Magic Spot Flowing

” ‘With any luck we will be able to ftp some suitable software and get it running on the Tera.’
‘The Terror?’
‘Tera. As in Teraflops.’
‘That does me no good at all. When you say “as in” you are supposed to give me something more familiar to relate it to.’ “

I got a Portland Water Bureau Drinking Water Quality Report in my mailbox today. There’s a section where they list contaminants, including Radium, which is measured in picocuries per liter. There’s also a “Definitions” section which defines picocuries per liter, among other things. The definition is:
“Picocurie is a measurement of radioactivity. One picocurie is a trillion times smaller than one curie.”

Note to the PWB: please see the above Cryptonomicon excerpt for my reaction to this definition.

My cranky post about moving mistakes should not be taken to suggest that I’m not enjoying things in my new place. In fact, I am. I’m on vacation from work, which itself is a delightful thing, and means I have plenty of time to unpack, organize, and enjoy myself, all of which I’ve been doing.

Moving from suburban Menlo Park to the heart of a retail district in Portland is wonderfully surreal (or perhaps surreally wonderful). All of a sudden I understand why people who live in cities eat out so much. Why worry about cooking when there are dozens or hundreds of restaurants within easy reach, many of which look quite good? Of course, this hasn’t stopped me from cooking — tonight I made stir-fry with produce and tofu bought at Food Front, a local cooperative grocery, and inaugurated my new kitchen with plenty of garlic.

Every time I step out of my house, I see people — fashionable people, cyclist people, kid people, scrub people (there’s a hospital nearby). I see buses and ambulances, scooters and skateboards. I see bookstores, massage therapists, cafes, furniture and housewares stores, and so much more. It’s resource overload. I can walk to my apartment management company’s office, to Bank of America, to Walgreens, to Trader Joe’s, to the hardware store, and to the library, all in less than fifteen minutes, and all in a length of time easy to reckon by counting the blocks (conveniently numbered and lettered) and allowing one minute per block. And that’s not even considering all the places I can get if I ride the bus into or across town. (It’s worth noting that BoA, Walgreens, TJs, and an Ace Hardware were also within the same walking distance of my old place — but that walking distance, unlike this one, didn’t contain much along the way.)

My new apartment is lovely too. I have a living room with wood floors and a bay window looking onto the western hills, two of whose segments are currently open to the night air. It gets a little hot in the afternoons, but there’s been a breeze which comes in nicely and cools things off. I have a small but powerful gas stove, easier to clean than my old one, and a kitchen with lots of storage, including an old-fashioned china cabinet that I’m keeping bulk food, spices, and glassware in. My new counters are easy to clean, too, but I miss my in-sink disposal and “compost pile” (part of the garden where I used to dump my food scraps — this is not so feasible in a third-floor apartment).

I also miss my dining area and closets. My old apartment was arranged in a kind of irregular square, which meant that I didn’t have any space lost to hallways and so it could be used for a dining area and several closets. The new place, although only a little smaller in square footage, is linear, and the hallway takes up a lot of space, so although the kitchen is larger, there’s no dining area and fewer/smaller closets. So I have to think carefully about how I’m going to use the space.

I do have a few more compensations besides the view and the windows: French doors in the bedroom that open to the living room, a claw-foot tub in the bathroom (nifty, though requiring minimum two shower curtains to avoid a water mess), secure bike storage in the basement, cheaper and indoor laundry (also in the basement), indoor garbage and recycling, and everything maintained in a bit better repair.

Today after unpacking for a while, I left the house to drop off my rent and on the way back, went to a bookstore, popped into a futon place, and dropped by the library. Then I got a massage.

Yeah, I love Portland.

I live in Portland now.

I moved starting Friday with loading, then Saturday was driving, and Sunday was unloading, though the process started ages ago with finding a place to live and packing my stuff.

