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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Kevin Standlee's LiveJournal:
| Sunday, May 20th, 2012 | |
| 11:24 pm | Eclipsed Lisa was ideally placed to watch today's annular eclipse, as the "sweet spot" passed right over Fernley. She created a viewing box with a pinhole in it and tells me that she was able to see the "ring of fire" during the maximum coverage (about 96%). Where I was in San Jose the maximum coverage was less, and my viewing a bit more haphazard. I improvised a pinhole viewer with a piece of cardboard salvaged from the recycle bin. When I first tried it out from my apartment, I saw that initially the sun angle in my window was right, and I projected a disc with a notch cut out of it against my wall. I then went to the lobby on my floor, where I found three kids trying to figure out how to watch the eclipse. I cautioned them repeatedly about trying to look at the sun and started to wield my impromptu pinhole board, when I realized that the way the blinds and curtains on the third floor lobby were drawn, they were forming a series of pinhole views and you could see the image of the sun projected multiple times. We watched the sun head toward the maximum coverage and I tried to impress upon the kids the rarity of this sight. I don't remember seeing a solar eclipse since (I think) 1993 in Folsom. As the angle of the sun changed, the lobby no longer had a view of the sun that worked, and I headed outside, where I searched for places where I could project the solar image as the lunar notch moved across it. Belatedly I remembered that I should try to take some pictures, and I quickly ran up to my room to get my new Sony camera that replaced the one I broke at Renovation. In my haste, I forgot to put a memory stick into it, however, and thus I only had a little bit of capacity for photos. ( A few photos from me and from Lisa ) This evening I realized that I'd gotten too much sun (including the long walk I took around Quarry Lakes earlier today, about which more later when I get a chance), because I'm sunburned. Oh, the irony. I hope the sun-relief ointment left over from my return from Australia is still effective. Current Mood:  pleased |
| Saturday, May 19th, 2012 | |
| 11:50 am | Good and Bad Good news: I slept for nearly twelve hours last night and feel much more human. Bad news: The bed in this micro-apartment isn't that great and my back is giving me fits for having been sleeping in that bed for twelve hours. Current Mood:  lethargic |
| Friday, May 18th, 2012 | |
| 9:13 pm | Quiet Weekend Ahead, I Hope After having discussed things with Lisa, we decided I should spend the weekend down here taking it relatively easy. Lisa is coming down for BayCon next weekend anyway. With the hours I've been working, I need to get extra rest sometime. Current Mood:  sleepy |
| Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 | |
| 8:43 pm | Ballpark Express Thanks to David Gallaher for finding his original of the photo I was using as my icon here so I could return to the my-hair's-on-fire picture. Thanks also to Adrienne Foster for letting me have her tickets to last night's Giants-Rockies game. Wow, does she have good seats. It turns out I should have volunteered to my co-workers that I had a seat going unused; one of them might have been interested in coming to the game, and I could have recovered the rest of Adrienne's ticket cost. ( Photo follows ) Alas, the game did not go the way faithful Giants fans would have liked, with the Rockies winning 5-4. It very nearly went to extra innings (Giants had the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth), which would have meant I got home even more after midnight that I did manage. Because I was traveling on my own, I could get down from the upper deck, out of the stadium, and down to the Caltrain station relatively quickly. It's not easy, though, and I had only five minutes to spare before the express (skips stops to San Carlos) left. I didn't get to bed until sometime around 1 AM or so. Fortunately, I could come in a couple hours late today, although I did need to work later this evening to make things come out "evenly," you might say. Current Mood: cheerful |
| Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 | |
| 10:20 am | Bonus Ball At BASFA last night, Adrienne Foster had two tickets to tonight's Giants-Rockies game that she was not going to be able to use. Although at this point she was willing to give them away, I went ahead and offered the price of one ticket for the pair, having been in a similar position of having a ticket go completely unused. So I have rather quickly rearranged my plans to get out of here about 4:45 so I can catch one of the express trains up to the city for tonight's ball game. Current Mood: cheerful |
| 10:17 am | Bonk I forgot to mention this earlier, but since people who have seen me since Sunday have commented on it: yes, I have a nasty looking red blotch on the top of my forehead right now. ( No, I wasn't in a bar-room brawl ) While I was shoving the rear seat back into position in my van, I had the bad luck to hit my head right on the bracket at the rear center portion of the door frame where the rear doors latch. I hit it pretty hard, really; enough to where I had to stop and recover for a few minutes before we could finish the job. I'm okay, but it left a bump and scratch that, thanks to my vanishing hair, is very visible. Current Mood:  dizzy |
| Sunday, May 13th, 2012 | |
