I’ve been hither-and-yon a bit recently, here’s some highlights.
Couple trips to Utah, one for Easter weekend and one for my most expensive second date ever. Loved Dad’s concert!
Day trip down to Portland to work with some folks at Intel. Hayden mentioned off-hand once that a train ran down that way and I figured what the heck.
I offered to cat-sit for someone for a couple weeks, while she was off on a cruise. For three days the cats stayed holed up in the guest room; I figured they’d eventually be curious, but nope. I finally coaxed the brother out, while the sister was a bit skittish. She eventually warmed up though. It helped when I tricked them both into my bathroom, where I could lock the door and there was no corner for them to hide, so they had no choice but to get cuddly.
Couple of side-quests: went to visit an arboretum in Seattle that I’d never known existed, and went on a date to a symphonic performance of a number of themes from sci-fi movies and shows. The Foundation theme was my favorite. Had a good time overall, but I was disappointed that no one broke out a bagpipe and taiko drums for some Battlestar Galactica.
Moar cats.
It was finally time to say goodbye. Their owner was sick so I took them in to Seattle. The sister was having none of her confinement and eventually forced herself out through an opening I’d forgotten to close.
On the weekend I ended up grillmaster at a ward cook-out and managed not to burn too many burgers. The next day was paddleboarding at Gasworks Park.
I couldn’t resist getting a shot of this.
Now to the not-so-fun goings-on. The last couple of years I’ve had an exterminator and a handyman remark to me that there appears to be water damage at the bottom of my chimney in my back yard, and I should get it taken care of. Summers just passed by however, and I never got around to thinking hard about it until the rainy season was back, at which point it receded to the back of my mind. I’d made a few token efforts but nothing ever came of it. This week I decided to try again and I found someone who was able to get started right away. We were all hoping it would just involve removing a few feet of siding and replacing a bit of plywood.
Unfortunately, it turns out the damage was extensive, and they’re stripping off the siding from the entire chimney. This, combined with the atrocious price of lumber these days, is going to hurt my wallet quite a bit.
The head repairman called me over and had me climb up the ladder with him so I could observe the source of the damage first-hand.
Hard to make out due to the crumbled siding but that black-colored metal flashing that’s supposed to keep water away from the wood was improperly installed. Couple that with my inattentiveness in ensuring the gutters remain clear of debris, and extensive rainfall will overflow in the wrong direction and drain behind the siding.
Another bit of evidence that tells me I really should pay more attention to keeping things clear up there.
At one point he called me on the phone and gave me a bit of a warning. Apparently removing siding is all well and good, but replacing the underlying plywood technically requires clearance from the city, which could take weeks, during which time my chimney would be exposed to the elements. Now, I think I trust this guy, he comes with good reviews and has so far been on the up-and-up. I told him to just go ahead with his work. He cautioned me against informing the HOA of what exactly he was doing back there, just to avoid these kinds of permitting questions. Little did he know…
I had a 20-paragraph post drafted on some nonsense happening in our neighborhood HOA that I’m having to deal with, regarding a neighbor that wants to remove a large-and-healthy tree from their front yard, but didn’t feel like adhering to the required procedures. I haven’t felt like finishing that post up, and it’s caused a bit of a backlog – lots of more interesting stuff has happened in the meantime! So suffice it to say that the tree is saved for now, but may die later this year. Sniff.
Super Smash tournament, which I got knocked out of pretty quickly. Fun times.
I was very proud of how this tri-tip roast turned out, served it for some neighbors at a dinner I hosted.
It got out that I’d never seen Ratatouille, so we made a dish of it and watched the movie.
Played the Harry Potter board game while we were waiting for it to bake.
Next, it was off to Utah. I got invited by an old colleague to speak to his Computer Security students. A few weeks before departure, someone who used to work at Google reached out to me; we ran recruiting trips together, and his daughter – currently VP of the Women in Computer Science club – asked if we could bring back the Google Games coding competitions we ran in the past. So this guy reached out to me, who still worked at Google, to see how the software looked. I checked and (a) official recruiting events were still mandatory virtual, and (b) the Google Games software was unmaintained. I played around with it and it appeared to still work, so we decided to just go for it. Planning a whole recruiting trip in a week and a half was a bit of a stressor, but it all worked out wonderfully.
With Mattie moved out, I got to reclaim my ancestral bedroom.
Caught up with a friend in Provo while I was in town – lovely sunset.
I thought it was very funny when I told Mom about this car and she said she’d seen it around before.
Smaller crowd than usual for the Google Games (which was not being branded as such, as this was a clandestine operation).
Getting the band back together.
