Labor Day? This Monday?

Wow, next Monday is a bank holiday here – Labor Day.  I honestly had totally forgotten this until this week – so much for making plans to do something!  After quite a few weeks of sunshine and hot weather, things seem to have taken a turn for the worst and currently it is overcast and rainy.  Just in time for the long weekend!  I’m just looking at the forecast for Mount Rainier – somewhere I would consider going to for a day trip over the long weekend – and there is snow in the forecast.  Good grief.  However, I’m seeing a mostly sunny forecast on Sunday for Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park – somewhere I would also consider going to for a day trip – so that might be an option.  This might be the last chance to go to either of these places at high elevations this year before the roads close or have restrictions like having to carry tire chains (which I don’t have, and probably never will).  But if I maintain the amount of ping pong I’ve been playing the last few days, then I might need the weekend to recover!  Intense.   

An Open Letter

Dear Chinese work colleague/cube neighbor,

I know that I am in the minority as one of the few Caucasians in the Biostatistics/Programming department, however since we are in America and working for an American company in an American office then I have some mildly racist observations and advice to pass on.  You’re welcome.

-          Typing quickly and loudly does not make you seem as busy and important as you want people to think

-          Clicking your pen all the time is incredibly annoying

-          Communicating in mangled English (“Chinglish” if you will), in both written and verbal form, is not helpful

-          Leading teleconferences on your headset from your desk is not considerate

-          Greeting, let alone conversing, with your non-Chinese cube neighbors would be polite

-          Talking extremely loudly in Chinese on the phone or to a fellow Chinese colleague is remarkably inconsiderate

-          A Chinese group mentality where you commute together, lunch together, talk only to each other in Chinese, only award bonuses, pay rises and promotions to each other, is not cool

-          Don’t use cultural differences as an excuse to not socialize or interact with other people

-          Don’t be naive about things like meeting etiquette, giving and taking credit where it is deserved, and blatant sucking up to management

-          Your food absolutely stinks so don’t eat it in your cube

Regards,

Your token Caucasian work colleague/cube neighbor

PS This also applies to my Indian colleagues.

I like driving in my car, it's not quite a Jaguar

My car passed 40,000 miles last weekend.  This is a big deal, because when my last car passed 40K that is when I started to have all kinds of problems with it.  So it may be time to start thinking about a new car – though more likely that is going to be next year.  But I shall definitely be keeping a close eye on how my car is doing – I’m already suffering from occasional transmission issues at low speeds, particularly when going uphill from a stop where my car struggles to find the right gear and seems like it might stall.  This is apparently a known defect of the automatic transmission on my model (thanks Ford!), so not much I can do about it.  And at least the 40,000 miles on this car are all mine – and I’ve been pretty good at driving sensibly and getting regular oil changes and services.  I don’t think I’ve had to get anything like new brakes or new wheels yet – which I’m sure I had to do by this time on my old car – so I’m always a bit worried about something going wrong.  But to be honest, I’m more worried about getting into an accident than any car trouble – such is the number of terrible drivers I regularly encounter on my commute. 

Respect the Flag

There has been a lot of discussion (read that as angry tirades) recently about the fact that Colin Kaepernick - San Francisco 49er's quarterback - refused to stand up during the American National Anthem before the start of a pre-season game.  His subsequent statement was:

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.  To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

I don't think anyone who has not been to a sporting event in America quite realizes just how sacrilegious an act this was.  I've been to a baseball game in the past where my friend chastised me for not taking my cap off during the playing of the national anthem.  I thought standing up was sufficient, but apparently not.  I think America is prone to excessive acts and displays of patriotism, and this is definitely one of them.  So contrary to a lot of the criticism being directed towards Kaepernick, I actually have a great deal of respect for what he did - I think it took a lot of guts.  Though hardly on the same scale, it is not dissimilar to acts like the Black Power salute during the Olympics medal ceremony or some of Muhammad Ali's much celebrated words and actions.  So I say good for him for expressing his beliefs, even though it might cost him sponsorship, endorsements and probably his NFL career.  Freedom of expression is one of America's founding principals, so I think we have to respect that even if we don't necessarily believe in what is being expressed.      

