A day in the life II

Geeky Updates

Malcolm — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:20:38 +0000

I plan to also write a post about medicine – it’ll be part personal, part essay, sparked by a recent diagnosis for a dermatitis that is actually apparently how some human physiologies work – no unpleasant symptoms besides what I think is an aesthetically interesting appearance change, no treatment, no cure except waiting. But anyway, this is the post about the geek.

I got the three things I wrote about in the previous post.

I’m working out the Wacom Bamboo tablet at work. It’s nice to have options in pointing devices, nice to have different ways to do the same thing. Turns out with the tablet I’m actually using it exclusively over the mouse but using the tablet has also made me start using more keyboard shortcuts. I think it’s because with the way I have it configured, it takes relatively more movement to do similar things to what you do on the mouse. I don’t actually mind that it’s got me using keyboard shortcuts. I think overall it makes me more efficient. I do have to keep in mind that if I demo any tech to anyone I’ll need to switch back to the mouse and slow down anyway so people can see what I’m doing.

The hard drive enclosure showed up. It’s nice. It has what Hanne calls ninja feet. Stowable feet on the side that deploy with a button click. Seems to be working well for Hanne’s newish system. Well done that.

The phone arrived 2 days ago. I have ordered a screen protector from Zagg, despite the phone’s use of Corning’s Gorilla Glass. (Gorilla Glass is interesting. It’s been around a long time – the 50′s – and is apparently very sturdy and very scratch resistant.) Also because it’s so light and the case is hard and slippery, I ordered a silicone case from Amzer. I worry that it won’t fit in its entirety in my belt holster, but I guess we’ll see.

As for the phone’s overall smartness, I have to say that I like being able to access the Internet at will. I still haven’t finished setting it up. I need to go through the contacts (which it synced on my request from not just the SIM card – the normal way you transfer contacts around – but also Google, Facebook and Twitter) and clean them up. I need to install apps instead of using the built-in for Facebook, Twitter, etc. I need to configure Trillian properly to work right. I need to actually figure out Tasker and get it to work the way I want it to. I also need to configure the home screen so I’m not so bothered by the pre-installed widgets I will never use.

I really like the phone. It is beautiful (4″ AMOLED screen). I like Swype for inputting text. I like the 3G, the GPS, the camera, the operating system, the experience, the apps/widgets. There’s a lot to like.

I have a few minor complaints.

I don’t like how the phone spawns built-in widgets at startup. There are at least 4 I will never use that it keeps spawning whenever I reboot the phone. I take care of that with Task Manager (an add-on widget) that helps kill those tasks when they show up. I understand that this behavior of starting up services for you that you don’t necessarily want is pretty standard in the market. While this phone doesn’t seem to suffer any performance hits because of it, the extra services could be using up battery life (see below).

I also don’t like how the phone comes with probably 2 dozen widgets that promote services I will never use (Visual voicemail, MobiTV, Amazon MP3s, etc.) that are trialware (if you use/activate them, you are obligated to either explicitly cancel or pay after the trial runs out), and that I cannot uninstall (they’re part of the “vendor rom” area of the phone – rom being a type of memory you cannot change). This is probably the greatest of my dislikes. I bought an Android phone partly because of the relative freedom represented by not going with an Apple smartphone, and I’m still saddled with this kind of useless crap (that takes up screen real estate and that I can accidentally start).

I don’t like how the battery lasts about 24 – 36 hours for me of moderate use. But moderate use with a device of this featureset is probably heavy use for other devices (I check Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Work e-mail about 6 times or more in that period, watch 1 or 2 hours of video, take a dozen photos, upload to Picasa, live-blog a couple of things to Facebook, use the GPS with Google Maps for 30 minutes, fiddle with phone settings for 1 or 2 hours, make or take about 30 minutes of phone calls and have the phone on and on standby waiting for more calls. Maybe about half of the time or more is WiFi Internet, the rest 3G or EDGE network Internet – so maybe that is more than reasonable battery life). The battery is 1500 mAh (milliampere-hours), which is pretty impressive for a small battery and about equivalent to a new AA Alkaline battery. There are rumors of a 2800 mAh extended battery (made of a different battery technology) but so far no real sellable item. Also another possibility (for travel) might be one of those rechargeable charging stations (like the Zagg Sparq). When they’re plugged in, they work like the normal charging cable, but when unplugged they have their own battery on board that can be used to charge the mobile devices plugged into them. I’m still getting used to my use pattern with the phone, so we’ve yet to see whether these solutions are necessary for me.

The phone is so light and the normal case so smooth and hard that it can be difficult to keep a grip on the thing. Coupled with the “free bonus” belt holster I got with it that’s a little too small, it was a recipe for catapulting the thing across the room. Which is why I ordered a silicone case protector for the thing – to give me some grip.

