Author: alohawild

Today was a stay-cation day for me. I slept in. I was slow to make coffee and to get dressed. I tried to not focus on work that I was not doing–it takes a while to detach from a 7/24 work pace. And it was not long before I was back online moving a vendor software patch (a group of manual OSS notes to those SAP folks out there). I then logged off and unplugged the Nike laptop.

I had left some frozen Italian-styled meatballs in the freezer last time I cooked pasta. I got them out and a jar of sauce. I baked the meatballs and heated about 1/4 of the sauce and toasted some bread. I made a favorite of mine, a meatball sandwich. I used sour cream for the cheese–it is better than other choices (none of which I had anyway).

I left the house after that, I had a check to deposit. There were a few hobby supplies I could use (I was running low on Tamiya super-pure version of lacquer thinner), and a few items would be attractive I am sure (I have some new sanding needles and rigging string .02 mm now), and lastly, the local gaming store might be a nice stop. Of course, this would be followed by a stop at the pharmacy for prescriptions and more house supplies. Must not forget to stop at the ATM and deposit the check!

How could there be traffic! It is after lunchtime, and speeds are slow even for overly polite Oregon standards. The fast lane can only be called that as it is at least running 1/2 the speed limit.

I make it to Tammies Hobbies with mandatory masks now. All the folks are keeping their distances this time. My previous trips were much less attentive to the new local social conventions of six feet apart. Now the attention is now better–I feel a bit safer now. They have a new section full of science fiction models with good coverage of Star Trek. I see the huge Enterprise model and manage to resist it again.

I get a text from Dondrea to get some pictures of our church. I get the flag and the word boards for her. The church is busy, as this is a food day. The church is supplying food to people in need. Everyone with masks but it is hard to hand out food without getting close.

(I have replaced this flag many times–always happy to see it still there. I do have two more ready when some person steals this one)

(One of the signs)

(And here is another one with an interesting choice of words)

There are a lot of homeless and food challenged kids by the church as our church works with organizations to help them. I told them to relax as I was taking pictures of the church, not them. They were sitting in the shade on the grass. They even waved to me as I left.

Hunger does not stop for protests, riots, or viruses, particularly for school-aged kids in a year without school lunches.

Next, I get a call. I have been traveling so slow that I have missed my call with Australia. I have been asked to speak there on computer stuff. So we do the call over the phone while I drive home–I park in a parking lot and finish the call.

The Mastering SAP conference in Australia is going all digital as there is no real way to have folks travel there in October. Steve, the owner of the event company that is putting it on, has created a new format of ten-minute presentations and then interactive discussions and online messaging to make it a positive experience. They want to create a new format that will be worthy of people’s investment of time and money. I will be part of a panel now. I agree to be part of this as I, too, want to be part of a better format. I have to do a video of my slides and then work out with the panel what we will talk about. This is not my comfort zone, but I want to know how to do this kind of communication better. I am signed-up to learn and participate.

Once the call is over, I am at Rainy Day Games parking lot and thus visit the local game store. Everyone has a mask, and social distancing is practiced. A new Dune Expansion has been released! I have been upgrading my copy of this game, Dune, with a new map and new counters. Now there is an expansion. This was a unique game when it came out with the movie so many years ago. It was the first real political game since Diplomacy that is very thematic. The version I have is last year’s re-launch of the game after years of waiting.

I am excited to get this unexpected add-on. It has some new rules and corrections that make me want this virus thing to stop so I can play this six-person game soon. I do suspect that it will wait for the next game convention: The Spice Must Flow!

I stop by the pharmacy and pick up a prescription and some supplies. The staff all know me and wave as I leave. I once got them all passes to the Nike store–one year Nike was very generous with passes so I shared them with the pharmacy. They are always making sure I have my flu shots. I am not sure I get the better, if not sharp, end of the exchange!

Home. Yes, the check is still in the car. I guess I will try tomorrow to get that deposited. Rushed home and read the rules.

Corwin cooks dinner. New York strip steaks. I make the marinade from scratch and it sets the grill nearly on fire. The steaks are Chicago style. Molasses mixed with wine, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce must be a secret rocket fuel mix!

