In 2006, I: sold my house in Seattle and moved in with Susan in Oakland; went to my first geek convention; went on a fantastic vacation in Turkey; was sick for a month; joined an orchestra as a cellist, then watched it slowly collapse; finally found people to play chamber music with, and learned two entire piano trios; didn’t climb a single [...] » Read more

This is Kaylee, our dog we adopted two weeks ago from Tuffie’s Animal Rescue. Everyone who looks at her sees a different breed, but the best guess is that she’s a cross between a German Shorthair Pointer (where she gets her ears and the ticking on her chest) and a Chesapeake Bay Retriever (where [...] » Read more

After four months of searching, I was getting worried about buying a Prius in time for the September 30 deadline for full federal tax credit (it drops to 50% after that and phases out in the following quarter). Toyota Oakland and Alameda were content to offer us the wrong color or [...] » Read more

The most common things that make the muscle in your eyelid twitch are fatigue, stress, and caffeine. Once spasms begin, they may continue off and on for a few days. Then, they disappear. Most people experience this type of eyelid twitch on occasion and find it very annoying. In most cases, you won’t even notice [...] » Read more

Yesterday morning we were woken up by a cop. Turned out at around 6 or 7 am someone decided to break into my car and grab the stereo. The people across the street saw this happening and called the cops, but by the time they showed up the thief had gone. I’m [...] » Read more

The house sold, to the third offer. After the inspection, the buyers lowered their offer by $5k, plus asked for window replacement, which would have easily been upwards of a grand. This was moderately annoying since the main contested issue was exterior paint; while I wouldn’t debate the deterioration, I would certainly venture to [...] » Read more

What’s happened over the last month: I drove from Seattle to California again with a car filled to the brim with stuff. Mom was wedged in between house plants and was ordered to keep me awake. We left the night before I planned, because we were sick of sleeping on the floor in [...] » Read more

I’m sitting on the floor typing this in a nearly empty house. Movers came by yesterday; I ended up with over 70 boxes of stuff, not including the piano and other furniture. Starting the drive to Oakland on Saturday morning with a car load of computers. Mom is along for the trip. Last [...] » Read more

On Saturday, Susan and I attended Greg and Agi’s wedding up in Vancouver. While we’re a little tired of weddings (this is our third, and hopefully last this summer), this one was special because I was part of the wedding party in a way: I played cello while the groom’s party and groom walked [...] » Read more

Dental hygienists who admit to self-diagnosed OCD are a new kind of scary. [...] » Read more