Monica

In my last post I talked about the sudden death of my Android phone (again) and my pursuit of an iPhone, which was stymied not by Apple but by T-Mobile. That was Thursday. On Friday morning I returned to the Apple store soon after opening time, this time with a backpack full of auxiliary hardware (tablet for an authenticator app, old mostly-broken phone that could still take a physical SIM card, iPad for Apple login on another device, and by the way my existing phone charger to confirm I didn't need to buy a new one).

It took almost two hours, but we got past the T-Mobile hurdles so I could walk out of the store with a working phone. I'd already decided there was no way I was buying it from T-Mobile (and I suspect it would be locked if I did), and neither I nor the employee who was helping me felt good about "buy it here, take it there, hope they do the right thing". I have many colorful things to say about T-Mobile...later.

For the locals: Mikey in the Shadyside Apple store is fabulous. This was customer service way above and beyond what I've experienced at other tech providers. Mikey was knowledgeable, empathetic, and cheerful even when T-Mobile was screwing with us. I really hope the feedback I gave on the customer-service survey contributes to Mikey getting some recognition. And this is in stark contrast to previous phone vendors, who, if you can get a human at all, will just tell you to ship the phone back to them at your expense, or buy a newer model, or otherwise do what is convenient for the vendor but not the customer.

I bought the iPhone 16E; it's the most affordable current model, but it's still a lot more than I've paid for a phone before. On the other hand, Dani has had his current iPhone for a lot longer than I had my previous Pixels (both of them). Maybe a mid-range phone costs $100/year and the replacement schedules are different between Android and iOS.

So, the actual iPhone. I've used an iPad, so I was a little familiar with the environment, but using a phone is different in some important ways. There are definitely things I'm not used to; some might be better, some worse, and many merely different and I just need to get acclimated. Initial stream-of-consciousness impressions:

Setup was pretty straightforward, carrier issues aside. No surprises from the first phone call and first text message. I couldn't import anything from my dead Android phone, but the iPhone knew about apps I had installed on the iPad, so that helped. I can access anything in Google's cloud storage by installing their apps (e.g. for photos). I haven't figured out if I can recover text messages.

The default keyboard does not include period and comma on the main screen. What the hell? Is this why so many text messages blow off punctuation?

I am used to a global "back" button, not just for browsers but for everything -- pop out of map navigation (while staying in the map app), go back to your photo gallery from looking at an individual photo, etc, with the top-level "back" being "exit the app". Apple does none of that -- they rely on the individual apps to provide navigation, so if an app doesn't have the "back" concept, you can't do anything. And apps, of course, can and do change the UI -- maybe there's a "back" button and maybe it's in the top left corner, or maybe you're expected to navigate by controls across the bottom for different views, or maybe it's something else. Android apps had those variations too, but there was always the phone-level "back" button. I miss it.

There's also no "home" button (take me back to the desktop). You leave an app by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. I sometimes have to try a couple times; I haven't yet found the magic "sweet spot".

There is a gesture, also involving swipe up from the bottom, to see all the apps that are running and allow you to really close individual apps. This was the third sticky button on Android. I haven't quite figured this out on the iPhone yet; sometimes I stumble into it, and often the screen shakes at me to tell me it didn't understand what I was trying to do. Learning curve... Also on the learning curve: apparently on the iPhone you swipe left to dismiss notifications, not right? Neither is better; it's just an adjustment.

Settings are weird. A lot of apps don't have any control for accessing settings, even when apps clearly have settings. I had to ask Mikey about that. It turns out that the system-level settings -- where you control things like display, sound, passcodes, etc -- also has a section for app settings. To add a non-default calendar to the calendar app, instead of using the non-existent in-app settings, I go to Settings -> Apps -> Calendar and poke around in there. On the other hand, some apps do have in-app settings, so you have to hunt around for them.

Apple is very much still in the world of "we think this design is intuitive and therefore you don't need any assistance". I had to do web searches to find documentation on what some of the glyphs mean. There's a "control center" (similar to Android) where you have quick access to things like toggling Wifi, Bluetooth, and dark mode, and changing brightness and text size and volume, and a bunch of other stuff. The iPhone offers more options than Android and the layout is highly customizable. They have some cute ideas, like apparently there's some tool for "identify the music that's currently playing", which I think means in your environment and not Spotify, but I haven't explored it yet. Almost all of this involves graphics not text, though, and not all of their choices are as obvious to me as they were to their designers. There are three "disconnected box around a thing" glyphs; one's a QR-code scanner, one's a "tell me what this thing is" (uses camera and probably AI), and I'm not yet sure what the third one is.

