Blog Archives 061217 to 061119

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061217 Davis, CA
I had to work most of yesterday, but I have something for you today:
In a previous post (061213), I mentioned a foreigner's search for reasonable public transportation in Rochester as a joke (there was none)... However, my father did a little looking around and found the history of Rochester's Subway. It turns out that Rochester did in fact have a subway, operating between 1928 and 1955. It was popular with the public and the general public wanted expansion of the subway system. Due to a lack of burocratic foresight the subway was owned solely by the City and the City could not justify the expense of expanding the subway into the suburbs... I've not found any mention of the possibility of the suburbs buying into the subway and thereby supporting the costs of expansion. Anyway, the legislature of 1955 (after a secret meeting) shut down the still-popular city subway, constructing an expressway instead of continuing to maintain the public transit. I can't think of why they would do something so clearly against the public good, but I will simply observe that corruption and bribery has frequently been associated with road building contracts.

The rails have been salvaged for the metal, but the subway tunnels are still there. In another link provided by my father, "Liz" describes the tunnels today. Rather than attempting to use the existant tunnels to meet modern transportation needs, my father informs me that the current legislature is considering spending millions of dollars to fill the tunnels in with sand. Is it my imagination, or is this a nearly criminal waste of money and opportunity?

061215 Davis, CA
It looks like I have once again managed to follow my yearly ritual of failing to write a Christmas letter early enough to get it sent out in time to arrive on or before Christmas. One of these years I will get it done in advance of Christmas, just not this year.

My father recently sent me a link to some very important research. And that's it for the post today. I need to head out and do some Christmas shopping before I'm late with presents as well as with the Christmas letter.

061214 Davis, CA
On the 12th, I went and got a public library card for the Davis public library. I like public libraries; they are a successful utopian experiment in which public monies are put towards providing free community access to knowledge. Not many utopian experiments have managed to be successful and last, so I like this one. Anyway, I went to get my library card and wandered around the center of Davis for a bit looking for the library. Davis is tiny. Covering all of "downtown" takes 15-20 minutes at a stroll. I found the old library building, but that was now a preserved building occupied by shops instead. I did some asking around and eventually found the current public library location.

It was at the far northern edge of Davis, fourteen blocks north of the center of town. Any further north and it would have been in the middle of farmland that has been undeveloped due to its tendency to flood during the spring rains. Fourteen blocks is nothing for a bigger town, but for Davis this is like having the public library exiled to the hinterland. Most of the locals have some sort of link to the University and they use the excellent U. of CA, Davis libraries. The public library, was OK, but not great. I'd hoped to see this utopian experiment in the center of Davis and well stocked.

Honestly, I'd not be disappointed in it if it weren't for the fact that I just got to see the brand new public library in Pittsford, New York. They voted a bond issue and built themselves a nice, big, new public library with a bagel and coffee shop right in the same building. The Pittsford public library was hopping when I stopped in there, with little kids in the children's section, jaded teens hanging out in the study carrels (not studying, but they were there), and adults of many ages browsing or using the internet access.

Shortly before I'd left Salt Lake City, the city built a really great public library right downtown. It is really impressive. I guess I'd figured Davis (which is full of what I'll call "hippies with money") would be far more supportive of the sort of utopian expressions of which public libraries are an example. Oh well.

061213 Davis, CA
No real news, other than that I'm working to darn much (yet again). So, I'll just offer up a comment instead. I suppose this is a total aside; all of you know this information: In the US, (with New York City and Boston being exceptions to the general rule) you pretty much need a car to get around. For those programs or organizations that bring in foreigners to the US for short term visits or work contracts, they really ought to warn the foreigners that the public transportation is generally sucky and a Driver's License is needed.

What inspired the comment at this time is the fact that I'm in email contact with the (cute, single) Polish woman I met on the plane ride to Rochester. She arrived expecting to find Rochester to be an American, English-speaking version of Krakow... She was amazed that the bus schedule was not very good and was having difficulty finding the (nonexistent) light rail. Not finding decent public transit above ground, she was sure it must be below ground and she was just overlooking the subway entrances.

