A few nights ago I wandered out to my truck to collect a case of drinks that I’d left in there. I had to park a bit further from our apartment than usual so I was sort of shuffling along, paying attention primarily to my thoughts and the dim concrete for fear of tripping over a curb or something. Suddenly I heard a terrific boom, which echoed noticeably across the field adjacent to our apartment complex. My initial thought was that a car had just hit a building, somewhere up ahead. With our apartment behind me, I didn’t have much concern other than the generic thought that I hadn’t noticed any squealing tires so whomever had just hit something didn’t seem to have bothered to brake.

I wandered back to the apartment and Nik greeted me with information that the sound had actually shook our apartment. That didn’t sound like the result of a car hitting a building some ways off. Then the sirens began. They seemed to be coming right to us, but they then trailed off as they passed, presumably somewhere down the street toward downtown. Having been up at that point for almost 30 hours in a row, I decided it was my cue to retire for the evening.

Nik, on the other hand, could not contain her curiosity and went to investigate. Upon doing so she quickly discovered that a building in our complex had caught fire following an explosion that was tentatively being attributed to a gas leak. The papers would later report that the explosion caused a three alarm fire that spread to a second unit and took over an hour and a half to contain.

The man whose apartment the explosion had originated from has, in the following days, been the topic of much speculation in the rumor mill of our apartment community. Some say he was trying to commit suicide, others say he was just the unlucky guy with the gas leak who flipped on a light switch. However, his luck may not be that bad since he suffered only relatively minor injuries (burns, mostly) despite being reported as having been tossed over his balcony by the force of the blast. Another woman was treated for smoke inhalation and released and a dog was the only casualty of the incident.

Having very little information other than that I can only say that I’m thankful to be unaffected by any of it despite its uncomfortably close proximity. My personal wild speculation is that I wouldn’t be surprised to find it had something to do with a meth lab since that is the kind of thing that goes on in this area quite a bit and the nature of the wounds reported on the primary victim seem suspect. However, other apartment dwellers have suggested that they smelled gas for hours prior to the explosion and even reported it to maintenance who told them they were crazy but called PG&E anyway. PG&E came out and gave the all-clear, saying their equipment could not find any indication of a problem.

Again, I don’t know exactly what is true or not, but the PG&E angle has been reported by actual news outlets so it at least smacks of truthiness. Other residents claim that another neighbor smelled gas the next day and called PG&E who arrived to find a leak in the stove and told them they were lucky to have caught it in time. That story is not reliable in any way, but underscores the point here.

I think it’s pretty clear that regardless of what the investigation turns up, this is a pretty tragic incident despite having the potential to have been much, much worse. It has, understandably, shaken up a lot of the people who live in the complex, Nikki included. In the days following the incident I have seen no fewer than five units being vacated: Whether they are fleeing as a result of the explosion/fire or if it is merely coincidental I again don’t know but I imagine at least one of those families is thinking they might be safer elsewhere.

Here’s my problem with the whole thing: Accidents happen. We all know that. But what we also know (which helps us sleep at night) is that accidents are, in many cases, entirely preventable. This one wasn’t prevented byut it got peopel edgy. Now if I’m the owner or manager of the apartment complex, here’s what I would do:

1. Release a notice to all residents stating the facts and only the facts known as of printing time. There was an explosion in building whatever at such and such a time, two people were injured but no one was killed, etc. Then I would state clearly that the early indications suggest that it may have been a gas leak which caused the problem and then list some reminders for hazard response procedures if you smell gas. Note that nowhere in here is a statement of responsibility or blame assignment, it’s just a indication that the office knows what happened and they don’t want it to happen to anyone else. Acknowledgment and reassurance first.
2. A day or two later I would coordinate and set up a series of in-unit safety inspections focusing on the gas lines. I would announce this as a voluntary procedure to anyone who was interested and offer it free of charge within the next two weeks. I would also state that residents who wished to opt-out would still get the peace of mind that the gas system would be inspected in less than a week without entry to each unit for leaks or safety defects. In this note I would also suggest that when the official cause of the explosion was known it would be made public, regardless of liability.
3. I would follow through by releasing the results of the fire inspection and safety inspections to all residents. Full disclosure.

