Point Defiance Park

I wanted to do a hike I hadn't done before, so this morning I went to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma.  I've never had a reason to go to Tacoma before - Seattle's ugly neighbor to the South - but this might be it, since this was a good hike.  Lots of parking, dedicated hiking paths which are well maintained and well signposted, a decent length 4.5 mile undulating loop trail, nice paths through old growth forest and views over Puget Sound  (I think I might have seen a whale - if it wasn't a whale, it was a bunch of seals feeding on some fish).  And I didn't even do all the side trips I could have - historical sites, gardens, and beach access were all easily reached from the loop trail, and the park also has a zoo, an aquarium and museums.
 

Spencer Island Natural Wildlife Reserve (Again)

I started a New Year's Resolution early today - to go out for a hike every day I'm not working, come rain or shine unless the weather is truly treacherous.  So today I went to Spencer Island Natural Wildfire Reserve for the first time in - searching blog - just over 2 years.  Not quite sure why I go there - it's right by the freeway so you have traffic noise, it's next to a waste treatment facility so the smell can be disgusting and half the island is set aside for hunting and I am no fan of guns or hunting.  But it's easy to get to - half an hour drive north - it's a flat and unbusy 4 mile hike, and the birdlife is amazingly abundant - loads of ducks in the water, loads of songbirds in the brush, and loads of birds of prey - including a brief glimpse of a huge bald eagle - perched in the trees.
  

Stir Crazy

Note to self - if you're not going back to England for Christmas, then at least make some plans to get out and go away for a few days.  The weather here has sucked over the Christmas period - wet and windy - and I am spending way too much time staying in with limited human interaction.  Not good.  Not healthy.  At least I've managed to free up space on my DVR.... 

Made in Britain

So, the Royal Mail produced a D-Day stamp featuring American troops landing in Indonesia.  Not on D-Day.  Not insulting or disrespectful at all.

Wall

As much as I don't like a government shutdown, I am totally with the Democrats in refusing to allow Trump to squander all this money on building a stupid, pointless wall with Mexico.  Let Trump fester in the White House for as long as the shutdown lasts, sending out his petty whiny tweets.  What a pathetic man-baby he is.  I'm not totally against taking steps to improve border security, but building a useless f*cking expensive wall does not help.  I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we get to see the PR disaster that is Trump on vacation playing golf, whilst the Secret Service that are protecting him are not getting paid.  Mind you, this shutdown is not exactly doing my stock investments any favors - so hope things get sorted out quickly in the new year.  Trump's entire presidency has taken the stock market on a roller coaster ride - it's a big concern that we might be on the verge of a massive bear market.  My company's stock price has dropped about 25% in the last 6 months - that is not good.

Christmas Songs

My favorite Christmas song - in actuality an anti-war song.

Christmas Films

I watched 2 classic Christmas movies today - Home Alone and Die Hard.  Home Alone - where to start, so many observations.  I'm mainly struck by how huge the house is, how all the parts with John Candy could've and should've been cut, and how incredibly implausible everything is.  But hey, I guess that is part of the magic of the film.  Die Hard is just a bona fide action classic.  Love the cocaine douchebag guy, the ridiculous secondary characters (Argyle!), and maybe one of movie's best ever villains in Hans Gruber.

24 Days of Christmas: Days 21-24

Instead of writing a long diatribe about having to work yesterday (Sunday) and today (Christmas Eve) whilst not feeling well - that Japanese food last week has really done a number on me -  I'll just take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Rugger

One of the American sports channels has been showing a lot of rugby recently - showing one or two English premiership games a weekend, not live but a full replay later in the day.  Which is fine by me, since I DVR and watch them later anyway.  And they're even showing some of the European games.  I enjoy watching a game of rugby on telly a lot more than watching a game of American football.  And I think it's a good sport to watch in person as well.  I think if I was back in England, I would want to be a season ticket holder at whatever club is nearest to me.  And if I was coming back for Christmas, I would definitely want to watch "The Big Game" at Twickenham.  But who is my team?  There is Bath - who I saw play a couple of times when I studied there.  Is it Leicester - who I also saw play a couple of times when I studied there?  Or is it Harlequins - the "local" side when I come back to the UK?  I honestly don't know, but I think I do need to pledge my allegiance to somebody.   

