A Good Saturday

It's been a good Saturday. Work wise I pulled 2.5 million rows of data to be moved into another system. It'll probably take us all week to get it into the other system, but it will be there soon enough. It's a project step I've needed to take for a while, but I just haven't been able to get there, so I'm feel pretty good about the major step. A day late and a dollar short, but well done anyway.

I had breakfast with Bob and then headed out for a drive through Los Gatos and Saratoga. It was a pleasant excursion and Bob was feeling pretty good. We checked out both Lexington and Stevens Creek reservoirs. Both of them looked pretty cool filled with water and surrounded by greenery. There were a lot of other folks out doing the exact same thing.

I got home and spent my time working and catching up on the DVR, a handful of sitcoms and then "Romancing the Stone" with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. I consider it a classic, though I'm not sure it really qualifies. It's still an enjoyable movie though.

I had a nice conversation with TR tonight about a wide variety of subjects and with plenty of laughter, so that was very enjoyable. I'm settling into the tail end of the night now, watching the clock tick off the final hours of the evening.

I finished up reading Neil Gaiman's collection of Norse tales. It was enjoyable but I'm afraid I can't highly recommend it. It's really just a collection of Norse tales. I would have liked it more if he'd dramatized it and told more character driven tales. Still, a solid 8 out of 10 as far as Norse collections go.

A Spot of Tea

Chaos Tea would be a good name for a band.

It is a little after 7 o'clock in the evening here in California. The workday was as chaotic as I expected. I had a solid block of meetings from 8:00 AM until 1:30 PM. That is always brutal on a Monday because everyone tries to hit the deck running and email are flying all over.

I made it through the day and tomorrow's calendar is fairly clear, so I've blocked out some time for what I called Project 125. It's the number of backlogged email I want to try and get through.

I wrapped work around 5:00 PM then popped out for a bite to eat at a local dinner. It was tasty and quite which is exactly what I was looking for. After dinner I circled back home, restocked my tea box, and made myself a nice cup of Harrowgate of London Orange & Lemon tea to savor as the sun sets on a beautiful evening.

My mind is kind of exhausted from all the mental gymnastics of the day so my energy is running a bit low. Savoring a cup of tea has restorative powers, even more so when it's coupled with the poetry of Mary Oliver (which I always get confused with the music of Jane Olivor).

So, with a cup of good tea and a good book of poetry I wish you, dear reader, all of the good things in life - and tomorrow is another day!

An Oblivion Evening

Well, it was a so-so day today at the office.  There were a few too many meetings and I burned out about mid-way through the day.  Somethings were accomplished, some were not and tomorrow we get to go through the whole dance again! 

I've spent a quiet evening here tonight, mostly watching Oblivion (Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko) from the DVR, which I captured off of FX on the DVR.  It's an entertaining movie - it's basically "only Tom Cruise can save the world from Tom Cruise", which cracks me up to no end.  I am a little tired tonight since I didn't sleep long enough last night and had a slow and choppy start to the morning.

On the plus side I was able to sleep a solid six hours and sleep on my side for the first time in just a little over three weeks.  The sprain under my ribs has mostly healed and there is only a bit of residual discomfort.  It took about as long as such things to take to heal and I should be back to 100% by the end of the week.  I think I made it through the entire day today without taking an Ibuprofen, though I will probably take one tonight just to make sure I sleep comfortably.

I finally picked a window for my vacation - November 12th through the 18th.  I will make the travel arrangements tomorrow and see what it all shapes up as.  I am planning on going to South Dakota for five or six days - I wanted to hold the last weekend in reserve so I can get back to California and enjoy a bit of staycation.  So, on that note, I am going to wrap it up and curl up with a book.

A Better Sunday

Today was a better day than yesterday. Yesterday was a rough one. I had a good enough time but that heat was kind of brutal. It was hotter on Friday but Saturday was far more muggy. Sleep was almost impossible. I tossed and turned through the whole night and probably only got about 4 or 5 hours of real sleep.

I did have a nice lunch on Saturday. I met Don at Molly Maguire's over in Santana Row. I had a chorizo omelette which was excellent. All in all it was a very pleasant lunch. But, the heat descended, and the rest of the day was just unpleasant.