This is me, so we have to talk about visual accessibility. This was the very first thing I tested in the store on Thursday, 'cause if that didn't work, nothing else mattered and I'd have to head back to Androidville. Mixed review here: adequate with some compromises, but there is more work to be done here. Specifically, fonts: there are two font-related toggles, normal/bigger and normal/bold. These affect displays in apps that pay attention to them, which they don't have to. Also, apparently the OS is not an app in this sense; nothing I did changed the text labels for the apps on the home screens. The text is "one size fits all". Yeah, you can reportedly magnify your entire screen, but that's not what I want (too much collateral damage). I mitigated this by changing the desktop from their colorful interferes-with-text wallpaper to solid gray. Unlike my Android devices, the iPhone doesn't have a built-in library of wallpapers; there's the default, or you can use a photo, or you can set a solid color. So, solid color it is; I'd've preferred something with a little more character (but also legibility), a balance I struck on Android, but oh well -- it's just wallpaper, not something important.

There was something small and light gray that Mikey had to point out to me in the store (would have missed it entirely), but I can't now remember what it was. I suspect there will be more of that sort of thing.

Ok, apps. I was migrating from Android, so I couldn't just bring all my apps with me. There are iOS versions of most of the apps I used (not always identical), so I just had to look them up individually in the App Store and install them. Initially I did this from memory, which was frustrating, but then it occurred to me to ask my Android tablet if it could tell me about apps that weren't on that tablet but that I'd used. The answer to that turned out to be "yes". Some things I haven't found equivalents for yet; this will be a background process for a while, I expect. Critical stuff is mostly in place (I need to have a conversation with my bank about their app); nice-to-haves are trickling in.

I'm trying out some of the native Apple apps, particularly ones that could replace Google apps. Some differences are strange: in the Apple calendar app, how in the world do you get it to show you a month view like Google Calendar? I can get it to show me a couple days at a time (in list form, like a week view but not all week), but I want the month view. I haven't tried out the Apple apps for photos and maps yet, but plan to soon. The note-taking app seems fine so far. I can't imagine using Pages, Sheets, or Keynote on a phone, but they came pre-installed.

I couldn't figure out how to use Apple's email app with multiple accounts, but that's ok; I used Thunderbird on my Android phone, so I'll just install...what do you mean there's no Thunderbird app for iOS? (Beta coming soon, they say.) Ok, I found another client that'll do. Still hoping for Thunderbird later; I liked it on my previous phone and also use it on my desktop Mac.

My Android phone had a fingerprint reader for unlocking. It was flaky, so I often ended up having to enter my passcode. This iPhone has Face ID, and so far it's worked flawlessly for me. I asked Mikey how to temporarily disable it for situations where I'm worried about it being used against me (hostile agent has physical possession of your phone -- we can all imagine scenarios, I'm sure), and he pointed out that it always requires the passcode after restart. Good to know.

Speaking of restarting... I had to search the web. Mikey did tell me how to turn the phone off, but apparently I'd misremembered. On my old phone, a long press on the power button brought up a menu; on my newer Android tablet, you have to do it in software as far as I can tell; on the iPhone both are possible but the physical option involves both the power button and a volume button and then an on-screen slider. I guess people don't restart (or turn off) phones very often?

It's only been a few days (and one of those was Shabbat, a no-phone day), but so far the experience of actually using the phone has been smooth. It feels comfortable and even pleasant at times. My Pixel's 5G connection was sometimes flaky and would drop out at the most inconvenient of times (like while trying to navigate); I haven't taken my new phone on any big outings yet, but so far I'm not seeing these problems when out and about. There are some initial weirdnesses, but I think I'm going to like this a lot better than my Pixel.

More thoughts later as I settle in.

If you are in the US, don't have employer-provided health insurance (hello layoffs, among others), and are thus buying your insurance on healthcare.gov or the state marketplaces, you might want to read siderea's series of posts on the subject soon: introduction, A health plan is a contract, and HSAs and bronze/catastrophic plans (so far). Technically you have until January 15 to sign up for 2026 insurance, but if you want insurance coverage in January, your deadline is Real Soon Now -- December 15 in most places, but earlier in some states. (I'm in PA where it's December 15; I haven't been tracking other places but Siderea mentions some in the introduction.)

Something I had missed is that for 2026, the government has admitted that bronze plans (with the lowest-but-still-high premiums) are inadequate, and you can now set up a Health Savings Account (HSA) with those plans. It's extra paperwork but can lead to savings on the money you were going to have to spend out of pocket anyway.

At the shabbaton I led a text-study session that I called "Avram before Lech L'cha" (which was the week's portion). It was designed to be interactive, so this is a summary of how it went. Don't expect answers here, just interesting observations.

I started by saying that in the first three torah portions, God singles someone out for assigned tasks. The first is Adam, and there were no other options yet. The second is Noach, who was "righteous in his generation", a qualified statement. (Best of a bad lot?) Then comes Avram, and it just says God commanded him but the text doesn't tell us why.

We had a discussion about possible reasons, and then we looked at the first source. Almost all of what I brought is from Bereishit Rabbah (roughly contemporary with the g'mara, c 300-500 CE). All translations are from Sefaria: ( Read more... )

Yes. More like this, please.