I think that’s it. If I could remove the widgets I won’t ever use but that came with the phone, I’d be a happy boy, because everything else is easily dealt with.

Upgrades

Malcolm — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:11:10 +0000

Since returning home from the Left Coast, I’ve undertaken a number of tech upgrades at work and in personal life.

Thought I’d write about them a little, since this is how I get my geek on, and given that this journal is about me and my doings, this is extremely relevant.

A new mouse alternative
The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch pad is an alternative to mousing. It can be installed alongside a mouse on the same system and you can use it or the mouse at any time (or at the same time, I suppose, though that would be confusing). It supports iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch multitouch gestures (e.g. to zoom in, you can start with a little pinch gesture and, while maintaining contact with the surface, widen the pinch to 2 or 3 inches, to scroll, touch the pad with two fingers next to each other, and scroll down by pulling your fingers toward you, up by pushing them away). It also supports using a stylus (pressure sensitive, so compatible painting apps let you express that pressure in brush strokes) as a more obvious alternative to a mouse. It’s point and click!
I’ve used tablets for computer work since the early nineties. In the past you had to put batteries in the styluses but now they work by induction. Otherwise, other than taking power unobtrusively, these tablets really haven’t changed much. They’re smaller and lighter but the tech remains mostly the same. I like them. We’ll see how long I stick with this one before going back to the mouse.
I’m also using the tablet and stylus to experiment with Windows 7′s Tablet PC support and pen input. So far, I have to say that on electronic writing surfaces, I write like a 1st grader. Maybe it’ll get better with time. No wonder the thing can’t recognize my writing.
A new hard drive enclosure
Hanne got a newish refurb computer upgrade. She needs a new external hard drive enclosure and a change to how it connects (previously, USB, now Firewire 800). I ordered the hard drive (SATA) and enclosure at the same time but they shipped separately. The hard drive (1 TB) is at home awaiting the arrival of the enclosure.
A new phone
My Nokia 5310 non-smart phone is on its way out. I am also getting the picture that having a smart phone would be a good thing for my career from the point of view of having full support for remote e-mail access. Finally, the gates of my workplace’s proxy have come crashing down on me since the recent (lat week’s) cubicle move to a different area of the building, so I feel the need to take network access matters into my own hands. All of these needs can be addressed by getting a 3G connected smart phone with an unlimited data plan, so that’s what I’ve got coming to me.
It’s in transit but I ordered a Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S Android phone, which is just a couple of steps back from the bleeding edge (its “ooh pretty” product spotlight in the market is about to cede for the new T-Mobile Google G2 phone) from Wireless Advocates, which is apparently Costco’s cellular partner for online sales. They were able to knock $50 off the 2-year contract price for the phone that I’d get directly from T-Mobile.
T-Mobile will of course be making out like a bandit, requiring a $30/month Android Phone Unlimited data plan.
I MAY be able to charge some of this back to work, depending on how that conversation goes.
Anyhow I’m looking forward to getting the phone and putting it through its paces.
I have signed up for the beta of Google App Inventor, which will help customize the phone, but I understand that there are plenty of options available out of the box, some notable apps I may want to look into when I get up to speed and the option to root the phone, which is sort of like jailbreaking it – freeing it from some of Samsung’s, Google’s, and T-Mobile’s restrictions.
Why yes, I have put a lot of thought into this, thank you.

I think that’s it. But I’ll update if I think of anything.

Travels – 8/23/2010

Malcolm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:14:36 +0000

Same drill different day. This post expanded from what I wrote on MetaFilter.

A lot more family business and most of the activities skewed toward the afternoon, but.

Started out with a lunch at home with my Mom and some of her friends [P and A, a Lovely UU/Buddhist couple]. Since most of you will not be able to have lunch with my Mom, I’ll just say that the food and the company was also charming. [P and A are looking forward to being physically separate for 5 weeks in September, which coincidentally jibes with my situation with Hanne and her month-long retreat in October, so I spoke with P, the one staying at home, about anticipating the separation. We all agreed that 2 weeks' separation from someone you're that close to is difficult but acceptable, but that 3 weeks or longer tends to feel like it's "too long". I wish them well during the coming separation. I know it's easier these days with e-mail and cell phones to keep in touch but it can still be difficult if you're used to constant touch and reminders of the other partner's presence. Lunch was high-falutin' mac and cheese involving a roux and some liquid smoke. Also a very good salad with avocados and arugula and a vinaigrette. Optional on the salad and on the mac and cheese were anchovies. All anchovies were gone when we were finished. Conversation was mostly witty and pleasant, though when Dad showed up, he apparently thought P and A were MY friends and started talking about The War with A, who is Japanese, and things got a little awkward although interesting.]