Man City 2-3 Palace

Well, I didn't see that coming.  A great result, including a great goal.  I had the fortune to be able to watch the game live on TV here, and when Palace were 2-1 up and even 3-1 up, I wasn't confident that they would hold on for the victory.  So that was a pleasant, if tense, surprise.  According to some dubious statistical modeling that I saw, Palace had a 2% chance of winning.  Screw statistics.  We'll probably go ahead and lose to Cardiff on Boxing Day now.

24 Days of Christmas: Days 16-20

What happens when you have a really busy day, and it looks like you might have to work full days on Christmas Eve Eve (despite it being a Sunday) and Christmas Eve?  You get some more photos of some crappy Lego models.  Sorry.

No Outage

Another windstorm hit our region today, leaving 300,000 without power.  I was absolutely positive that I would come home to find I had no power - the outage map indicated that a tree had brought down a power line near me - but miraculously I came home to find my Christmas lights on and no indications that I had ever had a power cut.  A Christmas miracle indeed.

Peaks and Troughs

I’ve had the good and the bad at work over the last few days.  The good – I got a small gift card as a sign of appreciation for the work I’m currently doing, but more significantly I also found out that I will be getting a promotion in the new year.  Nice.  A bit overdue, but should hopefully make for a decent annual bonus and salary bump. The bad – went for a holiday lunch today, but unfortunately it was to a Japanese restaurant.  I am not a fan of Japanese cuisine, but I got outvoted so I went along anyway.   Bad idea.  I’d already woken up today with an upset stomach, and the weird Japanese food that I picked out did not go down well.  At all.  To the extent that I was vomiting and had diarrhea this afternoon.  At work.  I don’t like going to Number 2’s in my office toilet at the best of times, so this was absolutely horrific.  And I’ve got loads of work to do at the moment, so it wasn’t like I could just go home mid-afternoon.  This is why I don’t go to Japanese restaurants, and never will again.

Downhill

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mortality recently - and watching yesterday's film has probably just exacerbated that.  I know, not exactly getting into the festive spirit!  But I'm just more aware of the increasing number of signs that I’m getting older.  From being oblivious to modern music trends, to suffering from various physical and mental ailments.  I’m sure more and more grammatical errors are creeping into these blog entries (I’m NOT counting Americanisms!), no matter how many times I might read them over before I post!  The last 2 or 3 weeks have been rough – I’ve had to take a sick day, and work through a number of other days where I wanted to take a sick day but had timeline commitments so couldn’t afford to miss work.  I've been suffering a lot of migraines recently, and I’m fairly sure that this is associated with elevated blood pressure.  I think I can get a handle on it when I eat healthily and get regular exercise, but that isn’t something I’ve been particularly good at recently.  I've also not been sleeping well, not helped by the fact that I’m increasingly having to empty my bladder in the middle of the night.  Also I’ve become quite obsessed with my appearance.  My hair is increasingly graying, but for quite a number of years I’ve had this very obvious grey patch.  Someone commented that it looks like a bald spot.  And now I can’t be sure whether there is some truth to that or whether the grey hair makes it look worse than it really is.  I can’t stop staring and fretting about it now every time I look in the mirror.  This might be the last time I cut my hair this short.  And everything is only going to get worse as I get older… oh boy.

They Will Not Grow Old

Went to the cinema this afternoon to watch the Peter Jackson documentary They Will Not Grow Old.  I think it aired on BBC over the Armistice weekend, but not in the US - and this was one of only 2 days on which they are showing it at cinemas, so I thought I'd go watch it on the big screen in 3D.  And it was good - though I still think impossible to try to humanize an inhumane war.  I'm not sure whether the 3D really worked - I think it added a little bit too much artificiality to the film.  At the screening we also got an extra 30 minute behind the scenes look at how they made the film - and it kind of revealed a lot of the subjectivity that went into colorizing the film, adding sound, etc.  But I liked the intimacy that the film gave to the war, and some of the people who took part (and probably died) in it.  The actual interviews that made up the commentary would be really interesting by themselves, but in combination with the video footage it does make for an important historical document of one of the saddest chapters of the 20th century.

24 Days of Christmas: Days 9-15

Some of these are getting weird.

