Another Bounce Trip

The tail end of this week was wrapping up the research my company is doing in Northern California—it was unfortunately the archetype of the ass-kicker work trip. I left on a 6 AM flight from Boston to Sacramento, drove for 2-½ hours up to Northern California, worked for the rest of the day, and wrapped up with a Home Depot run for supplies, finishing at 8:30 PM local time. Then we had day 2, involving a long day of work, and driving back Sacramento by midnight.


As a side note, seeing this view while pushing back in Boston makes me want to do a spoof of Hopper’s Nighthawks, except framed as an airport terminal building.

To continue the “sucky trip” note, all that we saw of town was on the ride in and out and from the airplane ride. Dinner was basic nourishment at the Thank Applegans’s It’s Chili Tuesday. We basically saw the jobsite and the inside of the attic; I spent Saturday flying home.

Speaking of attics, the houses in this subdivision are built with a layer of foil laminated to the underside of the roof sheathing—it’s called a radiant barrier. It is meant to reduce heat transfer from the roof due to radiation (via that foil coating) towards the house (in case you’re wondering, it basically works, but the marketing bullshit often makes outrageous claims, which makes me annoyed at the manufacturers). My colleague and I found out that this foil laminate also does a great job of killing your cell phone reception—it makes a pretty decent Faraday cage. There’s an idea for a new marketing tagline—“It’ll reduce your cooling bills, and it will reduce electromagnetic pulse damage to electronics in case of a nuclear blast!”

But back to the trip: we made a brief stop at a mega-big-box grocery store, to pick up apples, granola bars, and other non-Thank Applegans’s It’s Chili Tuesday sustenance. I was amused enough by the signage at the back of the store to take a picture:


Hey—if this were the “man store,” these would be the only sections! (well, okay, there might also be NACHOS. And hopefully TOILET PAPER).

One small “god hates me,” moment at work was removing our equipment from the outdoor power panel, and having the lawn sprinklers turn on next door. Right where I had to stand to do work. Grr. (Incidentally, it seems to be a requirement that all sprinklers in this town are set up to water the sidewalk as much as the lawn.)


Wah! I’m tired, I’m standing in a pool of water while undoing connections in an electrical panel, and now my butt is wet!


To add insult to injury, two minutes after I finished it (in record time), the sprinklers shut off. Grr!

Another random photo—a sign on a gas station convenience store on our drive home:


Huh… fair ‘nuff.