elainegrey

Oh no. The half kilogram of new China tea produces a mighty acidic brew, nothing like the keemun i favor. Looks like milk in the morning tea for a while. (And i may be asking if anyone wants the tea, once i see what it is again.)

Also, my laptop has been trying to repartition the external firewire drive and failing. I finally aborted so i could type on my machine before work today.

I've spent the quiet of this morning looking at the details for Sunol regional wilderness: gate opens at 8 am (so leaving at dawn is unnecessary), plant list, maps, and podcast. This should be a nice target to keep in mind this week.

Yesterday was a gently lovely day. Meeting was fine, but i knew i could not spare the energy to stay for Adult Ed. My dear friend leading the discussion understood, particularly when i explained my boss was in town this week. Home where Christine and i chatted about epistemology over lunch, and then about the design of the quiz for our app. I know have a better sense of how the questions should be structured. I spent some time knitting (knook) while listening to the Mary Russell story The Game, and as that story plays with the Kipling story Kim, i downloaded a Google Book version of Kim. Note to self: check with Gutenberg editions before going to google! Oh, the typos in the text! (On the other hand, illustrations. Hmm.) Christine ran the grocery errand alone while i finished a few household chores. Evening was our usual British mystery: this night we chose the next episode of Foyle's War.

While i am stressed when thinking about this week, particularly given an aside the vice president made about my boss' visit's purpose, i think i'm also doing a good bit of self care.

Vacation and then three weeks of intensity have left me feeing decoupled from relationships outside of work.

This must be one of those disruptions that offers me a chance to restructure, be mindful of what i want. Admittedly, though, the sense of waking form the work trance is one of being dazed and uncertain as to what is necessary or desired.

There's self care and house care, which are neither immediate nor sustained gratification.

I've been poking at the Lupine work when i have had breaks, and note the undermining critical voice that passes through my mind. I try to hold tight to my vision of communicating not expertise but awareness of diversity in the natural world. I am not an expert in botany; i am someone who delights in the multitude of forms that plants have taken in their evolution. I want to help people who are curious up the next step in satisfying their curiosity, delivering them to the front door of the botanists prepared with satisfying observations.

To that end, should i make a photography junket this morning or continue with the photos i have?

Or, another long term investment in the future: should i do crafts with the supplies i have? All the paper supplies for making cards - i have pondered making cards not for my pleasure but to use the supplies and then try to sell on etsy ... i wish there was a way to see what was *selling* on etsy, not just what is for sale.


Christine has awakened: looks like we'll go for a photography walk.

From what i saw of our new corporate president at the Whale, he's going to be slow to reveal his leadership. The claim that he will listen first is promising, though, so we'll see.

Yesterday fried me. I felt pretty resentful as i put in a 12 hour day, but as soon as i closed my laptop and looked around me i was able to let go and delight in the evening. Canceling vacation on Monday only strengthens my sense of resentment, but until we have a rhythm of installs in place, i'm not sure what to do.

This morning i spent a very long time trying to identify mountain peaks along the sierra crest. It was not as productive as i hoped. I'm now dozy, and it's lunch time.

I've thought about how thankful i am for the work i did around issues with my parents. I can recall the grief and anger i felt about my mother, in particular, but now i feel so clear.

Now watching Airport, which originated the 1970s disaster film genre.

Christine is home, hurrah.

I did what i could on the performance appraisal last night. Off to New Director for his blandishments.

I had lunch with DW, who was a postdoc at the Philadelphia nuclear lab when i was there. He's moved on to the title of software engineer and seems happy enough with his gig. It was a little awkward: what do we talk about? I've lost touch with the field and people we knew in common. Still, pleasant to see him, and so i'll see about connecting via Facebook.

I've been reflecting on the cruelty born of curiosity documented in _Sea of Cortez_. There's a section where Ricketts and Steinbeck are invited to go hunting big horn sheep. The hunting trip involved no hunting by the Mexicans and their guests, while their native guides bring back only sheep droppings. The authors praise the outing, and say the only improvement would be to leave the guns out entirely, disdainfully remarking about hunters who need trophies. Back they go to their collecting hundreds of sea creatures, stunning and killing and preserving them.

I had a bit of dissonance after that section.

Work has been stressful with Urgent Issues both yesterday and Monday. I'll hope for time to regroup.

I'm taking Monday as vacation, i note.

