Coming back to myself

It had nothing to do with writing, though yet, in a way, it did. And nothing to do with the stories I tell, except for the stories I might still tell myself in the long and the quiet of the night.

For I was a teacher once, a trainer, an instructor. I spent my days shaping minds to see order and sequence - and to realize (in the sense of making ‘real’) such seeing in code so a computer could go about the business of…well…computing.

Later, not formally teaching, training, instructing, I led others, in two different startups, to imagine order and structure laid upon the realities of business. We described the world, people, skills, and commerce, in abstract terms, in diagrams, in information encoded in database structures.

And I taught people to write code that brought these together and made something useful of it all. I even taught some to imagine how such might be wrought again.

Today, this afternoon, I got to exercise that part of me again. To imagine. To seek an innovative approach. To even seek a radical approach. To allow my mind shape theory out of imaginings and to have the result hang together and make sense to another.

The writing will be done by this other. A short paper, with her own ideas and experience brought to bear.

But I mapped out a road, placed the signposts, sketched the destination.

It felt good to stretch.

In life's business...time to pause

This next week's going to be busy. It just is. 'Tis the season, I suppose.

No present buying frenzy, at least we're spared that. We don't lug presents onto the plane to Kansas City. Just not the way we roll. And our friends there, they seem to regard our company as gift enough. We certainly regard their friendship, company and really excellent cooking as heartfelt gifts in our lives.

Work will be busy. End of year stuff, the usual. All the things that needed to be done over the last while need finishing. And, oh by the way, could you get these one, or two, other things done? You know, really important for end-of-quarter, end-of-year, roll-up kinda "stuff".

It pays the bills, so I can hardly say "No" too loudly, or at least too often.

There's also writing to be done, to be finished, to be submitted. Even I like to end the year by clearing out the backlog - or getting done the things I really should have done already.

Time to take a pause. To breathe. To remember this time last year, and all that has gone on through the year, to now.

We are here. We are well. We got to see those we love this year, scattered afar though we may be.

Time to take a beat. Nothing will be lost by it. If the wheels haven't come off by now...taking a beat will not change that.

And breathe, Kevin.

Verbal volleyball

I provided the setup – but she drove it home!

So there I was, at work, outside the secured door at work, heading back in. Another, a woman whom I had seen the previous day in the office, and earlier in the day also, arrived at the door at about the same time.

"Oh," she said, "I forgot my badge. Can you let me in?"

I knew she was an employee but, being funny (or a smart-aleck, you pick), I trotted out a line that has amused others in this situation.

"Are you really who you are?" I asked. Hey, I said I thought it funny, not that it made sense.

"I think so," she answered, "but I can check my underwear tags."

Gorgeous. The best I could muster was "No, I don't think that'll be necessary" and badged us both in.

I really like people with quick minds. They leaven the world around them and we are all the better for knowing them.

Go to the land that I will show you.

"It was twenty years ago today..."

Well, not twenty. We'll have to wait another four years for that. And not today. Tomorrow really. But you get my drift. Or, maybe I really am drifting. It had to happen sometime. I suppose.

On the last Thursday in June, in 1993, I stepped off a plane at Oakland Airport. 104ºF that afternoon, if I recall correctly. Quite a change from Dublin. It was raining there. So much so, water was running down the street.

Much has changed since then.

And all of it for the better.

For the quote that titles this entry, see here.

Sturm und Drang

I do it to myself, always have. You'd think I'd have grown up by now. The interior doesn't match the exterior, I'm afraid.

I received a call Thursday. People I'd worked with earlier in this decade. I'd passed on a project they offered me, knowing I'd not have the time to devote to it. I can hear the echo of my father's comment more than a decade before - "That's unlike Kevin. Maybe he's grown up finally."

Not so much. The project was in its final days - nay hours. Delivery on Monday. Yet, a major area, the area on which I would have worked was far from complete. Would I take a look at what had been done?

But of course. Designs were shipped to me. I looked. Several concerns sprang to mind. There is a tale told of an Irishman asked for directions to a particular place. The response? "Well, I wouldn't start from here."

So I offered my Friday to help. Idiot. Designs take time. Redesigns take even longer. To say nothing of the getting to know the elements you are supposed to be knitting together.

And the smart-aleck remark about a bet on who would produce the better design did little to help frayed nerves. (I once lobbied to have "Diva" as my title on my business card.)

Email responses to questions brought the day to a close sometime after midnight or so.

I should know better. If nothing else, I'm too old for such nonsense. But the allure of knight-in-shining-armor...

Idiot - as mentioned above.

