Tralfaz

Author: geoffand

  • Blacklist – TV Show

    Blacklist – TV Show

    Netflix has sabotaged my time again. This time with the drama “Blacklist)”, a show about a US Naval Officer who dropped off the grid, going rogue and criminal, and then becoming a high value informer for the government.

    Spoiler alert: if you haven’t watched, and are interested, you might want to stop here and move along.

    The Pilot was fairly compelling, but a bit cheesy. Raymond (Red) Reddington turns himself in at FBI Headquarters, and offers to assist in the capture of some seriously bad dudes (and dudettes), but there is a catch. He will work only through a new agent, a profiler who just joined the force, Elizabeth Keen.

    In the first episode, the story is about halting a public, high impact bombing using a General’s daughter who was kidnapped from the custody of said agent Keen.

    But as with all drama’s there is the main thread, but a few side threads all intertwined into the tapestry of the show. In the pilot, there is a subtext of a connection between Red and Agent Keen that is telegraphing a long term plot line. Additionally, one of the methods the “bad dude” employs to affect agent Keen’s motivation is the restraint and stabbing of her husband, a goofy 4th grade teacher that balances her serious job at the FBI.

    The show ends with agent Keen cleaning up the blood, removing the ruined carpet, and discovering a hidden cubbyhole containing a box with lots of cash, several passports with her husband’s picture but aliases, and a gun (looks to be a H&K 9mm).

    Shit, I am hooked. Yes, the bad dudes getting nailed is a positive feeling, but now I want to know about the connection between Keen and Reddington, and what douchebaggery is her husband up to?

    Megan Boone plays agent Keen, and this will likely be a breakout role for her. She does a great job, and you quickly empathize with her.

    Red Reddington is played by James Spader. I have long been a fan, and his acting is spectacular. In fact, without his presence, I doubt the pilot would have been picked up. However, time has not been kind to James Spader. Definitely not aging well, but he pulls off the character.

    The plot holes

    As I have mentioned the show is a good watch, and the writers/producers do a great job with adding a hook near the end on one of the subplots that keeps you waiting for the next installment.

    But looking at the higher level, the premise that this rogue criminal returns to the fold, and they allow him to remain free, as long as he helps them catch seriously bad dudes. Yeah, that is going to happen.

    Still it is a good story as long as you can overlook that hole.

  • Riding the Train

    Riding the Train

    I have long enjoyed riding the train. There is something soothing about the sound of the wheels on the track. The stops, people getting on and off. What is their purpose for traveling? Why did they choose the train?

    My first experience with Caltrain was when I was fairly young, probably 8 or 9. I had a step brother who lived in San Francisco, and I would visit occasionally on the weekend, so my mother would drop me off at the Sunnyvale station, and I would ride the train to San Francisco.

    (Yes, this may seem odd today, but I assure you that it wasn’t weird, and didn’t seem dangerous at all in the early 1970’s.)

    Exciting.

    My next major experience was when I started traveling internationally. If you go to Japan, you pretty much live and die by the train schedule and map. You very quickly learn to navigate, and figure out the timing to get to your destination.

    Ah, Shinjuku station, the busiest train station in the world, at rush hour. It is a sea of people you find yourself swimming with.

    Europe also has outstanding train service, giving you options to get from city to city in comfort, at a fair price.

    The reason for this reminiscence? Wednesday, I took a sojourn to a tradeshow in San Francisco. Naturally, I took the train. Got on early, so I got a good seat, and watched the whole trip. You see plenty of things if you are observant.

    Lots of graffiti. Every vertical surface along the track is coated in colorful graffiti of various artistic quality.

    Sad: Homeless encampments. Never saw this before, but an inevitable sign of the times.

    Fun: Kids heading to school. From south San Jose, there were a few kids headed to Bellarmine, and on the way home, plenty from a girls Catholic school in Menlo Park.

    Nasty: There always seems to be a person with bad body odor.

    The pace of travel is sedate, and you can’t control the speed, so you succumb to the mode of transport, and enjoy. I do like train travel.

  • My fascination with History

    Like most Americans, I took the usual high school level history classes. At the time, they seemed dull and worthless. Memorizing dates and events, and the bland US history they cram down your pie hole, it is no wonder why I was nonplussed.

    Then my 3rd year of university, I took a real US History class at SJSU and my eyes were opened. The professor was not very dynamic, but the subject was fascinating. I learned that we had been pretty much lied to in high school, that there was plenty of events and actions in the US historical record to be ashamed of.

    Still, the passion, while awakened, wasn’t elevated enough to action.

    Fast forward 20 years. I was stumbling around Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, and I stumble across a tome on the history of mathematics. This stirred a long dormant passion.

