As I sit back after dinner with a nicely chilled beer (home brewed amber ale, for those keeping score), relaxing on the couch and watching the usual drivel on TV, I thought it would be cool to start a thread based on a Friday night at the pub. This is a place to have a drink and a good yak about whatever's happened to you this week.

This week I lodged my partner's tax return, and it got me thinking about the ridiculous series of questions we're forced to answer that cover maybe one percent of the population. I don't, for example, have dividends from any form of forestry fund, but the ATO always seems to suspect I might have, and always asks me at least three times.

I don't even like going to the country.

So to start things off, what's happened to you this week that's made you think, balk or laugh?

I've scored myself another kidney stone and the pain attacks started on Saturday. Then returned every morning since then. It's not fair really. I've had one before and it was just two attacks a week apart before it was all over. This is insane.

Normally that'd be sufficient cause for any week to promptly go and shove it, but then since last Friday a few cool things have happened as well. Like this place starting up, and my birthday.

This week started off with the usual insomnia deciding to be much worse than normal and now I am completely spent. Running on fumes. Just...out of it. On the plus side, due to a wonky schedule, I got to watch the Ravens win twice in one week. So there's that.

Finally got my license renewed after clearing an issue I forgot about 5 years ago involving me getting a car to go faster than what the speedometer was capable of displaying...

Did it involve a flux capacitor and a lightning bolt? What year are you from? Tell me!

Well my speed was in constant flux, sadly I never got to know the full capacity before the light...from the police vehicle causing me to go so fast in the first place suddenly lit up the darkness. Basically I was on the highway and the right lane was truck city so I basically had to stick to the left lane. For about 4 or so miles this guy is constantly on my ass so I try to put some distance between us in case one of the trucks suddenly came into the left lane. He got me up to over 30+ MPH the speed limit and all of a sudden I got police lights in addition to just the headlights as before.

In Reply To #6

I can't say I haven't done that. Maybe not all in one situation, but I am definitely guilty of everything you just described.

I almost said, "Just let him rear-end you next time and collect the insurance check." But then I remembered an accident that happened just a few cars ahead of me last night. A BMW was hit in the fast lane, careened into a mack truck in the middle lane (ripping off its rear bumper, smushing the back of the car, and dumping all of its gasoline on the highway), and then came to a stop on the shoulder (somehow missing the right lane with all of its debris scattered elsewhere). So don't do that...

If I wasn't driving a tin can that was literally falling apart(the steering column was about to come off and the headlights no longer worked when I finally got rid of the car a few months later) I might have considered that. But I really wanted to walk away from it.

In Reply To #8

It's like I said, the person last night could be dead right now, so DON'T DO THAT!

My first ticket ever was 66 in a 30 mph zone. I am surprised they let me talk it down to disobeying a traffic device instead of taking my license away for ever and ever.

Well, this is the end of week four of what has been a relatively stressful relocation. The tedious part of it is finally done (my wife and I were living in each our parents' houses). I finally secured a new place to live but the Internets situation is still uncertain.

The downside is that the former landlord (landlady?) is a fucking weasel and is trying to get away with giving me back as least as she can from what was my deposit. Bitch.

And of course, there's the fora rebirth. Fun. I need a beer.

My weeks are all stress now, but that's the profession I chose. The coolest thing this week was that my old boss called me to talk about a few things we're still jointly working on, but I could tell he was also calling to check up on me. He also gave me a couple VERY generous decisions about a manuscript we're working on. It was really nice to hear a familiar voice, and nice to know he cares about my professional wellbeing that much.

Well its finally Friday night for me. No beer in hand, more on that later, but here is the crazy week:

It started with some relationship insanity in the form of a lazy Sunday morning (juxtapose!) with someone who probably shouldn't have been waking up in my bed. But 'what happens next' was lethargically figured out over a few restaurant stops in quaint little towns. On Sunday, brunch bleeds so nicely into dinner you don't really need to fit much activity in between.

Monday marked the beginning of a diet challenge at my crossfit gym. This isn't like "Don't eat cookies" calorie counting thing (I am trying to gain weight) but a lifestyle diet called the paleo diet. The challenge is strict adherence to it for 6 weeks with benchmark workouts and measurements for progress. This has been the weeklong haunt for me. Basically eliminating grains, legumes, dairy, added sugars and.... alcohol. I generally eat in this fashion most days (80/20) but scrapping all but 2 alcoholic drinks a week sucks (no stacking either). Five or six more weeks to go, and really the weekend hasn't even happened yet. We'll see. I might make a topic on this should anyone want to follow along.

Work was pretty great. Just wrestling out the real needs for the features of the next release of a few of our products. Been doing a lot of reading up on Agile planning. Lots of work to do on a write up for making a marketable product out of an internal piece of software one of my teams has been working on for the last year or so. It is really exciting stuff.

I've got two online classes going, Scala programming and an advanced C++ course. Both kicked off in earnest this week so I've been setting up dev environments and working on intro projects (finished first Scala one this evening).

What has me broken is the benchmark workout yesterday called "Fight Gone Bad". I nearly threw up in the bushes after it was over. Yay health!

I was relatively enjoying a game of beach volleyball on Monday night when a toe of mine (I have 10 btw) decided it suddenly didn't appreciate having a full nail, but instead wanted half. Go figure. We lost both sets so I officially don't like Mondays any more [took me a few years to figure this one out].

And the other night I almost shut down an airport due to volcanic ash.

I have zero beer, but I have port and that makes me happy.

@Holiday. That seems like too much effort.

Unrelenting prepping for this weekends big grooming competition. I'm doing all 4 classes and its a fuckton of work. I have 5 dogs in my condo right now!

I can't wait to do this and this be next week. Evenings I'm doing nothing but post an game!


...*biiig swig of Cupcake Merlot*

In Reply To #14
Woo cupcake! Damn I miss wine.