This is my first real move, “real” meaning involving an entire apartment of stuff and furniture, a moving truck, a long drive, movers, etc. I’ve moved rooms before, but not a whole apartment, and not so far.

As a result, I made some mistakes in the process, which I want to detail here, not in the interest of berating myself or anyone else involved, but in the interest of not making the same mistakes twice.

Mistake #1: Failure to correctly estimate the volume of stuff I own.
I made a substantial underestimation in choosing which size truck to rent. I chose the smallest, 10′ U-Haul truck, when really, to accommodate everything in my apartment, I definitely needed the next larger one. I blame myself mainly, because I didn’t look carefully enough to realize that my tall bookcases would not stand upright in the smallest one (it is VERY close) and that it was just smaller than I envisioned, but it is also sort of U-Haul’s fault in that they claim that said truck can move apartments up to 1 BD, without stipulating that larger 1 BDs should use a larger truck.

The bookcases weren’t the only problem; it was also the sheer volume of stuff — in the kitchen, in the closets, all the stuff I forgot to really think about when I was thinking about stuff. And the sheer amount of furniture and similar items, even with my couch and media center gone — large coffee table, dining room table, computer desk and chair, IKEA Poang chair, dresser, queen bed, etc. It’s a lot. My old apartment was pretty large and had a lot of storage, and I had it very efficiently, if not excessively, filled.

I also forgot that I had to add my office stuff to the total because this was a voluntary move on my part and its shipping would not be paid for.

Mistake #2: Not packing enough in advance.
In general, I did a reasonable job with this. Where I messed up was in not packing the “last minute” stuff sooner, and not getting rid of even more random stuff (even though I had got rid of six bags of stuff plus freecycled a bunch of things). I had left a minimal set of things out to use, but it wasn’t minimal enough and I didn’t put it away and get down to total minimalism soon enough. I was able to cook up to the day before, which was definitely a mistake. I had too much food in the house, and too many things that I didn’t absolutely need (dish drainer, shower caddy, kitchen items, electronics) hadn’t been packed. This made for stressful packing at a very literal last hour, and complicated the “too much stuff for the truck” problem by making it unclear how much stuff there really was. And packing some stuff so early on and some stuff so late left me not making ideal decisions about what to take and what to leave. I definitely packed some stuff where if I could go back in time, I’d trade it for my toaster oven, or my Poang chair, though that’s not necessarily a possible trade even so.

I found the experience of packing myself to be a lot more challenging/boring/exasperating with the amount of stuff I own now than with the amount that I’ve owned in previous moves. I think next time if I have the budget I’ll give serious thought to hiring it out. On the other hand, my packing job rocked, because I am devoted to bubble wrap and packing paper and excellent at packing tetris. I haven’t found anything broken yet, and I’ve unpacked almost everything fragile.

Mistake #3: Overly optimistic/inopportune timing.

This manifested in several ways, but they all evolved out of not looking closely at what kind of time would be needed for parts of the process.

My plan evolved starting with learning my lease start date in Portland, which turned out to be Wednesday, June 24. From there, it took into account vacation time and timing, 30-day legal notice, other people’s schedules, and days of the week to decide when to move. The plan was to load Friday afternoon (after I worked Friday morning) and drive and unload on Saturday.

This turned out not to work the way I wanted. I should have taken more time off before the loading (that is, all of Friday at least, and maybe even shifted some of my vacation time to preceding the move rather than following, although I must say I am enjoying having time off to organize and do errands).

I should not have been trying to rent the truck and drive on a weekend, when everyone wants to move, because any equipment fail (see above) is irrevocable because all equipment is busy.

We should not have planned the more/most optimistic time estimates for the drive, because it took longer, and it was stressful to be worrying about time rather than enjoying the scenery.

Most surprising to me was a mistake I made about arrival time: we should not have planned to unload at 7pm on a Saturday in the middle of one of Portland’s active restaurant/retail districts. So obvious, yet it never occurred to me until my new landlord called and was like…um…this will probably not work, because parking in NW on Saturday nights is nonexistent.

