a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Happy Lunar New Year.
It’s the Year Of The Tiger.
[Source: Google Streetview]
The townhomes at Thomas St and 17th Avenue East are done, five years hence from the start of their construction.
“Huge respect for beating me, because I tried my best”
-Daniil Medvedev (Russia, age 25) after losing to Rafael Nadal (Spain, 35) after a marathon Australian Open final that lasted 5 hours and 24 minutes
Medvedev was two sets up to none, at 3 am Pacific Time this morning, as I was watching the 2022 Australian Open Mens Final. I turned off the iPad and thought: ‘Looks like Medvedev has it’.
Several hours later on the other side of the world though, the scoreboard read 2-6, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 in Nadal’s favor. Quite a comeback from two sets down, and from a chronic foot injury that had him contemplating retirement late last year.
Wow .. two feet of snow in Boston.
Here’s a snowy picture for Caturday (not from Boston).
My passport renewal application form with photo & check was ready to send in on Thursday.
I could fill out the form on the computer to print it. All good.
I practiced a few times to make a recognizable signature with my right hand’s four fingers; signed the form, and signed the check.
I enlisted the help of friends to fill out the rest of the check, and to neatly write the date on the form.
There was no mercy at the post office, though: I had to fill out my own address and the passport center’s address three times with my left hand (on the priority mail envelope, and in teeny-tiny letters on the certified mail slips).
It was hard work!
Our Pacific Northwest sun now sets after 5.
Tonight there was a photographer at ‘my’ East Thomas St/ 14 Avenue spot, good for looking west towards the Space Needle with the profile of the Olympic mountains.
It was only 38 °F (3 °C ) as I walked back home today after getting a haircut.
It was good to get out of the house, though .. and hey! I thought: might as well try my luck to get another passport photo taken.
The kiosk at the Bartell pharmacy* at Broadway & Pike had me in and out with great photos in 5 minutes.
*Officially Bartell Drugs or the Bartell drug store. Yes, I know it’s prescription drugs —but it still doesn’t sound right to my ears.
I entered my address into the new Washington State COVID-19 test kit page on Friday.
Just yesterday, two 2-pack test kits landed on my porch.
The manufacturer’s website says these test kits correctly identify positive specimens in 94% of tests, and negative specimens in 98% of tests.
The test kits are for doing a so-called lateral flow test for COVID-19 antigens (proteins from the virus).
Doing the test seems pretty straight forward.
The test strip looks the same as the strip in a pregnancy test kit.
C stands for ‘Control’ and T for ‘Test’.
If both lines are colored (the T line may be very faint), the test is positive.
If only the C line is colored, the test is negative.
(If no line is colored, you did something wrong and the test is invalid.)
Here’s a table that I compiled of the types of COVID tests.
| Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) ('Molecular') | Antigen | Antibody |
|---|---|---|
| Detects genetic material from the virus. | Detects proteins from the virus. | Detects immune system antibodies (a spike protein test or a nucleocapsid test). |
| The gold standard to test for an active COVID-19 infection. | Not as sensitive as PCR tests. | Not suitable to diagnose an active COVID-19 infection. |
| Nasal swab sample processed by a lab. | Nasal swab sample processed by lab or with home test kit. | Blood sample processed by lab. |
[Note: I realize this is a first world problem: waiting a little ‘too long’ in a store to pay, or for a service that is rendered].
It is time to renew my passport, and I needed passport photos. (I had tried to snap & print them at home a previous time, but it’s not that easy.) So off to Walgreens two blocks from my house I went. A mom and her teenage son were being helped at the photo kiosk. The attendant had his back turned to me, and took so long at the ATM-style screen & photo printer that I pressed the button on the desk nonetheless, just to announce: ‘Hey, just so you know: you have another customer’.
Didn’t matter. By the time he had the teenager pose a fourth time in front of the white screen, a third person seeking passport photos had shown up. Two more people had been waiting a long while at the kiosk’s desk to pick up copies and photos. The copies had been made wrong, and the photographer says he will shred them and redo them ..
An aeon had passed and now it was my turn.
I march up to the white screen. Yank off my N95 mask. Give the camera a withering look. ‘Step forward’, is all the photographer offers —no ‘Thanks for your patience’ or ‘Relax a little’ or ‘Maybe fix your hair’. Snap. He looks at the photo on the printer’s screen, asks ‘Do you want to take a look and try another one?’. ‘NO!‘ I say. ‘Please print the picture and let me pay’.
