2016 - 2011

4th quarter 2016
We got a Tivo BOLT DVR during Black Friday. It does cable with Comcast and streams to Macs, PCs, and tablets. As Comcast has changed most programming to MPEG-4 from MPEG-2, PCs cannot download those programs from the 2 Tivo HDs. They have been increasing internet speeds, but reducing bandwidth for cable. Most 1080i have been converted to 720p and encoding reduced by 70% to 3.75Mbps.

What has 4 bare feet, plays 6 instruments, t-shirts with NASTY WOMAN, and NO DAPL. The answer is Rhiannon Giddens, Dirk Powell, and a surprise guest Joan Baez. Upon arrival at Bing Concert Hall, we noticed a grand piano, guitar, 2 diatonic (Cajun) accordians, 2 banjos, 2 fiddles, and a mandolin. Dirk played them all. Rhiannon played 3 of them. Ms. Baez would not have been a surprise had we looked at the fall tour on dirkpowell.org Genres included folk, country, bluegrass, zydeco, gospel, and even a selection from Porgy and Bess. Rhiannon changed to the t-shirt near the end, with Ms. Baez having the same inscription but with NO DAPL (NO Dakota Access PipeLine) on the back.

Three family members went to Nancy’s uncle and aunt's to pick permissions. The harvest was about 2/3 of last year's crop. We brought 2 ladders, a platform, and a pole lopper. It was fun again seeing relatives and getting together for dinner at the New Port Restaurant again..

3rd quarter 2016
Seeing a fan on TV holding a sign with the term BELIEVEN during the elimination game versus the Chicago Cubs, I thought it was a nicely coined word. My daughter indicated that BeliEVEN had been circulating in social media. Matt Moore struck out 10 batters in 8 innings giving up 2 runs (1 earned) on just 2 hits. He did not start the 9th having thrown 120 pitches. With 3 outs to go, the Giants winning 5-2, and a chance to go back to play a fifth and deciding game in Chicago, the 9th inning fell apart for the home team. An error coupled with tired pitching allowed the Cubs to plate four runs to lead 6-5. It was a fast bottom of the 9th as the Cubs will now move on in the playoffs. Since 2012, this was the first playoff series loss for San Francisco. If not the Giants, I'm rooting for the Cubbies!

Jocelyn began teaching 3rd grade at Ruskin Elementary in the Berryessa Unified School District in San Jose.

We explored a steam ferryboat, tugboat, steam paddlewheel tug, and the Balclutha cargo ship at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Site. The sale rigging demonstration on the Balclutha was impressive as the main mast is 145 feet tall.

Going to see Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell at Bing Concert Hall in Stanford in November.

Our seven year old Vizio 42” LCD TV’s backlight died so we got a basic Samsung 50” 4k TV. You can work the browser with a keyboard and mouse, but some characters (shifted numbers) do not work! Also the software keyboard does not disappear when a real one is attached. Out of the box, the picture is unwatchable. Start by turning off 120 motion, set to movie mode, and tweak a ton of picture settings.

We saw Emperors’ Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei in the Asian Art Museum. Among them was a piece of jasper rock sculpted to resemble braised pork belly.

2nd quarter 2016
Congratulations to the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James for beating the Golden State Warriors 93-89 in game 7 to win the NBA Championship. Golden State did not score during the final 4:39 of the 4th quarter. Cleveland is the only team to come from a 3-1 deficit to win the title. Steph Curry did not perform his best in the last 3 games. It was Draymond Green’s best in the seventh.

The Golden State Warriors set another record of 17 3-pointers during the Finals breaking San Antonio Spurs set in 2013. Golden State came from behind to beat Oklahoma City 108-101, with Klay Thompson setting an NBA playoff record of 11 3-pointers.

The San Jose Sharks defeated the L.A. Kings in 5 games, Nashville Predators in 7, and St. Louis Blues in 6 to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. With 36 seasons between Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton, they finally made it to the Final.