Fortunately, the drive timing mistake and the retail issue canceled each other out and we ended up doing the unload on Sunday morning, and it worked out very well.

Aside from all that, the move really went very smoothly. The truck worked, the drive was safe, those who helped me out were all completely wonderful (friends, family, and movers), and I ended up with the old apartment empty and clean and owning a set of stuff that will fit pretty well in my new apartment. And I love my new apartment, and I love Portland, so I’m a happy camper.

I got linked by Arnold Zwicky!

The trackback ended up on the first entry in that month, because his link doesn’t lead to the entry itself, but rather to all entries for the month of August, of which that one appears to be first, but is actually the last. In blogging “the last shall be first”, I suppose.

And now I’m peevishly complaining about someone blogging about my peeveblogging. But I’m still not peeveblogging about peeveblogging about peeves.

Sunday morning was my third, and more than likely last, Sequoia 50K ride.

Stats:
DST: 34.5
MXS: 34
AVS: ~10mph (overall), 12.5 (moving)
Time: 3:15 (overall)

My stats are a tad muddled because I checked my distance at the finish, but forgot to check my AVS and time, and then I rode home via Foothill. My total distance for the day was 43.4 miles. 1 mile from home to Palo Alto Caltrain, 1 mile from Arastradero and El Camino to the start, and 7 miles home.

I’m proud of myself for getting up and doing this ride — I was out in Oakland Saturday night and lost my phone, and I haven’t been training at all (except in that I’ve gone on a few other rides recently), so I was tired to start out with and not that well-prepared. Also, in the past they’ve had bagels and coffee at the start, so I didn’t eat breakfast, and when the food and drink did not materialize, I only had a few spoonfuls of the nutbutter/honey/chocolate mix I brought to start out on. Fortunately that stuff is awesome.

I still managed to do a respectable job at the climbing. Arastradero kicked my ass, leaving me exhausted and panting as usual, but I was able to do Arastradero, Alpine, and Whiskey Hill without stopping. A peloton passed me going the other way at about 35 mph in the preserve.

The organizers included a new loop on Alpine out past Portola this time, which was more climbing but a nice rural-neighborhoody excursion. The descent back to Portola (on Willowbrook) was nice and I hit 32 on one steep section.

After Whiskey Hill, it was a pretty straight shot down to the rest stop at Burgess Park, near my house. Once again I didn’t succumb to the temptation to go home in the middle, and instead had a lot of food and headed out through Menlo and Palo Alto with some acquired companions.

This part of the ride has never been my favorite. I enjoy the winding trek along Woodland (which I rarely ride even though it’s nearby), but after you pass University the pavement quality goes from fine to terrible (almost nonexistent in places) and you bump along for quite a while before turning onto Newell in Palo Alto and finishing with a trek along Palo Alto’s badly paved but otherwise pleasant streets. One notable, and sad, sight this year was the memorials at E. Meadow and the train tracks, where two Gunn High School students committed suicide in May.

The final route this year went through the neighborhoods between Meadow and Arastradero before getting back on Arastradero, rather than using the Gunn High bike path. This was less confusing and more pleasant, and provided a better view of Juana Briones park between Maybell Ave and Arastradero, although it did mean overlapping the beginning of the route more.

The most fun part of the ride for me was the scenery and the slow lifting of the fog. As I was climbing Alpine, the nearby hills were green and the Skyline ridge hills were fainter and bluish. Along Whiskey Hill, the fog could be seen starting to lift, and the descent down Woodside provided a fantastic view across to the East Bay hills, partly golden and sunny, and partly blueish and dark. Traversing the familiar route was poignant for me because I’ll have only a few more rides before I leave. I’ll miss the unique Peninsula scenery.

I was at home today when the postal carrier came by, which turned out to be a good thing, not because he had a package for me, but because he apparently thought I had already moved.

