Holiday!

Not for me... Or that many other folks. But BART is taking it easy
today. Good for you, BART!

Don't worry, the packed-in passengers and cyclists stranded on the
platform don't really need to get to work today.

Who the heck does usage projections for BART, anyway?

Doctor office ettiquette

Is it better for the doctor's office to be open, with all the front
office staff coughing and sniffling on everything, potentially getting
patients sick... Or to have patients wait a week or two to visit the
doc?. I mean, if it was an emergency, you'd go to urgent care anyway,
right?

Chain reaction

One stoplight out on Oak.

That's all it took to change a 10 to 15 minute bus trip into a 45
minute trip. As I sat on the bus, stopped as often as not in traffic
on Lincoln, I imagined the weekend's rain had blocked a sewer drain
and led to lane closure or that there was some horrific accident. But
no...

If a simple change from metered traffic to a stop sign created such a
large impact in such an uncomplicated system, I shudder to think about
the impact of my own mistakes and accidents on the much more
complicated and possibly more delicately balanced systems I
participate in.

The wrong technical decision

I awoke sometime before dawn and didn't bother to check the clock,
thinking I'd get back to sleep, as I usually do, without any trouble. The dream that I awoke from, however, must have been more disturbing than my usual bad dreams.

I sit in a conference room with a coworker whom I normally regard as
amiable and not harsh at all. The dream has distorted hir features,
but I know who it is. We discuss something about work, and I ask for
clarification about something.

Then he talked about a specific technique which I hadn't heard of
before (something sie described as "trapping"). I said as much which
elicited a sneer of condescension and the rebuke "you don't even know what... Which finally goaded me into a defense of my intelligence, and to assert that I could grasp the concept of whatever sie was talking about.

This sets hir off on a rant about how I will go round and round
seeking understanding, wasting hir and everyone else's time, and that eventually I'll make the wrong technical decision anyway which will necessitate me or someone else rewriting the functionality in
question, wasting yet more time. At which point the meeting ended, or i awoke.

Good dream to have the night before going back to work.

Leaf in a mug

Feeling like a kid again

My sister won a costume contest this year on Halloween, at a big party
in Moab. Her costume deserves its own post.

The prize was an electraglide cruiser, a model named "the betty,"
which I assume means it's a girl's bike. My sister, however, is no
girl; rather, she's a badass female triathlete, with no shortage of
bikes. Now, she could have picked up an easy $400 for the bike, but
instead gave it to her little brother (that's me).

She brought it yesterday and surprised me with it, with a red ribbon
on it and everything. We went for a cruise in the park and down to the
beach... Me grinning like an idiot or small child the whole time. It's
good to feel like a little kid sometimes. Thanks, sis!

Mission Accomplished!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/business/7144774.stm

Finally!

Now the rebuilding of Iraq can start paying for itself!

phishing PSA

I know most people that read this will already know, but just in case i can keep even four or five people from doing it, it's worth posting:

Don't send bank, credit card, utility, or any other billing information to people who ask for it via email.

Email addresses are easily forged, and links can be displayed that look legitimate, but aren't. A new tactic of these miscreants is providing a fax number to fax information to. Guess what? Fax numbers provide even less accountability than an email address or url, which are more quickly identified as invalid.

Just don't do it.

How many scarves is too many?

My most esteemed officemates collaborated to get me a hand woven scarf
in my favorite color of toasty warm yarn. I now possess three scarves
which I wear regularly. And have at least three others which I wear
sparingly ( for various reasons). Where does it end!?

Strong flower

This flower stayed in my moto helmet across SF and then across the bay
bridge. I don't care what anti-hippies say, flowers do have power.

co-housing, exes, and flooring

This dream finds me (and my boys) living with my exes from Portland. The dream is mostly about the logistics of the four adults remodelling the house (the flooring is a contentious issue), but some of it deals with the renewed pseudo-romantic relationship between me and my exes. The dynamics haven't changed that much in my dream, except that now I'm strongly partnered with someone else and somewhat immune to the distance and inconsistency I felt with L while sie was with M.

Likely triggers for this dream: late night conversation about co-
housing in a non-monogamous context, and recently hearing that my exes are expecting.

Vacation

Reno was a nice, but brief visit with my older, little sister. I feel
like I haven't been there for her much, considering all the times
she'd drive me somewhere when I was a kid.

