da | Entries tagged with family

1) I used to blog regularly, and I miss it. The book of faces has inertia going for it; and I'm not yet pulling the plug there, but I want to try this again, in long form. So welcome! Pull up a chair!

2) In 2012 I started a blog about being Quaker. It's named after work by one of my favourite Quaker poets, and also after one of my favourite Quaker Science Fiction novels. I might also post there, occasionally. We'll see.

3) I became a dual American / Canadian citizen as of June 22, 2007. My partner dan and I moved here from the US in August 2001, so he could take the position of professor of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.

4) When we moved here, I was a self-employed web application developer, for a much-younger Web. My business-partner and I made our first $2,000 out of a meeting at Comdex in 1996. I look back on those days fondly but definitely don't miss them! I worked for various companies doing Web 1.0 stuff; but I really hated chasing down clients for payment. I started working at the University of Waterloo in November 2004, in a job that was roughly 75% my dream job. Since then I've changed bosses ~~six~~ eight times, but still work for the same unit, Computer Science. My job is currently 100% my dream job. The me-of-half-my-lifetime-ago would be astounded. I expect I will stay at the University until I retire.

5) In July 2002, we adopted the cutest puppy in the world. At the time Rover was six weeks old. It was a few weeks later that we discovered that a certain number of people are offended that we named a girl dog Rover. I was really perplexed. I'm told that her cousin Sonia the Samoyed wanted to know if she's a squeak-toy or a snack. She really was the best dog. She lived to a ripe old 16 years, and we miss her all the time.

In August 2021, we adopted the director of the River Institute who is an absolute delight. And very photogenic. River is learning new things every day; even if it is "what is the best way to arrange my blankets for napping?"

I have an interest in coincidences. When the fabric of one's life develops a few slip-stitches. The kind of thing you generally don't notice until suddenly, as if in The Twilight Zone, your life has a pattern you can just barely see and can't possibly understand. Then the moment passes and you're back in the humdrum world.

Of course your average day has millions of chances for "a strange thing" to happen, most with little actual effect on the world. But if you look for strange things, like magic you'll see more of them. Occasionally, they're useful; like getting a day's worth of good elevator karma; or getting a phone call from the person you most want to talk to. But mostly their intrinsic value is simply getting a chance to grin and feel like part of the universe sort of makes sense somehow.

Once upon a time, I thought I had an uncommon first name. Then I left for school, and lo, Daniels were popping out of the woodwork. In fact it turns out that Daniel Allen is not an uncommon name.

It started in my first week at school when I started getting snail mail for the other Daniel Allen, then a Senior. My second week I learned my unique Cornell user ID was shared between myself (Daniel Robert Allen) and Daniel Robert Adinolphi. We were both dra1 for a week, despite protests by Cornell Information Technologies that it was strictly impossible. Douglas Adams was right on target with the Someone Else's Problem Field. People simply won't believe reality if it's inconvenient. Interestingly enough, dra1 also works in Information Technology, which I learned from a mutual friend who ran into him at a security conference.

When I was a teenager I went to a gathering of 200 Quaker teens (YouthQuake in Glorietta New Mexico, 1994), and met a total of five other Quaker Daniels and Dans. That was fun, especially since I got to introduce some of them to each other.

In 2003 at Summer Gathering of Friends General Conference, I played the card-game Fluxx with a Daniel, Daniel, dan, and Gary. And those were just the people staying in our dorm-hall.

There have been three Daniels on the payroll of my former consulting company, including business-partner (now professor), Jason Daniel Hartline. In 2000-2001 I consulted for Millennium Pharmaceuticals. My office-mate Daniel Noël had just moved from Canada to Boston; I moved from Boston to Canada eight months later.

There's also the Daniel Allen House in Walpole, MA, and Dan Allen Drive at NC State. I guess it's gratifying- and possibly weird- that Google thinks I'm one of the most authorative Daniel Allens.

When I first got onto facebook, I found a group named "Yes, my name is Daniel Allen too." I became member number 53. Then the group vanished. No idea what happened.

Last but most definitely not least, my sweetie is a dan, with whom I have been lucky to share just about half our respective lives together.

So, that's the long version of the story when people learn that we're "Dan and Daniel" and I say, "We didn't plan it that way."

There was quite a downpour this morning. I was hanging out with my parents at their hotel just as they were on their way back home; I stuck around a bit longer so I wouldn't be caught in the worst of it getting back to the car. It turned out to be a very warm rain, but also a lot of water.

Things I then saw on my way to work:

- ducks swimming on the shoulder of the road
- a toddler joyfully stomping in puddles in a front yard
- a pair of middle-aged women driving a scooter in the bike-lane with raincoats billowing. The one in the front looked like she was soaked to the bone and had an ear-to-ear grin.

My world seems to ebb and flow with varying amounts of chaos. Sometimes, it's a bit much.