For the early supper meal, I met my friend N in the Mission in SFO with a goal of going to a Mission taqueria. Based on Yelp reviews, we thought we would go to El Farolito. N’s house mates offered an alternative (which I’ll mention because they said it was better): El Metate. We ended up going for it and going to El Farolito.

And it was good. I think some of the Yelp reviews that said it was on the greasy side were accurate. But as we foodies know, grease makes the taste go ’round.

Anyway,I had three tacos:
[(Reformatted)]

Sesos (beef brains)
Sort of taste like oysters, mildly. Server with lots of citrus and lots of spiciness. Texture is also oyster-like, so I’d rate it challenging. It was tasty though and my first time eating this organ. [N thought I was brave. I was somewhat trepidacious from the point of view of getting stuck up about hygiene but also very curious. Curiosity overcame stuck upedness, so I had some and it was good, though not what I expected - I hadn't expected it to be so tender or such a light and subtle taste. I'll have to think about it before I order it again. For what it's worth, I experienced no stomach upset.]
Lengua (beef tongue)
Had it before in other venues. It wasn’t peeled, so it was both chewy and soft. I prefer it peeled (where it’s only soft), but that is not the default way of prepping it. Also served citrusy/spicy. [The upscale tequlia joint, Azul 17, in Columbia, MD near where I work peels their lengua. The texture is amazing, and I think the taste is also improved, though I think the labor involved in preparing it this way is high.]
Chorizo (spicy sausage)
Good. The heaviest/greasiest, but prepped well – cooked so it’s more crispy than fatty. [I love chorizo, and cooking it until it's crisp from its own grease is one my favorite ways to have it.]

[Also, the tacos were plentifully filled, with more than enough to take up the two tortillas that came with each filling.]

My friend had enchiladas which she also enjoyed. We also both had the cantaloupe aguas fresca, which was very cantaloupey but also very sugar sweet. Not sure I’d recommend that.

[When we left, there was a lady scavenging the food other people had left uneaten. The enchiladas were way too much food for N, and when N noticed the scavenger, just handed her her plate. I also offered the chips we weren't going to finish, which the scavenger lady initially refused but then changed her mind about. We both felt good knowing our uneaten food wouldn't go to waste.]

We went on a side trip to walk it off and visit a gallery/sales place my friend’s housemate works at/creates for across from the Safeway near 29th and Mission. Unfortunately it was closed (and I cannot find a link for it so I won’t[, nor can I remember its name]), but it did give us the opportunity for a short walk for digestion and to make room for Humphry Slocombe ice cream.

[The ice cream] WAS wonderful and well worth the effort of getting there. I had a cup with Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee and Secret Breakfast (bourbon and corn flakes). My friend had Candy Capp (a mushroom that tastes like maple) with Balsamic Vinegar candied topping. Both were quite tasty though I agree with N that the vinegar overpowered her ice cream flavors. My cup was interesting in that the combination of the two flavors at the same time was like a wholly different third flavor and it was pretty fantastic. Good combo.

[We also had a discussion of why, if you had a mushroom that tasted like maple, would you make an ice cream out of it? My suggestion was instead that they should just make a rocky road with millionaire's bacon - bacon that has been cooked and candied with maple syrup - instead. But maybe they already did that and I didn't know.]

When I got home I had second supper with Dad about 4 hours later, at The Saturn Cafe. Weirdly, though I used to eat there pretty constantly back when I lived in California (21 years ago), I didn’t remember that it was a vegetarian joint. This had no impact on my choice of meal: Peach Milkshake and Zucchini fries. It did impact Dad’s choice of burger. I think he wanted meat. We’re both capable of enjoying vegetarian fare, but neither of us realized that Saturn Cafe was vegetarian. Regardless, the quality was as high as I remember it being. Very good! [Unfortunately I didn't have room to try their legendary chocolate madness sundae, but I assume it's as good as ever.]

Today I will pack up and head over to SFO by BART. Nothing exciting scheduled, but if I do get something yummy from SFO food courts I’ll let you know.

Travels – 8/22/2010

Malcolm — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:36:05 +0000

Same drill as yesterday. I jotted some stuff down on the summary on Metafilter, then crashed out. Today I’ll take that copy and add stuff with [] brackets.

