Author: alohawild

Instead of being home cleaning or putting away my laundry (which is undoubtedly too wrinkled to wear now). I am in Portland’s Pearl District, eating and drinking at Von Eberts. Mariah had a limited window, but we could do the early evening for dinner and beers if I could get there about 5:15. I managed 5:20 and Mariah a bit later. We were surprised to see the wings were off the menu (sold out), so instead, we ordered the chicken platter (one wing attached to 1/2 a smallish chicken)–still excellent. We both got one wing and let’s call it pulled chicken with it. Excellent.

Mariah and I ate and chatted about life and how things were going. We both find life tasks getting in the way of writing. We both wish we were writing more, but we are managing to keep the wheels on in our lives. We both want to travel, but that is not in the cards for various reasons, so we at least can share a beer and sigh together; we are making it work, missing NYC or Europe or other places.

I was working at home before the “situation is serious but not desperate” dinner. The afternoon was boring as our data conversion not only went well, we were ahead of schedule–something we have not experienced before. There were no serious issues, and the afternoon allowed me to rest. My breathing and coughing issues were back, and I needed to rest for a while. The short rest worked. I was feeling better by 4PM and did the last status meeting.

Moving back further, I visited Susie in the morning. I left at about 11ish in Air Volvo to Susie’s place at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. I made good progress until I was near Susie’s; they were back to repaving Hall Boulevard as it was Monday, and I had trouble coming and going as they cut the traffic to one lane.

Susie had just finished lunch when I got there, and Susie was still in her wheelchair and delighted to see me. We headed out to the park. It is sunny and about 80F (27C) at noon with a nice warm breeze. The park was full of families with small children. School here is on for another two weeks. We enjoyed the park and watched the butterflies dance (four Oregon Swallowtails). The park manager spoke to us about the hot weather and the cedars’ stress. They expect to lose two more this summer–unfortunate. A young man had smashed his beer and was sternly reminded to pick up all the pieces by the park manager–We can’t have little kids cut their feet on broken beer bottles! The message was politely received, and the clean-up was done.

I could only make it a short visit, but Susie was pleased to get outside.

Before this was the familiar story of a bagel for breakfast with liberal coffee. I started at 7ish, as it was a work-from-home Monday. I slept until 6:30 and lollygagged in my bed until just before 7PM. My breathing woke me–the pollen was hard on me. I worked from home until 11ish. I did our status meetings and my time sheets now that we have the FY24 project code to charge our time.

Thank you for reading.

 

The day started with me rising at about 7:45 and having no shift today. I had done the 4PM-1AM shift, so I was free on Sunday. Of course, I checked the status and followed along. Breakfast was an NYC bagel; I still have a few left in the freezer from Joyce (thanks!) with cream cheese and capers, along with liberal coffee made in my French Press. I then wrote the blog for Saturday on Sunday morning (Sunday being the day I usually write two blogs). That took a few hours. I found I was tired. I had two production issues within a few days, and working a second shift (instead of my regular first shift) left me exhausted and a bit fuzzy. I read some more of the famous Foundation books by Isaac Asimov, and I still find the series to be a page-turner. Still, tobacco use in his future is shocking, and the positive writing on atomic power and radiation disconcerting. I scrubbed the toilets, did the dishes, cleaned up, and dressed.

I made a lunch of the salad left over from yesterday. I warmed some leftover bread to go with it in the microwave for twenty seconds. I watched more videos on YouTube while I ate the salad with the dregs of the coffee from this morning. Battleship New Jersey channel discussed counter flooding and showed the valves to do that on the USS New Jersey. I also watched a video on navigation on the RMS Titanic and its three compasses. This one was from Oceanliner Designs, and I recommend their stuff.

I headed to see Susie after I again toured my roses and cut more fresh blooms to take to Susie. I also spent some time dead-heading the bushes. I will have to clean up the cutting I left under the roses or leave that for my lawn service (tempting). When boarding Air Volvo, I took my cuttings, carefully wrapped in a paper towel, and set them in the seat next to me. I headed in little traffic to Susie’s place at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. It was a warm sunny day, headed to over 80F (27C).

Susie was waiting for me when I arrived without incident, and there was no traffic on Sunday. Susie was in her wheelchair and a heavy sweatshirt for outside. It was lovely outside, and the light breeze was warm. The shade was still cool, so the extra shirt was a blessing.

