Carfree is not carefree

So now I have my car back, which greatly simplified the afternoon’s agenda.

Oh, and the towtruck guy was right — it was the battery. And I did get my oil changed as long as the car was at the dealer, so now I’ve gotten back next Monday morning for more productive pursuits.

15 years

Today was the 15th Anniversary celebration of the IBM Almaden Research Center; there was a morning program for invited guests (people like the mayor of San Jose), and then in the afternoon, there was a Lab Expo highlighting about 80 projects from groups all over the lab. I was amazed how many things are going on of which I knew nothing before today — I didn’t have enough time to see everything, but I enjoyed the exhibits I did visit. And now I know what they do in the lab down the hall from my office — Quantum Cryptography.

4 years

Happy Anniversary, Hal and Audrey!

Failure to proceed

I wasn’t expecting to be working from home this morning — I planned to get to work at a reasonable hour and try to donate blood — but my car had different ideas. I got in, turned the key, and was greeted with a quiet “clunk” and silence. Repeating the attempt just got me the silence, no clunk.

So I dug out the owner’s manual to figure out how to pop the hood (can you tell I don’t do my own maintenance?), found the battery and checked the connections, which seemed amply tight. I opened the door and noticed that the dome light was flickering on occasionally but was mostly off. So I did the obvious thing: I called Saab Roadside Assistance and am now waiting for a tow truck to arrive. If they can get the car started, I’ll be happy; if they can’t, they’ll tow it to the dealer who will make it better, and I’ll still be reasonably happy, since I’m at home instead of out on the road somewhere. Update: the car is on a flatbed truck on its way to the dealer and I’m still at home. With any luck, this will save me the trip to the dealer that I had had scheduled for next Monday to get the oil changed. How’s that for considering the glass to be half-full?

I don’t know if they’d’ve taken my blood today anyway, since I had dental work done yesterday, and I think that’s one of the screening questions they ask. It shouldn’t have been a problem, since I didn’t have any anesthetic (the dentist had to install a permanent crown, which is pretty easy on the patient), but who knows. I did discover that I don’t like the sound of a dental drill, even if it’s several feet away from my mouth!

Wine Notes

I found out the wine we liked so much at the RPI picnic; it was Black Mountain Vineyard
1999 Sauvignon Blanc (California Three Candles) from
Trader Joe’s at $4.99/bottle. We have to visit Trader Joe’s soon anyway, so I’ll pick some up.

Last night’s wine was from Costco: De Loach 1999 Sonoma County Fumé Blanc, Russian River Valley (about $9). It was OK with spaghetti, but I don’t think I’d buy another bottle.

I don’t think I mentioned the wedding we attended last weekend — but while we were trying to figure out what to give the couple, we wandered into Sur La Table in Los Gatos and asked for advice. After a short discussion, we settled on a Screwpull lever model for them — and somehow, we wound up buying one for ourselves, too. It works wonderfully well, and I highly recommend it.

Another quiet weekend on the home front

Friday night, we did the Oneg at Temple. Usually, there are others working with us (well, I should say “with Diane” because she’s the official Oneg person; Jeffrey and I are just assistants), but not this weekend; fortunately, the Bat Mitzvah family provided ample goodies, already on platters, so setting up took far less time than it usually does.

Saturday, we went to the Rensselaer Northern California Alumni Chapter picnic in Palo Alto; the weather was fine, the company good, and the food quite pleasant. The wine was excellent, but I forgot to write down its name. *sigh*

Sunday was Father’s Day; we celebrated by having pizza for lunch and going to see Shrek, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. One of the trailers before the movie was for A. I. — I was intrigued to see some Hebrew on the screen (in red) at the end of the trailer. I couldn’t quite make out the letters in the time I had, so today I looked at the trailer on the computer and dropped the Rabbi at Temple a note asking what was up — she said that the word appeared to be Chochmah, meaning “wisdom” and apparently related to the Kabbalah, which is quite popular in L. A. this year.

I also read the second and third volumes in Harry Turtledove’s Colonization series during the weekend; the third volume leaves very obvious room for yet another sequel (in fact, it demands one), but there’s no “coming soon” at the end of the book or on any of the Turtledove web sites I just looked at. I guess I’ll have to practice patience again.