| 8:45 pm | Drive Drive Drive I got away from Fernley around 11 AM and headed west. I initially thought of stopping for a sit-down second breakfast in Reno, but everything except fast food places had queues — Mother's Day, you know — so I grabbed take-out and pushed along. It was an uneventful drive through the Sierra. I got back to San Jose sometime around 7:15 or thereabouts, with four stops along the way. Everything routine. Current Mood: tired |
| Saturday, May 12th, 2012 | |
| 10:43 pm | Paint Patrol Lisa and I got away into Reno later than we originally planned. The plan was to go have lunch at the Peppermill's buffet, but we got there after lunch closed and before dinner opened, so instead we went to the Sherwin-Williams dealer on South Virginia Street. The place was empty when we got there (although apparently we'd just missed a big rush). The guy was very nice to Lisa and me. When we explained that we were painting a porch, not just any outside woodwork, he recommended a particular type of their paint intended for such surfaces. That particular type isn't manufactured in Fernley — he showed us how to read the codes on the cans so as to find out if a given can was manufactured here — and it's more expensive than the ordinary exterior paint, but it's meant for foot traffic. We bought a quart of it colored to the shade of red we think is closest to the dark red/crimson ("fireweed") we want to use. Lisa figures she can paint a step or two to see how well it works and looks, and if it's not what we wanted, we can just paint over it later. The guy at the shop made Lisa feel very good about this purchase, too, unlike the folks at Lowe's who either ignored her or made her feel uneasy. The SW paints will probably be more expensive that what Lowe's is offering, but they also look like they should wear better, and there's something to be said for spending your money in places that treat you better. After dealing with paint, we went back and had an early dinner at the Peppermill, then went to Winco for groceries. We meant to go by Work World so I could pick up some more slacks and shirts, and Lisa some socks, but we forgot about the time and they'd already closed by the time we got there. Lisa did check in the adjacent Home Depot and found a particular US-made piece of EMT fitting that Lowe's only carries in the Chinese brand (and the US-made item is less expensive, to boot). Then there was Whole Foods, where we got the nice undyed pickles they have, and also a brand of cereal that seems to agree with my blood sugar control. Finally we stopped by the Nugget to tickle my club card. Lisa had poor luck with Paradise Fishing today before we headed home. Tonight I am tasked with duplicating a few disk drives. Unfortunately, some of the blank drives we bought seem to want to draw more power than my Dell D600 can produce through the USB port, although they seem to work okay off of my work computer (A Dell E6510). You can't duplicate a drive if it won't come up to speed. Current Mood: cheerful |
| 11:47 am | Buy Local We went to Lowe's last night and were unimpressed by the paint and the service. Ironically, there's a Sherwin-Williams paint plant in Fernley right next door to Lowe's, but no Sherwin-Williams dealership. Maybe we'll go look at S-W paint in Reno this afternoon. We rather like the idea of not only the local retail store getting the money, but much of the rest of it being spent in Fernley for manufacturing it. We're still trying to figure out just what exact shade of red-brown to buy. Lisa says she hopes they'd mix us a small paint sample that she could test out on one step to see if she likes it. We just want to get those steps repainted this year, because while things will keep a long time in the desert, it's not good to leave the wood unpainted; the sun bakes things, rather than the rain rotting them. Current Mood:  thoughtful |
| Friday, May 11th, 2012 | |
| 11:10 am | Working From Home The stars were aligned correctly this week to allow me to drive home to Fernley yesterday afternoon and to work from here today. I'm getting used to the drive in one sense, but it's not something I can do every weekend. Later this afternoon after work, we hope to go over to Lowe's and pick out paint for repainting the porch/stairs on Fernley House. Now that the weather has warmed up, Lisa would like to get started on the painting, because it's a job that doesn't have to be done all at one go and that she can do herself in batches. Now to decide what color paint and to try and figure out how much area we have to cover. Current Mood: working |
| Sunday, May 6th, 2012 | |
| 7:43 pm | Come On Down! Last night I attended what was officially a "preview" performance of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show, a musical about American game shows of the 1950's, 60's and 70's. I arrived very early and was asked if I wanted to be one of the audience members who become part of the show as contestants, and of course I said "Yes!" So they took down my name and told me it would be their version of Match Game. Oh, how appropriate! ( In which it is suggested that I'm a 'ringer.' ) The show's director, Scott Evan Guggenheim, came out to introduce the show and explain that this was a "preview" performance and that subsequent shows might be quite different. The cast actually entered through the audience. One of the women (I've now forgotten which character, but I think it was "Helen Hart" (Lee Ann Payne).) asked me if I was alone tonight. When I said yes, she said, "Well, not for long!" I don't know if she realized I was going to be one of the contestants or not. ( Act 1 ) ( Kevin gets into Act 2 ) Jazzed up from my turn on stage, I returned to my seat and watched the rest of the show play out through the finale. The cast then exited through the audience and was available in the lobby thereafter. With such a small audience, it was no problem coming out to talk with them, thank them for their performance, explain that I'm the game-show-hosting owner of the vintage microphone they're using, explain what my ad-lib was going to be and let them know that I understood why they had to squash it, and otherwise enthuse. What I didn't do — and I'm kicking myself over this — was not get a picture taken with the cast, even though I'd turned my Droid back on and primed it for photography. I had an utter blast attending this show. They'll be playing Friday-Saturday-Sunday through May and into early June. I heartily encourage anyone who can do so to get down to the Retrodome and see this show while it's available. If I understood what they were telling me, I think they've invited me to a later performance as a thank-you for the equipment loan. Lisa and I need to talk about whether she wants to make the trip down from Nevada to attend, too. She has to be very careful about shows she attends because of her precarious hearing, but I think this should be okay. It was a great deal of fun being there. Of course, I assume that they won't ask me to be a contestant if I'm there for a subsequent show since it would spoil the charm of having "cold" reactions, but even so, I'm sure I'd enjoy seeing it again. Oh, and I got a "lovely parting gift" as a contestant: a box with chocolates and a certificate for free popcorn at a subsequent show at the Retrodome. I gave them back the box not only because I don't have enough room in this postage stamp of an apartment to keep much clutter, but also because, as a show producer myself, I know the hassle of putting together all of this stuff, so if they can reuse the decorated parting-gift box, good for them. Current Mood: ecstatic |
| Saturday, May 5th, 2012 | |
| 4:48 pm | Visiting My Microphone I have purchased a ticket for tonight's performance of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show, a musical comedy based on game shows, at the Retrodome in San Jose. I had something to do with this show, in that they borrowed my ECM-51a "Match Game" microphone to serve as a model for the one they're using in the show. (I'm looking forward to getting my microphone back, by the way.) And of course, I like game shows. Current Mood: amused |
| 12:40 pm | The Real Friendly Confines [LiveJournal has eaten the icon I used to use for posts about baseball and sports, and I can't find the original, so I've substituted a slightly-less-fanatical version.] It's been a very long, stressful, intense week at work, so I was delighted to be able to get away at 3:45 on Friday afternoon to walk over to the light rail station and head to downtown San Jose and on to the Caltrain station (after a brief banking errand downtown) to catch the 4:45 "baby bullet" express to San Francisco. After a nice smooth trip of less than an hour, I was at 4th & King Streets heading to AT&T Park to join my fellow BASFA members in our outing to see the San Francisco Giants play the Milwaukee Brewers. ( Photos Follow ) Alas, despite the sixth-inning comeback and another attempt later in the game, the Giants fell to the Brewers 6-4. It took a long time to get out of the park from our upper-deck seats, and by the time we got down to Caltrain, the express (nonstop to San Carlos) was long gone. Indeed, we just barely made the second train because I insisted on walking all the way down to the far end of the train, and the doors were closing as we hopped aboard. OTOH, whereas the near-the-platform-stops end of the train was SRO, there were seats going begging at the other end where we were. The conductor kept making announcements that apparently were intended to try and get people to move down the length of the train, but he was so inarticulate that it was really difficult to make out what he was saying. On account of the second train makes all stops, and many of those stops are rather long due to the huge crowd aboard, it was looking increasingly like I would miss the last light rail train of the night out of San Jose Diridon station. Fortunately, Adrienne Foster, who had walked to the train with me, had driven to Caltrain, parking at Santa Clara station, and she offered to drive me back home, saving me a taxi ride home from Diridon. Thanks, Adrienne! Many thanks to Dave Gallaher for arranging this group outing for BASFA. I hope he's able to assemble a similar outing for BASFAs to see the Giants play the Cubs — at Wrigley Field in Chicago on the Friday afternoon of Chicon 7! I'll have to pack my orange gear. Have to see if there will be room for the orange wig. Current Mood: relaxed |
| Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 | |
| 9:14 pm | Making Friends With My Pillow It has been a pretty intense week, but we did manage to meet our deadline, and I'll be working from home on Friday before heading out to the Giants game Friday night with the BASFA Baseball Outing. I'm thinking of taking light rail — since I'm now living only one block from the Gish station — to Diridon Caltrain and catching the 4:45 express. The only downside to this is that there's a pretty good chance that the return train will get back after the last light rail train, or that it will be one of the trains that terminates at Civic Center, which means a long walk or a taxi ride home. Meanwhile, my pillow hasn't seen enough of me the past few days, so I'm going to bed. Current Mood: exhausted |
| Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 | |
| 9:13 pm | Moving Daze: Good Intermission Because the Amtrak California Zephyr is on a temporary schedule that runs three hours later than usual, Lisa and I didn't have to rush about to make an 8 AM train on Monday. Instead, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast at the Eldorado buffet, took her luggage back to her pickup, and made our way down to the Amtrak station where the CZ was running another hour later than the revised schedule. We met an expat Australian woman now living in Reno who had her father (they're both from Sydney) in for a visit, and we chatted amiably with them on the platform until the train came. I said goodbye to Lisa, who headed off quickly and didn't even see the train off. (She later explained that she was feeling as though she was almost completely out of power, having slept maybe five hours in the previous 60, and she still had to get groceries and head back to Fernley, so she had to get moving.) ( By Train through the Sierra ) I really enjoyed the train trip, which was a nice restful end to an otherwise very stressful weekend of moving. There's one more high-stress period left, which is the final cleaning out of the Fremont apartment over the rest of this week. I feel a bit like I'm in Zeno's Paradox, for every time I fill up boxes of stuff and move them, there still seem to be as many boxes left to move, while the Atrium apartment (which has very little room) gets more and more full. I rather expect I'll end up having to use my van for overflow storage while I make more decisions about things I just can't keep down here and will either have to take to Nevada or throw away completely. I hope Lisa is able to haul some of it back in her pickup truck when she comes here this weekend. Current Mood: tired |
| Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 | |
| 11:42 pm | Countdown to Move-Out: 2 Weekends After lunch today, Lisa and I began unloading the rental truck. The early parts, closer to the door, weren't so bad, as they were mostly boxes and/or odd-sized but manageable like floor lamps, poster tubes, and the like. But the Big Stuff was Not Fun. ( Curse you, Queen Bed ) I do very much hope tomorrow is a nice quiet train ride back to the Bay Area. This weekend has had too much drama for me. Current Mood: exhausted |
| 12:33 pm | Moving Daze: Indifferent End When I started the rental truck in Sparks, I could see that I was down to less than one-eighth of a tank of gas, but figured that I should be able get out to Fernley and we could refuel there, where gas is substantially cheaper. ( That Darn Engine Light Came Back ) Lisa had me go ahead and pull the truck around to the garage on the other side of the property, as many of the boxes will be stored there initially. I was too tired to do anything else after a much too long, much more eventful day than I wanted. At that point, all I wanted was sleep, which was what I got. Current Mood: tired |
| 12:24 pm | Moving Daze: Bad Middle Getting moving just before 11 AM, I called my sister and mother to tell them (and my nephew) that I didn't expect to be in Sutter before 2, since I needed to go first to the storage locker and drop off some things there to make room for the stuff coming from my grandfather's house. I set off north in a cheerful mood, as everything seemed to be going to plan. ( Then the Truck Broke Down ) Lisa and I didn't win the $10,000 drawing, but getting the truck to Nevada in one piece probably used up most of my luck anyway. After the drawing, we went to the Oyster Bar for pan roast. I was relieved to be there. Current Mood: relieved |
| 11:41 am | Moving Daze: Good Start Those of you who follow my Twitter feed know a fair bit of the story I'm going to be posting here, but here it comes for the record. It's long enough that I'll be posting it in multiple parts. ( The BASFA Displacement Committee Cometh ) The BASFA Displacement Committee did a fantastic job, moving the entire contents marked for removal in only about 90 minutes. I thanked them all, offered everyone their pick of things from the shelves in the kitchen with stuff that I'm not moving and will discard if not claimed, and was able to get the truck buttoned up and ready to go before 11 AM, more than an hour before I'd originally hoped. (In retrospect, I was to need that time desperately.) Thank you, everyone! As people left, they wished me a safe trip. I thanked them and hoped for an uneventful journey. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be the case, but that's another story to follow shortly. Current Mood: tired |
| Friday, April 20th, 2012 | |
| 4:59 pm | Keep On Truckin' To my great relief, one of the small number of "pull through" parking spaces in my (soon to be ex-) apartment complex was available when I returned with the rental truck. Must have been around 5 km to the rental place, and it's a pretty warm day. Glad I don't have to do a whole lot more work tonight other than seal up some of these boxes. While inspecting the truck before signing off on it, I extended the ramp and paced off the distance from the end of the ramp to the doors. That gives me the distance I have to pull forward of the most likely exit from the apartment complex so that people bringing stuff out have the minimum distance to get to the truck ramp. Unfortunately, the exit from the complex doesn't have a handicapped-access ramp; there's a straight curb. Annoying, that. Current Mood: hot |
