Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

My car has a tire pressure sensor system built into the dash display and it’s a feature I really like – it’s nice to be able to just check the PSI on all tires right in the drivers seat. It’s how I learned that the front right tire is consistently 1-2 PSI lower than the rest, and I figured out why – that tire sits in the shadiest spot in the carport where the car is parked.

So, I had an OH SHIT moment when I turned on the car this morning and got a DANGER WILL ROBINSON, LOW TIRE PRESSURE alert. Then I took a deep breath and thought about it for a moment – lows in the 40s last night – looked at the tire display – front right at 29 PSI, the rest at 30/31. OK, not a flat, probably not even a slow leak, just the shady tire and a chilly night. Figured 30 PSI must be the trigger.

Picked up the coffee and went to put gas in the car – shady tire up to 30 from driving, the rest at 31/32. OK, good, but the alert hasn’t turned off, and the gas station in question had no working air machine. Normally I get the car washed when I fill it up, but my brain was way too “Must. Deal. With. Tire. Pressure” for that. So off to another station with air just to get all four even.

Get to next station, get change for air machine because of course it’s 50 cents and I have no quarters. Then have to ask a kind gentleman who was using the machine ahead of me if he could get the damn valve cap off – it even took him some time, so I didn’t feel bad that it was stubborn for me.

By now, three tires were at 32, and I got the remaining one up to 32 as well – and boy did my brain love that symmetry!! AND – the car can sense when you’ve actually put air in the tire and the alert turned off!!

So, I drove home feeling very relieved and generally pleased with myself and of course I had to check the display again when I pulled into the driveway.

OH, COME ON, IT WAS PERFECT NOT EVEN 10 MINUTES EARLIER!

But I’ll certainly take shady tire going from 32 to 33 after a bit of driving than going from 32 back to 29. BUT STILL, I HAD THEM ALL EVEN.

It’s like Mother Nature flipped a switch and it’s suddenly properly fall out there. Perfect jeans and hoodie weather and it should be a fantastic day to be down on the river for the arts & crafts fair tomorrow.

I have scored another negative Covid test this morning, so I am good for my haircut today and fair tomorrow! And despite school starting up again, our county case counts are still dropping! I’m still getting my updated booster on Sunday, but this is good.

Still crazy that since I got the first round of Covid shots, we’ve only had 68 days when we were in a low/moderate transmission status in the county – and that is with 77.9% of everyone in the county being fully vaccinated. I will forever and ever be salty over the fact that transmission prevention wasn’t a bigger part of vaccine development given that all structural mitigations were dropped the second they became widely available.

And I still LOVE how the CDC is talking out both side of its face saying our “Community Levels” are “Low” because hey, you can get a hospital bed with no problem, but our “Community Transmission” is HIGH. Those fuckers really forgot that the last C means Control.

But, I’ll just keep working around it as best I can. Got myself the BIG box o’ N95’s so I don’t feel like I have to ration them and can dump them as soon as the elastics get too stretchy, and I still use them anytime I’m indoors. Take out & patio seating. Outdoor fairs!

I just really miss eating inside in restaurants, and we don’t have much patio time left this season.

You have a great Friday and keep being safe.

And not a second too soon – I think I used up ALL my self control yesterday, LOL.

Did not pick a fight with the director of engineering, even though I’m right and it IS a defect.

And when my team lead decided the best way to get around our capacity issues was to micromanage it… I did at least gently talk him down from “let’s have a meeting every day” to “how about I email you at the end of the day, I can let you know what I worked on and the plan for the next day.”

Though maybe he’ll finally understand why I say you can say something is going to take 6 hours because that’s all the time on your spreadsheet – it doesn’t mean that task will actually take 6 hours.

I mean, just yesterday, one thing he had 2 hours for – took 5 hours, another 1 hour – took 2 hours. And a feature budgeted for 7 hours, I’ve already done 8 hours found 4 bugs and I’m only halfway done.

We’ve gone round and round on time estimates and the fact that they’re consistently too low, but it goes in one ear and out the other, so I have kinda given up. But I’m also not gonna compromise the quality of my work so I can say “oh I did it in less time than was estimated!”

I also can’t help but wonder if he’s doing this to my US partner in crime as well or if I’m on some weird secret surveillance plan cause I won’t work on something for 10 hours and say it only took 5.

You’re not gonna quiet fire my ass just because I am realistic about my speed of work. All my shit gets done when it needs to get done, and that’s all that matters.

You have a great day and don’t pick any unnecessary fights. :-D

They’re still covering the Queen’s funeral this morning. Time to start moving on.

Meanwhile, Charlotte has heard “we won’t have another Queen in our lifetime” one time too many and is plotting her reign of terror to get to the throne.

And I know funerals aren’t fashion shows, but my god, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was IMPECCABLE. Harry absolutely married up.

And one last note on the funeral – if you’re gonna have a slew of young, very in shape, Royal Navy guys haul your coffin all over town, you should have them half naked and greased up, please.

On the domestic front, the President declared the pandemic over while also saying Covid is still a problem. My dude, if Covid is still a problem, THEN THE PANDEMIC ISN’T OVER. I swear, I am never gonna get to comfortably eat inside a restaurant again.

I mean, if saying it was over ended it, I could have ended this 921 days ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I am doing my best to live around Covid, but if you have to do a risk assessment every time you leave the house – it’s not over.

So, mask up, find a patio for lunch, be safe, and have a good day.

I hope it’s as lovely where you are as it is here. The world is still a hot mess, but at least we have a bit of sunshine and low humidity.

