iHate

I probably sound like a broken record, but have I said how much I hate Apple, iTunes, my iPod and my iPhone?  I was downloading some photos from my iPhone and iPod to my computer, and I made the fateful decision to accept some software updates.  What a disaster.  All my carefully chosen display settings, podcasts I had subscribed to, music I had saved, and probably other things I haven't even realized yet are gone.  What a nightmare - a pain in the ass to try to recreate everything I had before (I'm sure there's podcasts that I had subscribed to that I won't ever hear again).  Every time I do one of these updates that is supposed to improve things, something invariably goes wrong.  Frustrating.

Here are some photos from Thursday:

Happy Navaratri!

I’m not going to use up one of my valuable vacation days on yesterday’s unplanned day off.  Instead, I’m going to use my designated floating holiday.  This is one holiday day per year that we can use, but it doesn’t carry forward to the next year unlike vacation days.  Previously, the floating holiday could be any day of the year we chose.  But, inexplicably, this year they changed the rules so that you could only use this day on +/- 2 weeks of your birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Veterans Day, a day before or after 4th July, Christmas Eve, or a religious holiday.  Kind of ridiculous – I don’t know why this is so restrictive.  So, I am taking the designation of a “religious holiday” very liberally – and if anyone asks then I took off yesterday to celebrate the Hindu holiday of Navaratri.  Let’s see what kind of can of worms I’m opening up with this... I fear quite a substantial one.  

Mount St Helens - Windy Ridge

Today was probably the last warm and sunny day in the Pacific NW this year, so I made the most of it - I took the day off work and went to Mount St Helens.  But to an area of Mount St Helens that I hadn't been to before - the east side, called Windy Ridge (and yes, it was windy!).  There is a reason I hadn't been here before - it's not easy to get to (4 hours 1-way, on rough roads - made worse by driving through forests where alternating sunlight and shadow on the road makes it impossible to see where you're driving) and is nowhere near as developed as the west side which I went to earlier this summer.  But you get to see a lot more of the devastation that the volcano caused this side.  And it's a lot less crowded, which is good.  There aren't many trails (I think my main exertion was going up a hill at the end of the road for the best view of the area), but plenty of viewpoints on the way.  It's probably best seen in the morning when the light is best, but I only got there in the afternoon - not really a choice, I had to set off after the morning rush hour and get back after the evening rush hour.  I wobbled a bit this morning about whether to bother going or not, but glad I did in the end.

Photos to follow.  

Doodles

I’ve always been a doodler – doodling away during lessons, lectures and meetings throughout my life.  My doodles tend to be meaningless – something to occupy my mind and to stave away the boredom.  But I’m sure you can gleam some insight into my subconscious and inner mind from them.  Take, for example, my doodles from a meeting this week.

 Note the subtle clues as to what I thought about the meeting.

President Dotard Trump

A Trump update.  Where to start…  I think picking a fight with professional athletes was a big mistake – these people are influencers and have the potential to cause him major harm.  And he claims his statements were not racist – I say BS.  He criticized basketball and American football players – which are predominantly black – but praised NASCAR drivers, who are exclusively white.  And I don’t think he understands the point of kneeling or sitting during the national anthem – it’s not to disrespect America or the armed forces, but to draw attention to institutional racism.  And, perhaps most importantly, they have the constitutional right to protest this way.  I also don’t think he knew that Puerto Rico was an American territory  - he didn’t say anything about the devastation there for a long time before finally criticizing the infrastructure.  And all of this was after the most recent saber rattling between the US and North Korea.  Trump and his administration’s contradictory and inflammatory statements only make the situation more dangerous and more confusing – I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again, DELETE HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT.  Kim Jong Un and Trump were trading insults like petty children – though I commend Kim’s (or his translator’s) use of the word dotard to describe Trump.  A perfect word.

