As a moderate centrist who despises the loutishness, lies, disrespectfulness, and authoritarian bent of Donald Trump and his gang of incompetent megalomaniacs, I found myself of two minds about the widespread marches last weekend. Part of me cheered them, especially the one in Washington, D.C. following the inauguration: An enormous reminder that most Americans aren’t on board with the Trump program. But particularly with respect to the local marches here […]
We’re back from Paris, not particularly happy, moderately jetlagged. A nice flight somewhat ruined at the end by the failure of the jetway operator at SFO to come back from his break on time, resulting in us all standing on the plane after an 11-hour flight for an additional 30 minutes until a replacement jetway operator could be found (something that I could see happening at 2 a.m. but not […]
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 […]