> From: http://www.cs..edu/~bh > Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2017 17:53:26 -0700 > > So, while I was on the train between Paris and Bordeaux typing up an email > about my trip, I lost net connectivity, and apparently abbenay decided to send > the partial email all by itself. So if you've been wondering why it seemed to > end abruptly, that's why. > > I'll get around to finishing it one of these days. Meanwhile, I'm now home, > and I spent the first three days doing absolutely nothing except eat and > sleep, not even my laundry or grocery shopping. Then finally I ran out of > Diet Coke with Splenda (which does seem still to exist here, knock on wood), > and that finally got me dressed. I like to think that if you stay awake on > the airplane on the way home, which I did -- I watched six movies -- and then > sleep well that night, you don't get jet lagged, but maybe that's true only if > you're young. I still would much rather be doing nothing than something, but > I have started to get a little work done, mainly plowing through around 200 > emails that accumulated while I was at the conference, most of them Github > notices because Jens has been really busy dealing with loose ends in > preparation for the big OOP release. > > I am about 3200 miles short of Mileage Plus /Silver/ for next year! We're > only halfway through the year, but most of my travel is in the summer. I'll > find a way to make up those miles; my trip to Boston at the end of the summer > will almost but not quite do it. But I really want to be Gold. (Shut up, > Gary, I already know you're way above that.) I'm even tempted to go to the > Scratch conference in Budapest in August! Way too late to present; the > program is all set. And, really, it wouldn't help; you need another 25,000 > miles to get from Silver to Gold. (They've raised the requirements this year; > I used to make Gold easily and was actually Platinum last year.) > > (What's the difference between Gold and Silver? Stuff like access to United > Club at the airport, boarding priority, those are the main things. Oh, and > bonus miles! They multiply your actual mileage by a factor that rises for > higher levels.) > > Anyone in Oz or NZ or someplace many thousands of miles away want to invite me > to give a talk? :-) > > There is a ton of BJC work that I have to do, but also a ton of Snap! work, on > the libraries and the documentation. The past few days I've been waking up > around 10:30 or 11, having breakfast around noon, and then starting on > work-ish things. Oh, and I'm about three months behind on reconciling my > bills with my bank statements, so I have no idea how much money I have, and > the relevant paperwork is spread out over the floor of my office at home. I > was about to say "I'll have to get that under control this weekend" but I see > that somehow it has become Sunday already. :-( > > Okay, let's see how many I can remember: > > 1. Gremlins. I'd never seen it before! > > 2. The Comedian. Robert de Niro as a comedian who starred a long time ago > in a TV sitcom, and now when he performs all people want him to do is replay > the same role. > > ... okay that was all I remembered (and I had to check imdb for the title of > the second one), but it turns out United has their list online. Now if only > I can remember which I saw outbound and which inbound... > > Hidden Figures. Outbound, I think? > > Lion. Outbound. > > I, Daniel Blake. Inbound. Nice movie about people fighting the inhumane > British welfare bureaucracy. Reminded me of Frederick Wiseman's "Welfare" > although the latter was real-life and therefore not as plot-driven. > > Moonlight. Great movie, just as all the reviews said. > > Paterson. Interesting, very slow plot, but I liked it anyway. :-) > > Well, maybe I only saw five movies on the way home. I'm surprised I forgot > the ones I forgot -- although, I guess it matters that I was really tired > because I was trying to stay awake an extra nine hours. > > I was very proud of myself, by the way, because other than Gremlins they > were all movies for grownups, not coming-of-age movies. > > Oh well, I guess I've killed enough time to have dinner now...