Tag: various-and-sundry

Learning About People

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today, as I was listening to Jersey Boys, I had a email dialogue with a college friend who liked The Four Seasons. She noted that she was an active reviewer for Amazon, and pointed me to her reviews. I found it amazing what insights the reviews give you into a person. For example, I learned she was into mysteries, East German films, financially related non-fiction, and cooking. I did find the reviews good reading, but the selection of books had almost a null intersection with my reading and music selections.

Folks who read my blog know that it does give you a pretty good picture of me (there is some stuff, such as work details or TMI-subjects, that I don’t discuss in my blog). You know my sense of humor (such as it is); you know I’m into musicals; you know I’m into history and roads.

Of course, this leads to two meme-type questions, one of which is a common meme, and one that may not be:

(a) What is there on my interest lists that you would like to know more about. Ask me, and I’ll try to explain. Hell, you can ask about userpics as well.

(b) What do you think I’m interested in that I’m hesitating to put on my interest list?

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Musings on: Vacation, Heating, and Bat Mitzvahs

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

  • We’ve now picked the time for our vacation. The plans are to leave Sunday, August 13 for Northern California (we’re driving). Monday and Tuesday I likely have testing in Foster City (yeah! chargable hours!) while my wife and daughter bum around. We plan on visiting friends (and that includes you, my LJ friends) in the greater San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland and Davis/Sacramento areas until Friday, August 25, when we drive back to Los Angeles. The interstitial weekend, August 19/20, we hope to spend in the Sacramento area, visiting our dear friend Rabbi Sheryl Nosan-Blank, spiritual leader of Or Rishon in Orangevale. Of course, during this time, we would love to visit with all of the folks on our friends lists in the area for conversation, games, and just plain socializing.
  • It’s hot. Part of the problem is that they didn’t finish the HVAC work yesterday. They only connected the ducting to two of the bedrooms, and then the thermostat got wedged (I think it is failing) so that the A/C didn’t kick on. Luckily, we have ceiling fans in most rooms. Yet, it is still 80° in the house this morning. I’ve opened all the windows before it heats up–they predict a high of 91°F today, and 94°F tomorrow.
  • Last night, I had Mozilla lose my profile. Luckily, I was able to recover it, but it still was a royal pain. Have other folks had Mozilla randomly lose its profile upon startup?
  • Last night, we had our second B’nai Mitzvah Parents meeting. Quite interesting, especially when Cantor Alan brought one of the moms to the bima to demonstrate a point. She seems like a real nice lady. We got to write blessings for our children. The kids made yads while we met with the Cantor. Afterwards, I asked my daughter how long a yad was? She didn’t know, so I told her: 36 inches.

And now to clean off my desk so I can work. I’m working from home today, because my sister-in-law and her family are coming over at 4:00pm to visit.

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Vegas, Asbestos, and Bananas

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

  • Thanks to ixixlix for a delightful Memorial Day party with swimming, great food, and great games. I got to play 10 Days in the U.S.A., Metro, Quiddler, Traumfabric, and Vegas Showdown.
  • With the exception of the water heater vent in the garage, all the asbestos ducting is out of the attic. Tomorrow, the HVAC guys come to restore our air conditioning. Tonight, however, it is ceiling fans and open windows. Last time I looked, it was 83° F in the house, and 81°F outside. We’ve also been heating the pool for a family party on Thursday: it’s currently up to 72°F–I’ll turn off the heater when I go to bed and folks can deal with it from there.
  • On the drive home, I was listening to the SigAlerts on the radio. According to the CHP, a truck spilled its load near Avenue N in Palmdale. What was the load you ask? 70, 000 lbs of bananas. Yup. Oh Harry (Chapin), I bet you were wishing you were here now.

