Progress report...

Progress report...  Yesterday we picked up our rental truck – a monster with a 26' long cargo area.  Driving it back from Kearney Mesa to Jamul through the rush hour traffic and rain was ... intense.  I pulled into our driveway without any problems, then started to turn it around so I could back up to the house.  Next thing you know, I'm completely stuck – the rear tires were actually off the ground.

It took me a minute to absorb the situation and see how this happened.  The back end includes a lift gate and pull-out ramp.  To protect those mechanisms, a pair of “skids” extends down below them.  When the truck is on level ground, those skids are about a foot off the ground.  When I pulled off my driveway to turn around, the nose of the truck was headed up a hill with perhaps a 15% grade.  That brought the skids down to within an inch or so of the pavement.  Then when the rear wheels rolled off the pavement, the truck dropped onto those skids – and left the tires an inch off the ground, over the shallow drainage trench just off the pavement.  Sheesh!

The fix was obvious: raise the rear tires, put some rubble under them, and then I'd be fine.  My 3 ton garage jack could only lift the truck about an inch, just shy of the distance needed.  Any higher and the thing's pressure relief valve just said “no”.  Well, really “No f’ing way, dude!”, but that's a detail.  So down the hill I went to find me a good old-fashioned bottle jack, a handy thing to have anyway.  I found one a half hour away, in Spring Valley – a 12 ton bottle jack with 5" lift capacity.  That little thing made short work of raising the truck, and within 15 minutes of arriving home with it, I drove the truck out of the problem.  Whew!

The rest of the day yesterday, and so far today, we're packing and loading the truck.  Our covered patio is almost finished.  We're leaving a lot of that stuff behind, so there wasn't much to do.  Debbie's been busy wrapping all our art work with stretchy plastic film, and putting bubble wrap around the edges – she's almost done with that.  This is, in general, going much faster than we had imagined it would.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the house now looks like a category 5 hurricane ripped through the interior.  The cats are quite disturbed.  They don't like new things in general, and at the moment the house seems to be radically changing constantly.  The dogs are sleeping – they don't care what's happening, as long as we're there and not upset.  They watch us carefully, though, to see if we're unhappy – and if we were, you can be sure they'd be upset too :)

Tamme-Lauri oak in Estonia...

Tamme-Lauri oak in Estonia...  I've visited this majestic oak several times, between 1995 and 2002. The paper road map of Estonia that I purchased when I toured there had several dozen individual trees of distinction marked, and I visited them all.  The locals took very good care of each of these trees, even through the horrible Soviet years.  These days, when the country is far more prosperous, care is being lavished on them.  Estonia is the only place where I've ever seen anything like this...

Mo'i update...

Mo'i update...  Yesterday Mo'i got chest X-rays and a cardiac ultrasound, and neither of those diagnostics detected anything at all awry.  Naturally, the arrhythmia that started us down this path was completely absent.  The cardiologist told us that this eliminated all but a few of the possible causes.  The remaining possibilities were tumors on the spleen or liver (through some poorly understood mechanism, these can cause arrhythmia) or microscopic cardiac disease that's too small for the diagnostics to pick up.  It also could have been some “anomalous” (read “something we don’t understand” event that may or may not repeat itself.  The cardiologist saw nothing (even with the previous day's ECG in hand) that was severe enough to be treated.  He didn't think the arrhythmia we observed on Monday was severe enough to have caused the lethargic spell we saw.  That means that either the lethargy was completely unrelated to the arrhythmia, or that he had a much worse arrhythmia for that period.

Further diagnostics might have been able to detect one of the other possible causes.  However, when we queried the cardiologist about treatment for any of those other possibilities, they were all treatments we would not put Mo'i through at this stage (surgery, radiation, etc.).  The poor guy has problems we already know about that are not treatable, he's 16 years old, and has little enough time left no matter what we did about his heart.  We just couldn't put him through more misery for yet another medical problem.  The cardiologist, naturally, would like to have understood what the cause of the problem was – but he did understand that if that didn't lead to treatment, it really didn't matter to us (and certainly not to Mo'i).  

