howeird | Entries tagged with photography

Decided to take the Nikon 18-200 instead of the Tamron 24-270 after using the Tamron this afternoon to shoot pix of RC planes. Even the in-focus pix were not as sharp as I thought they should be. In the camera case the Nikon 55-300 was on there, which I used last time for whale watching, but it's so heavy it gave me tennis elbow.

This morning was a slow start, Domino had abandoned me overnight, could not find her on the webcams, finally looked and she was curled up in the office between the cat tree and the spare chair, in front of the heating grate. It's one of her favorite spots when I'm on the PC, and is on the other side of the tree from the webcam. If I look real close I can see her, usually. Almost out of Whiska's treats for her, 10-pack on order. She yells at me and leads me to the kitchen each morning until I shell some out.

Lazy day, mostly. Watched the Notre Dame-Rutgers game (Pinstripe Bowl - oy veh - at Yankee Stadium on the worst kept grounds evah) until the Tivo got equal to real time. Nibbled on soft goat cheese and sourdough slices, then finished off the "extra sharp" Vermont cheddar, which is about as sharp as Kraft medium. Domino loved licking the soft cheese off my fingertips, but wasn't too keen on the cheddar.

At about noon-thirty it was warm enough to go to Baylands Park, which is free from November to March, took my camera, a camp chair, the Nexus in case there was no action, and watched Radio Controlled model airplanes and choppers being flown. There was one guy about my age with a medium sized model of a Cessna 2-seater, I think, a late-model barnstormer. He flew it out past the park, out of the way of the others, and did some very smooth Himmelmans, barrel rolls, but mostly take-offs and landings. No touch-and-go, he said that was for his partner the retired Marine pilot. Lots of action, first time I have used the Nikon since tennis elbow, except for pix of the new house a month ago. I need to keep wearing the arm strap.

Made reservations for the Morro Bay Best Western for tomorrow night, and for the 1 pm whale watching tour. Little by little I have been gathering cold weather gear for that. My Seahawks stadium jacket and UW Huskies sweatshirt.

I had watched on Tivo a recent Actor's Studio with Laura Dern and her dad, and thought for dinnertime I would pull up Amazon Prime on the blue ray and see Silent Running, but they wanted $$ for that, so I browsed and found the 1929 not so classic Fritz Lang film Woman in the Moon. It gets of to a slow start and continues slow and steady from there. Excellent B&W camera work. This is one of the first serious rocket to the moon movies, and it was amusing how much tech stuff they got right, and how much they got totally wrong. Stuff which was well known back then.

Dinner was some re-heated Penang curry sauce on beef ravioli and mixed veggies. Much better than last night, after doubling the amount of curry paste. I'm usually a curry wimp, but Penang is relatively mild. Domino perched on my leg, expecting to be fed, and unusual for her, she didn't hop off when I offered her a piece which didn't smell like food to her. Had to push her off finally.

One nice thing about post-Kaan, is she is now doing a much more thorough job of grooming herself. She had let that go when Pumpkin died, and got dirty and matted. She's now the soft-furred thing of 15 years ago.

Plans for tomorrow:
Up at 7
On the road 8:30 or 9 at the latest
Morro Bay around noon - the tour is at 1, but will probably be late by 10-15 minutes.
Check into the hotel, they have evening cheese tastings, but I may be too late for that
Check out at noon, hang out at the coffee shop along the waterfront
Drive home late afternoon, shoot for 2-ish.
Plan B is to stay all day Monday and drive back Tuesday morning.
At the moment I don't have plans for NYE.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Furball Hall

Woke up and checked the webcams on the phone app, but the one in the piano room was not showing up. I had just rebooted it yesterday. So I went all OCD and made sure all 6 had an IP address assigned to their MAC address in the router, and those matched the ports open so they can be seen from outside the home network. Took almost an hour because I had to pull 4 of them to check the wireless MAC address, which is on the base where it screws into the mounting bracket. Each cam has both a wi-fi MAC and a wired MAC and it gets confusing because you start with it wired.

So that delayed things a bit.

My food scale lied. The calendars, it said, weighed 6.2 oz, which USPS rounds up to 7, which costs $2.75 for domestic, $8.something for Canada and $12.something for overseas. I am glad I went to the PO at the crack of 10, when there was only one person in line ahead of me, and three clerks.

The nice lady weighed a calendar, and it was 7.6 oz, which rounds up to 8, so all the items were going to cost more. And I needed to fill out customs forms for the foreign ones, because of the spiral binding, which is not 1/4" deep, so should fall under the normal non-customs-able rules, but the PO apparently now says any non-flatness requires customs forms. So $3.10 for domestic, $9.something for Canada and $14.95 for overseas.

I spent $193 on stamps, and went out to the foyer to slap most of them them on the 19 domestic items, and loaded those 4 at a time into the chute. Then went home, because the online customs forms are a LOT easier to do than the by-hand ones.

By now it is too late to catch the matinée showing of anything.

At home, I fired up the PC and cranked out 6 customs forms, which had to be printed out, cut into three sections, and paper-clipped to the corresponding envelope. And then the appropriate postage attached, sort of. $10 for Canada because I got $10 stamps, and one $10, two $2's and a $1 for the rest. I have stamps left over for future use. I expect one request from Sweden and maybe more from Israel. And I think Baltimore sister wants one for her boss.

Also at home, the rent/utilities bill was in the newspaper slot, which is where all mobile home park stuff goes, so I launched Quicken, updated the splits and printed a rent check.

The rest will go to co-workers, and assorted local friends, and I'll bring one to BASFA to auction, maybe. Maybe not. Last year's only went for $1 which is downright insulting.

But I digress. Back to the PO, this time it's just before 1 pm, and I am second in line again, this time there was only one clerk, and she was trying to explain in Chinglish to an Eastern European woman that the Post Office has no control over what the City mails to her, she needs to go to city hall. This took 10 minutes. She rang for backup, and another clerk opened up her post just after that conversation ended.

It was the same lady who sold me the stamps. She was grateful I had come with everything ready, because she still had to punch in each item, bar code scan it, stamp the forms and the postage, and print out a phony $0.00 tag to show it had been processed by a Postal Employee. Six items took 20 minutes.

Home, walked the rent check to the office (it's a short 2.5 blocks) and also filled out a form to swap my garbage can for the next bigger one. It's going to be a while, because they only process those on the 15th, and the swap doesn't take place till the first Monday of the following month. That would be February 3.

Back home to stay, played online, watched parts of a bowl game and several episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker the title role is an annoying bitch with a thing for the word "penis" but some of the dates she lines up for the rich guys are super-hot. She never chooses other millionaires as dates, she is all about gold diggers who can act sincere. My excuse is it was the only thing I could find without a Jesus Day theme or talking sports heads.

Snacked all day, so no dinner.

Tested the livingroom webcam's photo capability and got this cute shot:

And this one with the phone's camera:

Domino has become much more of a lap cat, but most of the time she prefers any of a dozen parking spots, now that there's no bully to chase her around. The only annoyance is she will yowl loudly if I go out of sight, but usually stops as soon as I say "Polo", or she finds me, whichever comes first. After Pumpkin died, she yowled constantly.

Plans for tomorrow:
Movie matinée
Bowl game - Nephew's Maryland is playing in the morning, my UW in the evening
Maybe go to the park (it was 68° this afternoon)

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Furball Hall

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.

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

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: Home of the Weird

But first, there was the waking up at about 3 am to push Kaan further to the other side of the bed, because he had curled up against my back when I was on my left side, which I found out when I tried to roll over onto my right. Earlier Domino was making rude noises from her hideaway under the shelves. Somehow Kaan had managed to burrow into the corner between her and the wall. He has been harassing her a lot lately. She hates it, he thinks it's a game. When Pumpkin did this, Domino played along, so I'm pissed that she hasn't adapted to Kaan's playfulness.

Was up and about by 8:30, way too early to hit the rodeo, so I did what I had been planning to do today, broke down the half dozen boxes which had not been flattened yet, piled the other 30 or so, which had been flattened, onto the dolly (on top of a used litterbox cartridge and a faux non-stick cookie sheet) and dumpsterized them. The livingroom is now a bit more open. There is still the second cookie sheet and a box from an in-dash unit which was in the old car (because it has styrofoam blocks in it) and an old not-flat-rate USPS box. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week.