Thar She Blows

Woke up today to inspect the damage from last night's storm, and look what I found:

Yes, that is a large branch that just missed causing any structural damage and is hanging perilously on the power lines into my house.    It was tantalizingly out of reach when I leaned out of the bathroom window, but I have the advantage of my landlord next door - who was able to bring out his ladder, climb up onto the roof and get rid of it.  So much damage from this first windstorm of the season - my garden has got loads of bits of tree everywhere.  And on a drive through the neighborhood, it was clear that a lot of stuff had come down everywhere, including some big trees - lots of remains from clearing debris from the roads overnight and today, and the traffic lights were still not working.  Another storm due tomorrow - but rain rather than wind.

Windstorm

My power has just come back on after having been out all evening.  I bought a load of candles just a few weekends ago, so already got good use out of them.  First big windstorm of the season - it knocked out power for more than 100,000 homes apparently, including everyone in my neighborhood.  I think I was a lucky one to have power back already - I'm just looking at the online outage map and there still seem to be loads of people nearby without power, with lots of downed trees knocking down power lines.  Made for an interesting drive home - none of the lights were on at any intersections, and loads of tree debris on the road.  I'm probably going to have to spend time tomorrow clearing my patio/deck and driveway of all the crap that's come down.  This is why I purchased my leaf-blower.

Work Outings

I skipped the main office Christmas party this year – which was last week and too much effort to go to.  However, I did attend today’s department Christmas outing.  Normally they bring food in, but today was better because we had some reservations at a local bar.  And it was a bar with lots of games – so was able to play pool (and show off my newly developed skills thanks to owning my own table!), play some arcade games and do surprisingly well at that throw lots of basketballs into a basket game.  Only had 3 or 4 drinks, but that was still way too many for a lightweight like me – especially on a weekday lunchtime.  So, as you can imagine, didn’t manage to do much work this afternoon!  It wasn’t a proper Christmas meal, but still nice to have a carvery and a decent meal.  The same thing happens every time we go out as a department – everyone goes there, have their food, then most people will head back to work or home (specifically the Chinese contingent), leaving the actual more sociable people (and me) to hang around chatting and drinking.  That is the best bit – it’s just a shame it doesn’t happen more often… however, 2 more holiday lunches next week.

Brexigeddon

I’ve been watching the Brexit chaos unfold from afar, and what a glorious train wreck it is.  A welcome distraction from whatever temper tantrum President Trump is having now.  What should happen – and what the Conservative party will never do – is have another Brexit referendum.  I think it is perfectly justifiable to do this based on how close the vote was and the lack of information/misinformation at the time of the previous referendum, and what we know now on the actual details and consequences of leaving the EU.  I have to believe that as long as there isn’t any more undue online Russian interference, the people would vote to stay this time.  Thereby avoiding all this nonsense.  But nope, the people in charge are determined to see this through no matter the short and long-term cost and damage to a once glorious nation.  I’ll just continue to watch the Pound exchange rate plummet – and wait for the inevitable hard exit on 29 March next year and subsequent societal collapse.

Seahawks

After Seattle Seahawks' Monday Night Football win, they apparently have a 99% chance of making the playoffs.  Which makes the local fans round here even more insufferable.  Considering they started the season so badly, this can be considered something of a major surprise.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who you ask, they happen to be in the same division as the 11-2 LA Rams so they will only be a wildcard team at best and probably won't have any home games in the playoffs.  I'm so sad for the local fans (sarcasm).  I'm still conflicted about whether to support the LA Chargers or not, who happen to be a good team this year.  Wouldn't it be ironic if they won it all whilst they were in LA, something they couldn't do in San Diego and even though nobody wants them in LA.  I don't think I can ever forgive the ownership and the NFL for deserting San Diego.

Company News

My company announced today a new chairman and CEO.  The current guy is stepping down at the end of the year, so things should get interesting quickly next year.  The uncertainty about who is going to lead our company is now replaced by uncertainty over what direction the new guy wants to take us in.  And I think he got poached for a LOT of money from a rival (I saw $30 million+ on one website), so I hope it is worth it (as long as the stock price goes up, I'll be happy!).  Let the carnage begin.