The reports show more than six-hundred forty Americans lost their battle with the virus today. I have a request from Rev. Anne Weld-Martin to share this song: We Rise Again.

 

 

Susie fell after midnight and landed, using her impossible skater moves, missed all the furniture and face planted the carpet. Her glasses are a bit bent, and there is a small cut on her nose from the metal frames. Glasses appear to be fixable.

I kept Susie up to 3AM to make sure there was no head or other injury. I took the day off of work–strange when you work from home anyway. I was taking a stay-cation on Thursday through Monday this week anyway.

I slept in. I did wake every move that Susie made in the bed, as is my habit when things go amiss. So I am tired.

I slipped out and got burgers from Burger King and Susie fav of Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal (with apples and six nuggets). While I do not know why unidentifiable deep-fried chicken parts are happiness, it works for Susie.

For this one day, I will ignore the news, virus, and all the noise and just be thankful that today was a slow and boring day. Dinner was scrambled eggs and bacon.

Everything is good, and laundry and dishes await me. I will take that.

This is often in the context of funerals–we had a close miss today, but I liked it anyway–the Big Easy version: Closer Walk with Thee.

Work was a parade of Zoom calls on the various statuses and even some inventive designs for new software. It all started at 6AM and finished at 7PM. I had a few breaks, but there were also some vendor patches to get going that filled in any spare time.

The last meeting tonight was 7AM India time, 6:30 PDT. Archana, a new hire at Nike, had some questions about how to match data. We first spoke to her in the morning our time and then saw her again late our time. The world is flat when you work in computer systems!

I ordered Vietnamese food to be delivered for lunch. I had the beef stew. I ate my lunch while I watched a PowerPoint and discussion that suggested that much of the work I was working on was being out-sourced. The presenters were surprised that there were no questions but stunned silence after they introduced a team to outsource everyone at the meeting. I ate my noodles. I left the video and sound off on the Zoom meeting.

I look forward to being replaced, if that is what they meant to say, as I would love to slow down and do something new. Actually, when you are a computer expert you have to be ready to be replaced and to move on to the next thing. I have said many times at work that I am willing to give up “this life of crime” and “go straight.” There is so much incredible work out there that I could do. But, I suspect I will continue on in my current role and make the impossible happen.

I heard from the Portland-based board gamers. My fellow gammers miss me. I cannot really travel into Portland with the virus and protestors going strong. The virus infection rate is increasing in Oregon. They mentioned a new Kickstarter game, Space Race, which I have wondered about, so I ordered a late-backer version with everything.

No work on the Titanic today as it was too crazy at work. I will likely get to something after I finish the blog.

The stock market went to new records today with rallies for Nike and Apple.

Dinner was pork chops grilled after soaking in a teriyaki marinade, rice, and green beans.

Safeway delivered the groceries as I am not risking buying groceries, and I have to admit this is just better. No time waste and not risk. They were out of celery and, as usual, no ground lamb. Oddly, I ordered Bitters, and they were out. Next time!

Schwan’s truck came by and I restocked out pork chops and a few other items.

I saw that the fairy circle on the lawn is just grown huge. I had to take another photo!

The toadstools are three inches across now.

Today the reports show the more than eight-hundred sixty people lost their battle with the infection today. Today I found this one: ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY: Hallelujah Chorus in Isolation.

Today was another manic Monday. I drank almost a whole pot of coffee. The last months of working every day and many 7-24 days have caught up with me.

Work started with a chat with Trevor Noah about race. It was a pleasure to participate in a Zoom meeting with him ad a good portion of the Nike from around the world. Trevor Noah is just as good live as on his show.

I finished the day putting in a vendor patch that involved meticulous attention to detail and following complex instructions. I made tea.

Lunch was from the Gyro House. Susie had an appointment with Zerida today with her driver, so she picked up her goto meal, Happy Meal, with six nuggets.

Corwin made dinner, ribs from Schwan’s from the freezer.

We then watched the Expedition Unknown: The Bermuda Triangle (Part 1). This was a lark to just relax and eat dinner and watch. The first dive was on a cool wreck of a huge paddlewheel civil war blockade runner SS Montana with even the paddle wheels still recognizable.