April 13 - The Golden State Warriors set a new NBA record of 73 wins with 9 losses, beating the Memphis Grizzles 125-104. Stephen Curry now holds the record of 402 3-pointers in a season. Their longest losing streak was one!

On April 10, the Golden State Warriors won against the San Antonio Spurs to equal the 72 win season of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. They also set a record 34th road win set by the 1995-96 Bulls. They have one more game in the regular season on April 13. The 33 straight road loss to the Spurs also ended.

They won against the Grizzlies 100-99 in another nail biter. Stephen Curry set a record of 151 consecutive regular season games with at least a 3 pointer. He is on course to beat his 286 3-pointer NBA record set last season.

1st quarter 2016
Got tickets to see Paul Simon at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley in early June.

Warriors set another NBA record winning streak of 54 games at home. They were attempting their 55th win before losing to the Boston Celtics 109-106.

Super Bowl 50 was a bit lopsided so we stepped outside to trim some trees and general cleanup.

4th quarter 2015
On Saturday, December 12, the Bucks (Milwaukee) stopped here. They won against the Warriors 108-95. The Golden State Warriors had set a new NBA record starting a season with a 24 game win streak this Friday against the Boston Celtics in double overtime. Streak was 28 spanning last season - 6th straight on this road trip - 14 combined road trip. No other team in any sport had ever started a season with this many wins.

Got a Gigabyte BRIX GB-BXBT-1900 for $97 (includes tax!). It is a tiny 4.25 x 4.5 x 2.2” barebones computer with a quad core 1.99GHz Celeron. I put in 8GB memory (max 1 SODIMM slot) and a hybrid 500GB drive. Installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu 15.10 Linux dual boot. A Samsung 250GB 850 EVO mSATA SSD with an adapter replaced the hard drive. Windows 7 was upgraded to Windows 10 and Debian 8.2 replaced Ubuntu as it froze randomly. It runs VGA at 2048x1152 and HDMI. Competition includes the MSI cubi.

Nancy and I went to her uncle’s to pick persimmons again. This year, I brought a 7’ fiberglass ladder and a pole pruner. An aunt and her spouse came down from Medford, Oregon to visit their kids. After this, we feasted at New Port Restaurant where we enjoyed dishes with bitter melon and thousand year old eggs. As there were so much fruit, we dehydrated most of them.

3rd quarter 2015
Attended University of the Pacific Open House and listened to some jazz performances. Had dinner and saw Karrin Allyson at the Brubeck Festival in the Bob Hope Theatre in downtown Stockton. The SF Jazz Collective finished the latter half of the show.

Bait and switch - Having heard generally positive writeups of Windows 10 Pro, I installed it on my seldom used spare desktop running Windows 7 (generally working in OS X Yosemite mode). After not being able to customize the Start Menu to my liking, I found that some of these features were pulled from the official release. Better than Win8.1, but not Win7.

I went camping at the Pinnacles NP campground (on the east side) with a big group of San Jose Astronomical Association members from July 10 to 12. The camp meals were well planned and cooked to perfection. It is a fairly dark site but with a tall, wide tree toward the south. Got some viewing time with my C14 cat and ES127 refractor the first night. I was showing some guests objects the second night, which was cut short with clouds. All in all, quite fun. People want to do it again next year!

As Chris is going to U.C. Davis, he gets a Dell Latitude E7450 ultralight 14” laptop with 1920x1080 resolution, i5 dual CPU, 12GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. It’s a great computer, so I got one for myself. It has mini DisplayPort and HDMI so will do an extended desktop at 2560x1440 on the 27” Dell and 1920x1200 on the 24” Gateway. Login is via conventional password or fingerprint reader. My Macbook will now be used sparingly. My only gripe is to do a 2 finger tap (right click) on the touchpad, I needed to edit the registry.

The Golden State Warriors, after a 40 year hiatus, played the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. The best team of the regular season having a record of 67-15, with MVP Stephen Curry, won against the Cavaliers in the sixth and final game. 2015 NBA Champions!

