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.

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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.

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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.

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Movie night the evening after I got back, their cat was feeling social.

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On Wednesday, Hayden came to town! We ate good food.

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On Saturday, Steve came into town too. We had a grand old time.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Whelp, till next time!

It was a shame saying goodbye to the fam, but it sounds like there’s a fair bit of travel in the upcoming months betwixt our various locales. Looking forward to seeing Dad and hopefully Aunt Lisa this weekend!

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After I landed I caught public transit, ostensibly as it’s better for the environment but also to offset the cost of a guilty-pleasure impulse buy. When I got home though, I realized my efforts to save the environment that night were more than negated by two problems: when I left back in late December, (a) I’d forgotten to turn off my heater system, and (b) my garage lights had been left on. Whups.

After I settled back in I was able to survive for a whole week without any shopping by subsisting on left-over potatoes+stuffing+turkey from a dinner I hosted the evening before I left for Utah. Eventually had to venture out for some variety. I’m branching out in the things I cook alongside steak, as inspired by Mom.

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Been really enjoying my new hobby collecting vinyl records. Not terribly proud of how much I’ve spent on it thus far, but it’s quite spartan compared to what anyone spends who’s truly serious about the craft.

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One fun quirk of this setup is I now have three separate and non-interacting sound systems: the network of Alexa devices, the TV soundbar + subwoofer, and now this. Of the three this is the nicest sounding, but it would be nice eventually to consolidate.

What follows is a picture essay of three problems with this setup and how I solved them with coat hangers.

First up, I needed a place to put the amplifier, preferably out-of-the-way when not in use. Luckily they make really small ones, so I didn’t need a big honkin’ thing like what we have in the living room driving the speakers. Of course, audiophile purists will always prefer the larger boxes, since the smaller tech uses.. *gasp* transistors. At this point I doubt my ears are sensitive enough to really notice a difference, so I’ll take the smaller form factor and be happy about it. It’s not like it’s encoding the audio digitally or anything either.

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Next up, cable management. When sitting on my couch I can see right back to the wall behind the shelves, and the power+audio+ground cables running from the turntable were falling straight down where they were clearly visible. Couldn’t have that.

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Finally, the shelves are quite a bit deeper than is needed to hold a record sleeve. This means that it’s hard to maintain uniform Z-axis alignment between all the records when removing or inserting them from the stack.

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Tada.

The weeks since have consisted of catching up on Attack on Titan & Foundation, punctuated by the odd movie night. Had a big gang over to my place to watch On the Basis of Sex, and been congregating at a friend’s place in Seattle for weekly Harry Potter movie nights, which just wrapped up last Sunday. Their apartment has a cat, which I’ve gotten friendly with.

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I headed to the dentist last week with high hopes. Last visit had been largely positive. “Work a bit on your flossing” was the take-home message, which I figured they’re contractually obligated to give, so whatever. This time though, they really gave my mouth a punishing cleaning. Had to actually numb my gums, they were going so hard. “You have a cavity that needs filling, and we recommend flossing after every meal. And just because we can, you’re grinding your teeth so we’re gonna have you come back next week to be fitted for a dental Night Guard.”

What’s interesting is, I can definitely taste the difference of going throughout the day having flossed after eating. No more particulates slowly shedding flavor I guess.

Saturday morning I decided to head to the temple. It was as foggy a day as I’d ever seen.

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Afterwards I headed to a high-end audio showroom in Bellevue. What I was hoping for was a way to A/B test some of their high-end equipment, for example to see if I could even appreciate the difference between an MM and an MC stylus (the latter regularly runs several thousands more than the former), or between a solid state and tube preamp. But no such luck – they had a number of setups all prepped, featuring incredibly high-end doodads, but not a way to really test the effects of any one of them in isolation.

To illustrate the kind of hardware that’s firmly in the realm of only the most dedicated audiophiles:

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This is a pair of hybrid solid-state / tube amplifiers, one per channel. Vacuum tubes handle the higher frequencies, while bass is handled by solid-state. The pair of them together cost $35,000. I’m sure it sounds lovely.

I think purveyors of high-end audio devices would not be terribly enthusiastic about the idea of A/B studies. A common refrain I hear is that past a certain dollar value, 90+% of the stuff is snake oil. Would you like to spend $4500 for a 3-meter HDMI cable? $7800 for a 2-meter power cable? And if you did spring for it, the last thing you’d want is to participate in a double-blind study to see if you can actually hear a difference.

(An organization did in fact run a double-blind test on “Super-Audio CDs” and found that participants could detect the “better” audio source no better than if they were blindly guessing. Go figure.)

Anyways. That evening I headed back to the temple to do baptisms with a YSA ward that had come in from over an hour out of town and who’d posted on our local ward’s Facebook page seeing if anyone in the area was interested in joining in. So it was a two-fer. And while the daylight burned away the fog, it was back with a vengeance that evening.

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This morning I slept in past when I’d normally need to leave for my regular ward, so decided to swing by my old Sammamish Valley YSA ward, which meets later and much closer. In fact, almost right after I previously transitioned out of the ward, they moved from Redmond to a chapel just down the road from my place; such irony. It was gratifying to have so many folks recognize me and say they missed having me around and that I should come by more often.

I brought my civvies to the church building so I could change and head right out to this fish ladder I’d heard about, 45 minutes north. They call the area Granite Falls, and I can tell why.

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This evening I rocked out to this number I grabbed from a D.I. in Sandy:

I especially love the insert, which espouses all the reasons why vinyl is the best format ever. One gem: “They Allow Selectivity Of Songs And Tracks. With records it’s easy to pick out the songs you want to play, or to play again a particular song or side. All you have to do is lift the tone arm and place it where you want it. You can’t do this as easily with anything but a phonograph record.”

Till next time!