Rats! (literally)

There's a garage on the way to the supermarket. It's always struck me as strange to have a garage in an inner-city, though I know that there are a lot of cars in the city that need fixing. Simply finding a place to put all the cars while they're being worked on and waiting to be worked on seems like such a hassle. Today I noticed that one small solution to that problem is to park one car under the lift while the other car is on it. Here we see the red car getting its left front brake worked on, while another car is tucked neatly underneath. Efficiency in action:

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My back has been a bit dodgy lately. I think it's mostly due to me sitting and working/doing math all day. In my usual work, I sit, but I also get up, teach, go to meetings, walk across campus etc. Here, I mostly just sit. I decided to take some steps today to avoid that kind of long-term sitting. First, I noticed that I could put my computer on a high shelf above my desk and create a pretty functional standing desk. I switched back and forth between sitting and standing and that seems to have been good for my back.

I've also been reading books on data science. Instead of reading a chapter in the house here, as I usually do, today I decided to find a bench or someplace similar outside to read for a while. I ended up down by the river on a set of stairs that led to a platform just above the waterline. I read there for a while when out of the corner of my eye, a rat decided to creep up next to me on the platform! I was startled and a bit skeeved out and shooed it away. I backed up the steps a bit and sat down to continue reading when another rat started rustling around in the nearby brush. I finished the chapter, but it wasn't a super tranquil time in my life. In the future, I'm just gonna stay up on the benches way back from the river.

Here's a picture of a tourist boat that went by:

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Emily is on her way to Brookhaven National Lab today to do some X-ray diffraction on their particle accelerator. Her beam time is basically all night Thursday night (8pm-4am). I guess it's such a high-demand instrument that it's used 24/7. She takes a break and then runs an experiment on behalf of another person from her lab all day Sunday. It'll be a busy couple of days for her. Science!

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I talked to my mom on the phone today. It was good to catch up with her. 

Brownies

Laura bought some raw cocoa at the supermarket and took a shot at brownies this afternoon. While not precisely what you would get from the standard mix back in the US, they came out pretty tasty. The main difference was that Laura's were a bit "cake-ier" than a typical brownie, i.e. less dense. That definitely didn't stop us from chowing down on them:

Actually, we didn't eat all of this, Laura took a healthy chunk of them to her language class. Upon her return after class this evening, she reported that her class also enjoyed the brownies.

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I stayed home and did math today. I sent an abstract in to present at the Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore in January. Not sure if I'll go, but the deadline was fast approaching and this puts off a final decision for a few more weeks. I also started a new DataCamp class on "deep learning". It's a nice review of neural networks so far. I also read a chapter of Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. A cautionary book about how governments, corporations, schools and other important social institutions are incorporating computer algorithms into their decision making processes. Many times, these algorithms are biased, poorly constructed, and not well understood--even by their creators. Yet, they are used to inform (and even make) decisions that have real impacts on people's lives. They approve loans, rate teachers, determine sentences for convicted criminals just to name a few things. I'm thinking it would make good reading in an introductory data science course.

Not Dueling Banjos

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the every-other-year flamenco exhibition is going on here in Sevilla (the original home of the flamenco tradition). It's called la Bienal. We're fortunate to be here during the "on" year. I've always been a fan of classical guitar. Classical guitar is deeply rooted in Spanish tradition and hence shares a lot with the flamenco style. There are famous flamenco singers, dancers and guitarists putting on shows throughout the city during this exhibition. This evening we went to see "Compadres" a show featuring flamenco guitarists Niño de Pura and Manolo Franco. They were accompanied by two flamenco singers and several percussionists. Their playing was fantastic and the rhythms were incredibly complex. The whole group was ridiculously tight--super well-rehearsed--pros all the way. Both are on Spotify, though not together. I think the joint concert was a one-time thing. Manolo Franco played this song, for example.


I'm listening to it now.

The show was in an ornate theater dating back to the 1920's called el Teatro Lope de Vega. Laura and I were in the first balcony, really good view. The show was really well attended. Here are some shots of the theater:

 Obligatory selfie:

 The foyer was as big as the theater. And as ornate:

 Even the ceiling:

 Our view:

And, not to ignore the other guitarist, Niño de Pura, here's one of his that I think he played this evening:

Monday's comin' like a jail on wheels...

I walk/run along the river most mornings. Inevitably, on Saturday and Sunday morning, there's an enormous amount of detritus left over from the previous night's parties. Some time I should walk down there at midnight or 1 o'clock:

Also, each morning, there are a number of folks fishing. This morning I got a good look at one of the most common kinds of bait, mealworms (a.k.a. maggots):


The mash handfuls of these into cornmeal balls and use slingshots to hurl the result out into the river near where their fishing lines are. They break up in the water and the fish swarm in a feeding frenzy. The hope is that fish are attracted and excited and will bite the baited hook. Based on some cursory googling, carp seems to be the main type of fish caught in these here parts.

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I still haven't heard back from the language school about when my Spanish language class might be starting. They seem to run them on an ad hoc basis once they get enough people to justify a course offering. Since I haven't heard anything, it seems likely that it won't start this week. I'll be in the US at a conference the following week, so I guess it's gonna be a while. I keep plugging away at DuoLingo, and I think it helps, but not with speaking or really listening.

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Laura made an excellent chili for lunch today. Plus, lots leftover.

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I took out the trash and recycling this evening. On the way back, I took a timelapse of the main street (San Jacinto). Not super busy this sunday evening:

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Three loads of laundry today. A load dries on the rooftop clotheslines in about an hour. The little washing machine in the kitchen takes about 90 mins to do a load, so it works out well:

At some point, in the winter, I suspect it's going to take substantially longer, but we'll see.

Sometimes you build it and they don't come.

Sadly, it rained again this evening and the anticipated procession was canceled. All of those decorations, painstakingly constructed and hung... Here's the video of a sad and bedraggled parade route (which looks a lot like yesterday, wet):

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Earlier today, we went for "lunch" (which here is around 3pm) at a Mexican place called Iguana Ranas. Lovely place and good food, but didn't quite scratch that itch for Mexican that's almost always there for us, especially after having lived in Walla Walla for 22 years. I had the "tacombi", flour tacos one beef, one pork, one chicken. This photo almost didn't happen, but Laura suggested that the sauces might have been arranged to resemble the Mexican flag:

I'll buy it.

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I mentioned a couple of things to Mario that needed fixing around the flat. A screw fell out of one of the chairs and I didn't have a screwdriver to put it back. Also, the bathroom sink was draining slowly. I didn't have a wrench to pull apart the drain pipe and clean it. Mario brought over some tools this afternoon and we were able to get the screw replaced and the drain running like a champ. I do kind of miss fixing things around the house. That said, I'm seriously hoping for a maintenance free year at the Walla Walla house!