Paris, France I’m happy not to be in the United States this Inauguration Day. How did it come to pass that my country elected as its President a lout and a buffoon; someone with no understanding, appreciation, or respect for our history and institutions; a bluffer with the mindset of an adolescent male; a man with no executive or political experience; a sideshow barker, a small-minded Daddy’s Boy driven by […]
We love France, we really do. But there are aspects that are, shall we say, less robust than in the U.S. One of these is the quality of service personnel in non-retail contexts. (The service personnel in shops, stores, and restaurants, in contrast, are fabulous — almost always helpful and friendly and efficient.) The worst, in our experience, are banks, and we had yet another example the past two days. […]
We’d intended to stay in Les Saisies until Saturday, then drive to Lyon and take the TGV to Paris. That plan changed when the weather forecast called for up to three feet of snow and blustery winds for Friday and Saturday, due to a big storm associated with a cold front moving across Europe. About 5 p.m. on Thursday, the snow started falling, and by the time we were ready […]
I’ve come up on the year anniversary of having the photovoltaic system installed, so I downloaded my PG&E usage information (which is available on an hourly time-step) for the last year, and did some quick Python/Pandas analysis. Here’s a chart showing our average hourly use over that time period. It shows both the effect of the solar panels (the negative numbers during the middle of the day, when the PV […]
The recent reports that the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the Russians not only interfered in the recent Presidential election, but interfered with the express purpose of getting Trump elected elicited this response from the Trump troops: These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s […]
Thanks to the technology of orthotic insoles and the wonderful, soft, cushioned, flat artificial soccer surface atSchopflin Fields, I’ve been able to start running again, after a layoff of about 15 years. Yes, it is true that it’s a slight stretch to call what I do “running,” but I am consistent if not very quick, and I do finish off with a series of sprints that get me going faster than […]
Twenty-five years ago today, I married the most wonderful woman in the world. The best Mom, the best friend and companion, the best travelling partner, a secure, calm, commonsense counterweight to my craziness and insecurity. I thought I loved her as much as I could twenty-five years ago, but I was wrong. My love for her, my respect, appreciation, and admiration for her as a person and a professional, my […]
A vivid memory of an otherwise ordinary winter’s night in Burlington, Iowa when I was 16: It was early evening, completely dark. It was snowing but the wind was calm. Large heavy snowflakes were falling from a low sky. It was still and quiet; between the squeaking sound of each footstep in the fallen snow, I could almost hear the sound of the descending flakes landing. The streetlight was surrounded […]
The SSS Blog is moving to a new site, http://ssshupe.com. The advantages are more control (for me), no advertisements (for you), and my very own domain name. Readers shouldn’t notice any other big differences. The old site on WordPress.com will remain but won’t be updated regularly. I will probably play with the blog theme for awhile until I find one that suits me. Comments on what you like or dislike about […]
I turned sixty today. Not dealing with it particularly well, truth be told. I’m finally aware that my life is not just finite (something I knew intellectually but never felt inside), but extremely finite. All that time I had to do anything I wanted to do? Well, it’s mostly ticked away. There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do, but never seemed to find the time to do, and that’s write. […]