Happy New Year! A selection of new year resolutions for 2022 that I will undoubtedly not meet:
We got another 3 inches of snow last night and today. I have absolutely no idea when is the best time to try clearing my driveway. I cleared some of the initial snow that we got on Boxing Day, but since it has never got above freezing then all that did was turn my driveway into an icy and slippery mess. And now there's more snow on top of this hardened layer of ice. I don't think this is good. We don't get above freezing until about Saturday afternoon, so I don't think I will try clearing my driveway again until then or Sunday. So that will be over a week that I'm unable to take my car out anywhere. Good job I stocked up on food before Christmas! And to think that today was the day I was supposed to have flown back to Seattle (if the flight wasn't canceled!). I have absolutely no idea what I would have done - I wouldn't have been able to drive all the way home from the airport, but I think the main roads are probably still drivable so I could have made it back part of the way. If this extreme weather is the new norm, then it's making me question (a) whether I should move somewhere less isolating, and (b) whether my next car should have 4-wheel drive.
I'm keeping this run of winter photos going. As I gingerly made my way to the bottom of my driveway today, here is what I came across.
Firstly, someone had made an absolute mess performing a u-turn at the bottom of my driveway. At least they didn't perform the u-turn on the grass a bit further up my driveway - but it sure looks like they crossed my property line.
It was probably the same person who managed to drive their trailer into the ditch just down the road, and abandoned it.
As you can see, the road at the bottom of my driveway has not been treated. So it is really icy and slippery, and on a slope, so even if I clear my driveway then I'm still not going to be able to drive anywhere until it gets treated (which hopefully it will, it has in the past). But when I went to pick up a few supplies from the corner shop, I noticed that none of the streets in my neighborhood have been treated. Jeez, the cold weather and snow was forecast, so whichever department it is have really dropped the ball when it comes to preparing the roads for this mess.
Rabbit:
Deer:
Some kind of bird (though thinking about it, this is probably actually just pine needles):
A nice shot of my house from my driveway on a clear and extremely cold wintry day:
Well, I didn't get a white Christmas. But boy, that wasn't the case on Boxing Day today. Here is what I woke up to:
Once again the weather forecasts were well off. What was only supposed to be a light dusting of snow, with about 50% probability of it actually snowing, turned out to be a lot more. I reckon between what fell last night and throughout today, I've probably got about 6 inches of snow accumulation on the ground where I am. So far. Great for kids, no good for anybody else. Unfortunately we are also experiencing extremely cold temperatures (it's about -5 Celsius right now), which was accurately forecast, and this is a recipe for disaster. It's going to freeze up, especially tonight (-10 Celsius) and it's not getting above freezing until about Thursday. Unfortunately, Thursday is also when another big round of snowfall is predicted. I don't even know when to start shoveling snow from my driveway - which is going to be a nightmare when it's frozen instead of the light and fluffy stuff. I don't think I'm going to be using my car anytime soon. And I've had to spend most of the day bringing my hummingbird feeders inside to thaw out - the poor things couldn't access the food because of the snow and the sugar water freezing up. And there certainly isn't anything else for them to feed on - so I'm doing what I can. And by the noise they make, and landing on the feeder that I have in my hand whilst I'm replacing it, I think they appreciate it.
What I miss most about being here rather than back in the UK on Christmas Day is the food, and particularly a home-cooked Christmas dinner that my Mum has spent hours on (with little to no appreciation). I managed to have a pre-prepared roast turkey meal today, but it didn't compare. But at least I managed to acquire a Christmas pudding and some custard, and that was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately, since having it I have been flatulent all evening. I am clearly no longer used to the heaviness of a Christmas pudding.
Look what I got in a recent purchase (among a load of other autographs):
This is a nice little bonus - a quite rare, and quite valuable, autograph.
This week it has to be a Christmas song - so please enjoy this little something from the early 80's, complete with funky bassline.
Well, my driveway just got a whole load more slippery. Someone - I don't know who, but I suspect a delivery driver - decided that instead of reversing down my driveway or turning round up near my house that they would perform a u-turn on the patch of grass down towards the bottom of my driveway. Unfortunately, that area is very wet and muddy and it looks like they lost some traction, so they churned up all the grass and then drove a load of mud all over my driveway as they left. Jeez, thanks a lot. Very considerate. They left that patch of grass an absolute mess with loads of tire tracks where there was just grass - a bit like if someone had just decided to perform some doughnuts on your front lawn. Not happy about it at all - but can't do anything about it because I don't know for sure who did it. I suspect it could've been a delivery driver but it could just as easily have been my landlord or one of his sons, or indeed a total stranger. And this patch of grass is just out of sight from my home, downhill on the curve at the bottom of my driveway with some trees blocking most of my view of it. So that's probably why whoever did it thought they could get away with it. They churned it up bad, so I kind of wonder whether it will ever properly recover.
