The Mandelbear's Musings

Odd day. I had an extremely satisfying morning at work, building the pjsua command line SIP user agent/softphone and verifying that it actually works with the hardware we're planning to use for our demo in late January. $BOSS was my assistant; he's thrilled. I'm relieved -- this close to retirement age I kinda have to keep pulling miracles out of my hat to stay employed.

I also noticed a newish (mid-2010, as it turned out) MacBook on $BOSS's desk; it had been intended for the new hire who turned us down and went to Microsoft a few weeks ago. Since my old one is ancient and obsolete, this was a major win for me. I spent the afternoon configuring it. Which was tedious in the extreme -- see the notes for details.

Macs still feel somewhat toy-like to me. Apple's keyboards have always been pretty horrid compared to IBM's, and the one-button UI gives the impression of having been dumbed-down for newbies. I mean, it's great marketing, but if you've been using computers professionally for the last half-century, ...

I spent most of the evening splitting up Tempered Glass's next-to-last practice session, so we'd have something to remember it by. I still need to do the last session, and I think there may be some concerts back there that need work. Note that the practice sessions will not be going up on the web -- at least, not yet, and maybe not ever. Nostalgic bear.

After that, I let the kids introduce me to Munchkin Cthulhu. Fun! I can see how that can be an addictive game.

When it finally wound down around 1am I did a little more Perl hacking to fix problems in the concert rendering, and remembered somewhat belatedly that pseudoephedrine is a stimulant. Well, it's better than not breathing.

It rained most of the day; I stayed home and puttered. Lox and bagels for lunch; we had a bag frozen in the fridge, and Colleen had bought cream cheese, so I didn't have to go out. I made chicken quesadillas for dinner.

Notable bits of puttering included transferring Colleen's scooter supplies to the Swissgear bag, which makes them much easier to keep organized and to get at, moving the DHCP server, and dusting off Sherman (the Thinkpad T21) so Colleen can use it for her embroidery program and some ancient games. Sherman was so named by pocketnaomi, who borrowed him for a couple of years.

Quite a few good links. "osewalrus: Citizen Pushback Against SOPA Is Working!" is pretty encouraging. And How To Be Alone (YouTube) is beautiful and possibly healing.

Hmm. I think it was a pretty good day, but mostly I kept busy and didn't notice. Which I guess makes it a very good day, in some sense. I did some chord and singing practice, recorded The Owl and the Pussycat with two microphones (the ribbon may have a slight edge, but it's really hard for me to tell -- I'll have to get someone with younger ears to help), and did a lot of work toward revamping the Makefile that builds practice, concert and album web pages.

On the other hand, I wasn't feeling all that well in the afternoon, so I opted out of the local housefilk to stay home, make dinner for Colleen, and keep hacking. And it started raining just as I was leaving for a walk. Which I wasn't feeling up to in any case.

And on the gripping hand, I did manage to post Songs for Saturday, and made two icons (for trainwreck and Bank Transfer Day).

On the fourth hand, somewhat down on myself for not starting set-up early enough to actually transfer money on the day. Which is minor in itself, but triggers a long chain of associations with other things I didn't do in time.

So... mixed, I guess.

This Bank Transfer Day poster is particularly good, and as you can see I made an icon out of it.

It's been a short week. Busy, exhausting, occasionally frustrating, sometimes spectacularly wonderful. I don't think I can sum it up.

We flew to Seatac on Thursday, picked up our rental car -- I'd been worried about getting to their offsite lot, but one look at Colleen and they had someone drive it over for us. Total win. Drove up to Bothell for our one night at the Country Inn. Not as good as I'd hoped, but the room was huge, the WiFi was free, and the bar had bar snacks. Then we headed over to the Herb Farm for dinner.

I took a wrong turn and got us thoroughly lost. We finally pulled in to the parking lot, after an hour on the road, just as dinner was starting at 7pm. I was able to answer their call and walk in the door just moments later.

I was sorry to have missed the garden tour, but dinner's awesomeness was not really diminished by this. It was just as gloriously awesome as my last visit, but totally different. Which, as Angela (one of the staff) told me, is what they aim for. I found myself talking to Angela after dinner because she looks remarkably like a shorter version of Cat Faber. But anyway.

