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Happy 2020 Winter Solstice!
- To: robert-friends
- Subject: Happy 2020 Winter Solstice!
- From: http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)
- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 08:01:05 -0800
Happy Winter Solstice! 🌅
Here is my latest contact information:
Robert
.
where-I-live
my-Oakland-voicemail-number (voicemail)
our-San-Jose-phone-number
our-Oakland-cell-phone-number (cell)
http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert
http://www.
My solstice update is below.
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News
Lifestyle
* Health
* Miscellaneous
* My Year of Living Pandemicly. Definitely not fit for the big
screen (whatever "big screen" means these days). I was amazed
that, in writing my update this year, that it was early
January when we first started worrying about a viral
infection. Various government agencies waited until March
before tamping everything down. It's probably that everybody
thought it was going to be like H1N1 and just fizzle out. As
you all know, it didn't. Since COVID-19 seems to have
engulfed all of our lives, my update below is sprinkled with
references to the illness.
* A mask movement. Early April was when the CDC recommended
wearing face coverings when social and physical distance
cannot be maintained. (This around the time when "3 feet"
became "6 feet" as the recommended distance.) (See our cat
watching our governor advocating for mask use at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50710034638/in/datetaken/
). I began with some handkerchiefs we had sitting around.
Noelle had a fancier handkerchief and I used them. I
graduated to masks with the ear loops when Noelle bought me
one from an online store (see
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50232731808/in/photolist-2jwTT5U-2jwU4b5
). We now have accumulated a cache of masks, each of which
with its own flavor and flair.
* Exercise
* Spicing it up with a big gym. After the closing of our
downtown gym last year and upon the end of our transferred
membership to the inconvenient location, we tried out
different clubs. At the beginning of the year, we finally
settled upon one that is more expensive and much larger,
including a pool and racketball courts. While we are happy
with our decision, we only got to use it for a couple of
months before local ordinances due to the pandemic temporarily
closed it. It reopened briefly for about a month between
mid-October and mid-November, but it is closed again. Don't
know when or if it will reopen.
* Long live notoriously! Sadly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) died
this year. But, we continue to remember her by doing her
exercises. Since COVID closed our gym, we kept an exercise
routine by spenting the spring, summer, and some of the fall
outside in the back yard doing exercises from her RBG Workout
book, laying out mats on the lawn. Luckily, we already had a
number of needed props (therabands, swiss ball) since getting
those were difficult due to short supplies. It was hard to
keep focused, 'tho, with all the wildlife and plants to look
at.
* Ears
* An amplifier in hand is worth two in the bush. The quarantine
has been good for those becoming hard of hearing. I am able
to make the speakers arbitrarily loud during my, now,
numerous work and non-work meetings. At some point, I do plan
to try out a hearing aid in the anticipation that I'll be
meeting people face-to-face again in noisy (read: restaurants,
bars, clubs) environments.
* Careers
* Sometimes I forget. Forget how my cubicle was laid out, with
the chair, keyboard, monitor, books, calendar. I haven't seen
it since March 12, the last day I was there. We were told to
stay away from the office. Since then, we received many memos
about plans to allow us to return to the office, but nothing has
materialized. To be honest, presently, I feel no urgency to
return. I've grown accustomed to working remotely and I've
adapted my schedule to work this way. It would be difficult for
me to return to the weekly schedule that I had before.
* Home
* Never break the chain. We've always had problems with lost
mail, but this year has been worse than ever. First, there were
checks written out to us that got lost. Then, it was the credit
card bills and financial statements. For the checks, I
submitted a formal complaint, but USPS never found the missing
mail. Luckily, I was able to get replacement checks sent again.
I absolutely blame the Trump administration's Louis DeJoy and
his disastrous policies. Too bad we all suffer when government
services are slowly wittled away with the aim to foster
disappointment and distrust.
* Driving a hard barter. Since everyone's stuck at their homes,
they all have had time to actually see the fruit fall from their
trees. At least, that's why I think so many people in our
neighborhood participated in fruit exchanges. The exchange
became routine: we would pick some persimmons or whatever, place
them in a box in front of the house, make an announcement on
Nextdoor, and, a few hours later, the box is emptied. Very smooth.