Today was slow, filled with family business [mostly logistics], then an early supper with [K] and her family (pizza from a grill with a pizza stone – many toppings from their garden). [Delicious! K has a 2 1/2 year old daughter, so it was a short visit with some chatting and checking in and I arrived back home by about 7. One of the family businesses was my Dad saying that he didn't think he was seeing me often enough this visit, so it worked out that dinner with K was short so I could come home and hang out with Dad, which turned out to be second supper.] For second supper I went to New Gold Medal restaurant (on the site of the former Sun Hong Kong and weirdly, their menus say they are Sun Hong Kong still) in Oakland Chinatown.

Whatever the name, this is an old standby for my family and my father likes it very much.

Dishes:

Salt Fish steamed with Pork – this is a pork patty with slices of salt fish and sprinkled with shredded ginger and scallions and the whole lot steamed. The salt fish is definitely a pungent acquired taste but one both Dad and I like.
Prawns with egg. Prawns with scrambled egg. I added chili oil and soy and it was magnifique!

To get to New Gold Medal and back we took BART which may not have been that wise from a risk-of-mugging perspective but we had no problems or harassment to deal with.

Tomorrow: Family business in the morning. Lunch with Mom and friends at home. Family business in the afternoon, then dinner with a friend in the Mission district as well as a visit to Humphrey Slocombe.

Decibels

Malcolm — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:15:40 +0000

For a rigorously trained former scientist in a discipline with lots of different kinds of units for measuring things, I’ve never really understood decibels (dB). I just found a great accessible explanation of decibels and I finally understand!

While I was looking at the web attempting to determine why BART drivers were apparently doing the mambo on their horns at 5 o’clock in the freakin’ morning (I don’t know yet, but suspect that it’s a safety requirement when entering a tunnel and the outside ambient light is low – that’s why the Amtrak trains do it), I found a part of a paper (PDF) from Union City, CA, about (apparently) Noise associated with a proposed project, that looks like it’s trains-based. Not clear on whether it’s directly BART or not and I’m not really interested in analyzing to that depth.

From pages 2-3:

A sound level of 0 dBA is approximately the threshold of human hearing and is barely audible under extremely quiet listening conditions. Normal speech has a sound level of approximately 60 dBA. Sound levels above about 120 dBA begin to be felt inside the human ear as discomfort and eventually pain at still higher levels. In general, human sound perception in a community environment is such that a change in sound level of 3 dB is just noticeable, a change of 5 dB is clearly A sound level of 0 dBA is approximately the threshold of human hearing and isbarely audible under extremely quiet listening conditions. Normal speech has asound level of approximately 60 dBA. Sound levels above about 120 dBA beginto be felt inside the human ear as discomfort and eventually pain at still higherlevels. In general, human sound perception in a community environment is such that a change in sound level of 3 dB is just noticeable, a change of 5 dB is clearly noticeable, and a change of 10 dB is perceived as doubling or halving sound level. Because of the logarithmic scale of the decibel unit, sound levels cannot be added or subtracted arithmetically. A simple rule of thumb is useful in dealing with sound levels: if a sound’s physical intensity is doubled, the sound level increases by 3 dB, regardless of the initial sound level. For example, 60 dB plus 60 dB equals 63 dB, and 80 dB plus 80 dB equals 83 dB. As mentioned earlier, however, a perception of doubling of sound level requires about a 10-decibel increase.

So there you have it! Yay!

Travels – 8/21/2010

Malcolm — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:20:14 +0000

I wrote this over on MetaFilter last night, but I’ll repost it here with some extra stuff in square brackets in case folks are interested.
[I should note that I did wear my leather kilt, a green short sleeved T-shirt and kilt socks and boots all day, so my goal of breaking the kilt in and getting it to drape better is developing apace. I did get a number of weird looks, some neutral comments and some positive comments. I happen to think it's a great garment, and it also ups my butch factor pretty incredibly. Nobody challenged me or anything but on the way over to Yank Sing I did have a guy say "God Bless You", which I returned in kind, because I always try to interpret those sorts of things positively. Mom thought he might have meant it as a criticism, but that didn't occur to me. Also on arriving back at Ashby at night, I coincidentally followed a Dad/guardian and his kid almost all the way home (they got in a car about 2/3 of the walk back). I thought of myself as if anything protective, but I did hang back so as not to spook them.]

After a slow morning, today did indeed start at Yank Sing on Spear (party was 10, including my Mom and mostly my best friend’s household). [Mom and I headed out around 9:10 am to give me time to get a BART ticket - the prior one was emptied of all but US$0.05 from the airport trip.]

Dim sum was fast and furious and extraordinarily good. Also Yank Sing is really expensive comparatively [to other Dim Sum places, where prices are usually more like $10 - $15 per person all told]. But it’s well worth it.

