Magic Spot Flowing

I don’t often create posts that involve extensive quotations from other blogs, but I so enjoyed Prof. Pullum’s Language Log entry on vagueness and British weather that I feel compelled to quote it here:

Those many idealistic souls who imagine that we would do better with a language that was free of vagueness and ambiguity, its terms tightly defined so that the meaning of what we said would always be sharp and clear, forget about tasks like trying to summarize British weather in a few seconds before the news headlines. In that context you’re glad of vague hand-waving idioms of generality like by and large, and hedging adverbs like pretty, and sweeping emotion-laden adjectives ranging from human psychology to impressionistic meteorology, like miserable.

The weather as I write (it’s after 9 a.m. now, so already the sky is light here in Scotland) is cool and damp. There is a hint of sunshine from behind the thin cloud cover. Edinburgh castle will look extraordinary as always, a brooding grey mass of damp stone a thousand years old overlooking the Princes Street gardens, with hints of sun catching it from some low angle. It’s extraordinarily beautiful. Yes, there will be rain and wind some time today, and freezing temperatures in some parts of the country. But it’s easier to enjoy than it is to summarize. Humphrys was just enacting the usual British linguistic ritual of weather-grumbling. The weather isn’t literally misery-inducing. I take a certain delight in it.

In a few beautifully-constructed phrases, Prof. Pullum evokes the beauty of Edinburgh, captures the enjoyable misery of British weather, and explains the need for linguistic ambiguity. He shows himself to be a master of language in more than the purely scientific sense.

Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper Cookies: The all-year Thin Mints!

They have a slightly artificial taste that the Thin Mints don’t have, but otherwise are extremely similar. Yum!

Austenbook

The above set me to what probably sounded like a horrible crying/coughing fit but was actually out-of-control laughter, thigh-slapping, &c., much like my recent discovery of Dogs in Elk and I Has a Sweet Potato.

Hat tip for Austenbook: Shari. Thank you, Shari!

The Spoon Theory of chronic conditions [pdf]

This is so brilliant. I exactly remember that feeling from when I was having trouble with my arms. The way she explains it makes it so clear. That’s exactly what it’s really like, and it sucks, and that’s why I so greatly value my return to a relatively plentiful supply of spoons.

Back in August, training for Waves to Wine, I did a ride with J & C which ended with trip to Berkeley Bowl and the Berkeley Marina.

C & I looked at cheese while we were in Berkeley Bowl and saw Mt. Tam, which was a contestant in the Tomato Nation NCheeseAA (it made it to the final “fourmage”). The contest was the first time I’d heard of it, and Berkeley Bowl was the first place I saw it. It’s like Brie on crack — soft cheese, white rind. Triple cream. Mmmmm.

But it was $20 for a small wheel, so we decided it should be a treat for after W2W. Since then I think C has had it already herself (direct from the Creamery), but I hadn’t. Yesterday I finally picked some up at the Cowgirl Creamery shop in the Ferry Building, and today I ate half of it after getting home from donating blood (along with slices of a green apple).

Uhh….yeah. It’s the Best Cheese Ever. A robust but not overpowering flavor, slightly tangy, soft, rich, organic and vegetarian, and the milk comes from a farm where the cows are treated humanely and attention is given to sustainability and land management. This is a cheese I can get totally behind.*

A 10-oz round cost me $14, which is a hell of a lot for just any cheese, but doesn’t seem like that much for a piece of pure heaven in cheesy form.

*When I first became vegetarian I ate a lot of cheese — I’ve always liked cheese, so it was pretty much last on my list of things I wanted to worry about giving up. But over time I’ve worked on eating less of it because most cheese is produced under similar conditions to most meat, so to be consistent with my reasons for giving up meat, I would need to give up any cheese with similar production methods as well.

I don’t think I’ll ever give up cheese totally except for properly-produced stuff (for me, it’s just too hard), but I’ve greatly reduced my consumption of it and other dairy products, and tend to skew toward small amounts of high-qualty cheese. Finding a cheese that meets my criteria for production, like Mt. Tam, is very exciting. Finding out that it’s heaven on a plate is even more exciting.

…or maybe the zeroth. :)

My boss added a 5th law of PMing today:
5. If you think you just received everything you need to move forward, chances are good you’re wrong.