NOT a blu ray purchase

As much as I’m always on the lookout for limited edition blu ray box sets, even I balk at the following:

https://www.amazon.com/Middle-earth-Limited-Collectors-Blu-ray-DVD/dp/B01JH3KL0E

Yes, only $800 retail for 6 films that I’ve already got on blu ray – for that price I would expect it to be hand-delivered by Sir Ian McKellen dressed as Gandalf.

Noise

I am getting fed up with being assaulted by noise virtually all day.  From waking up to the noise of construction, to traffic noise on my commute (particularly with the prevalence of noisy construction vehicles and big rigs), to the sound of air conditioning and office chatter at work, to the noise of ship-building outside of where I work, to the noise of children shouting and screaming outside where I live in the evenings, to the noise of my neighbors’ dog and/or TV and/or door slamming by the time I go to bed.  I think this is why I am so keen to move again (which reminds me that I need to start looking soon), in the misguided hope that I can find somewhere quiet and peaceful to live (if such a thing exists without having to pay a fortune).  It’s not like I want to totally isolate myself from humanity (although that doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing!), it’s just that I value personal space very highly – and that encompasses not just physical space but all senses, which is why I get so annoyed by my personal space being invaded by the sounds and smells of others.  Maybe I’m done with city living and I'm a good ole country boy at heart!  This probably also explains a lot why I have and will always find it extremely difficult to share my personal space through co-habitation...

Hot

We are currently in the midst of a Heat Advisory issued by The National Weather Service – and boy is it toasty.  It’s not Texas hot, thank god, but definitely unusually high for the Seattle area, with temperatures getting into the 90's this afternoon (I only speak Fahrenheit nowadays, that’s about 33-35 Celsius).  The National Park Service also turned 100 years today, which means free entrance to all the parks through to the end of the weekend.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve only just come back from another National Park, this would be the perfect opportunity to take a sick day/mental health day and visit one of the local National Parks (Mount Rainier or Olympic) on a gorgeous week day and avoid the crowds.  Typically, the forecast indicates that the abundant sun we have now might not last into the weekend – but I’m still thinking I might brave the crowds and go to Mount Rainier on Saturday.   

Blogging

I have a Facebook account that I don’t use.  I have a Twitter account that I don’t use.  I have an Instagram account that I don’t use.  I don’t have a LinkedIn account at all.  It somehow seems very quaint and old-fashioned that I’m blogging!  I actually downloaded the Instagram app and set up an account not too long ago, with the intention of posting a photo every day beginning on my 40^th birthday.  But since I’m blogging every day as it is, there didn’t seem any point to also trying to do this – although the prospect of finding different and interesting things to photograph on those many routine work days was intriguing!  I’ll definitely continue to blog daily for as long as I can – though I suspect the content may get a lot less lengthy and a lot more lazy (e.g. just pasting a YouTube video I like into an entry) once I eventually begin to get busier at work.  But I’ve been back in this job now for nearly a year, and I still feel quite underused (and misused).  I have no doubts this will change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the pendulum swings to the total opposite extreme and I’m overwhelmed with work some point soon.  Until that happens, I’m going to take things easy, not be proactive about things (which is not in my nature anyway) and continue to compose unnecessarily rambling entries like this one whilst I’ve got the spare time to do so!  And I’ll continue to blog whilst shunning all the popular social media sites.  

