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I finally cleaned out that last box of stuff (today’s “recreation” activity is cleaning the apartment). I’ve saved that box for no good reason… probably because it’s all clothes and I was pretty set for the summer season. After I got that box unpacked, I realized that I have A LOT of clothes and a large closet.
I know I’ve been spoiled by SO who does all the cleaning in Michigan (and the yard work, and the laundry, and the dishes, and the cooking…) Now I really have to make an effort to do chores. *sigh* it’s a pain.

There’s this guy at work. In my mind his name is Liang, although I know it’s something different… Very nice person, slightly older than Dad, senior engineer on the electrical side. We are the only two people in the office who’s from Taiwan and sometimes we chat for no other reason…
Anyway, so he asked me if I would like to join him sometime at this Taiwanese church, and this put me in a spot. I don’t mind going to churches with co-workers, in fact those are about the only times when I would go. But I do mind driving 45 minutes to go to church… and I’m afraid that’s what I’d have to do, since this Taiwanese church he’s been talking about is in Rockville.

My supervisor found out that I was writing a paper today.
Ever since I came to Bechtel, I heard nothing but encouragement about papers. I’ve been working on one for a few weeks now. I didn’t tell the chief directly (but he knows about it) and I didn’t tell Sushant, until today… I don’t know why, but he didn’t seem 100% happy about it.
It’s one of those frustrating things that Dad warns me about - me pissing people off without knowing it, or at this point, even remotely understanding the reason. Which means one thing: time to bake some cookies.

I’m trying this new way of managing my days. On Monday, I wrote down three items per day for the whole week. The first is goal of the day for work, second is for research, third is for recreation. I think it’s working pretty well. For example, if “recreation” for today wasn’t hiking, I might have argued for hours with my inner self not to do it. (Note to self: Hiked south from Gathland, approx. 2~3 miles, or 5~6 miles round trip). The problem is, I keep remembering things that I want to put in the recreation list. For example, “Bake cookies to pacify supervisor”.

I met up with the guy I hit last Wednesday.
He called me on Friday and told me that the estimate came to be $700. That was about $550 more than what I had expected. From first glance, it just seemed that I knocked his hood over by a couple of centimeters so I thought the estimate was obscene.
I thought I was going to be able to talk him out of it. It’s not the first defect on his car to be sure, and probably the least noticeable one. However, when we met up he was adamant about getting it fixed. He explained that I had also hit his headlight back an inch or so, and that is why the cost is so high. Apparently the head light works… I didn’t even notice it was out of place until he pointed it out. There was nothing that looked wrong on the estimate, so I told him that there’s nothing I can do to help. If he finds a cheaper estimate, we can talk again.
I started to see his side of the story as well. His deductible is $500 and even though he’s not at fault, his insurance will still rise after he calls them. Which means that he’s getting screwed worse than I am… Truth be told, I really think that if he had slammed the breaks instead of trying to come to a gentle halt, we’d all be spared this little incident.

I always have these glorious plans to do a lot of work during the weekends. Needless to say, they never get done. Chances are usually low, but I’m almost never home now…
Went back to Michigan with Mom to pick up Jason. We had a fun day playing putt-putt, then SO and I send them off on Sunday morning.

Traveling takes so much time. I’ve tried out all of the airports in the region (Dullas, Regan, and Baltimore) and so far I like Regan the best since I can park at the metro.
It takes 9+ hours to drive, but almost just as long to fly. I set off from home around 6PM and just got back around 12:30AM. Okay… flying is probably still a little better, especially since I get bump to first class on every flight now.

Behold! My new curtains!
Yes, I’m very proud of them. I put them up myself, even used power tools.

It went downhill when I hit a car on the way back from work. He’s okay, I’m okay, his car’s okay (the shift in the bumper is barely noticeable), and my car’s okay (I’m definitely not fixing a few scratches). Hopefully he’ll call me and tell me that everything’s good and have a good life.
I should have thought about how late it was before setting off to Gathland Park. When I hiked from Reno Monument to Lamb’s Knoll, I met a hiker going north who said it’s only a couple of miles to Gathland Park. I didn’t think I was hiking that slowly but by the time I turned around, it was getting dark. The sun was completely down during the last 30 minutes and I was at a crawling pace since I couldn’t see the trail or the trail markers. I thought that I’d fall and break a leg, knowing that I left my cell phone at the apartment. Or, if I’m really lucky, I’ll get back to my car and find someone had broke into it. Lovely thoughts like that usually come into my mind when I’m scared and nervous. Neither of those things happened, but my legs were like noodles when I started to drive home.

It’s such a nightmare… I’ve never done much of it, so I had to call SO to figure out that I had the drill on reverse. Such a lot of time with such little payoff. I really should have just gotten eye masks and called it a done deal, instead of trying to install window curtains. Luckily, they haven’t deposited my security check yet.

Also realized that if I put words such as “recently moved” and “Maryland” together, there’s a high chance of spam pingbacks.

Do you ever feel that you’re just doing the same thing day after day? I mean, you’ve got to… because most of us are. Wake up, go to work, come home, spend the rest of the time exercising/cooking/gardening/eating/watching TV/playing games… etc. It’s not till I moved to the apartment did I profoundly feel that I’m wasting time.

Things are better at work though. Today was one of the first days when I didn’t congratulate myself for finishing another worthless 8 hours when I walked out of the office. I took a leaf out of Tim Ferriss’ book and try to work as effectively as possible so I’ll have more time on research.
Then again, I shouldn’t pat myself on the shoulder too soon. Research is kicking my ass… I’m never good at reading, so why did I choose a project that involves reading and interpreting 100+ papers? I don’t know, something about Mom’s CV…

What is it about coding and no-man’s hour?
I’ve been spending the whole day in front of the computer, just willing myself to make some spectacular programming progress. There was nothing, until 11PM when I really made some progress.
A little background: the best set of code I wrote was during transitional hours (going from day shift to night shift) when I stayed up too 5 AM in front of the computer.
Seriously, noon to 3PM would have been good for me. I had a radio program to catch and I couldn’t go anywhere anyway. 3PM to 7PM would have been nice too, since I was bored off my mind. Then there was 7PM till 11PM when I basically gave up and decided to start drinking.
Here’s the question: If you’re not a programmer by trade, have you ever made any sort of real progress when the sun is up?