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Happy 2020 Winter Solstice!



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
  * Health
    * Miscellaneous
      * My Year of Living Pandemicly.  Definitely not fit for the big
        screen (whatever "big screen" means these days).  I was amazed
        that, in writing my update this year, that it was early
        January when we first started worrying about a viral
        infection.  Various government agencies waited until March
        before tamping everything down.  It's probably that everybody
        thought it was going to be like H1N1 and just fizzle out.  As
        you all know, it didn't.  Since COVID-19 seems to have
        engulfed all of our lives, my update below is sprinkled with
        references to the illness.
      * A mask movement.  Early April was when the CDC recommended
        wearing face coverings when social and physical distance
        cannot be maintained.  (This around the time when "3 feet"
        became "6 feet" as the recommended distance.)  (See our cat
	watching our governor advocating for mask use at
	https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50710034638/in/datetaken/
	).  I began with some handkerchiefs we had sitting around.
	Noelle had a fancier handkerchief and I used them.  I
	graduated to masks with the ear loops when Noelle bought me
	one from an online store (see
	https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50232731808/in/photolist-2jwTT5U-2jwU4b5
	).  We now have accumulated a cache of masks, each of which
	with its own flavor and flair.
    * Exercise
      * Spicing it up with a big gym.  After the closing of our
        downtown gym last year and upon the end of our transferred
        membership to the inconvenient location, we tried out
        different clubs.  At the beginning of the year, we finally
        settled upon one that is more expensive and much larger,
        including a pool and racketball courts.  While we are happy
        with our decision, we only got to use it for a couple of
        months before local ordinances due to the pandemic temporarily
        closed it.  It reopened briefly for about a month between
        mid-October and mid-November, but it is closed again.  Don't
        know when or if it will reopen.
      * Long live notoriously!  Sadly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) died
        this year.  But, we continue to remember her by doing her
        exercises.  Since COVID closed our gym, we kept an exercise
        routine by spenting the spring, summer, and some of the fall
        outside in the back yard doing exercises from her RBG Workout
        book, laying out mats on the lawn.  Luckily, we already had a
        number of needed props (therabands, swiss ball) since getting
        those were difficult due to short supplies.  It was hard to
        keep focused, 'tho, with all the wildlife and plants to look
        at.
    * Ears
      * An amplifier in hand is worth two in the bush.  The quarantine
        has been good for those becoming hard of hearing.  I am able
        to make the speakers arbitrarily loud during my, now,
        numerous work and non-work meetings.  At some point, I do plan
        to try out a hearing aid in the anticipation that I'll be
        meeting people face-to-face again in noisy (read: restaurants,
        bars, clubs) environments.
  * Careers
    * Sometimes I forget.  Forget how my cubicle was laid out, with
      the chair, keyboard, monitor, books, calendar.  I haven't seen
      it since March 12, the last day I was there.  We were told to
      stay away from the office.  Since then, we received many memos
      about plans to allow us to return to the office, but nothing has
      materialized.  To be honest, presently, I feel no urgency to
      return.  I've grown accustomed to working remotely and I've
      adapted my schedule to work this way.  It would be difficult for
      me to return to the weekly schedule that I had before.
  * Home
    * Never break the chain.  We've always had problems with lost
      mail, but this year has been worse than ever.  First, there were
      checks written out to us that got lost.  Then, it was the credit
      card bills and financial statements.  For the checks, I
      submitted a formal complaint, but USPS never found the missing
      mail.  Luckily, I was able to get replacement checks sent again.
      I absolutely blame the Trump administration's Louis DeJoy and
      his disastrous policies.  Too bad we all suffer when government
      services are slowly wittled away with the aim to foster
      disappointment and distrust.
    * Driving a hard barter.  Since everyone's stuck at their homes,
      they all have had time to actually see the fruit fall from their
      trees.  At least, that's why I think so many people in our
      neighborhood participated in fruit exchanges.  The exchange
      became routine: we would pick some persimmons or whatever, place
      them in a box in front of the house, make an announcement on
      Nextdoor, and, a few hours later, the box is emptied.  Very smooth.
  * Transportation
    * Commuting
      * A moving ghost town.  By early March, people had disappeared
        from my Light Rail commute.  After Cisco told its employees to
        work at home, nobody was there to pack onto the train cars and
        then spill out onto the narrow platform with me.  Of course,
        it was convenient since I could easily find a seat, but it was
        also a bit creepy.  Eventually, I did join other commuters in
        abstaining from public transit and even bicycling to work.
