Heavy Machinery

I hate vacuum cleaners. Not vacuuming; the OCD part of me has always found the patterns vacuums make in low pile shag carpeting very soothing. The devices themselves, though, confound me.

In seventeen years of marriage, we have owned two vacuum cleaners. (Did I own a vacuum cleaner before I was married? Don't be silly.) Both were light weight uprights, constructed almost entirely from plastic. The more recent is one of the bagless, HEPA filter equipped machines that are so popular these days. It also comes with an automatic retractor for the power cord, an excellent way to take out an eye.

Both vacuums offered multiple height settings, various attachments to enable the removal of schmutz from crevices nobody ever sees, and the new one even had a light, perfect for those times when you are vacuuming at night with the lights off. They also shared another, damning characteristic: they can't pick up a darned thing. They both sported stiff-bristled brushes that whirled noisily and made those nice patterns on the carpet, but whose purpose appeared to be mostly to collect hair, string and carpet fiber until the accumulated mass choked the machine to a smoking halt. Or wound up the entire hall carpet from one continuous fiber, whichever came first.

Even more vexing was their propensity to clog their innards with whatever it was that they were supposed to be removing from the carpet. The dust, hair, hole punch circles, glitter and bread crumbs that were supposed to be deposited neatly in the bag or cannister routinely gave up their journey somewhere in the middle of the various hoses that connected the business end of the vacuum with the bag. In machines that moved air as well as an asthmatic kitten on a good day, ten minutes of vacuuming closed down the airways enough to render them capable of little more than indifferently relocating life's sloughings from one part of the room to another. Leaving behind a satisfying pattern in the carpet, granted, but that is only a mild comfort. More than once, as I blindly probed the vacuum's intestines with screwdrivers or repurposed coathangers, searching for the last clot of debris, I wished for something to just suck all the dirt out of the hose. Like, a good vacuum. Too bad I didn't have one handy.

The really don't make them like they used to. I grew up with my Mom's Electrolux cannister vacuum. It required a team of horses to haul it through the house, and imprecise aim with the metal extended tube could rip the curtains off a wall. I was a church janitor in high school, where I wrestled with an fifty pound industrial upright every day. Not only could it inhale inattentive cats from across the room, it toned my pecs as well. When it came to actually doing the job they were purportedly designed to do, our recent feature-laden, plastic vacuum cleaners couldn't hold a candle to these beasts.

With the new dog in the house burying us in a cloud of sheddings, I finally could take it no more. Our vacuum cleaner hid in the front closet and refused to come out (I know this is true because when I did force it to go to work on the carpet, it spit the dog hair everywhere, just for spite). We gave up, and resolved to do what so many other defeated homeowners have done: we bought a Dyson.

Buying a Dyson vacuum cleaner is a little like going to the hospital with a splinter and insisting on seeing the world-famous heart transplant specialist: you don't really know if he's right for you, but everyone says he's great -- at least, you're pretty sure that's what you've heard -- and he costs orders of magnitude more than anyone else, so he must be perfect for the job. We went with the biggest model Dyson makes, with the additional "Animal" features. That screams of marketing hype, but it does come with a handheld powered head for cleaning upholstery in houses where pets are allowed on the furniture. Ours is not such a house, so that's clearly money well spent.

After one usage, I have to admit that the carpets did look noticably better. The garbage can was also full of several cannister-loads of grit and hair, one of those things that we are sometimes better off not thinking about. Best of all, the machine has not burned out a motor or flung paper scraps everywhere. Yet. After three days of ownership, I consider that a victory.

Begin the Begin, Again

If it's almost Labor Day, the kids must have been in school for a week already. It's a mildly momentous year. Third grade is often a pivotal year, when students start to develop their intellectual skills beyond the most basic primary tasks. It was a year of tremendous growth for me, and for Kelly as well. We anticipate the same from Michael. He is excited about the year because as a third grader, he now has access to the larger part of the school playground. It is important to have priorities.

Kelly has started eighth grade, our last pre-high school year. Her schedule worked out well; she was assigned to the English teacher that everyone has recommended for two years now, she is a last-period teacher's aide for her sixth grade language arts teacher, and, well, she's an eighth grader. That alone is cause for celebration. The first week of school has brought a slight shift in her lunch and brunch social groupings, and a new level of confidence that comes from being at the top of the school food chain. The homework load has not hit yet, but it cannot be any greater than what she has had the last two years. Academically, this year will be a step up, especially in English and math (algebra). Kelly has proven that she can handle anything the school can throw at her so far; we will do our best to give her the same support as she tackles this year's challenges.

School volleyball for Kelly starts soon, community league soccer for both kids will begin this week, and Michael has already started fall league baseball, with basketball to follow in a couple of months. The now-customary fall frenzy has begun.