It seems reasonable to me and would work to show residents (essentially the customers for the business) that you are proactive, open in your communication and willing to work to ensure the safety of those customers.

Instead, the office sent out a notice to all residents… reminding them to update their parking permits or else they would face possible tows at owner’s expense.

Oh, that I were making that up.

I Don’t Know… Stuff?

• Here’s a pretty funny video of a guy trying to use Vista’s voice recognition system to write a three-line perl script. Note, he starts cursing briefly about halfway through, but the video itself is really way too long anyway so you may have shut it off by then. I mean, it’s funny but it ain’t ten minutes funny, you know?
• We stopped by the President’s Day game convention briefly on Saturday. We played a couple of good games and picked up a few more in the dealer’s room. Unfortunately I had to work and Nik wasn’t feeling all that well so we didn’t stay as long as I might have liked. It was the first kind of half-hearted con in some time, although with Lister’s imminent departure for his great European adventure looming, at least we got to get in a small last hurrah.
• Was that out loud?
• We’re supposed to have CNN on one of the monitors at work. Here’s why I hate CNN: They just interrupted a breaking story about a bombing in Iraq for—so not making this up—tips on how to shovel snow. I understand that not every part of the country is experiencing weather like we are (sunny and warm in the mid-70s, thanks for asking) but snow shoveling? Pretty self explanatory. Their biggest tip? Don’t climb onto the roof to shovel off snow… especially if you live in a multi-story home. Genius.

If you’ve ever actually met me in real life, chances are I appeared at that time unshaven. Not that I have a heavy beard or anything—although I have on occasion sported various styles of facial hair—but specifically whatever areas of my face that would reasonably require regular maintenance in the form of shaving (even full beard wearers shave some parts of their faces to keep the beard looking neat) have far greater than even odds of being unshaven at any given point in time.

The reason for this is not actually (well, not completely) attributed to laziness. Truthfully, shaving is and has always been a problem for me.

There are a couple of reasons why shaving has been a pain ever since I matured to the point where not shaving was something that had a noticeable effect. And really that hasn’t been all that long. I probably first shaved a few wisps of facial hair around my Sophomore year in high school, but it wasn’t until I was twenty or so before I could claim any sort of legitimate facial hair that might require regular shaving. It probably wasn’t for a year or two after that before I could let it grow and the result would appear to be something akin to a real beard.

But even now my full “beard” is pretty sad: It grows uneven and inconsistently hued. It doesn’t grow much on my cheeks other than in a few select patches and the whole thing is plagued by the same affliction as my (lately ever more absent) head hair, which is what my dad always called “cowlicky” but really means that the grain or direction of growth is not uniform. I’ve experimented with various styles of facial hair in the past to varying degrees of success, but any style is still going to suffer from its composition of thick, coarse hair that pretty much does its own thing regardless of other neighboring hairs. Plus my mustache is really pathetic with the hair along the ridges of my philtrum growing far, far darker than anywhere else across my upper lip so that in anything save direct natural lighting I have a vaguely Hitler-esque appearance. I’ve tried many combinations of mustache-less beard configurations but the end result is almost always that I have more surface area to maintain than growing facial hair would suppose and, indeed, is designed to prevent.

The really unfortunate part is that I don’t particularly care for facial hair. It’s uncomfortable to me (although I inherited my father’s penchant for tugging my facial hair when I’m deep in thought which is why I almost always leave at least a little soul patch under my lower lip, just to have something to play with while I think—I never was able to fully mimic my father’s preference for the corner of his mustache, probably due to the fact that my mustache corners consist of about four wispy strands). I would prefer to be mostly clean shaven, which returns from my digression so I can finish telling you why shaving has been a pain.