Today's heat only climbed up into the mid 80s. The air conditioner was able to fend it off. I had breakfast with Bob at the Hickory pit, then ran my morning errands and got my grocery shopping done and was home by noon. I spent the rest of the day inside, in the air conditioning, just relaxing and enjoying the day.

I got my bills paid. I had picked up a new fan at Orchard Supply Hardware and I got that set up. With two fans running I'm able to get better circulation through the apartment and I'm hoping he pulls the evening temperature down enough for a comfortable night sleep. It is cooling off rapidly now.

I've got a lot of work ahead of me this week and I really need to get focused and knock things off. I've been struggling in that area in part due to many interruptions. One of the things that happens at work that vexes me all the time is we have a tendency to set up the project schedule at a level that's doable and then pour other projects on top of it which eat up the time and pull the focus away. If there was one change I could make in the work environment with a magic wand I would grant us the ability to lock the schedule. Then I would jump on my flying pig and zoom around the room. Both are about as likely to happen.

So, here's hoping for a good night sleep and a good week ahead.

Monday Always Makes It

Monday always makes it, sooner or later. 

Last week was pretty busy, work-wise, and this week is promising more of the same.  The weekend was fairly nice.  Saturday was productive around the apartment and out running errands.  I got all my marketing done and managed to slip out and see "Huntsman: Winters War" at AMC 14.  It is not a life changing movie, but it was enjoyable.  It has an excellent cast and it was visually very pretty, which made up for the rather simplistic plot.  What I would call a great little popcorn movie.  Besides, if you cast Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron, and Jessica Chastain in anything - well, you'll pretty much guarantee I am going to see that one.

Sunday was pleasant as well - breakfast with Bob and Tyrone, then a trip to CVS with Bob so he could get a blood pressure cuff.  Bob is doing okay, all things considered.  Tyrone is Tyrone. After I ran a couple of errands I circled back and had lunch with Rick over at the Orchard City Kitchen, which is a little upscale for my tastes, borderline pretentious - but the food was excellent and the clientele was amusing, so I have to say I kind of liked the place.

Sunday evening was the return of Game of Thrones, which I was eagerly awaiting.  TR extended her trip through the weekend, so she should be home from NYC later today. Oh, and I didn't mention this but I went out and bought a new mattress - a Serta Elegant Plush, which is great.  It was delivered early last week and I have to say I've slept like a baby in the intervening days.  I've also got a pair of cast iron plants on order from Summerwinds Nursery to add a bit more greenery to the apartment. They were supposed to arrive at the end of last week, but they haven't made it yet.  The nursery is going to give me a call when they get in.  I'm going to double entry today, because there is something that I wanted to talk about in a little more detail on it's own and not bury it down in another post.

Tuesday's Start

It's a bright and beautiful Tuesday morning here in California. The bird symphony is in full song, the sky is blue and it's crisp and cool outside.  I started the work day with a morning meeting regarding feedback from some business research.  It's interesting, but I am not sure it's actionable - or at least not actionable by our current team constellation.

The weekend was nice and I took Monday off as an extra vacation day.  I am getting ready to start the project run for the June release, so I thought starting with a long weekend was a most excellent approach.  My plan for the day is to try and get things lined up so I know the path ahead. I find that is I start a project from a firm foundation it's far easier to make a smooth run of it.

I made a good dent in my ongoing efforts to minimize my life-style, but I have some room to go. Part of that particular journey is the ability to part with "stuff".  I did read a good little rule of thumb last week that I have been carrying with me.  The writer recommended that you use three categories to define the items that you choose to keep.  Need it. Use it. Love it.  It's a pretty good little toolset.

(Original Photo - California Poppies)

Sublime Beauty

It has been raining here in California for the last several days. It is above average rainfall with is a welcome relief from the drought conditions we've been under.  Tonight, after work, after pizza, I went out for a brief walk around the neighborhood.  The sidewalks were slick with a light rain. There was a subtle breeze stirring things about. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves.  It was beautiful, verging on glorious. I walked and I basked in the sights, the sounds and the scents. I am glad I have the ability to enjoy such sublime beauty.

