If you've just dropped by or random'ed into me, please leave a comment and say hello.

Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

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weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		1°C
mood	:		...

Three weeks ago, after six years at the now Ex-Work, I started a new job. Previously, at Ex-Work, the mission-critical thing was dealing with other peoples' money. With the current Work, my new mission-critical thing is dealing with other peoples' lives.

It really puts life in a whole new perspective.

But Work now involves a significantly longer commute. I have a half hour bus ride and then a 35-40 minute skytrain ride. Kinda brutal compared to the half hour bus ride previously. But I've been making the most of the time reading and listening to books.

I have a Kindle Keyboard (which used to be called the Kindle 3). I named it Pantalaimon because that's exactly what it is to me. It's my Pantalaimon. Almost right down to the kind of sick feeling when it's not with me. I'd left it at home one day and my stomach actually felt a bit knotted/queasy. =)

I have more books than I've ever owned in my life. I love finding and collecting books almost as much as I love reading. The Kindle is great for leisure reading, but terrible for reference type documentation. And terrible for reading PDFs.

I also find it's not ideal for audiobooks in every situation. It's okay for audiobooks in some ways, but awful in other ways. Audiobook tracks come in variable lengths. Some have a lot of 2-3 minute tracks and I have to manually advance to every track. This is done by going back to the menu, navigating one down, opening it and hitting play. So much Nope.

Some have hour-long or even longer tracks. These ones are less of a pain to advance through, but if I pause in the middle, the Kindle loses its place within the track if the screensaver kicks in and it will pop itself back to the beginning of the track you were in the middle of. And you can't quickly skip to a certain time in the track. There is an Advance button, but advances by 30 seconds per button click. Which is some kind of not-wonderful for an hour long track.

I also tend to read/listen before bed and fall asleep. It's even more not-wonderful to fall asleep somewhere in the middle of an hour long track and not know where. This is when the zillions of tiny tracks works better.

I use a cheap little MP3 player for the skytrain ride now. I got it in 2001, so it's only 500M and VERY bare bones in functionality. But it does exactly what I want it to do. It auto-advances for me and can restart at exactly the place I left off. And I use the Kindle for text reading and stuff I can fall asleep to.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		...

My head tips off one side of my palm where it was resting, precariously balanced with my elbow on the table. And I suddenly jerk awake with the feeling of falling.

I done been nudged.

/smile @ oldron... =) I have absolutely nothing interesting to tell anyone. Oh wait, maybe...

I had a pretty interesting realization a little while ago. I suppose I might share it:

The fashion industry is not about designing clothes for people to wear.

It's about an artist, using fabric, non-fabric, and notions to create art. The medium is something resembling a human body - a walking coat hanger, if you will.

Most of the time, it's not an average human body. Many times, the bodies are actually a bit unnatural or deformed.

It's an artist being creative with their chosen medium. It is NOT about clothes for people. There's really no sense attaching any measurement of "attractiveness" to it.

And all of a sudden, everything makes perfect sense to me. I don't get art. And that's perfectly okay.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		at peace

We had Sid cremated this morning at Blueridge-Cove Animal Hospital in North Vancouver, BC. They were wonderful to us.

Sid was in a small paper box and they put the whole box into the furnace. It took an hour and a bit for the process to fully finish. There was no where to sit and it was drizzling, so we left and went back afterwards. His ashes were put in a small plastic bag, tied with gold ribbon and put in a box stuffed with gold tissue, like a Christmas gift. That was really sweet of them. =)

I'd been reading about cremated pet remains. I know that with cats and dogs, you get bits of bone, teeth and sometimes part of the items that go in with the animal (the blanket, collar, etc.). Cockatiels will fully disintegrate, but I wasn't surprised to see chunks of pebbles from the inside of the furnace in there as well. I sifted the remains to filter out the big pieces and put the finer ashes into his little urn. I spread a bit of glue on the stopper and slid it in.

The little urn that I had custom made for Sid is 2.5" high by 2" wide. It's now a pendant on a black velvet cord around my neck. It's smokey grey with orange/yellow flowers and white vines; those were his colours. It only holds about a teaspoon of ashes. There was a lot of the ashes still left over, so the rest of it went into the garden.

I'm glad I sort of had plans for Sid. It did make everything easier.

... goodbye, little guy.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		18°C
mood	:		sad

Sid died last night.

Friday morning, the Husband Guy found him sleeping at the bottom of his cage, which is a bit unusual for him. He's usually on his highest platform in the corner. And his feathers were fluffed out instead of flat against his body.

By the afternoon, Mom was asked to bring him into Night Owl Bird Hospital. As soon as Dr. MacDonald saw him, she pretty well knew. At 0100h Saturday morning, we got a call that he had collapsed.

Dr. MacDonald will be doing an autopsy to try to determine the reason for death, but she thinks he was just too old and weak to handle another bout of kidney, lung, liver, heart or whatever other health issue it is this time around.

I didn't know I could be so crushed.

?? - July 16, 2011

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		...

I'm sort of back into the nail art craze.

I'm sure it's So Six Months Ago[tm] by now, but I decided to try the OPI Red Shatter after seeing some strangers on the bus and then a coworker with crackle nails. I couldn't find a good silver one at the spa I went to today, so I just grabbed a regular gold (OPI Curry Up Don't Be Late).

I'm still trying to see if I can figure out how to get it to crackle the way I want it to instead of just leaving it up to chance.

I'm going to get a silver base colour and practice a bit. I have another wedding coming up in December (I think... maybe) and most of my jewellery is silver.

I also want to get a brown or grey shatter polish and put it over my regular shimmery roses/pinks.

[Update]

Husband's reaction: "It looks like someone gave you a bad manicure and then you fell down the stairs with it."

... ... ... lol XD

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		poker face

A small cream coloured mouse is put into a shoebox. A piece of cheese in the corner diagonal to it. It sees the cheese and bee-lines right to it, snarfing it up greedily.

More cheese in the box. More eating. Good times.

The same small cream coloured mouse is then put into a maze the size of several shoeboxes. The maze's twists and turns are complex and the mouse has a lot of trouble finding the cheese. It is continually frustrated and getting desparately hungry. But it perseveres. And learns. It learns to put a system of knotches and scratches on the walls with its teeth and claws to mark its path.

In a matter of time, it hasn't figured out the whole maze, but knows and remembers enough to find cheese in certain locations and not go hungry.

The maze changes again and again. Not drastically, but enough to be a shake-up. And the mouse has to adapt to the changes to not go hungry.

A curious thing happens. The small cream coloured mouse learns to climb up the walls to see the layout of the maze from above. This is a tremendous breakthrough discovery. The maze is bigger that just the little bit that it knows. There's more cheese in different places. It always knew this, but now it has a much clearer idea of that.

Through clawing, knotching and climbing, it expands its traversable territory in the maze.

One day, several more levels of different mazes are stacked on top of the one floor the small cream coloured mouse had learned to navigate. Rope ladders give the mouse the ability to move from one floor to another.

What now? We'll see.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		7°C
mood	:		ecstatic

Subject: Popsicles in the Freezer. Help yourself.

Dear People In My Office,

I became an Auntie last Tuesday. =)

As outlined in The Cool Auntie Instruction Manual™, the only job I have with the kidlet is, and I quote, "to spoil her rotten, then give her back."

This is such an important job that I felt I needed to practice.

On you guys.

Enjoy. =)

Three things:

1. Girl. Giant 8½ lbs monkeygirl. =)
2. Those are the best ice cream popsicles I've ever had.
   • I've seen them in Melon, Mango, Banana and Strawberry. There are supposedly Red Bean and Lime flavoured ones as well, but I don't think I've seen those before.
   • My favorite is the Melon, but everyone else seems to like the Mango best.
   • I saw them at Save-On Foods (Overwaitea) on the weekend.
   • If you eat them standing up, they have no calories. YES, THAT IS _TOO_ HOW IT WORKS, BIGBOSSGUY!!! =D
3. Work is still a big bucket of crazy. With bigger and bigger buckets every time.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		7°C
mood	:		ecstatic

My baby brother just accepted a job offer from Research In Motion (yeah, the Crackberry people). =)

I don't yet know what his title is, but his undergrad degree is in Electrical Engineering at Simon Fraser University.

We are so, so, SO proud of him. =D

I swear, last week, he was just learning to walk and still drooling into his big-ass bib.

All of a sudden this week, he has a job with an zomg-awesome starting salary, he's moving out on his own for the first time, all the way across the country, and has ex drama.

*sniff* My baby brother is growing up. =}

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		...

Well, we won.

If you can call it "winning" when none of the other cars actually matter.

The driver is alive and recovering. As expected, he has minor complications, is still not awake and is being monitored very carefully. But he is technically alive.

The car is not quite in one piece.

The spoiler and one of the side mirrors fell off. Some of the paint is smudged because it didn't dry properly. The breast cancer ribbon is still on the antenna, though it's not in the best shape and may need to be replaced.

Also, it turns out that the transmission was actually not working. We're not entirely sure when that happened or how it broke. But it was found broken.

So, we have to get everything sorted out ASAP for the Press Conference and Exhibition Race.

And I think we're just going to shoot anyone who starts talking about the next major race altogether.

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		...

Continuing on the not-exaggerated analogy of Work:

Apparently, aside from the heart transplant, a clot also had to be removed from one of the major arteries in the area that the partially remote surgical team only saw once they started.

And then, the driver's appendix burst.

As foreshadowed by the bumble-bees previously, the owner of the car sold it, mid-race. The new owner had to have the car re-painted yellow and black immediately. The lawyers demanded all logos on the body of the car to be swapped out. The new owner's wife insisted a pink breast cancer ribbon be tied onto the antenna.

All the while without stopping.

Final lap. This weekend.

We're required to win this race with the driver alive.

weather	:		clear
outside	:		16°C
mood	:		...

Part 3 of my update... yes, these last three posts were originally one. I broke them up to post over several days =D

So, with no love lost there, it would just be easier to have all our characters on one server to share resources and be able to group up for dungeon runs and what-not. I would move my Paladin Girl and my Druid Girl (the one with the Totally Rockin' Mammoth Ride) back to our original server.

Yes. USD $50 for both.

The Husband Guy would move his almost level 80 Druid back to our server as well. And we'd foot the bill to move his Cousin Dude's Shammy.

Yes. Another $50.

We're just feeling so bad that we were the ones who inspired him to play again, level his Shaman to 80, then he paid to transfer to my friend's server so that he could play with us. And now we'd be ditching him again. =P

I don't quite know if or when we'd do this yet. We're kinda hesitating because of the money involved and ignoring the guild isn't too hard anyways. And also because my friend was showing signs of playing a bit more in the last little while =P

What would suck the most about moving back is The Husband's second Warlock. He spent all that time levelling another Affliction Warlock to 80 *wince* He really doesn't need another one on our server. You can only have 10 characters on one server and he's already making plans to delete one so that he can create a Goblin once Cataclysm comes out. They may raise the per server character slot max, but I'm not sure if that's a certainty yet.

