I’ve been home for almost three weeks, and now I’m back in an airport. For almost two weeks of that MJ has been on a business trip overseas and I’ve kept myself busy with work, the book release and meeting up with friends and acquaintances. The incredibly ambitious plans I had for this time at home weren’t fully realized, but with everything we have going on I’m kind of glad I was able to spend some time at home.

Mornings have changed some for me during these three weeks. Coming off of trips from Mumbai and Philadelphia in August my sleep schedule was heavily shifted and I decided to take advantage of that by going out running in the mornings. I’d been meaning to get back into it, and my doctor has gotten a bit more insistent of late based on some results from blood work, and she’s right. Instead of doing proper C25K this time I’ve just been doing interval run/walks. I walk about a half mile, do pretty even run/walk for two miles and then a half mile back. It’s not a lot, but I’ll up the difficultly level as I the run/walk I have going feels easier, I have been going out 4-5 days a week and so far it feels great and seems sustainable. Fingers crossed for keeping this up during my next few weeks of travel.

With MJ out of town I’ve made plans with a bunch of local friends. Meals with my friends James, Emma, Sabice and Amanda last week were all a lot of fun and reversed my at home trend of being a hermit. Last weekend I made my way over to to the Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition. It opened in June and I’ve been interested in going, but sorting out timing and who to go with has been impossible. I finally just went by myself last Saturday after some having some sushi for lunch nearby.

I wouldn’t say I’m a huge Kubrick fan, but I have enjoyed a lot of his work. The exhibit does a really exceptional job showcasing his work, with bright walls throughout and really nicely laid out scripts, cameras, costumes and props from the films. I had just recently seen Eyes Wide Shut again, but the exhibit made me want to go back and watch the rest, and ones I haven’t seen (Lolita, Spartacus). I particularly enjoyed the bits about my favorite movies of his, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Some photos from the exhibition here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157670417890794

I did get out to a movie recently with my friend mct. We saw Complete Unknown which was OK, but not as good as I had hoped. Dinner at a nearby brewery rounded off the evening nicely.

With the whirlwind week of my book release, preparations for the OpenStack QA/Infrastructure sprint (which I’m on my way to now) and other things, I called it a day early on Thursday and met up with my friend Atul for some down time to visit the San Francisco Zoo. He’s been in town for several weeks doing a rotation for work, and we kept missing each other between other plans and my travel schedule. We got to the zoo in time to spend about 90 minutes there before they closed, making it around to most of the exhibits. We got a picture together by the giraffes, but they’ve opened exhibits for the Mexican Wolves and Sifaka lemurs since I last visited! It was fun to finally see both of those. I have some more zoo visits in my future too, hoping to visit the Philadelphia zoo when I’m there next weekend and then the Columbus Zoo after the Ohio LinuxFest in early October.

More zoo pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157670651372724

Thursday night I met up with my friend Steve to go to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the Typeface to Interface exhibit. This museum is just a block from where I live and the recently reopened after a few years of massive renovations. They’re open until 9PM on Thursdays and we got there around 7:30 to quite the crowd of people, so these later hours seem to be really working for them. Unfortunately I’ve never been much of a fan of modern art. This exhibit interested me though, and I’m really glad I went. It walks you through the beginning of bringing typeface work into the digital realm, presenting you with the IBM Selectric that had replaceable typing element ball for different fonts. You see a variety of digital-inspired posters and other art, the New York Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual. It was fun going with Steve too, since his UX expertise meant that he actually knew a thing or two about these things out of the geeky computer context I was approaching it with. I think they could have done a bit more to tie the exhibit together, but it’s probably the best one I’ve seen there.

We spent the rest of the evening before closing walking through several of the other galleries in the museum. Nothing really grabbed my interest, and a lot of it I found difficult to understand why it was in a museum. I do understand the aesthetically pleasing nature of much abstract art, but when it starts being really simple (panel of solid magenta) or really eclectic I struggle with understanding the appeal. Dinner was great though, both of us are east coasters by origin and we went to my favorite fish place in SOMA for east coast oysters, mussels, lobster rolls and strawberry shortcake.

Yesterday afternoon MJ got home from his work trip. In the midst of packing and laundry we were able to catch up and spend some precious time together, including a wonderful dinner at Fogo de Chão. Now I’m off to Germany for work. I had time to write this post because the first flight I had was delayed by an astonishing 6 hours, sailing past catching my connection. I’ve now been rebooked on a two stop itinerary that’s getting me in 5 hours later than I had expected. Sadly, this means I’m missing most of the tourist day in Heidelberg I had planned with colleagues on Sunday, but I expect we’ll still be able to get out for drinks in the evening before work on Monday morning.