Market Carpet
What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment.
-- Virginia Woolf
Thursday, August 31, 2000
One year ago: Open Source as an Ant Farm
Two years ago: Cold Mountain
Three years ago: Knight-Errantry
Don't miss Tuesday's entry -- it's got the funky monks and the Breendoggle.
Even though Pete didn't come to get me until 6:30, the appointed time, I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. So I working on cleaning the bathroom, using those mr. clean wipes, and scrubbed the bathtub after bathing, instead of relying on supposed no-scrub Tilex shower-fresh.
I do want things to be nice when Jack stays here. It gives me the impetus to do this stuff when I don't do it just for myself. He certainly doesn't demand it! Just part of being a good hostess, I guess!
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I've been reseaching what sort of car to get, using the resources at cars.com. Useful for me, since I really haven't paid much attention to different car models for the last twelve years. Chip was encouraging me in this. I think he's more concerned about me riding the bus than I am myself! But the fact that bus routes will be changing in a few weeks and my two-bus journey will turn into a three-bus trip is giving me the incentive to get this taken care of. After the good old 263 goes away, the bus to Quadrant Willows Corporate Center will only be for emergencies, indeed.
Chip's folks visited the office today. His mom has read this journal from time to time, and talked to me about opera. I shamefacedly admitted that no, I haven't ever been to the Seattle Opera, even though I really like opera and the Seattle company is world-renowned. Chip gave his dad an even-more-detailed tour of our facilities than visitors usually get, if you can imagine such. His dad is one of our best site visitors for giving us feedback.
I worked on the manual page for our new Java applet, the Market Carpet. It's an interesting tool that makes visual scanning easy to do. I think there's a lot of depth to it! This was Chip's vision, with Jonathan, our younger java developer, implementing it. I find the colors hyp-mo-tizing when the applet is set on animate (right-click to do that). I'm still not sure why it's called a carpet.
It was a nice bonus when Pete offered me a ride again. At least me being in the car allows him to use the HOV lanes. (High Occumpancy Vehicle, natch). Jack had suggested that I should offer to contribute some gas money, but Pete waved the notion away. Perhaps I should have insisted harder!
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I was so drowsy when I got home. I dozed from 5:30 to seven, with NPR impinging on my dreams. Dinner at Kidd valley (the burger place down the street, but the one near me isn't as funky as the one linked to), then I walked across the street to Safeway to get quarters for laundry. That they have a change machine is a good thing, but the darn machine doesn't like new-style twenties. I got soda and ice cream at 7-11. It's closer to home than the grocery store, so heavy twelve-packs of soda are easier to carry. The Sikh clerk asked if I would like the toy footballs that were a freebie with the soda. I can hardly understand him, but when I grasped what he was saying, I took the two I was entitled to. I'll find a home for them!
