We're in the third day of a string of thunderstorms that could last through tomorrow. This isn't really the time of year for them-- they're more of a winter or summer event. The last time I lived somewhere where this was common, I was in Illinois. And thunderstorms were the beginning of the tornado season. SO glad to be back out West again.

This weather means I'm back to biking in the garage again. I'm about to finish Run Away on Netflix (I swear, James Nesbitt is everywhere), and I've started re-watching Arrested Development as my "early" entertainment for the first 30 minutes or so. I bike for 85 minutes plus warm-down, so I need a LOT of distraction out there. I should return to Season 2 of Euphoria (Hulu) again, despite the commercials. There are a couple of things on Amazon that look worthy too, but the commercial breaks just about kill me, so I mainly watch stuff on Netflix. Season 3 of Night Agent is ready, so maybe that next?

On the plane ride back from San Diego, I watched the remake of Rebecca. Armie Hammer was as handsome as ever (one of the few blond men I find attractive), though not sufficiently brooding enough. Lily James was good, though, and Kristen Scott Thomas was bracingly chilly as Mrs. Danvers. You can see why Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series always has people in the book world employing armies of Mrs. Danvers clones as agents of ruthlessness. :O

I'm still trying to get caught up with my friends-list. There are so many new people that even when I get near the end, I refresh and more posts come up! But I hope everyone had a good Easter, and that those both near and far will be seeing an end to winter soon. It has boomeranged here for a bit, but better that than an early summer.

Apart from the hotel snafu and leaving my meds behind, we had a great time in San Diego.

We started Saturday off by going to a cute little French cafe. Then we went to the Zoo. Sticker shock: Adult admission to the zoo for one day is $80! Holy cow! We rented a wheelchair to push HalfshellHusband around, but he'd still had enough after 3 hours, which was too bad. We covered about half of the zoo— it's huge! But we saw most of the birds, monkeys, and the African section. We never quite found the red pandas, and had to skip the giant pandas because you either pay extra or wait in line for more than an hour to see them. We missed the fossa, which was either indoors or hiding, but saw the serval (which was larger than I expected). We also saw the orangutan baby, the tiny Chinese alligator, and watched hippos snoozing underwater (but didn't realize we missed the chance to see a pygmy hippo! *cries*). The exhibits are large with really nice habitats, and the landscaping is beautiful. I could have spent the entire day there.

We went to dinner at BJ's Brewhouse, and had a monster pizookie for dessert. It was delicious, though our daughter shunned the blue ice cream. I can't really blame her.

Sunday, we went to the La Jolla Shores beach. Parking was a nightmare because EVERYONE was there, both local and people visiting for Spring Break. SO crowded, which was completely new. This doesn't happen in Oregon or Northern California— the weather at the beach is colder, so fewer people go there to hang out all day. Our daughter joined us, and we watched the waves and the little kids and enjoyed the sun.

Dinner was at La Cesarina, our daughter's favorite Italian restaurant. Sticker shock again! But really good food. I had ravioli with mushroom sauce, and HSH had (as usual) the lasagna.

Our daughter had to work quite a bit of Monday, but mid-afternoon we went to a cafe on an ocean bluff where people board hang-gliders to sail out over the beach. That was really neat!



Then we went to see the Padres/Giants baseball game. The stadium was really impressive, with lots of different types of food available. HSH and our daughter opted for hot dogs (what). I passed due to ongoing queasiness. The Padres' fans love them, and it was a great experience. I had qualms during the national anthem, though. The crowd near us was largely Hispanic and very patriotic, and it hurt to see that and know how badly we're treating them.

I'm not much of a baseball fan, so one of the biggest surprises for me was the number of left-handed batters. It seemed to be about 1 in 5, which apparently matches the MLB overall. Interestingly enough, my profession (embedded software engineering) also tends to have that same, higher proportion of left-handers. The new Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system is in play now. The Padres invoked it for one of the pitches, but the umpire was ruled correct. The Giants ultimately won that game (HSH was happy about that), though the Padres got their only two runs in the 9th inning, so it was close!

Our last morning there was Tuesday, and we had brunch at a New Zealand cafe(!) in the heart of downtown. It's our daughter's favorite place for French toast, and we all ordered it. SO good, though I wasn't expecting the cinnamon.

Then it was time to say goodbye, so we could get to the San Diego airport ridiculously early. It's always hard. We really wish our daughter lived closer. After the farewells, we had a slightly convoluted trip to the car rental facility, thanks to a couple of Google Maps glitches. That was a first! But the return went smoothly, and we got to the airport in time to spend about 2 hours sitting at the gate. \o?

