The marrow of history

Y’all know that I’ve been following the story of the discovery, recovery and subsequent enshrinement of the remains of Richard III as the focal point of a tourist attraction in Leceister, England.

Well, a while ago PBS showed a docu on the process that scientists followed to authenticate Richard’s bones, which I found fascinating. I mean—I don’t’ very often actually sit and watch something on TV, but this one had me riveted.

In particular, I was interested in how they found someone who had scoliosis (the condition which evidently gave Richard the hunchback appearance) and essentially tested him to verify whether a sufferer could wear plate armor and fight on horseback.

First of all—how is it that someone refuses treatment for a treatable condition? But whoo-hoo, what an amazing validation of how Richard might have lived.

Watch it. Really.

Purple squirrels

Regarding the job hunt here in the Valley They Call Silicon, I came across this the other day, and I have to say that it pretty much says it all:

 

Just a small bouquet

Right about now my friend MLD and her mom could probably use a bit of natural beauty, so special post of flowers for them:

Take whatever you need, ladies.

Virtual Public Sleaze

This story came to my attention via one of my email lists: a Reston, Va.-based cloud computing company called FORTACloud tweeted a spectacular offer of a 50% discount to the first 150 customers who sign up for services on a Monday.

And here’s the tweet:

Because obviously nothing conveys a hosting company’s hardware reliability and “up time” like a chick sprawled spread-legged across a large bed wearing nothing but bra, panties and strappy high heels.

What’s rather interesting to me is that the vast preponderance of responses were from males and appalled at the ploy.

But even more interesting was FORTACloud’s defense:

In essence, it was of exactly the same puerile level as the ad, meaning, “It’s totally not sexist! Besides…everyone else does it, so why can’t I?” They even cited Wikipedia as the clinching arbiter.

However, the scores and scores of responses that followed were not buying that, as per this brief sample.

Notably, FORTACloud has made no further attempts via Twitter to ‘splain to us why their ad is actually cool in a James Bond kind of way and not sleazy and pathetic in a geek fantasy kind of way.

Stalling for time

Panera Bread has been one of my regular coffee spots since I moved to the Valley They Call Silicon. I don’t actually eat there, beyond a bagel or the occasional bowl of oatmeal, but they provide an acceptable place to spend a couple of hours researching or writing.

Also, the people-watching is pretty good. And there are three that are geographically adequate jumping-off points for other activities in the day—Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Mountain View.

As a restaurant chain, you find the kind of standardized experience you’d expect—layout, décor, Stepford Wife interaction at the counter. (Why do they inevitably ask, “Do you have a Panera card with us?” when you’re holding it out to them?)

What’s interesting, if less attractive, is that they also seem to have no budget for maintaining their toilet facilities. (Well, the Women’s Rooms; I have no experience of the Men’s Rooms.)

Of the Sunnyvale two regular and one handicapped stalls, only one door actually can be secured with the latch. The others will only precariously hold until someone opens or closes one of the other ones, which sets the others swinging open. This is not at all restful. And it’s been that way for the three years I’ve been patronizing the place.

Curiously, the one closeable door’s bag hook has been in this condition for well over a year:

There’s never been any attempt to fix it, or to realign the doors. I wonder if no store employee ever uses the facilities to report this situation? Or perhaps if there have been reports, the parent company just declines to invest in repairs.

Over at Mountain View, now, which has been open for only a couple of years, the doors do indeed stay closed. But one of the stalls has looked like this for months:

Again, it’s as though management either doesn’t know or doesn’t care enough to make repairs.

(Actually, I noticed this week that the Sunnyvale store isn't even bothering to repair ripped booth seats.)

I wonder where all that maintenance money is going?

Gratitude Monday: Wine, Blob and Paris

Today I’m grateful that my friend Heather and her brother John are exploring one of my all-time favorite cities, Paris. It gives me a chance to revisit the place, even if only vicariously.

Plus, I take great joy that one of my favorite people is visiting one of my favorite places, because Heather is a real poster child for friendship and generosity. She’s also an exemplar of civic participation, neighborliness and curiosity. When I’m faced with the choice of trying something new (which I think I might not really find congenial), I ask myself, “What would Heather’s approach be to this.”

More often than not, I give it a shot.

Heather and her brother were the ones who introduced me to several Virginia wineries on a day-long jaunt. It was such a hoot listening to some of the pretentious spiels, especially when rattled off by 17-year-old probably Baptist boys. We had a picnic at one of the wineries and tasted a whole bunch of offerings.

I’m sure some of that is going on in Paris.

Once I sent one of my emails out, with a Washington Post story about the impending closing of a, oh, a kind of institution called Blob’s Park—out in the backwoods of Maryland, where they served German food and beer, and people danced the polka. A day or so later, Heather emailed to ask if I wanted to go on an expedition to Blob’s Park with her, her wife Jamie and some friends. And then there we were, trying to follow MapQuest directions in the country darkness to this VFW-like place, where we ended up having a ball.

One of the things that I love about Heather and John’s trip to Paris is that they take a different approach than my other friends Dick and Carolyn (who are currently on a trek throughout Italy): where Carolyn plans meticulously, with military precision (including restaurant ratings, train and bus schedules and museum hours and entry fees), to maximize the experience, I think Heather has a general plan, but lets the details fill themselves in.