Today is busy, building the sukkah and preparing for Shabbat, so brief notes will have to suffice for now.

I had no length expectations for Kol Nidrei. Ran about 2.5 hours, including a speech from the synagogue president which is pretty common. Before the service started, someone from the congregation played the Kol Nidrei melody on a violin; I recognized the styling and ornaments from the much longer version Temple Sinai does on cello and piano. Shorter and before the service was nice. I assume there is a "thing" about people expecting to hear the Kol Nidrei melody on bowed strings, but I don't know more than that. I thought it was just a Reform thing (Sinai and Rodef both do it during the service).

The essays in this year's seasonal book from Hadar were helpful, and fit nicely in that block of time between getting home and going to sleep.

Being able to spend the entire day in synagogue makes a big difference to me. I'm glad my new synagogue doesn't have a long stretch of down-time mid-afternoon like some do. We had classes and discussions -- optional and small, as most people left, but we didn't have to. Nice.

Morning service was somewhere around 5 hours (I didn't notice exactly), not including Avodah and Eleh Ezkarah which followed after a short break (5 minutes? 10?). For Avodah the rabbi interjected a lot of teaching, and he really encouraged people to try the prostration which was done by the people (not just the kohanim) when this was an actual service in the temple. He taught us how to do it and was very encouraging, so I tried it and am glad I did.

After, I was chatting with someone else who had tried it for the first time, and said that I came from a Reform background and had not expected to connect with the Avodah service until that year during lockdown when my synagogue was closed and I went to an Orthodox synagogue. "But," I said, "there was a song I'd heard a week before that also helped set the stage" and she immediately said "Yishai Ribo". Yes. So we chatted about that for a bit while waiting for classes to start.

For the afternoon haftarah reading (the book of Jonah) they had about a dozen teenagers chanting it, taking it in turns. It's great to see that many teens who are interested.

Hineni is in exactly the spot where it makes sense. (Contrast with my Reform experiences.)

Most of the service leaders were lay people who were very good -- strong voices and able to lead singing, mindful of what they were saying, evoked kavanah. Afterwards someone who knows I'm a new member asked me what I thought about having lay leaders instead of the rabbis (this also happens on Shabbat) and I said this is a positive thing and while our rabbis are great (I've seen both of them lead; they are), it's important to empower other qualified leaders too. Most of the Reform world seems to not agree with that perspective, which might be why the person asked.

By the time we got to the Amidah in Mincha I was ready to be done with the many-times-repeated Vidui sections. I didn't want to not be thinking about wrongs; rather, I wanted to be thinking about different wrongs after going through these ones so many times already. We human beings are very creative, alas, and since some things on the standard list do not resonate for me, it feels like I could be spending that time reflecting on things that do and that aren't on the list. (I ended up just focusing on the ones that seemed more directly to be areas for improvement.) For next year, perhaps I'll look for alternate lists to being with me for when the standard list is no longer sparking the thoughts it was designed to.

This is a placeholder for something I meant to talk about in my Rosh Hashana post too: differences between the individual and public Amidah, public is not just for listening but also has congregational singing parts, and I think Reform threw the baby out with the bath water, realized the tub was empty, and filled it up with other stuff instead of getting some of this goodness back. I will try to come back to this soon.

The other day, I saw something cute and reposted it on Mastodon:

Overheard, and for Internet old-timers: "Today is the 11,691st day of September 1993".

Someone responded to tell me that Debian has the sdate command "which keeps track for all of us".

I laughed. And then I found that there are also online calculators, for people who don't use Debian.

I am amused, even if -- or perhaps because -- those of us who remember the September that never ended are now a very small minority of the online population. Back then people were frustrated; today it's quirky history. Whatever your online community is -- Usenet, mailing lists, Twitter, Reddit, Dreamwidth, Stack Overflow, whatever -- it's going to change just from the people using it, let alone technology and companies. Don't get too comfortable.

This year I got three (different) tomato seedlings, all container-friendly, along with some peppers and other things. Having failed to do proper research, I allocated the tomato cages pretty arbitrarily. I should not have done that.

The giant tomato plant in the center is a Sungold. It seems to be in the process of conquering my patio, the neighborhood, and perhaps the city. It makes sweet, tasty, orange cherry tomatoes. I've had quite a bounty so far and there's plenty more to come. It was originally on that ledge with the others, but a month or so ago I realized that if I kept it there, I would not be able to harvest without a ladder. (So much for using that trellis.) At least this way I can climb up on that ledge to reach the ones I can't reach from the ground (or at least I hope I'll be able to reach them all!). Wowza. Next year, bigger cage! (They're very tasty, so I do plan to get this type next year.)

