a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I have written about an SAP ‘sandbox’ system before, here .. it is usually a copy of a company’s SAP system with some sample data.
I finally gained access to our current project’s SAP sandbox on Friday, and it was great to look around in a real system and to see how our client company has deployed the functionality.
It’s been awhile that I got my hands dirty in an SAP project! That was not the case in Denver.
When I came home tonight, the original broadcast of the 9/11 events from 2001 was on MSNBC with minimal edits. I was already in Seattle in 2001, living in a one bedroom apartment, and woke up to the sight on TV of one of the Twin Towers that had been struck by the hijacked airplane. I called my dad and we talked on the phone for a little bit, and then I did not quite know if I should drive down to Weyerhaeuser Company where I worked at the time – but I did.
Here’s to never forgetting 9/11, all its victims and the first responders that lost their lives as well on that terrible day.
I am at San Francisco International Airport. The prisoners have been released out of their asylum for the week, and we are all heading back home, some of the team members all the way to the east coast!
We went out for a team dinner 
tonight here in downtown Walnut Creek (located on the northeast side of San Francisco Bay). It is the centennial this year for the city of Walnut Creek and the events to celebrate it are still going strong – even though summer is winding down. There are parades, art gallery shows and a walnut festival (of course).
We also saw new condo building and new shopping center projects under way here .. a mini-construction boom of sorts.
99% of almonds produced in the USA are from
California – but maybe not for much longer. The Golden State is on track to record its driest year in a century; possibly several centuries. So I buy the almonds while I can. As for the drought, the weather service has invented an additional category of dryness. There is Abnormally Dry, Moderate Drought, Severe Drought and Extreme Drought. Now they have added ‘Exceptional Drought’. I think they should go for ‘Drought of the Century’. Or ‘It Never Rains in (Southern) California’ Drought, after the 1972 song by Albert Hammond.
[From Wikipedia] The song concerns the struggles of an actor who moves out to California to pursue a career in Hollywood but does not have any success and deteriorates in the process. In the chorus, Hammond sings, “It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya. It pours, man it pours.”
Our San Francisco-bound plane from Alaska Airlines this morning was parked way out, and away from the North Terminal.
So once we walked though the gate at the North Terminal’s boarding door, we went down- stairs and onto the tarmac. From there a constructed tunnel and a temporary, scaffold-like gangway got us into the airplane.
I ran into this situation again last week : I needed a file with technical information that I knew was only on my home computer’s drive. This while I was out in San Francisco. This is not a technology problem. I could leave my computer on and figure out how access it remotely (but I like to turn it off when I leave the house). Or I could drop all my files into Google Docs, or Dropbox, or an application called Evernote. These are all ‘cloud’ solutions, providing on-line access to documents from anywhere and at anytime.
I still weigh the risks of using the cloud vs. using an old-fashioned flash drive. On the cloud your data can get hacked into. The flash drive can get lost, or get stolen. For now, I still go with flash – but I know I have to move with the times soon, and go to the cloud.
Here’s a graphic from TIME magazine with some trivia about sandwiches around the world. The 1.96 million is the number of Facebook ‘likes’ for the Abu Dhabi-based ‘Just Falafel’ franchise that sells sandwiches with falafel balls on them (ground chick peas, deep-fried). Also mentioned are toast with kaya, a Southeast Asian spread made of coconut and sugar, the German fischbrötchen (a herring sandwich), a Japanese yakisoba-pan (sandwich stuffed with noodles) and the Australian Vegemite on toast (Marmite for me, thank you very much). Here in the USA we have the hoagie, a split roll that comes stuffed with meat, cheese and peppers. It actually goes by as many as 13 other names, among them sub, hero and grinder.
Well! It was supposed to be a short week with Monday being Labor Day and all, but my colleague and I ended up holding the fort at the project site until today. We finally got out of there this afternoon, and made our way to San Francisco airport across the San Mateo bridge. One of these days I will take the train (BART : Bay Area Rapid Transit).
I rented a VW Golf hatchback for the week, and all week we thought the trunk latch was broken. There was no reaction or audible pop when pressing the ‘unlock trunk’ button on the key fob. So today the car rental agent showed us to push on the big VW badge to make it tilt, and voila! The trunk opens. Could have fooled me – and actually did. (And not only me, I might add).
Our project team members have all come on board. I for one have joined the project ‘late’, towards the end of the design phase. That means documents with specifications have to be written up and deadlines have to be met. We’re working in a modern office building with all the necessary amenities, lunch rooms, meeting rooms, hotel cubicles and all, but the process to get us all our badges to move freely as we want is lagging somewhat. ‘We’re all just prisoners here’ said someone, referring to the classic 1977 song from the Eagles, the Hotel California.
From the song :
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said ‘We are all just prisoners here, of our own device’
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast …
There were some glitches with my travel into the project office today – but nothing too serious. Early in the morning the Alaska Airlines bar code reader at the boarding door refused to cooperate. When it had finally been fixed, the attendant simply announced that ‘Everyone is welcome to board’.
After my arrival in San Francisco, it was my turn to rent a car for the team to share – but Hertz were out of cars. San Francisco had too many Labor Day weekend visitors that brought back their rental cars only this morning. But I finally got my car, and my colleague and I could take off for Walnut Creek by driving across the Bay Bridge.