USPS Sucks

It was my nephew’s birthday last week, so naturally I sent him a birthday card.  Not just a regular birthday card, but one that came with music and movement.  This was my first time posting one of these – a similar card for my niece I didn’t need to post because I was back in the UK.  So, with the card not being particularly flat I expected to have to pay extra postage.  What I discovered when I went to the post office was that the card was so lumpy and didn’t fit through a regular mail slot (or at least the one they had at this post office) that it had to be classified as a package rather than a card.  So I had to fill in a customs form (for a birthday card!), and then pay for the postage of it as a parcel rather than a card.  Oh boy.  It cost me 10 times as much to post this card as it would a regular card – what a swizz.  So I’m sorry to say to my nephew and niece, you will not ever be receiving any cards like this from me again unless I can deliver them in person.  I hope my nephew appreciated the effort (though I suspect he preferred all the many other bigger and better things he probably got – hopefully including the Paw Patrol stuff I got him)!

Star Trek

So, I watched the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery today - the new Star Trek series.  This will likely be the only episode I see - since this episode was on network TV, but the rest you have to pay extra to stream.  Which I won't.  So I hate the way they are releasing this.  And to be honest, I didn't care much for the episode - I didn't like the uniforms, the credits, the aliens (especially the Klingon makeover) and the overly obvious female perspective.  Politically correct - yes.  In the best traditions of Star Trek - unnecessary.  I don't know how it compares to the last Star Trek TV series with Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, which I never watched.  But I grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and no matter how bad some of those episodes were nothing will compare to it.  This new series may be perfectly entertaining and perfectly watchable - but unless it's truly outstanding through it's run, its never going to be classic.  It's not even going to reach the contemporary level of Battlestar Galactica, since the Star Trek universe is too established and too limiting.  But at least it's better than the truly horrendous and lamentable The Orville currently also airing - which is more of a Galaxy Quest spoof of Star Trek, but is still inexcusably bad.  

Another 40 Films

Once I've got something on my mind, I can't let it go.  Here is the next 40 must-see films I'm going to send my Chinese friend:

12 Monkeys
Adaptation
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Being John Malkovich
Black Hawk Down
The Blair Witch Project
Children of Men
A Clockwork Orange
Dead Poets Society
District 9
Dog Day Afternoon
Downfall
The Exorcist
Garden State
Gravity
Groundhog Day
Her
Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Last Crusade)
James Bond (From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale)
Jason Bourne (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum)
JFK
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Longest Day
Melancholia
Million Dollar Baby
Mystic River
No Country for Old Men
Out of Sight
Raging Bull
Saving Private Ryan
The Shining
Sin City
The Sixth Sense
Superbad
The Truman Show
There WIll Be Blood
The Thin Red Line
The Untouchables
When Harry Met Sally
The Wicker Man (original)

40 Films

I was chatting with a Chinese friend at work, and we got to talking about films – and I realized that there were so many classic films that he hadn’t seen.  So I said I would send him my top 10.  Come the next day, I sent him a list of 40 – and even then, I’m sure there a plenty of films that didn’t but should’ve made the list (as with any of these things, they are extremely subjective and prone to change at any given time).  So, for the sake of curiosity and completeness, here is the list I sent him (in no particular order):

Apocalypse Now Redux
The Godfather/The Godfather Part II
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Memento
Trainspotting
Blade Runner
The Shawshank Redemption
WALL-E
Full Metal Jacket
Zulu
The French Connection
The Deer Hunter
American Beauty
City of God
Donnie Darko
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
L.A. Confidential
Reservoir Dogs
Magnolia
Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of Africa
The Usual Suspects
Platoon
Seven
Pulp Fiction
The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)
Kill Bill (Volumes 1 and 2)
Goodfellas
Airplane!
Chinatown
Lawrence of Arabia
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Schindler’s List
Pan’s Labyrinth
Fight Club
Alien/Aliens
Star Wars (Original Trilogy)
The Matrix
Heat

I’m sure you’re thinking about some strange admissions and some startlingly obvious omissions, but perhaps most troubling of all – no James Bond!  But this was the list I composed last night, so I feel obliged to stick to it.  I said I would come up with a revised list later on, so it seems that I will need to scan through my film collection and come up with (at least) another 40 that he should watch!