I wish I'd taken a photo; my study was a disaster area. Last night I was due to be on a conference-call on queer Quaker outreach. So I started prepping 10 minutes before the call was to start- lots of time to re-read the agenda, call up my notes, find my headphones... We'd used the same conference calling number a bunch of times, but somehow I mis-remembered it was a toll-free number. Nope, it's a regular US number. Oh right, I had bought a calling card to deal with that, last fall when I was last on these conference calls. ...Oops, this was going to be a problem.

1) My cellphone's long distance to the US is something like $0.45/min, so that was a non-starter. 2) I tried both of my cheap calling cards, and they had expired or ran out of money, probably in May. 3) I tried skype; but my account had JUST been marked 'inactive' due to no calls in 180 days. It took me a few minutes to figure that out, but they sent me an email last week telling me to log in before yesterday. Oops. Now it was time for the conference call to start. 4) Could I find the parts for my VoIP system, which is only 1 cent a minute? Yes, I can! I plugged in my VoIP box, stringing wires in a mess, dragged out the speaker phone from the closet (which was nicely put away under a pile of other stuff, a pile which became strewn all over the floor), found a phone cord (another mess in the closet), got everything hooked up, and dialed in, only a couple minutes late. ...The call was useful and good, but I was sort of distracted by the bomb that had gone off in my study! So I'm not sure what I learned from this experience. I really like the look of my desk without a phone on it, and I'm glad we got rid of the land-line. I did reactivate my skype account, which would have worked without any wires. And I'm glad I have a backup backup backup plan.

--

We have met all of the conditions for the house sale! The inspection found a leak in the main-floor bathroom, so we knocked $500 off the price rather than needing to deal with plumber / re-inspection / etc. possibilities. They are doing a title search and the house is to close September 19th! (Or earlier, if they decide they want to). I'm still sort of numb that it's finally wrapping up. Yay! But now our line of credit (on the house) goes away, and we immediately had to figure out where we were going to stash the large pile of money until the condo registers in December. (The answer? Canadian Tire Bank. Yes really. 1.8% interest savings account, and the interest is not paid in Canadian Tire Money.)

--

My parents are coming in 4 days. We discussed this option last weekend, decided it wasn't practical for them to rush to get here on the September long weekend, that we'd find another time we're all free... and then yesterday they decided hey, why not do it while they know we're all free, especially if they offset their visit a day to give us a bit of breathing room after our stressful weeks. So they're arriving Sunday and leaving Tuesday! I'm excited to show them the new place, and I'm glad this is working out, since I think we all had a premonition they wouldn't otherwise make it here until 2013.

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We are starting to have neighbours on our floor. Last night dan brought by a couple, half of whom is living down the hall. They felt a bit like they were out of a soap-opera, and not in a bad way really, just a bit much. Don't get me wrong; I am very happy at the mix of people we've met in the building- young, old, gay couples, straight couples, singles, dog-owners... I agree with dan. This was the right choice.

Just so long as we don't end up as extras in someone else's soap opera.

Two weekends from now is the opening of the Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (at right; click for more flickr stream). It will soon house three times as many smart people attempting to turn coffee into theorems which might in 30 years escape into a different form as (currently) indistinguishable from magic. That same weekend may see Stephen Hawking at the public opening, though if I were he, I would find something better to do that weekend.

I, however, am not he, and I am taking a tour. You could also if you're free Sunday the 18th; let me know if you sign up for something around the 3pm slot and we can meet up.

They are also hosting two free public talks on the evening of Saturday the 17th (which I'm waffling on; but there are still apparently tickets still available for both as well.)

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I have a fairly unplanned Labour Day Weekend, which means it is going to go by in a flash. I'm going to do some cooking, play some games with friendly peeps, go to a potluck, and possibly go for a long bike-ride on Monday if it isn't storming.

Dan is away until next Thursday; he is currently in Luxembourg, which my father tells me officially speaks Luxembourgish (and Wikipedia backs him up).

---

This evening I talked to my folks. They recently had a distant cousin visit from out west. She brings news of the History of the Allens. Apparently, my relatives who settled in Watertown, NY in the mid-1800s came there via Medford, MA, where they lived since the late 1700s, when they emigrated from England (not Scotland, as my father had believed). In the early 1800s the Medford Allens founded a Unitarian church, which subsequently schismed into a competing Unitarian church just across the street. And there is an Allen Homestead in Medford, which this distant cousin had visited. And that's all the detail I got this evening. I hope to extract more from my folks, as it sounds like there's potential for some juicy stories, or at least some amusing coincidences given that I was, y'know, living in Medford for a year. (A year which ended exactly 10 years ago last Monday! Hey, we've lived here for 10 years now. I can barely believe that!)

( Caution: contains Super Lambananas )
You know, I'm looking forward to home.

[ETA: Comments disabled due to spam]

Current Location: United States, New York, Smithtown

As I write,

melted_snowball is ~~sitting~~ ~~laying~~ a-bed [1] on an airplane enroute to Amsterdam; he's gone 'till next Friday. In the morning,

roverthedog and I are enroute to the exciting metropolis of Watertown, NY, for dinner with my parents, then to their 2nd house, 45 minutes further away. I'm looking forward to seeing them, and I hope I can be useful helping them reduce clutter as they slowly work their way towards moving into the Watertown house.