    Having studied Physics, which is a lot of applied mathematics, I realized that we often covered in a semester what took a few hundred years of effort by several very talented mathematicians and natural philosophers to “discover“. I always wanted to get into the stepping stones to the eureka moments.

    So I bought the book. It was FABULOUS reading. I was riveted. I quickly picked up several more texts on it, and they often talked about the sponsors of the work, and this got to politics.

    Then, one Christmas, my dad gave me a book by Daniel Boorstin, on the major discoveries throughout the ages, called “The Discoverers“, the first book in a trilogy with “The Creators“, and “The Seekers“. I highly recommend all three.

    I was hooked. I bought several others of his books, including the trilogy on the American Experience.

    The passion was ignited. I have added books on the history of Vietnam War, the history of Europe from the middle ages through the modern era (fascinating, and very relevant to understanding the geopolitical world at the time of the revolutionary war of independence.)

    Where this passion will go, I don’t know, but I suspect if I was in my late ‘teens, I would strongly consider a major in history instead of physics.

  • Vietnam in HD – History Channel series

    I love Netflix streaming. There is a constant stream of recommended shows that are hit and miss. One, “Aliens on the Moon, the Truth” was a miss. However, “Vietnam in HD” was outstanding.

    It is a series, 6 episodes (40 minutes each, so originally broadcast, they were hour episodes) of commentary and footage from home movies, journalist cameras, and other sources. The commentary were from veterans, or people who were inextricably linked to the war. Fascinating watching, and once I started I couldn’t turn it off.

    Having been born at the beginning of the escalation, it was before my consciousness, so I really had little opinion on the conflict from my direct experience. I of course couldn’t avoid reading about it growing up, but it seemed distant. A conflict to prevent the spread of communism, a domino theory in the cold war between east and west, it seemed remote.

    This show dispelled that notion. It starts off with the lead in. The advisors had been in country for a decade (starting in the mid 1950’s) but boots on the ground didn’t commence until 1965.

    The story in the first episode about taking hill 875, and the 12:1 ratio of dead Vietcong versus Americans, and how this created the new metric for conflict, the body count.

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  • The Middle Class – The 20th century and the rise of labor

    Continuing on in the vein of the concept of the “middle class” that politicians and pundits love to banter about. Prior episodes highlighted the rift between the nobles and the serfs that gave rise to the powerful merchant and professional class that was the genesis of the “middle class”.

    The formation of the United States, a representational, constitutional republic without a monarchy, was the start of a bold experiment. There was no “official” noble class, but there was recognition that the vote would be tied to “landed” persons (men) who would benevolently choose leaders for the masses.

    A nice theory.

    Early power was concentrated in the large landholders (often plantation owners in the south, hence the importance of slavery as an institution being enshrined in the Constitution.) But as the industrial revolution played out, money, and with it power shifted to industrial centers in the northeast and midwest. The great equalizer was the development of the railroads. Production no longer needed to be in proximity of the consumers. Pennsylvania became known for steel production with raw ore coming from the iron mines of Minnesota via the great lakes, and coal from Appalachia. Chicago, almost dead center in the country was a way station, and the stockyards that fed the country.

    New York gave rise to the financial institution, concentrating power and money in the world’s largest city.

    (note: there is a lot of simplification in this portrayal)

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  • House Hunting Journal – looking forward to moving

    We have found a home we liked, placed an offer, and to our surprise, won the bidding. Woot. Now closing day is 10 days away, and it is time to reflect on how nice it will be to have a house again.

    Some of the downsides to apartment living will be lifted.

    • Having a pantry – As a former chef, and someone who enjoys cooking, the worst aspect of apartment living is the limited space for storage of foodstuffs. I.e. a pantry. Being able to stock up on staples, to have room for some esoteric ingredients, a true spice rack. Right now, all the space I have is a kitchen cabinet, and it is cramped.
    • Buying sundries at Costco – as much as I hate the zoo that is Costco, it is nice to be able to buy toilet paper in 48 packs, and paper towels in quantities that will last. And cheaper too. We will once again have room to store these quantities.
    • private laundry – I have bitched about the laundry rooms on the premises at our apartments, contention for the machines, having other peoples’ soap scents in your clothes, and the general filth of the facilities. Having our own machines hooked up again will be awesome.
    • A yard – A fenced off, safe place for our hounds. Having to leash them up every time they need to potty is a drag.
    • non-through street – not strictly an apartment thing, but we will be living on a street that isn’t a thoroughfare. We currently are at the corner of Lean Avenue and Blossom Hill road, with a highschool next door, and two elementary schools walking distance across Blossom hill. That leads to a lot of traffic, at all hours, and it is difficult to sleep.
    • Garage – while it is not the awesome three car garage I had in Tucson, we will once again have a garage. A priority will be to unpack enough to allow us to park in the garage. It is good to be able to park under cover. My S2000 has suffered in the 7 months we have lived here.