If I was in the UK now, this would be the time I'd be staying with my sister and spending some quality time with my niece and nephew. And it makes me very sad that I'm not doing that. Especially because I haven't seen them in person now for 2 years. As I'm sure any grandparent also knows, the window we have to spend time with a niece/nephew or grandchild is very limited. Before you know it, they are teenagers and then off to college - and you're just an afterthought. I already feel that distance between myself and my niece/nephew widening - I don't know their interests, we have increasingly less in common, I don't really know them. And that's unfortunate. We've maybe had a couple of video calls this year, but that's not enough and is no substitute for actually seeing them in person. I guess I only have myself to blame for living on the other side of the world. But the fact that I don't have children of my own, and will never have children of my own, does make me really appreciate and enjoy the few interactions I do have with them. We play some video games online together regularly, which is fun - but I can already feel my niece pulling away from that (not my nephew yet thankfully!). Perhaps because I've watched too many American sitcoms, I kind of hoped that we might have a big family excursion to somewhere like Disneyland one year, where all the extended family (uncles, grandparents, etc.) are there and we all have a jolly good time. But I don't think that's ever going to happen, for lots of reasons. So I guess I just have to make the most of the few scraps of interaction I manage to get with them before they get older and move on with their lives.
With the limited number of football games on this weekend, I decided to watch some rugby. And imagine my bemusement when I came across the following:
Yes, there was actually a game of rugby going on somewhere in that fog. But I couldn't see it, and neither could the commentators - so that made it rather difficult to follow the action.
It's been a while, but a murder of crows accumulated outside my home yesterday. There were about 50 of them circling round, making an absolute racket. I couldn't work out what was going on, until I looked closer. And then I realized what I was seeing - it wasn't 50 crows, it was 49 crows and a bald eagle. And the crows were attacking and chasing the eagle away. And this is why I hate crows. The bald eagle is a magnificent creature - and I would love nothing more than to see one perched in a tree outside my home. But no, that will never happen while there are crows around to bully the eagles away. But this makes me want to go to the Skagit Eagle Festival, a few hours drive north of me - I believe January is peak time to see the eagles. However the winter weather so far this year is hardly conducive to making the long trip up there. But it would be nice to see some eagles in their natural environment.
It's interesting what you can glean from watching the English football games here. It was a few weeks ago that I saw some really snowy games, when clearly some kind of winter storm was hitting the UK. Then a few weeks ago, every game had a round of applause at the 6 minute mark. I didn't know why, and when I looked it up it was kind of unsettling to read about the murder of that 6 year old (a news story I had absolutely no knowledge about). And this week, we've started to see loads of games being postponed - due to a clear surge in COVID in the UK. I can't say it's a surprise - I don't think the government will stoop to ruining people's Christmas for a second year in a row, but I can see more restrictions and a possible lockdown coming in January. Coincidentally, there's also been a surge in COVID cases in professional sports here. But the worrying thing is that this one is still due to the delta variant. I think we still have a major spike coming here due to the omicron variant, and with the sheer number of unvaccinated people I think this one could be particularly devastating and overwhelming. I don't think it's going to be a good winter here, or anywhere else for that matter.
I'm fairly sure I've featured this band before, but what the hell here they are again. There's a reason why they're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is from the mid-70's - and perhaps their last big hit (and actually I thought it was a John Lennon song - which just goes to show how little I know). And I only picked this song because it was being played over the end credits in the film I just watched. That film was - well, this is rather surreal - Godzilla vs Kong (2.5 stars).
One of my aims for the next few weeks is to empty my DVR - with the eventual goal of cutting the cord. I'm not sure whether this is achievable - I've got an awful lot of shows and films and documentaries to get through, and I don't want to spend all my time over the festive period on my couch. But I have made a start - and I'm just in the process of finishing watching a documentary series on Obama. And my main takeaway is that even back in 2008, I had forgotten just how terrible and how partisan white America is. It is not a new phenomenon from the age of Trumpism - it existed well before Trump. Trump was just the lucky beneficiary of the inevitable racist backlash to Obama's presidency. And the total reluctance of the Republican Party to work with Obama is utterly identical to it's total reluctance to work with Biden. It's really dispiriting to me that one of the main political parties doesn't act in the interest of America and Americans, then and now, but only in it's own interests - yet remains as popular as ever. There is a certain irony that I, someone who has never voted in any election in either the US or the UK, and can't even vote in the US, am not averse to becoming more politically engaged. That's definitely something I never thought I'd say.