The other two tomato types are Patio Choice, advertised as good for small containers, and Mountain Magic. They both produce red grape tomatoes (Patio Choice are sweeter). On the right, not as clear in the picture, are two Cornito peppers and a banana pepper, all still working toward a first harvest. I've moved these around a few times over the course of the summer to try to optimize sunlight.

My mother has never learned to use computers, aside from a smartphone that she uses for calls and texting with the grandkids. After my father died and she asked me to do something with my father's several desktop and laptop computers, she cancelled their Internet service that she wouldn't be using. But she held onto my dad's newest tablet, thinking she could use it to browse news and look at photos. This requires a network connection, so I set up her phone for tethering, set up the tablet to automatically connect to that network, and showed her how to turn that on and off on her phone. (I described this as "turning on Internet for the tablet".)

In the end she found this too difficult and she's never used that tablet, so this week she gave it to me. It's an iPad Pro (3rd generation, 12.9") and comes to me with a keyboard cover and a couple of Apple pencils. I'd already downloaded his Apple cloud backups more than a year ago, so I could safely reset the tablet. I'm new to iOS (I use Android), so I figure this is a chance to check it out before the next time I need to replace a phone or tablet. I'm happy to accept pointers, app recommendations, and warnings. I do have a Mac desktop, but their mobile setup is new to me.

Apple aims for intuitive user interfaces, but that doesn't mean they always succeed. When deleting personal information as part of resetting, I had to enter first the PIN and then my father's Apple password. That makes sense. After I entered the password I hit return, but there was no visible change. I hit return again, thinking it hadn't taken, then tried delete to see if that changed anything, and concluded that it was stuck. I let it sit there for a while. Five minutes later, I got a "no connection" popup. Ok, yeah, now that you mention it I should have realized I'd need to connect it to my WiFi for that to work, but if it had given me any indication of what it was doing ("connecting...") while it was doing it, I would have known (a) that it was doing something and (b) that I needed to fix that. Instead, the interface just gave me a mystery for a while. Oops.

Those two Apple pencils are an as-yet-unsolved puzzle. My mother gave me one that was with the tablet (there's a magnetic connection) and one in a box that she thought was new (my father ordered it but never got a chance to use it, she thinks). The two pencils look identical to me, except that the one in the box is missing the plastic cap that should be on its stylus. The plastic cap from the other one does not fit it -- so they seem to be different, but that's my only clue. The box says "2nd generation". Something I found online describes the first generation as round and the second as mostly round with a flat side (because it was too easy for the first generation to roll off of desks). Both of these have that flat side, so I conclude that my father replaced one second-generation pencil with another, but if so, I am left wondering why the cap from one doesn't fit the other. I have no idea which of these is actually newer; maybe he did replace it (maybe he broke his first one?) and he put the old one in the box the new one came in? So many mysteries.

The tablet is now busy updating from iOS 17.1 to 18.5. Yeah, it's been offline a while.

We went to Origins Game Fair last week. My previous post covered the games we played; this post is about everything else.

The convention was, overall, pleasant -- not as crowded as I expected for the 50th year, at least in the parts we frequented, but we had critical mass for all the games we played and it was nice to not have to push through crowds like at GenCon.

We had one excellent teacher, several good ones, and a couple terrible ones. In one game it became clear two hours in that we were missing an important rule, and another was very disorganized. There is a wide range from "enthusiastic fan who wants to evangelize the game" at one end to "I'm hoping to book enough game-running slots to get free admission" at the other, and I don't know if there is any sort of feedback to the convention. I didn't see a way to let them know that that person running Terraforming Mars was outstanding and should be invited back, for instance. And maybe that's not even the right model; I have no idea how Origins makes decisions about who can run games, or if they even do. They collect the tickets at games, so they know both how many people registered for a game and how many actually showed up, but I don't know if that affects future years for that game, that game-runner, or nothing.

I was satisfied with most of the games we played; we expected both positive and negative reactions, so a game I don't like very much (or feel neutral about) is still useful data. We can try many more games than we can ultimately bring back to our gaming groups, after all, so eliminating candidates is important too. That said, we identified half a dozen games that we liked enough to want to get (though one of them is way too expensive so we won't unless that changes), so I consider that to be very successful.

We did not do a good job of pacing this year, exacerbated by getting locked out of most of our choices for the middle day, when our first-draft schedule had some breaks built in. We ended up with a lot of long, solid blocks and didn't factor in the cognitive load of learning all those games. We can invite friends over and play games we already know for ten hours and be quite happy, but that doesn't mean ten straight hours of new convention games with strangers are a good idea. I need to remember this for next year. Also, we should front-load more and give ourselves more breaks on Friday and especially Saturday. There is a temptation to book Saturday solid because it's Shabbat so it's not like we're going out for lunch or having dinner much before 10PM, but it's a mistake.

