The most recent gathering of the Transarc doc group was Saturday afternoon at a home half a mile from mine. (While I don't remember the hosts from Transarc (I don't think we overlapped), I did share a Hebrew class with them once.) At one point a person I've worked with twice, and tried to recruit, asked me "are you still loving your job?". I gestured toward another person sitting there and asked "have you met my grand-boss"? I then explained that any answer I gave under the circumstances would be perceived as either untruthful or unwise, depending, so I couldn't answer that question just then. I also pointed out that another attendee now works for me, so she shouldn't ask her about it in front of me. :-)

It took a couple weeks (after making an online reservation), but I finally got my confirmation for the NHC summer institute (Jewish learning program). So now all I have to do is decide on an airport and make reservations. Trains do not go there efficiently. That's a pity; I would like to be able to take a train somewhere someday. Doing the "airborne sardine" thing is over-rated. (Hmm. I'm taking it as a given that no one else from the Pittsburgh area is going, but I should check. Driving could work with the right group. But there is no way I'm taking such a road trip myself.)

Erik saw my vet tonight for a followup after his visit to the emergency clinic last week. He is eating but (still) not as much as he should be. I am to give him fluids for a while. We are waiting for an appointment for a consultation with a specialist, who'll look at the ultrasound and advise on options, including surgery. Poor guy. He's active and otherwise happy near as I can tell, but he does seem to have a case of ADR (Ain't Doin' Right), and I hope they can figure out how to fix it soon.

It's a little disconcerting to realize that my cat has better health care than many people who can pay (but live in places where there's none to be bought).

What does "X% chance of rain tonight" mean? Any rain anywhere in the region at any time during the night? That X% of the region will be wet by morning? That the whole region will get rain for X% of the night? Inquiring minds want to know, and empirical evidence is decidedly lacking.

Short takes:

As rjlippincott says, sometimes a product name says everything you need to know. Moo Doo, indeed.

For SCA folks: jducoeur's rules of water-bearing nails some of the current bureaucracy square on the head. Go. Read.

This kitten pile from kittenbreak is adorable. Assuming that's one litter, I'm surprised by both the number and the uniformity.

Version-control systems should not behave differently depending on the location of a file. That is, "cvs [operation] somedir/file" and "cvs [operation] file" should produce the same results with respect to the file in question. You may infer from the fact that I'm writing this that this is not the case. Hrmpf.

In happier news, last night was the Transarc doc group reunion dinner. I had fun; Dani had less fun because he knew fewer people. (We were also seated near people I didn't know all that well, though enough conversations got shouted down the length of the table that this wasn't that much of a challenge.) Jim and Laurie were both there. We haven't seen them in ages! (Well, I saw Jim at a previous reunion dinner, but it's been a long time since I saw Laurie or Dani saw either.) Gotta fix that. Jean, too.

Coincidentally, the NetBill gang is talking about holding a reunion dinner next month. It's been about a year and a half. That'll be fun too. I volunteered to host that one; there are fewer NetBillians than Transarcians.

Tuesday was D&D. It was largely a role-playing session this time; I infer that there will be monster-bashing next time. :-) (I also need to figure out the best use of my character's share of recent loot.)

I've been having an annoying experience with a third-party seller through Amazon Marketplace. Almost a month ago I ordered the second season of B5 on DVD; it's not here yet, though it was required to ship three weeks ago. The seller has given me two different bogus tracking numbers for the package, and doesn't really answer email. (Those two tracking numbers are a significant percentage of the total word count of his messages.) He has thus far failed to tell me when the package actually shipped; I'm betting on either "a few days ago" or "never".

If worst comes to worst I can file a claim with Amazon for the money (in another few days), but I'm kind of irked that this loser seller will have cost me a month and some extra money. (The going rate is higher now than it was then.) He's got a large pile of negative feedback (all since I placed my order); I haven't left any yet. I wonder what makes people like that tick. I mean, I assume Amazon is going to go after him for all the insurance claims they'll have to pay out. How stupid is this seller?

But in happier news, according to Amazon the third season will be out in August. Yay!