dom.blog

Jumping into the best garden pool you’ve ever seen

As you may have noticed, most of the trips I go on with Randi are characterised by a lot of running about from place to place, so it was deeply relaxing to spend the long 4th July weekend staying firmly put at Randi’s childhood home in Yorba Linda, California. Mostly in their family’s swimming pool, to be honest, because it is for sure the best swimming pool I have ever seen in someone’s back garden, and the water was so warm! We basically only ventured out for food and an Angels vs. Mariners game, at which we received free Albert Pujols bobbleheads (no, me neither) and spent roughly one third of the time queuing for Philly cheesesteaks. (What can I say, I enjoyed my introductory cheesesteak in Philadelphia… where they make them more quickly.)

At the Angels game

With a free morning in LA on Wednesday before my flight home, I also stopped by on Glamily favourites Jackie and Jeff. (I guess I don’t actually have favourites, but they are pretty great.) They treated me to breakfast on the beach at Santa Monica before taking me to the Getty Centre: a fancy LA art gallery built atop a hill which you ascend via a special tram, giving it a slightly rarefied above-the-clouds atmosphere as if you’ve just stepped onto the Starfleet Academy campus. Anyway, we saw a great exhibition on eighteenth-century European crowd scenes painted with tremendous detail. I felt sure that Wally must be hiding somewhere in there, but couldn’t spot him.

Oh, and I guess the other component of the weekend was being emotionally jolted around by the Doctor Who finale. I never really understood why the Cybermen were my dad’s favourite Doctor Who monster… until the return of the incredibly chilling originals this series, worthy of a Black Mirror dystopia. And it should be noted, amongst the all-American burgers and hot dogs and homemade sangria (well, maybe off-script there) on 4th July itself, three people started conversations with us about this series and Peter Capaldi and Bill Potts. Three people! Even in Yorba Linda, you’ll find plenty of sofas to hide behind.

My first convertible ride

Playing 6 Nimmt with Alex and Shelby

I have one fish. Randi has many fish.

Stopping by Jackie and Jeff

This weekend we tried to relive some of the California sun-and-water magic by going to WhoaZone on Lake Michigan with Jason and Carrie. And we got so close! Alas, there were “too many waves” today to allow anyone to play, although curiously we were allowed to swim in the exact same waters alongside it. Still, a good beach excursion to Whiting, Indiana was had by all.

Whoa Zone: off limits

Two more random things:

• If you’re still reading this but secretly hankering for better stories from an upgraded sibling, why not donate to Tash’s team leading in Malawi? Everything goes to the Voluntary Service Overseas organisation and will help fund their work.
• Last night, at Karol’s impromptu birthday drinks, we ended up talking to his friend who works in a steel mill about how steel is made. It was like listening to an obscure Radio 4 programme about a subject you’ve never thought about before… in other words, it was terrific. I asked some stupid questions like “so what can’t we do without steel?” and learnt a lot. (He was full of praise for German steel in particular. Another win for Germany!)

In UK time, it’s my birthday already! But over here, I still have half an hour left, and I just made good use of my last Sunday evening aged 27 to see Wonder Woman with Todd and Carolyn. It’s been long enough since I last saw a summery superhero action movie that I was able to really embrace and enjoy it, especially the opening section on the Amazonian island of Themyscira. It only left a small part of me feeling a bit ungrateful at the end, since concluding the First World War only bought Europe a mere 21 years of peace – much of which was taken up by influenza and/or depression. If a superhero could volunteer to help draft a better Treaty of Versailles, or get a head start on Keynesian economics, that would be much appreciated.

I have been wanting to write something ever since Election Night, but haven’t found the right way to express my contradictory feelings. It was, at least, a much more interesting and exciting Election Night than everyone predicted – which was good, because I’d invited James over to witness parliamentary democracy in action, and feared it was going to be pretty boring. Not so. But still, I feel sad for the country, still drudging towards senseless economic self-harm, led by a tragic, broken figure – who can’t possibly be enjoying the job – whose lamentable, delusional address the next morning was honestly shocking for how poor it was.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a happier political story – The 39th – about Will Guzzardi’s successful run for the Illinois state government in 2014. (I saw it as part of a film festival block of short films called The One With The Governor – some others were good, some were less good.) Even so, I’m a little tired of seeing and hearing stories from election campaigns. Campaigns are the least interesting part of politics! I realise a film about how awfully state government actually runs (or doesn’t run) in Illinois when no-one is paying attention wouldn’t fit into a good narrative arc… but I would appreciate it. Sequel?

