Happy New Year!

My only New Year's resolution is not to make any more New Year's resolutions. 😏  And to never use an emoji in this blog ever again. 

Padilla Bay (Again)

Since I wanted to get a few things at the big Walmart north of Seattle, I took a detour to do the hike along Padilla Bay today.  This is one I've done before - in fact, just about a year ago as a search on my blog revealed.  A cold, wet, windy, overcast day didn't make for a particularly fun 4 mile trek - sadly no bald eagles to be seen, but lots of big flocks of migrating geese overhead. 

Some Highlights from a 30-Minute Trump Interview

"Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion.  There is no collusion."

"I think it's been proven that there is no collusion."

"There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats.  A lot of collusion."

"I won because I campaigned properly and she didn't.  She campaigned for the popular vote.  I campaigned for the electoral college."

"Paul Manafort only worked for me for a few months."

"There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats.  There was no collusion with respect to my campaign."

"What I've done is, I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department."

"I'm the one that saved coal.  I'm the one that created jobs.  You know West Virginia is doing fantastically now."

"They made the Russian story up as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election that in theory Democrats should always win with the electoral college.  The electoral college is so much better suited to the Democrats."

"I was for Strange, and I brought Strange up 20 points.  Just so you understand.  When I endorsed him, he was in 5th place.  He went way up.  Almost 20 points."

"I endorsed Roy Moore.  It became a much closer race because of my endorsement.  People don't say that.  They say 'Oh, Donald Trump lost'.  I didn't lose, I brought him up a lot."

"We have spent, as of about a month ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East.  And the Middle East is worse than it was 17 years ago. .... $7 trillion."

"I know the details of taxes better than anybody.  Better than the greatest CPA.  I know the details of health care better than most, better than most."

"We've created associations, millions of people are joining associations.  Millions.  That were formerly in Obamacare or didn't have insurance.  Or didn't have health care.  Millions of people."

"Now that the individual mandate is officially killed, people have no idea how big a deal that was.  It's the most unpopular part of Obamacare.  But now, Obamacare is essentially... you know, you saw this, .. it's basically dead over a period of time."

"We see the drugs pouring into the country, we need the wall."

"They have a lottery in these countries.  They take the worst people in the country, they put them into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they pull them out.  'Oh, these are the people for the United States'.  We're going to get rid of the lottery."

"I like very much President Xi.  He treated me better than anybody's ever been treated in the history of China."

"North Korea is a problem that should have been handled for the last 25 years.  This is a problem, North Korea.  That should been handled for 25, 30 years, not by me.  This should have been handled long before me.  Long before this guy has whatever he has."

"When I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade.  They made - last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum."

"We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico.  Can you believe it?"

"$17 billion with Canada - Canada says we broke even.  But they don't include lumber and they don't include oil.  My friend Justin he says 'No, no, we break even'.  I said 'Yeah, but you're not including oil, and you're not including lumber'.  When you do, you lose $17 billion."

Overrated Films

I want to mention 2 films that I've seen in the last few days.  The first is Get Out.  This is, by all accounts, one of the best films to come out in 2017.  Universally acclaimed, appearing in most critics best-of lists, with many having it as #1 film of the year, I had DVR'ed it a little while ago and finally got round to watching it recently.  For the life of me, I do not understand what the fuss is all about.  I mean it was alright and everything, but nothing special and entirely unmemorable - maybe just not by cup of tea, me not being the biggest fan of horror nor stupid plot devices.  The second film I want to mention is Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which I finally got round to watching today.  A good film for sure, and certainly a lot better than The Force Awakens, but it didn't really blow me away as much as I had hoped.  Some good action, some good melodrama, a satisfying and twisty plot, and unsurprisingly it looked great, but still a bit too formulaic, too many one-dimensional characters, and I absolutely HATED the porgs - clearly included only and entirely for cuddly toy marketing purposes.  Would love to see a darker version of this film - but then that wouldn't be the film that all the kids want to see and wouldn't make billions of dollars.  I've always been a cynical person, but I fear that as I'm getting older I'm getting more cynical if that's even possible - at this rate, I'm going to reach a time point soon where I don't get enjoyment from anything whatsoever.  That is a scary thought.

