Category: General

This n’ That

Things are pretty quiet here now. We took last weekend off after all the activity of the past few weeks, and basically hung around the house and caught up on work and on some household projects. I’m redoing supports for the curtain in our family room. The old one was bent and drooping from years of kids pulling on the curtain, put the real problem was the supports weren’t strong enough in the first place. This was on the todo list over the winter but it was one of the things I had to let slide after I hurt my back. But now it’s the season for using the patio door so the time has come. Even a small project like this takes time and effort though. Multiple trips to the hardware store, drilling holes, spackling, sanding and painting, etc., it all adds up. Today I’m mostly finished, but I’m going to wait a day or two to install the last bracket over the spot where I repaired the wall.

The other good news is that today the roofers came and replaced the shingles on our roof that had blown off in the storm a couple months back. It only took them an hour so, and while they were up there they cleaned out the gunk that was clogging my gutters. So the todo list clicks forward three notches, but lots and lots of tasks in the offing keep me from getting too excited about it.

Sunday was Mother’s day and Michelle was very excited about it. Together with Lizzy we made Jeannie brunch, and later in the day she put on a special show. She wrote two songs especially for the occasion, and had me help her out on piano. She’s been working on these songs for a couple weeks now, trying to keep it a secret from Jeannie so it’d be a surprise. One is called “Love” and the other “Now and Forever”. It was very sweet. Then she had Jeannie and me dance while she played one of the songs of my new record. This is funny because most of the time when Jeannie dance or hug and kiss, she’ll wedge herself in between us and insist we stop.

I’ve been getting back into diagramming origami after taking most of the winter off. Closing in on finishing my 100+ step dragon. Boy, I sure hope when I finally publish my book people like it.

After the big heat wave a last week it turned cold, and I mean cold. Down into the 30’s every night and maybe up into the 60’s in the day. It’s also been pretty windy and lots of rain off and on.

Summer Warmup

The weather last weekend was actually hot for the first time. Really feels like summer. Saturday we had a birthday party for Michelle, and Martin, Kathleen and Charlie came down for a visit on Sunday and it was up in the 90’s and we had a good ol’ barbeque. Last night we had a pretty heavy rainstorm, and today it’s hot and steamy in the city.

Over the weekend while we were enjoying ice cream and birthday cake out in the ‘burbs, some nutjob parked a bombwagon literally right under my office window. Luckily the thing fizzled and no one was hurt.

Spring Activities and a Visit

The mild spring continues. I’m wondering if we’re in for a cool summer this year because of the volcano in Iceland. But for now we’re off to a fantastic start.

Last week I got chance to adjust the brake on Lizzy’s bike. I also got my Mustang on the road for the first real drive of the season. The engine runs great, smooth and with good power. The front end has a little rattle when you get above about 85 or 95 MPH, but I don’t think that’s a major concern since it’s rare to have to opportunity to do that.

My Mum and Dad were in town for a visit last weekend, and it was an excellent time, full of activities for the kids. Friday night was Lizzy’s school science fair. It was cool to see all the different projects. A lot of the kids did demos, but not all of them did actual experiments with collecting data over multiple trials. Lizzy’s team did, and they won for her grade with her Gravity project! Good to see her hard work pay off. I think was the word “Data” written in glitter on her display really put her project over the top.

Saturday Michelle had her dance recital. It was very nice and had a circus theme and different sets of kids putting on dances at their level. Michelle’s group did “The lion tamer and her cubs.” Some of the older kids were really pretty good and had several number’s worth of stage time. The whole thing hung together as a show and was pretty entertaining, and Michelle was thrilled.

Saturday we were planning on a barbecue, but by the time we started cooking the weather was cooling off so we ended up eating inside. Sunday and Monday it rained all day, so that was the end of our warm and sunny spell. Cold and rainy today too, but at least it’s good for the allergies. And hey, look, the sun is coming out again.

Spring Outing With Origami

We had another fantastic spring weekend. The weather has been great but that means we’re having an early allergy season this year. My hay fever has been going on for a couple of weeks and is peaking right about now, so I can expect them to diminish soon. Compared to other years it’s not that bad. I never had pollen allergies until they year 2000, but then last year they were a lot less severe and this year the same. Weird.