        Unfortunately.
  * Travel
    * There are oaks, too.  Yes, there were sycamores at Sycamore
      Mineral Springs but there were other trees as well.  We stopped
      there on a trip to Santa Barbara in late January.  We were lucky
      to take a vacation before the coronavirus made taking vacations
      much trickier.  We did know about the disease then and there
      were some attempts at keep apart from strangers.  Despite the
      tension, we did get to enjoy some mixed drinks, some wine, some
      food, some hiking, and some reading.  Noelle got to do some
      yoga, too.  See pics at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157712929026512
    * Navigating a crowded street.  Despite the ongoing pandemic, we
      engaged in a journey to Carmel-by-the-Sea during the summer for
      our first pandemic hotel stay.  I don't think the original
      architects imagined that the town would become so mobbed during
      the summers.  Trying to avoid interactions with other people on
      the sidewalks proved challenging.  There were also numeric
      limits imposed on the clientele in shops and restaurants, which
      occasionally resulted in disappointment.  We also went to Point
      Lobos State Park before arriving in Carmel.  We were happy that
      this was another opportunity to use our state park pass.  See
      pics at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157715514387837
    * We're on a road to nowhere.  It was earlier this year that both
      my and Noelle's passports expired.  My reminders warned me that
      this was coming, but it was only later that I found out that
      you're supposed to renew your passports 6 months before they
      actually expire.  In this case, I don't think even this advanced
      warning would have mattered.  From the time we submitted our
      passport applications, it took over 6 months before we actually
      received them in our hot, little hands.  Not that they can do us
      much good since there are lots of travel restrictions and
      quarantine requirements at the moment.  Oh, well.
  * Pets
    * Cartesian doubt.  During our January escapade, this was first
      time we had someone sit our cat.  The sitter, Terri, never got
      to meet our cat, Gary, since he doesn't like strangers.  I got
      the feeling that she doubted that Gary even existed except for
      the fact that, upon putting food into the feeder, the food was
      gone by the next day.  I was a bit nervous about the idea of
      having a sitter since there's always the worry that they will
      forget to lock the door or something else.  Thankfully, it all
      worked out.  ('Tho, looking back, I don't know why I wasn't
      more nervous about dealing with someone who might have been carrying
      around a virus.)
  * Money
    * All is fairly certain, except death and taxes.  Because I
      usually need to wait a while before I am able to get all the
      documentation for our income tax returns, I typically file my
      taxes in late March.  This year was no different.  What was
      different, however, was the turnaround time for getting the
      refund check.  Usually, the checks come between 3 to 6 weeks.
      The state of Ca sent us our check in just 2 months --
      slightly worse than usual.  However, the check from the feds
      just never seemed to arrive.  In June, I started calling them.
      Little did I know that getting in touch with the IRS was going
      to be as difficult as getting through to a high-tech company.
      They would prefer that nobody call ever.  There are a number of
      tricks (documented on the internet) to be able to get through to
      a human being.  I was on hold for almost 2 hours before someone
      came on the line.  The person I talked with was cordial, which
      was stunning considering how the IRS is being treated these
      days.  The bottom line was that we needed to wait longer.  We
      kept checking the magic web site to see the status of our
      return, but it kept showing that it had never arrived.
      (Certified mail said that the income tax return had arrived in
      early April.)  Finally, in early October, the web site showed
      that it was being processed.  It was only a couple of weeks
      after that that we received the refund check.  A few days after
      that, I changed my W-2 so we, maybe, will owe money to the IRS
      instead of the IRS owing money to us, in order to avoid this
      hassle in the future.
  * Food
    * The underused park pass.  Our first use of our state park pass
      was in early January.  I had given this pass to Noelle as a gift
      and turned out to be of little use this year.  (See section
      below on Henry Coe State Park as well.)  The visit was a guided
      tour to Burleigh H. Murray Ranch Park Property in Half-Moon Bay.
      It was interesting and historical.  I remember that we tried to
      stay separated, so we were aware of the COVID-19 recommendations
      at the time.  Which was difficult because, after the hike, we
      went shoulder-to-shoulder to The Half Moon Bay Brewing
      restaurant with some people we had just met.  Everything was
      packed, even in January when it was cool outside, with very little
      parking to be found and long wait times.
