Bad Driving

American drivers are the worse.  Every single day I encounter terrible driving.  And I suspect most of them don't even think they're doing anything wrong.  Some of their worst traits are not signalling, not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, speeding, tailgating, not having a clue how to negotiate a roundabout, single drivers using the carpool lane (a particular pet hate of mine that I see every time I go onto the freeway on my commute into the office - something which I've never seen policed, but surely there is the technology available to install a camera that will identify these law breakers), and so on.  Anyway, on the way home from the office today I encountered a new low.  And it was on the road at the bottom of my driveway.  Somehow, a van had managed to drive into the ditch on the side of the road and become stuck.  That is shocking and inexcusably poor driving.  How did they even manage to do that?  I suspect either speeding - something which I see all the time on that stretch of road - or distracted driving.  Either way, very very embarrassing.  I should have taken a photo, but I don't think that would have gone done well with the driver who was waiting for someone to tow him out.  It's not the first time I've seen incidents on this stretch of road - from drivers unable to negotiate the slope when it's icy, to a car engine fire, to someone threatening me when I told them they were speeding.  I'm not saying I'm a good driver, but I think I'm a lot better than most of the other people on the road here.      

TV Theme Tunes #65

Of the various shows presented by this artist, I've plumped for the theme from this one - mainly because it's the one I remember from my childhood.  He is a real national treasure, and must have influenced so many kids to love art and inspired today's generation of designers and artists.  And having read some of his background - including serving his country - I'm actually shocked he never received a knighthood (which is shameful when you think about some of the degenerates who have been).

Flight Prices

Was having a look at prices for flying back to the UK in summer, and was a bit shocked by how expensive it was.  Considerably more expensive than even how much it cost to fly back over Christmas.  British Airways currently have a sale going on.  But then you read the small print, and discover that there are all kinds of limitations on what is actually on sale.  And this includes the dates you have to fly to get the sale price.  Naturally, the days I want to come back do not fall in that window.  I want to fly back sometime around 4th July, but that will cost over $1000 more than a flight, for example, around my birthday in August.  It's making me reconsider my plans.  But the overriding factor is that I get a week off work for 4th July, and I really want to make use of that to give me an extended stay in the UK (3 weeks).  I don't know what to do.  I think I'll still aim for early July - but maybe hold off booking the flights just to see if the price comes down at all.  Knowing my luck, it will just go up.      

HDR

I've been watching a lot of the Australian Open over the last few weeks.  Not so much for the tennis - though nothing gives me greater joy then seeing Djokovic lose.  No, it was more about the fact that I was able to watch some of the matches in 4K HDR.  You'd think that would be great - but nope, that wasn't the case.  The fact is that my 4K image is incredibly dark - so dark that I actually preferred the "bog-standard" HD image.  So instead of watching tennis in 4K, I was spending all my time mucking about with the picture settings trying to brighten the image without sacrificing the quality.  I googled the recommended picture settings for my TV, but they were absolutely useless.  But I think I have resolved the issue by adjusting the "Gamma" setting.  Don't ask me what the hell that is, but it seems to work.       

International Lego Day

Just in time for International Lego Day, which is Sunday, I just finished building my most recent set:

It looks great, but I don't know whether you can tell from the photo but it is much bigger than I was expecting.  Lucky it just about fits on top of this bookcase in one of my spare rooms. 

One of those days

Despite having plenty of work to do, today proved to be one of those days where I just got nothing done.  Not for a specific reason.  I just couldn't be bothered to knuckle down.  Some days you get loads done.  Some you do not.  Today was definitely the latter.  Not a disaster, I may have plenty of work to do but I don't have any immediate deadlines.  And next week I'll quickly make up for what I didn't do today.  Probably.      