OK, I’m done being grumpy. (Forgive me, I’m almost old.) Lighter diversions in the past few weeks have included a visit to Podhalanka with Karol. It’s a beautifully calm, old-fashioned, homely Polish restaurant nearby where you can enjoy traditional Polish food and complain about Polish politics. And yesterday, Randi and I joined Catherine and AJ in a return trip to the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival. So to conclude, here is a photo – stolen from Randi – of the pleasant post-festival hour we spent locked out of our rental car waiting for help. (That’s not sarcasm – it was nice and sunny, and we bought delicious ice-cream and played frisbee on the grasss with my Cubs hat. Best locked-out-of-car experience ever.)

AJ juggles

Time for a mini post! A bite-sized, Trump-fingered hors d’oeuvre of a post which I’m writing, unless I’m repressing memories again, from the first motel I’ve ever stayed in. There’s nothing wrong with this motel, to be clear, unless I’m murdered after posting this. Murdered or not, I’m in Palo Alto this week for work before flying to New Mexico for the long Memorial Day weekend, so wanted to clear the blogging decks in advance of that trip.

Sunny blue skies, as yet murder-free motel

What I really wish I’d taken a photo of, but you’ll just have to imagine instead, is the stolen Google bike (in Google colours) lying discarded in some bushes by the pavement.

Back in Chicago, it came to my attention that I don’t think Chloe and Aaron have ever actually appeared here pictorially, so below is a particularly tense moment from a game of 6 Nimmt! (not a typo) which Katie dispatched for Randi’s birthday:

A clearly outrageous situation

Today’s frozen yoghurt flavour of choice: French vanilla

Nerdy statistical vignette:

The other day, at work, I had several rows of numbers in an Excel spreadsheet. They represented two ratios over multiple days. On every single day, ratio A was higher than ratio B. But when I added them all together over all days, ratio B was higher than ratio A. I was convinced I was doing something wrong, but eventually I went hunting round the office for a pair of statisticians, who gazed at my spreadsheet and declared I had stumbled across Simpson’s paradox in the wild. “It’s beautiful!” they said. Beautiful, but strange. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to read up on weird statistical quirks on Wikipedia, now is your chance.

Joke which I overheard and will now steal to balance out nerdy statistical vignette:

“I’m good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet, but I don’t know why…”

Rest of post:

After walking past the Kingston Mines blues club and saying “we should check that out sometime!” many times, Randi and I finally visited one Saturday night, and it was lovely. Also the drinks were surprisingly inexpensive, which is how I ended up drinking as much sangria as I did and having to compensate with cheesy chips. (They weren’t quite cheesy chips in the way Cat would understand, but close enough.) Later that weekend we played an extended game of ‘mega Carcassonne’ with Catherine and AJ, seeking an unfair advantage for ourselves by adding in as many expansions as we could. I doubt we’ll be invited back.

More Carcassonne! More!

Continuing the French theme, last week we went back to Improv Shakespeare with Ellen and Emilie and watched The Mariner’s Mistake unfold: a story of war between England and France’s rather sensitive and likeable King Philippe. Plus fighting cat soldiers. And then on Sunday, as you may have noticed, we watched all sorts of likeable French people in real life cheer in Paris as their successful election results were announced. Bon travail!

We also watched Howl’s Moving Castle (strong start, somewhat meandering middle, always beautiful to watch) and hosted two mini Eurovision parties for the semi finals. (A full Eurovision report from a cabin in Wisconsin should be expected from my next post.) Below is our second gathering… a shout out to Calvin and Emilie who helped us eat a lot of cheese and wine during the first one, including a baked Camembert which Cat would certainly have approved of…

A new generation of newly-minted Eurovision fans