    * Intestinal intention.  On our way to Santa Barbara from the Bay
      Area, we passed the world famous Pea Soup Andersen's countless
      times.  Noelle informed me that their split pea soup is vegan, and,
      since I had never been there, it was obvious what needed to be
      done.  In late January, on our return trip from Santa Barbara,
      we popped in for an all-you-can-eat split pea soup.  This was
      just the beginning of knowledge about the novel coronavirus and,
      so, it was a bit awkward.  A three foot distance was the advice
      at the time and they kept assuring us that the utensils and
      plateware were clean.  In any case, it was tasty.  A pic can be
      found at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/49478805531/in/album-72157712929026512/
    * Transitioning to a local diner.  In the past number of years,
      cooking at home had become an integral part of our daily
      routine.  But, when physical and social distancing restrictions
      came into our lives, local restaurants were threatened with
      shutting their doors forever.  (A few have already closed.)  We
      have been making a concerted effort to eat out more in order to
      support local establishments.
    * Playing the waiting game.  Our Trader Joes was notorious for
      having long lines even within the store.  But, since the
      pandemic started, lines for Trader Joes became insane.  A few
      weeks after restrictions went into place in early Spring, I
      tried shopping at Trader Joes in the middle of a weekday,
      thinking it would better.  I waited 45 minutes before even being
      able to enter the store.  For the most part, we've abandoned
      going to either Trader Joes or Whole Foods.  Noelle discovered
      that a Smart and Final market had no or very short lines; that
      has become our go-to grocery store shopping spot during this
      time.
  * Miscellaneous
    * The rug pulled out from meetups.  Meetups suddenly became very
      different, nearly pointless, almost overnight.  It took some time to
      sort out, but, surprisingly, we began to attend more meetups!
      Without the need to travel in the heavy traffic Bay Area, it was
      easy to pop into many meetings from the convenience of our
      living room.  Among the numerous meetings we've been attending
      has been Ethical Cultural Society of Silicon Valley and Social
      Vegans and Unumhum Brewing Happy Hours.

Entertainment        
  * Movies
    * Film festival fiasco.  It was only after 5 days that the annual
      Cinequest film festival decided that it would be rescheduled due
      to the novel coronavirus.  Like most people, we were shocked
      that things were bad enough that this big local event was being
      temporarily canceled.  This coincided with the announcement that
      jurisdictions in the Bay Area were beginning various
      restrictions.  Life changed quite a bit at that point, quite
      similar to what we're going through right now.  Although
      Cinequest thought that this whole thing would blow over in a few
      months, obviously, things did not change by August when the
      festival was supposed to re-open.  It wasn't until September
      that we found out that the entire film festival went online,
      which we did attend.
    * Long live movie theaters!  In October, our local movie theater
      was offering socially (physically) distanced, safe movie viewing
      on a garage rooftop near the theater.  We saw "To Be Takei", the
      documentary about George Takei.  You can see a pic or two at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50670048837/in/album-72157717135784497/
  * Television
    * No more YMCA for you.  It wasn't The Village People, but rather
      people in a village in Un Village Francais, a television series
      set in a small town in France just before Germany invades the
      country during World War II.  We started watching the series
      last year and finally finished it this year.  The first disc was
      the best because the bonus specials talked about the history of
      the time, but the series overall was great.
  * Outdoors
    * It was no go for Coe.  There were at least two times that we were
      informed that state parks would be open during the pandemic.  And,
      both times, we tried to visit Henry Coe State Park, about 25
      minutes south of where-I-live.  The keyword here is "tried".  We got
      about half-way up to the park and the lot was blocked off.  I
      have never been there, but Noelle has been.  It's one of the few
      local state parks I have been unable to get to.  See the few
      pics at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157713678837176
    * Never go ashtray.  There were reports on the radio in August of
      hot, windy weather.  We knew it was just a matter of time before
      the wild fires would begin.  Sure enough, they came.  For some
      reason, this year seemed worse than previous ones.  The air
      smelled very bad, like an ashtray.  The sky also glowed red and
      smoky.  Every morning, I had a sore throat, even if we
      remembered to keep the windows closed.
