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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ News Lifestyle * Careers * Economic indicators. For a while, a friend and I were running a weekly, then a bi-weekly, then a monthly, and then a bi-monthly job search group. Eventually, nobody would show up. We figure that the economy is just too good now. So, we closed shop, for the most part. We give a disclaimer that if anyone wants to meet, just to shoot us a message. So far, nobody has taken up the offer. * Peeling away team mates. Over the last year, our group at work lost 2 people: one was laid off (never got a good explanation of why) and the other left. It's an unfortunate situation because, until we get some replacements, there's precious little time beyond just fixing software bugs. * Health * Back * The spine's fine. In the twilight of my back problems and subsequent surgery, I have been in less pain than I have in years. I still use a rolling backpack for carrying my things to work when taking the light rail and ride my bike to work on the other days. I'm back in business! * Exercise * Things won't be great when you're downtown. Our downtown fitness center/health club/gym closed. It was extremely convenient for us; we could ride there and do our workouts. It hit me the hardest since I could no longer take Aikido classes at night or ride there before work for a workout. We hardly ever go downtown any more except for the occasional film movie. I've been using the spartan weight room at work and I have yet to find an Aikido replacement. * Living notoriously. Hot off the heels of RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) mania last year, Noelle got a few 2019 RBG Workout Calendars. I brought one to work. It's hanging next to my desk. While the stretches and exercises look inspirational, I haven't done them. (I usually do my canonical exercises, 'tho.) For my calendar at work for next year, Noelle got me the 2020 Museum of Bad Art calendar, with the masterwork of my great uncle, Ted Cate, on the cover, Swamp Picnic. You can see it here: https://www.massbaytrading.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BMM1012 * Insurance * The greatest health care system on earth. Wikipedia says that flexible spending accounts were an invention of IRS spurred by a 1978 law. My impression is that it is one of many workarounds to a very broken medical care system. Last year, I made my estimates and set aside some money, but it was apparently too much. I kept worrying about it, looking for things that were eligible to spend money on. My back-up plan was to spend it on hearing aids, despite having only minor hearing loss. I ended up going wild by buying prescribed eyeglasses frames and got it below the $500 roll-over amount. * Home * Fixing a hole where the rain got in. Or, rather, fixed. The flat part of our foam roof was resealed. It was only earlier this year that I found out from the roof repair person that you're supposed to have it resealed every 6 years or so. (My web searches had said 10 years.) Which explained why we kept getting annoying roof leaks. There haven't been any major rain incidents yet, but I'm hopeful that this problem is behind us. * A nine year endeavor. Ivy started to crawl up the sides of our garage. While pulling it down, loads of paint came off. It was 9 years ago that the home inspector said that we needed to have the garage painted. I finally thought it was time. We hired a handywoman to paint it. It took her several weeks during the summer, she did a great job, and it was likely much cheaper than hiring professional painters (if I could even hire any since it's impossible to get painters and contractors these days). * Garden * Goodbye prunes, welcome business park. A south bay institution, Orchard Supply Hardware, finally closed its doors for good. There were liquidation sales. Almost everything useful was sold, but we managed to find a single lime tree. We bought it and we planted it in our back yard. It's already produced a few fruits so far. We're already looking forward to mojitos, gin and tonics, and lots of thai food. * Family * The talk. Or one of many, I suppose. We began the awkward discussion about finances with my parents. It started out slowly and has expanded over time. Now, we're trying to hold a meeting once per month, with an agenda and action items. * Travel * Not too hot yoga. In early May, we drove to a retreat spa called Wilbur Hot Springs north of Sacramento. The stay involved yoga classes, rest and relaxation, and hot springs, of course. For me, it was just a tiny bit of yoga and lots of rest and relaxation. The whole grounds is off the grid (solar power) and there was no electricity (well, no power outlets, at least) and no internet. So, other than just the general worry about computers going berserk in my absence, relaxation was the only option. I had the luxury of sleeping 12 hours a day and getting lots of reading done (finally finishing "Man in the High Castle"). * Fog City. It's always a crap shoot when going out to sea off the San Francisco and Marin counties. Sometimes a whale, sometimes a porpoise, sometimes sea fowl, sometimes just fog. This time out to the Farallon Islands, it was fog. For the long boat trip out, we were told to dress for winter; I think it would've been more appropriate to have dressed for a strong rain storm since every wave hit dumped lots of water onto the deck of the boat. (I tried my best to stay off the deck.) Eventually, through the fog, we could see some rocks sticking out of the ocean and some wild life flying and crawling on top of them. (Humans