Sunday with the Skeleton Twins

We've gone through a pair of hot days here in California with temps in the mid-nineties. One good thing about the heat at this time of year is that it drops precipitously off when the sun goes down. We lose about 10 degrees an hour, sometimes more, for the first two hours. That is nice because it means the evenings are cool enough to sleep comfortably.

I had a decent day today - met Tyrone for breakfast early, went over and got my car washed, then stopped at the hardware store and the bird store for some odds and ends, including food for the bird tribe that I so enjoy when they are on the patio. After that I came home and spent a lazy afternoon relaxing, unwinding and dodging the heat. 

Oops, I almost forgot that in the middle of it I saw an entertaining movie - The Skeleton Twins.  It was an interesting study on relationships, well acted and enjoyable.  I am going to watch a bit of TV tonight and then curl up with the latest novel I've started - SPQR (a detective story set in ancient Rome).  I had to abandon "The Clockwork Dagger" - it just bogged down badly in the middle.  I may pick it up again later, perhaps when I am in a different mood.

A Trip to Mount Diablo

I took a nice little day trip today, sort of a first road-trip to break in the Jeep.  Don and I drove up to Danville for lunch at Santorini and then, from there, up to the summit of Mount Diablo.  It was a nice drive, a climb of about 3,500 feet from the valley floor to the summit.

 

 

This is the observatory at the top of the mountain.  It is pretty cool, if you are into these old stone type structures, which I happen to be.  The view from the summit is very beautiful, a wide and panoramic view of the entire Bay Area.  The picture below is just one direction...

 

 

From the summit, this view is looking north. The column of smoke you see in the distance is the current wild fire that is burning in Napa Valley - a long, long way away. It is an amazing site to see.  After the trip to the summit, we headed back to San Jose and I got home in time to enjoy a simple dinner and ease into the evening, relaxing as deeply as I can.  My plan tonight is to curl up and read myself to sleep again.

 

I am currently reading this book, which is pretty entertaining...I'd recommend it.

 

 

 

 



I Speak On A Meteorite

It is almost 7 PM Pacific time. I'm sitting in the living room with the golden sun at my back casting parallel lines on the kitchen wall. It's quite beautiful. I'm writing this entry in Dragon, the commercial voice recognition software. I've been using it for about a year with the Logitech headset and microphone. Periodically while I've been using it the wrong word would drop in. Sometimes not just the wrong word but in entirely strange sentence.

I've also taken to using Siri on the iPhone. Something that happened on the iPhone prompted me to take a different approach to Dragon on the computer. I noticed on the iPhone when I was using the voice-recognition software that it was dependent upon the quality of the Bluetooth that I was using. That led me to wonder if Dragon on the computer was dependent on the quality of the microphone.

The answer is yes. I invested about $40 in a meteorite microphone. It's a small relatively high quality microphone. The difference in Dragon, in Dragon's ability to accurately type what I'm saying, is remarkable. In this entire paragraph Dragon has only made one mistake and that wasn't really a mistake but an antonym. Most voice-recognition software struggles with them and generally takes a best guess based on context. If you have a tendency to write in short sentences, or to talk in clipped phrases, it can often miss them. So if you are using Dragon or a similar voice-recognition software I would highly recommend investing a bit of money in a microphone. Though there is probably an upper limit a good microphone seems to make quite a difference.

Let me fill you in on the rest of the day because it was pretty busy. I slept in a bit then drove up to Fremont to meet Tony for breakfast. Tony had to take his new car into the dealership give vacuum valve replaced. So I met him at his apartment and then followed them over to the Ford dealership there in Fremont. We drop the car off and headed over to the Black Bear diner for breakfast.

After breakfast we wandered Fremont a bit. I don't know Fremont very well so when I do drive up there I like to take the side streets and just kind of see where they go. This gives me a better feel for the city. This is how I learned that Tony gives crap directions. The standard set of directions he gives people to get to his apartment take them about 2 miles out of the way.

Anyway, after a bit of driving we swung over to the Fry's electronics there in Fremont, on Osgood, and just walked about the store that. Were both technical geeks so there are plenty of things we can simply look at and dream about when we are in an electronics store. I picked up some odds and ends there while we killed time. We weren't there very long, maybe 45 min., when the dealership called and told Tony his car was ready.

