O, the Humanity

An e-mail from the Yale Club [bold added]:

We regret to inform you that the event at NASA Ames Center featuring astrobiologist Dr. Lynn Rothschild has been indefinitely postponed due to the federal government shutdown. We'll keep you posted if the event gets re-scheduled.

Don't those Congressional extremists know the pain they're causing?

Those Guys Were Something

The end result

It had been two years since the last sink-repair debacle, and memory lapse combined with hubris prompted me to try again. The HansGrohe faucets gleamed in the showroom, and these were on sale for a mere $99.

It took an entire week, working several hours a day, to complete the job. The actual installation was comparatively easy. Removal of the old parts had to proceed carefully to avoid cracking the sink (like I did last time). Configuring a new trap and pipes underneath the drain, as well as finding and fixing a slight leak, took another several days.

I had a hard enough time working with PVC pipe, and frankly, I can't imagine doing this with steel and copper pipe and acetylene torches, like our fathers did. Those guys were something. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

The Endless Loop

Two weeks should have been enough time to correct startup glitches, so I decided to check out the Covered California website, reputedly one of the most reliable of the Obamacare exchanges.

Coveredca.com: an attractive home page...on to "getting covered"

Getting covered: let's try the "Shop and Compare Tool" links.

Oh-oh, we're back here again.

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Kidding aside, some links do work and it is possible to get to the Shop and Compare Tool.

Whew! and to think that almost three years ago I was a worry-wart.

The Punishment is Merciless

A male business acquaintance tried to make conversation with a formerly svelte female colleague, asking "When is the baby due?" The poor guy took years of grief from the women executives for not perceiving that she had given birth two months earlier.

Today at the doctor's office one young woman who had worked there for years was clearly showing, but I refrained from even a friendly comment.

I have learned the lesson of my friend: friendliness yields little reward, and the punishment for making a mistake is merciless! © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Ramen Dojo, San Mateo

Garlic pork ramen

At the Ramen Dojo there's always a wait. Because there are good, fairly inexpensive noodle joints elsewhere in the Bay Area (for example, Santouka in San Jose and Maruichi in Mountain View), we hadn't bothered standing in line. Today our curiosity finally prevailed, and we waited half an hour for a counter seat. (Ramen Dojo opens at 5:30, and we arrived at 5:45.)

The delay was worth it. For about ten bucks you get a decent-but-not-huge-size bowl replete with ingredients: quail egg, pork, mushrooms, green onions, garlic, ginger, and lettuce. And, of course, the noodles and soup. RD likes to spice up its fare--"spicy ramen" is how it describes itself on the business card. Caution: even the "non-spicy" version was noticeably peppery.

We'll be back. The Ramen Dojo waiting line is as good a place as any to catch up on our e-mails. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Rescued from the Shredder

A paean to the automobile shredding machine:

The shredder stands as the singularly most important piece of recycling equipment ever developed. It is, among other things, the best and really only solution to managing the biggest source of consumer waste in the world today: the roughly 14 million American automobiles that are junked annually.

The blue '67 Bug was destined for the shredder, but after the following video's graphic depiction I just couldn't bring myself to consign it to this fate.

Fred's Garage (now run by his sons) in Redwood City has given
new life to VW Bugs, Buses, and Karmann Ghias

A Plausible, Good Deal

Peggy Noonan on the "strange shutdown":

Republicans, who hate big government, are fighting to keep it open, and Democrats, who love big government, are fighting to keep it closed.

The Republicans want to fund everything but Obamacare, which is a sacred cow to Democrats; hence the impasse.

In the short run everyone in Washington is looking bad, and the Republicans are looking worse. If this goes on much longer, however, the majority of Americans may find that they're getting along just fine if Washington is closed. Big government advocates are running a huge risk: benefits and taxes both stopping looks more and more like a plausible, good deal.

An Exciting Winter

A few months ago we noted how Bay Area fans are lucky to have contending teams in all major professional sports. We're doubly lucky in that the teams have exciting young players whose talents have attracted national attention: Giants catcher Buster Posey, Warriors shooting guard Stephen Curry, and 49ers running quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

From seemingly nowhere (actually, the Czech Republic) now comes 19-year-old rookie forward Tomas Hertl to lead not only the undefeated San Jose Sharks but also the entire National Hockey League in scoring in the young season. But what got everyone talking was his four-goal night, the last being a spectacular between-the-legs shot that flummoxed the Rangers goalie.



It's going to be an exciting winter.

Mend It, But Don't End It

After four days of interviews I was finally excused from jury duty. I related to the court how a family member had been negatively affected by a similar case, and although I said that I could be fair, the defense did not think so.

Not offended by their opinion of my (lack of) objectivity, I left the courtroom with a smile. The State would not capture the next six weeks of my life.