The heat did hold off yesterday, and looks like it will hold off until Friday. And even then, it won't be that hot. That teaches me to sit in the sun too long wearing black.

I've had a slip in my confidence in my photography+writing vision, thinking about all the native plant experts who abound and feeling a sense of accusation of hubris washing over me. On the other hand, i feel a clarity about my desire and intent:....

--==∞==--

At which point in my journaling, at 6:50 am, i get a Skype IM from a colleague, "yt" followed by "911." I interpret this as "Are you there? I have an emergency," and thus my day began.

It's now after 4. I've had a bowl of ice cream, a four bean salad, broccoli, and pumpernickel bread and cream cheese for lunch, eating the stress out. It wasn't a crisis, but getting clear that it wasn't a crisis but merely imperfect took a while. We still need to fix it by Thursday, which gives me more headaches than i care to think about.

Oh, goodie, in a sign of just how procrastinatory i am, i have finally reorganized a bunch of bookmarks i use for troubleshooting.

--==∞==--

At about 5 pm i discovered that the application we use for our agile project management has a problem. If you log time to a task from one view of the task it shows up on the "burn down chart," but if you log time in other views it does not.

This may explain why my hardworking team seems to only log about half the time that we have to work.

At that point, i walked across the street and bought a bag of chips and spice drops. I have read the whole internet today.

Now to get the day's work done.

Yay, my computer is back. I hope i have made reasonable partitioning decisions. One terabyte. Not that we don't have other terabyte drives in the house, but this is in *my* machine. The crossing the benchmark takes me back to when i bought my first real computer (not the Timex Sinclair) and had a whole one gigabyte drive, and my awe at that size of disk.

Viva Moore's Law, and all that.

Christine is off to see her siblings and her mother for an early celebration of her mother's birthday, and possibly a last chance to see her. The doctor said earlier this week that her mother has entered late-stage Alzheimer's. I am so happy we could send Christine off to NC at short notice: doubly happy that, for once, there was a Delta flight at a reasonable time so i could use up some of the accumulated points.

I was sick yesterday: i seem to have had a 28 hour cold. This morning there's no headache and little congestion.

I have plenty to keep me busy, as i need to get some of the work due yesterday done before Monday.

Yesterday i tracked down more lupines of the Bay Area, finding more "lost lupines" and a few "new lupines." My current theory is that the lost lupines are at the southerly end of the range in the early 1900s and the new lupines are at the northerly end of their range. Lupines of the central valley in the 1900s could be moving west by creeping up the elevation of the coastal range. It's a hypothesis. The counter-hypothesis is that the lost lupines are simply unobserved or extirpated by development, but i'm left with the question of the new lupines, ones now reported but not reported in the early 1900s. As i go through the key, i'll be able to see if the new species might have been lumped in with another observed species, explaining the more recent occurrence.

I have recognized that what am thinking about as my next career is that of essentially being a writer-photographer. I need to begin paying attention to my writing, and so i've moved Virginia Tufte's book on style next to my pillow. I have little hope that the proximity is all that is needed to improve my writing, but it is an indication of awareness.

One of the glorious benefits of this clarity is that i know how to trim my interests. Should i network with python developers? Big data analysts? More identity management folks? No. I may still need to learn python and analyze the data i collect, and i have no idea how long i will remain working in identity management, but i should follow my heart to botany, writing, and photography.

I have lists of things i need to learn to give depth to my writing: topmost is more about the practice of botanical nomenclature. Physics has its egotists and adventurers, but botanists seem to have a bit more drama about them.

If i was to state my interests right now it would be in the interaction of natural history with social history in limited geographies.

Off to start the dungeons and desktops game for the day.

My personal computer is still in the hands of the apparently surly IT folks getting a new hard drive. Not sure what they are going to do about the partitioning of the disk.... I'm assuming i will be partitioning and configuring the machine again, obliterating what they insisted on doing.

--==∞==--

Yesterday was an early work day. In the late afternoon and evening i relaxed by looking for where specimens of the first six species of Bay Area lupines have been found. Two species i have photos, two species seem decidedly rare, and two species have something like an antique observation and a current but unreliable observation and notes that these observations seem out of the plant's natural range.

I'm imagining writing an essay about "lost lupines of the Bay Area" in attempts to look for some of the observations. Already i have found a rant about one botanist who didn't believe in evolution and so just went about collecting "new species" in association with one species. Google books has presented me with the article that described one of these species for the first time.

