this morning was all about lotions. my skin are dry enough now that they hurt. i sort of noticed it yesterday when i was washing the back of my hands and they got all red and painful. i woke up this morning and i could feel the skin on my face puckering. i put on some facial creme, then put lotion on my hands. i smelled like an old lady, but at least i was protecting my skin.
i also gave the gutter guy lisa recommended a call. i felt like i caught him breakfasting, i could hear the clinks in the background. he was very hyper for some reason, spoke so fast, i almost didn't understand what he was saying. he knew who i was from a conversation he had with lisa last night, and said i was easy to remember because i'm the only tony he knows. he said next week was going to warm up and could do the gutters then for around $80. i then called spectrum gutters and told them i went with somebody else.
it was cold again, but only in the 20's, not so bad, temperature slowly starting to warm up. at the office, i had one of those quick one day project for a client presentation tomorrow morning, my job was to create a director-based slideshow with some simple keyboard navigation. these easy projects with deadlines are the best, people think you've really pulled one out through a crisis, but the assignment was so easy, it was a quick way to get some office glory.
i dropped out of sight for an hour in the afternoon, went with julie to the apollo grill for their korean box lunch specials. julie seemed to be impressed with the quantity and quality of the food, 
the attention to details (black sesames on white rice, white sesame on entree, roe eggs around the sushi rolls, tonkatsu with parsley garnish, rice noodles with slices of chinese chives, etc.), the diversity of flavors. 
as much as i hate the inferior quality of the suishiya box lunch specials compared to apollo, i miss the fried tempura though. i never noticed this before but apollo isn't about spicy, at least not their box lunches. on a cold day, i kind of want the spicy. nevertheless, the best box lunch specials in boston in here, and it's a real treat to eat here again.
back at the office, i got to play dress-up: squid needed somebody to play scientist for a series of photo for a project, i was handpicked to don the white lab coat and hold the clipboard. i am by no means photogenic, but i know what the camera lens wants and i deliver.
i wasn't looking forward to going home, because i knew what would be waiting for me once i got back. i avoided my continuing freelance work as much as possible. i received an e-mail from the client early in the morning with more bug fixes. the good news is the bugs are more and more esoteric, grey area bugs that can't exactly be reproduced. what the application i'm building needs is to be tested hard, and i don't have the resources, and i don't think the client does either. is it really my job to test it as well? i just build and fix, testing has always been the domain of other people. i test it as much as i can, but when i'm so close to the code, sometimes i miss obvious bugs, and sometimes i just don't want to look at the damn thing any longer. all i know is once this project is over, i will be free of entangling side jobs and can focus on my full-time work (for which i'm actually getting paid, unlike this shady freelance business) as well as devote all my free time to my personal pursuits.
i didn't actually start coding until 9pm, and i finished a little bit after 1am. i watched this documentary on killer ants, featuring the army ants of costa rica, as well as some nasty australian and african ants. i was able to test out the epson printer lynn gave me, the thing works fine, spits out copies without any problems. i now have in my possession two old printers, both which i got for free. later, i tried audio ichatting with julie, it worked only after i made my G4 be on the DMZ of my SMC router. she said our new red sox manager terry francona is hot, i responded with "you're SICK."