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Happy 2011 Winter Solstice!
- To: robert-friends
- Subject: Happy 2011 Winter Solstice!
- From: http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)
- Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:54:26 -0800
Happy Winter Solstice!
Here is my latest contact information:
Robert
.
where-I-live
my-Oakland-voicemail-number (voicemail)
our-San-Jose-phone-number
our-Oakland-cell-phone-number (cell)
http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert
My solstice update is below.
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News
Lifestyle
* Careers
* Interacting and getting some output from my input. Beginning this year,
Noelle joined a group to help her find a job. I tagged along and
sometimes give career tips that I learned during the period of 2003-2005
when I was unemployed and looking for work. I don't know if anybody
acted on the advice or not.
* Family
* Lord of the ring. We, after a 3-year hiatus of flying to New
England together, flew to my brother's wedding mid-September. I
ended up being the best man which, it turned out, was a very minor
role is rather brief ceremony -- which was fine by me. We were
there only for a little over one week, but we managed to visit a
lot of people and do a lot of stuff. (Leaf peeping was difficult
since it was a little early for the fall colors.) A number of photos
were taken and are posted at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/sets/72157627616690711/ .
* No minor character. My blood-related grandmother, Beatrice Minor,
died this year. She had been having health problems for a while and
entered a hospice program. So, it was no great surprise. It's
always sad when any living thing ends its life, but I think many in
my family felt a particular closeness to this woman due to what we saw
in ourselves.
* Home
* The rainbow of mold. After living in our place for a year, the mold
in our laundry room near the rear door kept turning a darker and darker
shade. We invited someone to look at it and, after agreeing on the
most conservative treatment, they pulled apart part of the wall and
determined that the problem was emanating from a water spout on the
roof. Due to severe water damage, all the wood around the door and
down to the basement was replaced -- an annoying, but necessary,
maintenance repair.
* Garden
* Getting the booty before the birds do. Our persimmons tree produced
a lot of fruit this year, probably due to all the rain fall earlier
in the year. Unfortunately, it has turned into a race to acquire
the fruits before the birds poke and prod at them and render them
inedible. The birds seem to have more time to interact with the
tree than we do, putting us at a disadvantage.
* Neighborhood
* The people that you meet each day. We went to a party in early May
at a neighbor we met last year at our housewarming. It gave us a
chance to meet more people in our neighborhood, which was good. Now
we get to say more than just "hi" when we see 'em at the weekend
Farmers Market.
* Pets
* Our kitten has grown up. Our cat (Gary) has begun catching,
killing, and eating wildlife: rats and birds. This was troublesome
alone, but he started bringing the rats and birds into the house.
First, he brought a bird into the bedroom and it flew around
frantically. It ended up hurting itself by flying into the ceiling.
Thankfully, we were able to put it outside. Second, he caught a
bird in the middle of the night. Noelle heard it and coaxed Gary to
let the bird go. Noelle put the bird in a box and brought it into
the Wildlife Center (http://www.wcsv.org ) the next day. The bird
recovered at the center for 2 months and then it was released into
the wild.
* Transportation
* Bicycle
* A spoke too soon. I've begun to wonder if I made the right choice
when I decided to purchase a hybrid-style bicycle rather than a
mountain bike. I broke my spokes twice this year (3 spokes in
total -- 2 the first time, 1 the second time), both times were the
rear wheel. I don't have the tools to remove the freewheel and
thus ended up taking my bike to the shop each time. I am just
hoping at this point that all the weak spokes have already broke
and remaining ones are strong.
* Shouldering the wheel. 21 years is a long time for a bicycle. It
was not unexpected, therefore, that the rear wheel would start to
fall apart. Split between buying a new wheel for this old thing and
getting a "preowned" wheel, I opted for the used wheel. Unable to
find an exact wheel that would fit, I found that someone was
selling a newer version of the same Trek bicycle I have. The bike
was reasonably priced and I think I will be able to use its parts
as my old bike slowly deteriorates.
* Health
* Yoga
* Sky Captain and a world of pain. The term "aerial yoga" sounded
strange to me. I kept imagining people stretching on airplanes or
maybe on trapeze. Noelle wanted to give this form of yoga a try and
there was a free class offered in October. We were put on the waiting
list but managed to get in. Then, I discovered what aerial yoga was.
It's basically elastic hammocks where you can do various poses. Some
of the stretches were great, some were tricky, and others were
painful. But, it was a very good experience.
* Gym
* The gift that keeps on taking. I discovered earlier this year
that my gym (which will remain nameless) was charging me $33 for a
membership I had thought that I had cancelled. When I renewed my
membership, it was suggested that the best way to do this was to
register for a new membership and to cancel my old membership,
which I had believed was done. This particular gym has a policy
to use my registered credit card to pay for my membership until I
have it cancelled. I tried my best to get my money back from the
3 months in which the money was paid, but was told that it's
impossible because of the previous membership document contract
that I had signed. Despite paying this gym an extra $99, I kept
my membership at this gym because it's really the only game in
town.
* Eyes
* Treking down the prescribed path. After getting a new pair of
eyeglasses, I found that I couldn't see well out of 'em. That
discovery started a series of events (which are not yet resolved).
