I had the Academy Awards on on Sunday night while I made dinner
and watched some of it, saw Patricia Arquette get her Oscar for
Best Supporting Actress in Boyhood. We had watched it on Saturday night, and so I was rooting for it for Best Film (which went to Birdman with Michael Keaton). Meryl Streep and others jumped up when Patricia Arquette said ‘to every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights‘ .. ‘it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America’. But as TIME magazine reports soon after that Arquette was being attacked on social media by people who said she was prioritizing the rights of white women over those of LGBTQ people and people of color.
Saturday/ Big Bertha’s troubles
Seattle’s State Route 99 boring machine* (Bertha) ran into trouble while boring through sloppy old tide flat dirt and fill material. Some of the water and abrasive material made it past the seals designed to keep it out and into critical bearings for the cutters on the head of the boring machine, causing it to overheat. So a big hole had to be dug to get to the cutter head, lift it out, and repair it. (The stoppage occurred in December 2013, and the project is now some two years behind schedule).
At midday Thursday, the top portion of the SR 99 tunneling machine’s cutterhead broke through the southern wall of the access pit. It will be several months before boring can continue, and there is still a long way to go.
*A tunnel boring machine with a cutting head that is 17.5 m (57 ft) in diameter.
Friday/ downtown business
I had some business downtown on Friday, and managed to escape from my conference calls and work only at 4 pm. I hopped on the bus so that I could avoid dealing with rush-hour traffic (the bus driver still has to deal with it, of course!). We have balmy winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest, even as the brutal cold and snow storms continue to batter the Northeast of the USA.
Thursday/ whatever floats your goat
So is it the Year of the Sheep or the Year of the Goat? Or even the Year of the Ram? One sees different interpretations. Apparently they are all correct, depending on the context, or even one’s own preference. I will go with goat – since that is what the Chinese word yang meant in ancient times. Check out the National Public Radio on-line article Whatever Floats Your Goat.
Wednesday/ Lunar New Year 2015
We have three Chinese colleagues in our team, and therefore we ran out to the ‘Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot’* restaurant here in the city of Dublin on the east side of the Bay. It is the start of the Lunar New Year 2015.
‘I love the arrival of the Lunar New Year’, I told my colleagues. You just think the year is not new anymore, and then the celebrations of the Lunar New Year comes.
*As far as we could tell, it’s a coincidence that the name of the restaurant matches the Lunar New Year’s zodiac animal : the sheep.
Monday morning’s airport run
It was Monday morning, and so I did my usual taxi ride out to the airport, to step onto the plane for San Francisco (nevermind that it’s the President’s Holiday here in the USA).
Sunday/ the Yardhouse
It was clear and mild on Sunday for my little Capitol Hill walkabout. I like to check out the status of the numerous apartment buildings under construction. This one on Republican and 14th Avenue has been completed. Nice enough? The wood’s color is just a lot more striking than perhaps the architect intended. And will the varnish stand up against the wind and rain (when it inevitably comes?).
Saturday/ the 2015 Northwest Flower & Garden Show
Bryan, Gary and I went to the annual flower and garden show here in the Convention Center in downtown Seattle. The pictures are of some of my favorite exhibits.
Friday/ very mild weather
It felt like spring here in Seattle on Friday with very mild weather (57 °F/ 14 °C) .. which was good because I had several errands to run. Lots of ‘new’ things happened. I took two new pairs of pants to the tailor to adjust them, and I checked into my firm’s newly refurbished office space (we just moved up 10 floors in our building in downtown Seattle). And while I was there – I picked up my new Lenovo notebook computer and a new ‘jet pack*’ network device as well !
*It’s a little device that uses the phone network to provide wireless connectivity anywhere in the USA. Yes, airports provide free wireless internet access, but many times it is just too slow.
Thursday/ waiting for the President
My flight out from San Francisco to Seattle on Thursday night was not bad. President Obama interfered with our travel plans with his arrival into San Francisco, though. There was a ground stop in place for two hours.
Wednesday/ time to test
My project team is preparing to test the solution that we have created. 
It is the first of four test cycles ahead of us. We do not yet have a 100% completely built out solution, but we are ready to test the core components. We will add the connections and additional functions in the later cycles. We are using HP’s Quality Center software to create tests with test steps. (A little ‘meta’ to use software to test software with, not? I remember one of the space shuttle launches were delayed because a test of the back-up software failed. Not that we are creating space-shuttle software! We are merely tweaking the business software from SAP, parts of which are now well over 20 years old).