It was Labor Day here in the States – a Federal holiday, so most workers had the day off (but not all). It’s back to school for kids this Wednesday, too. And the unofficial end of summer. It’s still very warm in Texas, I see, though (99 °F/ 37 °C). And we will have pleasant warm weather later this week in Seattle as well.
Here’s a graphic that shows an ideal productive day – one that keeps the labor we have to deal with in check and in balance with exercise and sleep ! It’s by Health Central, and here’s thelink
I tagged along with Bryan, his dad and Gary to check out the BMW i3, its first all-electric offering (a model with a small ‘range extender’ gas engine added in, is also available). We ended up going for a test drive and liked the smooth, snappy acceleration of the car. It is barely necessary to brake when one wants to slow down : taking one’s foot from the accelerator flashes the brake lights (for the cars behind) and engages the battery charger, which slows down the car automatically. It takes a little getting used to, but works well. The little car is not cheap, though .. better be prepared to pony up $42,000 for the all-electric car and some $4,000 more for the model with the gas engine.
As the salesman pointed out, though – if one buys this car, stick with the all-electric. Then you can drive around mean and clean, not worrying about ever putting gas or oil in. (Just keep an eye on the limited 70-110 mile range!). This is a city car, not really meant for road trips. The brake pads will last a very long time due to the engine-braking mechanism, and changing the tires every now and then is the only maintenance needed. BMW guarantees the battery for 8 years or 100,000 miles.
I’m still finding proper places for items I brought back from South Africa. One very special item is a book from my childhood that had been in my parents’ house for several decades, then traveled to Australia with my brother Chris (it was his book, gifted to him in 1967). When I mentioned earlier this year that I wonder where the book is and that I would love to find it, he brought it to South Africa and gave it to me for my birthday.
The book is out of print; it was printed in 1963. It is about a friendly, lonely dragon* in the Vaal Dam*. Well : the Vaal Dam is a real dam, and we went there many times when I was little. I would later waterski on it behind my dad’s motor boat. In 1975 when I started high school, the dam overflowed and my hometown of Vereeniging was flooded. My parents’ house and its parquet flooring was spared, but only by inches. There was flood water everywhere – in the front yard as well as the back yard.
*Here is a synopsis from Google Books. (I’m impressed that I could find the book on there). Deep in the murky water behind Vaal Dam, lived a monster called Valie. Although Valie had scales on his back and a huge tail, Valie was a friendly monster, but there were no other monsters at the dam, and Valie was very lonely. One day, a man came to the Vaal Dam to catch some fish. To his surprise, he hooked Valie! The man went running away but came back with more men with guns. Valie pretended to be dead and when the men came close, Valie popped up to surprise them. They all ran away, except one boy, who learned that Valie was gentle and friendly and who figured out a way to make everyone happy.
‘We’re very busy’, said the taxi driver that drove me home last night. There’s a cruise ship leaving, there’s a big conference in the convention center, and it’s Labor Day weekend. So today when I saw people outside the Washington State Convention Center here in downtown Seattle, I checked into who they are and that the conference is about. Well, it’s a gathering of computer gamers. The PAX Prime game conference is in its 10th year and now draws tens of thousands of visitors that discuss games, and partakes in game tournaments.
I guess it was a fitting end to a hectic trip, with me arriving late at San Francisco airport to go home this afternoon. I only had 10 minutes to get though security, so no time to wait in the long line to drop my roller bag as checked luggage. (Hey Alaska Airlines : you need more than one agent manning your check-in counters! Is there a strike back there?).
So out came the shaving cream and big tube of toothpaste (threw it away), and I headed straight to the security line with both my roller bag and backpack. They were already boarding by the time I got to the gate.
And now I’m home, I ate food from my refrigerator, and I’m going to sleep in my own bed. Life is good.
My team members and I here on the project had a busy two days. This morning we were off to a rough start. We had to facilitate a workshop at 8.30 am, and we drove to the wrong location. So at 8.10 am we had to go back into San Francisco traffic, and finally arrived at the correct location at 8.45 am. By this time my colleague had her notebook computer logged in via a wireless device into Webex (software that shares one’s computer screen with other users that are logged in remotely, so you can show slides and have everyone discuss the content). Right outside the car and right then was a guy trimming the hedge in the parking lot and making a lot of noise! (of course!). Ok, hold on! We’re coming in to the building, we said. Once in the meeting room, we continued the discussion, now with real people to talk to. (Still by far better than video or phone conference). When it all was over, I realized I left the rental car unlocked with the key inside. Yikes. Will it still be there? .. luckily it was. It was only 10 am in the morning but it felt like a full day to me already.
I took an early morning flight into San 
Francisco to resume my work on my new project. Alaska Airlines now has its passengers print their own checked luggage tags and put it on their luggage. This is done at the same machine that is used for airport check-in and printing one’s boarding pass. Then go and drop it onto the conveyor belt at a baggage drop counter. The ground agent still checks one’s ID and boarding pass.
Alaska Airlines now has its gates at the International Terminal ‘G’ at SFO. (The others are Terminals 1, 2 and 3). The pictures below are from display cases in the Airport Museum in the International Terminal.
I’m heading out to San Francisco again tomorrow, and I hope that the earthquake activity there is winding down. A magnitude-6.0 earthquake struck around 3:20 a.m on Sunday morning in the Napa valley. About 120 people were injured, 3 of which are critical. At least 15 buildings were rendered uninhabitable.