* Transportation
* Commuting
* A moving ghost town. By early March, people had disappeared
from my Light Rail commute. After Cisco told its employees to
work at home, nobody was there to pack onto the train cars and
then spill out onto the narrow platform with me. Of course,
it was convenient since I could easily find a seat, but it was
also a bit creepy. Eventually, I did join other commuters in
abstaining from public transit and even bicycling to work.
Unfortunately.
* Travel
* There are oaks, too. Yes, there were sycamores at Sycamore
Mineral Springs but there were other trees as well. We stopped
there on a trip to Santa Barbara in late January. We were lucky
to take a vacation before the coronavirus made taking vacations
much trickier. We did know about the disease then and there
were some attempts at keep apart from strangers. Despite the
tension, we did get to enjoy some mixed drinks, some wine, some
food, some hiking, and some reading. Noelle got to do some
yoga, too. See pics at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157712929026512
* Navigating a crowded street. Despite the ongoing pandemic, we
engaged in a journey to Carmel-by-the-Sea during the summer for
our first pandemic hotel stay. I don't think the original
architects imagined that the town would become so mobbed during
the summers. Trying to avoid interactions with other people on
the sidewalks proved challenging. There were also numeric
limits imposed on the clientele in shops and restaurants, which
occasionally resulted in disappointment. We also went to Point
Lobos State Park before arriving in Carmel. We were happy that
this was another opportunity to use our state park pass. See
pics at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157715514387837
* We're on a road to nowhere. It was earlier this year that both
my and Noelle's passports expired. My reminders warned me that
this was coming, but it was only later that I found out that
you're supposed to renew your passports 6 months before they
actually expire. In this case, I don't think even this advanced
warning would have mattered. From the time we submitted our
passport applications, it took over 6 months before we actually
received them in our hot, little hands. Not that they can do us
much good since there are lots of travel restrictions and
quarantine requirements at the moment. Oh, well.
* Pets
* Cartesian doubt. During our January escapade, this was first
time we had someone sit our cat. The sitter, Terri, never got
to meet our cat, Gary, since he doesn't like strangers. I got
the feeling that she doubted that Gary even existed except for
the fact that, upon putting food into the feeder, the food was
gone by the next day. I was a bit nervous about the idea of
having a sitter since there's always the worry that they will
forget to lock the door or something else. Thankfully, it all
worked out. ('Tho, looking back, I don't know why I wasn't
more nervous about dealing with someone who might have been carrying
around a virus.)
* Money
* All is fairly certain, except death and taxes. Because I
usually need to wait a while before I am able to get all the
documentation for our income tax returns, I typically file my
taxes in late March. This year was no different. What was
different, however, was the turnaround time for getting the
refund check. Usually, the checks come between 3 to 6 weeks.
The state of Ca sent us our check in just 2 months --
slightly worse than usual. However, the check from the feds
just never seemed to arrive. In June, I started calling them.
Little did I know that getting in touch with the IRS was going
to be as difficult as getting through to a high-tech company.
They would prefer that nobody call ever. There are a number of
tricks (documented on the internet) to be able to get through to
a human being. I was on hold for almost 2 hours before someone
came on the line. The person I talked with was cordial, which
was stunning considering how the IRS is being treated these
days. The bottom line was that we needed to wait longer. We
kept checking the magic web site to see the status of our
return, but it kept showing that it had never arrived.
(Certified mail said that the income tax return had arrived in
early April.) Finally, in early October, the web site showed
that it was being processed. It was only a couple of weeks
after that that we received the refund check. A few days after
that, I changed my W-2 so we, maybe, will owe money to the IRS
instead of the IRS owing money to us, in order to avoid this
hassle in the future.
* Food
* The underused park pass. Our first use of our state park pass
was in early January. I had given this pass to Noelle as a gift
and turned out to be of little use this year. (See section
below on Henry Coe State Park as well.) The visit was a guided
tour to Burleigh H. Murray Ranch Park Property in Half-Moon Bay.
