One advantage of living up in the Oakland Hills is that you have no excuse not to go walking in them. When you have a dog, it’s even more tempting. In the last few weeks I’ve been to Robert Sibley Volcanic Preserve (and no that’s not a brand of hot chili jam), and to Redwood Regional Park.

The first time I went with Friend Jason, who is a lot more outdoorsy than me, and has good shoes. In fact, halfway around the trail in Sibley we sat and rested, adjusted laces and so on, and I discovered that the trainers I was wearing, and have been wearing for dog-walking every day for the past few years, had worn through the sole, and were basically now only yardwork-worthy. On Jason’s recommendation I bought a pair of Keens, and now I’m super hikey man (almost).

On that first walk, we encountered some black cows, lounging in the bushes out of the sun. Gordon was a little perturbed at first (“WHAT ARE THOSE OMG”), but overall mellow about this:

The second trek was into Redwood Regional Park, which is like the little sibling of Redwood National Park, which has all the amazing huge trees. The regional one was not quite as amazing, but beautiful nonetheless. I took the trail that led down along the creek, among all the sequoias, and it was a lovely quiet spot. I used my phone to take a fancy 360 panorama. I can’t embed it here, but if you click on the image below and then click View on Google+ at the top, you will be taken to the photo page, where you can move your mouse to view all around.

Yesterday I took Gordon back up the Sibley trail, and at the top of one of the hills, I took another 360 panorama:

From that location I could actually see the whole of San Francisco, from the Sutro Tower, to the Bay Bridge, then the Golden Gate Bridge with Alcatraz in the foreground. You can’t really make that out from the image though. It was a lot sunnier than it appears in the photo too – limitations of a phone camera.

I’ll be checking out more of the parks through the year. I only ended up at Redwood because I took a wrong turn on Skyline Boulevard. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up buying some of those trousers that zip off into shorts?

Although I’m not a big wine drinker, we had a very nice trip up to stay in Booneville, Anderson Valley up in wine country. It was quite a fun journey in itself, all twisty roads and scenery. We stayed at the very nice little boutique Boonville Hotel, which has 9 comfortable rooms, fantastic food, a cozy sitting room with wood stove, great breakfast, and very friendly service.

It was a pretty quiet time, with just Cassie and I, Alex and Jason, and another couple, friends of A&J. We wandered around the quiet streets (actually street) of the off-season community, visited various wineries and tasted their wares (including lots of wine, cheese and chocolate) and generally enjoyed a quiet weekend in some beautiful scenery. Being woken by a cockerel to go down and eat an excellent breakfast with good friends is a good feeling.

Anderson Valley apparently has its own language, or at least some terms only used up here. We didn’t come across much of it, but it’s nice to think of these remote communities making stuff up like this.

I took a few photos, slideshow below. I’m slowly getting better with this beast.

Last night I went along to a Linux User Group discussion at Noisebridge on Mission. I’d heard of Noisebridge around and about the various people I follow on the web, and it was a good opportunity to check the place out and get some Linux help as well.

It’s a very lively area of SF, for sure. Once I found the front door, was buzzed in , and made my way upstairs to the space, I was amazed to find such a large space full of all kinds of technology and tools. If you’re in any way of a hacking, making or doing disposition, it’s definitely worth a visit.

The discussion itself was quite open, and I was able to pick some experts brains about some things that have confused me from the start with Linux. Namely, WHERE IS EVERYTHING? What are the default directories for things? I only ask because it seems vital when you want to compile something from source. I was pointed to the very useful Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. We also chatted about possible reasons for the periodic freezing of Audacity when I’m editing The Coiled Spring. The answer to that was a bit vague. (Problem: a water pipe that gurgles when you hit it with a heavy book. Solution: don’t hit it with a heavy book)

I wasn’t able to figure out how to compile from source, but never mind, now I use Ubuntu which is polished and shiny and I don’t have to think about it any more. And at the meeting mast night was a chap from the Ubuntu California Team, so I was able to get some info about possible support in future.

After that I went to a local tapas joint to meet Cassie and Taylor and gang for Taylor’s birthday, whereupon a cockroach ran up my leg. Oh, Mission.

Wil Wheaton reveals more of himself on the US teen quiz game show Teen Win Lose Or Draw. The story he tells mentions a VHS tape that the contestant Keri was too embarrassed to watch.

I have a similar tape somewhere (although it may have been destroyed) of me and a group of fellow pupils of Parkwood Middle appearing on Starstrider in about 1985. It was basically a schools quiz programme, with a host called Starstrider – a tall gentleman with a deep voice, tinsel hair and big cloak who was searching for intelligence in the universe. Why he was looking in Home Counties middle schools I do not know.

Tall, deep voice? Who do we know like that? Oh yes, Jim Carter, currently booming it up in Downton Abbey as Carson, the butler. His sidekick, Wart? Only DOCTOR WHO #7 HIMSELF, Sylvester McCoy!

I still have the mug they gave me.

Original Cast Recording of Threads: The Musical

Side 1

1. They’d Never Do It
2. Emergency Powers (You’re Coming With Me)
3. Protect And Survive
4. They’d Never Do It (Reprise)
5. Milk Bottle Melt
6. Sheffield Ain’t There No Mo’
7. Lootin’ ‘n’ Shootin’

Side 2

1. So Much For The NHS
2. Getting Kinda Chilly Up In Here
3. Back To The Land (Scratchin’ In The Dirt)
4. Dead Sheep Song (Should We Shouldn’t We)
5. Love Theme
6. Non-viable Offspring Blues

“Threads makes The Day After look like A Day At The Races“

During the switchover period from one job to the next, my direct deposit for my salary is not yet set up, so I’m in the weird (for me) position of getting a physical pay check every fortnight. Since moving to the US, my banking has involved going to the bank a lot more, because checks are still commonly used. Not for groceries, thank goodness, and not for most bills, but I feel like I’ve written and cashed more checks in the last couple of years than I have in the previous decade.