    All together now…

    He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
    But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights
    delights went through him.
    His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down.
    But the pedal floored easy without a sound.
    He said “Christ!”
    It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now.
    He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide,
    riding on his fear-hunched back
    was every one of those yellow green
    I’m telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
    Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

    		     He barely made the sweeping curve that led into the steepest grade.
    And he missed the thankful passing bus at ninety miles an hour.
    And he said “God, make it a dream!”
    as he rode his last ride down.
    And he said “God, make it a dream!”
    as he rode his last ride down.
    And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
    clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
    hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
    and Blue-Crossed seven people.
    it was then he lost his head,
    not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
    And he slid for four hundred yards
    along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
    All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

    Or, if you prefer…

    Yes we have no bananas
    We have no bananas today
    Yes we have no bananas
    Bananas just outside LA.
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It’s Friday. Woo-Hoo

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

This has been an incredibly busy week. Other than my shoulder still bothering me, I’ve been going like gangbusters. So what’s going on:

  • I’ve just completed the process of bringing all my journal entries into the tag space. Next is refining the tag space.
  • Wednesday night we had our first Bar/Bat Mitzvah parent’s round robin. ’twas quite interesting, although I was a bit of a show-off due to my knowledge from the FAQ. I do like Rabbi Jim’s approach to having the kids to a lot of the service and coming out feeling good. He recommended that we all see the movie Keeping Up With The Steins. Luckily, we’ve got a head start on the Mitzvah Project… it looks like NSS&F will be helping our good friend Jolie revamp the webpage for, and work with, the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service.
  • Last night, I did some more rearranging in the garage. We’re getting closer to being unpacked. We only moved… almost a year ago!
  • This Saturday I’m going to the No Ho Arts Festival, a two-day festival of theatre and the arts in North Hollywood. Hopefully the weather will hold up for this. It should be fun, but I’ll be going by my lonesome: ‘da wife and kid will be at the CDF Annual Conference and Food Faire, ellipticcurve will be gaming, and venedotia will be working. Is anyone reading this going to NoHo on Saturday? Perhaps we could meet.
  • I’ve been having a bunch of fun communicating with some family members back east whom I’ve never met (Weinbaum branch), who might be coordinating a family reunion in the Nashville area sometime next year. See what happens when you put your family tree online.
  • Early next week is the California State Science Fair at USC. Monday afternoon I’ll be taking NSS&F to view all the projects–she’ll then write a report for her teacher on what she saw. Tuesday I’ll be a judge and panel chair for the Jr. Division Math and Software Panel. I’ve already looked through the projects a few times: there are some that are quite good, some that I’ve got good questions for, and some that I just don’t quite understand (J1218…and this is her 4th year on the same related subject [2005, 2004, 2003]… she started in 5th grade). I’m always amazed, reading the project summaries, that these are 6th – 8th graders (Jr. Division). The projects are just amazing.
  • I’ll likely be doing my Stash Tea Order over the weekend. If you’re local and want to jump into the order, let me know and we’ll see what can be done.
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Observations O’the Day

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

  • I’ve made it to Colorado Springs safely. I’m at the Sheraton, with wireless internet that requires a bridge to work because the signal strength otherwise is piss-poor. I’m yet again convinced that wireless is not all that it is cracked up to be.
  • I made it here without my shoulder killing me. The flight was bumpy for the landing, but was otherwise OK.
  • I forgot to mention a “CTTS” (for those not familiar with misc.kids: cute things they say). While at the estate sale, NSS&F saw a portable typewriter. She turned to me, and with a straight face, said “But how did they delete?”. She also couldn’t figure out what to do with a real rotary phone.
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Good and Bad

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today’s been a day of good and bad:

The Bad:

  • We got the settlement statement on our refinance yesterday. There was an over $1,500 item for “TITLE HOLD PER LENDER”, with no explanation, that sucked up all the excess funds in escrow, to the penny. According to our loan broker, we should be getting that back, but I’m having him investigate it further, because it makes no sense.
  • I was slow getting out of the house today, and had to rush to pick up the first vanpool passenger. As a result, I didn’t check the envelope and didn’t pick up someone who should have been picked up. Luckily, they weren’t mad at me, but I felt real bad about it (they took the LA DOT 574 Commuter Express).
  • NSS&F had an accident in sewing class yesterday: an encounter between a needle and the side of her finger. She’ll be OK, but it did give us a grumpy NSS&F together with a grumpy daddy last night.
  • I’ve got a headache. I’ve had a few more of those this week 🙁 for some reason. Plus my shoulder has been bothering me.

