Blog Archives 070520 to 070323

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

070520 Davis, CA
I'm now on my second ink cartridge of the Parker pen... I didn't mention it previously in this blog, but I received a really nice fountain pen (the aforementioned Parker) as a birthday present from my parents. It's very nice. It writes smoothly and flowingly. I have been using it for all writing other than checks (which require pressure to go through to the carbon copies I use) and my lab notebook (which requires the use of an ink that is insoluble in water). Today, I am writing at a seat in the Seattle's Best corner of the local Border's bookstore. I find that my writing requires either a pseudo-gregarious location (e.g. seated amongst other people) or a good view; I don't seem to be able to hold myself to writing if sitting at home; too many distractions (or awaiting chores) there.

Anyway, my thought for the day is on common spaces... common spaces like the one I am now occupying. For the size of a given American town, there seem to be very few common spaces for people to meet or simply sit and read and whatnot. Taiwan has its teahouses, Denmark has its cafes (though beer was served more often than coffee), England has its pubs and dining clubs... It is not that the US doesn't have these things; it is more that they are relatively few and less part of the culture. Perhaps it has something to do with some remnant influence of the Protestant work ethic creating the cultural opinion that we (as Americans) should be either at work or at home with our families. I have read several of the "Culture Shock" series of books (guides for foreigners living in a new country) and I think it is interesting that only "Culture Shock - USA" has a section on loneliness as a cultural phenomenon. I don't have any insightful critique to communicate, but it is interesting to consider the culture in which we take part, and to attempt to trace connections between cultural phenomena.

070518 Davis, CA
News for this week is that I finally booked tickets to go to Poland and tour around Krakow and go hiking in the Carpathian mountains. Yea! Should be fun, but it won't be happening until July. The other news is that allergies and cracked ribs don't play well together. The splint is off my wrist and I have full mobility back, but I'm pretty sure I cracked one of my ribs in that bike accident a few weeks ago. This afternoon, I had a heck of a sneeze and now my rib hurts again and it's painful to breathe too deeply (again). Oh well. At least I don't appear to have done any really serious damage to myself; the wrist works, the knee works (although I still have no feeling in the big healed-over patch), and ribs are just something that takes time to heal up. This may finally be enough to finally convince me to take some anti-allergy medication, though. Normally, I just put up with allergies instead of medicating myself, but then again it normally doesn't hurt to sneeze.

Oh, the last news is that I'm still dealing with the various workmen doing stuff in my apartment... So, I come to work in the morning, go home in the afternoon so that the termite guy / pipe guy / plasterer / cement guy / linoleum guy / sealant guy / etc. can come in and do their bit, then go back to work in the late afternoon to finish up work. Hopefully, this can't drag on much longer... Wish me luck.

070512 Davis, CA
It's been a bit since these blog entries have been very regular. I seem to be falling into the habit of about once a week or so. Partially, that is because I have been working too much. Partially, that is because I have let my non-work time be consumed by a thousand trivial "necessities". One thing that has been sucking away a bit of time is the ongoing construction in my kitchen.

The water pipes have been leaking and this has been getting worse over time. They traced the leak to a pipe under the neighboring apartment and, when they started work on that, the backflow pressure exposed leaks in pipes passing under my kitchen floor. This resulted in my receiving a desperate phone call at work. 10 minutes later I was at home looking at my toasty-warm, swollen-looking kitchen floor (it was a high pressure hot water pipe) and 5 minutes after that, I was watching the pipe repair guys jackhammer a big hole in the floor where my refrigerator used to be.

To make a long story short, the contractors who were building this condo complex took some cheap short-cuts about 30 years back. For the past 30 years, the pipes (which were supposed to be jacketed and in a layer of sand) have been exposed directly to the pea-gravel. As water is turned on and off, the pipes bounce a little, rubbing against the rocks. After a few decades of this rubbing, the pipes have been worn thin and have literally dozens of small holes in sections. Since the pipes are under the cement slab on which the condo building sits, it is no small task to attempt to fix these leaks. Now that the pipes are starting to give out, the people who live here are discovering the other way in which the contractors saved a few pennies: the pipes do not run where specified in the blueprints; they run in straight lines. So, for example, my neighbor's leaking water pipes don't run along the wall of the inner perimeter of the shared garage; they run straight through the garage, under the corner of my kitchen, under the rear closet of yet another neighbor, under the person's living room, and finally to the person's kitchen sink.