Mercer Slough Nature Park

Went to Bellevue (the boring cousin to Seattle) this morning for a walk at Mercer Slough Nature Park.  A perfectly pleasant park including some wetlands, a blueberry farm (very much NOT in season!) and a lot of detours because they are building a new light rail station next to the park.  Still a lot of snow on the trail, so the 2.5 mile trek seemed longer.  But made for a very serene walk, especially with the lack of other trail users - maybe saw about 4 other people on the entire walk (though, unsurprisingly, one of those couples had an unleashed dog...).

Happy Boxing Day

Still cold - so spent some of the day shoveling snow to clear my driveway.  I don't think I've ever had to do that anywhere I've ever lived before.  Not how I would like to spend Boxing Day!  But at least I got some exercise and think I did a pretty good job considering it was my first time - enough to actually be able to drive out of my driveway.  Hopefully this means I won't be snowed in another day - though another freeze overnight probably will turn my driveway icy tomorrow morning.  Not good when your driveway is quite long and quite steep.  I hope this isn't going to be an issue all through the winter.  I definitely need to start paying more attention to the weather forecast.

Merry Christmas

Look what I woke up to this morning.  Pretty!

Christmas Movies

It's a Wonderful Life.  Miracle on 34th Street.  White Christmas.  Nope, I've never watched any of these.  For me, Christmas is about Home Alone.  Trading Places.  Elf.  Is Uncle Buck a Christmas film?  I don't think so, but I'd rather watch that at this time of year than Die Hard, even though Die Hard is the much better film and ostensibly a "Christmas movie".

North Creek Park

The first of what I hope will be many walks over the holiday period (though maybe not over the next few days with snow in the forecast!), today I went to North Creek Park.  Not too far away from where I live, this is a park I have frequented before for it's convenience - basically a series of boardwalks over some wetlands.  Probably not a good idea to go there on a cold day such as today, since the boardwalks end up becoming very slippy - but I wanted to go somewhere this afternoon.  It's not even a particularly good walk - short (about 1.5 miles total), flat, not particularly photogenic (there are some spurs off the trail signposted as "viewpoints" - but as far as I could tell absolutely no views at the end of them!) and quite busy (including 2 of my pet hates - dogs off their leashes, even though the park rules clearly state the opposite, and loud and obnoxious Asian people on the trail - thanks Trump's America for enabling my covert racism!).  But lots of bird life (including some circling bald eagles) and a short but much-needed invigorating stroll on a frigid day. 

Temporary Respite

It was like a ghost town in the office today.  Most people have stayed home or gone away for the holidays, and only a handful of people – including myself – bothered to come in.  Eerily quiet – a perfect time to get stuff done, if I actually had stuff that needed to get done!  We’d already been told that we could leave at noon – so after a few of us went out to get some chowder for lunch and had a few games of ping pong, departed the office and a welcome 10 day break from work to look forward to!  Might actually be the last time I play ping pong for a few months – they are remodeling the ping pong space into more offices and cubes, so we are temporarily homeless.  Probably for the best, I need the break as my current form is abysmal.  As well as finishing runner-up in the tournament, I also remain ensconced in the #2 position on the ladder – absolutely incapable of beating the #1, no matter how many times we play.  And recent matches have not even been close.  In addition, a right-hander has started to play left-handed due to an injury to his right shoulder and has even managed to beat me playing left-handed.  That was totally humiliating, and not the way I wanted to see out the year!  The curse of being competitive but being useless at sports strikes again….!

White Christmas

Snow is in our forecast!  We've got a weak winter storm hitting our region tonight, and another stronger one lined up for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.  The weather forecasting is notoriously poor round here, so every chance this will be a bust - but it would nice to see some snow on Christmas Day.  But only Christmas Day, because I don't want icy roads and bad driving conditions any other day - otherwise it's going to be a very boring holiday break of not getting out very much!  At the very least, I want to go out to see Star Wars.