Work

Not good news from work.  I think my plan of wanting to take a sabbatical in a few years time is becoming increasingly less feasible.  We were told at a meeting this week that basically my department is putting a hold on new hires, and won't necessarily even replace employees who leave.  So if I request a leave of absence, it either won't be granted or there won't be a job for me when I'm ready to return.  It's a thoroughly depressing state of affairs.  So if I want to take some time off work when I turn 50, which is something I really want to do, then I'm probably just going to have to resign.  Maybe that's not a bad thing - I don't like the direction my job is going either.  It seems like we are increasingly outsourcing more of the kind of work I do to India.  So my role will start to become more about oversight of other people's work rather than doing the actual work myself.  Which is not what I want.  And that's only until AI eliminates my job entirely.  That seems to be case of when, rather than if.  And I'm not even joking about that - at this meeting they presented a timeline of when they expect AI to take over some of the tasks.  Which is extremely disturbing.       

Predictable

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Trump appears to be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.  Giving us the presidential election that nobody wants.  Trump vs Biden II.  The wannabe dictator versus the senile old man.  Great.  Yay America. 

TV Theme Tunes #64

A classic 70's cop show with a classic cop show theme.

Musical Chairs

A very random development at work.  Apparently our entire group is relocating upstairs to the third floor.  And from what I can tell, for no discernible reason.  What a pointless pain in the ass.  I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  Apparently I've been assigned one of the prime cubicles - a corner one with windows on two sides.  But naturally I'm bound to find fault with it.  And it's certainly not going to make me come into the office any more than I currently am.  Which is not much (3 times a week, coming in after the morning rush hour and departing before the evening rush hour).     

Y2K

I recently watched a documentary about the Y2K bug and the mass hysteria surrounding it.  And it was fascinating for all sorts of reasons.  It wasn't so much a documentary as a compilation of news footage and recordings from the time.  So there was certainly a degree of nostalgia from seeing this snapshot in time.  Even though these events only took place 25 years ago, within my adult lifetime, the footage made it seem like a lot longer ago - from the fashion and the hairstyles, to how computers looked like then.  And it's mind-blowing how much technology has evolved from then until now.  I certainly remember the dire predictions about the Y2K bug and how it could destroy modern society - but at the time I think I viewed it more with curiosity rather than concern.  I don't think the documentary really answered the question about whether the Y2K bug was a real issue, or whether it was a whole bunch of nothing.  Companies spent a lot of time and money "fixing" the issue - but just how much of a difference that really made I don't know.  For sure, there was a lot of scaremongering - fake news was still a thing 25 years ago.  And it was the little historical tidbits scattered throughout the film that I particularly liked - from Putin taking power, to the terrorist threat posed by Osama bin Laden, to the rise of extremism within the US.  However, it feels like they missed an opportunity in not following up with some of the more extreme doom-mongers and survivalists to see how stupid they looked in the new millennium.      

Arsenal 5-0 Palace

Oh dear.  Oh deary deary me.  I recorded this match with the intention to watch it when I woke up.  But then I found out the score and didn't bother.  Palace are in trouble.  We are in a relegation fight, the fans are protesting and the form is not good.  The next game - a home match against Sheffield United - is a must-win.  Certainly for Roy Hodgson if he is going to keep his job.    

2 In 2 Out

As 2 good TV series just finished, and so 2 promising TV series have just started.  Fargo's fifth season was as reliably good as previous seasons, and I also have to recommend you catch The Curse.  A divisive series that I thought was excellent, but even if you don't like it then you still have to watch it just for the last half hour - which might be the most bizarre and most memorable ending to a TV series that I've ever seen.  Amazing.  And so what new shows have I started watching?  True Detective: Night Country - starring Jodie Foster - has started intriguingly.  But does remind me a lot of Fortitude so far, if you ever watched that show.  And I'm loving Monsieur Spade - starring Clive Owen.  Very much in the film noir genre (as you would expect with a lead character taken from The Maltese Falcon) but set in South France, this one just feels like quality - from the acting, to the pacing, to the fact that plenty of French is spoken (something which I fear may alienate it from a decent American audience, but rather that than yet another detective series set in Europe where everyone unrealistically speaks English).       