It was great, but over much too quickly!

We got back from San Diego on Tuesday night. It was a great trip overall, and wonderful to spend so much time with our daughter. But it got off to a rocky start.

There's a lesson in here about touching bases with your hotel early, though I don't think it would have helped us. When we got to our hotel at 10:00 on Friday night, the desk clerk informed me that they had cancelled our reservation. This was because they had overbooked by 6 rooms, and the manager told her to cancel anything that wasn't pre-paid. Late at night in a strange city is not the time to find yourself without a hotel! The clerk suggested the next hotel over, which fortunately had a room. But ugh. More than the price of my carefully arranged lodging, and we were hit with the smell of mildew smell as soon as we opened the door to our room. By 11:30pm, I was searching for another place to stay for the remaining 3 nights of our trip.

I found one, which was listed as having breakfast and a fitness room. Yay! But no. When we got there on Saturday, a sign noted that they no longer served breakfast and the desk clerk informed me that the fitness room was being renovated. I could not win for losing. Also? More mildew smell when we entered THAT room.

Friday night was also when I realized that I had somehow forgotten to pack my meds. They were all in the 7-day organizer, ready to go, but it was still sitting on the bathroom shelf at home. /o\ It wasn't worth it to hunt down replacements for just 4 days, so I went without instead, but what a stupid mistake. I was also envisioning being ragingly hungry for the duration, since one of the meds and a supplement both suppress appetite and I am otherwise always hungry, so I was dreading that.

Surprise! That didn't happen. Instead, I spent each day feeling swimmy between the ears (vague-headed and with a sensation almost like having my ears randomly pop), getting sudden hot flashes, and riding the border between nausea and hunger. My blood pressure was also low for 3-4 hours each morning, and it was like I couldn't fully wake up. I wondered what I was taking that normally addressed that-- thyroid meds? Antidepressants? It wasn't until a couple of days in that it occurred to me that those might be withdrawal symptoms, rather than part of my base unmedicated state. IDK. But the lack of hotel breakfast also meant I had no coffee! I had to make up the difference with caffeinated diet soda, which... Ullllhhhh. On the plus side, we got to try Blackberry Dr. Pepper! On the minus side, I also stopped enjoying it by the second day.

More on the actual trip in a separate post. I've been busy with work and trying to get caught up with my friends-list now that we're back.

I dreamed that I was in a group of adults being taught as first graders by Mariska Hargitay. She was making us diagram sentences, which seemed REALLY inappropriate for that age, even though we were all grown-ups who should have known how to do it. \o?

I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was lots of fun. Now I'm reading the second book. There are several of these, so I might have to take a break from the series here and there.

Viewing-wise, I mentioned a while back that we'd added Ashes to Ashes (Amazon and Britbox) to our list of TV series to watch. It's a follow-on to Life On Mars, and is really just an excuse to let the Gene Genie and his sidekicks run riot in London. We are all on board with that idea, and have just started Season 2. :D We also finished Continuum (Amazon) a couple of weeks ago, and the conclusion was satisfying even if that wasn't necessarily the ending we were hoping for. But it made sense, and was consistent with the series. Always an important factor, especially for shows involving time travel.

And finally, we're flying to San Diego to visit our daughter this weekend. Nervous about what's happening with the TSA and wait times, but very excited about seeing her! \o/

The repair shop finished late on Tuesday, so it was gone almost a whole week. That's the longest I've been without a bike apart from vacations and when our garage burned up.

When I got it back, the seat post was jacked up about 3/4 inch too high. The mechanics never put it back after testing the gears, in spite of the blue painter's tape that shows exactly where to set it. The rear tool kit was also upside down (?), and they'd returned the handlebars to the neutral position. The shop had previously advised tilting them up a little to reduce the reach and the strain on the nerves of my left hand. I'd wondered if that had helped at all, but yesterday's ride produced numbness sooner than before, so clearly it did. I've restored the tilt again.

The ride itself was kind of brutal, due to the sudden jump in temperatures. I had to cut it short by 3 miles, and it was getting pretty tough by the end. It was only 87F, but that is a LOT until I start to get acclimated. My maximum temperature starts at 88F early in the season, and by August it's at 94F— and I will actually start a ride at 89F if it's not going to get too much hotter. But yesterday? Much too soon.

I finished watching Doctor Foster. Not terribly happy about the ending. Then I tried and rejected a bunch of BritBox comedies that were 1) unfunny and/or 2) too stupid to tolerate. One even had a laugh track. So I started Without Motive, a police procedural set in Bristol. Interesting mystery, but the characters are unlikable and it features a Welsh DCS who is incompetent and an alcoholic. May not finish it.