I suppose we all have a need for others to like us. It's been a driver for me all my life - for good and ill.

Saturday passed quietly. Largely because I chose to simply let it pass.

Today, Sunday, listening to 14th and 15th century masses is a good way to gently open the day. Add in American late-18th and 19th century congregational hymns (shape note music - heard in the movie "Cold Mountain") and you have my own brand of stress-reducer.

Micro-Vacations - nice if you can get 'em

I haven't held to the idea of one Friday off each month - micro=vacations. Too much "stuff", work-related and not.

But this last week, yes. April 15th was a good enough reason to start with. Not just the obvious, but also the fact that our usual resort retreat was offering a free night Wednesday to regulars. Add that to the Winter special of one free night for three consecutive nights and the answer is "Four nights for the price of two? Where do I sign?!"

We drove up Wednesday evening. April is late for us to make this journey and it was strange to spend most of the journey in the light. Instead of fighting our way down 19th in San Francisco we took Sunset (Dick's idea). It meant the happy addition of a drive through Golden Gate Park (or a part thereof). Very, very nice indeed.

Our phones barely worked while there. No Internet access, unless you wish to pay $1/15 minutes in the Coffee Bazaar. We didn't.

Music, books (electronic and others), good food, good weather and spectacular scenery along Route 116 before the coast highway into Jenner (and even more spectacular views of the Pacific).

As always, by the third day we were completely unwound (or unravelled). Just in time to pack up on the fourth day. But I suppose it wouldn't be a micro-vacation had we stayed longer.

Back down to the Bay Area on Sunday, with a call in on Gertrude on the way. Well she wears her ninety-one years.

Five miles, barefoot, in the snow, uphill, there AND back!

I suppose he meant nothing by it. Youth can be innocent. Those of us who are no longer youthful, at least chronologically, are unlikely to have the i-word apply as much as it might have in the past.

And, while I practice my own wide-eyed innocent look, I am certain I fool no people any of the time.

But even so. In the middle of the evening, eating what could only serve as "fuel" rather than "food", in an airport I described how I had the chance to visit CERN in the late eighties. Digital had a large contingent of amazing engineers there - not I, I was just a tourist - and I got to see one of their computer rooms.

I made mention of the banks of tape drives (reel and cartridge if memory serves).

The newest member of our team asked me how they worked. "Did they rewind and fast-forward to read the data?" he asked. And, I regret to say, he gave all indication that his question was serious.

I know I can still speak assembler. I know I still recall much of the instruction set of the PDP-11 and the VAX. I know I once, or more than once, loaded a (small) program in binary using the front switches on a DEC mini-computer.

But even so. I've never felt that old before.

I may never speak to him again.

Davy's on the road again...

Not so much "...wearin' different clothes again..."

And my name's not Davy. And it was only a one-day trip. But you get the idea.

A quick trip for work to SoCal yesterday. Man was I tired by the time I got home again. At least the flight is only about an hour, from San Jose. Happily my car knew the way to San Jose, the airport anyway, so I got there without any difficulty.

Time enough to get through security and grab a bagel and cream cheese - and put up with the posturing of a clutch of corporate cronies plotting the latest takeover of their tiny corner of the Universe. Sound catty? Sorry - but it was very, very early in the morning and I hadn't finished eating.

The day went well, meet-and-greet a lot, connect faces to email signatures and conference call voices. Play nice.

SoCal weather is very nice. Balmy, with the palm trees looking like they really belonged. As opposed to the unfortunate specimens struggling to stay alive along San Carlos in San Jose. (They look even worse with weird bluish streetlights illuminating them.)

On leaving the airport at 8-something in the evening, I plugged my phone (in its iPod mode) back into the car. The Carthusian Office of the Night poured out. I'd forgotten I had been listening to that playlist. The good monks stayed with me all the way home along 101. Soothing.

Tired today. It seem the glamor of business travel has worn off for me. Truth to tell, that happened a long time ago on a continent far away.

Talkative - I'll take any distraction I can

I had to go for a follow-up blood test today, to see about the effects of cholesterol-managing medication. I am not at all in favor of someone puncturing me with a needle (we'll table the discussion of my tattoos for another day - I happen to be inconsistent, sue me).

The phlebotomist, or perhaps nurse, was wonderfully down-to-earth and quite talkative. The entire procedure was straightforward and mercifully brief yet in that time I learned quite a lot about my interlocutor.

So much so that I really didn't notice what was going on at the inside of my right elbow. Nicely done Ma'am. I, for one, appreciate that.

Of course, distractions are not always so welcome. Or, perhaps it's that they are too welcome.