And that is how one swiss-cheese section of pipe resulted in workmen wielding jackhammers in three different condo units just to chase down one leak. This was Wednesday evening. By late Wednesday evening, the pipes had been replaced and the stones replaced (with sand, not pea gravel, around the pipes). Thursday morning, concrete was poured. This coming monday morning, a workman will be replacing the linoleum flooring.

A friend asked me if I was mad about the whole mess being made of my place... My most profound feeling is relief; relief that I don't own the condo. As I get yet another piece of bad news (the bathroom pipes, but that's a story for another time) about the place, I have the chant going through my head "thank god you don't own the place, it's good you are just renting".

You see, I keep thinking of buying a house or (might as well dream, right?) having a house built and I have heard many, many nightmare stories about messed up buildings with electrical systems miswired, piping messed up, insulation simply missing, etc. Renting kinda sucks, but it definitely has it's advantages, with the current situation being an example of the advantage; the contractor shortcuts in building these condos have made for a bit of a nightmare, but it's not my nightmare so I can sleep easy at night even though the place smells of concrete dust and wet stone.

070507 Davis, CA
When I go to the grocery store, I often buy things that I haven't tried before, just to try them. For example, if you go to the aisle section that has soy milk and rice milk and such, you will find that there are a wealth of choices. Recently, I have tried several brands of soy milk, several brands of rice milk, and also more "esoteric" choices like almond milk (lightly almond-y), hemp nut milk (made from hemp seeds, tasty), oat milk (nasty), hazelnut milk (tasted very strongly of roast hazelnuts), and walnut milk (strangely "egg-y" in flavor). I also bought a range of breakfast cereals, including such choices as "Ezekiel 4:9".

This cereal has the bible quote on the front of the box; "Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof"... I guess they didn't have the space on the box to give the full quote, which seems to suggest you lie down and eat it for over a year: "according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof."

I thought that was odd, but I was counting myself lucky that the quote specified "fitches", not "finches", which was what I misread at first. My brother pointed out that I really ought to read the full Ezekiel quote... I now have a better understanding for why the cereal box had such a short quote. I'm betting the ad copyists were adamant that the quote should stop before it got to 4:12 - "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.". Yeesh. That's more than I wanted to know about my breakfast cereal.

In unrelated news, the swelling is down, the bruising is fading, and mobility without pain is increasing. I'll soon be able to ditch the wrist splint. Now that my wrist is feeling better, I finally took a closer look at my knee. Based on the size of the healing bruise, I gave my knee one heck of a thump in the bike accident. I'm glad everything happened at once so I didn't even really notice the knee hurting. Eh, I'm healing up. It'll be nice to be wholly functional again. I'm looking forward to returning to bicycle commuting. I've been feeling fat and lazy since I stopped riding.

070502 Davis, CA
I spoke a bit too soon on Friday. By Saturday, my left wrist and hand were swelling nicely and had turned a mottled purple-green from halfway up the fingers to several inches down the arm past the wrist. I was impressed to see the bruising also on the palm; that does not show bruises easily. My right wrist also showed bruising, but only a little wrapping around the outside of the wrist. So, I went to the ER for x-rays to see if I'd broken anything. I may have a hairline crack or two in some of the wrist bones, but there was no need for a cast. I'll be stuck wearing a splint for at least a week, though. Eh, could have been worse.

070427 Davis, CA
I have been taking one turn (at the bottom of a hill) on my bike route to work faster and faster each time. This morning, I found out how fast is too fast: I leaned into the turn and my mountain bike tires couldn't handle the angle, sliding out from under me quite quickly. I ended up limping into work with torn pants, a bleeding knee, scraped hands, a handlebars-shaped bruise across my left side, and a left wrist that can not take any weight and makes crunching noises when I flex it. By the end of the day, the crunching noises had ceased and the wrist hadn't swelled up, so I don't think I broke anything. Still, I think I'll be keeping a healthy respect for how much slower one has to take turns on mountain bike tires than on road tires. Ouch.

