Projects, interests, and pontifications of Joby Walker
I just got a call from the City that they are subpoenaing my testimony about the accident. After my two jury experiences, I’m not exactly thrilled since I’ll have to get up early to be downtown, be presentable for court, and will probably never get called to testify. At least I’ll have my iPhone to keep me entertained. Maybe I’ll transcode something to watch…
While having dinner with some neighbors at Zeek’s Pizza, one of the neighbors was recounting an argument with their child. At the climax of the argument the youth used the most hurtful curse possible, “You don’t even believe in diversity!”. I couldn’t stop laughing, fortunately I hadn’t taken a drink or beer would have been frothing from my nose.
Woken up early because of lightning and thunder (though not at 2 AM like Alyssa) — unplugged a lot of equipment as the lightning was right on top of us. Then went back to bed — probably a bad idea because I woke up feeling worse.
Then this morning because it was raining and I was running behind I headed up to 75th and 15th to catch the 373 bus. While waiting, I noticed that the light was out and began alternating cringing and shaking my head because of drivers not paying attention (running the intersection, tailing, not yielding the right of way, etc). Then finally a woman in an SUV was t-boned by an elderly woman in an older Lexus. The SUV limped out of the intersection to park south of me (at the bus stop). The Lexus was left in the intersection. I called 911 and eventually summoned police, fire, and an ambulance. The woman in the Lexus was clearly disoriented — most likely because of the airbags (according to the first episode of Burn Notice the blow from an airbag will save your life but it’ll disorient you enough to have your hands cable tied to the steering wheel). A couple other witnesses came out — one a white woman driving West bound on 75, and two Latino men (not sure where they was during the accident, but they had a large truck for construction work). The primary Latino man was talking to the elderly woman trying to determine her condition and get her car out of the way — the last thing we needed was another accident.
By this time the SUV driver was out of her car on the phone (I believe to her insurance company, but possibly 911) asking if the Lexus driver needed an ambulance. When she got off the phone she came up to me got my info and started asking about fault. I indicated that to me the collision was entirely the fault of the Lexus.
The Latino men and I pushed the Lexus out of the intersection to the East side of the intersection on 75th — and the Lexus had to be told several times to apply the brakes to stop her car, and then several more times to put the car in park and turn the engine off. The female witness spoke with the Lexus driver some.
A fire truck showed up first and the crew dispersed to each vehicle. The lead firefighter spoke with the SUV woman, me, and the female witness — the Latino seems to have disappeared (probably had to get to work). Then the police officer arrived and started taking statements. After speaking with me and taking my info, he let me go.
Of course I missed both the 373 and 72, so I walked to work to the sound of thunder booming in the distance.
I’ve started posting on Twitter as an experiment. Wonder if I’ll keep it up? The TwitterFox extension does make it very easy to post and receive other’s tweets.
I only have two followers — I have no idea who either of them are and since they are following tens of thousands of others I don’t really care.
Tonight I got an email from my boss that the next phase of building renovation is going to be on my floor (the third floor), so we are being kicked out. The email describes where several groups are going to be moved — those that have been surged to the second floor are getting moved out and many of the groups on the third floor to the second or other floors. Except my group is being moved to a yet to be defined location. Maybe I’ll do some hinting/lobbying for working from home…
I got my Macbook Pro back this afternoon, the issue was some connectors inside the case (IR and sleep light) that had become partially undone and were probably shorting out against the case when pressure was applied. YEAH!!!!!!
In March with the release of a new rev of Macbook Pro, I (well my work) replaced my old Dell Laptop. A few years ago I had completely abandoned Windows for Ubuntu — and I’ve been quite happy. But the Macbook Pro is an excellent computer, and as I’ve gotten older my interest in doing the research to figure out how to use some Linux based software has waned.
Since switching to the Mac, I have been very happy. Though there are three things that annoy me occasionally:
1) missing keys — Steve Jobs obsession with minimizing the number of buttons helps create wonderfully simple and clean devices, but the missing ‘Home’, ‘End’, ‘Page Up’, ‘Page Down’ keys took me a while to adjust to — and there are still some instances where I really miss them.
2) only one mouse button — what the hell is up with this? There is no reason to not have two buttons except for Jobs’ obsession.
3) Very few configuration options — with almost all Linux applications there are configuration options to modify every minor aspect of the app’s behavior (of course it takes a lot of research to figure out what many of the options do, and determine what is best), but with the Mac there are frequently only a couple of options. For example iMovie allows you to output your video in 4 resolutions and that’s it. Avidemux has hundreds of options, iMovie has one option with 4 values — which is not acceptable. I like iMovie’s format for selecting clips to include, but I haven’t been satisfied with the output.
