Happened to Me... on Marco's Blog

Cats and Dogs - Why Do So Many Americans Hate Cats?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:25:47 +0000

Meet Shasta. Shasta is a cat. Shasta is ancient by cat standards, at almost 15. She is a typical cat: cuddly and affectionate when it suits her (which includes 3a with surprising frequency), uninterested and aloof when it feels like one of those days. She plays fetch, she hisses at other cats but loves all humans, and she has long lost interest in all play that doesn’t end in her being fed a treat.

Confessions of a Linux User

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:52:11 +0000

As you may have guessed from the number of entries on Linux on this blog, I extensively use it on pretty much all computers I own. It doesn’t matter if its an ancient 486 that sits in the basement and connects once a day to data sources to mangle them for presentation as email or the latest Ultrabook from Samsung. They all happily run Linux, in particular either Kubuntu or Ubuntu Server (my one exception being the crappy Acer netbook that only runs Fedora).

Affordable Care Act: They Should Have Led With This

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:30:13 +0000

So today I received a letter in the mail. From my Health Care Provider, Kaiser. It was a message to warn me that Kaiser had spent only 77.6% of my premium on health care cost, but that the Affordable Care Act established that any HCP has to spend at least 80% of premiums on health care, and has to do everything else (administration, marketing, CEO salary) with the remaining 20%.

L'America: Why I Love America

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 14:20:24 +0000

Over the years, my European friends and family have repeatedly asked, “Marco, why do you like living in America so much?” When I hear that question, I just smile, because the answer is long and complex. Even when they pointed out all the strangeness of the Bush years, I continued smiling: what I love about America is not a particular administration, but the people and the culture.

Surely, I am no bumbling fanboy that buys into anything whole cloth. I can distinguish what I like from what I don’t, and I can see instances where Europe does better than America. There is no need to point those out to me.

The Most Translated Pages on Wikipedia

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 01:32:29 +0000

There is a list on Meta, the wiki about Wikipedia, that contains 1,000 articles deemed important for a new language version of Wiki. So if you come up with some new language (not Klingon, please!), you should first translate these articles to kick start your project.

I looked through the list and found it extremely arbitrary. It was pretty obvious it was a curated list that had someone’s opinion of the things that matter. So I decided to do my own footwork and determine what articles you should translate first.

Mall of America Security - a Witness Account

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:39:38 +0000

Several news outlets (for instance, PBS here) have reported that Mall of America has taken suspicion a little too far and has created terrorism reports on visitors performing nothing but routine visiting. Some of these visitors have allegedly ended up on counterterrorism lists. Here is my first-hand account, sent to friends a few days after a bizarre incident occurred to me. It’s a first-hand account, unmodified (down to the very lazy all-lowercase spelling):

Stingray Sting

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:33:58 +0000

[Image hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons]

So, last year, in my continuing quest not to be San Diego’s Worst Surfer, I took one step too far. In particular, the step led me onto a stingray, a lovely little creature that (understandably) is not too fond of being stepped on. Unfortunately, it decides to make its point by stinging (hence the name) and injecting a venom into your flesh.

It all happened very quickly, yet felt like a slow motion movie. I stepped into one of those sand cones that form in agitated waters. My foot moved into the center of the funnel, and there it felt something squishy, and then something that felt a lot like a bite. After a short period, another thing that felt like a bite. Then I fell backwards into the water and stumbled back to shore.

New Digs

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:54:25 +0000

What do you know? I will have to move again. Sick of living near UCSD (mostly because students don’t typically make for good neighbors), I am moving with all the belongings to Pacific Beach, the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of San Diego right South of tony and zany La Jolla.

Why Pacific Beach? I hadn’t set my mind and was open to any neighborhood close to the ocean, and Pacific Beach just had the best combination of places for me. It wasn’t impossibly expensive, and a townhouse there can be pretty sizeable and yet “affordable” (as Southern California goes).

