Happy 2013 Winter Solstice!

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

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
http://www.

My solstice update is below.

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News

Lifestyle
  * Careers
    * Merger mania.  In June, the start-up I was working for was acquired by
      forcesales.com.  The company made the decision to move to San Francisco,
      resulting in a commute from where-I-live to San Francisco.  The benefits
      were great and I enjoyed the agile software development process, but,
      after 3 months, I was unable to tolerate the commute and felt compelled
      to move on.
    * I hope Neil Young will remember.  And, so, I'm back working in the south
      again -- the south bay, that is.  My commute is again pleasant and I'm
      working in a field I've been wanting to work in for a while: fighting
      spam.  It actually is a horizontal move from big data analytics to
      computer security, which is one of the many interests I have.
  * Family
    * We, oui.  Noelle's cousins visited from France in late summer and
      I took some time off from work to help Noelle entertain them.
      They had their minds set on doing the most touristy things in the
      Bay Area, for better or worse.  What this ended up meaning is
      that, despite my commuting there, spending a lot of time in San
      Francisco on my days off.  A lot of time was spent hanging out at
      the piers and parks.  It was an opportunity to visit Alcatraz,
      which I had never done.  I was happy when we were taken out to a
      vegetarian restaurant, Greens Restaurant.  We hadn't been there in
      years and it was very good.  Pictures can be seen at
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/sets/72157634975251872/
    * Little big bro.  My brother Chris visited us in early fall, a few
      years since his last visit.  Amy, his wife, came along.  Chris was
      flexible and open to doing almost anything, and Amy had a handful
      things she wanted to do, such as hitting the shopping malls.  The
      main event was going to Carmel, 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, and
      Santa Cruz.  We managed to go biking with Chris.  We also tagged
      along to eat dinner in Menlo Park at Amy's cousins.  Pictures can
      be seen at
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/sets/72157636123501226/
      and
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_chris_bear/sets/72157636300085804/
  * Home
    * Ever deterioration.  We made a couple of attempts to address some issues
      with the house: bolting the foundation and replacing the furnace.  It was
      suggested that we not bother bolting the foundation since the structure
      was already pretty good and probably wasn't worth the investment.  We
      got an estimate for replacing the currently functional gas furnace.
      After discovering the cost and the annoyance involved, we decided to
      wait until the furnace bites the dust before considering a replacement.
      And, of course, I didn't work on any major home projects since I don't
      do hardware.
  * Transportation
    * Bicycle
      * Those damn tight hamstrings.  Thanks to Noelle, I attended
        "Yoga for Cyclists" in March.  It was pretty gentle, which was good
        since I'm not terribly flexible.  Unfortunately, I think I forgot
        almost everything that was taught.  I guess yoga teachers make a
        living from people with bad memories, like me.
      * Tearin' through tubes.  I must push my bicycles too hard.  I
        don't know how people in other countries can put huge piles of
        stuff on their bikes and not constantly have problems with them.
        In any case, in my life this year, I broke 2 rear spokes on 2
        separate occasions requiring 2 separate visits to the bike shop
	and went through 4 tubes and 2 tires on 2 different bikes.
	Thankfully, nothing worse has happened so far, nothing that
	would demand my buying replacement bicycles.
  * Travel
    * Caves and rock faces.  On our return from Thanksgiving in Santa
      Barbara, we made a couple of stops at Pinnacles National Park.
      The first day, we entered on the west side during late afternoon
      and did a short hike.  After our non-strenuous hike, we ate some
      Mexican food in Soledad.  The next day, we drove to the east side
      early in the morning and stomped around the park, visiting caves,
      reservoirs, and climbers scaling cliffs.  See pictures at
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/sets/72157638269655146/
    * Dully staring at a wall.  In a vision, I imagined a vacation where
      I would do absolutely nothing -- no phone, no internet, no
      screens, not even reading material.  I also wanted to go back to
      Clear Lake in northern Ca.  Although I eventually gave up
      on concept of omitting the reading material, I did, after much
      research, find a place which did not have cable nor a television
      and didn't have internet.  (There was cell phone service.)  It was
      a good 3 days, and I did manage to do some things other than stare at
      the cabin walls.  We brought a camera and photos can be had at
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/sets/72157633498318007/
    * Old stomping grounds.  We made a couple of trips to  this year.
      One time was to visit friends, and other was to hop a trip to a San
      Francisco event (see Comedy below) and Noelle's co-op alumni group.
      Both times, we tried to visit as many people in the area as possible.
  * Food
    * Mon cherry.  Changing our ways this year, we decided to go to the cherry
      tasting at Andy's Orchard this year, instead of our usual stone fruit
      (apricots, peaches, plums, pluots, and nectarines).  It was a nice
      change, but Andy's was completely mobbed.  Andy's even had to implement
      new crowd-control policies to prevent things getting out of control.
    * Not just like home.  We've eaten out an unusually large number of times
      this year.  It's amazing how much more expensive eating out is -- I
      guess I had just forgotten.  Anyway, I'm hoping we can dine at home more
      next year.
  * Health
    * Sleep
      * What ever happened to Pavlov's dogs?  In an attempt to get a non-waking
        night of sleep, I tried Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to smooth
        out my sleep.  In particular, I tried sleep restriction where I went to
        sleep as late as I could bear yet wake up at the same time, and slowly
        back off sleep start time.  While keeping a sleep diary, I did
        indeed "compress" my sleep hours where my middle-of-the-night
        insomnia became shorter.  But, I ended up still feeling sleepy way
        before I was allowed to go to sleep; the only way I could avoid
        "resting my eyes" was watching TV -- which got dull real quickly.
	Ultimately, I gave up and accepted my old sleep pattern.
	http://m.livescience.com/12891-natural-sleep.html says it may be
	normal, anyway.
    * Ears
      * Come again?  I returned to my audiologist to get a follow-up hearing
        test.  I still have hearing loss at the higher end.  Despite this,
        my vertigo, with daily maintenance, has been held under control.
  * People
    * Missing persons.  I continue to 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.
  * Miscellaneous
    * Mazel tov.  I had never been to a mitzvah ceremony before this year.
      This one happened to be a bat mitzvah for the daughter of some of our
      friends.  We gave a modest gift (3 trees planted in Israel) and the
      ceremony was interesting, if not a bit confusing.  Despite my being
      unable to eat anything at the evening party, I think I managed to have
      some fun.  I was happy to listen to stories from the extended family
      during the brunch the next day.