About 11:00 I was in the car and headed for the rodeo, and I made the same mistake as last time, followed the GPS direct route, which is an enormously long and dangerous drive on a 1-lane road crammed with insane bicyclist and motorcyclists 90% of the way to the ranch.

Finally got to the entrance a little after noon, and was told this wasn't the entrance anymore, it was up the road half a mile. Drove a mile up the road, did not see another entrance. Drove back, and they said they forgot to mention it is on the other side of the road from the rodeo, there is a tunnel under the road there.

When I get to the parking lot, I am told to walk along the "caution" tape to the tunnel. Nope, no tunnel there. "Oh, not the caution tape right here. You see that caution tape half a mile away at the bottom of this muddy hill? That one."

In the past, the parking lot was on the same side of the road as the rodeo, but this year they reserved the whole thing for RVs and handicapped parking. Apparently there was less land now, because the ranch is in the process of being donated to the the park service. In fact, the road to the parking lot had one of those little wooden park service "no dogs/firearms/midgets" signs.

Finally got there, and they were running way late. I was hoping to miss the Grand Entry, scheduled for noon, but it didn't happen till 12:30. And it was long.

Bull riding was the first event, they had a lot of participants but I think only two qualified, so I got a lot of great shots, I thought, of people falling off in dramatic fashion. More on that later. Next up was goat dressing, which is not real photogenic because it's just a race for pairs of people to put panties on a goat from a running start. The goat is tethered to a fixed position. Most of the time all you see are people's butts. Then came calf dogging, where a person is put into the chute with a calf which has a pair of horns, and has to get the calf to go across a line a foot from the chute, and then flip it tits-up. Only a few of the contestants managed that. After seeing a few it gets old. Then came the drag race, which puts a cow on a leash, and the team consists of a man, a woman, and someone in drag. Did I mention this is a gay rodeo? Anyhow, the cow had to be brought across the arena past a line, the person in drag has to mount the cow, and then the team needs to get the cow back across the line. That's one of the more photo worthy events, people fall off a lot, and usually the cow resists being pulled, making for lots of tension in the picture.

There was barrel racing and flag racing to come, but those take a lot of time to set up, and are not that much fun to shoot, so I bailed. There was no bronc riding, I don't remember why (someone told me, but I forgot). Roping events were in the morning before I arrived.

Went home the smart way - La Honda Road becomes a nice well-maintained, divided 55 mph highway after it passes the ranch, and ends at Hwy 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, which is also well maintained and mostly 55 mph, and at Half Moon Bay turn right to Hwy 92, which is sometimes windy, but on a Sunday when the sun is out it is always congested, which makes it not popular with 2-wheeled idiots, and I think safer because no one is trying to do the speed limit when the caution signs say 30. And that hooks up with I-280 to the south bay.

A couple of blocks from the Wolfe Rd. Exit is 99 Ranch market, and a Starbucks. I stopped into the market and picked up some on-sale moon cakes, and my favorite frozen dim sum, 2 out of 3 were on sale, and samples being offered. I picked up the two on sale and asked the sample person where the third one was, she showed me, but wanted to talk me out of buying it because it wasn't on sale. But it's still pretty cheap, and I like it. Went to the produce section looking for longans, but they didn't have any, but they did have lovely big limes for 20¢ each, and huge celery bunches for 99¢.

I was tired from the long drive, and wanted to use a restroom before going home, so I stopped off in Starbucks, read on the Nexus' Kindle app, enjoyed the eye candy, and when the last person in line for the restroom went in, I got in line. And waited. And waited. I think he was changing clothes and taking a sponge bath. Or maybe he got tied up on Facebook (he had a backpack which probably had a laptop inside). Finally got to use the facilities 10 minutes later, then back to the comfy chair for a while, mostly viewed the eye candy, there were many and varied pretty women there.

Then en route to home, stopped off at Safeway, stocked up on TV dinners, ice cream, and milk. Also got a fresh container of eggbeaters. Totally forgot to get a case of diet Coke. That's okay, they fixed the machine at work.

If it wasn't Sunday I would have gone to get gas, but I'll wait till tomorrow evening. Almost stopped at Half Moon Bay, the big no-name station at the edge of town had it for sale at $3.86. It's > $4 most of my neighborhood. Gonnifs. It should be $2. Thanks Mr. Obama for not handling that situation.

Home, discovered that TiVo had not recorded the 49ers game, but looking at the sports news, I guess it was trying to save me from high blood pressure.

Slurped the photos from the camera into the PC and discovered that the stupid thing had destroyed a bunch of my best photos by auto-setting the shutter speeds way low. It was dialed in for "P" which is supposed to balance the shutter speed and lens opening, but instead it shut down the lens to f/10 and slowed the shutter to 1/60 on a lot of the key shots. Got to remember to dial in a high shutter speed for sports events.

I did manage to get some good shots. They are here. A couple of my favorites:
( behind the cut )

Somewhere in there I had two of the small TV dinners, finished off the last of the lactose-free chocolate ice cream, gave the cats their evening kitty crack, caught up on FB, watched the end of the Steelers-Cowboys game and wrote this.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
PO - mail the girl scouts coin gift box to sister
Monday Night Football
May go to BASFA if the game sucks

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Whoever made up my room yesterday changed the radio alarm setting from OFF to ALARM, so I woke up at 8. Boo, Hiss. Turned it off and slept till 9. No towels, and I really needed a a shower or some reasonable facsimile thereof, so I put on my swim trunks and a shirt & tennies and went downstairs for a swim, figuring there were towels by the pool.

And was surprised twice:

1. It was raining (and kind of chilly)
2. There were no towels down there

So I hunted up a housekeeper and she found me a pair of still warm from the dryer bath towels. Went upstairs and had my shower. Did all my morning stuff, was happy to see I'd guessed well on the overnight insulin dose, and went downstairs to check out. There were three people ahead of me. I'd paid on check-in, so I thought "screw this" and just left my key card on the desk and left.

Walked across the street to the Waffle House, had a delicious apple waffle and iced tea, then walked to the light rail. Did not bother to buy a ticket because the Amtrak transfers I was given Saturday were still good.

Took the train to the station, had a seriously boring conversation with a Hugh Daniel sized 20-something fellow who sat facing me (light rail has a lot of benches where one faces front the other faces back) wearing a very often-washed blue Tshirt with a Superman S on it. It actually fit him. He had a small stack of clipboards with petitions on them. This was his 2nd job - he got paid for the number of legitimate registered voter signatures he was able to drum up. Today's issues were one to reverse a deal the Governator had made with local tribal casinos to allow them to partner with Las Vegas "businessmen". Another was against letting under-18 transvestite students from using the restrooms of their chosen gender. He didn't understand what the third one was about, "but nobody is signing that one anyway" he said. I told him I was a Seattle voter. One thing he said which I agreed with is "All you have to do to stay registered is vote every other year. How hard is it to vote, anyway?"

He got off at 16th Street, where there was a Pride event of some kind.

Apparently there was also a traditional chalk art on the sidewalks thing at another stop, but someone behind me said on a day like today it would have to be watercolor.

Finally got to the station, in plenty of time to grab the 12:10 instead of the 3:20 I had originally signed up for. With the Capitol Corridor trains one ticket fits all. Bought a diet Pepsi and a thing of chocolate covered donettes from the machine. Sacramento Station used to have a world class gift shop, but the place is a mess, all black plastic and signs saying it is being remodeled, but it has been that way for more than a year, and no signs of progress.

Sat down in the section marked for people who needed a ride to the Amtrak platform which is a mile from the station, with steep downhill and uphill stretches. Not something my knees want to do. Nobody came to get us. Finally I went out to where the shuttles were, and was not allowed on because some lady with a cane behind me was given priority. Driver said another cart would be by, but it never came. He got back and took me and one other person there, with about 5 minutes to spare. Not as good as it sounds because by then most of the good seats are taken.

Thanks to it being cloudy, the bad seats were not as bad as they usually are.

Not a bad ride, no screaming children. I was on the right, nobody sat next to me. On the left were three young couples who really needed to get a room. They were fun to watch, at least.

After an hour I went to the snack car and got a hot dog.