Under Pressure

So, we had another biometrics screening at work today.  Not something I particularly like to do – I don’t need to be told I’m overweight, I know, and I hate the judgement on me as my blood composition analysis is reviewed.  But this is a necessary evil to ensure that I get a wellness credit and hence my medical premium reduction for next year ($10 less per paycheck!).  The lead up to the screening was bad – I tried to eat and drink a bit more healthily this week, in particular I’ve only had 1 can of soda so far this week.  But my body seems to be rejecting this attempt to improve my diet – I’ve been suffering from multiple headaches/migraines, probably due to missing all the addictive and unhealthy stuff they put in soda drinks.  So I think I got quite stressed about what the screening results would say, and I also haven’t been sleeping well recently, so naturally both these things hardly help my blood pressure.  The results maybe weren’t as bad as feared – pretty much the same as last year.  However, that is still not good – I’m still medically obese, and my high blood pressure is something to worry about (and, ironically, the worry probably raises it even more).  I think I’m going to get myself a blood pressure monitor and measure myself over a few weeks to see if it stays as high as it is – but if it does, then I might have to bite the bullet and see a doctor.  I don’t particularly want to go on medications to reduce my blood pressure, but maybe that is for the best.

Geocaching

I haven’t done any geocaching for a long time – but I’m giving some thought to engaging in it a little bit more again.  Part of the reason for this was recently finding a new geocache in the vicinity of my workplace.  I mean in the close vicinity – it was only about a block away!  It was only a small geocache, hidden as a fake bolt on a telegraph pole – so no chance I would have just stumbled on it by sheer luck!  To discover the coordinates of this find, I had to get numbers from various “sidewalk art” in my work neighborhood like the following (something that I've never really paid much attention to before):

 I need to solve more of these multi or puzzle caches – they tend to be a bit more challenging, but more interesting and a lot more potential for better rewards!  But I like the idea of finding geocaches more regularly again – although inevitably I will feel a bit uncomfortable and look suspicious trampling through parks and undergrowth by myself trying to find these suckers!  (I remember once getting interrogated by a cop in North Carolina when I happened to be working there for a week and was looking for one by the side of the road near my hotel!)  This is when I would love to have a dog so I don't look so dodgy…..  

"Condi"

Our company has been doing a lecture series for its anniversary, featuring talks and interviews with various leaders.  I haven’t given much attention to previous talks, which I think featured a couple of CEOs at companies I don’t know and don’t care much about.  But today was different.  The talk today was with former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  Someone I had actually heard of before.  I think this was a big deal for our company – with standing room only in the auditorium where it was held in California, and apparently a load of extra security checks!  I watched via video feed.  And it was weird.  There is not much overlap between science/the biotech industry and politics – which is obviously her area of expertise – and so although the interview was nominally interesting relating to her background and experience (though not nearly enough discussion on some of her more controversial policies and topics – particularly relating to the Iraq War and 9/11), it had practically no relevance to our industry, our company and what we do.  So I don’t really understand the point and the expense of bringing in someone like this to interview (and I bet it wasn’t cheap).  I guess since our company has massively elevated the core value of inclusion recently, talking to a female African-American who has been in such a position of power is something.  She is clearly intelligent, and also clearly very academic – but whether she was particularly impactful or achieved much under Bush is questionable, particularly in those delicate and controversial post-9/11 times.  Still, she was, and is, substantially more qualified than any of the morons in the current administration.    

The Vietnam War

Another one of Ken Burns's long-ass documentaries has started on PBS, and this new one is on the Vietnam War.  His documentaries are notorious for being very comprehensive and historically accurate but very long and somewhat melodramatic, and this one looks like being no exception (18 hours!).  I've already fallen asleep as I tried to watch the first episode this evening!  But nonetheless this is a subject matter I'm interested in, so I will hope it is good as some of the other ones I've seen on topics such as Baseball and Prohibition.  