My dismissal was easy to predict, but the decision took three-and-a-half days too long. So why did I and most of the hundred other good citizens put up with this process? Because each of us could imagine sitting in the same spot as the defendants, and we are not willing to dispense with the system that--for all its inefficiency, complexity, and mind-numbing procedures--protects us all. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Blessing of the Animals

The line started forming at noon. Everyone, whether he or she had two or four legs, waited peaceably.

This Sunday represented the eighth year that priests from the local Episcopal Church blessed pets and their owners in honor of animals' patron saint, Francis of Assisi.

Ladies from the Homeless Cat Network again set up a table. HCN spays feral cats who live in the wetlands and sets up feeding stations to minimize their impact on Bay wildlife. HCN's efforts appear to be working; the number of feral cats has shrunk to less than 100.

By two o'clock we were done, and we packed up the tables, chairs, and signs. Somewhere Saint Francis was smiling. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Traffic Avoided

Beach next to the restaurant

Six months after our first visit, we drove to Half Moon Bay for lunch at Barbara's Fishtrap. We refused to be misdirected by Apple Maps, which kept insisting that the restaurant was east of Highway 1 next to a school; we switched to Google Maps, which placed our destination accurately along the beach.

At 1:30 p.m. on Friday the wait for a table was only ten minutes. (It's best to avoid Half Moon Bay on October weekends when the hordes descend on pumpkin farms; congestion peaks during the Pumpkin Festival on October 19-20.)

Calamari and chips

The fish and chips were as good as we remembered---hot, moist, and crunchy. The calamari was prepared in similar fashion and did not disappoint.

A fall afternoon, pleasant company and lunch by the seaside.  Life is good.

October 4, The Feast of St. Francis

Today the Pope visited the tomb of perhaps the greatest post-New Testament saint, Francis of Assisi, the saint whose name he adopted.

“He's great because he is everything. He is a man who wants to do things, wants to build, he founded an order and its rules, he is an itinerant and a missionary, a poet and a prophet, he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it out.

“He loved nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying in the sky. But above all he loved people, children, old people, women. He is the most shining example of that agape we talked about earlier."

But he added: "I'm not Francis of Assisi and I do not have his strength and his holiness."

Not to get all mystical, but St. Francis' spirit does seem to reside in those who take his name. May the Holy Father and the great City lying to the north ever continue to do so.

One Banker Whom I Respect

The Texas Monthly runs a profile of Dick Fisher, the CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve bank. Known for his hawkishness on interest rates, he may be taken for a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, but in 1994 he ran as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate against Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

By all accounts, including his own, Fisher didn’t make much of an impression on the people of Texas. Hutchison was reelected in a twenty-point landslide

Dick Fisher has surprises sprinkled throughout his resume. His father struggled to make ends meet, moving the family to China, California, Mexico and Florida during Richard's childhood. As a child, Richard spoke Spanish better than he did English. He worked summers at a greasy spoon, got a scholarship to prep school, and ended up in the Ivy League.

By the time I met him in the 1970's--we were in the same study group--the transformation was complete. Always preppily dressed, he didn't have to tell anyone that he went to Harvard, he looked it. He was more "Ivy" than the other Ivy graduates in our class and was a straight arrow in appearance, attitude, and behavior when, frankly, most of us weren't.

His classmates are honing their golf swings, but Richard appears to be working harder than ever.

I Won't Pay You, But You Must Pay Me

It has been our experience that most people still do the ethical--and legal--thing by living up to their contractual obligations when dealing with struggling businesses. However, one need not be stupid about it; if the financially troubled business owes us and we owe them money, we "offset" receivables and payables and pay them the net amount, if any. (Landlords netting repairs and security deposit refunds are probably the offset example that is most familiar.)

But offset is not allowed when the other party is the government:

“Tax refunds will not be issued until normal government operations resume,” said the IRS. The IRS emphasized, however, that the underlying tax law remains in effect, and all taxpayers should continue to meet their tax obligations as normal.

The IRS won't pay you, but you must continue to pay it or be subject to jail and/or fines.

Those who advocate more government, as opposed to private-sector, provision of services are in for a rude shock when they discover that the devil they threw out is replaced by a devil that is far worse because it doesn't have to worry about losing you as a customer or your poor Yelp review. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Not a Flash Mob

Regular readers of this humble journal may have been expecting a few comments about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare," whose insurance exchanges are going live today.

For sheer waste and inefficiency, however, it's hard to beat the jury selection process. Today over 100 people had to listen with rapt attention to people like you and me drone on about their life experiences. Would it be too much to ask to schedule group 15-minute interviews with prospective jurors? The sessions could be videotaped for later analysis by prosecution and defense. That way each of us would only sacrifice half a day instead of a week.

Why do we sheepishly put up with this? Because we have to. The judge issues bench warrants for no-shows, and bail amounts to tens of thousands of dollars.

Except for military service where the opposite occurred, more and more "voluntary" acts of civic responsibility have become mandatory. In California we keep electing people who put these laws into place, so I guess we must like it. © 2013 Stephen Yuen