Highlights:

Traditional, precisely executed dry fried long beans
[Excellent] soup dumplings [served with a ginger vinegar sauce. Bonus: This time I ate soup dumplings without causing a hydraulically-inspired international incident.]
Peking duck [in individual servings. This was good but not really the extremely crispy skin-centered variety I'm used to. The duck meat was awesome, though.]
[T]he Lotus seed paste filled sesame balls were (probably the first time in my life) fried in hot enough oil that they weren’t ultra-heavy
Asparagus in scallop-shrimp-fish paste croquettes [I tried this before I realized I'd been having some issues with scallops in the past 10 years. No harm done this time, though]
[S]pinach dumpling [filled, apparently, with spinach, mushrooms carrot and garlic - lots of garlic - also something else seasonings-wise we were unable to identify - they were wrapped in a spinach noodle and were like big-ass tortellini]
[A] classic preparation of steamed sea bass but in a big chunk of flakable fish in a dim sum size.

There was plenty more food we ordered. Bill for the 10 of us after going to town was about $300. So. VERY expensive for Dim Sum but also very good.

After Dim Sum [N] and I wandered. My goals were still the Wok Shop and Recchiuti, but we walked up to the Wok Shop via Sacramento, I bought a couple of woks [both a round bottom and a flat bottom steel wok with a wooden handle design the worker recommended from experience - the other design has too great a propensity to have you accidentally burn yourself] and had them shipped [with accessories like a cover that fits them both and two properly sized spatulas], then we wandered around Chinatown for a while. [I should note that the shop worker who helped me has a peculiarly gruff/aggressive style of helping folks, which I warmed to when I realized she did it with everyone. For the first few minutes I thought it would be an exercise in respecting my elders, but then I realized she meant it to be friendly and it was cool.]

[N] wanted to visit the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie factory where you can write your own fortunes but when we got there it was packed [not only packed, but I made the observation that people kept crowding in, but nobody was coming out, and said I'd wait outside for her, so she decided perhaps another time]. I wanted to make a trip to the Tin How Temple to make some offerings and get some talismans for back home. [After going to a few of the wrong kinds of "bakeries" that didn't in fact sell dim sum to go - and were aggressively hawked by a competing dim sum restaurant, with folks following me down the sidewalk with flyers - way to NOT make a sale with me - w]e found a “bakery” where I could get some take-out Dim Sum [it's hard to differentiate between the two when you don't read Chinese] for the temple, then went to the temple itself, made offerings and got talismans. [One for N, one for Hanne.]

After that adventure, we walked down California back to the Ferry Terminal Building, on the way checking out the Privately Owned Public Spaces on California. (Not that awesome, but kind of cool anyway.) [The deal here is that these spaces are sort of concessions that builders make to the city for building big-ass buildings down town. Since they're official, they're registered and folks keep track. They're little areas with public galleries or places to sit and chill or places with benches and public art and so on. We think but we're not sure that jurisdictions are weird, so you can still get escorted out for vagrancy but the City cops have to do it instead of building security.]

At the Ferry Terminal Building, we first went to Peet’s to get some drinkables (a little dehydrated by then). [We got Freddos, which are blended ice drinks - I got mine chocolate raspberry with decaf coffee, N was fully fuelled, but it didn't work. We were both getting a bit tired out.] While enjoying that, we asked our friend’s house mates whether we should shop for food for the evening. On receiving affirmation, we did. Highlights:

Some good cheeses to drink with stouts and red wines at Cowgirl Creamery
Lardo, ham and capocollo at Boccalone Salumeria (new to me) [Prior Peet's, I'd gotten a sampler (a meat cone) so we knew what we wanted.]
Peach and nectarine varietals at Frog Hollow Farm [The effect of free samples, but the samples revealed that these stone fruits with even firm flesh were really flavorful and sweet.]
A LOT of chocolates at Recchiuti Confectioners (per my evil plan) [Chocolates for co-workers, chocolates for N's house, chocolates for Hanne and a gift card for my other friend K]

We then journeyed to my friend’s home on the N Judah [where there was a car accident on Irving, a couple miles away from N's house, so we got N's partner J to come get us and take us to Andronico's] with a side trip to Andronico’s (a sort of upscale grocery store) for some good beer (Old Rasputin’s Imperial Stout), and I had a smorgasbordy dinner with my friend and her household until I turned into a pumpkin and returned to my parents’ home. [This part is totally true, though I did play a little Lego Harry Potter with N's kid M for a while between the first munching and a little munching on chocolates and sweets before getting a ride from N to the Civic Center BART station. I like M very much.]

[No pictures. Dorkily, I carried the camera all day but didn't take any pictures, though I did see some sights where perhaps I should have. Oh well.]