I am tickled at the thought of driving slowly up Mt Hamilton in search of one plant. It's not a botanical survey, but it will be enough for a story, i hope. Similar adventures must be undertaken for many other species.

--==∞==--

I did have an annoying moment with a colleague yesterday. I am trying to block out some of my mornings when i plan to drive in so i can have time for myself. He was a bit surly about the amount of time i had blocked out. I know it's bloody hard to schedule meetings between Europe and California, but i find the need for ME to be the flexible person to be frustratingly maddening.

Not that i have anyone to turn to. Maybe i will turn to my HR person. (Unlike some folks' workplace, my HR person is pretty good, and this is more of a general question about hours available not putting her in a place of having to choose sides.)

We're back safely. I loved the wide open spaces, but i don't quite feel the draw to go to Nevada anymore: we have plenty basin and range to explore in California. (Although there is opal mining in Nevada....)

It's funny: we are both hermits, but i delight in the solitude of being away from suburban crowds, whereas Christine craves being in our home. When we hit traffic in the Bay Area after days away i was cringing at the closeness of all the cars. I routed us up dirt roads up past 10,000 feet: Christine worried and cringed then.

She still had a good time, i should note: we're just so different in some ways: capacity for being away from home being one of them.

I missed taking photos of the Mono Lake tufa under a blood red sky by about ten minutes, but i got to enjoy it as i drove to the tufa. I was in the last three barreling vehicles, leaving a dust trail to the sky, to get to the tufa at dawn. It was a delight to be out at that hour though. I suspect i will be most pleased with the osprey photo.

Our tent cabin in Keough Hot Springs was delightful: the bed was far more comfortable than the squishy-sagging thing in Lee Vining. We napped in it midafternoon, the shadows of the cottonwood leaves dancing across the glowing canvas. Jack rabbits were hanging out in the grassy lawn as we walked back from our evening ablutions (it was NOT a rock with a stick on top, as i had second guessed). In the morning we were awakened by the crowing of the California quail. I slightly regret not getting into the hot springs in Keough: some other time, i hope.

So much reminded me of New Mexico: hot springs and volcanic tuff, pinyon and sagebrush. The hot springs in New Mexico weren't improved and walled in. On the other hand, hiking up to them with flash lights and seeing all the signs about the creepy crawly germs in the water wasn't exactly delightful.

We didn't spend time at the Mule Days. I was fascinated to see that there are Western Mule Dressage competition, Mule hunters and jumpers. We did drive up Fish Slough north of Bishop to find very few flowers in bloom. All in all, it was not a particularly good trip for flowers as we only had incidental stops planned at the right elevations.

My post to Calphoto, the mailing list which shares flower and leaf display information:

Hwy 120 near Don Pedro: stands of clarkia from the highway side, up into the hills. Hwy 120 from Yosemite entrance to Crane Flat, dogwoods booming in the woods. Woodland flowers blooming 6000' to around 7500'. A quick pull-over netted four different species, several in abundance. Some lovely displays in the granite boulders. Snow melting in the woods past 8000'. Certainly didn't see many flowers past Olmstead Point. Tuolumne Meadows was just beginning to green up: lots of ground squirrels (we wanted them to be picas so badly) and frolicking yearling deer, and matted old grass. I found one tiny wildflower at the Nunatak nature trail, _Eriogonum incanum_, frosted buckwheat, and the battery died on my camera (all the spares in the car). Didn't do the whole nature trail as i'd walked through several snow banks in my birkenstocks, but i couldn't quite tell where the trail resumed on the snow bank that i finally decided i shouldn't hike over. There was a chorus of frogs singing around the higher pond.

South of Mono Lake seemed dried up. Found a great place to get sunset photos of bristlecones at 10000'. White Mountains, again, had roadside flowers above 6000', but no displays. Fish Slough had blooming wild roses, but not much else in floral displays to speak ove. Great worn tuff!

Mono Lake, South Tufa, had lots of _Phacelia bicolor_ var. _bicolor_ (sticky yellow-throats) growing in broad spreads under the sagebrush. The boardwalk on the south 395 access had indian paintbrushes -- not sure whether two different varieties or if there was just variation in the orange and red.

In the Jefferies pines on 120 south of Mono lake, there were carpets of _Mimulus nanus_ var. _mephiticus_, foul odor monkeyflower. My spouse had gotten weary, and i had used up her patience for impulse stops. That area must be fabulous after a good year. This year you can observe how just a slight difference in accumulated precipitation can make a dramatic difference. The east side of pines and the sides of the roads had blooming mimulus, presumably road run-off and the shelter from the pine were enough to help. Still, between Mono Mills and the South Tufa turn off there were some lovely carpets in the woods.