But with those annoyances, I have been very happy — until Wednesday night when my Mac got sad. After burning a DVD, I was opening a couple windows and then the power just cut out. The Mac immediately started to reboot, but the power cut out again when I tried to log in. Eventually I figured out that when I applied pressure to a 3 inch square area on the left palm rest the power would cut out. So I finished some work and then left the laptop alone for the night. In the morning it didn’t repeat the behavior. But while at work it started again. Damn. I took the laptop back to the University Bookstore, and demonstrated the behavior — they were quite bewildered (not good). As of 5 PM last night, they had completed the Apple Hardware and Software diagnostics and discovered no errors — but they could still replicate the failure.
So I’ve switched back to my Dell, and I no really appreciate the usability of the Mac — particularly the multi-touch touchpad. I’m sad over my sad Mac.
I’ve been regularly donating whole blood via the Puget Sound Blood Center for a couple years now. But since my blood type is AB+, I asked PSBC if they would prefer I donate plasma instead — and they would. Donating plasma is also attractive to me since I would not be losing red blood cells, the ravenous hunger that hits me for a couple weeks after donating whole blood (particularly in the winter) might be avoided. So last Saturday, I went to the Bellevue center for my first plasma donation. Things did not go as I planned.
Plasma donation is a four step process:
1) draw 1 unit of blood and separate off the plasma
2) recycle the non-plasma components back to donor
3) draw 1 unit of blood and separate off the plasma
4) recycle the non-plasma components back to donor
Things started off OK the tech had to adjust the needle once to get my vein but the draw proceeded fine from there. But as I was nearing the end of the first step (the initial draw) the machine started reporting that it was not getting any flow. The initial tech tried some minor adjustments of the needle with no effect, so she called over another tech who tried some more aggressive actions to get the blood flowing. It was during this that both of them turned to me and asked me how I was doing (for the thousandth time). And I started to say that I felt fine — because the process doesn’t bother me and that’s my standard response. But I realized that I didn’t feel fine. I was getting very nauseous and felt quite hot. I informed them of how I felt, and the second tech said, “Yeah, you don’t look to good.” The techs stopped trying to get my blood flowing, leaned my chair back, and got me some cold packs. The nausea and hot flash faded rapidly.
Since they couldn’t proceed with the donation, they were going to cycle my blood components (less plasma) back to me — but the reason for the lack of blood flow made that impossible. The needle was no longer in my vein and so a very small amount of IV fluid was injected into my arm. Because the needle was no longer in my vein they aborted the process and removed the needle. So instead of donating a unit of whole blood, I donated a unit of blood’s worth of plasma and created a bunch of bio-waste. My hopes of not losing red blood cells vanished…
It took 30+ minutes before they would let me leave, with testing my blood pressure and heart rate a few times to ensure that I was fine — which although a bit annoying it is an excellent precaution. I was left with a nasty bruise and swelling in my left elbow, which is still a bit tender.
I’ve scheduled another plasma donation appointment in June, I plan to make a concerted effort to eat and drink more before the appointment and I’ll let them draw from my right arm — hopefully that’ll work better.
A progress report on my second resolution:
2) Bring my lunch to work. I greatly prefer freshly cooked (i.e., hot) food, but it is quite expensive and not really that good for me. So my goal is to bring my lunch an average of two times per week. That may sound lame to some, but it is a big step for me.
So far for the year I am ahead by +1 days. The week of 1/14-1/18, I bought my lunch 4 times — the only day I didn’t was the day I went home at lunch time because my office was too bloody cold. So this past week I had to catch up. Monday was a holiday (which counts) and with the pork butt I made (for BBQ pulled pork), I only bought my lunch on Thursday. A good start….
I really hate resolutions. I hate them for two reasons:
1) I don’t want to have to do something — I always want an out.
2) If I don’t meet a resolution, I’ve failed and I have a very strong aversion to failure.
With that in mind, I have some resolutions:
1) Stop looking at the lack of success as a personal failure. I need to be more open to new experiences and view a misstep as additional experience that I can learn from. I know this intellectually — but old habits are very hard to break.
2) Bring my lunch to work. I greatly prefer freshly cooked (i.e., hot) food, but it is quite expensive and not really that good for me. So my goal is to bring my lunch an average of two times per week. That may sound lame to some, but it is a big step for me.
3) Eat better. This goes along with #2, but I really do need to get more vegetables and fruit in my diet. Really any improvement would be helpful.
4) Watch less TV. This shouldn’t be hard (particularly with the writer’s strike) but I’ve definately slipped into my prior habit of watching whatever is on — even if it is crap. Part of the reason I built our MythTV system was to avoid that habit.
5) Post more. I need to regularly post to this blog. Every day I sketch out a post or two, but I never get around to actually doing it. More reality, less fantasy.
6) Care more. I can be a self-absorbed, uncaring ass at times. I need to be more aware of what others are feeling and (if appropriate) ask myself what I can do to help (e.g., listening, being interested, doing the dishes…).
We’ll see how successful I’ll be.
Update: I numbered the sixth item 6 (instead of the previously duplicate 5). Oh and for #2, All weekdays count — including those I spend at home.