Travels – 8/20/2010

Malcolm — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:31:30 +0000

Miscellaneous doings.I got out of the house around 8:30a today, to go to the Berkeley post office with my Mom and to swing by to process an 18-years late change of name and address with a bank for me. Very exciting. I did have the necessary paperwork with me.

Came back to the house, cleaned up and awaited my date, my friend K.

We went to Wood Tavern in Rockridge (in Oakland, CA). We arrived at 11:30a without a reservation we were seated at the bar. I completely failed to take pictures, but it was good!

To start we shared the shrimp cocktail which to my mind was more like a shrimp ceviche, served with avocado among a very nice gazpacho shallows. Quite tasty.

I also ordered a slice of pork and peach terrine, served with thin toasted slices of baguette and an apricot-mustard chutney as well as a straight up mustard. Very tasty.

K had a pork confit sandwich and I had their “surf-n-turf” sandwich (which was shrimp, garlic aioli and prosciutto. I’m not sure what K’s had, but mine also had lettuce and extremely thinly sliced cucumbers that tasted like they were fresh-pickled. Both very tasty sandwiches. My only complaint is that the bread on my sandwich, while very good, was robust enough that the sandwich filling spilled out the sides. Quick work with a fork took care of that, but it was messy. Both sandwiches were accompanied by a ramekin filled with a very mild slaw and a couple of differently pickled cucumber pickle slices. All quite tasty.

We also each had a lemonade, which was lightly sweetened, very tart, and like most California citrus tasted to me like “real” lemons, not lemons shipped halfway across the world and ripened on the way. It was also nice that the lemonade was made with seltzer instead of just plain water.

We then took off in her car and wandered around College Ave shopping blocks, eventually going to Ici, a very gourmet ice cream shop (but with reasonable prices) where I again failed completely to take pictures. The portions were on the small side but the overrun (mixed in air) was low and the flavors intense, so it didn’t seem like we were being short changed.

I had two scoops: Rose Vanilla and Black Pepper-Cardamom. K had two as well: Rose Vanilla and Chocolate.

All three flavors were marvelous. Rose Vanilla was very subtly floral. The Black Pepper-Cardamom was very nice with a great spicy after taste. The Chocolate was chocolate done right – very chocolate and not very sweet, just enough.

We both truly needed a nap after that so we cut the visit short and hopefully I can see her and her family again on Sunday.

She dropped me off and I thought about napping but instead went to Berkeley Bowl on Oregon St. This is about 4 or 5 blocks from where my parents live. One of the problems I have but feel I shouldn’t exactly complain about when I travel is the abundance of Restaurant Food. I can totally get why this is a good thing so what do I have to complain about? But the problem is that Restaurant Food as convenient and tasty as it is, rarely has enough fruit and vegetable in it for me.

So I figured that with the silly energy I had after visiting with K (this is normal for me when visiting K), I should go get some fruit and veg and maybe some chocolate to help offset the Restaurant Food.

When I got there, an ACLU Campaigner caught my eye and we chatted and I felt like doing something both appropriate for Berkeley as well as my politics and so I signed up for $10/month. Soon I will be a card carrying member of the ACLU. Everyone say Hi! to Chris, the campaigner who signed me up!

After doing my bit, I headed into the store. I completely failed again to get photos inside, but I did take some pictures of what I got after I got home:

Sweetheart Cherries – These are sweet and lovely – new to me – we mostly get Bing and sour cherries in Baltimore:

Van Cherries – also new to me, but I ain’t tasted them yet:

Watermelon, Limes and Chili flakes (in a grinder container) – My new favorite way to have watermelon, very Pacific Rim. The Watermelon was a pretty typical looking icebox watermelon. I may have it all for breakfast tomorrow morning.:

Also, seriously dudes, I got this Manchego and the thing was like SIXTY FEET TALL!:

On the walk home from Berkeley Bowl, there was this crow in the street:

A word about crows. Since I met a crow shaman at least 10 years ago and perhaps before I have always had an affinity for crows. On the East Coast they often seem to follow me around and talk to me. Hanne has this happen with her too. On this coast, I do see them around, but they don’t talk to me that often, so I talk to them instead, and they just look at me, perhaps puzzled? Perhaps just wondering what the hell the monkey is doing yammering at them.

Tonight, Dad and I plan to go to LaVal’s, a traditional family hangout. I think their pizza is good, but I also go there because I find it comforting and Dad enjoys it too.

Tomorrow: Dim Sum at Yank Sing and then The Wok Shop, as well as other meanderings. I will probably also get some damned good chocolate at Recchiuti’s (for friends, co-workers and my sweetie). We shall see.

