Here’s a poster from the hotel advertising the hotel restaurant and bar, called Pi (as in the mathematical symbol). Check out the happy hour* that runs from 3.14 pm to 6.28 pm : very geeky. I’m not so sure that think and drink go well together, though! Those blocked ‘Br’ and ‘Ba’ are chemical symbols, for bromide and barium respectively.
*Happy hour means you get your booze at half-price, or at least at a discount.
I’m in the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Denver : not very fancy, but comfortable and newly refurbished. Hey, and they have oatmeal for me in the morning.
P.S. It’s official. We received the good news today that we (my firm, PwC) beat out 5 other competitors in our bid for the work at Union Gas in Ontario province in Canada (the one I made two trips for up to Toronto).
There were no mountains or landscape in sight when I work up this morning after falling asleep on my early morning flight. And sure enough, we never saw the sun all day here in Denver : unusual for a city with the reputation of the most sunny days in the country.
Check out this map of continents and countries. It is from Ezra Klein’s ‘wonk blog’ hosted by the Washington Port. I found it just stunning to realize that the surface area of the continent of Africa is equal to : China + Mexico + Western Europe + Eastern Europe + the U.S. of A. + India.
The comedy show Saturday Night Live here in the USA opened last night with ‘Kathleen Sebelius’ offering some tips on how to get by all the glitches of the new healthcare.gov website that enables more people to apply for health insurance (political name of the program ‘Obamacare’, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act). ‘Have you tried restarting your computer?’ was her first tip, then a low-res website offering a YES and NO button, followed by signing up in other languages such as Icelandic. Here’s a video clip .. WSL Blog. So now we have Republicans that shut down the government and flirted with the debt ceiling over the new healthcare law, calling for Sebelius’s resignation. They say ‘We’re looking out for the interests of the people’. Well, it’s not that simple. The Republicans are representing rich people. The healthcare law is mostly aimed at poor people, at healthy young people, and sick people (with so-called pre-existing conditions that have disqualified them from healh insurance so far), and at people out of work, who used to get health insurance from their employers. I don’t have sympathy for the argument that the country cannot expand Medicaid (a means-tested program run by the states, supported by the federal government), and at the same time we need to stop the really glaring flaws in affordable health care that a really rich country’s citizens can get. If you’ve lost your job, why should you lose your health insurance? If we are all equal citizens, and you are born into a poor family, why should your mother not have access for herself and for you to health insurance? Every time someone goes to the emergency room, we all pay for it sooner or later .. so we should move toward more preventive care, more access to doctors and nurses and clinics for everyone, not less. The health care industry in the USA is a $2.8 trillion dollar industry. We spend $0 on some people, and 2.5 times the OECD average on others. As for those people that ‘have health insurance’ that will ‘lose’ it through Obamacare (an accusation from the Republicans) : many of those are on a plan that costs $50 per month, that offers $2,000 of cover for medical expenses. That is not health insurance.
Once I looked into the background of the train station/ plaza/ hotel complex that is under construction at Denver airport, I discovered that there had been a lot of trouble with its design. Check out this cool animation from the Denver Post. The original design from star Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava had to be modified somewhat after he withdrew from the project.
It is nice to check out of the hotel at the end of the work week away from home. No matter what happens at work, there will come a time where you say : now I have got to go. I have been staying in the comfortable but old(er) Warwick hotel here in downtown Denver, but will move over to a Hilton Garden Inn hotel from next week on. Maybe I can get my oatmeal on the run there in the mornings? Time will tell.
I need to get up earlier in the morning so that I don’t miss my breakfast at the hotel .. but my problem is that they take too long! First I get seated, then a second person comes and pours me my coffee, and then a third person comes and takes my order. Then I have to wait for it, even if it’s just oatmeal. Oatmeal and cereal should be out as a buffet item and ready to go.
Our project manager treated us to a dinner at a French restaurant in lower downtown Denver at Coohills Restaurant. The dinner was wonderful, but the service was oh, so slow. I had apple tart and rum &raisin ice cream for dessert. We started at 7 pm and was finally done by 10 pm (dessert was served shortly before 10). Then when we walked back to the hotel, I noticed we crossed a street called Wynkoop Avenue. It turns out the street is named after Edward Wanshear Wynkoop (1836-1891), a founder of the city of Denver, Colorado. Wynkoop served as an officer in the First Colorado Volunteer Cavalry during the American Civil War, attaining the rank of major of volunteers, and was brevetted a lieutenant colonel in May 1865. The Wikipedia entry does not say as much, but he must have been a Dutchman with a last name of Wynkoop.
