Miscellaneous

- I see that the Tour de France has belatedly started, though just like all the other sporting events going on right now it feels a little bit half-baked.  I heard that if one cyclist tests positive, the whole Tour will just be cancelled.  If that's correct (which I doubt), wow.  My other major comment from catching some of the highlights from one of the stages (NBC Sports for the love of god please provide some condensed highlights of each stage - 3 hours of "highlights"each night is just too much), I think it is outrageous that some teams wear yellow which looks too similar and takes away some of the prestige of the actual yellow jersey.   

- Yesterday afternoon got a bit anxious.  A site meeting was scheduled at extremely short notice, and there was a lot of speculation as to what would warrant organizing such a meeting for all the employees at the Seattle site.  The first thought that crossed my mind was about the future of the Seattle site - which has been at risk before, but I don't think it is currently and I don't think they would have passed on this news to everyone this way.  Then the second thought was that someone in the office had caught the virus, and so they were shutting down the office.  In actuality, it was to pass on the sad news that someone in the office had passed away.  I don't know the details, but they said it happened when the guy was hiking so it is extremely unlikely to be virus-related.  Not someone I knew or I ever interacted with, but I think this might be first time I've ever encountered the situation of someone in the office dying.  And this guy was younger than me, which makes it a bit worse.

- Check out this fellow I saw on a local walk yesterday:

In case you can't make that out in the shade, yes that's a big-ass owl just hanging out on a branch over the trail - which is kind of cool.

- And a quick remark on my baseball team - the San Diego Padres.  Or as they like to be called now, after setting a league record of consecutive games with a grand slam, the Slam Diego Padres.  A young, brash team who - for the first time I can remember - are scoring loads of runs and quickly turning into fan favorites.  They currently have the second best record in the NL, behind only bitter division rivals the LA Dodgers, and they just went crazy and all-in before the trade deadline by exchanging about 26 players to go for the championship this year.  Baseball is still utterly turgid to watch, but at least the Padres are trying to make it more fun this year.