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Sigh.
The dress arrived at about 10:30 AM this morning. I don’t know if she sent it after getting my I’m-freaking-out-where’s-my-dress e-mail yesterday or what, but she mailed it overnight mail yesterday, and it arrived today. I tried it on, and it looks great (except I need a little help with part of the dress), and I don’t think I need any alterations. Yay!
…and extremely pissed.
This is not a good combination for a bride.
I have three weeks and two days before my wedding. I don’t have a dress. I ordered a dress, and paid in full, sixteen weeks ago. A full four months ago, the dressmaker cashed my check and sent me a reciept. That was the only contact she made. On my measurements sheet I requested that the dress be sent to me August 1, thinking that even if she was a little late, I’d still have a month to get alterations if I needed them.
Sixteen weeks.
According to her webpage (which I’m not giving out right now, since I don’t want Andrew to see the dress), most orders are completed within eight weeks of payment. Eight weeks. It has now been twice that.
According to her webpage, she recommends ordering a dress at least three months before the event. If I had waited that long, I would have been wearing shorts and a t-shirt at my wedding. It’s been more than three months.
Now, I visited her webpage this afternoon, and she’s having Halloween specials. She’s guaranteeing regular orders (i.e. not rush orders) will be delivered in six weeks. And she can’t get me my dress in sixteen weeks?
I was okay until I saw this six week crap on her page. Now I’m pissed. Two weeks ago she said that she anticipated mailing my dress within a week. She mails things priority mail, so if she had, indeed, mailed it last week, it would already be here. It’s not.
I sent her an e-mail yesterday morning, asking (very nicely) what’s going on with my dress. She still hasn’t gotten back to me. She runs an internet business, and she’s either not checking her mail daily, or ignoring mail. I’m not sure which is worse.
I’m freaking out.
And I’m extremely pissed.
I’m such an idiot sometimes that it’s a wonder that I can acutally dress myself in the morning.
Two idiotic things have happened in the last week with my thesis. One, I discovered that the response files that I’ve been making for the spectra are wrong for more than half the spectra, and two, I’ve been losing some of the latest data because I haven’t updated my SAA (South Atlantic Anomaly) history file.
The response matrix problem arose because I have a script that automatically makes the response files. The FTOOL needed to make the response requires the numbers of the PCUs used to extract the spectrum. I adjust these over time, since PCU #1 is only on intermittantly after a certain date, and PCU #0 lost it’s xenon later at a different date. It’s best to use as many PCUs as available for the data, so I use #1 and #0 before their respective malfunctions, but not after. In my response-generating script I had been defining which PCUs were used, but not actually feeding this to the FTOOL making the response. Idiot!
The SAA problem came about because I have a file in the “aux” directory for each observation that the reduction script (the rex FTOOL) looks at. The default requirement for data to be considered “good” is that the data be at least 30 minutes from the last SAA passage. The file that I’ve been using ended long before the latest data sets that I’ve downloaded, so all of the data has been rejected from these data sets. Idiot!
Anyway, I’ve since changed the response-generating script to feed the pcarsp FTOOL the acutal PCUs used, and I’ve updated the SAA history file in the aux directories.
Let’s try to avoid any further idiocy, boys and girls. Shall we?
This evening we went to meet with the manager of the Stardust Restaurant, where we’re having the reception. Unfortunately, the manager was about 40 minutes late — her boyfriend’s 15-year-old cat is not doing well, and she needed to help out. Andrew and I are cat-people, so we weren’t mad or anything, just a bit inconvenienced.
We worked out the layout out of the restaurant, and timing for everything. Andrew and I still need to pick entrees and appetizers, but that should be easy. Since it’s all vegetarian, there aren’t as many choices as there would be if we were picking meatly-dishes. (That’s not to say there isn’t a selection, just not as much of a selection — we chose this place partly because they were happy to work with us on the vegetarian-issue. In fact, the chef has come up with a few extra vegetarian dishes that aren’t on the menu for us.)
She is also going to look into what champagne she can get for our toast. This is the only alcohol we’ll be providing — everything else is a “cash” bar, since we’re funding this entire shindig ourselves.
After the meeting, Andrew and I stayed for dinner. Yummy, as always!
