2023
Currently reading: Somebody’s Fool by Richard Russo 📚 A pleasant surprise—I did not know Russo planned another sequel to “Nobody’s Fool.”
Finished reading: This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs 📚Excellent!
I uncovered this book while decluttering my home office. I loved it when I was a kid, and bought a copy from Powells bookstore on a trip to Portland with Julie in 2008. 📚
In the course of major decluttering, I just found a ring of keys. It doesn’t fit any of our current locks but I have to keep them rather than throw them out. When we’re dead, our heirs can keep the keys and pass them on to THEIR heirs. Because that’s how keys work.
My latest article: Ancient programming language gets new life in the cloud thanks to IBM, watsonx and AI. An IBM watsonx AI tool helps refactor COBOL mainframe code into Java, to make it easier to maintain and extend for folks who entered the workforce after the disco era.
My friend Marc Gorelick shares lessons from more than 40 years playing the tuba. Can confirm that Marc played the tuba as a teenager. We gave him grief for it at the time, but Marc made the tuba cool.
Watching a security awareness training video as required by a client. Holy mackerel, Doug, stop being such a baby.
TidBITS is doing a poll on whether Apple users use Apple Weather or some other app for weather forecasts. During yesterday’s weather emergency, I checked Apple Weather several times an hour.
All is well here following the storm. Reviewing the news today I see a dozen people had to be rescued from flooding in the San Diego River. Most likely they were homeless. Many people did not get to sit in their warm, dry houses and watch Netflix yesterday. So I am a little humbled and grateful.
Unimpressed by Hurricane Hilary. Demoted to a tropical storm. So far, we’ve gotten some heavy rain, but very little wind. Note to Hilary: This is not a challenge.
Tracy Durnell: My Reading Philosophy in 17 Guidelines
I love all 17 guidelines in Tracy Durnell’s reading philosophy.
Two highlights jump out at me.
- “Read according to whim.” Just read whatever the heck you want to read. Classics, trash, whatever.
- Quit reading a book whenever it stops working for for you. Tracy’s rule is “Quit nearly as many books as I finish.” I finish 90-95% of the books that I start and you know what? I think I should be quitting more books. Because I think quitting more books would mean that I’m trying to read a greater diversity of books.
Gradually over time in my adulthood, I found I was reading fewer and fewer books. I got back in the habit a few months ago, and I’m happy about that.
Many adults don’t read books, and if you’re one of those and would like to start, you could do worse than follow these rules.
Small changes in daily activity levels, like doing a little more walking, stair-climbing, chores around the house, and gardening, can burn a lot of calories and have major health benefits. It’s called NEAT—non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Getting ready for the (actual)(non-metaphorical) storm
I was kicking myself because I only thought to stock up on water this afternoon, and was sure the stores would be sold out. But I decided to try a couple of stores anyway (being mindful that we also need to conserve gas in the car, in case we need to evacuate). First supermarket I went to had stacks and stacks of water bottles in front. I bought five gallons.
We have plenty of people and animal food, meds, flashlights, external power supplies for electronics, and we’ve moved large but blowable items into shelter or tied them down. The backyard actually looks better than it has in years. It previously looked like some kind of ghastly graveyard for lawn furniture.
A couple of the neighbors across the street have small piles of sandbags strategically placed at the corners of their driveways. That’s not a problem for us; the slope of the street directs water away from the front of the house. Julie says the slope of the backyard directs water into the crawlspace under the house in heavy rain, but it’s too late to do anything about that now.
My prediction is much of this preparation will be unnecessary. We’ll get minor damage. I expect we won’t lose power, water, cable or TV. On the other hand, moving and securing blowables was definitely necessary, because we could well get record heavy rain and wind, and stuff tends to blow around even in normal winter storms.
But it’s good to be prepared for worse than you expect.
Rain predicted to maybe start at 2 am, with winds picking up Sunday early afternoon and continuing through mid-evening.
I’m hoping to do my normal morning walk tomorrow, but may give the dog a break.
Finished reading: The Gutenberg Parenthesis by Jeff Jarvis 📚A thoughtful history of five centuries of print as dominant form of information dissemination, culture and conversation, now closing (hence the parenthesis metaphor) and the internet era now dawning.
Preparing for the hurricane
We got the front and back of the house as clear as we could of items that might blow around. Julie did most of the work on that. We have enough food in the house to last a few days. Later today, I’ll check to be sure we have plenty of potable water and that the electronics are charged. I have been thinking for some time of getting a solar-powered battery for electronics, maybe I’ll order something today and it will arrive in time for next time. Longer term, we should put in batteries that can power the whole house.
The fun starts at 2 am, according to the weather forecast. Today is actually a beautiful day, cool and calm and overcast.
Notwithstanding the preparations, I’m optimistic the storm will fizzle. But best to plan for worse.
The pizza delivery guy says the weather outlook is changing rapidly and he is optimistic that when the storm hits it will be weak so that’s good.