We reached a bench partially in the sun on Metzger Park (next door to the hummingbird house), and there called Leta, Susie’s mother and chatted for a while. Next, we followed the butterflies (there were at least three) further into the park and then took the trail out of the park on the street.

A couple is living in their car next to the park, and Bo (I learned his name today) was cleaning the car while his gal was napping in a blanket among the English daisies in the park. I gave him $20 as we have seen them many times, and I am sure he could use some gas money. Bo was embarrassed to take the money at first but then thanked me, asked out names, and shared his. I hope it helps, and I am so glad I am not living in my car living on the edge of a park.

Susie and I continued along the roads and visited the magnolia tree and saw that it was one white bloom way up. We enjoyed all the roses in so many yards. Finally, we returned to the hummingbird house.

Anassa, the weekend nursing aide, got Susie in her bed, and I sat in the overstuffed chair next to the bed. We put on Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc, and we both really enjoyed it again. Susie stayed awake for the whole thing (I nodded off quite a few times). Soon I had to leave, and Susie gave me a kiss goodbye after I had M.A.S.H. running on her TV.

I stopped by McMenamins for a bowl of soup and iced tea for dinner. I then headed to Cory’s house to play our every two-week game of Dungeons and Dragons 5E. We are sixth-level characters, and Matt is DMing a Spell Jammer new campaign. I built some models for use to use, and we used one today.

While I can’t give away this story, we had a combat-rich game today, and us playing fighters (Karyn and me), took some risks and did some stunts. It is interesting to mix swords and sorcery with Space Opera, steampunk, and some light SciFi horror. D&D 5E is not a flexible system, and it is surprising to be fighting space Vampirates (yes, that is a thing) and finding it to work (as a holy paladin in 5E, I am very effective against undead, even space undead, I learned today). Now that our characters are less fragile, the mix is starting to be more fun. So I would recommend advancing quickly to the 6th level in this mix. It was a fun night, and we advanced to 7th level (even more superpowers).

After that, I took Air Volvo home, made some tea–my new order for tea from Upton Tea game in today–and wrote the blog.

I am tired, and I need to finish this (it is already 11PM). Thank you for reading!

Saturday was a lot less exciting or busy than my usual day. I was working the night shift, so I could not take the time to play any games. Also, the shoe company emergencies in yesterday’s blog settled into normal processes and are resolved.

Starting from the morning, I managed to sleep until 7:30 and then made Fair Exchange coffee in my French Press and reheated the remains of the quiche from Whole Foods for breakfast. Next, I wrote the blog for a few hours. I finished the laundry while writing and managed to ignore the dishes for a bit longer. I put away all the laundry as I feel better–no piles on the floor near the dryer.

I paid the bills, updated Quicken, the desktop version, and reviewed and corrected some transactions in June. I pay Susie’s bills within a day. I pay bills for my medical stuff slower as I get rebilled by Legacy and other medical offices with items I believe I have remitted (they take my co-pay and then bill me again for it later). It is very messy. I then get a check later to reimburse me for my overpayment. This will make a hash of my taxes as I have enough medical bills to write off the expenses. Growl.

I cleaned up and dressed. I went then and toured my roses and cut a set of Susie. I mistakenly cut off the flowers (ala the Addam family) twice when removing the leaves. I had to cut more roses. I removed many of the thorns from the roses (careful not to remove the flower and not to stab myself with thorns). I skipped the Herbalist rose as it has impossibly sharp and hidden thorns. Soon I had a nice collection.

I traveled in Air Volvo through light traffic and the strange construction traffic–there are no construction workers on the weekend, so all the cones, sticks, barrels, and other traffic control items were neatly stacked on the roadsides. Oregon drivers, apparently having construction flashbacks, still drove slowly and ignored open lanes often closed by construction workers. You can’t roll your eyes constantly and drive Air Volvo at the same time.

Surviving the non-construction caused slowing, I arrived without incident at Susie’s at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. When I arrived, Susie was not at breakfast (having managed to get there just before noon), and Anassa, the nursing aide for weekend days, said Susie was exhausted and could not eat much and just wanted to rest in her bed. I retired to Susie’s room to find Susie deeply asleep under a light blanket. After waking Susie, I pushed the crash pad back under the bed and moved the overstuffed chair next to her.

