyone in the library was studiously reading, and as cramped as a cafeteria might be. One quick glance around the room before I leaned my head close to the woman, "you called, ma'am?"

"Uh, yes, I noticed your wife's collection of stuffed animals behind the water bottle," she began, and though I knew I didn't have a wife (the animals in question were mine), I didn't react; that could be the end of me immediately (you react, you die! was our mantra), or could cause embarrassment to the woman, and require a long story to explain that they were my rabbit and cow, so I just let her continue.

"and I wondered if she would like to have my white bear named "Benny" to add to her collection?"

"Oh, I think she would enjoy that very well," I replied, referring to my non-existant wife. "You can just give the bear to the librarian and she'll take care of it."

First MT3 scene recorded

10:16am JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

I've got about 450 photos that show a guy (made of pipe cleaners, poor fellow) directing the placement of four chopsticks to be the base of the base of Marble Track Three.

First half of Work

12:41pm JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

Yesterday I got jungledisk set up on this machine (new ubuntu machine at work) (instead of using my personal computer at work (I had been using my machine at Across (my choice; they had M$ only)), and here, almost my choice, but now they got some extra machines), so I've been listening to my music while programming on the billing system.

Today I got the invoices saving correctly and can create a new invoice, and now working on getting the one-off invoices to work. I need to add a field to the invoice table (to tell its status) which will be used to tell if the invoice is editable or not, and if it's been sent, paid, or overdue.

Previously I was just allowing edits if this was the most recent invoice in the contract, but now with one-off invoices, there is no contract.

Things are going faster now that I've pretty much gotten past all the mootools stuff getting the product names filled in on the new invoice and new contract pages.

Just in case somethin' crazy happens, I'm bringing my computer to the meeting.

1:37pm JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

Nothing crazy, but semi-predicted, but not for the reasons I thought.

Basically I'm going to keep working here through December, and then take a break of sorts, hopefully including making $9000 as a guinea pig, and definitely including playing with Fred. I'm thrilled about that aspect of it!

The reason is *not* because the billing project has taken longer than I had predicted, but because the first project, for which I was brought in to code, has been simmering, and is now officially on hold, until, perhaps March (I'd be impressed if it was that fast), but.

I told Malek the timing is basically perfect: if I continue working through December, I'll get paid in January, and then perhaps get PAAAIIIID in late January, and then just fart around and do whatever I want for a bit until I get a new job. I've got several connections now, so I'm not too worried about that.

Lunch meeting

10:43am JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

When I arrived at work today, Malek asked if I had plans for lunch (no), and therefore if we could go out to lunch (yes), which means basically we're going to Talk, though I don't know the details yet.

I'm glad though: I'm guessing it will either confirm that I can get out of here and start lookin' for better paying work, or that I'ma start getting paid more.

But now that I think about it, seems like bad news would warrant taking me out to lunch, whereas good news could just be presented straigtaway.

Then Malek promptly headed home to nap cause he "isn't feeling too good." He wasn't feeling too good yesterday, either.

12:41pm JST

Okay; Malek has awakened; we're about to head out.

Second half of work

6:21pm JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

Second half of work featured pretty much the same stuff save an impromptu meeting with Yuu, who, upon arrival, found she had nothing to do because Sho and Malek were in a meeting with a couple of other cats.

Basically I showed her how the new billing system is set up, including its flaws ("home" means "company" and "blog" means "payment") and she took careful notes as appropriate and was able to re-explain in fluent Japanese what I had told her in Crapanese, er, not-so-fluent Japanese.

I'm 90% sure I'm on the final stretch of getting the billing thing working pretty well. Granted there are a couple of screens that haven't even been written yet (blog payment) and the reports screen, but those should be easy compared to the mootools stuff I've been doing so far.

Tomorrow the plan is to get the invoice-finalizing code fixed so to use the new system of finalizing invoices. I had been keeping finalized invoices untouched, but Sho wants to be able to apply payments to them so payments are easier to track. I was planning just to do it on a rolling basis, carrying balances forward and recording payments for last month on this month's invoice, basically like credit card statements.

So now the invoice finishing code is even easier. Just slap a finished flag on it and then create a new invoice. There's a bit of extra code required if there's a contract to be updated as well. This isn't 3rd normal (well there's your problem), but I did that to make reporting easier. The contracts keep track of what the most recent invoice is, the second to most recent invoice, and their respective due dates.

Buttttt, I might wipe that part out now that I have my invoice status flag. (actually an enumerated list: 'edit', 'sent', 'received', 'paid', 'overdue')

Yurika lesson

8:31pm JST Thursday 27 November 2008 (day 14127)

Interesting questions came up in lesson with Yurika today. The one I remember can basically be summarized with a Google query: into vs "in to". She was able to explain the different meanings of

1. walk to the store

2. walk into the store

3. walk in the store

and that helped, but didn't solve this. Why don't the deleted lines sound right to me?

1. moved in to the apartment building

2. moved into the apartment building (*)

3. moved to the apartment building

4. moved into the neighborhood

5. moved in to the neighborhood

6. moved to the neighborhood

7. moved in next door

8. moved in to next door

9. moved into next door

10. moved to next door

(*) this one sounds fine if we're talking about crashing, not changing domiciles