One of the reasons for our trip to the National Zoo was to see the Pandamania Panda’s there and near the Woodley Park Metro. There were seven in all — we have just 22 pandas left to see after today (including the one that was stolen…we may never get to see that one).
As usual, I have pictures posted on Flickr.
My favorite one on todays trip is Will You Miss Us?, a panda depicting several endangered species:
  
Sadly, this one shows some vandalism — those white spots look like someone “keyed” it or something.
We got up early this morning to go down to the National Zoo and see the new tiger cubs. The cubs are only out in the habitat from 7:30 – 9:30 AM, so we had to be up by 6:30AM to get there and watch them for a while. It was well worth it. I have an album up for our trip, but here are a few of my favorite shots:
| Tiger Cub Tangle | Cubs and Mamma |
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| Tiger Cub | Keepers Getting the Cubs Inside |
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| Lounging Lions | |
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| Hidden Hippo | Panda Tumbly |
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Oh! One other thing. I’ve been to the zoo a couple times now, and I’ve been to the gift shop near the big cats and the one near the pandas. This was the first time I went to the one in the Visitor’s Center. Wow! This was a higher class of gift shop. It might not be the best one for the kids, but for the adults who want something a bit classier from their trip to the zoo, I strongly recommend visiting this gift shop above the others. They do still have most of the same kids-oriented toys, but in addition, there were two displays of lovely jewelry, a display of arty ceramic animals, and a large book section. I spent way too much there.
We started the day by cleaning our basement carpet. My adorable cat, Ares, thinks that he’s a wild cat, needing to mark his territory, and we wanted to see if we could get some of it out of the carpet. I don’t think we did much, but it was worth a shot.
Next we went out shopping. My secret goal was to get everything on my list that’s left to buy for the wedding. That was a bit over ambitious, but we did get quite a few things on the list. A trip to Target and World Market later this week will probably take care of another few things on the list.
On our way home from shopping, I stopped at a red light and suddenly felt Delphi lurch. I figured that I had just stalled her, which is not unheard of, but Andrew said, “Did that guy just hit us?” I took stock of the car, and noticed that Delphi was still running — I couldn’t have stalled her. So, I put her in park and got out to see if there was any damage to the car.
Now, any normal person, upon bumping another car, would get out to make sure that they did not do any damage. Apparently the guy driving the car that hit Delphi was not normal. He just sat there in his car. Like a total f***ing moron. I checked the bumper, and there was no damage. Not even paint missing, but still, he should have at the very least poked his head out the window to talk with me. It wasn’t worth bothering, so I got back into Delphi and headed on home. What the hell is wrong with people, though? If I accidentally bumped a car, I’d be the first one out. I’d be pulling out my driver’s license and insurance card to appease the person in the other car.
by Phillip Pullman
Sally Lockhart is a 16-year-old girl in Victorian London whose father was recently killed in a sinking ship while away on business. He sold his share of his business before leaving, leaving Sally with very little of what she thought she’d have coming. A note from a man with her father shortly before he died sends Sally on a quest, racing against an evil woman and the man responsible for her father’s death.
I quite enjoyed this book, the first I’ve read by Pullman, and am looking forward to reading the other books in the series.
I’ve started feeling a bit restless and couped-up, so I dragged Andrew and me out on our bikes tonight. It was 93 degrees with 70% humidity and a 40% chance of severe scattered showers (though the sky looked clear). I didn’t care…I needed to get out.
We loaded the bikes on his car and drove up to the W&OD trail in Vienna and headed off toward the southeast. Considering neither of us has been biking for aobut a month, I think we did fairly well. We made it up the hill just past where the trail crosses the Beltway (though I did have to walk up about a quarter of the hill…on the other hand, that’s further up the hill than I’ve ever made it on the bike).
I made us stop on the Beltway bridge on the way back. My hope was to get a picture of a car or two passing under us, but only managed blank street. The traffic wasn’t dense enough, I guess. But I still think the picture looked kind of cool:
Total miles: 6.7
I’m not panicking, but the wedding is one month from today — September 19. Ack!
Acutally, things are going along fairly nicely. All of the major things are in order (except, perhaps, my dress), and most of the minor things are falling into place.
Things left to do:
That’s all I can think of for now, but I’m sure there’s more. But it will all come together.
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