Yep. No other punch-line needed. I had to advise a Chinese colleague recently that there was no public transport linking Raleigh and Franklinton and his plan of just taking a cab to and from work (taxis are very cheap in China) would really not be financially viable even if he could convince one to drive all the way out to Franklinton to pick him up.

Anyway, this just got me to thinking that foreigners ought to be warned that, when coming to the US, they ought to expect to sit at home a lot, beg favors from friends, or rent a car. Hm. Maybe it would encourage cities to solve their traffic problems by instituting modern public transit solutions (e.g. integrated subways and light rail) if there were a list of US cities that were up to the public transit standards managed by most European cities. Eh, maybe one day.

061210 Davis, CA
Resting up this weekend was definitely a good idea. I'm feeling much better although still a little more tired than normal. I'd invited a couple of coworkers over for Advent (tea, cookies, and Christmas music) on Sunday, so that pressed me to clean up the place and put things in order as best I can. It's not that I have a huge amount of stuff just yet; it's more that I lack the things helpful to putting things in order (e.g. bookshelves) and I still lack the accoutrements to play host (e.g. chairs, dishes).

Anyway, I went shopping and got a few things to let me play host (picnic plates, plates, cups, etc.) and made sure the place looked neat. While laying out the cookies, I spotted my neighbor. I went over to introduce myself and found that she goes by the odd nickname of "Mouse". She seems nice enough, but she's a bit odd and the nickname suits her well. She nattered on about her hobby - breeding mice. She is currently keeping about 40 and has given over most of the space in her apartment to mouse cages. As you can imagine, this number is great enough that she must spend an hour or two each evening cleaning the cages in a rotation schedule to make sure there is no stink. Not how I would choose to spend my evenings, but to each their own.

Oh, I should mention my address... I don't wish to seem unfriendly, but my legal address (for voting, paychecks, taxes, etc.) has been my work address for the last two years and I have grown accustomed to the convenience of this arrangement. Packages mailed to my work address are automatically signed-for and delivered to me straight-away. Letters are delivered directly to my desk upon receipt so I get to have my work-day brightened by a letter from a friend or relative... It's nice. Kinda like having a butler to take care of all the annoying little details of receiving mail. If you really want it, I've posted my new address on the Travel Details page, but it'd be nice if I could continue to expect all mail to be sent to the work address where my butler, er, the front desk staff (whom I thank repeatedly) will take care of it.

061209 Davis, CA
It is Saturday and I have a lot of things I should be doing. However, I think I'm just going to lay around, catch up on my rest, and try to get over this cold. The traveling and playing catch-up at work have kicked my butt this week.

One funny thing happened during my visit to Rochester: A cowboy followed me in the airport. I was chatting with one of the other passengers from the flight as we headed for the baggage carousel, and I was expecting to grab my bags and head outside where I typically meet my father for pickup. Anyway, this strangely familiar-seeming cowboy started following us. Brown, broad-brimmed hat pulled low, thick black beard, and jeans. He followed me and the woman to whom I was talking down to the baggage pickup area and only then did I realize who it was. My Dad. The hat had hidden the grey hair and shaded his eyes, the beard (which I hadn't known he'd grown and hadn't thought he could grow) had come in mostly black and full enough to change the shape of his face, and I had not recognized the clothes.

For the whole rest of the visit, he'd occasionally start chuckling over my very surprised expression when I realized who the heck this "cowboy" was.

061204 Rochester, NY
Oh, boy. I feel like poop. Travelling all day on the second kicked my butt, then to relax a bit, I stayed up pretty darn late enjoying the warm comfy bed and reading a book. The third, I just hung out and relaxed to get over the travel. Today, after a rather slow start, I completed most of what I came out here to do: an inventory of the things I have in storage here, with listings of where it all is and how much there is. This evening, I'm beat and I think I'm running a fever. My mother has been plying me with excellent food, but my nose is out and my taste is off. I can taste hints of the great meals, but I know I'm missing out on quite a bit. Oh well. I'll have time to be sick the weekend after I get back to Davis.