So, I drove him over, dropped him off and then headed south. I stopped at McCarthy Ranch, at a men's clothing store there and bought some new sport coats at a two-for-one sale. I already had a nice selection of sport coats, but they tended toward business casual, that is black or gray or navy. I wanted to pick up some lighter colored sport coats for a little more casual look. I got some very nice ones and am looking forward to wearing them.

From there I went over to the great Mall and met Don for lunch at outback steakhouse. I've been doing really good with my diet the last two weeks so I treated myself to a steak lunch. It was as good as I imagined it would be.

After lunch Don I took a walk through the great Mall just to stretch our legs. That place is always an amazing zoo. The press of humanity is something to see. From there I headed back over to McCarthy Ranch and stopped the Best Buy and it was at the Best Buy that I bought this new microphone.

After the Best Buy I went up to Baylands Park and took a long walk. It was a beautiful day for it that's for sure. After the park I came home with a stop at the drugstore to pick up some odds and ends for next weekend's trip. Then back to the house and a simple dinner of homemade vegetable barley soup. It was outstanding. I have a fairly good recipe and I'll have to post it here online. Right now I am watching the clock tick off the minutes and I am hoping to talk with TR tonight. They are out to a movie so I'm not sure what time they wrap will wrap up.

A Spoon Rattling In A Cup

The sound of a spoon rattling against the rim of a cup of coffee. There is a Zen simplicity in that. Can you be authentically inside the sound?

Obviously, it's been a zen weekend. I'm not sure if the word zen can be used as an adverb. However, it is appropriate to describe how the weekend has been flowing. I dove into the day yesterday. On waking I went through my normal routine shower, coffee, breakfast. Then I immediately went out and did five loads of laundry. It was a little bit cold in the morning, since I'm sure they keep the laundromat heater set at about 60. Still, I love doing laundry. I love the scents. I love the textures. I love the action. There is a purity in it.

After I completed the laundry I came home and started the process of taking my Christmas decorations down. They come down quick, because I've mastered the art of keeping my decorations simple over the years. I enjoyed the Christmas season this year very much. I was able to keep it mostly simple. There was a bit of melancholy as I pulled the decorations down. But the new year is upon us, I'm ready for it, and I suppose redecorating is part of it. Small external changes to reflect small internal changes.

With the Christmas decorations down, I then spent the next hour or so cleaning the patio, sweeping the stairs, and sweeping the landing below. I had an incident with the dustpan. I had just loaded it with the mixed debris from the patio, empty sunflower seeds from the birdfeeder, tiny particles that came off the roof, dead leaves, dust – and I brought it inside the kitchen to put it in the trash. I have one of those dustpan's that's a long stick and stick twisted in my hand. I spilled about a couple of the debris on the kitchen floor. That led to the sweeping and mopping of the kitchen. From there I cleaned the bathroom and made a few incidental adjustments in the living room and kitchen. Sweep the floor. Zen.

After that was done I went out to lunch. I met Richard and Tony at the Sonoma Chicken Coop in Campbell. I had a chicken Cobb salad and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. The salad was very good. The soup not so much. At some point in the last 5 to 10 years someone decided that vegetables in soup need to be al dente. I disagree. The vegetables in soup need to be cooked into the soup. They need to be so tender they nearly disintegrate. They need to melt on your tongue. If you cook them out then take it's not really a soup it's vegetables thrown in broth. The whole purpose of the soup is to intermingle the flavors and create something new. Al dente vegetables simply taste like vegetables. There is no alchemy.

We followed lunch with a walk through downtown Campbell and then sat at Starbucks drinking coffee and talking for the next two hours. Most of the conversation was Rick telling us the tale of his ancestors. I had heard most of it before in various parts, but I think it was a relatively new story for Tony and he seemed to enjoy it. We both encouraged Rick to write the story down, I think there's a great little book in there somewhere. Of course, I have no idea for it can actually write. Still, it's a cool story.

