PuppetConf

I'm at my company's annual conference. PuppetConf.

This year, it's being held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The hotel is a five-star menagerie of marble floors, carved jungle wood, and $6 cans of soda. When U.S. Presidents come to the Bay, this is where they stay. The penthouse is a 6,000 sq ft apartment with a billiard room, two-floor library, and 24K gold faucets in the bathroom.

Oh, the penthouse also comes with a complimentary sports car for the duration of your stay.

...and no, I didn't get the penthouse.

We had lots of parties as well. I don't usually frequent bars. However, sometimes, exceptions must be made. Especially when tiki statues, indoor pools, and floating jazz bands are involved.

Yes, this is an IT conference. However, not every sys admin has a beer belly, and a good many of them are runners. Each morning, at seven o'clock sharp, a group of us have braved the hills of San Francisco. Of course, since the Fairmont sits on Nob Hill, every direction is down. The experience is similar to Lake Oswego hills, but more so.

I might poke slyly at the grandeur, but these conferences are great. You get to meet people from all over the globe. And... it turns out... most people are genuinely nice, if you take the trouble to get to know them.

...even people who use the metric system...

Europeans. Gosh.

Until next time,
- Daniel

Fish capable of phishing

So you think you know about fish? Perhaps.

Do you think they're scaly and slimy with a touch of amnesia? Sorry, that's Dory. You've been indoctrinated by Pixar. Happens to the best of us.

Do you think they are conniving little creatures with dreams of world domination? Well yes. That's because they are.

In fact, I know my fish are intent on world domination. Their little beady eyes scream intelligence. They are watching my every move, tracking my footsteps, keeping both eyes on my checkbook and credit card.

And I know, one day, I'll leave the house, and they'll leave the tank. My password is strong, but it's hard to outsmart a fish. Once again, the gates of Babylon will fall to a river-bound enemy.

How did this start? A month ago, I woke up, and had the most brilliant idea in months.

"Audrey?" I said. "We need fish!"

She had nothing to say to this, and so we trounced out the door and bought an aquarium, several live plants, and seven Zebra Danios. The nice pet store man was wary. He tried to warn us...

"Anyone who says fish are stupid hasn't met a Zebra Danio" [paraphrase]

It took him--quite literally--fifteen minutes to catch them. They did not want to leave their friends. We ended up with five short-tail and two long-tail beauties. In matching plastic bags.

Apparently, these fish are used in research because of their unique regenerative capabilities. A unique strain of fish, called GloFish, have been developed by inserting the glow-in-the-dark gene from jellyfish. Needless to say, they look like a science experiment gone terribly wrong.

Our fish do not glow. However, they come from the same stock. As I watch them whirl and swirl amidst the pebbles in our tank, I see a raw intelligence. It's as though they come from a School. A School governed by our would-be ichthusian overlords.

I don't mean to sound paranoid. After all, this was my idea. I'm a 150 pound human being, with a cerebellum at least 1,000 times larger than theirs. There's no way I can lose... unless they figure out how to breed mutants.

Remember that old proverb, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"? I might need a waterbed to keep the little geniuses close while I slumber.

Just keep swimming,
- Daniel

Give me a break

I'm not a caveman. I know that doctors rate higher than a "necessary evil". In fact, because I'm so honest, I'll even grant that blood letting, applying leeches, and extracting all your teeth are no longer best practice.

This doesn't change fact. I don't like doctors.

It also doesn't change the fact that I saw two doctors last week. My dentist and my general practitioner.

My dentist was as cheery as ever. Bright pearly whites (which look like they haven't seen a minute of carnage in their lives), and an infectious, disarming smile. But then, I bet you don't get many patients if you look like the Grim Reaper after a feeding.

She looked inside my mouth. Probed a bit. Asked my favorite rhetorical question: "Does it hurt when I do this?", and proceeded to offer me two courses of treatment for my cracked rear molar.

Option #1: a filling, involving redrilling and refilling every few years. Fun times.

Option #2: a more permanent fix, consisting of a gold cap and slightly more drilling (but a one-time operation), and a higher price tag.

(She offered ceramics too, but--face it--if I'm getting half a tooth drilled out, I'm gonna go for the pirate look every time.)

I opted option two.

Three visits later, I learned--to my great relief--that I would not need a root canal. Yes, the possibility had been raised the first visit, the second visit, and the third visit. This did not help my confidence in the overwhelming, utter finality of my dentist's scientific diagnosis: "Sorry, I don't know for sure. Chew on it for a few weeks and let me know if it still causes you agonizing pain". I love those diagnoses.

Still, I can't complain. The result? No more dentists for six months. Yay.

But wait, I had more fun in my future: my first (!) adult physical exam. (I was still floating with the "no root canal" verdict, so I scheduled it for two days later.)

