Derik Badman's Journal

A stressful day yesterday as I tried to power through my code changes so I could leave the massive QAing necessary for changing almost every file in our repo to our QA team for next week while I am away. I seem to have accomplished that, at least, I think the code is now changed to cover everything it needs, and my unit tests are all passing, and what preliminary testing I could in the actual UI seemed to be working. Probably not a good combo that I also went and donated blood in the middle of the afternoon, but I've been trying to do that as often as I can and I can only get there when they set-up within walking distance. Thankfully the Red Cross seems to setup pretty regularly at borough hall. Giving blood probably lowered my blood pressure, but the stress of my late afternoon probably raised it, so maybe it all evened out.

But, now at least, it is vacation time, such as vacation will be. We're going to the beach tonight until Monday night, as █████ invited us to spend the weekend at their rental. Then we've got a memorial service for Russ Tuesday morning and a Phillies game Thursday night and then █████'s wedding next weekend. In between I hope to get more site work done, read more, and watch some movies. I did a rare thing and ordered some DVDs this week, Rivette's The Nun_ in a new restoration and Ozu's The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice in a new Criterion edition. I've never seen the former (it wasn't easily available anywhere), but I am a fan of Rivette and this one also stars Anna Karina. Been meaning to read the Diderot novel it's based on for awhile, at least since I read that fascinating biography of him early this year, but maybe it's better I wait until I see the movie first. The Ozu is not one I've seen, but I've ended up collecting a bunch of the Ozu releases since I love his work so much.

I have not been faithfully recording all that I read recently, sometimes I just forget by the next morning if I've read something short earlier in the day. For instance, Gloria Rivera's Island of Elin showed up the other day as part of my subscription to the Ley Lines comics series. Each issues is by a different artist inspired by someone else, usually (always?) an artist in another media. Rivera's inspiration is the naturalist John Muir and she crafts a kind of magical realist story on an island about an old man, a talking bird (who likes to take photos), and a woman who draws nature. I need to reread it, as I felt like I was taking the whole comic to try to acclimate myself to the setting/concept.