We're over the hump again - the days are getting longer. Yippee!
This is my first true "winter" in California; last year I was in Australia and New Zealand for 3 weeks in late December. I was also gone last year for the one week in the early spring when the bay area got a most of its annual rainfall.
My blood is definitely thinning out; 40 is starting to feel downright cold. I still don't want a coat when I walk briskly in the 50s, which is promising. I'm finding overcast days to be "bad weather" and am downright uncomfortable outdoors without my shades when the sun is out. Am I going to be one of those people that wants to retire to Hawaii where the weather is better?? Hmmm.
I've looked at property to buy, and vacillate among various states. Am I crazy to think about buying at these prices? Won't the market come down? I love the location of my fantastic apartment - should I stick with renting? Should I look for a cheaper rental? Does it make sense to compromise on my location in order to buy? Should I choose closer to the walkable downtown of Redwood City, but potentially less safe? Or target another "affordable" area closer to work? Will our offices move to Redwood City any time soon? Should I be thinking more seriously about a condo? Etc. At $500,000, there's a lot of pondering.
Just recently I've been doing some research into cat foods. I've never gone for the dyed varieties, but with a bunch of friends dealing with aging cats and their health issues, I've been revisiting the possible choices. Shindy cat just had her lower canines removed, largely due to poor diet choices affecting her dental health. Dry foods aren't the best, and may promote diabetes. Kibble with large pieces is much better for dental health ... but so far I have only found the Science Diet option. Wet foods are better. Raw food is best, but I don't think I want to take on that much effort. So it's a question of which brands, etc. And then looking for convenient independent pet stores. (So many things to research after relocating!)
My greater department just made a fantastic hire (Bess Sadler!) and I can't wait for my friend and colleague Bess to move out here in a few weeks. We're going to have a blast working together, though at the moment our actual workloads won't overlap too much. She's one of the major forces behind the Blacklight software. Go open source library software! Go Stanford!
Given Bess's arrival, I'm going for a new tactic in building my social circle out here: get my pals to move here! This means YOU! Lots of opportunity, great weather. You don't need all that space in your dwelling! And there's beach, mountains, culture, great restaurants -- everything within an hour. C'mon out! You won't believe how much you'll like it. And the sun is an incredible boost to your daily mood.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
my friend BART
Went to the symphony tonight; Rachmaninoff "The Bells" and Symphony No. 2. It was awesome. Very interesting to hear a poem by Edgar Allen Poe sung in Russian, set to music by Rachmaninoff.
I took public transportation all the way up to the city: walked to Caltrain in Menlo Park, took it to Millbrae, transfered to Bart at Millbrae. Did the reverse going home, of course.
On boarding the Bart train at Civic Center, there were no forward facing seats in my car. But as they freed up, I sat down next to an older woman, who also got on at Civic Center, and was dressed as if she might have come from the Sympony. Like me, she had a book to read. She was looking at the inside front cover, which had a map of northwestern Africa. And I glanced a little longer and realized what book it was: "Skeletons on the Zahara" , a great true story of a shipwrecked boat and the survivors that were enslaved and eventually brought to freedom.
"I've read that book! It's really good." I said. We started chatting about the book, and about other titles of survival (Endurance, The Long Walk - which we both had read, Coming out of the Ice, which only I had read, The Life Of Pi, which only she had read).
I looked at the Caltrain schedule, double checking that the next train out of Millbrae to points south was at 11:04 pm. Yup. Except ... dang. We weren't going to make it to Millbrae on Bart until 11:10 or so.
My seatmate saw me checking the schedule, and learned of my minor inconvenience. She was heading south from the Millbrae station by car; she offered to drive me home (!). Amazing! I tried to avoid putting her to the trouble, but the Caltrain platform was empty when we arrived at Millbrae (meaning yes, the 11:04 had come and gone). I called my friend Bob, who lives in Redwood City (where this woman lives), thinking he could take me home for the last leg, rather than this kind stranger. No luck - Bob was out partying in Santa Cruz.
Well, thanks to the car ride, I learned this woman's name. She's a computer security director at Oracle. Her other car is a jaguar convertible (honest). She was a Czech refugee in 196x, at the age of 6. Her mother died in the refugee camp. Her father put 3 of the 4 kids into a boarding school / orphanage run by nuns. She was separated from her siblings due to age groupings. She spent 8 years in that school. Had American pen pals to learn English. Married one of them; came to the states, was a mother and housewife. Got a divorce, went to college at 40, majored in computer science. And is now a kick ass independent woman over 65 who goes to the symphony alone (by choice), lives in Redwood Shores, drives a Jaguar convertible when she's in the mood.
I gave her my card before I got in her car, to let her know I was legit. She gave me hers when she dropped me off. Quite an ending to a great evening!