Final Thoughts on Glacier

I’ve updated Saturday's blog with some more photos.  Glad I made the effort to go to Glacier, and as you can tell from the photos I was very fortunate with the weather and it really was quite beautiful.  I think it is about the limit as far as places I would drive to from Seattle goes, at least for a long weekend.  I still want to see more of Oregon, and I think that is drive-able, but say somewhere like Yellowstone is probably better done as a fly/rent a car job.  I think 2 full days in Glacier was about the right amount of time to see and do everything I wanted to do (including hikes, bus tour, boat tour, etc.).  It was crowded, but that was to be expected for a summer weekend – and I was able to will myself to get to the park early enough to ensure parking at the prime spots and avoid the worst of the crowds.  Actually found the best time to see wildlife was in the evening – that’s when I saw mountain goats, big-horned sheep and a bear.  I think the only thing I would have done differently was to stay east of the park rather than west – because then you are driving into and out of the park with the sun behind and the best  views in front of you.  And I’m gutted I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the bear to show you – this is all I got… 

Back in Bothell

After 4 days and about 1400 miles of driving, I made it back in one piece late today.  Phew!  An interesting journey back including wildfires in Montana (I couldn't see the actual fire, but certainly could see all the smoke and smell it - must have been a big one because the smoke was around for about 100 miles of my journey), the surreal (a car passed me with a trailer attached containing a camel - with enough space for it to poke its head out and look around!), the beautiful (even with all the smoke, I love the Montana landscape with its rolling grassland and ranches - you can easily imagine the bison roaming the land back in the day), the unexpected surprise (I had the best sandwich - pork roast - I've had for years at a random deli in a random town in Idaho just off the freeway), and major traffic coming into Seattle as they temporarily closed the freeway to do some rock blasting for avalanche control (that made for some aggressive driving and frayed tempers for quite a few people after that unexpected delay!).  Unsurprisingly, I'm absolutely knackered and not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow...!

Glacier National Park Day 2

Another very long, very full, very tiring day - this is 2 days in a row now where I've got up at 6.30am (which is really 5.30am PST), so I'm absolutely knackered and looking forward to a lie in before embarking on my drive back to Seattle.

I predominantly used my phone to take photos today, so here are a few from the many, many, many photos I took that are going to take ages to sort out:

Glacier National Park Day 1

Highlight - I saw my first ever grizzly in the wild!  Lowlight - I was asked by somebody whether I had retired.  I know I've just turned 40, but I'm not that old (and really hope I don't look that old!).

I was hoping to include some photos here - but I forgot my camera lead.  So I'll have to update this blog entry later.

UPDATED!

40

40 today.  And how did I mark this momentous occasion?  By taking my first vacation day of the year and driving 550 miles in about 10 hours to Whitefish, Montana!  By myself.   My present to myself is a weekend in Glacier National Park – somewhere I’ve been wanting to go to for a while.  A lot of driving – so I’m quite exhausted now as I write this!  Since turning 40 is a big deal, I guess I should say something about how I feel.  Should I be happy or sad?  Should I look forward or look back?  I definitely don’t feel like celebrating – the next few sentences are going to be quite maudlin, so you have been warned!  I look at how my life is right now, and it’s not great.  Whereas my contemporaries have moved on with their lives – through family or their career – mine has not, and I feel like I’m losing touch with them.  I’m not happy, personally or professionally.  And, once again, I’m feeling very unsettled and suspect that I’ve made yet another bad life decision – this time in moving back to Seattle.  I’m at a point in my life where I should have made roots somewhere – but I haven’t.  And what was a good thing – my independence – has soured into loneliness – which is a very bad thing.  I think perhaps the most worrying aspect of all this is that I’ve kind of accepted my life as it is – so  I don’t do anything about changing or improving it.  This has to change in my 40s.  I think it’s also time to start taking my health and my finances more seriously.  I also said that I would start playing golf when I turn 40 – that is a prospect I still haven’t decided whether to follow through on!  Perhaps I am prone to being overly pessimistic and overly negative, so maybe my life isn’t a total disaster – but despite making the permanent (?) move to the States, my 30s have felt like a letdown with a string of bad decisions and missed opportunities.  I hope and pray that my 40s will be better!  

Barry Spinnaker

I guess with Gary Lineker presenting Match of the Day in his "underpants" that he is not the BBC Olympics anchor.  Thank god for that.  He is the worst.  He is occasionally interviewed as part of the US Premier League coverage, and his utter lack of charisma and inability to say anything meaningful or interesting stinks up the joint every time.  Whilst his football presenting is barely tolerable, his golf presenting most certainly was not.  And I suspect he was particularly inept and bland during the London Olympics.  Mind you, I can’t say I’m a big fan of Clare Balding either.  God, I hope John Inverdale isn’t part of the BBC team – he might even suck the most.

