zigdon

I just sold my car. Waiting now for the pile of emergencies that will suddenly make owning a car really really useful.

MLK day, it's an optional holiday at work. Perhaps I should have taken that option...

Got up on time, dark, gray out, seems windy. Oh well, get dressed, get on the bike, head out.

Once I was out the door, I found out that it's also raining. Hmm, maybe wearing these jeans isn't such a great idea, but no time to change now!

2 blocks down I notice I left my iPod at home, oh well, no music for me.

Get to BART, the shuttle is already gone. Perhaps it wasn't running today at all? No matter, need to find an alternate route.

Look at the bus schedules, find that the C bus should be by in about 3 minutes, sweet.

Search and look and eventually find the bus station wait there.

...

@$#@, it's MLK day, bus probably isn't running it's weekday schedule. Stupid weekend schedules.

Wait! If everything is on the weekend schedule, I could take the bike on BART!

Ask the station manager, got an "uhhh, you might be okay?". With that ringing endorsement, I get on the platform. Next train is in 20 minutes. Did I already fuck the weekend schedule? Good.

On the train, long ride, most people get off in SF, I'm able to sit and read until Millbrae.

There, figure out which side of the platform I need on CalTrain, see a train approaching, run for it, make it.

As an afterthought, ask the conductor if the train stops at Palo Alto. I suspect I would have ended up in San Jose if I didn't ask, because the answer was "No! But we do at Menlo Park". Fine, only a few extra miles ride, not a big deal.

Train stops. PA says "Ladies and gentlemen, the train has stopped...". We all share a laugh in the bike car "Yup", "Figured that part out", "Perhaps a why we stopped would be more interesting?".

... 30 minutes pass ... I send a text message to the breakfast chef at work that I'll be late, but if he saves me a burrito, my morning would improve greatly.

Eventually, we get going again. I get off at the station, try to figure out which direction I need to go. Thankfully, having a GPS in my pocket actually paid off (and knowing how to unlock the phone with my nose so that I don't have to take my gloves off!). Ride.

On the way, thinking about all the things that went wrong I was thinking "at least I'm fairly dry". Cue *heavy* rain. My pants (which I thought were wet before) get soaked through in about 30 seconds. And my shoes (which *were* dry before) fill with water.

"At least my torso is dry, I shouldn't get sick!". Sudden feeling of wetness in my elbows dripping down to my hands.

"FUCK YOU POSEIDON! I'm getting to work and there is *nothing* you can do to stop me!". Heavy winds. Heavier rain. I don't care about time anymore, or speed for that matter. I'll be in my granny gear, being passed by joggers, I will get there!

Eventually, I do. I roll into the cafeteria (which has stopped serving breakfast 30 minutes ago). I drip there, waiting to be noticed. My guy sees me, goes to get my burrito that he has saved... and it's gone. He comes through though, and makes me a fresh, hot, tasty breakfast. The day *does* improve.

Getting to my office, I strip down as much as would be appropriate in the office, and lay down my soaked socks, gloves (inside out), hat on a towel I happen to have. I should start keeping a pair of shorts here, would have been nice to get out of the wet jeans.

But I made it, and only 30-60 minutes late. Take that, weather.

(why do I have a feeling that payback might be on the ride back home? ;)

So this whole commuting to work by car is starting to get old. Here's what I currently do:

Get up around 7-8am, get in the car by 8:30. Drive to work (880S to either San Maeteo or Dumbarton). Get to work around 9:30-10, depending on traffic. Each way is about 40-50 miles, $4 toll (one way), wear and tear on the car, and I have to stay awake for the entire thing.

But what if I find a way to ride? One "easy" option would be to just take BART down to Union City, and ride across the Dumbarton. ~45 minutes on the train, then on my bike for ~25 miles. Including across the bridge, which is a very windy 4 mile hill. I've ridden across it a few times, it was never fun.