I took public transportation all the way up to the city: walked to Caltrain in Menlo Park, took it to Millbrae, transfered to Bart at Millbrae. Did the reverse going home, of course.
On boarding the Bart train at Civic Center, there were no forward facing seats in my car. But as they freed up, I sat down next to an older woman, who also got on at Civic Center, and was dressed as if she might have come from the Sympony. Like me, she had a book to read. She was looking at the inside front cover, which had a map of northwestern Africa. And I glanced a little longer and realized what book it was: "Skeletons on the Zahara" , a great true story of a shipwrecked boat and the survivors that were enslaved and eventually brought to freedom.
"I've read that book! It's really good." I said. We started chatting about the book, and about other titles of survival (Endurance, The Long Walk - which we both had read, Coming out of the Ice, which only I had read, The Life Of Pi, which only she had read).
I looked at the Caltrain schedule, double checking that the next train out of Millbrae to points south was at 11:04 pm. Yup. Except ... dang. We weren't going to make it to Millbrae on Bart until 11:10 or so.
My seatmate saw me checking the schedule, and learned of my minor inconvenience. She was heading south from the Millbrae station by car; she offered to drive me home (!). Amazing! I tried to avoid putting her to the trouble, but the Caltrain platform was empty when we arrived at Millbrae (meaning yes, the 11:04 had come and gone). I called my friend Bob, who lives in Redwood City (where this woman lives), thinking he could take me home for the last leg, rather than this kind stranger. No luck - Bob was out partying in Santa Cruz.
Well, thanks to the car ride, I learned this woman's name. She's a computer security director at Oracle. Her other car is a jaguar convertible (honest). She was a Czech refugee in 196x, at the age of 6. Her mother died in the refugee camp. Her father put 3 of the 4 kids into a boarding school / orphanage run by nuns. She was separated from her siblings due to age groupings. She spent 8 years in that school. Had American pen pals to learn English. Married one of them; came to the states, was a mother and housewife. Got a divorce, went to college at 40, majored in computer science. And is now a kick ass independent woman over 65 who goes to the symphony alone (by choice), lives in Redwood Shores, drives a Jaguar convertible when she's in the mood.
I gave her my card before I got in her car, to let her know I was legit. She gave me hers when she dropped me off. Quite an ending to a great evening!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Two cats and a trip to the vet
I'll blame it on Halloween. The chocolate oozing into my attention. Coupons for Green&Blacks at Whole Foods. Evil. Temptation.
"Cats? The vet? And you're starting out with chocolate?"
Well, may I just say, oink oink. And that I specifically chose a vet with an office close-by, wanting to minimize my exposure to Shindy's ear-splitting yowls. Do you see the connection yet?
This morning, after the fun of catching each kitty and "convincing" them to get in their carriers, I asked "the girls" if they'd rather go in the car, or have me walk. (Now do you get it?)
Well, they're cats. They didn't answer. But *I* needed the walk, and it was another perfect day down on the peninsula. So off I went, with a cat carrier hanging off each shoulder. Roughly 9 pounds each.
First visit. "Get here about 15 minutes early." Well, it takes longer to walk with cats hanging off your shoulders than without. And if you want to arrive somewhat presentably, rather than panting, sweating and red-faced from exertion, it takes a little longer yet. And ... if you didn't look at Google Maps closely enough before you left, then you wander around in the wrong place for about 10 minutes ... because their phone was busy. Crazy.
Cats: hale and hearty. I always forget their age: born around May, 2001. So 8 years old. Middle aged. Getting gum disease, like their mother. However, I don't need general anesthesia for a cleaning. Let the expensive part of being a cat owner begin!
And, since you asked, no, Shindy did not yowl. Delilah was mewing pitifully for a bit, but she soon got interested in looking out at the world, despite my loping walk. (It would make me motion sick to be in one of those carriers while I was walking, even if I was shrunk down to a 9 pound itty bitty Naomi.) Shindy cat -- who knows? Not an Einstein, my Shindy.
"Cats? The vet? And you're starting out with chocolate?"
Well, may I just say, oink oink. And that I specifically chose a vet with an office close-by, wanting to minimize my exposure to Shindy's ear-splitting yowls. Do you see the connection yet?
This morning, after the fun of catching each kitty and "convincing" them to get in their carriers, I asked "the girls" if they'd rather go in the car, or have me walk. (Now do you get it?)
Well, they're cats. They didn't answer. But *I* needed the walk, and it was another perfect day down on the peninsula. So off I went, with a cat carrier hanging off each shoulder. Roughly 9 pounds each.
First visit. "Get here about 15 minutes early." Well, it takes longer to walk with cats hanging off your shoulders than without. And if you want to arrive somewhat presentably, rather than panting, sweating and red-faced from exertion, it takes a little longer yet. And ... if you didn't look at Google Maps closely enough before you left, then you wander around in the wrong place for about 10 minutes ... because their phone was busy. Crazy.
