Ask Frank Perdue to Stop It.
2008-02-08, 2:18 p.m.

Day1266

Got a little piece of mail from Four Points Remodeling yesterday. It was the order confirmation for our cabinets. Estimated delivery date? March 5. Oy.

In that time, here�s my laundry list of shit to get to (in no particular order):

Put up ceiling drywall
Finish recess lighting
Select & procure under cabinet lighting
Finish moving/rearranging outlets & switches
Better get some 12/3 cable
Better get some drywall too � (6) 12� pieces, 2 or 3 8�
Studs?
Drywall screws (bandolier style)
Fix stabilizer links on van (especially the one that snapped off the other day)
Get drywall up on ceiling
Wire recessed lighting
Remove existing base cabinets
Move plumbing
Score flooring at opening to LR
Take up floor
Add in stubs on south wall to shrink opening to LR to 6�
Remove/close off /seal up existing kitchen sink window (north wall)
Move other window to become new kitchen sink window (north wall)
Run wiring for under cabinet lighting
Get drywall back up on (north wall)
Mud walls & ceiling (ugh)
Temp install base cabinets
Plop down temp countertop
Hook up sink
Put down underlayment
Paint ceiling
Verify gas & electric are in proper place for (new) range
Clean up oddities on south wall
Get fan re-installed over table area (maybe before painting the ceiling?)

Oh yeah � go back out and look at granite, because the one slab we picked out? Already committed to another job. That�ll take about 3 hours out of available work time on Saturday. The only good news out of that whole mess was that it cost about 10% less than we thought. Whoopee!

I�m sure there are a few dozen other little things I�m leaving out, but this gets the bulk of the tasks on paper at least. (Or phosphor I guess). I should be smart and print out this list � or at least email it to myself at home so Cindy & I can go over it tonight and sweat the details. Ought to make for a fine inner conversation.

Speaking of which � what the hell are we doing for dinner tonight? Catholic or not (we�re not) Friday is the typical Fish Fry night. It IS Lent, but I don�t particularly give a rats ass. I�m thinking Chicken Parmesan with a side of spaghetti squash, all done up in a nice Diavolo sauce. Maybe a bit of salad too. Think we�re in dire need of chicken though.

Hey. Are all of you folks stuck with the Dolly Parton sized chicken breasticles lately? We go to the store, but the �club pack� of chicken breasteses. It weighs in excess of 5 pounds, but has only 10 breasts in it. We got one once that was over 12 ounces. I weighed it. If we have Zach & Jill over for dinner, Cindy & Jill usually split a breast because they�re so freakin massive! And, as a guy, you KNOW if you don�t eat your entire portion your manliness will be brought into question. I don�t know. Do we need to start a grass roots campaign to get the Perdue�s and Tyson�s of the world to start reducing the size of their chicken breasticles? Genetics can be fun, sure, but maybe it�s a little too much of a good thing. Besides, I�m tired of having my virility questioned because I can�t handle an entire breast. Shameful I tell you.

Bowling last night? We all bowled within a few pins of our average. The other team? Not so much. They had way more open frames than we did. That�s bad for them. We ended up taking all 8 points. We started the night in 3rd. The second place team lost all 8 to the 4th place team. 1st place team? Took all 8 as well. The good news out of this is that we�re now in 2nd place. The bad news? Next week is a position round and we�ll be bowling the first place team. They�ve been on a bit of a juggernaut since December or so. One of their bowlers had a very bad start to the season. His average was all the way down to 175 or so. Then, miraculously, he pulled his head out of where ever it was (cranial rectal inversion I�m guessing), and started bowling to his ability. Which is about a 210 � 215 average. Then he was having some really hot weeks too. Now, when you have a guy getting handicap for a 175 average and he starts tossing scores up in the 230�s pretty regular, well, he�s going to be tough to beat. And as a team, they are. We bowled them twice this season so far � once early, once more recently. Early on, we pounded them. More recently, they returned the favor. Best part of it all? My cousin Mike is on this team too. So next week, we�ll have 4 guys with the same surname (and noses) bowling on the same pair. Ought to be fun. Hope we take some points from them. They�re so far in front right now that they could lose all their points over the next two weeks and still be in first. They�ve been kicking some tail. Time to reel them in. Plus we�ve only got 5 weeks left to bowl, then it�s the season ending singles tournament and the banquet.

Was just reminded of one of life�s important little lessons. When using �the facilities� at work, it�s best to check on the condition of the paperwork before one commits. Otherwise, well, eeww. Stall #4 in the men�s room east of the cafeteria is in need of a little help from maintenance. I�m just sayin�. (No, I didn�t get caught with my pants down. I checked first. Whew!)

Waiting for inspiration . . .
Aha! A book meme again.

The rules are:

1. Curse the person who tagged you.
2. Grab the nearest book.
3. Open it to page 123.
[Watch out this is where it starts looking like algebra.]
4. Find the fifth sentence.
5. Post the next three sentences.
6. Tag five people.

So. The nearest book. Hmmmm � we have here �The Designers Guide to VHDL� by Peter Ashenden (This is what you get from me playing at work. On my lunch.) Soooooo dry:

In a simple model such as this, we can interpret inertial delay as saying that if a signal assignment would produce an output pulse shorter than the propagation delay, then the output pulse does not happen. Next, let us extend this model by specifying a pulse rejection limit, after the word reject in the signal assignment:

inv : process (a) is
begin
y<= reject 2ns inertial not a after 3 ns;
end process inv;

Man, I hope that looks better without the tags in it for all the bolding. You kinda need them to make the end result more readable.

And for the record? Much of that is compiler directives that are used for test benches. Don�t think it�d show up in real shippable coding. You�d have to take care of those constraints in the timing editor. Like you care, right?

The sad part is I�m a little excited about getting to do MORE of this kinda crap in my next several projects. Such a geek, I know.

Now. Tagging people. If you read this far, consider yourself tagged. I know there�s a bunch of you that really enjoy reading and ought to have something better than a technical text laying around. Maybe a bodice ripper, eh?

I gotta go blow up some lasers.

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