Season of Goodwill (not)

Work continues to rile me up – getting me in a mood that is hardly becoming of the festive season.  Yet another lengthy team meeting scheduled for tomorrow by my manager, where we “discuss” some issues – but really, in effect, there is absolutely no discussion since my manager makes the final decision on every single little thing – classic micro-managing.  So we don’t even need to have a meeting – an e-mail would suffice.  And on the penultimate day before the company shutdown next week – what an absolute waste of time.  I know I shall be checking out during this meeting, and imagine I won’t be the only one.  Stupid to have it right before everyone is out of the office for 10 days.  And then, on top of everything else, I have discovered that I am being severely underpaid for my position.  Entirely by accident, I was checking out open positions at my company and I came across a couple of postings for positions with my job title – and I decided to take a look at them.  They weren’t really open jobs, but were both a “notice of filing an application for permanent employment certification” – essentially a token effort to advertise the job to anyone when they want to bring in someone with a work visa.  No surprises, yet another Chinese or Indian is going to join our group...  But what is interesting is that this notice has to specify both the minimum requirements and annual salary for the position.  The minimum requirement is shockingly, only 3 years of experience with a Masters degree.  I’ve got over 5 times that!  Very, very depressing how much my career hasn’t advanced.  But what was even more distressing was the annual salary range specified.  I am, very much, at the bottom end of that range.  That means that (a) I’m being very underpaid for both my experience and expertise (at least relative to other people at my company), and (b) that I’ve been lied to on multiple occasions by my manager saying that I am being paid a competitive salary.  As you can imagine, I’m not happy.  Once again, I have to question if this job is worth it.  Something has to change next year or I don’t see myself staying. 

The Curse of Intelligence

I’m not sure whether I’m still “highly intelligent”, but at the very least I used to be (intelligent enough to be a member of Mensa anyway!).  I came across the below article – which although very dry and very poorly written, does contain some truths that I can definitely identify with.  It’s fair to say that I exhibit more than my fair share of mood and anxiety disorders.  Perhaps this is just because I’m too intelligent.  Boo-hoo to me and my big brain.





There are advantages to being smart. People who do well on standardized tests of intelligence — IQ tests — tend to be more successful in the classroom and the workplace. Although the reasons are not fully understood, they also tend to live longer, healthier lives, and are less likely to experience negative life events such as bankruptcy.

Now there’s some bad news for people in the right tail of the IQ bell curve. In a study just published in the journal Intelligence, Pitzer College researcher Ruth Karpinski and her colleagues emailed a survey with questions about psychological and physiological disorders to members of Mensa. A “high IQ society”, Mensa requires that its members have an IQ in the top two percent. For most intelligence tests, this corresponds to an IQ of about 132 or higher. (The average IQ of the general population is 100.) The survey of Mensa’s highly intelligent members found that they were more likely to suffer from a range of serious disorders.

The survey covered mood disorders (depression, dysthymia, and bipolar), anxiety disorders (generalized, social, and obsessive-compulsive), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. It also covered environmental allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disorders. Respondents were asked to report whether they had ever been formally diagnosed with each disorder, or suspected they suffered from it. With a return rate of nearly 75%, Karpinski and colleagues compared the percentage of the 3,715 respondents who reported each disorder to the national average.

The biggest differences between the Mensa group and the general population were seen for mood disorders and anxiety disorders. More than a quarter (26.7%) of the sample reported that they had been formally diagnosed with a mood disorder, while 20% reported an anxiety disorder—far higher than the national averages of around 10% for each. The differences were smaller, but still statistically significant and practically meaningful, for most of the other disorders. The prevalence of environmental allergies was triple the national average (33% vs. 11%).

To explain their findings, Karpinski and colleagues propose the hyper brain/hyper body theory. This theory holds that, for all of its advantages, being highly intelligent is associated with psychological and physiological “overexcitabilities”, or OEs. A concept introduced by the Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dbrowski in the 1960s, an OE is an unusually intense reaction to an environmental threat or insult. This can include anything from a startling sound to confrontation with another person.

Psychological OEs include a heighted tendency to ruminate and worry, whereas physiological OEs arise from the body’s response to stress. According to the hyper brain/hyper body theory, these two types of OEs are more common in highly intelligent people and interact with each other in a “vicious cycle” to cause both psychological and physiological dysfunction. For example, a highly intelligent person may overanalyze a disapproving comment made by a boss, imagining negative outcomes that simply wouldn’t occur to someone less intelligent. That may trigger the body’s stress response, which may make the person even more anxious.

The results of this study must be interpreted cautiously because they are correlational. Showing that a disorder is more common in a sample of people with high IQs than in the general population doesn’t prove that high intelligence is the cause of the disorder. It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ. For example, people preoccupied with intellectual pursuits may spend less time than the average person on physical exercise and social interaction, both of which have been shown to have broad benefits for psychological and physical health.