061202 Davis, CA
I'm sitting in the airport and have been for hours. One of the women in the waiting area was, I'd assumed, a student of some sort. She was flipping through the pages of a text book, highlighting about 50 percent of the text, in hot pink. After watching her at the book for a little while, I'd decided it could not be a difficult topic: as seen from upside-down, I could tell the words tended to be very short and the sentence structure was simple, with no clausal structure. Also, simple graphics, pictures, and side-bars reduced the information content of most pages. When she closed the book, I finally got a look at the topic: "Marketing Management". Heh.

061201 Davis, CA
It is always annoying to travel with promonitions of disaster. Still, I don't believe in premonitions, so I simply make sure my life insurance is in order (you know, just in case) and then I get on the plane anyway.

Ugh. Overwork while sleeping on the floor in a freezing apartment have combined to make sure I'm travelling while sick. Oh well. I'll just have to do my best not to infect anyone else.

061130 Davis, CA
Yea! I banged out the data in time for a meeting and had some good results. Now I can cut my hours back down to something reasonable. I'm sitting at home this morning waiting for the PG&E guy to come get the furnace started and I've just been wandering through the place looking it over.

The walls are not that thick, but they are reasonable. A real issue is the fact that the condo has lots of nice big windows, all of them filled with thin, single-pane glass. That's just stupid. I don't know why any modern building with central air conditioning has poor insulation and thin, single-pane glass. Decent insulation is efficient whether you are trying to stay cool in the summer or stay warm in the winter. It doesn't add that much to building construction costs and it pays for itself many times over before replacement is needed.

I'm going to have to find a way to afford to build my own home some day because my checklist of things that need to be in a home keeps getting longer and longer. If you pay attention while living in as many different places as I have, you start getting a good feeling for what apparently minor building features are really advantageous to have.

Update: The heat is finally on. It turns out that there is a pilot light, but the orientation of the furnace mounting means that it is inaccessible unless you remove a screwed on plate and have a match at least 10 inches long. The PG&E guy lit it and then found that the heater still wasn't working... A spider's nest was blocking the gas flow line. All in all, it took the PG&E guy about 30 minutes of tinkering to get it started. I'm glad it wasn't something simple and quick or else I'd have felt pretty dumb. Hooray for heat.

061129 Davis, CA
I've been staying late at work of late. My project at work has reached a point where a big time investment was demanded pretty over the last 4-5 days, but I don't mind it: my office has both heat internet access, two things my home currently lacks. If only the office had a nice big couch somewhere, I'd probably only go home to shower and change clothes. Ah well, it's probably better for my mental health that I have to leave to sleep.

The night skies have been really great of late; crisp, clear, good-smelling air, high, fast-moving clouds, and a bright, half-full moon. Were it not for the fact that I am currently obsessed with staying warm (and lack a means to do so at home, having neither heat nor hot drinks (no pots or microwave, yet)), I'd be out for a long walk every evening this week.

061128 Davis, CA
Well, I talked with the condo realty agency and then with Pacific Gas and Electric. The condo's central heating is controlled electronically (i.e. there is no pilot light that I did not find) and PG&E will be sending someone out to look into my lack of heat... Thursday. It was 38°F (3°C) last night, so I put on a blue shirt this morning; it complemented my skin color nicely.

Since I don't have much news, but I'm trying to be more regular in these posts, I have a few random news articles for you. The first is "Wild wheat gene could boost nutrient content of modern varieties". What I find interesting in this article is not the fact that scientists are on the road to producing a better and more nutritious wheat. I find it interesting that the scientists are doing things the slow way (marker assisted breeding) rather than the fast way (standard genetic manipulation) simply so they can avoid the negative term "GM" (Genetically Modified). The results of both techniques will be the same, but going the slow route means that the scientists/wheat breeders need not use a term that people consider frightening. I don't greatly mind that slower, more painstaking methods must be used, although it is wasteful of time, money, and energy; I'm just saddened by the fact that most people have so little understanding of the GMO-related issues that they are unable to differentiate between tiny, modest changes (e.g. making a wheat gene produce more protein) and bigger changes (e.g. adding a bacterial toxin-producing gene to cotton). There ought to be at least a few categories of minor genetic modification where scientists would be able do things the fast way and not get beaten up by public opinion.

