Again, I watched the sunrise with a cup of coffee in my office (once, a bedroom), and while the world seems to be conspiring to make me sell this house, I do enjoy looking out the window while I type on my computer. I watch the squirrels take inventory of their savings, the hummingbirds hover, look for more delicious bugs (“take all you want,” I often think), and zoom away, the crows fly by (my car is in the garage to avoid their mess), and various other birds drop by to take a nip of the few apples still left on the old apple tree. I do want to come home to my house, but it makes less and less sense financially, given that I travel so much, and now that I have thieves, it is hard to leave it for weeks. Still, I wish to watch the sunrise as I write her in my office.
The coffee is made for me when I arrive in the kitchen, sometime after 7, but still dark. The fog is thick. Sunrise is more of a black-to-gray process than the climb of the sun. My window does not point east, and I know the sun rises behind Mount Hood, visible from TV Highway and other clear spots. Today, it would be a glow in the black-to-gray.
I rush, but I get my last banana and an English muffin with orange marmalade, my favorite, to go with the Sleepy Monk brand local coffee (thanks, AJ and Most Rev Steve). I write 3/4 of the blog before I must dress and head out. I have a 9:30 Portland board game with Richard and James: Tainted Grail. I perform all the necessary tasks, including my meds, but delaying one, new and only seven doses, which makes me dizzy and tired until later, Deborah’s suggestion. I board Air VW the Gray, fully charged, and head to Portland, fully aware that ICE is out there (Trump is in Detroit today still blaming Joe Biden for his problems and flipped off someone), and if they shoot me, I will be blamed for getting in the way of the bullets.
The trip to Portland is full of challenges. The fog does not help traffic move quickly, and I crawl through Beaverton, mostly waiting through red lights at every intersection, sometimes two. The number of cars is surprisingly less than in December, and people are driving better. I take 217, and it is moving until I see smoke as I merge onto Highway 26. A dump truck is having a Viking funeral on the side of the highway. The truck engine and cab are completely engulfed in flames that reach 20 feet into the air. I cut quickly into the left lane of 26, which, even with the addition of fire trucks and emergency personnel, is burning quite bright. The black-brown clouds of smoke turn to white as the extinguishing process is being applied. No place for me to be in an EV! The traffic moves, and soon I fly by and enjoy, for a few moments, not traffic until the curves start before the tunnel on 26 inbound to Portland. My travels were normal, with just some slowing, to Richard’s and arrived only a few minutes late. Richard was just finishing up the game setup; he unpacked the last play before we arrived, which allowed us to better invest our time together in playing (thanks, Richard).
James arrives a few minutes later. We focus on the game (I get a call from Pastor Ken as we start), and soon we’re back into the immersive role-playing, cooperative Arthurian/SciFi/Lovecraftian setting, and app-controlled game. We are stuck, and we are doing some research (not really cheating, as I am sure we are not supposed to stay in chapter 7 for months and months) and walking across the board, slowly, to find more information. We have upgraded our characters and fought our way back (our characters took a few beatings, but we recovered easily), learning more and discovering what we are missing. We managed to find one thing and started searching for more, and found more. Our research says that this chapter is called out as a grind on the Internet, and that makes us feel better. And while I am frustrated over the lack of progress, our characters are interesting, and the setting is immersive, like a Dungeons & Dragons game, with the app playing the role of DM. Still, we would like to finish this chapter. I suspect 8-9 pass by fast, as we see many references to later chapters as we explore.
We packed it in around 1:40 when our turn ended, as I have described before, Tainted Grail has a save process for the physical game, and I headed home in the EV. Jeff is already at the house working. He has learned that the Dryer plug needs an updated connection in the power box. He is a bit concerned that the house has only a 150-amp service, rather than the newer 200-amp standard rating for homes (it is an expensive upgrade and likely quite invasive). If I were to do something like that, I would also add a generator, as I have natural gas running to the house (used only for the furnace and water heater). But I am not doing a ten grand upgrade unless I start popping breakers.