Got a glimpse of the old and new Oakland bridges side by side, but far away and I had the 35mm lens on the camera, so it will be tough to crop it to make it a picture. Did get some good shots of the new 49ers stadium under construction.

Arrived on time at San Jose, my car was still where I had parked it, and there were now many more empty spaces in the lot. Drove home, Kaan was poised by the door ready to run outside, but he was successfully repelled by the Safeway bag which I used for snacks and the stuff I wanted to have handy on the train.

I have been reading Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's) by Jodi Taylor ever since finishing Gerrold's Voyage of the Sea Wolf, which, by the way, was pretty good once it got out of "describe everything all at once in great detail" mode. Taylor's writing is pretty good, though it has been injected more and more with Britt slang as the story progresses, and it is obvious that the author has a clear image of each of the characters, but does not do a good job of sharing these with the readers. Ditto some of the internal politics.

I had tried M. Todd Gallowglass' The Dragon Bone Flute (A Novella of Music and Magic) for a bit, but put it aside when the hero, after several chapters, was addressed as "Elizabeth". This after a narrative which was clearly about a young boy. Especially the descriptions of how he was bullied by the bigger mean boys. Girls are simply not challenged by the bully to spend a night alone in the dragon's cave from which no one has ever returned. That's boy stuff. I got the book on my Kindle because Mr. G was on a couple of panels with me at Westercon, and he told some good stories there.

Also on my list from there was R. I. Partridge, but she has chosen to publish her stuff via her web page, which is not the way I want to read.

Dinner tonight was a relay. Bacon. Then KFC mashed potatoes and gravy, then some baked beans. And ice cream. All while watching Who Do You Think You Are? in which Cindy Crawford's lineage is traced straight back to Charlemagne.

The program is what made me try Ancestry.com, but the more episodes I watch, the clearer it had become that the Ancestry.com part is almost useless, it is the series of professional archivists and genealogists and historians whom the producers pay to archive dive and go on camera to educate the shill. In this case starting in Boston, then a couple of places in the UK and finally Germany.

Flipped all the calendars in the apartment, and opened the new ones (NFL cheerleader calendars start in September). 2013 Redskins went to the back wall where Seagalls had been pulled from. Sept-Oct are half-height, but it may make a comeback for Nov-Dec which are full pagers. 2014 Redskins went in its place. Jets came down, replaced by Tampa Bay. Dallas 2013 is staying up for now, because Ravens 2014 is even uglier as a calendar than Seagals. Still in transit are Colts and Saints.

didjiman's panorama calendar owns the livingroom wall, September is a very artsy autumnal photo. My calendar in the kitchen is also kind of artsy.
( Read more... )

Plans for tomorrow:
Work. No idea what I'm doing.
UPS, pick up a calendar and cat food

Current Mood: complacent
Current Location: Home

So to speak. Not that kind :-(

Lots of miscellaneous stuff got done at work. Toyota said they needed the actual original signed Reg17 so at lunchtime I went home and got it, and dropped it off at their business office for the DMV lady who was out to lunch. I emailed her and Customer Relations gal that I had done so, and when she was back from lunch DMV lady replied she would bring it in tomorrow. I really don't think this will happen, because she is a non-native (Arab) speaker and at the DMV she probably talked to a non-native (Mexican or Chinese) speaker and was told she could get the plates "if no one else has that name". Well, I have that name.

On my way back to work I stopped by BestBuy intending to buy a Nexus 7 and refuse delivery on the one their online people lied to me about. They told me on the 7th it had shipped and would be in my UPS box in 2 days. UPS tracking says they did not actually get it to them till the 13th, and if I see it by the 16th I'm lucky.

But looking at the Nexus, it is a lot bigger than I expected, and heavier. It may have only a 7" screen, but the bezel is another 1.5 inches or more. The Kindle Fire HD is on sale, so I fired up my Amazon app and ordered one. It should be in the UPS box Friday.

1-on-1 with the boss went well, he showed me his photos of the finished White Wat of Chiang Mai (he had seen mine from 2005 when it was just starting to take shape). And he had not seen my Morro Bay stuff, so I showed those to him. He was impressed by the breach photos and the flukes. And he said ok to my taking time off next week to do it again. So I put in for Mon-Tue. I have no commitments for the weekend, so the plan is to drive down on Saturday, and spend 3 nights, with trips on Sunday and Monday, though Sunday I may do a fishing charter or go to the Hearst Castle. I've never been there, but then again, it's a lot of walking.

Something of possible passing interest to

susandennis: A couple of days ago I saw a note on Logitech's site which said they heard all the moaning and groaning of the customers, and added a menu item to the UE radio which converts it into a Squeezebox. So tonight I took my UE off the eBay pile and applied the patch, and now it's in the bathroom synced to the bedroom radio. The kitchen & computer room boxes are synced to each other - but I could syn them all if I wanted. Something the UE won't allow.

I was at the bat cave Starbucks earlier, but their wi-fi was dead slow, and windows had 11 updates to install, so I came home and am using the laptop to wrote this. The update took no time at all with the 5GHz connection.

Domino is glaring at me. I moved the TV tray rack against the wall, and moved the floor fan from the bedroom to in front of it. Lately her two favorite places to hide and make more mats in her tummy fur have been the space behind the TV tray rack and the space between the legs of the floor fan and the bedroom wall. I set up a tray table in the bedroom and moved the table fan there, she may decide to hide under there, which is okay because it has a lot more space.

Left to do tonight:
Dinner
Find a particular episode online from season 1 of Who Do You Think You Are?
Make hotel reservations for th weekend trip

Current Mood: adventurous
Current Location: Furball Hall

( Cut because I care )

2 pm and I am exhausted.
Insomnia night - finally asleep after 3

morning stuff, not in the same order as usual because ADD/OCD/BS
The dispenser in the shower ran out of body wash but not until I had used what I needed. Shampoo and conditioner were at half
Took the body wash container out nd put it on the sink to worry about later, because there was a load of shirts in the dryer which needed to be fluffed and hung up.
Online, backup fo C: still had an hour to go
Solved many of the world's problems on Facebook. Read more of them on Twitter.
Took Moira's opera/comedy concert off my calendar because if I'm driving to Morro Bay tomorrow evening I don't want two late nights in a row before getting on a boat.
Out on the patio by 10:45, took photos of the flowers and the cats, but no hummingbirds showed up. I love this new lens, it is sharp and gets the exposures right most of the time. I knew when I bought it that it is not a macro lens, so I have to be about 3 feet from the subject before it will focus. And it is all telephoto, 55mm minimum, which means no wide shots. Which is why I bought the 18-85mm last night. If I was still doing this for a living, I would buy a second camera body. Oh wait, I do have a D90 in one of my camera cases. Hmmm.

Fluffed the shirts, then forgot about them because the cat pee smell in the office/litterbox room was overwhelming. I had it on my whiteboard as a to-do, so I emptied both litterboxes into the trash can I'd bought for that. It required some trowel work, things were caked up. So much for "clumping" cat litter. Wiped them down with Clorox wipes, vacuumed about 5 lbs of litter from under where the machines had been, re-arranged them perpendicular to each other instead of parallel, filled them with Arm & Hammer clumping litter, and we'll see how that works. The World's Best clumping litter mostly didn't clump. maybe good for manual scooping, but not for the machine. I really don't want to pay for the Littermaid stuff, but it did clump like a boss, as they say in the hood these days. Sorry, dayz.

That was a lot of work, I ran through two sweatbands.

Washed up. Made some of my famous lime seltzer, some of which is hydrating the top of the microwave because a lime quarter leaped out of my fingers and into the glass at about 40 mph.

Turned the dryer on fluff again. Watched some football from the recliner, had a Klondike bar (mint) and when I was fully recovered, took the shirts out of the dryer and put the laundry basket on the bed. Watched more football, decided it was better as background noise, turned it to the same channel in the bedroom and went about hanging up the shirts.

The Tivo in the bedroom is a different model than the one in the livingroom, and there's a delay between the two. Amusing and annoying at the same time.

Shirts done, put a load of the heavier colored stuff into the washer.

Somehow time has managed to pass (blame Facebook and Candy Crush) without lunch. The last load is in the dryer now, I am on the patio with the laptop and two sleeping cats. Domino is on the chair next to me, it has a cushion. Kaan has stuffed himself into the cat bed on the floor by the wall. It is too small for him. I really need to get him a bigger one. Small dog size.