10 Year Anniversary

It is the 10 year anniversary since my company bought out the previous company in Seattle, so there was a celebration event and a lot of bigwigs from the main office in California here today.  This included my former manager when I left before, who is now director of my group.  So she has gone from being my manager to being my manager’s manager’s manager!  I’m not jealous – the director position has been a particularly troublesome one with lots of turnover, and is particularly demanding and stressful so I don’t envy her.  I think it is more of a reflection of my lack of career growth.  And, honestly, that is fine with me – I do not want to stray too far from my comfort zone, I’m not ambitious, and I don’t want or need the stress of a more managerial position.  If anything, I would prefer to have even less responsibility – which is why I might consider going into contracting work in the future.  It didn’t work out before when work took over my life (as is prone to happen in the States, where people work longer hours and take less vacation), so I will do everything in my power to live my life how I want and on my terms.  I’ve got another 30 years of this to look forward to, so I have no intention of burning out now!

Team Building

Unbelievable.  They have been trying to organize a team-building event at work, and they recently sent a survey out to rank some possible activities.  I can’t remember them all, but my first choice was doing one of those room escape games and my last choice was kayaking.  Guess which one they are doing.  Yep, kayaking.  I don’t want to go fricking kayaking – and quite honestly judging by the type of people in my department, I’m surprised that anyone else does.  And kayaking is hardly a team-building activity.  Personally, I think the survey was BS.  So, team-building appears like it’s going to be a total bust.  I’ve got another team-building event coming up in a few weeks in California – we didn’t get to vote on that one, so god only knows what that could be.  But at least I’ve got a weekend in San Francisco to look forward to (already booked my Alcatraz visit!).

Team GB

I thought that “Team GB” would suffer a bit of post-London Olympics, post-Brexit, post-Euros failure – but it seems I’ve been proved wrong.  Clearly the facilities (and funding) for the London Olympics has carried forward for at least another 4 years.  I do expect a diminishing return on Olympic medals over time – but the horror show of the 96 Olympics (1 gold medal!) seems like a long time ago now, and I admit to some cheering of British athletes when I happen to catch any live events.  For the most part, I’m following internet updates and catch the occasional live event on Canadian TV and the occasional replayed event on US TV (in the rare instances they’re not showing basketball, volleyball or women’s gymnastics).  But I am following the Olympics a lot more than I thought and hoped I would – I guess I’m just a sucker for good sports.  Or sometimes not even good sports – how anyone could describe dressage as a sport is utterly beyond me, it’s just ridiculous with those horses prancing away like that.  Why not just give a circus lion tamer a gold medal as well?  Stupid.  There’s other sports I just don’t get – like handball.  What the hell is that about and how did that come to be – and considering it’s very popular in Northern Europe, why don’t we play it? 

Feeling old

Another sign I'm getting old - there are some athletes in the Olympics who I don't have a clue where they come from because I don't recognize their 3 letter country code or flag.  Jeez, I always used to be good at that.

For example, could you get this one?  I had to look it up.

 MKD

Russian cheaters

Let's cut to the chase, Russia should not be competing in the Olympics.  They have been outed as a bunch of state-sponsored cheaters, and I think it's a disgrace that any of their athletes should be competing.  I'm not saying that they are the only cheaters in the world, far from it - but the fact is that they were caught, and so they should have been punished accordingly and made an example of.  Therefore, I think all Russian medal-winners should have an asterisk next to their name - a bit like the home run record in baseball set by a juiced Barry Bonds.

And I like some of the niggling and needling going on between countries related to any suspected drug cheats - it has given sports such as swimming an interesting edge.  This has definitely added something to the competition, and made quite a boring sport eminently more watchable.  We've seen USA, Russia, Australia and China all having a go at each other.  I particularly enjoyed the "finger wagging" going on when an American female swimmer beat a Russian doper to Gold.  The Russian response was hilarious:

In Russia media, however, Ms Efimova's silver medal was praised as "more precious than gold" and the athlete described as a hero.