Another option that I started thinking about today is to go the other way. Cross the bay to SF, then take CalTrain to Palo Alto. Thing is, my bike isn't allowed on BART during rush hour across the bay. Which leaves me with two options:

- Take the BART shuttle from MacArthur station to SF (costs $1, runs during rush hour every 45 minutes or so, usually fills up at some point)
- Borrow S's folding bike, which is always allowed on BART, and ride that.

I'm not a huge fan of riding her folder though, but it might do for a test run. If I do like it, I could always buy a modern folder, with a reasonable gear selection, that wouldn't kill me going up the hills to work.

I might try that, but I think I'll try the shuttle first. Which leaves me with the following plan:

- Get up at 7 or so.
- Ride down to MacArthur by 7:30 (2mi ride). Should be there early enough to get a seat on the shuttle.
-- If that fails, ride back home, drive to work, and try again another day!
- Shuttle across to SF, ride to Caltrain (1.2 mi ride).
- Get one of the trains that leave at 8:19, 8:24 or 8:44.
- Get to Palo Alto by 9:01, 9:18 or 9:26.
- Ride to work (3.8 miles).

Total ride: ~$9, 7 miles, get to work by 9:45 or so.

If this works, it's a little bit slower than driving, but not that bad. Significantly cheaper. And I get to read on the shuttle and train for more than an hour. Oh, and also, drive a lot less :)

Sounds awesome, right? ;)

Not at work, thank god, but oh dear:

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     }
  }
  
  sub moment {
  
     for ($y = 0; $y < 100000; $y++) {
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So this was some list someone made of the top 100 sci-fi shows, which juldea decided should be a checklist.  So here's my list:

( Long list... )

56/100

Better than I expected, and also reminded me of a bunch of awesome shows I totally forgot about :)

Neighborhood: Southwest Berkeley   School District: BERKELEY UNIFIED Beds: 2 Type: SFR Sq. Ft.: 1,097 Lot Size: 4,000 Sq. Ft. Baths: 1/0 Built: 1920 $/Sq.Ft.: $382 List Date: 08/05/09

So it seems that if you make enough offers on enough houses, you might end up owning one!  I'm not at that point yet, but I made an offer, and it has been accepted!

Now, need to figure out the loan, and do piles of paperwork and legwork, but this is progress!

Here are the pictures snagged from zip before the listing disappears.

Hmmm, I wonder if I should go to Boston on my birthday and ride Hub on Wheels with Haplo?  Might not be a bad way to celebrate :)

Snapped this last night - the moon over the water always looks so nice.  Had to lean the camera on the rail though, but I should really get a tripod one of these days.

Remember that house?  Yeah, no.  Got a call yesterday from my agent saying he doesn't know the details, but they accepted another offer.  I'd like to think they accepted a cash offer, because that would mean nothing I could have done would have made a difference.  But if it turns out they just accepted a better one, I'd be pissed - I was ready to make a better offer, and was talked down by the agent, saying the house wouldn't appraise for more.

He's probably right, and it was certainly my decision to accept his advice, but bah.

Guess I should just start looking at rentals until something better comes up.

Just signed the documents to make an offer on another place - West Oakland, really beautiful house.  Downside - not the best neighborhood, but I think it should be fine.


(click for the rest of the listing pictures)

Keep your fingers crossed - if all goes well, I'll have to figure out what to do with *8* bedrooms ;)

Talking the other night to WBR, we were playing around with the idea of a playlist with a song for every hour.  There are a few trivial answers, but some hours are hard to figure out.

I posted this to twitter/facebook, and got a few suggestions.  I'll compile this list (and update it as more come in).  And no, rock around the clock doesn't count.  Actually, I figure each song should appear at one slot only.