    Yep, we can hardly wait. The list of things to fix/change is piling up, but soon, oh so soon, we will be moving. Yay!

  • House Buying – the Offer

    House hunting in the Bay Area is a bit insane. I have written about this in the past, but since today we lifted our contingencies, and in a mere 11 days we will get the keys to our “new” old house, I will write a few posts on the search.

    I have already mentioned the coded language in the listings. How certain phrases imply some, uh, unsavory or unsettling aspects of the house or the neighborhood.

    I have also mentioned how often by the time a new listing hits Trulia or Zillow, it has had several showings as the MLS listings are on the leading edge.

    Pro Tip: yes, you can go hit open houses without an agent, but often you will be late to the bidding party. Get an agent, and get access to their portal. Totally worth it.

    It is scary to place an offer. You count your pennies, you check to see what you can scavenge from every account you have, IRA, 401k, brokerage account, even your piggy bank and you make your best guess.

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  • The Middle Class – The Industrial Revolution

    The last post I explored the rise of the talented, educated professional and how their roots were in the guild system. This time, I will start with the industrial revolution, and how that upended the rising of that middle class.

    The Industrial Revolution

    While the shift from craft based manufacture of goods was well underway in the mid 18th century, the trend accelerated mightily with the development and commercialization of the steam engine.

    {A whole book or series of books on the use of steam motive power to drive machines that wove, milled, pressed, etc. Very germane to the topic, but obvious in hindsight, it will be ignored for this brief treatment}

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  • I am not cut out to be a landlord

    Our house in Tucson, which we rented for 2 years before we desperately needed the cash to buy a house in San Jose, is under contract. The “buyers” are doing their due diligence and part of that is a home inspection.

    We got the results of the inspection. Holy fucking shit Batman, our tenants over the last two years treated the house like shit.

    Numerous little things, nothing that is earth shaking, but beyond normal wear and tear, I am appalled at the stuff they didn’t do.

    The filter for the furnace/AC was absolutely blocked. It was a rinsable one, you just remove it, hose it out, and let it dry before returning it to the heater. I suspect that they never drained the sediment out of the water heater (something that I did twice a year).

    One of the items on the report is that they put the door on the gas hatch of the water heater on wrong, so there is motherfucking scorch marks on the outside of the water heater above the flame lighting hatch. You have to be a retard to not put that door on right.

    They burned wood in our gas fireplace.

    I guess this is to be expected, but it is sad to have taken such good care of that house for 10 years, just to have two sets of renters trash it.

    When we moved into the apartment that we are renting now, I thought to myself that it is a shame that they hadn’t modernized or updated. It has crappy Hotpoint appliances, the counter tops are formica, that are “painted”. The fixtures are ancient, serviceable, but not elegant. I would be much more satisfied with living here with just a few tasteful updates.

    Now that I have rented property, I understand. Tenants will treat it like shit, they will break things that boggle the mind, and you are better off just doing the minimum to keep it functional.

    A shout out to our lousy property management company, who shall remain nameless. They did nothing to prevent or curtail abusive behavior from the tenants. They were really quick to spend our money on repairs with their favorite contractors. But looking at how they ultimately left the property, I am nonplussed.

    I an not cut out to be a landlord.

  • New years commitments – not a resolution

    I never really got into the “New Year’s Resolutions” thing. Too much pressure to succeed, that ironically virtually guarantees your failure. That said, I havd a few things i am going to do better this year.

    My weight

    I have been letting my weight inch up. Stressful job, not enough time to exercise, and comfort foods all conspire. Add in the medications that I take that lower my metabolism, and it is a perfect storm.

    I know how to lose weight, having dropped 25#’s in 2013, so it isn’t a trick. Eat less, exercise more, and be sure that calories in is less than calories out. Easy peasy.

    Back to a measured breakfast, a predictable (and countable calorie) lunch, and modest dinner. Counting calories, and keeping track is key.

    Two weeks in, and i am probably down 7#’s already (the easy initial loss). My pants fit better, and I can tell the difference. Already, I am adjusting to the smaller portions. Woot.

    My drinking

    Our tequila consumption had gone through the roof. Not an every day occurrence, but enough to become a concern. Last night I finished the last of my holiday ale from Christmas, and I will stop buying beer.

    I will occasionally have a glass of wine or a pint of ale, but it will become a once a month thing, not 2 or 3 a week thing.

    Exercising

    This is tougher. My schedule at work is brutal, and I really can’t break away cleanly to exercise at lunch like I have been able to in the past. Still, I need to work harder at getting out on the weekends. Bicycling where I live is choice, so that is a huge positive.

    I still try to get out and walk occasionally too, and I need to start hiking the trails in the Santa Cruz mountains.

    As I approach the magical five-oh, the body clearly needs different behaviors. Time to get serious.