Category: life

where everything else happens

Life Update

I’ve been too busy at work and home to post here of late. I’ve been trying to settle into a routine here in Central Oregon, but still haven’t really got the house sorted out. Nick & Sue have had over a month to unpack their things, but I’ve been on the road for Facebook, learning how they do things in their existing datacenters for most of the past three months (when I wasn’t moving from Washington to Oregon.)

I spent yesterday unpacking the workshop. It sort of became the “catch-all” spot to throw stuff while we unloaded the moving truck. The shocking realization that this workshop is probably one-sixth the size of our former barn sort of hit me as I was unpacking. I always had plenty of open space in the barn. Not so here.

I barely made room for one car. It is going to be a while before I genuinely have the place set up for car maintenance and repair. I’m going to have to build an addition on to it first to set up the home-brewery. Stay tuned for that.

Work is great. It is wonderful to be on-site in Prineville. There is so much to do, and be a part of! I can’t wait for the whole crew to be here at once, and the real datacenter work to begin. Meanwhile it is all about completion of the first phases of construction and commissioning. I’m doing my best to document it all with my camera. I share daily snapshots with the rest of Facebook on our internal websites. You can keep tabs on what we’re doing by photos posted on the official site, some of which are off my G1. See if you can spot them.

My commute is a refreshing change from the Seattle freeways I’ve been battling for most of my life. It is all two lane roads through the Central Oregon High Desert – sage and juniper, mixed with cattle grazing land. If I keep my eyes open I get to see things like this:

Young coyote hunting mice near Powell Butte, Oregon.

Apologies Dear Reader!

Since mid-summer my life has been… topsy-turvy… and you dear reader, have suffered for it.

Both Sue & I found new jobs – 500 miles away from the place we have called home for over twenty years. I joined Facebook as part of the new datacenter in Prineville, Oregon, and Sue will be a Public Defender in Jefferson & Crook Counties of Oregon. This lead to a search for a new domicile, and an attempt to sell our old one. All the while I’ve been “on the road”, having spent several weeks in Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia at Facebook’s existing datacenters learning the ins and outs of Facebook’s systems.

Finding a new home also meant finding a new school for Nick. A huge life-change for a 16 year old, deeply involved in academics and athletics.

We found a wonderful home in the hills SE of Bend, Oregon. Sue can board her horse nearby, Nick has X-C coaches that are awesome, and I have a pleasant, two-lane twisty back road commute to work, with stellar views of mountains and hills.

Selling our old house became an exercise in futility (we’re trying to rent it now).
Buying a new place became an exercise in frustration (banks are not lending money anymore).

Sue’s mother passed away suddenly in August while I was in Virginia. She had just been at our home in Washington and seemed to be doing very well. Quite sad.

Nick & I lived in a hotel in Bend for two weeks in early September while he started at his new school.

We moved in Mid-September, Sue & Chris arriving with pets, and a moving truck arriving with our goods. (We’re still unpacking.)

Chris returned to college at the end of September.

Now, once again, I’m in Virginia for several weeks.

Sue starts her new job soon, and …hopefully… life should return to some semblance of normality by the end of October. We’ll all be in the same place, and settled into a semi-normal schedule.

The short end of the stick for all of you is that my writing here has been minimal, and spotty. I hope to change that asap. I post to Facebook often, so FB users can always follow me there, but I try to reserve this space for more in-depth thoughts, “Car photo of the day/name that car” stuff, and of course, car adventures. All of the above will resume soon. Apologies for the dearth of posts of late, but I’m sure you understand.

Thanks for hanging in there!

A day off in Northern Virginia

National Airport

I’m on the east coast this week, in Northern Virginia to be specific, visiting my new employer‘s facilities. As I have some downtime over the weekend, I figured I’d hit some sights that I’ve never seen. When I was a child I had relatives in Maryland and visited all the major sights of the Capitol: the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, the Capitol, and of course the Smithsonian museums. This time I decided to drive down to Manassas, the site of the first major battle of the US Civil War. I brought my camera along so I could share.

I stopped at a few sites of minor skirmishes, but the main battlefield at Henry Hill provided the best photographic opportunities…

The guns of the Union Army line.

An odd 1930's statue of Stonewall Jackson done up in what can only be called Stalinist/Superhero style

Guns of the Confederate line

Where Bartow fell

The Union Memorial, erected right after the war

Henry Hill

Where Thomas fell

Rickett's guns

Where Ramsey fell

After Manassas I drove to the Capitol and stopped along the river to shoot low-flying aircraft (seen above) and then over to the Jefferson Memorial. I’ll post those images soon.

On the road…

On the Road Again...