A word about Succession, which concluded it's 3rd season yesterday evening. And yesterday's episode was an absolute doozy - one of the best episodes of any TV show I've seen over the last few years. The comparisons with the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones is apt - changing allegiances, betrayal, twists, a shocking outcome. This was classic prestige TV. Overall, I don't think this 3rd season of Succession was quite as good as the 2nd season, but it is still far and away the best show currently airing and absolute must-see TV. In the age of streaming, I'm glad that there is still a show that generates so much positive internet buzz after each episode has aired. And this is, undoubtedly, a surefire top 10 contender on my list of favorite ever TV shows. I own box sets of The Wire, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Lost - I would happily add Succession to this list, though hopefully not for a while as I hope there will be many more seasons to come.
I don't care if the Formula 1 championship was decided in the last race, or even the last lap in the last race. It still sucks. As a sporting spectacle, Formula 1 is ridiculously overrated - lacking in action and excitement. This year has only created a modicum of interest because of all the controversy, little of which has to do with actual driver skill. I didn't watch any of today's race, but I caught the end of last week's race which was just bizarre - one driver running into the back of the other, having slowed to let them go past, and then having to slow down to let them pass again, twice. Perhaps I'm looking through rose-colored glasses, but the sport seemed so much more thrilling and watchable in the past. Perhaps it was the inherent danger in racing back then - in making the sport safer they have kind of ruined it. Ironically, I think Formula 1 is more popular in the US now than it ever has been before. And, sadly, it's almost entirely due to a popular Netflix behind-the-scenes documentary series. Unbelievably, the US is actually hosting 2 races next year. We've come a long way from that hilarious spectacle whenever it was (I just looked it up, it was 2005) when only 6 cars competed in the US Grand Prix.
It's not too late to get me a Christmas present. I came across this today:
It may just be a lighter - not something I would normally have much use for - but this one is special. As you can see, it is a James Bond lighter. But that's not all. It also happens to be very limited edition - only 7 are going to be made. And, perhaps the biggest selling point of all, it's made of solid gold. Which might explain why it only costs a cool 25K to buy. For a lighter. What a bargain. And it comes with a display case, which is perhaps the least you would expect when you're dropping this amount of money. Again, just on a lighter. I'm starting to think that James Bond branded items might be a smidgen overpriced.
I was supposed to be on a flight to Heathrow right now. Instead, I'm working late for the second evening in a row. I wasn't even supposed to be working today. And despite being on vacation from next week, I suspect I might still be contacted and pulled in to help out more before Christmas. The study I'm working on has just been unblinded, so all our team is busy producing and validating the datasets and outputs for the final deliverable. Having these timelines right before Christmas is kind of stupid, but that's just how things have worked out. And there are loads of issues to sort out and questions to answer on the data from this study, which is not helping. The study is kind of messy - mainly due to COVID affecting the ability of subjects in the clinical trial not being able to come in to be tested when they are supposed to. This point in any study is always kind of hectic and pressurized for someone in my role, so my vacation on some level is very poorly timed but on another level is very much needed as I am feeling very stressed out.
I think this is an early 90's cover of an older song, but the message is timeless.
I ordered a COVID testing kit a while back, with the intention of using it before flying back to the UK. Well I'm not flying back to the UK now, but I decided to test myself anyway - simply because this is, shockingly, the first time I've ever tested myself. As with everything else COVID-related in the US, nothing is straightforward - this is a PCR test so it has to be sent to a lab, and I only got it free because I ordered it through work (I think I'm allowed one free testing kit per week). No free testing kits for everyone here - like you get through the NHS - though I think Biden has said that might change soon. Anyway, I got my results today - and I tested negative, which is good. I haven't been feeling great recently, so I was a little bit worried. I did get a shock when I logged onto my account and saw a green check mark next to the test - but this was just confirmation of the test rather than the test results. Talk about bad web page design. Obviously happy that I don't have COVID, but secretly I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't test positive because then I would've felt so much better about postponing my UK visit.
