With the cooperation of the SMOFCon 41 committee in Seattle next month, I plan to run the by-now-mostly-traditional Probability & Statistics Seminar on Saturday night. The decks of playing cards I've used for the past two years are worn out. (An evening of playing a card tournament generally wears out even good-quality cards.) We had several 20% ( Read more... )

Sunday I had a Montréal 2027 bid committee meeting to discuss our plans for SMOFCon. Today I was back at work at Day Jobbe. While taking the train is less stressful than driving or flying, I still have a sleep deficit that I'm trying to make back. Besides, it's sufficiently cold here that going to bed early is the easiest way to warm up. Now, where ( Read more... )

So, as I mentioned, in order to get to the eastbound California Zephyr at its origin station of Emeryville, I needed to catch a 4:30 AM bus from San Jose Diridon Station. Light rail doesn't run that early in the morning; otherwise it would be a trivial matter. I had booked a Lyft well in advance and a driver had accepted. After only two hours of ( Read more... )

One of the good things about having to come down to San Jose this week was that it gave me the opportunity to see one of the final performances of Emojiland, which runs through Sunday ( Read more... )

I worked at Day Jobbe from the hotel room this morning, then took a half-day off for my annual physical. I caught a light rail train from in front of the hotel down to San Jose Diridon station and rode Caltrain up to Palo Alto. This way my first ride on the new electrified trains.

( Sparks Effect )

I was on various trains most of today. I took lots of photos, and posted them to my Mastodon account throughout the day, so I am not going to include them here because I need to get some sleep tonight because tomorrow is a regular (i.e. starts at 0530) work day, albeit only a half-day before I go for my annual physical.

( Train Tales )

I have my annual medical exam scheduled for Friday morning in the Bay Area. While I could fly or drive down there, I don't want to drive over the passes with winter weather coming, and flying is annoying if there is an alternative. So tomorrow morning, Lisa will take me to the Amtrak station in Reno and I will take the California Zephyr to ( Read more... )

This afternoon, we took the recycling to Reno. We really couldn't put it off much longer, because there wasn't any more room in the minivan. (To recap: the county in which I live does not offer much recycling, and certainly not curbside pickup. The nearest comprehensive recycling center is in Reno.) Because the recycling drop-off center closes at 3 ( Read more... )

Early this morning as I started work, I heard the sound of a mouse rattling the bars on the non-lethal trap. I picked up the trap and saw the mouse inside. I don't like going outside in the dark to let the mice out of the trip, and I know there was little chance of the mouse starving in the next couple of hours, so I waited until after sunrise. I ( Read more... )

Yesterday was an SFSFC Board of Directors meeting, of which I am currently the corporate Secretary. Among the various items of business was the need to elect directors for three year terms commencing January 1, 2025. SFSFC currently has thirteen directors elected for three-year terms in groups of 5/5/4. This year was the group of 4, and my own seat ( Read more... )