It's a beautiful day, I really should get outside, but the patio gives that illusion.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Furball Hall Patio

Plan A was to unsolder the broken valet button, solder in longer wires and a less valet-button-looking button. The stuff is still in the trunk. Because:

Stream of consciousness attacked.

I stopped by UPS to pick up what I thought was one package, the replacement pumps for the cat fountains. But while I was en route the 2nd litterbox arrived, so I picked that up too.

Which reminded me that I needed to park the crystal litterboxes in the storage room.
Which reminded me that in a box in the storage room was my 5th webcam, and I very much wanted to mount it to the kitchen/diningroom counter and point it at the front door. I used to have a camera there, but moved it to the other side of the diningroom so it could see the cats' main food and water. It also sees into Domino's hidey hole and can swing around to cover most of the diningroom/livingroom.

So when I got home, I found the white webcam (all the others are black) in the storage room and its antenna in the bedroom, white gaffer taped it to the counter, plugged it in and set that project aside.

Took the 2nd crystal litterbox's cartridge out & taped it up for the trash, then took both crystal litterboxes out to the storage room. Back to the "office" aka litterbox central (it's the only room with windows which can be locked into 2" open position - on both sides).
( Left side of the window is open a crack. The litterboxes are on the floor just this side of the sill )

Out to the car, got the 2nd litterbox, parked it in the office. Noticed the broom by the door. Remembered the patio needed sweeping - !@#$%^& landscrapers with leafblowers keep blowing leaves through the little crack at the bottom of the patio. :-(

Swept the patio, Chased Kaan out of the storage room, locked it up, back to the litterbox room and started unboxing/unwrapping the new one. Way too much wrapping, I needed a break so I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of lactose-free milk and added chocolate syrup and went back onto the patio to re-hydrate and re-chocolate. The cats kept me company.

Which reminded me to water the plants on the patio wall, so I did that, trying not to spill too much on Kaan.

Back to the office, set up the litterbox, filled it and tested the mechanism. Jeez it's loud! Just as loud as I remember the previous model despite the marketing lie that this one was quiet. It didn't quite work, the rake needs to drop down at the end of the pass, and it doesn't quite drop enough.

But as soon as I stepped away, Domino was in there giving it a test run. And Kaan also inspected it.

Took a break by saying rude things on Facebook. Also looked at Twitter, but I've got a ~~bogus name~~ ~~psuedonym~~ nom de plume account, not accepting any followers, so nothing I post is seen by anyone else, unless I @ it to someone. Also sent email to a musician friend who took The Leap and tried out for a part in a musical (she usually is playing in the pit or music director). It's her book I just finished reading, so I sent something like a review, but more of a "nice book, thanks". My view of t is she wrote it to exorcise some minor demons and a dash of guilt concerning her relationship with her parents, who both died too young. She isn't a writer, but for the most part it's an easy read. There are some cut and paste errors. And once in a while she does odd things to word order which makes one have to re-read the sentence to figure out who she is talking about.
---
After 10, the cats annoyed me for their nightly crack. Gave them that. Maybe I should have dinner.

Still have not installed the replacement pumps. Maybe later tonight.

I forgot about work. Boring say, spent writing an automation script to cover a pair of test cases, based on the tough one from the other day, but much simpler. Got it done, just need to run ti on the automation machine a few times.

Lunch was at China Stix, aka The BatCave. Remodeling has made the entrance a bottleneck, but they still have the best beef chow fun, and good dim sum.

And one of the project managers came by to say goodbye. He's moving to LA to a bleeding edge startup. That's where a lot of the video jobs are these days. Sad to see him go, he was great to work with.

Plans for tomorrow:

First real fair weather LUNAR.com model rocket launch at NASA in the morning
Becky's New Car at the Dragon Theater in Redwood City. I think I'll drive, since the train doesn't run very often on weekends.
And maybe in between, fix the valet button and install bigger bug-eye mirrors on the car

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Work was more of the same. Automation Guy left early to take his kid to the dentist so I have to wait to find out why his "framework" is throwing an error message at my program.

Lunchtime plan was to go to Cost Plus on Coleman (HUGE shopping center, many lunch opportunities after shopping) to buy coasters. The "Thirstystone" sandstones ones I just got are not thirsty at all, they will be a

basfa auction item Real Soon Now.

My GPS did not know about this one, and I'd forgotten to write down the address, so I just drove to where I thought it was, but that turned out to be a Lowe's with no eateries nearby. So I used GPS to find the next nearest one. None of their 4 coaster designs looked thirsty, but they did have a 15-pack of British beer mats. Not as long-lived but 15 will last a while, especially for ~ $6.

By now it was too late for a restaurant lunch so I perused the food aisles, found Hokkien noodles with Thai peanut sauce in a Chinese food take-out box which doubled as a microwave container, a bag of Walkers chocolate chip shortbread cookies and a bar of dark chocolate with orange rinds. Back at work it made for a yummy at-my-desk lunch.

Home, wiped out from last night's 3 am bedtime. Had dinner out on the patio with the cats, gave them their treats, ( Read more... )decided it was early enough to take a nap so I could be awake at about 10 to go to the club down the block for an hour. Kaan was already curled up at the head of the bed on the left, and when I cyrled my arm around him and started petting him, Domino jumped up to the right side and snuggled, so I turned over to her side, since she never does that unless I'm very ill. She stayed curled up in my arm for about 10 minutes, a world record.

I used the Samsung voice thing (their version of Siri) to set the alarm for 10 pm, fell asleep, woke up at 9:45 and waited for the alarm to go off before getting up and going out.

Spent an hour at the club. Delightful time. Spent about $20 in $1 bills.

Home, did the Quicken thing, updated my FB cover/profile folders with shots taken of me at Westercon.

And now it's bedtime.

Planz:
Work
Manicure
YOTB rehearsal

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Woke up several times between 6:45 and 7:45, wondering why it felt like my 8 am alarm should have gone off already. Got to breakfast by 9, had a cheese omelet, forgot to bring Lactaid to the con and regretted it the rest of the day.

Finished packing, checked out before 10. Went to the Top 10 real-life Star Trek inventions panel, but it was packed with tall people with hats, the panelists could not be heard very well at the back of the room, and I left after 15 minutes of audience side-tracking the conversation.

Sat in the back of Folsom, where my final panel was being held, and heard some kind words by ex participants for the Clarion writers' workshop.

I was moderator for the last panel of the con for me, Is Theater Dead?. Six panelists, we started with 6 audience members, which grew to about 12 by the end of the time slot. Four of us have actual performance cred, one was more a wanna-be writer/director and for real early childhood education academic. The sixth was an artist with zero theater background, who still made some good points. The panel, including myself, had a lot to say, the audience just kinda absorbed it until about the last 15 minutes and then started participating. I was surprised we were still going 5 minutes after I called time.

No lunch because breakfast was still making its presence known. Caught the last two items of the art auctions, neither of them was the item I'd placed the 4th bid on, so I went to the art showroom, and saw I was still the high bidder. Bought two pieces for $73, after taxes. One will probably be a gift if I can figure out how to ship it to Canada.

I made another round of the Dealer's room, but nothing really caught my eye.

Hugh Daniel memorial was moved from the tiny room to the ballroom, was well attended, there were many boxes of tissues circulated,

figmo MCed and left us laughing with Hugh's favorite song. It's one of mine too. After I got a chance to give Hugh's sister another hug.

Closing ceremonies never officially announced closure, but maybe that came after the feedback session I didn't stay for.

I had some feedback items, but they are so basic I know other people would bring them up:
-- The conference rooms' layout was WTF City. They were too small, SRO was blocked from the panelists, door latches were not duct taped so they made big noise when people entered or left. There was no built-in way to prop them open.
-- All the panels needed mikes, not just the ones in the big room. Again, something one would expect any conference room to have.
-- Hilton conference center is set up for each of the rooms to display an itinerary on a screen by the door. Those screens were taped over with a piece of paper which said PROGRAMMING. I'm guessing Hilton couldn't make their system work. At no time did the actual program for each room find its way to that space, even on a piece of dead tree.
-- I've mentioned the art show and Andy explained what happened, "measure twice, build once" apparently didn't get done.
-- Masquerade fan photo shoot was a mob scene. It needed to have been set up beforehand.
--Filk concerts were not in the online program

But regardless of the above, this con was a HUGE success, lots of fun, lots to see & do, and I am proud to have been a part of it.

