Dispatches from a happy Hullian

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
( ... )
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Get onto the bus!"

I defended today, and have to fix some grammar, and switch the words "left" and "right" in a bunch of places in my thesis. Aside from that, I am done my schooling for some time to come.

It feels awesome.

More after I get some sleep.

So, my birthday was last week… thanks to everyone for the wishes, gifts and good food! It fell in the last throes of thesis this year, so I've been working into the late evening a lot, and trekking back to Montreal every week or two, but I still found time to celebrate.

The actual night-of, Ellie made sponge cake and ordered pizza, and we washed the two down (in the conventional order) with red wine my parents had brought to the housewarming. I think we've found the universal Good Cheap Local Pizza Joint, analogous to Mory's in Verdun: Pizza Maisonneuve, on Papineau near Maisonneuve. They flyer a little too much, and the place feels like an oven and looks held together with packing tape when you come in to pick up your pizza, but the pizzas themselves are excellent: thick crust, good sauce and lots of cheese. The Top Secret Sewing Project she'd been working on for my birthday turned out to be a very dapper vest, which she accompanied by a nice, texture-y dress shirt that fits quite well (rare in a day where normal shirts are too short and "big and tall" stores may include "just big" but seldom include "just tall."

Monday night, after a thesis meeting and a little wandering, Ellie and I proceeded back to Ormstown (where I took the wheel of my mum's car from the bus to home, which stressed her out quite a bit), and then we feasted on home-made lamb vindaloo, pullao, chickpea curry and basmati rice, with beer and followed by very rich chocolate mousse cake. My sister found a Fin du Monde and apple jelly, and my folks got me a floor pump for my bike and a paper shredder (not just for privacy, but also because both the worms and the rats like shredded paper bedding).

A good time was had, and we were all completely stuffed.

Came through Montreal the following day, caught up with my brother, talked geekiness, watched Doctor Who, swung through the office to grab a book and some knickknacks of mine, accompanied Ellie on a postering run for her new CD (in select stores and for sale online now!) and came back on the train.

The thesis is almost done, I've done a preliminary copy edit for the 98% that is written, and now I'm polishing off the straggling 2% or so. Tomorrow, my two volunteer copy editors and I will go over the manuscript, then Friday I hand it in at the thesis office. Defence soon after that, then any required modifications and I'm done, and able to arrive at StatCan unencumbered by studenthood. Woot.

I'm now pretty much wholly at the new² place. We're still picking our way through stuff that needs unpacking, reassembling and stowing, but things that need hooking up are hooked up, and the bulk of our stuff is here, thanks to Allied Movers (who were friendly, efficient and broke absolutely nothing as far as we can tell) and my uncle and his wife (likewise, and they brought us pizza despite my offering to feed them). It's chaos, but it feels like home already. We've put down some "Thames green" paint in places, patched up the white in others, cleaned, hooked up the appliances, taken out the initial trash, and generally started bending the place to our will. We've made coffee and toasted bagels so far, so the kitchen is coming along!

There's still some mop-up to do at the old new place, but we'll be out of there pretty soon.

I also tried out Inkscape, and I think it's definitely a keeper. It runs smoothly in X11, and makes sense to someone who's got basic mucking skills in Illustrator. The tutorials are also quite straightforward, yet treat the reader like a geek who's had enough coffee to get their brain working already.

The binge of figures that will illustrate what I'm thinking in the thesis will be upwards of 80% done in Inkscape. Met with Fred to set some more milestones and talk committee, and things are looking good. I'm going to set up the office in the new place today, I'm sharing with the cat den and the sewing machine (and a lot of boxes, for now).

Crashed at Owen's place on Wednesday after meeting Fred, ate Chinese food, watched Serenity and the Firefly pilot (the movie was excellent, and the pilot will probably have me renting the series in the fall). Something not-funny was happening with the plumbing there, so I also bailed grey water from the sink to the tub in a wok a couple times. If you live in a building with a no-dishwashers policy, then there may be a reason. Be nice to the guy in the basement apartment, mmmkay?

Adobe Reader 8's font "smoothing" on Palatino is a disgraceful, snaggly mess.

Lattice theory is neat. I've got my library card for the National Library so I can grab some books locally.