Susie said no to a movie or going outside. She had black circles under her eyes and was pale. We then agreed on Elton John. I picked, and Alexia played Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Susie’s first album she ever bought), and Susie slept through much of the music. We did call Leta, Susie’s mother, on my iPhone and used FaceTime to see each other. Leta was up late and was not feeling well, too. Susie and Leta chatted for a while until Susie started to nod off. We then rang off. Susie then returned to a comfortable sleep with me next to her (reading news and work items on my phone), sitting in a chair.

Evan surprised me by stopping by and spending some time with us. We all chatted briefly, and Susie stayed awake now that she had more company. At 2PM, we headed out to let Susie sleep better, and Susie gave me a goodbye kiss.

Evan suggested a new place for lunch, and we found Broder Soder Beavert. This is Nordic food at a Nordic cultural center just a few minutes from Susie’s place. They are open from 8 to 3PM (breakfast food). I had the meatballs, and they were excellent. Evan had great eggs. We shared some Nordic-style pancakes in round balls with lemon curd and lingonberry jam. I had lots of coffee (I can’t drink beer before my shift as I will fall asleep or accidentally tell people what I am thinking in a status meeting), an excellent Nordic solid blend served with heated cream to lighten my coffee.

After finishing breakfast/lunch, I returned home and was able to read emails and Slack channel updates to be ready for my shift. The production issues were mostly resolved, and the next data conversion was long-running (two to three days) and frankly boring as hell.

Once everything had settled down and the status meeting was done, I returned to my radio project during the quiet moments. I soldered wires to the new nob, assembled the radio, including its speakers, and unattached the lights as I needed to replace the leads to be longer. I was happy to hear the music through the new speakers now connected to the mainframe, but the nob did nothing. I also could not get the push buttons to work. I drilled and broke the wood plate. I will be connecting the new modern buttons and new nob through this plate, but I was able to fix the wood. The break won’t show as I plan to cover it with veneer (like the rest of the radio) and use excellent brass screws to make it look original or fit the Steampunk theme.

I gave up on the radio after discovering nothing was working. I will pick that up again later and rework how to make the switches on a test Arduino built into a breadboard. It is handy, powered, and accessed by a B USB, but it is 5V, not the new standard of 3.3V. I am used to switching back and forth from 5V to 3.3V and even have special hardware to let me build a dual-voltage circuit (even switching a complex signal to higher or lower voltages as needed). More on that next week when I will have time again.

I ordered dinner delivered from Nonna Emilia Ristorante Italiano by GrubHub. I had the handmade beef ravioli in a meat sauce. I ordered too much garlic bread and a large ceasar styled salad with freshly made creamy pesto dressing. I had too much bread with it. The portions were not huge, and I ate all the ravioli as I was hungry. The leftover bread and salad will be for lunch on Sunday.

I then went over my Quicken stuff and printed out the reports for May 2023–Everything needs to be paper for accountants, CPAs, and IRS. However, I realized I did not have a notebook for this quarter. So that plan of doing boring hole punching and filing was also a bust. Also, the project panicked at 10:30, stopping me from having to clean something (my last task available).

The data loads had slowed, but it was decided the data set was causing the slowness. It is extra comprehensive data and would take more time as it generates many more updates than previous runs. BASIS and other system checks came back with our systems being fine. Just a fire drill.

I was getting tired, so I got a cup of tea made, Darjeeling tea, added a slice of lemon, and got a few German Chocolate cupcakes with pecan and coconut frosting. That got me back, and then I read some more of the famous Foundation books by Isaac Asimov. While showing its age (tobacco survives into his version of the future, for example), it is still a page-turner. I read that while waiting for the shift to end and the 12:30 status meeting. There were no more events.

The 12:30 status meeting was short, and I handed over a dull day to India. It is good to be bored when doing data conversions!

I had trouble sleeping as I proved my hydration too early in the morning, but after that, I slept until Sunrise and still managed to roll over a few times. No headache.

A few more notes…

During the day, I spotted a new role-playing game (RPG) adventure for Call of Cthulu (CoC), set in New Orleans. I have an excellent New Orleans setting book for CoC, and adding more material for a more extended play would be nice. I also found a 1926 map of New Orleans for less than $20 on eBay. I ordered both.