I checked again today at lunch time with the bank if they had new $100 bills, and they did. The teller emerged from the vault with a crisp new stack of one hundred $100 bills (so : $10,000; enough to choke a horse?) and peeled off two for me. The new bills have a blue appearance and is not radically different from the old – but it does have some nice touches of color with the blue and the orange.
Last weekend I found the car battery was completely dead when I had jumped into the car to run an errand. Well – nothing to be done before last Monday’s early departure to Denver. So this Friday I found the cause : I left my car’s trunk lid not completely pushed shut .. and the light inside drained the battery completely. So this weekend I could borrow a trickle charger from Bryan to put some voltage in the battery, and it it’s taken care of. It did not lost its charge overnight, and the car started as usual two or three times when I took it out. I guess I don’t get to buy one of those shiny new cars at the car show, just yet. But I will, sooner or later.
I downloaded and installed Windows 8.1. It works a little better now. It is finally ‘usable’, say some tech commentators. The Surface 2 tablet will come out just about as Apple is to announce its iPad 5 and possibly an improved iPad mini. I know Windows are trying to lure some business users to the Surface with its Windows applications, but I for one cannot just see myself using the Surface 2 for work – ever. Even if some day my firm would be able to put all the PC apps on the Surface, there are the obstacles of pure physics. I need all 15 inches of my notebook computer’s screen, and I need a proper keyboard with keys and key caps. And my finger will never, ever be as sharp as a mouse pointer.
I’d better enjoy coming home this Thursday night, because for the next several weeks we are going to have to stick around until mid-day on Fridays. We are pushing hard to get all the design work for our project done before the disruptions of Thanksgiving and Christmas (good disruptions nonetheless!) are upon us. The year 2013 is running out on all of us. Yikes !
We had a nice team dinner on Tuesday night at a restaurant called Willie G’s, a seafood and steak place. I had some halibut and vegetables with a nice white wine. It was quite a walk down there from the hotel, but I am sure the ‘exercise’ was good for me. And I got to check out the Denver clock tower (also called the Daniels & Fisher tower) from up close.
P.S. Soo .. the US Government is set to open in the morning, and the debt ceiling has been raised from its $16.7 trillion level to some level that will pay the bills through Jan 15 next year. Hooray?
It’s good that it’s a short walk from the hotel to my office building. It has suddenly become cold here in the mornings (29 °F/ -2°C). And : there some snowflakes in the air coming down from by lunch time. Nothing that stuck on the pavement or streets, though.
I was on United 244 as is usual these Monday mornings. We left on time at 5.40 am but the pilot had some turbulence to deal with at the landing in Denver. I noticed four or five emergency vehicles next to the runway, which made me wonder if there was a concern that some airplanes could skid off the runway.
The green in the trees here in Seattle are turning into reds, oranges and yellows, as they are across the United States.
So why are leaves green to begin with? asks Wikipedia in its article on chlorophyll. Wikipedia : ‘It still is unclear exactly why plants have mostly evolved to be green. Green plants reflect mostly green and near-green light to viewers rather than absorbing it. Other parts of the system of photosynthesis still allow green plants to use the green light spectrum (for example, through a light-trapping leaf structure, carotenoids, and so on). Green plants do not use a large part of the visible spectrum as efficiently as possible. A black plant can absorb more radiation. For more, check out Wikipedia : Chlorophyll
On Saturday morning we did a little tour of historic downtown Ellensburg (the established in 1883). We stopped for a short time at the Kittitas County Farmers Market as well. Then we went to Central Washington Univeristy’s Tomlinson Stadium for a football game. The CWU Wildcats took on Dixie State University (from Utah) in its annual Homecoming contest. Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school.
Bryan and I drove out to Ellensburg on Friday (two hours and some from Seattle, depending on traffic). Bryan’s dad Dale received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater in Ellensburg, Central Washington University.