FW: mailus interruptus

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

 > From: http://www.cs..edu/~bh
 > Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2017 17:53:26 -0700
 >
 > So, while I was on the train between Paris and Bordeaux typing up an email
 > about my trip, I lost net connectivity, and apparently abbenay decided to send
 > the partial email all by itself.  So if you've been wondering why it seemed to
 > end abruptly, that's why.
 > 
 > I'll get around to finishing it one of these days.  Meanwhile, I'm now home,
 > and I spent the first three days doing absolutely nothing except eat and
 > sleep, not even my laundry or grocery shopping.  Then finally I ran out of
 > Diet Coke with Splenda (which does seem still to exist here, knock on wood),
 > and that finally got me dressed.  I like to think that if you stay awake on
 > the airplane on the way home, which I did -- I watched six movies -- and then
 > sleep well that night, you don't get jet lagged, but maybe that's true only if
 > you're young.  I still would much rather be doing nothing than something, but
 > I have started to get a little work done, mainly plowing through around 200
 > emails that accumulated while I was at the conference, most of them Github
 > notices because Jens has been really busy dealing with loose ends in
 > preparation for the big OOP release.
 > 
 > I am about 3200 miles short of Mileage Plus /Silver/ for next year!  We're
 > only halfway through the year, but most of my travel is in the summer.  I'll
 > find a way to make up those miles; my trip to Boston at the end of the summer
 > will almost but not quite do it.  But I really want to be Gold.  (Shut up,
 > Gary, I already know you're way above that.)  I'm even tempted to go to the
 > Scratch conference in Budapest in August!  Way too late to present; the
 > program is all set.  And, really, it wouldn't help; you need another 25,000
 > miles to get from Silver to Gold.  (They've raised the requirements this year;
 > I used to make Gold easily and was actually Platinum last year.)
 > 
 > (What's the difference between Gold and Silver?  Stuff like access to United
 > Club at the airport, boarding priority, those are the main things.  Oh, and
 > bonus miles!  They multiply your actual mileage by a factor that rises for
 > higher levels.)
 > 
 > Anyone in Oz or NZ or someplace many thousands of miles away want to invite me
 > to give a talk?  :-)
 > 
 > There is a ton of BJC work that I have to do, but also a ton of Snap! work, on
 > the libraries and the documentation.  The past few days I've been waking up
 > around 10:30 or 11, having breakfast around noon, and then starting on
 > work-ish things.  Oh, and I'm about three months behind on reconciling my
 > bills with my bank statements, so I have no idea how much money I have, and
 > the relevant paperwork is spread out over the floor of my office at home.  I
 > was about to say "I'll have to get that under control this weekend" but I see
 > that somehow it has become Sunday already.  :-(
 > 
 > Okay, let's see how many I can remember:
 > 
 > 1. Gremlins.  I'd never seen it before!
 > 
 > 2. The Comedian.  Robert de Niro as a comedian who starred a long time ago
 > in a TV sitcom, and now when he performs all people want him to do is replay
 > the same role.
 > 
 > ... okay that was all I remembered (and I had to check imdb for the title of
 > the second one), but it turns out United has their list online.  Now if only
 > I can remember which I saw outbound and which inbound...
 > 
 > Hidden Figures.  Outbound, I think?
 > 
 > Lion.  Outbound.
 > 
 > I, Daniel Blake.  Inbound.  Nice movie about people fighting the inhumane
 > British welfare bureaucracy.  Reminded me of Frederick Wiseman's "Welfare"
 > although the latter was real-life and therefore not as plot-driven.
 > 
 > Moonlight.  Great movie, just as all the reviews said.
 > 
 > Paterson.  Interesting, very slow plot, but I liked it anyway. :-)
 > 
 > Well, maybe I only saw five movies on the way home.  I'm surprised I forgot
 > the ones I forgot -- although, I guess it matters that I was really tired
 > because I was trying to stay awake an extra nine hours.
 > 
 > I was very proud of myself, by the way, because other than Gremlins they
 > were all movies for grownups, not coming-of-age movies.
 > 
 > Oh well, I guess I've killed enough time to have dinner now...