The Good:

  • I got my copy of Traumfabrik. Now to scare up a game…
  • gf_guruilla finished cleaning her sewing room. I’ll see if I can post some pictures over the weekend, but this is remarkable. The room had been a mess for almost 6 years, since before our friend “Ami” (Karen Denise Pratt Holmes) died. The mess just moved from the old house to the new house. The cleaning occured thanks to motivation from my sister-in-law, who made a bet with my wife as to who could clean their respective rooms first; the loser got the winner’s children for a week. Must as we love H’s kids, a week with a 6 year old and a 2 year old would be a bit much. Made for great motivation!
  • We’ve got the home warranty folks coming out to look at our oven. The lower oven is taking over an hour to rise 200°. If we get this fixed, it means we probably don’t need to renew the home warranty, as anything left likely to break isn’t covered (we’ve already replaced the pool moter and filter, have a new water heater, have a working HVAC unit… and they don’t cover digging through the slab for a broken pipe, and the delta for a “line rooting” is only 20$ from our discount rooter-guy).
  • This evening we’re going to a party being thrown by our Level 4*. Tomorrow is RenFaire. If you’re in Southern California and you’re going, we’d love to meet up with you.
  • I’ve been making good progress on this document I’m writing. In the last 3 days, it has grown from nothing to over 70 pages, and I’ve got lots more content to add to it.

Well, lunchtime is almost over, so it is back to work for me.

*: Our company has 7 levels. The president of the company is a Level 7. A Member of the Technical Staff is a Level 1. I’m currently a Level 3 on the technical ladder.

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Various Observations

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

  • The Power of A Bet. Over the weekend, my wife made a bet with her sister as to who could be first: My wife cleaning up her sewing room, or her sister cleaning her office. The stakes: a week without the kids (we have an 11 year old; her sister has a 6 and 3 year old). My wife has suddenly started really cleaning the sewing room: everything has been rearranged, there is a new armoire, and the reloading starts today. I wonder why I never thought of this :-).
  • The Song of the South. Mark Evanier (mark_evanier) is reporting that Disney has pulled their reported re-release of “Song of the South“. Now, I don’t remember much about this film, other than it gave us “Zippidy-do-Dah” and was about the Uncle Remus stories. But I do find the editing of history sad. We forget that history just is. Sometimes, we did things that we didn’t know were wrong, and have since learned to do different. It is important to remind ourselves of this; to show ourselves the power of change within us. I was reminded of this last night while watching Yankee Doodle Dandy with Jimmy Cagney. There was a scene with a minstral act. This was our past; it is not us today.
  • Views of War. Yankee Doodle Dandy also brought home how we view war differently today. Back in the early 20th century and before, we supported war efforts. Look at the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII. In all cases, we were going against evil that attacked america. Recent wars (from Korea on) haven’t been like this. Have we lost our ability? What’s changed?
  • But It’s So Big. So Big It Hurts. Panasonic has just announced a 103″ TV. I think I’ll pass.

Well, my tea has now cooled, and so its off to more productive endeavors…

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Various and Sundry

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

  • Today is National Napping Day. Alas, I’m not tired. Wouldn’t ‘ya know it. Perhaps I should clean up my office.
  • My shoulder is bothering me today. Actually, it’s been bothering me all weekend. Actually2, it’s been bothering me off and on since I was in Lanham MD in late February. The morning after I saw estherchaya and family, I slipped in the shower and ended up on my rump, with my left arm on the side of the tub. Since then, my left ankle has periodically been sort, and the muscle in my upper left arm has been sore, to the point of limiting motion. Its now gotten to the point where my lower arm is vaguely sore (but I’m sure that’s radiated pain); Karen says it feels like the muscle in the arm is cramping. I just hope I didn’t tear anything; I’d be worried about surgery on my left shoulder when I’m left handed. I’ll bring this up when I see the doctor for my “annual physical” on Friday. In general, I think such physicals are good things, as I’m one who is loath to make an appt. to see the doctor.
  • Actually3, the end of this week is a medical smorgesborg: internist on Friday morning, dentist on Friday afternoon, and optometrist on Saturday morning.
  • Actually4, Saturday’s going to be really busy, as on the way back from the optometrist (we all have appointments), we will be visiting the LA Bureau of Sanitation Compost Bin Pickup. This will allow us to pickup two Earth Machine‘s (covered compost bins) for $20 each. I prefer the covered bins to my open bin; it builds up the heat faster.


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