Yesterday and today Mo'i seems just fine, behaving in his usual old-age fashion.  His appetite is normal, and he's moving around like we're used to seeing.  This morning he enjoyed his banana ends as usual, and ate a bonus bowl of food with gusto.  We're just going to keep a good eye on him (if a severe arrhythmia shows up, we can detect it ourselves with a stethoscope, and get treatment) and be thankful for each hour we have left...

Progress report...

Progress report...  Well, we didn't get much done on the move yesterday.  Night before last, Mo'i (our 16 year old male Field Spaniel) was very lethargic – didn't want to eat (major alarm bell with him) and we had to pick him up to get him to go for a walk.  Yesterday morning we took him in to see Dr. Wilson at Steele Canyon Veterinary Clinic, and she quickly found an arrhythmia in his heart.  I had taken his pulse when we saw his lethargy, and it was 88.  Dr. Wilson found it was varying between 88 and 150, randomly – and his heartbeat sounded really weird.  She did a quick EKG and found a very odd pattern.  Bottom line: we have an appointment with a veterinary cardiologist this afternoon.

Today he's looking better – good appetite and he's eager to go out for a walk.  Figures.  But the cardiologist has the EKG, and we need to figure out why this happened.  There are, we understand, lots of possibilities.  They range from very treatable things like potassium imbalances to terminal, like a tumor on the heart.  He's very old and already suffering from terminal cancer, so we're not going to do any treatment that would cause him any pain...

Slow programming movement...

Slow programming movement...  I didn't even know this was a thing!  Reading about it, I see that it's very close to my own notion of the value of careful software craftsmanship.  I've likened it to the difference between an old-fashioned (and I thought, nearly extinct!) cabinet-maker, and the modern variety that hires high school kids, trains them for an hour, and uses MDF and modern fasteners that allow for slop and error...

Progress report...

Progress report...  Yesterday, we finished cleaning out the stuff we'd stored at our friend's barn.  We celebrated that accomplishment with a fine dinner at Descanso Junction Restaurant, with Jimmy and Michelle.  Very nice indeed!  I also met the new owners of our house yesterday, and went over some “technical” stuff with them.  They're an ambitious young couple with big plans for renovation and expansion.  We've demanded pictures :)

Today we start on the house, tossing out junk, deciding what we're going to take, and perhaps even some packing...

Terminally cute...

Terminally cute...

Music and science...

Music and science...  No photoshopping or special effects here – this is all real...

Just ran across this commencement address...

Just ran across this commencement address...  It's by Tim Minchin, an Australian musician and comedian whom I'd never heard of before.  It's quite good advice, cleverly and amusingly presented.  It's well worth 10 minutes or so of your time...

Progress report...

Progress report...  Well, at least it wasn't hot yesterday :)  A sort of standing joke between Debbie and I is that we always move in the hottest, most miserable part of the year.  Not this time!  We're more likely to suffer frostbite this time than we are to sweat.  Even here in Jamul it's quite cool – 48°F as I write.

Yesterday was the first day of the “not so much fun” part of our move.  We're going through long-stored stuff, some of it dating back to the '70s.  Much of it has been stored in our long-forbearing friend's barn for the past 15 years, and the local rodent population has built the equivalent of Mexico City amongst it.  So, as you might imagine, a significant fraction of that long-stored trove is going straight into a dumpster.  A significant fraction will be given away, and a remarkably small amount (I'm guessing about 20 cubic feet) will go with us to Utah.  Makes us feel pretty stupid about storing all that stuff, but then again, I don't know how we could ever have predicted where our life would take us.

