two days, free things
The office holiday extravaganza took place on Wednesday. Notable details include our table's loss in the "snow people" contest, even though we built a pretty spectacular snow caterpillar in the very short time allowed. The judge went for the most traditional design. Moral values wins again. Somehow, I became the emcee and arbiter/creator of the rules for the white elephant gift exchange. This didn't help me to get a good item -- unless you consider a garden ornament in the shape of a hummingbird/mosquito made of glass balls a good item. Reading that description, it almost sounds white elephant good. There's a plant near my desk, so that's where it will live.
After the festivities and a little bit of work, I went to the Palace Kitchen with some colleagues because a collaborator from out of town (Chapel Hill, apparently for the school districts) was visiting. It was really pretty good because we got to hear about a lot of academic type drama. Also, because my salad was called the Enormous Garlic Crouton.
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Today included quite a bit of work. The whole R/Emacs/ESS thing is finally starting to get a lot less confusing; so this means something like progress.
The Starbucks in our building had two hours of customer appreciation that partly coincided with the semi-regular fire drill. It's not clear whether this was part of their plan. Word of free beverages spread through the office like wildfire; so it turned out to be a busy day for the barista set.
After work Jeff and I went to a preview of Closer [#]. It's a great looking movie about sad pretty people with a semi-fractured narrative structure; so of course I liked it well enough. A lot of the dialog had a drama club feeling, probably to be expected since it was adapted from a play. The major product placements were for Sony and Damien Rice.
The movie was over by nine; so I missed high quality Thursday television, but had time to swim at the IMA and stop for some groceries on the way home.
After the festivities and a little bit of work, I went to the Palace Kitchen with some colleagues because a collaborator from out of town (Chapel Hill, apparently for the school districts) was visiting. It was really pretty good because we got to hear about a lot of academic type drama. Also, because my salad was called the Enormous Garlic Crouton.
-
Today included quite a bit of work. The whole R/Emacs/ESS thing is finally starting to get a lot less confusing; so this means something like progress.
The Starbucks in our building had two hours of customer appreciation that partly coincided with the semi-regular fire drill. It's not clear whether this was part of their plan. Word of free beverages spread through the office like wildfire; so it turned out to be a busy day for the barista set.
After work Jeff and I went to a preview of Closer [#]. It's a great looking movie about sad pretty people with a semi-fractured narrative structure; so of course I liked it well enough. A lot of the dialog had a drama club feeling, probably to be expected since it was adapted from a play. The major product placements were for Sony and Damien Rice.
The movie was over by nine; so I missed high quality Thursday television, but had time to swim at the IMA and stop for some groceries on the way home.
