Testing Day, Take 2

June 02, 2023 by Adam in Family

I'm off to my certification test in a couple hours.  Hopefully they'll accept me for who I am and I'll endevor to be Geoffrey for the duration of the experience.  It's all been highly annoying but hopefully the test itself goes well.

It's been a lovely week of sunlight and plants in bloom, with only a little bit of allergy issues.  Man I love the modern allergy medication.  School is on the way out and Duncan graduates next week, with Emma and Ben halfway through their respective schools right after that.  Summer schedules tend to be far more relaxed, though the madness of getting kids to school has generally improved over the decades.

I spent this week at work getting our release fixed.  Occasionally I do things and wonder who else could figure things out - there were certainly some weird problems where I had to earn my keep.  Still, I think things are functioning and now we need some real clients to test things out.  I've gone back to the feature I put on hold six months ago.  It's been fun doing my "real" job again.

Yesterday was Open Space, so I spent the afternoon painting miniatures and listening to a review of my certification test material.  It was productive in many senses of the word.

Lovely Three-Day Weekend

May 30, 2023 by Adam in Family

It was a great weekend.

The D&D family group went well, doing unexpected things as usual.  There was a chase through the streets of Omu where Francis' character was followed by The King of Feathers, a giant t-rex, in an attempt to make it fight the evil snake people.  While things didn't go as expected, they all survived and are soon headed to the tomb.

Sunday was a trip to the library and a bit of gardening, putting in more tomatoes on the balcony.  After Emma returned to her mom's house I ended up finishing Sleeper Citizen, which had a satisfying ending of fighting corporate greed as a robot and its friends.  Monday I did some more gardening, went for a run followed by a long walk with Jenny, and collapsed at home for some downtime.  I've been running the 3D printer non-stop in preparation for the next set of D&D sessions.  Unfortunately they could run into a bunch of different creatures so I want to get them all ready early on.

Now it's back at work.  We managed to cut a release late Friday so I imagine we'll be planning deployments fairly soon.  I dusted off some really old code that I put on hold and have it working again.  I'm excited to get this feature out there as it's been one of the most requested ones for a long while.  I hope I finally sorted out the test name issue and will try to get that sorted out soon - it's been one of the worst customer service experiences in recent memory.

No Longer a Teenager

May 30, 2023 by Adam in Emma

Emma had her birthday over the weekend, a session of D&D with the family, followed by cake and presents.  It's been great watching her grow up and become a full and happy person.  We stopped by the library the next day and I suggested she press her face against the glass of the newly walled-off teen section since she's no longer allowed in there.

She got a watch, some overalls, the kind of shoes all her botany classmates wear, and a nice big backpack.  I think she's all ready to tromp off into the woods.

Lovely Weekend

May 22, 2023 by Adam in Family

It was an all-around lovely weekend.  Saturday morning began with a hearty breakfast with Emma and an early-rising and chatty Ben.  Emma had a botany assignment where she had to go into the field to identify and take pictures of plants, so we went off to explore Moon Mountain.  The opposite side where I tromped around as a kid is full of rough county-owned areas full of wildflowers and blackberries.  She ended up with a bunch of great photos and I managed to avoid getting poison oak while taking the occasional tricky shot as her photography assistant.

We came home and I watched Danica's memorial service online.  Dad, Seraph and Sadie were especially great - I loved hearing about dad and Danica's childhood, some stories of which I didn't know.  Ben is such a great person, along with being a talented pianist which I also discovered.  The afternoon took us to the library, followed by pizza and anime, as is our way.

Sunday was D&D with the friend group.  I spent the morning setting up and preparing for the activities ahead.  Jason drove himself over, which seems a great sign of recovery, though I did miss chatting with him about his life and times.  The session went well as the adventurers moved through a Lovecraftian town of decay, trying to uncover the evil beneath the murders.  It was great fun!

Single Parent Time

May 19, 2023 by Adam in Family

Jo's off to Rochester for Danica's memorial service, so I'm doing all the parenting until the middle of next week.  I put my faith in the calendar, sticky notes, and various systems of lunch preparation and pill dispensing that we've built up over the years.  I think everyone will survive.

It was a somewhat frustrating week dealing with systems - being turned away from the testing center due to my first name not matching what's on my driver's license has been frustrating.  Even worse, there's no way to see what name Microsoft thinks I have due to only errors showing up and having to get things fixed via Internet forms.  Hopefully I'll sort it out soon, but it took down my faith in humanity a couple notches.

