Project 365. Days 48, 49, 50

Day 48 (Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010)

Missed the aikido class, because of some urgent stuff at work. Actually regret it. It wasn’t that urgent, but I was kind of sucked in and was quite frustrated by some conversations, so I decided not to bother. I really need to be able to fight such surges of apathy. Coincidentally, one of the best way to fight an apathy is actually doing physical exercises and, specifically, martial arts… Well, you know – hindsight is always 20/20.

Watched the latest episode of “House M.D.”, which was really awesome. Denis, you will love it. Such a wonderful picture of a day of a typical manager. And getting outside of the box and making Cuddy main character at least for one episode was definitely refreshing.

Day 49 (Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010)

Morning started with a 10am coffee shop meeting with one of our local partners. It’s always pleasure to meet those guys and doing work outside of the office is definitely a double pleasure.

Apple caused some stir today by out of the blue approving update of our Finger Physics in a whooping 90 minutes. It was wonderful, except one little problem. The biggest reason for this update was a Doodle Jump cross-promotion that we were going to launch and that promo includes a website, few announcements in popular iPhone gaming communities (like TouchArcade) etc etc and based on our previous approvals we thought that we will have 3-5 days to take care of all this stuff. So, when Apple all of sudden set the new record it actually meant that we will have to stay late and craft all promo materials in a matter of few hours. Which we did and now some lucky person will win an iPad by suggesting the best idea to do DoodleJump-themed pack for Finger Physics. If you interested – go here.

Since I was late to my usual direct bus line, I went to Borders and lo and behold… new Matt Beaumont’s book “E Squared”. His book “E” was my long-time favorite for years. I stumbled upon it by accident in 2004 during my first trip to USA. Me and few of my colleagues were staying in corporate apartments in San Clemente that belonged to Superscape, our partner back then. So, either someone who previously stayed in that apartment forgot that book or maybe it was part of the “hospitality package”, who knows. But I read it cover to cover literally rolling on the floor laughing and stole it (shame on me, but I just couldn’t resist). And now – sequel time.

In addition to “E Squared” I also bought Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules” book, since Borders offered 50% discount for the second book (always nice). I read his previous book “In defense of food”, so while it was a blind purchase I’m sure he will not disappoint.

Funny little incident – when I was checking out those two books, I tried to get my Borders club card which is clipped to my keys ring and accidentally dropped my folder knife on the floor right in front of the clerk. There’s nothing wrong with my knife, I’m 90% sure it’s legal, though I would reserve 10% for the crazy Seattle’s gun laws, but it’s still somewhat dangerously looking and nowadays most people are such hopeless liberal pussies, so I won’t be surprised if someone would report me to the police or something. Well, clerk girl was cool about the incident. She looked a little bit like a biker chick though with two tattooed sleeves, so probably knives shouldn’t scary her too much. She just played cool and said that my knife is good and she used to have one on her all the time, though she mostly used it to peel oranges. So we chat for a few minutes about knives and stuff and wished each other a good day without any authorities on the scene.

Day 50 (Friday, Feb. 19, 2010)

Friday was a first day when I actually didn’t have a meeting first thing at the morning and I was able to slack for a little bit, but decided not to break a chain and still get to office at 9:40 to do some more work and make sure that I leave at 4:40 to be on time for my evening aikido class.

It was nice to see Sensei Paige after a while, he usually teaches Friday classes every other week, but for some reason I haven’t been on his class since probably Christmas, so I was glad to train with him again. He is a very good teacher and beyond the aikido, he taught me to play “Legend of the 5 rings” few months ago, which is a card game similar to “Magic: The Gathering” if slightly more complex and strategic and I even bought myself some cards (and won few boosters in my first game). He invited me to play several times and I even offered to host a game in my house, but didn’t manage to do it so far. I really need to find the time to pursue these things. AD&D and MtG were my passions for a long time and in the last few years I was whining about the fact that I can’t find good company to play, since I really don’t want to play with 13yr old and now when I actually find such people I still procrastinate.

After class, we Jenny, Julia & I watched “Old Dogs” (OMG, John Travolta is getting so old), though I was mostly finishing “E squared” and a bottle of port (well, not the whole bottle, but what was left there). The port, the book and the movie were just great.