I visited my old lab afterwards. That’s my Portal 2 poster, still there after 6 years. Also still there is that red twine I cobbled together after our door stop kept slipping. Couldn’t resist posing for a pic. The lab will be renovated later this summer, so this was probably the last chance for me to see my handiwork still around.
The presentation to the class went phenomenally. It really helped that I gave a preview of the presentation to Mom and Dad the day before, and got to identify the parts that weren’t working and needed revision. During class there were tons of good questions and participation. It was the kind of lesson where you really wish your crush were there, to see you in your element. The professor expressed afterwards that I was invited back next semester to give the same presentation again. Cool cool.
Spent my last day on a bike ride up to Fort Canyon.
That loop in the water is the Juanita Beach boardwalk.
Movie night the evening after I got back, their cat was feeling social.
On Wednesday, Hayden came to town! We ate good food.
On Saturday, Steve came into town too. We had a grand old time.
Jamming out to some Good Charlotte.
Hayden needed to dispose of his old ID badge, so we melted it.
Another fine Sunday dinner. I didn’t sear these ones correctly, and had to deal with flare-ups the whole time they were on the grill, but they turned out great.
Had an amazing time at a Kraken hockey game.
The world is a really small place. This is an old friend from my Sammamish Valley YSA days, that we happened across in a train on our way into the city.
This is something Grandpa would have gotten for the Cabin I think.
The next day we had planned to head out on a deep sea fishing trip, but we got word that the weather was no good and we’d have to cancel the trip. Instead we headed north on a loop around Whidbey Island, where there was much better weather.
That evening, I had an HOA meeting. It was our big annual meeting with all the neighbors. At that meeting I announced that I was volunteering to take on the role of HOA president, as we’d been operating without one for the past year. One neighbor, who was known to be litigious and divisive among the residents, asked if there were any open board positions. There were, and she then asked if we should open them up to volunteers. We did, and she then volunteered for the board. I knew this would cause problems with the people who were currently serving on the board and ACC, but everything happened so fast and before I knew it I had to call for a vote, and the vast majority of the HOA members happily confirmed her in, so now she was in the board.
Our saving grace came when someone else remarked that there were people not present, who had not been told that board openings were being considered. We all agreed that allowances should be made for them. However, I wasn’t sure what should be done about it. We’d already voted, after all. Finally someone suggested that we put forth a motion to consider the current slate of board members “interim”, until an HOA meeting next month. Sure, sounded good to me. That motion carried.
Only, it would’ve been much cleaner if I’d had the presence of mind to just suggest that we completely annul the vote. Because the next morning I got an email from one of our ACC members saying that if this litigious homeowner were allowed on the board, he would resign immediately, as she has some unresolved issues with the ACC. One of our other board members was also feeling like doing the same. Ugh.
I had the other two long-standing board members over to my place for a meal on Friday night, where we talked it over. We agreed that I would call the litigious homeowner and ask that she recuse herself from the board in the next vote. We’ll see how that goes.
Anyways. Steve headed out Wednesday. Thursday evening was a rare quiet night in. Friday morning Hayden and I headed in to the city to meet up with Libby and Mondo, who were in town just for the day.
That evening we headed to a friend’s place for games. Today we were supposed to go up to Bellingham, but weather is pretty bad up there right now. Which works out great because I’m running pretty far behind in work and I’ve gotta get ready to head out for Africa next week, the day after Hayden departs. Should be fun!
In the Before Times, I’d play soccer on Fridays after work with some co-workers on a field behind our office that we shared with the elementary school next door. In the bike cage there was a set of lockers, and I’d been fortunate enough to snag one in which I stashed my cleats.
Fast forward two years and I’ve reconnected with the old crowd, who now play on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Last Saturday I finally brought my badge to soccer and whaddya know…
As Skurge would say:
As it happens though, these cleats were so old that I got blisters on both big toes after playing in them for a couple hours. So it was fun catching up with them but we’ll be getting something else.
That evening, on a whim, I attended a talent show being put on by my family ward.
It went about as well as you could expect.
I arrived late and came in half-way through the audience staring at an empty stage, being serenaded by a disembodied voice. Turns out it was a little girl singing, and she was self-conscious, so they let her perform into a mic behind closed stage curtains. Cute.
One talent involved projecting a PowerPoint presentation on a TV, and the organizers had brought it on a run-of-the-mill Dell or HP laptop, which decided it didn’t particularly feel like talking HDMI to the TV. I tried to be helpful but it quickly became evident that the problem was the laptop and there was no helping the situation. Eventually someone showed up with a different laptop model and sorted the problem out.