And I hatched a plot to have a Field Day station at a party we’ll be at next Saturday — I started with a one-line note, and now we’ve got at least four hams involved, two of whom are bringing gear. Our goal is to have a respectable score but not make it too much work!

And then today, I spent all day at work. What more need I say?

Today’s link

Gilbert and Sullivan were right!

Graduation Day

Today, Jeffrey finished elementary school (at the end of 5th grade). I don’t remember there having been any kind of ceremony when I finished elementary school, though I did decorate my school dictionary with all sorts of notes saying how many minutes were left in school (starting at about 5 hours and counting down), but that’s not the way it is today.

They started with a school-wide awards ceremony recognizing all the children who were in Glee Club, Student Council, and several other activities; then they sent the primary students back to their classrooms and recognized the fourth and fifth grade honor students. Then the fourth-graders left, and the serious business of the morning began.

Each child’s name was called, and while he or she zipped across the room to pick up a certificate from the principal, the teacher read a paragraph telling a little bit about the student — their favorite subject, favorite moment, and a word or two about what they were looking forward to in middle school.

992 graduating: Here's Jeffrey with his graduation certificate being congratulated by his teachers.  His homeroom teacher is reading a paragraph talking about his favorite subject (reading) and best memory of Alta Vista (leaving Science Camp).The whole thing took about 20 seconds, which only gave me time to take two pictures, the other of which was blurry. I hope Diane’s picture came out better.

Then the students went back to their classroom for their last two hours of elementary school, which were taken up by a recess (of course!) and yearbook signings. He’ll see most of the same students next year in middle school, but not one of his best friends.

Jeffrey and one of his best friends: This is one of Jeffrey's best friends (ever since kindergarden) and Jeffrey, just before school started today.  Unfortunately, the two of them will be in different middle schools next year.They’ve been friends since kindergarden — his parents had wangled some sort of intra-district transfer to get him to Alta Vista rather than the elementary school nearest his house, but next year, he’ll go to the middle school near him instead of continuing to commute. I’m sure they’ll stay friends, but it won’t be the same as being friends and classmates.

Every year, the 5th grade class makes tiles

Jeffrey's tile: and assembles them into a plaque which is placed on an outside wall as a permanent memento of the class.

Jeffrey and his class plaque: Every year, all of the students in the 5th grade make tiles which are assembled into a plaque and hung on a wall on campus.I’m not sure how permanent the placement of this particular plaque is, though — this summer, they’re doing major renovations to the school, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they’ve moved things around before September.

School let out at 12:30; we walked over, said good-bye to his teachers, picked him up, walked home, and went out to lunch. Later, as we were driving home, we passed the school, and I said, “Hey, Jeffrey — there’s your old school!” He smiled and said, “Yeah, it is!”

Shabbat Shalom!

Grounded and curtailed

Under normal circumstances, I’d be on an airplane right about now, travelling to the East Coast for our department’s regularly scheduled planning meeting. But since Jeffrey’s graduating from elementary school on Friday, I decided to save the company some money and stay home — which was definitely not the hardest decision I’ve had to make this week.

In a different set of normal circumstances, I’d be typing this entry on my desktop computer, either at home or at work, but we just had an announcement on the PA system saying that Almaden has been asked by PG&E to immediately reduce our electrical usage by 15%, so I turned off the desktop and am using the laptop on battery power. Since the PGE status page says there are no constraints and it’s only 84 degrees outside, I suspect this is a test.

Aha…as I was typing this, Diane called — the SVL lab is also under curtailment until 6pm, but they admitted it was a test on the PA system (maybe they said it here, too, but I sure didn’t hear them if they did). And she has an inside office, so she has no lighting (she was supposed to get a desk lamp but it hasn’t been delivered yet), so she’ll be leaving very soon!

And further aha…I talked with one of the Facilities guys here, and this is a PG&E-mandated system-wide test for companies who’ve signed up for load shedding. They decided not to say that it was a test on the PA here on the grounds that people would ignore it — probably true. At SVL, they turn off the lights centrally, so people can’t ignore it!