Europe

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 May 2011 13:20:57 +0000

It’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times. My brothers and I decided to part with our old family house in Germany, since none of us was ever going to live there, and I had to go and retrieve as much of my distant past as possible. At the same time, I knew this was the last time I’d see the place and get to soak in the memories of my childhood.

Election Night

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:39:46 +0000

As a good California resident, it’s no surprise I cast my lot (figuratively) with Barack Obama, the clear favorite of the Golden State. Indeed, after the shortest election night I can remember, we heard the concession speech just after 8p and the victory speech soon after.

One has to admit that the real surprise of the night was John McCain’s concession speech. It was the McCain I remember pre-2004: the man of integrity that puts his country above his own interests and those of his party. He was gracious beyond reproach, in one fell swoop making me forget the rhetoric he had been spewing for months. Besides, the words were aided by his demeanor. John McCain seemed genuinely relieved this election was over. Not that he lost it, mind you, just that it was over and that he could return to being the man he had been his whole life long. I doubt we’ll see him running for president again.

Food, Recipes, and Health

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:50:54 +0000

It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I decided to get myself a homemade dessert. I looked up recipes for mousse au chocolat, wanting one that is original both in time of creation and inventiveness.

I got in one of my baking books that I shlep around from move to move, without really having a good reason for them. I started writing down the list of ingredients and found something that puzzled me: it called for egg yolks and whipped cream.

Coffee places in SoMa

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:38:23 +0000

I’ve been living here for about two months, and I have now visited my share of coffee places in SoMa. The following is a brief summary of my recollections – constantly updated as I find new places.

First of all, there is no dearth of choices here South of Market. The neighbourhood caters to two classical coffee addicts and is crowded with caffeine spigots. Yuppies need the jolt to get their head spinning all the time, and time wasters just have time to hang out, and coffee is just the excuse.

Mediocrity

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:34:40 +0000

One of the things that has always puzzled me is just how adverse a reaction you can get to anything average. You’d think that something average would be ok – I mean, how could it possibly be bad to be like everyone else?

Instead, in all languages I speak, there is a common thread: words that indicate averageness have negative connotations. Let’s see: mediocre (from Latin medius, middle); average; common; durchschnittlich (German for average). Even the very negative “mean” has a cognate that indicates averageness.

Moving right with Delancey Street Foundation

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:37:40 +0000

{moszoomimglink:delancey_restaurant}Well, usually a move would not warrant yet another blog post – I guess everybody goes through them, and many of us have gotten used to the whole process. I wanted to highlight, though, the movers I used this and the last time, and recommend them to everybody that cares about their stuff.

Preparing for the Move

First things first: anyone who moves has to take care of the process. Take a calendar and mark your desired move date, choose the movers and get a confirmed date. Try to get the first appointment in the day, since you don’t want to be waiting in case something goes wrong with the move before you, and let that be a priority over the date.

Back from Whistler

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:37:56 +0000

{moszoomimglink:sunny_for_a_change}Thanks to the virtually infinite generosity of my friends Paul and Justin, I got to hang out at their place in Whistler this year for the second time. What was different this time? Well, I knew the mountain already, and so had much more fun exploring. My crazy friend D. (who wouldn’t want to be named) was there, too – he shoved me up the worst couloirs on the mountain, and together we conquered some really fun terrain on Blackcomb.

Patent

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:00:34 +0000

No way! A friend at Yahoo! just emailed me this link

Back (Briefly)

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:09:41 +0000

So, my life in Hawaii is actually quite close to what I wanted it to be, but someone thought I am a good CTO and invited me for an interview back to the Bay Area. Cool company, lots of problems in the product but nothing a good team couldn’t fix – and the money to do it, all of it.

I am flying out tomorrow morning, returning on Wednesday. Of course, Friday will see me flying out again – to Honolulu, to get a complete check-up at the Kaiser clinic after my doctor here is afraid I might have had angina, precursors to a heart attack.

One Way

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:26:40 +0000

Et in Arcadia ego. How odd it was to buy a one-way ticket to Hilo, how odd it is to sit at the Starbucks and not have to check email or anything else.