Tuesday/ time to transport
It’s time for us to get out of our Development 
(DEV) system and into the Quality Assurance System (QAS) so that we can start testing the solution we are building. The truck icon is still there, same as it had been since I started working in earnest in SAP in 1995.
The idea is to ‘package’ up a packet of configuration table entries, or program code, and import it into the Quality System. No one is allowed to make changes directly in the Quality System. That way, if something gets broken in there, the offending configuration change or code change can be reversed out.
Monday/ the Bay Bridge at night
Here’s a ‘dash cam’ picture from of the San Francisco Bay Bridge at night, as I drove across it at 1 am on Monday morning. (The ‘dash cam’ is my iPhone, running Google Maps as I drive. I just pressed a buttons to take the picture).
Sunday/ another 2 am arrival
I made my way to San Diego airport early evening, but it was past midnight by the time we arrived at San Francisco airport.
A rainstorm with high winds had battered the city all evening. ‘High winds on bridge’ flashed a sign on I-80 still, by the time around 1 am as I was driving by. But hey : no snarled-up California freeway traffic at those wee hours in the morning.
Saturday/ Solana Beach, San Diego
On Saturday I went my first little league ‘football’ game (the term football being loosely used, since it is played by 6-year olds!) on Saturday. My nephew was one of the little tykes running around on the field under the guidance of two coaches. It is flag football, so there is no tackling. The pursuer rips a flapping velcro ribbon from his opponent’s waistband, and is a ‘tackle’.
Later in the day my brother and I made it out to the beach late afternoon, and then went for a beer at a local microbrewery.
Midnight/ early Saturday morning
Friday night’s flight out of San Francisco to San Diego to visit my brother turned into a belary-eyed midnight/ early morning affair. The incoming airplane was several hours late, so it was midnight by the time we stepped on board, and 2 am when we arrived in San Diego.
Friday/ Salinas field trip
Today we met with a crew that took us out to the field to show us some of the gas distribution equipment, and the work done on them.. Our field trip gathered some valuable ‘use case’ information. A lot of connected data have to come together in our system’s back-office to make it possible to do away with paper work orders and forms. The world is moving to mobile devices and so are companies that use and collect information on the go.
One of our candidate devices – an Applie iPad Mini – was accidentally dropped onto a hard surface from about 4 ft up, which cracked the display screen. The devices do not yet have the protective moulding around it which would help it survive the rough and tumble of getting used in the field.
Thursday/ somewhere near Salinas
Busted flat in Baton Rouge, headin’ for the trains
Feelin’ nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained
Took us all the way to New Orleans
I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowing sad while Bobby sang the blues
With them windshield wipers slappin’ time and
Bobby clappin’ hands we finally sang up all the songs
That driver knew
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free
Feeling good was easy Lord, when Bobby sang the blues
Feeling good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee
From the coal mines of Kentucky to the California sun
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Standing right beside me Lord through everything I done
Every night she kept me from the cold
Then somewhere near Salinas Lord, I let her slip away
Looking for the home I hope she’ll find
And I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday
Holding Bobby’s body next to mine
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’ left is all she left for me
Feelin’ good was easy Lord, when Bobby sang the blues
Buddy that was good enough for me
Good enough for me and Bobby McGee
The words are from Kris Kristofferson’s 1969 song ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, of course. I loved the song ever since I was in high school, and I love the melancholic Kristofferson rendition. Man! Got to listen to that song again, I thought today, as the California sun sat high in the clouds, as my colleague and I made our way down on Highway 101 to Salinas. (We are holding a workshop with some of our target users. They are getting tablets with which to manage their work in the field, and it is very important that we get their feedback).
Wednesday/ snowed under ..
.. with work, that is. Driving down to Salinas tomorrow for a field trip.
Tuesday/ snow absorbs sound
I like the little graphics panels with statistics or
factoids that come in the USA Today everyday. I always try to pick up a copy of the newspaper in the hotel lobby. This one from today says a lot of snow fell in Chicago, and explains why it is quieter when the snow falls : soundwaves get absorbed by the snowflakes.