070426 Davis, CA
I don't mind meetings that are productive or interesting, but I hate meetings that one has to attend that do nothing.

Oops. I thought this would
be important to see but
this meeting is dull.
Leaving is impolitic,
so I write tanka, not notes.

The above was a tanka (5,7,5,7,7), but here's a haiku (5,7,5):

Injuries make the
young feel old: wear and tear that
prepares us for death.

070425 Davis, CA
I went to a Pilates class yesterday. The instructor had decided to show us a whole set of "fun" excercises to work the abdominals in different ways. The positions were silly looking and the motions were deceptively small, but doing 50-100 repetitions of those little motions was a real butt-kicker. Today, I'm sore in places I expected, but also places in which I did not even know I had any muscles, e.g. across my lower ribs. I find this inspires me to want to do more; knowing that I'm "weak" makes me want to work to become stronger.

One thing that was clearly illustrated by some of the positions was the damage done when I tore some lower back muscles about 10 years ago. The instructor told me that the positions I simply could not hold were very similar to the ones that women with cesarian sections could not hold; for the women it was because a band in their lower abdominal muscles were scar tissue rather than muscle, and for me it appears that the damaged lower back muscles resulted in a "balancing" band of weaker abdominal muscles... Annoying. I wonder if there is some sort of physical therapy I can do to finally strengthen the weak portion of my back.

One interesting thing of late is that my parents sent me a rather nice fountain pen. I've been using it for taking notes in meetings and it writes very nicely. Still, there are adjustments to be made; I've found that it requires a bit of a different "hand" when writing. Using a standard ball pen, you don't think about angle or pressure much. I have been forgetting, holding the notepad up, and trying to write with the fountain pen in a nearly level position... Since the fountain pen requires gravity to work, this results in pretty uneven writing. When I'm using the pen properly, however, it is a very smooth, nice writing tool. All in all, it's a lovely and useful little anachronism. I like it.

Oh, here's a test of your cellular biology geekdom: Go to the Studiodaily internet site, click play on the video that pops up and watch the animation. It is an attempt to show the fundamental biological processes in the life of a cell. The test is seeing how many of the processes you recognize from the animation.

070424 Davis, CA
I had a nice Friday and a nice weekend. Friday, I took my visiting coworker from Japan and a couple of other coworkers on a tour of Napa. It was a beautiful day and the predicted rain held off until after we'd left Napa. We hit a couple of the sights Frommers recommended and a couple of the sights that had been recommended by coworkers that regularly visit Napa. One of the places we went was Siver Oaks winery. It is well of the main road and it's tasting room was in the middle of a construction zone and was just a little more fancy than a quonset hut. However, their wines were excellent, with the "cheap" bottle being $60 and their "moderately priced" wince being $100 per bottle. The $60 bottle was the wine my work gave out as Christmas presents... I was saving it for a special occasion to share with with friends and, now that I tasted it (wow), I think it is one worth serving alone rather than with a meal (since I don't want to distract from the flavor of the wine).

I had to work a little on Saturday and Sunday (to catch up with the things I didn't do on Friday), but I was able to visit friends in Berkeley. Last time I visited R. and A., R. took me to breakfast at Sconehenge Bakery and Cafe. It was a cute little place and had decent scones. This time we went to Thai Buddhist Temple - Wat Mongkolratanaram (the locals just call it "Thai breakfast"). For a small donation, you get to load up on fresh-made Thai food for breakfast. Yummy. I've pretty much seen all the local color of Davis, so it's fun to visit with friends and get to see a bit of Berkeley's local color.

070418 Davis, CA
Ugh. For this last week, I thought allergies were kicking my butt... Now I figured out that I've had a cold on top of allergies. You know it's bad when you can lay in bed at night listening to your stuffed up and over-pressurized sinuses crackle as they shift pressure.

