The Roasted Rat
News ·Tuesday July 4, 2006 @ 10:58 EDT (link)
Lion's Gate Bridge
Monday, June 26:
Actually, it wasn't a rat, nor was it roasted. We heard a scrabbling in a vent above the microwave (fortunately accessable via a cupboard above), and were worried it was a rat, so we turned the oven on a few times since it seemed to quiet it down. The big pest control places (Orkin, Terminex) were quoting rates in the $200-$300 range to come out, but we found a local guy (Eagle Pest Eliminators) to come take a look. Upon cracking the pipe open a little (it wasn't very well sealed), we saw a beak; I suppose better a bird than a rat. The guy recommended darkening the room and opening the door in hopes it would fly right out, and so it progressed. He charged his $65 minimum plus tax.
Wednesday, June 28: Picked up a portable vacuum cleaner from Home Depot for cleaning out the car and hard to reach areas. My life is so exciting.
Friday, June 30: Friday had me looking at a fairly interesting layout bug; one of our new title pages (a car in the background with some shaded textboxes in front) showed up fine on the screen, but when printed the car image was in front of the textboxes. The print code just takes the layout rectangles and print them back to front (and the car was in front, which was wrong), but the display code renders the layout rectangles into three different types of drawing rectangles (text, old-style shapes, and generic, which includes new OfficeArt pictures), and then merges them later by height (Z-order). However, if two items have the same height (as the picture and shaded textboxes did) it puts generic drawing rectangles in front. The fix is to make some changes to how Z-order is calculated for inline pictures.
Saturday, July 1: Happy Canada Day! We drove into Bellevue and shopped around for pianos, stopping at Prosser (Roland), Helmer's Music (Kawai), Sherman Clay (Kohler), and Washburn (Yamaha). We eventually settled on a black Yamaha CLP-240, which I picked up Monday afternoon.
Sunday, July 2: We drove into Vancouver; we had no trouble at the border either way personally, although lines were long, it being Canada Day weekend and all. We mostly drove and walked around Stanley Park; there are some nice beaches. We wanted to eat at a restaurant one one of the points, but they'd unexpectedly lost power. We did also go up to the Capilano Bridge, but the rates they're charging are extortionate ($25 Canadian per adult). Things to bring next time: picnic basket, swim gear, bikes, hat, sunscreen.
Monday, July 3:
I now share responsibility for OfficeArt bugs with WB, especially print bugs; it's an area that's converging slower than others. The more I fix, the more areas I get, which isn't really a bad thing, in terms of possible advancement. When I went in yesterday, one (non-OfficeArt) print bug I had didn't repro, and two non-critical ODMA bugs that we might punt (decide not to fix because their severity is low, and at this point in the development cycle we want to reduce code churn, as every change could introduce new bugs).
As I mentioned, I picked up the piano (it had to be unboxed to fit into my car), took it home, lugged it out of the car (the "head" or top piece was a beast), and later, with Honey's help, set it up. It's a beautiful instrument.
Saturday, July 1: Happy Canada Day! We drove into Bellevue and shopped around for pianos, stopping at Prosser (Roland), Helmer's Music (Kawai), Sherman Clay (Kohler), and Washburn (Yamaha). We eventually settled on a black Yamaha CLP-240, which I picked up Monday afternoon.
Monday, July 3:
I now share responsibility for OfficeArt bugs with WB, especially print bugs; it's an area that's converging slower than others. The more I fix, the more areas I get, which isn't really a bad thing, in terms of possible advancement. When I went in yesterday, one (non-OfficeArt) print bug I had didn't repro, and two non-critical ODMA bugs that we might punt (decide not to fix because their severity is low, and at this point in the development cycle we want to reduce code churn, as every change could introduce new bugs).