These are the days we'll remember.

Swimming 2010 Finale

The swim season finished on a dramatic upward trajectory. Our four youngest divisions (6-and-under boys and girls, and 7-8 boys and girls) dominated the league finals; our swimmers won three of the four high point awards, and the fourth came in third while setting a league record along the way and finishing behind the high point winner of the entire meet. Our young guns lifted our team to a highest-ever fourth place finish, just ahead of our rival, the local country club. We were a very spirited group, and it was a tremendous feeling to be a part of the historic effort the kids achieved.

Michael did his part. He improved his times in each of his events (free, back and fly). Butterfly was his last event of the year. At the beginning of the year, his goal was to do a "no-breather" in free (no breaths for the entire 25 yard race) and earn "bronze" times. By two thirds of the way through the season, he had achieved those goals, consistently improving his times as he went. As we prepared for the league finals, he announced that his final goal was to earn a silver time and do a "no-breather" in fly, something almost nobody attempts. I normally guide him toward lofty goals, but the morning of his final swim I let him know that one strategically taken breath would be just fine, and a bronze time would be just fine, too. Michael insisted on a silver with a no-breather.

For his heat, he had an outside lane, so I found a good spot to take pictures as he swam toward me. I snapped pictures as he steamed toward me, but it dawned on me, as he approached the flags (about five yards from the end of the pool) that I had not seen him take a breath, which he ordinarily would have taken by then.


I watched in disbelief as powered full speed into the wall, finishing his no-breather. Incredible. Try it sometime. Try taking even four butterfly strokes without pulling up in exhaustion. Michael, barely four feet tall, went 25 yards without a breath.

On top of that, he won his heat, from the disfavored outer lane (indicating a lower seed time), by .02 of a second.


Oh yeah, and it was a "silver" time, by a good margin. He swam nearly four seconds faster than his prior best, earning his silver just like he said he would. Like us, his feet hardly touched the ground for days afterward, he was so proud of himself. Last year, his name would appear very nearly last on the list of 140 or so swimmers in his division. This year, he was solidly mid-pack for free and back, and 43rd in fly, appearing on the first page of the leaders as posted on the board at the meet. Not a bad way to finish a great year: three "popped" times, no-breathers in free and fly, two bronzes and a silver time, and a heat win in the league finals.

But it wasn't over. At tonight's awards ceremony, Michael won the "Coaches Award" for the second year in a row. The award is given to a few kids in each age group who work hard, swim well and are generally good kids. Kelly and Michael have won these kinds of awards in soccer; as a parent, this is a nice award to see your child earn this kind of award. It tells you that your kids act the way you always hope they will act when you are not there to monitor them.


Any reservations we may have had a year ago about joining a swim team have long since been abandoned. Michael has learned a crucial life skill (and Kelly has as well through swim lessons, even though she is not on the swim team itself), and has developed another athletic skill, while we have greatly enlarged our social group. The experience has been nothing but satisfying, even without meet wins, "gold" times or any other indicia of superior performance. Mere participation truly is enough to be fulfilling.

But we're pretty proud anyway.

iDust

This post is for the benefit of anyone who, like me, was driven crazy by dust that got under the glass of their iPhone. Welcome, Google travelers.

Not more than a couple of months after I got my iPhone 3G (nearly two years ago now), a large speck of dust settled into residence under the glass. It was soon joined by another similarly sized speck. As time passed, many more flecks of dust made their way under the glass. After I dropped the phone one time, an entire cloud of tiny dust particles lightly powdered half of the screen, as if I had bumped a bottle of talcum powder. The last straw for me was a relatively huge chunk of dust that found its way to the very middle of the camera aperture. At that extremely close focal length, the dust did not prevent me from taking pictures, but it caused some unwanted shading and coloration problems, and killed any hope of low-light (i.e., indoor) photography.

My exploration of Apple message boards on this problem was less than satisfactory. Few people seemed to have experienced the problem to the degree I had, and fewer still had a definitive confirmation of the cause, which seemed obvious enough to me. The data/charger port is a large rectangular opening that collected a ton of dust. I suspected that it was not sealed off from the rest of the innards of the iPhone (since dust seemed to be gathered more heavily at that end of the glass), but nobody online confirmed it. Some speculated that dust could get in around a rubber seal that runs around the entire screen, but that seemed unlikely. The tightly fitting screen or a gaping wide hole? I had a pretty well developed theory about how the dust got in. All it would take was actually opening the case to know for sure.

