Breakfast at J. Christopher. Then to Home Depot who didn't have the hedge trimmer I wanted in stock. Then to Lowes who didn't have anything good. Sr. picked one up in Vinings and brought it over. Lots of yard work today. Rock moving. Chainsawing. Limb trimming. And hedge trimming. I'm beat.
Found a good deal at Home Depot for two ceiling fans. They're 68" across, big ones. Hooked them up today, replacing the basic white malfunctioning units I had in there. Had to custom cut and drill the main hanging bar but other than that it was an uneventful install.
Breakfast with the fam at J. Christophers on Johnson Ferry. Not too busy at 8:45 on a Sun morning. Then I picked up my father and we headed out to Villa Rica to pick up the vintage Nehi sign from Ryan. Got it home and worked to get it hung in the man cave. Pool time with the kiddos before a trip out for ice cream. Not a bad Sunday.
Dinner at the Little Hawaiian in Carrollton, GA with Beep Nana. We also went over to the Mandeville Mill Lofts to take some construction progress pics.
I think this is my favorite eBay WIN ever! Got this massive 3.5 ft x 7.5 ft vintage Nehi Beverages sign for $127.50! WoOT! I was bidding on another sign from the same seller, but lost. Messaging back and forth he mentioned this sign and the price he was thinking... but it was above what I could spend. He put it on eBay but listed it as pickup only in Villa Rica, GA which cut down the universe of bidders (reduced demand for you econ geeks.) I had my fingers crossed all week and things worked out. Nice! This'll go somewhere in the man cave. I was heading out to the Mandeville Mill lofts in Carrollton anyway this weekend and am hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Pictures once I get it home and hung, of course.
Ava's seen a few girls at school with earrings. She's been talking about it for a week. We don't want to get her pierced yet because, well, we've not had any time to even think about the issue. But we do want her to be happy so I started looking for some clip-on earrings. Target, fail. Kohl's, fail. Claire's by the house, fail because the store closed. That other teeny bopper store, fail. Finally, at the Perimeter Mall I found a Claire's. After a few minutes of wandering and not finding I asked for help and was pointed to a very small section with a few clip-on earrings. Whew! Finally.
Busy work on MOO, the political project. Last day of the California project. Work last night, of course, caused issues today. Went in to the Vinings area to meet Alex briefly. At about 7p headed to Home Depot for some Round Up. Still hot as hell for the hour of walking around the yard trying to kill green stuff. Quick shower of every square inch of my body with soap in the hopes of preventing poison ivy. Then into the pool for a quick float. Watched two bats circle above the pool for about five minutes. Never observed bats that close and for that long. And then a few minutes later the thunder could be heard off in the distance, signaling the end of the relaxation part of the day.
Long day. Ended up getting some big change requests around 2:30p and have been working until now, about 11:45p. Got some shiny new features out. Some improvements. Some bug fixes. Still have a number of things to work on and will probably be up well into the wee hours of the morning.
So far, in a single day, dNeero social survey tech running inside of this $200 billion organization has served 4,105 visits by 1,678 unique people consisting of 30,305 pageviews. Average time on the site is 10:13 which is great... people are actually engaging and interacting. Browser wars? Well, 93.91% are on Internet Explorer so we know there's some sort of corporate policy in effect.
Good day. The fear now is that I've introduced some sort of bug in the changes I made tonight. We'll see.
Another dNeero project, MatterOfOpinion, is coming out of alpha today. For the first time we're spending some cash to drive traffic to the site to get early feedback. MOO is a new company we formed to use surveying and social media to understand the voice of the people and help that voice matter as part of the political process. Just getting going. On this one I'm babysitting servers today too!
Today and tomorrow dNeero technology is powering a 2600+ person company-wide social media-based discussion inside of a $200 billion organization in California. I'm babysitting servers and waiting for the inevitable breakage moment. This is the result of a lot of effort by a lot of people.
The big first day! Up early, she was in "No" mode. But we got her into the car and had every intention of dropping her at the school like good little parents... the school repeatedly told us not to walk her in. But they didn't have people to unload her from the car, which was a big change from her pre-k. And in addition to her backpack she had two big bags of supplies. So after talking to a couple of the school helpers we just parked and walked her in, like 92% of the other kindergarten parents. We thought we'd only make it as far as the front door but everybody was walking in. We walked her into the classroom, she sat down and didn't flinch when we walked out. In the hallway walking back to the car mommy and daddy were teary-eyed. Go Big Aves!
In 2010 I've seen myself appreciate and seek out old things. I don't know whether to call it an interest in vintage stuff, antiques, americana or just old junk. Stuff from the mid-1900's. Stuff from the 80's. I just appreciate it now all of a sudden. My bed is covered in a handmade quilt. I like the old desk i have. I've broken out the swatches and vintage digitals. I watch American Pickers. I watch Pawn Stars. I want an old clock from an elementary school. I want a vintage Applause sign. I look for old worn boots before i look for new ones. It's been an interesting shift. I should catalog some of my interests in more detail but for now I just wanted to note this emerging trend and sensibility.
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Ava met her kindergarten teacher today. Then this evening Terp and I headed back in for a parents-only thing where we learned all about what they'll be doing throughout the year, what we have to do, etc. I was nostalgic. Remembering being a kid in school. Amazed that I now have a kid in school. We were impressed with the teacher... her experience... and her willingness to tell parents that she's there for the students, not for them. There are 12 girls in Ava's class... she'll have a lot of buddies.
I want an old school clock.
Server hard drive went bad, had to replace. Pretty easy affair with Windows Home Server.
Pool up and running. Thanks to Ryan and Walter from Water Dance Pool Service Inc. Nice guys, very knowledgeable, very helpful.
I'm beat. Long day today. And tomorrow I have a lot of stuff in the morning. Three meetings and one lunch. I'm looking forward to all of it.
Post-Ironman Melancholy