The other article is "Scientists look to 'desensitise' kids to food allergens", which talks about desensitization to a food allergy through repeated exposure. Normally, repeated exposure to an allergen would be expected to increase the allergenic response, but food allergies, or at least one food allergy, behaves quite differently. Just one more reminder that the immune system and allergies are really complex.

061127 Davis, CA
Well, I moved into my new place this weekend. I'd already made sure to have the gas and power activated, so I have hot water and electricity. I just don't have any heat. I can't figure out why. I figured out how to program the modern AC control unit, I tried setting the overrides and forced the fans on and the heat to be set to on and 70°F (21°C), but the best I could do was to get cold air blown around. I went looking for pilot lights in need of being lit, but I found nothing. Finally, I took to occasionally turning on the oven and leaving the oven door open. I'll be talking to the rental company about this on Monday, because it is too dang cold right now to sit in a heatless apartment.

Oh, I may finally have to give in and get cable, just so I have internet access from home. Bleah. And if I'm getting cable anyway, I might as well give in and buy a TV for the first time in my adult life. Thanks to the last two years of traveling, during which I found that furnished rental places typically come with cable and a TV, but no book shelves, I developed a TV news habit, following CNN and that ilk. Hm. I'm not really in any hurry for a TV, though.

061124 Davis, CA
E. had the very accurate observation that Californians don't like to drive in the morning. Thanks to this tip, my commute to San Jose was far less painful than usual. I drove down Thursday morning and the traffic was only about one-third to half as heavy as usual. There was the usual accident (a car rolled over in the winding hill roads, with people standing about and no apparent injuries or fatalities) but traffic flowed well. The morning return drive was similarly much better than usual. From now on, whenever possible, I'll be doing the long drives in the morning rather than evening.

Turkey-day was the usual delicious food and chaos to be found at E. and C.'s place, with the nephews providing the chaos. The nephews have been neatly spaced at ~2 year intervals, guarenteeing that no single activity will be appropriate for all of them... This means either multiple simultaneous activities or bordom for at least one of them, which results in the bored one creating "interest" by disrupting whatever else is going on.

I have to say, the kids were very cute and generally pretty well behaved, but they were also a constant reminder that I'm glad I'm no longer a kid. It's tough not knowing how the world works, not knowing what to do next, and having little to no control over your own day or your own emotional state. One conversation I overheard between L. (age ~3.5) and C. went something like this:
"Why do you keep hitting Uncle Keith?"
"Because I want him to stay forever."
"You like it when he's here and you're sad he will leave tomorrow?"
"Yeah."

Poor little guy. All tied up and backwards with his emotions and not knowing how to express himself. That explained the alternating cute little hugs and crotch-level beatings I'd been receiving. He'd also come up and ask "Pick me up please", with one arm cocked back in a fist, clearly telegraphing the intent to whollop me once he got within chin-reach. I'd usually just distract him with something (so he'd momentarily forget the plan) and then pick him up anyway; it was clear he was trying to interact and make friends, but not sure how to do it.

Oh, I have to say that I just don't understand those couples who chose not to have kids because they don't want to sacrifice the freedom of being adults without dependents (some of my coworkers recently were talking about not wanting kids for that reason). Yeah, kids are a huge change and a huge demand on your resources (time, money, focus, sleep, etc.), but I think they are way cool. I can understand other reasons for not having kids, but deciding not to have kids simply because you don't want the responsibility... That just strikes me as a bad bargain.

061119 Davis, CA
I'm back from LA. It was a good trip. More on that later: I'm going to bed now. It's a long drive from LA to Davis and heavy fog and accidents (none involving me, fortunately) made the drive even longer.

Page Last Modified: 2007 01 12, 13:46:17

 

 

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