Opening any Apple product designed in the last decade is a difficult exercise, and one that will almost certainly void any product warranty. The design of Apple’s products has become one of the company’s hallmarks, but with the fabulous form comes an almost complete prohibition on tinkering under the hood. Other than the motherboard and the box that contained it, almost no original parts of my first PC remained by the time I finally discarded it. I frequently changed video cards, sound cards hard drives and monitors as the technology improved, and replaced a hard drive and power supply when they broke down. Modern day Apple devices, in contrast, are not intended to be opened by the consumer. It can be done, however. I have replaced the hard drive in our iMac, and after getting to the point that I could hardly take pictures and could barely see the screen in normal sunlight because of the layer of dust under the glass, I was finally determined to crack open the iPhone as well.

To all those who have had the iPhones for a long time and have become frustrated with the dust: you can solve the problem, if you are willing to open the case. Opening the case and the components inside is not difficult, if you are willing to accept a little cosmetic imperfection on the case thereafter.

To open the iPhone case, I followed the clear directions found here. Everything is as described. Undo the two screws at the base, insert a knife between the top surface and the silver rim (this is where a small amount of cosmetic damage may occur), pry up, and you are in. Disconnect three leads near the top of the phone, and the phone splits into the glass/LCD portion and the battery/phone portion. Great care should be taken when working with the glass and LCD screen. Don’t lose the tiny screws that hold them together, for one thing. Also, the LCD must be pried out of the glass casing. It does not take much pressure, but it must be done delicately. Finally, use extreme care when handling the exposed LCD screen itself. I did not touch the screen with my fingers; I only lightly wiped a lint-free cloth (the kind specially made to clean LCD computer monitors) across the screen. I supplemented that with a blast of compressed air. I cleaned the underside of the glass thoroughly, then mated the glass and LDC together again to prevent any ambient dust from returning. I took on the slightly trickier task of removing the camera lens to clean the aperture, but if you are deft with tiny screws, it can be done relatively easily. Putting the phone back together was as simple as reconnecting the leads and squeezing everything shut again.

Remarkably, the iPhone worked after I put it back together, but not without some drama. For some reason, the screen did not turn on again, even though it made the same noise it always did when I put it on the charger. I stewed on that overnight, and had to shut the phone down using the hard reset technique when my alarm went off the next morning (without a screen, you can’t tell the alarm to stop). When I plugged it back into the iMac, the startup screen reappeared, just like normal. Although I had already started to investigate replacing my phone with a 3GS (I’m going to wait for the next version of the 4G), I was delighted to get my old phone back. Even better, the newly cleaned screen was a revelation. I did not realize how obscured it had become until I saw again how bright and clear it could be. If you are out of warranty and reasonably adept with small screwdrivers and knives, recommend this bit of maintenance highly. Also, back up the phone before you start.

In poking around the case, my suspicions were confirmed. The dust flooded in through massive openings around the charger port, as well as smaller openings in the SIM card dock and perhaps the headphone jack. I consider this a design flaw. There are a couple of solutions. One would be to seal the openings somehow. A simpler solution would be to use something that Apple appears to favor in its machines: black electrical tape. I found large quantities of it in the iMac to seal seams, which is a problem for the do-it-yourselfer because tape does not return to its original position the way a screw will; every invasion weakens it. Very thin strips of the stuff were also inside the iPhone, but not one place it could do some good: the seam between the outer glass and the LCD. If I get inside the phone again, I will lay in strips of tape along the top and bottom edges of the glass to prevent anything from getting between the glass and the LCD. Unless the glass itself were to crack, there would be no need to separate the two in the future.

Poking around inside Apple products is not necessarily recommended, but it can be done, with significant benefits to the user.

"Cheese Clogs Major Artery"

That should have been the headline on this story: a truck carrying 39,000 pounds of shredded cheese caught fire and blocked traffic on Interstate 10 in Florida for five hours. If only a Tostitos truck had rolled through at the same time ... mmm, nachos.

Front And Center

One of the Silent Auction items available in the swim team's fundraisers was a set of four tickets to a Giants game. We won the tickets and went to the game this week. It turns out that the seats were pretty good.


We were in the third row of regular seats (behind the section of crazy-good special seats behind the backstop) almost directly behind home plate. It was a terrific place to see the ballgame. You could see everything that happened in the field, and the players seemed larger than life rather than the distant tiny figurines you see from our usual seats in the bleachers or upper deck. It didn't hurt that food was delivered to us in our seats, either.

Being close means you get a good look at the players.

Giants starter Matt Cain:


Rookie of the Year candidate Buster Posey, who got a hit for the 20th straight game:


Local product (Bellamine HS) Pat Burrell:


The game was exciting, with two top notch pitchers playing well, several home runs, and an eighth inning comeback by the home team (fueled by two home runs) to earn the win.


We don't get to too many games, but we try to make them memorable. This one is right at the top of the list.