At sagehen summit on 120, lupines, again, by the side of the road.

North of Mono Lake on 395, the landscape was lush and green, aspens freshly leafed out. At Sonora Pass, it's still winter. Taking 108 west, lots of _Sarcodes sanguinea_, snow plant, in astonishing red on the roadsides coming down, mostly east of Strawberry if i recall correctly.

--==&infin==--

Yesterday was fairly productive as i used my dungeons and desktops plus pomodoro technique* to start getting things done. I did go through old photos, trying to free up room for new photos, but
i'm going to have to get a new harddrive as the partition where i keep the photos has pretty much filled up. The amount of time to free up a couple GB compared to the cost of getting a TB drive makes it clear what the right choice is.

Of course, i'll soon need to get new backup drives.

I slept in yesterday, so didn't spend time on social media. I think i'm feeling about ready to dive back into sharing with others again.

* i've numbered lists of the things that need to get done in no particular order, and a timer set up with long work blocks and shorter work blocks and little rests and transitions. I generate random numbers, pick the listed thing, do it until time runs out, and move on.

My mother spent her mother's day flying on a delayed flight from San Francisco to hong Kong and getting a middle of the night flight to Singapore. She and my father are now with my brother's family. Christine muttered something about people being so different, and i prodded her. She marveled that my brother's wife was up for spending weeks and weeks with my mother. Ah, i pointed out, she's going to North Korea.

I'm gearing up for all sorts of agitated criticisms of my brother's child raising choices in June.

And so it goes.

I was wakened yesterday at 5:30 for install issues: we worked on resolving them until a bit after 9. I could have gone to Meeting and Meeting for Business but i wanted to give myself time in the woods. We drove to a nearby point and found it overrun with families. I wasn't surprised. We ended up visiting the Castle Rock State Park, also crowded and packed. Such a contrast from my Monday walk.

I saw some flowers i had learned in my review on Monday, and i spent a small forever at home going through the key for Delphinum to identify the larkspur we saw growing beside the trail. It was lovely, but my photos are poorly composed or out of focus. I did get a luminous photo of a spotted coral root orchid and a macro image of a tiny violet, white with purple and yellow markings.

Christine and i talked about our app, what taking notes in the field on an iPad was like, and speculated what life could be like as freelancers. While the field notes app seems most interesting, i think an app that shows images and steps the user through "Is this a lupine?" could be game like, engaging, and something that could be engaged with while waiting for the dentist. I watched all the other folks on the trail: younger folks running up the hill, parents wrangling children, couples striding purposefully. No one else was noticing all the flowers or listening to the birds. While i have learned there IS a value in making tools that one would use oneself -- the tail of the market is still big enough to be interesting -- it was interesting to note the behavior of all the other trail users.

I suppose i ought to be driving to work in moments, so just a note that we also talked about my fantasy of living as free lancers in an RV, taking some http://www.camphost.org/ jobs, and so on. I also probed Christine about where she would want to move if we were to live somewhere cheap, and we speculated about the mountains in NC. It is a plausible move: if freelancing has some dependency on nature photography, the region would offer plenty of opportunity while being closer to family and that network of relationships. I remain dubious/curious about freelancing. While we thought of add ons to the floral app - eCards and cafe press items for sale - i don't think it would ever be quite a complete business. eBooks are apparently sold at a better price point, so i can imagine repurposing to a guide as well, but still...

anyhow.

Oh my goodness, i only had one meeting today! Heaven!

I took it while sitting on the deck, birds fluttering overhead and humming birds coming over to check out the red dress i am wearing. I'ma little peeved at the chickadee: it tosses seeds out of the feeder until it gets whatever choice bit it wants and then flies off.

Tuesday through Wednesday felt like a long push, so i am thankful for an easy day.

The key will be not to let the lack of structure divert me from everything else.

--==∞==--

Birds seen so far this morning: at least two distinct chickadees, pair of house finches, a California towhee, an Anna's hummingbird, an oak tit, and multiple goldfinches. The sun is creeping over the roof and my toes are warming up. It's actually been pleasantly brisk approaching just a little too cold.

juvenile or female goldfinches \\
adult male goldfinch\\
female house finches \\\
male house \\