We got about halfway through our stuff at our friend's barn yesterday, which is faster than I expected that effort to go.  We'll be finished up there either late today or tomorrow sometime, and then we start on our house.  There's less stuff for us to worry about at the house, as much of what's there that we're not taking with us has already been given away, promised to someone, or the new owners are going to take it.  So I think we're actually going to be ready to start packing up the moving truck we're renting by Wednesday or Thursday this week, well ahead of my notional schedule...

Progress report...

Progress report...  We had a nice, relaxed day yesterday, accomplishing exactly nothing.  We watched a movie at home, then drove up to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park to watch wildlife, and finished it all off with a delicious dinner at Descanso Junction restaurant.

Early yesterday afternoon I did something that was a lot of fun: I drove Dionecia B. – our friend, house-sitter, and longtime house cleaner – down to Rancho Jamul Auto Care to pick up the RV we've given her.  It's been there for months getting a myriad of little problems fixed.  At the same time, I signed over ownership to her.  Her radiant visage when she picked up the pink slip was something I'll not soon forget.  I drove behind her as she drove the RV back to her home, to make sure she made it ok – she did just fine.

Today I begin the “moving out” process: going through everything we own, deciding whether we're going to keep it, toss it away (I have a big dumpster positioned to take the junk), give it away to friends, or set it curbside for anyone who might want it to take.  It's amazing how much crap one accumulates after 15 years of living in one place!

Thanksgiving dinner...

Thanksgiving dinner ... was a wonderful thing!  Jim and Michelle had us, Michelle's sister and her husband, and a family friend join them for dinner.  They cooked a mostly traditional meal: brined roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, dinner rolls, green beans, sweet potatoes with cinnamon and nuts, cranberry sauce with pomegranate, and pumpkin or cherry pie for dessert.  We took some leftovers home with us, and we'll enjoy them a little later today.  The food was all great, and there was plenty of it.  The wine flowed freely as well :).  There was much good cheer, friendly conversation, and story telling.  A most pleasant evening, with a group of most pleasant companions...

One of the many things I am thankful for this year...

One of the many things I am thankful for this year ... is Megan McArdle.  Her posts entertain and inform me on an almost daily basis.  Here's the conclusion of her post from yesterday:

There is only one way to do Thanksgiving "wrong," and that is to fail to be grateful for the people you are eating it with, and the many other good people of this great nation who are sitting down at other tables. The rest is a sideshow. And don't be afraid to have another helping of that sideshow, with extra gravy on top.

You betcha I'm going for that extra gravy, Megan.  

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  Woke up with my wife and my dogs (and one of our cats :) this morning.  It's already a great Thanksgiving Day for me!  This afternoon, we have dinner with our good friends – even better.

Here's hoping that your Thanksgiving Day is as wonderful as mine...

I'm safely back in Jamul...

I'm safely back in Jamul...  My wife remembered me, as did the dogs.  The cats?  Not so much :)

I'm a little tired for some reason...

All the whipped creamz are mine!

All the whipped creamz are mine!

I have no desire to travel to the South Pole...

I have no desire to travel to the South Pole ... on a tractor or otherwise.  My mom will no doubt be happy to hear that.  But this Dutch woman does want to go to the South Pole, on a tractor.  She is my kind of slightly loony!

Blogging alert!

Blogging alert!  Blogging will be light-to-nonexistent for the next few days.  I'm about to climb into my truck for the drive from Paradise, Utah to Jamul, California.  That will take 14 to 15 hours, assuming I don't run into any traffic disasters, at which point I get to see my lovely bride and my dogs.  Some of the cats might even tolerate my presence :)

Scale model of the U.S. government...

Scale model of the U.S. government...  Watch the whole thing; there are lots of interesting details.  Love the audio effects!

The wisdom of doctors...

The wisdom of doctors...  Via my lovely bride:

So I asked my Doctor, "Doctor, what are we going to do about this dangerous virus from Africa?"

He said, "I don't know, he has two more years in office.

No Obama fan, she :)