Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your day?

Flocked my theater review because despite knowing four people in the show, three of whom were brilliant, it was 2 hours of my life I will never get back.

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Work was busy, in order to write the step-by-steps for the test cases I needed to actually set up and run the tests, and these were pretty complicated ones. You know how sometimes your cable signal will go away, and you'll see a sign "technical difficulties"?  That's something our device does. It monitors a primary and backup signal (the backup is usually the same TV show from a different feed) and if both of those go down, or lose video, a secondary backup "slate" comes up. It's a little challenging to test that in the lab. Took all day to do two of those, and will take all of Monday to do the other two.

Lunchtime me, automation guy, and motor mouth went for Thai food.

Checked my personal email, a guy from NPR asked if he could quote my web page and link to it in one of their blogs. Apparently the man who blew up the whale in Oregon in 1970 died last weekend. The web page was written in 1995, when Quicktime, Windows Media and Real Networks were all common video plug-ins for browsers, and I had all three on there. So when I got home I fixed that, made it a YouTube embedded video and added a note about the exploder guy's demise, an also the name of the reporter, which you can't really make out from the ancient copy of an 8mm movie.

While I was at it, I looked up the newspaper I was working for when I first heard about the exploding whale, and discovered that the brother of the editor under which I worked was now editor, the guy I worked for had never moved back from Pendleton (and is still chairman of the company which owns both papers). That surprised me, because he was against the Vietnam war and very liberal back in 1973, but his latest editorial was in support of the Tea Party. He ignores their wacky ideas and pushes the fact that they are a true grassroots organization. IMHO crabgrass. Sad to see that living in Eastern Oregon has poisoned his mind.

At about 7:30 I headed to Sunnyvale theater and saw Zombie Prom, a horrible production of a musical which might have been a hoot if it wasn't so amateur. The less said about it the better.

Plans for tomorrow:
Drop off the signed letter at the apartment office confirming the inspection date and my buy-in to having them do the cleaning.
Hop on Caltrain and go to the Science Fest at AT&T Park
Home, do some more packing.

Nobody stood back

Wearing a T-shirt today which says "Stand Back   I'm going to try SCIENCE". Took my camera to the Bay Area Science Festival at AT&T Park. In front of the building they put most of the robot displays, about a dozen of them, ranging from high school to professional projects. I took a lot of pictures, but for every one I took there were 5 I didn't take because of the crowds. Every display was surrounded by kids, sometimes parents were with them blocking the view even more. I didn't see any exhibits which were aimed at adults, everything was dumbed down. But there were thousands of kids there, the field was ringed with exhibit tents, and there were exhibits all around the lowest level concourse. Chevron had a huge tent in center field with dozens of displays and activities the company sponsored at area schools.

Photos are here.

I got my exercise, walked all the way around the field and the concourse. Also walked up the stairs to get a close-up of the Coke bottle:


And a close-up of the mitt:


There was a lot of good stuff there, but it would have been a better experience if things weren't so crammed together.

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This morning was a sleep-in, Kaan helped me stay in bed by curling up under my arm at about 9 am. But I did have to get up before 10 to bring my signed form to the apt. mgr. saying yes, I want them to clean the place for me for $200 after I move out, and saying okay to an 8-10 am inspection on 11/21.

When I got back it was just 7 minutes before the next train to SF, and I would only make it if all the lights were green and there was parking and no line at the parking fee machine. So I took some of the hour to re-stack the boxes I'd packed, packed the last one of the CDs, and moved the racks to make a space for the boxes which will hold the stuff in the bookshelves. I see five books right off the bat which will be donated to the Friends of the Library. I'm sure there will be more. I had been donating books to the BASFA auctions, but lately books have been going 5 for a quarter, which doesn't help the club any and just makes it hard on the auctioneer.

I'll leave the shelves where they are after they are empty, because they take up the least amount of space that way, and the littercam is on top of one. The cams will be among the last things to pack.

So... I made it in plenty of time for the 12:10 train, and got to the ball park at 1:50. Caught the 4:15 back, and was home at about 5:30. Got the mail - all of it ended up in the trash (pre-holiday catalogs and a holiday begging letter from the Computer History Museum).  Watched a couple of episodes of South Park, shot up, set the timer so dinner would be half an hour after insulin (per my diabetes doc's suggestion), heated up some curried vegetables - I thought it was the last of the curried chicken drumsticks but there was no chicken. Had that open-faced on two pieced of Health Nut bread. And my home made lime soda. Ate it while watching a Tivoed Restaurant Steak Out. It amazes me how he manages to turn around some of these places without firing anyone.

It seems that none of my teams are playing today, so no football to watch. I think I recorded a game, but I forget which one.

Surfed around on FB, discovered that a musical I thought was running for 2 weekends is only running one, so I put that on my calendar for tomorrow. Many old friends are involved, and I don't think there will be any lack of seats.

Plans for tomorrow:Set the few clocks back which don't do it automatically. That would be:
- Microwave
- Big-digits LED clock by the TV
- Clock/thermometer in the office
- Radios in the shower and 2nd bathroom
- The one in the car
Some of those have a DST on/off switch
Watch some football
Go to MV and see Irene at the Center For Performing Tarts. If they are sold out, hang out at the bakery cafe instead.
Watch some more football
Do some packing