Land of the Silver Birch

Time works in mysterious ways.  I remember some words from a song that I believe I was taught at primary school:

Land of the silver bird,
Home of the weasel,
Blue lakes and rocky shore,
I will return once more,
Ay-e-ay-e-ay-e-ay-e,
Ahhh, ah-ahhh

And thanks to the wonders of the internet, now I can find the actual song that this comes from:

The melody is how I remember, but the words that I remember are entirely different.  Were the lyrics taught to me incorrectly?  As a small child, did I learn them incorrectly?  Or have the ravages of time distorted the lyrics in my memory?  Who knows.

Hurricane Ridge - Again

With rain in the forecast, for what seems like the first time in absolutely ages, and with summer winding down, I thought I would take the opportunity today to drive up to the high elevations at Hurricane Ridge again whilst I still can.  I didn't stay there for long - just did a couple of short trails that I didn't do before - so a long drive for a short excursion, but even with the increased clouds the views make it worthwhile.

Rugby

I see that Saracens vs Newcastle in Premiership Rugby is going to be played tomorrow in the US.  Not even a friendly, a real league game.  I approve.  I think rugby has a chance to increase its following in the US - it won't be a big sport here, and nowhere in the same league as American Football, but I've definitely noticed an increase in rugby coverage over the last few years.  And hopefully this kind of game will bring rugby to the attention of more American sports fans - if only the rules weren't so complicated (but then, American Football is hardly straight forward either!).  It's a shame that they're not showing the game live here - but a repeat of it much later.  Unfortunately, Saturday's are always going to be taken up by College Football - which sucks.

POST-BLOG NOTE: Wow, I'm watching the game and I'm seeing the swathes of empty seats at the stadium, hardly anybody in Philadelphia showed up to watch this game.  What an unmitigated failure.  But I gather that there is a multi-year agreement to play a game in the US, so hopefully they'll play one on the West Coast and then I might consider going and joining the dozens of other spectators.

A Long Day

Waking up early in order to order the Lego Millennium Falcon - then having to wait for ages since the Lego server went down, and with no idea whether my order had gone through and if I managed to order the set before it went out of stock (I think I might have been one of the few who did manage to secure a set - yeah!)

+

A morning spent doing volunteer work.  A group of us from work went out to a local park to do some weeding, trimming, shoveling mulch around and picking up litter.  Good exercise, but - in my opinion - a waste of free labor since we were tackling a park that is not frequented by many people, and an area of the park that gets hardly any pedestrian traffic.  Didn't make sense to me.  There used to be a lot of homeless in the park, but thankfully most of them are no longer there (still, some of the trash we picked up was unmentionable)

+

Playing a lot, and losing a lot, of ping pong recently.  I don't think it's coincidental that 2 colleagues who I play regularly are both injured at the moment - we're been playing almost daily over the last few months.  But very dispiriting when I can't even beat injured competition.

=

A long day and a very tired me.

DVR

I've successfully managed to get my DVR storage down to <15% - just in time for loads of new series that I need to start recording.  For example, I recorded The Deuce on Sunday but haven't watched it yet - but high expectations when it's by the creator of The Wire.  But with the advent of Netflix, Amazon and whatever other streaming services are out there, my favorite time of the year - new TV season - has been diluted and is nowhere near as big or as meaningful as it used to be.  What a tragedy.  But I'm sure I'll pass on my viewing recommendations as soon as I have any.

Mount Rainier - Part 2

So, I took a midweek excursion to Mount Rainier today.  As far as work was concerned, I was taking a sick day.  As far as I was concerned, it was a long overdue mental health day!  After leaving alarmingly early (4.45 am!), I headed to the Paradise area on the south side of the mountain.  This is the most developed area, but in my opinion not as photogenic as the Sunrise area I blogged about recently.  I left early to avoid the traffic, and because it was a weekday there were a lot less people there so I had a lot of the trails to myself.  However, did mean that I hit a load of traffic heading home (probably not helped by a tree falling down and blocking the exit road out of the park, that myself and some other drivers had to move!).  It was tough going - I struggled with a lot of the elevation changes, and probably over-exerted myself and am probably going to feel it in my legs for the next few days.  The photos are probably going to look fairly similar to the ones I posted on Paradise, but are subtly different with the slight change in aspect (sadly resulting in a lot of airplane contour trails behind the mountain...).