Paypal fell over, and I cannot work out if I actually ordered the map or just paid for it. Paypal shows, now that it is working again, that I made a payment. Fingers crossed.

I also bought a practice kit for building a plank-built ship model. I have a huge model that uses this–I have never done it before. So I ordered the kit from the Nautical Research Guild, which is a collection of folks that do build nautical models. I just joined NRG, and so far, I am pretty pleased.

I also renewed my Naval Institute membership (for the discount on the books) and Naval History Magazine (I just read the articles). I also ordered a new book (heavily discounted as my membership is still running): Leadership in Dangerous Situations, Second Edition. I thought this would be an interesting read, and it is good enough to make it to the second edition. That is always a good sign.

Thanks for reading.

I got to rest yesterday after my shift ended at 4PM. I did log back in and was working again until 10:30PM. I developed a tension headache on Friday afternoon (not a migraine but pressure at my temple and some low-intensity light sensitivity, but not the vision issues and pain of my usual unpleasant migraine) that returned Saturday morning while I was writing the blog. The headache woke me this morning–not very pleasant.

I am working the 4PM-12AM shift Saturday, but for Friday, I was still on the 8AM-4PM shift. As it was Friday, it was a work-from-home day, and I got to sleep until 7:30AM. It was a gray Oregon drizzle day (rain was not in the forecast, and it surprised us all), and the temperature never climbed into the 70sF (21C), and of us, long-term residents rejoiced. Pollen is washed from our skies; we don’t need to water anything and are not supposed to have sunshine in June anyway. Seeing the mist dripping off my rose’s leaves just looks so usual; it made me smile.

I had quiche for breakfast, left over from a few days ago, with liberal coffee made in my French Press. I also started the laundry and did the dishes. I spotted trouble as I did my usual read of emails, Slack channel updates, and news–getting ready for my day. There was an incident, and one of our essential data feeds stopped working after the last code drop–ugh! Of course, a critical process was soon to run, and this was called out as a level 2 incident (A level 1 being the whole computer system is out and Nike cannot function). A virtual war room was started, and I stopped attending my usual collection of status meetings and was part of the group working on the incident.

Aside: at the shoe company, a computer bug is often called a defect; a production failure caused by a defect is an incident. New stuff is an enhancement or feature, and new development is limited to the minimal viable product (MVP). Production support is an outsourced function at Nike that handles all of the easy incidents and has instructions for failures that have been recurrent. Production support escalates to technical support and software engineering when an incident occurs that they cannot fix or have not seen before. I am part of technical support and software engineering.

I spent the morning in a Zoom call reading code, watching software engineers step through the failing code, and debugging in a test system to see if we could reproduce the issue. We also did some debugging in production (yikes!). We spent the morning defining the parameters of the failures and eliminating, unfortunately, all the straightforward explanations.

I had clam chowder from a can while sitting in the Zoom meetings on the incident. I had to take a few minutes out to shower and dress. It was a bit intense as we are working a 7/24 schedule to do the data conversions into the same production computer system that is now failing, and a critical path was developing in production support. We would soon need to even convert the new data that was causing the failure, so we were a bit stressed about solving the incident before making it works with a data conversion that might also fail the same way. Double yikes!

We had a break while the software engineering wanted to work on the problem without the Zoom meeting (it can be hard to focus when everyone is watching and asking questions), and we took Air Volvo to see Susie at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. The traffic for Friday was not terrible until I was near Susie’s place. Tigard and Beaverton are repaving Hall Boulevard, and I was stuck in lane switching flag people. I usually complain about construction, but this part of Hall Boulevard really needs to be repaved as it has been torn up a few times and not put back better over the past ten years.

Susie was delighted to have a visitor, and we soon retired to her bedroom with Susie resting in her bed, listening to music while I logged back into the shoe company and had my Apple computer for news. I spent the afternoon following along and reading, reacting to the crisis, and supporting the team.

With the rain, Susie and I did not visit the damp Metzger Park.

Susie got to listen to a few Zoom status calls. Susie was sad when I left after 5PM but was happy to hear I would stay much of Saturday–I have canceled all the board games for Saturday. So with a kiss, I headed out.