2nd quarter 2015
Behind by 20 points at the start of the 4th quarter, the Golden State Warriors was trailing the New Orleans Pelicans by 3 points with under 10 seconds left. The big strategic mistake by the Pelicans was not to foul Golden State. Stephen Curry tied the game with a 3 pointer that sent the game into a 5 minute overtime. Near the end of OT, the Warriors was leading by 3. New Orleans had the ball and was fouled (the expected move.) Golden State won 123-119. What an exciting game!

Went to see Fleetwood Mac at the Oracle Arena. Christine McVie did not perform Songbird after the first encore. She had had a thumb injury. Went to see the Giants play the Rockies and got a couple of snowglobes.

1st quarter 2015
Nancy and I saw the 2010, 2012, and 2014 San Francisco Giants World Series trophies in Santa Clara. This was a much better experience than the trophy tour held in East Palo Alto two years ago.

We also visited a friend’s 90 year old mother in Paso Robles. We talked for almost two hours. Afterward we visited Solvang and Mission Santa Ines. During our stay in Lompoc, we decided to go see alkali Soda Lake and the pictographs on Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain National Monument.

4th quarter 2014
More rain needed - got 7.4” which is the second wettest for December.

We went persimmon picking at Nancy’s uncle and aunt’s. Got pails of fruit and dried most of them.

Attended a stock seminar given by by aquaintance of Sir Richard Branson in Newport Beach and stayed with a friend whom I have known since Cal Poly.

Toyota Sunnyvale is not price competitive, however the salesperson was more than thorough explaining hybrids and the Prius v. Yelp’s filtered my unbiased review and placed it to the not currently recommended. It later just disappeared, but still in my reviews, just not on the business reviews. So Yelp is biased and Yelp is messed up?

Got a Crucial 256GB Solid State Drive for $70 and installed Yosemite onto it for my main desktop.

A survey indicated 47 of 50 states picking the Royals to win the World Series, with only California, Arizona, and Wyoming favoring the Giants. They are wrong as the San Francisco Giants have won their third World Championship in five years.

As the wild card contender, the San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, and finally the St. Louis Cardinals. With only 2 home runs in the postseason, they scored 6 runs on 3 homers in the 5th and deciding game to win the National League Pennant. They will play in the World Series against the Kansas City Royals. Go Giants! I’ve always wondered how much sports betting money is lost wagering against the Giants.

3rd quarter 2014
Behind the superb complete game 4 hit shutout of Madison Bumgardner, the Giants blew the Pittsburg Pirates away. Brandon Crawford is the first shortstop to hit a grand slam in postseason play.

The Oakland A’s self-destructed and let a 4 run lead slip away, losing the wild card game to the Kansas City Royals. KC had 7 stolen bases (tied postreason record) with 4 coming in one inning (postreason record).

Pricing of IPOs have always missed the mark. $FB too high initially and $BABA too low. It should have been priced at $88.88 - the Chinese are quite superstitious.

Half of the family went camping with two other families in Big Sur at Julia Pfeiffer State Park.

In one of three Shakespeare in the Park venues this summer, Nancy and I saw The Taming of the Shrew at Cupertino’s Memorial Park Amphitheatre.

Got a black and red Canon EOS M mirrorless camera with 18-55mm lens and two refurbished Canon 430ex II flashes.

I won a Dell u2713hm 2560x1440 monitor on eBay. The person selling it had problems getting it to work to a Macbook Pro. It works via DVI-DL with my homebuilt Mac. I got another on eBay. After getting a DisplayPort cable, my Macbook thinks it’s a TV and displays 1920x1080. With an override file on my Macbook, it works at full resolution of 2560x1440. The monitor must be attached at bootup, otherwise it displays 1920x1080 after choosing it from preferences. Another Apple gotcha. Mavericks and Yosemite continuously run my fan. These two OSs also lock up my Macbook randomly.

2nd quarter 2014
A friend came out to visit from Massachusetts. We traveled to Big Basin State Park, Santa Cruz mountains, and twice to San Francisco, coming back on Highway 1 through the new Devils Slide tunnel. He went sailing with another friend in Tiburon and stayed over at another friend in Santa Clara.