As a bonus, look carefully at the seemingly innocuous photo below - see if you can spot the bear that I saw!  (This is where I regret taking photos from my phone rather than a camera with actual decent zoom!)

Gifts

As much as I bitch and moan about my job, I will say that this is by far the most generous company I've worked at for giving us freebies (though compared to how much profit they make, probably not generous at all!).  And today, we got some gifts to celebrate another drug approval or something.  As usual, the gifts are, how to put this delicately, "interesting".  I think the theme was beach accessories.  So I got a Bluetooth speaker, a towel, a waterproof bag and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, a "Bahia Quick Shelter".  This is, as best as I can tell, essentially a flashy and modern version of a beach windbreak.  So, yet more things that I'll probably never use!

Sports

I feel like this weekend I reached some sort of personal threshold or turning point in my sports consumption.  I felt indifference to everything.  I don't care about American Football, whose season started this weekend.  Perhaps because I don't know who to support, since the "San Diego" Chargers don't exist any more - should I switch my allegiance to the "Los Angeles" Chargers?  I definitely don't care for the Seattle Seahawks, whose fans are second only to the New England Patriots in terms of obnoxiousness.  I don't care for the Premiership, and it's bunch of overpaid prima donnas.  Perhaps because Palace lost yet again - in the process, becoming the first team in 93 years in the top flight to lose their first 4 games without scoring a goal.  I couldn't much care about tennis, NASCAR, boxing, UFC and whatever other sports were on TV this weekend.  I have decided I am no longer going to dictate my schedule around mediocre sporting events - which is something I have been guilty of for way too long.  

Disaster

America is currently being bombarded by Mother Nature's wrath - hurricanes on the East Coast, wildfires on the West Coast, flooding in Texas, earthquakes in Mexico.  I would call them "natural" disasters - but with climate change (please don't try to deny it exists...), poor infrastructure and a lot of the fires being man-made, these are just as much "unnatural" disasters.  And if they are the new norm, that is scary.  I was giving some thought to going to Florida over Christmas, but seems unlikely now.  At the least, I hope Mar-a-Lago gets flattened.  Perhaps as equally frightening, I discovered the word "nomophobia" this week.  Mobile phone separation anxiety.  For that word to even exist is tragic and such a poor reflection of modern society and the world we live in now.

Work (Still) Sucks

It’s the 2 year anniversary of being in my current job today.  Yay, the shackles are finally off – if I leave, I don’t need to pay back any relocation costs now.  And I do want to leave – though ideally not until after I get my annual bonus early next year.  That I think is when I want to make a more concerted effort to find a new job – but maybe I should update my “resume” now because I don’t want to miss out on a good opportunity that might cross my path before then.  But if things don’t change, then I definitely do want to leave – I’m still very unhappy here, and my manager is still driving me crazy.  What is interesting is that I’ve heard through the grapevine that a lot of other people don’t like her either – which cheers me up no end knowing that it isn’t just me.  What is also interesting is that my manager’s new manager hasn’t been announced yet, but I’ve also heard through the grapevine who it might be – and I think this person has already been told by one of my friends here that I’m unhappy and that I want to move groups.  So the seeds have been sowed for hopefully improving my situation, although ultimately whether it affects my desire to move on I don’t know because I still want to leave Seattle.  The fun and games of office politics and office gossip.  I hate it!  My company itself has made some big news recently by splashing out a lot of money (we are talking billions of dollars) to acquire another company.  The company we bought is one of those that has a new (and expensive!) approach to treat cancer, similar to one that recently got approved for the first time and which made the news and which a lot of people are excited about.  So sounds intriguingly cutting-edge, and something that would be nice to be involved with – though I suspect my chances of being involved are slim to none.  But at least our company share price got a nice bump from the news, which hopefully means a nice trend back to the heady heights of a few years ago – I could then cash in my shares and live comfortably off them for several years!

Whiter Shade of Pale

I always get a few chuckles from the various comments on this:

"It's shocking that Procol Harum's records are still being played on the radio after what they did in Nigeria."

