On the buses

We went to the Golden Gate Bridge this evening, on the bus. Sitting opposite was a woman who took our photo. (Don't know why, she asked if she could, and it seemed rude not to). I gave her my card, and when we got home, she'd emailed the picture. That was the third time since I'd worked at CoCE that I've given someone my card - they've been clogging up my wallet (and giving me a sore bottom) for 7 months, for that.

The Building

I forgot to write about the building where the course took place, in my previous post (which, if you read this on the web page, will be the next one, but if use the RSS feed, might be the previous one, depending on how you do it.)

The building is very guarded. Not as in shy, but as in security guards around. You can't get in a lift without permission, and if you did, it wouldn't be any use, because there are no buttons.

The guard, from the control place, (after checking your ID) asks what floor you're going to, then tells you to go to lift E (say). You get in lift E, and it takes you to the floor. It doesn't even tell you what floor you are at, so that when you pass the people you want to take hostage at floor 15, you can't crowbar open the doors.

We're on the 34th floor - it makes my legs go wobbly when I stand near the window (although it's an impressive view). Presumably, they've thought about earthquakes, but I don't like to think about them all the same.

Flowers in our hair

I'm writing this from a hotel in San Francisco - partly 'cos that's the kind of hip, trendy and up to the minute person I am, but mostly 'cos S and the boys are in the hotel asleep (or comatose might be a better description for S) and the nude male revue up the road didn't really appeal.

I'm here taking a 3 day course, and S realised that as CoCE were coughing up for things like hotels and taxis, all we'd have to pay for was the flight, and we'd have three days hanging out in SF. Well, they would. I'd sit in a classroom and learn about Proc Mixed (if you don't know what Proc Mixed is, you don't want to know. If you do know what Proc Mixed is, it's cool, isn't it?)

Anyway, we booked S and the boys flights at pretty much the last minute, and the flight was completely full. So full that there were hopeful people hanging around to fill up the last seats, and they didn't all get one. Because we'd booked our seats late, and when you buy your ticket, you get assigned a seat, all our seats were in different places. So we asked the flight attendant if we could sit together.

The flight attendant asked if anyone would be willing to move so we could sit together, and a lot of people mumbled at stared at the floor. So, in a stern voice she said "You move, or you sit with THEM", and pointed at A and D. Who smiled sweetly, but had a little glint in their eye which just hinted at the evil of which they were capable. There was a flurry of activity as people rushed to give up their seats, colliding in the corridor and receiving only minor injuries.

The flight was all fairly uneventful (at least from my perspective, as I was sitting about 4 rows in front of S and the boys). Then we landed and got a taxi to the hotel.

The hotel is fairly swanky and new and sells itself as environmentally wholesome in lots of ways - there are three bins in the room for different sorts of recycling, and that sort of thing. (I kind of feel like recycling is such a minor gesture to make when, by building a hotel you are encouraging people to fly/drive to places they might not otherwise have gone, but then I can't complain, having flown here.)

In the morning, I strolled off to my course, while S had the fun of being with the boys in a strange place for a day. We met up for lunch, and then I got back at about 4:30, and we went out.

We got a cable car to the harbour sort of area - I'd try to read about cable cars, but the internet connection here is so crappy, that I can't. But I'd guess that they were pulled by a cable under the road - they look a bit like a tram. There seemed to be two people driving them, and I couldn't work out their roles. One at the back turned a handle, and one at the front pulled two levers. The one at the front seemed to pull a rope to tell the one at the back to do something. I've got a feeling it was brake, but that made me too nervous. The one at the front seemed to pull really, really hard on a big lever when we were going down hills, which made me wonder what would have happened if he'd collapsed or had a heart attack or something.

The cable cars seemed to be about 100 years old, and made of wood. The brakes (which I looked at after we got off) looked like they involved pushing a piece of wood onto the track. (We got a taxi back, it involved less walking and waiting, was quicker and more comfortable, and only cost a little more. Everyone else on the cable car seemed to be a tourist too.)

Anyway, we got to the pier, by which time the boys were tired and hungry, and it was windy and they said they were cold, but they wouldn't put their coats on (they said that that would make them colder), and we looked at the sealions. The sealions were impressive - apparently (I learned from reading the poster) they turned up in 1989, after the earthquake, and have been there ever since. Almost entirely males.