The morning was gorgeous, as if to make up for the short night. The plane was crowded, and getting out took forever, especially since this time around I had to check-in luggage – how else was I going to get the cherry jam to Paul and Charlie???

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 22:04:58 +0000

{moszoomimglink:Mozart}Not a great many stories start with the sentence: “So, I was at the Border’s store to get on fast Internet, when I wandered off to the classical CD section.” Admittedly, sounds like a nerd crossed with a geek meeting a dork. What can I say? Is growing up in Europe an excuse?

In any case, I was perusing (that’s a nerd term for you!) the CDs when I noticed the “4 for 3” special in the store. I scoured the place for 4 CDs that might be interesting, paid for them and put them in a bag to be forgotten for a couple of days. Who knows, maybe stale classics get pepped up by a few hours in the Hilo sun?

Moving into the Mission

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:55:37 +0000

A friend of mine from spinning class, Liz, finally made her dream come true and bought an apartment in the Mission. I really love her a ton, so I offered to help her with the move, and that’s how I spent my usually sacred selfish Saturday.

We moved from the Northern reaches of Daly City. The neighborhood was mostly minority, with the black families living with their backs to the freeway, while the more affluent Asians dominated the upper reaches. Liz’s sister-in-law pretended we were not there, almost refusing to say hello. We packed the truck within an hour and disappeared into Liz’s new digs in the Mission.

Put Myself on Diet

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:50:03 +0000

It was with surprise I stepped on a scale and found myself at 180 pounds. That’s a record for me, and not a good one. So I revived my old Joomla weight component, and made it track my weight on a daily basis. For historic reasons, I added a food diary, but stopped short of Joomlifying it.

What do you know, the new focus seems to be making a difference. Within a couple of weeks, I went down five pounds, and I plan on moving even more. What helped? I think it’s just the realization that consciousness of what you eat makes you eat less. Or, to put it in a different way, having to remember what you ate all day makes you want to eat less.

More Mice, One Man

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:07:30 +0000

After having to deal with the mice in my San Francisco house (a thing of the past, as you know now), I got to the house in Hawaii only to find that mice had bitten their way through all available screens. I mean, they could have just bitten their way through one screen and used that to get into the house. No, since they are not the brightest, they bit a little mouse-size hole into each screen that was available to them. Mental note: stupidity causes lots of damage.

Of Mice and Men

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 06:23:36 +0000

A while back, I started thinking I was becoming crazy. I mean really crazy, seeing things that don’t exist flitting around. Black things, to be precise. And then I got really surprised when it turned out I wasn’t crazy. I had a mouse in the house.

This little home is a haven for mice: the construction is a bit shoddy, and there are lots of crevices and hole through which a mouse can get into the foundation and from there easily to the main floor. I tend to be somewhat liberal with anal retentiveness (read: I am a slob ) and this probably made for a perfect match. I had a mouse.

CBR 600 RR

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:20:04 +0000

{moszoomimglink:cbr600rr_01_.jpg}Well, who would have known? After five years, I finally got myself a new bike again – a Honda CBR 600 RR. It’s a great bike, I always loved looking at it, and the only reason I had to do without a bike for so long was that I didn’t have a garage to put it in. Now I have it (have had it for a year), and it’s time to live dangerously again.

Escaped another bug

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 18:08:09 +0000

Looks like the cold season already started: everybody is reporting symptom of the common cold, like persistent cough, sinus infection, fever, headache. The whole nine yeard. This year, the cough seems to be particularly persistent.

Ken, my spinning class neighbor, insisted on coughing in my direction, and I got away with a mild case. Fortunately, my immune system recognized the attacker and reacted right away. I woke up feeling miserable yesterday, and by end of day things had started to get better. Today, working from home on a sunny San Francisco Tuesday, things are fine again. Well, except for the skin on my face, which looks like I am 15 years old again and pimply…

What does a beetle taste like?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:21:12 +0000

So I was at Trader Joe’, buying raspberries. You know, those red buggahs that spoil within a day if you don’t notice they are molding? Well, I was going through the packages, most of them in advanced stage of rot, and found 4 that seemed passable. The best one had evidently been left out because it had a sizable black beetle in it.