All the same, Karpinski and colleagues’ findings set the stage for research that promises to shed new light on the link between intelligence and health. One possibility is that associations between intelligence and health outcomes reflect pleiotropy, which occurs when a gene influences seemingly unrelated traits. There is already some evidence to suggest that this is the case. In a 2015 study, Rosalind Arden and her colleagues concluded that the association between IQ and longevity is mostly explained by genetic factors.

From a practical standpoint, this research may ultimately lead to insights about how to improve people’s psychological and physical well-being. If overexcitabilities turn out to be the mechanism underlying the IQ-health relationship, then interventions aimed at curbing these sometimes maladaptive responses may help people lead happier, healthier lives.

California Dreamin'

Just booked a work trip to California in January.  Not particularly happy about doing so, this is not going to be a fun trip.  Which is the main reason I’m not going to stay the weekend to take in San Francisco – I’m going to be in no mood to do so.  Basically, it is because my manager wants to have a face-to-face meeting to discuss my performance review.  Well I definitely haven’t got a promotion, otherwise I would have found out by now.  That is disappointing but no surprise – to get a promotion I need to have shown that I can successfully lead the statistical programming deliverables for a study (which I haven’t had the opportunity to do so for a very long time) or show a willingness to take on direct reports (something I don’t want to have to do).  And I suspect that for the second year in a row, the performance rating I gave myself (2 out of 5 – where 1 is very good, and 2 is very bad) will be downgraded by her to a 3 (or, god forbid, worse).  This is undoubtedly going to piss me off, no matter how much I know it’s coming, so then the question comes how do I deal with that.  At the moment I’m thinking that I have to flat out tell her that I’m unhappy with how I’m currently being used, I’m unhappy with her as my manager and that it simply isn’t working out between her and me.  This is not going to go down well – but if I want to continue working here (which I kind of do, though I still plan to apply for any suitable positions I find in SoCal next year) then something has to change, and that means a change in manager and a change in the programming group I currently work in so that I, hopefully, don’t feel as undervalued, underappreciated and underused as I currently do.  I hope I can articulate that well, but in the heat of the moment I don’t know whether I will.  I hate her management style (micro-managing every little thing; lots of stupid, pointless and time-consuming meetings; doing so many things to undermine my position, my responsibilities and the way I like to work) – but as much as I’d like to, I can’t really tell that to her face.  I might see if I can schedule a 1-1 with her manager whilst I’m there – I’ve heard jack sh*t from him since I let him know some of my concerns and unhappiness earlier this year, so I need to follow-up on that (though I expect he will continue to do nothing to help my situation – I get the strong impression he is useless).  Otherwise I will continue to be stuck and unhappy in a job going nowhere with a manager who doesn’t respect me.  That’s not good. 

The Deuce

I finally finished watching the first season of The Deuce today.  A good show for sure, which I would recommend if you don't mind watching a dirty and seedy depiction of a dirty and seedy early 70's New York (and I think this show particularly pushed the boundaries of nudity and sex).  Since this series was by the creators of The Wire, the "best television show ever", I obviously had unreasonably high expectations - which I don't think it quite met (though it would make a great drinking game to have a drink whenever you see an actor who was in The Wire!).  But it was definitely watchable and engrossing, if at times very bleak, and it has been renewed so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes next (as opposed to Vinyl, which was also on HBO and also set in New York in the early 70's - but I guess music/drugs is not as good a combination as porn/prostitution!).

Tree Debris

I HATE tree debris.  It gets all over the place, and I am treading it into my home and into my car.  It's meant that I have to vacuum my floor well more often than I really want to.  And I have a lot of outdoor cleaning to do - just check out my deck:

And this is after I had cleaned it once before.  Then we had a stormy night and a load more crap fell down off the trees again, making it a big waste of time.  I could sweep it up, but I'll probably see if I can borrow a leaf blower off a friend which will make things a bit easier.  My landlord might even have one I can borrow - I'm pretty sure he has used it to clean up some of the leaves on my driveway (or at least someone has!).

Dusk at Lake Union

I can feel myself developing a cold – the last few days have seen me develop a sore throat and the sniffles.  No coughing yet, but I’m sure that is to come.  Apparently it’s been going round the office, so thank you to my colleagues for spreading it to me.  The weather probably hasn’t helped – it’s been cold, with temperatures regularly dipping below freezing overnight.  This has made for nice clear days – so here are some photos from when I went for a brief “dusk” walk (i.e. around 3.30 pm) around Lake Union from the office a few days ago.  I think we are back to rain this weekend.  Boo.