There's no easy way to give Warlock #2 to me. Transferring ownership of characters is against the WoW Terms of Use and there are no signs of Blizzard making exceptions for spouses or family. Except maybe the Family Account concept, but that isn't quite the same thing. That was more for subscription discounts. There's no telling if they would allow character transfers between accounts in the same Family Account group anyway. And that suggestion doesn't even have a blue post (Official Blizzard Admin Response), I don't think.

I don't think there'd be any way to petition Blizzard to let us do that... The only possible legal way we could do it would be to have him create another Battle.Net account under his own name. Then he could transfer the Warlock #2 from His Account 'A' to His Account 'B'. That way, if I wanted to play the Warlock #2, he could be logged in to His Account 'A' while I'm logged in to His Account 'B'.

But we'd be maintaining a third on-going Battle.Net subscription which, of course, we would have to purchase a security authenticator for. We'd have to pay for the character transfer from His Account 'A' to His Account 'B' ($25). We'd also have to pay for the Realm Transfer from my friend's server to our server ($25). And that's without any other changes to pay for, like name change, gender and race change.

*shrug* At this point, it's looking cheaper and easier if I levelled my own Warlock. Mine is already level 42. I stopped because I'm at that weird level range when the blueberry can't quite keep aggro on the mobs. So, I get pretty hurt killing stuff because I'm really squishy.

Thinking back, I wanted to buy a pre-levelled 80 Hunter at one point. And I ended up levelling my own. I'm glad I didn't just buy it now because I quite enjoyed levelling the Hunter. I may yet finish levelling my Warlock one day.

But I'm having too much fun levelling a Rogue Girl at the moment. The cute sneaky is level 30 now and lots of fun to play. I can't wait until I get Fan of Knives. =)

weather	:		clear
outside	:		17°C
mood	:		...

My friend hasn't been playing much WoW anymore and has been talking about cancelling her subscription. She and her husband have been slowly shifting towards a lifestyle of more outdoorsy activities, now that her puppy is... well, no longer a puppy =) He's a mutt, they have no idea what exact cross he is. But puppy is very intelligent, active, and just really enjoys being off leash in parks and on hiking trails.

She's also excited about Star Wars: The Old Republic because she used to play Knights of The Old Republic and says it was superior to WoW in many ways. So, she's very looking forward to at least giving SWTOR a good go. I will probably try it out as well.

If she's not playing WoW, there isn't much point to us playing on her server either.

The Husband Guy and I had noticed that her guildies tend to only be nice to us when she's around. When she's online, they'll chat and joke with us. When she's not around, most of them ignore The Husband and me. When I would request Profession Links in guild chat, no one responds... and yes, I would know to check to see if they're in a raid, arena, battleground or otherwise likely not able to respond. If people are sitting in Dalaran and Orgrimmar, I would think that someone could pipe up without me being pushy and cornering them about it.

I wouldn't have minded so much if they were just not the warm-fuzzy-helpie kind of guild. But I see them chatting up a storm in guild chat, scrambling all over each other to help everyone else. Other new guild members included. Most of my gem cuts, crafted plate tanking armor, flasks and anything else that I needed were made by random players outside the guild who were looking for work in Trade Chat. I found many of the other players on her server much more friendly and less cold to us than her guildies. It was a bit baffling.

I was particularly nonplussed with one incident. I had wanted some raid flasks made; Endless Rage for me and Frost Wyrm for the Husband. We weren't raiders, but it was a way to not look so Noob and Fail™ in random Heroics.

I had asked the Guild Alchemist if she could make my flasks if I provided all the materials. She was busy at the time but I could mail them to her and she would mail me back the flasks. I wasn't in a hurry so that was fine with me. I mailed Alchy Girl two full sets of mats (vials included) and a 10 gold tip for each set. That's about how much you would earn for an easy quest.

She didn't ask for 10g per set. We just thought it would be a friendly gesture. Usually, people don't charge guildies because it's just clicking a few buttons. And guildies usually would do the same for you without charging. But we were new. We didn't have a bunch of 80s on the server that could reciprocate for them. And we know the kind of effort that's involved in levelling professions ourselves.

One of the mats - the Frost Lotus - is kinda hard to come by. They're a bit rare to farm and very expensive on the Auction House. Alchy Girl sat on my mats for over a week. That's long enough that I had just about mentally written off the flasks as a learning experience.

I wasn't impressed about the fact that I _did_ see her online and in guild ICC runs. Having been a raider and a bench-warmer myself, I know how to tell when the groups wipe and are no longer in combat. I whispered her in between fights and while she was sitting in Dalaran/Orgrimmar about once every 2-3 days to ask if she got my mats in the mail. I never got a response from her. I even explained that I was just trying to determine if I had sent it to someone else completely. I thought it was very unlikely because I picked her name twice from the name suggestion autocomplete.

Husband Guy suggested that I wait until my friend was also on, then ask her directly in guild chat and see what happens. It finally took my friend asking about it before I saw the flasks in my mailbox.

And she kept the tips >.< Sure, it was my choice to tip, so I suppose I'm not entitled to complain that she didn't understand it was just a gesture and she was expected to return it. But if I've dropped the ball on someone like that, I'd be looking to make it up to them somehow... like, at least returning the tip from a guildie that I wouldn't have taken unless they really insisted.

weather	:		clear
outside	:		17°C
mood	:		...

Well, then.

Our raiding guild sort of collapsed since the last time I wrote. The Guild Leader was sick of having people only show up on the first raiding day of the week to down the easy bosses that we already have on farm. Then they would just not appear on the second and third raid day of the week for the encounters that we were still learning and, thus, wiping on.

Prior to this, the guild officers had announced that they were keeping a log of attendance, carefully logging who said they were coming, whether they showed up and if not, whether they left a note saying they would not be online. It's just common courtesy that you would expect from any kind of group event.

The attendance log was originally meant to help the officers deliberate and break unlucky streaks for good raiders when we went to a Loot Council Assisted Need/Greed Roll loot distribution system. But when it became obvious that there were members who expected to be carried and given free loot, by both their words and actions, there was a mass gkick of all the individuals who only came for the easy kills or did not consistently attend raids.

This left us with about 15 core, dedicated raiders. Which isn't enough for the 25-mans. It was sad that we lost many of our best players at that point too. They wound up leaving to join other guilds because they wanted to continue doing 25-mans. At the time, I was wanting to take a break again from raiding anyway, so I didn't bother joining another guild. I also didn't like the name of the guild that most of the better players went to and didn't want that in the name plate over my head. IMHO, there aren't very many guilds with cooler names than my current guild, so I have no desire to join another one.

My Huntard has become my main character. The Old-Timer's raiding schedule of one night a week has been suiting me just fine. Some weeks, we don't raid at all because people are busy or have other things planned on the designated raid night. With three raiding nights a week, I'd want a break after a few months. One raiding night a week is comfortably sustainable for me. I feel like I have time to myself and not have to spend my off raid nights farming boring-ass dailies for money so I can pay for the ever increasing equipment repair costs from wiping.

And if I feel like running more in the week, Icecrown Citadel on 25-man is very puggable now, even though they're more rare than 10-man ICC pugs (which I can't pug because I need to keep that open for my Old-Timer's group). I'm almost never denied an invitation on my Hunter with my gear score and experience.

I did pug a 25-man Ulduar Hard Modes group the other day and they reminded me a lot of my current guild on a good raid night, back in the day. They're a laid back, dorky, they did and said hilarious things, but at the same time, didn't tolerate bullshit. I watched them kick an asshat DK out of the raid, then immediately from the guild. Asshat DPS DK ran into a group of ranged DPS and TAUNTED the boss just for giggles.

They're in nearly the exact same situation as my current guild just before the implosion... 11/12 ICC10, on Putricide in ICC25 and having a tough time getting enough people for the 25-man ICC runs. They sounded willing to pug me until they have enough people to fill all the spots consistently. I was very tempted to join them, because they're a really fun bunch to be around. But, I realize that I've never seen them on a bad raid night, so they may also be remarkably similar to my current guild on bad night. And I'm not sure I want the three raid nights a week again.

weather	:		clear
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		...

My Mother-in-Law got a new car a while ago. It comes with a standard integrated bluetooth interface for cell phones.

Talking on a cellphone without a hands-free device is against the law in BC. It's fairly recent legislation, but we think it's long overdue.

Anyway, the dealership set up her car for her phone while they did the orientation with her. Part way through the orientation, we stepped off to the side of the car for a bit and her phone rang. But we were close enough to the car that the car still picked up the signal.

The husband and I laughed at her. "Your car is ringing... you should answer your car." =D

weather	:		clear
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		...

( Dear Big Guy )

[Update - Saturday, May 01, 2010]

I was too drained to write any more yesterday. All I can manage even this morning is this token lament on the quality of my penmanship spiralling quickly downwards.

And yes, it's been five years at Work. That's the longest I've ever been at one company. Work is undergoing a sudden and large shift right now. It's a large shift in size, culture and scope. It's made everything very very trying.

My title is still "QA Analyst". I figure if one day, I have enough white hair, they'll put "Senior" in front of it. Or not. I don't really care.

It sounds like I'm something between a QA Analyst and a Business Analyst these days. I'm still not convinced I know what the difference between the two roles is. Honestly, I don't care what I'm called or even what my role is.

I just want to do the best I can to help my team produce the best quality software we can in the time that we have. And I want to make it "no extra work" to compile statistics and higher level reports for managers and others who are not involved in our day-to-day activities, who neither know nor care about the nitty-gritty.

Requirements, in whatever form they're given to a Development team, is only a starting point. A Functional Spec is rarely ever followed to the letter or kept up. User Stories are just "a promise for further conversation".

The TRUE Requirements and Acceptance Criteria are in the test cases. They are always kept up to date, always tell you exactly what the software will and will not do, in the most granular detail.

I had always thought that, but I thought it was because I was QA and I believed that the world revolved around me. =D But my previous CIO also said it many times in our big department meetings. So, I've kind of taken that to heart.

I had always felt a huge responsibility to understand the business context in which the requirement came to us. Every day, I make small decisions and small judgements on the "correctness" of my team's work that are not covered anywhere, written or verbal. I have to guide the system's behaviour towards what the business needs and not away from it. I wouldn't want bugs to be fixed the wrong way.

I have evolved the way my team tracks User Stories. I've changed the way our User Stories are written, for the better. I have evolved the way my team tracks Test Cases and Testing Coverage. It's been a gradual process of getting something that is light weight enough that people can do the day-to-day upkeep and capture useful enough information for future reference.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		8°C
mood	:		...

I got a Roomba 562 Pet Series. I figured it would be good for me because even though I don't have cat/dog hair issues, I have feather and birdseed husk and human hair issues. I have really long hair. But as far as I can tell, "Pet Series" just means that you extra replacement parts with the machine itself.

You press a button and it runs around the room vacuuming as it goes. It comes with a docking station and runs on a rechargeable battery. Once it gets low on battery power, it will go back to the docking station and recharge itself. For the size of the rooms in my house, one pass lasts for an hour, then goes back to the docking station and recharges for a while.