Then we went back to the hotel, S collapsed after having a day with the boys, the boys shouted a lot, had a bath (no bubble bath though :( ) and went to bed. I came downstairs, checked my email, and wrote this.

Rain

S didn't realize it was raining this morning, until she saw the blog post (which appears automatically in her email), and then looked out of the window.

The Information

Not the book, but a new piece of lingo I learned. I overheard a conversation, where someone said "I got the 411 on him". Intrigued, I investigated further. Well, I asked what that meant.

It turns out that 411 is the equivalent of what used to be 192, which they don't call directory enquiries, they call 'information'.

Even if we did refer to what you used to get by calling 192 as 'information', that wouldn't work any more. You'd have to say "I got the 818.. errmmm.. 818, not 181, no, that one's too expensive, 818500."

Scoring (Conversational) Points

It rained here this morning, for the first time since we've been here. (Well, the first time that it wasn't night.) Proper rain, which meant I had to turn on the windscreen wipers in the car, and leave them on. (I've done a couple of swipes before, when I was up in some hills.) It wasn't ultra hard rain - I might have called it very heavy drizzle, but it was enough to make me very, very wet on the way here. (I'd been thinking about taking the mudguards off my bike, as they were never useful - I'm glad I didn't, but I still had to squeeze out my socks when I arrived at work.)

Rain here seems a bit like snow in England. When it snows, everything grinds to a halt, and the Daily Mail can moan about how dreadfully inefficient things are and look at Sweden where it snows all the time, and they do fine. And the people in charge of infrastructure say "Yes, we could spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure to ensure that on the one day every two years when it snows enough to slow down a few trains we could keep them running, but it's cheaper to let the country grind to a halt for a day or two." And, I'd add that having a random selection of trains canceled makes life a little more exciting, sometimes. (Or at least makes something to blog about - if you've got one.) Things are like that here, except for rain. I mean, why build things like drains that can cope with rain, when 99.5% of the time, they are going to sit there and do nothing (except look like someone wasted a lot of money on them). Better to let a few sections of road and bike path turn into small rivers, so that people on their bikes can get wet feet.

To return to the actual subject of this post, there are usually quite a lot of other cyclists around when I ride to work. Lots of people on posh, shiny racing bikes, wearing all the skin tight stuff. Some people pottering about on beach cruisers, a couple of people on recumbents (I think it's always the same two people), and some people on hired bikes and recumbents (the hire-able recumbents look really cool, but are actually very slow, with a single speed, and heavy). At the traffic lights, you pull up to the other cyclists, and can chat. You can only chat very briefly, because you're out of breath, and the lights are about to go green - so you get a sentence, or two if you're lucky, each.

The first person to speak gets to say something witty. And then the other person has no time to think of a suitably witty response. For example, if there's a strong headwind, the first cyclist might say "It will better going home this afternoon, won't it?" and then the second cyclist can just say "yes". There's no time to think of a better response. The conversation ends there. In this situation, the first cyclist wins a conversational point. If the first cyclist says "Windy today", the second cyclist can say"yes, but it will be better going home", in which case the second cyclist gets a point. (Maybe in the first case the second cyclist can say "As long as it doesn't change direction", and then both can have a point.)

If it's a nice day, then the first cyclist might say "nice day for a ride", the second cyclist can just say "yes", and no one gets a point.

So today, as it was raining, I was immediately going to say "Weather like this shows you who the true cyclists are, eh?" The second cyclist would have no time to think of any kind of witty retort, would be forced to say "Yes", and I would get a point. But, it was raining. And there were no other cyclists, either at the traffic lights, or anywhere else. So I never scored a conversational point - but I'll save it for next time.

Not a Quiz

I was going to set a quiz, and ask what this was:

But then I decided that was too hard. To explain what it is needs a bit of background. A few weeks ago, the boys discovered how to make ice cubes. This was exciting for a while, they would freeze some ice cubes. Then they would leave them on the floor, sofa, TV, and that would be exciting. As is often the way, as time progressed, they moved on. First, they froze other vessels full of water bowls, cups, lego bricks, anything else they could think of. Then (and I don't understand this) they started to rip up paper and put that in the ice.

