Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative

Back Home

11 Comments

I got in this afternoon, but this is the first chance I’ve had to log on (using…borrowed…yeah, that’s the word, borrowed… bandwidth from a neighbor’s unsecured Dlink router. I’ll return the bits after I get my own set up in a day or so…if he can figure out the passphrase…).

I returned to a house full of boxes to unpack and find a place for their contents, so the next few days/weeks/months will be a massive exercise in entropy reduction. I hope to get back to a semi-normal schedule this coming week, though.

Administrative

Back On The Road Again

18 Comments

Sun’s up in Tallahassee, so I don’t want to waste the light. Hoping for the bayou by lunchtime, and when the times comes for tonight’s appointment with Hypnos, I expect to be (as the old song goes) deep in the heart of Texas.

Though the radar indicates rain on the road ahead. At least this time, unlike my trip coming to Florida five years ago, the air conditioning works in the car (or at least it did as of last night), so I won’t be getting rained on with windows open in the steamy climate.

[Friday night update]

Yes, I’m alive, didn’t sleep in a truck stop, wasn’t abducted by aliens in Roswell, and wasn’t tempted to stay in TX by the brisket, contra comments.

I stayed in a Days Inn in Kerrville, about forty-five minutes west of San Antonio, that had free wifi. It was worth twice the price. Or half. It doesn’t really matter, because either way, the point is that it didn’t work. Some hotel could do good business by advertising “Free wifi that really works, or we’ll refund half your room rate,” and make it happen.

Anyway, I’m in Phoenix, staying with a niece and her husband and new (well, relatively new — seventeen months) son, whom I hadn’t seen. Back to LA in the morning.

Administrative

Just In Case You’re Wondering

2 Comments

We’ve been putting the labor into the Labor Day weekend, cleaning out the garage and attic, and culling out stuff that we don’t want to take back to California. It’s typical south Florida weather (hurricane-prep weather) — hot and humid. I start dripping if I’m just standing outside the protection of the air conditioning, without even doing any work. I’ve drunk about ten glasses of water today, and it all goes out through my sweat glands, and never has time to get to my bladder.

Administrative, General

An End Of A Personal Era

23 Comments

There may not be a lot of posting over the next couple weeks. There are a lot of changes coming up in our lives, some good, some bad, but mostly (I think) good.

For the first time in over a decade, we’ll both be living, at home, in LA, and with a semi-normal schedule — getting up early, going off to work, and coming home at night. Patricia has a real job (something that I should have) that will require that. No more seeing each other only on weekends, no more wondering where each of us will be over the next month, no more having a cat who doesn’t understand why mom or dad are absent for days or weeks.

For the first time in over a decade, we won’t be watching tropical waves coming off of Africa with personal concern.

Way back in 1998, she moved to San Juan, and we started to have to worry about hurricanes. We got a break from that in 2002, when she came back and worked in Reno, then Milbrae, then (very briefly) in LA, then got transferred to south Florida, where we once again had to not only worry about, but deal with hurricanes, when I actually drove a car out here, knowing I was driving out to help get ready for Frances, back in 2004.

In another week or so, almost exactly five years later, I’ll be driving the same car back to California, again in the heart of hurricane season.

When I drove out, once I left El Paso, or a few hundred miles east, I left the mountains behind. I left the west behind (even though I know that many consider central Texas the west, despite its lack of scenery, mountains or cactus). I left it with regret.

Driving back west again in the same car, will be very cathartic.

I’ve always loved the west. I read about it voraciously as a kid, from Dennis the Menace to Mark Twain, and once I visited as a kid, over forty years ago, I was hooked. I can’t wait to get back, despite the dysfunctionality of the California government. The geography, the history, the people of California, I hope will overcome the current disastrous state. The state of California has always bounced back. I hope that it will do so again.

But if it doesn’t, I have property there, so I have to delude myself anyway…

In any event, I am going to enjoy the trip, in exactly the converse of the way that I disenjoyed the trip east, despite the fact that I was (bittersweet) driving to my darling Patricia. This time, I’m driving home, with all its flaws. And I won’t miss Florida. There is nothing that I will miss about Florida, except the new friends that I met here, and the thunderstorms. Those, are golden, all, and I will miss them much. But all we can do is say our goodbyes this weekend, and enjoy our new life, back home.

Administrative, General

Not Quite Escaping?

3 Comments

I’m planning to leave for California from Boca around September 10th. I was hoping that I could avoid a hurricane, as we’re heading into the heart of the season, but Ericka has formed (sorry, not a permalink):

The cloud mass just east of the Windward Islands developed into Tropical Storm Erika late Tuesday afternoon. The storm was able to develop thanks to the overall flow plus warm sea surface temperatures between 83 and 86 degrees in that part of the Atlantic. Erika is moving slowly and will not threaten the Southeast coast of the United States before Labor Day. Before then, the storm will have some impact on the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic before moving east of the Bahamas.

Will it continue through the Bahamas to “west of the Bahamas” (i.e., the Florida Peninsula)? Or head north, as everything else has so far? The models are all over the map, with some of them taking it through the Greater Antilles. Extrapolating the five-day track (again, unfortunately not a permalink), it looks like south Florida would be on the southern edge of the cone.

Will he manage to get away without shuttering? Will he manage to get away at all?

Stay tuned.

Administrative

An Edit Feature

15 Comments

Often, people post follow-up comments to fix problems with previous comments (such as here), and often, in doing so, they wish for an edit feature.

In order to have a comment feature that only allowed editing of your own comments (and surely, you wouldn’t want one that allowed anyone to edit anyone’s right…?), I’d have to set up a login of some kind, whether Google, or otherwise. I’ve never done that, and have always maintained a pretty open and freewheeling comments section here, and overall, it’s worked all right. I know that I don’t like to have to log in (or worse, set up an entire account) to comment elsewhere, and when I have to do so, it usually results in my not bothering.

So be careful what you wish for.

[Update late morning]

OK, it’s not exactly an edit feature, but I’ve added live preview.

Administrative

Back To California

4 Comments

I’m heading back to LA tonight, for the next week and a half. Not sure how much blogging will be happening.

[Evening update, about 9:40 CDT]

Well, I’m stuck at DFW, with my LA flight delayed until 11 PM local, which gets me into LA about midnight, and probably to my room over an hour later. Should have taken the non-stop from Miami.

[Bleary Wednesday morning update from the left coast]

OK, I was wrong. It wasn’t delayed until 11 pm — it didn’t rise the wheels until 12:30 AM (1:30 AM my body time on a day after I’d gotten up at 5 AM). We got into LAX about 2 AM Pacific (24 hours after I had first arisen). National had only two cars, both vans. The first one (a Kia Sedona) started beeping at me, and lighted an indicator saying that both front doors were ajar (no, it’s not a jar, it’s a door…) and the interior light came on and wouldn’t go off. This behavior continued, so I returned the car, to little rejoicing, and got the other one, a Dodge of some variety. I didn’t get to bed until after 3 AM. It’s now almost 10 AM, and I’m at work.

Hopefully, I’ll get caught up a little tonight.

Administrative

Good Times

2 Comments

Well, it’s windy, raining, with what looks to be a lot more to come on the Marathon radar. It looks like a low, verging on a tropical depression, as hurricane season really gets into the swing of things. So what’s the plan for today? Drive forty miles toward Key West, and get on a boat to go out snorkeling. Really. The captain says it will be fine.

Well, it’s no skin off his nose if we drive an hour each way for nothing.

[Update a few minutes later]

We cancelled, after looking at the radar again. Off to Key West instead. If this rain keeps up, it might actually be pleasant (i.e., not blistering hot) there today.