Day 4: 178 days to L.A.

Today, today felt like we actually got some stuff done.  I took down everything off the walls, except the big mirror and the stuff in the children's bedrooms.  Lori researched paint colors and window treatments.  (She has already been doing other planning exercises, like looking for good furniture for staging and researching other purchases like new countertops in the kitchen and some new sinks.  We had a chance to talk about it briefly, but we were both running in opposite directions today.)  I also cleaned off a bookcase.  Some stuff will need to get packed and I put think or two in the donate pile and cleaned the area underneath the TV.  If you came over today you might be hard-pressed to see a huge difference from yesterday to today, but I feel better about having gotten something done.  I also did some consolidation of stuff, put away my Christmas gifts and got my next two L.A. trips planned. We also talked more about the actual logistics of the move. Soon I'll probably need to adjust the countdown (there probably isn't 178 days left). No new listings yet in our desired neighborhood. Zillow got a little loopy tonight and suggested a property in L.A. proper on Rampart St. Not that desparate, Zillow. Sorry, but perhaps that street should have been renamed. Either way, can't do L.A. city because of the schools.

I'm going to do something daring for my next trip: I'm going to go carless.  The last few trips have spent so much on cars that it's ridiculous.  Over $100 to store my car 18 miles from my house, another $100 to drive someone else's car from the airport to the hotel, and then to and from work twice and then to work a third time and back to the airport.  And then close to $100 to store that same car at the hotel for a few hours each night while I slept.  Crazy.  So this time, I'm going to go Lyft.  I can get a ride from my house (I know! Even way out here!) for about $34, I can get a ride from LAX to the hotel for about $22.  I bought into the Santa Monica Breeze Bikeshare so I can ride my bike to work while I'm down there.  And then on the last day when I have my suitcase, the hotel can give me a ride and then I'll catch a Lyft from there back to LAX and then a Lyft from Seatac or the nearest Link station.


When we lived in L.A., we had a membership with the L.A. Zoo and went regularly.  It was a pretty good zoo and you didn't have any of that indecision about whether to go to Pt. Defiance or Woodland Park, both of which are also great zoos, but a bit of a drive.  Also, unlike PD or WP, there was always ample parking.  (It was also where we'd park when we'd visit the Hollywood Bowl.)  Sure, there's a bit of a hill at the start, but it's not as bad as the San Diego Zoo and it's good exercise.  I'm excited to see what's changed since we were there last.  I don't know why, but beyond the Capybera exhibit, all of the zoos kind of blend together in my mind.  I always thought they should call it the Los Angeles International Zoo and Botanical Gardens, personally.

There was also a slightly dated, slightly cheesy lighting exhibit put on my LADWP.  It was a long street with different lighting displays along one side in Griffith Park adjacent to the zoo.  I'm reading now that they stopped doing it for five years because of construction on the street but brought it back in 2014 with a lot of enhancements and moved it inside the zoo itself.



I'm also way under my calories because I did a lot of freestep today. And my work-provided Fitbit is on its way. Woo!

Day 3: 179 days to L.A.

I feel like I'll be thinking "give or take" every time I write that heading.  There's way too much waiting right now.  Waiting for our realtor to tell us what we need to improve in order to make it easy for him to get a great sale price... waiting for our realtor to tell us what he thinks he can get and how quickly... waiting for people to start listing houses for sale in our target area..  I'm not sure.  I don't feel like I should be waiting, I feel like I should be doing more now, but it's tough.  Today got sucked up with bill paying and getting Quicken up-to-date.  And family stuff. And this cold that still plagues me.  I'm impatient and frustrated.  I think I need to take the timeline we created and break it down into much smaller pieces.

I am breaking even on my calories (day 3) and I did thin out my wardrobe slightly in advance of the move (decluttering).

The Getty Center opened while I lived in L.A., it was a big deal.  It took months to get a parking reservation.  I got one, but then for some reason, I was unable to attend.  I never got around to getting back to it.  I'm looking forward to visiting The Getty Center.

Day 2: 180 days to L.A.

I didn't do anything today that should really count towards getting us any more ready.  We decided to do some family stuff together instead because we needed to get out of the house after a few weeks of pretty much being indoors due to the cold.  We went to the local mall(ish) because it meant a place to walk around indoors and a play area for Ben.  He had pretzels and it was mostly a nice time.

We're still trying to figure out how to get everything and everyone down to L.A.  There'll be a few cars, some driven, one shipped, three adults, two children and a couple of cats.  And then all of our stuff.  The stuff part is easy - some people come, pack it up, drive it own and unload it. But one of the big questions is Ben... 20 hours in a car, or 3 hours on a plane?  I'm leaning towards plane, but that means taking his car seat or attempting to rent one with a rental car.  Unless I can get my car delivered to airport parking.  Not sure if I could pull that off, but that would be amazing.