Great American Baking Show

The “Great American Baking Show” got pulled from the schedules this week due to harassment claims made against one of the judges.  I never trusted Mary Berry.  I jest, because just like the British one Mary Berry is no longer a judge on the show.  So it must be Paul Hollywood then?  I always thought he was a bit of a creep.  But no, it isn’t him either.  It’s the American judge who I’ve never heard of who has had the harassment claims made against him.  And so – in this climate of high profile males being accused of all manner of unsavory and unpleasant behavior – the network has just yanked the show from the air.  Disappointing, yes.  Unsurprising, no.  With the sheer number of allegations being made against high profile people, including the President, then the slightest whiff of scandal is enough to scare any network into extreme action like this.  I do believe in “innocent until proven guilty” – but the sheer scale of sexual misconduct on some of those accused is shocking and inexcusable.  And that includes the “pussy grabber” President of the United States.  How he has continued to get away with this, when a lot of the other high profile “celebrities” who have said or done a lot less worse have not, is beyond me. 

Bama

Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I’m not as overly impressed with the Alabama result yesterday as most of the liberal media.  Yes, it was unusual for a Democrat to beat a Republican in an extremely red state.  But then, this was hardly a usual election.  The losing Republican still got 49% of the votes, even though he was a sexual predator of teenage girls and ridiculously far-right of far-right on many of his beliefs and issues.  If thing were “normal”, he should never have been allowed to run (let alone receive support from the President) and then should have been crushed at the polls.  I hope this is a wake-up call for both the Republican Party and the President – continue on their self-destructive agenda and they will continue to lose, and lose heavily, in subsequent elections.  But the Democratic party is still a mess – divided, directionless and lacking leadership.  This was not a win for the Democrats.  This was a vote against and a loss for Trump and the Republican party.  Do I think he will change?  No, he is a petty and vindictive man-child who will say or do anything to stay on the front page of newspapers – no matter how controversial, how untrue or how ridiculous that might be.  But perhaps the Republican Party comes out of this even worse – unable to put forward a decent candidate, unable to pass meaningful bills, and unwilling or unable to stand up to the President.  If more of them did, then perhaps they would earn more of my respect – but since they don’t, even though privately I suspect most of them hate Trump, they are just going to meekly concede power through losing one election after another.   

Ugly Sweater

The first and only day in my life when I missed owning an ugly sweater – it was ugly sweater day at work today.  Maybe I can pick up one for cheap after Christmas?  Seems like there are absolutely dozens of great ones to choose from on Amazon.  I might see if the price goes down on this one:

Christmas Plans

I’m kind of disappointed with myself – I haven’t made any plans to go anywhere during the Christmas break (we have the week off work between Christmas and New Year), and although I probably haven’t left it too late to book something up I don’t really feel particularly motivated to do so.  I’m not really sure why that is – maybe another expense I don’t want to have on top of the car I’ve just bought, maybe because the weather has been so good here for the last week or so that I don’t feel the need to go away (guaranteed it will be wet and miserable when the time comes!), maybe because I didn’t really have anywhere specific in mind that I wanted to go to.  There are places I thought about as good winter destinations – Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of California I somehow have not visited yet (in particular, Death Valley and Joshua Tree) – but I might just stay put.  As long as I keep myself busy and as long as I’m not alone all the time – I’m fairly sure I have some friends not going anywhere either – then I should be fine.  Really, I haven’t had any significant vacation all this year – which is something I definitely want to rectify next year.  And I suspect that if I might actually be used correctly in my job and have more work to do next year, then I might actually need to take a vacation!  So I’m going to use a word I truly HATE, but it looks like my Christmas break this year is going to be a staycation.  I suck.

Nothing

Well, I forgot to post something yesterday.  But it's not like I had anything important to say.  Or at least, nothing new - my thoughts on things like work or Trump have not changed in the least bit.  But I've been accused of being too negative in some of these entries, so I've tried to limit my rants on such topics.  Though I feel a work one is brewing up - I'm normally in a foul mood after a 1-1 with my manager, which is next scheduled for Wednesday, and she has really started to get on my nerves recently (just in time for the performance review time of the year.... which means me desperately trying to bite my tongue when talking to her, and needing an outlet for my frustration) - so you've been warned.

