11/6 test-day + banya

Test day at Makani means waking before dawn, up at 5:30am to walk a still-sleepy little dog, then drive twenty minutes to Alameda island, the city streets curiously devoid of traffic. Call time is 6:30am. I'm wearing a blue hard-hat and a matching blue Patagonia nanopuff jacket - it's cold out and I use the heater in the Vanagon. Donuts and coffee. Briefing at 6:40. The wing comes in on its semi-tractor-trailer and the crew gets to work lifting it up into flight position. I go to work setting up the command center.

In the early pre-noon I shadow an interview at the Tower; it makes me feel better about my programming skills and a bit excited to actually interview candidates myself. (Would it be too cruel to give them an option of easy, medium, or hard difficulty? Even the easy questions often tell us what we need to know.)

Back at the test-site, they've been successful in the first test objectives and are setting up for the next test. I eat some leftover bbq and go to work in the command center. The tests have a little drama but are ultimately smooth and successful. There are high-fives. The crew swarms to attack the take-down chores and I attend to mine.

Evening: Banya with Maria and her friends Alice and Breyden. Alice lived in Syracuse and worked at Meteor and lived in a hexayurt in Berkeley; Breyden came from Australia and has quite a funny monologue on the subject of sausage rolls and other Australian delicacies. We dined on borscht and discussed "applied rationality" before returning for a round of naked sauna and cold plunge.