I am no more than a third of the way through typing in my NaNo novel. There are always other things to do, sites to see, even sights to see. To say nothing of other things to read.

Wearying this.

I have to fall back on words from Maeve Binchy (yes, of course we're quite the item, don't I have 20 letters of hers? Well, me and anyone else who owns "The Maeve Binchy Writer's Club" - but it wouldn't do to spoil a good name dropping opportunity, would it?)

Anyway, her words are: "I hope...you will never be among those who say that you could have written if you only had had the chance."

I'm a "chancer" as we say (we, the Irish, that is). So, I'll continue (again) to take the chance.

Oh, and Happy B-Day JG

Raw silk and gadgets

This happens everywhere I work. It must be something to do with the places I go, no?

Because of a space reorganization where I work I have moved to a different location. Gone, I'm afraid, is my view of the Santa Cruz mountains. I had the best seat in the house.

And this for a mere contractor.

A number of people have stopped by my new digs with the complaint: "How will I know all the new gadgets that are out there now you've moved?"

Gadget king it would seem.

Something to do with the iPhone ("I knew you'd have a power adapter, you have everything!"), the MacBook Air ("Do you just by everything Apple makes, no matter what the cost?"), the e-Book readers ("Of course you have a Kindle, but a Sony too?), now the MacBook ("Have you seen the new 17" one? Are you going to get one?") that have been seen in my possession over the year.

No one seems to take quite as much notice of the, seriously non-High Tech, fountain pens I usually have with me. Well, not High Tech, apart from the Namiki Pilot Vanishing Point.

It's always been thus, and I cannot really blame them. I'm a gadget nut, always have been, likely to always be.

And the raw silk? Well, it was cold that day and a short sleeved shirt wasn't going to cut it. And I have this gorgeous raw silk shirt that just needed an outing. And I do love silk.

Someone took a look at me and said "Raw silk and gadgets." I suspect she summed me up quite well.

Tickling society

Mardi Gras today - and the sun shone in the San Francisco Bay Area. On the radio (NPR, but I cannot remember the program name) someone was talking about the customs of Mardi Gras, as celebrated outside New Orleans, in small towns, in rural areas.

A day on which groups, in costume, go about the locale for the purpose of assembling the ingredients for a gumbo (or the means - money - to purchase such ingredients).

Any other day being accosted by costumed individuals demanding money in broad daylight would land same individuals in jail (unless the "costume" be designer suits and the individuals bankers - in which case they get enough to buy up all the gumbo ever made, but that's another story). On Mardi Gras, just hand over the cash (think of them as bankers).

It seems, if you take too much time to find your cash, the revelers have been known to take a shoe or other item of clothing. And you are expected to hop on your way in good humor.

The presenter likened the experience to being tickled. Tickling makes you laugh but, at the same time, a little uncomfortable (or a lot in some cases - I know two people who have tried to kill me when I tickled their feet).

Mardi Gras is like tickling society. It makes us laugh, but also gets under our tidy notions and makes us a little uncomfortable.

I think we need more of that.

Looks pretty odd from down here...

Perhaps you really can't go back...

Odd experience yesterday evening. A group of ex-Digital employees got together in Palo Alto and I thought to go along. Just to see. Who knows, with the networking required of a freelance career something might come of it down the line.

I was twelve years with the company, easily triple the longest stint with any company since - and yes, DEC was my first real job.

I stayed something under twenty minutes. It's not that "you can't go back". Sometimes I can't go forward. We are masters of our own limitations - and my insecurities master me when least expected.

So I made some excuse, checked the train schedule and left.

I did leave a business card so I guess that's progress of a sort.

Are you a citizen?

My instinctive answer to the above question is "Why, yes. I am a citizen."

Of course, the question really being asked is "Are you a US citizen?" and the answer I really am giving is "Why yes. I am a citizen - but not of this country."

Ah, communication. Don't you just love it?

Of course, when the affirmative answer is given the follow-up question, at least yesterday, is "Did you vote?" It all goes downhill from there.

Ask the question you want answered. I'll answer it, or not and tell you so, but only if you ask the question you want answered.

I know, someone didn't take his nicety meds today - but that's the way it is sometimes.

Of course it was meant well, but...

There I was, standing at the sandwich counter, having fun with the store employee who was constructing my lunch.

She was doing something she wasn't supposed to do, involving a baguette. I had asked her if she could replicate one of the pre-prepared ones, but with a different type of cheese. As luck would have it, she could, and would - although she wasn't supposed to.

We were laughing and joking and generally enjoying a small act of disobedience when she gestured to the array of vegetables in front of her with a questioning air.