OK, so I haven’t really been on the ROAD, so much as up in the air, or in a hotel, or working at my new gig. Apologies dear readers, for the dearth of updates, and the complete lack of “car photo of the day” posts. I am at home now after spending two weeks in northern California being immersed in my new job. Facebook is a very cool company to work for, and my new colleagues are awesome.

My time home here is really just a “touch & go” visit, as I arrived back very late on Friday (actually Saturday morning!) and will be flying out to the east coast on Tuesday afternoon. While I’m here I’m taking care of household issues. While I was gone the skylight over our “sun room” sprung a leak during the first rain in ages, and caused the back room of our basement to collect some water. It is as if the house knows we’re leaving and is throwing a fit. Yesterday I bought sheets of polycarbonate twin-wall to replace the 30+ year old poly sheets, and this morning Nick & I were on the roof replacing it. I did a better job of installation, using silicone sealant and bonded washers on the stainless screws. It should last another 30+ years.

I’ve also finished the complete dismantling of the BioDiesel refinery out in the barn (Sorry Bruce!) so now we’re ready to move when I come back from the east coast.

Hopefully the east coast datacenters will be less distracting than my visit to Silicon Valley, where meetings at HQ interrupted my time in the facilities learning the Facebook way of doing things. If so, I should be able to have some time in the evenings to post to the blog here. (sound familiar?)

OK car geeks… where was the above photo shot?

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Pixels!

Apologies for the lack of updates this week. It has been a crazy 10 or so days.

In short: Sue & I flew down to central Oregon, and found a new home, then we came back and I’ve been working like mad to prep our current home for sale.

As far as house-shopping goes, I am a good husband and just let Sue find what she wanted. I only ask for enough garage/workshop space for my hobbies of old British car maintenance and homebrewing. Everything and anything else is just a “sure honey, whatever you want.”

The choice came down to two places (after discarding dozens of alternatives) and both had excellent detached workshops for me. One had a stunning 270° hilltop view of all of central Oregon and the Cascades from Bachelor to Adams, along with a Garage Mahal of a workshop… easily room for a half-dozen cars and then-some. Unfortunately the house itself was … odd. Really a bizarre mish-mash of architectural styles thrown together in an outrageous excess of late90s/early00s Mcmansionism.

The alternative, and the one we ultimately chose, is a very understated and elegant house, that fits our personal style. It has a modest view (Mt. Bachelor & the Three Sisters) and a fairly generous workshop, though not in the Mahal-class of garages. I think I’ll have to put the homebrewery in storage until Spring, as the property will require a bit of preparation for it. The current owner runs a woodworking shop now, but it should adapt well to a car-wrenching area. Here, have a look for yourself:

The ceiling is a tad low, so lift clearance may be an issue. Not so much for the Jaguar, but certainly for the Jeep and maybe the Jetta. We’ll see.

We move at the end of August, which is timed to have Nick start at his new high school the beginning of September. Meanwhile my blogging may remain sparse until we are settled and I’m in a reasonable daily routine. I start my new job on Monday 8/2, but will be in the Bay Area at first. Would love to meet any Northern California readers for dinner/drinks in early August!

I’ve got a nice backlog of “Car Photo of the Day” posts, so I’ll try to make them live when I can.

Rain, mixed with showers and occasional drizzle

Forecast for western Washington

I love living in the Pacific Northwest. Really I do. Mostly because it rarely, if ever, gets very hot here. 80°F, which is about my tolerance for heat, is about the average peak summer temp. Oddly, it also rarely, if ever, gets very cold as well. This is all due to the moderating influence of a huge expanse of water to the west. You may have heard of it: The Pacific Ocean.

Weather here is very predictable. Unlike those places where the old saw “don’t like the weather? Just wait five minutes!” gets trotted out often, here you can stretch those five minutes into five months. In winter we have months of light drizzle. In summer we have months of clear blue skies.

My only quibble is the transitions between seasons. In Autumn we get storms. Big winds. Floods. Alternating grey and blue days. In Spring it is sort of the same, though the storms are nowhere near as powerful as Autumn’s. Some years we get lagging winters and others we enjoy early summers. This year, as you can see by the forecast above, is falling into the former camp. However unlike light, misty, drizzly winter rain we get honest to goodness RAIN. In winter rain you can walk across a parking lot and not really get wet. Spring rain drenches you in the same span of time or distance. As a homeowner it means your lawn is becoming a jungle but can not be mowed. As a classic car owner it means you look at the calendar and recall great drives of past years around the same time but instead look out the window in disappointment. Oh well.

Thirty days until the first JCNA slalom in the region. Hopefully the sun will come out by then.