I decided to get to-go at Panda, industrial Chinese-styled food. A gal (a customer) there was rude to me and kept looking at me with hatred in her eyes. The line was long, and the place was understaffed. I decided I did not want to find out more about what upset the gal and had her take it out on me, so I left.

Next, I stopped at a new place Wing Stop to try their food. I discovered they have slightly less than average wings (at least they are cooked and fresh), but their deep-fried slices of corn-on-the-cob with cajun seasoning were good. I listened with my earbuds to a YouTube show while eating, ShipHappens. My headphone kept falling out as I moved my jaw to eat. I suspect it was pretty comedic to watch. Next time I will use my skull ear clips.

I returned home with my headache not improving, took some Advil, and rested while reading. I have finally decided to try the famous Asimov Foundation books. They show their age, but the first book has been captivating. I am reading this on my Kindle. I have read Asimov before, and I found his writing always good and the stories worth the hype.

I decided I needed to make cupcakes–German chocolate with pecan coconut frosting (from a box and from a can). I like to have something fun and sweet, which takes some stress away. That helped with the stress. The painkiller removed the headache, which was likely related to allergies and stress. Nothing defeats my migraines but sleeping in the dark for an hour or more (the visual component of the migration is still there even when you close your eyes, making sleep difficult). I had a few cupcakes while watching a YouTube video from Battleship New Jersey. The curator was showing a space that had been forgotten about in the turret and found some 1980s versions of the caps for the 16″ guns. Quite a find, and I suspect they will soon go on display.

There was a Zoom meeting on the incident at 10ish, so I logged on to see if I could help the second shift. I approved some changes to correct the failure–it was a problem with the code drop, as we suspected. I also approved some tickets for another incident that was starting to escalate to leadership.

The fix will be tested Saturday morning and likely approved for production that morning. I logged off and read until I fell asleep around 11-something. I slept until 5AM when I had to prove hydration. As I said, the headache reoccurred and woke me at 6:30ish. Ugh.

Thanks for reading.

I forgot. I sent Gov. DeSantis a copy of Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb via Amazon.com. I figured he needed a copy of the book his state just banned. 

I am tired tonight, and the hours over the last few days are running me down. This will be a short blog, sorry.

I just finished Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, and this is a disturbing part of the 1920s US history and, while well written, does not have a happy ending. I am so glad I read it and recommend it.

Moving to essential events, I reached Susie’s place in the morning today. Susie resides at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116. I left work at about 11 and arrived as Susie finished her breakfast. Susie was doing better today and not leaning to the right (the stroke-damaged side) and could feed herself. Once Susie was done, we headed out to Metzger Park next door. I pushed Susie’s wheelchair towards a bench in the sun, sat, and called Leta, Susie’s mother, who was happy to get an earlier call today (I have missed calling Leta the previous few days) and enjoyed talking to Susie on FaceTime using my iPhone. We are happy to see each other on the phone. It was cool, 64F (17.7C), and we stayed out briefly. I returned to work, getting a kiss goodbye, after stopping by Jimmy John’s and having a sub with a Diet Coke and a small bag of chips.

I started the morning at 6AM and rushed, getting only a breakfast of a banana and liberal coffee. My first meeting was at 7AM on yesterday’s computer issues. Our developers worked all night fixing the problems and running the slow-running existing code over little bits of data. Our team members had to run it over 1,000 times to complete the data conversion (which was completed at 4:30PM). The fixes would wait for the next run as it was too risky to change the code in mid-conversion.

English daisies and butter cups in Metzger Park.

The rest of the day was full of status meetings after seeing Susie. I was getting tired, so I headed home early and rested briefly (getting up for more meetings). Once the last meeting was done after 5PM, I made dinner. I fried and baked a porkchop. I made corn niblets (frozen) by heating the microwaved corn in butter in the pan where I fried the porkchop. I made couscous with butter-fried hazelnuts and raisins with spices like cardamon, cinnamon, and cloves.

I am running out of steam.

Heavenly Scent Rose from Dondrea and Z for my birthday is now blooming. It is a bit stressed by the heat and lack of rain but looks great.

I forgot to put in that today was Theology Pub via Zoom. About six of us discussed the law of unintentional consequences. We agreed that fast or aggressive actions from an organization can create this. The possible banning of the Bible for violence is the latest example.

Thanks for reading!