Luckily the fascinating modern world we live in provides me with the ability to take a photo of check, and deposit it immediately via smartphone. My pay check, however, is over the limit on the amount I can pay in that way, which is nice of course, but also a colossal PITA. I have to go to an ATM and pay it in physically. Funny how technological advances make me think that going to an ATM is a hassle. Imagine if I had to go and queue in a bank! It reminds me of friends who used to complain that their parents made them load the dishwasher. My parents didn’t get a dishwasher until I had left home, which says something, I think.

I mentioned the pay check thing to a colleague (also a Brit) and we reminisced about getting paid in cash. My first job (Superdrug, Harpur Centre, Bedford, 1988) was paid in cash – I’d get a little brown envelope, with payslip and the notes and change I had earned. I’d go straight to the Post Office to put some in savings, and then to Andy’s Records. The records made up for spending part of my day actually standing in a bin, stamping down the cardboard.

One record-buying trip I picked up Tom Tom Club’s second album, Fear of Music by Talking Heads, and Armed Forces by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Point? None I can think of. Gettin’ paid.

And so it came to pass that after 14 years of exemplary service (if I do say so myself), I left engineering and consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff and joined engineering and consulting firm Parsons. It all happened pretty quickly. I got a message through LinkedIn at the begining of November (who’d have thought it could be so useful?), went in for a chat, got an offer, thought about it, got an increased offer, accepted the offer, and started on January 14th, ten days after my 14-year anniversary with PB.

That means I’ve left the California High-Speed Train Project, and I’m now doing Systems Engineering and Requirements Management for the Caltrain CBOSS PTC project. I didn’t leave for any particular reason – I like to say I moved towards another opportunity, rather away from my old one. Certainly any doubts about my loyalty or gratitude (they did bring me to the US, after all) would be dispelled in any rational mind by the fact I worked there for 14 years, 4 of them on the last project. In the end, it was just a business decision in favor of my family.

As far as High-Speed rail is concerned, I wish that project all the best. California, the US, and the world needs it. It’s expensive, but well worth it. People who disagree are wrong for many reasons.

It also means a move from IBM Rational DOORS to IBM Rational RequisitePro, which is a chance to learn a new tool, but sadly still means I’m subject to the IBM sanity tax.

The new place will be easier to tell people about, certainly. Just “Parsons” instead of “Panarsons Bricknerhoof(sp?)”. And of course they use a variant of one of my favorite typefaces, Microgramma, as used by awesome things like the late Gerry Anderson’s UFO, the current Iain M Banks book covers, and HAL 9000′s displays in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its derivatives.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do recently, and because it’s a bit ephemeral, or at least “meta”, I need to be able to describe it clearly. A recently-developed tool has made it a lot easier.

Late last year, Randall Munroe’s excellent xkcd webcomic published a diagram and description of the Saturn V rocket, with a twist – he only used the top thousand most-used words. After seeing that, and realizing how having to reduce the description of something complex to simple words makes you think harder about describing it, Theo Sanderson hacked together a text editor that only lets you use the thousand most-used words. In fact, because ‘thousand’ isn’t on that list, it lets you use the “ten hundred” most used words. Here it is: Up-Goer 5, named in honour of Munroe’s rocket.

Here’s my description of my profession, Systems Engineering, written using Up-Goer 5:

When a business or group of people wants to build a big thing with lots of different parts, and each part is built by someone different, it is hard to make sure all the parts work together. This is because each person builds their own part without talking to the other people, or they think that building it the same way again should work this time.

I look at the thing as one big thing, then break it down into smaller things, while making sure that the parts will still go back and make the big thing work. Then each person can build their thing and be sure that when all the bits are joined, the big thing works.

I make sure that the important words that tell people what to build are written so that: everyone can understand them, they are clear about what to do, they say when the part is needed, and they are not too hard to do.

If some important words talk about something that two people need to agree on, then I make sure that they both agree, and they sign a piece of paper to say they agree. This is good when a part is needed by one person, but is made by another person.
If some of the important words need to change, I make sure that the change doesn’t cause lots of other changes in the other important words – sometimes these changes can cause surprises and problems.

I use a computer which stores the important words, and joins the important words which talk about one part with the important words which talk about another part. Then I can see what happens when some of the important words change, and check that the part that each person builds does all the things that the important words say it should do.

The computer can also make a nice book with all the important words in it, in different orders, to give to the people with the money.

How would you describe your job using this tool?

When I get home, Gordon is keen to go out, so I switch my work shoes for my walking-the-dog trainers, then head out into the night, and up on the old railroad trail behind our apartment in the Oakland hills. At this time of year, it’s completely dark, so I have my flashlight.

It’s bad enough that walking along the trail, with just the beam of the flashlight highlighting the trees and swaying branches, is like playing Slender.

What’s worse than that is when a DEER decides to trot across the trail in my flashlight beam, LOOK at me, then trot off into the trees.

What’s even worse is that Gordon saw it and MELTED DOWN.

Adding deer to the Oakland Wildlife I’ve Seen Up Close list. And the Slender Man? Well, bear in mind I only changed my shoes, so I’m wearing a suit and tie when I go up on the trail…

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?