Swim Season In Review

The regular season for the swim team has come to a close, with only the massive nine-team finals swim meet to go. It has been a terrific season for Michael, who has achieved nearly all of his goals, becoming a pretty quick swimmer along the way.

The swim league has "bronze," "silver" and "gold" time standards for each event. A "gold" time is the ticket to the County meet and the measure of a truly fast swimmer. The "bronze" and "silver" times are great targets for all the other swimmers. Last year, as a truly beginning swimmer and in the bottom part of his 7/8 age bracket, Michael improved over the course of the year, but only got to the point by the last meet that he could start to think that maybe he would get a "bronze" time. He came into this year with the firm goal of earning "bronze" times in his main strokes of free, back and fly.

Before the season was half over, he earned his first "bronze," in fly. A couple of meets later, he earned his "bronze" in free by a solid margin. Just last weekend, in a 25-meter pool (a bit longer than the more common 25-yard pools), he finally earned a "bronze" in backstroke.


Another one of his goals was to do a "no-breather," in which he swims the length of the pool without taking a breath. After achieving the goal in practice, he accomplished the feat in a meet about halfway through the season, and has done so in every free race since then. The first time he did it, the coaches were ecstatic, giving him a ton of praise, recognizing that he met one of his most important personal goals.

Over the course of the season, Michael also had the opportunity to participate in several freestyle relays, including one with three of our top swimmers (Michael filled in for a faster swimmer who didn't get to the meet). He also took part in medley relays (swimming the fly leg), and on one memorable evening, the individual medley. He nearly got a "bronze" time in the IM, even though he was dead tired by the end.

The season culminated in a nearly perfect meet this week. Michael won two of his three heats and set personal bests in all three, including finally breaking the 20 second mark in freestyle. Last year, he always placed at the bottom of every group of swimmers. This year, by the last meet he was solidly in the top 40%. He is not big enough to have a ton of speed, but his strokes are technically correct, and he has learned a lot this year about competing across the whole length of the pool. He has a drawer full of first place ribbons, which represent many come-from-behind victories since his starts are always the weakest part of his races. In all, he has become a faster swimmer and a mentally tougher competitor.


Through it all, Michael had fun with his friends, swimmers of all speeds.


But how could he not be faster ... the kid is ripped!

A Subpar Day

When I started the day in a dentist's chair, I thought the day could only get better. I was wrong.

On my way into work, my teeth and gums still aching from the determined attention of the hygienist, I heard and felt a fluttering from the back tires, then the whole car squirmed a little bit. Luckily, I was coming down a hill toward a small park, the only level, open area in my commute (anyplace else, and I would have been faced with a steep, winding road with no shoulder, or a freeway). I pulled straight to the side of the road and got out, expecting to see a flat tire. For once, I was disappointed that my diagnostic skills were so sharp:



I have taken the wheels off the car on multiple occasions to engage in the seemingly pointless pursuit of cleaning them thoroughly. As a result of my vanity, I was well versed in how to jack up the car and remove the wheel. What I was not so sure about was the spare tire. It looks like this:


In typical Germanic fashion, the spare tire system is unduly complicated. Also in typical Germanic fashion, it worked flawlessly. The spare tire is deflated; Porsche considerately includes a small air compressor designed to inflate the tire. Porsche also includes a full tool kit, a huge plastic bag perfectly sized to carry the bad wheel to keep the interior clean (there is no way to fit it in the trunk), and plastic gloves to keep your hands clean. My only concern is whether the thirteen year old, unused spare and compressor would work.

They did.




The car looked a little humiliated.



Complex though the spare system was, it worked perfectly and got me home safely.

Set The DVR

Although our television is usually tuned to Giants games, news or the Disney Channel, we make a little bit of time for series television. For instance, we watch Burn Notice on USA, a breezy crime/spy program, because one of our friends is a writer on the show.

When we lived in Southern California, nearly everyone we knew was connected to the entertainment industry somehow. Some were very successful, whether on screen (such as the Little Mermaid) or as part of the vast army of busniesspeople, cameramen, technicians, scenery and makeup artists and the like. We knew just as many people who spent year after year trying to gain a foothold in the industry, whether as a writer, actor, editor or some other capacity. When the dream of Hollywood takes hold, it does not let go. The tenacity of these people in the face of daunting odds is inspiring.

Our friend the Burn Notice writer lived the dream. Not long after he and his wife arrived in Hollywood, he managed to meet the right people and intern for the right projects so that he was in the right place at the right time when Burn Notice came along. He started off as a writer's assistant, and as the show became a hit, he worked his way up to become one of the senior writers, with at least a couple of the episodes to his credit. The show is enjoyable in the manner of a summer movie -- fast paced and witty, with explosions. It has an honored place among Mythbusters and Top Gear in our DVR's schedule programming.