I don’t understand, because I filed a change-of-address that had a start date of 6/27/09 (the day I’m moving). I did get a notice that said that it went through, which is great, but it doesn’t actually confirm the start date, so now I don’t know if the start date is correct but my postal carrier is clueless, or they didn’t add the start date. Either way, fail.

The postal carrier kept trying to convince me that I should leave him a note on the day that I moved so they could start forwarding my mail. I thought that’s what a change of address form was for! I shouldn’t need to leave a note in my mailbox for my postal carrier to get an official change of address put into effect properly. Should I?

A friend of mine was complaining tonight about how people don’t write good bug reports. A Google search for “how to write good bug reports” turned up some sensible advice on the subject, but mostly verbose and poorly-written.

The best advice I ever got about how to write good bug reports was from my former manager. We use a tool at work that other people write for us, so they aren’t users, and we aren’t programmers. We have to work at it to write explanations that make sense to them, and they don’t intuitively understand what we’re expecting to happen in all cases.

Her advice can be summed up in three short points:

1. Tell them what the problem behavior is.
2. Tell them what you did that led to the problem behavior.
3. Tell them what behavior you want instead.

#2 is extremely important. Be as specific as possible. Write it down in a series of numbered steps. In programmer-speak this is called “steps to reproduce”. This will make your programmer happy and also make sure that they don’t ignore you because they can’t see the same problem on their setup and can’t be sure how you created it on yours.

Personally, I was having the most trouble with #3, remembering not just to complain about the problem and assume they would know why it was a problem and what the solution was, but to explain exactly what I wanted instead, in detail. Trust me, the programmer doesn’t automatically know what you want. They’re hired to write code, not read minds.

Now go forth, and write good bug reports.

If your organization happens to use Bugzilla, this information (particularly about how to write a good summary) may also be helpful.

Stats:

DST: 17.5 mi
MXS: 37.1
AVS: 14.2
Time: 1:14

Route: Route: Portola Loop “the easy way” (up Alpine, down Sand Hill).

I went riding last week and did the Sand Hill/Whiskey Hill/Woodside loop, but the weather was iffy and it was sprinkling by the time I got back, so it didn’t really feel like a spring ride. I also felt like I was really struggling with the climbing, while today, despite (or maybe because of) doing a long hike yesterday, I felt strong and steady. I can tell I’ve still got a ways to go to really be in shape again, though!

Today it was sunny, warm in the sun but with a cool (and strong) wind, and everything looked shiny and green and new. I saw swaths of California poppies and other wildflowers, great views of Windy Hill and the East Bay hills, a lizard, a big black beetle, and a deer. It was a really fantastic ride. I took Alpine up because it was windy and Alpine is less exposed and doesn’t have crazy steep parts. At the top I paused to take a picture (may post it later if I remember).

The other interesting thing about the ride was that because of the major tailwind I had on the way back (wind out of the northwest), I exceeded 30mph three times, and hit a max speed of 37.1mph on the steepest downhill section of Sand Hill. I then hit 34 on the approach to the 280 interchange and 31 on the top section of the final descent into Menlo Park. Fun!

[Didn't post this because I kept thinking I would add pictures, but it might as well be accessible while I fail to do so.]

A few weeks ago after work I was going to Merit Vegetarian Restaurant (548 Lawrence Expwy, Sunnyvale, CA). I asked Google Maps how to get there, since I haven’t been there before and I’m not very familiar with the roads in Sunnyvale south of my office.

It told me to take Maude to Fair Oaks. Maude is okay, but I wanted to take Arques, which is quieter and which I had to be on after Fair Oaks anyway, but Google was (sort of) correct: Arques is apparently not continuous, since two blocks of it serve as an offramp from Central Expwy. Which is, incidentally, a fantastic example of the way our road system is designed to favor cars. Arques would be an excellent through route for cyclists, except that it isn’t through because it’s repurposed as an offramp so that people can get to work faster because their roadway is limited-access. Fantastic.