The rest of the show was less interesting to me, but it was a fun lark. The last of the show was using a weather balloon to send up instruments to measure the disturbances in the atmosphere over the Bermuda area. The results are presented in part 2.

When I was in middle school, I read everything I could get on The Bermuda Triangle and the related wrecks. I also read my first Plato to understand about Atlantis. So it was fun to see a review of much what I learned about when I was a kid.

No work on the Titanic model today. I am just too tired and wired. I did attach another dome, aft staircase, to the model yesterday after looking at a photo of the fragements of the real one lying on the bottom. If you are wondering, this section of the wreck is smashed with the dome and even the hole for the aft staircase long gone. The engines were below and next to the aft staircase. Now the engines are exposed and are one of the iconic photos of the wreck.

In the photo, you can see how the etched brass parts really add to the model. The model will look more detailed soon.

The toadstools in the front yard, fairy circles, had grown twice the size of yesterday when I took their picture. We must have big fairies–it is PNW after all where bigfoot comes from.

The reports show more than three-hundred sixty people were taken from us today by the infection in the USA, including two people from Oregon. I found this hymn (#527 Methodist Hymnal) that I forgot until now, and here is Johnny Cash’s version, Do Lord.

 

At 1:50PM or thereabout, we finished loads of master data for Nike’s testing systems. It took us the last six weeks some of it 7/24 to get to the finish. We have run 7/24 starting Tuesday and went through the week and weekend. Done!

I spent the morning, starting late at about 9ish, with our first meeting as we began to see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. A network failure at Nike WHQ scared us as it slowed our access, but the impact was localized to connections outside of the Nike firewall, and thus we had trouble watching the progress while the processes kept going as all connections for our conversion are inside the Nike firewall.

So at 1:50PM or so, the process finished. Early this evening, we finished flowing the data to the targets. Done again!

I went off to meet a friend with Corwin to McMenamins Cedar Hills. I had a beer to celebrate, Purple Haze, and a Capt’n Neon Burger. Again, we sat outside to minimize exposure to the virus and the staff was very good at keeping us safe, gloves and masks. Still, the other customers were less safe, and I saw the trip to the restroom was a hazard, and folks did not put back on their mask to use the bathroom. One guy walked right by us without a mask.

I also put gas in Air Volvo–got the light you must fill up as there are only forty-miles left on this tank. Second gas purchase since the lockdown!

Now that I have been working for months to finish the conversion, I am finally a bit free. What to do? Well, I went out and looked at the roses. My lawn service cut back all the roses (!?) I have only a few to share. These came with the house and I heard they were transplanted from the mother’s house of the previous owner making them likely older than 30 years. I have to be careful with these roses as they are grafted–can’t cut them back too far. Some of the canes are two inches thick.

I also found that the toadstools have created a fairy circle. The lawn service breaks up the perfect circle but you can still see it. The fairies can dance tonight.

And one of my favorite creatures is a damselfly or dragonfly or needle as I have heard them called. This one is drying its wings on my house, having likely raised out of the waters just a short time ago. I have always imagined having a small enough camera to mount on them to see what their lives are like. I love to see them in the backyard flying so fast feasting on the lesser pesky bugs.

So that is my nature looks as the sun is down. Rumors are that the African dust storm will reach us soon, turning the sunset red and yellow. Tonight’s is lovely but not red.

I have ignored the news and only saw that TikTok might have been involved with a political event. As it is a Chinese company, there are all sorts of threats from congress. Not sure I understand the massive threat from TikTok.

I just read that a noose was placed on the equipment for one of the drivers for NASCAR. The driver is black. I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in the security at NASCAR, and this is proof to me that we have so much more to change than just banning some flags.

The reports, again becoming politicized, is that the death rate in the USA has fallen to more than two-hundred sixty today, including one death in Oregon. The active infection rate is showing explosive growth. I found this unusual hymn (#678 in Methodist Hymnal) and liked it: Rise to Greet the Sun. It is a Chinese sourced song.