todd’s posterous

A busy week is nearly over, and not a moment too soon. Today was a mixture of work (finishing the Grant Proposal That Would Never End) and waiting (for MobileMe, for iPhone 2.0 software, for the App Store). The App Store appeared this morning, I manually downloaded and installed the 2.0 software this afternoon, and tonight, like everyone else, I'm waiting for MobileMe to go live - for more than a couple minutes.

Apple doesn't strike me as a place where people would be in a frenzy; whether or not that's true, I'm sure there was some scurrying today, trying to get the damn thing to work. So far, it isn't, about 14 hours after the expected launch. Yes, it was going to be a soft launch, but not this marshmallow soft. It'll get there, I'm sure, but it's not been painless.

Right now: at cafe; double espresso, freshly consumed; thinking about another; empty plate where a chocolate peanut butter bar once lay; Groove Salad in the headphones to drown out XM in the cafe speakers.

Tomorrow: iPhone day. I'll be buying my second iPhone tomorrow and passing my prized iPhone to someone else for their pleasure. It seems like it's been in my hand or in my pocket every minute since June 29, 07. Yeah, it has issues, but it was the first phone that I loved using enough to have it around all the time. But I bought a 4GB iPhone last year with the intention of upgrading this year, and that drive has never been large enough for the kind of stuff I want to carry on it. So this new phone is something I've been waiting for and as exciting as 3G might be, I'm at least as excited to get much more storage space.

Weekend: a big unknown. Going out to dinner with a couple of friends from work tomorrow night - Red Sauce Italian. You know, I always want Red Sauce Italian to be so good and perfect and delicious, and it never is. Instead, it's some bastardized American rendering of good, tasty peasant food. It's so often sloppily made, with poor ingredients, that you'd think Italians would sue for defamation. Well, hope springs eternal... and we'll be trying a new place tomorrow night.

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It seems like every other day now, I'm walking into the closet, shutting the door and speaking into a microphone for Audible.com. I like it, don't get me wrong. Perhaps I need to construct a better mini-studio of some kind, than the closet. Plus, even with the light on in there, and my recording equipment, it's still like I'm standing in a closet for 30 minutes or longer with the door closed. That's weird.

This time, it's Harvard Business Review.

Work: The grant that never ends is due Friday, so I'll be wrapping up the narrative tomorrow and handing it over to the grant writer for more fiddling. But it's starting to look better now... more compelling. I've kind of forgotten all my other projects, so I'll need to remember what they were by the end of the week so I can get back on the wagon after that long grant-writing hullabaloo of fun.

Workout: First day back after a few days off for the holiday. I know I'm going to be hurting tomorrow. It's amazing how quickly your body can wrangle up its production of "Oh, the Workout Sure Does Make Me Sore." I don't even have to be away for a full week and I'm feeling it. A massage might be in my future.

I could use a 90-minute hardcore upper back and shoulder massage, there is no doubt of that. My muscles hold up well, generally, but every few months, they need one or two sessions to get kneaded and prodded.

On the agenda this week: some good, old-fashioned Italian-American pasta at a red sauce restaurant. Inauthentic, yes... but oh so satisfying.

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The long weekend officially began a few hours ago, after a relatively quite day at work. I got home from work a few minutes before the UPS man arrived with our new wineglasses - a good thing, since various and sundry accidents have reduced our collection of glasses, and we need them for tomorrow.

Pre-holiday errands are completed - trips to the wine store, the co-op. I'm back at one of my favorite cafes, with an americano and a pretty wild fruit dessert. Yes, I was lazy today, but I won't let that stop me from having dessert. Would you?

Dinner plans: who the heck knows? I want a big platter of sauteed green beans from the Chinese restaurant down the street, but I could just as easily make some granola at home. If you wait 15 minutes after you eat granola before you have wine, then you don't get that weird feeling that you're drinking wine with your granola - something you should avoid.

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This week, Wednesday is Thursday... and you'll hear no complaining about it from me. Pre-holiday work avoidance hit me today, approximately one hour before quitting time. I can hardly wait to get back to office for tomorrow's celebration of day-before non-accomplishment.

Weekend Preview: friends in town. Lots of good food on Friday... followed by even more good food on Saturday when we join a larger group of friends for a Lebanese food fest. The straights and the gays eating Lebanese - something vaguely weird about that. But my oh my, it will be good. A friend's wife cooks excellent Lebanese food, and while our spouses mix it up in the kitchen, us cooking illiterates will hang around the edges, drinking and "expediting."

WebThing of the Day: identi.ca, the new open source micro-blogging service. How is this different from twitter? All kinds of juicy data portability is on the way; it's all Creative Commons'ed; and whenever I write something and hit "post" ... it posts. No whale. No birdies. No "over capacity." No "something is technically wrong."

• Beverage right now: Americano
• iTunes: New World Chill, vol. 3

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A day that starts busy and ends quietly is just what I like.

At work - I'm continuing to write the narrative of a grant proposal I'm working on. This is the moment where the concept you came up with, which seemed so cool at the time, now seems stale and ridiculous. We'll make it, though.

At home - cable internet has gone out tonight. The cable company has graciously agreed to come check it out on Sunday. I hope it will miraculously begin working again but I'm not optimistic. Until then, I have my cell broadband card, but the G5 tower that takes care of our TV will have to mooch off of the neighbors.

Workout - 25 minutes of cardio. Always a good thing, but I'm so uninterested in cardio that I think I've long since adapted to my routine. I should switch to something that would get my heartrate back within the proper range, but such is the story of a weightlifter who dislikes cardio. Outwardly, I look great, and that overrides the health benefits argument, unfortunately.

Right now

Beverage: Americano

Music: Groove Salad from Somafm.com

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Lots of time devoted to producing "The New Yorker" for Audible.com - as is usually the case on alternate Mondays and Tuesdays. I got most of the work done today, which means a less harried Tuesday.

At work, writing a grant proposal that I hope to have through first draft by Wednesday morning. It's due on July 11th. (Yes, iPhone day)

Workout - solid 60 minutes in gym today - not bad for a busy day; muscles feeling very good today; on the Wednesday and Thursday workouts this week, I should ramp it up more, since I'll have more time. Definition is coming through really well.

At home, getting ready for having friends over this week - ordering wineglasses and stuff. It's amazing how fast those things get broken.

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I've been watching this early 1990's vintage series all weekend. Even 15 years later, it's still one of the best documentaries on the development of the computer, and many of the individuals interviewed for the series are no longer with us.

I remember watching 2-3 hours of the 4 hour documentary when it originally aired, but it's been fascinating to see it again.

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