Nope, silver is definitely not better than gold.  Sorry.

Perseid Meteor Shower

With clear skies last night over the Seattle area, and with the Perseid meteor shower peaking – I decided to stay up late and do some stargazing.  I thought about taking an hour drive to get over Snoqualmie Pass east of Seattle and away from all the light pollution, but in the end just stayed at home.  I don’t have a full 360 degree view of the sky from my deck, but I can see plenty enough.  So about midnight I climbed into my outdoor reclining chair, stretched out and watched the night sky for a full hour.  And yes, I saw loads of shooting stars!   I think this might be the first time I’ve ever seen or made the effort to see shooting stars, so this felt good.  It’s much like the Northern Lights, unless you are truly in the right place at the right time then it isn’t quite as spectacular as you hoped.  But still awesome, and makes you feel mightily small in the grand scheme of things. 

Premier League Predictions

Sorry for the sports heavy run of blog entries – but it might be like that for a while.  Amongst all the Olympics hoopla, the Premier League is back on this weekend.  Time for some predictions

-          I think Leicester will really struggle this year.  Like mid-table/fringes of relegation type struggle.  I predict they will finish in the bottom half.  And I predict they won’t last long in the Champions League.

-          No surprises here, but I think the 3 promoted clubs will be mired in the relegation battle.  I predict 2 out of 3 of them will be relegated

-          There is normally a “bigger” side that gets caught up in the relegation fight, with it being Newcastle last year – and they didn’t make it.  I predict either Swansea or (I hate to say this, but I have to base this on the end of last season’s form) Crystal Palace will be the ones this year.

-          I predict 5 manager changes during the season

-          I predict no English club will make it to the Champions League semi-finals

-          I predict that the Champions will not be decided until the final set of matches.  It’s a tough one to call – you could make cases for Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal.  I don’t think Tottenham or Liverpool will finish in the Top 4.  I’d probably go for Man City – but with new managers and new players, I don’t have much confidence in this prediction – I think someone could just as easily run away with the title

-          I predict no team will “do a Leicester” this year (or any other year – I truly believe that was a once in a lifetime anomaly).

-          I predict Zlatan will NOT be impactful as everyone hopes (well past his prime), but I don’t think he will be the biggest flop

-          I predict that there will be at least one game where not a single English player is in the starting 22 on the pitch

-          I predict that this will ultimately be a very unmemorable season

Swimming

I think I've touched on this subject before, but the sheer number of swimming events is utterly ridiculous.  There are simply too many too alike.  It's a fantastic achievement of Michael Phelps to have 21 gold medals (at the time of writing this), but it's absolutely farcical that someone can get that many.  I think there are many more equal if not better Olympians, but they got overshadowed simply by the fact that this guy has loads of medals and doesn't compete in a sport that only rewards the truly deserving.  If swimming is allowed to have front crawl, back stroke, butterfly and breast stroke - then track events should include running forwards, running backwards, skipping and doing cartwheels.  I would love to see the running backwards 1500m!

O Canada

I think there is going to be quite a lot of Olympics blogs over the next few weeks.  I cannot believe how bad the American coverage is - it's so bad that I've started watching the Canadian TV feed!  Because NBC (the American broadcaster) payed a ridiculous amount of money (1 billion dollars plus) for the rights to show the Olympics, it means that there are absolutely tons of advert breaks.  And obviously they pander to the American audience and the sports which Americans will be successful in.  But the worst thing is that in order to cater for the "prime time East Coast audience", none of the events are being shown live - instead they are on a 1 hour delay for the East Coast, which means a 4 hour delay for those of us on the West Coast.  In the age of the internet and social media, this is utterly ridiculous.  That is why I'm glad to be able to pick up the live Canadian coverage - so for example I was able to watch that British swimmer get gold live, rather than 4 hours later.  And I quite like the self-deprecating Canadian commentary - they're just happy to qualify or make a final, rather than the win or bust attitude of the Americans.