Another show that we will add to our DVR roster starting this weekend is Mad Men. We arrived late to this party. Over the past three years, Mad Men garnered enormous critical acclaim even as it toiled in the far reaches of most cable lineups on AMC. We finally gave it a shot a few months ago, Netflixing the series DVDs. It quickly became one of those shows that we could not turn away from. The next disk could not arrive in the mail fast enough. The show expertly evokes the look and feel of the early sixties, or at least the early sixties as we imagine they were. The smoking, drinking, casual sexual harrassment ... it's all there. They even use these glasses, which I grew up with, and I'm pretty sure still live in Dad's cupboards:


The show plays like a long movie, with multiple story arcs given plenty of opportunity to live and breathe. The story payoffs are satisfying, and there is a depth of character that can only exist in long-form TV series, of which Mad Men takes full advantage. The lead character is one of the most intriguingly flawed figures in recent TV history; you find yourself questioning why you like him so much and pull so hard for him. The show is highly stylized, yet it is the imperfection of its lead that gives it deeper roots in humanity than almost anything else on television. Sure, it's a soap opera with moodier lighting and better clothes, but it is produced with great care and expertise.

We finished going through the first two seasons just as the disks for Season 3 were released, which we dashed through quickly. Season 4 begins on AMC Sunday evening. Now that we have caught up to the broadcast schedule, we will have to suffer through weeklong delays as each episode is released. The horror.

Summerime, And The Livin's Easy

We have enjoyed a summer that has felt as pleasantly aimless as we imagine summers ought to be. With the exception of occasional bouts of morning gloom, the weather has been sunny and warm without being uncomfortably hot. Our new resident has added a dimension to our activities without overwhelming us. Most importantly, from my working-guy perspective, our weekends have been relatively open and stress-free.

The Fourth of July weekend was about as perfect as one could hope for. The weather was great, sporting events were on hold for the holiday weekend, and we did not use up hours of our free time traveling. We love to visit family and friends, but sometimes using all of the available hours in a holiday weekend to simply be at home is as refreshing as a week in Hawaii.

(Okay, that’s crazy talk, but spending the holiday weekend at home is pretty nice.)

I started the Fourth of July weekend right by finishing a light remodeling of our guest bathroom. My household projects tend to happen on three-day weekends, which is why the spackling and repainting that I started on Memorial Day weekend did not conclude until the Fourth of July weekend. After pulling the last piece of masking tape and hanging the last towel rack, I found myself contemplating something I don't often face: a fully completed project.

We maximized our fireworks exposure, too. On the 3rd, we went to an event in Concord that has been going for more than 20 years. In a large public park, a local church sets up what amounts to a small county fair, with games for kids, food, and a concert/fireworks show. The stage backdrop is a 30 foot tall American flag which doubles as risers for a choir. From our ideal seats on a grassy knoll under a cloudless sky, we enjoyed a show with dancers, soloists and funny characters to entertain the kids of movie and musical numbers, worship songs, military service academy anthems (including Taps) and American patriotic songs. The evening ended with a suitably energetic fireworks display.




The next night, we went up to the hillside parking lot of our church to see the fireworks show that would be set off from the golf course immediately below. For being such a small town, Moraga puts on one heck of a fireworks show. Many years, including two years ago when we rolled into town in our first moments as residents, fog creeps over the hills to put a damper on the fireworks display. This year, the weather was spectacularly perfect. Not only were the fireworks visually enjoyable, but the sound they made, reverberating in rolling thunder up and down the little valley, was stunning (and possibly frightening to anyone who has dealt with explosives in a less festive context).


We closed the weekend on the holiday Monday by fulfilling one of Michael’s long-term ambitions: a lemonade stand. Lemonade stands are a frequent sight in our neighborhood; we had three within five blocks this past weekend. Michael and his good friend Lily had agreed to run a stand together, which meant their parents found themselves bound to get the venture off the ground. We all helped with the materials, but the kids did great job. They positioned the stand across the street from Lily’s house at a wide spot on the main road at a four-way stop. Lily put together a great sign, mixed lemonade and made rice crispy treats, while we supplied ice tea, ice, brownies and a cooler. They kept at it for more than three hours, doing brisk business and pulling in more than $70.


That, right there, is Americana.

The Quantum Physics Comedy Club

A cop pulls over Schroedinger.

During the course of the stop the cop asks Schroedinger if he can look in the trunk.

Schroedinger gives him permission. The cop looks in the trunk and finds a dead cat.

"Excuse me sir, do you know there's a dead cat in your trunk"

Schroedinger replies,

"Well, there is now!"

