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Just got home from our SF/Phoenix trip. ‘Twas fun and great to see my brother and his wife and our son. Gratuitous pictures

Last night Andrew made me dinner to celebrate my retirement. Also got to see his condo just about fully done with renovations. This kid did amazing design work for it! Even the Designer he worked with - who also did our bathroom remodels in 2024 - said he had an great sense of taste and style, doing some things even she didn't think about..... Dinner was awesome, roast seasoned chicken (amazingly tender), dan dan noodles with a decent kick/spice, and sauteed and seasoned spinach. Watched Buckaroo Banzai (*) and listened to a bunch of music and just chatted. A really wonderful night! (*) I updated my LinkedIn profile to list my "new" job as Laser Engineer, Oscillation Overthruster Division at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. That is the fictitious company in the movie. Only one person got it so I had to update my "About" section to tell people to Google it, and that I was retired.

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!

Thirsty Barrel Taphouse Our Signature 6oz All-Grass-Fed Beef/Lamb patty with a twist! Stout Dijonnaise, Pomegranate Gastrique, Caramelized Onions, Chèvre Goat Cheese, and Arugula on a Brioche Bun + Pliny on tap & patty for the dogs.

Yesterday: Installed (functional) matching tie backs. Fixed hissing / pinprick leak in valve that caused rise from set point to edge of overflow by replacing entire valve assembly after replacing and lubricating just the washer valve failed to improve the situation. Now stays silently at set point. Today: Then: For the house. Replaced With one of For the 'fridge. I think I may deserve a Usual after all that.

I decided that it was time for a proper camera to capture the kids. My iPhone appears to have over-processed the shit out of this photo of the photo-taking tool.

I will see your Brit Brunch and lower you an Irish Interlude.

No worries at all! I had found your original comment funny too, but this is even better! BTW, forgot to mention that I even put "John" as my....nickname? And no one asked me about that as well! (For those that haven't seen the movie, the aliens, both good and evil/male and female) are all named John or some variant)

"Fly me to the moon..." https://www.twitch.tv/nasa Direct on Twitch. getting pretty big.

The Carpenters

If, like previously, from memory without sheet music.

Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp (2000) https://open.qobuz.com/album/u1lencfygsq0e Example: Some frapp for taco Tuesday.

Mushroom medley and leek pizza

Haters will saw it Photomeowshopped.

Oh, man....I just had a triggered flashback (no drugs involved!). My grandparents used to take us 3 boys out to an IHOP near their condo many (many) years ago. Tuesday nights were 2-for-1 pancake nights; always super-busy with lots of "opinionated" older people. I would often order a huge apple pancake, quite good and could never finish it so would have leftovers. One time, the waitress delivers my dish, and my grandmother practically jumps down her throat, saying "...it looks sick, bring a new one...." (it DID look like one of those above). I saw the harried and worried look on the waitress' face and told her to leave it, I'm sure it will be fine. Relieved, she did, and indeed it was fine. Later I got a nice smile and a mouthed "thank you" from her. Since then, I will always give the "first" pancake the benefit of the doubt 🙂 Funny the stuff one remembers.....I must have all of like 10 or 11 years old.

Brit Brunch

Thank you, Todd. This last post of yours helped me to recover some faith in the human race, which I’ve been losing for a few years now.

Rush - Permanent Waves

I just really love this song so much. I was actually working on translating it to guitar, back when I played.

Alec's International Relations professor dug this up as the last time they had any good musical protests at SMU (not exactly UC Berkeley being in Texas and all) over a stupid war. Pity we have one.

Clafoutis, Katharine Hepburn's Brownies, Ice Cream, Nice Cup Of Tea, and Scrabble!

hot pot soup with tofu, daikon radish, regular(?) radish, bok choy, bell pepper guts...and a wee bit of chicken

Easter Brunch, Al Fresco

Nice program! Paganini also composed a set of variations to God Save the King

Peak of mid-80s South African new romanticism. I realize that's quite specific.

{credit: spaceman}

Lot of hate for these guys back in the day as grunge pretenders, but I enjoyed the throwback.

Let's see how deep we can go into Chinese lens recreations. After success with several Light Lens Lab models, and reading/watching too many reviews on this, just ordered the even cheaper Mandler (named after Walter Mandler, the Leica and IMAX lens designer) 35mm F2 “7 elements” based on the Leica Summicron 35mm Type IV (KOB). We'll see.

Saw that on a Hannah short this morning.

No reference, just vibes.

🦃 🌶️ 🤖 🥒 🍆

Turkey Chilli with AI extra veggies PDF please? Turkey_Chili_Pierre_Franey_Customized.pdf

No work on the turbo encabulator, or the Rockwell retro encabulator? Dissapoint.

it is a shame that Nikon no longer has that in production. I think I counted about 23 times today that they said D5. ...earth...

For those curious and/or have our illness. D5.

Shee-it. I went to Chicken Alley today and they had an Apple A1407 Thunderbolt display for $28, sold "as is" because they had no means to test it. I lugged it home and worked perfectly. The only part I can't quite figure out is which revision this one is. It has a physical latch that blocks off the webcam. Every other version of the Thunderbolt Display that I've owned has lacked this feature.

Super happy for you. Me: didn't die. Not even joking.

Unexpected sunset serenade on the ferry ride back.

So true!

Compression: JPEG (old-style) 😆

Phil Penman

Welcome to the club. We are currently sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for our son’s flight to land. Oh and we are both drinking a beer because what is a better deal than airport beer.

I am officially fucking re-tired....and retired. A wonderful last week of work, topped off by a small celebration with some team members, and our CIO (blond-haired woman). The first couple of my cube, with the obligatory note that - as of today - everything is now MY fault. But a shirtload of notes on multiple cards and extra pieces of paper. I ended up topping the night off with a call with a hometown friend. She is a troubled soul and needed a supporting voice. We talked until 3:30am this morning! I wish I could do more to help people, but being a good listener and supporter is good for now.

It's an interesting unit Not the sharpest thing in the world, but it focuses quickly. The out of focus areas are warm and fuzzy, so it has good bork-eh. Probably best used outdoors.