Haircut 100

I got my haircut over the weekend.  And once again, the same cycle that I’ve been on now for about 20 years starts again.  Get my hair cut short (4 on top, 2 on back and sides), let it grow out for 3 or 4 months, repeat.  The only difference being that over the last couple of years, I’ve also started to be asked whether I would like my eyebrows trimmed.  Jeez, that makes me feel old.  I go to a Vietnamese barbers not too far away from where I live – a Yelp recommendation that has worked out.  It’s cheap ($14 plus tip) and quick – I guess what I ask for is not complicated!  But a nice little touch is that they use a warm lather straight razor around the neckline.  They also normally finish by vacuuming your head to get rid of any stray hairs, though disappointingly they didn’t use that this time.  And with the language barrier, very rarely engage in any awkward conversation – which is a good thing!  I think I also used to go to a Vietnamese barbers in San Diego, so it must be a particularly popular profession there.  Certainly trust them more than American barbers – once one of them “accidentally” shaved off part of my eyebrow.    

Not Olympic Sports

Here is a list of sports which I don't think should be in the Olympics

- Road cycling (this is NOT the Tour de France)

- Basketball (at the very least, change the format so that American multi-millionaire NBA players are not competing for gold)

- Any sports that involve subjective judgement (anything that involves "artistic performance" is not a sport - hello Rhythmic Gymnastics)

- Chess (I heard that it has applied for inclusion in future Olympics - anything that is NOT a spectator sport should never be considered)

- Golf (come on, even the golf pros couldn't care less about it)

- Football/soccer (who cares about Olympic soccer?  At least make it 5-a-side or beach soccer or something that makes it distinct)

- Tennis (as with golf, already have 4 majors a year so Olympics is just not necessary)

- Synchronized swimming (a joke)

- Race walking (stupid)

- Equestrian sports (come on, the Olympics is about human not animal achievement)

- Trampoline (good grief, it's for children)

- Skateboarding (stick to the X-Games)

- American Football/Aussie Rules Football/Gaelic Football (as much as like all of these, they're just too regional)

- Beach Volleyball (just an excuse to minimize clothing.  Stick to regular indoor volleyball)

And I'm sure I'll discover more as I catch some of the interminable coverage on US TV.

Future Olympic Sports

There are already a load of ridiculous events in the Olympics, so here are a selection of sports which I think need to be added:

- Kabaddi (which I remember watching on Trans World Sport on Channel 4 on Saturday mornings!)

- Kick volleyball (check out the video, and tell me it shouldn't be in the Olympics)

- Squash (I was surprised to find out that it wasn't already an Olympic sport!)

- Darts, Snooker, Ten-pin bowling, Poker (tell me that none of these would be entertaining)

- Cricket (surely worthy of being an Olympic sport?  Though maybe not the test match form of the game!)

- Tug-of-War, Arm wrestling (classics!)

- MMA (I'm a big fan, and it's much better than boxing)

- Sumo wrestling (wrestling is an Olympic staple, and Sumo is the best type of wrestling apart from WWE!)

- Competitive Eating (sport of the kings)

- Rugby Union and Rugby League (if swimming is allowed to have about a gazillion different events, then let's have all forms of rugby)

- World's Strongest Man (it's good enough to be on every Christmas!)

Meeting Etiquette

An interesting observation from a meeting I recently attended at work.  Someone had flown up from California to specifically give a presentation to some of us in the Seattle office in person.  There were about 15 of us in the meeting.  The presenter was using slides, yet I couldn’t help but notice that every single attendee in the meeting apart from me had brought their laptop and had it open and was looking at that instead.  Some were just looking at the same slides, even though they were right there being presented in the meeting, and others were actually typing away on e-mails or working on something else.  But not paying attention.  It was so disrespectful, I was quite shocked and embarrassed.  I don’t know whether this is a cultural thing – virtually everyone else in the meeting was Chinese – but it was obvious and noticeable.  I have no desire to give these kind of presentations and training myself, but if I did I would make sure that everyone put their laptops away before starting.  I definitely have some opinions on being part of a group and department that is majority Chinese – none of them particularly good - but that is for another time.

