^ Cardboard cutout of an anime waifu or actual flesh-and-blood?

(you can never be sure these days)

Oh, real. Nearly half those present were Japanese, made easier by the fact that several of the family already live in Europe.

My son, his children, bride, bride's parents and sister:


Bride and parents are all pianists, like my son.

I'm getting a bonus from my company. This is the first time since the year I was hired that they offered one.

Finally done with my classes for this semester. And I only have one final to worry about. Aside from a group project I need to do sometime before the 10th, I have nothing else to worry about which is great because I've been stressed out work all semester.

My wife and I have been accepted to provide temporary housing for refugees (barring the formality of a DBS/CRB check, which is done last because it's charged for). We can expect our first guest later in January, and typically to have someone with us about 50% of the time thereafter. Most commonly each stay is likely to fall in the range from about one week to six weeks. They may be people who are applying to stay, who have been accepted but need a place to sleep while they arrange something permanent, or even those who have been refused and are waiting for the next step.

pwhodges wrote:My wife and I have been accepted to provide temporary housing for refugees (barring the formality of a DBS/CRB check, which is done last because it's charged for). We can expect our first guest later in January, and typically to have someone with us about 50% of the time thereafter. Most commonly each stay is likely to fall in the range from about one week to six weeks. They may be people who are applying to stay, who have been accepted but need a place to sleep while they arrange something permanent, or even those who have been refused and are waiting for the next step.

That's fantastic, Paul! You're doing a great job of walking the walk, and truly making a difference in peoples' lives. I hope everything works out well, and that you can continue to assist and inspire others for years to come.

pwhodges wrote:My wife and I have been accepted to provide temporary housing for refugees (barring the formality of a DBS/CRB check, which is done last because it's charged for). We can expect our first guest later in January, and typically to have someone with us about 50% of the time thereafter. Most commonly each stay is likely to fall in the range from about one week to six weeks. They may be people who are applying to stay, who have been accepted but need a place to sleep while they arrange something permanent, or even those who have been refused and are waiting for the next step.

Going to brush up on Arabic or Urdu? Those always seemed like nifty languages to dig into.

Every now and then, I'll hear my apartment neighbor woman vocalizing the pleasure she receives from whatever she's doing/getting done to her.

She sounds hot.

StarShaper7 wrote:Every now and then, I'll hear my apartment neighbor woman vocalizing the pleasure she receives from whatever she's doing/getting done to her.

She sounds hot.

I'm reminded of a stand-up routine where the comedian told a similar story while he was walking by an apartment, and how badly he wanted to ask "Can I help?"

I decided to retire at the end of March - Easter in effect. Today I delivered my resignation to formalise this.

pwhodges wrote:I decided to retire at the end of March - Easter in effect. Today I delivered my resignation to formalise this.

Even more time for hobbies and your family! Congratulations!

Managed to defeat a bathroom basin that we wrestled with for a few hours, always avoid basins that have pedestals that have ceramic backs, no back is preferred.

pwhodges wrote:I decided to retire at the end of March - Easter in effect. Today I delivered my resignation to formalise this.

Good for you, pwhodges. Enjoy your new freedom.

Something that has been irritating me over recent weeks is the way that after I hibernate my laptop with Windows 10 on it, when I wake it up again, it has to go through the whole business of re-establishing the WiFi connection; and that as soon as it has done just the lowest level WiFi handshake, the systray icon goes to its "Connected" state, and gives no feedback about how the IP level network negotiation is going except in the hover-text. Contrast that with the behaviour of my aged Vista machine, where the connection resumes immediately, and on the occasions I need to reconnect, the systray icon clearly distinguishes between "thinking about connecting" and "you have the internet".

So, yesterday, I wrote a little program to put a systray icon that would show that same clear distinction, and tested it through manual disconnects and reconnects. Today, with the program running in the background, each time I've woken the machine from hibernation, the internet connection has been live straight away!

So not only does my program give Vista-like visual feedback, it seems to be giving Vista-like connection resilience as well. Result!

Good news. I passed my math class.
Bad news. By the skin of my teeth.

Fortunately all I had to do was pass it in order to get the credit I needed to apply for the University. So I can finally move on with my life now.

Thank God.

My 86.65 got rounded up to a B+ which is good because I'm pretty sure I did terrible on my final in my other accounting class and I need to keep a 3.0 overall average for the accounting classes in the program I'm in. I already have all Bs, a B+ and an A- but this just gives me more cushion. Now if I managed to keep an A in my marketing class this might actually turn out to be a pretty good semester for me.

Mr. Tines wrote:So, yesterday, I wrote a little program to put a systray icon that would show that same clear distinction

As a fellow programmer with a Windows 10 machine in the house (because we're testing it before seeing if it's worth it to put on any other machines), I want deets, maybe to try this myself.

It's under my public bitbucket at fsharp/Connectivity/; it's a Mercurial repo, because it dates from the time before there was a decent git implementation on Windows.

This morning, the WiFi didn't come up live out of hibernation, but at least it worked to show that the link was not active.

I am posting this from my new computer which is working great so far. The old one was a great machine, but it's just started to get old and an upgrade was needed. I'm excited though, I forgot how fast these things are when you first get them.

While at work today, I got a $5 bill on which someone had penciled Gendo glasses on Abe Lincoln's face. Made my day.