Monochromatic Outlook

I real­ly love that I can google a half-remem­bered lyric I heard only once back when I was in high school and have that song play­ing in under a minute.

“She comes home from church, and takes off her pants. That’s what I like about…”

Come on, I know some of you know this one!… Read the rest

While my father has­n’t met a chess com­put­er that could beat him in at least four decades, I’ve strug­gled to ever win a game against a com­put­er or program.

Today on the flight home from Ver­mont, I fired up Hand­mark Pock­et Chess Deluxe for a game. I was grog­gy from sleep but beat PCD with sur­pris­ing ease.

I’m look­ing back over the game to try and deter­mine what I did this game that I nor­mal­ly don’t. Maybe some of these things … Read the rest

I attend­ed my grand­fa­ther’s memo­r­i­al ser­vice today, and said a few words in front of the gath­er­ing about grief and loss being pre­cious. I felt tongue-tied but I stood up and said my piece. When I fum­bled for words, I stopped and breathed and remind­ed myself that it just does­n’t mat­ter how slow­ly I talk or how much silence I let pass between sentences.

We came back to the fam­i­ly home for din­ner, which includ­ed humor­ous but very awk­ward jabs … Read the rest

I slept only about an hour because I’m get­ting ready to go to Ver­mont for my grand­fa­ther’s funer­al, which is tomor­row after­noon. It’s fun­ny what gets me moti­vat­ed to do things some­times. My house­mate will be feed­ing Ozzy for me while I’m gone, so I’ve spent the last hour or so clean­ing my room and my bath­room. trou­ble is, since I spent the bet­ter part of Decem­ber deep in depres­sion and the bet­ter part of Jan­u­ary with the fog slow­ly … Read the rest

http://www.tricalifornia.com/alcatraz/2005/randomwinners2.cfm#S

The ran­dom draw­ing has come and gone and my name is not on the list. Now I’ll def­i­nite­ly be look­ing for vol­un­teers to do things like hand out water at the Escape from Alca­traz triathlon. If I can coerce enough peo­ple to vol­un­teer (sort of defies the mean­ing of the word, but roll with it, OK?), I can still get a slot as a mem­ber of the host club.

So, if you’re in the Bay Area, … Read the rest

A week ago the pow­er went out here at Chez Splicer. Believe me, I was not hap­py to be dragged out of bed by the sound of the UPS. Well, I got to my beloved RS/6000 Mod­el 250 and shut it down prop­er­ly before the UPS died, but for some unknown rea­son it would­n’t come back on in the morning.

IBM built those things like Mack trucks. So actu­al­ly I spent the last week just try­ing to get the … Read the rest

Today is a beau­ti­ful day here in San Fran­cis­co. Sun­ny, prob­a­bly over 70. I wish I’d left my coat at home, but of course you can nev­er tell about some­thing like that. Bet­ter safe than sor­ry, no? I real­ly wish I’d brought my shorts and shoes – It’s a per­fect day to run. I could use a run, too. I’m blimp­ing out over here.

Walk­ing to the MUNI sta­tion at Embar­cadero I noticed some­thing quite odd. It’s a phe­nom­e­non I’ve … Read the rest

In change at the video store today I received a 1983‑S nick­el. It caught my atten­tion because the bust of Jef­fer­son looks «frost­ed» against the high­ly-shiny back­ground. Usu­al­ly the fig­ure does­n’t stand out so much, but on this coin, the field was pol­ished almost to a mir­ror-shine. I thought it was a brand-new nick­el, except that the shine was­n’t uni­form (hence the frost­ing). That was a lit­tle con­fus­ing, so I looked clos­er, and sure enough, it has a mint … Read the rest

I post­ed my résumé to a pop­u­lar local com­mu­ni­ty web­site two days ago. It was a big step to get a ver­sion of my résumé enough com­plet­ed to put it out for pub­lic con­sump­tion. I’m sure it will get more pol­ish­ing as I go, but I’m glad to get the ball real­ly rolling.

It does­n’t sur­prise me too much that folks are out there look­ing for peo­ple to work for cheap and fast and to start imme­di­ate­ly. One respon­dent actu­al­ly … Read the rest

Had a swim les­son tonight. I’ve known I’m a slow swim­mer for quite some time, but tonight I got a glimse into why. My coach gave me a kick­board and had me swim hold­ing my arms out in front. When I kicked my legs, I did­n’t move for­ward at all. I just kept on kick­ing and kick­ing and then I actu­al­ly start­ed mov­ing back­wards! Appar­ent­ly I’m not doing it right.

This tells me a lot about why I’m not a fast … Read the rest