"Dont be ridiculous", said I.

I must add that the sandwich being replicated was innocent of vegetable matter and so we really shouldn't add anything to it - not if the price were to remain the same.

She giggled at my response but it was cut short by a comment from my left.

"What do you mean 'Don't be ridiculous'? That's a good way to get cancer."

The comment was from a sternfaced, natural fiber wearing, woman.

Almost, but not quite, at a loss for words I mentioned that I was one of the few in my circle who was fond of brussles sprouts. Which, last I checked, were considered a vegetable.

"Still are." This, the parting shot, as she turned on her heel and left.

The woman behind the counter shrugged and finished my sandwich. I thanked her, we exchanged some more banter and I left.

Some people's lives contain far too much reality. This does not mean the rest of us must take up the slack all the time.

For revenge (an ignoble emotion I know) I may add that individual to the novel I intend to write next month. See if I don't!

Micro-vacation - macro-need

This weekend just passed we had one of our micro-vacations (much needed). Four days spent to the north of the Bay Area, at the Highlands Resort in Guerneville. It's a couple of hours from where we live - and a whole world away. We have been going there together for 14 years - and Dick another six or more before that.

Set among redwoods, along the Russian River, it is a peaceful place. Made more peaceful by the fact that our cellphones (mostly) don't work, we watch no television, and the room in which we stay doesn't have a phone.

Music, reading, good food, a hot tub under the stars and the Pacific Ocean only 13 miles away at Jenner by the sea.

Before you reach Jenner you pass through Duncans Mills - a (very) small town only four miles from the coast and about six feet above river or sea level. Not such a good place when the river floods.

We have become known at the Querica Gallery in Duncans Mills - even if our last visit was a year and a half ago. Ron Querica recognized us. We have a fondness for his wife's sculpture and have bought some pieces over the years.

Saturday evening we ate out - an anniversary celebration. The Village Inn in Monte Rio is another establishment we have frequented over the years. Excellent, excellent food and a great place for people watching. A wonderful range of people, many couples, of all predilections.

We drove up Thursday evening and back down Monday afternoon. And, as luck would have it, found a new Home Furnishings & Accessories store in Sebastopol. Good or bad luck? Who knows - but they do have some beautiful pieces.

Of such threads is our tapestry woven

Memory is a funny thing. From the oddest of connections flow images, sound and then emotions.

The light rail in San Jose isn't like any light rail I have been on in the past. The Hamilton platform is raised, the tracks are bridged over Hamilton and run alongside Bascom. The train comes up out of a tree-lined area in the evening as I wait for it to take me to the CalTrain station.

Even so, images of Holland, Utrecht to be exact where I spent time with Digital's Educational Services, have come to mind from the first evening I saw it. Last Monday morning, something similar. The train rises out of a tunnel, under the CalTrain station I imagine, before stopping at the platform.

Suddenly I was back in Europe. First Utrecht and then, with a glance at the overcast sky, Dublin.

Why Dublin? Perhaps because as I drove home on Sunday afternoon, from getting my glasses repaired, my journey took me past San Francisco airport. The big green shamrock on the tail of an Aer Lingus plane was right there, just off to the left of the highway.

And from there to the sound of the song, "Ar Éirinn Ní n-Eósainn Cé hí" (For Ireland I'll not tell her name). A slow, sad sound to this song. I wasn't even listening to it on my iPod, but there it was in my head.

So, early in the morning on a warm day late in September, waiting for the light rail in San Jose, California, I found myself unaccountably sad. Thinking of - well, nothing as it happens. Just feeling.

We are odd mixtures we people. Complex, interconnected - and a little random.

Hot August night

For some time now I receive a text message each morning suggesting what the weather will be like in the San Mateo area for the day and the following two days. The wonders of technology (and I have to make use of those 200 text messages included in my phone plan, don't I?)

Of course, were I in Europe those inbound text messages would not count against the total. But that's a different blog entry.

So, according to this miracle of technology, the past week should have been overcast, cloudy and with even some rain yesterday. Not so. If fact, not even close.

Over the past few days we have enjoyed more of those unremittingly blue skies I learned, very quickly I might add, to love when I "stepped off the boat" fifteen years ago.

I know that weather is an inherently chaotic system and doesn't lend itself to easy answers. But, I mean, this is California. The San Francisco Bay Area. Gateway to the Valley. Yes, that Valley. The one with the silicon (not silicone, that's the other one).

One imagines the weather patterns are well known. That there is also sufficient brain power (to say nothing of computing power) in the area to know if, out of a clear blue sky, we may expect rain.

Apparently not.