It was interesting and historical. I remember that we tried to
stay separated, so we were aware of the COVID-19 recommendations
at the time. Which was difficult because, after the hike, we
went shoulder-to-shoulder to The Half Moon Bay Brewing
restaurant with some people we had just met. Everything was
packed, even in January when it was cool outside, with very little
parking to be found and long wait times.
* Intestinal intention. On our way to Santa Barbara from the Bay
Area, we passed the world famous Pea Soup Andersen's countless
times. Noelle informed me that their split pea soup is vegan, and,
since I had never been there, it was obvious what needed to be
done. In late January, on our return trip from Santa Barbara,
we popped in for an all-you-can-eat split pea soup. This was
just the beginning of knowledge about the novel coronavirus and,
so, it was a bit awkward. A three foot distance was the advice
at the time and they kept assuring us that the utensils and
plateware were clean. In any case, it was tasty. A pic can be
found at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/49478805531/in/album-72157712929026512/
* Transitioning to a local diner. In the past number of years,
cooking at home had become an integral part of our daily
routine. But, when physical and social distancing restrictions
came into our lives, local restaurants were threatened with
shutting their doors forever. (A few have already closed.) We
have been making a concerted effort to eat out more in order to
support local establishments.
* Playing the waiting game. Our Trader Joes was notorious for
having long lines even within the store. But, since the
pandemic started, lines for Trader Joes became insane. A few
weeks after restrictions went into place in early Spring, I
tried shopping at Trader Joes in the middle of a weekday,
thinking it would better. I waited 45 minutes before even being
able to enter the store. For the most part, we've abandoned
going to either Trader Joes or Whole Foods. Noelle discovered
that a Smart and Final market had no or very short lines; that
has become our go-to grocery store shopping spot during this
time.
* Miscellaneous
* The rug pulled out from meetups. Meetups suddenly became very
different, nearly pointless, almost overnight. It took some time to
sort out, but, surprisingly, we began to attend more meetups!
Without the need to travel in the heavy traffic Bay Area, it was
easy to pop into many meetings from the convenience of our
living room. Among the numerous meetings we've been attending
has been Ethical Cultural Society of Silicon Valley and Social
Vegans and Unumhum Brewing Happy Hours.
Entertainment
* Movies
* Film festival fiasco. It was only after 5 days that the annual
Cinequest film festival decided that it would be rescheduled due
to the novel coronavirus. Like most people, we were shocked
that things were bad enough that this big local event was being
temporarily canceled. This coincided with the announcement that
jurisdictions in the Bay Area were beginning various
restrictions. Life changed quite a bit at that point, quite
similar to what we're going through right now. Although
Cinequest thought that this whole thing would blow over in a few
months, obviously, things did not change by August when the
festival was supposed to re-open. It wasn't until September
that we found out that the entire film festival went online,
which we did attend.
* Long live movie theaters! In October, our local movie theater
was offering socially (physically) distanced, safe movie viewing
on a garage rooftop near the theater. We saw "To Be Takei", the
documentary about George Takei. You can see a pic or two at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/50670048837/in/album-72157717135784497/
* Television
* No more YMCA for you. It wasn't The Village People, but rather
people in a village in Un Village Francais, a television series
set in a small town in France just before Germany invades the
country during World War II. We started watching the series
last year and finally finished it this year. The first disc was
the best because the bonus specials talked about the history of
the time, but the series overall was great.
* Outdoors
* It was no go for Coe. There were at least two times that we were
informed that state parks would be open during the pandemic. And,
both times, we tried to visit Henry Coe State Park, about 25
minutes south of where-I-live. The keyword here is "tried". We got
about half-way up to the park and the lot was blocked off. I
have never been there, but Noelle has been. It's one of the few
local state parks I have been unable to get to. See the few
pics at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157713678837176
* Never go ashtray. There were reports on the radio in August of
hot, windy weather. We knew it was just a matter of time before
the wild fires would begin. Sure enough, they came. For some
reason, this year seemed worse than previous ones. The air
smelled very bad, like an ashtray. The sky also glowed red and
smoky. Every morning, I had a sore throat, even if we
remembered to keep the windows closed.
