Checksum Arcanius

These days, my body is betraying me more frequently. A couple hours into frisbee practice today, my left calf started cramping, and it has continued to plague me for at least half an hour. I’m now sitting in my car outside of trader joes trying to work up the courage to put up with the pain that will ensue as I limp in to buy bananas and pickles, which I don’t even like. Needless to say, I’ve had better days.

Two takeaways: drink more water in general, and especially at these 90-degree practices, and eat more bananas. I don’t think I’ll develop a pickle habit anytime soon.

The two ties in group C today makes the group’s final two games very interesting. The good news is that the US controls its own destiny — a win against Algeria guarantees entry into the next round. However, there is a lot that can still happen, even with a US tie:

After pulling two long days at work before my vacation, I woke up around nine this morning, and commenced final preparations to head to the airport. My friend Chaitanya, who just got his California driver’s license, graciously agreed to drive me to the airport in my NEW CAR (I still need to post about that…)

On the way to the airport, I found out that one of my code changes yesterday was causing an issue with a unit test this morning. After making it through security, I had a few minutes at the gate, and so I got to work investigating and fixing the bug. I managed to figure it out and submit a patch, but a coworker had to commit the patch for me, as I had to get onto the plane.

The plane ride was about twice as long as I am have gotten used to — just under 4 hours in the air — but was mostly uneventful. I watched the scenery for a while (I hope air travel never gets old for me), worked my way through more of The Kite Runner, and ordered some surprisingly good food.

After making it to CVG (Named after Covington, Kentucky, but really, Cincinatti’s airport) about 30 minutes late, I sat down and checked the status of the now-fixed bug (everyone was happy), and then pretty quickly boarded the next plane, a small commuter jet. I arrived in Grand Rapids about 3 hours ago and then my brother’s entire family (Ben, Kaylee, and Cora) came to pick me up.

Now on to some Michigan adventures!

I moved! It was quite a process.

Wednesday afternoon I bought a car (more on that later, hopefully), then Scott came into town that night, I took Thursday and Friday off from work and we drove to Yosemite, went on a hike, built a bridge, got snowed on while we slept, hiked back out the way we came, visited the valley floor. Finally, we drove home, stopping only at an In-N-Out.

Saturday, we again used my NEW (to me) CAR to visit downtown Napa, and then Sunday we went on a bike ride (Page Mill Road to Gate 4 — Scott was a trooper and rode my heavy, power-sucking full-suspension bike).

Monday came the big move — a huge orchestra of things happening all at once. I had started packing about a week earlier, but Scott and I finished packing the last of my things and moving them to the garage that morning. Meanwhile, Jasmine started her move with a few friends and some hired help. Roommate Scott (not flown-in Scott) and Mike moved a few weeks ago, but they still had some things left over that some guys who were moving in to Palo Alto were picking up.

So, while cleaners worked around us, roommate Scott and Mike’s stuff was getting picked up in three van trips, Jasmine’s stuff was getting packed and put into the U-haul that I rented for the two of us (a bad idea, but I was trying to be nice), and my stuff sat in the Garage, roomate Scott and I were stressing out about the possibility of Jasmine not getting her stuff out in time (although she turned out to be a miracle worker, and got her copious amount sof stuff out and into storage as she promised she would.)

Just a 9:00pm (about 12 hours after picking up the U-Haul), the two Scotts and I started loading the U-Haul with my stuff. Former roommate Scott took off to do a slow drive back to Portland, while flown-in Scott and I drove the half mile to my new place, and then unloaded everything before midnight.

Many thanks to flown-in Scott for being so hardcore in getting the move done. We slept well that night.

On Tuesday, we ate breakfast at Facebook, then I dropped Scott off at SFO using my NEW CAR. Then it was back to work!

Overall, I had a wonderful time — I definitely need to make it back to Yosemite, and I definitely need to have more people come and hang out.

I got an interesting letter in the mail today.

CORRELATION DEPARTMENT
Research Information Division
50 East North Temple Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150-0018

April 16, 2010

Dear Brother McElroy:

As the Church grows, our membership is becoming more diverse. The Research Information Division of the Correlation Department at Church headquarters has been directed to conduct the LDS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP SURVEY 2010 to help Church leaders better understand the lives of members and the challenges they face. You have been randomly selected to participate in this study. The survey will include questions about your Church and family experiences.

Please complete this online survey within the first THREE DAYS of receiving it. To begin the survey on the Internet:

1. Go to the website: http://www.lds.org/emailsurvey
2. Click the link entitled: LDS Church Membership Survey 2010
3. Your repondent key for this survey is: ________

The survey should take between 20 and 40 minutes to complete, depending on the size of your family or household. If you do not have access to the Internet or cannot complete the online survey, we will automatically send you a paper copy of the survey in about a week.

Your information is a=complete confidential and will be combined with responses from other members to create a general profile of Church members and their families. We need to hear back from YOU to make the results truly representative. Your prompt response is essential to the success of the study and will eliminate the need and cost of additional follow-up reminders.

Thank you for your help with this important study. If you have any questions or if you need help completing the survey, please call the Research Information Division at Church headquarters (1-800-453-3860, ext. _____). The telephone call is free. Thank you.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Bruce D. Porter
Executive Director
Correlation Department

The survey took me about 30 minutes to complete, and I saved all the questions they asked along the way, for your enjoyment.

Interesting Questions: How many people did this get sent to? What will the response rate be? What would you do with this data?

Without further ado, the questions.

Facebook’s announcements at f8 earlier today have made socializing any website trivial — instantly. You don’t even need to know how to program. Just add an iframe — one line of html — and you can make your website have an instant social presence. I hacked in the widget just now on my site in a matter of minutes.

This is the one line I added to my blog’s template, in single.php:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?show_faces=1&amp;href=<?php
the_permalink() ?>" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="61"></iframe>