Midnight	"Round Midnight." / Dexter Gordon These don't quite count: 2 Minutes to Midnight / Iron Maiden One Minute to Midnight / Justice 10 Seconds to Midnight / by The Divine Comedy
1am	One O'Clock Jump - Count Basie 1 AM / The Subways
2am	2 AM / Iron Maiden
3am	3 AM / Matchbox 20 3 O'Clock in the Morning / Dexter Gordon Wednesday morning, 3am / Simon & Garfunkel
4am	"it's 4 in the morning, the end of December..." - Famous Blue Raincoat / Leonard Cohen "Four a.m. in the morning, carried away by a moonlight shadow" - Moonlight Shadow / Mike Oldfield "It's 4 O'Clock in the morning and eeeyts starting to get-ta light." - Promise Me / Beverley Craven
5am	"it's 5am and your are lisssstening to Los Angeles" - Screenwriter's Blues / Soul Coughing
6am	"Six o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream " - Manic Monday / The Bangles  "saturday morning, baby / who's going to play with me? / 6 in the morning baby"  "6 am, day after christmas...." / Ben Folds Five
7am	7 AM / Deep Blue Something
8am	8 AM / Tom Helsen and the Summer Obsession
9am	9 AM / ATB (Instrumental)
10am
11am	Not quite counting this:  11:11 / Rufus Wainwright
noon	"Look at that big hand movin' round Nearin' high noon" - Ballad of High Noon / Tex Ritter
1pm
2pm
3pm	"Now it's three in the afternoon and I can't leave too soon, saying 'Thank you, I had a nice...time." - Cradle and All / Ani DiFranco
4pm
5pm	Five in the Afternoon / Panic in the Disco
6pm	Six O'Clock / Lovin' Spoonful
7pm	"It’s seven o’clock and I want to rock  Want to get a belly full of beer" - Saturday Night's Alright / Elton John
8pm
9pm	"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday..." - Piano Man / Billy Joel  Step Into My Office, Baby / Belle and Sebastian
10pm	"Ten o'clock and I know I gotta hit the road" - Detroit Rock City / KISS
11pm	Elevent O'Clock Tick Tock / U2

Fill in the blanks!

More guidelines:
- I'll write down close matches (2 minutes to midnight), but won't be too happy with them.
- Song titles are ok, but in the song lyrics is much better.  This applies to instrumentals too.  The idea is that you hear the song, and you should be able to hear the hour in question.
- No, I'm still not writing down "Rock around the Clock" for any or all of these.
- I think I'm not going to add more entries for hours with 2 or more entries.  Unless it's a really obvious one that more people (read "I") will know. ;)

Peeron (one of my four cats) died this morning.  Didn't wake up. 

It didn't come as much of a surprise, he's been sick for almost 3 years now, and no one really expected him to live this long.  He would have been 13 in 3 weeks.

I'll miss him.

An ok day ended up being weird, starting with me watching this: http://www.vimeo.com/1800647

Nothing there really new, but listening to it today it suddenly clicked in a way it hasn't before.  I suddenly understand what Bebe meant when he said a while back "I think I want to be poor".  At the time, both me and our mother had no idea what he was about.

I don't actually know what this means, if anything, as far as what I want to do with my self, both near and longer term.  But it got me thinking about it in a way I haven't in a while.

I love how music and memory interact.  I was listening to music on random on the drive in, and Calypso started playing, and suddenly I found myself in my bedroom in high-school, DMing a game of Star Frontiers for my brother.  It was quite strong - came with the sounds from the highway, the feel of the sunlight through my window, the firmness of my bed's mattress.

I love these random triggers, but they still surprise me.

I know I haven't written anything about the climbing trip yet, but the pictures have been posted.

Not really going to post about it now either, but I wanted to share my experiments with photo stitching.  The first morning, I got up at a silly early hour, enough so that I was up and about to see the sunrise.  I walked up to the top of the hill near our camp, and just snapped a series of pictures of the mountains around - no tripod, not really even stopping for each picture, just letting the camera grab them as I was spinning.

