No Complaints

Morning routine. Skipped the farmers market. Gwen rain-checked for a fencing tournament. SESIG invitations to Reed and Cathy. Journaled Friday. Z840 inventory and backup. Kyle's 3D printing offer. Silverton brunch research. Halloween evening downtown with Michael.

A day of widening circles and reviving an old workstation

Events and activities that occurred on Saturday, October 31, 2026

The day started on a short night, and I let two plans go early. The farmers market was optional to begin with, and with parking downtown a hassle and nothing on my list, skipping it was easy. Then Gwen texted that she had a fencing tournament at eleven, so our chat became another rain check. We have now moved that conversation three times this week, and neither of us seems bothered; it will land when it lands.

The morning's more deliberate work went into widening a circle. I sent invitations to Reed and Cathy to join SESIG, the group of HP refugees that meets on Zoom on Friday mornings and in person on Tuesdays at Imagine Coffee. Reed wrote back by evening that he would come when his teaching schedule allows. It is a small gesture, but these groups only stay alive when someone keeps opening the door. The rest of the morning went to writing up Friday, which became "Response, Not Reward."

The middle of the day belonged to the Z840, the old HP workstation I am turning into a local inference machine, with speech recognition as its first job. The calendar called it "just for fun," and it was. I took inventory of what was on it and started backing up what was worth keeping before wiping it. It has since been relocated, fitted with a 10-gigabit network card, and is running Linux. The last piece before applications go on is a way to power it up and down remotely. Along the same lines, Kyle offered to print parts for me whenever I have a design ready; his Bambu printers had been busy with Shy Guy costume props for Halloween. Ian's notes for the day included the first deliveries of Energy Dome's carbon dioxide battery, which stores its working gas as a liquid at a fraction of the volume of a compressed-air system, the kind of quiet engineering that changes what is possible without anyone noticing.

I also spent some time looking into Silverton for brunch on Sunday, comparing a few places downtown before settling on The Warren, a new café and community social house with long tables and board games.

The evening came by invitation. Michael suggested dinner downtown while Mary did her Halloween fun run, so I took the bus in rather than drive. We started at The Bière Library, where I had the croque monsieur and Michael the meatballs, then walked to Block 15 and a hummus plate while costumed families and college students filled the sidewalks. Mary collected us at the end of the night, still in her punk rocker outfit, and drove us home.

Looking back from Sunday morning, it was a very good day. There were a few things I had hoped to get to and didn't, but nothing I would trade for what actually happened: an unhurried morning, a door opened for two old colleagues, a machine coming back to life, and an easy evening with friends on a night when the whole town was out playing dress-up.