* Not seeing a forest behind the trees. It was mid-June and we
were interested in visiting a museum in virus-safe way, and
discovered that UC Santa Cruz Arboretum was still open. So, our
tiny pod of two (just Noelle and myself) drove the wide open
freeways to Santa Cruz to visit. I realized that I had been
making bad assumptions about what was local flora and what
wasn't. See pics at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157715171331037
* Winnebago warriors. We roughed it in the great outdoors by
renting an RV in early Dec. It was a way to safely get away in
a low-touch environment. It also happened to be a birthday present for
Noelle. I had never really had an RV living experience before.
It had it ups (convenient bathroom access) and downs (got cold
at night). Not sure whether we'll do it again; motels/hotels
are much more convenient, even if just a bit more risky. See pics at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157717127028327
* Music
* A beautiful set of pipes, not tubes. For some reason, soon after the
shelter-in-place (a.k.a. rest at home) orders came down, we got into
watching Youtube videos analyzing music. Noelle's favorite became
Rick Beato. It's really remarkable what can be taught and learned
through Youtube and other online videos for free.
* Exited, stage left. Like everybody, Noelle and I were taken aback at
Neil Peart's death in January. 'Tho difficult without a record player
(see below), we spent several days mourning by playing lots of Rush,
sometimes repeatedly. I'm glad Neil accomplished as much as he did
during his lifetime. I think he made a lot of people happy.
* An unreliable turnaround. In January, we discovered that our
turntable was having troubles. In particular, the revolution
speed kept going up and down, creating a "warped" sound. (I
later found out that this is called "wow".) We took it to the
repair shop and they said that they'd get back to us. Two
months later, they called and said that they were unable to
reproduce the problem. We thought it was a fluke. After
bringing it home, we plugged it in and there was the same
"warping". We called the repair shop, and they agreed to listen
to it again while we were there. It sounded fine! After
bringing it home a second time, we plugged it in and it still
had the same problem. At that point, I did some research. The
first speculation was that it was power fluctuations. So, we
had Pacific, Gas, and Electric come out and test our power. The
electrician said the quality was spectacular. Friends and
family said we had to get another record player. We wanted to
support our local stores, so we went to the repair shop (the
same one) again to look for a record player. It was mid-August
by this point. While looking around at possible record players,
we relayed our story of woe and the repair person suggested
bringing it in again. Coincidentally, I had brought the
phonograph with us so that I could make sure it could fit into
our cabinet. This time, he plugged it in, listened to it, and,
at last, could hear the "warping"! As of this writing, it still
sits in the shop, waiting to be repaired. (The repair people
said they have a backlog of turntable repairs, so we expect it
to take a while, with the pandemic and all.)
* Art
* A late birthday celebration. It's looking like last January may
be the last birthday celebration that Noelle's dad will be
celebrating for a while -- maybe 2022? We drove down to Paso
Robles to join Noelle's dad and her step-mom for a wine-tasting
event. We stayed in the same hotel and went to see yet another
Bruce Munro installation. While not particularly big fans of
his work, this was the second time in a 12-month period that we
had seen Bruce Munro's light sculptures. The one from early
2019 was more impressive, but this one was quite crowded and
keeping the prescribed social distances was tough, nay impossible.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/noelle/albums/72157712535965467
* Sports
* A final double-dip? It seems like years ago, but it was just 9
months ago that we attended a Superbowl party. I know very
little about football, but I can sorta understand a little.
While drinking hard liquor and eating chips, sitting on couches,
we were blissfully unaware of the coming plague. And who knows
when sitting shoulder-to-shoulder will happen again?
Politics/Society
* Labor
* There will be no socialist revolution. At least, not this year.
In April, the local chapter of the group that aided workers at
tech companies had its last meeting. It may be that meeting
virtually is just not as engaging as meeting in-person, even for
hi-tech people. (That wasn't the only reason; as everybody
knows, there was a lot going on in the spring and summer to
distract everybody.)
* Voting/Elections
* Democrat for another day. Like four years ago, I again went
through the hassle of changing my voter registration just so
that I could vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary in
Ca because I thought only Bernie could beat Trump.