At home, I place the berries in the refrigerator – some of them in the freezer, where they won’t rot – and make a mental note of checking the package out in the morning. I wanted to get the beetle out safe.

Needed CPR

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 05:15:27 +0000

Yesterday we had Castro Street Fair in town, and that meant I had to take MUNI to get to the gym. Not the best of experiences for a novice: I found myself putting the BART card in, only to hear that one is not valid in MUNI (what an idiocy!). Then I had to get change, since the turnstiles in the stations accept only coins and the changing machines only $5 and $1 bills. Sigh!

Stars, stars, stars

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:20:59 +0000

I woke up early again, this morning (around 2:15a) and decided I might as well stay on California time for the next week. So I went down to start the generato and realized the sky was perfectly clear.

An anemic sickle of a moon was shining its yellowish light from low on the horizon, and from Hilo an orange cloud poisoned the sky – undoubtedly the city lights, probably much closer Pepe`ekeo and not the real City. Otherwise, the sky was full of nothing but stars.

Crawling on 19

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 06:04:37 +0000

For those of you who know, Hawaiian driving is a bit of a surreal experience. There are namely three kinds of drivers in Hawaii:

Kama`aina, the locals; notable for a propensity to drive strictly speed limit
Malihini, the newcomers; always pushing the pedal to the metal in a quest to cut off 1 minute from their circumnavigational record of the island
An unnamed and unstereotyped group that drives slower than anyone would think possible.

{moszoomimglink:One of the highway bridges}Yesterday, I was driving on Highway 19 (Hilo to Honoka`a), when I suddenly hit the brakes for a driver of the third type.

Crazy blackbird attacks

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 05:23:05 +0000

Yesterday, I woke up with one of those stupid 1-day colds I get once in a while. I felt horrible, and by noon I needed meds. I pack up and drive to the Safeway. I remember to go to the Starbucks nearby, and just as I get out of the place, something scratches my head very briefly. Everybody around me is snickering.

I look around, see nobody. I look puzzled to the cute girl sitting at a table, doing her assignments. She smiles, points to somewhere in the air and says there is a bird defending a nest.

Building your own juggling balls

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:59:04 +0000

I always wanted to learn how to juggle. Daniel, a friend of mine, is really good at it, and it’s one of those skills that stay with you and that give you something to do when you are bored (not that that ever happens).

I once went to Cirque du Soleil, and they sold juggling balls in three packs. I bought a set, leather balls filles with lightweight material. I juggled them for a while when in Hawaii, but never got good with them. I can juggle six throws easily, but eight is still elusive.

Cane spider in the car

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:12:41 +0000

Have you ever seen a cane spider? They are humongous spiders (well, maybe four inches wide) that live in the grass, actively hunt for food, carry their litter of eggs in a sack on their belly, and otherwise bother me when I have to pee in the grass or, as of lately, in the car.

Someone mentioned there was a cane spider in the car. I paid no attention, having seen none. Tonight, as I was leaving the Home Depot, I noticed something yellowish on the driver’s seat side, but before I could do anything about it, it was gone, crawled up in the console.

Where did the cats go?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 01 May 2006 15:13:28 +0000

Sunday morning, after two years of living by myself with two cats, I sent them off to Minnesota, where they are going to be taken care of (still waiting for pictures). It was quite the moment, with preparations, planning, and trepidation. It’s all over now, and the only aftereffect to date is that at every sound in the house, I think it’s the cats and check out what they are doing.

What happened with my Wells Fargo debit card?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 05:22:08 +0000

What do you do if in Hawai`i and in need of cash? Lots of cash? Well, of course, you go to the local branch of your bank. Wells Fargo. I got my loan from them, let’s just go to their local branch, no?