Left at 3:45, stopped off to top off the car's gas tank, made a stop at Safeway for munchies and a diet Coke, then next door for Lactaid because the munchies had cheese. Told the GPS to take me home and it decided to go by I-5, and changed exits twice when it detected heavy traffic. I finally turned it off when it took me through downtown Livermore, joined the scrawl to 84, then 680 was clear sailing to 237 and home. Total drive time ~ 3 hours.

Downloaded the photos from Mette and Bryan's demo and from Masq and geotagged them. Later in the week I'll cull out the good ones for Flickr and FB.

Sent a couple of FB Friend requests to panelists, de-friended my Toyota salesgal who has been posting in Chinese that she would rather live in LA, and the 4th of July made her homesick for China. And she lost my license plates.

Both cats have complained about my absence, Kaan has been very demonstrative, jumping onto the top of the recliner and onto the piano keyboard cover.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
UPS has 2 packages for me
BASFA?

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Home

Slept really well, possibly because I shut the cats out of the bedroom, punishment for pooping in the livingroom. and partly to have a door between me and the Drama. Kaan has been trying very hard lately to be friends with Domino, Domino is being a total grouch about it, growling and hissing and taking swipes. Kaan is 3x her size, but backs off instead of fighting. But 20 seconds later he's back trying to get close to Domino.

Anyway, I didn't wake up till 9:30, which meant my plan to bring the car to the installer at 10 was going to be pushed back. Got there at 11:30, they needed an hour or 2 to pull out the radio, check the camera connections, and figure out why the camera was only showing 2 views instead of 4. They pointed me at a very nice coffee shop, lots of eye candy both sides of the counter - the woman at the cash register is about 5' tall, and has a cleavage big enough to host a Westercon. She suggested an iced vanilla latte, which tasted great. I also had an apple turnover. After an hour, I ordered a refill and a banana nutella crepe. Hood crepe, but I would rather have had the mushroom/fancycheese which they were out of.

12:30, tech called, stumped about the radio controls not working, so he offered to install the aux switch, I said go ahead. Another 15 minutes and I walked back there, he was finishing up, I waited in the air conditioned 2-person waiting area. The bad news is it's a software issue with the main unit, which he did not sell me (Toyota sourced it) and he will contact them to see what they suggest. Good news is the aux switch gives all 4 views, one of them is very useful - it shows what's coming from the left and right corners behind the vehicle. It was very handy when I was trying to pull out of a very busy parking lot later. The other good news is at my request he checked the radio antenna connections, and discovered they were wrong and fixed them. Now I have a ton of AM, FM and HD stations coming in. Yay!

From there to UPS, picked up a package long-awaited from ScanCafe. I had sent 45 rolls of B&W negatives to them February 17. They received them the 19th. They said they would have the scans done and on DVD for me by April 22. More than two months is a long wait, but it was a lot of work. Finally getting them back June 8 with no real updates on their handydandy web site, not acceptable. The quality of the work was okay, but not worth the 69 cents a frame they charged. So I won't be linking to them here, and can't recommend them.

Got home, 88° outside, and OCD fool that I am, I sat in the car and programmed the radio. 6 AM and 18 FM stations. I started with the HD stations.

Went inside long enough to drop the box from ScanCafe onto a table, then grab my rental renewal form and took it to the office. Which was closed, with three people waiting. I went back home and faxed it in, including a nastygram about how I would move out at the end of the current lease except the company hasn't decided if we're moving. And probably won't for 6 months. Craigslist has many apartments in Sunnyvale for $500/mo less rent. But I don't want to move again so soon, and I don't want to move to Someplace else in Sunnyvale if the company moves to Redwood City. :-(

Programmed the new internet radio, was disappointed to find that it does not sync with the other two, or use the same android app. Probably will sell it on eBay and order another squeezebox from overstock.com. Or not. I mostly program them from the radio, and don't sync my bedroom one with the kitchen one anyway.

Opened the UPS box, and was attacked by Styrofoam peanuts. FAIL. The object was supposed to be to keep the negatives flat, and away from static electricity. Pulled out the DVD, popped it into the PC drive and at least they did something right - the images are in folders which have the same labeling as the negative holders: year-month-roll# except they used underscores instead of dashes, which makes it harder to use a 10-key pad to type them.

I transferred all the folders to the hard drive, and then to the backup drive, and started to upload them to Flickr, when I saw that instead of naming the photos with my system, they had their own 40-character order code ending in the cumulative number of scans. So by the time I got to the 3rd roll we were up to 00107_bn_13ajwmyu9h0107_z.jpg. So I killed the ones on Flickr, and went through the tedious process of renaming every photo in every folder. If you ever have to do something like this, here's the process I used (Windows 7):
( cut for techie boring )
This took me from 5:30-9:30 pm, with an hour break for dinner.

NOW I was ready to upload to Flickr, one folder at a time, as its own set. another 90 minutes or so. And finally, open each set, arrange alphabetically, and d&d a meaningful thumbnail to the title column.

And then post on FB.

Here are some samples
( Read more... )

Plans for tomorrow:
Redwood City, see the final reading of Sexbot 2600
Maybe go across the street and see a movie. It's probably going to be another scorcher.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Follow Your Arrow

Rebecca from Toyota called, they have received all the stuff to install the after-market nav/backup cam/iPod player system which I gave her the details about yesterday. Apparently others have decided the built-in system from Toyota is suckage, and the same Kenwood model I wanted is something they keep in stock. They just needed to order some cables. So I'll drop the car off in the morning, they will give me a ride to work, and Automation Guy will take me there when it is done.

Today's work was a whole day of trying to make incremental improvements to the tcl program which was working yesterday, but there is some syntax which is a piece'o'cake in every other language I know, but a piece of crap in tcl. Even the tutorials on the web were no help. Tomorrow I will ask Automation Guy to help. It should only take him a minute or three.

Lunch was Barn Thai, an unfortunate spelling of บ้านไทย which is pronounced Baan Tai - Thai house. For those of you who have joined the program in progress, Germans effed up Thai transliteration - in German and Thai, Th is a hard T, not the soft sound we have in English. Same rule for Ph (hard P, not F) and any consonant followed by an H is the hard version. Thai has had and not-so-hard versions of many letters. T is almost a d, P is almost a b, K is almost a g, and so on.

Anyhow, I ordered the drunken noodles, which were very good but a couple of stars spicier than I am used to. Handkerchief came in handy. They have a dessert roti which is to die for, though it is served differently that what you would get in Thailand. Over there, the roti is drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, and sprinkled with crystalline sugar, then rolled up into a cigar shape and served either in a wax paper or aluminum foil sheaf. Here they put the roti on a plate, cut into little pizza-like wedges, with a small (wasabi-sized) bowl of sweetened condensed milk and a tiny spoon in the center.

I like this place because they are at home speaking English or Thai with me.

Stayed at work till 6:30, finally gave up on the programming and went to Petco and bought some products which purport to calm down cats so they don't fight with each other and relax enough to groom them and trim their nails. I fed two of the pellets to Domino, and adorned her with a pheromone collar. She still was hissing at Kaan an hour later. And won't hold still for me to do her nails.

From Petco I went to OSH looking for blind spot mirrors for the Corolla, but they had none. BFD, I can pick up a pair at Toyota tomorrow. From there to Starbucks, where I read some more Sheri S. Tepper. Just when I think I am coming to the end of one of her books, there are 7 more chapters, at least. :-(

Came home to find Kaan had pooped in the bedroom. He had never done that before. While I was on the PC he made an archaeological site out of the first litterbox, scattering poop across the floor. Sigh. It was almost time to change the cartridges, so I did.

At work I ordered a pair of camo suspenders to be sent as a gift to the sales manager at Toyota who liked mine. He will laugh. I also looked for Thai restaurants near the dealership, found a great one, but they don't advertise gift certificates online. I will have to go there and see if they offer them, a gift for the sales rep. If not, Plan B, which I don't have one of yet.

