This is my favorite time of the week. Tomorrow is only one day and regardless how bad it is, 5 o’clock gets here eventually. I’m riding the endorphins from getting an end to end XSL working in TCC. I didn’t do it from scratch but you know what? I don’t think anything comes from scratch any more, it’s forked from another project. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel anymore. Even figured out that pesky empty node issue. It’s honestly been a fun learning experience and pulling back the cover as to what XSL can do has been eye opening in a very positive way.

Tomorrow is Sandy’s last day at work for a week. She’s in for surgery on Monday and recovery until next Friday. Hopefully a nice relaxing weekend and a quite week coming up. It is Christmas already. Not sure how that got here that quickly. Thanksgiving came late this year.

Hopefully getting some garage work done tonight, there’s a good game on Thursday night football. Denver vs Chargers. 9-5 vs 8-6 in a divisional game with playoff implications sound fun.

I usually don’t care for the treadmill. You stay in one place but act like you’re walking. It’s not as natural as just walking because you have to kind of think about it. But with the back room getting put back together I positioned it in front of the TV and gave it a shot for a mile today. It wasn’t bad. I was even able to use the hand weights to do 50 reps of the 10 pound. It’s a little tricky but not too bad. And the big screen helps avoid thinking about the pain. I think I need a fan blowing on me the whole time to help cool down, then I may be able to do intervals.

Once again I’m feeling good but there was a hot minute today that got my heart racing. I was having an issue in that the aggregate notes were way too big, 90k characters or more. Turns out that it was picking up the history of all 6 and put it for each application. The issue turned out to be a ‘./’ was needed and I had a ‘//’ in the code. It wasn’t really that hard to find but I hate the stammer when you finally figure out what’s going on and have no idea why it’s going on. Oh well, that’s coming together.

Had an interview today, it went well I guess. I always come off as such an awkward geek. Although I suppose I was able to answer all the questions. Oh well, I wasn’t actually looking and it’s been a really quick turn around.

Got my steps and everything else complete but I wasn’t feeling it at the gym today. The day sure felt draggy but of course, this too did pass…

So I was cleaning up and putting things away in the back room and ran across a jump rope. I thought to myself, ‘hey, I haven’t done this in ages, I remember it being kind of fun’. So I took it outside and gave it a go. I think the word I’m looking for is ouch. Evidently getting air time when you’re 190 pounds isn’t nearly as easy as it was when I was 120. So there probably won’t be any more jumping rope in my future.

Did make it to the gym today, my arms are sore from yesterday so the weight lifting portion of my walk wasn’t very pleasant. But I got through 100 so that counts. Also biked up there. It was really muggy today but right around sunset we got some rain. I got a chance to go outside and watch it on the porch which is always nice. We just don’t get enough rain around here.

It’s a week until Sandy goes under the knife. While we’re still not 100% sure that it’s going to happen, we’re ready for it. Happy to help get her where she needs to be and get her home. I’m not bad at that.

I was working in the garage and the Jeep Gladiator from down the street pulled up and a young gentleman (Thad is memory serves) was kind enough to return cards that he found in the back of his vehicle. The perpetrator left from our driveway and headed down to their place. It was really nice of him to return those as Sandy didn’t even realize they were gone. Cards were canceled and new ones are on the way. Nothing was charged on any of them.

As I was saying, we’re in process of putting the truck in the garage. Primarily because I don’t want any more hail damage. I’ve actually pulled the truck into the garage before, it barely fits. But if I can back it in at just the right angle, it should fit and allow access to the back for the fridge. I’m skeptical but we should at least try. I pulled out the ladder to access the attic since we already have a pull down stairs.

In order to do that I need to move everything from the west wall to the east wall and generally clean out stuff. I also need to get rid of the garage fridge. We’ve got two out there and just not the room for it.

Sandy and I started the day taking about a 30 minute walk, it was chilly and foggy which is so rare down here that it was neat to walk through. Her leg was hurting so we cut it short but it was nice.

Lastly my watch updated to 6.0 UI. Not sure what the new things are but hopefully one of them is better battery life.