The primary factor is that I received a genetic gift from my dear maternal grandmother of intensely sensitive skin. I have to use certain kinds of soap, both in the shower and on my laundry. I generally have to just be really careful about what kinds of deodorants, lotions or ointments I use because I’ve had some pretty rough reactions to things on occasion. I suspect that heavy dyes and perfumes are the worst offenders which is why things like All Free & Clear laundry detergent work pretty well but fabric softener sheets are big negatives. Even when using “sensitive skin” shaving foam, the mere act of scraping the hair off my face is generally enough to give my skin fits.

The other factor is less easily identifiable but I suspect has something to do with the weird growth patterns and thickness of my hair which is that if I try to shave stubble, that is hair that isn’t at least a few days worth of growth long, I get the worst razor burn ever.

Now, I’ve tried for the past ten years or so various methods of having a reasonably presentable face (such as is possible with a mug like mine). I heard that the key was to just shave every single day at the same time and eventually the razor burn would go away. I don’t know exactly how long that regimen is supposed to happen, but two weeks later and I was basically just shaving off scabs from the previous day every morning so I figured that was both really gross and pointless. I’ve tried electric razors that are generally less close shaves thinking that might be better since it may not get the blades on my actual skin as much, but it doesn’t work because I both don’t feel like I really shaved that much and I still get razor burn. And each time the razor companies add another blade to their disposable or cartridge lines, I give it a shot thinking it might be better. It isn’t.

The only routine that sort of works is my current regimen which involves literally shaving only once per week. But again, I really would prefer to be clean shaven much more often, not to mention the fact that I’m sure Nik would appreciate it and her own fairly tender skin is often razed a deep red after even mild smootching by my almost permanently sandpaper-like face. Not ideal.

And a couple of weeks ago a new problem appeared that started me thinking about shaving options again: I rushed home from work and had a short period of time to shave after having gone for nearly two weeks without. I grabbed one of the generic triple-bladed disposables that we buy as the best option I’ve yet found and started in. About two-thirds of the way through I noticed that a few clumps of my thick beard had gotten lodged in the tiny gaps between the blades, which essentially rendered those sections of the razor’s head useless at best and painful at worst, and no amount of rapping the razor on the edge of the sink would dislodge the clogs. Ouch.

So it is curiously timely that I happened to run across this article on old-school style wetshaving today. Basically wetshaving is the method of shaving used in the past with the lather brush and either a double-bladed safety razor or a (gulp!) straight razor. According to this guy and a bunch of other people whose writings I tracked down after reading it, wetshaving is the way to go for smooth, burnless shaves especially if you’re among those with coarse or thick facial hair.

My first instinct might be to dismiss these people as lunatics because in a certain mathematical sense the modern multi-blade razors seem more logical. But on the other hand I’ve long suspected that Gilette et al are really not too concerned about the closeness of their customers’ shaves and just want to have something new to peddle to a blindly accepting population. Hi, my name is Paul and I’m kind of cynical.

But one thing that does give a bit of anecdotal support to the assertions these people are making is that I’ve actually had a real barbershop shave with a straight razor in the past (back when visiting a barber wasn’t completely pointless for me) and I have to say, it was the most comfortable, closest shave I’ve ever had before or since and, as the article mentions but which is otherwise apropos of nothing, it was possibly in my top five most relaxing experiences of my life.

After some additional thought I decided that it is perfectly reasonable that old style shaving may be just the ticket for me, and I have to try something different since my once-per-week method may be okay for some hack working the graveyard shift but doesn’t become someone who might ever wish to appear professional somewhere down the line. As it is I try very hard to schedule my weekly shaves around events where it is most appropriate to be fully shaven and if it falls that I need a shave before my allotted time has past, I resort to the half-shave where I clean up my neck and cheeks and appear as though I’m in the early stages of growing a full beard. A questionable workaround at best.

But before I dive in I needed to evaluate the relative costs. I may have shaving issues, but I’m also a cheapskate, especially when it comes to annoying personal grooming expenses. So I figured that it costs me roughly $1.60 per week to shave. Of course that is with me shaving once per week, and one of the ideas here is to shave once per day instead. For the sake of simplicity I’ll round the numbers to about $1.00 per day with my current set up stretched out over six days (I probably won’t ever consistently shave on Saturdays) for a weekly total of $6.00 using the cheap sensitive skin formula shave foam and the generic triple blade disposables that have been my staple for three or four years now.