I went back to the optometrist who told me that my prescription
had changed within a period of 4 weeks. She suggested I see an
ophthalmologist, which I did. He put me through a battery of
tests and found very few problems. He referred me to another
ophthalmologist who also put me through more tests. Nothing
significant was found. She sent me to my primary doctor to see if
I had diabetes. I didn't. Eventually, the first ophthalmologist
admitted that there was no explanation and that that I will
probably have to live with having a varying prescription. (Which,
I suppose, means that I may have to have a cache of eyeglasses to
choose from, depending upon the state of my eyes that day.)
* Spine
* What a pain in the neck. In late December 2010 and early January,
I started experiencing neck pain. I went to a doctor, got
physical therapy, and it was concluded that my neck pain was due
to stress. I continue to do exercises each morning, along with my
back pain exercises and leg pain exercises to keep it under
control. At this rate, I figure that, by the time I'm 70, I'm
going to spend 100% of my day doing exercises and stretching just
to stay ahead of all my health problems.
* Ears
* I'm so dizzy my head is spinning. My vertigo came back again.
The dizziness I experienced a few years ago taught me how to deal
with this recurrence. Because it is stubbornly not easy to get rid
of, I am going to a doctor to help figure out what's going on.
* People
* Missing persons. Last solstice message, some messages bounced. I no
longer have email addresses for these people:
Clayton Glad
Louise Zivnuska
Bruce Moreland
If you're in contact with any of these people, please tell them that
I am missing their email addresses.
* Nice day to start again. Noelle and I attended our friend's wedding
ceremony. We never imagined that these people would get married, but
they did. We met a number of nice and interesting people and it was
fun. The location was very convenient -- we took the light rail to get
there!
Entertainment
* Movies
* DVDs by mail. My Netflix queue, as always, is available via an RSS feed
at http://tinyurl.com/qu8lj (a.k.a.
http://rss.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=P8598597045281752300300559819027949 ).
Our Netflix instant queue is available from
http://rss.netflix.com/QueueEDRSS?id=P8598597045281752300300559819027949 .
* Beyond DVDs. All my Movielens ratings are available at
http://tinyurl.com/robertsmovielens . There are a number of movies
which are not on Movielens but which I have seen and rated on
http://robertb.filmaster.com/?f=ratings .
* Music
* A spell of resurrection. Our stereo began dying. This was an old
audio receiver that I had bought as part of a company bonus back
in 2001. It would crack and bang the speakers and then just stop
working for a while. We found a strange little shop stuck in an
industrial park in the middle of nowhere in where-I-live. I provided
Noelle with a cut-off amount for how much I'd be willing to pay
for repair and it was just below it -- the border between getting
it repaired and replacing it with a new unit. Remarkably, they
managed to fix this thing and it works better than ever.
* Books
* Moore trouble than ever. Noelle and I listened to Michael Moore's
new book "Here Comes Trouble" in its entirety on audio CD while
driving down to Santa Barbara. It is surprisingly gripping and
funny and interesting and inspirational. We even decided to re-rent
"Roger and Me" on DVD just to listen to the commentary for the film.
(There was a lot of overlap in his comments in the film and some parts
of the book. I'm glad we listened to the book first, however, because
it provided a lot of context to the comments.)
Politics/Society
* Economics
* Revolution number 99 percent. We spectated the first Occupy San
meeting, just sitting on or by our bikes/trikes. Noelle
visited their encampment a few times and joined their electronic
mailing list. We did participate in a vigil against the National
Defense Authorization Act, along with some activists, since they
conveniently marched right to our turf (where-I-live's Japantown).
Technology
* Computers
* Software
* PC
* Minty fresh apples. After procrastinating on upgrading the old
version of Ubuntu on Noelle's Mac Mini to the latest version and
researching some alternatives, I decided to take the plunge and
move her to a Debian-based rolling release so that I will never
have to upgrade her computer software ever again. Linux Mint
fit the bill. It took a bit to get everything up and working
after the installation, but now it's fine and I don't have to
touch it -- it just takes care of itself.
* Hardware
* Taking a stand. As discussed last year, I bought an Acer Aspire.
The keyboard totally sucks. I kept trying to think about how to solve
the problem of the bad keyboard, and came up with the idea that I
wanted to use an external keyboard. I first figured that a lap desk
with a laptop stand would work. Mounting a laptop stand on one of
these lap desks, however, would have various sorts of problems.
What I ended up doing was just buying an Allsop laptop stand,
drilling some holes on the flat part of the legs, and tiewrapping
them to a cork tray that we had laying around. Works great -- a
sensible keyboard, finally.
* PC
* Power to the PC, power to the PC right on. The power supply on
my Dell desktop died. After much searching, I concluded that
there was no way to repair it. I ended up buying a replacement
computer (Zotac ZBox Plus) and installed Linux Mint. It took me
a couple of weeks to get everything restored -- I was dragged
kicking and screaming into the modern age. Everything (except
the video) is USB-based and it's much easier to swap out
components that way. It is my main computer, which I use for
text-based email and so on (I don't use the GUI, even though
Linux Mint comes with a satisfactory one). Because this unit is
based on the Intel Atom, it uses far less power than my old
computer. I'm pretty happy with it.