In truly random news, I bumped into one of my friends here (I was heading one direction and he another so we had time for only a brief "hi how-are-ya" sort of exchange) and he asked me "So, which Norse god do you feel like today?". I nodded back, said "Odin, in his aspect as Hanga.", and kept walking. It was about fifteen minutes later that I it occured to me that this exchange was somehow not usual. I'm pretty sure I've never been asked that question before and yet the only reason it stuck in my mind long enough for me to realize it was an unusual exchange was because I had vaguely wished I'd had time for the complete sentence; "I wish I were feeling like Bragi, but I'm feeling more like Odin, in his aspect as Hanga."

Heh. I think it was pretty funny that I didn't even notice the question as something odd. Then again the guy asking the question goes by the nickname "Paha".

070417 Davis, CA
At work, I have been host to one of our project team members from Japan. As a "thank you" for arranging the trip, she gave me a couple of tenugui (てぬぐい, traditional thin cotton towels). She said that, normally, she might have just brought some rice candies or such, but since she knew I spoke some Japanese (I used some in a few emails), she decided to go with a more "cultural" gift. They may be just thin cotton towels of the sort one might use in the kitchen, but they have some neat silkscreen designs on them. The designs were labled in Japanese with what they were: "しだ木桜" (a cherry tree branch and flower design), "かんざし" (ornamental hairpins), and "鳥獣戯画" (birds and beasts caricature). The birds and beasts caricature towel is pretty neat, since it is traditional-style images of frogs, rabbits, foxes and such in medieval Japanese garb... Hm. When I describe it that way, it sounds kinda stupid, but it is a traditional whimsical subgenre of Japanese painting. Anyway, I thought it was neat.

070412 Davis, CA
It has turned, er, "delightfully brisk" and breezy these last few days. Still, the skies are blue and it hasn't been raining much, so I'm still riding my bike. Despite the chill, the flowers are starting to bloom. I think I can get used to California... Especially since I keep hearing about the snow still coating the northeast where most of my family lives. This morning, I set down my backpack to lock up my bike, and noticed something unfortunate when I lifted the bag... This haiku will explain it:

Crushed snail under foot,
I didn't see it, poor thing.
Life is so fragile.

070409 Davis, CA
I've been thinking about one or two things (yeah, I know that's not exactly unusual, but I'm attempting a preface here)... One of those things is birthdays. When you are young and need reassurance from the people around you that you are valued and special, then being given presents makes sense. As an adult, I've come to think my value in the world is not demonstrated by how much I receive, but by how much I give to others. Anyway, a friend at work took me out for lunch for my birthday. I wanted to pay for the both of us, but he wanted to pay for the both of us and wouldn't let me pay, because it's my birthday. I couldn't cogently explain my reasoning well enough to convince him that I ought to pay because it is my birthday... I'm not sure if I've explained it very well here either, but I like the idea of making a tradition of doing something special/nice for other people as a way of celebrating one's birthday.

070406 Davis, CA
I got some good news Thursday afternoon, the big work presentation went well Friday morning, and Friday 5-ish there was an egg-hunt for the kids of my work mates while we all ate pizza and chatted. Then I went to ride home and found that some petty thief had stolen my bicycle pump. Sigh. Yeah, I should have taken it off of the bike, but I forgot about it this morning. At least I always strip the lights off before walking away, so I didn't lose those.

What bugs me is that the bike rack is right next to the building, in full view of the offices, and only about 10 feet from my office... And it's just a freaking bicycle pump. Petty crime just seems to meaningless and stupid and, well, petty. I don't get it. I've seen some really petty BS before, with some idiot just wandering by, knocking over bikes and hopping on the wheels to bend them, and I've also seen people come out of a class to find that some jerk has come by and stolen half a dozen bike seats, but I just don't understand it. (Both the preceeding examples were from when I went to college in Chicago.) It annoys me. I get the urge to locate the person and, well, lecture them. "Didn't your parents raise you any better?" "What were you thinking... Explain it."

At least Davis is safe enough that petty crime is about the only crime I have to worry about but I'm still mildly vexed. Bleah.