It has a bumper and sensors in front so when it senses that it's approaching large objects, it will slow down, touch it, back up a little, turn and move in a different direction. Sometimes, if the object is thin (like a table leg), it won't "see" it until it's too late and ram into it without slowing down. But it doesn't go too fast, even at full speed, so it's not doing any damage to the furniture.

It can also sense an "extra dirty" area and will circle the area a few extra times to do extra spot cleaning. The noise level is about the same as a regular vacuum, maybe slightly quieter. It is loud enough to be as annoying as a vacuum cleaner though.

It does corners better than you'd imagine. It has a little spinning brush that sticks out of one side. This spinning brush pushes dirt under it so it can suck it up. But it still can't get things that are in the very corners of the room. My experience though, is that the corners of my rooms are less dirty than the rest of the room, so this isn't really a problem.

If you want to keep it within a certain room or area, you can either close the door or use a Virtual Wall. It's a little black thing that takes two C batteries. It sends out a signal outwards from it across a doorway or opening and the Roomba knows not to cross it.

If it gets itself into an error situation, it tells you what the error is and tells you what to do. IT SPEAKS CHINESE!!! Among 13 or 14 other languages. I thought that was AWESOME. =D

The first time it did my bedroom, it tried to turn out of a corner that it had gotten into. When it turned, it scraped the bumper along my floor molding leaving a black skid mark. I was upset at first, but the skid mark came off with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

It can clean both carpet and flat surfaces. It will flip rug tassles around, but it won't actually get caught in them. It also knows not to fall down the stairs. It has a drop sensor, so it usually gets to the stairs, turn and move in a different direction. I once saw it go towards a flight of stairs at a very acute angle and one wheel went off the edge. It didn't have enough traction to move backwards and get itself unstuck, so it just said there was an error and told me to pick it up, move it somewhere else and restart. In Chinese. =)

It doesn't do as good a job as you can with a vacuum cleaner. Part of this is actual fact. When I run it again in the same room, I see that the collection bin does contain more dirt after the second pass. But part of this is just perception though, ie. it's the randomness of its path. If you stand there watching it, you'll get really frustrated with how bad a job it's doing. It looks like it's missing a lot of stuff on the floor.

But if you run it enough times in the same area, it will eventually get the entire floor clean.

I find it doesn't do really small rooms very well. I have a large walk-in closet that's about the size of a small room. It just runs around in the middle. I have boxes on the floor around the edge of the closet. I don't know if it's just that it sense my stuff differently than walls and is staying away from them. But it wouldn't go to the edges like it would with the other rooms. And it wouldn't come out of the doorway, even though it had a straight path out of the closet door. It got to the doorway, turned around and went back into the closet again. I thought that was bizarre. I finally had to just pick it up and take it out to do the rest of the room. =P

In the first week I got it, I started it just as I left for work in the morning. I came home and it was ready to go on the second pass again. I thought that was great. Since my model has a scheduling feature where I can set it to run at a certain time, I thought I could get it to do the same room three times in one day. Kick it off once manually in the morning, scheduled run mid-day, kick it off again manually in the evening when I get home from work.

But it set off the motion sensor of my house alarm. So I won't be doing that... =P

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		8°C
mood	:		...

Heh, I haven't been here in so long that LiveJournal doesn't show up anymore when I type the first few characters into my Location Bar. =}

It seems like every time I write about WoW, something different happens almost immediately. Shortly after I wrote about raiding in July, I stopped raiding. Shortly after I wrote in October about how I stopped raiding in July, I returned to raiding again.

I've downed Rotface and Festergut on 10-man and 25-man. I was approached by several guild officers to come back, so I did. The Husband Guy is a guild officer and he tells me that Officer Chat was abuzz with excitement from the news that I was returning. It was really nice to be wanted =)

And I'm now in an Off Again state with raiding. The guild seems to have done enough recruiting that they have another good Enhancement Shaman around. So I don't feel so bad about leaving the mêlée without their Unleashed Rage AP buff. They have an overabundance of people online on Tuesdays (first raid night of the week), so they're sitting people out. But for some bizarre reason, we don't have enough people on Thursdays and Sundays for the 25-man and have to break into two 10-mans. This means there would be a few people left out.

I was worried that we'd lose the new Enh shammy because they sat him out for 2 weeks in a row for the 25-man. I was beginning to _hope_ I'd be benched so I could level my Paladin =) I was even whispering the Raid Leaders that I don't mind sitting out. I told them that I didn't mind if they invited the other Enh shammy in my place either. I don't know why they weren't inviting him... he had better gear than I did and from the damage meters, he was doing more damage than I was anyway.

My hunter was invited to the husband's super casual, once-a-week, old-timer's raid group, so Huntard Girl has also seen some of Icecrown Citadel from the inside. She's decently geared now too. The only thing I'd like now on the hunter is more Pet slots so I can collect more animals =) I reallyreallyreally wanted a red Core Hound from Molten Core to go with my Core Hound Pup companion. =D But nobody really wants to do Molten Core anymore. It's an old world raid, there's no motivation to do it, no worthwhile loot, huge map, fights are generally a pain in the tuchus.

On my friend's server, I had the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth by the time the two lowbies were level 35, but I sat on the money until we got to level 40 before we could use it. And now I've lost all motivation to play the Druid and am kinda wishing I saved the rocking ride =P I occasionally get shocked whispers about how the bloody hell I got it though, which is kinda cool =D

Initially, the Druid Girl's sole purpose in life was to drag my friend's main character through the Wrathgate questline. This long(-ish) quest line comes available by about level 71 and opens up an in-game cinematic that shows a battle sequence where the Horde and Alliance factions are joining forces against the Lich King. Everybody and their dog has done it multiple times now.

But this Friend Girl of mine has done little bits and pieces of it, but has no idea where she left off or what to do next. I found it wholey unacceptable that she's played this long without finishing that quest chain. But since the Druid wasn't happening, once my Paladin on my server reached level 71, I decided it would be easier if I just transferred her over to help. I'm glad she's finished it before Cataclysm came out. -_-

And now at level 80, I thought it'd be cool to try tanking. So, Pally Girl has gone Prot. I've collected up "The Starter Kit" of gear. I've been reading on tanking spec, stats, rotation, movement and stuff. I'm Defense capped, everything is gemmed, I have reputation item enhancements. I still need a few more enchants, but other than that, I think I'm good to start tanking Heroic dungeons.

The Husband Guy continued to power-level his Warlock Boy on my friend's server. The Warlock Boy was level 42 and was at the same place as my Druid Girl. But he is now level 74 and running around one coast or another of Northrend. =)

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		14°C
mood	:		...

Have I seriously not written since July? PJ caught up with me recently and said he hadn't seen anything in my journal in a while. I started to say that I have too updated... but then I looked and I haven't. Hehehe, oops... =)

We bought a house in mid-September. =) It wasn't the birds. We didn't get any complaints, but we're just very much house people, in the end. Although we did worry when Skippy and Sid went crazy in the evenings. Apartment living has its advantages. 5 sushi restaurants, one small independent, constantly packed but excellent coffee shop, other McCoffee[tm][R]-type ones that shall remain nameless and just about any kind of food you could ever want, all within 2 minutes walk in any direction. In the summers, when our windows were always open and right above the entrance door, I'd stand outside the door fishing for my keys in my purse. I'd whistle up to our window and the birds would get super excited and squeep and chatter back at me. The passersby would always be amused =)

We weren't going to buy a house until after the 2010 Olympics when we were predicting a housing market slide in Vancouver. We were going to get something nice for cheepz... or as cheap as it can possibly be in Vancouver anyway. But the Brother-In-Law got married at the end of September and we needed somewhere for the out-of-town guests to stay. It was either, rent a house for them to stay in for a few weeks or buy a house ourselves and have them stay with us. My Mother-In-Law wanted them to stay with us, so we began an all-out house-hunt.

We started the house-hunting in earnest around June/July and scooped a good deal. =) It's a property that most people would pass up just on principle. It's on a major street and it has a strange shaped lot. Judging by the circumstances before we went to see it, it's not an investment property at all. It's solely a personal residence, which is exactly what we want; we just wanted something to live in. The building itself is almost brand new, as far as houses go. It's lovely, open and bright. It's surprisingly very quiet inside. It's naturally hidden behind trees and foliage, so privacy is maintained without being severe or walled off. We've driven by it regularly for over a decade and have never really noticed it.

Almost everyone tells us it's so much better than the previous house. I'm much happier with the size and overall floorplan, even though it's actually smaller. It's spacious without being a waste of space. It feels well-planned with everyone in mind, not just one person. The room sizes are well proportioned for their designated functions and the basement was built to be rented out as a separate suite. All the utility companies that we talk to, kept asking us if we were the basement suite of that house. XD

September was a zoo. We packed up the Kerrisdale apartment and moved into the house. And I can't believe all that drama fit into the less than ten words of the previous sentence... We had barely moved in and barely set up the the guest rooms when the family members from Taiwan arrived. Barely unpacked the kitchen stuff in time for the groom's family luncheon on the Brother-In-Law's wedding day.

I'd stopped raiding in WoW since I last wrote. I wanted to get my hunter up to 80, which I did... and then didn't feel like asking for my raid spot back. I was asked to join another friend's guild. I really wanted to, but the problem is, she's on a different server. It's $25 to transfer one character across to another server. I'd be paying $50 for both level 80s. W also wanted to move one or two characters over if I went. We couldn't justify spending the money, so we said we'd just power-level two new characters to 80 on her server to play with them.

Since we had no other characters on her server, it was going to be hard with no money and no resources from high level characters' professions. I started selling things on the Auction House to make a little bit of money to help with the cost of training, repairs, better gear and what-not. The Auction House business just took off like a shot. =D I've been making money hand over fist. In about a few weeks, I've made over 12,000 gold. That's just doing it in the evenings and weekends. If I were doing it all day, I could probably be making a lot more.

I was bitched out by a competitor for selling things at a much lower price. =} I've seen this kind of behaviour on Etsy as well. Some people just don't seem to understand that they're not entitled to exclusive selling rights and charging exorbitant prices. I didn't see why she was charging insane prices for things that were easily purchased from an in-game vendor for much much less. My mark ups were based on the cost of travel and a little extra for the 'convenience' factor.

I just said to her that if she thought I was doing something against the terms of service, then report me. I think she did try to report me because a day or two later, she asked to form a partnership with me. We were both to sell at her insanely high price and each were to, somehow, receive half of the proceeds of sales. I told her to buy out my auctions and put them back up for double. Lol... XD

Meanwhile, it's been the SLOWEST power-leveling EVAR XD ... and that's with a Druid and Warlock pair. It's easier to level in a pair to begin with and those two are high damage output classes which is good for killing things fast. XD

But I figure, by the time we get to about level 40, I'll have made enough to get Traveler's Tundra Mammoth which costs 20,000 gold without reputation with the Kirin Tor. We've already negotiated a summon to Dalaran by level 11 or so. But I can't get someone else with reputation to buy it for me at a discount because it's only usable by the same person who buys it.

