|
|
|
tiling and cold pasta salad
Monday, July 27 2020
It being Monday, I was back to work in my remote workplace. I actually made some progress getting a complex Windows-based web application working on a test machine, though of course I didn't get all the way to where I needed to be. As I've complained in the past, to get Windows web applications working requires the mastery of a multidimensional codebase and often spread across the whole system (and not just in the files, but in registry settings as well). I'd go further, and say that such applications have an almost fractal distribution, with new complexities appearing as soon as old ones are handled. With Unix-based applications, on the other hand, everything lives in a finite number of files. This is less true with modern frameworks, particularly those using Node.js, but at least they evolved from systems that had been essential linear.
At about 4:00pm, I abruptly stopped working at my day job to do the tiling of the floor where the new tub will sit. I put down the goldenrod-colored tiles in a subway-tile pattern until I reached beyond the edge of where the tub would sit, whereupon I switched to a random tiles I found in the garage. Nobody will ever see any tiles from beneath the tub or on the ends of the tub from the tub's center axis to the wall. Unfortunately, the thinset I was using was old and lumpy (though I'd tested it and found it was still good), but I broke down the biggest lumps and mixed the perfect amount of it for installing all the necessary tiles. It was such a hot day that I ran the air conditioner in the adjacent bedroom as I worked, keeping the door shut for the many times I went out into the yard to make cuts with the wet saw. As always with such projects, I couldn't take a break the whole time for fear that the thinset would solidify. As I worked, I listened to an audiobook of The Long Tail, about technology's ability to provide a diversity of obscure products and media. It was written in the early 2000s before the rise of Facebook and smartphones, but otherwise it was all still relevant.
Meanwhile, Gretchen had made a cold pasta salad for dinner, though I didn't have time to eat until 8:00pm, after I'd finished and cleaned up. By the time I went to bed, I was feeling sore in my lower back from all the stoop work I'd been doing. I spent a little time on the solar deck after dark looking for Comet Neowise, but the quarter moon and a few clouds interfered with the view. There were also occasional flashes from a distant thunderstorm in the northwest.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?200727 feedback
previous | next |