070405 Davis, CA
I've been working a whole lot this past week. Several things came together at once and then those several things made a messy picture that needed a lot of trouble-shooting. Eh, it happens. As interesting as work has been, I'm looking forward to Friday evening and the end of the work week.

Since my last entry (Whoa! Two weeks ago!), I haven't driven at all. I've been riding a lot. To and from work and for any errands. For me, the first week or so of riding everywhere always leaves me grumpy; my butt hurts and I don't like being sweaty everywhere I go. Still, I know from experience that this is just a short phase of the experience and then I come to really enjoy the wind, air, and exercise. I'm nearly to the enjoying it level now. My gear changes are smooth and fast and I'm racing cars from the stop lights. I'm no hard-core cycler and you'll never catch me in a spandex riding uniform unless I lost a bet, but if I'm lucky with the lights, I can catch up with the same cars repeatedly for most of my commute. Add in a bicycle-path short-cut or two and, on average, I'm just as fast by bicycle as by car for my commute. It's nice.

Still, since starting cycling every day, my evening runs have not been happening. Eh, give me another week or two to adjust to the cycling and I'll be ready to kick in with the running again. Perhaps I'll finally stick to the routine and drop a few pounds.

070324 Davis, CA
Lots of things under the "getting stuff done" category, but not so much under the "interesting to discuss" category. I went and got myself properly outfitted for bicycle commuting. The Davis police have little other crime to pursue, so they are quite vigilant about having bike lights after dark and things like that. I went and got extra reflectors, a nice bike helmet, little flashers (run off of magnetic induction from magnets attached to the spokes - no batteries), a decent front light, and a solid new bike lock. My first day commuting, I found the new bike lock to have an overly stiff mechanism; the key bent rather than locking the bike. Sigh. At least the shop was happy to take the return and give me a new lock.

I also went and got a new pair of running shoes. The aim is to make sure I don't have any excuses for not being active now that the weather is nice. I used the bike to scout out a good long loop near my apartment and I went for a run around it on Tuesday. It is long-ish, so it'll probably take me a couple of runs before I will make it the whole way at a run rather than having to slow to a walk at some point. During the run, one stretch of it reminded me of a stretch I'd run before... It was sort of funny as I sorted through where it was that the memory was from. Not China, not Denmark. Not Durham at the first apartment, or Durham at the second apartment, not Raleigh, so not North Carolina. Not Michigan or New York. Not Davis at the first apartment, not Davis at the second apartment, not Davis at the current apartment. Not Salt Lake City at the first apartment... It was south-east Salt Lake city, a loop I ran from my second apartment there. I've moved around a bit, haven't I?

Finally, I'll leave you with a haiku appropriate to this week:

Trapped in a meeting.
Darkened room in summer's heat
Bees and voices drone.

070323 Davis, CA
No real news today, so you get a musing instead. It is time for a semi random discussion about phrasing or translations or something along those lines. I recently read a translated haiku that I thought was quite nifty:

Just being here,
I am here,
And snow falls.

It is by Kobayashi Issa and (at least in this translation) it seems to capture the idea of being wholly where you are, and appreciating the beauty of the moment.

I decided to hunt down the original and learned a few things along the way. Here is the original:

只居れば
おるとて雪の
降にけり

Or in phonetic transliteration:

tada oreba
oru tote yuki no
furi ni keri

Or in my best literal translation:

Just existing
I exist. Snow
flits down.

Basically, it turns out the original was not as deft as I'd assumed; the last line ("snow flits down") was divided by the syllable count requirements into two lines. Finally, the most common English translation (from searching multiple web sites) is:

Just by being,
I'm here -
in the snow-fall.

There is some ineffable difference in evoked feeling between the first translation I'd read and the most common translation. Anyway, this got me to thinking about language and shades of meaning... Having a big vocabulary really lets one express finer shades of meaning and knowing a whole other language opens up even bigger realms of expression, since often one language will have a single word encompassing a concept that another language would require a paragraph to describe. This makes me more strongly wish I were fluent in something other than English, and makes me more impressed by the really good translators.

Page Last Modified: 2007 09 29, 21:52:56

 

 

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