\nThursday was marked by a downpour that I (accurately or inaccurately)
\nthought of as the first major rainfall of the season. The following day
\nwas sunny, though I carried my umbrella out of fear of getting wet. The
\nvariability in the weather is exhilarating. Having grown up in northern
\nOntario, I still find it hard to believe that December has arrived just
\nfrom looking outside. But the last month of the year is here. It is a
\nbusy, busy, busy time. <\/p>\n
\nWhen people ask me how I've been, I reflexively respond \"Oh, busy\".
\nNow, I'm beyond busy. There's just so much to do in the two weeks
\nbefore Laura and I travel east to visit family. So why am I sitting in
\nour living room wrestling with words rather than the Ikea furniture
\nthat needs to be assembled? Although thinking is often procrastination
\nfor me, I suspect that my running around -- as productive as it has
\nbeen -- is for the moment a hinderance to internal work of disciplined
\nthought, prayer, and quiet that I've been avoiding. Writing is hard
\nwork. Prayer is often hard work. The results often seem so meager given
\nthe effort. Yet I need to do that work. <\/p>\n
\nWriting the previous two paragraphs has centered me so that I can tell
\nyou more about the things that we've been up to and things that still
\nneed to get done. I wish I could string together a coherent
\nsupper-narrative that weaves all of what I want to say into a neat
\npackage. Instead, I give you a list of vignettes: <\/p>\n
\nOn Friday night, Laura and I had a late-night dinner at Daimo, my \nLast week, Laura and I bought a Toyota 2006 Corolla to replace our Thursday was marked by a downpour that I (accurately or inaccurately) thought of as the first major rainfall of the season. The following day was sunny, though I carried my umbrella out of fear of getting wet. The variability in … Continue reading
\ncurent favorite local purveyor of Cantonese food. We ran into Victor, a
\nformer neighbor of mine who is also a Ph.D. student in chemistry. He
\ntold me that he had recently purchased some chemistry texts that I had
\ndonated to the Berkeley Public Library-Friends of the Library<\/a>. I was delighted. I've written previously about how I desired to give away my books to someone who can make use of them<\/a> but then turned to selling books on half.com<\/a>.
\nI had to find a way to pare down my book collection in a hurry. The
\nBerkeley Public Library takes books in good condition en masse. I've
\ndonated 8 boxes of books with three more on the way. I was concerned
\nthat donating advanced science texts to the BPL bookstore would not get
\nmy books to the right people. Last night's news was a little answer to
\nprayer. <\/p>\n
\nstolen car. We're still getting used to it. Even though it is Toyota's
\nentry level car (with some options added), it is certainly more car
\nthan either has ever had. We learned to negotiate a price that we were
\nhappy with and have enjoyed dealing with our seller, Hanlees Hilltop
\nToyota in Richmond, CA.. What we did: we signed up for Consumer Reports Ratings and recommendations available at ConsumerReports.org<\/a>
\nfor a month, paid for a price report for the Toyota Corolla to get a
\nbreakdown of the wholesale prices, followed the advice on the Consumer
\nReports site, called around to get some quotes, decided beforehand what
\nwe we were willing to pay and when we would walk away, and stuck to our
\nguns. It's also useful to have two people involved in the negotiation.
\nAlthough I did most of the talking, Laura picked up on important points
\nthat I missed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"