And finally, after 4 months of waiting, ScanCafe finally posted that the 1800 B&W negatives I estimated I had sent them was really closer to 1400, and they were online for review. I deleted many which they should not have scanned at all - the leader into the first frame of the roll, a couple which were badly scratched and some which were too blurry. There were 42 rolls, and the ones which I did not delete will be put on a DVD for me. I expect the originals and the DVD in a week. I won't link to them, because their service was very slow, the estimate for completion was off by more than a month but they didn't keep me up to date until I asked. And they did not get the exposures right on a large number of them. Photoshop can fix most, so there's no excuse. Especially at 69 cents a frame.

These are all photos from my Peace Corps days 1975-77.

Plans for tomorrow:
Drop off car
Work
1-on-1 with boss
P/U car
Put cargo holder from old car into new one, and also selected glove compartment items, the camp chair and the music stand.
Maybe unbox and set up the exercise bike, which will go in the livingroom where the cargo holder currently is parked. That box is in the foyer by the door.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Good continental breakfast at the motel, apple turnovers and fresh bagel made up for no waffles.

I left in plenty of time for the whale watching tour, which is good because I misread the directions and walked all the way to the far side of the harbor where my last trip took off from, only to be told it was right in front of the street my motel is on (across a parking lot, but close). I still managed to be way early.

There was a full boat for the trip, lots of children and almost as many stupid parents. From the side the boat looked perfect, a huge catamaran. I parked myself aft where there was both a hard seat and something to lean against. Most everyone else went to the front of the boat.

The whole harbor was socked in with fog, so we took off very slowly. The captain managed to run over a green channel marker while we were navigating past a red buoy with a lot of seals hanging out on it. The one we ran over was only about 3' tall, the red one about 6 '.

We saw a whale about 100 yards away after 45 minutes, sort of in the mist. We followed that one for a long time then lost it. Captain headed for port but on the way back we saw another. I think it was the same one which I saw last time, which hangs out in channel close to shore.

Between being far away and having people popping up in front of me, and the captain trying to keep th whale in front of us instead of alongside, I don't think I got any calendar-quality shots. It's the wrong time of year, anyway.

Back to the motel to drop off my day pack (I had brought along a jacket, which was never needed), then caught the shuttle (50 cents, used to be 10) to the pier, and then walked toward where Yelp said there was a good nail place. Google maps made it look like it was 4 blocks away, but it was more like 10. TLC Nails is a bare bones setup with four nail stations and a section off to the side which looks like a pedicure area, but without the foot baths. I ask the manager for an acrylic with gel top. "We don't do acrylic here. would you like just gel?" Sure. Not as long lasting but my nails are a mess. She finds a manicurist, who sees my nails and convinces me i am in the wrong salon, so I leave.

Okay, 2nd nail place is way up the main drag, I take the shuttle. Another 12 blocks. The address is 1221. It is an empty store front with a for lease sign. I cross the street to read the notice on the door, maybe they have moved. Well, someone has moved, but not the nails place. Yelp is way out of date on this one.

By now I am starving, there is a Thai place called Galanga, I have their house duck, which is delicious, but hereticly served with a knife because they did not cut the duck pieces small enough. Had a nice chat with the bus boy, whose English is not a good as my Thai. :-) He said my accent is like a Thai person's. Yay!

3rd nails place is 6 blocks away, past the end of the shuttle line, and is only open for another hour, so I took the shuttle back to the pier, and hung out in the shade of a palm tree while sitting on the little wall by the bike/jogging/walking/pedal car trail. Lots of eye candy on this warm, sunny day at the beach. I took some pictured but mostly just enjoyed the view.

walked slowly back to the motel, posted some photos on FB for my sister (one of the yachts in the harbor had her name on it:
( behind the cut )
It is not a common name...

I wanted to get it online early enough Baltimore time for her to see it, but later found out she was in Pennsylvania looking for apple pie and ice cream. This is her first mother's day as a grandmother, I kind of expected her to be with her daughter in law.

Grabbed the Kindle, left the camera, headed up the block for a highly recommended place called The Brewhouse. The map said 2 blocks, th legs said 6. Beef Stroganoff was superb, but I didn't realize when they listed mashed potatoes, it was a side, but it turned out to be what they poured the Stroganoff on top of. Yummy, but I should have ordered the risotto.

Dessert was amusing. The menu said the peanut butter cream pie was rated a top 10 dessert by the LA Times. It was different, and very yummy.

Service was super-slow, I was out on the patio (my choice) where they let people light up cigarettes despite the no smoking signs and laws. :-(

Waddled back to the motel, washed my face and saw the SPF4 which I had applied this morning did not work. My face is very red but my arms have a nice deep tan.

Plans for tomorrow:
Breakfast
Pack
Try to find the place I had my nails done 3 years ago.
Coast Starlight to SJC leaves SBA at 12:40 pm

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: Marina Beach Motel

I wasn't wrong to disbelieve the forecasts of rain today, but the heat wave broke and it was mostly cloudy when I went out at about 1 pm. Headed across the Bay to Ardenwood Farm hoping to get pictures of the new baby sheep. The clouds were high enough that shooting conditions were excellent. I've been there a few times before, so already had pix of most everything else, so I didn't take many.

Got to the animal pens, and saw the baby sheep were no longer newborns, a news article about their birth was dated February. Merino sheep, fluffy and round and cute, but not babies. However, there were baby goats. They were pretty cute. And a baby turkey vulture, who wasn't.

I didn't get any outstanding pictures, nothing worth sharing.

At 3 I headed for Fremont Auto Mall Parkway, stopped off at the el-huge shopping center for lunch, and was still early for my appointment at Chevy so I stopped by Honda to refresh my memory of the console of the Fit. It has the speedometer in the center, which is Good.

On the Chevy, the internet salesguy was great, but it was clear the available packages for the Cruze didn't fit what I was looking for. We also tried the voice control, and it was a total joke. It didn't follow its own syntax, and mostly just misheard me. And the rep. It kept asking me if I wanted to switch languages to French.

We did, however, solve the in and out problem - position the driver's seat low and back.

I'm closer to a decision, now. Not much, but some:

If I get a Honda or Chevy, it will be without Nav, I'll put in an after-market unit.
For Ford, I would get their nav system.

No hybrid - the price tag and amount of space the battery eats up are not worth the emotional spike.

Honda Fit
Ford Focus
Chevy Cruze

are the finalists. Toyota Corolla is sort of in the running, but Toyota's prices may knock it out of contention.

Back home by way of the bridge, I had chance to test my FasTrack unit. Have had it for almost 3 months, but did not make any bridge trips or rush hour commuter lane runs. No cops chased me, I figure it worked.

Dinner was baked beans and a slab of Costco beef ribs, which were scrumptious. After dinner as I was watching something on PBS, Kaan hopped up on the recliner, and spread himself along the left arm, and was happy to stay there till I got up.

Got a notice that my Google bonus shares, which normally would have been doled out over 4 years, had all vested. I sold them all, which means paying income tax on the gross and capital gains on the net. It wasn't many shares, but Obama will get about 1/3. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
Work (10 am team meeting)
Black Cat Whiskey world premiere at a cinema in Cupertino, an indie movie starring a long time theater pal Jeremy Koerner.

Current Mood: OCD
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

SM emails us that from now on rehearsals will go past the previously scheduled 10:30 on to 11. They pulled this right out of their asses. In the same email was her message to "get plenty of rest". Idiot.

Tonight's rehearsal ran till 10:55 without a break. It started with the traditional 20 minutes of way too much dance warm-up to bad music, a somewhat useful 10 minutes of vocal warmups and a totally wasted 10 minutes of the SM jabbering about all the things she jabbers at us every time. "Sell tickets", "we need help moving into the theater Monday", "We need help with the set Saturday","We need help breaking down the set and putting it on the truck Sunday". This theater company has hundreds of volunteers on its mailing list, the cast is already busy enough rehearsing.

Work was also a carnival. I started out fine, finishing automation for two more tests, with 6 to go. This is on a test machine which I borrow because it has a part mine doesn't have. Then I find my main test machine is hosed because of a bug I recreated which Automation Guy found. And the boss asks me to see if a bug they found on the old model is also on the new model, but I don't have anything to test it on. Argh. Finally "borrowed" one from someone who is out sick.

