I like blogging

When I started this blog in May, I had no expectations. The balance of these six months writing posts is very positive. It has been a good way of communicating, but it has had a small audience. Aside from family, not more than four friends ever check the posts. Consequently, I still get asked the silly question “How’s it going in Seattle?”, which I was hoping to preempt.

I wouldn’t call the blog a failure, however. Quite the opposite. Aside from communicating with a small audience, this blog is helping me improve my writing, and sort out my thoughts. Seeing my arguments typed and published and replied to, gives them new life. When I read old posts, I notice patterns I don’t like, and I take care to avoid them in newer posts. It is also nice to keep a record of thoughts and events.

I like the pattern of creating blog articles so much, I’ve decided to use it to keep track of my heroic attempts to teach myself higher maths and physics, and in general, of technical tidbits that don’t have a place in “Lost among Americans”.

So, this is an announcement of the birth of my new blog on the side: Lost among notes
I still have to figure how I’m going to put math equations on there, but I’ve written the first post.

As much as I appreciate your patronage, dear readers, I don’t expect you to follow the new blog. Just don’t ask me “How’s it going in Seattle?”.

On the home stretch

I love this time of the year. The gray skies, the crisp air, the warmth of bed.

Next weekend I’m going to New York, where I’ll be spending the week of Thanksgiving. I haven’t been there since February. Then, Christmas and New Year in Madrid. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, work should be a bit less stressful than it has been in the last months. The year is winding down, and it’s been a busy one, closing shop in New York and moving to Seattle, with the Nepal trip in between.

I’ve always liked the season. It’s not as beautiful as October, but there’s a special energy. It has become especially important since moving to the US. Going home on or around Christmas is necessary for my sanity.

This sporting life

Last Wednesday, a couple of my colleagues from the office were trying to recruit people to play football (they call it soccer) for their team, as they were short. A few of them had tried to get me interested before, so this time I offered to play with them, on the understanding that I’m no good.
It was fun. I hadn’t played football in many many years. After the game, we all stayed for a couple of drinks, chatting and watching other teams play. A fine way to spend an evening.

In my last year in New York, my friend Mike and I got Bear Stearns to sponsor a basketball team, and we played in a league. It was nice, of course, but it got a bit competitive, and a lot of the people in the team didn’t know each other, or come together as a team. Still, I made a few friends, had a couple of good games, and got some exercise.
Shortly after the end of the basketball league, Helen told me she had started frequenting a running group, and encouraged me join her sometime. Helen had decided, on her birthday, that she needed to achieve things, and had set for herself the goal of running a marathon. Since her running team met a few blocks from my apartment, I decided to go along once or twice.
The first couple of times were nothing special. I would try to help Helen a bit, and I liked having a physical activity programmed for Tuesdays. Then, a group of people started showing up regularly, and getting to know each other, and as time went by, we started to go for drinks after our runs, and to become friends. It made a great difference in my last months in New York.

I’ve been running regularly as of late, so I can run with the team when I visit New York in less than two weeks. On Thursdays, I run with a group of people. They’re nice, but are more focused on running than I am. For me, it’s just a game.

I think I’ve been involved in sports almost all the time since age eleven. First it was an obsession with basketball, then the swimming team, then a basketball team with my friends, then the rugby team for a couple of years, then back to the basketball team, then hiking trips.

I remember, when taking exams of English language, like the Trinity College and the Cambridge Proficiency, that for listening or reading comprehension, there was always some essay about sport “building character”. To me that always sounded, and still sounds, like nonsense.

I don’t know if I have learned lessons from sport, and I don’t know if it has built my character. Sports, for me, and especially team sports, are about the pleasure of physical exertion, and friendship. Enjoying sports has gained me friends, given me a certain identity, and allowed me to cross social boundaries. Who cares what effect it has on character and cholesterol?

Trick or treat?