Cats: hale and hearty. I always forget their age: born around May, 2001. So 8 years old. Middle aged. Getting gum disease, like their mother. However, I don't need general anesthesia for a cleaning. Let the expensive part of being a cat owner begin!
And, since you asked, no, Shindy did not yowl. Delilah was mewing pitifully for a bit, but she soon got interested in looking out at the world, despite my loping walk. (It would make me motion sick to be in one of those carriers while I was walking, even if I was shrunk down to a 9 pound itty bitty Naomi.) Shindy cat -- who knows? Not an Einstein, my Shindy.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
jewels from the stanford libraries
When I'm checking the behavior of the software I work with, I often search on whatever words are flitting by. Here are some resources I have found:
(from jury duty this morning)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7738705
_Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring_ by Zach Plague
(one morning, pre-weight-loss)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6369467
_Assault with a Deadly Donut_ by Olga A Garcia
(one frustrating moment)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4378160
(see for yourself ... and once we roll it into a public area, you should see what nearby-on-shelf brings up ...)
(we made it!)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=dushay
(or at least my cousin did ...)
(it's all about her anyway)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=shindy
Send me YOUR favorites -- we always need good example records for presentations.
(from jury duty this morning)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7738705
_Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring_ by Zach Plague
(one morning, pre-weight-loss)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6369467
_Assault with a Deadly Donut_ by Olga A Garcia
(one frustrating moment)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4378160
(see for yourself ... and once we roll it into a public area, you should see what nearby-on-shelf brings up ...)
(we made it!)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=dushay
(or at least my cousin did ...)
(it's all about her anyway)
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=shindy
Send me YOUR favorites -- we always need good example records for presentations.
jury duty
Yea, verily. It has been many months since my last blog entry. Oh wait - you knew that.
Today I had jury duty. I am so incredibly spoiled that I found it onerous to 1) get woken up by an alarm 2) be constrained by the caltrain schedule (or, worse, drive during rush hour) 3) get up in the dark 4) get up earlier than I wanted to 5) not get enough sleep ...
We showed up. The woman in charge of the juror waiting room indoctrinated us, they played the "this is what it means to be a juror / it's a great legal system" video. We waited some more. They had wireless. I was close enough to hear all the questions jury-lady needed to answer.
Who are these people? Did they not just hear the information repeated 3 times in the previous 10 minutes? Do none of them have any sort of portable work? (I saw about 5 of us seemingly working out of about 40.) If all the people that can listen to instruction, read the information on the jury summons, etc. all get out of jury duty, except for 5 of us, how crappy is that?
My country and its laws. It's great. It's imperfect. It could be worse. It could be better.
Today I had jury duty. I am so incredibly spoiled that I found it onerous to 1) get woken up by an alarm 2) be constrained by the caltrain schedule (or, worse, drive during rush hour) 3) get up in the dark 4) get up earlier than I wanted to 5) not get enough sleep ...
We showed up. The woman in charge of the juror waiting room indoctrinated us, they played the "this is what it means to be a juror / it's a great legal system" video. We waited some more. They had wireless. I was close enough to hear all the questions jury-lady needed to answer.
Who are these people? Did they not just hear the information repeated 3 times in the previous 10 minutes? Do none of them have any sort of portable work? (I saw about 5 of us seemingly working out of about 40.) If all the people that can listen to instruction, read the information on the jury summons, etc. all get out of jury duty, except for 5 of us, how crappy is that?
My country and its laws. It's great. It's imperfect. It could be worse. It could be better.
Monday, May 25, 2009
A Banana Slug and a Mouse
Yesterday, I was hiking in a nearby park, and I saw my first banana slug. It was a great sighting. Big, slimy and yellow. Pretty cool looking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=banana+slug
And today, the cats got really fascinated by something. Together. That always means a crawling bug. But today it was a mouse. Thanks to Brian, I knew to catch it with some upside-down tupperware. So I did that, and then released it in the "wild" area by the creek. That was the best place I could think of nearby. It was definitely a field mouse - pretty cute, actually:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=field+mouse&m=text
I think/hope it got in by the window, via the wisteria. The cats seemed to start there, or at least that's where I noticed them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_slug
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=banana+slug
And today, the cats got really fascinated by something. Together. That always means a crawling bug. But today it was a mouse. Thanks to Brian, I knew to catch it with some upside-down tupperware. So I did that, and then released it in the "wild" area by the creek. That was the best place I could think of nearby. It was definitely a field mouse - pretty cute, actually:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=field+mouse&m=text
I think/hope it got in by the window, via the wisteria. The cats seemed to start there, or at least that's where I noticed them.
a weekend in San Francisco: the Symphony, and a Roller Derby Bout
A few weeks ago, I had a marvelous weekend. On Friday night, I met up with my friend Laura and we went to the Symphony to hear the Mozart Grand Partita for winds. It was awesome. Watching the basset horn players swab out their instruments was super. But the music was incredible. After it ended, I turned to Laura and said "I want to hear that again." But there was only one more performance, and I already had plans to go to ...