I would have stayed longer, but she was really slammed with work and I
did not want to be a nuisance. It turns out my departure preceded snow
on the Donner pass by twelve hours or so. Motorcycles don't do snow
well, so the timing worked out for me.

I made it back to SF just in time for a massage from (and visit with)
my oldest friend, S.

Thursday I departed with my good friend, K, for Harbin hotsprings. We
set up our sleeping bags on the deck, and got in the hot water for
what seemed most of the night, but ended up being just a couple of
hours. The kitchens there don't allow meat (except eggs, about which K
and I debated the status of), so we ate fairly light the whole visit,
except for the ten pounds of oatmeal I ate for breakfast on Friday. I
am incapable of cooking breakfast for two normal humans, apparently.

Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time while at
Harbin. Sleeping under the stars for just the second time in my life
that I can remember, the hugeness of the sky struck me, and it felt
good to feel small. Spending the time with K was great, and I wish
there were more opportunities for events like that.

I rounded out my time off with my first apple pie from scratch, but
failed to add xanthan gum to the whole wheat flour, which resulted in
a funky-bready crust. Lesson learned!

Vacation: accomplished.

SF to Reno: the olfactory experience

I decided that I'd rather visit my sister in Reno with my vacation
than exhaust myself bicycling around Marin (my butt has been really
really unhappy with my saddles of late in any case). Fortunately, my
boss is also an awesome friend and graciously allowed me use of her
Triumph Bonneville America for the duration of my vacation, in
addition to insisting I take the week off in the first place. Moto
trumps driving for me. It provides a much richer experience,
especially for the nose!

Starting in SF around noon, I was treated to what smelled like a large
collection of fish sitting out in the sun. Is there an underground
fishmarket set up in the bowels of the bay bridge? The smell started
just before the bridge starts and carried half way to treasure island.
What gives?

I'll not attempt to describe the ebmud water treatment plant in Oakland.

Things remained relatively boring through Davis, where the aggies
really earn their name. I don't usually notice the bovine aroma, so it
must have been a special day. Sac provided river-tree smells,
surprisingly refreshingly.

Auburn and surrounds had that distinctive foothilly dirt-in-late
summer smell, giving way to the crisp, thin chilly air of donner, with
sprinkles of evergreen scents.

A distractingly tarry construction site interrupted an otherwise
lovely descent, into the Reno desert and the muddles smells of greed,
hope, and despair.

Congratulations Finland!

Winners of the first-ever eurovision dance competition!

And condolences to Switzerland, the only team to score no points
whatsoever.

back in the saddle

There exist people that bicycle from San Francisco, to the lighthouse at Point Reyes. To those people i say, "How the hell?" I rode from the sunset (35th and Lincoln) to Sausilito, a scant 18 miles round trip, and was pretty well wiped out by the time i made it home (in spite of an hour for repast).

I haven't been on the bicycle in probably three or four weeks, so that may explain some of my lack of conditioning. Still, my commute doesn't have any ascents comparable to the one to the Legion of Honor (from either direction, but especially the one through the Presidio going south) or the climbs from the water up to the bridge on the north side.

I hope to make this a regular ride, and maybe add Antonio to the back of the bike for a little extra exercise.

relocation

Pixar has moved to a small european town, or at least opened a campus there, and i have gone to work there. We try to make nice with the locals, who are rich foreigners (americans) with isolated houses that don't like us... because we've sullied the extravagant opulence by creating an industry where once the only industry was tourism.

Part of making nice, apparently, involves going door to door to have personal conversations with the folks (which seems completely the opposite of helpful in the given environment), so i'm out on a jog (why is it a good idea to be all breathless and sweaty when talking to people you're trying to win over? i have no idea) going door to door. It reminded me of my days selling knives and how awkward i felt talking to some folks, in spite of my fervent belief in the product.

After one particularly awkward conversation, with an obviously hostile neighbor, i leave my wallet and phone at their house. I don't realize this until i'm nearly home, or back to campus. I can't find my way back, but do some ratatouille-game-like moves running around the town's facade trying to find the house (along wires, up drainpipes, etc.)

I wake up to the pitter-patter of little feet coming down the hall, so i don't know if i ever got my personal items back.

Also returning...

... my mom to the hospital. I'm at the family estate with my nephews this weekend because my mom is in the hospital, and my step-dad isn't comfortable taking care of the boys on his own. How did i turn into the father that i am with the male role models that i have?