Kirala times two – Lunch with Mom, Dinner with Dad

Malcolm — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:59:40 +0000

Going to Kirala twice was just fine with me. Their Lunch and Dinner menus are so different it’s easy not to get bored.I only had the presence of mind to take pictures (crappy cell phone pictures at that) for dinner. lunch was a really pretty conventional sashimi combo for me and Vegetable Tempura Soba for Mom. Very tasty! Also house tea. For me, the sashimi was about enough to fill me up on a stomach unsettled from the flight and eating at 3 p.m. my time.

For Dinner, Dad and I started by waiting for our seats at the bar and I selected a sake, which turned out to be very pleasing indeed. It’s called Kokuryu (Black Dragon) and it’s Junmai Ginjo (which is a certain kind of rice milling and fermentation method). It was clear and transparent as water, but the taste was very deep and smooth. It was served cold and it was very tasty. We shared a “large” order, which was not a whole 720 ml bottle, probably about a cup or so of sake total between the two of us.

We moved on to a corner table, where it was loud and hard to hear each other (the only think I don’t really like about Kirala) and moved on with the meal.

To start, I ordered one appetizer and 3 robata (skewers from the hibachi grill).

The appetizer, Chawan Mushi, was new to me and quite fantastic. A very light, pleasing savory steamed custard, its broth was full of umami and sliced mushrooms, shrimp, chicken, ginger and gingko nuts in it.

For the robata, I ordered the duck and the (chicken) gizzards. I’ve had them both before and they held up since last time. I also had the lamb chops, which I took a bit out of before I took the picture. (doh!) I thought the lamb chops quite good, but also somewhat spendy for the quantity (compared to the gizzards, which were in abundance, for obvious reasons due to price difference on the open market):

After this, Dad ordered Unagi Tenju, which is tempura unagi and tempura vegetables on rice. I ordered some vegetable tempura myself so I could stop eating just animal protein, but in the end I think it was perhaps too much food. All delicious! Just again having the problem of ordering more food than I really want.

The total bill was reasonable at about $67 for the two of us with our expensive appetizers and our reasonably priced sake.

I leave you with a blurry picture of my vegetable tempura:

Ground Zero Mosque

Malcolm — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:56:57 +0000

Honestly, these ridiculous fantasies our politicians are bandying about are horrifyingly simple.

I wrote the majority of this essay up on the plane.

I have something to say.

I am an American Citizen. I am Christian. I understand that the civil protections in the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other Constitutional Amendments guarantee me and all other American Citizen the same and equal protection under the law. At least one of those rights is Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Religion means I get to believe and worship what I want and you get to believe and worship what you want. It also means I don’t get to be a gigantifc douchebag about where other people build their places of worship. Nor do they get to be about where I build mine.

If any politician is not clear about these basics, I suggest that being a politician and thus a civil servant may not be your cup of tea. In fact, if I could, I would fire you for not understanding and not upholding the United States Constitution and its amendments.

I should not have to say this but I feel like what with all the hoopla about the “ground zero mosque” with less focus on things like the “ground zero MacDonald’s” or the “ground zero gentleman’s club”, it seems like some of the politicians around here are really losing sight of the United States Constitution.

Those of you in politics, those of you who should be remembering your duties as civil servants, please do keep your eye on the Constitution and on our religious freedoms. When you forget that, running scared in front of the likes of the Tea Party, you make me think you’re not doing your jobs properly.

It is, after all, possible to tell the loud kookbags to stuff it when they suggest doing illegal and unconstitutional things. I think it might be time to start thinking about doing that and I’m very glad that at least our President stepped up to do that. Those other politicians who haven’t, it might be time to consider growing a pair. The number of voters who are actually kooky enough to scare you is small in proportion to the ones who’ll remember you just catered to the ones who screamed and faxed the loudest. And believe me, I will remember.

If nothing else, if you’re still scared shitless of the Tea Party and the rest of the loud kookbag special interest groups, I need you to know that as a Christian (which most of you politicians claim to be), I consider it your holy Christian duty to do unto others. Yes that includes being Christian (being compassionate, tolerating difference – celebrating it in fact, opening your arms to folks you don’t know, turning the other cheek) to the scary potential terrorists (e.g. any stranger) in the world. It’s not Christian to treat strangers according to your fears and suspicions. After all, you should know that from reading the Bible.

Micah 4:3-5: “…they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hat spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.”

Luke 9:52-56: “…they did not receive him…And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.”

John 4:7-27: “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink…Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water…Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father…And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman…”

Romans 2:14-16: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

1 Corinthians 10:31-32: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, orwhatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:”

Quotations primarily KJV, source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/.

Travel update: 2010-08-19

Malcolm — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:35:23 +0000

These are going to be a journal type format. Not so linked, mostly musings.