End of an Epoch

Hewlett-Packard, the original pioneering company that helped create and define what become known as Silicon Valley, will be closing its Cupertino campus. Although HP is more closely associated with its birthplace in Palo Alto, its Cupertino operations were extensive in size and longevity. I grew up within a couple of miles of the Cupertino campus, went to a church that was across the street from one corner of the 100-acre site, and even worked there for two summers. Many friends of mine, or their parents or grandparents, worked there. Consolidation and retrenching is a normal part of the long-term business cycle, but it is nevertheless a pity to see the closure of a campus that has been a presence in that part of town for as long as most people there can remember.

I don't quite buy all of the stated justifications for the closure, however. In the politically correct speech patterns that seem to particularly afflict South Bay PR personnel, the closure has come about because consolidating local operations "will create a more productive, flexible, ecological and highly energized work environment." HP also stated that the closure "allows HP to better use space, continue to reduce our carbon footprint and provide employees with a more collaborative work environment." I track with everything except the "ecological" and "carbon footprint" remarks. These buzzwords must be used to ensure that the corporate image is one of a progressive caretaker of the earth, a de facto requirement for anyone who wishes to do business around here. However, I doubt very much that changing the commute of several thousand people from a couple of miles across town to a dozen miles up a gridlocked 101 to Palo Alto is actually a net positive from an ecological, carbon footprint viewpoint.

Reduce your carbon footprint all you want, HP. Kudos to you, but retain your integrity. Closing the Cupertino site has nothing to do with advancing environmental issues; by redirecting employees north to the Palo Alto mothership, the closure will create more traffic and pollution than before. Close the site if you must, but leave the dishonest feel-good lingo out of it.

Willful Ignorance

It has come to light that people are shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that compact fluorescent light bulbs, those magnificant, earth-saving gifts from the gods themselves, are a bit problematic when it comes time to dispose of them. It turns out that CFLs, like all fluorescent bulbs, contain mercury, one of the more virulent toxins. (It's not like we didn't know this was coming; I wrote about it more than three years ago.)

Fine print on the packaging, of course, alerts consumers to both the presence of mercury and the fact that you cannot just throw them in the trash. Undoubtedly, CFLs are showing up in dumps, leaching mercury into the soil. Experts are now coming out of the woodwork to point out that these devices, which use less energy than incandescent bulbs, require special disposal infrastructure. Those extra collection points and processes come at a cost; not just the direct cost of the materials and procedures needed to collect, dismantle and dispose of the CFLs separately from all other refuse, but also the environmental damage done by improperly discarded CFLs.

Considering how careful those who are particularly passionate about environmental issues tend to be about toxins like mercury, I confess I'm a bit baffled by the lukewarm response to the hazards posed by improper disposal of CFL. People are willing to balance poisoning the soil or exposing oneself to mercury if a CFL were to break, again saving a few bucks on an electric bill, and come out in favor of the cheaper bill. As a person interviewed for the linked article says, "if it's really toxic, I'd probably stay away from it. But,if it's a really small amount, and if the bulb's really energy-efficient, then I'd say the good outweighs the bad, and I'd buy it."

"Really" toxic? It brings to mind Kevin Pollack's takedown of Demi Moore in "A Few Good Men," ridiculing her for "strenuously" objecting when her first, ordinary objection was overruled. Being a little toxic is like being a little pregnant: either it is or it isn't. When did a little bit less electical consumption become good enough to outweigh the bad of a toxin that can injure or kill you right now in your home by the simple accident of dropping a bulb, or poison acres of soil or groundwater?

I guess every principle has its price.

Another Sign You Are Aging

When you are young, drama sometimes follows your favorite bands. Singers end up in drug rehab, guitarists take a leave due to "exhaustion," and drummers end up with broken bones from random tumbles off the stage, or hotel balconies. Those are young peoples' afflictions.

You know you are getting old when your favorite rock group, the iconic band for an entire generation of rock music, must delay its tour to your area because the lead singer has ... a bad back.

Lunacy Central

Oakland tried to tear itself to pieces again yesterday. The city had been on edge for weeks, waiting for the verdict in the trial of a BART policeman who shot and killed a passenger in the aftermath of a fight on a train after New Years Eve last year. The fact that the cop was white while the victim was black created an instant flashpoint for unrest. Rioters broke windows and looted businesses downtown when the officer was first arrested. The city was ready for another eruption of violence, with law enforcement officers prepared to drop in from neighboring communities to assist the overburdened Oakland police department. Self-appointed civic leaders planned peaceful demonstrations at the central plaza, and pleaded for calm in anticipation of a verdict that would anger the black community.

