Feb. 18th, 2003

cellio: (avatar)
I'm working from home today, not because of the snow but because it's car-inspection time and public transit doesn't really serve the office's location very well even when buses aren't way off schedule due to weather. So last night I FTPed a bunch of stuff to an intermediate machine (and then retrieved it from home), because the CD burn crapped out a few minutes before finishing, after an hour (!), and I wasn't going to wait around to try again. The internet to the rescue. :-) (It was only about 200 meg; it shouldn't have taken an hour anyway.)

I took the car to the garage at about 8:30 and they gave the impression that they'd be looking at it soon (not many cars in the lot, either), but they haven't called yet. The last few years inspection has been an exercise in patching problems to eek out a few more years. Some year, the cost of repairs will exceed a reasonable annual fee for keeping the car, and I'll have to buy a new one. (That's why I'm doing this now, although the current inspection is good through March.) I'm hoping that's not for another few years, because I'm interested in the hybrids but don't want to be an early adopter. We'll see. (One of my requirements for a car, and this is harder now than it used to be, is being a hatchback. Nothing else I've driven comes close on visibility combined with carrying capacity. And no, I don't want a van; I want something small.)

This is the first car I bought new. I bought it 14 years ago. I guess I just can't wrap my brain around the mentality that says that you replace your car every 3-5 years. Car shopping is way too much trouble. And hey, my insurance costs are low, which I certainly factor into the "fix or dump?" evaluation every year at inspection time. And I've found a mechanic who understands my approach and doesn't try to sell me on unnecessary repairs (best I can tell, anyway).

Last night I shovelled a bunch more snow from the "driveway", but I was tired so I settled for producing something I could drive over, rather than completely clear. I had some trouble getting out this morning, though, so I shovelled a bunch more when I got back from dropping the car off. Last night I also shovelled a path from the road up to our front door, but didn't do the sidewalks along the rest of the property because I was tired and no one else on the block had either. Dani did a little shovelling but tired out quickly. I don't think of myself as being in particularly good shape, but judging from last night my endurance is much higher than his. Odd.

Still, I'm glad that someone came around this morning offering to exchange shovelling services for money. The sidewalk and walk in front are now clear. My back has been a little sore today, so I might not have been able to do it tonight.

And apropos of nothing, why must obfuscating a jar (Java) be such a royal pain? Hasn't anybody written a tool yet that'll crawl through your code looking for dynamic class references? We have spent way more time on this part of the release process than seems reasonable.

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