A moment ago, I was sitting, carefully removing pumpkin puree from my hand blender with a finger, and wondering how many other people like (plain) pumpkin enough to eat puree off an implement. This is fairly flavorful pumpkin — I’ve definitely had pumpkin that’s bland enough I wouldn’t eat it plain — but I suspect the desire to eat any kind of pumpkin plain is not that great in most people. Add sugar and spice and all that’s nice and it’s a different story, of course.

In other news, I’m getting comment-spammed so badly that I basically can’t take the time to find any new “good” commenters out of the mess. So if you’ve left a comment recently and not seen it show up, sorry, it went in the dustbin along with the hundreds of spam comments. Mail me if you need to get approved.

I wrote this as a little light work joke, but it’s funny in part because these situations do tend to keep cropping up…

The Laws of Project Management

1. There is no spec.
     1a. If there is a spec, it will change as soon as you start work.
2. There are never as many resources as the project requires.
3. Things are very urgent when people tell you what the due date is, but not when you need something from them in order to meet it.
4. Whatever it is, they needed it yesterday.

Whenever I do Portola loop on my bike, I always pass the entrance to Windy Hill OSP, and I have thought many times about riding up there and hiking, but today I finally did it. I wasn’t sure if it would work well. I thought I might be too tired, but that turned out not to be the case. Again, my W2W-acquired endurance triumphs. I’m tired now though, and planning a nap soon.

Going up on the bike takes about 50 minutes, about 8.5 miles. Mostly it’s up Alpine, and then a little ways on Portola. There are no bike racks (that I could find), but there are plenty of nice-sized trees to lock up to. Bike parking was a lot easier than car parking; the preserve was quite busy.

I wasn’t sure if I would want to do this, but ultimately we did climb up to the summit, elevation approx. 1900 feet (the entrance is around 550 ft). The hiking took about three hours, so we were going pretty slowly to cover the 5 or so miles up and down Spring Ridge Trail and the Anniversary Trail. We saw several coyotes and a small brown lizard. The views were terrific, but the thick haze did make them a bit less exciting, so it would be better on a really clear day. But you can see all the way to the ocean and all the way to Mt. Diablo. Really amazing.

Coming down on the bike is faster — 35 minutes — and of course, a lot easier.

Overall, a challenging and enjoyable thing to do. I think I’m going to try biking+hiking for more of the nearby preserves, like Arastradero and the Dish area!

I had a nice ride today with some friends up in the hills above Millbrae/San Mateo. We started at Millbrae Caltrain and went up Trousdale, which just about killed me. I rode up most of it, but walked a bit and had to stop I think four times. The grade is about 9% — pretty brutal. The view down to the bay is amazing, though.

Then we did something I’ve always wanted to try — and I’m sure my mom will have kittens when I tell her I did this — ride on I-280 in the “bikes permitted” section. (It was built on top of the original path of Skyline Blvd., so they fought not to lose the bike access because the alternatives are much more complicated.) It was only for one exit, and isn’t all that dangerous, since you don’t have to worry about merging, except at the bottoms of the exit ramps, where there are stop signs.

The next leg was Sawyer Camp Trail. It was a little busy, requiring us to keep our speed down so as not to injure any pedestrians, but it was absolutely beautiful — two lakes (San Andreas and the Crystal Springs Reservoir), deer, and oak forest. Very nice.

Then a pleasant descent down Crystal Springs into San Mateo, pizza, and a jaunt through the town before Caltraining home. Total distance: 16 miles (including the legs to and from the Caltrain stations).

I hate them. Why does everyone talking about them on the internet seem to love them, except one guy who twittered that he hates them?

Oh, and someone who thinks the “older version” solves it. No it doesn’t; the older version doesn’t have chat!

Dear Google,

Please give me back my old Gmail (with chat, thanks), where every element blended nicely into every other, instead of my messages being white while my inbox border is blue, and my chat search box being white while the top and edge are blue (or whatever color). And where my chat windows had nicely coordinating icon colors for minimize/pop-out, and blinked a nicely contrasting, if kind of obnoxious, orange.

Your new “default” theme is not the same as the old Gmail and you know it.

And your new themes are almost entirely ugly, and most of them are impractical as well.

Don’t do this to me. Make a theme that really makes it the same as it was before. Please? Pretty please?

By the way, I hate the iGoogle themes too. Can I have my old iGoogle page back while you’re at it?

…Okay, except the Terminal theme is the geekiest, coolest annoying thing ever. You are forgiven. But give me back my normal Gmail anyway.