Plans Change

Sometimes your plans change abruptly. We became aware on Friday of a homeless woman with a two week old infant and nowhere to stay--other than "in a storage pod with fourteen people", which is what it had been. So we brought them to our house and fed them and got her stuff from where she'd been staying and did the other things that seemed needful--such as taking all the wine and brandy extract and such out of the cabinets and fridge. Kid had a wheeze, so Diana took mom and baby to CHKD Hospital, where they stayed over. It looks like they'll stay over tonight, too, although that may  (or may not) be more because the hospital wants Child Protective Services to get involbed than because it's medically needful.
The point of this is that we weren't planning on doing any of this as of breakfast on Friday, and what we had been planning was abandoned without a trace.

Crowns

Got six crowns installed today. My whole upper lip and nose were entirely numb, and it turns out that it's very nearly impossible to sip tea (or anything else, but what I had was tea) when you can't feel your upper lip.

If I have any more crowns, I will qualify to be an emperor.

Point of view

Diana: "It seems ____ has a new boyfriend. Is this the guy you met? What did you think of him?"
Me: "She did not solicit my opinion of him, and I did not interrogate him."
D: "But did he seem like he might be weird and dangerous?"
Me: "If so, I would probably like him."

Wild Turkey

On the way back from Blacksburg to the Farm, we stopped and had Italian--well, Diaa had lobster, I had lasangna--at Mickey G's in Floyd, which was pretty good Then I took the back route from Rte 221 to the farm via Rte 754, which is still unpaved in parts. I saw some movement by the roadside, and it turned out to be a wild turkey with a couple of chicks. The adjacent field had a wire fence, six inch mesh, and the adult took a few tries before she got the idea "this isn't actually open and you can't get through here." We drove off so she could back up into the road and then fly over it.
Also saw a deer in the field before Vincent & Reva's.

Company Party

My employer had its annual Awards Dinner and Casino Night, and since this is my last one before retirement, we decided to attend. Half an hour of drinks to get you numb enough to go through the next hour, which included the Comedy Routine, the Look Back at 2013, the Awards, and the Company Plans for 2014. Last go round the awards part dragged on and on as the top few sales guys got award after award and everyone else sat there; this time was fewer awards and a bit more spread out, which was a lot better, After that it was dinner and conversation, which would have been followed by gambling with monopoly money, except we slipped out around 8:30 and headed home.

New Years

What an exciting New Years. I had a recurrence starting Sunday night of whatever it was that I had for Thanksgiving week in 2012, although thankfully this time has been rather milder--we caught it earlier and went to Urgent Care first thing Monday morning. Spent the rest of the day (and indeed, most of the week) taking antibiotics and propping up my leg. Tuesday, we cancelled our New Years Eve dinner reservation, pulled out the laptop and watched Hopscotch, a charming Walter Matthau movie from 1980. Wednesday, back to the doc for another shot. Today, to the hospital for an ultrasound on my ankle to see if this is being caused by a blood flow issue--which it is apparently not.
But I read a novel, parts of a couple of rule sets (Monsters and Other Childish Things, Don't Rest Your Head, Godlike) and set up Navajo Wars.

Car

Today we picked up the new car, a 2011 Honda CRV, officially "green" although I'd have called it bluish green, or perhaps grue. The purchase process at the dealership seems unnecessarily inefficient and lengthy, and--given how big a business auto sales is, and how many studies must have been made on the car-buying experience--I have to assume that is deliberate. Presumably the intent is to get you so fatigued and exasperated that the average guy is saying "Yes, I'll buy that overpriced warranty, yes, I'll sign that contract, yes, yes, anything, just please let me get the keys and go!" I tend to respond by saying "No, I don't care how sensible it seems, I'm done buying anything, at all, period", but it was still fatiguing and exasperating.
Fortunately, though, we seem to be keeping cars for 17 years after the model year, so we won't have to go through this again until 2028.

R. I. P. White Van

We're losing a family member. Yes, the 1995 Dodge Caravan, which has been with us since around 1998, is on its last legs--or more accurately, its last transmission. I replaced the engine at around 110,000 miles; we're now at 225,000, and it's time to put it out to pasture. Diana was sad to hear the verdict...right up until I said "Of course, whatever car you buy will have a functional air conditioner."

Grey hair

Got a haircut today, and Victoria said "Oh, I'm sorry, I see a grey hair there." I said "Finally!", which is, I think, not the answer she was expecting.

Casting Crowns

Dentist said I needed a crown, should take about 40 minutes. Except I'm very special. Normally she gets the casting done in one take; about once a year, she needs two tries. She couldn't recall ever having needed three tries, until me. The "40 minute" procedure took a bit over two hours, and when I got to my office, first thing on walking in the door was to grab the bottle of acetaminophen. Fun.

Marshmallows

Zoe likes them.

Kiribati

We were looking at Kiribati as a nice halfway point between Australia and the US. Buy a little property there and just chill. Except it turns out that Kiribati may be about to go underwater; their government is negotiating to move the entire population to Fiji, or perhaps Australia.