In two or three games this year, the game-runners used an app to choose the starting player (everyone touch this phone). For the game that was on Shabbat I declined and was ready to accept going last, but the person just shrugged and randomized a different way, which was nice. I've see people use that app (or an app, anyway) before, and it always makes me wonder: did this problem need an app? We have been randomly choosing a meeple or rolling dice for this for decades and I've never felt that to be lacking. Only later did the info-security aspect occur to me: I should also maybe not be eager to hand over a fingerprint impression to someone who knows my name (from the event ticket), just on general principle.

We went to two seminars (though both on the same day, so they didn't help as much with pacing as they could have). One was pretty good; in the other one, halfway through I asked Dani if he was enjoying it, he said "no me neither", and we left as discreetly as we could. Three other people followed us out, almost like they were waiting for someone to start. The presenter probably had interesting things to say but did not seem to have prepared the talk. We've had that experience before with this particular fan group (some groups run "tracks" of activities), so I'll pay more attention to that in future years. Origins also has a films room, a few comedy or music performances, and a little bit in the way of crafts, so we should look at those too. I don't think I can lure Dani into the figure-painting area, but I used to enjoy that and it could be a way to break up a non-Shabbat day.

Most of the games are run in one of the big halls in the convention center. I think there's a cumulative draining effect from the harsh fluorescent lights and the background noise of all those other games, and that's another thing to take into account when we try to build a schedule -- if that information is available in April when we choose events, which I don't remember.

Some game-runners were good about accommodating my vision needs, but a few brushed me off and in one game, both the game-runner and two of the other players were kind of rude about it. When I asked for help during the game because I couldn't see and couldn't memorize everything ("which tile is that (points)?" etc), I picked up some sighs and the vague sense that the reaction might have been different if I were not the only woman at the table. I can't point to anything specific and I'm not someone who jumps to conclusions about sexism, but this kinda felt like it. I was often the only woman at the table in the games I played and most of the time I didn't pick up this vibe, so I think it was just that one group of people.

We did one quick run through the dealers' room. We only saw one "general" games vendor, as opposed to publishers selling their own games. We also walked past a lot of banners, plushies, dice, jewelry, miniatures, and LARP gear. Several publishers had raffles for unspecified games or expansions/components, winner must be present at such-and-such time on Sunday. That's easy for the vendor but hard for participants, so even though we got handed free tickets at some games we played, we didn't bother with any of them.

The first year we went to Origins we got a hotel that was about a mile away, so we walked to the convention in the morning and stayed all day. There aren't a lot of good places in the convention center to sit and take a break for an hour, though, so after that, we started paying for closer hotels. This year we were right across the street from the convention center, and being able to go back to the room for an hour between sessions turns out to be a really huge win. Also, our hotel had coffee available all day in the lobby, so that was a nice bonus. We never had to stand in the long lines at the coffee places in the convention center (or pay $5 or more for a cup of coffee).

The multi-day heat wave started during the convention. This made the drive home a little challenging. Under normal circumstances we wouldn't have made that extra stop to get something cold to drink and sit in Panera's air conditioning, but it sure helped this time! Originally we had planned to leave Columbus after the hottest part of the day, but a no-show game-runner messed with our plans and we left earlier.

My synagogue is being acquired [1] and this was the final nudge to find an alternative. This past Shabbat they cancelled our services in favor of the other place, so I went to Beth Shalom, which I last visited during Pesach. Beth Shalom is a large congregation, which is a little challenging for this introvert, but I assume that if I go there regularly I'll gradually meet people and maybe even be able to learn their names.

Their service is uplifting and pretty efficient. They're Conservative, so they include a lot of things that my current (Reform) congregation doesn't do, but it didn't make the service that much longer. I will need to practice the Hebrew in some unfamiliar sections so that I can sing the songs with them; I was kind of singing this time, hitting maybe one word in four and faking the rest. (I know how to read Hebrew; I'm just slow.)

I had not noticed that they had designated this week as Pride Shabbat until the rabbi spoke. I mean yes, I saw some pins and rainbow talitot and stuff, but I saw those the last time I was at Beth Shalom too, so that's just ordinary support/visibility stuff. And there'd been some signs outside, but I hadn't noticed dates. In other words, they integrated the already-welcome queer community into the Shabbat service, honoring people without replacing the whole service with a bunch of creative readings. (Temple Sinai's Pride Shabbat feels more like a poetry slam; Shabbat barely makes an appearance.) I haven't been to a bar or bat mitzvah at Beth Shalom yet, but I imagine it's the same idea there: celebrate together in the context of Shabbat. Conservative and of course Orthodox synagogues tend to prioritize the community, and Shabbat itself, integrating celebrations into the whole instead of carving them off as separate things as Reform is wont to do. It's refreshing.

They have a kiddush lunch every week, which is presumably the best way to meet and get to know people. During Sukkot I went there and ended up in a lunch conversation with another Babylon 5 fan who was explaining the show to a third person. (I haven't seen the fan again yet, alas.) This week I couldn't stay because we had a friend coming, but there'll be a next time and probably soon.