Next, they started to put other things in the ice - this was to help them to hold the ice, when it was frozen. They started with cocktail sticks, and when they ran out, they moved on from there.

So this is a block of ice, frozen in a cup, with some paper at the bottom, and a pair of scissors in it.

Easter food

Today I asked Daniel if he wanted some porridge, with strawberries in, for breakfast. He said "It's Easter. You are only supposed to eat chocolate. Yum yum yum."

Easter Egg Hunt

We went on an Easter egg hunt at a park near our house today, which had been arranged by a consortium of local churches. We were slightly concerned that they might have some sort of message about the 'true nature of Easter', but there was very little of that. I thought it might be some sort of church fete equivalent. But in England (and probably Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) church fetes are to raise money, and this seemed designed to get rid of it.

However, it was rather strange, for a number of reasons. The first reason was that everything was free. There was hair colouring, face painting, donkey riding, goat stroking (and rabbits and a sheep and some chickens), ice cream, cans of fizzy pop, hot dogs, fairground games (like ring tossing - with prizes, you got a crap prize if you didn't win, and a slightly less crap prize if you did), coffee, doughnuts, fire engines to climb on, a puppet show (more on that in a minute) and probably some other stuff I've forgotten. Oh, and an Easter Egg hunt.

Maybe I'm getting less radical in my old age, but it did rather successfully demonstrate the usefulness of a market economy. Because everything was free, it meant that everyone took it, whether they wanted / liked it or not. And because it was free, there was no incentive to give people what they actually might have wanted, they were taking it anyway, so a lot of it was a bit crap. Plus, there were really long queues for everything, and if they'd charged, the poor people would have got out of our way, and we could have had a go.

The main purpose was the Easter egg hunt. This was divided into age groups, so we had to wait our turn. The Easter eggs were plastic eggs which either had some sort of sweet or a small toy inside them (or sometimes both). There were, they said, just over 8,000 eggs per age group, and there were four age groups, making 34,000 Easter eggs. In the picture on the left, they are spreading out the eggs, ready for the hunt. Obviously it wasn't much of a challenge to find the eggs, but it's hard to hide one egg, when it's coloured and all you have is grass to hid them in, never mind 8,000. Children were given a bag, and sent out to collect the eggs in a special bag - you were only allowed to fill one bag. Luckily, there were plenty of eggs, 'cos A and D didn't really get the whole idea of hurrying. They'd pick up an egg, try to decide if they liked the colour, shake it to see if it sounded interesting, reject it and select another. Meanwhile, other children were rushing forward and hoovering up eggs. There were stewards around to make sure you didn't offer assistance to your children, and that you didn't put eggs in your own bag or pockets.






There was also a raffle - which was free. And it had LOTs of prizes, none of which involved tinned food. They started with bikes - there were 36 (count them) bikes. About 10 fluffy rabbits (which disappointed people who won), two Playstations, two $50 shopping vouchers, and two prizes of $500 in cash. It was an anonymous donor who gave the money for that - but why? Why would you decide that a random person who turned up for a free ticket is the person who is most deserving of your $500. I left before we got to that part of the raffle. Partly because that meant I avoided the quandary of what I would do if I won. But mostly because I was with D, he was very tired, and they were doing an awful lot of stuff about how church is great. (Not God is Great - church is great). They were handing out prayer cards, which you could fill in your, or someone else's details on, and they would then pray for you (or the other person).

The most religious part was the puppet show. The puppets sang songs about God. The video shows (bits of) them playing "We won't be fooled again" by The Who (that's the CSI: Miami theme song), except they sang "You must be born again". (There's also a bit of A and D eating their sweets - I couldn't be bothered to edit into two videos, sorry.)



Want to see some more photos? Oh, OK then.

Here are some Easter eggs.


Here's a photo of me, that was taken by either D or A.



This was the main stage, there were bands and stuff playing. This was a Christian rock band. Which reminds me of a story in The Onion - Bassist Unaware Rock Band Christian
I try to explain to people that we live near the airport, and they say things like (I'm talking about you, JD), "My parents used to live really near Gatwick (or was it Heathrow? I forget), like a 20 minute drive away". The photo below was taken from the park where the Easter egg hunt was held - it's about the same distance from the airport (runway) as our house. That's a plane (it's heading East, so it's taxiing).



