Molt Be Blog

Moving

2008-05-03T00:38:00.002-04:00

I'm moving the blog here. Update your bookmarks and see you over there!

-g

What I've been Up to Lately

2008-03-27T23:56:00.002-04:00

New Orleans for a Week for NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference
Gathering Hitotoki Submissions
Still hitting the gym every AM.
Trying to get rid of some of my 13 projects at work as I'm totally overloaded - making use of 43folders.com in the process and a handy dandy video Inbox Zero on how to keep my inbox empty presented by 43folders author Merlin Mann.
Working on some freelance stuff to keep my mind busy.
Resigning as Condo President - feels great.
Twittering like mad
Being sad that the person who might have helped revive the twittermeter over at terraminds appears to have been shut down as the site is not responding.

Tough Call

2008-03-17T22:25:00.004-04:00

I just tried to unsubscribe my email address from some spam coming from "NewsMax.com" and this is the message that comes up after clicking "I wish to unsubscribe from all NewsMax e-mails.":

Would you like to continue to receive NewsMax News Alerts and no longer get 3rd party advertisements?

And the choices are "Yes" and "No."

If I say "Yes", I'll continue to receive these annoying emails from Newsmax, but I won't receive 3rd party emails... not that I knew I was getting those anyway.

If I say "No", I'll stop receive the ones I'm unsubscribing from, but there's a logical opportunity for me to start receiving 3rd party emails. What to do...

I clicked "No". And I hate whatever the heck NewsMax is. Shame on them.

**update**
Here's the confirmation text: We will process your subscription change request in the next 24-48 business hours and send you a confirmation of your selections.

48 business hours = 6 business days. Assholes!

What I've Been Up to Lately

2008-03-16T15:05:00.003-04:00

   DrupalCon in Boston for a week.
   The idiotarod
   Trying to get submissions for Hitotoki DC
And a whole bunch of other random stuff. New Orleans for a conference next week then back to DC for a while before wedding season comes around.

Eclipse

2008-02-20T23:27:00.002-05:00

Eclipse 03
Originally uploaded by El Greg.

Added a few new photos to the flickr account of tonight's eclipse.

What I've been Up to Lately

2008-02-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

the gym every weekday morning at 7:30am

reading

Hitotoki DC

2008-01-31T07:24:00.000-05:00

I've been enlisted to help promote this great project called Hitotoki in its Washington, DC implementation. Per the website:

The word Hitotoki is a Japanese noun comprised of two components: hito or “one” and toki or “time,” and is often translated as “a moment.” In common usage, it can be used to describe any brief, singular stretch of time (if we share a meal someday, you can call that a hitotoki).
hitotoki was somehow born from the brain of these three morons

Hitotoki launched in May 2007 in Tokyo by Paul Baron, Craig Mod and Chris Palmieri. On paper it is a collaboration between Tokyo/ Seattle-based indie publisher Chin Music Press and Tokyo web design group AQ.

Each story on this gorgeous site is accompanied by a picture and its location on a custom Google Map.

We're aiming to get a good pool of submission collected for a March 1 launch, so if you (or anyone you know) who wants to write a 200-500 word short story about a specific place and time in DC tell them to get their mouse pointed to www.hitotoki.org/dc lickity-split. Once there, you can download a submission form and then send it in to: submissions_dc -at- hitotoki -dot- org

Tell your friends. Pass it on. And check out the site, it's fascinating!

I've also been enlisted as an editor of submissions - but mainly as a stop gap between submitters and the true editors in the event of not-so-serious submissions. :)

Busy, busy.

2008-01-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

I'm insanely busy with 10 projects at work and some others for friends, but still finding the time to make dumb postcards in a coffee shop while I'm in NYC for a conference:

Dear United Airlines,

2008-01-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

warning: I'm about to whine for the next 10 or so paragraphs. Don't like whining? Planning on thinking to yourself, "what is this guy whining about?" If so, just skip it.
-g

Dear United Airlines,

I wanted to drop you a line to let you know that you completely decimated my plans for New Year's. Your ineptitude has left me infuriated and with a head cold. Allow me to elaborate:

For the past four years, my wife and I have met up with the same group of 6 friends (3 other couples) for New Year's. The couples tend to be spread out all over the world, but we manage to find each other during this one time of the year. The first year, two couples were living in New York, one in Spain and my wife and I in DC, but we all managed to meet in New York city. The next two years found couples flying in from as far away as France and Florence to meet in Maryland near where we live in Washington, DC.

This year, one couple from New York and another from Florence were both going to be in California for the New Year, so we bought our own tickets to San Francisco for the four day weekend to meet them there to celebrate. We arranged for hotel rooms for all of us in downtown and made dinner reservations for Saturday night (12/29).

My wife and I both had to work a full day on Friday, so we got tickets for San Francisco on Saturday morning with a connection in Chicago, O'Hare. We got the tickets via miles, otherwise I would likely have avoided Chicago, given its prominence towards latency. Initially, we were worried about only having an hour between flights in Chicago, but before we took off I found that the flight had already been delayed by half an hour, giving us a little more time.

By the time our flight from DCA landed in ORD, our 11:35am flight to SFO had been delayed until 2:15pm. If all went well, we would still make our dinner reservation, but might have to skip check-in at the hotel and take our bags to the restaurant. We noticed that there was an earlier flight to SFO at 12:35pm so went to that gate to see if there were any seats available. The line was already twenty people deep with no agents at the service desk.

Standing in line, we learned that the couple waiting behind us had been trying to get to San Francisco on stand-by since the evening before when their flight had been canceled. We decided that if anyone deserved to get on the 12:35pm flight, it was them and gave them our spot. We could wait until 2:15.

Around 12:30pm, the gate for the 2:15pm flight was changed to the other side of the terminal. While walking to the new gate, I saw the couple that had been behind us in line for the 12:35pm flight waiting at the United Service desk; they hadn't made it either. At our new gate, the time had been moved to 1:30pm. We then watched as it continued to fluctuate every 10 minutes for the next hour: 1:15pm, 2pm, 1:45pm, 1:25pm. The airplane eventually pulled in at 2pm and the passengers began to deboard. We were told to prepare to board ourselves, but then stood waiting for 15 minutes before learning that the plane was having mechanical problems that needed to be investigated.

Passengers gave each other worried looks that only got worse as crew members began to deboard shaking their heads and uttering phrases like "that plane's got problems". The pilots left and a new one arrived. Two hours and a "taxi test" later, we were told that the flight had been canceled and that the next available flight wasn't until 6pm the next day. We made our way to the United service desk and called to try to cancel hotel and dinner reservations while waiting in line.

After waiting half an hour with the rest of passengers from our flight, we reached an agent and asked about flights to California. Our friends could pick us up in San Jose or Sacramento and we could attempt to rent a car and drive ourselves from further away. The agent explained that there were no flights on United or any other airline going to the West coast before 6pm the next day. None. Zero. This was due to all the other canceled flights from the days prior.

At this point, the trip was a complete loss. Arriving at 10pm on Sunday night only to leave at 8am on Tuesday morning would give us 1 day in the city. We couldn't take additional dates of vacation to leave later (nor were our friends staying longer). What other option did we have than to just turn tail and go home? Even about getting home to DC, we had our doubts: while waiting for our own flight, we saw that the 2:30pm back to DCA had been canceled and its passengers would likely have been bumped to the 3:30pm flight to DCA.

"The next flight back is at 4pm tomorrow," the agent explained

"There are no flights sooner that that? To any DC airport? BWI? Dulles?"

"Oh yeah, let me check the other airports."

We ended up with a 6am flight to Dulles and a hotel voucher. No meal voucher. On top of all this, I could feel a head cold coming on.

Waking up at 4am on Sunday, I immediately checked the flight to find that it was delayed by 15 minutes. Arriving at the airport, we learned from the check-in kiosks that the agent who booked our tickets the night before had neglected to assign us seats. We were now sitting at opposite ends of the plane; both seated in the undesirable and unswappable aisle seat B. Despite a 45 minute wait to get through security and hearing the useless and infuriating instruction from one TSA agent that "you control the flow of traffic", we made it on the flight with no other hiccups.

Once aboard, I took out a book, placed it in the seat pocket and promptly fell asleep. I didn't wake up until the plane landed in Dulles. I got my bags and waited outside the gate for my wife. As we started to walk away from the gate, I suddenly remembered the book that I'd left in the seat pocket. I asked one of the agents if it was possible to get it back. He went to look, but after two attempts he explained that the cleaning crew must have already thrown it away.

Defeated, we left the airport and returned home. We arrived home 27 hours after we had departed. We had missed a tradition with friends, lost 27 hours of time, and a book (which, of course, I'd borrowed from the office and had to replace). I had also gained a cold that has only begun to relent 14 hours before I have to go back to work.

I could not believe the level of disorganization that I witnessed at O'Hare. What is United doing that they just can't get it together? How many times do you have to go into bankruptcy before you just give it up and realize that you're having trouble turning a profit because your product is terrible? Why would I book tickets on an airline when I have such a high chance of not reaching my destination on the intended day?

I will say that all the agents that we had to deal with were extremely kind and understanding. They can't help that they work for such an organization and I have a great deal of respect for their ability to deal with customers politely.

Per your policy, my reimbursement could not be handled at a service desk. Instead, I have to call a number. I do not look forward to what I imagine will be an hour on the phone trying to convince you to refund all my miles and costs for a ruined trip.

I will never fly United again.

Sincerely,

Greg

This Post Is 100% XO

2007-12-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

Behold, the XO laptop.

I got my hands on one of these through the give-one get-one program that OLPC is running. Basically, you pay double the standard donation; one laptop goes to a kid and the other comes to your house to play with.

If you don't know about the XO yet, read up on olpc's vision. Some people have called the idea of giving laptops to kids dumb, but I have enough arguments for it that I gave it a try (giving is good, education is important, connectivity in a global economy is vital, etc.).

A few notes:
The laptop comes with no instructions except for some graphics on proper use (do not dispose of battery in fire; do not drop). These seem obvious to me, but I've used electronics before, so I have to understand.

This thing requires small hands to type on... I mean, it's for kids, but this is ridiculous. After years of MasterType in elementary school, I was surprised to find myself inclined to hunt and peck when the XO was first under my fingers. With a little concentration I've found that I can type OK if I just keep remembering that my hands need to be about one key closer together than I'm used to.

While original reports talked about a hand crank for the XO that was built on, it was taken off due to concerns about wear and tear on the case [olpc wiki about this]. Mine didn't come with any kind of human or solar power device and it's been tough to find much information on where to get such. I hope that whatever kid received this got a bit more information than I did.

The machine browses like a champ. It's based on FireFox and can do all the JavaScript goodness of gmail, flickr, and blogger just as well as my Mac. It lacks the tabbed browsing of modern day browsers, but this is supposed to be made up for with something called "web sessions" involving bookmarks, which I've found to just make things more difficult. Maybe the whipper-snappers will understand it with a quickness.

You can put an SD card in, but what you can actually do with the contents of it is pretty limited. I can't browse it and upload a photo to the blog, and I can't save anything new to it.

There's a little video/still camera and full mic and audio. Once the VOIP app is out, kids'll be Skyping in no time.

No documentation forces me to play and play until I figure it out. Kids are great at this and, after trying to play with it for a while and resorting to the Wiki for documentation, I'm realize that I'm not as good at playing as I used to be.

More Minutiae:

I'm a big right-clicker and it's really hard to do on this thing. Nothing appears to be right-clickable (i.e. the work "clickable", which the browser has underlined as a spelling error, but I cannot right click to correct.

No two-finger scrolling or tap-click to be found on this touchpad

The touchpad appears to have three separate touch areas and some kind of pen/tablet ability, but I can't find any documentation on it and the lack of instructions don't make things any easier

There are tons of awesome music programs on this thing. This little laptop is going to produce some kickass artists

There's a Python interpreter on this thing! It's going to produce developers who will take my job

After 20 minutes of typing on this keyboard I'm still retyping every 7th keystroke and really know where the "erase" key is. I feel like I'm 10 again.

They got rid of the Caps Lock key!!! Hooray! What a useless developer-oriented key that was. Caps Lock is straight out of the 80s. Below, please find an image of Caps Lock accidentally turned on on my other laptop. How many times have I hit that key accidentally vs. purposefully? 222,221,323 vs. 5. I have to admit, I didn't realize all on my own that Caps lock was dumb. capsoff.org made me see the light.

Yeah, yeah

2007-12-15T17:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a while... over a month since the last update. Things have been really busy around here. Thanksgiving came and went. We had a birthday party for R with pre-cake at Cakestro's place and dancing at DC9, MZ returned from Florence and had her own dance party at the BlackCat. This week also found me on the winning trivia team at Ventnor's Sports Cafe where I also happened to run into a few old coworkers.

I'm now working on two major projects at work and two side projects at home, so I'm finding little time to do anything else (the camera is as dusty as the blog). I've also been spending more time out and about at various happy hours, tech gatherings, etc.

This weekend is seeming particularly active. After working last night until about 8, I went straight to Bar Pilar with some friends, and then from there to BeBar via my place to drop off lappy here. At 7:30 this morning, R and I were up to go on an 8:30am tour of the White House with MM. A friend of hers who works for the Dept. of the Interior had extra tickets and R was the first person she found on gchat.

Flustered by the insane list of rules for White House attendance, MM accidentally left her keys in her purse which she then locked the trunk before we went on the tour. Her fluster (is that a word?) wasn't unjustified. For your pleasure, here is point #4 on the White House Tour Instructions:

4. Prohibited items include, but are not limited to, the following: handbags, book bags,
backpacks, purses, food and beverages of any kind, strollers, cameras, video recorders or
any type of recording device, tobacco products, personal grooming items (make-up, hair
brush or comb, lip or hand lotions, etc.), any pointed objects (pens, knitting needles, etc.),
aerosol containers, guns, ammunition, fireworks, electric stun guns, mace, martial arts
weapons/devices, or knives of any size. The U.S. Secret Service reserves the right to prohibit
any other personal items. Umbrellas, wallets, cell phones and car keys are permitted.

There are a few interesting items in there, but I especially like that they say "car keys" and not just "keys". What about house keys? I took mine in! Take that, suckers!

After the tour, we went to grab a coffee while MM called YZ who lives in her building and could bring her the spare key to the car. Once dropped off back at home, R and I immediately headed over to Glow's place with CG, who needed a costume for an xmas present he's working on. Yes. Glow has a basement full of costumes. No. They are not his. His landlord purchased the entire inventory of a soon-to-be-closed costume store with plans to sell it on the web. It now hangs on racks in the basement with bins that are labeled things like "santa stuff", "noses", "Uncle Sam Goatees", "pirate stuff" and, my favorite, "beatnick cigarette holderd". Yes. He has a box of them.

We found some choice material for CG and had quite a delightful time browsing through the inventory. As we searched, I happened upon a box of costume make-up and similar supplies which included this gem:

I liked the box, so I claimed it. Now I just need to find some applications for these 12 adhesive strips... or a toupee.

Things are only going to get busier with christmas coming up. I still haven't finished what shopping I need to do... which means it's too late to do everything online and I'll likely end up at a *shudder* mall sometime in the near future.

Rats.

2007-11-10T13:11:00.001-05:00

Pardon the lack of postage, I was ill... and then busy. It rained for an entire week towards the end of October. I spent two days of that week laying on the couch nursing my first head cold in over a year. The cold hit quickly, but left after a two day double-barrel shot of ZiCam and Goldenseal, not to mention copious amounts of R's home-made chicken soup, water and ZERO daytime television - that crap will make you much, much sicker and Tivo'd episodes of the Colbert Report seem to make me better.

In any case, the rain came down for four days straight. Before work on Thursday morning I went out back to dispose of the garbage that I'd amassed laying about for 48 hours. I put my trash in one of the four cans in the back and noticed that the lid on the can closest to the back gate was ajar.

"Crap," I thought, "that can is going to have 2 feet of water in it. I'm going to dump it out and it will get my shoes wet and I'll have to change my shoes."

I opened the lid and peered down to find the two feet of water I'd expected as well as a small furry surprise. Taking its own life by jumping into the can full of water, a rat lay swirling counter-clockwise in a fetal position. I felt terrible. I don't like rats, but two near-drowning experiences in my life have given me a strong opinion that it is an undesirable method of kicking the bucket.... or, in this case, the garbage can.

Despite my role as condo president, I assured myself that this drowned rodent was "not my problem" and placed the lid back on the can (not ajar, mind you, I didn't want it filling up with even more water... or another depressed rat using it as a means to its end).

Typically, the trash is picked up on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I figured that, it being Thursday, the rat would be gone before the weekend. Alas, I checked on Saturday and funeral services had yet to be held. Other than the rat and his watery grave the can was empty, so maybe the garbage men hadn't emptied it because they didn't look all the way down. Perhaps a layer of garbage on top would entice them. I started putting garbage into the rat-can instead of any of the others. On Saturday it smelled pretty bad and the trash bag made a disturbing "sploosh" as it landed in the water. On Sunday, the smell was markedly worse. By Monday morning, I had to hold my breath as a ran to and from the can, the smell lingered in the air for two minutes after I'd replaced the lid.

On Tuesday morning, I saw that all of the cans had shifted position. Problem solved! I thought. No dice. Covering my mouth and peering into the can I saw no more garbage, half the water and an even more decayed rat. At this point, the smell is so bad, I won't even put garbage in the can. What to do?!? Having heard the story when I first discovered it, a fellow tenant asked me yesterday in the hall if "my friend was still in the can." At what point did I take ownership of the little guy? "Finders keepers"? I think not.

Gotta Love that 2nd Amendment

2007-10-24T21:35:00.000-04:00

I've been sick for the last two days. Looking at my watch, it's just about time to switch from Zicam and Goldenseal to NyQuil. Tomorrow, it's back to work with DayQuil. Hopefully I'm in good enough shape to get to the weekend feeling better... having already had to skip the Ponys/Spoon show last night.

In other news, what better way to sum up this country's warped priorities than with this awesome sign I saw scooting back from Silver Spring on Monday:

What's the logic behind this one? I can only assume the sign is a result of laws being passed at different times - one of those times clearly having been when the "war on drugs" had reached its frenzy. I also have to wonder what group lobbies congress to increase the radius around a school in which guns should be allowed to be sold? Can you imagine being the slime-ball that has to try to get the 1000ft radius cut in half?

Time for the NQ!

NYC for 24 hours

2007-10-16T20:09:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday, I went up to NYC for the Joomla! Day USA East conference at Google's offices in Manhattan.

Twitter posts can actually sum up most of the trip, so I'll summarize in some twitter-like short bursts:

Mobile gtalk broken! Can't handle bus ride without chat! Arg!

03:06 PM October 12, 2007 from txt

Being subjected to only the finest and loudest Chinese rock ballads as the Chinabus rolls into Chinatown. Makes sense!

08:14 PM October 12, 2007 from txt

Just Googled the word "Google" while inside Google's NYC offices for a nerd conference.

09:42 AM October 13, 2007 from im

checking out m.twitter.com from my "mobile" - badass!

09:40 PM October 13, 2007 from web

Passing Baltimore on the Chinabus-massive headache not improved by the driver singing along to the same Chinese pop CD for the third time...

09:42 PM October 13, 2007 from web

As you can see, I spent most of my time twittering.

On Friday night I got a chance to catch up with DW and GW and DW's cousins. I also got a chance to meet up with MT and MK to go to one of the awesome restaurants where he's been taking pictures for Eater.com. Early Saturday morning was spent dealing with the subway after several beers (I wonder if what the conductor is saying has to do with me... oops.) and then waking up 4 hours later to shower and head to Chelsea for the knowledge bombs. The conference was a bit of a bust, but I did get to see Google's offices and was quite impressed. The knowledge bombs were more like knowledge BB pellets. The most I learned about Joomla! was that I already know a lot more than I think I do about Joomla!.
Right after the conference ended, I head over towards Penn station to be early for the Chinabus. With only an hour to spare, I didn't have time for anything meaningful, but ended up with just enough time to be bored and have to wander around Penn Plaza taking pictures. Oh well, I can't complain as a few good photos resulted. Two below and then more in the flickr set

Heavy Bologna Users

2007-09-28T19:38:00.000-04:00

While over at my teacher's writing studio for the party the other night, one of the other guests noticed a prominently placed book and pointed it out: A Life Style Study of Bologna Users 1980.

"The author?" you ask.

"Union Carbide"

"WTF?"

I'll tell you WTF: thirty pages of pure hilarity (ok, maybe ten of thirty). This document appears to be a marketing study on Bologna. Clearly, like most gigantic corporations, Union Carbide had interests other than polluting Indian water supplies and kicking puppies.

I won't go into all of it's contents, but I can't help but post the first two pages from Bertha, the "heavy user" (pages 16 and 17).

Bertha represents the heaviest user of bologna. Members of Bertha's household eat bologna several times a week and together they consume about nine slices during this period. Families like Bertha's make up 30% of the bologna-using households and they account for 48% of the bologna consumed...

Bertha's attitudes toward marriage and family are generally conservative and traditional. She does not think women can successfully combine career, marriage and motherhood. She does agree with her more liberal sisters, however, that men should share household tasks with women...

Bertha has a generally positive self-image, thinking of herself as happy and healthy. However, she may be letting her physical appearance slip somewhat. She does not go to the beauty shop, nor is she an exerciser or jogger.

I never would have guessed any of this information about "Heavy Users" of bologna! Her name is also almost too fitting. "Bertha"? Really? Come on! That just screams "fat bologna eating woman".

If this is what all marketing studies are like, I want more!

Here's the PDF for your full viewing pleasure. (Also available as a 21MB File here that's far more readable...)

morbid inspiration

2007-09-26T22:58:00.000-04:00

There are moments when I can't stand my job - dealing with tiny nonprofits with no IT budget that want an amazing website with a Google map and integrated social network ("can it be, like, facebook?") - and then there are days like today, days when I realize that (a) things could be so much worse and (b) my lack of pay is actually doing some good.

This morning I checked my outlook calendar before leaving home and realized that I didn't have single internal meeting. I hadn't had a day without an internal meeting in a long time and decided it was a prime opportunity to work from home. One of the great things about the new job is that I don't have to lie when I say I want to work from home. Here's what I wrote:

Looking at my schedule I see my first day with no meetings in quite a while, so I’m taking the chance to work from home. I’ll be on email and cell all day and may get lonely and wander in later.

One of the tasks on my calendar was to follow up with a hospice for the homeless located in Adams Morgan. They'd called about some glitches in an Access Database that someone at the company had built for them back in 2001-02. I called up and arranged to come in to take a look at the issue at 2pm.

The hospice is located in a large old house on a street behind Columbia road. I had a little trouble finding it because the address in our company database was wrong, but called after knocking on the wrong door and was directed by Candice. Once up the steps and through the doorway, I found myself in the foyer of a classic DC corner row-house. A large living room opened up to the left with a rounded window looking out onto the corner of the street. To the right, four people were sitting at a thick wood dining-room table. The youngest (about 14) picked at some food in his hands as he talked to the others and leaned back on the hind legs of his chair.

I'd never been to a hospice before, but had looked at the database on our own servers a little bit before hand. We didn't have any resident information, but we did have lookup lists of the various diagnoses that could be checked off for incoming patients: HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, Dementia caused by AIDS...

"Hi!" I said, "is, um, Candice here?"

"She might be in there," the youngest one said, pointing to the doorway straight ahead of me.

I walked around and into a long restaurant-style galley kitchen. Two women there directed me upstairs two flights where I met Candice and had her walk me through the various problems. Most of it was pretty easy stuff and an hour and a cup of coffee later, I had it all wrapped up.

On my way back out the door, I stopped by the kitchen to drop off my empty coffee mug and passed the youngest resident who was on the phone.

As I passed, he put his hand over the receiver and asked, "are you from DC Teen AIDS?"

It took me a minute to process before responding, "No. Sorry. I'm just an IT guy."

I left and the whole way home I couldn't help but think what an asshole I've been for having complained about anything in the past, well... ever. Who cares if I feel busy with trying to balance work and a class and the wedding and everything else? I'd never even considered the idea of seeing a 14 year-old with AIDS... let a lone a 14 year-old in a hospice. I'd expected to see elderly people, but only one of the six residents that I saw there looked to be over the age of 50.

Later this evening, I went to a party to celebrate the end of the small writing class that I took over at the USDA Grad School. Our teacher has a space that he uses for his business and writing classes over on Q street and I made it there only a little late after trying to wedge in some random home improvement tasks after finishing my work stuff.

Shortly after we arrived, someone asked the teacher what classes he was teaching now. Amongst others, he mentioned teaching a class at the University of Maryland which he'd been asked to take over after one of his colleagues, Nick, had died unexpectedly. Nick was only fifty-four and had died of a heart attack with no prior symptoms. The teacher told us a few stories about the funeral (including a priest refusing to stop a Liturgy while a mourner had a stroke and was carried out by EMTs) that lightened the mood a bit.

Later, we were talking about the class at UMD again and I asked what the course title was.

"Technical Writing," he said.

"Oh! I took technical writing when I went there," I said.

"Who was your professor?"

"I can't remember his name," I said, "but I remember that he was really good.... maybe it was Ni... oh shit."

"What was his last name?"

"I don't remember... maybe..."

"Allocca?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "That was it. Oh my god. It was him?"

And indeed it was. Nick Allocca was one of the few inspirational professors I can remember having at Maryland. He'd given me a recommendation for a temp job when I came back from Spain and had been one of the few professors to tell me that I was doing a good job verbally instead of through a grade, a rare feat in a school as big as Maryland. And now he's gone. There's another service in College Park on Wednesday and I think I'll go.

Some days I might feel like I'm overworked or that I'm not making a difference - not affecting something bigger than myself. Other days I don't consider anything larger than me at all. My day today was full of death - all of it making me feel sad and grateful.

Scotts in the Rockies

2007-09-09T19:02:00.000-04:00

Our visit to the Grandparents' house in Colorado coincided with the annual Long's Peak Scottish/Irish Highland Festival in Estes Park, which is kicked off by a parade on Saturday morning at 9:30am. Granpda talked about it enough on Friday night when we arrived and again on Saturday morning that we figured we'd better go check out the parade to see what all the fuss was about. Given his recommendation, we kind of assumed that Grandpa would go.

"Have you ever seen the parade?" I asked grandpa.

"Oh, about once in the last 20 years."

"Do you want to come with?"

"Oh no! I don't want to see all that!"

The Scottish/Irish parade actually turned out to be a pretty big deal here in Estes, complete with bagpipers from Scotland and loads of Scottish Terriers and Wolfhounds. Tourists and residents crowded the parade route with collapsible chairs, which made viewing easy for us as we waited behind them. Our view was only blocked occasionally as everyone in attendance insisted on standing up every time an American flag came by.

After the parade, we headed over to the Post Office so that I could mail home my house keys before going to Safeway to get some stuff for next week and a short trip to Radio Shack to pick up a DC/AC car attachment that let's you plug in normal appliance (i.e. laptop).

After lunch, we headed back to Safeway with grandpa to pick up the raw materials for making home made ice cream in the evening.

I also got put in charge of making dinner, which went swimmingly until I dumped 2/3 of the pasta I was cooking into the sink as I tried to drain it. Oh well. R came to my aid and helped to finish the recipe (a good thing, too, as I'd missed a crucial instruction that involved taking a sauce off the heat before adding a bunch of ingredients).

This morning, we set out early to climb up to Sky Pond via Lock Vale and the Lake of Glass. A 4.4 mile hike in Rocky Mountain National park with a significant elevation gain that had our feet in pain within the first hour.

We ate lunch next to the Lake of Glass after climbing a massive waterfall (seen in the very back of the picture here). A storm started to roll in as we were finishing our sandwiches, so we had to give up on Sky pond and make our way quickly below tree line.

The way down seemed to take a lot longer than we'd expected, but we reached the car with only a little bit of rain and whining about our feet hurting. Then it was a 25 minute drive back to the grandparents where R made a delicious lasagna for the six of us. We also got to polish it off with the ice cream that we made last night. A caloric avalanche, but about what I'd expected from a trip to grandparents'.

Tomorrow, we leave early and drive Westward. We haven't really decided where we're going to go for sure, but know that we have to be in Vegas by Friday so that we can check in and appreciate the MGM Grand. I'd like to see the Grand Canyon for a second time along the way as the last time I saw it we were only there for half an hour. We're also planning on spending a day or two around Arches and Canyonlands and another one camping in Glen Canyon near the Utah/Arizona border. In any case, we'll try to head out around 8am tomorrow to drive up over the mountains and down to towards Moab or Mesa Verde.

All for now. More from the road!

Definitely not a vacation from technology

2007-09-07T23:27:00.000-04:00

I'm currently waiting for Sis and her boyfriend SG at the Denver airport. Their flight said it was on time on all of the airport signage, but she'd texted from her layover in Detroit to say that they would be an hour late. Had she been wrong or had the airport screwed up the signs. She goes to Cornell. She is smart. The airport clearly attended some unaccredited university run by Jerry Falwell. It is dumb.

Thanks to this handy dandy blackberry bluetooth modem thing I got figured out before we left, I'm able to have free wireless wherever I get a phone data signal and could check the flight online at nwa.com to see that it was actually scheduled to arrive 45 minutes late. Stupid signs.

Stupid me, too. I remembered shortly after boarding the plane that I totally forgot to turn off my alarm clock before I left. Sorry neighbors! You're going to be waking up to track 5 of Peter, Bjorn and John's Writer's Block for the next two days until I can FedEx a set of keys to our friend CG to have him go over and unplug the thing. That'll teach me to reset it in my sleep every morning.

Once the kid and SG get off the plane and get their bags (she just texted that it arrived) we can go pick up the car and then drive the hour and a half North to Grandpa and Grandma's house in Estes Park.

Off!

2007-09-06T23:49:00.000-04:00

I'm taking the first vacation I've had since last July's trip to India that doesn't revolve around a specific event. R and I are off to visit the Gparents in Estes Park, CO and then road tripping to Vegas via Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon and Death Valley.

I haven't done a Western road trip since 2001 and can't wait to see all that open space again! I thought about trying to ignore the blackberry and the laptop and all that jazz for a week, but I've been ignoring it all for the last two months in preparation for the wedding anyway... so what the hell. I figure I'll try to blog an entry a day from the road and maybe take care of my whole supposed to write for 30 minutes a day thing while I'm at it.

With that said, I'm off to bed. Look forward to a post a day starting tomorrow night from Mountain Time zones (with pictures, I hope).

Apologies

2007-08-28T22:35:00.001-04:00

Sorry 'bout the lack of posts. Two deadlines at work and our wedding reception on the first of Sept, so no time for bloggin'. Will return. Don't fret.

Found through stumbleupon

2007-08-15T23:07:00.001-04:00

Found this and realized that half the installations are in my neighborhood. Awesome!
Mark Jenkins: Street Installations

NYC Trip

2007-08-15T22:16:00.001-04:00

Made it up to NYC for one night only this past weekend. Still recovering a little. Thought I'd just throw up my favorite pictures.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah I never post

2007-08-07T22:55:00.000-04:00

I've been busy.

Keep yourself busy with this nerdiness that I found Stumbling around el internet: Symbaloo

Tag - Ugh.

2007-07-31T17:24:00.000-04:00

Rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. (Cross your fingers NOW that you're not one of them.)
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

False, Pete.

In reaction to being tagged, here are eight random facts about me:

1. I can't swim worth a damn.
2. I went to Kindergarten in France and was beat up daily at lunch... by French kids.
3. I never beat Super Mario Brothers, but may or may not have nodded my head while listening to someone describe the final level.
4. My left foot is half a size smaller than my right, but it has nothing to do with club foot... I don't think. Might need to give mom a ring.
5. My shoe size is a 9.5 right, 9 left.
6. I'm hoping Pete's is a 9.5 left, 9 right and we have similar taste in footwear.
7. I'm not kidding about any of this.
8. I started the first "spread this or you will die" blog chain. Tell 8 people this in the next 8 seconds or you will die 8 times.

People I'm tagging below and Pete's post that tagged me.

1. Chris M. at Blogs Are Stupid
2. nick
3. HarlanTurk
4. AP at Just Off The Boat
5. Corbett3000
6. Bart
7. I need more friends with blogs that weren't already taken by Pete
8. See #7

Goals

2007-07-25T21:53:00.000-04:00

My company sets up goals for everyone each quarter. A measure for each goal is also set up, as well as scorers who rate me on my ability to meet the measure. Ten percent of my pay is contingent on my overall score on these goals. This payment can be made in the form of cash or vacation time as decided by me.

One goal is always a Quality Assurance goal, wherein one or more of the clients I've worked with for more than 40 hours is randomly selected and asked to fill out a survey. Another is a billing goal, which asks for me to meet a dollar amount that works out to about 5.5 billable hours per day. Given vacations and the number of non-billable meetings I'm in, this isn't actually the easiest goal to meet (especially since everyone leaves the office by 6pm at the latest). After those goals, everyone is supposed to set up some personal goals that address what we do outside of work. These don't count for much of a percentage of the entire score, but are a great motivator. In my case, the goal for the 2nd quarter was to enroll in a writing class and the goal for the 3rd quarter is to actually complete the homework for said class, which is the 30 minutes of writing that I've been neglecting to do every day. The goal started scoring on Monday and I've been doing pretty well since.

On Sunday afternoon, the Mac Book Pro, which I've been sorely disappointed with, decided to die. I went to open iTunes and the laptop threw an error dialog box that contained a glowing button and no text. I didn't click the button (that would just be stupid); instead, I decided that it was time for a reboot. Upon reboot, I was presented with a "do not enter sign". I googled "Do Not Enter Sign" in various configurations for at least half an hour before calling tech support. I would later learn that the "do not enter sign" or "prohibitory sign" was the old "broken folder icon" from OS X 10.2, which has been upgraded in its lingo, but not fixed with some kind of written explanation in OS X 10.4. (Macs are great and all, but they could really just shut the hell up with the awesome design elements when it comes to the symbols that show you you're going to lose all your data.)

On the phone with tech support, I learned that the prohibitory sign is a symbol of "massive kernel failure" and it was recommended that I try to get what data I could off of the computer by firewire-ing to my other mac and copying. This proved fruitless as I could only connect to it through the terminal (you know, the text interface) and even then couldn't get a directory listing of any of the folders.

I don't keep a lot of permanent information on the laptop as a rule. I've had one stolen before and realized that keeping the data on an external drive at home was a safer bet. In the case of the Mac Book, the only thing that I had on it that I hadn't saved was the folder full of daily writings for the class I'm taking. All gone! It's OK, though. There wasn't much there to speak of. The whole exercise is about getting words on a page, not actually reading them later (hence the fantastic term "crap-draft" to refer to the first things you right down... like this!).

So here I am.... no daily musings to speak of before this one and only ten minutes into my total writing time for today.

On Monday I counted writing time as time spent retyping the first five pages of one of the pieces I'd been working on for class that only exists now as a fifteen page print-out that's the combination of the two-and-a-half blog entries that I wrote after R and I went to India. It's actually a lot more fun to write it when it's not in a public forum since I get to use R's real name and generally not consider what others are seeing. Then again, paper may be even more permanent than the internet as it isn't subject to power outages.

On Tuesday I had class and counted all of the exercises that we did as my writing assignments. We had a few interesting exercises assigned, but the one that really brought forth some interesting stories asked everyone to close their eyes and try to remember a summer job through all their senses. Aurally, Visually, Nose-umm... -ally (Olfactorily?).

The most fantastic part about the whole exercise was listening to what everyone had come up with after fifteen minutes of scribbling and realizing that everyone had really loved their summer jobs. Whether it was cutting grass out next to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, working landscaping in Vermont or the iced cream parlor in Michigan; each speaker's face lit up when they were allowed to spin their yarn.

I had the same feeling when I was sitting there describing my own summer job.

Coming up on the summer after my Freshman year of college, I started looking for a job out where my grandparents lived in Estes Park, Colorado. Besides getting to see them, which I rarely did on account of how far away they lived, the weather there was a hell of a lot better than Maryland and I really wanted to drive out there to see what a road trip on my own was like.

I had Grandpa look around in the local papers to see if there were any jobs and he sent me back one that asked for a roofer's assistant. Having helped my dad roof two houses previously, I knew a thing or two about tar-paper and shingling and called them up. They were happy to have me; I was willing to work for beans because I was living with my grandparents and wasn't attached to a contracting company.

After the spring semester ended, I went home to visit my Mom and Dad in New York. My Dad was excited about me doing a summer job that involved manual labor. Given my tendency towards all things computer-related, I can't help but blame him when I think back on it now. He made a point of taking me out to buy a pair of "good boots".

"You want good boots that won't let a nail go through your sole. Have I ever told you about the time that I stepped on a nail? Yyyyow!" He said, crossing his eyes.

I walked out of a work-boot store somewhere near Carmel, New York the proud owner of a pair of $80 steel-soled, steel-toed boots that where the most expensive footwear I'd ever worn before that day and I still have almost ten years later. These things were amazing. Nothing hurt. I spent an afternoon kicking rocks with my toes and showing my mom that I could drop heavy objects on them. Looking back, I'd say it was childish, but I'm still just as excited about them today and might write the rest of this while wearing them... Nope. Too lazy.

On a Tuesday, I started the drive from New York to Colorado in my four door, 1987 Toyota Camry Hatchback. Years before, a girlfriend had nicknamed the car "the noisy cricket" due to the on-off squealing sound that the engine made. I never liked the nickname, but never thought of my own so it stuck. Other than some boring nights in low-budget motels, a cracked oil pan and my window falling into the door in the middle of Kansas while it was raining (it rains in Kansas in June?) the trip was uneventful and three days later I pulled into my grandparents' driveway with exactly 2,001 miles on the trip-odometer.

I arrived on a Friday afternoon with the roofing gig starting on Monday. I spent Saturday and Sunday chatting with Grandpa, reading any of the two dozen magazines lying around the house and getting my stuff moved into the basement next to the grow-lamps for grandpa's Colorado Tomatoes. Grandpa and Grandma have been retired in Estes park since 1965. They were both the children of farmers in Illinois, both taught high-school (Grandpa Physics, Grandma English) and both retired at 50 to move to the place they'd always gone on vacation. They're both still kicking and have now been retired longer than they ever worked a job.

While they may not seem old in their independence, the grandparents' age shows in their eating times. Breakfast is at 5am, lunch is at 11am and dinner starts promptly at 5. Due to their lack of a dish washing machine, each meal is followed by a wash and dry session. Luckily, the air is so dry in the mountains of Estes Park that drying can be accomplished by lightly waving a dish or a glass in the air for thirty seconds.

At 5:30pm on my first Sunday there, a phone call interrupted dinner. It was Cindy from the developer's office of the company I'd been hired by to roof. The project that I'd been scheduled to work on had been canceled.

"I drove two thousand miles for this job," I told Cindy.

"I'm sorry. I understand. I think that there might be some jobs at the gas station at the bottom of the hill.

I stammered a bit, but didn't have any kind of comeback. In fact, being me, I probably ended up saying something like "I understand. It's not your fault. Thanks anyway." and then promised myself to write them a nasty letter that I never sent. How passive-aggressive can you get.

I spent the next week looking in papers for other jobs. Being a bit new to the job market (my previous jobs had been found through friends) an ad caught my eye that read "GREAT PAY. NO OFFICE. MAKE YOUR OWN HOURS." After a forty-five minute drive down the valley from Estes and another forty-five North I found myself in a tiny conference room of an office in a building of an office park straight out of Office Space being sold on the idea of selling knives. Again, being young, I don't think I recognized that knife-selling was a pyramid scheme immediately, but I did recognize that it wasn't something I wanted to do. The selling strategy was to start demonstrating the amazing cutting power of these knives to friends of your parents and other relatives and to then get the names of their friends so that you could demonstrate the amazing cutting power to them. The salesman, Steve, demonstrated the cutting power for us by easily slicing through a piece of rope with one of the knives from his case. If we wanted to sell knives, we would have to make a $220 deposit on our own demonstration case. I grew skeptical. Steve said we should take a break and asked me if I would walk outside with him.

"I could tell by the look on your face that you might not be into this, and that's OK."

"OK," I said. "Can I go?"

"You probably should," he said.

I walked out to the parking lot with a feeling like I'd done something wrong. It wasn't that I'd been denied a job or anything - who wants to sell knives - it was that I wasn't able to conceal my emotions during the demonstration of cutting power. I should never have felt that way. My emotional candor released me from could have been at least another hour of listening to Steve prattle on about how great knives are or, even worse, a career selling knives to my grandparents friends.

Later, Grandpa shook his head as I told him the story.

"Why couldn't they just tell you that it was a job selling knives before having you drive all the way down to Fort Collins?" He asked.

If I'd been smarter then, I would have said: "I guess they just don't have enough faith in their own product to tell people what it is."

But instead I probably said something like: "I don't know."

In any case, They were glad that I wasn't going to try to sell them or their friends knives.

A few days later, I found a job waiting tables at a restaurant at the bottom of the mountain that grandpa and grandma lived halfway up and ended up working there the rest of the summer.

What reminded me of the whole experience and why I bothered to write this all down, was when I recalled how I felt physically while I was working at the restaurant and my first immediate thought was how much much feet and knees hurt. I realized, thinking back, that the uniform for the restaurant had require brown shoes and that I'd only brought one pair that were steel-toed and steel-soled. Despite weighing five pounds apiece, I wore those boots every day of work that summer and only now wonder if it was just sour grapes at having lost a job that I traveled 2,000 miles for the day before I started.

I Thought I Was Done Working at 2am

2007-07-25T01:51:00.001-04:00

But here I am... oh well, at least it's for a good cause and I'm in charge. I volunteered for this piece of the project and will suffer the consequences. No time for writing here as I have php code to type somewhere else. explode() this implode() that;
explode(",","blah, blah, blah") becomes array ([0] => blah, [1] => blah, [2] => blah) You get the idea (it's boring).
Here's the latest spam to make it through the filter!

From: Randi Hooker
Subject: graduate student pulled
Message:
learned by those

Hi. Are you doing good? Email me at pau@imailmessage.info only. I am lonely girl. I will reply with my pics
academy report says. complaint. However it for your kids if you mind. However it must

You have to love that name. It says it all (unlike the message, which doesn't say much of anything).

Sleepy!

2007-07-23T22:18:00.000-04:00

I'm really tired. Too tired to write. But not too tired to paste my favorite spam of the day (this one actually made it through Google's filter)

Subject: when to stop blogging
From: Allan Duarte
Message:
it struggling with academic

Good afternoon. How is the day going? Email me at hslp@imailmessage.info only. I am nice girl. If you would like to see some of my pictures.

balanced with plenty out my final

I like the ending the best. I have no idea what it means. It might be just a bunch of random words... or it could mean something very dirty.

Day... ok, I have no idea.

2007-07-18T21:21:00.000-04:00

I wrote some stuff on Monday night for class, but have been so swamped at work that there's no time to blog it as well. This is the last week that I schedule a website launch and any major work on anything else at the same time. In the meantime, I found this awesome warning label on the bureau from a curling iron that R bought. It can burn eyes, but can it burn... noses? Eyebrows? (not mine, of course)

Day Two? Wait. No. Three.

2007-07-15T22:43:00.000-04:00

I didn't find time to write for the mandatory half hour yesterday. Given that it was only day two of my attempts to meet the requirement, I could say it was either a pathetic showing or a habit that will take some getting used to. I think I'll go with the latter.

Yesterday, R and I rented a Zipcar and drove down to the jewelry place in VA where I got her engagement ring. Sometime earlier in the week, one of the small stones in the ring had fallen out and we needed to get it replaced. The jewelry store is run by three brothers from Korea and located in a strip mall somewhere near Dunn Loring.

Driving down Lee Highway and Rt 50 reveals an American landscape that is vastly different from downtown DC and probably more akin to what you'd find somewhere in the Midwest... except for all the Vietnamese grocery stores. The four lane highway undulates over little hills blanketed in cars and SUVs waiting at any of what seem like 10,000 stoplights. A small strip of grass separates the main road from an access road on either side. The grass has grown tall and started to seed. Plastic bags and cigarette butts dot the shoulder and are caught in the long grass. More strips of uncut grass separate the access roads from the parking lots in front of strip malls. The strip malls repeat the same basic stores: a Chinese carry-out, a nail salon, a hair salon, a convenience store, a real estate office, and a gift store that sells mylar heart-shaped balloons, teddy bears, cards and little porcelain statues of dolphins and angels. Occasionally, a larger parking lot is encountered in front of one of the big box Wal Marts, Targets, K-Marts, and your lesser Ross' and Marshals.

With the same stores repeating endlessly, It's easy to not recognize where you're driving down these roads. There are no more unique landmarks, just street names or recognizable traffic back-ups (“We must be close to Glebe road,” you catch yourself thinking as you wait for ten minutes as the stop light ahead runs its cycle five times letting a trickle of cars through.

After dropping off the ring to have the stone replaced, R and I headed back down Lee Hwy to look for a suit for me at Sym's. I'd never been to Sym's before, but found their selection of ugly pleated pants vast. Pants aside, I ended up with a good tan suit that I'll get altered next weekend if I don't find one better between now and then.

Searching for something to eat afterwards amongst the vast stip-malls off Lee Highway proved nerve-racking. We ended up at eating some Pho at a Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon Cafe. The soup wasn't bad, but the beef in both of ours had that rainbow thing going on that's usually reserved for the roast beef at a Subway. According to the Internet (where else?) this iridescence is caused by the combination of the muscle fiber structure of the meet and water droplets; the effect is enhanced when phosphates are used to increase the amount of water that the meat can hold. No matter what the science is behind it, rainbow meat still looks bad in my soup. R and I both left most of it on the side... looking at the reasons for iridescence now, I won't do the same thing the next time.

After we picked up the ring, we had some extra time in the Zipcar and spent it driving around Columbia Heights looking at houses. We might be moving in year or two and the possibility of finding something affordable and big enough is a lot better up north. Also, there are a lot of excellent hipster bars up there that could use me as a customer.

We returned the car around 5pm and headed home for a bit before going over to PC's apartment for his birthday party. An enjoyable evening was had by all, including the fun of getting into a long winded argument about single-payer health care that ended in only minor cursing. Hooray! For now, I need to get ready for another week.

Blah-biddy-blah

2007-07-13T21:42:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a writing class at the USDA grad school one evening a week. As part of it, we're supposed to write for 30 minutes everyday about something or other. I haven't been, but figure that it might be a motivator if I just post whatever I write up on here. The class is Creative NonFiction, which is supposedly the art of writing about the mundane. With that in mind, I described my morning.

I wake up around 8am after snoozing the alarm about thirty times. Currently, it's set to a Justin Timberlake song that is far better suited to romantic encounters than waking up. R has already woken up, showered, dressed and left for work by about 7:30am. Our morning encounters are limited to me babbling randomly in a state of torpor while she gets ready and a kiss goodbye before she goes out the door. I step over a cat and into the next room to open the laptop. I left it running last night because some podcasts were downloading in iTunes and I didn't want to just turn it off in the middle. I don't know why I bother, given that I never listen to the podcasts I download anyway. Who has the time? I click over to my “most played” playlist and hit the first item, NPR on WNYC in New York. I grew up on WNYC and can't seem to let it go despite not having lived in New York for ten years. Listening along to “Morning Edition”, I read email and the news until about 8:15 when I go to shower, brush my teeth and get dressed. Before leaving for work I go through my standard check to make sure that I have everything: laptop, any mail that needs to be sent, wallet, keys, cell phone, iPod, headphones, cell phone again. By this time it's usually about 8:45. On the rare occasion that I'm running ahead of schedule I will inevitably be unable to find my keys. I will look for them for at least seven minutes before giving up and using the spare set – partly because I don't really know where the spare set is. After looking for seven minutes, I will take a deep breath and remember that I put the keys either under a magazine on my bedside table or in the pocket of my jeans from the day before that I've already checked once, just not thoroughly. Just before I'm about to walk out the door, I'll remember the cat – which has been meowing all morning – and empty it's litter box and fill food or water if R hasn't done it already. With the whole mess of laptop wires, mail, keys, etc. shoved into my bag, I walk out the door, realize I forgot to close the window (which, since we had someone come in through an open window last year, is something I'm more conscious of now), go back in, close the window, look for my keys again, because I had them in my hand just a second ago and set them down to close the window, find them and then leave the house.

In other news, I finally go around to installing parallels on the mac so that I could once again take advantage of the bliss that is allofmp3.com (no only available through the alltunes PC application). As such, I was able to download some albums I've been looking forward to, including the new Kings of Leon, Interpol, some Feist albums I've been meaning to get, the new Kaiser Chiefs album (mainly due to that damn "ruby" song stuck in my head) and the new Rufus. All good stuff. Out.

I'ts Official: Bush Can do Whatever The Hell He Wants

2007-07-03T08:18:00.000-04:00

Commuting Libby's sentence is the cherry on top of the Executive Power cake. God forbid that Libby should have to serve a single day of prison time, "Stopping short of issuing a pardon, Mr. Bush issued a statement Monday sparing Libby from jail, but he left in place a $250,000 fine and probation for the ex-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The president's announcement came just hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term." [npr] It only makes sense that Bush waited until every last judge and appeal had confirmed that Libby was guilty before agreeing that, yes, he was guilty, but that doesn't mean he should have to be punisihed with jail time for it. I mean, really! It's a non-violent offense and jail is excessive. Now pot-smokers? Those people should be locked up. Brilliant.

The Post reports that Bush consulted with few when making the decision, but this is partly explained by another post article from yesterday that seemed designed to encourage sympathy for A President Besieged and Isolated, Yet at Ease. Of course he's at Ease! He can do whatever the hell he wants and only has to answer to some "God" that he thinks is OK with torture, capital punishment and pardoning of Cheney's former Chief of Staff. Granted, the last of these isn't nearly as important as the first two, but that's really just the point. How long did Bush spend thinking about commuting the sentence? Did he, like me, not even know what "commuting" was until a few days ago? Bush wakes up at 5:30am and is in the Oval office at 6:30am. He takes a break around dinner and then works until 9pm. He also takes weekends off and has taken more vacation than all former presidents and all of Europe combined. Why is he taking the time to even think about someone as tiny as Libby? There are much bigger problems in the world. The wife is of the opinion that this deal was struck long ago: Libby would accept the blame and the POTUS would commute/pardon him. Wife also doubts that Libby will pay the $250,000 himself.

This is all part of a much larger push by the President, Cheney and their cohorts to drastically increase the power fo the executive branch. As featured in a New Yorker article of a few months ago, the power of the Executive Branch is increasing thanks in large part to a crazy asshat named David S. Addington, who's Wikipedia entry reads like a who's who of neo-con jackasses:

Addington was also a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for one year in 1987, before becoming Reagan's deputy assistant. He was Republican counsel on the Iran-Contra committee in the 1980's. From 1989 to 1992, Addington served as special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, before becoming the Department of Defense's general counsel in 1992.

From 1993 to 2001, he worked in private practice, for law firms Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz and Holland & Knight, and the American Trucking Associations. He headed a political action committee, the Alliance for American Leadership, set up in large part to explore a possible presidential candidacy for Mr. Cheney.

Addington's influence strongly reflects his hawkish views on U.S. foreign policy, a position he had apparently already committed to as a teenager during the late phase of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.

Addington has consistently advocated that under the Constitution, the President has unlimited powers as commander in chief during wartime. In October 2005, Addington was tapped to become the Vice President's chief of staff, replacing I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had resigned after being indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. He is the legal force behind over 750 signing statements President Bush has added to bills passed by Congress. Addington was a legal advisor to President Reagan, and suggested that such signing statements be used to exempt President Reagan from responsibility for the Iran-Contra scandal.

Addington helped to shape an August 2002 opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that said torture might be justified in some cases. He advocates scaling back the authority of lawyers in the uniformed services. He consistently advocates the expansion of presidential powers and Unitary Executive theory, nearly absolute deference to the Executive Branch from Congress and the Federal judiciary.

Addington was mentioned by title in "Scooter" I. Lewis Libby Jr.'s indictment for five felony charges related to the Plame affair, regarding the leak of the identity of a CIA officer.

In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Addington for alleged war crimes.

The Post has a good blurb on Addington here: Cheney's Cheney. All bad things. I wonder what the National Review has to say about all this. Oh, that's right, it was Appropriate Presidential Mercy. I guess every story has two sides. Finally, if you really want to read a ridiculous amount about Addington, try the 9 page article in US News from back in May here.

Granted, Addington and co have done nothing to increase the power that the President has to pardon, commute and otherwise grant mercy. But what they have done is give enough power to the Executive Branch to make Bush think that this is going to fly... and I sure hope it doesn't. The Constitution gives Bush the right to commute whomever he wants and this is something that should remain intact. What shouldn't remain intact is Bush's confidence that he can get away with doing whatever he wants. This kind of behavior is indicative of Bush's lack of respect for the will of the people. If all the terrorism scares in recent days don't tell us that Bush's policies aren't working, what will? The man needs to be taken to task.

Things to Do: Get Married. Check.

2007-06-26T22:33:00.001-04:00

Yes. It's true. Put a big check mark next to married. R and I tied the knot on Monday at the DC Superior Court. The big party with all the family in town isn't until September, but with different nuclear family members going in and out of town over the summer, the best time to get them down to DC turned out to be this past weekend.

I'll write a longer update at some point, but this week work is literally beating me over the head with a stick as I have a pretty complicated piece of site to design by the end of the day tomorrow and don't yet have the data in place to base it on.

The System Works!

2007-06-22T17:50:00.000-04:00

Yes. I'm about to stop complaining about those sidewalk closed signs. Because today, without my having to even send a letter to a councilman, they literally closed an entire lane of U street to let people walk in it. This is exactly what I suggested the other week! Fantastic! Nice work DC... today.

Just what I've been up to...

2007-06-17T20:43:00.000-04:00

A week from tomorrow, I'll be a married man. Sorry, ladies!

Not too much else to report. The last week at work involved a bit more project management and a little less coding than I'd normally like, but I'm largely in control of what I get to do, so just need to make a mental note to spend more less time considering budgets and timelines and more time considering if...then statements and while loops.

Wednesday evening, we went out to see the Feist/Grizzly Bear show and it was incredible. I came home to find that the Mac Book Pro here had decided to stop charging its battery since I'd plugged it in the night before. I looked around on the interweb a bit and read something saying that a firmware update (sorry... getting nerdy here) had been released for MBP batteries. I installed the update and was told that I needed to restart. I clicked OK, but the computer just shut down and showed my background screen for five minutes. At this point, I made the fatal mistake of just holding down the power button to shut it down hard.

When I went to turn it back on, nothing happened. I tried holding down the power button for a few minutes, tried holding down Command+Option+P+R to reset the PRAM, yada, yada. Nothing. It wouldn't work on AC power, with the battery or on AC with the battery removed. Nada. Luckily, I still had the other computer working and started to figure out that the battery was probably completely toast. As it was now about 1am, I gave up and went to bed with plans to try to solve the problem again on Thursday night.

As usual, I couldn't wait; so Thursday morning I took out the battery and unplugged the computer and let it sit for twenty minutes while I got ready for work. This "patience" approach worked once when the other computer wouldn't recognize an external drive after it had been accidentally unplugged. Apparently, just leaving everything unconnected for twenty minutes or so allows for various things to reset. It worked again this time and when I plugged the mac back in after 20 it powered right up... with the fan blowing full force and loudly.

Once it was running, the battery appeared with a little X and wouldn't accept a charge. Late for work, I hussled there with the laptop in tow and after a little internet research at lunch on dead batteries, made an appointment at the Apple Store online for Saturday morning.

Friday night R and didn't do much at all as she had to work early on Saturday morning. Shortly after she went to work, I went to the hell hole that is Pentagon City to get the battery replaced. This proved largely uneventful, except that I had to wait from 10:40 until 11am before anyone even said "hello" even though my appt was at 10:40. After some inspection, I was issued a new $110 battery for no charge as the current one was still under warranty.

With the laptop fixed, I spent another hour searching for a new pair of brown shoes for the wedding and finally found them at Aldo after finding nothing at DSW, Nordstrom's or Macy's. I hate the mall and high-tailed it out of there to end up spending the next 20 minutes waiting for the metro due to work being done on the Yellow, Green, Blue and Orange lines.

After R got off work, we scooted up to MD so that she could pick up her dress for the wedding. Once back, we ate dinner and then I went of to BeBar with CG, DK, and PG where we met up with some others and then ended the night at the Black Cat. All for now, though I suppose I should insert a picture up at the top to make this interesting...

Out and About

2007-06-09T23:53:00.000-04:00

Went for a ride along the C&O canal today after getting the bike from R's parents' house the other weekend and realized that I should have been riding a lot more in the last year or two.

All the news that's fit to be really depressed about

2007-06-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

I knew there was a reason I only check in on the news once a day instead of looking at the 24 hour news cycle! What a horrible world we live in. To wit:

The NYT published this article on that troop surge's lack of efficacy. I found it surprisingly even-handed towards the Bush admin for their plan's failure... but then, he can only go so low in the polls, right?

Commanders Say Push in Baghdad Is Short of Goal

BAGHDAD, June 3 — Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

After the NYT broke it, the Post picked it up here.

Also in Iraq news, the Guardian reports that all three of the captured soldiers from May are now dead.

Soldiers seized in Baghdad ambush are all dead, says video

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of insurgents that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, released a video yesterday in which it claimed to have killed all three American soldiers who went missing in the country last month.
...
In a translation by Associated Press, the video makers say the captives were killed in retaliation for the intense US search for them: "Fearing that this will have bad repercussions, the State of Islam decided to, and announced, their killing, making it a bitter result for the enemies of God, because they were alive and then dead."

On the environmental front, Bush is asking for countries to set "aspiration goals" regarding greehouse gas emissions when you really know that he and his cronies are just going to try to find a way to make money off of carbon trading. Meanwhile, China Outlines Modest Environmental Goals, rejecting caps because they "hurt economic development". My real problem with the whole "hurts economic development" excuse is that I don't think it's a worthwhile excuse for polluting the environment. Production and profits may be sky high, but there's a larger cost that really needs to be considered. Someone needs to send China a copy of The Lorax and CC Bush while they're at it.

And last, but not least, Hillary speaks out about how her "faith" helped her deal with Bill's infidelity. Notice her non-demoninational use of the word "faith" and then ask yourself whether this is all just politics. And she really had me liking her after the debate last night on CNN!

Clinton: Faith Got Me Past Marital Woes

"I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said during a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential candidates talked about faith and values.

"I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," she said in response to a question about how she dealt with the infidelity.

"I take my faith very seriously and very personally," she said. "And I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves."

As far as what she says about tradition, I actually understand since my Mom went to the same high school as Hillary and also has the same Mid-Western approach towards keeping religion personal.

Per the article, my candidate Obama had some good points that didn't talk about Bill's tomcatting.

Obama's appearance focused more on policy than the personal. Asked whether he agreed with President Bush's portrayal of the current global struggles in terms of good verses evil, Obama said there is a risk in viewing the world in such terms.

He said he believes that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were the result of evil. But he said that the United States' treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay is unjust.

"The danger of using good verses evil in the context of war is that it may lead us to be not as critical as we should about our own actions," Obama said to applause.

OK, that's all I've got.

Banksy?

2007-06-01T00:33:00.000-04:00

I saw this graffiti and realized that I recognized it from somewhere. I think that it might be a Banksy, but can't really be sure. There are a few hits on Flickr to compare to that are tagged with both "Banksy" and "Rat" here, but this one looks a bit mocked up and doesn't carry the usual wit in the sign that the rat is holding.

The New Yorker just published this article in a recent issue, which, after reading, had me remembering about the Wired article on Banksy from August of 2005. I'm pretty sure I'd heard of him even before (in Adbuster's or something), but until reading the New Yorker article I hadn't even considered that he'd hit DC.

2007-05-30T10:44:00.000-04:00

Yes. I’m about to bitch about this street sign.

They’re doing some work on U street and put up one of these signs telling me to walk on the other side of the road. I can’t stand these things! I’m not going to cross the street because you’re working on the sidewalk or, even more infuriating, a building above the sidewalk. This happens in DC all the time and I’ve never seen it happen back in NYC, but maybe they’re just a more pedestrian-focused city. The fact that no one actually pays attention to these signs leaves tons of people walking in the street wherever the sidewalk is closed. I say, shut down a lane of vehicular traffic for pedestrian use. We’re going to do it anyway, but at least it would be safer than what goes on now.

How to Get Married in Washington DC

2007-05-27T17:07:00.001-04:00

Step 1 - Really? (just kidding)

Step 2 - Propose
You'll never know until you ask. It's also customary to ask Dad first. I recommend just telling him what you have planned and then gauging the whole "yes/no" business by his reaction.

If you say, "I'm planning on asking R to marry me" and he says, "what the hell did you just say?" then you might want to go back to step 1.

Step 3 - Get your blood tests
In DC, you have to get tested for Syphilis. Yes. Syphilis. You'll need to get tested and get a signed DHR 366 form within 30 days of going to the courthouse to apply for your marriage license, so don't dilly-dally after getting your results.

According to about.com, "a physician, clinic, area hospital, and all military service labs can certify the results", but anecdotal evidence from a guy I work with says that most doctors don't actually have the DHR 366 form in the office and will likely screw up the process. For this reason, R and I recommend the no-nonsense B&W Stat Laboratory (pictured at right) at 3104 Georgia Avenue NW. B&W's location on Georgia Avenue near Howard University leaves something to be desired as it's a bit out of the way and not in the greatest of neighborhoods. Don't let this dissuade you, though. They'll take your blood in the middle of the waiting room (basically, since there's no curtain) and have you out the door in 15 minutes with your DHR 366 in hand and $40 less cash in your pocket. While you're more than likely to contract something new while you're at B&W, they've got the correct form and are open from 6AM to 11AM on Saturdays, in case you want to get a jump on the weekend.

Step 4 - Apply for a Marriage License
You need to apply for your marriage license within 30 days of the blood test. DC's website actually does a pretty good job of summarizing the process (when the site is actually working), so definitely check out the information that they have here.

You'll need to:

Go down to the DC Superior Courthouse and go to room 4485

They're open from 8:30am to 5pm Monday through Friday

Here's the address:
Moultrie Courthouse
500 Indiana Avenue, N.W., Room 4485
Washington, D.C. 20001

Fill out a marriage application form

You'll want to do this ahead of time if you're not doing a civil ceremony as you need to have your officiant sign as a witness to the application.

Turn it in and get a print-out

If you're doing a Civil Ceremony, they'll give you a phone number to call (It's Ms. Johnson.) to arrange for a time to do the Ceremony

Go to room 4204 and pay the $35 fee for the application and another $10 fee for a copy of the marriage license.

Step 5 - Arrange for a Civil Ceremony
If you're doing a civil ceremony, you can call the number immediately after you pay the $45 fee at the court house. R and I called from outside room 4204. When arranging a time, you can only ask for dates that are 10 or more days after the date of your application. The courthouse does not do ceremonies on Fridays (information that I wasn't able to find anywhere on the web and had to hear straight from Ms. Johnson). The first two dates that we'd picked out weren't available, so definitely have a bunch of different ones in mind ahead of time.

Step 6 - Get married (as of today, this part hasn't happened, so this is just how things are supposed to work.)
Call ahead 3 to 5 days before your Civil Ceremony date to confirm that there hasn't been a mix up.

Show up at the courthouse and go back to room 4485. There, you'll go into a disgusting side room (pictured third), the door of which is covered in wrapping paper and has a huge bow on it. In 10 minutes, you'll be husband and wife. Done. Now go throw a huge party!

****Update****
In case you're wondering... Marriage accomplished - posted here. Enjoy.
**************

"So, what, you only blog once a week now?"

2007-05-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

Yes.

Apparently that's the case.

Let's see... not too much new to report. Had a relatively easy week at work, given that everyone was off Friday except for the few of us in the office.

On Friday morning I went to an Open Coffee Club at Pete's office wherein I got to network/share/drink coffee with a bunch of folks in the tech industry, with a focus on open source. Some of the more interesting things that came out of the meeting:

The nonprofit world is a tad behind as far as Web 2.0 goes, but this might just be because they don't have the money to innovate and need to wait to see if new technologies catch on or not.
Then again, a lot of the new Open Source Software web 2.0-type stuff is relatively cheap to install.
Some very cool new websites to check out:
- Geni.com for web 2.0 flash geneology.
- Tech Crunch for all the new nerdy hotness
- Uncov.com, a site that takes a pessimistic approach to all the new nerdy hotness on Tech Crunch. My personal favorite.
- Cruxy.com - A site for printing/distributing self-made media
- Technorati's revamped site.
- Ask.com and the fact that their search results are better than Google's.... better Google "ask.com" and find out what it's all about.

Friday night was a BBQ on the roof of Post for CS's birthday. Saturday was spent mostly in up in Bethesda digging a hole in the yard for a pond and then waking my mountain bike out of its hibernation in the shed to bring it back down to DC. It's been way too long since I went riding, but now it seems way too hot to even consider it.

I'm also working on blogging the whole DC marriage license process, which could be useful an interesting.... if there's a post above this one that means I've already begun.

All for now.

Busy, Busy.

2007-05-18T18:23:00.000-04:00

It's been a bit too long since a post. I've been super busy between getting caught up at work after the extended vacation and working on some side projects. I also managed to make it to the first half of two shows over the weekend (Dr. Dog at RNR on Sat and then LCD Soundsystem at 930 on Sunday). Both shows were good, but, being completely different styles of music, it's really hard to compare.

There's some real BS in the news this week that deserves a mention.

This article in Wednesday's post regarding the late-night, intensive-care-unit visit to Ashcroft to get him to sign off on domestic wire-tapping should have everyone in the country really pissed off.

Wolfowitz Resigned, which is pretty rad given that he's such an asshole. Another hawk bites the dust. First Perle drops off the face of the earth, then Rumsfeld finally leaves and now Wolfy lost the position that was handed to him by his buddy Bush. This only leaves Cheney as the last PNAC douchebag left close to the administration... I'm not satisfied.
Here's what kills me about the Wolfowitz thing: part of the mission of the World Bank is to help eliminate poverty and here Wolfowitz is increasing his girlfriend's salary from $133K a year to $193K a year between 2005 and 2007. Ummm... buddy, that money could go a lot further somewhere else.
The wikipedia article on the World Bank grabs some great tidbits as well, including this World Bank statement:
"Recognizing that any program to assist in controlling corruption worldwide needs to start with the example of best practices at home, the Bank has taken initiatives to stamp out conflicts of interest and any possible corrupt practices among its own staff."
Snap! Suck it Wolfowitz, you hypocritical SOB.

Man, all these guys are just total creeps. It's insane! Ethics violations left and right in the house and senate, spying on people, handing out raises to girlfriends, strong-arming colleagues while they're in intensive care. What's the drive behind this stuff? Is it just greed? Pride? Fear?

But really, this is all just a distraction. What happened in Iraq today? How many people were kidnapped in Nigeria? Why are Fatah troops entering Gaza with Israeli assent? What the hell in Gonzalez still doing around? (OK, that last one is a little bit of a distraction compared to the rest.)

Really? Is This Really What I Have to Deal With?

2007-05-11T19:17:00.000-04:00

Another fantastic exchange w/unit # 5 on the condo board showing how to complicate an issue and have a complete lack of humor at the same time. The email speaks for itself.
My (witty) email:

I noticed that there's a retired futon out back. As the item is too
big to fit in the trash cans, Goode Trash will not pick it up with
their regular service. Instead we'd have to get a specific pick-up for
the item. We considered doing this once before and, upon
investigation, found the cost prohibitively expensive. There are a
couple of cheaper solutions that I'd recommend:
1- take it apart and fit the pieces in the cans. I have a drill with a
Phillips head attachment that would make this really easy. Just ask
and I'll let you borrow it.
2- rent a zipcar and take it to the dump. This can take a while
depending on how long the line out by the dump is, but it's always
cheaper than Our trash co.
3- illegally place your item in the dumpster of a neighborhood eatery.
(this one is less of an "option" and more of a "misdemeanor")

Again, the trash co will not pick this up. Would whoever threw it away
please do one of the options above ASAP or let me know if you would
like to pay for a Goode Trash bulk pickup and I can help arrange for
it.

Let me know if you need help!

The response:

Thanks for the note, Greg. I do not endorse your last option of dumping the futon illegally. But I would agree with your message that owners/tenants need to make arrangements for their large, bulky trash items.

Enough already! You should not expect your neighbors to clean after you and/or foot your trash bill.

Whoever dumped the futon please make arrangements with the trash company and pay for it. In the future, I do not want to re-visit this subject. We already had enough fights over this issue with the so-called "investors."

Wow. This is my Friday.

A few quick things

2007-05-10T16:48:00.000-04:00

(1) Reminder to self to check out Joost
(2) Reminder to self to check out RRS vs "way of the master" on ABC.
(3) A huge congratulations to Le Loup who got an exclusive write up in Pitchfork today for having been signed with Hardly Art.

Exclusive: Sub Pop's Hardly Art Signs Le Loup

You read that right: another lupine act has joined Wolf Parade and Wolf Eyes in the Sub Pop (extended) family.

Le Loup, which-- as Babelfish tells this non-French speaker-- means "The Wolf", have inked a deal with Sub Pop off-shoot Hardly Art, which will release their debut, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly, this fall.

The album takes its wordy title from a lavish devotional work by Henry Darger-esque reclusive folk artist James Hampton. The DC-based septet, meanwhile, sprung from the solo work of one Sam Simkoff (banjo, keys, loop pedal), and now also includes Michael Ferguson (guitar), Nicole Keenan (keys, french horn), Dan Ryan (bass, double bass), Robert Sahm (drums), May Tabol (guitar, violin), and Jim Thomson (guitar). Pretty much everybody sings.

Missed Connections, Missed Encounters and an All Around Awesome Time in Europe or “I Can't Believe I Saw the Whole Thing”

2007-05-08T21:32:00.000-04:00

This is what you get when I take my laptop on the plane... a seven page blog entry. Don't even attempt to read this all at once or you will fall asleep on your desk in boredom.

The bachelor party for the wedding R and I attended last week was held in Amsterdam. We were visiting our friend AP in Copenhagen and I left on Sunday after going with them to visit the castle in Helsinore where the story of Hamlet is supposed to have been based.

There were 14 guys total that were attending the bachelor party, which was really more of a gathering. The groom, CA, had arranged the whole trip, including making reservations at the hostel that we'd be staying at as well as buying tickets for all of us for the return flight from Amsterdam back to Florence on May 1, which was awesome because it meant we'd all get to travel in together. Additionally, after I'd told him my arrival time when I booked my tickets, we'd figured out that I'd be coming into Amsterdam half an hour before CA and two of his friends from Florence who were flying up together, so we could meet up at the airport before heading into town.

Once off my flight I looked for any information that would tell me about arrivals and gates, but found nothing. I also needed to get downstairs to baggage claim to collect my own luggage and figured I'd just meet them where their bags would come out (I should have realized that they wouldn't have any bags...). I went downstairs, got my own bag and then asked where theirs were coming out. An agent explained that their flight had been delayed until 7:05pm (half an hour more) and that I'd have to wait to find out. Just like in Copenhagen, my cell phone still didn't work, so I used a pay phone to call R and had her send a text to CA to tell him that I'd be at his baggage claim. Unfortunately, I'd given her the wrong number and the text never went through. After waiting outside of CA's baggage claim for half an hour after all the bags were out, I gave him a call with the correct number and he explained that they were already on the train downtown, which I should catch and then meet the at the McDonald's at the train station. Half an hour later, after buying a ticket and taking the next train downtown, I arrived at the station and learned that there was no McDonald's, but there was a Burger King. I got there, found no one, made another call and was finally united with CA and his two friends.

The four of us then walked from the station to our hostel on the other side of town, where we met up with the rest of the party minus one, ZC, who was still MIA.

We'd managed to land ourselves in Amsterdam the day before their national holiday of Queen's day, which, from what I could figure out, is a lot like Mardi Gras, involves wearing lots of orange clothing, drinking and eating hamburgers while getting lost in the cobweb that is Amsterdam's street system.

Our first night there, after waiting an hour to check in, we all headed down the street to stuff a Shwarma in our mouths and then go to a bar. The 14th member of the group, ZC, was still missing when we sat down at the first bar, but, lo and behold, he was spotted by the groom walking by about 15 minutes after we'd sat down.

“Boy am I glad I found you guys,” ZC said in his Dallas drawl. “I've been looking everywhere for you.”

“Are you joking? There must be eight million extra people in this city today,” CA said. “How did you find us?”

“Well, I just started calling all the numbers I had and then I started looking for you.”

ZC's ridiculous string of luck would continue the next day as we all wandered around the city in huge orange socks provided by CA and ZC was separated from the main group again and again, only to be found each time by someone in the group when they happened upon him elsewhere in the city (by a lake watching swans, in a coffeeshop, coming out of an alley, etc.).

On Tuesday, May 1, we woke up at 7am to get all of our things packed up and to head for the airport. CA, the groom, had bought tickets for all of us on Meridiana airlines for a flight at 10:20am. Our taxis were a bit late in picking us up to get the airport, but we arrived by 8:50am and went to check in. The electronic check in wasn't working for any of our tickets, so we had to get into a huge mess of a line at the KLM counter where we were directed by one of the airport agents. Somehow the group got split up, with five guys, including the groom, headed down one line and six of us headed down another. The line moved slowly. After half an hour and with only two groups between us and the check-in counter, we watched as one lady had to twice remove items from her bag because it was too heavy to check. When we finally got to the counter, the woman explained that she could only check in three of us at a time. This seemed a bit strange since we were all traveling together, but since we only had about forty minutes before the flight was to leave, the first three went and she started checking them in. After five minutes she stopped, saying that the computer was saying their tickets were paper tickets, but that we were presenting her with electronic tickets. She made a phone call and five minutes later said that everything was OK and continued checking the first three in. Once their bags were gone and they had their boarding passes, they took off running for security and the remaining three of us put our passports out for the agent. With my bag on the belt, she proceeded to take about five minutes to find all of our names in the computer. I could watch what she was doing from where I was standing and saw that the system was running in what looked like Windows 3.1 and that she was having real problem finding each of our names. The computers was extremely slow to respond to her commands, stalling half a second after each click before showing any results. After she had all of our names found, she picked up the phone again and started speaking with someone. She wrote down a phone number, hung up and then made another call. She spoke again for about three minutes and then hung up saying, “I'm sorry, but the plane is no longer accepting luggage and you each have an item that you will have to check. This means that the flight is closed to you and you cannot get on.”

“What?!? That's impossible! We were with those three right ahead of us! How can they get on and we can't?!?”

“I'm sorry. You were late.”

“But we're part of the same party! We're going to a wedding! We're all in the same wedding together! We can't get split up! We didn't even buy these tickets! All the people we could call are on that plane because we're traveling together!”

She explained the issue again and told us that we'd have to go to the flight assistance counter behind us to see what they could do about finding us another flight. We went and grabbed a number, B075, and looked up to see that they were currently serving B031 and that there were B numbers and P numbers being served at the same three counters that were open. I ran to a pay phone and called CA to tell him what was happening.

“Seriously?” he asked. “How can they say the flight is closed? I'm standing outside the gate waiting for it to board and there's still a half hour.”

“Well, that's what they said and they won't let us check our bags or get a boarding pass. We're going to try to figure out another way to get there and I'll give you a call around the time you're supposed to land.”

Part of why I was so frustrated was that R had arrived in Florence from Copenhagen that morning, had been alone all day to check into the hotel and was expecting me to be there around 1pm. I asked CA to make sure that R found out as soon as possible what had happened so that she wouldn't worry and then went back to see how the other two, JC and ZC, were doing. I'd only met ZC for the first time two days prior when he happened upon us at the bar in Amsterdam, but JC and I had met previously back when R and I lived in Barcelona. ZC is a friend of the bride and groom's from Dallas with a Forrest Gump accent, a great eye with a camera and a carefree attitude.

The three of us that remained waited for the number a bit while I held my head in my hands. I went to the bathroom and when I came back JC was over at the original check-in counter talking to a different agent. ZC explained that she had come over and said that she heard about our situation and was going to try to take care of us.

With the new agent helping us in particular, things were finally starting to look up... or so we thought. After ten minutes, she came back over and explained that she couldn't get through on the telephone to try to help us because all of the lines were jammed and that she'd try again in ten minutes. She called JC over again in fifteen minutes and told him that the we would actually need to contact whatever agency originally sold us the tickets. We explained that we didn't actually purchase the tickets, so wouldn't even know where to start in figuring it out. After fifteen more minutes, she came back over and gave us a phone number to call and suggested we do so. We explained that we didn't even have a phone. Being the fantastic person that she was, she called the number for us and brought back the nightmarish news that Meridiana would not pay for us to get on another flight. By this time, it was around 1130am and the rest of the group would be landing in Florence in an hour. They told JC to get another number and to see if the main tickets counter could do anything for us. We ended up waiting behind five Italians who had had the same thing happen to them on the same flight. While JC and ZC where waiting, I headed down to the train station to see what it would cost to get us to Florence by train. After a ten minute wait, an agent helped me plan out the trip at a cost of around 230 Euro apiece. I went back upstairs just as JC was getting the news that there was nothing they could do today and the only flights out were going to be 600 Euro the next afternoon and that he'd just heard the Italians get told the same thing. We went downstairs and got back in line for the train tickets, noticing that the five Italians from earlier were now waiting in the same line ahead of us. While we were waiting, JC went over to the rental car desk and looked into our automotive options. He came back to explain that we could rent a car with French plates for 155 Euro with unlimited mileage, but that we'd have to drop it off in France and then find our way from France to Florence. We pondered this for a bit and then had our number called for the international train reservation booth where we found out that the Italians had taken the cheap seats I'd been quoted earlier and were now looking at 260 Euro each for the train ride.

We gave the romantic thought of a road trip one last consideration (asking the agent to look at travel from Nice to Florence) before deciding that a road trip across three countries would be too unpredictable when we all had a wedding to go to. Thus, at noon, we bought tickets for the 12:12 train to Utrecht and, with no time to call anyone in Florence to tell them the plan, rushed downstairs to the platform.

Once there, we met an insane Dutchman who explained that he was taking the train and not flying because he was taking back a computer and “these big five liter cans of beer” which he couldn't bring on the plane. We told him our story and he took pity on us and let us try to send a text message with his phone, which he'd never tried before. I think I figured it out, but still haven't checked with CA to see if he ever got the message.

Over the next seventeen hours and four train switches across Europe, things were relatively uneventful. ZC slept and took pictures of JC and I almost the entire time, which led to a good catalog of shots with me looking angry, tired and frustrated. We almost blew our first train to Utrecht, as there was a local on one track and an express on the other within a few minutes of each other and we almost got on the local (thanks, crazy Dutchman for not letting us do that).

At Utrecht, despite only having 12 minutes to get to our next train, we made it fine and I managed to have time to call CA and let him know that we'd be arriving in Florence at 5:30am. We transferred to a train that would take us to Frankfurt and ended up sitting at one of those table-seats in the middle of the smoking car. Across from us were four gay, deaf Germans who were playing Uno. One of them was cradling a teddy bear and another was breathing loudly through his mouth. “Uno” was said by a small squeaking noise while putting an index finger in the left corner of the mouth. All very strange. ZC took a picture and then fell asleep immediately, not waking up until our next transfer in Frankfurt.

Our next stop gave us a tiny bit more time, but not much. The Frankfurt train station was all too familiar for me as R and I spent eight hours there hiding from the rain while we were waited for a bus to Sweden back in July of 2003. Not much has changed. I picked up some water and apple-flavored mentos for the next leg to Munich and then headed to the platform.

The next train to Munich was completely full. There was a massive push of people to find unreserved seats on the train. I led the way down the aisles and, in the third car we came to, had to lift my entire suitcase over my head to get by someone going the other direction. We ended up at another four-person table, but the signs above the windows said that it was going to be reserved after the next stop. Just after sitting down, I went to grab my train tickets out of my pocket and realized that they weren't there. I asked JC and ZC if I'd handed them my tickets at some point, both looked a bit and then said, “no”. As soon as the train started moving and everyone had sat down I started searching back through the way we came, asking the conductor and the dining car guy along the way if anyone had turned any tickets in. I figured they probably fell out when I had lifted my suitcase over that guy and searched all over the floor as I headed back to my seat. Finding nothing, I started to worry a little bit and assumed that I'd just have to pay again for my ticket to Frankfurt (I'd handed over possession of the joint tickets for the Frankfurt-Munich and Munich-Florence legs to JC as soon as we received them, so at least I hadn't lost those). Just as the conductor was coming up to collect the tickets, a lady tapped on my shoulder and asked me something in German that definitely contained the word “tickets”.

“Yes! I lost my tickets!” I said, whereupon she went back to her seat and brought them back to me. Too relieved to say “thanks”, I just smiled really big and waited for the adrenaline to run out of my system.

Once we hit the next stop, we were supplanted by a group of students who I assumed were from a deaf school (on account of their deafness and backpacks, of course). JC and I secured one empty seat and placed ZC in it where he could sleep (man, did he sleep a lot) and, over the next two hours, the two of us ended up standing in between cars with a bunch of other people, which isn't such a bad place to be on a German train. JC and I were standing with some of the other students when we came to another station and the seat next to ZC became free. JC jumped on it and put his bag down, but then decided to give his seat to one of the students to try to up our karma. Another seat opened up about an hour outside of Munich and I nabbed it and then napped the rest of the way.

Arriving in Munich around 7pm, our last connection to the train that would take us to Florence gave us an hour to spare in the station. While on the train to Munich, I'd realized that I still didn't know if R had even made it from Copenhagen to Florence, if she'd found the hotel, or if she knew where I was; so I was pretty pressed to get to a phone. We managed to contact CA after getting some change and found that everyone, R included, was doing just fine sitting at a bar in a square somewhere in Florence. CA gave the phone to R whose first words were something along the lines of: “You've got a bunch of my clothes in your bag! I need my flip-flops and stuff for the spa day tomorrow! When are you getting here?”

“I love you, too,” I said, “and I'm fine.”

I got the address of our hotel from R and then CA gave us addresses for his apartment and JC's rented apartment. He said that my hotel was around the corner from his place where ZC was going to stay, so we figured that ZC and I could just go to CA's apartment when we got to Florence and I could find my hotel from there.

Off the phone, JC remembered that there was a Donner Kebab place across from the Munich station from the last time he'd been there and his memory proved correct. The three of us went out and each scarfed one down before heading back into the station for the train.

“I really hope it's a German train,” JC said.

“Me too,” I said, “if it's an Italian train it'll be filthy, slow and late getting into Florence.”

Our string of bad luck continued as a dilapidated hunk of red metal rolled into the station on our track and we all let out a well-practiced groan. Luckily, we had reserved seats on the night train and settled into a six person booth-type deal able to each stretch our legs onto the seat across from us. Our karma being what it was, this only lasted for one stop when an older German man and his wife whose English was as good as our German (see “horrible”) joined us in our booth. Being seven feet tall, JC was NOT happy to have to sit across from me and we ended up having to arrange a I-get-to-put-my-crossed-feat-on-this-corner-of-your-seat-if-you-get-to-put-your-crossed-feet-on-the-corner-of-my-seat arrangement.

Being Italian, the train rolled into Florence's Campo di Marta station about forty minutes late. Unfortunately, this wasn't the station that we'd expected, and we had to look around for how to get to the central station. I asked the lady running the cafe and she said that bus number 12 would take us there. I'd seen a bus pulling up outside as I was going in to ask and ran out to see that it was the number 12, waved them down and hopped on with JC and ZC.

Once at the new station, we split up with ZC and I going to CA's apartment and JC going to the place that he'd rented with a few of the other guys. In front of CA's apartment, I paid the cab driver an asked him if he could direct me to Via Bentacorrdi, where the hotel was.

“It's a left and then the first street on the left,” he said.

I took off, made a left and started looking, but couldn't find the street. I asked someone else and he said it was up on the left back the way I'd come, but didn't sound very confident. I started to get the feeling that the residents that were out at 6:45am didn't want a tourist to think that they had no idea where the a street was. I traced my steps back to CA's apartment and asked someone else.

“It's a right and then a right,” he said (in Italian).

I took off again, made a right and started looking for the street. Again, no dice. I went back and buzzed up to CA's apartment. He got out a map and explained that it was, “a right, across the square diagonally, then the middle street on the right out of three, then a right on the first street. About a five minute walk.”

Again, I took off, followed the instructions and, reaching the hotel door, saw R waiting for me.

“Finally! I was so worried,” she said. “But I have to leave in 15 minutes for the train station to meet with the girls for the spa.”

R left almost immediately and I proceeded to pass out until 11am before going over to CA's to hang out for a while and then go site-seeing with ZC a bit.

The next four days went off without a hitch. There was a fantastic party at the apartment of CA and LS (I guess LA now, right?) that was loud enough to be broken up by the police, an absolutely delicious rehearsal dinner of authentic Tuscan food right around the corner from where Meg's apartment in Florence is going to be followed by cigars and beer in a square, a gorgeous wedding at a villa on a hill that was perfectly timed to just miss the rainy weather twice and be spiced by a rainbow at the end of the ceremony, and finally a wine tour through Tuscany followed by a pizza dinner.

After four days of festivities, on Sunday morning, R and I woke up at 6am and headed to the airport to catch our Sterling flight back to Copenhagen for a connection on Iceland Air. The Sterling flight left at 9am and would land in Copenhagen at 11:15, giving us about 3 hours to make our 2pm flight. Because we'd had to split up in Copenhagen with me going to Amsterdam and R staying an extra day, I'd booked the travel separately. This was the first time I'd done this and, combined with my recent flying experience, I was a little nervous about making the first flight, because we'd have no recourse to be reimbursed for the second leg if we missed it. We got the airport two and a half hours early and were checked in and through security in no time. After we'd waited about an hour, another friend of CA's who was with me in Amsterdam (and one of the three who'd been lucky enough to get on in our group of six) came and sat down next to us to wait for his 10:15 flight to Paris. Just after he'd sat down, people started crowding around the gate counter where our flight to Copenhagen was going to leave from. We looked up at the monitors and saw that the plane had been rerouted to Bologna and now listed no departure time whatsoever. We checked with those around the counter and they said that a sudden patch of fog had caused the plane we were supposed to leave on to be rerouted and that they were going to put us on a bus to Bologna to meet the plane.

“How long is that going to delay our arrival in Copenhagen,” I asked. “I mean, we only have two hours and forty-five minutes as it is to collect our bags at baggage claim and check in again.”

“It will probably be a two or three hour delay,” the gate agent said.

R and I immediately went into action asking them if they had numbers for Iceland Air, where a phone was, etc. The only pay phone in the waiting area where we were wasn't working at all, so I jetted back out to the main terminal outside of security to search for a pay phone. Finding nothing working there either, I went to the information desk and asked if they could help me.

“This is a Sterling flight, you'll have to ask them for help in the other line there... but there are no Sterling agents,” one employee told me.

“Can't you do anything to help me?”

“I'm sorry.”

I went back through security and found R. She'd started up a conversation with the woman seated across from us, who volunteered to let us use her phone to try calling the one number we could find on our e-tickets for Iceland Air. We called and called, but it kept saying that the number didn't exist. I went and asked the gate agents if they had a number for Iceland Air. They said, “no”. I asked if they had a number that I could call to reach the airport in Copenhagen. Again, the same response.

“Seriously,” I asked, “there's no number that you can give me to help me solve this? You don't even have the number of the airport that this plane is flying into.”

“I'm sorry.”

R went into a jewelry shop within the terminal and asked the clerk if he could look up the Icelandair website for her. He had her sit down at the computer and let her look it up herself. She came back with four different numbers to try and the nice lady across from us let us borrow her phone again. I tried each of the numbers and each time was rerouted to the same call center which, after five menu options, told me it was closed on Sunday and gave me no further instructions. We were stuck. There was no number to call that would pick up. Right as all hope was lost, the screen changed again and said that the plane had come back to Florence and was now slated for departure at 10:30. This would put us into Copenhagen at 12:45 and leave us with an hour and fifteen minutes to get the two bags, check in again, go through security and make the plane. It would be tough, but doable. We both started to relax. Then, at 10:15 when we still hadn't boarded the plane, the departure time was changed to 11:20. This made things a lot tighter and would leave us with only 25 minutes to do everything. My stomach flipped upside down as I started to realize that there was no way we could make our second flight.

We boarded and were taken by bus to the plane. At 11:30, we were still sitting on the runway and “waiting for the last passenger”, finally taking off at 11:40. Not good. A half hour outside of Copenhagen, we struck up a conversation with a fabulous guy in the aisle seat, Peter, who listened to our story and took pity on us. If only there was something he could have done. We discussed the plan of what to do when the plane touched down and decided that I would run ahead to see if I could get somebody to hear us out while R went and waited for the bags. A flight attendant allowed me to move to a seat in the front row of the plane to give me a fast exit and I brought my stuff up as we were about to land.

As soon as the door opened, I bolted out and ran across two terminals to the gate where our flight was leaving from. I pushed my way to the front of the boarding line and explained the situation. The attendant said that the only thing I could do was wait for R with the bags, because neither Iceland Air nor Sterling would accept responsibility for them since we'd purchased the tickets separately.

R and I hadn't planned on meeting at the gate, but instead were going to meet up at the check-in counter outside of baggage claim, so I ran back down to baggage claim and found her waiting with Peter. I told her to meet me at the main check-in counter out front and ran into the main terminal.

Telling people your flight is leaving in 15 minutes works wonders and had me at the front of the line in no time. Once there, a really nice attendant tried to help me, but I could tell from the look on his face that there was no way I was going to make the flight with our two bags. We'd considered ditching the bags, but with all of the clothes we had in there for the wedding, it really wouldn't have been worth it. I spoke with a supervisor and he checked the flight info again to confirm that it was closed. He sent me over to the SAS ticketing counter and, unlike in Amsterdam, this time the number I pulled (137) sent me to a booth immediately. I explained the story and while the agent looked to see what my options are, I walked back and forth to the check-in counters to make sure I found R when she came out. After 10 minutes, she and Peter came out with the bags. We said goodbye to Peter, who wished us luck, and went back over to the ticketing counter to see what the situation was.

“Well, your tickets are changeable for $200, so that's good,” she said. “But, the next flight that is available with your class of ticket isn't until May 8th.”

“Ugh. How much would it cost to get a ticket for tomorrow,” I asked.

“A lot,” she said. (We had her look it up. $4,000 is, indeed, “a lot”).

“Couldn't they bump us up a class or something?”

“No, I'm sorry. With these tickets you can't move up a class. You would have to buy a new ticket.”

With no real other options, we had her start the booking process to get us on the Tuesday flight back to DC and went to try to contact our friend AP who we'd visited the week before to see if she have us as guests again. After calling a few times an hour for two hours or so, R finally got AP on the phone and all was well. She had another friend, LT, in town who we also hadn't seen in forever and the four of us met up and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Copenhagen's parks.

The next day, LT, R and I took the train into town and walked the main shopping street, took a boat tour in the afternoon and then dropped LT off at the train station so that she could go to the airport to catch her flight back to London.

Our Iceland Air flights on Tuesday (today, I suppose) were uneventful and here I am.

In all, it was a fantastic trip. I've never missed a flight before in my life and have now missed two in a week. Given the number of planes R and I have been on, I think our record is actually still pretty good. I was really nervous this morning before heading out of AP's apartment to walk to the train station, but along the way had the realization that things could be a hell of a lot worse. Imagine if any of these flight problems had happened during our trip to India. Getting caught in a terminal there would have meant having to go back into the thick of New Delhi's chaos.

Maybe this was just years of great luck catching up to me, though I don't really believe in luck. The real causes of our recent travel woes were: (1) a KLM agent who could only process 3 people at a time despite the fact that the woman next to her was able to check in a family of eight all at once and (2) a small cloud in Florence that lasted only 15 minutes but cost a few hundred dollars and two more days of negative vacation time. Thanks, little cloud!

I'd never been to Italy as an adult before this trip and can't say enough good things about it. The people were really nice, the city of Florence was clean and welcoming and the countryside was absolutely gorgeous. It was fantastic to see all of the old friends and to meet some amazing new ones. I'd also never been to Copenhagen or Amsterdam as an adult and found these places equally stunning.

Now R and I can settle in and start planning for our own wedding. With no foreseeable trips between now and then, we should have plenty of time.

Nyt indlæg

2007-04-28T13:05:00.000-04:00

That's Danish for "New Post". Blogger has automatically switched the administration interface of Ye Olde Blog over to Danish because that's where I'm logged in from. Ridiculous. We landed here in Copenhagen at something like 6am East Coast time after a 2 hour stop in Reykjavik. Our friend AP and her boyfriend AT met us at the airport and the four of us went back to their apartment to unload stuff before driving into downtown Copenhagen to take in some sites. On the way to the apartment we got a chance to stop in a local grocery store to pick up food for dinner. It's always best to visit a country where you know someone who actually lives there, because you'll get to experience things like visiting a grocery store, taking the bus and otherwise seeing the place from a bit closer to the perspective of a resident.

Once downtown, we grabbed a hot dog from a vendor and walked along the main shopping strip of Copenhagen to see what there was to see and to pick up some candy that would remind R of her childhood growing up in Sweden (I suppose that, as well as the memories, another reason was the consumption of the candy itself).

Copenhagen seems generally walkable (not to mention ridiculously bikable), but one site, the Little Mermaid statue (Den Lille Havfrue) was far enough out of the way that we had to find alternate means. We had looked into taking a tour boat that would go along the canals and stop off the water from the statue, but AT recommended that we take the bus as it was beginning to rain, a little cold and the bus was heated. I thought the bus sounded a bit lame compared to a boat, but the price was right and it was definitely rainy and cold. The "bus" turned out to be a "water bus", which is basically the public transportation version of the tourist boat, except that it makes stops on either side of the Inderhavnen and lets you get on and off as you please with only 20 minutes between rides. Even better, it costs $2 where the tourist boat costs $12. Hell yes, "water bus"!

After getting off the water bus, we meandered back to the car by an alternate route and came back to the apartment for dinner. Now it's 6:06PM EST and I'm ready for bed!

Back in a Bit

2007-04-27T15:52:00.000-04:00

R and I are off to a wedding in Florence via Copenhagen and Amsterdam leaving in, oh, about 10 minutes. I'm bringing the lappy, so updates are possible. If not, I'll have pictures up when we get back on May 6th. Adios!

Seriously just a boring description of what I did this weekend to accompany the picture

2007-04-22T22:36:00.000-04:00

What a gorgeous weekend! I maximized on the weather and managed to spend 80% of the daylight outdoors on both Saturday and Sunday (ok, well, more like 50% on Saturday).
Saturday R had to work at 8am and left with me still sleeping in bed making empty offers to walk her to work, but I got up by 9 to start puttering around the house. I came up with a great idea for a new project last weekend or the week before and decided to spend most of the afternoon seeing what I could find as far as prior art. The morning was spent re-spackling a crack in the bathroom ceiling that I'd been meaning to take care of for, oh, a year or so. I also did a couple of loads of laundry in the new machine. It's quiet as a mouse, which is pretty huge given that the old one sounded like a jet engine and could be heard on the street. After I put a second load in the washer, my friend CG called to see about lunch. We grabbed something at the store and ate on the back deck so that I could hear when the dryer finished. Once CG left, I buckled down and started working on researching how to write this new program/web business idea. By the time R got home, I'd figured out that it was pretty simple to do if I knew Python, so I set about learning how to program in Python (it's supposed to be "simple", I find it insane. But that's because I don't understand a thing about Object Oriented Programming).
I got far enough into figuring out how to make the program do what I wanted to do that I haven't been separated from the macbook here since Saturday evening. On Saturday night I took it with us over to CG's so that R and he could shoot the shit and watch TV and I could sit around playing on the lappy. My nerdiness abated after Gin and Tonic #3 at which point I started to realize the finer points of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift". False.
Sunday morning I met DS for coffee for an hour or so in the sun before heading up to Bethesda to visit R's parents. Along the way to the metro after coffee we got to meet up with DK and his blanket in Dupont to say hello. Once in Bethesda and after a trip to Ikea to replace my bedside table-lamp and buy some decor for the wedding, I set up camp in the backyard with an extension cord and a few glasses of iced tea to continue the nerding. Now, here I am back at home and continuing the same before bed. I'm also excited to start a new project at work on Monday as the site I've been working on is about to wrap up. R and I leave for a wedding in Florence on Friday evening with us making stops to visit friends in Copenhagen and Amsterdam along the way. I imagine that posts will be sparse after we leave, but pictures plentiful when we get back. That's all I've got!

Black Cat Makeover

2007-04-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

I was surprised Friday morning to see a coat of white paint being applied to the black cat. "Holy Crap!" I thought, "that doesn't make any sense."

I was totally right that it didn't make sense, but wrong to think that this was the only coat of paint. On my way back in the afternoon, I found that it was just the primer. "Whew."

R and I took it easy last night as she had to work all day today and I was still feeling a little spent from having seen Le Loup on Monday night at dc9, Ratatat on Tuesday night at the 930 club and TV on the Radio on Wednesday night after kickball (8-0, bitches!). We went over to R's old work for a for a few drinks and then finished watching Running with Scissors, which I highly recommend.

Your Local DC 14th Street Crime Watch

2007-04-20T09:29:00.000-04:00

At least twice a week on my way to or from work I seem to witness police arresting someone or trying to. First it was outside the FCH in a snow storm, then a week ago it was watching a bus get pulled over at 14th and S and a woman taken off in handcuffs. Yesterday, I watched as 5 police cars came flying out of Riggs and S streets to pull up in Front of Sparky's espresso cafe and start fanning out down 14th to search for something. I still haven't been able to figure out what the actual story is with their presences. All I've pieced together so far is that there was a bike that had been folded in half in the middle of the street and a lot of attention paid to this new clothing store called Redeem. Another boutique clothing store a block away called Pop was robbed about three months ago, as well. There appears to be a lot of shady activity in the two blocks around Riggs and R streets where they intersect with 14th.

The Washer Saga Comes to a Close

2007-04-16T10:17:00.000-04:00

If you remember the whole washer saga from this post you can skip the little summary of the situation here:

The only other thing happening around here besides work is some standard condo association turmoil. I'll see if I can summarize it all in ninety-nine words or less:
On October 17th 2006, washer of current stackable starts making horrible noise. Repair man says that bearing are shot, $700 to fix. Condo has meeting and, after much communication on the message board and answering of questions about fitting new stackable, connecting, cost, delivery, removal, etc. fifth unit finally votes and puts us above 66% for the 6 units in the building on November 23rd. One unit, #5, votes to repair instead of replace. Unfortunately, the last unit caveats her vote with the fact that she only wants to replace the washer when it is "really" broken. This seems to make sense and the vote passes.
Fast forward to March 12th when another unit finally complains that the noise has gotten too loud. Three other units (including me) agree that the washer is finally "broken" and I start to move towards replacing. Sudden emails regarding questions about the same matters "will it fit?", "who will install it?", "what if it doesn't fit?" start flooding in from the remaining two units that were hesitant. The unit that originally voted to repair and raised such a stink starts insisting that any replacement stackable washer "must separate into two pieces, otherwise it won't fit through the doorway." I measure doorways, call to confirm that we can return it the same day if it doesn't fit, etc. It doesn't help. The last unit still keeps insisting that if it can't separate into two pieces, it won't fit. I call. It can't separate. We have the 66% to go ahead and get it anyway and we already voted on the model... so I think I'm just going to order this week. This will cause a HUGE problem with the asshole unit.

We went ahead and ordered the new washer and had it delivered on Saturday, but before I tell you how it went, I thought I'd let you read some of the emails (names changed to protect the innocent/non-innocent) that were going around before its delivery.
It all started when Unit 4 sent this email saying that the old machine had become too loud and that it needed to be replaced.

Date: March 10, 2007
From: [Unit 4]
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Screeech!!!

Dear neighbors,

I request the washer be replaced. The high-pitched screeching noise
as the washer runs, has been entering my apartment for months and
getting louder, longer, and higher-pitched with time. We have the
capital to correct this condo problem, so I am not seeing other
barriers as to why we cannot replace the washer at this time. Please,
please, I urge that we just do it.

[Unit 4]

Despite multiple attempts and written walk-throughs that I've sent her, Unit 6 doesn't have the technical/mental prowess to sign up for the Yahoo! group that we use as our list serv. Thus, we have to remember to CC her on any message to the condo association because otherwise she can't see it. As you can see above, Unit 4 forgot to CC her. Units 2, 3 and my unit (1) agreed with unit 4 that it was replacement time in reply to the original email, thus leaving unit 6 off of the chain. Then I got this:

Date: March 12, 2007
From: [Unit 6]
To: [Greg]
Subject: Not Funny At All

Hi Guys,

I am highly surprised because I have never gotten any of these emails about coordinating for the new washer and already there is a plan to replace the old one. ( everyone knows that for some crazy reason I can not get any condo emails and I need to be cced at my personal email.)

First at all I do not appreciate the fact that no one REMEMBER or worse did not have the courtesy of being political correct ( style in this city..I am so surprised) to ask me about MY CONDITIONAL VOTE in regards of the washer.

We all acknowledge in our Condo meeting past January 2007 that my vote was contingent if the washer breaks. The washer is NOT broken just have a hideous noise.

If you guys want a NEW WASHER because it is hideous looking , smells , makes noise, does not wash properly you just have to ask- that simple.

I have some questions :

1.- Is it costing the same?

2.-It is the washer going to fit trough our main door/back door?

3.- Are the pipes from the new washer the right measure for the water heater pipe? if it doesn't fit then and the old one is already hauled then we won't have a washer to use!! and then we need a plumber to fix it! and NO WASHER..

I might come across as obnoxious rising these questions but I want to remind you that we live in a weird building with weird measures for doors, closets, corners, stairs, fixtures and room temperatures... and I do not even know how the builder put the washer and dryer in the laundry room in first place. We must be careful.

Thanks for your attention.

[Unit 6].

All of the questions that Unit 6 asked in this email were addressed back when we were choosing the right model for the room. Measurements were taken, arguments made, etc. Being the patient soul that I am, the next time I ran into her on the street, I apologized for her not having been CCed and repeated what she should have already known if she'd bothered showing up, reading meeting minutes or reading any of the 100 messages that are posted to the message board on this topic. The day after I explained things to Unit 6 in person, she wrote me to say that unit #5 also wanted to hear what the answers were to her questions. So I wrote this email:

Date: March 15th, 2007 6:49pm
From: Greg
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Re: Message from [Unit 6]

All,

I talked these concerns over with [unit 6], but she said that unit 5 also
wanted the answers to the questions so that we're all on the same
page/appeased.

As far as the cost of the washer, it should still be the same price as
the model that we voted on a few months ago. I checked the website
last week and it was the same.

As far as being able to fit the washer into the room, it's the same
size as the old one within a quarter of an inch, so it should fit.
Obviously I can't promise anything, but trust me when I say that we'll
return the friggin thing if it doesn't fit in the basement. Given that
Sears is delivering and installing, we can just have them take it back
immediately.

As far as connecting the pipes, Sears will do that as well (it's
really just two hoses and a plug, which I'll be disconnecting before
delivery and are easily reconnectable if the thing doesn't fit).

I haven't ordered the new one yet as I was waiting to see if there
were any objections to [unit 4]'s request. Given the level of noise
being created by this thing, I'd really like to get a new one ordered
this week.

:Greg:

It only took resident A of unit 5 an hour and and twenty minutes to respond to my answers:

Date: March 15th, 2007 8:07pm
From: [Unit 5 - resident A]
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Re: Message from [Unit 6]

[Unit 6] raises some very valid concerns.

1. The big question is can the new washer be installed in two separate pieces (like the current one), or only in one piece ? The new washer is a half inch higher and about 3 inches deeper, and it won't fit through the door unless it can be separated in two pieces.

2. Does the 75 and a half inch height measurement of the proposed new washer/dryer include the little rubber feet it stands on?
If yes, the top of the unit will just barely brush up against...(.or if we are lucky just barely fit under)..... the copper pipe running to the water heater. But if the height measurement does not include the little feet it stands on, then installation will be obstructed by that pipe. The water heater pipe would have to be moved by a plumber using a saw torch and joint. This is not the job of the washer installation guy, and would be an extra expense and delay to us. The current washer is one half inch shorter and the copper pipe only clears it by one half an inch. We need to account for the uneveness of the floor, the feet the proposed new washer stands on, and its extra half inch in height.

These two questions need to be answered before proceeding with a new purchase and installation..

As you recall, #5 and 6 supported repairing the existing washer last fall while it was still under warranty. This would have cost half as much, there would be no noise now, and we wouldn't be facing these installation problems.

Thank you, and I hope the answers are favorable.

[Unit 5 - resident A]

So Unit #5 is already saying "I told you so" before there ever really is an "installation problem". Ridiculous. I read this email as a stalling tactic or just bitterness on their part at having not won the initial vote. My argument was that we'd already voted on the exact model of washer after a long discussion about sizes. In fact, unit #5 and I went to the basement and measured the current washer/dryertogether to make sure a 75 1/2" unit would fit in the space!

Lucky for me, before I could reply to this riduculousness, Unit #6 wrote to agree that it was time to replace and we had 5 of 6 units in agreement. I forwarded her email along to the group on March 16th, but unit #5 still wasn't satisfied:

Date: March 16, 2007
From: [Unit 5 - resident A]
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Re: a message from [unit 6]

I have not yet seen the answers to my questions about whether the washer and dryer can be separated for installation and how the height of the new washer will affect the copper water heater pipe above . I am confident Greg is checking on it with Sears, so Greg, please let us know when you have the answers. We don't want to run into any of these extra expenses [unit 6] is talking about, and a new washer won't do us any good if it doesn't fit, so let's be sure beforehand.
Thanks,
[Unit 5 - resident A]

I took a couple of days to scream and bitch about how these questions were just being posed because of sour grapes. I firmly believed that, having measured all the spaces and doorways, the washer would fit even if it couldn't be separated into two parts. Answering the question posed by unit #5 regarding separation would give the question itself too much merit, which I refused to do. So I called Sears, but just confirmed with them that if the washer didn't fit through the door, we could return it immediately and have all charges refunded. I also went and disconnected and reconnected the existing washer completely to confirm that it was something I could do again if the new one didn't fit. Then I sent this email:

Date: March 19, 2007 12:41pm
From: Greg
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Re: A message from [unit 6]

Hi everyone,

I called Sears yesterday and confirmed that delivery includes putting the new washer into the laundry room. As we discussed during the washer vote, they will also remove the old unit for ten dollars extra. In addition, I confirmed that, if the washer does not fit into the laundry room, we can "refuse delivery", have them take it back on the truck that day and be credited back the entire amount. While I admit it might seem a waste of time to have something delivered and taken back, I do not believe we can be sure of whether or not a new washer will fit until we try getting it down there (when I suggested they send someone out to take measurements, the guy laughed and asked why I didn't just have them come try and the refuse delivery).

As far as the splitting the washer into two pieces, I did not inquire with Sears once I had learned that we could refuse it if it doesn't fit. Since we've already voted on the machine itself, whether or not it splits into two parts is now moot.

Given the fact that we can return the washer if it does not fit, and given that all but one unit have agreed they are OK to go ahead with replacement, I plan to order the unit this week. I will come back to the board with any problems that pop up (like, if, say, they no longer carry the model we voted on half a year ago).

In other news: I met with [redacted] from [the trash company] this morning and gave him the new key to the back, so that problem should be resolved.

Also, I inquired with [redacted] regarding the back wall and getting a second quote. He responded regarding the necessity of all the items mentioned in the first quote, but failed to address my request for a second quote from a different contractor. I will ping him again this week.

In addition, in the future, please do not assume that I will personally answer any question that is posed about the various issues in front of the board. I devote a significant amount of my time to these issues and to worrying about them, but it should not be assumed that I have all the time in the world to satisfy every request. If you have an urgent question that you feel you could answer yourself, please feel free to do so and then report back to the group.

Greg

This time it took unit #5 over five hours to respond, but it was just as infuriating as ever:

Date: March 19, 2007 5:54pm
From: [Unit 5 - resident B]
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: Re: A message from Unit 6

Again, Greg, your message did not answer the simple key question posed by [unit 5 - resident A]: is the washer separable from the dryer.
Please read the following attentively:

The proposed washer/dryer's measurements do not fit the parameters of the building. It's a simple fact and I do not need to try to fit the washer or ask a salesman (!) about it. No matter how you tweak it -- it does not work if the washer is unseparable! Before we enbark on another slopily executed project please get these facts straight.

I'm concerned that we may wind up with an uninstalled old washer and no new washer at all. Can you imagine this mess? So it's not really the question of refused delivery, but common sense and practicality.

I feel a lot of resentment in your message, but [unit 5 - resident A] raised very valid points and nothing personal. As President, please keep your mind open to his points as well.

Best regards,

[Unit 5 - resident B]

At this point, I was completely livid and had to write one of those emails that I'll never send and would later delete. Let's just say that it explained in mostly four letter words why I had so much "resentment". I'm 100% positive that Unit 5 had already called Sears and confirmed what I had also found out: that the washer does not split into two separate pieces for delivery. They were just trying to make me say it to the condo board so that they could then say "I told you so" a few more times and try to have a re-vote to get it repaired instead of replaced (like they'd wanted to since the year before). All this stress for a stackable laundry unit? Seriously? I finally came around, thanks in large part to R, and realized that I couldn't let these people get to me any more than they already had. I laughed off the "parameters" email as being the insane ramblings of a disgruntled and sexually frustrated freak and told the treasurer to just go ahead and order the washer. Once we'd found out the delivery date, I waited a few days to let unit 5 squirm (bad karma for me) and then sent around this email:

Date: April 2, 2007
From:Greg
To: [Condo Assoc]
Subject: New Washer

Sorry for not updating everyone earlier. Yes the washer/dryer has been ordered. It's scheduled to be delivered on Saturday, April 14th. I plan on being home to disconnect our unit, determine if the delivered unit will fit and reconnect the old one if need be. Sears "requires" that the old one be disconnected by us for removal, but I'll wait until the delivery guy gets there to see if he'll let us wait to disconnect until we know that the new one fits in the room. If it doesn't, we'll get to have lots more fun discussions on what to do next!

On the morning of Saturday, April 14th, the Sears delivery guys pulled up in front of the house and loaded the unit off the back of the truck. I asked the delivery guy if he could take a look at the laundry room situation and tell me if he thought it would fit.
As soon as we got down to the laundry room, his eyes widened a little, but not a lot. Then he said, "Oh, your old one is gas."
"Yeah, I know," I said. "Isn't the one we ordered gas as well?"
"Well, yes. But we're not allowed to install gas."
"Um..."
"Because of regulations, you have to have a plumber install the gas line. Didn't they tell you that?"
"Well, no." I said, "but isn't that the kind of thing I can really do myself with two wrenches? Could you walk me through it?"
He agreed to walk me through, then busted out a tape measure and started measuring all the angles. My plan was to have them try to get the new unit in the room first and, if it didn't fit, just hook the old one back up. I thought I explained this pretty well, but the delivery guy and his partner started removing the old unit anyway, explaining that they would have too much trouble trying to get it out with another washer in the room. I figured this would still work as long as they could just bring the old one back in if the new one didn't fit. This would all have been fine and good, until partner guy decided that instead of unplugging the old washer from the wall, he would just cut the cord. I saw this and gasped.
"I thought you said the washer was broken?" the delivery guy said.
"Well, it still kind of worked. I guess the new one reallyspan> has to fit now."
"It will fit. Don't worry."
With a little pushing and shoving and some attention to angles, delivery guy was right. The old unit was taken out (in two pieces, ironically) and the new one was placed in. I was left to hook up all the venting and tubes and such, but I had a pretty good handle on it thanks to my dad being Captain DIY and having forced me to hook up no less than three washers when it was raining too hard to be roofing.
So that's it. The new washer is in. The old one is out. The new one never separated into two pieces to be installed, despite claims that "no matter how you tweak it -- it does not work if the washer is unseparable". I'm not going to say "I told you so" in a personal email to Unit 5 or in an email to the condo association because I think karma would catch up to me if I did. I might not even say it here. I'll just imply it by talking about how much I want to say it. Instead, I sent a passive aggressive email announcing the installation:

Date: April 14, 2007
From: Greg
To:[ Condo Assoc]
Subject: New Washer

The new washer is installed and ready for use. R and I are running a load of towels just to make sure that both the washer and dryer are working correctly (i.e. that the hot and cold aren't mixed up and that the gas is working). I'll put a note on it if we notice anything funny, but otherwise please use the machine as you normally would.

Like the old machine, the new one is a High Efficiency washer and it is recommended that you use High Efficiency (HE) detergent in the machine to extend its life. If you use regular detergent, it is recommended that you only use 1/4 of the regular amount as high efficiency washers use less water and therefore require less detergent (oversudsing from too much is also what kills the bearings).

Thanks for making this happen, everyone!

Greg

Well, that's it. The whole story. Unless the new one breaks.

Internet Famous

2007-04-13T17:48:00.000-04:00

My DC Taxi Zones Google Map made the DCist today. Sweet!

OK. So maybe I do have some time on my hands.

2007-04-12T23:49:00.000-04:00

Google released this new My Maps feature on Google Maps sometime last week that let's you add your own lines, shapes, pointers and notes to maps. I'm working on two different ones and thought I'd share what I have so far. The first is a Ward Map for DC. I never know what's in what ward, so this is a great way to do a map search and then have my map appear over it so that I know what's where. I created this map by eyeballing the fantastic pdf located here. There's plenty more that could be added within the wards to separate out the various ANC/SMD boundaries, but enough is enough... for now.

DC Wards Google Map

The second and, I believe, more useful of the two is an overlay of all the different DC taxi cab zones. Now I'll now when my ride is 1 zone or two without having to google "Taxi Cab Zones DC" and downloading a stupid PDF that only lists 1 street name for each border. That PDF was impossible to read, but it's also what I used to try to create this, which is why it still says "in progress". Enjoy!

DC Taxi Zones Google Map

While it probably seems really tedious to sit there flipping back and forth between a pdf and google maps and drawing shapes one click at a time, I think I actually find it kind of soothing. Who knows, maybe I will finish off those ANC/SMD boundaries.

Wolfy!

2007-04-12T09:31:00.000-04:00

I said that I was surprised back in the day when Bush appointed Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. Today there's a story in the Washington Post about Wolfowitz coming under fire:

For Wolfowitz, Slings and Arrows

Growing hostility within the World Bank toward its president, Paul D. Wolfowitz, is raising questions about his ability to lead the big lending institution and raise money for a fund that assists the developing world.

Wolfowitz's tenure, contentious from the start because of his earlier role as an architect of U.S. policy in Iraq, has been marred in recent months by a series of controversies. World Bank staffers disclosed that a woman with whom Wolfowitz is romantically involved received big pay raises from the bank. Sensitive board minutes regarding China have been leaked to the press, and blistering criticism has been leveled at Wolfowitz on an internal electronic bulletin board.

This reminded me of another article I read in the New Yorker a week or two ago that looked more into the personality of Wolfowitz.

The Next Crusade

On a wall of the mosque was some ornate writing in Arabic. “Is that the Fatiha?” Wolfowitz asked, referring to a passage in the Koran. No, the imam replied, explaining that the writing was from another passage. Wolfowitz taught himself Arabic in the nineteen-eighties, when he was working at the State Department. (He also speaks French, German, Hebrew, and Indonesian.) Last year, during a visit to a mosque in eastern China, he recited a prayer from the Koran in Arabic. This time, as he was leaving the mosque, he encountered a dozen or so news photographers who had gathered to document his visit. Bending down to change back into his shoes, Wolfowitz removed a slipper, revealing a large hole in the toe of one gray wool sock. Then he removed the other slipper, exposing another hole. Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank’s vice-president for Europe and Central Asia, tried to step between Wolfowitz and the photographers, but it was too late. The camera shutters clicked.

Given the poll results from yesterday's post, it looks like the blog will likely just keep rolling along. Please vote if you haven't already!

So long blog... sort of. Take the poll.

2007-04-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to play with the idea of retiring ye 'olde blog(e). I'd love to say that it's for no other reason than that the posts have gotten further apart, but the real reason is that there are people reading this who shouldn't be reading it. These people would be my former coworkers who haven't bothered to contact me since I quit two months ago, but still appear to be checking in on my blog from time to time. At first, I thought that because no one had sent an email or anything, they didn't care and weren't checking the blog anyway (this is after they'd found the blog through a scorpion link and failed to tell me they'd done so. In fact, they've never told me, I had to find out through the logs.). But tonight I went through the site logs for the first time in two months and found that I've had visitors from good old LECG as recently as April 9th:

Hi there, whichever one of you that is! Scorpion? Wonder Boy? Big Fearless? All of you? Glad to see that you're still so interested in what I'm up to! Thanks for keeping in touch! False.

I'd love to say that I don't care who reads this blog, but of course I care: that's why I don't hand out the address to just anyone that I meet. If strangers read it, fine. But isn't it creepy to think that people you saw every day would read it and not tell you that they know it exists?

So now I need to decide what to do next. I can easily set up my own blog using joomla!, or drupal, but how will I know that they won't just spend their bored hours between pointless tasks scouring the web to find it again? They're nerds. It wouldn't be that difficult for them to do. The only solution would be to password protect the new one, but that would make it impossible for anyone to get an RSS feed of posts. Although, if I were to move to a passworded site, it would be really nice to be able to talk smack about the condo association and my old job (hell even the new one) as much as I wanted...

The other option, of course, would be to just come to terms with their lurking on the site and continue to write whatever I'm going to write, knowing full well that they'll belittle and snicker at things they deem "gay" (their term, not mine).

"Hey, did you see this picture of a building? Who takes pictures of buildings? That's so gay. Let's go eat some fast food, buy some $400 puffy dress shirts with monogrammed cuffs and then work until 2am while our hair falls out."

It would also be a shame to shut the thing down now when I just discovered some of the sweet features of the sitemeter logs... like being able to tell that PG spent 17 minutes on here some day in April or that somebody from DOT is visiting all the time (hrm, I wonder who that could be...).

Maybe I'll take a vote. Thanks, polldaddy!

I'm leaning towards #4... or #3. Your thoughts? (If you can't see the poll, it might be blocked by your AdBlock Firefox extension. Haven't heard of Adblock? What the hell is the matter with you?)

Time? What time?

2007-04-03T23:14:00.000-04:00

Speaking of time, all of my clocks that had chips were screwed up on Sunday. Nice work, government, with your decision to do DST early this year. Jerks.

I've been really busy with work. I was put on a project with a tight deadline (May 1st) within my first week and have been working independently and trying to manage myself while coding, which isn't so easy. It doesn't make it any easier that the site is supposed to be ready for testing on April 15th I'm supposed to attend the NTEN Technology Conference for the next three days (as well as Penguin Day all day Saturday). Oh well, I'm sure I'll find time to work in between "geek-out" sessions. I really can't complain about getting to be nerdy all day, anyway.

Speaking of nerdery, I took a look at the system monitor for the MB Pro this evening when Firefox was taking a while to boot up and noticed that one application was taking up triple the memory of all others. Usually, Firefox is the culprit for hogging memory on a mac (a problem that has been an open bug for quite some time), but, given that FF wasn't even booting, I wondered what else it might be. Lo and Behold, it was Microsoft's AutoUpdater for Microsoft O sitting around hogging up 414.99 MB of virtual memory. Leave it to Microsoft to create shitty software for a Macintosh. I put a stop to that piece of crap "toot sweet" by setting it to make me check for updates manually instead of letting it run all the time (don't worry, Meg, I set yours to do the same).

There's not much else to report. R and I are in full wedding-prep mode, but only have to spend an hour or so on specifics each week. Most of the stuff for the actual night of the reception is taken care of. Now it's just a matte of organizing events for the day after and making sure everyone is happy (easier said than done).

I'm loving the new job, but I can't wait to establish myself a bit more there so that I don't feel too self-conscious reading the news at work. The first month or two is always tough as far as being on best behavior is concerned. This isn't to say I've been working late or anything. Instead, I've been spending my time going to shows (le loup was AWESOME, btw. Some pics from the show on flickr here), running at the gym (I have an awesome blister!) and making a website and the invitation designs for the wedding. OK. Time for bed. I'll be taking the lappy with me to the conference the rest of the week, so who knows, I may have time to write.

A Nerdy Suggestion

2007-04-01T09:31:00.000-04:00

Hopefully, you've already discovered the niftiness that is Really Simple Syndication, or RSS. RSS consists of feeds from websites that are meant to summarize recent news, blog posts, etc. If you're using firefox, it's that little orange thing in the top right corner of the address box. I've been searching for the perfect RSS Reader for quite some time. At first, I was using this FireFox plugin called Sage, but the problem with it is that it's local to your computer, so you can't have the same feeds at work without a lot of importing and exporting of feed lists and synching.
Next, I tried using del.icio.us, which, when integrated with FireFox will show the feeds in the bookmark bar on the left. The problem with this one was that it didn't list out the feeds from blogs in date order or remove one that had already been read. No dice.
Next, I tried out BlogLines, which keeps all of your feeds online so that they're accessible from anywhere, but I never found myself actually going to the bloglines website to check feeds and I wasn't about to go changing my home page.
Finally, last week, I ran into Google Reader and the Google Reader Greasemonkey Extension for Gmail in FireFox. Google Reader is a lot like BlogLines. But there's a Greasemonkey script that turns gmail into a split screen with gmail on top and your rss feeds on the bottom. (You can turn off the split screen any time, too.) Of course, none of this works unless you use FireFox and have a Gmail account. Here's what you'll need:

Firefox
A gmail account
A Google Reader account
Some RSS Feeds. You can import a .opml file from BlogLines or Sage that you export OR you can just click the little Orange thing in the Firefox address bar and select Google Reader as the application to read the feed.
The Greasemonkey Firefox Extension
The Gmail + Google Reader Greasemonkey script

Looking at it now, that's a lot of steps, but once it's all up and running it's great to have gmail and your news and blog feeds all in the same place. Once it's all installed, there's a little "Reader" link that pops up in gmail, which, when clicked will drop in a whole Google Reader pane in the gmail style.Ta!

April Fool's Day

2007-04-01T09:16:00.000-04:00

Or is that April Fools' Day. Whatever. Google's joke is here: gmail paper, wherein Google claims to be starting a program where they will add a new Print Archive button to gmail that allows you to print any message and have it mailed to you. At first, I thought, "umm.. ok. but I have a printer." Then I clicked for more information and realized it was a joke. I'm a little embarassed at having had to click. Oh well.

Is it free?
Yes. The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-ups, no flashy animations—these are physically impossible in the paper medium.

How about attachments?
All part of the deal. Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip. MP3 and WAV files will not be printed. We recommend maintaining copies of your non-paper Gmail in these cases.

Is there a limit?
You can make us print one, one thousand, or one hundred thousand of your emails. It’s whatever seems reasonable to you.

But what about the environment?
Not a problem. Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier.

Wig Wednesday Rules!

2007-03-29T00:08:00.000-04:00

This evening was my first experience at wine and wig Wednesday at L'Enfant cafe and I can't say enough good things about the experience. Not only did I get to reuse my wig from the idiotarod, I got half-price wine and French cuisine to boot. I love going to restaurants and having more and more people show up to join the table as the night progresses.

After a couple of hours, nick and I headed to the Rock N Roll Hotel to catch Dirty Projectors opening for Hella. Dirty Projectors: Fantastic. Hella: Experimental Math Rock = Noise. Definitely worth the trip.

The band that opened for Dirty Projectors (whose name I never caught) was a good mix of math-rock and melody (with some sounds like viva voce when they actually played music). One of their songs had the best name ever: "Wizard Certificate". I immediately decided that all future songs should have the same name and then a number after them. The next song I write (OK. The first one.) will be called "Wizard Certificate 2,812."

On the subject of music, the time period between SXSW and Coachella leaves a huge amount of bands touring around the country and we're lucky enough to have a lot of them coming to DC:
Thursday, March 29th. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the 930 club
Sunday April 1st. Do Make Say Think at the Black Cat
Thursday, April 5th. Iggy and the Stooges at the 930 club
Saturday, April 7th. Anti-Flag at the 930 club
Sunday, April 8th. Lily Allen at the 930 club
Tuesday, April 10th. Trans Am at the Black Cat
Friday, April 13th. Junior Boys at the Black Cat
Monday, April 16th. Le Loup at DC9
Tuesday, April 17th. The Books at the 930 club
Tuesday, April 17th late show. Ratatat at the 930 club
Wednesday, April 18th and Thursday April 19th. TV on the Radio at the 930 club
Saturday, April 21st. Hot Chip at the 930 club
Thursday, April 26th. The Frames at the 930 club
Sunday, April 29th. Deerhunter at the RNR hotel
Monday, April 30th. Peter, Bjorn and John WITH Fujiya & Miyagi at the 930 club (THIS IS A MUST)
Friday, May 11th. The Album Leaf at RNR - Soundtrack rock. Minimal vocals and great music.
Saturday, May 12th Dr Dog at RNR - Acoustic guitar rock with sappy lyrics. I'm a sucker for it. Definitely check them out.
Sunday, May 13th. Sloan at the Black Cat
Wednesday, May 16th. Frog Eyes at RNR - The guy from Wolf Parade, Spencer Krug, yells a bunch and makes some awesome semi-experimental music.
Saturday, June 9th. Califone at RNR
Saturday, June 9th. The Sea and Cake at the Black Cat
Wednesday, June 13th. Voxtrot at the Black Cat

mp3s:
You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son - Wolf Parade
Spider's House - Califone
Time Destroys Its Plan At The Reactionary Table - Frog Eyes

Quick

2007-03-28T08:32:00.000-04:00

A quick note. The picture on the left comes from my friend Mike's plog. He is awesome.

I'm too busy trying not to look like a slacker at the new gig to read the news there, so am trying to use the mornings to catch up. Today's stories that caught my eye in the Washington Post or my RSS feeds:

Eco-Friendly Era Has Arrived in Md.
Looks like MD is coming around and realizing that a water full of dish soap makes the crabs less tasty. And when crabs don't taste good, football isn't as enjoyable. And that's what Maryland does. It's unfortunate that environmental regulations have to wait for the market to think it's a good idea, but who knows: they'd probably fail in a few months if the market wasn't behind them, right?

The Maryland General Assembly has passed eco-friendly legislation on everything from climate change to dish soap to oysters. The governor has resolved to treat pollution like street crime, calling his subordinates on the carpet to quiz them about why dirty streams haven't been cleaned up. The attorney general is searching the state for ecological crimes.

Things suddenly feel different around the State House, where environmental advocates and their frequent opponents -- watermen, farmers, developers -- have battled in the past to so many stalemates. That old balance seems to be tipping, thanks to new concerns about climate change, an impending deadline for the Chesapeake Bay, and a political marriage between farmers and environmentalists.

Britain releases evidence in Iran dispute
This isn't good. Evidence that Iran went into Iraq to capture British soldiers is not going to help stop the upcoming US vs. Iran war that Bush and the hawks seem so set upon. Just when I thought the administration would go down in a ball of ethics violations and lies, Britain goes and takes over the hawking. In addition, the US is also performing massive exercise maneuvers off the coast of Iran to show off its (our?) force. This is also not a good sign. Since when does Iran seem to care how powerful the US is? They've always gone ahead and done whatever they want anyway. I hardly think that launching a few dozen planes off an aircraft carrier is going to get them to start behaving.

Britain today released maps and evidence that officials said showed the 15 UK service personnel captured by Iran last week had been 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi territorial waters.
Vice Admiral Charles Style, presenting the information at the Ministry of Defence in London, said the Royal Navy personnel were "ambushed" by the Iranian navy while "well inside" Iraqi waters.
Speaking soon afterwards, Tony Blair said it was time to "ratchet up the international and diplomatic pressure" on Iran and demonstrate Tehran's "total isolation" on the issue.

Other quick items:
Germany introduces Merck's HPV vaccine, which was rushed through the FDA process and attempted to be required in Texas, but then rejected by their state legislature.

And Iraq is still a mess.

Off to work!

Oh man, these a$!holes are all going down

2007-03-27T08:19:00.000-04:00

Gonzalez and Co. are sitting right near the fan as it's being hit by the sh*t and I couldn't be happier to see them get their comeuppance for years of back-room politics and misuse of public funds (honestly, I don't want my taxes being spent so that these pricks can place their friends in high places). What a bunch of clowns. And now this:

Aide to Gonzales Won't Testify
Counselor Cites Fifth Amendment Right in Refusal
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's senior counselor yesterday refused to testify in the Senate about her involvement in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Monica M. Goodling, who has taken an indefinite leave of absence, said in a sworn affidavit to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she will "decline to answer any and all questions" about the firings because she faces "a perilous environment in which to testify."

The trouble with the fifth amendment is that it makes you sound guilty right off the bat because most people think of the part that says no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". But there's more to the fifth than this: it also covers the idea that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury..." (wiki entry). The American people, if they listen, aren't going to take well to their elected officials using the fifth amendment. Goodling is trying to pass the Judiciary committee off as a politically charged forum, which it is. But then, is there something that she feels she would say in a politically charged forum that she wouldn't say in one that was less so?

Either way, things don't look good for Goodling. I don't doubt that a Grand Jury would easily indict her and then she'd have to either testify or go to prison. Talk about making sacrifices for your boss. I wonder if she'll be the scapegoat for Rove on this one like Scooter was for the whole Plame-gate. Rove must owe a lot of people for all the ass-saving he gets.

Hey All You Music Fans

2007-03-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

Last week I started using one of the greatest firefox plug-ins and I've finally decided that it's blog-worthy. This is actually a greasemonkey script that puts a little icon next to the links for any mp3s on a page. You click the icon and the mp3 starts playing. The play icon turns into a stop and you can stop whenever. Starting to play another mp3 with its icon will also stop play. This is freaking fantastic for sampling free mp3s from sites before downloading them.
Semi-excited? Here's how to get started:
[0] Use Firefox. If you're not already, stop reading my blog and go get it, then come back.
[1] Download Greasemonkey. Let it install and click the Restart Firefox link that should pop up. It should lead you back here. If it doesn't, my page is probably already your home page, so just click the thing that looks like a house.
[2] Download the Google mp3 Greasemonkey script and install it.
[3] Go to your favorite site that tends to have free mp3s. If you don't have a favorite site, check out the Elbo.ws music blog aggregator, which links to a bagillion different music blogs and lets you know which ones have mp3s.
[4] Look for mp3s that are linked to and press your new little green arrow.

Sometimes the icons don't show up, but when they do, it makes for easy previewing.

To see more Greasemonkey scripts, check out this list of 20 must see greasemonkey add-ons.

Another picture of a building in my neighborhood. Sorry.

2007-03-24T21:10:00.000-04:00

Snapped this on on the way to work last week. I saw a really nerdy looking guy walking ahead of me and was dead sure that he would probably end up walking into my office. He did.
I'm trying to be good about not reading personal email, news and blogs at the new job, so haven't had much time to see new things and comment on them. CFab is in Egypt right now and has been giving some really good blog while she's there. My dad actually just got back from Cairo on Sunday after he was there for a week looking at a new university they're building. His description of the air quality there started to remind me a lot of India (speaking of which, I've really been meaning to finish that third blog entry that I never got around to... maybe tomorrow).
I'm still debating leaving the house tonight. We shall see. Enjoy the picture.

Second Week = Easy; Condo = Pain in the A!#

2007-03-21T19:15:00.000-04:00

Halfway into my second week at the new job and things are going well. I had a client meeting this morning to explain the company CMS and then spent the rest of the day working on a huge web form for another project (the majority of the time spent writing a nifty module to create a series of radio buttons from a database. Enough nerd talk.

My efforts to take a picture every day on my way to/from work have proved futile, but on the way home I played around with the camera a bit and think that I'm finally getting the hang of some of its manual settings. For a point and shoot, it has a lot of capabilities (like manual focus, flash, aperture, etc.). I don't fancy myself any kind of good photographer, but it's still fun to play with. One has to consider that almost 70% of the country lists photography amongst its hobbies... so there are probably 1,000 pictures of every picture that I take already out there. Just check flickr.

The only other thing happening around here besides work is some standard condo association turmoil. I'll see if I can summarize it all in ninety-nine words or less:
ON October 17th 2006, washer of current stackable starts making horrible noise. Repair man says that bearing are shot, $700 to fix. Condo has meeting and, after much communication on the message board and answering of questions about fitting new stackable, connecting, cost, delivery, removal, etc. fifth unit finally votes and puts us above 66% for the 6 units in the building on November 23rd. One unite votes to repair instead of replace and is a total dick about the whole thing (which is their MO anyway). Unfortunately, the last unit caveats her vote with the fact that she only wants to replace the washer when it is "really" broken. This seems to make sense and the vote passes.

Fast forward to March 12th when another unit finally complains that the noise has gotten too loud. Three other units (including me) agree that the unit is finally "broken" and I start to move towards replacing. Sudden emails regarding questions about the same matters "will it fit?", "who will install it?", "what if it doesn't fit?" start flooding in from the remaining two units that were hesitant. The unit that originally voted to repair and raised such a stink starts insisting that any replacement stackable washer "must separate into two pieces, otherwise it won't fit through the doorway." I measure doorways, call to confirm that we can return it the same day if it doesn't fit, etc. It doesn't help. The last unit still keeps insisting that if it can't separate into two pieces, it won't fit. I call. It can't separate. We have the 66% to go ahead and get it anyway and we already voted on the model... so I think I'm just going to order this week. This will cause a HUGE problem with the asshole unit. Oh well. I think it's time to man up.

Enough about me. In the news:

Gore goes to testify 20 years after he first brought up global warming

Bush draws the line on the Attorney Scandal, but there's a huge email gap that's being looked into. Bush sounded like a total idiot last night during his little speech. I was just glad that the new job has me home at 5:25pm to be able to watch that kind of stuff. And is it just me or does Kyle Sampson (right), former chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general, look a lot like a young Karl Rove. Have they figured out how to clone people or what?!?

DC is probably not going to get voting rights no matter how hard the mayor tries because Bush is just going to veto it anyway

The D.C. vote measure easily cleared two House committees last week, with strong Democratic support and votes from several Republicans. Democrats have pledged to use their 32-seat House majority to pass it. Friday will mark the first time the full House has considered granting the District a full seat in Congress since 1993, when a statehood measure was defeated.

But the threat of a presidential veto could harm the bill's chances in the Senate, where Republican support is needed to avoid a filibuster.

What ticks me off is that something would have a tough time in the Senate because of a veto. Who cares about a veto? Who wants to align themselves with this idiot who's only pulling off a 41% approval rating? I see their point, of course. DC isn't a state and these guys are "strict constructionists". DC could always merge with Maryland or VA (never) and give them an extra rep, right? Wouldn't they be happy to inherit the lowest literacy rate in the country.

The Kurds and their western ways are prospering in Iraq

and Obama is in trouble for an ex-employee of one of the companies that contracts for his website having made a YouTube video. I interviewed with the Tech at Obama and I know that they only hired Blue State Digital a week before Barack made his announcement, because they only needed three days to build the site.

First Week Done

2007-03-17T22:14:00.000-04:00

Happy St. Patrick's day... whatever that's about. (Apparently St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and died in 460 A.D. Thanks, CNN headline news for that nugget of information.)

I started the new job last Monday and it's going great. Of course, the first two day were spent doing HR crap and IT training, but I was meeting with a client and starting on two projects by Wednesday and have a good feeling about the place... especially when I get to wear jeans and sneakers and it's only 5 blocks from home.

Other than that, nothing much new is going on. Went out last night for JC's job-switch party over on Capitol Hill and then ended up doing some car bombs at Buffalo Billiards. Mistake. Spent the day today up in Bethesda hanging around with R's dad while she and her mom shopped for wedding dresses. I have zero plans for tomorrow, but am supposed to play around a bit with drupal to see if I can get a site up and running for le loup, a fantastic new band that a friend of mine plays bass in.

Bust at the FCH, among other things

2007-03-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

I got out of class a little early today and, after going through my file box to throw out old pay stubs and get all my tax forms in order, I managed to get out of the house to take some pictures and wander around a bit.

The other day, I mentioned a local rumor. Well, D over at Bad Apologies knows what I'm talking about, clearly, and today I got to walk by and see a genuine plain clothes police bust right in front of yonder FCH. Not only did I get to see it, so did my camera (and, of course, the various pedestrians walking by). At my first glance, the bustee was already up against a wall and putting up a little bit of a struggle. Within moments of one of the officers (all clearly officers from their POLICE bullet proof vests) talking into a walkie-talkie on his arm, three unmarked cars pulled in off of a side-street and four more officers hopped out to assist the four already present. Now, I doubt that this bust had anything to do with the F or the H or even the C in FCH, but I thought it appropriate for one of the few police actions I've ever witnessed in the neighborhood to have taken place in front of this building. All in all, it looked like some pretty good police work. On with the photos.

I finished ColdFusion training today and should now be able to <cfquery>, <cfselect> and Application.cfc my way around all sorts of nifty stuff at the new job starting Monday.

As far as the rest of the week is concerned, I've definitely got some things that didn't get done around the house during my month "off" that I need to take care of. And there's always that Wii to play with...

Looks like that US Attorney story might pick up some steam...

2007-03-07T11:56:00.000-05:00

Not that it made the front page or anything, but it looks like the US Attorney hearings might start to pick up a bit.
Ousted U.S. attorneys blast Bush administration

Six former U.S. attorneys told two congressional committees Tuesday that Republican lawmakers and a congressional aide inquired about politically sensitive investigations, and their testimony raised new questions about whether the Bush administration removed the attorneys for political rather than professional reasons.

The U.S. attorneys, all of whom were appointed by President Bush, contradicted the administration's version of their sudden firings.

Reasons Given for Prosecutors Firings
The AP (here in the Guardian) gives a listing of the various reasons for which the Attnys were let go (accompanied by recent performance review snippets). My personal favorite:

BUD CUMMINS, U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TESTIMONY: ``His was not for performance-based reasons. ... The administration asked Mr. Cummins to move on only after we knew that he had indicated he was not going to serve out the remainder of his term.''

2006 PERFORMANCE REVIEW: ``Very competent and highly regarded by the federal judiciary, law enforcement and civil client agencies. ... Established strategic goals that were appropriate to meet the priorities of the department.''

Also coverage in the Washington Post, CNN and elsewhere.

New Toy

2007-03-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

I finally got the new toy that I've been longing after: my 15" 2.33Ghz Macbook Pro. It arrived yesterday while I was in ColdFusion class and someone was nice enough to sign for it (bless his/her soul). I got to spend a few hours with it last night and a few more this evening to start getting everything set up. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get the old mini set up as a file server so that now I can either log into it and have full access to all its drives and files while I'm on the home network or remotely (once I get a static IP).

I'm already looking into the barrage of hacks and nifty stuff for the new device, including the Smackbook and Shadowbook. (It turns out that just downloading Virtue Desktop will add this functionality as its been incorporated.) It took a minute to get it working, but I really just needed to crank the sensitivity way up.

The new Macbook gets a little hot, which explains why there was a cat on top of it almost immediately after I got it.

In other news, I start my new job this coming Monday working as a Web Developer. This week, it's nothing but ColdFusion training all day long... well, Monday through Wednesday, at least.

This past weekend I participated in the one and only DC Idiotarod and was pleased to find out from the results that us Astronuts weren't last and also beat Jorge's Irish Cart Bombs. It makes all the wig wearing and running really worth it... wait. It would have been worth it even if we'd stopped at the first bar and never finished. There should be plenty of pictures floating around the web, but a bunch at should be up on flickr tagged with dcidiotarod and the folks at smashed have linked to a bunch as well.

I haven't had too much time to look at the news lately, but judging by its first paragraph coverage in The Note (learn it, love it) this and other US Attorney stories are going to be a pretty big deal. There's also the Libby verdict, which has the White House reeling a little bit more (back up to that cliff, bitches!)
Here are some of the other most blogged about stories that I found interesting (as found through technorati:
Evolution and Religion - Darwin's God
Oprah's Ugly Secret
The GOP takes issue with Coulter's "anitgay epithet
and
The Arcade fire gets some more (deserved) attention, this time from the NYT.

Gentrify!

2007-03-01T15:22:00.000-05:00

After living in my neighborhood for almost four years now, I'm inclined to start complaining about gentrification, which, as you'll see from the link, has a lot of varying definitions. All of them are negative, so I guess that means I'm allowed to complain.
What really sparks the rant is the fact that two of the stores I tried to visit this week have closed shop in the last few months. It appears that we're not only pushing out the former residents of Logan Circle, but also pushing out the previous businesses.

Powell Auto Parts is now shuttered and only the service center next door is open. I went in to get some 10W-40 for the scooter and was told that the store had closed and that they didn't sell oil at the service center. After asking if they had any suggestions, I ended up going to 7-eleven to get it. I had never noticed that the 7-eleven carried oil, but there it was as soon as I walked in the door, right next to the newspapers and road maps. Stores like 7-eleven and CVS kind of freak me out in that they have everything under one roof. I know I'll never need to buy motor oil, cheetos, milk and paperclips all at once. But I've definitely purchased all of those things at a 7-eleven separately. How do they know?!?

I'd never been to Powell Auto Parts, so can't say that I didn't aid in their downfall. In fact, the only person I know who's every been there is CFab when I ran into her buying "The Club" one weekend afternoon as I was wandering around taking pictures. I'm sure if I dig through flickr, I could figure out which pictures I took that afternoon and bring things full circle, but I just don't feel like taking the 30 seconds out of my not-so-busy schedule.

I also found Companion Pets closed earlier this week when I went there to pick up Frontline. I'd been there once before and found the place to be poorly kept, smelly and expensive. But it was family owned and not a chain, so I was following the progressive/adbusters code of supporting small individual businesses. Thinking back, though, I'm reminded of a South Park episode where a Starbucks moves in next to Tweek's Dad's coffee shop and the town rallies around the small business only to discover that Tweak's coffee tastes like sewage and that Starbucks' tastes pretty good. The libertarian moral of the story being that sometimes there's a good reason that businesses become huge successful chains. In the case of Starbucks, it's not just that they move in next to existing independent coffee shops and offer up a familiar menu so that you always know whatever you're getting will taste the same in any location, it's also that their coffee doesn't taste like crap. Except that Sumatra blend. Ick.

It's a shame to see shuttered businesses in the neighborhood. And it's a shame to think that the reason they're closed is the same reason that one bedroom condos in the neighborhood cost more than buying a mansion in VA. Of course, the businesses could also be closing because they're terrible. Maybe their pet food tasted like sewage. Maybe The Club that Powell sold CFab was defective and ended up making her car explode in a ball of fire (though, I think I would have heard about this). Maybe there's a low demand now for businesses that haven't washed their windows or stocked their inventory in 6 months and treat customers like impostors.

In any case, the neighborhood was changing when we moved in and continues to change while we're here. We're definitely not leaving any time soon... unless, of course, we get gentrified right out of it.

If you're local

2007-02-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

If you're local, you know what this building is all about... or at least the rumors. I was more interested in the shadows on the wall.

I got an email this morning from my friend Rebecca who is in design school at Carnegie Mellon. Check out her website http://www.rebeccaaviva.com/

My To Do list for the rest of the day is a mile long, including, but not limited to: taking advantage of the weather and changing the oil on the scooter; finished my taxes; getting my reimbursement for my flight to Chicago sent out; getting Apache, MySQL, PHP and ColdFusion working in harmony on the Mac; and finally resituating the A/C unit in the wall as it looks like it's tilted to the right or something. I'm also supposed to hit the gym somewhere in there... not likely.

DC Weather...

2007-02-27T16:13:00.000-05:00

You know you're in DC when there's 6 inches of snow on Sunday and it's 52 degrees on Tuesday. I'm using the time off before the new job starts on March 12th to take care of some home improvement tasks that have been on the to do list. Managed to snap this picture of a seagull near the metro outside of the Home Depot on RI avenue.

In preparation for a position in web development, I've also decided that I need to brush up on, among other things, Cold Fusion, MySQL and some internet security stuff (including these two recent slashdot articles.

On the agenda for tomorrow? Changing the oil and cleaning the spark plug on the scooter (wishful spring thinking, I know). I'd also like to keep up the frequency of photos, but am doubting that I'll be able to once I'm gainfully employed.

Photos From Yesteday's Snow

2007-02-26T10:29:00.000-05:00

Interview. Interview. Flight. Interview. Flight. Interview. Acceptance.

2007-02-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

Almost done! I just got through a pretty intense week of interviews that resulted in about five offers and have culled everything down to two possibilities:
(1) Relocate to Chicago and work in the Technology department at the Obama '08 campaign
(2) Work with an organization on U street that provides IT (I'd be doing websites) to non-profits.

The week went something like this:
Tuesday afternoon I interviewed with a group that provides internet solutions to progressive candidates and companies. The pay would be pretty decent, but I got a pretty bad vibe during the interview as the Type A lady interviewing me sucked down coffee and put words in my mouth. They seemed far too eager, and my suspicions were confirmed when I found out that four people had left the company just a few weeks before.

Wednesday morning I woke up early (umm.. 7:30?) and took the bus with R, continuing past her stop to Georgetown University for an interview with a group there that keeps track of the student and faculty databases. The job seemed a little dull just from the description and didn't pay well, but the potential for tuition reimbursement kept me interested. In the end, the boring part proved true and there was also an added layer of politics that I hadn't expected. So a definite "no" on that one. I told them that I had the Obama interview the next day and they said that they hoped I decided to stay in DC... I suppose I should email to tell them not to consider me.

After the interview, I walked to catch the bus and found that I had just missed it and could actually walk home before the next one would catch up to me... so I walked from two blocks north of the Social Safeway on Wisconsin all the way home. Walking two and a half miles in dress shoes is no fun, especially when no one in DC is courteous enough to have shoveled their sidewalk. It's been five days, people!
Upon arriving home, I changed, packed up the list of things that I'd forgotten (still ending up forgetting the power supply for my laptop) and started walking for the metro. While I was doing all this, I was also going back and forth with the U St. IT Nonprofit people trying to postpone having to accept or decline their offer. We arranged a call for 12:30pm and I realized that I was going to be underground then if I took the metro, so I walked out to 14th and got a cab instead.
Foregoing the trunk, I put my two bags next to me in the back and found myself with zero leg room left by the shotgun seat.
"Must have had a big guy up there earlier, huh?"
No reply. Oh Well. I punched an email out on the blackberry to R as we proceeded to hit every red light between P st and Constitution Ave.

"I'd like to ask you a question," my driver said.
"Shoot," I replied.
"Is there a difference between likeness... or 'like' and 'love'? If I 'like' somebody or I 'love' somebody, what is the difference?"
"Hrm... Well, let's see. They're definitely not the same, that's for sure. Maybe 'love' is 'like' plus some more?"
"Maybe," he said.
"Or maybe, 'love' has to do with how much you would be willing to do for someone else. Like, if you'd be willing to give up your life for them, then that would be love?"

Silence. I started to reconsider my idea. "Actually," I said, "that doesn't really work because a lot of people would risk their lives to save a stranger that they don't love or like, so that doesn't seem like a good measurement at all."
"Yes. You're right. But that is just human nature, not love."
"Maybe 'love' is being able to make the conscious decision to give up your life for someone? I dunno. Maybe we need to work our way back and start over."
I started to think again. "What about the fact that you can love someone that you don't like?"
He gave me a skeptical glance. "That's true? You can love someone that you don't like?"
"So let's say you have a family member that you don't really like, but you still love them at the same time, right? You could even break up with someone and still love them, but you wouldn't necessarily like who they are as a person."
"Oh yes. That is true," he said. "Like my brother. I used to like him and love him, but now I don't like him at all."
"Exactly," I said.
Now the driver started doing that thing where he turns around and looks at me more than he drives. I hate that. "I think," he said, "that if you 'like' someone, you can name specific things that you like about them, but that there is no 'thing' you can name about someone that makes you love them. My ex wife..."
"Oh, here we go," I thought.
"My ex wife, when she left me, there is nothing left that I like about her. My friends tell me that she is evil, but I feel that I still love her. I don't understand. But it doesn't hurt me. I think it doesn't hurt me, because there is nothing real about her left for me to like."
"There's nothing tangible, yeah." I interject."
"Exactly. There is just this feeling. Which airline?"
"ATA."
"She has gone out and bought a new car and a house and she can't afford any of these things and she is just trying to make me feel jealous. Loneliness. But I don't. This happened to a friend of mine who has since died, God bless his soul, wherever he is. His wife leaves him and she gets the new car and the new house and it drives him crazy. He starts to drink, but he drinks alone and I don't find out until it is too late."
"Oh my God, I'm really sorry to hear that."
"It is really too bad. But I won't let that happen to me. I'm a happy person. $15.50."
"Here's $20. Keep the change."
Now that's what I call a good cab ride.

I had plenty of time before the flight and took a call with the U St. folks to talk about salary details. It turns out that a percentage of the salary is commission-based (contingent on billable hours), but the percentages are small enough and the requirements low enough that it should be easy to make the salary and then some.

After hashing that out, I looked around for any airport food that was meatless besides a pretzel and ended up with some kind of highfalutin mozzarella and tomato on a baguette that cost far, far more than the parts and labor that were put into it. Marx would be pissed. I'm not a vegetarian, by the way, I'm just scared of airport meat. What's it doing all the way out there at the airport? Gross.

The flight landed in Chicago a little ahead of schedule and I had no problem finding the train to downtown. While aboard, I emailed the Chief Technology Officer at Obama to let him know that I had landed already and asked if they might want to get part of the interview out of the way that afternoon or if they needed any help. I also realized that I'd totally forgotten what stop I needed and found no maps aboard the train. Luckily, I can get Google Maps on the blackberry and it has the Chicago train stations listed (a luxury that we don't get in DC), so I was able to figure it out that way. Once at the hotel, I got a call from the Obama guys and they said that I should just come over for the interview right then. I slapped on my suit, brushed my teeth and went over. Security wasn't as tight as I'd expected, but I still had to show ID and be on a list (I'm not really sure what more than this I'd expected).
The interview, conducted in a makeshift conference room, went really well and they asked me to come back the next day to see what a day-in-the-life was like and if I liked it.

After the interview, I emailed some old coworkers who were working on a project in Chicago as they knew I would be in town and had talked about meeting up. I also realized that I had only packed the one suit and white shirts and was going to have to buy some new pants for the day-in-the-life on Thursday unless I wanted to wear black suit pants and a white shirt and look like a waiter all day. I did think it was a little weird that the guy who interviewed me kept saying that the dress was business-casual when almost everyone was wearing jeans. Luckily, there was a Nordstrom Rack two blocks from the hotel, so I managed to find a semi-decent (OK. Horrendous) pair of slacks for $30 while texting back and forth with my former coworkers about where we were eating. Unfortunately, right as I was walking out to go to dinner, I felt that little sting in the back of my throat that usually signals a cold coming on.

Thursday morning I woke up at 6:30am to find that I had been totally right about the impending cold that I'd felt the night before. I had planned to wake up, shower and go out to see the Cloud Gate (or as I call it "the big bean") in Millennium Park, but decided to augment the outing with a trip to Walgreens for Zicam and Cold Eeze. The bean was deserted, so I managed to get all of the great pictures that you see on the right.

Just being in the Obama HQ was an amazing experience; to realize that so many hugely important things are happening right there and controlled by so few. The day went really well and I got to do everything from looking at contribution and voter data to troubleshooting website problems and connecting people to the LAN. Before I left around 5pm, we discussed my thoughts on the job and I said that, if it were in DC, I'd be there in a second, but that the Chicago-relocation-thing was a pretty huge drawback.
I walked back over to the hotel, grabbed my bags and hopped on the Orange line back to the airport. Security was easy and I had time to get disappointed in myself over the New York Times crossword puzzle before the flight (that thing isn't easy... especially on a Thursday). There were some seriously high winds hitting National Airport when we came in to land around 11pm and we ended up having to take a second pass. We were probably only a few hundred feet from the ground on the first pass when a huge gust of wind dipped the right wing. I assume that, in recovering from this, the pilot had to sacrifice his first landing attempt and that's why we went in for a second, which he said was "going to be bumpy, but the wind is going right up the runway, so that's good!"

Friday morning I woke up early (umm.. 7:30 again?) to be at the Center for Applied Linguistics for an interview at 9am. I was still reeling from the cold, but was also excited enough about finally having found a job that was semi-related to my major. That interview also went really well and, after I explained that I was already postponing offers, they sounded like they were going to fast-track the reference-checking process. They explained that I'd be working on a five-year project for second language education that was funded by a grants. This was actually an interview that I really had to work to get. I didn't hear anything back for two weeks after I'd emailed twice and eventually I called to see if they had even received my resume. It turned out that the person doing the hiring had been on vacation and was just getting back. He asked me for an interview the day that I called. Not too shabby. The big hang-up about this one is that there would be no opportunity for any kind of promotion unless I had a Master's degree. Another draw-back was that the position wasn't very well described and might actually end up being really, really boring; sitting around trying to make animations and diagrams in Flash for test questions for 5th graders.
After I got back from the interview, I had to call up the U St. Nonprofit gig and ask them to give me a day to think as I was still weighing the Obama, Linguistics and U St option. They were happy to give me the time and also mentioned that they were going to pay for me to go for some Cold Fusion training the week before I would start. I asked them to give me until Saturday and then waited a bit for a call from the Obama campaign. I was hoping that they'd found some kind of position in DC, but when I finally heard from them around 8pm, this didn't appear to be the case. I left them by saying that if there was ever anything in DC, they should give me a call and they insisted that I still send my receipts for the flight out to Chicago, so no bridges burned there, I don't think.

In the end, after weighing my options, I decided to go with the U St. group that offers IT to nonprofits. I think it offers the greatest number of opportunities for learning new things, doesn't require relocating to Chicago and won't lock me into a position for five years.

So, yeah. That's it. Two weeks to the day from my departure at the old firm and I have a new job with a start date of March 12th and some training the week before. As an added bonus, I have next week off! What to do?

When It Rains It Pours...

2007-02-19T22:50:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the quick trip back and forth to NY and have plenty to report.
(1) I got my first job offer from the recent hunt on Friday while we were picking out linens and plates and glasses and such for the wedding. This one is with a small company that provides IT to nonprofits. It's not high-paying, but sounds rewarding, is five blocks from home and will likely let me wear jeans and a t-shirt to work for the foreseeable future. We're supposed to hash out details on Wednesday around 1pm, though, as you'll see below, I'll have reasons to try to postpone the decision by a few days.
(2) Also on Friday, after my third phone interview and one face-to-face with a recruiter, I was offered a one-year contract with Sun Microsystems, which I'm probably going to have to turn down because it's out in the middle of Ashburn, VA and would require me to commute 2 hours at least three days a week. This one pays really, really well, but I don't know a bunch of the stuff that they're asking about and don't feel like working alone at home all day. Also, I've already tried the money thing before, so maybe I'll try the no-money thing for a bit and see if I'm happy, happier or just the same.
(3) Also on Friday, I got an email from the Obama campaign expressing interest in my sweet database skillz and wanting to schedule a call for Saturday afternoon. So, on Saturday, while we were on the NJ Turnpike, I pulled over and made R drive so that I could take the call. It went really well, except for the slight misconception I had that the job would be located in DC when it actually requires me to relocate to Chicago. After thinking a bit and talking it over with R, I emailed back to say that relocation wouldn't be a problem. I will be flying out to Chicago on Wednesday afternoon (on their dime) for a face-to-face on Thursday. There are plenty of great reasons not to even consider this job like: no job security; low salary; terrible hours; and having to move to Chicago in the middle of winter... but if I really feel like I could help and that he could make it, it could definitely happen.
(4) Also on Friday, I set up an interview for tomorrow afternoon with another company that I met at the Democratic GAIN career fair at 2:30 after I go to lunch with my old manager, PF (formerly PH), from two consulting firms ago to see what her thoughts are on all of my current options. This company provides data to progressive candidates. Other than that, I'm not too sure what I'll be up to, but I definitely need to remind myself print out my references and some code samples.
(5) And finally, Also on Friday, I set up another interview at Georgetown for a position working with their databases early on Wednesday morning (OK, 9:30am. I think that's early.) From the sound of this one, the only real advantage would be tuition reimbursement. After the interview, I'll need to pick up my other suit and head to the airport where I can field a call from (1) on salary and trying to delay them from having me make a decision until I get a better read on the Obama campaign in Chicago.

It seems totally ridiculous that, after two weeks of really looking, everything had to happen on the same Friday afternoon, but I definitely can't complain. If anything, it's a huge (and, I dare say, needed) ego boost to have all of these options.

Re: the trip to NY, R and I got to:
(1) Go up to see my Dad and E for a day and a half upstate and enjoy the snow (that's the picture)
(2) Go to see my Mom for a day and a half and enjoy my old home town
(3) Go down to the city to see my friend Mike's photography exhibit and meet up with a tremendous number of people that I hadn't seen in way too long.
(4) Drive around in a sweet Volvo S40 Zipcar for a few days. (Man, can that thing fly).

Also, good news is that, because I managed to get a job offer before March 1st, I'm going to go buy the reward of a Macbook Pro that I promised myself.

Right now I need to take an audacious step and try to start and finish The Audacity of Hope, which R's dad was kind enough to let me borrow, before Thursday morning.

Friday.... not so special?

2007-02-16T13:46:00.001-05:00

I didn't think Friday would seem as special when I hadn't been at work all week, but here it is and it's pretty awesome. Had a great day yesterday going to the Democratic GAIN career fair and was able to hand out my resume for database work to a bunch of different groups, including one that is screening candidates for the various presidential campaigns. Now that could be interesting.

After the career fair I went out to lunch with DS where he tried (and succeeded) in getting me to break my drinking rule... but it was only one beer and it was taken with food, so that doesn't really count, does it? Is this the starting point of a spiral into hobo-ness? I think not. I made up for the beer by going through all of the contacts I got at the career fair and sending them electronic copies of the resume.

It paid off: since I started this entry this morning, I've gotten two more interviews scheduled for next week from contacts I made yesterday. It Almost makes me want to stop bothering to looking for jobs today, but I need to keep the rhythm going if this is all going to pan out in the next few months.

R found out that she has Monday off, so we're taking the opportunity to head up to NY to visit my folks and to check out Mike's show in Brooklyn.

All for now. Interview at 2:15 and then going to look at linens and plates and such for the wedding at 3:30.

Unemployment... not too shabby!

2007-02-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

Today was my second day of unemployment and so far I've only felt its sweet, sweet benefits. I've been sleeping soundly, waking up at a normal hour, eating well and enjoying life.

Having decided that without a specific regimen my life would fall quickly into chaos and/or playing the Wii all day, I've set about pretending that I have a job whose main duties include:
(1) Looking for jobs
(2) Applying to said jobs
(3) Interviewing for said jobs
(4) Complaining about how boring said jobs sound

Additionally, I'll be keeping up with my semi-normal 8am awakening time (OK. 8:15. I have to get some perks as long as I'm not receiving a pay check.) and I must be at the computer or the phone or the newspaper by 9am doing one of the first three tasks above. There's a half hour break for lunch around noon, then more of the same until 3pm when I get to walk to a local coffee shop to do more of the same but around people and using the coffee shop's heater instead of paying for my own. During the walk, if not on the blackberry accomplishing (1) through (3), I get to do (4) in my head.

Once 5:30pm hits, I'm off of non-work and allowed to do whatever I want... though, I'm not including drinking in the "whatever I want" category, as being unemployed and drinking alone while your significant other is at work is just plain wrong. (At least for the first week.)

I've been testing out my local free Wi-fi coffee houses the past two days (hitting one at 14th and U and the Love Cafe at 15th and U), but looking now at google maps, I have a bunch more to go. So far, the only thing I've learned is that I need a new laptop for this new non-job job of looking for jobs. The current one is ever so slow and old. If I get a new job that pays well, I've promised myself a new laptop... of course, then I won't need it... but far be it for me to let necessity get in the way of a new shiny device.

On the job front:
-Have an interview with Sun Microsystems tomorrow AM for what could be a great gig, except it's out in the middle of nowhere VA.
-Have another job for a semi-nonprofit that does IT for actual nonprofits where I've already gone through the interviews and am just waiting for them to check references and (fingers crossed) make an offer.
-Several other things in the works, but mostly just resumes that have been sent out and acknowledged as received.

There's obviously a lot of non-work to be done, but I'm not pressed for time and haven't gone completely stir-crazy yet, so no worries.

Duh

2007-02-11T01:05:00.000-05:00

Re: the Iraq war, at this point, everyone is pretty much willing to admit the following:
(1) There were no weapons of mass destruction operational by Saddam.
(2) There was no link whatsoever between Saddam and 9/11.

Everyone is also pretty much willing to admit the following:
(1) Before Iraq war #2 the American public was convinced that Saddam had something to do with 9/11,

What people aren't willing to admit is that there was plenty of evidence and reporting done shortly after the war began that there was NO link between Saddam and 9/11.
The so-called "liberal" media in this country has just picked up the story regarding Doug Feith and his heading-up of the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon that was tasked with formulating a link between Saddam and 9/11. You can read this stuff in Richard Clarke's book about a map of Iraq being rolled out on the table immediately after 9/11. You can listen to republicans denying it as well. Either way, check out Doug Feith on Wikipeida or you can check out the articles from back in 2003 right after the invasion on the fallacy that is the Office of Special Plans in The New Yorker or The Guardian.

Welcome

2007-02-10T12:30:00.000-05:00

I learned recently that some of my former coworkers had discovered this blog. I can only imagine that they did so by checking for links to the Scorpion's blog and then finding a link back to mine from one of those (CFab!). In any case, I thought I'd write to say "welcome" and to let you guys know that you're now part of an elite group of about ten people including my mom, dad, brother, sister, grandpa and some friends.

Keep in touch!

Greg

February, Week 2 - All New Year's Resolutions Begin to Die

2007-02-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's the cold spell hitting DC or maybe it's that I resigned from pretty much the worst job ever, but, in any case, all of my New Year's resolutions have started to take a turn for the worse. First of all, waking up at 7am to accomplish something constructive is totally insane when the condo is 40 degrees. What's that, you say? I could get up, turn on the heat, shower and then do something constructive? Hogwash. I slept in a hat last night. A hat! There's no way I'm getting out of that bed. No way, no how.
Resolution #2 was to bring my lunch to work... well, that's going to be tough next week when I don't have a work to go to.
On that job front, I have a second interview with a company that provides IT to non-profits on Thursday afternoon, but I'm also really interested in another job that's a lot more tied in to what my major was in college and could be a good launch point for grad school. Unfortunately, I haven't heard back from this last one at all (but just sent my resume in on Monday evening and the job was only posted last Friday). If I get an offer from job #1, it's going to be a tough decision as whether to go with the immediate one or try to stall them and hang on for the second one.
My job search has been primarily focused on non-profits, as I'm really disgusted with the corporate world right now.

New Projects...

2007-02-02T12:36:00.000-05:00

With my resignation from work solid, my brain has really started to free up... my mind is coming up with new ideas for projects every day. It's a feeling of freedom that I haven't had in about three years... we'll see how long it takes for a new spirit-crushing job to come along.

In the meantime, today's idea evolved out of a discussion with Meg on how I met R and spiraled into a discussion on how connected everyone is. I remembered having read about an artist who would diagram connections like this that had died recently (well, looking now, it was in 2000, so not-so recently... how in the hell did I remember that?). It turns out to have been Mark Lombardi, who would make art out of sociograms from social network analysis. Thinking back on this, I thought it would be really cool to figure out how to do my own socigram of all of the people that R and I are inviting to the wedding and have it posted up somewhere. It would take a lot of work... but then, I might not have a lot of work to do for a little while.

Other projects are in the works... some big, some small, all to be revealed when they solidify.

Whoo hoo!

2007-01-31T16:58:00.000-05:00

Resigned from the my job on Monday, so probably no posts for a while as I'll be looking for other work a lot. I gave two weeks' notice, so will be officially unemployed on Feb the 9th.

I'm actually really excited to have finally decided to get out of the unhealthy relationship I had with my work and have already had some pretty good interesting leads to shoot for.

More soon... including the background on why this all happened so quickly (i.e. before I found something else to go to).

For now, check out this blog post from my friend Meg.

Notes on the SOTU

2007-01-23T22:13:00.000-05:00

The president gave his "most subdued ever" State of the Union address this evening. I nerdily took some notes:
1. Laura has definitely gained some weight... and her hair cut still looks like a helmet.
2. Nancy looks tight... botox tight.
3. Bush talking about curbing federal spending and
4. stopping all the earmarking. In fact, he specifically points out the excessive earmarking in 2005.... wasn't that when the repubs controlled it? Oh yeah! I guess the party's over now. McCain looks pleased!
5. Why do I get the feeling that every time he talks about small business owners, he's also talking about big business?

The Decider

6. Why do politicians always bring up technology as the solution to everything? It's great, but Bush doesn't strike me as a big reader of Wired or even Popular Mechanics.
7. Border Patrol x 2 + IT = Safety!
8. Immigration "without animosity and without amnesty". Alliteration. Nice! Five bucks says a speech writer high-fived someone after he thought of that (I would have).
9. Republicans <3 ethanol because it means a good argument for corn subsidies... wait a second, wood chips?!? WTF? Oh... he wants to give logging companies access to National Forests. Now it makes sense. Or maybe, just maybe, he really cares.
10. Condi looks pissed... Klingon pissed.
11. "Don't vote for failure and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS." Bait and switch. Hiding behind the support of very troops he's going to put in harm's way.
12. Talks about increasing the number of marines by 92K. Camera cuts to marine. Marine looks around. Marine stands up. Good marine.
13. Mention of some kind of volunteer corps for civilians with the "skills" that could be needed in war to relieve the military. Is he talking about contractors? What laws would these people be subject to? Military? International? US civil?
14. The my-poll-numbers-suck-so-now-I-care mention of Darfur.
15. Stopping HIV/Aids in Africa... through drugs. Oh, and probably some abstinence and religion, too.
16. 1.5 billion for Malaria? Isn't that something like one fifth of what Bill Gates has donated by selling his nail clippings? Come on!
17. That's weird... 38 minutes in and he's barely mentioned the actual state of the union.
18. Dikembe Mutombo? Really? The one and only Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean Jacque Wamutombo? Holy shit is he tall! Mutombo = Laura Bush x 3
19. Approval ratings low? Try an NBA star! Men love that. What else? How about the entrepreneurial woman who invented Baby Einstein videos and is now helping abandoned children? Holy shit! That just covered women with children, career driven women with no time for children and everyone who feels sorry for abandoned children (i.e. all those that don't know who the fuck Mutombo is). Is there any more? Why not "the subway hero" that I've never heard of who displays the apparently distinctly-American capacity of being willing to risk his life to save someone else. Wow! Only in America! Europeans watch each other die while drinking wine and twirling their little mustaches! Americans are amazing. Anyone else? Oh, a soldier who was riddled with bullets. Everyone on board? Great! Let's send 21,500 more to secure Baghdad!

UGH. Time to play some Wii and forget about all of this nonsense.

Weekend Wrapup (about me, not the world)

2007-01-22T16:28:00.000-05:00

For not being a long weekend, we really mashed a lot in. My weekend really started on Thursday night. It was the boss' birthday as well as one of my coworkers, so six of us went to Benihana (boss' favorite restaurant). No one would to sake-bombs with me... at first. Later I managed to convince the scorpion and DG to participate. Scorpion probably had two sips of his (no chugging), whereas DG managed to get through two of them. Good man. Afterwards we headed to The Guards for a single drink before deciding that it was full of boring old people and that we should head to The Bottom Line across from the office for a few and then up to Lucky Bar wherein I realized that it was already 10:30pm and I had work the next day.
I realized I'd had a few drinks more than I'd anticipated when I caught myself walking home in the rain with an Empanada, half of which I saved for R... it was only slightly soggy by the time I gave it to her.

Work on Friday was completely pointless as three other people on our six person team called out sick and Scorpion and Boss were too hung over to think. After I'd left at 10:30, the rest of the team had gone on to drink far too much more and get kicked out of at least one club. Nice work fellas! Being in his hungover state and it being his birthday, Boss eschewed doing any work at forced us all to leave at 2:30pm. Before we left work, my new scanner got delivered to the office. I'll be using this device to scan in a bunch of hard copy photos to put in the slide show that will be playing during our wedding in September.
Upon getting the scanner home, I decided that the current desk positioning wasn't really optimal for the scanner. This led to me wasting the 3 extra hours that I'd gained from leaving work early in trying to untangle and retangle all of the various wires for the computer, screen, router, etc. This is very typical of what my self-diagnosed ADD brain will do with spare time.
After R got home, I showed her how to work the scanner and she started putting in some pics. After I kicked her off of the machine I worked on a new web site that I really need to finish next weekend. At around 10pm we left to go see Asobi Seksu at the Rock and Roll Hotel out on H street. As we were walking to get a cab, we found a small leather bound book on the ground a few houses down from our place. Inside there must have been fifty different credit cards. The first page was various gold and platinum cards and the rest were store-specific cards: walmart, circuit city, home depot, every other store imaginable. Seeing as we had a show to go to, we hid the booklet in the corner under someone's stoop and reminded each other to pick it up when we got back from the show.