I only got slightly lost going back to the hotel. The breakfast buffet was free, but not really worth it, either.

I got us lost again trying to get to Central Market in Shoreline. I got us there, but it took a while. (You may start to notice a pattern here.) We were, however, in good humor, and Colleen enjoyed Central Market as much as I'd hoped she would.

I got lost again getting to the hotel. The overflow hotel, since the Hilton was full when I went to make our reservations. Only slightly lost -- I found Google's directions rather unhelpful, as they had been on the way to the Herb Farm. I was already low on spoons when we got to the Clarion and realized that Colleen's scooter was going to have problems on the hills between there and the con hotel.

Then I forgot which was the con hotel, or rather hadn't bothered to write it down. The desk clerk at the Clarion called and found a room for us in the Holiday Inn next door, which is where Conflikt had been last year. I got suspicious when the front desk hadn't heard about the con. I called over to the Hilton. They had an accessible room, and I booked it. By this time I was totally out of spoons. I had, by this time, put Colleen's scooter in and out of the trunk 5 times, at something over 100 pounds each. That's half a ton of lifting, total. No wonder I was tired!

I had a delightful, if somewhat expensive, dinner with Colleen and Chaos in the Hilton, then headed North to Promusica for two days of music. Via the wrong freeway, of course. Fortunately I was able to find my way there. Did I mention that there was a pattern?

The Tempered Glass rehearsal weekend was wonderful -- a relaxing, comfortable two days, and some amazing music-making. Amazing in part because of the speed at which we were able to pick up on the new material. I felt like I was doing a lot better than usual, and found myself getting back my old skill at figuring out chords. Wow. Some good catching-up, too; a lot has happened since Reno.

Sunday evening I drove back to the hotel for another dinner with Colleen and Chaos, and I drove the Wolfling back to Marysville in the morning. Without getting lost in either direction, I might add. We had a father/daughter breakfast, and I got to see her current digs and talk briefly with Steve Dixon.

The whole week has been kind of a blur. There was a little work in there, too.

But Colleen had a wonderful time, which is the main thing. She handled the travel much better than I'd feared she would; she really is getting stronger and more independent even though it's hard to notice from close in. I had a wonderful time, modulo a meltdown and a couple of almosts. I'm going to declare it a Good Week.

Oh, and our concert at Conflikt in January is going to kick ass. Just thought you ought to know.

There are links. A lot of them have to do with politics. Sorry about that.

An interesting day. I took the van back to the Ford dealer to have the dead headlight (which they'd missed last week at the 60K-mile service) replaced, and showed how the assembly (they called it a "headlight bucket") appeared to be loose, as Callie noticed over the weekend.

It came right out. Not attached at all. The bulb wasn't burned out -- the leads were broken off at the connector.

When they called back, they said a new bucket would be a little under $500 with the 15% discount for my trouble. And that there had been some body damage in that area. WTF? We never had any body damage on the right front... Of course, the dealer we bought the van from (used) is no longer in business, and that was over 5 years ago in any case.

So... grump.

I spent much of my lunch hour (and some time in the morning) continuing to work on the values and goal-setting section of The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook; I definitely want to do more writing of that sort.

While waiting for my "Avoid Avoiding" group to start, a woman I didn't know sat down across from me in the waiting room and asked if she could tell me her problem. "I don't like myself much," she said. "Can you tell me how to like myself more?" WTF? Does my Middle-Sized Bear aspect really show that much? Weird.

After the usual disclaimer, I told her she should be a friend to herself. Treat herself like a friend, talk to herself the way a friend would. Encourage herself and praise herself for her accomplishments. Told her about How to Be Your Own Best Friend, which I read years ago. I hope it helped. I think it did.

So... interesting. Not all in the Chinese sense, but...

Only one link, to NYTimes.com on decision fatigue. So will-power is proportional to your brain's glucose level, and making decisions uses energy and lowers it. Helps explain why dieting is so hard, doesn't it?

It was a pretty good weekend, on the whole, but there was more friction than was good for us. That's fixable, now that we know how to plan Tempered Glass visits. I'll get to that later.