I eventually made my way home, watched an old Vincent Price movie - "The Last Man On Earth", and then in episode of "America Unearthed", then wrap the evening up with a conversation with my tender and beautiful TR. The day finished, I slipped into bed, read for a little while and fell asleep.

I woke up a couple times during the night for no real reason. I actually consider it having been a good night's sleep. I did have a strange dream, though I only remember fragments of it. It involved a giant Eagle, an airport bar that was more like a mountain lodge and a German Shepherd who had taught himself to serve milk bones for breakfast. The subconscious is a strange place.

Another beautiful day is unfolding here in California. I'm about to head out to meet Bob and Tony for breakfast. I'm going to deliver some movies to DJ. And of course, TR is in my mind and in my heart today.

I Watched My Father The Hero

I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM and it felt...right.  My natural body clock wakes me about an hour before sunrise. As we've slid into fall, with sunrise slipping back, waking up at 5:00 or 5:30 AM seemed like I was waking up too early.  So, this morning, when I woke up naturally about an hour before sunrise, it felt perfect.

I had a fairly good day yesterday.  Met the guys for breakfast at the Hickory Pit, then swung by Fry's for a walk through, then out running errands for a couple of hours.  I met Don for lunch at Outback, then swung back home and settled in for a lazy afternoon of watching TV and pizza.  I watched "Shout at the Devil", an old Lee Marvin and Roger Moore movie, set in Africa in WWI.

Then, after a brisk walk through the neighborhood, I settled in and watched one of my favorite movies - the light and delightful comedy "My Father, The Hero" with Gerard Depardieu and Katherine Heigl. It is an American remake of a French film and, personally, I think it is one of the rare cases where the America remake is actually better then the French original, though the original is a good movie as well, I think the America version is lighter and gets the degree of froth just right.

Then, I curled up and read some more in "The Name of the Wind". I am almost to the end, maybe twenty pages away, and I just couldn't make it before I turned off the light and went to sleep.  I fell pretty cleanly to sleep and then, as I mention about, I woke pretty crisply this morning.  I've already eaten breakfast and I am working my way through my morning cup of coffee.

I'm not sure what I am going to do today, but I do feel like getting out and about and doing some wandering in the sun.  This time of year is my favorite time - I love the warm days and cool nights, I love the scents in the air, I love the way fall feels on my skin.  It is a beautiful time of year.

Tiny Instruments of Minor Oppression

The universe is full of tiny instruments of minor oppression.  Cops and traffic tickets are one of them.  I am not anti-cop or anti-traffic tickets.  As an ex-cop I wrote plenty of them.  They are a necessary instrument to impose on people the importance of being conscious of the law and of safety.  So, it is with a sort of wry appreciation that I wanted to tell you this amusing little story.

On Monday, my friend Don and I went up to Mountain View to get lunch.  

As we wove our way back and forth across the street trying to find a restaurant that was open at 11:00 AM, we talked about pedestrian right of way.  In California of course, a pedestrian in the crosswalk has the right of way. Vehicles are expected to yield that right of way.  It was an interesting little sub-conversation that was folded in among other lunch time conversations.

After lunch, we go back to the car, get in, and start the journey back to the office.  Don is driving.  We back out of the parking slot and he starts to inch his way forward, through the somewhat congested intersection.  We are chatting, but I don’t remember what we are chatting about - just conversation.  I am looking to the right at the store fronts as we go by, trying to see what other sort of restaurants are available there in downtown Mountain View.

Don passes very close to a pair of pedestrians on the left hand side, crossing the street toward him.  I actually don’t see them, since I am looking to the right.  I do hear the shout.  I look up, and think it was some guy yelling at Don because Don was a little too close to him.  It is.

Unfortunately for Don “the guy” is a uniformed police officer.  He is yelling for Don to stop.  Don does of course.  The cop approaches and directs Don to pull into a parking lot, where he proceeds to issue him a traffic ticket for “Failure to Yield to a Pedestrian”.  Don is polite, admits his error - but the cop writes the ticket anyway.  

While we are sitting there waiting for him to run the check on license and registration and write out the actual citation, I tell Don that, when I was a cop, we joked their was an imaginary status, called Section 13(c) “Pissing Me Off In Public”. A violation of Section 13(c) would definitely gaurantee you got the ticket.