As is usually the case, the organizers made allowances for more “static” talents that were set up on display tables around the edge of the room. There were quite a few more of these than I usually see in YSA talent shows. To fill the time while the technical issue with the TV got sorted, the organizers had the folks manning their stations to take turns describing their work. The second person to do so was an immigrant from Africa who had set up a small laptop displaying an album of 50-odd pictures from her hometown. Unfortunately she wasn’t familiar with the social cues, and cycled through every single one, giving descriptions of most of them. Gentle prodding to wrap things up was lost on her, and no one felt like pressing the point, so when she eventually finished the organizer had to ask that each subsequent person use no more than 60 seconds each.
I feel like this part might have gone better if the audience had actually gotten up and stood in front of these static displays as they were being presented.
When that all wrapped up, the technical issues had been resolved, and we ended the evening with someone who is on the autism spectrum singing karaoke to a cover of What Is Love, where each line is sung by different Disney characters. I swear I’ve heard it before but YouTube is not being helpful; if I’m mis-remembering and it was an original piece then dang. Regardless, it was a fun coda for the night.
Quite the contrast to the talent shows the YSA wards put together, which are almost like professional events by comparison.
The next day was Super Bowl Sunday, and I got together with some friends in one of their apartment building’s activity center… thing… place.
Good times.
Not much to report during the week. This last Saturday I went with a friend to an in-door archery range that she frequents. I started out spraying arrows all over both of our targets, but by the end I had managed to dial in my horizontal aim a fair bit, so that was fun.
On Sunday I did a bit of a dry-run for a dinner I’m hosting with some of my neighbors, who at different times have had me over for dinner. Figured I’d make things square all in one go. So I grilled up some steak and sweet potatoes. I decided to splurge a bit at Costco and get some more pricier stuff than I usually do. And while it tastes great, it doesn’t taste 3x as great as the more regular cuts.
It was raining while I was grilling, so I set the grill just within the garage, with the door open. I knew from experience with having Dad and the Thomases over that grilling this way would lead to some amount of fumes and smoke building up in the garage, so I deployed a new innovation this time around, that seems to have been fairly effective.
A little breezy while I was tending the meat, but it turned out splendid.
Story time: the first time ever I wore what are now my Sunday shoes was when I went to an outdoor baptism back in 2020, on a day where we must have been getting some smoke from wildfires somewhere. On the way back I encountered a wide field that was being leveled and landscaped to be some kind of park.
I couldn’t resist so I hopped out of my car and went exploring. On that outing I nicked one of my shoes, and I’ve just sorta lived with it ever since.
In the words of a once-famous comedian, I told you that story to tell you this one. Lately my mattress has not been doing my back any favors, so today I decided I’d take advantage of Presidents’ Day mattress sales. I knew of a shoe repair store in town, so I decided to kill two birds in one outing. Just before I headed out I figured I’d go and check my mail for the first time in a bit. Found a letter from the water company saying that based on their latest readings, I might have myself a leak. The letter said that in order to tell for sure, I should make sure no water is running on purpose, then head out to the water meter buried in the front yard and see whether it’s moving. I go out and open the water meter cover only to find nothing but dirt. Turns out, moles like to dig in the area, which leads to not-super-sturdy earth. There must be some wireless transceiver there to allow some truck to drive by and grab the readings without visually inspecting the unit.
So I dug and dug and finally scraped off enough to see that yes indeed, the dial was spinning ever so slowly. Great.
A neighbor came by to ask what I was up to and I explained, and he said that he gets those letters every so often, so it might not be anything to worry about. But the needle was moving. While we were talking I pointed out this puddle that always forms at the same spot underneath my garage door. The neighbor noted that there appeared to be water stains on this one wooden door in the garage ceiling above where the puddle was forming. We parted ways and I went up to get a step stool, which was upstairs.
On the way down with it I realized that I needed to use that step stool in my bathroom, where a light had gone out and where my shower head was accumulating hard water build-up due to a leaky screw fastener. I undid the shower head and wrapped the screw threads in plumber’s tape, then read online how you can clean off hard water build-up by submersing the item in white vinegar, so I left that for later as I was still planning on imminently heading out for errands.
Done with the step ladder upstairs I finally brought it downstairs to check out that wooden door in the garage, only to find that it was fairly dry inside, nothing obvious there. Before finally heading out I darted out back for whatever reason and noticed that the water replenishment circuit in my water feature was on. The chance of that randomly happening is quite small, and there was dampness on the rocks beneath the main pool, so I figure that there’s the source of the water leak.
I finally get out the door and get to the shoe repair store only to find that they’re closed on Mondays. Oh well. Found a mattress store very close by and headed there.
As Dad knows from first-hand experience, it takes me a very long time to buy a mattress. I must’ve been at that place for a good three hours, and that doesn’t count wandering next door for a food break. Finally settled on a model that felt great, and saved a good chunk of change. It arrives this Saturday.
Drove from there to a showing of Uncharted, which was a pretty fun flick.