A roller derby bout. Thanks to Susan Moskwa, I had some sense that it would be fun. So when a friend of mine asked me to go, I only hesitated slightly before saying yes. The acoustics were terrible, the food was beyond terrible, and we felt out of place without any ink. But the bout itself, that was way cool! We were luckily sitting next to a knowledgable woman who explained the sport to us before the match started. There's a "jammer" for each team, who starts behind the pack. There is a race to be the first jammer in front of the pack. Then the jammer gets more points for each opponent they pass while they are still the front jammer. There are "blockers" and a "pivot." The pivot sets the pace and stuff. The jammer wears a helment cover with a star, so the position can be assigned to different women. And the pivot wears a helmet cover without a star. Sort of like the sneetches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby
My favorite quote from this article: "has a strong do it yourself ethic which often features both athleticism and a satirical punk third-wave feminism aesthetic."
Go wikipedia!
A roller derby bout. Thanks to Susan Moskwa, I had some sense that it would be fun. So when a friend of mine asked me to go, I only hesitated slightly before saying yes. The acoustics were terrible, the food was beyond terrible, and we felt out of place without any ink. But the bout itself, that was way cool! We were luckily sitting next to a knowledgable woman who explained the sport to us before the match started. There's a "jammer" for each team, who starts behind the pack. There is a race to be the first jammer in front of the pack. Then the jammer gets more points for each opponent they pass while they are still the front jammer. There are "blockers" and a "pivot." The pivot sets the pace and stuff. The jammer wears a helment cover with a star, so the position can be assigned to different women. And the pivot wears a helmet cover without a star. Sort of like the sneetches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby
My favorite quote from this article: "has a strong do it yourself ethic which often features both athleticism and a satirical punk third-wave feminism aesthetic."
Go wikipedia!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Bizarro-world
I've been expecting a package from UPS. I got a note from the shipper with the link to the UPS tracking web site and the tracking number. Here's the sequence of what happened after that:
And of course, now they won't deliver it ... I have to go pick it up. And, of course, you can only pick it up 9-5 M-F. Because of course that's a really convenient time.
- UPS says they delivered the package 6 pm Monday night. They didn't - I was home, and there was no UPS truck.
- I wrestle with bad UI and finally work out how to report a missing package to UPS. (I also reported it to the shipper ... but they sent me back to UPS)
- UPS: "A correct company or receiver name is needed for delivery. UPS is attempting to obtain this information." Note: to report the missing package, I had to do this annoying registration at the UPS site ... and it insisted on my supplying a full name *and* a company. Plus ... I reported it missing ... with this information ...
- UPS: "The address has been corrected. The delivery has been rescheduled."
- UPS: "The receiver's address is incomplete. UPS is attempting to obtain the entire address and complete the delivery."
- UPS: " A postcard has been sent to the recipient requesting that they contact UPS."
And of course, now they won't deliver it ... I have to go pick it up. And, of course, you can only pick it up 9-5 M-F. Because of course that's a really convenient time.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
work advertisement
I know, I know -- I never did finish putting up pix of my visit down under. And you want to see them. I'm a reluctant blogger, I guess.
But I had to share this: my project is getting more visibility, even though it's still a prototype in the early stages.
Check out http://library.stanford.edu/ and look in the upper right for the big bright ad! (Note: ad will change to user quotes and will eventually disappear, so if you're reading this weeks after I posted it ... don't expect anything.)
Some of the Stanford librarians are really pleased. Some of our feedback has been incredibly positive. (Note that the expensive library vendor closed source software that Stanford uses doesn't allow search results to be ranked by relevancy!) Some folks are concerned that their particular methods for finding things will no longer work, or that the results aren't exactly the same. There will be much fine tuning as we go.
But wow! Visibility!
Hopefully I won't have to deal with any performance bottlenecks ...
But I had to share this: my project is getting more visibility, even though it's still a prototype in the early stages.
Check out http://library.stanford.edu/ and look in the upper right for the big bright ad! (Note: ad will change to user quotes and will eventually disappear, so if you're reading this weeks after I posted it ... don't expect anything.)
Some of the Stanford librarians are really pleased. Some of our feedback has been incredibly positive. (Note that the expensive library vendor closed source software that Stanford uses doesn't allow search results to be ranked by relevancy!) Some folks are concerned that their particular methods for finding things will no longer work, or that the results aren't exactly the same. There will be much fine tuning as we go.
But wow! Visibility!
Hopefully I won't have to deal with any performance bottlenecks ...
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