Football, American

My second favorite weekend of American Football - wild card weekend.  This is the first weekend of the playoffs - so we've cut the chaff (sadly, including the San Diego Chargers) and starting to concentrate on the big boys.  Only the divisional round next weekend is better.  Just watched the Seattle Seahawks win relatively comfortably.  I kind of have a lot of conflicted thoughts on Seattle - I like the team, but hate the fans.  Only the New England Patriot fans are worse.  I don't think Seattle is good enough to win the Superbowl this year - I regrettably think that the Patriots must be considered the favorites.  But they are capable on going on a run, and I think their game against a rested Atlanta Falcons team next week might be a close one.

The Rise of the Bear

So to the surprise of absolute nobody, Russia and Putin did interfere with the American election to ensure that Trump won.  How much difference did this interference really make to the results of the election, who knows.  But you’ve got to believe that Russia was at least involved in the Wikileaks stuff that eventually prompted an FBI probe days before the election, plus they probably initiated or helped distribute some of the many false stories that leaked in the media, particularly online, that hampered Clinton’s election bid.  So how will Russia be punished?  They will probably get rewarded rather than punished by President Trump and some of his pro-Russia inner circle.  And that is sad.  He will probably weaken NATO, when in reality NATO should be strengthened since Russia has already stepped well over the line in its Ukraine actions.  Does anybody forget that Russia shot down that passenger airplane?  If there is definitive evidence that Russia directly tried to influence and affect the American presidential election, then that should be a considered an act of war – and retaliation should be forthcoming.  I’m not saying America should nuke Moscow, but it has the means to really damage Russia and specifically damage Putin.  I’m all for that.  Putin’s actions in both Syria and Ukraine are war crimes, and his oppression of his Russian political and personal enemies is a disgrace and should be punished.  Didn’t he also get a Russian dissident poisoned by radiation in London?  In all cases, America (and probably more significantly the EU) have shown a weakness which he has exploited.  I don’t want this to be the start of a second Cold War, but I believe the US has to act and make a statement.   

Visibility

We are currently in the midst of a Dry Air Storm here.  What this means – very cold (not getting above freezing during the day), very dry, stunningly blue skies, and amazing visibility.  It’s a shame I have to be at work this week, otherwise I would be out and about trying to capture some great photos of the Seattle skyline with Mount Rainier in the background.  This is the view from the Space Needle at 2 pm today (google Space Needle cam and you can see current and past panoramic views from there).

The temperatures are plunging overnight – but other than the slight risk of black ice, no snow or anything to make the driving conditions bad.  Unfortunately, this is not lasting through the weekend – with temperatures rising and rain returning.  They have forecast some snow in about a week’s time, but doesn’t look as though the temperatures are cold enough then for it to settle.  Very glad that I bought a portable heater a few years ago, because my bedroom is so poorly insulated that I would freeze otherwise.  At least my gas fire works well for the living room – but I would so much prefer to live somewhere that actually has decent central heating.  I don’t need any more excuses to find somewhere new to live, but this is yet another one.

I wasn't missed at work

I only had about 200 unread e-mails when I got back to work on Tuesday after 3 weeks off.  That seems a lot, but really wasn’t.  And absolutely nothing urgent to address, and nothing really to work on now I’m back.  So it appears that 2017 is going to start like most of 2016, with very little for me to work on.  Talk about underused and mismanaged – and unneeded.  Very frustrating – I think something has to change, because my enthusiasm and engagement with what I’m doing is just not there at the moment, and it’s very demoralizing.  I don’t know if anything will change – it would be good if my company bought out another company so there would be something new to work on, because then I could ask to switch onto that.  Or even just getting a new and better manager might help, but I don’t know if that will happen – the fact that my rather candid feedback on my current manager has not been followed up on yet suggests not.  So for the time being I just bide my time, getting paid for just sitting around and doing very little.  Inevitably this will eventually change, probably to the other extreme where I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in – but in combination with the fact that I do want to move back to Southern California, more than ever now, I can’t see me staying here beyond 2018.  Consider that one of next year’s new year resolutions.