Nancy went to Las Vegas for a seminar and Dead Horse State Park, Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks with her sister and friend.

At the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society Plant Sale in Lakeside Park in Oakland. Chris won 1st place with a Cobra Lily and received a $20 gift certificate.

1st quarter 2014
Content that a Florida jury of 4 white men, 4 white women, 2 black women, 1 Asian female, and an Hispanic man convicted Michael Dunn of trying to kill 3 teenagers over loud music. They could not decide on the 1st degree murder charge on the teenage he shot dead. They interpreted the stupid Stand Your Ground law appropriately. There is absolutely no excuse for 10 gunshots and no 911 call. And there’s the 71 year old former police officer who shot a man over texting. I hope he gets a jail sentence also.

Been walking more and more since the beginning of February, but still doing ankle range of motion exercises to fight the stiffness.

Three weeks later and the cast is now off. As the bone healed well enough, the surgeon indicated I could optionally go with a walkable boot for one to two weeks. I chose not to. We left with a 5 x 80” rubber band for outpatient physical therapy.

Daughter now can drive a stick shift, having taught her in the Camry. She drove it to Pick 'n Pull for its final rites.

Finally, after months of problems with DMV and the Bureau of Automotive Repair, we will drive the 1989 Camry down to the salvage yard and get $1000 for it.

4th quarter 2013
Broke my ankle covering the jade to prevent frost damage. It was a spiral fracture of the fibula. Had a plate with 6 screws into lower and upper and another screw pulling the bone together. After the swelling eased over two weeks, I'm in an orange fiberglass cast which is lighter, more comfortable, and allows the ankle to move less.

What a game! For Jim Harbaugh’s 50th birthday, the 49er’s beat the Atlanta Falcons 34 to 24 to get into the playoffs.

Nexus 7 2013 32GB and Nook HD+ 32GB tablets were purchased (no GPS, no camera.) I just could not fathom spending $500 on an 32GB iPad Mini Retina. A Micron 480GB SSD was swapped into the 4 year old Macbook with a clean Mavericks install. Got a Canon 70-300 f4-5.6L IS zoom to replace the other lightweight.

Go Oakland A’s! Two hits against Justin Verlander ends the Athletics’ postseason.

3rd quarter 2013
On September 14, I caught the start of the America’s Cup and got a picture of both catamarans with Alcatraz in the background in the aborted second race.

After our annual potluck at California Carnivores, we hiked the Stony Creek and Myrtle Creek Trails which has mining relics in the Six Rivers National Forest. Both have Darlingtonia Californica (cobra lily.)

2nd quarter 2013
At the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, we got up close to several terracotta warriors, horses, and chariots, prior to learning of our trip to China. We went to Beijing, Xian, Guilin, and Shanghai with Nancy’s brother and his 2 sons. Cathay Pacific has a video monitor on each seatback for movies, special interest, and music. It was a blast to see the view from the underbelly camera, flight map, and other statistics, like -56°C at 39,000 feet. The Canon 17-85mm lens starting acting flaky again. After returning back to the US, I replaced it with a used, but mint 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS from eBay. An Atlantic Blue 6 speed manual Hyundai Elantra GT is replacing the old Camry.

1st quarter 2013
The 49ers are going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl! The Baltimore Ravens won 34-31.

4th quarter 2012
Printed the holiday newsletter on a Samsung CLP-620ND color laser. It has problems aligning the colors. Changing the text to black will add artifacts to photos. I hesitate to recommend any printer by Samsung.

Participated in Small Business Saturday by buying a ball head for the monopod and eating Japanese. At the same time, I got a nice, sharp, and fast Tamron 60mm f/2 macro lens to capture lifesize closeups.

Replaced our aging refrigerator with its failing circulating fan and 47° temperature with a stainless steel bottom freezer model. The ice cube maker was removed to gain more space. Received rebates from PG&E for buying this energy efficient model and recycling the old one.