I never sleep well just before I fly. I don’t have flying anxiety. I have packing anxiety. This time around I made a little list of things I wanted to do before I packed (like upload my encrypted password vault to a password protected part of my web host so I didn’t have to carry a USB key around and be paranoid that the TSA would confiscate it like they’ve done to other people in the past) as well as things I actually wanted to pack. This helped calm me a little and gave me a very short list of last minute that morning items I wanted to pack just before leaving for the airport.

I do have to say though that while I do like sitting in the window seat, I don’t like it when the aisle seat guy packs in for a good sleep on a 5.5 hour flight – I will wake him when I need to get up to go use the loo, but it would be cooler if I didn’t have to.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about my new experiences at check-in engendered by buying the extra $150 round trip package add-on with United called the Premier Travel package. I decided to experiment because Dad’s helping me pay for the tickets and because I wanted to see if whether paying the extra fee for the extra process improvements would be worth it. So far, I have to say “Yes”, though I’m not entirely clear how much of it is related to that specifically and how much is serendipity.

I got to the airport 2 hours early as usual. This time because United’s site recommended that for BWI Airport, citing construction (thanks Hanne!).

I waltzed in, found the United area and got in the line for First class, Premier Executive (the next step up from mine) and Premier travellers. This had no people in it. I stood there for about 20 seconds when a check-in clerk came over specifically to help me. She was VERY attentive – almost too attentive. We sorted out that I was indeed standing in the correct line and she took my bag, gave me a checked bag ticket, my boarding pass and offered me a ticket envelope (note that they do not provide these to normal economy passengers). Then she directed me to the normal security line.

Here’s where I suspect the first serendipity happened. I got in the line, saw a dude at a desk, asdked him which fork to take and he said “Let me swab your palms.” I put out my hands, he did so. Then he said “Because swabbed your palms, you can get in the First Class line.” This was a direct route to a special ticket-checker. He looked at me ID and the ticket and then waved me on. But he did not assign me a lane. Second serendipity, I think, because I wandered a little trying to pick the right lane, and I think the TSA guys look for people doing this, not as terrorists but as First Class people, because the guy at the next stage also waved me into the First Class/Wheelchair/Flight Crew line. I did the normal security scan things and was rushed through and out into the gate area.

I’d say all in all it took maybe 5 minutes to get checked in and through security. If my $150 had anything to do with that, it was already probably worth it.

Then I sat in the boarding area and waited with my Seating Class 1 ticket to board. During boarding, I was first on after the First Class passengers. I settled into my Economy Plus class window seat and have been fine there ever since.

I’ve been reading for 2 hours, now I am writing a blogging draft.

Sleeping dude is also being read to b yhis giant-font displaying Kindle, I guess.

Maybe it’s time to wake his ass up.

—–

1 bathroom break, half of Speed Racer as well as an Anthony Bourdain episode (Panama) later, I’m taking the opportunity to sync my iPod with my laptop (ain’t done that in a while).

I think we’re about 4 hours into the flight. It’s been okay. Sleeping dude, as usual, took up the spare seat between us almost entirely, including putting a bag of food trash down in the floor space. He looked at me funny when I accidentally kicked it, but he’s gotten a flight attendant to take care of it now and is roaming the aisle, apparently stretching his legs.

I’ve also noted he’s not very good at getting out of the way. Unsurprising as it is it’s still disappointing. Still, as seat mates he’s certainly not one of the worst.

The young man sitting across the aisle from us has an iPad and a standalone DVD player. He was playing a video game on the iPad earlier but now it seems like he’s probably just listening to music.

Formerly sleeping guy has a Kindle. Other folks around United Economy Plus appear to have at least an MP3 player or something. It’s funny to me because the airplane’s media center is down, so now movie for us. About halfway through the flight the armrests lit up, so that’s something, but certainly not really required by the travelling company I’m keeping.

Not a whole lot more to report, so I’m going to see about this sync and if that’s done, perhaps wile away the time with some computer gaming.

—–

I read more, snoozed, played a little and then we got around to landing. Probably the best landing I’ve ever had. Smooth as butter.

On taxiing, I called Hanne.

Disembarking, I went to baggage claim, found Mom and my checked bag and we took BART back to the old family home. BART cost $8.60! A bit higher than I remembered, but still cheaper than European public transit.

Mom and I walked over to Kirala to have a simple lunch (I had 15 pieces of sashimi, she tempura soba).

Then we got back, I re-set-up my computer links to the house wireless and then Dad found me and we talked a while, and now I’m resting up for dinner with Dad later tonight.

More later.

Also, I wrote something up about this “ground zero mosque” nonsense, which I will post soon.