There was a passing comment about the senior rabbi's upcoming sabbatical. I don't know more than that, and I'll want to have a chat with him before, or as part of, joining there, but it's not urgent. There is also an associate rabbi who I like so far; I plan to soon start going to a weekly class he teaches. While exploring their web site I discovered that both rabbis have blogs, which I'm now subscribed to.

Beth Shalom, not unusually, does not publish their dues expectations; you need to have a conversation with someone. Large old congregations with large old buildings tend to have high dues, which I might not be able to afford, especially if they don't have the concept of an individual membership. It can be worked out I'm sure, but it's a little awkward and embarrassing to have that conversation, and I wish I had some data going into it. Oh well; we'll get there. The high holy days (the one time a year when this really matters) are not for a few months yet.

Rodef Shalom (the synagogue Temple Sinai cancelled services for) puts their services on YouTube, so I skimmed that service yesterday. I knew they were having a guest musician, Dan Nichols, as part of celebrating their rabbi's retirement. I knew from a past Dan Nichols visit that he leans toward creative songs and less liturgy (more of a concert than a service), but I was still surprised by what I saw. How do you have a Shabbat morning service that goes almost two hours and not do Kri'at Sh'ma or the T'filah?! By caring I am a minority in the Reform movement, I know, and while this is extreme, it's also a hint of where Rodef Sinai is going. It's time to be elsewhere.

[1] This is not how the leaders characterize it, but I have seen some of the sausage-making and I stand by this description.

Last fall we booked a trip for this past week with a "surprise travel" agency -- you give them dates and a budget and fill out a "dating profile" for cities, and they plan something for you, tell you what time to show up at the airport (pre-dawn, in our case), and give you your boarding passes and other details on the morning of your departure. We've done this twice before, one plane trip and one road trip. We haven't flown since before Covid, but we've wanted to go somewhere farther than driving distance, and this definitely qualified. Once again, Pack Up & Go picked out an interesting destination that was not otherwise on our radar.

Our information packet informed us that Denver gets 300 days a year of sun, but we got two days of rain before clearing for our last day there. Ah well -- best-laid plans and all that! So we did not get to experience the beautiful scenic views of the Rockies, but there was plenty else to do. And we caught some glimpses on the last day when it cleared up.

Our hotel was downtown ("LoDo", i.e. lower downtown -- all the neighborhoods have abbreviations like that, we learned) and we could walk to lots of places. We stayed at the Maven at Dairy Block, where we had a very comfortable and kind of quirky suite. (I now regret not taking some pictures to share.) The people at the front desk were excellent -- helpful, friendly, English-fluent, and available at all hours.

--

Denver has at least two art museums. We went to the "regular" one (as opposed to the contemporary-art one) and found a huge, well-presented collection. Seven floors (we ran out of steam before we finished), decent introductions to the various rooms, and the placards were of a font size and placement that I could read them. Aside: I expected Saint George's dragon to be bigger:

We also visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (I mean, do you know us? of course we did :-) ), which had a couple special exhibits in addition to their usual offerings. Both were very good. One was "Angkor: the Lost Empire of Cambodia" -- at some other museum in some other city we saw a movie about Angkor, but this was our first time seeing artifacts. This exhibit was free (with museum admission) and was well-done. It made me want to see that ancient temple in person, though I doubt travel to Cambodia is going to happen.

The other special exhibit was "Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep", and I'm really glad we paid for those tickets. On the one hand, I'm kind of at the stage where I've seen a lot of dinosaurs and what's one more? But on the other hand, this focused on ocean, not land, creatures, and they don't get so much attention. The exhibit was very well done in almost all respects, and had a mix of conventional displays (mostly fossils of course), short movie clips, interactive exhibits, and docents with individual displays where we could pick things up, ask questions, and talk with someone who's more of an expert than we are. The one area they could have improved was traffic flow: when we entered we didn't know if we were supposed to zig-zag or follow a left- (or right-) hand rule, and when it became clear that we needed to zig-zag (the exit was not by the entrance), the sequencing was sometimes not clear. We almost missed a couple side loops when we got a little lost in the flow.

The rest of the museum was mostly set up well. Some explanatory placards were behind glass next to whatever item was on display, and some of those were at a distance where I could not read them and (because of the glass) could not get closer. This was particularly true in the minerals hall. Many museums have this particular accessibility failure, but I was disappointed to see it here when the rest was so well-done.