are not allowed on the islands themselves.) On the way back, we did manage to see a whale and some porpoises, which was nice. You can see pics at https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157710124072887 * Alone to the Land of Enchantment. Noelle was needed by her work during the Thanksgiving holiday. But, because I felt that I could help out my parents and I actually had some free time, I decided to trek to . I got a lot done there. I managed to make their email more useful on their smart phones and completed an inventory of their storage unit. * An old stuck in the mud. The day after landing in , while driving to my parents' place, we decided to take a look at a piece of land in Belen, , that my parents own. It was well off the beaten path. After driving 45 minutes, about 30 minutes of which were on dirt roads, we reached it. It was rather nondescript. (See https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/49154786503/ for an example.) After snapping some pics, we were on our way. Or, at least, we thought. The GPS decided to take us out the other way. We obeyed. We had encountered a few mud spots during arrival and we encountered different mud spots on the way back. By driving fast, the first one was fine; driving fast through the second one didn't work. I was driving and thought I had control, but the car just slipped off to the left no matter what I did. We slammed into 12-inch mud going at about 40 mph. I opened my driver's side door and saw that the mud came right up to the door. So, I slipped off my sandals and socks and proceeded outside. My feet sunk into the mud and it spread over my pant bottoms. I examined the front of the car and the back and concluded that there was no way it's getting out of there. * Clay feet. Thankfully, our phones had connectivity, and my dad was able to call AAA. They said that they'd be there in 45 minutes. I then proceeded to spend the next hour (they were late) trying to get this mud off my feet. At the time, I didn't know that this was clay mud which, besides being quite slippery, sticks onto everything, including tires. We saw the AAA tow truck coming down the road. I suppose the driver was thinking that they could just drive right by the car so it could be pulled from the front. We saw it go whizzing by and plunked right into the mud on the other side of the road. The driver tried and tried to get the truck unstuck, but no luck. The driver called his AAA-mates and they agreed to send out two more trucks to pull everybody out. Recall that we were in the middle of nowhere; we were happy that we still had cell connectivity because it would have been a 8 mile walk to get to civilization. Two hours later, after getting lost, two trucks show up to unstick us: an SUV and a dinky tow truck. * Pay dirt. The dinky tow truck alone wasn't sufficient to get the car out -- the car kept slipping off from the middle of the road into the mud again. The tow guy ended up jury rigging a system where a pulley was connected to the SUV and the dinky tow truck would pull the tow cable. Eventually, the tow cable ran out. At that point, both the tow truck and the SUV drove forward to pull the car to the dry part of the road. Five hours later after first getting stuck, we were ecstatic that the car got out. See pics at https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/49183715642/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/49183513296/ . * Not yet out of the woods. We were instructed to drive slowly out of there along the dirt roads. Once we hit a paved road, it dawned on us that there was a serious problem: the car would violently shake if it went over 40 mph. In the hopes that it would clear itself up, we kept it at 40 mph on the highway; we put the flashing hazard lights on. After the first hour, we realized that it was not going to fix itself. We got off at a random exit and, in the deep dark night, tried chipping away at the mud encrusted on the wheels. That didn't work. At a rest stop an hour later, we tried again. And, again, no improvement. Going 40 mph all the way to my parents's house took about 4 hours. To pass the time, we sang along while listening to the Beatles Sirius channel. Breakfast was our only meal for the day. Despite that, we had just a small snack before collapsing into bed. * Finance * Unsafe at any speed. After all that trouble to get that Bank of America temporary credit card service working again last year, they just ended up closing up shopsafe. So, now, Abine Blur is my only source of temporary cards, and, in comparison, it is a lousy (expensive, inconvenient) service. Unless I take the bold step of opening up a Capital One to use its virtual card service, I am bound to using regular credit cards. * Food * The plant-based pizza has come of age. A new pizza place opened in our neighborhood. And, amazingly, they have a vegan pizza. In fact, the places I know with an option of a vegan pizza numbers in the tens at this point. Progress. Entertainment * Spoken word * Knocking on doors for democrats. That was the topic of Charlie Varon's first story. Monologists Charlie Varon and Brian Copeland put on a spoken word "political comedy" show in mid-August. It thoughtfully highlighted the great divides in our country. It spurred a lot discussion afterwards. * Outdoors * Whisky a-go-go-going. I'm always happy to be sipping on a good scotch. And there was plenty to go around at the Scottish Gathering in early September. Noelle had been planning to go and I decided to join her this year. I was trepidatious about tagging along since, unlike her, I wouldn't know anybody and