Bookwise, I've started Dungeon Crawler Carl. It was recommended to me, and so far so good. An alien species comes back to Earth to make good on the minerals/elements claim they filed (in a galactic office) 50 years earlier. All of the buildings/structures are flattened, so the only survivors are people and animals who were outside. They're eligible to play the Dungeon Crawler game, an 18-level challenge with increasing difficulty and reducing eligibility. The sole winner gets... to live? I think opting out (or not getting one of the limited admission slots) also equals death, so playing is advisable. Carl is accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, for added fun. Also? Level 1 contains goblins. \o/

I need to line up my next book. I have some free Amazon thing, but the quality is never guaranteed.

A big relief, as always, and the California state returns are in a manila envelope, waiting to go to the post office. The combined federal and state returns are the size of a substantial pamphlet now. I mentioned earlier that we had significant capital gains this year. I don't know what gets into our financial advisor sometimes (though she's really good at her job), but every 5-6 years this happens and our AGI suddenly balloons. This year? We owe about $2500 in federal taxes and $2300 in state, and that triggered a need to pay estimated tax payments in 2026. What a pain! Note that if the government(s) owed us this much back, we wouldn't get interest on the extra withholding, so why the panic?

I tried to go to our company's website to adjust my W-4 instead, but none of the links were working yesterday. Might be under maintenance. I also wanted to use the employee benefits webpage to rent a car for our upcoming trip to San Diego, but it was misbehaving too. More crap deferred onto my never-ending TODO list!

I finished reading Terminal Chaos, the second book in the Station Eternity series. That was fun— and only took me 4 days, as opposed to the 11 days to read Adventures In Calamity Physics. I knew Calamity was taking a long time, but geez! And now I'm a third of the way through the second book in the How To Become A Dark Lord And Die Trying series. It's also fun, though with way too many footnotes. My main complaint is a common issue for a lot of male authors writing female main characters: the women are highly sexed and also bisexual. It's like they're fanficcing their own creation. \o?

My bike is still in the shop, where the earliest I could possibly get it back is late tomorrow. Feeling antsy! But I got some errands done Friday and Saturday that I would normally have to split across weekends. Friday, I bought Easter candy. Saturday, I took my broken violin bow in to have it repaired and rehaired, and saw that I was near a Home Depot, so I went there afterward. I bought some CLR for the hard water stains we get, some of which showed up about 4 months after we moved back into our house. I also got a new salvia plant for the one in the front yard that 1) Died last year and 2) Whose replacement the gardener killed with Roundup. Plus some morning glory seeds (to replace the plants near the garage we lost in the fire), and a houseplant to put in the clay pot our daughter hand-painted for me as a gift. That means I have some gardening to do this afternoon...

I've been staying up too late watching Doctor Foster on BritBox, because it's an addictive train wreck. Need to get back on DST newtime again.

Well, yesterday's bike ride didn't go so well. :(

Newer bikes often have the gear-shifter and brake functions embedded in the same part of the handlebars. Pull toward you, and the bike brakes. Push sideways, and it changes gears. But... push just a tiny bit on the diagonal and it starts to chew through the derailleur cable.

So, I started to have trouble getting into the top gear a few days ago, and sure enough... I was trying to shift down for a hill yesterday, and there was a "zzzk!" sound followed by the bike going into the top gear and becoming a one-speed. :O

I had to stop and turn around, and then bike almost 5 miles home in the hardest gear. Worse yet, the bike shop is really backed up, so instead of getting my bike back today, they will not be able to even start working on it until Monday. That's forever! *cries*

I absolutely hate this handlebar design. I break a derailleur cable about once a year because of it, whereas the shift levers on my bike from 20 years ago never let me down. :(

I finished reading Adventures in Calamity Physics yesterday. There was a major plot zig around 85% of the way done, and then a zag after the 90% mark. Did not see either of them coming! Now I'm on Terminal Chaos, the second book in the series that starts with Station Eternity. I like the characters in it— especially the rock-like aliens.

This weekend, I photographed a bunch of stuff and posted it for sale on Craigslist. It included a damaged antique Victrola cabinet, which I thought I'd be lucky to give away for free. Hah! I probably should have charged something for it, just to cut down on the number of flaky people messaging me about it all weekend who couldn't seem to actually follow through. But! It went to someone who is going to strip it and restore it to its former glory, and I couldn't have asked for a better recipient.

