Kimberly KG

Every Fall I try to pretend it’s still summer just a little bit too long. My thick sweater kept me cozy right up until it started pouring rain just as I started walking to get dinner between meetings.

I feel like a wet dog and can’t get home to change for several more hours. I even looked at my rain jacket right before leaving and decided I’d be fine without it.

Dumb Kim.

The drama (not sure if that’s the best word) of Trump’s attacks on Portland is weighing on me. I feel like the people at the state level (our state and now California) are doing what they should in terms of pushing back, but it’s ridiculous that this is how they need to be spending their time.

I made a (federated) magazine on Flipboard to keep track of how this evolves.

A lot of the response though has been pretty funny.

• Emergency Naked Bike Ride
• We knit at dawn!
• Grab ‘em by the Couch

“The thing is… she’s short!”

It was so unexpected, I laughed out loud.

I was at lunch with my son. The first week of the term just ended so I was asking him about school. He was in the middle of telling me about a young woman he worked with over the summer that’s also doing a physics and math double major with a nuclear engineering minor. When they met she apparently (jokingly, I assume!) said that he was her nemesis! They are both at the same point along their degree which is surprising given the winding path Sam has taken to land here.

It turns out they have 3 different classes together this term, two of which are scheduled just 10 minutes apart. According to Google Maps, it’s a 15 minute walk.

Ah! I could see where this was going. She told him she couldn’t keep doing that walk with him!

My beautiful child is 6'4". This poor woman is somewhere around 12 to 14 inches shorter. I’m sure the image I have in my head of her jogging to keep up with his long stride is quite exaggerated, but it makes me laugh every time I picture it. He was walking slower to make it easier for her!

He’s planning to offer to speed walk ahead starting tomorrow so he can save them both seats near the front and she doesn’t have to show up out of breath. Hopefully this will convince her that he’s not out to get her. Ha!

I had other plans for today, but I woke up with a notification about this on my phone so I figured I’d go take some pictures around my “war ravaged Portland”.

On my way down town, I stopped by to see Portlanders doing/watching what seems to be everyone’s favorite sport.

I parked near the south waterfront which has been the site of many protests. (Protesting is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, in case you were wondering.)

I then wandered over to Pioneer Courthouse square which is another place people like to gather.

I then decided to go to the site of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. If you don’t live in Portland, the story you heard about Portland might have been that these destroyed the city. The reality was far from that. They took place in a 3 block park in front of the Multnomah County justice center and the main lasting damage was the smell from the tear gas used by police.

While I was sitting there enjoying the park, a woman walking by stopped to comment on how lovely it was and how she had promised herself to get outside every day to celebrate our beautiful city.

Some more photos I took while walking through downtown.

The line in front of the Apple store:

About these big protests at the ICE facility that supposedly justify the authorization of “full force” by the military?

This shot includes the full site of the ICE protests.

There were 2 people in lounge chairs on the closer block in the above photo, but this is the rest of everyone protesting.

The line in front of the Apple store (above) has more people.

As for any nearby property damage, this is what I saw.

As I was waiting at the light to leave this area, I did see 12-15 unmarked SUVs with dark windows where the two people in the front seat were all wearing something covering the majority of their faces pulling into the ICE parking lot.

There ARE lots of other protests happening all around town. They involve mostly white or gray haired individuals, many of them sitting on mobility devices, decrying authoritarianism. Is Trump sending the military with authorization for full-force after those people? I suspect many more people would be out there if they didn’t have to work in order to support themselves and their families.

Is this what a war ravaged city looks like?

Week one of the new job is done. I haven’t met everyone on the new team yet, but the things I was impressed with in the interviews (mostly culture related) seem to be holding true. Adjusting my schedule to overlap with everyone in their different timezones is going more slowly than I’d like (getting over covid is probably related), but next week should be easier.

It’s a full stack engineering team with embedded QA. My limited front-end experience should make this more fun! Ha!

My husband and I were rear-ended this evening. It was not bad at all and it was at a terrible intersection so we drove nearly a quarter mile to find a safe parking lot to pull into. The young woman that hit us followed us all the way there. I looked at her as I put my mask on and my first thought was “she needs a hug.” I asked if I could give her a hug and she fully started sobbing.

It was hard to understand everything she was saying through her tears, but it seems she’s had a whole lot of bad luck recently.

We tried to calm her down. We tried to get her to reach out to someone that she knew. We tried to reassure her everything was going to be ok. In the end, I think the only thing we managed to do was to help her with the route to the house she was supposed to be delivering a DoorDash order to. I can’t help but wonder if I should have done more.

I really hope that young woman had a safe place to go home to tonight and good people that will answer when she calls.

I don’t really want to talk about the “big news” in the US, except to say that blaming/threatening the “radical left” when the shooter hasn’t been found doesn’t seem like the best course of action. Nor do I think that would make things better (by my definition of better) at any time.

Instead I’m going to post a picture of this little project I made to give away at a stitching event I’m going to with my sister this weekend.

Many years ago, I was tasked with defining a new architecture for getting pricing data into all stores globally for a ~$50B company. As you’d imagine, they were pretty concerned about making sure this was done well so I had to get buy-in for my design from many, many teams. The first bunch of meetings I lead went well, but at some point I started feeling like I was repeating myself (I was, but not to those people!) and so I started omitting crucial details. Fortunately, one of my teammates was good about making sure any gaps in my explanations were filled.

I was reminded of this yesterday.