    * Not seeing a forest behind the trees.  It was mid-June and we
      were interested in visiting a museum in virus-safe way, and
      discovered that UC Santa Cruz Arboretum was still open.  So, our
      tiny pod of two (just Noelle and myself) drove the wide open
      freeways to Santa Cruz to visit.  I realized that I had been
      making bad assumptions about what was local flora and what
      wasn't.  See pics at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157715171331037
    * Winnebago warriors.  We roughed it in the great outdoors by
      renting an RV in early Dec.  It was a way to safely get away in
      a low-touch environment.  It also happened to be a birthday present for
      Noelle.  I had never really had an RV living experience before.
      It had it ups (convenient bathroom access) and downs (got cold
      at night).  Not sure whether we'll do it again; motels/hotels
      are much more convenient, even if just a bit more risky.  See pics at
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157717127028327
  * Music
    * A beautiful set of pipes, not tubes.  For some reason, soon after the
      shelter-in-place (a.k.a. rest at home) orders came down, we got into
      watching Youtube videos analyzing music.  Noelle's favorite became
      Rick Beato.  It's really remarkable what can be taught and learned
      through Youtube and other online videos for free.
    * Exited, stage left.  Like everybody, Noelle and I were taken aback at
      Neil Peart's death in January.  'Tho difficult without a record player
      (see below), we spent several days mourning by playing lots of Rush,
      sometimes repeatedly.  I'm glad Neil accomplished as much as he did
      during his lifetime.  I think he made a lot of people happy.
    * An unreliable turnaround.  In January, we discovered that our
      turntable was having troubles.  In particular, the revolution
      speed kept going up and down, creating a "warped" sound.  (I
      later found out that this is called "wow".)  We took it to the
      repair shop and they said that they'd get back to us.  Two
      months later, they called and said that they were unable to
      reproduce the problem.  We thought it was a fluke.  After
      bringing it home, we plugged it in and there was the same
      "warping".  We called the repair shop, and they agreed to listen
      to it again while we were there.  It sounded fine!  After
      bringing it home a second time, we plugged it in and it still
      had the same problem.  At that point, I did some research.  The
      first speculation was that it was power fluctuations.  So, we
      had Pacific, Gas, and Electric come out and test our power.  The
      electrician said the quality was spectacular.  Friends and
      family said we had to get another record player.  We wanted to
      support our local stores, so we went to the repair shop (the
      same one) again to look for a record player.  It was mid-August
      by this point.  While looking around at possible record players,
      we relayed our story of woe and the repair person suggested
      bringing it in again.  Coincidentally, I had brought the
      phonograph with us so that I could make sure it could fit into
      our cabinet.  This time, he plugged it in, listened to it, and,
      at last, could hear the "warping"!  As of this writing, it still
      sits in the shop, waiting to be repaired.  (The repair people
      said they have a backlog of turntable repairs, so we expect it
      to take a while, with the pandemic and all.)
  * Art
    * A late birthday celebration.  It's looking like last January may
      be the last birthday celebration that Noelle's dad will be
      celebrating for a while -- maybe 2022?  We drove down to Paso
      Robles to join Noelle's dad and her step-mom for a wine-tasting
      event.  We stayed in the same hotel and went to see yet another
      Bruce Munro installation.  While not particularly big fans of
      his work, this was the second time in a 12-month period that we
      had seen Bruce Munro's light sculptures.  The one from early
      2019 was more impressive, but this one was quite crowded and
      keeping the prescribed social distances was tough, nay impossible.
      https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157712535965467
  * Sports
    * A final double-dip?  It seems like years ago, but it was just 9
      months ago that we attended a Superbowl party.  I know very
      little about football, but I can sorta understand a little.
      While drinking hard liquor and eating chips, sitting on couches,
      we were blissfully unaware of the coming plague.  And who knows
      when sitting shoulder-to-shoulder will happen again?

Politics/Society
  * Labor
    * There will be no socialist revolution.  At least, not this year.
      In April, the local chapter of the group that aided workers at
      tech companies had its last meeting.  It may be that meeting
      virtually is just not as engaging as meeting in-person, even for
      hi-tech people.  (That wasn't the only reason; as everybody
      knows, there was a lot going on in the spring and summer to
      distract everybody.)
  * Voting/Elections
    * Democrat for another day.  Like four years ago, I again went
      through the hassle of changing my voter registration just so
      that I could vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary in
      Ca because I thought only Bernie could beat Trump.
      Noelle even attended a Bernie rally here in where-I-live, and Bernie
      did win Ca, but to no avail.  The party again opted for
      the evil of two lessers.  And, like last time, I reverted back
      to my usual third party status.