The desk I left out front got snagged, so maybe it's time to leave something else out front.  And I've been under my calories for two days in a row.  So there's that. Yay.

One thing I regretted not seeing during my last residence in L.A. was Angel's Flight (wikipedia). Sadly, it appears to be closed now with no known reopening date, due to poor design and apparent negligence by the part of the operators.

Day 1: 181 days to L.A.

Give or take.  So, 2016.  A dual-residency year.  The first half in Seattle, the second half in L.A.

I've accepted a full-time position with a company in L.A. and one of the terms was relocation - as a contractor, it was fine to work from home, but as a full-time employee, they want me to share in the culture and collaboration that can only be gained from being physically present.  So, back to L.A. we go.   I was able to negotiate a delayed return in order to let the children finish out the school year, but that time is going to go very quickly.  By the time six months have completed, we will need to sell our house (after some pre-sale work no doubt), find a buy a house, get everything packed up, find new providers for our children, and get ourselves to California.  To make it more challenging, my mother-in-law is coming with us, so we need to find a place for her as well and I'm going to take another run at some weight loss.  Oh, and 5-6 trips to L.A. to work from the office for a few days at a time.  I'll also be disolving my Washington State Small Business and continuing my contract work as simply an independent contractor.

It'll be an action-packed six months, but we're excited.

Day 1: Starting slow - we were up late for New Year's so it's been a slow start to the day.  Our son went to bed early and then got up early.  Bleary eyed, we put on a movie and sat around slightly in a daze (my wife retreating to the kitchen to stream the Rose Bowl parade re-broadcast on KTLA's website.)   Immediate actions for today: Cleaning, decluttering, more Christmas packing.  Continuing to watch Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and Realtor for new listings. I'm spot-botting some stains in the living room.  We'll replace the carpet, but until then, it needs some love.  Light colored carpets and a child who intentionally spills stuff are not a great combination.  Also, sticking to a calorie plan.  I've used Lose-It successfully in the past to lose a lot of weight, but then birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas come along and I chuck it all out the window because I love sweets.

Great Form (@AmericanExpress)

I love this email subscription/preferences form from American Express.  When you click "Unsubscribe" in a newsletter, it shows you the item you just changed (not shown here), and then says "While you're here, here's some other subscriptions you can change.")

When you move your mouse over an option, a box appears around the option, a detail link appears to give you more information and the switch itself wiggles to let you know that it's something to interact with.  (Not sure how it works on mobile which lacks mouseover but am too lazy at the moment to test.  I assume that touching anywhere in the space draws the box and offers up the details link.)

(click to enlarge)

I proposed something similar about four years ago at a previous job where we were exploring a potentially confusing and complex series of newsletter choices.  It wasn't 100% the same (mine used red/green and didn't include the words "on" and "off") but it was pretty clear from those who used it, which newsletters you were subscribed to, which ones you weren't.

I demoed my prototype on an iPad so that people could see how subscribers might interact with it on a mobile device.  The iPad was still pretty new but I figured on/off toggles would make their way to the web because it just made sense.  Checkboxes for newsletter subscriptions usually work, but occasionally you'll get some insane website where it's like "check the box to tell us which newsletters you don't want" or some other such nonsense that makes it hard to trust any checkboxes.  But on/off - super simple.  I was shot down.  Two years later when I left, it was still an all-or-nothing subscription system.  In retrospect, I was simply too early.  (Is this an "I told you so?")

Kudos to American Express for bringing granularity (better to be able to turn individual pieces on and off) without complexity (easy to see what's out and learn more about each choice).  The only thing I don't like is that these don't function like a switch - unlike a light switch, these selections don't actually apply until/unless you also click "Save" at the bottom of the page.  I bet a lot of people neglect to do that and don't understand why they're still receiving email.

And for being a bit of validation and encouragement for me.

Recent Reads

Here's what I've been reading recently...