The phone book lists a Wells Fargo branch in Hilo: I call her up, and Phil (whom I knew from dealing with the Home Mortgage arm) tells me there is no branch. I can though get a cash advance from any bank, up to the limit set on my card, as long as the bank is willing to do that. All the way up to $7,000!

Record time

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 16:13:52 +0000

The Hawaiian flight from Honolulu to San Francisco made it in record time: 4h 19m! This was due to a generous jet stream that gave us an excellent tail wind.

How unfortunate that said tail wind and jet stream were causing a major storm in San Francisco that forced a shutdown of the airport… In the end, the whole flight took 5 hours, as usual, and I made it home in time to be deprived of sleep by the wind.

The Move

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:22:19 +0000

It was Wednesday. First thing in the morning, the phone is disconnected not to be used until the move is over. I go to the gym (thanks, J.P. for the class!) and get back home, just to find a message telling me the guys are going to start moving me around lunch time.

I continue packing, labeling, framing. I put stuff in one corner if I don’t want the movers to take it because it’s too fragile. Then the call comes in, and the three guys from Delancey Street Movers come in. They were the most professional and just plain nice movers I have ever dealt with – so much so that I still remember their names: Edwin, John, and Arturo (who goes by Art).

Met Kevin Caudill

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:56:37 +0000

Ah, so this city is not New York or Los Angeles, and celebrities are not as frequently visible as they are there. But we have our own A-list, made up of actors (Robin Williams), directors (George Lucas), singers (Barbra Streisand), tycoons (Larry Ellison), and the like.

Well, ibam forte via sacra, and at the corner of Castro and 18th a random guy calls out my name. I turn around, and it’s someone I have never seen before. He introduces himself: it’s Kevin Caudill, known photographer of male nudes!

Surviving Thanksgiving

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:19:43 +0000

I don’t think you could cross my plans worse than happened this year. First, I was looking forward to 6 days in Hawai’i, with invitation to Thanksgiving dinner already extended and accepted. Then I had to move and it was clear I was not going to be able to make it. I thought: no big deal! I can still go snowboarding! Forget about that: this year the season starts late, to make up for the early start last year.

Desperately Trying to Find Apartment

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 02:54:15 +0000

Ok, I am about to give up. My conditions for an apartment are too strict, and I cannot find anything that matches the criteria. Besides, I don’t have time to continue looking: I have to be out of my current apartment by the end of the month, and the Thanksgiving weekend is going to cause a huge hole in my schedule.

I still have a lot of furniture that does me no good. Have to get rid of it, since all apartments I can find are tiny. Must be a San Francisco thing. Or maybe it’s that the bigger apartments have all no cats policies.

2000

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:12:51 +0000

It’s a sad moment. After a long series of sad moments. The 2000^th American soldier died in Iraq. Despite the fact that I am not a citizen (yet), I find that deeply saddening. I am just thinking of myself when I was a young and stupid kid, being in the military, and realizing that’s probably who is in Iraq right now.

I remember us being trained in the Soviet Union being about to invade us. We knew that if that was going to happen, all of us would have been toast. And still we went on, happy to be around, happy to have friends – in uniform and without. We were silly, we were serious, but we always knew that it could hit us.

Searching a New Home

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:04:48 +0000

A few days looking… And it looks scary, very scary. The rentals are diminishing in number by the day, and the closer we get to the end of the year, the worse it is going to be. Maybe I’ll even have to move to a temporary shelter, and at this point even the cats are negotiable.

This is quite the tragedy for me. I should have reacted much sooner, in September, when the opportunities were still numerous. Or I should have waited until January, when the first people break their leases because they can’t stand it here. (Why?)

Moving On Out

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 19:51:26 +0000

I received an email, then a letter from Jim, my landlord here in the City. He says he needs to move back into his apartment and gave me a generous 55 days to find a new spot.

I would be totally demoralized if it weren’t for the fact that I wanted this to happen. I wanted to move out, and he just kicked me in the butt.