3rd quarter 2012
What an exciting season ending run the A’s have had. And the Giants had a great comeback in the NLDS against the Reds and the NLCS against the Cardinals. There won't be another Bay Bridge Series.

Attended a San Jose Astronomical Association meeting on Mobile Devices. Purchased a wireless add-on along with planetarium software to control the telescope via the iPad.

Nancy and Jocelyn went camping at Sunset State Beach in August with two other families. They finally were able to fire up the old Coleman fuel stove after failing last year.

In Sebastopol, we had our annual potluck at California Carnivores. We escaped without buying anything.

2nd quarter 2012
Chris attended a four week session of STARTALK Mandarin at Palo Alto High this summer. He was able to skip to Chinese 2 after a couple of weeks at Fremont High School.

Watched the transit of Venus across the Sun in the backyard. This event will not occur again until 2117 and 2125.

Got a green car for Jocelyn. Really, it’s an Alien Metallic Pearl Kia Soul. Six months later, it’s a little less green as EPA test results were revised downward by 14%. Kia will compensate for the difference for gas via gift cards on an ongoing basis.

1st quarter 2012
Preordered the new iPad and it shipped from China and was delivered on launch date Friday, March 16.

Nancy traveled to South America with her two sisters, brother-in-law, and sister’s friend for ten days in March. She got a Canon T3i for the journey and took one of my lenses. She brought a smaller SF Giants rolling carry-on to make certain it fit in the overhead bins.

We went to the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre to see Tommy Emmanuel. It’s a cozy 1000 seat continental style theater similar to the Arizona State University Gammage designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Tempe, Arizona. We support ticketing agencies that charge little premium for purchase. Frank Vignola and Vinnie Raniolo from New Jersey opened with several guitar pieces, some humorous skits, ending with The Flight of the Bumblebee and a 20 minute intermission started. On stage, Frank mentioned performers are bigger than they appear to be. In the lobby, they are shorter than expected. Tommy then sang and played a whole lot of fingerpicking stuff and including a Beatles medley. That continued for another hour and 55 minutes. Before the concert, we ate Moroccan food at Tajine, which has since shut down.

Fourth quarter 2011
Got 8GB for the Toshiba notebook at Fry’s. Final price after rebate would be about $20.

More expensive Canon 24-105mm lens was sent back for aperture iris not able to be closed down. It was intermittent until it finally displayed 00 on the LCD display. Estimate was at 1/4 the price of the lens. At least, turnaround door to door was only 8 days.

Love it - hope they do this again next year. Nancy got a $25 American Express’ Small Business Saturday credit for our dining at Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi. The other credit was for buying a monopod from San Jose Camera. It is an indispensible accessory I should have purchased years ago.

Even before the release of the Amazon Fire, I bought a Toshiba Thrive 10.1" 16GB Android tablet through Groupon for $310. It has an SDXC slot, USB, USB mini, and HDMI ports, 16GB internal flash and 1GB memory. It does everything and more than an iPad or Fire will do. Funny thing is everybody compares the Fire (8GB, 512MB, no bluetooth, no camera, no external storage, no GPS) to the iPad - they should compare it with Android tablets, as the Fire is a highly modified form of that OS stripped of hardware. Seven inch tablets are too small for my aging eyes. Their resolution is only 1024x600 until the 7” Toshiba comes out in 2012. Another Linux kernel based product, it’s highly customizable.

After visiting UC Merced, 3/4 of the family went for a 4 hour hike through the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite. We visited all of the landmark trees, except for Telescope Tree and landed at Wawona Point.

Started a six pack of Brussels sprouts. The kids have always enjoyed eating this vegetable.

Nancy emails about Igudesman and Joo performing at the Flint Center.
So?
She follows up with a link to A Little Nightmare Music video.
I'm intrigued and forward this to Chris. Next afternoon, I go to the box office only to find a handwritten note taped on the door - Sorry Closed Today.
The following day, I get the tickets and find that the box office person had a bout with food poisoning.