Saturday we helped Lizzy with her project for her school’s science fair. She was wondering if heavier things fall faster than light things (like a rock compared to a feather) and designed an experiment to test her hypothesis. She and a classmate filled out several water bottles with different materials: sand, water, cotton balls and empty (air), and dropped them out of a window two at a time, and observed which landed first for numerous trials, basically recapitulating Galileo’s classic experiment. To her surprise, they all pretty much fell at the same speed, except the empty one, which seemed to be slowed down a bit by the air. This got us into a whole discussion of weight vs. air resistance and shape, and turned out to be quite a good experience for her. She’s already thinking of ideas for her next year’s project. I’m trying to convince her to build a Tesla coil.

Sunday was an origami Special Sessions event at the Museum of Natural History in the city, and I volunteered to teach a class. We made the day into a family outing with the kids. Took a walk thru Central Park to Strawberry Fields (Michelle’s request in keeping with her current Beatles obsession) and to the Belvedere weather station. In the museum Lizzy asked to see the hall of minerals, which was a very cool thing to see, and something we usually overlook when we’re there.

The model I taught was my Turkey, which I developed over the winter. I have not diagrammed it yet and it had been a few months since I folded it, so I was a bit concerned if I needed to be more prepared. It took me a couple of minutes to remember the first few folds that set up the geometry for the whole model, but once I got that we were off and running. The folding sequence for the feet is pretty complicated, but I remembered that as I went and it worked out fine. The tail and head were a bit tricky. I never really worked out a single best folding sequence for either; it’s always a bit improvisational. The class turned out to be a success, but I feel like I should drill down on these details and nail down the best way to do the sculpting. This will be necessary when I get around to diagramming it anyway.

Meanwhile the girls took a class to fold flowers out of ribbons. After the class we headed back into the museum and checked out the marine hall under the life sized whale replica.

Today I used my new library card for the first time. The real library (where all the books are) is across the street from the main library. I have a long list of books I want to read, but I soon discovered the card catalog system there is kind of a mess. It’s all computerized and the listing mixes books from the two buildings. So in the end I just walked over to the fiction section and borrowed a bunch of books from authors whose names are in the S – Z range. Mostly 100 year old science fiction: Shelly, Stoker, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, with some Steinbeck and Terry Southern thrown in for good measure. I told Jeannie I borrowed seven books and she said “You’re just like Lizzy. Make sure you remember the due date.” Heh.

More Spring Things

Lots has been happening the last few weeks, and things are coming to fruition. Here are some of them.

One big piece of news is the my project at work has shipped our first working release of our software to a customer. Almost a year of effort went into it and everyone stopped arguing and pulled together as a team for the final haul, which was good to see. Of course they started up again as soon as we began planning the next cycle of work, but the group feels less dysfunctional. And, with this major milestone met I feel a bit more relaxed, at least for time being. Back to straight-up coding again, as opposed to all this config, build and deploy stuff.

I got my old Mustang to a mechanic earlier this week. Last fall I had a problem when I stepped on the gas and engine dropped in power before it accelerated. It had me kind of worried, but it turned out to be a problem with the vacuum pump in the carburetor that was petty easy to fix. My garage has a new chief mechanic who is enthusiastic about working on a classic car. He gave it a good looking over and everything is sound. So the car is back in action, purring like a kitten and roaring like a lion. Gonna give it the first real drive of the season out on the highway this weekend if it doesn’t rain. The only other thing I want to do with mechanically it is to maybe get new shocks. I think this will be year that I’ll finally get it painted, so I’m going to start shopping around for body shops. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’ve also been making a lot of progress on origami, part of which is explained in the last post, and on music. More on that later.

Spring Brake

The mild spring weather continues and we spent most of the weekend outdoors. Jeannie and I (mainly her, since my back is still recovering) did another big round of yard work, weeding, putting down mulch under the hedges, and starting with the season’s lawn mowing. The kids on our block, led by Lizzy and Michelle, took it upon themselves to clean up the trash down at the and of the street, where there is a strip of no-man’s-land lawn outside the fence to the local school athletic field. Jeannie and I were impressed with their effort and helped them out with gloves, trash bags and some tools.