Combine that with the drive on the part of so many small towns to raise revenue via parking and traffic offenses and there you have it..the tiny instruments of minor oppression.

Here There Be Dragons

Another good day here in San Diego. We decided to head out into the desert and see something that had caught my eye when I read about it a while ago. In the desert near Borrego Springs, California.  There are a set of iron sculptures scattered through the desert - pretty amazing works and well worth the drive.  I only took a handful of pictures, but I thought I would share these two.  The first is a dragon like sea serpent that is over 300 feet long and appears to swim underneath the highway.  This is simply the head of the creature.  The detail is amazing.

 

Pretty incredible detail isn't it. Now, courtesy of Tony, here is the same image, a slightly different angle, and in scale.

 

The scale just makes it all that more impressive.  I have other pictures that I will share as well, once I get them scrubbed a bit and load them into my Flickr account,

A Traveling Day

We were a little late getting out of San Jose this morning, but nothing significant.  We got rolling about six thirty and then Tony had to stop at Kaiser Permanente, then a quick stop at McDonald's for the dreaded sausage biscuit and OJ, which is actually not bad. From there, we were off - there was a bit of fog as we passed east on 152, but nothing too serious.

 By the time we had reached the central valley, the fog vanished and we hopped on 5 South for the bulk of the trip.  We made excellent time all the way, including through LA itself.  It was one of the fastest and smoothest drives to San Diego that I have ever had. 

We stopped at Ricardo's Place in San Juan Capistrano for lunch and the food was truly excellent.  The salsa was incredibly fresh and the enchilada's Capistrano I had were incredibly flavorful.  I followed it up with the flan which was also excellent.  I would highly recommend it if you're in San Juan Capistrano.

From there, it was quick jaunt down into San Diego.  Dinner was a bowl of clam chowder soup, followed by about an hours long nap. Then, I had a great conversation with T.R., during which, as usual, we discussed many things and focused, at the end, on the Mind and the Cosmos. It is an interesting thing to be thinking about as the night slides to a close.

The hotel room is nice (we're at the Hilton in Mission Valley), there is a view of the mountain behind the hotel, which is actually a verdant and lively view, so I am enjoying it.  The beds look comfortable and I am hoping to get a long and sweet nights sleep.  Then, tomorrow, breakfast at Janet's Montana Cafe in Alpine and, hopefully, a quiet and easy day.

Tonight, as I slide into the last part of the evening, I am going to focus on just relaxing, just breathing, and just being.

Dreams and Breakfast

I am sitting in the quiet living room, listening to the drone of an airplane overheard, laying down a carpet of sound periodically punctured by the tweeting of the English sparrows on the deck.  They'r gathered around the bird feeder and as nearly as I can tell they are mostly consumed with kicking seeds at each other.  It seems to be a pastime they all enjoy very much.

I slept well last night, through I dreamed of surviving a tsunami. The Ewan McGregor movie popped into my mind of course, and the Matt Damon one, though my dream had minor variations on theme.  I thought it was an appropriate set of subconscious images hurled at me, especially in regards to the craziness of the project I just spent over a year of my life on - surviving the tsunami.  Every project has casualties - this one had a lot of them. Poor leadership can do that.

Today though, it is a beautiful California day. I am going to take off in a few minutes and meet Ty and Tony at Goodies II on Bascom for breakfast, then we're going to head over to AMC Cupertino to see the new Star Trek movie on IMAX 3D.  I am actually pretty ambivalent going into it.  The first re-imagining by JJ Abrams and crew was outstanding - unfortunately, that sets a pretty high bar for the second one. My fear is that it is going to be more of the same, except louder, flashier, and nakeder.  Not that those are bad things.

Then, after that, I think I am going to circle back home and do some things around the apartment.  I've been feeling the spring cleaning urge for the last couple of weekends, and I've done  a little bit, but I am actually in the mood for a pretty serious shuffle, with trips to the dumpster and the donation center.

Gingerbread House - Cache Creek Casino

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

California Morning Fog

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Cloud Burst

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Camera 7 - Campbell, CA

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T