Now if I go with the recommendations from the article, the Merkur Safety Razor (I actually think I’d prefer the “Classic” model over the bigger “Hefty” one) is $26.00 plus shipping. A pack of 10 double edged blades is roughly $5.00 and a jar of nice European shaving cream runs about $15.00 plus shipping. I’ll assume the total shipping costs are fairly small and infrequent since only the razor and the shaving cream need be shipped (assuming I can find someone who sells the blades at a brick and mortar somewhere), so to compensate I’ll just add an additional dollar to the blade costs.

I can’t be sure how many shaves you get out of a double edged razor blade but I’ll go with the same formula as the disposable and say once per blade (double-edged blades then get two uses each). The total therefore comes to $0.85 per day for the razor and blades which leaves the cream. Unfortunately I have no idea how far a 5.3 ounce jar of European shaving cream goes. Is that five shaves worth? Fifty? The amount is slightly less than a tube of toothpaste and those usually last a month so I’ll guess it’s roughly the same. After the math that means the daily cost for wetshaving would be roughly $1.50, so obviously there is an increased cost factor for wetshaving, by about a half a magnitude.

So here is the question: Is it worth it? Are these people on crack? Have you ever tried wetshaving on yourself? Does it make a difference?

My inclination is to give it a shot. I figure one month would be reasonable and would more or less recoup the investment cost in the razor and shaving cream. Plus that would give me a better idea of how often the materials need to be replaced which might adjust the cost factor up or down and give me enough time to get used to adding a few extra minutes to my daily routine.

If you have insight or suggestions, by all means, leave a comment or drop me an email. My face thanks you.

Yes, yes, I’m old. Har. I turned 30 on Saturday, with mercifully minimal fanfare although I did get a chance to talk to my brother and a few friends who called with warm (and welcome) birthday wishes. I spent nearly the entire day playing XBox which was as much of a celebration as I wanted so even if from the outside it looked like I didn’t do anything, I spent the day more or less exactly as I wanted. And, you know, clearly turning 30 has not sparked any sort of spontaneous maturation so I dodged that bullet.

The real downside of Saturday was the passing of Gin‘s father after a long struggle with heart problems. He had been undergoing some treatments to try and get him healthy enough to get on the heart transplant list but sadly his health was just too poor to get to that point and he passed away sometime in the wee hours of the morning surrounded by his family.

Now I didn’t know Dan all that well, although I met and spoke with him on a number of occasions. He came to our wedding and as he danced with Nikki during the obligatory “money dance” she thanked him for coming. His only reply was, in his typical deadpan simplicity, “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” But I do know that he was a genuine war hero, having served in Vietnam and been awarded the Purple Heart, which is now displayed with honor in Gin’s home. I know that Gin was very close to her dad and she is suffering a great deal right now. I also know that Dan will be missed, for all the world.

If you’re of the disposition to pray, I know Gin and her family could use some prayers for strength and peace. If not, perhaps take a moment to reflect on your own family and how precious they are. Take the time to call them and say, “I love you,” without self-consciousness or ambiguity. Let ’em know for sure. Give them a hug if you can. Make a point to appreciate the everyday heroes all around us who sacrifice on our behalf. We all owe them that much, at the very least.

Sleepless in Silicon Valley

I started my regular shifts at work this week. I, of course, use the term “regular” extremely loosely. I start at midnight and get off work at ten o’clock in the morning so there is pretty much nothing regular about it. One odd thing I didn’t really think about before starting this schedule is that when I used to work from home (way back in the very beginning of ironSoap, remember that? Anyone? No? Okay, then) and I’d work through the night, I would technically be working a similar schedule to what I have now except that even then I would go to bed early in the morning, usually between six and eight. That meant I was up sometime in the early to mid afternoon which isn’t all that different from just sleeping in really late. But now I don’t even get home until almost noon and Nik and I have sort of agreed that in order to spend at least some time together every day I get up around the time she gets home from work.