I'm wiped out from my week. Monday was a civic holiday, which we took to drive to the beach in Goderich on Lake Huron. The rest of the week sort of flew past. Even though I mostly got enough hours of sleep, I tended to feel un-rested in the mornings. I hope that trend is over.

I had other things I was going to say, but they have evaporated. Perhaps in the morning they will have re-coalesced.

[1] d. sent me a text-message that his upgrade to first-class was successful. Which means hopefully he'll be well-rested when he gets to Amsterdam. There's a parade to go see, after all. ...Yeah. Nice job if you can get it; his conference in Holland just happens to be at the same time as Gay Pride. ;)

OK, I wrote an entire post in my head, biking home, but some time between coming in the door and sitting down at the laptop, it's gone poof.

Rough brush-strokes:

Guy walking with his wife, passing me stopped at a light: "It's a bit fresh for shorts this morning, eh?" What a turn of phrase. He was about 65, maybe 70. Smile in his voice. I said yup, so I was discovering, but it certainly got the blood going. It turns out it's 3C. Not so bad when I was moving... it only snowed a bit while I was actually on the bike, and a bit more snow when I was indoors. But it didn't stick.

I'm in shorts because I wanted ease of motion, because I went to try out a Pilates studio uptown. It was an hour of guided exercises, tough but not too tough; a fun instructor, and a small class. I'm tempted to sign up for the weekly classes, since they seem flexible (haha) and I know it will help my back and shoulder (and stomach and legs and...)

I will also try our gym's pilates class, though the massage therapist I see (at the gym) suggested I should try a "real" pilates studio, not her own workplace, which makes a fairly strong statement.

This afternoon I'm taking a load of dead electronics to the University (locals; free electronics dropoff for recycling today, at East Campus Hall) and maybe making chicken soup. Hm, I think with matzo balls. (wow I'm hungry).

Last night, my cousin Arlene arrived, and I made us roast chicken with pesto. We stayed up talking a bit late (late considering she's here for a conference near Pearson airport, and she was out the door this morning at 7:40.) She's staying one more night, which means she will just miss seeing

melted_snowball, who is coming back from Chicago Sunday mid-day. I hope tonight she'll be back from her conference early enough that I can take her to a ceilli tonight.

My brain seems full of pokey things. Things I should poke at and things that want to poke me back. Like, the web demo I'm doing next week for profs, which is full of wildcards in terms of what feedback they will have. Like the fact that my home mac still has networking problems but I'm not convinced I should replace it with a (brand new, very fast, lighter-weight, pretty) model [1]. Like, dancing on the edge of not over-committing for everything. And concern for friends who are in rough spots. And yet through it, feeling more or less centered; feeling connected like I should be, and sort of being present with the low-level anxiety, knowing that it will work out, s'ok, really.

Something else that will work out well: time for some lunch!

[1] This year's new 13" macbook pro is a bit faster than my work iMac, which is much faster than my home laptop, which has felt fully sufficient for my needs, aside from occasional worries about whether it is slowly dying.

So, on Ada Lovelace Day we're asked to blog about women in IT who we admire. I can do this. The tricky part is choosing only one, 'cause I know a lot of women with technical chops. So I'll go back a bit.

Carol Kinne is an artist, emeritus professor at Colgate College in NY, and graphic designer. She's my father's first cousin, and she was a major influence on my choice of what directions I took my computer exploration in high-school. She was the first person I knew with a Commodore Amiga, and she made some sophisticated 2- and 3-d art with it.

In my recollection, she also basically dragged my uncle, parents, and myself onto a sort-of Bulletin Board system we called "AllenNet," hosted on my uncle's email server (via dialup through his employer- they gave him an 800 number to check his email- and we used it to keep in weekly (or so) touch, in the late 80s. Fun times.

Last I heard she was exhibiting in Paris and co-presenting a movie in New York with her partner, Bob.

She's also raised award-winning Samoyed dogs since I was little, and running a Samoyed rescue club for ages.

I've fallen out of touch, recently, but I still think she's been a strongly positive influence on me, and I expect a number of other people as well.

Current Music: Toto / Africa

To those who celebrate this weekend, Happy Thanksgiving. There's a parade happening a few km away from here, which I'm avoiding just like we have for the last seven... But there is certainly a lot to be thankful for, including having good friends. So thanks, y'all.

The trip to Long Island for my cousin's wedding was successful: she's married, the groom's family's met and approved of, and I spent good quality-time with the Grandma, aunt and uncle who are down there. Nobody got murdered, despite multiple predictions, so that's (...nearly a?) raging success as well.

d's safely in DC for his conference, and I lined up a proper Thanksgiving dinner this evening with W&J, two local friends who were feeling like company.

As for right now, I'm going back to bed for a nap. g'night!

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