23-X-2004.
Having finished the carpets in the bedrooms, it remained, at least upstairs, the orange room, hall and staircase. I removed the old carpet from the hall, chopped it into pieces and threw it into garbage, there wasn't much of it. The trouble was the squeaking floorboards in that part of the hall, which needed to be tightened, and these boards (half inch plywood or better) was covered with some mass, as if stiffened clay, reinforced with some netting, akin to a stronger gauze or thinner mosquito net. Well no go boddy, this needs to be walked over and I won't have it crumble and powder under our feet... so I decided to remove it.
Maybe I shouldn't have, as at least ten times it occured to me that I totally fucked up myself with even beginning that job, but now that I've started, I won't give up, I'll get it done all the way. Some with vekšmajzl, some with a chisel, a brush and dustpan at hand, treshhold (yes!) carpet folded under my knees, and slow does it. Fuckit, it did go slow, and the knees hurt even with that padding. But I got it done.
But then I never learned to crouch properly, and kneeling is also not something I do right, and the time I did the part shown on the picture was some 5-6 hours, I overloaded my left knee. Leaned on it while I was aiming the chisel for the next piece to break off, and then leaned more to keep my right hand free to swing the hammer. And of course, I have somewhat overstretched the tendons and I limped all the evening and most of the morning. Not to mention that the three nightly excursions for taking the matter in my own hand were quite interesting :).
By monday morning it was almost completely gone - I could walk normally, only receiving a reminder when I bend the left knee by about 90 degrees or more. On monday evening we went to get supplies which we skipped on sunday, and then we had to unclog that vertical piece of sewer pipe to which the kitchen sink drain connects. We obviously didn't clean it thoroughly the last time, so when she was packing the sour cabbage into bags (there's heads for about three rounds of sarma, and shredded for 3-4 times podvarak), she decided to chop the leaves' thicker parts in the trasheater. And it did chop it finely, but even so it was enough to clog it again. It was much easier this time, because we knew what where and how, and had light in the patio and extension cord... equipped, experienced...
On twennyseventh, David and I still mess with DSS, though it's bits and pieces and cosmetic by now. It actually works; it's whipping and ringing. What's left is some reshaping of the global report or whatever. In the code I see dozens of commented lines like these
!* DO import1sale with "D:\rad\diamond\DSS\docs\wmartxls\uni5947_85210148_E288987DXD7F1X460CXA975X9826783E2EDC.txt"
!* DO import1sale with "D:\rad\diamond\DSS\docs\wmartxls\uni5947_85207055_27954301X1711X4716XA8E4X42396F8F56AD.txt"
!* DO import1sale with "D:\rad\diamond\DSS\data\temp\uni5947_85299439_635C10EBX45E4X4DF0X83C7X676573104586.txt"
!* DO import1sale with "D:\rad\diamond\DSS\data\temp\uni5947_85299373_C1034CBAXDE93X4356XA703X558F84F23076.txt"
!* DO import1sale with "D:\rad\diamond\DSS\data\temp\uni5947_85288297_31AABEBAXADD1X478FXB347XAB4A77CAC14F.txt"
And ah, yes, the three author's copies of the magazine arrived the other day, and today a check for the article. Not bad for a first timer, 125$. The amount is near the expected. Article took a page and a half. I wrote that mostly last winter, while I had nothing to do, and sent it all together as a material for a conference. I got it too late for one, i.e. didn't have the second one - they try to have each speaker do two sessions, twice, so to fill four slots, and the other conference was too far and happened a couple of weeks ago, so I sent it as an article for this magazine. The guy didn't respond for a few months, and then said „listen, this can't work as an article... but works as a series of shorter articles. If you could just chop them...“.
On UA, Harry wonders how does can-can conjugate when it's a verb, which it can quity possible be in english. Is it „can-caned“, or as I replied, „could-could“, or in future tense, „will be able to-will be able to“. Thus, sardines are mostly sold as „could fish“.
In the newspapers found one news about a guy who made an universal remote for television sets (nothing epochal, we have one already) but sized as a key fob, with just one and only button. That button turns all the television sets in its range on or off, and its purpose is to, when you find yourself in a public place, in a restaurant or waiting room, and the television set is blaring and bothering everyone because they can't talk, it can be turned off even when inaccessible. They usually put those sets somewhat higher or in boxes, so they're beyond reach, specially their buttons. In just the first week the guy sold few hundred thousand of those.
We'll see about heating, we're just slightly warming it up for now - she has a small heater beneath the kitchen table, keeps it on perhaps a quarter of the time (a 1500W blower) or even less. The other heater is still in the reserve. We haven't turned the heating in the big room on yet, as the window is still open few hours every day. The heaters are black-yellow so we called them Vogonians. The girls caught the reference on one.
Mentions: David Krakovski, DSS, Harry McDouglas, sarma, UbiquAgora (UA), vekšmajzl, in serbian