Was feeling woozy all morning, so instead of the planned actual lunch I punched "parks" into the GPS and it took me by just about the least intelligent route to a park I had never been to, which is by a senior center I didn't know existed. Nice park. I sat in various benches and relaxed. Heard a woodpecker but couldn't locate him.

Two interesting plaques I found there:

I wonder what is the significance of the dog?

At the back of a beautiful little drip-irrigated rose garden.

View from the back of the rose garden. Very peaceful, except when a senior's 1957 oldsmobile chugs in or out of the parking lot.

Home by 5:45, got the mail, the only useful thing was a prescription, which it turns out was for the wrong dosage (my mistake).

Took a nap, Kaan woke me up at 7 trying to play fetch with a tie wrap. I keep telling him not to do that.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work. Maybe finish the automation project
3 pm dentist appointment to have a filling replaced. This may turn ugly because the not very competent former dentist drilled through a cap to do the filling, so worst case is having the cap removed, the filling put in the right way, and the cap re-done. We'll see.
Rehearsals - they changed the schedule from running Act I to running the whole show. I may call in sick

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

Had a nearly normal night, woke up around 8:30. Found a really nice go-to-sleep music station on the Internet radio, a classical stream from PDX. KQAC.

Still a trace of headache, and not as much energy as I'd like, but all the other foo is gone.

I had nothing on the calendar, and the only chore was the litterboxes. Took care of those, and am now out of spare cartridges. Music director sent more vocal parts, but I probably won't be putting them on the web page. I do need to finish highlighting my part in the score, but that will happen tomorrow.

Chatted with my youngest sister. She works for the Navy, and her hours have been cut 20%. She and her husband can survive that - when you build your own house there's no mortgage - but many, maybe most of her co-workers might not.

Went to my fave nails place and had a manicure. I usually go weekday nights, the staff today was very different. I was assigned to a chubby Vietnamese woman with lots of artistically done eye makeup and a very low-cut blouse which showed off impressive globes. She wasn't as good as the others, but she got the job done without making me scream or bleed.

From there to Safeway, on my list was bread, milk and dinners. I was very liberal with the latter, plucking several new store-brand "feeds 3-4" entrees. Did not buy ice cream. Looked, didn't see anything I needed. I did buy two cans of whipped cream for Domino, which I did not need. Didn't buy bananas because what they had looked like it had been stomped.

Home, got onto eBay and listed my two Moto phones. I had no idea where the box for the older one was, so I listed it as phone-only.

Pushed the bed away from the wall about a foot, placed a tripod there, mounted the camcorder and set it up for Kaan fetching recording. Could not find the remote, which is crucial because the controls are at the back of the camera and I will be in front. Went looking for the remote, couldn't find it, but in the process found the box for the older Moto phone, so I re-listed that and raised the starting price. I should be able to buy a remote at Fry's.

Watched some of the NFL combine, including all of Manti Te'o's press conference. He was pranked, he is over it, he has moved on. They only asked him one football question, and his answer was Ray Lewis is a major role model for him, with a long list of reasons. The kid is articulate, composed, and after his NFL career I bet he goes into broadcasting.

DHL was supposed to attempt a second delivery of Thai CDs today, but they didn't. Idiots didn't try the office yesterday when I wasn't home. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
Get time-sucked by Facebook
Highlight the rest of my vocal score
add those music files to the web site
Oscars party at a theater friend's

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Home

It took till 10, but when I finally opened the blinds the sun was very bright and it was 75° on the patio. In the sun. Out of the sun it was 59.

Kaan had wanted me to play fetch, but I didn't find this out till I made the bed and his toy was there. I slept through it. He's also not sneezing much, which is good. Meanwhile, Domino is being more affectionate.

Lots of targeted errands. Dropped the phone off at Click Away, did the math and it would be much less to repair than replace. Then to Penny's for a quilt and a wallet. The place is coming to the end of a vast remodeling project, the object of which seems to have been to hide the cashier stations, remove all useful signage (including all the directories by the escalators), and create long lines of angry customers. And make pricing a guessing game.

After a long hunt I found the quilts, most of them on clearance. Yay. I found three identical ones with a retail price of $100 , one was marked down to $80, one to $60 and one to $50. I took the $50 one. Waited in line for 10 minutes at the "customer service" counter (all the cashier stations are called this) watching two staffers in a 4-register setup try to handle President's Day Weekend sales crowds. When I got to the cash register, the cashier couldn't make the new remote control scanner work, she finally picked up the hard-wired one which worked fine. She said the quilt had been marked down further to $36. Excellent. When I got home and looked at the receipt it said $30. Even better.

Went upstairs, found the same style wallet I have been using (mine got torn and needed replacing). Was in line for 15 minutes, this time three staffers with only 2 registers, one of which was tied up by a lady whose receipt had not printed, and none of the three cashiers had the sense to call a manager right away and clear the transaction so it didn't hold up the line. The man behind her timed it at 17 minutes to get a receipt. :-(

Was not feeling 100%, so dropped the stuff off in the car, found a restroom and then went to the food court for a diet Coke. It didn't help much.

On the way home, stopped at the produce store for bananas and limes and celery. Also got tangelos. Backtracked to Safeway for kitty crack and ice cream, and on the way out bought some Girls Scout crack aka Thin Mints.

Home, finished the Brigadoon site, emailed the cast & crew.

Dinner was celery with home made onion dip (I used light sour cream, but there used to be something called Imo which was non-dairy I wanted to use but have not seen it in the stores. Must research that) and the last 8 pieces of frozen dim sum. And ice cream. And 3 thin mints.

Unpacking the groceries, there were only 9 Fancy Feast cans. I had put 10 on the conveyor belt. The receipt says I only paid for 9. I wonder where the 10th went...

Seeing lots of tweets and FB posts from friends who are at Gallifrey 1, the LA Dr. Who convention. I used to love that show, but then they brought on below-par companions and the final straw was Matt Smith whose face looks like he used it to break out of prison, and his skin is unnaturally pale. And I don't like what he has done to The Doctor. I ditched Torchwood when they traded intelligence for blood and gore. So that's not a con I'd enjoy overly much.

Put the last 600 Thailand slides back in their binders. Gathered up the B&W negatives from the same time period, estimated 1800 frames (but that's at 36 frames per roll for 50 rolls and it's going to be somewhat fewer). Found a place relatively nearby, Burlingame, which charges too much, but at least they do them. Costco doesn't. Boxed them up, went online and placed an order, which included UPS shipping labels and a 50% deposit. Ouch. Will send them off tomorrow.

Plans for tomorrow:
Up early, 9 am team meeting
Ship the negatives
Brigadoon rehearsal

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

The Logitech Orbiter webcam is one of the most advanced USB-connected cameras ever created. I found mine in a box of lower-priority computer gear from my last move. Plugged it in, installed the software and when I launched it, a message popped up that it did not work on Windows 7. Went online, and lo and behold, they never built software for it after Vista. And they don't sell it anymore.

A shame, because this is the only webcam I can find which has a motorized tilt/swivel base. And it has a superb glass lens by Zeiss.

Late morning, woke up at about 9, played fetch with Kaan for a little bit, put pants on somewhere around noon, after loading up the dishwasher with the stuff I made fondue with last night, stripping the bed and putting the sheets into the washer.

There was light sour cream in the fridge and Knorr leak soup mix and minced clams on the kitchen counter, so I made clam dip.

Went online and discovered The French Store had microfiber sheet sets for about half the price of the cheapest cotton ones, and several of the reviews pointed out that they were good for avoiding night sweats, which has been a problem for me the past couple of weeks. So, off to Targét, and looked for those after plucking Q-tips and house brand electric toothbrush heads from the shelf. It was quite a long hunt. All the packages look alike for each brand, and there did not seem to be any microfiber. There was Jersey, which might also do the job, but no microfiber. Until I looked at the identical rows of house brand sheets, and there on the rack meant for Queen Easy Care sheet sets, some customer had slipped in a microfiber. But it was white, and online the perk was many bright colors.

There was no one to ask. All the help seemed to be over in the grocery side.

Finally found them on the end display, but there were only the sheet sets, no separates. I use 3 or 4 pillows, you see. So I picked a blue and a yellow, and then snagged an extra pair of pillowcases in those colors in Jersey material.