        
Technology
  * Computers
    * Software
      * PC
        * A sparkling glass of brute force.  These days, almost all of
	  my back-ups are at home or close by.  However, if these were
	  to fall into the wrong hands, by brute-forcing the files
	  used by Keepass would allow access to all sorts of financial
	  and other information.  To circumvent this possibility, I
	  upgraded to KeepassXC and a more modern password hashing
	  function.  These hashing functions allow you to specify a
	  number of iterations; so, I pumped up the number of
	  iterations by a bunch.  Now, it takes 10 seconds on a
	  desktop machine to verify the passphrase.  This small step
	  might slow down any brute force attempts, but of course not
	  stop it.
    * Hardware
      * PC
        * Windows
          * The Windows 7 year itch.  For various reasons, our
	    internet connection is slow.  The same cannot be said of
	    my inlaws's internet.  So, the plan in early January for
	    upgrading Noelle's laptop from the soon-to-be-unsupported
	    Windows 7 to currently-supported Windows 10 was to lug the
	    laptop down to Santa Barbara and upgrade the machine using
	    the inlaw's fast internet.  The bottleneck was revealed to
	    be the speed of the old laptop itself (see the next
	    section) and not the amount of data required for the
	    operating system upgrade.  After a few hours of
	    configuring itself and rebooting several times, the laptop
	    came back to life.  It was virtually the same as Windows
	    7, except Microsoft would now provide security updates.
	  * Yes, sir, no sir to Acer.  Worried that the 10-year old
	    Acer laptop that Noelle had been using for her work could
	    die at any time, we set off on mission to replace it.
	    After finding an adequate make and model (Dell), I made a
	    plan to transfer everything over.  I figured I could just
	    add some partitions on the new computer to fit the
	    partition from the old Windows partitions, clone the
	    Windows partition from the old computer, and just plop the
	    partition into the new computer.  If only it were that
	    easy.  Fiddling with the boot menu was necessary, and there
	    are a surprising number of things you have to worry about,
	    including Windows secure boot and UEFI booting.  I'm not
	    actually sure what I did, but I got it to the point where
	    the basic boot menu would come up and would allow you to
	    select either the new laptop Windows installation or the
	    Windows installation from the old laptop.  It now works
	    like a charm and I did not have to reconfigure anything or
	    reinstall any software.
          * Stay in place...in front of your screen.  The various
	    flavors of quarantine across the country have put me into
	    the position, more than previous years, of becoming IT
	    Support for family members.  I have no problems with this
	    and am happy to help out.  Screen sharing softwares have
	    been installed and lots of hand-holding over the phone
	    have become a part of my life.
  * Telephones
    * The travails of replacing a broken cell phone.  In mid-June,
      Noelle broke the screen on her phone, probably due to the
      bulging, aging battery.  It was unusable.  I had bought
      insurance to cover this year's ago, so I thought that there
      would be no problem.  I called the phone company who referred me
      to an outfit called Brightstar.  After paying the co-pay of
      $150, I placed the claim.  It took 3 days for the phone to
      arrive.  But, to our dismay, we found that our old SIM did not
      fit into this phone and they didn't provide a SIM card.  There
      were a series of calls back and forth trying to get the SIM
      card, but we never got it.  At one point, I ended up being on
      the phone with the insurance representative for 4 hours.  In
      frustration, we returned the phone and asked for the co-pay
      back.  They received my returned phone in just a couple of days,
      but it took 3 weeks before they refunded the $150.  (As it turns
      out, during this time, our phone company sent us a SIM for that
      phone.  Not of much use at that point.)  After they refunded the
      money, I canceled our insurance coverage (I calculated that, for
      the premiums I had paid over the years, I could've bought a
      brand new phone) and just bought a phone outright (no payment
      plans).  Lots of lessons were learned: phone insurance is not
      worth it and enrolling in a payment plan unnecessarily ties you
      to a phone company.
  * Internet
    * A cryptic exchange.  This marks the first year that everybody in
      my family now uses Signal Private Messenger.  (I only use it on
      a laptop since I don't have a smart phone at the moment.)
      My attempts to get everybody to use PGP or GnuPG in email was
      becoming a hopeless venture; so, despite the huge security hole
      of giving up your phone number, we can safely exchange financial
      documents and so on.




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