Hangover

What happens during a drunken night out stays during a drunken night out!  I was not feeling good this morning at all - a pounding headache after imbibing quite a bit last night thanks to the free bar.  It was a good night - indeed turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected - but didn't get the long lie in I really wanted.  It seemed that when I went to bed in the early hours, before I knew it I was wide awake with this thudding headache and I only got a few hours of heavy sleep at best.  But at least I didn't throw up!  So hardly the most constructive of days today, and still feeling a bit rough around the edges this evening.  I don't generally drink much alcohol nowadays, so on the rare occasion that I do then I think it hits much harder.  I missed out on winning any raffle prizes, though my friend sitting next to me at our table - and who wasn't even going to come the party until I persuaded him - won $1000.  He'd better at least treat me to a meal next week!   

Holiday Party

Unusually, I'm not writing this at work or at home but actually from a room in a downtown hotel.  This evening is our company holiday party, and it's been held in a downtown hotel called The Arctic Club (it's apparently "historic", or some such nonsense).  I decided to splurge and book a hotel room for tonight.  It's not like I actually enjoy these shindigs - lots of painful and awkward small talk with people I don't care much for, made worse by the fact that most people bring their partners so I'm often a third wheel.  But at least I can let loose and have a few drinks tonight without having to worry about driving home (as long as I don't get too drunk and make an ass of myself! - but I doubt that will happen),  But I'm hoping also for a decent night's sleep on a comfortable bed (the room seems very nice) - but that might not happen as one of my colleagues has threatened to drink and will want to crash in the room as well...  We shall see.  Now to make use of the whirlpool bath before heading to the party.  Nice!

Sunset yesterday evening:

Self-centeredness

Sometimes I’m totally oblivious to things around me.  For example, I only realized this week that I hadn’t seen 2 people around the office for some time.  These were people I wasn’t close with, but enough to recognize them and say hello if we passed each other in the hallway – I didn’t remember their names, and one of the guys I only knew as “stretch” because he is incredibly tall.  Well, after finally recalling their names – I found they were not on the company directory and are no longer employed here.  And for quite a few months.  I am so clearly out of the loop on the comings and goings in the office – I used to be very well informed by a colleague who dealt a lot with removing online permissions when people left, but now he has left I haven’t got a clue what's going on in our office of approx 200 people.  I suspect there are more people upstairs that have also left but again I only had minimal interaction with and who I don’t even think about now.  And having just scanned some e-mails and tried looking up a few more names that I have worked with in the past but who I haven’t seen for a while, there are at least 2 more people who are no longer here and who I had no idea were no longer here.  And they left about a year ago.  Jeez, I am just totally clueless.   

Do I have to heat my home?

My electric bill for the month of November was nearly 4 times what it was during the month of September.  That seems like an awful lot.  I hate forced air heaters.  It appears that I need to reprogram my thermostat to heat the house less, and either wrap up more or try to get a natural fire going in the fireplace downstairs (apparently the tenants before me tried that unsuccessfully, so with my limited household skills I'm more likely to burn the house down).

Car Doubts

I’ve had my new car less than a week, and I’ve already encountered a number of bad omens:
-          The low tire pressure warning came up on my dashboard on my first significant drive, which spooked me out.  Checked the tire pressures, but everything seemed OK.  Then after recalibrating, it came on again.  I took the car into the service center this morning and they just topped up my air, but this is something to keep an eye on.  It has been very cold last few days, which might be affecting the tire pressure – but still, don’t expect the sensor to be quite this sensitive.
-          Already, there has been a time when the car did not recognize my iPod.  This is alarming – without a CD player, and a reluctance to listen to radio, my iPod is my only desired audio source, so it has to work.  I reset my iPod and the car seemed to recognize it again, so hopefully all is good.  But again, something to keep an eye on.
-          I officially do not like lane assist on the car.  I have done some freeway driving now where on a couple of occasions my car has decided to take on a mind of its own and adjust the steering itself.  Even though I’m comfortably driving within a lane.  So the jerk to the steering wheel is both unnecessary and unexpected.  And incredibly off-putting.  If this continues, I might just have to turn off this feature.
-          My car doesn’t come with a cover for the boot area behind the rear seats, so everything that I leave there is exposed for anyone to see.  I had this cover when I bought my last car, so I didn’t even think about it for this car – so I’m disappointed with myself for not realizing that it wasn’t automatically included when I bought it.  At the moment I’m just using a spare comforter I’ve got to cover everything in the back, which is probably sufficient but not anywhere near as nice as a properly fitted cover – but I was looking at prices of covers and they are not cheap ($200).  I could have used this as a bargaining chip when I bought the car, so I’m kind of annoyed that I missed it. 