I had such a lovely day yesterday at Mount Vernon, not just the market fair, but wandering the gardens and having a rare-to-me-thanks-Covid sit down lunch. Maybe I need to start a new Saturday thing of “find a botanical garden and go wander and then find a lunch spot with patio seating.” At least until the weather turns to shit.

How dare fresh air and exercise be so good for me, LOL.

My big plans for today are to say I’m gonna get caught up on everything around the house and then…not.

You have a restful day.

I spent several hours today at Mount Vernon for their fall market fair, and spent a good long time taking a wander through the gardens. Got some nice soaps and fancy mustards and a nice “over the doorknob” basket for the basement door where I can put my brother’s mail. There was also a bakery tent and I got some goodies to take home – chocolate croissant and a prosciutto cheese croissant, and a couple potato leek tarts. I also got little bro a teeny 50ml bottle of George Washington’s rye whiskey.

And the Mount Vernon Inn had it’s patio open and there was no wait for seating, so I had myself a nice sit down lunch, and that was a real treat. If you’re ever there, I can highly recommend the short rib sliders.

All in all, a lovely way to spend a few hours and if Covid ever abates enough to be indoors without a mask again, totally going to one of the whiskey tastings.

Our piece of shit hateful bigoted fascist Governor is rolling back protections for transgender students.

I genuinely don’t know what the fuck is wrong with this man, but a big ol’ FUCK YOU to every media outlet that just treated him as the businessman in a vest – how goofy! – and never challenged him on anything, and another FUCK YOU to every jackass that voted for him, and a final FUCK YOU to Dems for running Terry McAulifffe.

The ACLU of Virginia is already all over it. and there will be a comment period starting September 26, and you can bet I’ll have some things to say about this. I am so fucking sick of the Republicans doing nothing but hurting people, and how much they LOVE doing it.

And then the whole thing with DeSantis and the asylum seekers he dumped in Martha’s Vineyard… The folks of MV did a wonderful job of making sure everyone was safe and fed and taken care of on zero notice. And because they dared to admit they didn’t have the resources to make it permanent, and the folks were then taken to Joint Base Cape Cod – the R’s are going, “See, they’re just as bad!” The fuck?

Don’t ever tell me the two parties are the same.

Another Friday! Well done!! And I don’t know about you, but the week totally whipped by for me.

Today’s fun is testing a new feature, which is gonna suck, cause I’m working off nothing but a design document, a 2 hour kickoff meeting that did not actually discuss the feature itself, and no dev demos. And it’s one of the most complicated screens I work with, and supposedly will only take me 2 days.

I did go 10 rounds yet again with the team lead on these estimates – part of it was a half hour budgeted for doing a post testing demo. I have told him until I am blue in the face that it takes longer than that, and he says he gets it, but… I told him he didn’t have to change the estimates, but to know, it will take longer.

The long and short of it with these features is that we’re trying to fit 20 pounds of shit into a 10 pound sack, timewise, and the time estimates are being done based on the time we have, not the time we actually need. You can say something will take 16 hours, but if that is just based on how much time you think is available, well, you see the problem.

I was told we can move some of the testing to the spring if needed, but I don’t see how kicking the can down the road helps, but that’s just me.

Oh, and on a hilarious note, I was asked if I wanted to volunteer in Q4 to help develop curriculum for our learning paths/professional development. Um, no. Beyond the fact that I have no time, and this should be HR/training doing this – my personal professional development has been “go where the work is, and learn by doing” so, not exactly my wheelhouse.

If you’re thinking that I’ve not taken my career development seriously over the last 30 years – you’d be right. For me, every step has just been another job, cause I gotta pay the bills. If the job doesn’t totally suck – that’s a bonus.

Well, time to go test the thing and figure out how long it’s REALLY gonna take.

You have a fantastic Friday!!

Woke my brother up at 5:50, woke me up at 6 right before my alarm, belly rubs and bunny kicks, and tear-assing around in general, then pretending like nothing happened. I’m putting this square on the fact that we’ve got a bit of a fall chill in the air in the mornings.

The thorn in my side that I’ve been testing is done! What a pain in the ass that was and I’m glad to have that in the rear view mirror. I said at this start, this one is gonna need time and care, and boy howdy it did.

Now, I’m going to go have a nice, calm day where I find no issues anywhere with anything and I can start and finish something without having to send it back to dev.

Hope springs eternal and all that, LOL.

You have a fantastic day!

OK, it sounded better in my head, LOL. I’m still a bit loopy since a certain kitty felt it was VERY IMPORTANT to wake me up 10 minutes before my alarm – I guess she know’s it’s FML meeting Wednesday.

The thing I’ve been testing – no issues yesterday, YAY! And a day extension on getting it done, YAY! This thing has been a pain the ass and I’ll be happy to put it in the rear view window.

I keep wanting to put together a proper template that covers ALL THE THINGS I can reuse over and over to test this particular app – I just haven’t been able to find the damn time to do it. Theoretically, I could reuse the one I’m using now, but because it had formulas dumped on it at the last minute, it’s all out of logical-to-me order. (When I started testing this bit, I had 6 formulas, then my coworker went on PTO and it was still broken, so I had to pick up the bits she had been working on.)

There are lots of times I can reuse other templates for the app, but it may be worth it to take a few hours and just do it so I have a *really good* master template – the app is certainly going to have to be tested yet again. There’s another app that I think is going to need it, too – I should probably consider that, too…

Look at my dumb ass creating more work for myself, LOL.

Well, time to go do the thing to make the money to feed the furry alarm clock.

You have a great day.