Outside the store I kick at a piece of trash on the sidewalk. I knew I was scowling on the picture, and looking at it at home, proved me right. 🙂
I made my way down Harrison Street to the Interstate 5 overlook from Melrose Avenue at sunset, hoping for some pinks and oranges in the sky — but no such luck. The fog was already closing in.
The stitches on my wrist & arm came out today.
Next up was an X-ray to peek inside, and make sure the scaphoid and lunate bones are still in their proper places.
The surgeon said everything looks good.
Finally, I got a new cast.
I recently filled out a crossword clue that said ‘Source of milk for manchego cheese’. Answer: EWE.
As placed my Amazon Fresh order last week, there it was: sliced manchego cheese.
So I added it to my order, just out of curiosity.
This shot made by Pablo Carreño Busta (Spain, age 30) in his five-set match against Tallon Griekspoor (Netherlands, 25) at the Australian Open is perfectly legal but very rarely seen.
Busta won the match after 4 hrs 10 mins of play.
You are not allowed to touch the net, or to jump over the net to play a ball, to return a shot. You can run around the net post and play from there, provided your feet/ your racquet does not touch the inside of the opponent’s singles court.
It is OK to reach over the net to hit a shot, while not touching it, nor touching the inside of the opponent’s singles court lines.
It looks like the Omicron wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has crested in the Northeast of the United States. Recent numbers for the other regions show it is (at least right now) no longer increasing there.
[Graphic from the New York Times]
[Graphic & statistics from the New York Times]
It’s Martin Luther King Day, the day when Republican politicians trumpet their hypocrisy on Twitter. They would have us believe they support civil rights and voting rights for all Americans. (They do not).
All right. You-Know-Who (The No-Vax One) has departed from Melbourne, Australia (reportedly flying to Dubai, and presumably getting to his home in Monte Carlo, from there).
It is Monday morning, 72 °F (22 °C) and sunny in Melbourne, so hopefully the tennis tournament can bounce back from the ugly run-up to its start.
‘Lucky loser’* Salvatore Caruso (age 29, Italy) finds himself in the main draw now, in the spot that held the world number one’s name.
*He lost in the Australian Open qualifying tournament’s final round.
ACT I SCENE I A desert place.
[Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches]
First Witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch: When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun.
First Witch: Where the place?
Second Witch: Upon the heath.
Third Witch: There to meet with Macbeth.
First Witch: I come, graymalkin*!
Second Witch: Paddock* calls.
Third Witch: Anon!
All: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
[Exeunt]
From ‘Macbeth’ (1606) by William Shakespeare
*Graymalkin is an affectionate name for a gray cat. During the Renaissance it was believed that Satan sent witches malicious spirits to help them carry out their evil deeds. These ‘familiars’ or ‘imps’ would appear in animal form. The familiar of the First Witch takes the form of a cat and the familiar of the Second Witch takes the form of a paddock, a toad. The familiar of the Third Witch is not mentioned in the first act but later in the play, it takes the form of a harpy, a nasty creature in Greek mythology with the head and body of a woman and the talons of a bird. -information from Shakespeare Online.
For those in warmer climes, let me tell you: 44 °F (7 °C) feels positively balmy when you’ve recently felt the bite of 19 °F (minus 7 °C).
I ordered groceries from Amazon Fresh tonight, and they definitely have their logistics sorted out:
1. You get what you have ordered. If an item is out of stock the system tells you that when you order— not so with the Kroger/ QFC system.
(So would you prefer a smaller selection, and know what is available, and what not, or a much wider selection that is a little bit more hit-and-miss, such as Kroger’s)?
2. They have a two-hour delivery window, same as Kroger. As that window approaches, though, the online order status page shows a map with the driver’s whereabouts, and an updated timeframe for your delivery. Nice.
3. Delivery is free when ordering $35 or more (before sales tax). Oh, you have to be an Amazon Prime member to order, though. That’s $119 per year before sales tax.
A new word game called WORDLE* is all the buzz on Twitter.
It’s online and free, with a new word you have to guess every day, so I had to check it out.
*Launched publicly in October last year, the game was created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer from Wales living in New York, for his partner, Palak Shah, who loves puzzles. At first, the game was played by family, before it was rolled out globally, Wardle told the New York Times.