Now, of course, the problem is where to move to…

Back from Ninole

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:17:30 +0000

Ninole over the weekend was wonderful. You’ll find the pictures up tonight – for now a briefing:

The lanai mauka is in place, beautiful as could be
The lanai makai is rough, but should get done this week
The subflooring is done

That’s not much of a progress report, of course, but considering there were less than two full weeks of work on the house, it’s at least progress!

Missed Katrina Until Wikipedia Told Me

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 03:41:39 +0000

I am astonished. Due to the trip to Hawai’i and to the lack of TV, I almost completely missed Katrina. I heard people say about the disaster, but I had no idea until I finally decided to check for myself on the web, and found just how horrible the situation is.

Partially it may be because I was in Hawai’i, an island chain so remote from the mainland, an event in Japan is more likely to cause a stir than a hurricane in Louisiana; partially I was completely cut off from news there, seeing how I had no access to news media at all; and finally, partially my utter lack of TV access removed me from the worst of the sights.

Plans

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:41:35 +0000

The house construction project seems to be well on its way. Brad and I found each other congenial, and he started on Monday with renewed enthusiasm for the project, finally liberated from an oppressive and opinionated boss.

What changed? Well, the story he tells is quite sad: the former owners seem to have lured him into construction, just to run out of money about a year ago. As he saw no more money coming out of the owners, he slowly started killing the project and moved on to other, better things.

Hostel

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:12:26 +0000

The only Internet cafe I could find in Hilo is the Youth Hostel, really the cheapest bargain in town. Bunk beds for $18 – what more could you ask for.

Interestingly, the advantage of the place is not necessarily the computers (although those are huge), but the people watching. Interesting folks march around here. People that could use a lot of showering, people that are on the lookout for a cheap deal, people that have nothing to do in this crazy but cheap town.

Gone

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 06:57:04 +0000

I’ll be out to visit the construction site for the next few days. daily cat sitting is organized.

I will be courageous and sleep in a tent under my roof. A challenge, given that I will land at around 8p and there will be no light to pitch a tent. An adventure, one might say, given that the only shower I will have is that of the waterfalls. A foolhardy proposition, seen that I have no keys to the locks.

Sleep

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:39:36 +0000

I had no sleep in the last two nights, mostly because of my preoccupation with closing the house. Now that’s over (closing date is tomorrow) and I could finally sleep. I took off early from work, went home and slept. And slept. And slept. After 8 hours, Mondo, my faithful cat woke me up to play with me, and I still could have strangled him.

Oh, sleep is such a relief!

Letter from a Mother in Vermont

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 10:43:26 +0000

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont…

“Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my
children were tiny.

Spanish Concert

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:03:29 +0000

Friend invited me to an open air concert of the San Francisco Symphony at Dolores Park, with the main theme of “Spain.”

It was a packed event, and people streamed into the venue long after it had all started. It was a wonderful day, with the heat of Saturday replaced by Sunday’s stream of cool fog air.

All in all a success. My hosts had packed great lunches, and wine to boot. I had brought some water, ice cream, and a tan-through swimsuit. And of course my bike, and my cycling clothes, as if to underline the recent ending of the Tour de France.

Cancer and Evolution?

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 08:53:58 +0000

Strolling back from my morning coffee run, I noticed a pigeon with a giant cancerous growth underneath its left wing. I didn’t know pigeons suffer from tumors, although it surely makes sense.

I was feeling pity for the poor little fella, but suddenly my thoughts turned in a different direction: what if the tumor growth had actually been something that helps the pigeon survive? What if the distinguishing features of a pigeon were actually determined not by slow mutation and selection, but by a mechanism that allows for sudden appearance of a new feature without slow motion?

Uploaded Pictures

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:47:50 +0000

Here they are! After a lot of waiting (mostly due to the fact I was too lazy to move the pictures from my laptop to the web server – it’s 260MB of them, after all!!!), here the {moszoomalbum:2005-07-02} with the pictures of the trip to Hawai’i.

