Gardeners Question Time

Dena and I have been trying to figure out what kind of fruit trees to plant in the garden and how to care for them. Zogger is back in Seattle, alive and well from his recent trip to China. So Dena and I are having an IRC chat (Instant Message for the more youthful) with him on his mobile phone as I write this. I am sure his thumbs will hurt after he has to reply to all our questions!

Technology defeated! He gives up and calls us instead.

Incognito

I went to the Real Time Electronics and Computing Show in Santa Clara Convention Center. I registered online the night before, but when I arrived I found that they had no record of my registration. Of course I know all the gals that run these shows so we had a wee chat and then they asked me to go over to ‘Jenny” (name changed) and fill out a form with my details. Jenny asked me if I had a business card to put in the clip-on badge that would get me through security and into the show. I looked through my wallet and found I did indeed have a business card: I went round the show as my hair stylist, which was a lot of fun and got me much more information than if I had gone as me!

Back from Nevada

My copious edits to the paper were rejected. Hmph! I guess I just don’t get it?? Figure it out tomorrow. Dena’s madder than I am.

Online…
I went to see Zogger in Seattle last week. It was cold but sunny. Just IMed with him in Shanghai, and found that: “Little bit cold in Shanghai - Japan was freezing with heavy rain...”

It wasn't until I got off, did I read the small print on the side of the bike. I guess I broke all the rules (BTW: Just one beer at lunch time) but well, no harm done.

We had a lot of fun in the snow, sledging, making snow people (I live in California after all) and... riding Gray's quad bike. I had a blast on it- taking the children around the housing estate and up a little snowy hill climb.

It's about 12 years since Paul and I drove through this valley on Highway 395 during the "Rod and Paul American Tour". I guess I never thought I would be looking down on the highway from my brother-in-laws hot tub. But then I guess I never thought I wouldn't!

Nevada

Saturday we headed out to Gray and Julies (Bro and Sis-in-law)- 200 miles over the Sierra Nevada Mountain. Dena drove the whole way, while I edited frantically. I looked up and we were descending into a valley.

Friday Blues and Rhythm

I got a call at 8:45am that asked me to edit a paper to be submitted at 9:00am. Hmph! I got on the phone and got more time and set about a full review…

Later, Dave (DDER) from Southampton swung by for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other since we don’t know when (15+ years?). He’s now a professor of grid computing back there, still plays bass and writes the occasional LISP function. For his 40th he put his band back together- we listened some fun tracks.

Dave and Rod. No change there, just a function of life.

The Meeting

Thurs, met up with Dave and the boss man for a meeting with some other folk. We “humped the onion ring” ‘cause our “ball was on the tee” which would “ultimately end in death or divorce”. I think if we had come across another metaphor that day “our goose would have been cooked.”

DIY#2

Ok, so last weeks DIY was a bust. [But did have a most excellent hack]

However this week, with another pair of hands, it all came together...

Alexander helped...

• Measure the shelves
• Draw the cut lines with the T-square
• Carry the shelves
• Count down the holes to set the pins in.
• Set the pins in the holes
• Hammer the pins home into the holes
• Set the shelves

Awesome! This is parenthood at its best.

All I did was cut the shelves (held fast on my new working Workmate [c.f. last weeks blog]) using my super duper "Governator Style" laser sighted circular saw. Wicked!

The saw was a totally excellent Christmas gift from my Father-in-law; who a while back was surprised that at 42 I had never used an electric say in my life. Thanks Dad-in-law! I am a convert.

Los Gatos Auto Mall goes up in "Flames"

For those of you concerned about Friday's massive explosion at the Los Gatos Auto Mall about 3/4 a mile from our home... we are alive and well. There is some irony in the event, but not for the net and not now.

It's official- I have allergies!

After a lifetime spent telling people that I have allergies, as I cough, wheeze and sneeze around them (without so much as an official medical note stating that I am allowed to) I can now state for the record that I do "Officially" have allergies...

I went to an allergist on Friday and was tested against everything from dogs to milk- some 40+ tests in all. As some of you will know this involves sticking little needles coated with different things you might be allergic to, in your back. You then wait 15 minutes to see if you break out in a rash. Each of these has a number, and the nurse writes the different numbers on your back in felt pen before she starts pricking you. The nurse was somewhat surprised that as she wrote on my back I broke out in a rash. I guess I am allergic to felt pens!

Anyway, they found that I am also *very* allergic to grasses and somewhat to trees. I am also "allergic" to getting colds such that my immune system goes into overdrive and doesn't stop till well after the cold is gone. This has been a major problem from me, not least over the last 3 weeks which is what drove me to the allergist.

I now have a bewildering array of medicines- liquid spay inhalers, powder spray inhalers, nose sprays, mucus suppressants and Zirtek- which Ali (bless her) got me on in the UK last year- changing UK summer from a living hell into something I could live with.

As I lay there on my tummy, looking through the list of 40+ odd possible allergens that I was being tested for, I spotted one was missing...

"I am also allergic to work! Is there anything you can do for me?" I asked.
Alas, this is too much of a stretch for modern medicine in the 21st century!

Sigh!

Happy New Year!

We hope 2005 brings you health and happiness.

The New Year for us has been a time for planning and starting a few DIY jobs. I started on Jan 1st by putting a pair of scissors through my thumb and out the other side. The resulted in lots of blood and cussing. The good news was that when it came time to dress the wound(s) we had a pair of scissors handy to cut the bandage tape.

On to Sunday, and I decided to put up some more shelves. This required the purchase of said shelves from the DIY store along with a Black and Decker Workmate on which to cut the shelves to size. Assembling the workmate proved to be a DIY task in itself. The instructions were grossly misleading and I found I had hammered two retaining pins into the device before fitting the handles. Result: A vice with no handles and no way to get the pins out to put the handles on. A quick call to my father-in-law confirmed my suspicions: Once you hammer retaining pins in you can never, ever get them out again. I thought hard and concluded that if I could not remove the pins I would have to hack the handles. The hours that I whiled away in my childhood poking my mothers knitting needles into the gas fire and burning holes in plastic with them finally paid off: I hacked the handles by burning through them with a soldering iron and then bashed them onto the pins. Result: a finished Workmate ready to do battle with the shelving, but sadly no more time to make shelves. I guess I will get to it later in the year.