"Wow, what happened to Procol Harum?  Whiter Shade of Pale was a great song, but it doesn't excuse terrorism."

"Okay Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale was a great song but you've gone too far in Nigeria."

And from the band:

"I don't think Boko Haram have released any progressive rock albums."

Gameshows

I’m a bit out of the loop nowadays, but it seems like late afternoon/early evening quiz shows are now dominated by Pointless and The Chase, rather than Fifteen to One and Countdown.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen The Chase.  Regardless, this only crossed my mind when I bizarrely came across this YouTube video of Richard “Twice Nightly” Whitely earning a “Gotcha”.

You don’t need to be Nostradamus to predict the YouTube comments about Richard Whitely having sadly passed away but Noel Edmonds having not yet… (PS I recommend watching the unedited version available on YouTube)

Raffle Winner

I randomly won $25 in a raffle today related to the 8 week step challenge that I've been doing through work that finished yesterday.  I also earned enough points to win a gold award which is another $75 gift voucher, so that is a nice little $100 bonus.  It hardly makes up for the lack of substantial work awards that I've missed out on over the last year and a half, but is better than nothing!  The $25 prize was awarded to me as a "Visa Virtual Gift Account" - which meant that, as far as I could tell, it was impossible for me to use as partial payment for something over $25 since I had to register it as a debit card rather than a gift card.  So, to get around this, I just spent it on a $25 Amazon gift card!

England 2 - 1 Slovakia

It was Labor Day today, so no work thank god, and how did I make the most of the day off?  Why, by doing practically nothing - our region is once again engulfed in smoke, this time from Oregon/East Washington rather than Canada.  The air quality is shocking - the sun is incredibly orange, and so makes for some great sunsets but put me off going to some of the big attractions this weekend.  So, instead I was able to catch the England game on TV.  Oh boy.  We hardly look like world-beaters did we...  It was yet another mediocre performance, with long periods of absolute awfulness, but were able to scrape a victory against a far inferior opponent.  This is classic England - good enough to qualify, nowhere near good enough to get through the group stages or maybe the first knockout round in the actual tournament.  A better side like Germany or Spain is absolutely going to rip us apart.  Especially with our suspect central defense, and why Joe Hart is still our number one is beyond me.  But a win is a win, so I guess you got to be happy with that.      

US Open

I've been watching some of the US Open recently - a lot more than I watched any of Wimbledon.  I don't know what it is about the US Open, but I'd much rather go watch a game in New York than at Wimbledon - just seems like a better atmosphere, and just a bit less of a "Daily Mail" audience.  But I have some thoughts.  Firstly, glad to see Sharapova knocked out today.  She is a drug cheat, and surprised she was welcomed back as much as she was - any other sports and she would be roundly booed and hated (a great example is Justin Gatlin in sprinting).  I know that I wouldn't shake her hand if she beat me.  Secondly, is it fair that the men and women get equal pay?  I'm just not sure I can agree with that when men play best of 5 sets and women only play best of 3.  In tournaments when they play an equal number of sets, I have no issue whatsoever.  But when you have such a huge discrepancy in average playing time between the men and the women in the majors, it doesn't make sense to me.  I think people like Djokovic have said in the past that men should make more than women because men's tennis is more popular than women's.  I don't think it's a question of popularity, but the time they spend on the court - and thus the time the audience has to watch them - should be closer in parity.  Equal play = equal pay.  Thirdly, isn't it great to see Nadal and Federer doing so well this year.  These guys have carried tennis for so long after the awfulness of big serve and volleyers epitomized by the drudgery of Pete Sampras matches at Wimbledon.  And to still be the best in their sport after so many years of wear and tear is amazing.

Time

I had to take a photo of the cover of Time magazine that I've just finished reading, for posterity.  Still shocking.

(Originally posted this with my name and address showing - so much for some semblance of anonymity, yikes!)

Millennium Falcon

Just announced:

The biggest lego model ever, the most number of pieces ever, (unsurprisingly) the most expensive retail price ever for a lego set.  Yep, I shall be getting this.