On the way home I stopped in at Fry's, where they now have two long rows of security cams, but those are all either $300 wireless internet cameras or analog made to attach to a video recorder or a video card. Way in the back of the store is a section of webcams, but few of them were high quality, and only the Microsoft top of the line said it swiveled. But it didn't say it swiveled by software command or digitally - using the digits on your hand. It definitely did not tilt by motor.

Home, had just enough time to flip between CNN, HLN and TWC trying to get an update on the LA killer cop.** Instead I got in-depth coverage of what looked like normal snowfall for early February in NY and Boston. I've seen more snow in Boston on Thanksgiving weekend. There was a view of heavy machinery removing cars from the road, with the excuse that they needed to be removed in order to plow the roads. This was in an upper upper middle class neighborhood on Long Island about 30 miles from where I spent my first 14 years. When I was a kid, the plows would have been out at the first prediction of snow, and the roads would be clear enough to drive on by daylight. The plows would also push about 5 feet of snow up against our driveway, so we did a lot of shoveling to get Dad's car onto the road. But the roads were drivable. So much sensationalism by reporters based in Atlanta who probably only saw snow in some big winter storm there, where plows and snow preparedness is not an issue.

HLN - Headline News - was playing a 1-hour show about a road rage shooting from several years ago. Not at all what I expect to see on a channel created for up to the minute news bytes. The Weather Channel was showing the wide variety of snowfall amounts from the storm, and pointing out that they were normal for this time of year, and the only remarkable thing about the storm is how wide a path it made.

**( A sort of a rant and cynicism about the cop thing )

Drove to MV and had a short coffee klatch with Janice, who did not tell me anything about her NJ Red Cross experience so she could ask me some dating advice.

We were at the Pear Avenue Starbucks, across the street from the Computer History Museum. Parking was maxed out, but I didn't see anything on their web site about the event. They really need to fix that - they don't list non-museum events, which they have a lot of. Google and other businesses hold parties and meetings there.

Stopped in at 7-11 for potato chips, which were on sale.

Home, had chips and my home-made clam dip for dinner. Neither of the cats liked the dip. Very strange.

Janice had given me a DVD to watch, so I did. The Power of Two is the story of Japanese-American twins with cystic fibrosis and how lung transplants saved their lives. And their campaign to encourage people to sign and carry organ donor cards. And to help change the attitudes in Japan, which are strongly against organ donations from brain-dead patients.

It's a fascinating and touching movie, I'm going to see if it's available in PAL format and send it to my cousin in the UK who has MS and has been campaigning for better government policies on disability care and funding for people with "hidden" chronic diseases.

Went to Cheetah's to break a $100 bill, and get a lot of singles, and enjoy the show. I was there for about 90 minutes, and left after the Playboy model danced. She is not your typical PB model - about 5' tall, very petite. But she is beautifully toned, and has a great smile.

Yesterday's shopping included Pepperidge Farms frozen turnovers. I just made 4 cherry and 4 apple. There is one less cherry left.

Plans for tomorrow:
Set shop? I'll only stay if there is painting to be done. Any heavy lifting is out
Put the last 300 Thailand slides back in their folders
Consider what the next batch of slides will be. If they can put B&W negatives onto DVD as positives, I have a bunch of Thailand photos which are actually in order.

Current Mood: moody
Current Location: Home

susandennis:
Wondering if you actually tried your ATM card or just didn't notice this:

My no-name ATM card from an obscure credit union works just fine, is why I'm asking.

Interesting morning, I woke up at about 3 am and found myself pushed to the far side of the bed with Kaan stretched out across the bed instead of from head to foot. After a trip to check the plumbing, I repositioned him and took back my half of the bed. Slept till the alarm/lights went on at 7. Decided I needed more sleep so got another hour in.

After I was up and dressed and drugged, I realized I had nothing useful to do at work, so following the logic of the spheres, I removed the work-provided out of date, mostly useless Symantec Endpoint Protection software which was required to VPN into the office, and installed the latest Norton's which Comcast gives me for free.

Just for grins, I launched the VPN software to see what would happen, and lo and behold, it downloaded a new version and in 5 minutes I was connected to work. I launched email, and it told me it needed a security number, which it had left on my voicemail. At work. So I called my work phone and there it was in voicemail. Then I remote desktopped into my work PC and sent email to the boss that I would be in around 10:30 because I had installed the new IT software, which IT had not bothered to tell us about. Typical.

Wrapped that up, went to work, found some useful things to do but mostly piece-o-cake things. On my lunchtime to-do list was to rectify the situation with the car where it was showing a woefully depleted gas tank. There were only 2 pairs of cars ahead of me, about a 10 minute wait. Pulled up to the pump, and the card reader was being held together with the thin plastic tape which is used for ??? nothing I can think of. It took three passes to get it to read my membership card, then it misread my ATM card and I had to start all over. Finally turned to push the button for the type of gas I wanted, and sticker shock hit big-time. $3.899! The last time I filled up it was something like $3.489. Thanks Obama for helping make the rich even richer.

And about that 9/10 of a cent - something my dad taught me the first time he gave me a quarter and sent me to get a gallon of gas for the mower was the price they show in big numbers is almost a cent less than the price they will charge you. One would think that some time in the last 50 years Congress or the FTC would have ordered the price to be displayed in full cents. Or at least for the 9/10 to be the same size as the rest of the price.

Next stop, since I had a ton of time, drove way down to across the street from where I used to live to see if my eyes were deceiving me, or if the Carl's Jr which had been there forever was really now a Pizza Hut. Well, not quite. It is a Round Table Pizza. So I had lunch there. I like their pizzas, and liked the brand new clean place, and the friendly staff. I did not like the salad buffet which was designed for people < 4'10" tall with a 40" reach. The stuff in the salad buffet was good, except for the day-old mushrooms.

Back to work, read some specs, wrote my weekly report, and bailed at 5:30.

Since it was early, I went to the Starbucks on Mathilda near Lucky's, ordered a mint tea, and tried to do some stuff on the laptop, but the wifi was over-tapped by the dozen or so people on it, so I folded it up and went shopping. There was nothing I needed but the freezer was looking depleted (i.e. things were not falling out when I opened the door) so I got some stuff. But first I headed for the wine department and was surprised to see they had the obscure wine which I liked at the Coast Starlight wine & cheese tasting. A Riesling from Chateau Ste. Michelle. They also had its sister, the sweet Riesling, and they were on sale for $8 a piece so I bought them both.

Home, stuffed the freezer, petted the cats, finished installing stuff on the laptop which took no time at all over the 5GHz connection, and decided to make some more fondue from scratch. Smaller batch than last time. Cuisinarted two blocks of Emmenthaler, and one of Gruyere. Poured about 2/3 of the Reisling into the pot and stirred the cheese in. Last of all, a few shots of Kirsch. It needed some corn starch to thicken, but not much. I already had a big bag of cubed sourdough defrosting, and sliced in a banana too.

Very yummy meal, as I watched CNN lose all sense of newsworthiness by devoting full time to showing their people out in the snow in NYC and Boston. I guess in Atlanta snow is much more important than a trained counterinsurgent sharpshooter evading the LAPD; a 15-year-old Middle Eastern girl, who had been shot in the head, speaking in clear concise English that she was not deterred from promoting female literacy; or Buster Posey admitting he and Tim Lincecum were friends.

So I switched to the Weather Channel, where they were matter-of-factly forecasting snow for South Dakota.

Earlier today I entered 5 of my Lincoln misquotes in a juried art show at the Ark Art Gallery. The theme is text in art. It's a stretch, but who knows?

In other art news my Boskone art show photos made it to Boston. Glad I didn't send them by ground.

Plans for tomorrow:

Maybe go to the set shop to work for a couple of hours. Maybe.
5 pm coffee w/Janice. I hope to hear about her adventures as a Red Cross volunteer in NJ.
Cheetah's? I need 1's and I need to break a $100 bill.
It also may be time for a massage. I've been having cramps in my calves in the mornings lately. Pretty normal for me in the winter.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

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Writing Wrongs

Annoying The Neighbors Since 1950

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No Movie Because USPS Regulations

Nobody stood back

Rodeo Day

Training Day

Much Humping Today

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Rare Mid Day Update

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Relatively Quiet Day

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