would be hanging out at the McPherson clan tent (I have no Scottish background). They seemed very accepting, however. Noelle entered the McPherson raffle and won a bottle of excellent Glen Moray and shared part of it with the "cousins", as is the tradition. It was delicious and fun. * Music * Cramped and cold. Or maybe it was cold and cramped. Noelle found out that solo rock artist Robyn Hitchcock was playing in Santa Cruz late in December 2018. She, of course, had to see him. We got there early, got to drink some booze, and found good seats which we guarded with our lives. It got very, very crowded at the bar/club. Despite this, we could hear the music quite clearly. And despite the crowdedness, it remained cold inside the bar, which was bit unpleasant. It was a relief that we had a warm, cozy hotel room to crash at afterwards. * Art * A hop to a misty mountain. Minus the misty part, I guess. At the very least, it was quite cold at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga in mid-February. I probably could've brought more padding for Bruce Munro's Stories in Light show. It was very interesting and impressive. Suffering through the cold was worth it. Politics/Society * Ecology/Environment * Misc * Striking against the climate? I'm not sure who came up with the name "global climate strike" since it doesn't really make sense. (Maybe "global climate catastrophe strike"?) In any case, we took the day off from work to participate in the Global Climate Strike on September 20. This primarily involved marching (walking) with a bunch of young people for a few miles and then ending up at a rally at where-I-live city hall plaza. Of course, it was encouraging at the time, but it seemed like everyone just went back to what they were doing before: expending energy to make more stuff that ends up in the ocean or a landfill. * Labor * Those who cannot remember the past. In mid-July, in a small setting, I and a few comrades gave a presentation (called a "learning club") on the History of Unions and Unionization in Tech in conjunction with the Tech Workers Coalition (TWC). We did research and developed slides and discussion points. Interestingly, I myself learned a lot and we had a stimulating conversation during and after the presentation. Technology * Computers * Software * PC * A failure to reboot. It had been months since I had rebooted my laptop. I never felt the need since I had been using the same kernel for a while. One day, I figured that I may as well give it a try. Big mistake. Although it booted fine, the UI would not come up again. I struggled with it for hours, trying to figure out how to get my UI back, swapping out parts and rebooting over and over again. Eventually, I found a tiny configuration item (the equivalent of a variable in a Windows registry) that was referencing a windows manager that had long ago been deprecated. I reset the value so that it take on the default and all was good again. The lesson? Reboot early and reboot often. * Beware the upgrade. All my email broke in early October when Debian released a security fix for openssl. It turned that fetchmail continued to use the old ssl (tls) protocol, despite the underlying library being upgraded. Fixing most account information just involved a few changes to the openssl configuration files. However, for my mail server, because my self-signed certificate had such a short key (which were no longer supported), this involved generating a new certificate, key, and distributing the key to the clients -- something that I had to re-learn. * Hardware * PC * Linux * The elusive reliable kernel. Sad to say, I've grown to distrust the Linux kernel. Back in September, I started having problems with sleep and hibernation, both on my work machines and my home machines. I kept thinking that it was packages installed and scripts that were or were not being run, either while going to sleep or waking up from it. It turned out to be the kernel all along; only with the right kernel would sleep mode work. All these years, I had trusted the kernel to work from upgrade to upgrade. It never dawned on me that basic operations would start to break. I kept rebooting and switching kernels until I found the ones I could rely upon. Now I have a cron job which downloads every single revision of every kernel in case I ever have to roll back to or roll up to a particular version which "just works". * Mac * Hit the road, Mac. The Mac Mini that Noelle had been using for years kept getting slower and less robust. Software kept assuming that there were more resources available when there were not. We had to switch it out. I had brought an Asus Mini PC in October, but it wasn't until late December that I worked on the project to replace the Mac. It was less difficult than I thought it would be and, using clonezilla, I could have the result be identical to the original, except much faster and with much more disk space. * Internet * The fright of losing your email address. Noelle had had the same email address for many years. In early April, email started not being delivered. Thinking we were very clever, we logged into her alumni account to see if we could fix it. email is controlled by Google. We were surfing around trying to figure out what was wrong when, suddenly, Google locked us out. Not only could we no longer log in but no email would be forwarded again. Over the next several days, I was on the phone, fighting with the Cal bureaucracy trying to get this email address reinstated. It was Kafkaesque in its magnitude, being shuffled from one office to another. I was quite exhausted and relieved when it was all over.