I suppose it could be worse. I could actually be in Arizona rather than just logged into a computer there. I suspect it's even hotter there than here.

I can think of better thingsto be doing at 11:00pm at night. None of them involve working on databases.

No rest for the wicked, they say. Must have been very bad then. No surprise.

Going for the Gold?

The train seemed less heavily populated this evening as I made my way home. The day was long, with work intruding on yesterday. So, too sleepy to read. What to do? What to do?

Listen in on other people's conversations of course.

Across the aisle from me two young people, one male, one female, were engaged in an animated and wide ranging conversation. She was explaining Twitter to him. He was uncomprehending.

"140 characters, that's what you have to work with."

"So, it's like blogging then, but smaller."

"I use it to keep up to date with my sisters. I like being able to know what they are doing, and they know what I'm doing."

"I can't see why you don't just blog."

"But it's really fun and easy this way."

He remained unconvinced.

Without anything like a reasonable segue they moved to discussion of the Olympics. It is possible, however, that I dozed off briefly and missed the transition.

She didn't "get" the Olympics. Was, indeed, trying to not hear/read/see anything about them. And she was somewhat offended that, even with all that effort, she knows of someone named Michael Phelps, that he is a swimmer and has more gold medals than anyone else.

The young man tried to explain that the Olympics are "important". They are "great to watch".

She admitted that she had seen half of the opening ceremonies. She still didn't understand why "running really fast round in a circle" was important.

Lord knows what she might have to say about the discus or javelin throwing events - both of which appeal to me. But then, I'm all for tradition.

He said that "diving was great, to be 100 feet up in the air and dive into the water was spectacular."

She remained unconvinced.

I suppose you could say that neither won

A day like any other - unfortunately

A mildly unsatisfying sort of a day. Sundays can be very quiet, musical, or busy with shopping, laundry, "stuff". Or all of the above. Or sometimes something else. And satisfying this can be.

And again, sometimes there are ones like this one. It started late - and I wasn't even up padding about till 3:00AM! Tied in with the late start was the need to work, to check in to see if tasks I had left running had completed (without error preferably) and, if completed, launch the next task.

Finally, later this evening, compose an email so people will be able to work on the results tomorrow without waiting around for me to get to the office and issue instructions.

A day eaten away by repeated checks on tasks running on three different servers in Arizona and launching the next stages on one or other (finally all three) of them.

Pat Ingoldsby is a Dublin street poet of whose poetry I am very fond. There is one poem of his, which I cannot recall verbatim right now - and cannot find it in the two books of his I can lay my hands on, where he, in the voice of employers everywhere, assures us that if we work really hard for five days of the week we will be allowed to take it easy for two.

The tone of the piece suggests that Pat thinks this an unfair trade. What would he think of how I spent this day?

"Eejit!" I suspect would be his comment.

Right you are, Pat. Right you are.

Burlingame to New Jersy to Dublin - long ranging conversation

So, there we were, standing in line outside the Apple store. Yes, I know. But they had 16GB Black iPhones. What is one to do?

Actually, I still have my old Generation 1 iPhone. The other member of the household has traded up. Given its capacity, he can consolidate his music from his iPod and have only one device. Not a bad excuse.

I'm holding out for a (Product) Red version. I am banking on the fact that, now that iPhones come in two colors - a third is possible. We'll see.

While in the line we got into conversation with an older couple, from New Jersey I learned late in the conversation. They were just passing and wanted to know what the line was about - and why.

We explained. I could tell they were still bemused. Speaking of the new version of the phone, Dick mentioned that you could get an application that turned it into a level - of the kind carpenters might use. "Exciting", said the woman. Although she allowed that it was not a feature that appealed specifically to her. I liked her style.

They were impressed that we were over the age of 21 and still excited about the technology. Hearing that we worked in technology ourselves they felt that this explained things somewhat.

They were quite interested in my work. Talking further they asked me if there was any real social benefit to what I do. A difficult question. Not to answer, that is. The answer is clearly "No".

But difficult because it is a question I have asked myself more than once. And I still don't like the answer. I mentioned this to them. This and the fact that my siblings feed the other, nurse the other when ill and put a roof over the head of the other (chef, nurse and carpenter as they are).

I work to improve the bottom line of companies (sometimes despite the best efforts of the management).

I did mention to them that there is one project on which I worked that has some redeeming value - I had something to do with the delivery mechanism for the Amber Alert system in New Jersey. This is when I learned the couple were from New Jersey.

They went their way, still a little bemused. A gracious pair - with an after dinner story for their children and grandchildren about two they met in Burlingame who were old enough to know better yet standing in line outside an Apple store.