A few changes to the usual format: this time I refrained from putting all pictures from one day in the same folder, and just highlighted the places we went to. In the end, the Big Island is a big rock with outstanding features, and you really don’t spend all day taking pictures.

Back from Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 05:04:50 +0000

After a horrific nine hour non-stop flight (four of them spent on the ground waiting for a “battery charger”), I finally made it back in one piece from Hawai’i. A week of travel is about all I can handle right now, especially since the house didn’t close yet and I have a trillion things to do.

Takeaways from this trip? Not sure. I knew the island pretty well before I visited, so a lot of the sights were repeats. Since I had K. with me, I had new eyes to look at everything, and I could rediscover a lot of the marvels I had seen before. Pololu valley, for instance, is still magnificent. Puna road (Kapoho-Kalapana road) is still the most beatiful stretch of highway I will ever see.

Gone to Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 06:25:52 +0000

Will see you when I come back in a week! Let’s hope the site doesn’t go down while I am gone.

Loan Woes

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 04:22:35 +0000

I got the Commitment Letter from the bank, but it came with enough conditions and clauses that I might as well start from scratch. Turns out I don’t have enough open credit lines, which means the bank doesn’t know whether I will be repaying them on time. So, instead of a nice credit card report, they are asking me to provide a ton of documentation from other places where I have to pay regularly.

Flying to L.A.

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:08:26 +0000

Short trip out to L.A. to visit a conference. It’s funny to fly out to L.A. for work, being used as I am to the city as a vacation destination.

My first time was in 1998, shortly before I moved to the States for good. It was the last weekend of my stay in San Diego, and I had decided I needed to at least see Los Angeles before flying back and returning who knows when.

No Fog in Fog City

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:22:40 +0000

It looked at first as if this might become a challenging day. The low clouds were hanging around dangerous, and it was hot from the get-go. The typical mixture that yields that dreaded fog that hovers over the City all day, putting us sun-loving Californians in a stupor.

You probably couldn’t live here without the cooling influence of the Pacific. It is amazing how cold it is on the ocean side, and how hot it can get just ten miles East of here. Between our two poles, the City wavers undecided, with the Richmond siding with the cold, the Mission with the hot weather most of the time.

Step by Step

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:18:18 +0000

That’s how the whole house thing is slowly working out. There is always something new to learn, something new to do.

Today I found out that appraisal fees are twice as high in Hawai’i as they are in the Bay Area. My loan officer explained it was an appraiser market on the islands, and that I was very welcome to look for my own appraiser. We turned the conversation around quickly, and I really like her.

Hawai'i, I am coming

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:54:38 +0000

So, a lot happened lately…

1. My DSL router suddenly died, which explains why you have been unable to connect to this site for a while. I had to go in and re-route the whole shabang, ending up with the wireless router under the staircase and the phone cable draped across the floor just to make my life miserable.

2. I got my green card!!! Yes, two months after hearing that I was going to get it, there it is, in all its glory. A miracle, I would say. But one that prompted me to put copies of all my documents online, in a password protected zoom gallery. By the way: the green card is neither green nor (as they said it would be) pink. It’s simply white, with a metal box on the back.

Hanging out at the beach

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 May 2005 19:27:20 +0000

A confession from a weird European: when I ride my bike for a longer distance, I will stop at a nude hangout and rest while my clothes are drying out. I did it at Baker Beach in the City today, and obviously it was not only my personal idea.

The currents are strong, and the waves still hit the beach halfway to the rocks. That means there was no real estate to be had, and I had to sit in the midst of testosterone laden muscle men. It felt a little uncomfy, naked as I was, still with the comments of one of my friends in my ears.

Summer is here…

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 22 May 2005 07:10:22 +0000

I look out the window, and there is nothing but sunshine and blue sky. I have been waiting for this for a long time, holed up in my room, thinking of other things to do, and not realizing how much the sun changes life.

San Francisco has four seasons: two long ones, which are called the Rainy and the Foggy, and two short ones, which we call Long Sunny Days and Short Sunny Days. Right now, we are in Long Sunny Days, and it shows. The fog banks off the short of the ocean have not rolled in yet, but we are getting close to the solstice. The days are soaking in the radiation and the heat, and we are enjoying our life.