That's a plane heading West, and taking off. It's harder to get the photo, because they're moving faster when they're taking off (obviously).

Bowling

I went bowling yesterday, at lunchtime. There's a CoCE bowling club, which I joined as a substitute. (If you're a real player, you have to be in a team, and you have to turn up every week, and if you don't turn up, you have to find someone to substitute for you - and you have to pay for them. So I don't even have to pay.)

I bowled with Alan. In my first game, I scored 124, and he scored 132, so I didn't feel too embarrassed. But I think I should have practiced less at the start, 'cos I flagged in the second game, and only score 58 (against his 119). Maybe no one will ask me again.

The scoring for the league is horrendously complicated - I found a document on the web, which is answers to common questions about how bowling leagues work (for when you've read the rules, and still don't understand.) It's 23 pages long, and it's here.

Question 160, for example, is:
If management has banned a league member from the center, do they qualify for
prize money through the league? Are they required to give two-weeks notice to the
league?

The answer, in case you're interested, is: When a league member has been banned from the center, it is considered a forced action. The member removed qualifies for a portion of the team prize money prorated on the number of weeks the individual contributed to the prize fund.

But how often can that happen? "You, you're barred!", they shout from that little booth that they sit in and give you your shoes from.

Anyway, today I'm very stiff, partly from bowling, which was surprisingly hard work, and I suspect partly from falling off my bike.

Again!

I've been riding my bike to college, university and/or work since I was about 16 (with occasional gaps when I lived too far away - e.g. 1990 to 1992, I never rode to work). And in that time, I can count the number of times I've come a cropper on one hand, with fingers spare. In (about) 1988, my front wheel slipped when I braked on a slope, and I slipped off, with no injuries. In about 1993 there were some roadworks on the way to work, and that made me fall off - I cut my thumb.

Until this week. First on Monday I took a tumble, and then today I was riding along, and I needed to go to the bathroom (as I now say). I rode off the cycle path, and across a paved area, towards the restrooms (as I now sometimes say). In this paved area there used to be some trees, but now there all big holes in the ground, full of sand. If you're looking at the big holes full of sand, it's obvious that they're not ground. But if you're looking at the toilets, to see which one is for chaps, and only looking at the ground out of the corner of your eye, it's not obvious. And then, when you hit the sand, sink gently into it, stop quite suddenly, and fall off sideways, it gives you quite a fright. At least in my experience.

Oh, and a grazed knee.

You can see the trees on this map. They're not there anymore. Obviously.

Sometimes the boys complain that their bedroom is too messy

Falling

I fell off my bike today. But in a very undramatic, perhaps even dull, style. I was riding up a wiggly path that goes up from the beach, and my shoelace got caught in my pedal. This happens occasionally - it's an occupational hazard - and usually one drifts to a halt, stops, and disentangles. However, two things were against me - first, I was going very, very slowly. Second, I was turning (and hence leaning) right, and it was my right shoelace that got caught.
So I fell to the ground (catching hold of a railing on the way, so I didn't fall too hard). There's a picture on the right of where it happened - that railing was the one I caught.

. It must have appeared to onlookers that I just stopped pedalling, and fell over. Someone just ahead of me on the path (he was pushing a table, which is why I was going slowly [a very small table, with wheels]) expressed slight concern, and asked what happened.

"My shoelace got caught" I said, from my prone position.
"Huh?" he said.
"My laces - in my pedal." He looked sort of blank.
"It got tangled."
"Oh" he said, looking enlightened. "Your shoestring. There's no cameras watching, so it's OK".

And so as a result of my mishap, I had a slightly sore bottom and a new piece of American vocabulary.

(Shoestring makes me think of this. But maybe it's my age.)

Finally ...

Los Angeles volcano
Originally uploaded by Homies In Heaven.

Finally found a picture taken from near our house. This is taken from about half a mile west of where we live.

Ask your doctor

There's ads for all kinds of medicines on the TV here - they suggest that you "Ask your doctor" about this medicine for people who are having chemotherapy for cancer. (Really, they do advertise medicines for people with cancer.)

The Onion did a story about this a while ago. But I've just come across this video on YouTube: