California schemin'

I flew out to California on Monday morning, and back on Saturday. The point of the trip was to scheme and get brain-dumps regarding a new project my team is taking on -- and it was also my first trip to the Mothership in a while, due to various other things taking up my mental travel budget in the last two quarters.

They rhythm of the days is completely different in California. They have... they have... meetings in the morning, and I mean like all the time. I realize this is a normal business day, that I've become very used to the east-coast ramifications of being 3 hours shifted off of normal.

Here's how it goes in the East, roughly:
* Morning is for working, working out, sleeping in, being productive or lazy. Only once or twice is there a meeting, particularly local Hiring Committee. There's a smallish pile of email to bash through, and one does.
* At noon the Mothership wakes up (9AM there), and there is a block of meeting-heavy time until perhaps 5 or 6. Emails are also flying. Maybe a few code reviews, but not too many.
* In early evening one eats dinner or takes a circus class, and/or just commutes home or works out at the gym.
* One logs back on from the couch and oh, THERE is the pile of code reviews for the day, kicked out by Mothershippers in their afternoon / my early evening. Also, more emails, ditto. One does the reviews, because the authors may themselves log in later in their evening and one doesn't want to delay them; then one does email until sleepy.

See how pulsed that is? Not perfect, but it's definitely possible to take the day in reasonably focused phases. California, no, it's confusingly all mashed up, and meetings happen ALL DAY so I have no idea when workouts are supposed to happen. I only worked out twice -- should have scheduled more aggressively. I avoided evening engagements and fun things (just had lunch with three friends), and just slept early and heavily. A smooth business trip, kept my brain working; I'd say overall it was productive but lonely, and I'm amazingly glad to be home again.

Bacterial friends

I posted on Aug 12 about this Mother Dirt product, and spraying live bacteria on my face in an attempt to change the whole environment there.

The ammonia-oxidizing bacteria supposedly feed off urea and ammonia in sweat from the skin, turning them into nitric oxide. And I still haven't done my research on nitric oxide, really. But the more these friendly bacteria settle in, the less food and space is likely available for p acnes, right? The kicker is that surfactants (read: soaps) kill the AOBs, which are rather delicate, so you have to stop washing your face -- a detail Mother Dirt is trying to downplay by selling their own AOB-friendly non-soap cleanser.

Anyway, it's been almost four weeks. My skin care takes less time than it ever has, because literally all I do is spray my face twice a day and (some days) (let's admit it) squeeze out glop from my pores.

What's happened? Good things. At first, I got greasier and, not coincidentally, stopped needing moisturizer. Natural skin oils for the win! Pore-squeezing also got easier, which means less disruptive to the skin. I also do it less than before, because I'm not all up against the mirror with clean wet skin twice a day from washing it.

After about a week, my skin seemed noticeably calmer/nicer, and I got my period early -- surprise! -- which led to double surprise, because, wait a minute, that means that week was my pre-period breakout.

Since then, skin has been... interesting. Still better. It seems more resilient, and, again, I've never spent less time on it. Of particular note:

• The airplanes on Monday and Saturday didn't seem to bother it, which is notable because plane flights usually clog me up horribly.
• A little bump had hiding way below the surface of my skin, above my eyebrow, I think for well over a year -- for so long I was starting to think it might just be scar tissue or something. But after two weeks of bacteria it came up and popped without fanfare, and now it's gone.
• I've gotten new blemishes. They just don't seem very dedicated to their jobs. It's like they show up and say "we're supposed to wreak some havoc here? okay... wreak... well, I hope this is enough, because union rules say we take our lunch break now." And they go away, rather than blowing up.

AOBiome, the research branch of all this, has this product in Phase 2 clinical trials for acne, eczema and rosacea -- all of them inflammatory skin conditions. I definitely intend to keep going and see what happens. I'd also recommend this for anyone who doesn't like the smell of their underarms -- it cuts BO considerably when sprayed there.