Somewhere in the general exhibits I found this science advice:

We took a city tour (van, not bus), which was interesting as far as it went but at two hours felt short. Too late to do anything about it, we learned about tours that go into the mountains and the Great Divide. If we were planning a trip to Denver we would have dedicated a day for that, but of course the whole point of surprise travel is that you don't know in advance so there was no chance to discuss that, and for a three-day trip I understand why they wouldn't dedicate a full day to that. We'll just have to go to the Rockies on our own at some point. :-)

When it was still raining but down to a drizzle we went to the Denver botanical gardens, which have both indoor (greenhouse) and outdoor parts. We enjoyed this and ran out of steam before we ran out of gardens. There was a small collection of bonsai, including this one that seems to defy gravity. I assume there isn't a heavy weight in the bottom of that bowl, anyway:

--

Pack Up & Go made dinner reservations for the two nights we were there, and both restaurants were excellent. Root Down is employee-owned, locally-sourced, and veggie-rich while also having dishes for meat-eaters. Everything we had was tasty and there were some unexpected combinations, like the carrot & red curry soup with apple-pear chutney. We each had soup and an entree and we shared a small plate, and we were too full for dessert. (To their credit, they have a very small dessert offering, an espresso truffle for $2, which we decided we could make room for. That is clever planning.) Service was excellent.

The other was Tamayo in Larimer Square, a high-end Mexican restaurant. Let me tell you, they had a vegetarian entree that was basically roasted cauliflower with interesting sauces, and it was wonderful! (It was the colored cauliflower, too -- my plate had green and purple along with white.) The salsas (three) that we had with chips were flavorful and ranged from mild to hot. The menu annotates every item with allergens, along with the usual vegetarian and vegan markers. Dani had some member of the steak family that used Mexican seasonings that he said was good.

Pack Up & Go asks about your interests, and one of the items you can check off is theatre. We did, and they booked us for a show -- which turned out to be one we saw within the last two years, but of course they couldn't know that and we wouldn't have thought to offer a list of what we've seen recently. We still enjoyed Book of Mormon -- I think I enjoyed it more than Dani did, but it was a very good performance (Broadway touring company) and it didn't feel as harshly crude to me this time as last time. It's at times vulgar and often sacrilegious, to be clear, but it's also very funny and there are good character-growth arcs there too. Our seats were far-enough back that I missed some of the sight gags that I know where there, but I still saw enough to enjoy it. Being me, I also started thinking about how, from a systems perspective, a surprise-travel agency could avert this sort of thing without spoiling the surprise, but those musings don't fit in the margins of this blog post.

--

Airport security at Pittsburgh took about half an hour. At Denver, which was also right after the Real-ID requirement kicked in, it was very fast -- I barely had time to get my ID out and my phone ready with the boarding pass before we were being asked for them. The agents at Denver were more brusque than the ones at Pittsburgh, almost yelling at people sometimes; I wonder if this is the difference between mid-afternoon and the pre-dawn hours.

We flew United and the planes were large enough to have middle seats. When two people are traveling together, that means one of them is going to be in a middle seat, never fun. These ones were ok, to my surprise. And there was a smidge more legroom than I expected. I avoid window seats because sometimes they can be very hard to get in and out of (particularly since I've started to have a little arthritis in one knee) and always try for aisle seats, but I didn't get an aisle either time and it was ok. (I should remember in the future to use the free-text field on the survey to indicate these airplane-seating preferences.)

We crossed two time zones, which gave us more time on the ground in Denver in exchange for getting home at midnight. This was fine with us; if you do something like this and a late return before work/school the next morning would be a problem, you should say so when you book.

Well, that's the longest power outage we've had in a while, and we're among the lucky ones.

Tuesday was forecast for rain. Late afternoon we both got those loud phone alerts about a severe storm with high winds, incoming quickly. It was overcast at the time. Not long after, the sky suddenly got dark and we heard the wind whipping through, followed a minute later by hail. This lasted maybe as much as ten minutes, and then it stopped and the sky lightened up and we heard the patter of normal rain on our roof (which we had, ironically, just replaced last week).

About an hour later we had a couple power flickers and then lost power entirely. I'm not surprised when we lose power during a storm, but I'm not sure what it means when it comes later. We optimistically waited to power down the computers. (My UPS has a pretty good display to help judge that.) Eventually we powered them down, turned off lights that we thought were on and that might wake us up if power came back overnight, lit some candles, and settled in to read. I tried to report the outage (I assumed they already knew, but maybe the reports feed statistics that inform priorities?), but their web site wasn't loading and their phone wasn't answering. Cell service was at this point limping; a bit later we lost it entirely. (This would have been a good time to switch to airplane mode, so the phones wouldn't chew up battery life looking for service, but we didn't think of that until the next morning.)

Wednesday morning did not bring electricity or cell service. I put the solar charger out to soak up rays after using it to charge my phone. In the morning we took a walk through the neighborhood -- several downed trees or large branches including one blocking Forbes Avenue, no traffic lights, and no visible lights until we got to the center of the neighborhood's business district, where for a couple blocks places had lights. We went for bagels and free wi-fi, and in the afternoon went for coffee and free wi-fi. The coffee shop was overflowing with single people with laptops occupying two-person tables, but their wi-fi extended outside. The grocery store was dark.