I decorated my house over the weekend, and now I have loads of flashing Christmas lights both inside and outside my home. But since you can't see my house from the road, why do I bother with the outdoor lights? Nobody can see it apart from me, and my immediate neighbors. Which is a shame, because I think my lights look good as they cycle through the different sequences. Though ideally I would put up more hanging hooks. I'm waiting until we get some windy weather, and expecting a lot of my lights that are currently precariously balanced on door and window frames to quickly come down. Perhaps I didn't put them up as well as I could have. Certainly the hummingbirds didn't appreciate the invasion of their space - they were making a hell of a racket as I was putting up the lights near the feeder.
We got a little pre-Christmas bonus from work today - a $150 Amazon voucher. I think everyone in the Seattle office got one - this was a portion of the Christmas party budget split between about 200 employees, since there is no party this year! That was the good news. However, there were also a limited number of bigger prizes raffled off - think weekend breaks, an Apple Watch, etc. And the bad news was I didn't win anything in the raffle. No surprises there, I have an uncanny ability to never win anything in matters of chance. But it was made worse by the fact that 2 colleagues in my group, including my manager, did win. What did I ever do to Lady Luck for her to treat me this way? This is not an isolated incident.
I woke up this morning and opened my curtains, and was quite surprised to see a coyote out of my bedroom window! Or more accurately, the rear end of what looked like a dog (though it was probably a coyote) disappearing into the undergrowth in my back yard. So, once again, no time to retrieve my phone and get a photo. But wait, perhaps my trail camera caught the coyote. But a quick check, but nothing captured on the camera apart from me (no sign of the raccoons for several weeks now). If I had the camera pointing towards the other hummingbird feeder, I think perhaps I might have caught the coyote on film. So that is kind of annoying. Hopefully I'll get it one day.
This somehow encapsulates America. There was yet another school mass shooting event in Michigan recently, where 4 teenagers died. And then a few days later, a US congressman posted the following photo on Twitter:
For those who thought my decision to cancel my trip was a bit hasty and premature, well perhaps I got some karma today. Because we've had so much rain recently - officially the wettest fall (autumn) in Seattle history - my driveway has sprouted a lot of moss. And when it is wet, the driveway becomes treacherously slippery on this moss. As I discovered this morning, as I went down the driveway to retrieve my garbage cans (dustbins) from the bottom of my driveway I slipped and fell down in a very inelegant way. Fortunately I was still hidden from the road, so no one got to see my embarrassment. But the result wasn't good. An extremely muddied up pair of jeans, but more worryingly a nagging pain behind my right knee. I hope the pain is temporary, my movement doesn't seem limited, so my fear that I've done something untoward to my knee ligaments during the act of falling is hopefully unfounded. Nonetheless not good, especially when I value my mobility so highly. Next time I'll make sure I walk down the tire tracks where the moss seems less prevalent, rather than the middle of the driveway. I've also got my landlord on the case when I told him about my accident - and he was already scraping the moss away today with some garden tools. I really just want him to coat the driveway with chemicals and kill all the moss that way.
I've had to make a difficult decision today, and I'm sad to say that I've canceled my trip back to the UK. With the number of new travel restrictions introduced in the last few weeks, both on the US and UK ends, and the likelihood of further restrictions in the upcoming weeks, I've decided the risks are too great. There's too many things that could wrong with this trip, and the increasing expense and inconvenience of constant COVID testing is too much. Not to say a new and dangerous variant running rampant globally. Although it wasn't announced today, the prospect of having to self-isolate when I return to the US is something I'm not prepared to do - and it's something that the government here have considered, and will continue to consider when the number of cases of omicron inevitably multiply. The timing of this new variant couldn't be worse. Of course I feel terrible about this decision, it's going to make some people upset - not least my Mum and my nephew and niece - and the prospect of another lonely Christmas is not one I'm looking forward to. I think the only people happy with this decision will be work - because I've already been asked numerous times whether I'd be able to work remotely from the UK during my "vacation". I think I'm still going to take the time off, but I hope I can make it back to the UK in 2022 when the situation is better, and spend some better quality time with my family and friends.
We're slowing it down this week for some classic 80's smooth jazz. Just what I need, as my stress levels are high because it appears that the US is going to announce further travel restrictions tomorrow - one of the likely restrictions, a negative PCR test within 24 hours of departure to the US, could prove a particularly expensive and logistical nightmare. Any sort of required quarantine could jeopardize my entire trip.
