a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
It is Veterans Day 
here in the USA .. a day that started out in 1918 as Armistice Day after the end of World War I.
I still traveled out to Denver, and there was a lot of blue sky here, but it is getting chilly as night falls. It was down to 0°C/ 32 °F tonight when we walked back to the hotel from the office.
I saw the movie Gravity today .. here is its trailer on YouTube. It’s a survivor film, but also draws attention to the problem of debris in space. Bharath Gopalaswamy writes on the Huffington Post blog that there are now 22,000 trackable pieces of debris in low earth orbit. From the blog : U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center monitors space debris with a worldwide network of 29 ground-based radars and optical sensors. The center also provides notifications to commercial space operators of potential risks to their satellites from space debris. In 2010 alone these warnings resulted in 126 satellite maneuvers to avoid collisions with other satellites or debris. But no country on its own has the resources, the technical expertise, or the geographical reach to resolve the problem of situational space awareness, thus making international cooperation a pivotal element towards mitigating risks to objects in space.
The mushrooms in my back yard seem to favor this time of year to sprout up in my back yard, and I took out about a dozen of the red ones with white speckles today. I wash my hands carefully after I had taken them out, since they might be poisonous. Even edible mushrooms have a tendency to absorb heavy metals, so they should not be harvested in the wild if they are near roads or industrial areas.
I had some spare time on the way to the airport in my rental car on Friday, and I accidentally ended up stopping at the Denver Art Museum. I had to : the buildings an outdoor artwork there are quite eye-catching as one approaches it.
I bought this ‘chia pod’ to snack on at work, partly because I liked the container and the stubby little spoon. (The spoon reminds me of the wooden ‘spoons’ that used to come in the rum-and-raisin ice creams we bought on the street from the ice cream man as kids). So what is chia? It’s a flowering plant in the mint family, native to Mexico and Guatemala, cultivated by the Aztec in pre-Columbian times. (Source : Wikipedia). The seeds have lots of good stuff in : omega-3 fatty acids among others, hence its availability in fancy packaging in city food stores.
I went for a quick little jaunt around the city with my rental car that I have tonight, and here are some of the sights I took pictures of.
I never knew : there are gold mines (in production) in the USA, and right here in Colorado. An old friend from South Africa was here in Denver on a business trip; he works for AngloGold Ashanti that is headquartered in Johannesburg. The gold price has dropped about a third from its highs in recent years, but that is not stopping mines in South Africa from approaching the 4000 m mark (2.5 miles) underground. Eight of the world’s 10 deepest mines are found in one area in South Africa, says this mining technology website.
It was 29 °F (-2 °C) when we arrived in Denver on Monday morning at 9 am .. and we may see snow flurries tomorrow. It’s a good thing I packed my gloves and woolen skull cap hat (it is for keeping my ears warm, though – not my skull).
The strict rules for turning off electronic gadgets are set to be relaxed by the FAA. (Check out the nice graphic by the Wall St Journal). Voice calls are still not allowed : a good thing in my opinion. Fliers are split 50-50 on the question if blabbing on the phone should be allowed. It ‘adds to the noise pollution in the cabin’ says some, and I agree. Some inconsiderate (oblivious?) passengers don’t need phones to talk loudly all through the flight, of course. Time to deploy those 33 dB noise reduction rated earplugs, or Bose noise-canceling headphones!
So .. Daylight Savings Time has come to an end. It’s time to ‘fall back’ one hour. Today was a blustery day here in the Seattle area with wind and rain. I cleaned up the leaves at the front and the back of the house as usual, knowing that I don’t have to get all of it .. it just keeps coming down, and I will get the rest next weekend.
The shooting incident on
Friday at Terminal 3 in Los Angeles (LAX) airport that left a TSA agent dead shattered the sense I had that airports are safe inside the security zone. Yes, it’s illegal to bring a firearm anywhere inside an airport building, but of course that does not help to stop anyone bent on shooting people. In this case TSA agents were targeted. They are not armed, so the shooter got into the secure area and all the way to the food court by the departure gates before getting shot by police. He confronted one passenger with his assault rifle, asking if he was TSA, and then moved on. What was the motive? Who knows? Does it really matter? Another 50 or 60 people will be killed across the country this weekend in gang violence, domestic disputes, by mentally ill people and in accidents, pointed out Tom Ridge, the first head of the Dept. of Homeland Security, in an interview on CNN. We are our own worst enemy.
Thursday was Halloween, of course – and we went for a full celebration here at work on the project. Our floor was the minions from the Despicable Me movies from Universal Studios. We had a popcorn machine in a big meeting room going, and awarded prizes for ‘cutest costume’, ‘scariest costume’ and more. My team won the team competition.
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.