Last night was the final session of the latest core (woodworking) tools class I’ve been helping to run. The main tool we cover in that session is the table saw. It’s the tool that most* students are particularly worried about and the tool that most shop attendants are nervous about when it comes to newer woodworkers. The instructor I was working with for the class is usually very consistent. Usually. Last night though, he was highly focused on the final part of the process for making a rip cut on the table saw while glossing over other important details. It turns out he was recently helping a new woodworker that kept getting kickback because she wasn’t clearing the wood after the cut was finished. Fortunately, we’ve led this class together enough times that I felt quite comfortable filling the gaps.

Being consistent is hard. It’s good to have people you can trust to help.

*Last night, one of the students was having so much fun. “Wee, this cuts like butter!” I’m glad she was having fun. I reminded her (in different words) that wood isn’t the only thing those tools cut like butter. A little bit of anxiety is a good thing sometimes. (SawStops are good too.)

This happened a couple days ago.

Sixteen hundred days “studying” German. After all this time, I can often get a general sense of what people are saying in short social media posts and many articles, but my comprehension of anything spoken is quite low.

The other streak I have going is that I’ve been sewing or stitching something every single day since January 1st of either 2021 or 2022. I would need to look back at my planner to figure it out. I didn’t plan to do this, I had just worked on a sewing project every day for the first week that year, which turned into the first month, which turned into this. Two stitches done one night when I had COVID had to be ripped out the next day when I could get my eyes to focus, but I’m still counting them.

There are at least a couple other activities that I’d like to do daily. Maybe I’ll start treating them as streaks too.

Last Friday I heard from two different companies that I would most likely be getting job offers this week. There was a definite sense of relief Friday night.

Saturday though, I could barely keep my eyes open. I thought I might be getting sick, but I woke up from my fourth (!!!) nap finally feeling like myself.

By the end of the day Tuesday, I had two solid offers. Both at companies with people that greatly impressed me in the interviews, both at companies I had been referred to by people I would like to work with, both jobs I would almost certainly enjoy and continue to grow in. The titles are different, but not significantly. The pay is different, but not significantly. I am so grateful for this outcome, but also… saying no to something potentially great is really hard.

How did I choose? One of the companies had an interview process that gave me more time to ask questions of them. That led to a really great discussion about engineering culture, growth and trade-offs. It also led to having a better understanding of the people I would be leading and the struggles they are facing as a company. The other company had no red flags at all, I just didn’t get a chance to ask enough questions. Saying no to them was really painful.

Somehow it seems the emotions with accepting a new job have been more pronounced than those of being laid off 3 months ago. All that being said, I’ve accepted a new position with people I’m excited to work with! I need to celebrate!! 😊

First though, I think I’ll take a nap.

Tonight was the start of the 2025-2026 Broadway in Portland series for us with Some Like It Hot. It was a fun show. The costumes were incredible and there was a scene with doors that was really amazing.

The new(ish) collections feature on Micro.blog is a nice way to show all the program covers from the shows we’ve seen. I might play with that some more though.

One of the services the local woodworking guild offers is estate sales. When a member passes away or is moving, the guild has a team of volunteers that will come in and help the member/their family sell their woodworking tools and supplies for a reasonable price.

One of our members recently moved and wasn’t going to have space at his new home for a shop. We went to the sale to acquire a floor-standing drill press. Our existing tabletop one is fine, but so tiny! When my husband backed his Chevy Bolt into the driveway to load our new drill press, the reaction from all the volunteers was pretty funny but they all jumped in to help and it worked out just fine.

One of the things in the shop that was NOT for sale, however, was this gorgeous handmade clock.

This post by @birming reminded me of this.

Having my daughter back at home has been great for many reasons, but one unexpected bit of fun is that this the first time in nearly 30 years that I’ve lived with someone else that likes coffee.

My parents both drank a lot of coffee and so did all of their children. There were fights over someone not making a fresh pot if they finished off the last of the coffee in my childhood home. My kids were never interested in coffee (and it wasn’t something I wanted to push), but college life resulted in coffee drinking!

It’s great to have someone else to sit and enjoy a nice hot drink with in the morning. It’s also nice to have someone else that understands. 😝

I have a drip coffee maker that I pull out when people (my caffeine addicted sister, mostly) stay with us. I thought I’d switch away from my AeroPress with having another person here drinking coffee every day, but I haven’t. The couple moments of joy that come with making that delicious cup of coffee every morning are too compelling. ☕ ☕ ☕

It’s nice to be able to take a walk through one of my favorite places on a weekday morning.

I hadn’t wandered through the bamboo garden before today. This sculpture was a nice treat.

Our new-college-grad daughter moved back in this week while she figures out what her next steps will be. Finding space for much of the stuff from her apartment is going to be interesting, but at the moment the house feels a little chaotic. As my husband said, “There’s almost space to live in this house.”

Having her home is a real treat though so I’ll take the chaos!

I lucked out in the marriage department. Twenty one years ago I married a sweet, intelligent, adorable human that still makes me want to be a better version of myself.

Did I mention he’s adorable?!

Cleaning out the neglected corners of my office I found an old notebook with a wild variety of things. Workshops I attended, notes about jobs I haven’t had for a long time, so many to-do lists, and the complete set of notes from the online R programming class I took.

It was mostly rather mundane but November 17th, 2014 I wrote, “20 minutes of bliss sitting on a train.” That was a nice day.

Change is good

By itself at the top of a sheet of paper. Not a bad reminder at the moment.

Life has been busy lately so I’m just going to post some pretty pictures. I love my yard in the spring.

My son texted to say not to watch any trailers or look up anything, just run to the theater as fast as possible to see Sinners. “The less of your life you have to live without that movie the better.”

While this is not usually my kind of movie, I’m sharing that advice too. The movie is incredible.

I’m not going to give any details away, but I’ve added a new musician to my Spotify playlist as well. I think I might just go see the movie again next weekend too.