Saturday night, HalfshellHusband and I watched Letters To Juliet, in which Amanda Seyfriend was woefully miscast (too callow) and Vanessa Redgrave made up for it. \o?

Sunday afternoon, I went for a bike ride out on the parkway. BIG surprise there— they have finally opened the rest of the lower parkway after closing it for 3 1/2 years while they, IDK, added a lane or two to the Business 80 over-crossing there? It's really nice to have the rest of that downriver option. There are always fewer people there, and I can't go very far upriver on weekends because of the increased amount of idioting that makes biking there (in clip-in pedals) dangerous. This means I don't have to do a bunch of tight loops over and over again to get my 20+ miles in on downriver days anymore. \o/

Not looking forward to the summer heat, though. Two weeks ago, we had our random 53^o day. Next week? It's supposed to hit 89^o. NOoooooooooo!

Guess what I found at Amazon, while looking through Book Nook-style LEGO and peudo-LEGO sets? A Tardis set for all the Whovians out there. This is a wooden model-kit rather than being made of LEGO-style bricks, but it's still neat. There are a bunch of other Book Nooks offered by the same company, which include a variety of Steampunk-themed things and zodiac- and tarot-related sets. \o/

I did our taxes this weekend, and even with Turbotax it was more of a pain than it needed to be. We actually owe money this year, thanks to a bunch of capital gains that I didn't even know had happened. They typically get automatically reinvested. I.e., we often don't actually see any real money, just the changes in investment account balances. And yes, I realize that's a problem most people probably wish they had. Given all this, you'd think I'd be more sold on retiring this year. But I'm leery because of Trump and his effect on the affordability of healthcare. HalfshellHusband is a high consumer of health services, so having to get independent coverage makes me nervous.

I'm 3/4 of the way through Adventures in Calamity Physics, a coming-of-age novel about a high school senior who suffers a catastrophic trauma. She has an insufferably erudite Casanova of a father, and a rather pretentious friend group she was pressed into joining by a well-meaning teacher. Despite how it sounds, it's an amusing and mostly (drily) humorous read. It's work, though. Much of the prose includes references to books or films as passing supplements to descriptions or situations, so it's full of inline citation notes. And you find yourself reading every one of them.

Movie-wise... we watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning on Netflix last weekend. Ulllhhh. The inside-the-situation-room scene was particularly bad, with some of the worst and needlessly wordiest dialogue ever seen in Hollywood. None of the actors seemed to believe in what they were saying. Plus, there's the endless over-reliance on rubber mask disguises, which wasn't believable in the first film. :( There were some fun car chases, but a lot of the movie seemed like noise and flailing trying to disguise a lack of conviction. \o?

Now, in the throes of the spring-forward bleariness, I need to get ready to go bicycling. Today will be outdoors, after three days of being stuck in the garage because of excessive wind. Welcome to spring in Sacramento. :O

I don't think I mentioned that HalfshellHusband got me a fantastic Lumibricks Time-Rift Library set for Valentine's Day. I'm really looking forward to putting it together!

In the meantime, I just finished a Starry Night set I got 2-3 years ago and never put together because of all the time spent on the house rebuild or (after moving back home) because it was still in an unopened box. I picked this set out as a birthday present however many years ago, partly because of the Starry Night theme (I have a LOT of Starry Night "merch") and also because it includes a Van Gogh minifigure with his painting. \o/

What I failed to notice at the time was that it was a mini-brick set. I haven't worked with those before, and the danger of something rebounding off the other pieces (or just falling) is very high. The smallest pieces are extremely hard to find on our Oriental-patterned rug. I didn't lose anything permanently, though the set had a few missing pieces (I improvised) and a LOT of extra pieces. The instructions were all pictures, with the number 1, 2, and 3 being the only non-Japanese (Chinese?) parts, and one of the blues was REALLY hard to make out on the diagrams— I had to get out a flashlight. This was a super-challenging build. :O

Midway through the build:





Three-quarters of the way done:



Final product with mini-artist:


I would recommend this set, except that it's no longer being made. There are other Starry Night sets, but the resulting "pictures" are usually less accurate than this one. Someone did a very creative job designing this! But if you're tempted, there's the original LEGO set (expensive!). And also these three knockoff sets at varying prices (all of which have a mini-painting, and you could add your own made-up mini-figure)! That last set is actually pretty good. All are mini-bricks, though, so be warned.

In other news, I put the coffee table together. That amounted to screwing in the legs, which were in two pieces to accommodate a flat lower section. The biggest challenge? Breaking down all that styrofoam to get it in our garbage can. It'll probably take 2-3 weeks to get rid of it.