It was also tiring, with about 500mi worth of driving, and me doing a lot of the cooking, fetching and carrying. With special thanks to the Younger Daughter, who was exceptionally helpful. We took her out to dinner Sunday night, while Callie and Naomi were having dinner with old friends of N's, and Mike Whitaker was visiting the Bohnhoffs. Good times were had.

We got in some good rehearsal time, too, with four songs worked on. One of the problems, though, was trying to cram in an intensive rehearsal session every day, along with shopping expeditions (Callie and Colleen), a baseball game (Naomi and Mike), dinner in San Francisco (Callie and Naomi), and a full day of work from home (me). Yeah. Not a terribly realistic schedule.

One of the other problems was that Colleen, not being a musician herself, really doesn't want to sit on the kind of intensive rehearsals that we do when we're working on new songs. They quite understandably drive her crazy. So...

The conclusion we (well, mostly Naomi, but she's Tempered Glass's artistic director and main inspiration) came to was that, when they're visiting the Starport, it's a social visit. Talking, hanging out, visiting other friends, making music certainly, but if there's time to squeeze in an actual rehearsal it's an extra. In contrast, when I go up to Seattle, it's a "working weekend" and the emphasis will be on getting in some good, solid rehearsal time every day.

Did I mention that we'll be giving a concert at Conflikt? That's the plan. And it'll be almost all new material.

Did I mention the crab lasagne? There was crab lasagne. Also salmon. And cheesy eggs, and bacon.

Plus a surprising anmount of coding done; about an average work-day's worth in spite of being at home Friday and fitting it into the spaces between bouts of insanity.

So, ... a good weekend, but kind of stressful and disappointing because we tried to fit a week-long visit into a weekend, with predictable results. We're learning, though -- next time will be better.

Not a whole lot of links, but you'll find a few in the notes.

Our Easter "feast" was very lightly attended -- a max of three guests. But two of them were extroverts, so I mostly hung out in the office until they left. We usually have rabbit on Easter, but it looked way too expensive this year so Colleen had gotten a spiral-cut ham at Costco. Tasty. I also hard-boiled a dozen eggs, and the YD deviled half of them.

I finally emerged from my cave to sing around 8:30; we were joined by Naomi on speakerphone half an hour or so later.

After I sang The Rambling Silver Rose, Naomi remarked that for someone who claims not to understand love at first sight, I manage to nail it in my songs. So apparently I do understand it pretty well -- from second- and third-hand accounts. N's theory is that it's a case of selective memory; the few times when instant attraction leads to something deeper are the ones that get remembered. I'll buy that.

But it was the IM conversation afterward that really went someplace totally unexpected, when my (stillborn) daughter Amethyst broke in and said something directly to N. It's true that I'm getting better at role-playing in IM, and at listening to the voices in my head and giving them labels, but... It was surprising, but felt entirely natural and appropriate. //silly bear. I told him he needs to come visit my garden more often; it's a peaceful place and he needs that more than he knows.//

Ok, I get the hint.

Links, as usual, up in the raw notes.

0317 Th
     DEPART Thursday, March 17, 2011  Travel Time 2 h 05 m 
         #1291	 Depart San Jose, CA (SJC)   7:10 PM
 	 Arrive in Seattle/Tacoma, WA (SEA)  9:15 PM

0321 Mo 
     RETURN   Monday, March 21, 2011  Travel Time 2 h 05 m 
         #862	 Depart Seattle/Tacoma, WA (SEA)  6:55 PM
 	 Arrive in San Jose, CA (SJC)	   	  9:00 PM

I'm pretty heavily booked because this is a Tempered Glass working weekend, but you can contact me via the comments if you want to spend some time with me and we'll see what we can work out.

A pretty good day, actually. A three-mile walk by the airport, the songbook for Hearts of Glass,..., and some good puttering.

On the other hand, I was up until nearly 1am chatting with AT&T tech support about why I might be getting oly 10% of my usual bandwidth. His only suggestion was to reset the router to factory defaults. This seemed too drastic; I settled for resetting the broadband connection, which appeared to work. (I found out this morning that it only worked for about an hour; what finally did the trick was a reboot. Still less drastic than a factory reset, which would have taken lots of fiddling to recover from.)