From the WoW Wiki article:

This mount comes with two vendors: Drix Blackwrench <The Fixer> and Mojodishu <Traveling Trader>. You can dismiss one or both of them to free up a spot for a friend in your party or raid.

That is ... one ... sweet ... ride ... =)

weather	:		clear
outside	:		26.8°C
mood	:		...

Words are but wind that do from men proceed
None but Chamelions on bare Air can feed
Great men large hopeful promises may utter
But words did never Fish or Parsnips butter.

-- John Taylor, the Water Poet

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		17.5°C
mood	:		amused

BTW, it turns out that you can forget how to ride a bicycle. It takes decades, but you definitely can lose it.

This was one of the stories my Mother-In-Law told me when she came back from her enormously long stay in Taiwan this year.

She tried to ride a bicycle again. And couldn't. =)

weather	:		partially sunny
outside	:		21.4°C
mood	:		amused

Like most family rules, I was also only allowed dessert after I finished my dinner. I figured out a loophole and it took a while to settle it.

I was definitely still in Elementary school. I was pondering the circular nature of the days of the week and I realized that time is continuous. I had realized that any time after dinner is still "after dinner"... even the next day.

I skipped dessert one evening and the next evening, argued that it was still "after dinner" for last night. Thus, I should be allowed dessert before tonight's dinner.

My parents are amused now, but oh, the drama that this caused back then was unbelievable. I had a good one. They knew it. And I knew it. But they were parents and couldn't let me win. I get that now. =)

Eventually, I fought hard enough for my Dessert Rights that I was allowed dessert before or after dinner if I wanted to, but on the condition that I finished at least one reasonable helping of dinner. And if I didn't, it would be a whack with the stick end of the Chinese feather duster.

I thought that was fair and I took the bargain =)

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		16.9°C
mood	:		...

Every time someone new adds me to their Friends List, I think I should write something. I feel bad knowing that they've added a dud. =)

Not too much up with me lately. Work is work. Lots of progress being made. Sometimes, that's an uncomfortable place to be, but we need it to learn and grow. We SO need this.

In non-work, we're looking at houses again. It seems to be a seller's market right now where we are. Houses are being snapped up almost as soon as they're being listed. All the ones we looked at that I quite liked, I didn't like enough to want to buy. There were so many "if only this" or "if only that". There was a log-cabin-ish style one that I really liked, but the nicer/newer renovated bedrooms were on the wrong floor for me =P

In other non-work, I'm still playing WoW. There is still a stigma to it and people still make fun of the fact that I take it semi-seriously. Everything I do, I take at least semi-seriously, so this isn't an exception. I've found that there's usually a jolt of realization in their eyes when I say, "you wouldn't be making fun of me if this were a sports team."

The Brother-in-Law Boy and his fiancée are on a competitive dragonboat team. They practice a few nights a week. I've seen him do weight training on his own time on non-rowing nights. I don't hear anyone making wise cracks about their rowing addiction. =)

My Enhancement Shaman is still raiding new content though. Usually people will do the 10-man Normal Ulduar raids first, then the 25-man Heroic Ulduar because it's harder. But I've nearly downed the last boss in Heroic and never set foot in Normal.

I was invited to my first 10-man a few nights ago and I was dinging achievements everywhere... the guildies were aghast that I'd never been in a 10-man Ulduar ever. =D

We've downed General Vezax on 25-man, but didn't get to Yogg-Saron. One of our mages went on ahead to take a peek though and with Yogg's HUMONGOUS aggro radius, actually pulled. In a few minutes, we all went insane. LOLOL XD There's an anti-dicking-around timer. If you don't start fighting properly within a few minutes, everybody gets Mind Controlled and ROFLstomps each other.

I'm middle to low on the damage meters and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. My personal Damage Per Second is increasing a little, but my damage rank in the same fight among the other 24 people is decreasing.

I was reading some online discussions and other similarly geared Enh Shammies worldwide seem to be able to do about double the damage that I am. I'm suspecting that I have gear equipped that's not actually an upgrade for me, even though they seem to have better stats. It has to do with the combination of stats I have. Anyway, I've stopped disenchanting old gear now until I use new gear for a good long time to watch my performance in the new piece.

I'm sometimes surprised that I'm still being invited to raids actually. I had understood that I was always just filler DPS because they didn't have enough people. We did a guild merger and recruited more people so we're usually not lacking in people to form the 25-mans every week. *shrug* I just show up on time, keep quiet, do what I'm supposed to, try to learn the fights, learn what gear is an upgrade for me, roll when I'm supposed to, and generally try not to fail.

There have been times when I thought, well screw it, if they stop asking me to go because they think I'm stupid, that's fine with me. But last night, I was given gear even though I didn't win the roll for it. They told the guy who won the roll that I show up consistently every raid night and he doesn't, so they gave it to me. =)

I started a leveling a Hunter (The Huntard). For a subset of the animals roaming around the in-game world, you can tame them as a combat pet. They will fight alongside you and respond to your commands, being fed, being healed and use abilities you choose for them.

At first I just wanted to play with the animals. Then I read about some rare animals in certain places and at certain levels. It became highly motivating to get to that certain level to find and tame that certain animal for a pet. =D

But you can only have up to 5 pets at a time. 4 in the stable and one running around with you. I've had to say good-bye to many. =( I've changed the name now, but my huntard's original name was "Sybrine" and I named my first battle-kitty "Giffon". I got some in-game whispers that "zomgdatSOcoolmang". =D But no, I have not read any Nick Bantock bestsellers. I think I should though, it sounds interesting =)

My first real taming challenge was the Ghost Sabre in Dark Shore. The draw is that he's always ghosty and translucent, even when he's not stealthed =)

It's deep in enemy territory, but not a bustling quest area. But that aside, his appearance is a rare occurrence, so you have to persist for a while at it. The folklore around it is that he's a white sabre spirit and sometimes, when you pick up little cat figurines in the area, there is a small chance that it will disturb the spirit which will attack you. When he finally appears, you have to be lucky enough to not die while he's swiping and clawing at you before you finally finish the taming.

The other challenge was Uhk'loc, the blue-skinned gorilla in northern Un'goro Crater. He has a knock-back attack which interrupts the taming spell. So, not only is he biting and punching you, he also throws you back a few feet. You'll end up dying before you finish the taming in time. I did it on my first try with my back to the cave wall and a double Freeze Trap. =)

The Huntard is such a princess. She's provided with all the money, buff food and all the help with mats and resources from the Shammy. =D And now I'm farming for 6800g for her flying lessons plus whatever her epic flying mount costs.

I can't wait until she's lvl 80 so she can do her own damned dailies and make her own damned money. =D

I've also minimally tried some of the other classes. The Warrior Girl and Death Knight Girl are somehow not as much fun for me and the Priest Girl is HARD at lower levels =P

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		12.4°C
mood	:		...

Bumble-bees in the distance.

The drowsy hum of bumble-bees in the summer heat grows louder and lower in pitch, until you realize it's actually stock cars on about the hundred fiftieth lap around, smelling like hot dogs and Sunoco 260GTX at the same time.

One blue and white one stands out in the herd of cars all moving together. Or, at least, it would be blue and white if it weren't for the patchwork of logos in a cacophony of colours all over it.

The driver is not alone. In fact, the driver is undergoing heart transplant surgery.

Mid-race.

Heart stopped and chest open.

By a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and assistants of all sorts. Half of which are performing their duties via web-cam and robotic arms manipulated remotely.

That's about the closest analogy to my work right now. And it's not much of an exaggeration.

weather	:		rain
outside	:		1.5°C
mood	:		amused

Hope everyone had a great New Year!

I generally don't post pictures of people online without their permission. The only exception I'll make is with pictures from the distant past that are reasonably unrecognizable. =)

I've gathered up some baby pics of the Husband Guy and me. It's cool to look back sometimes at the way we were. =D

Baby Picture Gallery

Enjoy =)

weather	:		rain
outside	:		6.5°C
mood	:		amused

This has been on my mind for a while.

If you're talking about the rodent, the plural is "mice". However, if you're talking about a computer input device, the plural is "mouses".

Poll #1312055 Mice vs. Mouses
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

What is your reaction to this statement?

Ticky:

weather	:		light drizzle
outside	:		10.6°C
mood	:		pensive

They key to getting the salary you want is to make sure you deserve it first.

I've never negotiated for my salary in my life, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. I've always been given what I wanted, and frequently have been given more than I thought I could get. Sometimes a lot more. And not always at designated salary review times.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		14.5°C
mood	:

I went on my first Karazhan raid with guildies. =) I'm trying to gear up because I'm so hobo... 70 and still in greens. Yeah. =\ And I've barely done any group instances. I've done a few 5's, but I had never seen any of the larger raids.

I'm most proud of the fact that I FOUND Karazhan successfully and didn't wipe just getting there. XD

Well, as far as Proud Moments go, it's a toss-up between that and NOT causing the group to wipe while inside... even during that ___N_O___M_O_V_I_N_G___O_R___W_E___A_L_L___D_I_E___!_!_!___ part. Although, I did run through the crowd once while emitting sparkly splash damage =P

Because I'm the Guild Hobo™, I got some REALLY nice purple loots... really nice for me so far. I also kept getting other loot for my Healing set. I started feeling bad because they gave me stuff even when I said "Pass".

It's funny, just before the raid started, I got two Shadow Resistance pieces. They were rewards from my dailies. I couldn't use them even though they were really good because I just can't use that type of armour. So, I put them into the Guild bank. I guess what they say about the Threefold Law is true. *smile*

Other notes:

• I remembered to watch my threat bar and stay under the tank.
• I remembered my assigned totems ... most of the time.
• I avoided hurty black circles and Thingy-bane's AOE.
• The only times I died was when I forgot about running to the little notch when Prince WhatsHisAss enfeebled me.

The Husband came home halfway through the Thingy-bane fight. He was huffing mad at me because he had called home and I didn't pick up. But when he saw me in Karazhan with the guildies, his anger melted away into verklemptitude. =D

Anyway, I have a lot more to work towards. I'm still wearing a lot of things that are too crappy to contribute to any other raid instances.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		15.3°C
mood	:		...

Special occasions deserve well-thought-outtedness, well-practicedness and well-executedness. And you don't get that by doing things for the first time on the day of.

I need something beautiful, elegant and different enough to be Me™. At the same time, it needs to be understated enough for me =) I've seen some seriously over-the-top designs that are way overloaded with jewels and other 3D fauna, flora and patterns. Needless to say, those are just Not Me™.

I've been completely converted to square nails now. I used to dislike square nails. But now that I've had rounded square-ish nails for a while, oval nails look scary and evil to me. I also didn't like French nails for a long time. I'm all about the variations on the French theme now.

I'm looking at a reverse French design. The first attempt isn't great. I have more things to figure out with it. I'll try this design out again and post more pics of the results.

For now, I want to wear this first try to work next work. I want to see approximately how long it lasts, what it does as the nail grows out, if the jewel stays on, where it starts to fall apart first, etc.