Six weeks ago, my mom was diagnosed with diverticulitis. This time, it's something else, but with almost identical symptoms... with the addition of an obstructed G-I tract. The experts are stymied and are hoping things will self-correct. If they don't in a day or two, they'll probably do some kind of exploratory surgery and possibly attempt a mechanical correction if that is what seems most likely to restore function. It's all very wtf.

So, i guess this is another memory that Wimbledon is going to trigger: being at my folks' place with my nephews, mom in the hospital, spouse and child at home in SF, and spouse having the chance to go out and socialize with (and be given the evil eye by) dykes.

Wimbledon Returns

It's more regular than saturn returning. I'm not sure what it is about Wimbledon that makes me think on the past. Maybe because it isn't a single-day event like most holidays or sporting events, or as protracted as other events. It's just a week or two, at the same time every year, and it always reminds me of summers in switzerland, when it was too hot to run around outside and i had had enough of going to the public pool.

It reminds me of summers with my husband, again when it was too hot to do anything but sit around and watch two people play real-life pong.

It also reminds me of last year's ex, because it seemed to have a similar place in her life. And, for the first time in a long time, i can think about her and not feel sadness or much regret, and that's really nice.

Also, lately, wimbledon reminds me that switzerland can produce world-class athletes. Hee hee!

saturn returns

It is a couple of years late, but Saturn seems to be returning for me. Last Saturday, i saw someone i hadn't seen in close to 15 years, at an intentional meeting. It was great to see her, and have some small reconnection to a time that had a huge impact on my outlook and life choices. The very next day i ran into someone else from the same time in my life, who had a relatively large impact given the fact that he doesn't recognize me except for having a vague awareness of my name.

I'm not sure what, if any, connection these two people have to each other in any context other than my memories. I'm not sure it matters, but it is interesting to contemplate the connections one has internally connected to a memory compared to the real-world correlations and connections.

The two people i saw last weekend are inextricably linked to the second time my heart was broken. One of them dumped me after falling in love with, and then losing, someone while on a trip to Paris. This was a blow, but not the telling, shattering one. I was down from that, certainly, but i still had a friendship with her; she still deigned to speak with me.

The man i ran into last weekend was, when i first knew him, paired with someone i idolized and eventually fell in love with. The kind of one-way, over-intellectualized love that some adolescent nerds must go through to learn valuable life lessons. It was a perfect counterpoint to the over-emotional, lust-based love that had broken my heart the first time, not even two years before. Oddly, i'm still in regular contact with that person and consider her a close friend; my oldest, in fact. Both traumas taught valuable lessons, but also implanted deeply-buried triggers that resurface cyclically.

In any case, the man-from-last-weekend's significant other is the only one of the four of them that i haven't seen at all since public school ceased requiring us to have contact. She ended our interaction in the most intellectual of ways: a cease-and-desist letter. She wrote me a note, hand-delivered, telling me that she appreciated our interaction, but that people were like molecules... destined to bounce around randomly, interact in mathematically prescribed ways, and then fly apart. She had finished with me, apparently, and had decided that we were done communicating in the same over-intellectualized, unilateral way that i had decided to fall in love with her.

Within the last year, i've had the trigger of unilateral communication cessation fired, and i'm still reeling. I've lost count of my heartbreaks, so i have no number to give the one from last year. Seeing the people i saw last weekend helps me reflect on where the trigger originated, and was somewhat freeing. I still haven't learned the critical skill of letting go, of not having to ask "why? what is so broken about me, or you, or us?" when someone needs to leave in a hurry.

But it's starting to dawn on me, and i'll have to thank Saturn next time he comes around.

The Gender Police

On our way back from taking the boy to meet up with Omi & Opa this weekend (we were treated to a couple of days of just-us time for our fourth anniversary... thanks mom!), we decided to do some shopping for an upcoming black-tie event.

Passing through the behemoth "factory outlets" we decided to bop around in case there were anything appropriate. While browsing in a clothing section of a Puma shop (i remember when they sold shoes, don't you?) a over-smiling cheerleader-barbie-esque staffmember approached.

o-s c-b-e s: "You guys shopping for someone else?"

us: "Not particularly."

o-s c-b-e s (condescendingly): "Just shopping in the women's section?" blahblahblah, saleprice, blahblahblah.

Busted! The gender police totally nailed us for looking in the "wrong" section. It gave us a good laugh and made sure we wouldn't foolishly give any money to this person's employer on overpriced crap shipped here from overseas (even if it was cute).