Pulitzer prize winner and another good one from Matt Richtel

I saw a review of this one recently and added it to my library list:

It tracks four patients through cancer and autoimmune disorders and give a history of the understanding of the immune system. Well done!

I enjoyed this one so much (four stars) that I looked for other work by Richtel and found his Pulitzer Prize winner:

I could hardly put this one down! This is the story of the first prosecution of a person suspected of texting while driving who caused a fatal accident.

I thought the way the author put together the stories of all the main characters (the perpetrator, the state trooper, the prosecutor and more ..) was just masterful.

Five stars for this one; money back if not completely satisfied ... and old enough (published 2014) that you can get it from the library!

I ordered a copy for my 86.8 year old bridge partner who called me from his car the other night ... my goal is to keep him alive until he can get a self-driving car!

Finally cold-less string broken; starting a new one!

I finally came down with a minor respiratory crud the last week in March:

This for the first time in around 3 years! And timing really stunk: I was playing in a national bridge final!

I coped with two over-the-counter aids:

and ...

This worked! The first day I had this crud was the day I did well in the national tournament I was playing in ..  But one side effect of the Ricola:

I couldn't understand why I was having this effect until I realized that a bunch of Ricola lozenges was an extra load of sugar! So I just added some more potassium to my regimen for a couple of days, and that handled it.

Here's to three more years (or more!) with robust health!

On becoming a "life master" at bridge

I finally got my the last 1.5 "gold points" (see below) needed for me to achieve the Life Master designation with ACBL.

Just to be clear: the significance of this achievement in the wider world is like this:

The ACBL put in "masterpoints" of various colors decades ago to get money out of the game ... some people will cheat for masterpoints, but many fewer than might have been expected to cheat when playing for money ...

I've been playing steadily since 2006 ... the game is deep and complex enough that it's still plenty challenging. This "life master" bit is really just a low intermediate step in the bridge hierarchy.

I'm still playing the "strong one club" system I wrote about at the beginning of this blog, and doing well enough with it that a partner and I were using it to score 18th of 87 entries in a national event (the NAP Flight C pairs event in Memphis at the national ACBL tournament this past week.)

So: not significant but satisfying to do that well against tough competition. I'm looking forward to several decades more bridge, learning all the way!

Nissan loses a customer

I have been driving the Nissan Leaf quite happily since 2016. In fact I drove the 2016 I was leasing right over the end of the 24000 miles (2 years at 12000 per) and finally stopped driving around 32000 (when I bought the 2015 I've written about here).

Leasing requires one to get a third party certification of the vehicle's condition and I did that, passing with 100%!

I had something like 32500 on it when I turned it into a local dealer early in January. This wasn't the dealer where I bought it and they apparently didn't have enough of a computer to ding me at the time for the excess mileage (15 cents a mile, so something like $1275.)

I was expecting some communication about this directly from Nissan any time now ... but instead I got a call and then a letter in the mail:

     YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PLACED WITH US FOR COLLECTION

WTF?  Nissan, you couldn't have just contacted me?

Not only that: $1780.92, they said. We'll see about that. I guess I'll have to call them on Monday to see what they got from Nissan ...

There are too many competitors out there these days for me to have to put up with this: Hyundai Kona EV, Kia Niro ... Tesla Model 3 ...

I am "underwater" on my current 2015 since I financed it 100% with Zoom. So I'll be driving it for a while yet. But geez, Nissan, you blew it!

Two from the New York Times Last Month: Chief Rational Remainer and Jennifer Senior on Trump

The New York Times last month had an article I greatly enjoyed: The Fame And Folly of Fighting Brexiteers with Logic.

This is James O'Brien, who's achieved YouTube fame arguing with radio callers who are pro-Brexit.

Here's his exchange with Nigel Farage:

“You’ve mentioned your discomfort at listening to foreign languages on a train recently,” Mr. O’Brien said.

“I made the point that I got on the train and went for several stops, and there were a lot of people around me and no one around me spoke English,” Mr. Farage said. “I didn’t object to it. I felt slightly uncomfortable.”

Mr. O’Brien went on to note, “Your wife is a German speaker.”

“Well, my children are, too, yeah,” said Mr. Farage.

“Does that make you feel uncomfortable?”

“No, because they can speak English, and the whole point —”

“How do you know those people couldn’t?” asked Mr. O’Brien.

Just search Youtube "James O'Brien" and enjoy!

Here's Jennifer Senior, whose Trump quote for the same week wins my award:

"When I imagine [Trump's brain], I imagine a bug zapper in a drizzle. Bzzzzzzzzzzt. Fzzzz. Bzzz fzzz bzzzzzzzzzzt." The article is here.

The Wifi Hotspot: Prices crash for this essential piece of tech

I found out about the value of wifi hotspots in 2013 when I was working on contract for AT&T.

There's nothing better for getting around flaky or nonexistent or too-secured Internet wherever you are.

I paid $50 per month for just 5 GB in 2014. Now I pay $10 month extra to

... for 22 GB. I used it a lot during a recent Snow Event we had around home that blocked our Satellite Internet when snow was melting from the trees (I speculate). But I used this a lot for work video and Youtube and even then just got a warning from Cricket "You've used 75% of your high-speed data for the month." Well, OK!

Now Sprint has apparently upped the ante with 100GB for cheap!

Go and get this for yourself before your next flaky internet experience!

Home backup power: state of the art and some allegedly near term options

We're having a winter to remember here in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the U.S.:

With effects like this:

Near Bend OR in 2015

And this:

Let's look at some options for keeping light and heat going in the wake of grid-disrupting weather like this.

The Traditional: A Generator

This is an engine similar to the one in a car that drives an electric generator and an inverter (to make DC into AC).

There are certainly smaller and cheaper options available; one like this including installation cost me about $6500 for enough to back up all refrigerator, freezer, heat and internet and most of the lights.

This included installation of an essential piece of equipment, an automatic transfer switch:

This thing detects an outage in the grid power and automatically sends a signal to start the generator and hook it into the part of the house's power circuitry that you've chosen to back up.

These generators also require a once-per-week test run for maybe 20 minutes, to make sure they're ready to go during the real thing. For this reason you'll have to get the oil changed around once per year, even if the power never goes out.

I strongly recommend propane as fuel for your generator and with this automatic system and enough propane in the tank to run for an extended outage, you are all set. I trust this makes sense to you, rather than:

Especially during a storm! 

The Coming Thing: Tesla Powerwall

There's an extended review I read saying total cost for one of these to back up a 5KW solar system is something like $15,000 installed. This price should come down, as most technology prices do ... and there's no fuel to think about and it should be nearly maintenance free ...

The Still Out There a Ways: Home Fuel Cell

I've been tracking Redox Energy since 2013 and their systems STILL aren't for sale. This is really what I want, but I'm not holding my breath.

Good luck ... stay warm and safe this winter!