An Infinite Tiling of People

After a bad week where it seemed like a Hadoop cluster generated every possible problem (up to and including spontaneously generating new cluster IDs for the namenode and datanodes), it was nice to be back in Durham, even only for a short time.

But, no time for love, Dr. Jones, as after waking up on Saturday morning, it was time to re-pressurize my back right tyre and head all the way to Raleigh where I met up with Tammy, Robert, the two smaller humans, and Christie for a visit to the Escher exhibit at the NC Museum of Art. All this time I’ve lived here, and this was the first time I’ve visited!

I can definitely recommend catching the exhibit in the upcoming (and last week), with one tiny caveat: if you don’t like crowds, try and go during the weekday if possible. There were so many people around that it did at times tip over into being ‘not fun’. If that happens to you, a quick escape to the West Building will lead to fewer people, airy spaces, and the ability to breathe. We didn’t even attempt the Da Vinci exhibit, as that looked even worse (with the additional complication of having to go through a metal detector).

Otherwise, I spent the weekend watching Series 9 of Grange Hill. Yes, the Zammo series. It was probably about a year or so before I really started watching it as a child (I’m guessing ‘87 or ‘88…looking at the wikipedia synopsis, it must have been ‘87), but it’s interesting to see how much gets rattled through alongside the ‘drugs are bad!’ plot that winds through the episodes. We get prejudice against single mothers, underage drinking, ill-advised student-teacher relationships, bullying, foster care issues, open warfare between the staff and governors, threats of strike action over lack of school resources, DANNY KENDALL, dealing with grammar school / secondary modern merging, and yes, the strange person that comes to school on the first day of the fifth year after not shaving all summer. Ahem.

That’s more than you’d see in a lot of ‘adult’ drama serials these days.

Anyhow, a terrible week where we lost David Bowie and Alan Rickman, and I watched Grange Hill and felt old. Plus, all the hot chicken places recommended in Nashville are either shut or close early on Sunday, which is less useful when today is likely the only time I would have been able to go into Nashville itself. Bah.