Seafair

It’s Seafair Weekend in Seattle this weekend, and I only know this because I can hear and see the jets flying around over Seattle today from my cube window.  This is an annual tradition, with powerboats on Lake Washington and the Blue Angels (the US version of the Red Arrows) performing, but which I really couldn’t care less about so I’ve never bothered going to.  All it does is remind me of San Diego where I used to work near Miramar Air Base (Top Gun!), so I used to hear jets all the time – and reminds me of how much I miss living and working in San Diego.  There are certain key points in our lifetime which have significant consequences on the rest of our life, for good or bad, and definitely getting laid off and having to move back to the UK from San Diego was a big one for me.  Literally on the day I was laid off, I had a signed lease renewal on me – San Diego is perhaps the only place I’ve ever lived where I actually never wanted to move away from.  So, it is perhaps surprising that I’ve never moved back there since – I’ve had opportunities, but not the right opportunity at the right time.  With the way I’m feeling about work and Seattle at the moment, I hope that might change sometime in the next few years.

These are photos taken whilst I’m actually sitting in my cube – so you get an idea of what I have to look at for 40 hours a week!  Sadly when the jets were a lot closer, by the time I’d got my phone ready they’d already passed by…

Olympics

I think it is the opening ceremony this Friday, and I have to confess a massive feeling of indifference to this Olympics.  I’m not really sure why – I just know that I’m not going to watch much of it, and I’m certainly not going to be invested in it.  This might be a hangover from the London Olympics, it might even be a hangover from the Euros and/or Brexit with a subsequent diminishing of national pride.  But I suspect it might mostly be because I’m not looking forward to the US TV coverage of the Olympics – it wasn’t good during the London Olympics, and I don’t have high hopes of it being any better this time.  Too much focus exclusively on US athletes, and exclusively on sports that I don’t care much for but the US will undoubtedly win gold in (Olympic basketball is a joke).  I have no idea how the time zone difference is going to work out (I think they’re something like 4 hours ahead of me) and what that means in terms of following events live (I know the opening ceremony is going to be on delay), but I’d much rather watch a condensed highlights package of each day’s happenings – but that doesn’t seem to be a thing that the US does well for any sport. 

Huffington Post

I think I need to stop reading Huffington Post. There is anti-Trump coverage, but there is also ANTI-TRUMP COVERAGE.  It is hypocritical of me to criticize Daily Mail readers when I am also guilty of consuming and being influenced by extremely biased reporting.  Not that it is possible to have a positive opinion on Trump, but I don’t like the constant barrage of scaremongering and prophecies of doom and gloom.  I think most sensible and rational people know that Trump is not qualified to be President.  However, I don’t need to read sensationalist headlines like “Donald Trump Vows To Crack Down On Pornography (Yes, Really!)”.  Just let the facts and his ill-conceived words speak for themselves.  In many ways, this kind of reporting echoes the Brexit coverage in the British media – where the media was guilty of crossing the line.  Don’t let Trump use the lefty liberal media bias to score votes.  He is perfectly capable of shooting himself in the foot.

Commuting

In a sad reflection of how much time I spend in my car, I ran out of new podcasts to listen to on Friday.  I can't remember if this has ever happened before - certainly not in the last few years.  Decisions – do I spend more time listening to the radio or music, or do I attempt to seek out new podcasts to add to my current selection?  Perhaps the best solution is to move somewhere where my commute is significantly less, but frankly given the alarming increase in property prices (and hence also rental prices) in Greater Seattle, I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up moving somewhere even further out.  I’ve already adjusted my commuting times to getting in late and leaving late – not ideal, but at least I avoid the absolute worst backups (though there have still been numerous times where an accident has snarled the traffic enough to affect me by the time I head out or back).  I think the traffic in and around Seattle has got so bad that it might actually have crept into my top 3 reasons why I would want to leave Seattle.  It’s that bad.