I’ve been having an issue where I get overwhelmed with all the possible things that I could do that I fail to get any of them done. I rocked it today. I got some development work on the XSL done and I’m thrilled that I’m completely understanding what’s going on, it’s all making sense like it’s rarely done before.

Deep cleaned the litter ‘appliance’ and it seems to be working fine. There’s a firmware update for it, I started it about 4 hours ago and it’s up to 95%. How odd. But again it’s now something I understand much better.

And lastly, as the sun was setting at 5:24pm, I decided to have a fire in the barrel. The fire starters that I made from left over candle wax and cotton rounds are simply amazing. I got a fire going and attacked the pile of branches we cut back on 8/6 before we left for our central US trip. This was the first time it’s been wet enough that I wouldn’t worry about starting anything that shouldn’t be on fire.

Thankful for a beautiful day and getting things done.

Sandy’s car and the truck got rifled through this morning. I hate to say it but the best I can figure is that we left the vehicles unlocked which I’m having a bit of trouble with but he didn’t seem to break anything and just rummaged through the cars. He went to Kent’s vehicles and tried the doors and left because they were locked. I’ve got the culprit on video and I gave that to the cops. I’m kind of pissed that the camera didn’t do a better job but half the issue was the damn truck lights up like the 4th of July when you open a door. The bed light kind of blocked the good picture of the crook.

Other than that it was a fairly productive day. I’ve been banging my head against the wall with the XSL project but I finally am making headway with it. I’ve only done part of it but it feels good to make progress and I’ve got a setup for development and testing. I’m going to transform the XML first and then transform it to CSV. While I’m sure that there’s probably a simpler way, this way should work and will do the job we need it to do.

I’m happy it’s Thursday. I have to work on some XSL this weekend but I think I should be able to create the transform that I’m needing in short order. Maybe a good time to see what ChatGPT has to say about it. I know what I need done, just not 100% sure of the syntax.

Should be a nice and quite weekend. I’m looking forward to that. The Cowboys are playing the Panthers this weekend in a game with absolutely no playoff implications. Both team should be worrying about what their draft pick next year is in which case the Cowboys propensity to blowing the game could finally serve them well.

My friends David & Keli gifted us Henry & David pears and apples for Christmas. That’s really nice of them to think of us like that. Next year when I’m back at work I’ll make sure that we get them something to say thanks.

I do enjoy making it to Wednesday. It’s halfway through the week and Thursday and Friday are gravy. Today was good, had to sort through some referral data and it finally makes sense and I know how to return what they’re looking for. Unlike the notes situation although on that front, I found out that Microsoft has an open source XML notepad that could assist in that option if needed. It does make me want to see what XML-Spy has in it.

It was still chilly today, made it to the gym and got my steps and weight lifting in. Had a quick interview this afternoon. People are always surprised by my computer setup and the 10 monitors that I have on my desk. I can’t imagine having less but at least it shows I’m pretty serious about my computer habit. I still want to do a video for LinkedIn called ‘How do you home office?’ which I go though and show what all my equipment and what I do with it. I think it could go viral…

I need to make a trip to visit Tim. I texted him last week and he said that his recovery isn’t going that well. I didn’t ask him what he meant but it would be prudent to see if he’s taking visitors and just go visit. A good excuse to take the truck out for a ride.

It got a little chilly today with a cold north wind. It wasn’t too bad. I took the truck to the rec center and did my walking and weight lifting. Got home and did some work and then decided to get the battery changed in the Xterra. So I pulled the battery out of the car, threw it in the back of the truck along with the two from the truck and headed to Walmart. They got me all taken care of and I made it back home with a new battery for the Xterra and no batteries laying around.

Oh, the Cowboys played last night on Monday night football. It was a good game until right at the end, when the defense finally got the stop they needed with 2 minutes left to win the game, instead they blocked the punt, touched the ball and it was recovered by Cincinnati who finished the drive in the end zone ending even the remotest hope that they could make the playoffs. Sigh… There’s always next year…