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 * 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.