Life as I Know It

Archive for May, 2011

Bachelorette Day

I didn’t really plan to take the whole day off, but not that I think of it, I can’t actually remember the last time I spent a whole day doing whatever I wanted.

The plan was to go to an early movie, come home and get into some coding. It’s just a hop skip, and a jump to the multiplex in downtown Vancouver so I looked for shows there and asked the Internet for movie suggestions.

Then I remembered the Vancouver Farmer’s Market. I was appalled to see that it has been open since MARCH! All the time I’ve wasted, when I could have been having my favorite catfish from Gumbo Goddess and my favorite mini donuts–the kind made hot and fresh and dipped in cinnamon or sugar before your eyes that I could previously only get at Pike Place market in Seattle.

The Gumbo Goddess was glad to see me and heaped my plate with more food than I could possibly eat and it was delicious. I had decided based on one enthusiastic and one luke warm vote to go see Thor.  My sister was very excited about Bridesmaids but hadn’t actually seen it, and in any case, I was in the mood for something fantastical.

I was technically a bit late to the movie but got there just as the last previews were ending and didn’t miss any of the movie.

I liked it. I didn’t clap in the middle like my classmate Jake, but behind the extremely fantastical special effects was a good story with well written characters I could root for, a hot girl, a male lead so tasty and ripped even I could appreciate him, and some cool fight scenes. And now I finally understand the easter egg at the end of Iron Man 2. I stayed through the credits for an easter egg teaser of the sequel.

At the end of the movie, I noticed that the bathroom connects to both sides of the theatre, so I went across to see what was playing on the other side and saw that Source Code started in 10 minutes. I made a snap decision and walked in for a good old fashioned double feature. This is something I used to do as a teenager, when I thought $5 was too expensive for a matinee. Oh, I didn’t know how good I had it…

I didn’t expect Source Code to be all that great, and it wasn’t, but it wasn’t painful to sit through either and besides, it was free. We’ll just call it my version of a midlife crisis, since Jess won’t let me buy any more bikes.

Speaking of Jess, she was working today, so I felt like it was a great day to do all the things I love that would be painful for her to sit through. She hates sci-fi and fantasy except Star Wars and Harry Potter (no, I don’t know why they made the cut). She hates seafood and she hates it when I eat seafood, but hey, marriage is compromise.

When I got home, I caught up on Celebrity Apprentice while I made another fabulous recipe from Super Natural Every Day, our new cookbook by Heidi Swanson (AKA @101cookbooks).

Tomorrow, I will be studious and virtuous and productive, but it was really nice to have a real day off.

 

  • By kronda
  • Personal
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Help Me Raise Money for American Lung Association for my 40th Birthday

At the Reach the Beach finish line in 2006

At the Reach the Beach finish line in 2006

I’m turning 40 in 16 days. If I were turning 40 in 1 year and 16 days, I’d probably have a proper celebration with lots of pomp and circumstance and the chance for all my friends to bring black mylar balloons and give me morbid cards. Or a properly sober and mature marking of the occasion…at a paint ball facility.

But since I’m too busy with work and school right now (I’ll only be saying that for a few more months, yay!). I may have a do-over 40 celebration in the fall.

In the meantime, Jess and I were invited to be on a team for Reach the Beach the day after my birthday and we said yes. We loving riding bikes together and it seemed like a great way to spend the day together doing something fun. AND, it’s a fundraiser for the American Lung Association. We’re both HUGE fans of breathing. You probably are too.

In my school/work/trapped-under-cats cycle of busy, I somehow missed the fact that our fundraising donations are due THIS FRIDAY.

THAT’S TWO DAYS AWAY!

But you know what? That’s cool. I’m not worried about it. I don’t ask for things very often and you guys NEVER let me down. (Exhibit A).

Since I’m turning 40, I think $400 seems like a fitting goal. But since I’m in charge of fundraising for our team (that’s team K and J), do me a favor and split that between my page and Jess’s page OK? (You don’t think I have too  many friends now do you honey? :)

THANK YOU in advance, on behalf of all the people who are helped daily, monthly, yearly by the American Lung Association.

To sum up:

DONATE HERE FOR ME: http://action.lungusa.org/goto/kronda

UPDATE: My page has reached goal already (I love you guys!) so head on over to Jess’s page if you would:

DONATE HERE FOR JESS: http://action.lungusa.org/goto/pdxjess

$400 by Friday. ($200 per page).

Have I mentioned how much you rock? You do. Thank you. Keep breathing.

Jess & Kronda Reach the Beach 2006 finish line

Jess & Kronda Reach the Beach 2006 finish line

 

 

  • By kronda
  • Personal
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Ruby Week 4: Ruby, Peter, Paul

Here’s where we get into the weird, stressful scrunchy part of the term, where there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. Ever heard that phrase, ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul?” Sorry Ruby, but you’re Peter this week. Not as much movement on the Ruby front as I would have liked.

The good news? Only 1.5 weeks left of the evil, life-sucking online classes. By the way, if you’re ever thinking of taking two of them at once–I don’t recommend it. However, I’m going to be a VERY happy camper in about 9 days when my work load decreases by 70%.

I did manage to squeeze in my scheduled tutorial this week: Conditional Statements and Loops. Yeah it seems basic, but I’ll appreciate this later when I’m (hopefully) not pulling my hair out wondering why my code doesn’t work over some weird Ruby syntax issue.

And there are a couple of either ‘gotcha’s’ especially for the PHP and Javascript inclined.

For example:

A typical PHP switch statement might go like so:

switch (variable) {
case 'value':
# do stuff...
break;
default:
# do default stuff...
break;
}

The Ruby version would be:

message = case
when hour < 12
"Good morning"
when hour > 12 && hour < 17
"Good afternoon"
else
"Good evening"
end

Or, for an even more ‘English’ looking effect, the same thing could be written:

when hour < 12 then "Good morning"
when hour > 12 && hour < 17 then "Good afternoon"
else "Good evening"
end

Kinda makes you glad you don’t have to put your program on punch cards don’t it?

I also have an official project repo up on Github, though there’s nothing in it but a template at the moment. We had a lot of useful information thrown at this week, and I’m looking forward to sifting through it to see just which parts I’ll be able to apply.