Mixed day, on the whole. A few links (I originally typed "kinks", which I'm sure some of my readers would have preferred).

Considerably better, despite the rain -- I had a good, long IM talk with pocketnaomi in the early afternoon, and a nice phone call/filk mini-circle (dot?) with her and Colleen after dinner. Booked my next trip to Seattle, for the weekend between my birthday and the YD's -- the timing couldn't have been better.

In between, I went out shopping. CD labels, and an inexpensive set of USB-powered computer speakers, at Staples; simethicone and a prescription at Kaiser; razor blades and NIMH AAA batteries (for the cordless phone in the office) at CVS; and coffee at Barefoot. Barefoot has just gotten significantly more dangerous -- Harbor Freight opened a tool store a couple of doors down. I remember getting Harbor Freight and Salvage catalogs decades ago.

I also called my Mom. And the YD made a tasty dinner of salad, chicken, asparagus, and yummy gluten-free biscuits brushed with garlic butter.

Links, as usual. Planned Parenthood has a letter you can sign to protest the house's vote to bar federal funding. Drinking Diet Soda Increases Risk of Vascular Events By 61 Percent. That kind of thing.

A good, even productive, day in spite of my nose continuing to be an obstructionist. Occasionally a terrorist -- I really DO NOT LIKE not being able to breath. Used afrin again because two hours after taking sudafed I still couldn't breathe through my nose.

I went out to OSH and bought a long-shanked phillips screwdriver for the scooter's battery box, but couldn't find anything obvious wrong with it. I did confirm that the silicone-rubber-dome thingie is the circuit breaker, however, and concluded that I must have reset it in the course of my various fumblings-around.

I also went out with Colleen, the YD, and the BF (collectively "the kids") to Cosentino's. Our favorite grocery store is closing in a couple of weeks, and it's terribly sad. The shelves are starting to look bare in spots. But they had booze for 25% off, and I scored some Bacardi Gold and Wild Turkey.

Meanwhile, I made excellent progress formatting songs for Tempered Glass. Six songs downloaded and formatted for the songbook; one fully chorded and three more partially chorded (first verse and chorus). Progress.

A couple of good links. The Awesome Foundation looks particularly awesome -- they give $1000 grants for "doing something awesome". Hmm.

A pretty good day. My eye felt better, and I could actually breathe pretty well through my nose, without the need for sudafed. It may very well have been a cold.

The main accomplishment was getting the videos from the OryCon concert up on YouTube. It was my first time uploading video; it's tedious but easy.

I also did quite a bit of decluttering, some website and filesystem maintenance, and made pan-fried red snapper for dinner.

The usual collection of links under the cut, though of course many of them are to the videos I uploaded.

It was a great con. I guess a lot of it was summed up in this con report "It was sad to miss pocketnaomi, but the other members of Tempered Glass, cflute and mdlbear, kicked ass."

Not having Naomi on board made for a set that wasn't nearly as good as it could have been, but I guess we did OK. It felt like a good performance, anyway.

My recording of our concert, unfortunately, does not appear to have survived -- it cuts off mysteriously after a couple of seconds. :P Clumsy bear was probably clumsy with the buttons again. I know there were several other recordings made, though, so all is not lost, though it may be a couple of days before I can get my hands on them.

Lots of catching-up with people we don't see very often, especially Roy Torley and Joan Gaustad, who we spent several hours talking with on Sunday (and whose concert also kicked serious ass).

Travel was a lot easier than I expected; having (niece-of-choice) Kaylee along helped immesurably, since it meant that we could take all the bags while Colleen scooted. Public transit from the airport to the hotel and back was cheap and smooth.

Lots and lots of links under the cut, along with the usual details.

This trip is mainly for Tempered Glass to practice for our gig at Orycon and talk about upcoming recording plans, but there will undoubtedly be some time around the edges for hanging out with friends. Leave a comment and we'll see if we can work something out.