My office is across the street from City Hall, which gives us a front-row seat for any demonstration any given day of the week. It put us in the eye of this particular storm, however. Starting last week, I noticed numerous local businesses putting up posters in their front windows expressing support for (or at least empathy with) the victim. These businesses did not necessarily have anything to do with the victim or his race (our local burrito shop, for instance, or a nearby Korean-owned hair salon). The posters were the modern equivalent of Old Testament blood spread across the lintel, praying that the curse of rioting will pass over these stores. It was well established that most of the rioters in the first event were from outside the area, anarchists just looking for any excuse to destroy property and spit (literally) in the fact of authority.

The word filtered out to us yesterday at about 2:30 p.m. that the verdict would be read around four. Several of our people commute via BART, and we all had to be able to get home. We, like most businesses, decided to send everyone home. Outside, I could see people streaming from the nearby buildings toward BART or their cars. The street outside the building jammed up, which never happens. In our parking garage, the public level quickly became gridlocked as the clerks could not process the ticket payments fast enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to leave at the same time. The attendants eventually just let people leave without paying. On the permit level in which I park, there were lineups about ten cars deep, something I had never seen before.

Once out of the garage, I found a massive police presence waiting for the verdict to be read and the hordes to descend. I was able to get across Broadway and on my way without any further trouble, and arrived home just as the verdict (involuntary manslaughter) was read.

Thankfully, there was less violence than before, although a lot of anger and a few clashes with police, all of which were at intersections right around our building. It was not until night fell that the professional anarchists arrived to commit random acts of violence. These low-lifes, dressed in black hooded sweatshirts, spray painted slogans, confronted police and looted businesses (most notably relieving a Foot Locker of its inventory of sneakers).

Putting aside the merits of the trial itself, there is something fundamentally tiresome about the threat, partially realized, of the rioting. A few months ago, four Oakland policemen were killed by a criminal. The criminal was black, the officers were not. In spite of this senseless tragedy, there were no riots. There was not even a thought that there would be. In the case of the BART cop, riots were expected, simply because the victim was black and the cop was white. It is both patronizing to assume that those conditions will result in rioting, and deeply disappointing that it did.

Bronzed

Not quite halfway through the swim season, Michael hit one the goals he set for himself all the way back at the end of last season: he earned a "bronze" time in butterfly. He has been right on the edge of this all season, getting within a second and a half of bronze-level times in three of the strokes. He finally got the breakthrough yesterday. He is still not one of the fastest swimmers, but he has proven to himself that he is capable of performing at a competititive level.

Even more gratifying for me was what came later in the afternoon. Michael and I went to the pool in the scorching hot afternoon. One of Michael's closest friends was there, along with his twin sister and younger brother. All three are top swimmers; the sister won a trophy earlier that day for earning the most points in her age group. The four of them spontaneously set up a half-pool medley relay, with each swimmer taking a different stroke for their respective legs of the relay. It was all encouragement and fun, with no adult involvement whatsoever, and they kept it up for more the better part of an hour. Energetic, friendly free play: that is what childhood should be.

A New Mouth To Feed ... And Walk

This is Daisy.


She is a border collie/Aussie shepherd mix, about five years old. She was the first dog we saw, on the first day of exploring what it would be like to search for a dog. We did not intend acquire a dog impulsively, and had previously ruled out border collies, but when we found her as the only dog at a cat adoption event, we connected immediately. She has probably had a hard life, likely as a breeder, so she is not very trusting of people. She was hours away from being destroyed when the rescue people found her. Although she is predisposed to be wary, she is very calm, though, and handles walking on a leash very well. Within a week, after a vet check and spaying, she came to live with us.

We have hired a dog-whisperer sort of trainer who has helped us with ways to jump-start her socialization. She now spends her time with us in whatever room in which we are spending time. Where she once paced frantically looking for exit doors, she has now learned how to be content. An open door or gate is still the surest way to get her to move quickly, but she is showing signs that her stress level has dropped considerably.

It will probably be a long time until she greets people without cowering, and she may never enjoy playing with toys. She seems to have gotten used to us, though, and will lie down curled up at our feet in the evening like a member of the family. In some ways, she is as much work as a baby, but as she starts to approach us for affection, the work will be worth it.

Arizona Had Nothing To Do With This ... We Think

If you haven't been following soccer's World Cup (or, as the broadcasters are annoyingly required to say, "the FIFA World Cup"), you are missing out on some amazing theater. True, some games have been boring, but not necessarily because of low scores. You may have heard that the US won its final pool game (its four-team mini-tournament to determine which two of the four go on to the single-elimination stage) 1-0 on a 91st minute miracle. Only one goal was scored, but the game was taut, well-played, and ultimately exhilarating because the win put the US through to the next round. YouTube is full of footage of gatherings of people in bars, restaurants and outside department store windows going bonkers when Landon Donovan scored the winning goal.