Frustration

One of the most frustrating things you can experience:

One fricking letter.  Ridiculous.  

Slick

I wasn't snowed in today.  But I was iced in.  After a night of freezing rain, woke up to find my driveway covered with a layer of ice and very slippery.  I was supposed to go into the office today, but did not trust taking my car down the driveway.  Indeed, this afternoon I used my snow shovel to try to clear the layer of ice away.  I wasn't sure whether I would ever use the Yaktrax that were handed down to me from my parents, but I was glad to have them today.  With temperatures continuing to hover around freezing, it might be a few more days yet until I am fully thawed out.  You know conditions are not great when both my garbage collection was canceled and all the local schools were closed today due to "inclement weather and extremely hazardous road conditions".  The status of the schools is a good indicator of whether it is safe for me to go out or not.        

TV Theme Tunes #63

A rather surreal choice this week.  From a "northern" show from the 80's that I vaguely remember airing on early Saturday evenings on ITV.  I don't remember any sketches from the show, nor that it originated from radio, but the theme tune had somehow stuck in my consciousness despite it being rather unmemorable.  Weird how the mind works.

MLK Jr Day

A company holiday today for Martin Luther King Jr Day.  The most wasteful bank holiday of the year, coming just 2 weeks after the holiday shutdown.  If we are going to have a holiday to celebrate something African-American related, then I wish it was Juneteenth rather than today.  I'd much prefer a day off in summer.  But sadly our company doesn't honor Juneteenth as a company holiday, even though it is also a federal holiday.  If I didn't go back to the UK for Christmas, or I had more vacation days, I might take off these first few weeks of January and go somewhere warm like Hawaii to recharge.  Instead, it was just a long and very cold weekend here.  Which probably hasn't done me much good.    

Trail Cam Dec-Jan

I saw a couple of coyotes in my yard yesterday.  I wasn't quick enough to grab my phone and get a photo, but I hoped that my trail cam would capture them.  Nope.  Don't know why it didn't pick them up - it looked like they went right through the field of vision.  Makes you wonder just how much wildlife there is out there that I don't know about.  Maybe I need to splash out on a better trail cam.  A fairly mediocre set of photos for this month.

Discombobulated

I'm writing this late having fallen asleep in front of the TV.  Again.  And then waking up thinking it was Sunday night - when it is in fact only Saturday night.  Very confusing.  Apparently my body clock is even more out of sync than I thought it already was.  This is really messing me up.   

Frigid

No surprises, the snow that was forecast only a few days ago never materialized.  Instead Portland is bearing the brunt of the worst weather.  But we still have sub-freezing temperatures here.  We are currently in an approximately 72 hour stretch where the temperature will not get above freezing.  It started yesterday afternoon when an Arctic front came in.  I was out for a walk and encountered ice pellets and an extreme drop in temperature as the front pushed in.  And that frigid temperature has stuck around today, and will continue into tomorrow.  But at least no snow.  It is forecast to get down to about -11 C overnight.  It was barely warmer than that this morning - but with the wind-chill felt even colder, maybe about -15 C.  It's the hummingbirds I feel most sorry for when it gets like this.  The feeders are frozen solid - I've got to remember to bring them inside tonight, and put them out at sunrise tomorrow morning.  And even then they will quickly freeze up again.  There are maybe 3 or 4 hummingbirds that use my feeders, and they've been either sitting on branches near to the feeders conserving their energy, hovering next to me when I bring out an unfrozen feeder, or being very protective about their only food source and chasing each other off them.  I wouldn't be surprised if they don't all survive this stretch of weather, but I hope at least some of them do.  Which means I will need to do tomorrow what I did today, and constantly swap the frozen feeders with thawed out ones as I cycle between them.    