On Saturday, after they spent several hours waiting in line to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower (selfie of the two drinking some celebratory Champagne, with photobombers), Heather’s last Facebook update of the day announced they were “playing with Siri (live looking for a nice place for dinner)”.

By profession an IT program manager, Heather astounds me with her many, many skills. She and Jamie “own” part of a cow (they get a certain amount of milk on a regular basis from an Amish or Mennonite farm), and they make a variety of cheeses. Years ago they started making pizzas, and I’m here to tell you that I’m salivating just a little even thinking about them. She grows vegetables every year and cooks with them to great effect. She refloored part of her townhouse, using a circular saw for the hardwood portion and a tile cutter for the rest of it.

There’s nothing she won’t take on with a sense of curiosity and an eagerness to learn. That is amazingly inspiring. Not being neighbors with her and Jamie is one of the worst parts about living here in the Valley They Call Silicon.

So today I’m overriding my envy about someone else being in Paris when I’m not, and just wallowing in gratitude that Heather’s having that particular adventure, and that I’m a friend of hers.

A view on labor

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but evidently there’s been enough rain since my condo building was erected about 20 years ago that there’s actually water damage on the second floor.

So for the past week, a crew of construction workers has been out there with saws and jackhammers. Since the stairwell closer to me is consequently blocked off, I walk the long way around to get to my car, and I therefore have occasion to check out the operation.

I have to say, yesterday morning, it was absolutely worth the extra steps, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had this view.

You’re welcome.

All systems...eh

The local NPR station, KQED, is running its Spring pledge drive this week, & I got a little miffed because one of their gifts for signing up for $15/month is an emergency kit (backpack with water, food and the like), and an Eton FRX5 Emergency Weather Radio.

You know—hand-crank, solar powered, AM/FM (although not sure why you’d want to listen to AM in an emergency; or any other time), picks up NOAA and Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) broadcasts. Sounds cool, no?

Which is why, back in January when they were running their Winter pledge drive, I became a sustaining member at that level.

Well, fine—I got the backpack with the water and MREs, but evidently they were backlogged on the radio. I got a couple of no-reply email notices telling me they would be delayed, and then nothing.

Until I heard them touting this very same combination—the emergency kit and the radio—on Tuesday.

Well, that torqued me off just a little, so I fired up their rather off-putting “contact us” page and inquired how it was that they can’t send the dag-blamed radio to people who’ve already subscribed, but they’re offering it to new members?

And I was rather amused by the system-generated reply:

Because, while it gives me two excuses for why they may not get around to responding to my inquiry, the one that interests me was the second. The one that basically says “In the process of improving our service, we’re making it worse; you understand.”

Kind of like “in order to save the village, we had to destroy it.” Although not as extreme, of course.

As a product manager, I wonder about their IT processes; how you choose a new software package and plan the implementation without making provision for the transition from the old system to the new one. Without, in the process, screwing everything up. Because making things worse—even temporarily—is a high cost for improving them.

Apparently the reply (excerpted above) wasn’t sufficient, because a few minutes later, this also appeared in my queue:

Like repeating the same doublespeak will make me feel better about being ignored.

(Actually, that must mean that the system is really, really screwed up.)

However, it looks as though some humanoid did indeed read my email, because Wednesday morning I received notification that my super-spiffy hand-crank solar-powered all emergencies all the time radio is ready to be shipped. Would it be cynical of me to think that if I hadn’t pinged them I’d never have got the thing?

Well, maybe. 

However, there’s still a huge probability that I won’t get it. While it’s going out by UPS, the last stage of shipping—i.e., actual delivery—is for some unaccountable reason contracted to USPS. So I put my chances at less than 40%.

Piled higher and deeper

As you know, I occasionally waft through Whole Foods and have a look at how the Other Quarter lives. And it amuses me to speculate on the provenance of the manure that they stock for the Spring grow-your-own-organic-salad planting season.

Because…Whole Foods.

Well, I was on the premises a while ago, and it’s baaack.

And now they’ve upped the ante, because not only do they have cow poop, they have worm poop!

Honestly, folks, you cannot make this, uh, stuff up.

That’s right, worm castings is basically vermishit. And evidently it is the absolute bee’s knees to use for amending your soil.

If you don’t mind paying top dollar:

Yes, you’d better spread that shit thin, because it’s $14 a bag.

Also, looks like they’ve raised the price on the organic free-range, fair trade, sustainably raised normal cow-and-horse manure. Last year it was $6.99; now it’s $8.

Well, that’s how it crumbles, doody-wise.

Some lucky day

Okay, I’ve been thinking some about the 70^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. And I’ve been listening to some music from that era, just…because.

Vera Lynn was perhaps the iconic British songbird of the 1940s. Her “The White Cliffs of Dover”, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” and “There’ll Always Be an England” earned her the sobriquet of the “Forces’ Sweetheart” during the war.

Remember—this was the era when radio was what tied people together across distances.

Anyhow, I have several of her recordings, so I’m going to share one that must have meant the world to soldiers at the front and families back home.