The original 9 are posted with the rest of the pictures linked above.  Then, I sat with gimp, and just tried connecting them.  It worked kinda ok, but the picture boundaries were really obvious (click to see the whole thing):



Then, I tried (still with the gimp) to see if I can hide the boundary lines a bit - mostly smudging, a little bit with the stamp tool (click to see the whole thing):



Better, but the exposure still needed correcting.  Then, today, Xavier mentioned Hugin, and I figured I'll give it a shot.  I think it really worked quite well (click to see the whole thing):



I think next time I'll try it with a tripod though - you can certainly see the movement as I spin to the left.

Remember that hobbit house?  Well, I finally decided to make an offer on it -- but I took too long to do it.  They apparently accepted an offer on Monday.  Oh well, I'll consider it a dry run for the house I'll actually get.  One thing I learned - making an offer is as simple as telling my agent "get it".

Good to know.

Went today to look at another house.  It's a tiny little thing in Fremont, but I actually really liked it.  It's cute, it has a really neat yard (not that THAT'LL keep), close to BART, close to the bridge I can ride my bike to work.  Not going to get a chance to do anything about it until after the climbing trip, but I suspect it will still be there. 



That's the listing picture - the ONLY listing picture.  I should go back with my camera to take more, of the indoors and yard.  But I really don't see anything wrong with it, I think the foreclosure people were just being lazy.

Of course, need to get it inspected, especially the roof.  But I'm cautiously optimistic. 

And if it turns out ok, it would be really neat - my monthly payment should be about the same as my current rent, leaving the extra I've been saving for taxes, improvements, etc.

Back in the day, when I was in the "hiking club" in high school, we went on a few climbing trips.  I didn't really know what we were doing, but I really enjoyed it.

Fast forward about 20 years, and I discovered (through a girl on OKC) that climbing is now available, *indoors*!  No more needing to get a big group together, or have all the fancy equipment, or even know how to use it.  So of course I started climbing, and have been really enjoying it.

Completely by accident, a few weeks after I started climbing (again), I met a whole bunch of people who climb quite a bit.  Well, yay, I now have climbing partners!  Not only that, but they go on climbing trips, and know what they're doing, and can teach me stuff!

That brings us up to this past weekend.  See, we have a 4 day climbing trip next month.  This will be the first time I've gone outdoor climbing since the 80s.  It will also be one of the other girl's first time outdoors.  So just to make sure we know what we're getting into, we went to a local rock in Berkeley, just for a few hours to try it out.  Then, there was ropes, and harnesses, and some scrapes and blood and a general good time:




Bottom line, it was awesome, and I can't wait for next month.  Only thing I'm worried about now is if I should get a new lens for the trip, since I think something with a little bit more zoom might be helpful.  Perhaps one of the 70-200mm lenses...  We'll see.

In general, I love my bank (ING Direct). They're awesome in all sorts of ways, one of which is that they email me every time I have a large transaction posted on my debit/credit card.

For instance, I ordered a new tape deck for the car this morning, and promptly got an email about it. Great.

But I just got another email from them:


It was good sushi, but I'm not sure I'd have gotten it if I knew it would have been a "Large Transaction"!

Riding home last night, I noticed a rhythmic bump on the bike.  Took me a while to figure out if it was on the road, or on the bike.  By the time I decided it must be on the bike, I was losing air in my rear wheel.

"Oh great, a flat."

Pull over, get on the sidewalk, and replace the tube.  It's not too cold out, not a big deal.  But as I was checking the new tube is in place properly, I notice there's a problem with the tire itself...  Yes, that's a hole the size of my thumb.



Damn, guess I'm not going to be riding home.  Ended up walking about a mile to a bus stop, and taking that home - so pleased the buses here have bike racks on them!

Today, I went to the bike shop, got a new tire, and while I was there, had them replace my cassette, which I somehow managed to bend:



Now, all that's left is to see if I can get some of those bike-commuting tax money that was passed with the big bailout!