Last Friday was Halloween. At work they took this seriously: the assistants printed out sheets of paper that said “Treats available in this office”. People who had sweets pasted those sheets on their office doors. At 3pm, the children of employees started showing up in their hunt for candy. It was cute to see their parents trying to teach them manners: “Now say Thank You!”.

My colleague Jim has very nice children. The older one was dressed up as Spiderman, and I asked “Wow, are you dressed as Batman?”. He said: “No, Spiderman!”. I said: “Oh, yeah? Well, where’s the spider?”. To this he froze, not knowing how to answer. He probably hadn’t considered that Spiderman was related to spiders. His mother chuckled, asked him to say thanks for the candy, and pushed him on to the next office.

I was struck by the lack of curiosity on the part of most of the children. None of them seemed to be talkative, or to want to show off their costumes, or to want to play. It was all about the candy, they were all on a mission. I told this to my office-mate Jon, and he said: “Well, remember these are children of software developers!” to which we both laughed. I found the explanation a bit jarring, though.

I have become as suspicious of a tech profession given as an explanation for poor social skills, as I have of arguments citing evolution to explain gender differences. Every time I hear “Well, if you think about it, it makes sense: men were historically hunters, whereas women …” I want to slap the person saying it. Please, new explanations, these are total rubbish!

About the children: I have seen children in the office at other times, and they seemed freer. For instance, Jim’s children were fascinated with my ID badge, which hangs off a retractable reel from my belt. They kept pulling it and letting it go, and excitedly told me about the last game they had played and how fun it had been.

I wonder about this Halloween trick-or-treating custom. I’m not sure I like it.

Location, location, location.

I need to remember not to underestimate the power of convenience.

Last week, the power chord of my MacBook finally died. I had to rely on my iMac, which was at the other corner of the house. It made me realize that I had an inconvenient electronic setup, and so, I reorganized.
Now my iMac, and my desk, are in the living room, next to the window. The recliner looks towards the window, and the sofa is oriented North. Not huge, but now I make better use of space, and better use of the windows.

By now I have a replacement power source for my MacBook, but since I have a desk in the room, I’m using the laptop there, instead of sprawled on the sofa. I have a nice view:

A consequence of using the laptop on my desk is that I’m mixing tasks less. I had developed a habit of using the laptop on the sofa while I listened to music or watched TV. That was not bad in itself, but I ended spending more time doing all these tasks than I should.
Now that I sit at the desk to use the computer, I’m using it less, and with more focus. The same is true of my music listening and TV or DVD watching. A net gain, if you ask me.

Something similar happened at work. My office was next to the “Think Tank”, an area with sofas, a sink, a microwave oven and a water cooler, designed to be a gather and rest area for us programmers. By company policy, there is a vending machine with free sodas, and another, not free, with sweets. The higher ups expect only positive returns from all that sugar.
During the frequent periods of stress, I had gotten in the habit of taking sweets or sodas once a day. Sugar is bad for my Crohn’s, but no healthy snacks are available anywhere near.
A month ago, we went through a move, and my new office is far from the Think Tank. In the last round of stressful days, I’ve noticed I have no desire to get sodas or sweets. This is better than Pavlovian conditioning.

Note to self: always try the easiest solutions first, they are often the best.

Friends of friends (photos from last weekend)

Again, work was intense last week and I didn’t have energy to update the blog. I don’t like it when that happens.

I don’t feel like writing a proper post about last weekend this weekend, but I did take some photos I liked, so here they go. As way of explanation: Guillermo’s good friend in Boston, Dmitri, was in Seattle for work, and we decided to meet for the first time on Saturday. Dmitri’s colleague, the aptly named Nice, drove from Vancouver, where she had been sent for work too, and joined us. After a disappointing excursion to Snoqualmie Falls, we went to Discovery Park, and then Green Lake, where we spent a while conversing with a group of friends.
Dmitri has been in the US since age 7, but you can tell he’s Russian by his directness and audacity in discussions, and a clear disregard for conventional wisdom. All qualities I like.