Weird neighbor

Although my downstairs neighbor has been the focus of most of my ire, my next door neighbor is not immune.  I don’t see much of him about – he is an older black gentleman who lives alone and who I hardly ever see because he works/is out of his home at strange hours.  Most of what I know is from his car license plates (he has 2 cars!) – which indicate that he is a military veteran, special forces if one of his bumper stickers is anything to go by, and he also has a disabled badge.  One of his cars also has a bike rack – though I’ve never seen bikes on them.  We share a hallway and stairs up to our separate entries – and he has already annoyed me by leaving some junk in the shared hallway for over a month without disposing of it, in addition to repeatedly not latching the front door that leads outdoors behind him, despite my note asking him to do so.  Generally I haven’t been bothered by noise from him, although like last night he does occasionally watch a movie with cranked up bass that I can hear through our shared wall.  But a couple of weird incidences happened recently.  The most recent was that when I got back home on New Year’s Eve, I noticed that the door lock to his apartment had been sealed over with tape saying do not break seal.  I don’t know why – I thought maybe the locks had been changed because he hadn’t paid his rent or something, but he seemed able to break the seal and enter his apartment on New Year’s Day so I have no idea what that was about.  Prior to that, in a period before Christmas, I hadn’t seen one of his cars and hadn’t heard him coming and going from his home for about a month – to the extent that various notes and stuff were piling up outside his door, and there was a bit of a strange smell (although then the hallway got painted and the paint smell overwhelmed all others).  I was a bit concerned about his welfare and did have a look at some of the stuff by his door – there were some notes about overdue bills plus usual stuff about painting and outdoor work updates that I was getting, so I got to a point where I was going to report this to the apartment manager.  But then he did show up again.  It’s all very strange – he seems too old to be still engaged in special forces activity, though I wonder what he might be up to.  Also makes me wonder about the quality of his living situation inside his apartment – I can only judge by his front door, and that doesn’t seem to be in particularly good shape – buckled and presumably very drafty.  I would definitely be cautious to confront him directly should any issue arise, in case he has any war-induced rage issues, so I hope it never comes to that.  Yet another reason I need to move in April.    

New Year's Resolutions

I have just 3 New Year's Resolutions:

1. Find a new home
2. Get a new car
3. See an optician and get new glasses

These should be easily obtainable, so I'll be disappointed if I don't fulfill them.

Not been feeling great since I've been back - I haven't managed to shake the cold symptoms that I brought back with me, and I've really been struggling with readjusting to the time difference (so I've been falling asleep on the sofa in the early evening, and waking up very early).  And it's been so cold since I've got back, and forecast to get colder this week, as low as -9 C one night.  Not good - compounded by the fact that my apartment has terrible heat insulation.  What a great way to start the year!  At least I've finally managed to clear up all the ready oats that I had brought back with me but which leaked over everything in one of my suitcases - that stuff gets everywhere...

New Year's Eve

I had drafted the following blog entry whilst I was at the airport yesterday:

Wow, that was not a particularly pleasant experience flying back.  No upgrade again, which was very disappointing.  Among the many perks I missed out on were use of the exclusive check-in desk and lounge and priority boarding.  Instead I had to queue up for an interminably long time with the other common folk just to drop my bags off.  And then try to find some peace and quiet in the loud and busy terminal area.  And to top it off, the flight was delayed.  I think this might be the first time I haven't been upgraded when flying from London to the States, at least from Heathrow Terminal 5 - I fear those days may be over, so time to start collecting those air miles to go towards an upgrade.  I didn't even get a window seat in premium economy - another disappointment, though grateful for the extra space over plain economy.  I know that one of the American airlines now also flies directly from Seattle to London, so might be time to switch up from BA next time.  And if you will allow me a rare populist opinion - I hate the exaggerated class divides on long haul flights, just emphasizes the increasing separation between the 5% and the ordinary people.

But then that all became moot when my row got called to board the plane, and I got upgraded then.  So I missed out on a lot of the perks, but at least I had a relatively nice flight.  Which was good, because I needed my wits about me to drive myself home from the airport in a rainy-snow mix and slick roads on very little sleep.  They have also introduced electronic security checks at Seattle airport, which I haven't encountered before - and actually made things a lot quicker because now all I need to do is scan my green card to get back into the States rather than queue up for ages.  Fortunately, they work a lot better than the electronic checks getting in the UK which I couldn't get to scan my passport.  Unfortunately, you are still left hanging around for ages waiting for the luggage which presumably also has to go through American security and at a much slower rate.