Graded

Some cards I own have been authenticated, but got my first graded card today:

And it's a 10.  Nice.  Though a 10 Gem rather than a 10 Pristine.  I've no idea if or how much value this actually adds to the card.  But hopefully it's a good thing when it's a well known leading actor sadly no longer with us, like this.  I actually paid a lot less for this card than I would have even if it was ungraded, so I can't complain. 

Sleep

So, so tired.  I've not even come close to having a decent night's sleep since coming back from the UK.  And that's been a week.  It always takes a while for my body clock to readjust when returning to the US from the UK, but this is ridiculous.  

Winter Storm

Much like a lot of the US, we are suffering from some bad weather.  Today we are under a wind advisory - and there is heavy snow and blizzard conditions on the mountain passes.  But, to be honest, it hasn't appeared to be a particularly windy day.  And this highlights the very poor quality of weather forecasting here.  We also have a potential winter storm coming in on Friday.  But there seems to be a major lack of confidence on what kind of impact this winter storm will have.  Before the weekend, I was prepared to have to stock up on food with the potential to be snowed in for a week.  As of today, the forecast is a lot kinder - 1 to 3 inches of snow on Friday night and another 1 to 3 inches on Saturday.  Both days are accompanied by some bitterly cold temperatures (-9 Celsius overnight).  But that's it.  Well at least until the forecast changes again.        

Seattle Sports Fails

It's not been a good few days for Seattle sports.  Firstly, the Seahawks failed to make the playoffs.  They won their last game, but it wasn't enough as they needed other games to go their way and they didn't.  And then tonight, the University of Washington got blown out in the National Championship game in college football.  So no fireworks.  Mind you, it's been so wet and rainy that I'm not sure that anyone would have set any fireworks off even if the results had gone a different way.   

Pyro

My neighbor is at it again.  Almost every single time I've glanced out of my kitchen window or headed outside since I came back from the UK, I can see smoke billowing out from a bonfire in my neighbor's yard.  What and why is he burning so much?  It's certainly nothing in his yard, because he cut down all his trees.  I seriously wonder whether he is some kind of pyromaniac.  Or someone gave him firewood as a gift for Christmas.  But to be burning so much, especially when it's so damp and rainy outside, is just plain weird.  Conversely, I guess it's also a bit weird for me to be so bothered about it.  It's not like it's close enough for me to be bothered by the smoke or anything (if I was, then you and he would definitely hear about it!).  But I've noticed that at some point over the Christmas period this neighbor has also added a load of outdoor lighting to his yard.  And it's incredibly bright.  Again, it's probably not the kind of thing that should really bother me.  But it does.  But it's not like I can do anything about it other than wait until the foliage grows back again and hopefully blocks my view of his yard - out of sight, out of mind.       

Advent Calendar

It's been a couple of weeks, but meant to highlight the advent calendar I got this Christmas.  Wanted to go for something different than a bog-standard chocolate one, so plumped for a rock, mineral and fossil one instead.  More for kids, but whatever.  This is what you were supposed to get in the calendar:

And this is what I actually got:

Not bad and I think I got one of each, but a couple of the rocks were quite indistinct and difficult to tell what they were.  Was the extra expense worth it?  Probably not.  But that likely won't stop me getting something similar next Christmas.

January 6th

On the third anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol, I'm greeted on the BBC website by an article with the headline "January 6th: The day that still divides America".  The very fact that such a heinous event has not united the country in it's disgust is extremely disconcerting.  If you've seen the footage, heard the testimonies, etc. then there simply cannot be any misinterpretation of the events.  There shouldn't be any sort of partisan divide in how the attack is perceived.  It was a mob of Trump supporters vandalizing and looting the US Capitol, assaulting police and hunting down politicians with the intention to cause them serious harm.  Yet Trump will persist in his baseless claims of having the 2020 election stolen from him.  Which in turn leads to all his ridiculous false allegations of it being a peaceful protest or that the FBI instigated the actions or whatever other nonsense him and his team come up with.  And the fact that millions of people fall for Trump's intentional misinformation is why I totally agree with Biden that Trump is a major threat to democracy.  And the thought of him winning the election this year is really, really disturbing.  Yet, unbelievably and shockingly, a very real possibility.  Surely the US cannot be this insane?  I fear it can.  