   Depart: SAN JOSE CA to SEATTLE TACOMA WA   ( Travel Time: 2 hrs 5 mins )
  _ Thu Oct 14  0235   Depart SAN JOSE CA (SJC) at 6:45 PM                 
                       Arrive in SEATTLE TACOMA WA (SEA) at 8:50 PM        
   Return: SEATTLE TACOMA WA to SAN JOSE CA   ( Travel Time: 2 hrs 5 mins )
  _ Mon Oct 18  0680   Depart SEATTLE TACOMA WA (SEA) at 6:10 PM          
                       Arrive in SAN JOSE CA (SJC) at 8:15 PM             

A good day -- very relaxing. Most of the late morning/early spent quietly, by myself, on the computer or reading. Dinner was a Crustless Crab Quiche that Callie remembered from Weight Watchers; fortunately someone else on the net did, too.

After dinner we sang -- it felt wonderful to be singing with Callie and Naomi again. I love our band. Went splat around 00:30.

A few more links under the cut, as usual.

I was feeling lazy and unproductive by late evening, but that just suggests that an underslept Bear is an unreliable reporter -- it was actually a pretty productive day. I did quite a lot of work in both the Starport's intranet and Tempered Glass's lyrics directory, and went out and explored Lowes with Colleen. And cooked dinner, of course. And ripped half a dozen or so CDs.

And the YD's report card shows remarkable improvement!! Only one C, one A -- it's about time. (And an F which is apparently due to the school's (Winblows-based) computer system dropping data from half the class.) Go YD! Of course, she also turns 18 on Thursday. I feel old.

I also tried out the SwissTech shoulder bag that I got on the cheap at Target a couple of weeks ago. It's frustratingly close to excellent. If it were an inch taller, had a detachable strap, and had double zippers it would be wonderful. Well, at least I know what I want.

Today's link, and it's a good one, is cadhla's new song, Jenny and Karen. Go read it. That's where today's userpic comes from.

A good day, mostly. A walk, lots of good links, and some singing -- the Wednesday after Consonance is often a good one for that.

Family Skills: Love as a Verb is the latest in ysabetwordsmith's ongoing "family skills" series, and a good one.

Stay away from harmony if you value your time -- it's an HTML-5 drawing program. Lovely.

A good day, and all's well that ends better, with a little bit of practice and a lot of good Snuggle. Weight still down at 197.6, which is good, and X over ssh has usable performance from work via the new gateway. I win.

Work was taken up by a couple of meetings and a tech report.

Some good links under the cut, as usual. Who would have guessed that there would be a Y2k+10 problem, caused by confusion between BCD and binary? I remember BCD... New Yorkers and Londoners, especially, will appreciate Underskin

Got a fair amount done, and had a basically good day, but no walkies. My calves were still hurting a little -- I think the elliptical used some muscles I'm not used to using. Don't want to push my luck, and besides it was raining much of the day.

Weight still trending up. Grump.

Duchess Carol of Bellatrix died of cancer. I really hate January and February -- we've lost too many friends and family in those months.

Some good shopping at Ross (on the way back from picking up prescriptions at Kaiser): a 26" Samsonite suitcase (so I won't have to keep borrowing Colleen's), and a 12" 5qt "saucepan". The latter is more of a straight-sided frying pan; it has a glass lid and looks perfect for bacon and a lot of the other things we pan-fry. I really like All-Clad's "Emerilware" line: metal handles, and a high-quality non-stick lining.

And I managed to get some work done on lead sheets for Tempered Glass. Finally!

Many good links; I want to draw some attention to ysabetwordsmith's Homecrafting: A Guide to Family Skills, and rickybuchanan's Not Done Living. Both have a lot of fantastic articles and resource links.

A very good day, made a little sad around the edges by having to leave Promusica, but happy to be home again. A very good Tempered Glass rehearsal -- surprisingly good, considering that the last time we were together was back in August.

The high point, really, was in the airport seeing two women come in wearing cute hats with ears, and take seats at the next gate over. Just before boarding I walked over, said "I just wanted to say that I love your hats!" I was rewarded with thanks and smiles, but I think my grin going back was bigger. Go me!

My reading on the plane was Andrew Odlyzko's Collective hallucinations and inefficient markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s [pdf] (found via this post by osewalrus). The netbook holds up quite nicely to a two-hour flight. Also, this time I remembered to sync up my to.do file before boarding, so I was able to update on the plane.