I took Arques anyway; there’s less traffic than Maude and Fair Oaks. So I detoured by a block, managed to get into the left-turn lane on Fair Oaks to get back on Arques, and all was well. Until I got to Wolfe, crossed over, and discovered that there’s no bike lane on Arques for one block, presumably because of the way the road configuration at the intersection with Wolfe is set up. Fantastic, again.

When I finally got to Lawrence, I made another left turn and then discovered that Lawrence isn’t just an expressway, but a particularly sucky one. Unlike true limited-access, where there are only a few merge lanes at major intersections/exits, Lawrence in that section has a bunch of little roads that intersect it at “quasi-T” intersections: you can get off or on, but not cross the expressway. (Apparently Central in that same area has the same issue. Yuck.)

These are no fun for cyclists, to say the least. But luckily I wasn’t going far. I arrived at Merit with no further aggravations.

Leaving again, after a very good dinner of soup and tea, I recalled the quick search I had done earlier to find out how to get to Lawrence Caltrain (closer to the restaurant than my usual destination of (downtown) Sunnyvale Caltrain). Not surprisingly, Lawrence Caltrain is off of Lawrence, but the directions Google Maps gave me were strange, instructing me to do what looked like: exit right, make a U-turn, and go right back out to the original road. What? But both at the time I looked at it, and the time I left the restaurant, I was in a hurry and thought “Whatever. It can’t be that hard.”

As I left it started to rain, first lightly and then with increasing intensity. I got to the intersection of Lawrence and Kifer, which I recognized as the place to turn, but I saw a sign that I thought said to turn left for the train. That was wrong, it quickly transpired, but by that time I had already wasted precious moments waiting for a light to turn green for me (it didn’t), going down the wrong road, turning around, and coming back, and knew the train would have left without me.

Still, I wanted to find the darn place so that I could regroup and decide how to get home. So I went back the other way. I saw a sign that said “Caltrain Station San Zeno Way” but that didn’t tell me anything because I didn’t know where San Zeno Way was or how to get there. Little did I know that was actually the street that Google wanted me to turn on.

It turns out that what Google indicated in the first place was this:
At Kifer, exit right.
Go to the closest point where you can turn left legally, and make a U-turn.
Turn right on San Zeno Way, just before you arrive again at Lawrence.
Take San Zeno Way to the train tracks (a few blocks), and there you find the station.

Now, as it happens, as a cyclist there is something more clever you can do.
At Kifer, cross the intersection and stop in the pedestrian island.
Dismount your bike, cross the right-turn area, and walk around the little curve in the sidewalk.
Cross the next pedestrian crosswalk to the triangular island. On the other side of the island, get on your bike and start riding, heading in your original direction, but on San Zeno, not Lawrence.

What I ended up doing was giving up, taking Kifer back to Fair Oaks, and then California to downtown Sunnyvale (to get on California I had to run a non-sensored red arrow, so that was an adventure). There, I discovered the public restroom in the parking garage by the train was actually, miraculously, open.

And then, crazy person that I am, I decided to ride all the way home. Even knowing I would be completely soaked when I got back, and probably would only barely beat the next-hour train. Because the cool thing about cycling is that I am basically self-reliant when I do it, even in the dark and rain.

And it was dark and rainy, and people were driving crazily. I had someone turn left in front of me, blatantly, on purpose, when I had the right of way. People were going way too fast for the conditions. I was really glad when I got home. And much more inclined to trust Google Maps rather than my own opinions.

I haven’t found any new written resumptive pronouns in a while, but I discovered one today on the TinyURL website:

Are you posting something that you don’t want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it’s an affiliate link?

Well, if you are, I suggest that you not use TinyURL — be honest. But feel free to use a resumptive pronoun while doing so.