I should try using the classic French nail base. I didn't do that in this first experiment. I don't really want to. I like my natural base colour the way it is, but my distal edge is already showing a little. It will only look more ridiculous as the nail grows out. The base would hide that. I like the Antique Bronze tips though, so unlike the classic French, I have to put the tip colour on over the base.

This means I have to do the base, then leave it overnight, then finish off the job the next day. Aigh... 麻鬼煩... pain in the ass.

I might try a second coat for the tip. I'd rather get an even and consistent first coat on all 10 fingers, but that's really hard. I've never liked the look of two coats of colour though.

Putting on the stone is tricky. I have a special polish-glue tool that's similar to a liquid paper squeeze bottle. It has a fine tip that you squeeze a little bit of polish out of the tip so that you can lay down a bed of polish, then use it to pick up a jewel with. But it takes practice to make it work right. I need to also try using tweezers. I was told that tweezers don't work as well, but intuitively, I think that should work better that the polish-glue tool.

The clear top coat is also not as easy as it looks. In my first try, I didn't load the brush enough on some nails while I painted over the jewel. There's one side of the jewel that's not coated over. It's not that visible, but I know that it's not done well.

I also have problems with bubbles. It's either bubbles or softening and smearing the coat underneath.

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		15.7°C
mood	:		...

Laughing as much as I possibly can at Work.

to peter - to diminish gradually and come to an end

Peter is also a Greek name that belonged to an Apostle of Christ and, thus, fairly popular as a boy's given name.

One of our senior executives is named Peter. We have another senior executive named Rob.

When they came to our office to meet with our crew a while ago, Peter was joking about how he'd keep his talk short and finish before people started to peter out. He also muttered something out loud about it being unfair to be named "Peter".

I absently blurted, "I don't know... would you rather be petered or robbed? It's a tough choice."

There was a moment of silence before we all erupted in laughter.

Ordering a Strawberry Mocha from Café Artigiano.

I can only get it at the downtown café. They can't make it at the one close to home. I'll probably only have one, one Friday a month or only when I'm feeling really down because it's over $4.00 for a Medium.

But holy crap, they're so good. And they are not "The Evil That Ends In -Bucks".

Oak aged beer.

Huh. Interesting. Innis & Gunn. "Edinburgh ale aged in oak barrels traditionally used to mature malt whisky."

I like whisky, but it's a little too overwhelming for me because I don't have it often. So, this beer is very nice.

weather	:		muggy/raining
outside	:		26.5°C
mood	:

I'm trying to pick a name for a new famale Paladin. I'm not sure if I'll try tanking or healing next, I'm trying not to wipe just NAMING her. XD =D

I've narrowed it down to these two and thought it would be interesting to see what other people thought.

Poll #1243572 Paladin Girl
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

You should name your Paladin:

Please select all that apply:

Please note: unfamiliarity with fantasy/RPG or the stories behind the two names does not make your opinion any less valid. I'm just interested in seeing where your choice is coming from. =)

[Update]

Yes, I realized after I posted that I left out the choice: "I don't have a preference either way, I'm just here for the tickybubbles and tickyboxes."

Isn't "Cymbeline" a boy's name?

Yes, it is. But doesn't it sound like it should be a girl's name? And I think it's such a pretty girl's name too.

Why not "Lúthien"?

"Tinúviel" sounds smoother to me. It was his name for her. I like Dusk Singer more than Enchantress or Daughter of Flowers.

More people knew about Tinúviel than Cymbeline, which doesn't surprise me. =)

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		18.2°C
mood	:		...

I've been trying to spend time dunking my head into test automation lately. It hasn't been easy.

Part of that is because of the high rate of distraction. And that really is just me. People seem to gravitate towards asking me those "quick questions" that are sometimes not so quick. Rather than just plain helping them, I have been working on helping others help themselves. Coaching/mentoring/guiding/tutoring/teaching was one of the goals from performance reviews in previous years. Judging by my last performance review, it's been working out really well. =)

But the other part of my struggle with automation is the fact that automation and getting it right is not easy, in and of itself. I said before that you're not making a hard job easier by automating. You're making a hard job equally as hard, but in a different way.

Test automation IS development. It's a programming job. It isn't solely a QA responsibility. QA cannot just do it in their spare time. The skill set that you traditionally want for QA positions is not the same as what you'd want for a QA position for automation. Not understanding this is probably the key reason that most shops don't have good automated test suites.

A lot of developers don't understand this either. I remember the whole crew being hauled into the big boardroom to discuss the snowballing issue of regression getting more and more complex. All the developers are pulling a Hermione Granger and going "QA can automate it". And all the QA staff are staring daggers. =}

I see signs of Work getting it™ and moving towards an staff organizational structure that supports doing it right, so we're off to a really good start. I may or may not get into automation that deeply, I don't know yet. But just looking at what we have and before actually even creating anything, I could see where things needed to be done differently.

We needed source control on all our automation scripts and assets. Priority one.

We have to map out development procedures for what to check in and what NOT to check in. Anything that is generated by running the test scripts should NEVER be checked in. It drove me stark raving bananas to see temporary files, lock files, compiled intermediate binary files, and test run results checked in to the source repository. I cleaned out what I could. I tried to make sure that the Results folders weren't being used as a baseline for comparisons. I have a feeling there are other files that don't need to be checked in either, but I just wanted to get rid of the obvious ones. I need to do more homework and maybe toss out more unnecessary stuff.

From looking at what's checked in, we're still struggling with how to manage scripts for the same features for the same product but differences in the automation assets coming from underlying implementation. I've tried to cut down on the number of copies of the same thing all over the place as much as I can. But for now there are times when there is no feasible or sane way to deal with something, other than to make a copy and remembering to make the same changes in two places.

I have in my mind a general sense of how to approach it, but I wanted to solidify it exactly for myself before I recommend it to everyone. I'm positive that we can do something by branching and merging the source code. But "merging" will have to be done differently and it isn't going to mean the same thing as the development source repository because we're dealing with mostly binary files. Using the merge feature of the version control tool isn't going to work for us.

Alongside of managing automation assets, the automated testing approach is an important direction to get right.

Automation testing tools will usually allow you to show it what to do (in a manner of speaking) and it will do the same thing automatically. It's like creating a Macro. You hit the Record button. You do whatever you want to in whatever window you have open. You hit Stop. You hit Play and it does exactly what you just did.

This is well and fine, but as soon as something changes in the window or screen that you've recorded your steps in, the automation script also has to be changed, otherwise it can't find the buttons or text fields and the script run fails.

And when you're developing software, things change. A lot. And constantly.

It takes a lot more skill, training and experience to create automation scripts that are robust enough that are able to function correctly even with those changes constantly taking place. The person you hire to do this has to be a hybrid of developer and QA.

These people are more rare and very difficult to interview for. I'm not certain if you want to interview for a developer and hope to train them into a partial QA role or if you want to interview for a QA and hope to train them to be somewhat of a developer.

In support of the automation effort though, I've begun to structure my test cases differently too.

Even without data-driven test automation in the picture, I had wanted to separate test procedures from test data. How many times have I written out test cases with exact Reproduction Steps only to have the user interface change and make a whole section of 500 test case repro steps wrong? It didn't take long to realize that test case descriptions need to be as general as possible while maintaining precision and correctness.

It also means that I have a test case structure that complements automation and is easier to interpret for creating automation scripts.

Here's what you do. And plug in these values for these data fields. If the "here's what you do" changes, then make those changes once. And it will still work for those same data values.

So, yes. Not there yet. But on my way. Full steam ahead.

weather	:		mostly sunny
outside	:		23.0°C
mood	:		...

With any software, you'll have a set of parameters you need to use as input data or environment. If each of the different combinations of the input constitutes one test case or test scenario, having a lot of parameters quickly balloons into an unrealistic number of test cases that needs to be run.

It's completely unfeasible to exhaustively test every single possible combination. I think we've done quick calculations where even simpler parts of our system would take on the order of YEARS to test if you really did every single combination of everything you can change on the screen.

Given that we can't do every single combination, we cut the test suite down to the things that really matter. Yes, we can get it wrong and problems can get past us because we didn't look at it, but it's an risk analysis exercise - what is the risk of the defect occurring? and what is the impact of its occurrence?

One of the strategies we can use is called Pairwise Testing.

Pairwise testing (or "all-pairs") means you choose the set of test cases that covers all combinations of 2 parameters and each value of all other parameters at least once. Defects that involve interactions between three or more parameters have been shown to be progressively less common.

I don't think it's a new technique, but it's a relatively new topic of discussion in the software community. There aren't a lot of statistics on it yet, but what is available seems to support this.

I've been doing it since I started my first job in Quality Assurance. But I do it manually and based on intuition. I don't use third party software tools to generate my test cases. I thought this was a cool idea and I was curious to see how the tools compared to my intuition-based choices for test cases.

Because we're a Windoze shop, I chose to use a small free tool called jenny (thanks, Bob Jenkins =).

jenny takes a "tuple" parameter to indicate that it should do pairs, triples, quads or whatever other dimension of combinations you want. Then you list the number of values for each parameter. Your parameters are labelled with integers and your values are labelled with letters. The upper limit is every single combination of every single dimension.

I have a Payments module to test. There are six main parameters I'm dealing with:

• 3 incoming payment methods
• 5 outgoing payment methods
• 4 types of customers
• 3 contract types
• 25 of the most commonly used currencies for both incoming and outgoing payments (there are actually just over 100 possible currencies that we support)

All possible combinations of those 6 input parameters means 112500 test cases. If I estimate that each one takes on average 5 minutes each to execute, that's 562500 minutes which is 9375 hours or 390.625 days.

We usually have two QA staff per project team. There are about 260 business days in a year. This comes out to 10 months. If all goes well.

Oh, HELL, no.

So, anyway, I set up the parameters and possible values in an Excel spreadsheet, numbered/lettered them off. I plugged numbers into jenny with all my exclusion rules, made the output comma delimited and sed'ed the output to get something that could be pulled into Excel.

In the 625 test cases that jenny gave me, each parameter value will be used at least once. If all goes well, two QA staff testing for 3 business days (8 hours per work day) will complete all 625 test cases.

Keep in mind that I haven't included some of the other parameters. I haven't included other modules that also have to be tested. I haven't included a few other types of customers for reasons that I didn't want to get into for this public example. I haven't included troubleshooting time when something does go wrong. I haven't included the time it takes to log bugs, argue about them with developers or verify fixed bugs.

We usually schedule 2-3 weeks (10-15 business days) for Regression, depending on the complexity of the features and we're still cutting corners where we can.

Side Note: Automation is not always the answer. This is another post altogether, but the short story is: you're not making a hard problem easier by automating testing. You're making a hard problem equally as hard, but in a different way.

So, 625 is much more do-able than eleventy-frazillion. And I can be reasonably confident that most of the bugs that are there will be found.

However, knowing the system as I do, I can get it down to 32 test cases and still be fairly confident that I've covered the major functionality with that one module.

So, this is fairly consistent with most things in life. A software tool can save you a lot if you don't have any extra knowledge.

But it won't replace human knowledge altogether.

