Cats--they're in everything

Today being Friday of a very full week (for me), I’m giving you a double dose of Interwebz Catz. You might want to bookmark this for end-of quarter frenzies, or those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.

First, for the musically inclined I give you the kitty mute for your euphonium:

This second one I’m not sure of. I myself have never had a cat that would willingly go into a kitty carrier. And the only time they were insistent on remaining in them was when we got to the exam room at the vet. But still.

Neighborhood watch

I go the back way (i.e., not using I-280, like my sat-nav system expects) to get to my orthopod in Saratoga—an upscale community here in the Valley They Call Silicon.

Well, most of them are upscale, or at least ruinously expensive. But Saratoga, a mostly residential town, reminds me a lot of certain towns in The Valley (San Fernando—remember “Valley Girl”?). South of the Boulevard, of course.

There can’t be any property in Saratoga that sells for less than $2M (and that would be a scraper), and most of the homeowners don’t seem to care about the multi-year drought. You could play polo on some of the front yards, they’re that big and that green. I keep hearing echoes of Marie Antoinette as I drive through in third gear (because there are stop signs at every intersection). Or maybe it’s Madame de Pompadour. It’s certainly someone who doesn’t give a toss about conserving water.

However, I’m not here to discuss #droughtshaming, which is actually a thing here. No, as I was poking along the street I noticed this configuration of mail boxes. (Because obviously no letter carrier is going to drive up 200 yards to poke post through a letter slot.)

And I wondered what the story might be behind the mine’s-bigger-and-more-secure-than-yours schtick?

Apparently there's no HOA regulation regarding uniformity of mail boxes.

Geek style

I got a free ticket for a big data conference in San José on Monday—for which I am extremely grateful (thank you, Google). It was a bit of a surprise, because I’d forgotten all about it when suddenly late on Friday I got an email congratulating me on being the recipient.

The conference was geared primarily (well, at least 99.3%) towards developers, so I got limited value out of many of the presentations, although the woman from Pixar was really good, and the Facebook guy who gave the keynote really opened up my understanding of some of the challenges.

(Did you know that Facebook has live streaming for celebrities? I’m really hoping that if they open that up to us mere mortals, they’ll make it prohibitively expensive, because otherwise I’m going to have to block a whole bunch of people.)

Anyhoo, I had a few interesting conversations, and the people watching was excellent within the limited range of 4500 software engineers.

But there was one guy in the general session panel discussion that I just could not quite… So I thought I’d get your input.

Guys—what the hell is up with this?

Philosophy on the move

As I’ve said before, here in the Golden State, you are what you drive.

This being the Valley They Call Silicon, you also are what you post. On social media, mostly. But these days, your vehicle is the message, every bit as much as it is your ride.

So here’s another vanity plate that caught my eye:

And yes, so do I. Often.

Gratitude Monday: A lesson from the ruins

This weekend was full of the annual “Never Forget” reminders of the 9/11 attacks. You couldn’t escape them, and nor (I suppose) should you.

I personally try to distance myself from the nightmare images of continuous loops of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center, viewed on a bank of monitors across a full wall at the office in Maidenhead. Or of driving home to London on the M4 the next afternoon and seeing GSK’s headquarters flags flown at half-staff, which sent me into uncontrollable sobbing.

I do not compare my grief to anyone else’s—certainly not to that of people who woke up that morning with intact families and friendships, and went to bed with great gaping, multi-story, jet-fueled, ash-covered holes torn through them.

But here’s what I also will never forget: the friends and colleagues across Europe who called and texted me for days, to check on me, to cheer me and to show their concern for me.

A sheet of A-4 paper with a hand-lettered message taped to the elevator wall at a hotel in Florence expressing condolences to any Americans who might be staying there for the appalling wounds we’d suffered. And signatures in different inks periodically added in solidarity.

The people—familiar and unknown alike—who insisted that I (and we) did not stand alone. The ones who’ve been here all along, even when I didn’t notice them, or was sure they didn’t even exist.

It seems odd that it takes the worst possible thing to make you realize this truth, and sometimes even then it escapes you. (Well, maybe not you. But me.)

But I’m profoundly grateful for all of them who not only feel the caring but also express it. Doesn’t really matter how large or small the gesture, how eloquent or inarticulate the communication; it’s the act itself that makes all the difference. As I well know.