Looking for the universe in a grain of sand...

Spent a tidy packet at IKEA: plates, bowls, duvet, and BILLY. I decided to go for 6x skinny over 3x wide because when you stack 'em up side by side it's a much more striking look. Repetition legitimizes.

Also I went for height extensions, but I didn't double-check the amount of headroom and... they should just fit. Just. I'll be dropping those into position once the main part is in place. If I'm squinting at the online version of the assembly instructions correctly I should have the extra 2 inches of headroom it takes.

I also coughed up the extra $30 to have them deliver to a room of my choosing. I could have probably just brought them up from the lobby myself but now I don't have to. The assembly (including drilling out extra shelf pinholes to make places for the connecting bolts to go) will be enough work. I might even put wood glue on the dowel joints to really reinforce things.

Two more rounds of buying things, since neither Amazon or Duralex would let me schedule delivery dates into the future. And then that should be it, until the last invoices dribble in.

Unsurprisingly, my reno will not be done next week. The week after? We're shooting for it. They didn't account for the final coat of finish on the floors, apparently. Also the trades are grumbling because the visitor parking is closed for garage repairs, so they have to unload, park down the road, and then come back.

I called the contractor yesterday to get a feel for how things were going, and I impressed upon him my fervent desire to see the job done properly rather than to a deadline. So it was me who raised the idea. There will never be such wide access to the floors again, which makes this an essential step in my view, but it counts as an 'extra' because it wasn't in the original contract.

Soon, soon. Apparently the counters and backsplash are being installed Friday, which is the largest remaining aesthetic component.

I was summoned for work purposes to the Bay Area last week, and I went. I take the US-level salary, and so occasionally I must go. Frankly, it really ought to be more often: this was my first work travel in almost two years.

The benefit for me was just being in the same room as people I collaborate with by VC all the time. "Aha, you're three dimensional!" was a joke I got a lot of mileage out of. The program was two eight-hour blocks over two days which didn't leave a lot of time for unstructured small-group conversation, but I was still able to have some good hallway interactions by chance.

I kept Eastern time which meant getting up at 5AM every day. Not so bad on a work trip since no one notices if you go to bed at 8:30PM.

I took an extra day and a bit by coming home Sunday midday. Friday night, dinner chez Eric the Taller: an unalloyed delight to see him and his family after so long.

Saturday, a variety of experiences all rolled into one. Since I was up so early, I headed to my old local donut shop for breakfast. They have moved into what used to be the Carl's Jr next door, which I guess sidestepped their need to renovate their former 60+-year-old premises.

But then it was only 8:30, so I drove the five minutes to the old neighbourhood, parked in front of my old apartment, put on headphones with a podcast, and walked the loop along the power corridor I used to cover most days. That was hugely enjoyable: the end bits are nothing special, but the 20 minutes along the edge of the Stevens Creek gully are still quite nice, even if you do get freeway noise the whole time.

Thence I went up the Stevens Canyon road to Skyline, along to Alpine, paused at the Portola State Park turnoff (it was very quiet!), down toward to La Honda, and then a left on 84 all the way out to San Gregorio, where I stopped to admire the ocean. Up the coast to Linda Mar, where I admired "the world's most beautiful Taco Bell" (it was a zoo on a Saturday). Finally, up into the city, where I went crosstown through the gorgeous neighbourhoods of Westwood Park and Sherwood Forest, threaded through the twin peaks along Portola Blvd, and then along Market into where I would be staying.

I was going to go shopping since it was still only 2PM but with parking impossible to come by, instead I headed to my hotel and stashed the vehicle in the municipal parking garage across the road. The Marriott Marquis decided that since I had booked on points I was due for the best treatment they could offer and put in me in Room 3841, the largest non-suite room in the place, located just one story below their top-floor bar. It was largely a standard king room except... there was a whole extra sitting area with a 25-foot wide panoramic window looking to the southwest.

I took a Waymo to the one place I actually wanted to go shopping, which was the sole brick-and-mortar outpost of the Thursday Boot Company. They've gotten good coverage for being a very affordable entry into Goodyear welted boots. They're not going to be, say, Meermin or Grant Stones, but unlike my Blundstones, they have a replaceable heel. So far I've found them comfortable enough, but I am reminded of what a pain full lacing ankle boots can be.

The rest of the day passed unremarkably, but Sunday morning I was off to Japanese coffee bar The Wild Fox for a ticketed event: Morgan Eckroth presenting their World Barista Championship routine, reworked for civilians. This was exceptional, worth every one of the many pennies I put into going. Focussing on light roasted coffees grown slowly at high altitude, both captured the fruity notes coffee can provide. Plus there was the extra-milky milk of the milk drink course, made from freeze-distilled lactose-free milk with coconut milk and cryo-dessicated milk powder added, then steamed to microfoam perfection.

The closer was an espresso and fruit milk punch that used coffee in a way I'd never seen before. It was a 3.5/4 for me: I found the finish a little vegetal, a likely unfortunate side effect of whatever brand of mango juice was chosen.

Morgan was very friendly and we had a nice chat afterwards about why they still compete (my read: because it's the only way to explore the boundaries of what coffee can do and be) and if there's a "third path" between people messing around at home and the ultra-exclusive world of barista competition (something along the way that wine has developed in the last 50 years?). The experience was a delight, but I don't think we reached a satisfactory conclusion about ways to make something like this more accessible. Too many people just want dark roasted beans, with or without some dairy and/or sugar in it, and asking them to pay $35 for single-source high altitude grown Panamanian coffee that was dried in the dark before being thermally shocked and artisanally roasted before being combined with a freeze-distilled milk that takes four days to prepare all to get a cortado that tastes like watermelon is a pretty hard sell.

All that and I was still made it to the gate for my flight back with 40 minutes to spare. That was a lot of trip for about 40 hours of personal time.