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		18.4°C
mood	:		amused

Whee! I was invited to my first pick-up group in WoW and we nearly wiped trying to summon. It wasn't my fault, but my nubbage was all kinds of sticking out. XD

My Warlock Girl was fishing at Thunder Bluff when I was whispered and offered money to help summon a Mage.

"Sure!" I say. I had never done this before, so I was curious enough even before I had the money. I figured if they were going to rip me off, I'm only out one Soul Shard which is easily replaced and I learn how to summon people.

My first question was "So, where's the Summoning Stone at TB?" Buh. Yeah, I'm a Warlock. I _AM_ THE SUMMONING STONE. =D I tried to save it by saying that I'd never played a Warlock before, which is entirely true, I've just never played much of any class before either... I don't think that convinced anyone, anyway.

So, she's walking me through what to do. I have the Summon spell, I have a Soul Shard. It's all ready to go. I need to be grouped with her and two others. Okay, we're all partied up and ready.

I don't see the others around. Do I cast the portal, then wait around? Or do I wait until everyone's gathered first? ... Ah, there's a time limit on the portal, so I should wait until everyone's here before I start.

Okay, I cast the portal. The second person clicks on it. A bystander says to us "Do you need a third?" ROFL! He was thanked kindly, but told that we already have a third.

The third person disappeared, either dropped the connection or went AFK. That left the two of us standing there looking like git-fish, straining to hold up a big black hole in mid-air, with the clock running down, right in front of the Thunder Bluff mailbox.

"Arms getting tired... LOL", I type into Party Chat. Lawls all around. Some other bystanders start gathering around us, staring, pointing and laughing at us.

We're starting to get desparate that we're going to wipe. =D

I see a confusion of messages go by in Party Chat and General Chat, yelled in red and dully roared in white and mauve. The flurry of messages were both asking for help from someone in the crowd and loudly imploring our last person in the party to "OMG CLICK IT!!!! NOWNOWNOW1111111111"

By this time, we've drawn a much bigger crowd. They're probably wondering what the hell we're doing and why it's such an unusually long summon.

At nearly the last possible second, our third person finally reappeared and clicks the portal. The summon was successful, but I was informed that it doesn't usually involve THAT much drama. XD

She did pay me which was great, but the entertainment value was well worth it. =D

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		24°C
mood	:		content

Thus ends a nice holiday week. *bittersweet* =) W and I took the week off together. We didn't go anywhere, just caught up with errands and did random stuff that we wished we had more time to do during the week.

Girl: Finished Mansfield Park.

The fascinating thing about Jane Austen, I find, is that she's made the same plot tell six entirely different stories. They're all nearly the same, but you see very different themes and social commentary in each one.

It's like looking into several different bowls of water. They're all only slightly different bowls and, water is water. But you scry a different universal truth in every one.

---

Geek: I went scabbing as a hobo healer in Alterac Valley.

English: I played WoW.

At 64/m/shammy/cow, I can't do a whole lot. So, I don my Int gear and go heal the tank or any other DPS who has aggro. And I'm not overhealing as much anymore.

The Summer Solstice Festival is on in the WoW, so we're constantly ribbon dancing and doing the festival dailies. The torch catching is the bane of my existence. I have to get Husband Guy to do that one for me. =P The most infuriating thing is that I can see exactly what to do, but I still fail before I can do 10 in a row. I can even describe to someone how to do it and they succeeded with the first 4, but I get to about 6 or 7 and then wipe. Gaaaaaahhhhh...

We're quickly running out of alt character slots to make pack mules... =) Because I don't play nearly as many characters as W does, I have all the pack mule alts: one auction house alt and another food alt that's named after a large grocery store chain =D When the food alt ran out of bag space AND bank space AND bank BAG space, we had to form a guild to get the guild bank.

We have a whole tab of just seafood. XD

Geek: I also ran around as my own little party with my 25/f/lock/blood-elf, blueberry and netherwhelp out.

English: I played WoW some more.

It's fun to be my own party of three =) Although, it's annoying that your pet gets dismissed when you use public transportation.

I get questions about my Netherwhelp and where I got him (Limited Edition Burning Crusade) =D Sooooo looking forward to 40 when I get my felsteed and felpuppy.

Geek: On a different server, I started another character, 17/f/shammy/cow.

English: I played WoW... even more.

I'd been harrassed =) into starting a character on a different server where a co-worker is a 70 Priest. I swear, Husband Guy and I are only there to watch the guild drama scroll by in gchat XD LOL =)

It's been painful levelling with no Main to help with money, mats, bags or anything. When you're used to having your backpack with four 16-slot Netherweave bags right from level 1, having to scrimp and save and sell all the greys you get, then hemming and hawing at the Auction House for even that stupid 6-slotter, you realize how spoiled you were.

I've been all WHEN THE HELL DO I GET MY GHOST WOLF?!?!? for the last 10 levels now.

---

Girl: I got a professional French manicure.

I went to a spa so that someone could do it once while I watched. Square nails are not as good as oval nails for scratching itches.

As much of a hassle as it is to do my own French manicure, I bought a kit and re-did it myself because I'm just never really happy with the results _anywhere_. I tend to have a very fussy eye for detail and the reality is, I know my own nails better and I know how I want them done.

I also got nail jewels =) I don't put them on every nail, I just put the smallest pinky pattern on the two thumbs.

---

Geek: I learned to drive stick.

The Brother Boy taught The Husband and me to drive stick shift with his car.

I've always hated sitting in a standard. I could never stand the herky-jerky-ness and I've always attributed that to standard transmission cars. I found out in the last few years that it's actually the drivers, themselves, being buttheads.

So, the Brother Boy has grown up to be a huge car buff and instructed us both on how to start the car, drive, shift, and rev matching. Neither of us stalled although we made his car very unhappy a few times.

Driving standard is extraordinarily busy. There were so many other things to deal with. Clutch down. Make sure it's in Neutral. Put it in first gear. Let go of the clutch. BUT SLOWLY. And step on the gas pedal at the same time. Make sure the clutch isn't halfway up for too long. Don't hold the clutch down too long... aaaaiiiieeeeeeggghhh...

Several times, I forgot to signal and shoulder check. I know it's only because it was my first session. I'm sure it will get better with practice.

My left leg and my left butt cheek were super sore the next day. =D I'd like to be able to practice, but we can't afford an extra car. I think we'd have to get a fairly nice 2-3 year old standard for it to be a good practice car. Gas prices in the state that they are and insurance make it completely out of the question.

And I'm not sure if we'd be willing to switch to a standard entirely.

---

Girl: I tried on dresses.

There's another wedding in the family coming up. =) No, it will never end. =)

We're desparately trying to convince someone to forego the hullabaloo and go with a destination wedding. But no dice this time. *sigh*

"Dear Auntie 1, if you could please make sure Cousin #5 gets engaged to a someone from Italy, that would be cool beans. We'll all be there. Thanks!"

The dress I wanted wasn't actually in the store, I had to special order it. But I did try on the same size in a different style from the same designer. I told them I wanted it for this September, just so that I wouldn't have to wait.

The designer apparently won't start manufacturing the style that I want until this September. That means I may actually not get it until possibly October.

The store staff were all worried for me, but the ladies still cracked up when I said "well, if it's not here by September, I'll have to go to the wedding naked." I said I have a back-up plan and I still wanted this dress.

weather	:		rainshowers
outside	:		9.2°C
mood	:		...

I saw Lust, Caution quite a while ago, but I haven't had time to write any of my thoughts down.

Let's get this bit of Captain Obvious out of the way first: Ang Lee does so much better with Chinese films.

I've had a celebrity crush on Tony Leung (梁朝偉) since 6th Grade. To see him again in a project that's successful the world over is just fantastic.

Yee's character felt very multidimensional and had a lot of depth. Even as a high level official with a pro-Japanese government, in his heart, he has an extreme dislike of the Japanese. Whether that absolves or exonerates him from some of the evil that he's being vilified for, I'm not sure. But it's something. He's very reserved, calm and collected on the outside, but is capable of both raw fire and incredible gentleness. It sounds like there's a lot of Tony, himself, in it.

And lest you think that Tony Leung is only capable of playing deep, dark and mysterious types, that's just not true.

He was one of the hosts of a children's babysitting TV program in 430 Space Shuttle. He was the bubbly, wild, trickster, gambling, incorrigible womanizer, rambunctious street urchin turned bubbly, wild, trickster, gambling, incorrigible womanizer, rambunctious royal advisor to the Emperor Kang Xi in The Duke of Mount Deer. He was a righteous, talented cop and all around hero in Police Cadet I (1984).

One of the things I found most intriguing of Lust, Caution were the mahjong plays. They really provided that much background and added that much to the richness of the context. It was almost as though the mahjong plays were a whole other set of subtitles. The cleverness just added to the experience for me.

One, in particular, close to the beginning was most memorable to me. It's the scene where Yee is playing with his wife, the apparent Mrs. Mak and one other lady.

Mr. and Mrs. Yee were sitting opposite with Mrs. Mak in between them.

Yee discarded a 7 of circles, which Mrs. Mak needed to make a consecutive three. Mrs. Yee calls pong and since a pong has precedence, Mrs. Yee took it instead. In his next turn, Mr. Yee purposely discards another one to allow Mrs. Mak to make her consecutive three.

Mrs. Yee, being the first wife, has precedence over the other woman.

The fact that Mrs. Yee could pong meant that she already had two of the 7 of circles tiles. It also means that Mr. Yee had two 7 circles tiles. This situation is what we call 對死 which is akin to a stalemate. Both are stuck with the pair, unknowingly waiting to draw the third, which would never happen because there are only four of them in play. Since there's a good chance a 7 of anything would give someone else a win, no one would discard it without seriously thinking over the risk. The stalemate felt pretty metaphoric of the Yees' relationship.

Mr. Yee is the one who breaks the stalemate, both in the game and in his life by taking a mistress. It's obviously not a coincidence that his second 7 of circles went to Mrs. Mak. But even though he did love and trust Mrs. Mak on some level, he always treated her like a prostitute in many ways.

There does seem to be a long-standing commitment of some sort between the Yees though. He's still very respectful to his wife. He doesn't fly off the handle at her even in incredible stressful times. In the scene at the end where he's reeling at the gravity of almost fatally letting his guard down and the inner turmoil of being betrayed by someone he loved and trusted, he calmly tells her to just "go back downstairs".

I also love the pun in the title.

色 is literally colour, but it could also be "lust" or "pornography".

戒 is "to guard against", "to give up" especially cold turkey. It also means "ring", as in the diamong ring that is the whirlwind unravelling demise of everything.

weather	:		partially sunny
outside	:		14.2°C
mood	:		glad

Every time this phone number helps someone, I re-post it to the top of my journal.

This is Fido's Super Secret Hotline for cancelling their cell phone plans. It's not published anywhere. It's not on their website. It's not on the invoices. It's nowhere to be found. None of the call-takers who answer the phone at any of their other numbers can cancel your plan.

1-888-259-3436

I got it five six seven years ago after jumping flaming hoops like you wouldn't believe. I was trying to cancel my Mother-In-Law's stupid phone for her because she was so frustrated with it. I was so pissed off that I immediately posted the number to my journal as soon as I was done with it.