Voicemail

My work extension is x2000.  A horrible number, because it makes my direct line to the outside world look like a main number – so I get all sorts of weird wrong numbers, which is why I tend to never pick up the phone on any external numbers.  So, this morning I noticed I had a voicemail.  Oh boy, it was an interesting one.  It was from Ron, and he wants to be a member of the Trump team.  He basically described his experience, his height (???), his education, his availability and how much he wanted to help Trump, for free.  Bizarre, amusing and slightly scary.  Clearly from Trump’s target demographic – old, male, white – I have no idea who he thought he was leaving a message for, but I hope he calls again as I might actually answer and tell him where to stick it.  I’m particularly not happy with Trump at the moment – of all the awful things he’s done so far, reducing the size of national monuments to allow mining companies to exploit the land might be the worse.  Reprehensible, and unforgivable.  I hope Native American and environmental groups can delay this action in the courts indefinitely until someone sensible is in charge of the country and can rescind this.  The best thing about America is the landscape – from the mountains to the desert and everything in between – and to threaten that is outrageous and repugnant.  F*ck Trump and his horrible sycophants. 

Christmas Decorations

I'm in a quandary.  Now I live in a house, should I make more of an effort with Christmas decorations?  But then my house is hidden from the road, so nobody would see my decorations apart from me and my immediate neighbors - so it just doesn't seem worth it.  I just don't know.  I've got some fairly basic decorations which could easily be sufficient, but probably a long way short of really getting into the holiday spirit.  Definitely can't say that about work - our admin assistant has been putting up tinsel and decorations everywhere, so the office is looking very festive.  I think there is also a competition for the best decorated cube, and I think there is also an ugly sweater day coming up.  They had none of these things last year, so definitely seems like somebody has said something about the holiday atmosphere at work or the lack thereof.

New Car Part 2

Well, here she is - my "black mamba":

Sorry for the not particularly good photos - it's been raining all day and I didn't want to get in the rain or take the car out of my car port!

So what is new compared to my old car?  Lots and lots of cameras.  The rear view camera is I think now compulsory on all new models, but is new to me - and this one is multi-view.  It's also got a camera under the right wing mirror - which comes on whenever I signal right, which is kind of weird because it's not normally necessary to check that mirror when I signal.  There is also another camera at the top of the car which is used for lane assistant - one of the many safety features on this car that I'm unfamiliar with.  As we get closer and closer to self-driving cars, I guess these kind of features are just going to become more prevalent.  The other nice touch for this car is that it is a hatchback, but the back seats can fold down flat which gives a lot of storage space.  I've also got a nice touchscreen display - it doesn't come with built-in navigation, but when I connect my iPhone then I do essentially have navigation on the screen via my phone. 

I've still got a sunroof and I've still got automatic transmission (and I'll never go back to manual!).  Compared to my old Fiesta, I'm missing the blind-spot mirrors on my wing mirrors which I kind of got used to and liked a lot because it meant I didn't have to look over my shoulder to check the blind spots.  I also think my Fiesta had seat warming - although I don't remember ever using it! - but I no longer have that.  I think maybe also the Fiesta had a bit of a quicker engine - although I am using the "Econ" setting on my new car to save on fuel mileage so maybe I'm not getting the full power available to me, and I'm maybe also holding back a bit as I get used to the car - but I definitely won't miss the horrible transmission on the Fiesta.  I will miss the CD player...

 

World Cup Draw

So - Belgium, Panama and Tunisia.  It will be a national disgrace if England can't get through that qualifying group.  Then a potential "easy" first knock out match against a team from Group H.  I will be disappointed if England don't get to at least the quarters.  But then, I have learnt never to underestimate how bad England can be at major tournaments.  Let's be honest, we have absolutely zero chance of winning the World Cup - so let's at least hope we don't play as badly as we did in the last Euros (i.e. get knocked out by a footballing powerhouse like Iceland).  Now, we can look forward to all our best players picking up injuries at the end of this season so that we end up with a beat up squad who in no way can fulfill our potential.