Jennifer Government by Max Barry - One day recently it occurred to me that if I'm still talking about Lexicon (and what the author wrote in the dust cover about librarians) years later (my review), then the author must have written some other stuff and I should be reading it.  So off to the library (website) to download some books to my Kindle.  Jennifer Government exists in a world where the government has been somewhat sidelined by the special interests of major corporations.  Your identity is so wrapped up in your employment that you now take the last name of your employer. So goes the tale of Jennifer Government vs. John Nike, the father of Jennifer's child and a maniacal dastardly marketer who realizes he can make billions off his latest shoes and drive up their price if he orchestrates a mall shooting. He cooly rationalizes the costs, the insurance and any fines if discovered against the profit margins of a shoe that costs nothing to make and sells for thousands due to artificial quantity limits. This turns out to be one of the first forays into a corporate war between two factions rallying behind corporate loyalty programs and between the companies and the U.S. Government culminating in actual literal shots fired (missiles) between the corporations.  The book has great movie potential, but doesn't work well, never quite lifting itself to the level of epic it strives for and the characters are a little disappointing. (Amazon)

Syrup by Max Barry - In the small-world category, Scat finds himself in a game of corporate one-upmanship with his (former) roommate in this interesting book that wants to be a critique of corporate America but seems to live in its own fantasy world. Is this supposed to be fictional commentary? Is this supposed to feel plausible? Is this supposed to make Coke look stupid, or would the book be any different if the author had chosen Pepsi or IHOP?  Is it supposed to be an inside joke about marketing that I only sort of get?  I don't know, but... eh.  I didn't find the characters relatable and the weird format of the book and its foreshadowing didn't remain novel.  I believe this one has, ironically (if you read the book) become a movie. (Amazon)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - it's about 30 years into the future and civilization has gone into deep decline.  Well, in real life, that is.  Fortunately, everyone has the OASIS to escape to.  Food is hard to come by, the government has largely failed, everyone is broke.  Except for two companies, that is.  One is the company that runs OASIS.  While it's free to use, there are plenty of ways within the worlds for the company to make money (like teleporting and other means of travel).  The other is a large company that provides internet (and OASIS) access to much of the population.  When the creator of OASIS dies, he leaves behind a challenge: within OASIS, there is a game, nay, a quest. Find the golden egg and receive the entire fortune of the creator. Solve the riddles, complete the challenges and you could come out ahead. Fail and your avatar gets reset and you start over in OASIS with nothing. For years, there's no activity and it's largely believed to be a hoax.  And then there's a breaththrough - and the race is on, pitting a few individuals against the large internet provider who wants to gain control of OASIS so that they can monetize more of it and make even more money for themselves.  Oh, and the creator was a big fan of the 1980s, so all the quests and challenges are a chance for the author to namedrop lots and lots of 80s culture. This had originally been featured in Entertainment Weekly and been on my list for awhile.  It was an interesting read, but not one I'd put on my "you should read this" list.  (Amazon)

In This Rain by S.J. Rozan - This book was interesting but way too long. Knowing nothing about New York City politics, this felt really believable/credible. The main character didn't have a consistent voice. There's tailoring your conversation to your audience and then there's this character - almost a different character with each person they were with, more about the author being creative and clever than about defining and grounding the character, in my opinion. The most frustrating thing was the introduction of someone 62% in that you knew was somehow ultimately going to become central. The new character wasn't believable in their relationships with black and white characters when the rest of the book goes to great lengths to portray a fragile and regretable/lamentable rift between blacks and whites. Her introduction also threw the book into the "the world isn't really this small" territory. It was ok. I wouldn't say "Don't read this!" but I would say, "yeah... a bit long." (Amazon)

Top Secret Twenty-One (Stephanie Plum) by Janet Evanovich - I really like how this series has mellowed over the years.  In the earlier books, characters were more one-note and so much more was over-the-top.  But as the series as progressed, characters have become more fleshed out, events more believable, like the characters (mostly) have become wiser with time. The ending seemed a little rushed and unpredictable, but it was still a good read.  Only one true gross/groan moment (involving Bob the dog) and lots of loud-out-loud situations.  In one aspect it feels like the author has almost painted herself into a corner with one element of the ongoing saga that is Stephanie Plum's life but it's better than the fake drama the situation used to cause.  (Amazon)

Cake > Pie

The other day I saw something on the internet that was wrong and I had to fix it. The intent is to show that some parts of the cost structure are fixed but some are not.  This was in response to complaints that all of the revenue was going to out-of-state companies.  (Two of the slices are, in fact, handled by out-of-state companies but those companies both have their operations established locally and are employing local in-state employees to run them.)

But it also tried to show that as the toll rises, that means more money going back to the fund that's set aside for further improvements to the area being tolled.

Anyhow, why should you care?  You might not (but thanks for reading down this far), or you might take away from this that if you're trying to use a chart to get your point across, be careful to choose the chart that best tells your story.

The pie chart on the left is 42.86% of the size of the pie chart on the right, but they're presented as equals, meaning that 20 cents on the left looks much larger than 20 cents on the right.

Cakes may make a better comparison in this case:

Most of the layers stay the same.  But as the rate goes up, more goes back into future improvements. Sort of.  The fact that they lump "Enforcement, Transponders and Future Improvements" into a single category is a bit troubling but maybe they'll address that in a future post.

I know, I know.