I'm just glad to have helped somebody else with this. When you get sick and bloody tired of losing your signal every time a butterfly farts on its migratory path in Southern Chile, there's the cancellation hotline up there.

Oh, and if you get a French dude named Christian, please be nice to him. I think poor Christian is the only person manning this line and, in all likelihood, it's not his fault that Fido sucks.

And if it helps you, pay it forward. Post it to your own webspace and help someone else. =)

For increased Google indexing/pagerank:

CANCEL FIDO. FIDO CANCEL.

NUMBER TO CANCEL FIDO.

FIDO CANCELLATION NUMBER.

HOW THE HELL DO I CANCEL MY FIDO PLAN?

CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL. FIDO FIDO FIDO.

weather	:		mainly sunny
outside	:		12.2°C
mood	:		amused

I'm such a n00b that this year was my first Children's Week. I took pictures of us and the two boys we had with us... Grunth and Grunth =} It was great fun and a very endearing quest... I actually cried when I read the last quest text from Grunth as I was handing him back to the Matron.

The pics are all in this gallery =)

We picked up the kids from the orphanage in Orgrimmar from Orphan Matron Battlewail. I think I will refer to all children as "Non-Combat Pets" from now on. Let's see how many friends, family and cow-orkers I can offend with that one... XD

We hung around the orphanage for a while just to get acquainted with the boys. They wanted to show us something and took us over to the waterfall. It's A Secret™ so I can't tell you what it is. But it was REALLY COOL. =)

We brought the boys down to the docks at Ratchet to watch the boat come in. They were delighted to see the ship that goes from here to and from Booty Bay on the other continent. We would have brought them over there, but couldn't risk them getting hurt in a gank-fight.

There was another tourist there who couldn't get a clue and wound up in the foreground of our picture =P We had to be a good example for the boys, otherwise we would have pounded his ass so far into the ground.

We then took the boys to Crossroads on the way to Mor'shan Rampart. At Crossroads, we suitably annoyed the hell out of Apothecary Helbrim by using his tarp like a trampoline. The four of us were in a serious fit of giggles from climbing, running and jumping all over it.

From there, we walked with them to Mor'shan Rampart. They had to run to keep up with us and stumbled every once in a while. That was so cute =D They were very keen on learning about it being a strategic location defending against Alliance forces from Ashenvale to the North.

Then, it was off to see the Throne of Lordaeron. It took us a few tries to get a good picture. They're boys. They're not always going to look at the camera when you're taking the picture, they're not always going to be standing still for you. That's the way it goes =)

As a matter of Horde Pride, we had to tell them all about ousting the Alliance. And this throne was where the human king sat in his reign.

It was the most appropriate place to teach the boys how to do the Chicken Dance (cheep-cheep-cheep, flap-flap-flap, wiggle-wiggle-wiggle, clap-clap-clap). We taught them to make rude gestures and generally taunt their enemies. Because all warriors know that it's not how well you fight, it's the rudest gestures that win battles and wars.

They promised not to tell the Matron about this =)

The boys had never seen rocket racing, so we went out to the Mirage Raceway in Shimmering Flats. They were so cute with their wide eye, open mouthed gaping at the Goblins jetting down the path. One of them seemed to have an aptitude for engineering. I could tell by the way he looked at the race car parts strewn about.

But nothing made them happier than getting ice cream =D We took them to Brivelthwerp for strawberry ice cream.

Seeing Cairne Bloodhoof over in Thunderbluff was a little boring for them. I guess it was getting late and they were a bit tired after all that excitement, but they were still very respectful and being exceptionally good nonetheless. We didn't stay too long. Just long enough to get a picture, and a hoofprint, then headed back to the Orphanage at Orgrimmar. Here's a view on the Wind Rider just over Red Rocks with Husband Guy and Grunth in front. Grunth and I are behind them.

We got a few more pictures with Orphan Matron Battlewail before saying our final goodbyes. One of the other kids was running around and got in our way just as the picture was taken =D

We were given two pets as a Thank You - Speedy the turtle and Mr. Wiggles the piglet.

weather	:		mostly cloudy
outside	:		7.2°C
mood	:		...

You know how they say that married folks need to do "Date Nights" every once in a while?

So, we decided to try it. We had a really great time. I put the pics up in the gallery.

Go take a look =)

I like taking pictures now. =D I think I'll take more pictures wherever we go. =D

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		11.8°C
mood	:		...

To the person who asked about the 100+ year old violin from Poland:

Hi there! Welcome to my journal =) I thought I'd put this up at the top for you =)

The short story is: it would be really cool if it were, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. And you could have a very valuable violin there, even if it's not a real Stradivarius.

I'd be interested in what you find out. Do come back and let me know one way or another, if you're so inclined. =)

I'm no expert (to make an understatement =), but I do know that if this violin in your family has been played often and maintained properly in these last 100 years, it would be very very valuable anyway. If not in market value, then at least in sentimental value.

GET IT INSURED ANYWAY!! ... is my point. Make sure someone is making beautiful music with it regularly and taking good care of it. Don't let it sit idle.

As to whether it is a real Stradivarius, I'm almost certain it is not. Allowing for a little uncertainty, all real ones have been accounted for.

I don't know where you might get a proper appraisal. You could look for a violin repair shop in your area and ask to be referred to an antiques appraiser who specializes in stringed instruments. If you're in a big city, someone in your local symphony orchestra society might be able to help you out as well.

You really would want to know the market value for insurance purposes.

Good luck! =)

weather	:		clear
outside	:		8.8°C
mood	:		...

I had today off in lieu of overtime. I dropped off Sid at the vet, dropped off The Husband at work, then sat on a couch at Blenz with a no-whip mocha and read for a good while (Persuasion). Yes, Chick Lit for Fuddy-Duddies. Nevernevernevernevernever see the Hollywood movies based on these books, alwaysalwaysalways see the BBC productions, if at all... but that's a whole other rant. >K{

I ran some more errands and then, like the über-nerd that I am, I went home and played WoW. XD

I usually only play when Husband Guy plays with me, but I thought I'd catch up by clearing out some of my quests. I'm at a level where a lot of them have become green (easy) and grey (booger flickingly easy).

I had never read quest text or instructions before. The Husband had always told me exactly where to go, how to move, what to click, what to attack and was basically, in between getting annoyed at me, managing both of us along the way.

So, now I had to do this all on my own. It's like learning to drive. You'll never really know the directions unless you drive somewhere by yourself. I knew what to do from playing before, but this was the first time I had to read the quests, understand what I was supposed to do and was in charge of everything myself. It was a very different game.

I finished off a bunch of quests the help of Thottbot. I only died a few times. =D

I was up on top of Darkcloud Pinnacle doing the Arikara quest. I got lost in the maze of suspension bridges and tiny pin-point mountain peeks. I just wandered around trying to find the peek I needed, killing Grimtotem Taurens as I went. I killed Arikara and then got horribly lost trying to get back out. XD I had actually found the right peek to exit a few times but thought it was a dead end peek, turned around and went back the other way. The ramp down was on a sharp decline like the hilly streets of San Francisco. It was on the opposite side of the peek from me, so I couldn't see it until I watched something else walk down.

Of course, being me, I couldn't do a grey, booger flicking easy quest. XD

I had to go to Tarren Mill. I've actually been there before, but never having navigated it myself, I mistakenly thought the boat at Ratchet would take me there. NOPE... not by a long shot. =D It took me to Booty Bay instead where there was a huge gank-fest going on right on the dock. I tried to hearth out, but couldn't because I had already been dragged into combat and of course, died.

Then, I tried again. I found out that I needed the zeppelin outside of Orgrimmar. And I got on the wrong flight that took me to Grom'gol. LOL... XD

*sigh* At that point, I gave up. I resolved to stay on Kalimdor for a while. At least until my Hearth cool-down ended. =D I'm kinda kicking myself now that I know how close I actually came to finishing it. Ah well.

I did a few more quests, finished some, failed at others. Then I thought that if I couldn't do any more quests solo, I'd just try to find more flight paths. I got the Camp Mojache flight path, but not without being chased bears. XD

These were big mean Question Mark Bears. I didn't pay attention to what they're actually called, but when I looked at them, they were level question-mark-question-mark. Which means they're at least ten levels above me. I'd probably die if he stared at me too hard.

I kinda wish I were on a PVE server instead of a PVP server though. The Husband only ever plays on PVP, so for convenience, I'm on a PVP server too.

Anyway, I stopped after a few hours when I had to go pick up Sid from Night Owl again. =D

weather	:		partially cloudy
outside	:		9.0°C
mood	:		...

Having been around a handmade merchandise community for a while, I had some thoughts.

The reality of it is, there is no quality control in handmade products. You can't assure quality on your own work. If it were bad or wrong, you would NEVER have done it that way to begin with.

You'll see some really well made items by some really talented people. But there are an awful lot of people out there who just think they're talented. It's very inconsistent. The buyer, customer, end user has to do their own quality control. You need to be able to tell good stitching, good wire work and generally what "well made" means in each skill category.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, per se. Being more aware and involved in the quality of your environment and what goes into the things you use, I feel, is definitely in some ways an improvement over mindlessly raking things off the shelf.

But it's exhausting for me because I do quality assurance for a living. I'm constantly checking things over, sending things back for defect resolution and improvement. I'm damned tired at the end of the day and given the choice, I would rather someone else handle that for me in other aspects of my life.

I see some very nice things. Merchants of handmade items tend to be very down to earth and practical people which is reflected in the designs of the things they make. The items are in very down to earth styles and colours. I can totally see myself wearing some of the clothes and jewellery, etc. I see a lot of things that I would love to own.

But these items are Things That I Don't Need™ and usually priced like high-end, luxury items. I can appreciate that that's how much it cost in materials, labour and they've priced it to be able to cover overhead costs and make a living. I can appreciate that they have been fair in their pricing decisions.

But that doesn't change the fact that I still can't afford it.

I only occasionally find things that I both like and can afford. But it's like shopping for things on sale all over again which I really wanted to avoid because I hate shopping.

There's no advantage to me to buy handmade. It's not always more cost effective. The styles are not necessarily nicer. The quality is not necessarily better.

I have gained perspective on merchandise. Some things I will continue to buy handmade or make myself. Other things will be bought mass produced.

Whatever I decide, I'm more aware of the choices I'm making.

weather	:		partially cloudy
outside	:		8.7°C
mood	:

I've said this to a few people and it seemed to make a significant impact on them, so I thought I'd write it down here.

In an effort to save money, I used to refrained from buying what I want and, in some cases, even refrained from buying what I need.

This usually lead to some degree of misery, disappointment or discomfort.

I have tried to completely change that. I will pay for whatever I need. I even pay for things I want — merely want, but don't really need.

But the difference is that, now, I work towards keeping my needs and wants as minimal as possible.

I'm much happier for it.

It makes a lot of sense from a modern quality management perspective too. It's less costly, less stressful to find and fix problems earlier in the process rather than later. And by "earlier", I mean in both the temporal and causal sense.