Best of the Year Lists

It's that time of year when all these best of the year lists come out - the ten best films of 2018, the ten best tv shows of 2018, the ten best video games of 2018, etc etc.  What I'm struck by is just how clueless I am when it comes to modern music - I see these lists of the best songs of 2018 or the best albums of 2018, and I don't recognize any of them.  Or if I do recognize the name of the artist, it's not because of their music but because they've made the pop culture news for some other stupid reason like a twitter feud with a beloved celebrity.  Low, Janelle Monae, Idles, Kacey Musgraves, Mitski, Cardi B, Pusha T, Kamasi Washington, Christine and the Queens, Tirzah.  I have absolutely no idea what any of these artists sound like - and almost all of them I've never even heard of before - and yet they all have albums that are currently mentioned the most on music critics top ten lists for 2018.  Absolutely no clue.  Does that say something about me?  Does that say something about who and how we listen to music nowadays?  Does music just absolutely suck nowadays? 

24 Days of Christmas: Days 3-8

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Refrigerated Food

I read yet another online article today about food storage.  And, yet again, that keeping certain foods in a refrigerator isn't a good idea or even necessary.  The list of these foods included:

Bananas, bread, melons, peppers, pineapples, tomatoes, pears, beans, eggs

Some of these I was aware of - and have to tried to make certain other family members also aware of - but some of these I am not.  I definitely keep more fruit and veg in my fridge than apparently I need to - but just like certain family members, I'm probably not going to change my bad habits.

When you have a bad day ...

... sometimes you just need the soothing tones of Bob Ross to make the world better again.

Print Media

Print media is gradually dying, and it is starting to reflect in their really poor customer service.  I’ve got issues with Time magazine now, a magazine which I’ve subscribed to ever since a subscription was gifted to me a while ago (thank you if it was from you, definitely one of the better gifts I’ve got!).  I hadn’t received this week’s issue, and I went online to check my account and it says it has expired.  What?  Even though the box for automatic renewal is checked.  I have contacted customer service, but haven’t heard anything back yet.  I remember I previously contacted them to complain about why my automatic annual subscription was so much more than what I’ve seen online for the same subscription – and only got back a nonsensical reply from someone whose first language was clearly not English.  I wonder if they’ve interpreted that to mean that I want to cancel my account.  God knows.  What a pain in the ass.

Tire Pressures

New cars have lots of flashy safety features – but not all of them are good.  I’ve already expressed my displeasure with the lane assist system on my car which occasional causes my steering to veer away suddenly and frighteningly even though I’m perfectly in my lane.  Another feature that gets on my nerves is the tire pressure warning system.  We’ve had some colder weather recently, and not for the first time when the temperature has dropped my tire pressure warning light has come on.  So I checked the tire pressures this morning, which were good enough, then re-calibrated the tire pressure warning system.  But I have no doubts that it will come on again the next time there is a drop in temperature.  I don’t need this system to come on every time the temperature gets a bit colder (even though colder temperature does cause a slight but not significant decrease in tire pressure), I only want it to come on when I have a puncture and a tire is actually going down.  However, I don’t think the system is even good enough to tell you which tire it is if a problem like that ever happens.  For all the bells and whistles on new cars, they are a long way from perfect – which I think makes the advent of self-driving cars still a long way away.  And I miss having a CD player in my car.

Christmas Decorations

I wish there was a fixed date when you are supposed to put up and take down Christmas decorations – I’m never quite sure when to do mine.  Unofficially here, it’s the Thanksgiving weekend (though the Christmas tv ads start airing almost immediately after Halloween!).  But this year, Thanksgiving was way too early.  So I put up my decorations this weekend – but even that feels kind of early, so although they’re up I haven’t turned anything on yet.  Compared to some of the excessively gaudy and tasteless displays that other household have round here (not to say expensive, some of their electric bills must be shocking), my decorations are really pitiable.  But then, I don’t really need to try since you can’t see my house from the road and the decorations are really only for my own pleasure and benefit (plus a few of my immediate neighbors).  Nonetheless, I wish my decorations were classier and a bit more refined than they are – and I should make better use of my surroundings, I could hang some lights on some of the trees outside my house and that would be really pretty.  But instead I shall make do with what I have – and maybe get some better quality Christmas decor on sale in January. 

24 Days of Christmas: Days 1-2

Day 1

Day 2

Palace 2-0 Burnley

That feels like an important win.  Breaks a run of 8 games without victory.  Finally won a home game.  And all against a fellow bottom dweller.  I only saw brief highlights of the game, but by all accounts played well and deserved it.  Hopefully can build on this, and string together a few more good results (starting with Brighton on Tuesday) to go with the good performances.