But that’s like six o’clock in the evening so it’s this truly bizarre state where I go to sleep when it’s all light outside and when I get up it’s dark.

I was given a couple of extra days off last week to try and get my sleep schedule adjusted but I had the hardest time making that happen so instead I’ve been kind of zombie-like all week. Mercifully today is my Friday so I should be able to catch up a bit and continue to adjust and hopefully by next week I’ll start to settle into a groove.

Other Bits

I realize this post is kind of all over the map, but I haven’t done much updating lately so I’m just kind of brain dumping. Sorry.

• Nik’s car got broken into last night and they ripped out her new stereo that I just got her for her birthday back in October. This, you may recall, is the second break-in at our apartment complex in about a year and is the third car-related theft (including the swiping of the entire vehicle last summer) in the same time frame. It’s getting really old and while part of the fault lies with us (we’re not always the most diligent about keeping our cars free of enticing bait), it annoys me that car crimes are at the absolute top of the list of incidents in our otherwise pretty safe little community and yet the police seem generally uninterested in doing much about it such as increasing street presence.
• We also lost both of our iPods which were stashed in the center console where the adapter for the stereo interface runs, and annoyingly our insurance is threatening to cancel our renter’s policy as a liability if we file a claim. Which makes me wonder, if they’re going to do this the first time we file a claim, what’s the point of having it again?
• By the way, for those keeping score, that makes all three iPods that we’ve owned, stolen. Someone must sure like our taste in music.
• In a strange twist of fate, the same day Nikki’s Sirius-capable stereo was stolen, her birthday gift to me arrived via UPS. It is a Stiletto portable satellite receiver and it’s really slick. It has built-in WiFi so you can connect to Sirius’ internet feed when you’re indoors (the satellite signal doesn’t work too well when the antenna isn’t outdoors) and it has a 2GB storage feature and TiVo-esque recording/scheduling function so you can load MP3s on it or queue up radio content to listen to later. Which should work great for Sharks games since Sirius gets all the NHL feeds.
• The only problem with the Stiletto (okay, two problems) is that the portable antenna is integrated with the special headphones and they’re a it bulky and dorky-looking. Not that I really care, especially since I’ll probably be using it mostly in the car, but it is kind of funny. Also the software for loading music files is Windows-only so I have to fire up Virtual PC which is just dog slow on my aging iBook. Fortunately I prefer iPods for digital music anyway (stop laughing, it ain’t funny) so it doesn’t really matter it’s just kind of a hassle.
• So Apple announced the incessantly-rumored iPhone today. As much as I usually like what Apple does, I’m pretty underwhelmed by this one. I’m sure it’s a very nice phone but what about some scoop on Leopard? Nothing? Anyone? Is this thing on?
• Meanwhile, TiVo finally, finally announced that they finished TiVo2Go for Macs. Hoorays and street-dancing all around, right? Well, no. See, here’s a snippet from the announcement in TiVo’s newsletter:
  

  We’ve partnered with Roxio to enable TiVoToGo in Toast 8 Titanium, available TODAY! Yes, you can now transfer your favorite TiVo recordings to your Mac, watch them in a player, burn them to DVD, and convert them for
  playback on iPod or PSP. […] And yes, Toast is the standard for disc burning software on the Mac. The new version 8 is truly awesome.

  Standard for disc burning? O RLY? That’s so funny because OS X Tiger supports system-wide disc burning on the OS level. I’d say that’s pretty durn standard. So in order to get the same functionality as a Windows PC I have to spend at least $40 for software that does something the system does natively? Unless I’m missing something I’m gonna have to say thanks, but no.

• Nik and I continue to discuss the possibility of moving closer to my work, but after looking at some affordable places in the area we were pretty underwhelmed. Also I forgot just how stupidly expensive moving is so we’re still kicking the idea around, we’re just not sure if it is still going to happen or when. At this point, we’re taking a sort of wait and see approach and keeping our eyes open. The commute isn’t all that bad when I don’t hit any traffic (which I don’t, typically, for this shift) but I wouldn’t mind finding a better use for those hours than driving and burning through my paycheck gas.