Third quarter 2011
Bought an HTC Glacier (tmobile myTouch 4G) for Jocelyn to see if the newer device gets a better signal than the old Razr. I got one as well. After having given a second generation iPod Touch, I returned it to get this Android device. The phone runs on a Linux core and it’s open source unlike Apple products. It has been rooted and Cyanogen firmware replaced the original OS. Now the two phones are quite different in operation.

Expensive Canon 17-85mm lens finally gets sent in for repair for focusing problem. Flat fee was about 1/5 of cost of the lens. It broke again and now only focuses up close.

Moving on to high school, Chris finds there are 11 violins in the orchestra. He is learning the double bass to accompany another student and gets to bring it home on weekends. Since then, 4 students have migrated away from the violin.

Had Chris’ violin restrung at Heaney Violins with Pirastro Evah Pirazzi. He auditioned another set of strings, but decided to stick with what originally came with the instrument. Even with tax, it was no more than $10 over the internet price.

Got Jocelyn a hard to obtain Toshiba 13.3" ultra lightweight 3.25 pound with DVD R835-P56x with a free Xbox 360 4GB game console at Amazon. Put in a combo wireless N/bluetooth mini-PCI card for less than $30 from eBay - Toshiba does not include bluetooth except for another $300 in an upgraded notebook.

Nancy and Jocelyn went hiking and camping in Samuel P. Taylor State Park in August with two other families. None could fire up the old Coleman fuel stove - backup device was a propane camp stove.

After trying to install some device drivers on my main tower computer, it had problems with not completing a reboot. Upon opening the case, I found a fan screw, which must have fallen from the top of the power supply, laying on the graphics card. I could never get it to power back up again. I accumulated a motherboard, i7 quad core CPU, 1.5TB hard drive, and an efficient power supply from Microcenter and 8GB DDR3 from Fry’s. Most have gift card rebates rather than the cash rebates of yesteryear. It got loaded with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

Second quarter 2011
A surprise 25th wedding anniversary party was held for Nancy’s cousin. Jocelyn graduated from high school and Chris graduated from middle school. We went to the annual pot luck at California Carnivores in Sebastopol.

Went to the DeYoung Museum and the Palace of the Legion of Honor several times during the last two years. Membership allowed us to see King Tut, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Whistler’s Mother), Starry Night, The Fife Player, Impressionists, Chihuly, Mosaics from Lod, and more from the Permanent Exhibits.

First quarter 2011
Chris and I attended a lecture and sampling of Mongolian Khoomi singing and horsehead fiddle playing at Stanford. Following this was a lecture of music from Long Song to Hip-Hop. The next evening, after getting some hors d'oeuvres and a sampling of music at a pre-show event, we saw Melodies from the Grasslands: Traditional Mongolian Music. Chris talked a bit with fiddle player Urtaa Gantulga and got his autograph after the show.

Straight from Beijing a morin khuur (horsehead fiddle) comes from an eBay seller. This contrasts the violin that Chris has been playing.

Rakuten
Get $30 back. You get a percentage of your purchases back from Rakuten (formerly ebates) when you buy from online etailers or online for pickup at store. Even with infrequent purchases over the last few years, I have manage to get back more than $750.

Year of the Rabbit
The Year of the Rabbit began on Sunday, January 22, 2023. On Saturday, February 10, 2024, the Year of the Dragon begins. more

In 2014, within a span of five years, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Kansas City Royals in the final seventh game of the World Series.

In 2012, the Giants went through many elimination games against the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, and then swept the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. It was a wild year.

The Giants went through the 2010 postseason and bested the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Texas Rangers to win the World Series. This team of outcasts and misfits put its fans through torture during the last two months of the 2010 season. Their superb pitching, offense, and defense have certainly proved their critics wrong.

2010 to 2007 archive

Chris’ Cobra Lily won 1st Place in the BACPS
Plant Show 2014

Chris' Nepenthes campanulata won 2nd Place in the
2016 BACPS Plant Show. Grown on limestone to mimic
its habitat

other stuff
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