This weekend is D&D with friends.  All the maps are prepared, the miniatures painted, and the module reviewed.  There's just one more module after this, so we'll likely need to decide on a new course of action this summer.  I still have to plan out the grand finale, but we'll see how it goes.

We've also been doing a ton of gardening this week.  Fresh grass is popping up where the chicken coop was.  Jo and I planted the tomatoes and miner's lettuce that Emma and I started months ago.  The roses are in bloom and everything seems to have sprung to life once again.

Superspy

May 17, 2023 by Adam in Family

I'm off to take a certification test in a few minutes, driving down to campus and hopefully returning with a Microsoft exam.  I think I'll do well - I got a 96% on the practice test yesterday and I feel pretty good about the real thing.  It's not a hard one, though I learned a thing or two studying for it.  I suspect my biggest challenge will be finding parking.

I like to bring another form of ID just in case, so I was rooting around our fire safe for my passport.  I grabbed one and thought "Is this my US passport?" as I have a Canadian one in there too.  Made me feel like a superspy.

Hot Weekend

May 15, 2023 by Adam in Family

It was up into the 90s this weekend - I finally broke out the air conditioner for my office this morning, which I think is a record as to how early that happened.  I did love the sunny weather and running around early in the day was nice.

Emma wore herself out Saturday on her botany field trip to the mountains.  I mowed the lawn, did some yardwork, played some video games, and Jo and I worked on the new little free library.  I also managed to paint some miniatures and do a little D&D prep for this upcoming weekend.  Sunday was the tour of mothers, going to Down to Earth for prezzies and plants, visiting the library where Ben stocked up on French language books, and visiting with mom and Yayoe, along with a text to Ana.  By the end of the day I was worn out too, sitting down to obsessively play my new Lovecraftian fishing simulator, Dredge.

Mocha Friday

May 12, 2023 by Adam in Family

It's the end of the week, my mocha finished and the sun-drenched garden peeking through my backyard shed's window.  Somehow it's getting into the 90s this weekend, which seems wild.  Emma's got a field trip tomorrow, driving up to the mountains to look at the plants there.  I'm hoping to make a dent on the long list of house and garden projects.

It was a generally successful week.  We had a flaky garbage disposal switch that finally got stuck on after weeks of wiggling around.  Fortunately we had a bunch of spares handy, so it was a fifteen minute swap.  I also put in the basement utility sink replacement in, which was weirdly a nice break between writing code.

I had a couple short computer classes during work this week, getting ready for a certification test next week.  It was fairly straightforward as I've been doing things with the Microsoft cloud for years now, but it's always nice to brush up on the things I don't use very often.  I'm also very excited to get a release out after six months of this big conversion.  Almost there!

Super Nerdy Weekend

May 08, 2023 by Adam in Family

It's hard to describe just how wonderfully nerdy this weekend was.  Saturday was the family D&D group, solving puzzles in ancient temples.  Sunday was Blades in the Dark with the Chicago people, pulling off ghost heists and swaying smugglers to do our bidding.  In the afternoon we watched the D&D movie where I proudly watched Emma identify most of the monsters and spells they showed.

We managed a few practical things, such as spreading soil and seeds over the brown patch where the chicken coop was.  I didn't quite manage to get to replacing the basement sink, though I managed to clean the drain so it doesn't overflow when we run the washing machine.  Jo was off at the farm Friday night, putting up more walls in the shed and spending a quiet the night in the woods.

I've got some online classes in the middle of the week and I signed up for a certification test the following week.  Hopefully that gives enough motivation to actually take and pass the test.

Summer is starting to fill up with trips and activities.  It feels like the first real post-pandemic summer.

Mocha Friday

May 05, 2023 by Adam in Family

There was a bomb threat at the kids' high school on Wednesday, which ended up being more annoying than anything else.  Ben's backpack got stuck at the school overnight, but we sorted it out in the end.  What's really wild to think about is that Duncan's last day of high school is a month away.  We're getting things sorted out for Lane in the fall.  It's deeply reassuring to get kids through these big milestones.

The week has otherwise been mostly uneventful.  I'm starting to prep for the next round of D&D sessions, warming up the 3d printer and getting my maps ready to go.  Tomorrow is the family group, which was delayed a bit.  It'll be nice to see everyone and roll some dice.  Jo is off to the writing shack tonight.  I'm hoping to do some gaming with the Chicago people this Sunday.  The endless house chores nip at my feet - we've got some plumbing in our future at some point, replacing a basement faucet.

Work's been fine - we're in the home stretch of testing and getting things ready for a release.  I'm taking some classes next week in hopes of getting some certifications lined up.  Ah, the joys of professional development.