Entertainment        
  * Movies
    * Unleash.  Despite there being nothing particular concerning animals,
      this year's Cinequest's theme was "Unleash".  There were a number of
      movies this year that we wanted to see, but we only saw a handful.
      Most of them never end up in Netflix nor listed in Movielens, but I
      keep trying, just so that I can rate the movies and share my opinions.
      (I'm so Web 2.0 .)
    * Other flix.   All my Movielens ratings are available at
      http://tinyurl.com/robertsmovielens .  You can see my Netflix queue
      at http://tinyurl.com/nosnetflixqueue .  Unfortunately, there's no way
      to share our Netflix instant watch queue (a.k.a. My List) any more.
  * Music
    * The Biological Foundations of Music.  Noelle wanted to indulge in
      the free beer, I wanted to indulge in the geekiness.  There is a
      meetup/event called TechXploration which presents talks on techy
      topics.  For some reason, Vijay Iyer, Jazz musician and former
      neuroscientist, was featured.  It was a pretty fascinating talk
      and the music was interesting, but I definitely would not consider
      it a technical talk.
  * Books
    * Not better late and certainly not never.  After 4 years, I finally
      managed to finish the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt during
      our toned-down vacation in Clear Lake.  (I also started reading
      "Dreaming in Code", but only got half-way through; probably another
      4 years before I finish it.)
  * Comedy
    * The final sinking.  Cinematic Titanic had its farewell tour at The
      Castro Theater mid-October.  We were lucky enough to buy the
      tickets early so we could get in.  We even got to shake Joel's
      hand.  (We did wash them afterwards, 'tho.)
  * Outdoors
    * Keep climbing.  Earlier in the year, we enthusiastically participated
      in regular group hikes.  However, this has tapered off a bit, probably
      partly to avoid the "death marches" of the power-hikers.
  * Theater
    * Boiled down mimes.  There was bittersweet quality to seeing this year's
      SF Mime Troupe.  On the one hand, I was elated to see them after missing
      them last year.  On the other hand, I was saddened that they were forced
      into a reduced and truncated show due to severe budget constraints.
      (This year's show was "Oil & Water" about big oil and the environment,
      always a family favorite.)

Politics/Society
  * Voting/Elections
    * None of the above.  Our County Supervisor, George Shirakawa, had a
      heap of problems, including embezzling public funds and gambling
      his campaign donations.  In disgrace, he resigned, was sentenced
      to jail, and his seat became available and a special election was
      organized.  There were a bevy of people running for the open seat
      in the primary, I decided on a candidate that I liked, and voted
      for her.  As usual, my preferred candidate did not win.  I did not
      like any of the finalists in the general election, and write-ins
      were not allowed.  As a protest, I cast my ballot completely
      blank.  I doubt doing this made any difference, but it made me
      feel slightly better.
        
Technology
  * Computers
    * Hardware
      * Mac
        * Boy, you're gunna carry that weight a long time.  Fearing the
	  impending damage, I got around to strapping down Noelle's Mac
	  Mini to the desktop so that an earthquake won't cause us to
	  lose the whole thing and all its data.  Only time will tell
	  whether the effort was worth it.
  * Internet
    * Is it ver-izon or veri-zon?  I had about had it with my wireless USB
      modem and decided to order a replacement, assuming that I had had one
      that was failing.  I got one off eBay and it worked great.  But, after
      I got it, I discovered that I had misconfigured the old one and that's
      what was causing all my problems: I had disabled "Global" mode, which
      allows roaming from strict 4G.  So, now I've got two modems, one of which
      I need to "fix" once I get some time.