FogCam

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 21 May 2005 06:35:21 +0000

Amazing what kind of world this little city of San Francisco has become! When I was a kid, the only thing I knew about it was the Golden Gate bridge, the earthquakes, the steep streets, and of course, “The Streets of San Francisco”.

I grew older, and it became the city of flower power and gay power. Then hi-tech started picking up, and San Francisco became a suburb of Silicon Valley, dominated by such beacons of civilization as Cupertino (Apple), Sunnyvale (Atari), Palo Alto (PARC), etc.

Looking for Real Estate in Hawai'i

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 May 2005 20:05:12 +0000

How funny. So my first trip to the States was to Honolulu. I landed first in Dallas, then moved on to Honolulu, and stayed there for a week. I actually needed only the first ten minutes. That’s how long it took for me to know I had to move there. Amazing? In separate pages {moscontentlink:hawai%} I wrote about what the islands mean to me. Well, now it became time to make them come real, and I got in touch with agents there to make me a land owner.

NEC MobilePro 900

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sun, 15 May 2005 07:09:31 +0000

There was a time when I wouldn’t walk out of the house without my MobilePro 770. An instant-on Windows CE device, it had the right form factor to allow me to type as fast as I could think. That’s something no other device has ever given to me, an uncramped keyboard, light weight (under 2 pounds), immediate startup. I was even willing to live with the quite quirky operating system.

Bronchitis

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 May 2005 20:13:56 +0000

It started out just as the common (but severe flu). Then I decided to take some nice medication – it made me feel super-healthy!

So far so good. When I then went on to go back to work and to spinning class, that little bug turned into a major bronchitis that has been killing me for the last week.

Never had anything as bad as this! Even my angina when I was 12 was nothing compared.

Kona

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:53:00 +0000

Ok, I waited a week, but now I need to tell you about Kona.

So I went and stayed at the King Kam. Do the same thing if you want to watch the triathletes – it was quite the spectacle. From my cheap hotel room I had neither window nor mountain view, but I had an unobstructed view of the assembly space where the triathletes gathered. And there were quite a few of those – in all shapes, ages, genders and groupings. The funniest was a father with two dogs and two kids – and they all jumped into the water and swam out towards the open sea. What a sight!

Messenger, Instantly

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Mon, 23 Dec 2002 20:50:00 +0000

How could I run a blog without even mentioning Instant Messenger? I don’t know.

Am I becoming an expert on the matter? I have been working on this off and on since 2000, when Marshall T. Rose first started talking about his beloved BEEP (back then still BXXP) and a new generation of IM products and protocols. He was getting excited, sat down a while with a bunch of smart nerds, and there you are, out comes IMXP (soon to be renamed APEX). Marshall is an incredible man. Once he decides he is going to revolutionize the world, there is no stopping him – even if his revolution is not really what the world wants.

YEP

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:23:00 +0000

Year end party.

Once a year, this company, too, throws itself into a frenzy for a good cause (the amusement of the employees) and spends a hopefully not startup sum to come up with an evening of fun and glory and debauched drinking.

Amusing how the company keeps its headquarters in the South Bay, but thinks nothing of throwing its party in the city. Is it because the big party goers live there, anyway? The rest of us, who moved down the Peninsula to cut on the commute, thank them by leaving early and thus making the party a real success.

Big Island

marco@mrgazz.com (Marco) — Wed, 11 Dec 2002 07:09:00 +0000

Just got the Big Island book from the Hawai’i Guidebook series. Seems odd that an island that big would have that few sights, and worse still that few notable ones. If I compare this with the corresponding books on Kaua’i and Maui, the density of sights and their quality seems much lower.

I wonder why that is. Hawai’i sounds much more diverse and interesting than the other islands, as long as nature is concerned. Granted, it’s not the island for the thrill seeker or the party animal, but that’s not what I was looking for.