If you walk backwards within yourself and trace what causes you to spend money in the first place, you can change the cause and the "spending too much" problem takes care of itself without you having to worry about it. =)

weather	:		clear
outside	:		3.3°C
mood	:		amused

The Husband and I had some family photos taken with the birds. I'm really pleased with the results.

The photographer was awesome and was phenomenal with the birds, making them look in certain directions and generally guiding all four of us in the posing.

Take a look:

• Pic 1 - from left to right: Husband Guy, myself, Sid and Skippy
• Pic 2 - everybody looking out towards the horizon.
• Pic 3 - a great action shot with all four of us running together, symbolic of moving through this life together. =)

And there were some funny outtakes =D

• Outtake 1 - just as Husband Guy turns his head to look at Skippy doing something weird.
• Outtake 2 - everything was perfect, but I got tired and as soon as I shifted my stance, *click*
• Outtake 3 - Husband Guy's body language indicating that he's super annoyed with the birds.
• Outtake 4 - Husband Guy wasn't supposed to run that far ahead of us. He nearly lost us =D

weather	:		mostly sunny
outside	:		7.4°C
mood	:		...

I love the familar steady drone of the A above middle-C eminating from the pit orchestra that signals to even an inexperienced crowd to Park Your Ass and STFU™. XD

I don't think anyone would disagree with me much when I say that, on the scale of preferences, travelling to New York to see a Met production ranks a little higher than a dress rehearsal. Not that that would prevent the possibility of sitting behind someone with a fat head that just so happened to block the most important bit of the stage where most of the action was.

It's probably not entirely fair of me to say anything about the dress rehearsal, to begin with, but I'm going to anyway. =)

I was at the dress rehearsal of the Vancouver Opera production of Fidelio.

The story is timeless. Illegal detainment and torture of political prisoners for speaking the truth, disagreeing in one way or another is as front and centre to us today as it was in the World War II era, as it was when Napoleon dominated Europe, time and time before, and time and time again hereafter.

For this production, a non-descript prison in the Cold War era was chosen. Even though the Vancouver Opera website says it's an eastern European location, the multicultural nature of the ethnic backgrounds in the cast, chorus and supernumeraries makes the location very difficult to pinpoint. Well, that makes it either very easy or very difficult to pinpoint, depending on your context. =)

I still think that German is a bit abrupt and awkward for opera in certain places. At least for me, there's a tiny pause-and-hiccoughing feeling in some places that catches me. I don't get that catching feeling with French or Italian. But I find Beethoven a lot smoother than, say, Wagner.

I was very impressed with the use of the main backdrop.

There was an enormous "wall" which was a sheer-ish material on a 3 or 4 story scaffolding. The sheer-ish material was painted with a large brick pattern that was visible when the light shone on it at an angle.

There was an invisible ghoulish splatter pattern along the top that was only visible to the audience when the light came right through it from behind it. With a bright red backlight, it alluded to dried blood splatter. With a white backlight, it was a thick, heavy and miserable rain splatter.

Sometimes, there were images projected on to the wall for ambience or reminiscence. At the end, the wall came apart in two pieces, one-third and two-thirds of the length. In the scene itself, the prison doors had opened and the prisoners were freed. But it was symbolic of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The most amazing use of this wall was during Pizarro's introductory scene where he's asserting his dominance over his staff — and Tom Fox is a fantastic dramatic baritone, BTW.

The wall was at an acute angle to the edge of the stage. While he's at stage right, facing the audience with his left arm almost pointed directly out in front of him, his shadow is about ¾ the height of the wall, but facing to the left directly at the prison staff with his arm pointed directly at them. Pizarro's character was meant to intimidate and be very intimidating. His giant shadow on the wall was a really neat and very apt visual effect.

What was even more amazing was, in the same scene, when Rocco was cowering in response to Pizarro's posturing. Rocco was positioned on Pizarro's left. The wall was angled such that Rocco's shadow on the wall was ironically bigger than Pizarro's.

         That          nearly          blew          me          away.

It says Rocco is A Bigger Man™, in the metaphysical sense. It alludes to the Napoleon Complex and I thought that was so very clever in the way they did that. It's true to Pizarro as a tyrant. And it's an incredibly deft homage to the original 1805 production when the French military, under the Emperor Napoleon, had its iron grip over most of Europe.

Very, very well done.

Minor gaffs, which I'm sure the production crew will get sorted out before opening night:

• spelling errors in the subtitles... "Oh Go," for "Oh, God" and a few others I don't remember now.
• the cast list on the website is "in order of vocal appearance", but Marzelline was on stage before Leonore.
• the mad humming projector for the subtitles. They tried to muffle it, but they can't do too much because the muffling foam causes it to overheat too. It might be time for new quieter projector.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		8.0°C
mood	:		amused

I had some fun promotional videos made for AppleJade Studios, care of Animoto. =)

( Congratulations! - Ah, My Goddess )

( Swan Lake: Danse Russe, Moderato & Andante (Tchaikovsky) )

And the beautiful sadness of Vivaldi for my "Gallery of Sold" clip.

( Four Seasons: Winter, 2nd movement Largo (Vivaldi) )

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		10.2°C
mood	:		...

Husband Guy and I made zucchini bread today. It turned out awesome. The birds are also nibbling on little pieces we gave them =) The recipe makes two loaves, but we only had one bread pan, so we used that and poured the rest into muffin tins. So, now, we have a loaf of zucchini bread and a dozen zucchini muffins. =)

Two things I've learned from the few times we've tried to follow other peoples' recipes:

1. People are generally pretty retarded about what constitutes "one step" in a procedure.

One step means one action. One verb in the sentence. One. Not seven. One. Do ONE thing and that is ONE step. Don't call it an "Easy Three Step Process" if I'm doing six things in each "step". This is actually a very common and widespread problem. Technical writers, software QA folks who write bug reports, recipe writers... All across the board, I see people consistently unable to correctly count to ONE. Boggle.

2. Baking recipes use WAY too much sugar than necessary.

I always halve the sugar in all baking recipes I get. The sugar content is too overpowering if I use the amount that is written. I find that the flavours of the other ingredients are actually stronger and have more depth if there is less sugar.

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		5.7°C
mood	:

http://applejade.etsy.com

I was just pouting about how close I came to making my end-of-March goal of 60 sales by the end of February. Then I got another order on March 1... so that kinda counts as February, right?

Especially because February was a short month, technically, we should just let me have it, right? =D

Yeah, okay, whatever. I'm at 61 items sold now. =)

And I also now have more sales than items listed!

And it's a big ego boo to have something snapped up as soon as it's listed =D I listed the little smilie turtle and — bam! — it was gone. I thought I foof'ed up the listing XD

I have more smilie turtles to make and more of a buttload of other stuff that's arrived. But I'm waiting for a shipment of supplies to come in. *sigh* Any day now. =\

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		9.0°C
mood	:		stoked

   

It looks like I just asked them to "come over here" and stand on the mark so that I could take their yearbook photos.

The reality is, it took hours of painstaking, sneaky, cajoling camera work with muscle spasm inducing patience in between each of the approximately 100 shots... then more post-production work.

But I love these two pics of them. =) In case they ever, like, go to school or grow up to be on the Senior Management Team of some Fortune 500 company with a professionally designed website, they'll have photos already done. =)

weather	:		clear
outside	:		7.0°C
mood	:		...

Doing some reflection tonight on a difficult situation.

It's that sinking, helpless feeling you get when something you really don't want to happen is just about a done deal.

The obvious thing would be to talk to the right people about it and prevent it from happening. But it's not that simple. It's never that simple when it's you. =}

I could potentially prevent it from happening, but that's not 100% certain. It could be worse if I couldn't prevent it from happening and my feelings were made known in the process. Even if confidentiality is kept, the circumstances of the situation are unique enough that I'd be identified immediately as having spoken up.

I feel like the only thing I can do is remove myself from the situation. And I don't want to. I'm happy with where I am and I'm really angry that I've been put in the position of having to consider that.

I could just say nothing and do nothing and see how it plays out. But that's leaving a lot more up to chance than I'm comfortable with.

I don't know. I really don't know.

weather	:		clear
outside	:		5.5°C
mood	:		content

My Mother-In-Law has been back in Taiwan for the last month or so. Husband Guy and I have been holding our own since. It's good for her to take a nice long vacation with her sisters once in a while.

Sid was in the Animal ER last week for prolonged and extreme heavy panting and occasional wheezing. He gets himself stuck on something and gets worked up sometimes, but the heavy breathing continued for way too long, so we decided not to risk it.

He hasn't been allowed to fly since getting the collar last March, so the poor little guy hasn't had ANY exercise for almost a year now. His heart has weakened to the point that he now has heart disease. The x-rays and blood-work confirmed it last week.

He's on a round of anti-biotics at the moment. We're also giving him — and Skippy — as much leafy greens and veggies that he'll eat. I buy organic when I can, but I'm not a snob about it. I'm certainly happy with good quality vegetables no matter how they're labelled.

It's not a big undertaking at all to do this for him. The Husband and I are having plain steamed vegetables almost every night too. I've always really liked the clean, natural flavour of unseasoned, unaltered vegetables. Some things, I like better raw (white mushrooms and red/orange peppers); some things, I like better steamed for a few minutes (broccoli, spinach, brussel sprouts). They don't need salt, butter or dressing. I feel like I only need to lightly season meat.

We're eating out less too. We want to spend as much time at home with Sid as possible. He is at a very high risk of having a stroke right now. If anything happens, he needs to be back in the ER as fast as we can manage it.

But he hasn't shown any signs of problems since last weekend. He has even been climbing around on top of his cage and flying small distances. He's infinitely happier now without the collar. You can just see it in his body language. =) We still want as much time with him as possible before he leaves us for good.

We've been crock pot fiends in the last month. Our giant 6 quart slow cooker has been utterly indispensible. I will never understand how anyone can say that it's hard to cook for one or two.

The crock pot and the rice cooker are like wonderful and loyal staff in my household. =) If I want fresh food when I come home from work, the crock pot goes on in the morning. The rice cooker is timed to begin cooking the pre-washed rice so that it starts in the early evening and finishes just as I walk in the door. I come home on the bus, so I have the timing down pat =)

I bought sandwich-sized no-name brand plastic microwave/freezer containers at a dollar store for a buck each. We make a full 6 quarts of food. We eat what we want, then separate the rest into the containers and freeze them. We can make two large batches of stuff on Saturday and Sunday. Thaw and reheat, alternating dishes, throughout the week. Combined with rice and steamed vegetables, it makes for phenomenal meals.

We kept a close tab on the price of our meals done this way versus eating out. I expected it to be a lot cheaper, but I was very surprised that it was only $1.00 less per serving to make our own meals in bulk. Depending on what we make, it can end up being just a tad more to make it ourselves.

Maybe we just know how to pick'em, but we find eateries or somewhere that has large portions for under $10.00 and just get one entrée to share between the two of us.

I know we can eat really really well for about $3.00 per person, per meal, with a lot of choice and variety.