I got Lizzy a new bike over the weekend too. She’s big enough now for a full size bike, with 24 inch wheels and gears and shifters and all. We went first to the big bike shop up in Scarsdale, and it was all high-end bikes that were more than I was looking to spend, and moreover the place was super crowded and there was no one to help us. So we went to Toys’r’Us, which was a much less hectic scene and they had a good selection of reasonably priced bikes. I encouraged Lizzy to pick a Schwinn, but she didn’t like the color (red and black, too “boy”) and instead picked a pink and white model from a brand called Rallye. It was a good deal less expensive than the Schwinn, and in most respects looks like a pretty good bike. Mountain bike frame with eighteen gears. The shifters and brake handles are made of plastic and look a bit flimsy, so it remains to be seen how they’ll hold up. Also the back brake doesn’t seem to grip as tight as it should. I adjusted it but am not really satisfied. I’ll try again before next weekend, but it’s an important part for safety, and if I can’t get it right we’re going to have to return it and keep looking. Probably hit the bike shop in Pelham next.

I also took a nice long ride (5 miles) on my rollerblades Sunday, which felt great.

Spring Break

I took a few days off for spring break. Unlike last year, when we went on an epic journey to distant lands, this year we pretty much hung around the house, rested, got caught up on some chores and did a few fun things locally. The weather has been absolutely fantastic, more like June than April. We’ve been barbecuing almost every day. I haven’t seen a lot of the neighborhood kids since last fall, and its surprising how everyone’s grown.

All our flowers have come in beautifully, including the new flower bed by our neighbor’s garage that we planted last fall. We got rid of our little kiddie play structure slide and sandbox now that the kids have outgrown them. We covered in the low spot with dirt and blue stuff. The end of an era. Some other random tasks put us about half done with the spring yard work cycle. Still to go is getting the mulch under the hedges and turning over the garden. Plus getting the roof fixed. At least we got a few estimates and it looks reasonable. Oh yeah, and Lizzy’s gonna need a new bike this year.

We washed, waxed and vacuumed the cars for spring. I like to do that once a year. I also started up the Mustang, and it’s good to know it turned right over. No problems with the batteries or anything major like last year. When you step on the gas, however, there’s a temporary drop in power before it surges back. I noticed this towards the end of last summer, and I suspect it’s the carburetor. So I’ll taking it into the shop as soon as I get the chance.

On Easter Sunday Mary’s came over. It was a really nice visit and another great day. We had everyone sit at the dining room table rather than have a separate kiddie table in the kitchen. The end of another era. Everyone growing up fast.

Yesterday Jeannie and I took the girls on an outing to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and for a walk thru Central Park. It was a fantastic time. The Met has been on my list for about a year now. I haven’t been there in many years and had forgotten that it’s much more than just art. One of the big old classic New York museums, up there with the American Museum of Natural History, which I know pretty well by now, having visited a few times a year for origami the last few years.

In addition to paintings and sculpture, the Met has all kinds of artifacts: medieval armor, musical instruments, furniture, all kinds of metal, wood and glass vases, vessels, instruments and implements, plus ancient ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Inca wings. All of it fascinating stuff. (Well maybe the furniture got to be a bit much after a while…) The armor and musical instrument galleries were probably my favorite. There are two huge wings of paintings, Modern and Classical, but I feel like we didn’t really do them justice. For one thing, the whole place is laid our like a maze rather than designed for flow-thru, and the painting galleries in particular are not well organized. They could do with some signage to tell you about what county and century you’re looking at and what is the story from hall to hall. Also looking at that many paintings is a lot information, so one tends to glaze over after a while. Still the kids seemed to get a lot out of it and so did I.

They really wanted to visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park, but it was on the opposite side. On a related note, Michelle learned how to play the intro to “Strawberry Fields Forever” on the piano.

Today I crossed off another longstanding todo item: I went and got a New York City library card. I have a card for my local library but I hardly ever go cuz I’m mostly at work when they’re open. Still, I have a long list of books I’d like to read and for most books it seems such a waste to buy it and read it once and get rid of it. The main NYC library -– the famous one with the lions on the steps -– is just a few blocks from my office. So the plan is to go there on my lunch break every week or two from now on. I’d never been inside before. It’s a pretty impressive marble edifice with giant halls and stairways, like it was carved by dwarves out a massive mountain of solid stone. There was an exhibit on old maps, which is pretty cool. Only on the third floor will you find books or librarians. Apparently most of the books are in and underground vault or in the branch library across the street. They have some kind of system for checking out books by computer. I plan on going back soon to get some books, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Change in the Weather

Rewinding a bit, St. Patty’s day was sort of an unusual day. We’d had a lot of stormy weather, and it was really cold that morning, and I had to get up early for physical therapy. The road there was still closed from the big storm, so I had to take a different route. By the time I was on my back home, it was already warming up outside and turning into the first really nice warm spring day. I’d been waiting for a while for my back to start feeling better, and that turned out to be the day. Such a relief.