Noelle even attended a Bernie rally here in where-I-live, and Bernie
did win Ca, but to no avail. The party again opted for
the evil of two lessers. And, like last time, I reverted back
to my usual third party status.
Technology
* Computers
* Software
* PC
* A sparkling glass of brute force. These days, almost all of
my back-ups are at home or close by. However, if these were
to fall into the wrong hands, by brute-forcing the files
used by Keepass would allow access to all sorts of financial
and other information. To circumvent this possibility, I
upgraded to KeepassXC and a more modern password hashing
function. These hashing functions allow you to specify a
number of iterations; so, I pumped up the number of
iterations by a bunch. Now, it takes 10 seconds on a
desktop machine to verify the passphrase. This small step
might slow down any brute force attempts, but of course not
stop it.
* Hardware
* PC
* Windows
* The Windows 7 year itch. For various reasons, our
internet connection is slow. The same cannot be said of
my inlaws's internet. So, the plan in early January for
upgrading Noelle's laptop from the soon-to-be-unsupported
Windows 7 to currently-supported Windows 10 was to lug the
laptop down to Santa Barbara and upgrade the machine using
the inlaw's fast internet. The bottleneck was revealed to
be the speed of the old laptop itself (see the next
section) and not the amount of data required for the
operating system upgrade. After a few hours of
configuring itself and rebooting several times, the laptop
came back to life. It was virtually the same as Windows
7, except Microsoft would now provide security updates.
* Yes, sir, no sir to Acer. Worried that the 10-year old
Acer laptop that Noelle had been using for her work could
die at any time, we set off on mission to replace it.
After finding an adequate make and model (Dell), I made a
plan to transfer everything over. I figured I could just
add some partitions on the new computer to fit the
partition from the old Windows partitions, clone the
Windows partition from the old computer, and just plop the
partition into the new computer. If only it were that
easy. Fiddling with the boot menu was necessary, and there
are a surprising number of things you have to worry about,
including Windows secure boot and UEFI booting. I'm not
actually sure what I did, but I got it to the point where
the basic boot menu would come up and would allow you to
select either the new laptop Windows installation or the
Windows installation from the old laptop. It now works
like a charm and I did not have to reconfigure anything or
reinstall any software.
* Stay in place...in front of your screen. The various
flavors of quarantine across the country have put me into
the position, more than previous years, of becoming IT
Support for family members. I have no problems with this
and am happy to help out. Screen sharing softwares have
been installed and lots of hand-holding over the phone
have become a part of my life.
* Telephones
* The travails of replacing a broken cell phone. In mid-June,
Noelle broke the screen on her phone, probably due to the
bulging, aging battery. It was unusable. I had bought
insurance to cover this year's ago, so I thought that there
would be no problem. I called the phone company who referred me
to an outfit called Brightstar. After paying the co-pay of
$150, I placed the claim. It took 3 days for the phone to
arrive. But, to our dismay, we found that our old SIM did not
fit into this phone and they didn't provide a SIM card. There
were a series of calls back and forth trying to get the SIM
card, but we never got it. At one point, I ended up being on
the phone with the insurance representative for 4 hours. In
frustration, we returned the phone and asked for the co-pay
back. They received my returned phone in just a couple of days,
but it took 3 weeks before they refunded the $150. (As it turns
out, during this time, our phone company sent us a SIM for that
phone. Not of much use at that point.) After they refunded the
money, I canceled our insurance coverage (I calculated that, for
the premiums I had paid over the years, I could've bought a
brand new phone) and just bought a phone outright (no payment
plans). Lots of lessons were learned: phone insurance is not
worth it and enrolling in a payment plan unnecessarily ties you
to a phone company.
* Internet
* A cryptic exchange. This marks the first year that everybody in
my family now uses Signal Private Messenger. (I only use it on
a laptop since I don't have a smart phone at the moment.)
My attempts to get everybody to use PGP or GnuPG in email was
becoming a hopeless venture; so, despite the huge security hole
of giving up your phone number, we can safely exchange financial
documents and so on.