Not much time today but at least I’m on a quasi-normal schedule this week so hopefully I’ll have an opportunity for a real update later, during my weekend which will last from Thursday until Saturday. You might be tempted to be jealous of me, but recall that I work 10 hour shifts and drive two hours each way so my days are probably close to twice as long as yours.

Anyway, I need to dig in here and clean up a few things anyway so expect at least something relatively soon.

I’m sure you’ve just been beside yourselves without me, and for that I sincerely apologize. I recognize the responsibility that comes with being such a treasured part of your daily surfing, and I won’t let you down for long.

PS – If anyone happens to have found a decent WordPress 2.0.2-compatible plugin that will disable comments on old stories so I can stop some of the flood of comment spam I’m getting, I’d appreciate a heads up.

I realized today that I haven’t been very post-y for a while, so I thought I’d offer a quick update. Bullet-style, natch.

• A couple of weeks ago I had my first week-long vacation since my honeymoon seven years ago. Nik and I spent a night in Santa Cruz with a hotel room that overlooked the ocean, had a nice romantic dinner and spent a very long time the next day trying to find a decent place to eat lunch. Later in the week we headed down to Southern California for several days where we met up with Lister and Whimsy. We went to GenCon and spent some time at Disneyland as well.
• GenCon was fun but a touch disappointing, probably because most of the events were expensive (which meant they were pricey on top of the already hefty registration fee just to be an official con attendee). We had fun and I am certainly glad I went but I don’t know that I’ll make it a habit when the cons we have locally are just as fun plus they’re cheaper and don’t involve lengthy car rides down I-5, also known as “The Boringest Highway Known to Man.”
• Disneyland was amusing as usual, although my previous conclusions that Disneyland is, at this point in my life, probably best enjoyed somewhere down the line when children are involved. California Screamin’ is still one of the most well executed roller coasters around though so I’m not really complaining, but a lot of the rides feel like they could use some fresh ideas. Even when they do try something different like with the Space Mountain makeover, the end result is sorta underwhelming. The bottom line with the new SM is that it’s faster, darker and some of the space-age stuff in the main loading room has been updated (but not changed drastically) but the actual ride itself is missing some of the more thrilling dips and turns. Lacking any serious drops or loops or anything else it’s only claim to fame above a ride you might find at a cut-rate park like Santa Cruz’s Boardwalk is the darkness and some nifty light effects at the beginning and end of the ride.
• Immediately after returning home from vacation I started my new job at LiveOps. Granted it has only been four days so far (last week was cut short by Thanksgiving) but I really like the new place. Most of the jobs that I’ve had in the tech industry involve co-workers who go on and on about how great the job used to be; here I feel like I’m finally working somewhere that the good ol’ days are now.
• Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a nice one with Nik’s family. But can I just say how much it drives me insane when people insist on calling it “Turkey Day?” We were listening to some idiot DJ the other day on Sirius who went off on a Thanksgiving tangent wherein he must have used the phrase “Turkey Day” about thirteen times. What makes that remarkable is that what he was saying didn’t require him to use any specific proper noun after about the second time because it was perfectly clear what he was talking about so it was almost like he was drilling the phrase into listeners’ heads. To what end that might have been I have no clue, but it was so annoying that even Nik (who was trying to nap in the car at the time) caught it and knew exactly what I was talking about when I brought it up later on.
• My schedule is going to be full on lunacy for the next few weeks as I train for this job; I’m supposed to shadow all the various engineers at the Network Operations Center (NOC) for a week each but since the NOC is technically supposed to be open 24/7, the shifts range from regular 9-to-5 style to crazy swing shifts. Adding to the madness is the 4×10 schedule (four ten hour shifts) so updates may be few and far between for a while. I mean, I’m currently writing this at 2:55 am, so you know something has got to be weird right now.