Turns out, a general exam is very different than a dentist exam, but still generally uncomfortable. They ask lots of probing questions and feign disappointment when you check out as a perfectly healthy 25-year-old (but just wait until you get older! muhahaha). And--regardless of how you answer that doctor's survey--they still stick their instruments into more holes than you probably care to know about.

Then, they wave you out the door, with a reminder to come back in three years for more probing. And--even then--you don't get your labs back for two weeks (meanwhile--for all you know--you're mutating into a naked mole rat).

Oh, and I forgot to mention the vaccination.

I'd been recalcitrant, and hadn't had my Tetanus booster for almost 20 years. Bad me. Fortunately, my friendly local nurse was kind enough to raise the issue. Since I'm newly married, and haven't relegated children to the cold, distant realm of science fiction, a triple whammy (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis) couldn't hurt.

"Your shoulder may ache for a couple days," she warned, before driving the needle.

Unfortunately, she didn't warn me that vaccinations may have side-effects besides muscular pain. For me, this meant a weekend spent with a slight fever, moderate case of exhaustion, and severe case of giggles. (I've apologized profusely to my wife.)

And now--two crises behind me--I thank physicians for their service to humanity. I remain, truly yours, a happy human (until my lab results come back, and designate me as the next UNESCO World Heritage Site).

Until next time,
- Daniel

Hills

Lake Oswego... it has them.

Originally, the place looked like a dream come true. Open Google Maps on your browser, zoom in... and Wow! Trails, trails, and more trails. Not those half-hearted trails you see meekly following the shoulder of a main thoroughfare. These are real trails.

Unfortunately, they're a bit more real than I would like. Lake Oswego sits on the slopes of Mt. Sylvania, a dormant shield volcano with a peak elevation of 978 feet. And--wouldn't you know it--our new apartment is near the peak.

Fun times.

I won't complain, because--after all--dedicated running trails are rare and a treat, no matter how steep they are. And these trails are prime strength training material. In 20 minutes, I get the same workout as running 60 minutes on the flat. No kidding.

Unfortunately, my fiance--who has begun building a running habit--will have to deal with them too, and soon. While these hills are intimidating to me, they're bound to have debilitating consequences for her. We may have to compromise.

Fortunately, hills (especially Lake Oswego Hills) are the master of compromise.

A downhill says, "run me for fitness"

A flat says, "jog me for fitness".

An uphill says, "walk me for fitness".

Lake Oswego says, "crawl me for fitness".

So, you see, by merely walking in our neighborhood, we'll achieve a level of fitness we never could have achieved in our respective former neighborhoods. By running, we're bound to get our names printed in Demigod Running Magazine. Fame and fortune will follow.

Okay, not really, but you get the idea.

Now, I won't deny that running must have a measure of fun, otherwise you won't do it. Also, I won't deny that running hills isn't technically 'fun', at least--not in the truest sense of the word. Fortunately, even though the Boring Lava Fields (no, really, that's what they're called) are steep and intimidating, they aren't all encompassing. There are flat alternatives. They just require a bit of driving.

Exhibit A: The Springwater Corridor

It's a dedicated multi-use path, with reasonable contours (both in the horizontal and the vertical). And... it's only 6.3 miles away from our apartment.

So, you see? All that worry, it was for naught. Running we can do. Walking we can do. Even crawling we can cope with. And Lake Oswego? It'll suffice for all three.

Until next time,
- Daniel

Moving

It's probably true that people who switch homes regularly have less clutter than those who don't. That is to say, if you buy something, you'll (at least subconsciously) be thinking about what it would mean to move it from point A to point B.

So, consider getting a Queen-size bed instead of a King (or that California King they had in the mattress store down the street).

Similarly, people who live in smaller houses have less clutter than those who live in larger houses. This is a simple extrapolation of Parkinson's Law that "work expands to fill the time allotted to complete it".

If you haven't guessed, I will be moving in the near future. Tomorrow, to be precise. Fortunately, it's not a long-distance move (which would be tiring), or a household-of-ten move (which would be back-breaking and tiring). This hop is a short one, and it's just the two of us.

Two of us?

Okay--so, I'm not just moving. I'm also getting married. Perhaps I should have led off with that. I'm living in a new apartment as of tomorrow, and my wife will be joining me after our wedding and honeymoon.

I'll elaborate later, I promise.

All that said, moving two people into the same house is not nearly as intimidating as it sounds. First off, single people rarely own large houses with lots of stuff in them. Second, they are resistant to things like pulled muscles and wrenched ligaments. As long as they don't get a particularly ornery dresser dropped on them, they'll probably be fine.

Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from here (from a clutter perspective, anyway). As soon as you have somebody close to buy things for, you tend to do that very thing. And as soon as you have kids… well…

But maybe a cluttered home can still be a happy home. And maybe you can compensate by not moving as often. And when you do have to move, maybe it's okay to give part of your gold mine to Goodwill.

In fact, maybe clutter doesn't matter much at all. And maybe I should be blogging on more consequential topics. Hey... you know... I bet marriage qualifies as consequential. ;-)

...

Spontaneous inspiration. It's a wonderful thing.

Until next time,

- Daniel

The Loupe Man

Remember the old days? The days when it took 6-8 weeks to get something by mail order? Well, those days are still among us.

See, I have a watch.

Unfortunately, this watch was defective. The crown was loose, allowing the date mechanism to change on an hourly basis. Frustrating stuff. Fortunately, we live in an age where you can still get your things repaired instead of replaced.

Being a good, eco-conscious citizen, I decided to take it in for repair.

Watch shops aren't terribly easy to find. Well, they are, but half of the shops in Beaverton seemed to be either closed or out of business. Fred Meyer to the rescue.

Fred Meyer--that superstore of all things home and household--has a watch repair guy on staff. Yes, ladies and gentleman: a genuine repair guy. Loupe and all.

I handed him the watch, and--lo and behold--he couldn't fix it. Not on-site, anyway. Apparently, replacing internal components is a surgical operation of monumental proportions. He said he would send it away to "The Shop" and get back to me.

This was mid-January. A loooonnnng time ago.

You see, I'm not used to waiting.

And face it--this is an age of two-day free shipping, with magical warehouses that operate 24/7 and have zero turnaround time. This is an age of McDonalds, with service efficiency that borders on perfect. Low margins, high volume. That's the name of the game.

Nobody told Freddy's.

Two weeks later

I went back to the store. Surely, my watch had been repaired and he'd just forgotten to call me. Nope.

Four weeks

I received a call. "The Shop" had evaluated my watch and plotted a course of action. $118 and change to repair. I felt seriously committed at this point. They would fix it or I would die a disillusioned death.

Six weeks

I returned to the store with renewed hopes. The man with the loupe dashed them again without sympathy or fanfare.

Eight weeks

I flung myself upon the mercies of God. If it was His will, I would face death without my watch: the glories of Heaven being superior to the fickleties of Earth. He was silent on this point. I continued to wait.

Ten weeks

I sat subdued in a bean bag chair, reading a travesty of modern fiction. To what depths I had fallen! Every fifteen minutes, I rummaged around in my pocket for my iPhone: to check the time. Watches were invented to solve this problem, but I had no watch. Fred Meyers had taken it from me.

The phone rang.

I answered.

It was the man with the loupe! My watch had returned!

And now--here I sit. Ten weeks of patience have paid off. However, I do not plan to revisit the watch repair man at Fred Meyers. It would take a better man than I to endure that process again. Consider yourselves warned.

Until next time,

- Daniel

The Hurt and the Lonely

People cause pain. Much of the pain in your life is caused by people: yourself or others.

A logician might come to a hasty conclusion. If people cause me pain, and pain is bad, then I should not associate with people (as though people were like hot stoves or mountain avalanches).

But what is worse? To be lonely or to be hurt?

The lonely man loses much, because he has disassociated from the ebb and flow of his fellow man. He has lost the opportunity to love others, and be loved by others.

The hurt man loses little, because for every person who stabs, there are two others who heal. He is an interesting man, full of experience and memories, able to instruct and inspire. The hurt man still capable of love has lost little indeed.

And yet the hurt man often turns into the lonely man. This is because--once hurt--his reaction is to withdraw from others. To hide in his castle and mend his wounds. Assuming this can be done. Sometimes, the wounds run so deep, they turn into scars. At this point, the hurt man must make a decision. Will he let others love him in spite of the scars, or will he sequester himself in his castle, like Beast before the Beauty?

I don't think there's a clear transition between the hurt man and the lonely man. However, one day, the lonely man wakes up, and sees himself as alone. He sees the friendships he has discarded or ignored. He sees the friendships he rejected. He sees that his acquaintances are few and his friends are fewer. He realizes that he is at a crossroads.

Will he take the road less traveled by? Will he learn to love in spite of his scars? Will he do the hard thing? The right thing?

He feels unlovable. He feels unworthy. He feels grateful for his friends and lover, but not strong enough to seek out more friends. He knows he should, but thinks he can't. He prays, he pleads, he digs deeper into the hole he has dug. He feels destined for a life on the fringes.

But there is hope. He may be entirely correct, that he--in and of himself--cannot love. However, those who are loved can learn to love by example. Even the man without friends has a loving Creator. Most of us have other friends as well. They can teach us to love.

Do you dare try?

Until next time,
- Daniel