My train was late, and when the door opened it smelled like booze. Partiers headed into the city to enjoy the parade. I was probably the only one in the car going to work. Some guy on the train noticed me folding a color-change stellated octahedron that I’ve been working on. “Dude, is that origami? Cool! Did you get that from youTube?” The parade goes right thru my neighborhood, and it’s like that the whole day, drinking and partying, like it’s Mardi Gras or Halloween or 1999. At least I was able to cross 5th Ave. without any altercations with the police this time.

At work it was all about deploying the first release candidate of our project to the Q server. This is a major milestone on what has been a really long strange trip. I was mired in config files all day, or as I’ve come to call it, configgy pudding. Our company has a mandate to try and do more thru configuration and less thru code. But it’s already becoming hard to manage, and we haven’t even deployed to live. So I need to write a config management tool so we can have instant congfiggy pudding. Anyway, we got it working, and deployed to QA, where we’re already finding bugs.

After work was a corporate happy hour function at a hotel bar which was smack in between two Irish pubs. I made friends with a management consultant who was part of a team engaged by our overlords to hang around and analyze out office’s dysfunction and presumably figure out who to fire. She seemed pretty smart and interesting/weird with a possible MIT vibe. She told me, “You don’t look old enough to have been writing software in the 90’s.” Hell, I was writing software in the 70’s. Hopefully this means I won’t be the one who gets sacked.

The mild weather continued and by the weekend we were able to get started on the spring yardwork and enjoy the season’s first barbecue. I was really tempted to get on my rollerblades or see if I could start up my Mustang after a winter of sitting in the garage, but neither one seemed like a wise idea given the condition of my back. After the weekend the weather reverted to a more typical state of dreary cold and rain, which is pretty much how it’s been for the past week. I’ve gotten a bunch of new exercises from my therapist, and have developed a new workout routine to incorporate those along with most of the stuff from my old workout. I’ve been able to bring back most of the exercises now, and am back up to 70 percent of the weight, and some of them still have limited mobility. I did go ice skating that past Saturday with my kids, and did fine, as my back continues to improve.

The kids are going thru a Beatles phase right now, which is fun because they’re one of my all-time favorite bands. It started back in January when we were watching Anthology. Then Jeannie found the DVD’s for A Hard Day’s Night, and Magical Mystery Tour on sale. (Yes MMT is as bad as everyone says. Three or four excellent music videos and an hour of filler showing people riding a bus.) At first the kids were into all the early boy-band pop stuff like “She Loves You” and “Please Please Me”. Now they progressed to the weird John songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “I Am the Walrus”. Michelle learned how to play “All Together Now” on the ukulele.

Trouble with the Trees

The first part of March was pretty mild, but all that changed on Saturday. We had a major rain and wind storm that lasted the whole day and into the night. Trees fallen over and down power lines all over town, and lots of ‘em. All day long the trees out our window swayed menacingly, but we were pretty lucky. Every couple blocks a major tree is down, having blocked a road, taken out a power line, destroyed a car or damaged a house. I went for a walk Sunday and everywhere was the roar of chainsaws. Our whole yard is strewn with branches, our patio furniture, and a even few shingles off of our roof, and the neighbor’s yard is a pond. Today the kids had no school because the building had no electricity. Two days later and everyone is still getting back to normal.

My physical therapy was cancelled today because the clinic also was without power, but my back is improving. I’ve taken to pacing around the room during meetings at work, which seems to be tolerated. I’ve introduced some weights to my workout again, which feels good, even though it’s only about half the exercises (still have to avoid some kinds of movement) and about half the weight.

Promises of Spring

The weather has been really nice the last few days, with sunshine and temperatures getting up into the 50’s. Despite this there are still snow piles stubbornly clinging to existence. We had so much snow they haven’t completely melted yet. My back injury continues to improve slowly but steadily. I’m no longer doing my regular workout, just the exercises my physical therapist prescribed, plus plenty of walking. I’m hoping to reintroducing some parts from my regular workout this week. With luck I’ll be pretty much back to normal by the time the weather is good enough to start doing things outside.

Meanwhile I finished updating my Friends and Family photo galleries thru the fall and the holidays. This year I may have a few videos worth sharing, so look for that update soon. And as always, contact me if you need the password.

http://zingman.com/fotooz/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2009-08/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2009-09/index.html