Droid 3

My Motorola W755 has been getting unreliable--turning itself off when I close it, for instance--so I've ordered a Droid 3 which should be here tomorrow. Picked that one because it is one of the few Android phones available from Verizon which will also work in Australia.

Profit

Today I sold a deal in which I get credited for making more profit than the total amount of the sale. So, $3100 sale for $3300 profit.

Yes, that sounds odd to me too, but due to the vagaries of our accounting system, sometimes that's the way it works. And of course it's a coup for any salescreature...

Terry Pratchett and the Delusion of Expertise

The Delusion of Expertise:

Something I ran across on Eric S Raymond's blog, Armed and Dangerous, from when he met Terry Pratchett.

Suddenly, stars

Today was cold and grey, with a steady rain all day. We finally got a band of clear sky this evening before the next line of clouds came in. When I went out walking the mutt, at first all you could see overhead was Venus shining bright, with Jupiter beside her. And then five minutes later, as I was coming back, there was Orion surging over the housetops, and Taurus with the misty Pleiades, and more.

Party

I attended a party held by Steven and Barbra, with a Dia de Muertos theme. (Yes, that festival is at the beginning of November, and yes, this is the weekend after Mardi Gras, but Dia de Muertos is what we had). Barbra made excellent carnitas and lots of decorated sugar skulls; Steven made a pie, vegetarian chili, and bean dip and tortilla chips, plus various non-thematic munchies, soda, beer and wine. Most of the guests seemed to know Steven from the yoga class he teaches, or from Ironman events. There was Jamie, who molds industrial plastics; Pat, who bought a house in October and gotten his books moved in, but not himself; Stacey, who had come down from Richmond to model in a photo shoot showing off an AK47 and a MAC10 with suppressor ("[the MAC10] doesn't look like a big gun, but when you're holding it out at arm's length, trying to keep perfectly still while the photographer is getting twenty shots, it gets really heavy"); and about another ten people whose names are eluding me at the moment. A typical party: get some food, then stand around with a drink in hand and talk to people. Had a good time. Daisy, the pit bull pup, was the star of the party; she is twelve weeks old and adorable, with several people saying she looks like Pete the Pup.

Hats part 2

After the sad tale of the out-of-stock hats, I was resigned to waiting until later in life. But, on Monday I said to myself, "While I'm here on Amazon anyway, you know, I might as well just check and see..." and sure enough, there was exactly one "Hat, Gambler Style, color Black, size L" in stock. And about fifteen seconds later there were none in stock, because I'd claimed that one. It was Monday night that I put in the order on Hats.com; the box arrived Wednesday. Fits just right. Clearly someone had passed the word to Mr Four Luck Dragon Venerable Hatmaker, and he made a special effort to get that one finished and dispatched to me. Yay!

Hats

I'm looking for a hat, black, gambler style. Looked at Steampunk Emporium; the one I want is out of stock and they're not sure when it will be back in stock ("varies between a few weeks and a few months"). Ordered one from Hats.com on Sunday, with standard ground shipping; it arrived on Tuesday. Unfortunately, in this case, an XL is a bit too large, and the size L is out of stock as well ("could take up to three months") . I looked at a couple of other websites, but the right size / color / style combination is out of stock everywhere I looked.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy. I set my world-renowed research and espionage organization to investigating. Whispers were exchanged in the back alleys of Bangkok, cryptic scraps of paper were silently passed from hand to hand in Angola, and a tattooed snake was examined in Iceland. My agents discovered that the entire world's production of gambler hats (black, size L) comes from Road Xing, a village in southwestern China; they are the work of a sixty-seven year old man whose name is either Four Lucky Dragon or Grumpy Venerable Hatmaker (China has two different writing systems and I'm not clear which one my spies were using). Mr. Four has been off visiting his sister and admiring his new grandnephew since October, and his apprentices are reluctant to do anything more than apply the bands to hats which Mr. Four has already blocked. And they finished that up in November. So, no new hats until Mr Grumpy finishes recuperating from Chinese New Year, goes home, and gets back to work. Plus time for shipping via yak to Nepal, bicycle cart to Bombay, and steamer across the Pacific.

[ edit: happy ending ]

afterthought: I should mention that I'm not ranting at Steampunk Emporium or Hats.com ; they both replied to emails in a timely manner and neither of them said "give us money now and we'll ship your item eventually". Sometimes you're just out of stock and that's the way it is. I myself once had a situation:

Customer: I need some Vespel (a high grade industrial plastic) , this size, that grade, in about three weeks.

Me: We're out of stock, and due to circumstances at the resin maker, that has a forty-six week lead time.

Customer: Okay, so about the middle of next month, I can live wi--.

Me: No, not "four weeks to six weeks". Forty-six weeks. End of October.

Laptop

I've been looking around for a laptop for a while; today I found a $450 Asus that was reduced to an open-box price of $319, so I picked it up. I believe Asus describes it as "Brown Suit" but I prefer "Mocha color". I suspect I'll end up adding some gears and brass filigree to the case and calling it "Professor Babbage's Patent Galvanic Difference Engine".