Mexico, like the US, is one of the 16 teams that qualified for the next round of the tournament. You have to wonder how the Mexican team feels, though, when they look at the brackets for the single elimination phase. In its four-team bracket, the US (ranked 14th in the world) will first face Ghana (32nd). If they get past Ghana, to get to the final four the Americans will have to take on either Uruguay (16th) or South Korea (47th).

Mexico, on the other hand, will face down a murderer's row of historic (and current) soccer powerhouses. Mexico, ranked 17th in the world, faces off against Argentina, ranked seventh in the world, coached by legendary former player (and legendary buffoon) Diego Maradona, and featuring Lionel Messi, generally considered the best player in the world. If Mexico somehow survives that test, which would be a noteworthy upset, they will have to beat either England (8th) or Germany (6th, and one of the favorites to win the Cup).

Ghana, Uruguay and South Korea, or Argentina, England and Germany. Sorry about that, amigos. Just luck of the draw, I'm afraid. I'm reasonably sure that Governor Brewer is not a member of FIFA.

[Programming note: the US plays at 2:30 pm Eastern on Saturday]

The Man Most In Need Of A Wayback Machine

Ron Wayne has been getting a lot of attention lately. It is well-known among Silicon Valley greybeards and Apple fanatics that Apple was started by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (like me, Homestead High School graduates). What was not well remembered until recently is that Ron Wayne was the third founder of Apple.

As Wayne tells it, the Steves brought him in to help with the logistics of starting Apple and to be a mediator between them. Wayne wrote the agreement that created Apple, designed the first logo, and received 10% of the company. Less than two weeks later, for $800, Wayne became the first ex-employee of Apple. Instead of being a billionaire, he is a coin-and-stamp collector who spends his days and Social Security checks in Las Vegas-area casinos.

I first ran across Wayne's story about a month ago, which finally percolated up to the big media outlets, with a feature running today on CNN.com. Tracing the story back, it looks like Wayne emerged into the limelight in April, when a short article on Applematters.com commemorated the anniversary of his departure from the company ... potentially a $20 billion decision.

Some commentators (and many commenters) express amazement that Wayne could have walked away from the company the way he did. At the time, Jobs was leveraging the company to the hilt to get it off the ground, and Wayne was uncomfortable with the risk he was exposed to with the always volitile Jobs at the helm. What people tend to miss is just how common these circumstances were in the halcyon early days of Silicon Valley. Growing up, it seemed like we were always hearing of this person or that person going to a "startup." Or thinking about going to a "startup." Or thinking about someone else going to a "startup." This seemed to touch just about everyone's dad at least once. It was the culture of the place and the time. The optimism for the big score was rampant, inversely proportional to the actual rate of success. Ventures like Apple were everywhere, and they failed all the time. When one company failed, another three began. It was entirely reasonable for someone like Wayne, twenty years older than the brilliant but impetuous Jobs, to see that the risks facing the company, which along with a bunch of other tiny companies was essentially attempting to invent an entire industry, were too much for a man in mid-career to bear.

Some people have suggested that the Steves should throw a little money Wayne's way in recognition of his historic role at the creation of what is now a cultural touchstone as well as business dynamo. Wayne's current circumstances are too close to destitute to be comfortable for fans of the glossy Apple empire. While that would be a nice and humane thing to do, Jobs has never been accused of being either. Philosophically, return on investments come from investments that are actually made. Those who can't stomach the risk (which is most of us) don't earn the right to enjoy the reward. That is not a value judgment, it is simply the reality of capital investment.

For his part, Wayne seems remarkably upbeat about the trajectory of his life, considering how it could have gone. Of course, fabulous riches cannot be assumed; he could have been purged or suffered financial ruin back in the dark days when Apple nearly failed a time or two. It is not for him, or anyone, to know. Ron Wayne will forever be one of the foremost examples of "what if ..."

Champions At Last

It took an extra game, but our A's finally got their hands on the champion's trophy. The top half of the order was productive all game, the bottom half of the order did its part, they had few defensive gaffes, and the Orioles did not hit as many bombs as they had in the last game. After two innings, we were ahead 10-0, held on as the Orioles closed the score to 11-8, then tacked on another four in the last inning to wind up with a final score of 15-8.

For his part, Michael went 3 for 3 from his customary second spot in the batting order, including a shot over the second baseman's head to drive in two with two outs to ignite a second-inning five run rally.

Ready for the pitch at second base, as usual:


Trying to score from first on a teammate's double:


In January, many of these boys had trouble playing catch. Now they carry trophies. Smiles all around!