My own box to play with

I am sitting here in the Mac lab waiting for Martin to give me access to one of the PlanetLab infrastructure machines. He called it "a box for [me] to play with," and he's going to set up PHP5 and everything for me. I'm rather excited.
Otherwise I have done no work so far today. Could probably start plotting out some other pieces of the project, but why rush? When there are emails to write and blogs to read...

And Clarence is quite adorable. I finally learned his name (it's on his shirt) earlier this month. We've been buddies since the summer I spent here on SPE (2002). I haven't been around this building much since SPE (as much as I programmed these past two years, you know), but he still remembered me and went out of his way to ask how I was doing. I was so amazed when this happened after not seeing him for a long time.
Now, everyday we say good morning and make small talk, and he comes in and checks on me every few hours. I haven't been in here since early Friday, so when I got in this morning he asked if I'd seen "my floor" yet. It's lovely and polished and waxed. People like him really make my day. And he and a few of the other janitors/staff seem to think of this as my lab. Mmmm I wish. Lovely machines.