Syncing

Something very weird has happened between my iPhone and my email.  The mail app on my phone decided not to sync properly with my email account, so that a bunch of emails I received never appeared in the mail app.  I only realized this when I logged onto my e-mail account from my work computer, and noticed that I had a load of unread emails that I didn't know about.  And, even more bizarre, I noticed that I was no longer getting a sound notification when I received an email.  I went into my iPhone settings, and notifications were turned off for my email account.  What the hell is that about?  I didn't make those changes, and the software on my phone has not been updated for a while.  So I don't know how this could've happened.  I hate technology.  Well, let's see if my fix of deleting and then re-adding the email account to my phone works.  So far so good.  Though this only supports the decision I've already made that I want to get a new iPhone this year.   

Heathrow

I'm back in the US now.  What can I say about my journey back?  Well for starters, I'm really starting to dislike travelling through Heathrow.  It's such an impersonal experience because, clearly in an attempt to eliminate jobs, you hardly interact with anyone.  You check in online.  You arrive at the terminal to be greeted by these giant automated cleaning machines (like roombas on steroids, the kind of machines that will hunt you down when they inevitably become sentient).   You print your boarding pass from a check in machine (something which I've had loads of problems with it not being able to read my passport in the past, but fortunately not this time).  You queue up for bag drop, which is also a machine where you have to print and put on your own checked bag tags.  But I found a major flaw with this.  I didn't get an upgrade this time (no surprise, given the lack of human interaction and a not very full flight), but I am a bronze executive club member (hopefully not too far away from being a sliver member, which entitles me to a lot more perks - including access to the airport lounge).  Bronze privileges include being able to use the business class check in (but apparently not business bag drop, which would be a lot more beneficial - apparently there is a separate check-in area I could've used, but I didn't know this) and supposedly priority baggage arrival (I had priority labels on my luggage flying into London).  But I never got a chance to print these on this journey.  And hence I went from my luggage supposed to be one of the first to come off the airplane, to my luggage literally being the last bags to come onto the carousel in Seattle.  And I was starting to really panic that my luggage had been lost, and then I feared I'd be stuck at the end of the massive security queues (because, for inexplicable reasons, you have to pick up all your luggage now in Seattle before you go through security).  But the wait wasn't long this time because they shockingly actually had loads of people manning the security desks, which they didn't the last time I came through here.  What is also disconcerting in Heathrow is that you're supposed to get a thorough check of your documentation before dropping your bags off - but the one stressed out employee dealing with everyone gave only a cursory look.  I could easily see people arriving in the US and not being able to get in.  As for the flight itself, I feared the worst - the boarding process was shambolic (not done by groups, and you had to take a bus from the gate to the airplane and then climb the stairs to enter it - where you were exposed to the wet and windy weather).  And then I get to my seat and find it occupied.  But that actually worked out - I took the woman's seat instead (which was the same row as mine but the opposite side of the plane) and because there were loads of spaces on the flight, I was able to nab a window seat nearby with nobody next to me.  So that's about as good as you're going to get without an upgrade to business class.  Despite the windy weather, the flight departure wasn't delayed by much and wasn't as rocky as I feared it might be.  But despite all this, I still didn't get much sleep on the flight.  So I'm back now and once again it will probably take my body clock a while to readjust back to my routine here. 

TV Theme Tunes #62

A classic children's theme.

I only picked this, because then I get to share some YouTube videos I've been enjoying recently, like the following (warning: extremely rude language alert).

Godalming

Grabbed this shot in Godalming the other day of what Google Maps tells me is a stream called "Hell Ditch".  Nice.