Jeff replaces the power plug (which was undersized for the amps!) and discovers, by cutting into the wall (which I patched less than a year ago), that we have no option but the existing dryer vent. Ugh! Water and sewer lines for the washer run through the wall.
The new locks are in, and the wires run. Jeff is covered in dust and pink insulation, and leaves before the sun sets. I reheat the ribs from a few days ago from BJs Brewhouse and have them with some stuffing for lunch.
I received the mailer information from LG, stuck the cut model number and serial number stickers from The Machine (now disconnected and unplugged) on a plastic bag, and headed to FedEx. There was a helpful clerk who got my bag/stickers in a mailer, and the label folded and slid into the supplied mailer. Done! Recept taken and photo sent (on Wednesday) to LG. Forward movement; when they get those, I will get my refund for my purchase price of The Machine. Jeff will have the space ready for the new laundry by then.
Aside: I had resisted upgrading the space, and that was one of the reasons for The Machine. It required less power, venting, and space. I had not bet on it breaking every three months and pouring water all over the house. I suspect this is an older model (I know the repair guys were surprised by its internals when they went to fix it), and I suspect some of these combos are excellent (GE has a nice one that I spotted after I bought the LG one).
Trader Joe’s was right there next to the FedEx office, and I picked up some items, some extravagant, and others’ favorites (Corwin’s favorite can of smoked trout, and dolmades for Z). I enjoyed shopping and loaded three bags for $120 (or the cost of ribs for two). I got this home, put it away, and went back to my office. I read the news, watched various late-night comedians’ YouTube versions. I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I was tapping and clapping to Jon Batiste’s “I NEED YOU” video, which I recommend to anyone; wonderful.
Time flows and runs like sand through your fingers. I take my meds and feel the tiredness coming on. I returned to Kaggle.com and returned to my coding. I am still having trouble remembering Python and Pandas (this contest seems to be able to be handled with a single memory structure, easily done with Pandas, rather than processing hundreds of large data files). I learned that there have been some updates to both (the recent versions are supplied by Kaggle.com’s environment) to make some obvious improvements, like easier ways to drop columns.
I contrived a stupid solution (just make all my solutions “Test”), delivered the file, and got graded (I got a 0.0, but I am proud to have delivered an answer). I also saw how others, who kindly supplied their code as examples—a tradition on Kaggle (bragging is good)—and used regular expressions (a Perl-like addition to Python, making Perl less used, even SAP’s ABAP has Perl-like code) to do some data cleanup. These cleanups are mentioned in the problem description. I will likely grab a code snippet for that later. Still, I managed to complete my contrived solution and tried to submit it. There were more discoveries (turning off Internet access to your notebook is required, for example), but by 10, I had a successful run! I may be in last place, 1100+, but I have placed!
The leaderboard is intimidating, as everyone is rated at the top (I am not rated as an expert), but the scored runs are below 40%, meaning there is no pre-cooked solution. I have a chance. Excellent!
I considered some very basic matching processes after reading various solutions using CUDA and torch, which were kindly presented as successful solutions (yes, Kaggle is a bit different than corporate secrets). Yikes! That is some hardcore stuff, but time has moved on since I was here, and technology has advanced at a pace that can be overwhelming. But for me, I am excited, there is new stuff, and it is hard to learn. Prefect! All of this is a public tool, too. Nothing hidden here. Just a damn-hard challenge using the best open software tools available.
I am also learning more about Akkadian scholarship, and reference material is provided (in files, with key structures linking them). Lovely!
With algorithms, Akkadian scribal rules, and Python running in my mind, it is after 11, I put on my PJs and do the dishes. I set up the coffee (not realizing that the power outage had removed my programming) and head to bed. I read for a while, but only a few pages. I slept with my mind tired but full of thoughts on coding.
Thanks for reading!
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 