It was at the coffee shop that we learned the magnitude of the problem. News was reporting that 450,000 customers were without electricity in the region. For context, the population of the city of Pittsburgh is around 300,000; the greater metro area is around 1M. A residence often has more than one person, though businesses are separately customers, and I don't know how those factors trade off, but still -- holy cow, that's a lot of people! We also learned that a couple people died, unfortunately, one from a live wire in a puddle and one from a tree falling on him. A neighbor told us that another neighbor had spotted a funnel cloud, though I don't know details and the news I saw didn't report this.

I had, to this point, avoided opening the fridge or freezer. In the freezer I pack meat pretty densely, and when we lost power I did some quick rearranging to shore things up even more, use thermal mass where I could, etc. Freezers can be without power for a day if you pack them well; fridges are another matter. I did a quick check of the freezer in case there was meat I needed to use now, and then made dinner out of things from the fridge that were safe right now but soon wouldn't be. (I am so glad I insisted on a gas cooktop. The oven requires electricity for the controls.)

Late Wednesday night cell service came back; the Duquesne Light outage map showed about 150,000 customers without power (down from 250,000 Tuesday night), and they were saying it would take 5-7 days to fully restore power and they were calling in crews from other cities as quickly as they could. The web site looked to be accepting reports now, so I logged our address just in case it mattered for anything. I began thinking about Shabbat contingency plans.

This morning (Thursday) there was still no power, no visible expansion of the powered area from yesterday, and not much change in the tally on the outage page. I identified some meat we should use for lunch, so we went for coffee early (kashrut sequencing issues, the reason I "never" make meat for lunch except Shabbat)). The coffee shop was again full, no surprise. The staff there did a great job of keeping up with what I assume is a far higher load than their usual.

Mid-afternoon today our power came back on. We triaged the freezer -- lost about half the meat despite my efforts, but fortunately we were about to restock chicken but hadn't yet, else it would have been worse. Aside from the things that don't really need much refrigeration anyway (like condiments), the fridge was a loss. (And those eggs were on sale! Ah well...) After the fridge had time to cool down we ventured out to Costco to pick up some things, and we'll get other perishables tomorrow from local stores that are now open.

We were out for about 44 hours. The status page right now says there are still 110,000 customers out, including about 15% of my zip code and 20% of the whole city. I don't know what the current stats are from other power companies. I believe them when they say it'll take 5-7 days to restore it all. Yikes.

Years ago, friends of ours got solar panels and a couple of those Tesla battery walls (before he went crazy, they stress), and they've ridden out several-day outages. I've been saying for a while that I want us to do something for backup power (we don't have solar panels yet). I think I'm getting a little more traction with that idea now, though depending on how the research pans out, I'm leaning toward a natural-gas-fueled standby generator, not a giant battery. But that's a topic for another day.

Yesterday the news broke that the people in the US government who were planning a military attack accidentally added a reporter to their group chat. There is pressure for the person who fumbled that to resign or be fired, but so far it looks like that's going to be based on vibes, on how bad the publicity looks.

The person who fumbled that should be removed from positions where he can repeat the mistake, yes. But there is a much bigger problem here. Every person who was on that chat was violating rules of national security. By conducting that chat on Signal, they were violating rules about storing and transmitting classified material. It doesn't matter that Signal is encrypted; classified material has to be stored in specific, managed ways.

Having the conversation on Signal at all was a violation of government policy. Being reckless about who was included is just the cherry on top.

Let me be clear: if you or I, with even a measly little Secret clearance, so much as stored such data on a personal hard drive, we'd be in trouble. If we uploaded it somewhere else, even worse. And if you or I shared classified material with someone who is not cleared, or even is cleared but does not have a need to know (that's a specific designation), we would be in trouble. What kind of trouble? At the very least, loss of clearance and investigation. Quite possibly, fines and even jail time. When I got my security clearance the training was very direct about stuff like this. I never had a higher clearance, but I would expect that both the precautions and the consequences escalate as you get higher up the security ladder.

Everyone who was on that Signal chat knew or should have known that it violated federal rules. Reportedly, the president doesn't think this is a big deal because no harm was done this time. At worst he'll fire one person, letting a scapegoat protect the other goats in the administration. That same president was outraged over a previous candidate's private email server, but, you know, consistency isn't a strong point in this administration.

This isn't about punishment, though punishment should result. I want the supposed guardians of national security to pay as much attention to regulations and OPSEC as low-level government-contractor plebes do.

A small link round-up.

Not about current US issues:

• We can have a different web: "Many yearn for the “good old days” of the web. We could have those good old days back — or something even better — and if anything, it would be easier now than it ever was." As someone who remembers those early days, I found a lot that resonates here. The mega-platforms have the lion's share of the Internet, but those of us who prefer humans to algorithms and personal interests to shareholder profits can still build that. (Hello, Dreamwidth.)

US issues: ( Read more... )