A very good trip, but it was very good to come home, to a hot bath, a warm bed and a happy snuggle.

The highlight of the late morning was an expedition to the Pruneyard mall, which has a Barnes&Noble and a Trader Joe's in close proximity. I had a blast watching Naomi and Colleen zip around on their scooters. I scored a book on sleep (30% off) and a Complete Stories of Arthur C. Clarke.

I got quite a lot of wonderful, calm, Middle-Sized Bear time with Naomi. She raised the fascinating, difficult question of "what do you get out of doing this?" It's one that Jen asked during her last visit back in April, and I still don't have an answer. I'm gradually learning that I don't really have to have an answer, but I'm still intrigued by it. Or maybe it's just the pleasure of having a lovely woman snuggled up next to me.

Gave Naomi my big suitcase (it was cheap, and has maybe two or three trips left in it) so she could take Mufasa (the new djembe) up to Seattle with her; she'll bring it with her to OVFF.

I had trouble getting to sleep. But it was a very good day, a little bitter-sweet knowing that Naomi was going home in the morning.

A low-key, friendly end to a great weekend. Took a walk, finally, while Callie was off at an appointment and Naomi was napping. Ended the visit with Callie's birthday picnic. I don't think N. realized that I knew randwolf back when he was in the Bay Area.

And at the end of the day a drink, dinner, and good conversation at home, falling into bed sometime around 11:30 and snuggling with my own wonderful Colleen.

While I was out walking I discovered that I'm starting to pay attention to what I'm saying to myself. "I am a stupid bear. No, I was a stupid bear. I'm smarter now." Don't remember what I was stupid about; that's fine.

Link sausage: xkcd's tech support cheat sheet.

Another good day: friends, food, and music. All good.

I managed finally to get in touch with _amethyst_fire_ -- we're supposed to have lunch today. It will be good to finally meet her.

Colleen called and said that she can now get in and out of her van unassisted -- no walker, and no need for someone to help with her legs. Yay!!

Before dinner we went to Snapdoodle Toys, where Naomi got her monster a couple of weeks ago. She'd seen a wonderful dragon there that she thought would be perfect for Colleen. It'll have to be a carry-on. but I can manage. It is indeed a wonderful toy store.

Dinner was at Preservation Kitchen Excellent. Definitely going there with Colleen; they have a grilled scallop appetizer and a wonderful caprese salad. Yum to the max.

We ended the evening with a fairly serious Tempered Glass rehearsal -- Gentle Arms, The River, A Healing In This Night, Hymn. We're really finding our voice as a group. Go us!

A good day: an uninteresting flight, a good insight, good conversations, and music. Can't ask for much more than that. Kat's guitar, a Little Martin, was easy to carry thanks to a backpack rig, but occupies a bit more space in the overhead bin on a 737.

The main thing I forgot to pack was the six blocks of Kraft mozzerella we'd bought for Naomi. Grump -- that's going to be hard to ship up.

The aha! of the day came from realizing that being a Middle-Sized Bear probably has a lot to do with mindfulness - it's a matter of expanding centered awareness and stillness to include the other person. Cool!

On the way back from the airport with Callie I mentioned the difficulty I have in making the transition from random routine to concentrated work and finding time for geekery at home. She told me about homecoming rituals -- the things you do when you get home to leave the work day behind. Perhaps I could devise something similar that could get me into the hacker headspace. Well worth thinking about.

Spent some time with Naomi in the evening alternating song-swapping with being in Middle-Sized Bear mode. I win.

It looks as though Sunday will be my day to visit the Wolfling.

A pretty good day. It started off with the final day of OSCon: good keynotes, fun sessions, and a couple of brief conversations. It ended early enough for me to go in to work and do some catching-up and planning, though no actual programming.

The day ended with a call from Callie suggesting a Tempered Glass practice session to help improve Naomi's mood. It worked, and helped me and Callie as well, though it did end up more like a song circle because the lag made it impossible to sing together.

I think streaming audio might work better, but it will still have to be half-duplex, with one side leading (and turning off their speakers) and the other side singing along (and maybe recording).

Naomi remarked that she often forgets how effective music can be at improving her mood. So do I. I'm going to have to try to remember, now, and make more time for it.