The show wasn't bad. I'd never been to the "H Street Corridor" area of DC before and was really impressed by the row houses, wide streets, etc. It looks a lot like what my neighborhood looked like 7 hears ago. We had to wait in line for what would end up being a sold out show, but had bought tickets beforehand. Once we were inside we realized that our shortness was going to prohibit being able to see much of anything on the stage, so I got a drink. The crowd seemed older and less "tight black jeans" than you'd get at the Black Cat (I'm still not sure if this is a good or bad thing). While we were there I also ran into a guy who used to come into the bar I worked at in college and has since been barred from ever reentering said establishment.
After we go back from the show, R was smart enough to remember the book of cards under the stairs down the street. After we got inside, I ran the guy's name through the white pages, got his number and had R give him a call. He was ecstatic to hear from us and agreed to meet us at the Whole Foods at 9am to make the exchange.
Of course, we woke up late on Saturday and had to run to meet the guy at the store, but he gave us a $60 reward for our trouble. R attempted the polite refusal, but we accepted on the second "but I insist." We grabbed a cup of coffee and headed home to shower before going up to R's parent's house to borrow their car to go see our friend who is a hair dresser at her salon in Silver Spring.
After hair cutting, we hung around at R's parents for a while before heading back into DC. Saturday night, we went to our friend E's birthday party and were there until 1am or so.

Sunday morning, we woke up early and went with our friends Chris and Rob out to some Best Buy in Virginia because Chris had read on the interweb that they might have Wii's for sale. Chris and I waited in line as the temperature dropped from 34 to 27, but managed to be numbers 24 and 25 and both brought home the gaming system that we'd already wasted one earlier Sunday morning trying to get. This thing is incredible. I spent a bunch of time hookinghttp://www.asobiseksu.com/ it up when we got home, getting it hooked up to the internet (it has Wi-Fi) and having it download various updates. Before I could really get into it, R and I had to head over to take a walkt hrough of a space where we're going to have our wedding. At first I was going to ditch R and make her go by herself, but I ended up being really glad that I went as it turned out to have just started snowing and I love walking around in the snow. I also managed to get the other three pictures in this post. Even better, the space looked much bigger in the daylight (we'd seen it before at night) and we were able to make a final decision of "heck, yes!". It's awesome to have that out of the way. We've also got our catering all lined up, too and with a date of Sept 1 (write it down, kids) all that's left is for me to design the save-the-date cards, invitations, send it all out, get the cake situation resolved and buy a new suit.
I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the Wii while changing laundry loads and having R get annoyed at the repetitive music of Zelda.

"Doesn't that get irritating for you? Hearing that same sound over and over?"
"Umm... No. Maybe it's not annoying if you're the one playing it?"
"Ugh."
R's company holiday party was at 7pm, so we started getting ready around then and took a cab over at seven-thirty. With faux-gambling, a good DJ and a (somewhat) open bar, the party was leagues better than the one my company threw. After losing all of my faux-money at poker, eating a bunch of sushi and getting hit on relentlessly by one of Rosanna's many gay coworkers, we left at around 10:30pm.
And that's that. Here I am at work. R goes on a trip to NYC next weekend with some of the girls from work and I plan on spending some quality time with the Wii. We're going to see Camera Obscura tonight at the the 930 club, so I probably won't get in an adequate amount of Wii... it's quite sad really, as this article informs me that I can probably cancel my gym membership.

Newsish Things

2007-01-18T07:51:00.000-05:00

I couldn't agree more: article.

One of the most incongruous sights of the globalised age - the Starbucks coffee shop inside Beijing's Forbidden City - could soon be a thing of the past after a furious online campaign for it to be relocated outside the palace's 600-year-old walls.

In response to this latest demonstration of “netizen” power in China, the guardians of the ancient site have announced plans to review the presence of the Seattle-based coffee chain...

Despite lowering its profile with the removal of its trademark signboards, opposition has never been as focused as this week. The trigger was a blog entry posted on Monday by Rui Chenggang, a TV anchorman, who called for a web campaign against the outlet that, he wrote in his blog, "tramples over over Chinese culture".

And, this blog entry by Harper's Ken Silverstein gives further information on how Paul Bremer is to blame for a lot of the problems we're seeing in Iraq. That guy should be indicted.

The second thing that needs to happen, he asserted, is the death of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who heads the formidable Mahdi Army, because there is no chance of stabilizing Iraq as long as he is alive. As an eldest son, Sadr inherited his title and authority from his father. The cleric has no children and hence, in the event of his death, power would devolve to an uncle. “I know [the uncle] and have worked with him,” the former officer said. “He's completely different from Sadr; he's focused on the economic side, on reconstruction, and on improving the lives of the average Shiite. If Shiites were working, religion would be a secondary issue instead of the only thing they've got.”

U.S. forces, said my source, twice had the opportunity to kill Sadr, first in 2003 after his supporters killed Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a British-based Shiite Muslim leader who had returned to Iraq to work with Coalition forces, and again in 2004. “His mother dimed him out that time. He was in Najaf, and we couldn't pin down his location. She went to a member of the family who told us where he was. You know the guy is bad news when his own mother wants him dead.”

Both times, my source explained, Paul Bremer—who was then the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority—blocked the possibility of targeting Sadr, over the heated objections of CIA officers. “We should have killed him a long time ago,” said my source. “There was going to be blowback, but he was a problem that wasn't going to get any better. And now we're at the point where we are today.”

(Bremer's CPA is also cited repeatedly as one of those behind the selling of Iraq and it's tranformation into a "neocon utopia" in this fantastic article for Harper's by Naomi Klein.)

New Year's Resolutions

2007-01-12T10:11:00.000-05:00

(1) Wake up before 7am every (week)day to do something productive (i.e. exercise, look for sweet jobs, work on design projects, read the news).
(2) Start bringing my lunch with me to work at least 4 days a week..
(3) Take the GRE.

Down an Alley in Plombieres Les Bains, France

2007-01-10T23:34:00.001-05:00

Down an Alley
Plombieres Les Bains
France
Originally uploaded by El Greg.

R and I went to France this past weekend for the wedding of Alex and Christophe. I took at least 500 photos and have been trying to delete the bad, keep the OK and upload the great ones. As far as great ones, this is the best that I think I found so far, so I thought I'd upload it immediately and wait until I've finished going through to upload the rest. A full story on the mini-vacation is forthcoming... for now, I need sleep.

Here We Go Again

2007-01-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

I can remember being in Barcelona when we first went to war in Iraq. The president of Spain at the time, Aznar, was a supporter of the war, but I guess a lot of people were back then. I was busy reading all of the liberal rags I could. All of the reports in the Guardian and blogs saying there were no "weapons of mass destruction" and that the war itself was based on hidden agenda. Or the Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq report from before the war began saying that

Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. However, we will continue to follow up any additional evidence, if it emerges, relevant to efforts by Iraq to illicitly import nuclear materials.

Being overseas, I wasn't caught up in the fervor that was going on over here in US. I remember coming home at Christmas and being stunned that so many people were already convinced that war was inevitable. Hadn't they been reading what I was reading? Why was everyone so scared of someone who hadn't attacked the US; who was too busy trying to milk money from UN programs and oppress his own people to care about us?
R and I went back to Spain and I can honestly say that I was surprised when Bush issued his ultimatum and we actually started bombing Iraq 50 hours later. The political climate in the Barca was staunchly anti-war. R and I participated in any way that we could. We walked in marches for peace and we all banged pots and pans out the windows at 10pm on set days to protest the war. Part of this was because we were so against what was going on, but another part of it was to try to prove to our Spanish neighbors that not all Americans were fools.
I noticed a definite difference in my students' attitudes towards me after the war moved into full swing. They started asking me more and more if I agreed with what was going on in Iraq, if I thought all Americans really wanted the war. I had to defend myself and my country. I didn't tell them that Americans were stupid. Instead I tried to explain what I had seen when I went home: that the government and the military industrial complex were spoon feeding the media and they in turn were convincing the public of complete and utter lies. That the debate had been set as "war now or war later" and that they probably would have felt the same way had they been under the same media pressure as other people in the US.

Bush gives a speech tonight wherein he'll ask for a troop escalation of 21,000 men and women. According to this article in USA Today "President Bush will acknowledge in an address to the nation tonight that U.S. policy in Iraq has failed and will send in 21,500 more troops to try to quell sectarian violence and bolster the Iraqi government, according to a senior administration official."
But according to another article of theirs summarizing the Iraq Study Group report: "The commission recommended the number of U.S. troops embedded to train Iraqis should increase dramatically, from 3,000-4,000 currently to 10,000-20,000. Commission member William Perry, defense secretary in the Clinton administration, said those could be drawn from combat brigades already in Iraq."

I'm torn as to whether more troops are a good idea or a bad idea. I suppose it's best to turn to the experts in situations like this, since I'm not much of a military planner. Of course, it doesn't give me a great deal of hope Bush is "pulling away from his generals" or that the Iraq Study Group report talks about more troops to train the Iraqi army, not for combat.

How about the Op-Eds? What do they have to say? Let's see:
Washington Post - Froomkin says that Bush isn't changing strategy by sending 20,000 troops, just changing tactics.

Guardian - Like a deluded compulsive gambler, Bush is fuelling a new cold war: With air strikes on Somalia and a surge in troops in Iraq, he is staking everything on a finale he can call victory.

Post again - Cohen explains that Bush is the decider and that

And so those who have decided otherwise -- a couple of four-stars, maybe the chief spook and all those awfully smart people throughout government and academia -- are ignored and/or are heading out the door. Bush listened to them when he agreed with them and refused to listen when he did not. A so-called surge is a-coming, an escalation all decked out with an Orwellian-sounding name. An edifice built on a wobbly foundation -- a profound and enduring ignorance of Iraqi society -- will be patched up, but really, the whole thing is a tear-down. It will collapse no matter what we do.

Hrm... maybe the editors at the WS Journal can do better:

If the stakes in Iraq are as great as Mr. Bush says--and we believe they are--then he should commit whatever forces are needed to achieve success.

Now that's more like it!

Or how about the Weekly Standard?

This week the president will set forth his proposal. We hope and expect it will include a clear articulation of a new strategy for Iraq--a real effort, based on classic counterinsurgency doctrine, to secure the Iraqi population, first in Baghdad, and then in Anbar, along with substantial aid for economic development and jobs for Iraqis. This will be supported
by a rapid increase in the size of the force in Iraq by around 30,000 troops, and will signal a sharp departure from the failed Rumsfeld-Abizaid-Casey minimalist approach.

Oh well. I can't say that I agree that sending 20,000 more troops is going to help. I think that, had there been more from th beginning; had we not used Rumsfeld's strategy of having a smaller more agile force on the ground, things would be different now. I also think that we never should have gone there in the first place... but it's all together too late for that now.

The saddest part of all: there's nothing that anyone can do to stop "the decider" from deciding. He'll send however many troops he wants until congress does something drastic and that's that. I think I'll write my (non-voting) congresswoman.

Reminder

2007-01-09T18:59:00.001-05:00

Check out the various companies listed in CNN Money's list of the 100 best companies to work for.

Holy Crap do I want an iPhone

2007-01-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

Me and everyone else. From Engadget:

Capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple's history -- and that's saying a lot -- the iPhone has been announced today. Yeah, we said it: "iPhone," the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it'd been nothing more than a twinkle in Stevie J's eye (comments, Cisco?). Sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that's frickin' thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch wide touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the sensor when it's close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 8 GB of storage, Bluetooth with EDR, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quadband GSM radio with EDGE. Perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OS X with support for Widgets, Google Maps, and Safari, and iTunes (of course) with CoverFlow out of the gate. A partnership with Yahoo will allow all iPhone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email.

Reminder

2007-01-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

I need to finish reading this article:
Young Turn to Web Sites Without Rules

So where do the young thrill-seekers go?
Increasingly, to new Web sites like Stickam.com, which is building a business by going where others fear to tread: into the realm of unfiltered live broadcasts from Web cameras.
The site combines elements of more popular sites, but with a twist. In addition to designing their own pages and uploading video clips, its users broadcast live video of themselves and conduct face-to-face video chats with other users, often from their bedrooms and all without monitoring by any of Stickam’s 35 employees.
Other social networks have decided against allowing conversations over live video because of the potential for abuse and opposition from child-safety advocates. “The only thing you get from the combination of Web cams and young people are problems,” said Parry Aftab, executive director of the child protection organization WiredSafety.org. “Web cams are a magnet for sexual predators.”

H-a-p-p-y New Year!

2007-01-01T11:51:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everybody. R, her cousin A and I brought in '07 working the coat check at R's hotel and watching kids get obliterated and walk into walls. There was plenty of drama: cut feet on broken glass, lost coats, trashed rooms and a lot of unfortunate clothing. I also learned that, in general, women do not tip at the coat check.

This year's resolutions:
1. Find a better job or go to grad school.
2. Eat sustainable food (thanks a lot, The Omnivore's Dilemma).
4. Hit the gym and get back to being able to run 2 miles in under 14 minutes (it could happen!).

I think the first step on the road to resolving these resolutions is to buy a new Macbook Pro... after whatever sweet announcements are made at Macworld Expo, of course.

Also, I'm going to try to be more nerdy...

I don't believe in the death penalty

2006-12-29T23:27:00.000-05:00

Killing people is stupid. Saddam is dead. Whoop-tee-doooooo. It doesn't change a god damn thing. story

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at an unspecified location in Baghdad, for crimes against humanity.
Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT).
The news was confirmed to the BBC by the Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister, Labeed Abawi.

Gerald Ford, RIP

2006-12-29T10:51:00.000-05:00

Dana Carvey called this back in 1997: SNL Gerald Ford sketch

My Netflix Review for Lady in the Water

2006-12-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

Roger Ebert's review of Lady in the Water reminded me how much I hated the movie, so I thought I'd review it on Netflix. Here:

I was subjected to this piece of horrible film on a transatlantic flight. The plot meanders from worthless point to worthless point as characters we couldn't care less about repeat the obvious until you wish there was something blunt around to use to hit yourself in the face. I found myself repeatedly removing my headphones to ask those around me if this film was some kind of stupid joke meant to teach film students what not to make or to amuse malnourished chimpanzees who had just finished huffing an entire can of paint thinner. Don't see this. It is a waste of precious time that would be better spent slamming your head in a car door.

Favorite Photo from Xmas 2006

2006-12-28T13:55:00.000-05:00

Here's my favorite picture that I took while up in NY over the weekend: some random cabin in the woods where we took the dogs for a walk. I only had to tweak the contrast and exposure a tiny bit to bring out the bark and the red in the berries.

Recognizing the Truth

2006-12-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

Looks like Bush and Co. might actually be acknowledging the fact that things are getting quite warm here on earth at a not-so-common rate. From this article in the Washington Post (which, disappointingly, came through as part of the "politics" RSS feed I have set up).

The Bush administration has decided to propose listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, putting the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming could drive one of the world's most recognizable animals out of existence.
Identifying polar bears as threatened with extinction could have an enormous political and practical impact... Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from power-plant and vehicle emissions is helping drive climate change worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the legal question of whether the government would be required to compel U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output.
"We've reviewed all the available data that leads us to believe the sea ice the polar bear depends on has been receding," said the Interior official, who added that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have concluded that polar bears could be endangered within 45 years. "Obviously, the sea ice is melting because the temperatures are warmer."

My prediction? This interior official will be fired by the Bush administration within two months.

Xmas summary

2006-12-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

What started as a rant about Amtrak and the NJ turnpike ended up as an Xmas summary. Here 'tis:

I went home for the holidays to visit Mom, Sis, Dad, Step-Mom and Sis-BF. I took the train up on Saturday morning really really early as we did Xmas gift unwrapping at R's parents for me on Friday night. I scored a 2GB jump drive and a really awesome map of Spain that will go nicely with a map of Sweden from the early 1900s/late 1800s that I gave to R for a 6 month anniversary after we'd just started dating.

I had worked until 8pm, went up to R's parents' house for dinner and unwrapping and got back down to DC around 11pm. I packed my bags and all the presents I had to bring up and then we sat on the couch to spend some time together before I had to leave. I eventually passed out on the couch at about 2am only to wake up around 2:30am to get my stuff together and go find a taxi to Union Station.

The 3:15am train to NYC from DC on Saturday morning isn't as weird as I assumed it would be. I'd originally planned on going up at a normal time, like 8 am, but when I finally got around to getting tickets, all of the trains after 5:15am were either sold out or on the hyper-expensive Accela (I refuse to pay double the price to get there half an hour earlier.)

The ticket machine at Union Station didn't print out my ticket and instructed me to go see an Amtrak agent. Of course, there are no Amtrak agents at Union Station at 3:15am. I only had about 10 minutes until the train left, so I did a lap around looking for anyone official and, upon finding no one, just went to the train.

I talked to the conductor before getting on and he explained, "this always happens on the Saturday morning train. You'll need to buy a ticket on the train. You need to call Amtrak at 1-800-USA-RAIL. You have ID, right?"

Once on board, I put in a call to 1-800-USA-RAIL, which is a huge pain in the ass on a blackberry because it doesn't have the letters printed on the keys. Luckily, I was able to find the original email from a week ago and just click the number to call it. After waiting on the phone for 20 minutes, here's the conversation (as much as I can remember):

Lady: Hello, this is Rhonda from Amtrak how may I help you.
Me: Hi, I need to cancel my reservation.
Rhonda: OK. Can you give me your reservation #.
Me: It's blahblahblah.
Rhonda: OK.
Me: Yeah, I got to the station and the machine wouldn't print the ticket, so they said I need to buy one on the train.
Rhonda: Wait. You're still going to take the train?
Me: Yes.
Rhonda: Well, then. You don't need to cancel the reservation. You need me to reverse that charges, right?
Me: Umm... Whatever you call it where I don't have to pay the ticket online and can just buy a ticket on the train, I need to do that.
Rhonda: Well, you'll still need a reservation. So you'll need me to reverse the charges, right?
Me: I guess.
Rhonda: It's a good thing I didn't cancel it, because you need a reservation to ride the train. Why didn't you just tell me to reverse the charges to your card?
Me: Umm.... Sorry?
Rhonda: I'm going to reverse them and then give you a new reservation number, so make sure you have a pen.
Me: OK.

This was obviously my fault for not knowing the term "reverse the charges" needed to be used. Magic words are very important in these scenarios. After I'd hung up and was giving my credit card to the conductor, I heard the guy behind me complaining that he couldn't get the number to work because he had a blackberry and it didn't have letters for the numbers. I gave him the number and he started to call. After he'd been on hold 20 minutes and was just giving them his reservation number, we went into the tunnel outside Baltimore and he lost the signal.

As we were rolling in the Baltimore station, the conductor suggested that he could try to run up and use the ticket machine to see if it would print the ticket here, but the man declined, saying that he didn't want the train to leave without him.

Once we were rolling again, he called back. I didn't listen in on the conversation, but it sounded like he was able to reverse the charges. Later, the conductor came around to ask him to pay for a new ticket. The man refused, saying that he had already paid for a ticket and didn't feel right paying for another one. The conductor explained that he either needed to pay for a ticket, try to get off and get the ticket from a machine at the next station, or just get off the train altogether because he wasn't allowed to ride for free. The man continued to insist that he didn't want to get off because the train might leave and he'd already paid anyway.

Fifteen minutes went by and this time two conductors came. They explained that he would need to either pay or get off at Wilmington. The man refused. Once we reached Wilmington, an Amtrak police officer came on to try to explain again to the man that he would need to pay or get off the train. The man again insisted that he had already paid and that he wasn't getting off the train. A second officer showed up and the whole "If you don't leave on your own we'll remove you" vs. "I'm not leaving the train" conversation ensued. No one ever really explained to the man that all of us had had to do the same thing and that it wasn't some sort of scam, but he was being stubborn enough that I'm not so sure it would have done any good. Once they started pulling him out by his feet, he grabbed the back of my seat and tried to hold on and the conductor suggested that I move next to someone else for a while. I did and watched as they dragged the man off the train. He promptly stood up once on the platform and they walked him away. The conductor came back on, grabbed the man's bags, put them on the platform and then train rolled out of the station.

No one tried to help this guy. Not even me. I had enough cash to pay for his ticket... but then, I was sure that he should have had the money as well. In fact, he could easily have gotten off the train, caught the next one and done the same trick straight to New York. To let myself sleep with the guilt of not having helped him, I convinced myself that he was irresponsible for having planned a 300 mile trip without having $63 in his pocket... or a credit card. He had also been talking to someone on his blackberry the entire ride up while everyone else was trying to sleep, so we were all better off and it's not like he didn't have a way to contact people.... unless they took the phone away from him after they put him in Amtrak jail. (I'm still very curious about Amtrak jail).

I arrived at Penn Station around 6:50am and hoofed it over to Grand Central where I caught the 7:20 local train home. At first I regretted having taken the local and not just walked around Manhattan for 30 minutes until the 7:50 express, but the 7:50 gets in later anyway and I had a suitcase that would have made walking around a pain. The local train also turned out to be a good experience. I must have taken the local fifty times during high school for various reasons, but I've found that as I get older I experience things that I've seen before differently. Everything I learn every day changes the lenses through which I see the world, so it's no surprise when I suddenly notice the old crumbling mill with a dock on the Hudson that I'd been past before and never bothered to see; it's roof caving in and windows broken; a lamp from the early 1900s on a post out at the dock that's being swallowed by rot and the river. Thinking of all the amazing pictures that I could take, I vowed to come back and take the local to all it's stops some day to wander around. I'll never do it, but it's nice to think of doing it... especially if there's good lighting like there was this morning: really overcast at 7:30am on the third shortest day of the year.

Once I arrived in town, Mom picked me up at the station and we went home for breakfast. J (sister) and her boyfriend S were still upstairs, but came down pretty soon after I'd arrived so that we could all eat together. Then we were off to our Dad's house further North in a town outside of Poughkeepsie.

We had Christmas dinner with Dad on Saturday and the conversation was mainly dominated by step mom E asking me all about R and I getting married and reception plans, etc. I was so tired at this point from having been up since 2:30am and only having slept for 20 minutes on Friday night that I couldn't put up much of a fight in answering questions about the wedding. Most of my answers were "I don't know" or "yeah" and I escaped relatively unscathed.

After dinner and dessert, we put on March of the Penguins and I passed out in a comfy chair.
The next day we had breakfast at a little diner outside of town. The town itself is quite close to the Culinary Institute of America and known for some great chefs and great restaurants. This little place was no exception. They had eggs from never-caged hens, home made sausage and excellent pancakes (I ate all of these things).

We headed back down to my Mom's after breakfast, stopping along the way to get some air in the tires as my sister's car was pulling to the right and the back wheels were making a hell of a lot of noise. The air solved the former and not the latter.
Once at mom's we had hung around a bit until Sis-BF had to go the Stamford train station to catch his train back to RI for Xmas with his family.

Later, we sat around the kitchen and talked while Mom was getting some of the different dishes for dinner started. At around 4pm she went to church to do some caroling and J and I went to try to find a CAT5 cable so that all of the computers in the house could be on the network... we got some beer and Tostitos, too. (very important errands)

We had a roast for dinner and hung around at the table talking until 10pm or so. For some reason Mom had purchased Barbarella on DVD and decided that it would be fun to watch it, so we threw it on. I'd never seen it before, but was lucky that I'm now old enough that it wasn't too uncomfortable when Jane Fonda stripped completely nude during the opening credits. I'm not sure J was as OK with it as I was since she immediately began questioning the reason for the movie being on at all. The movie turned out to be dated, but good. I fell asleep on the couch by 1am and had to make my way up to bed soon thereafter.

We woke up Christmas morning, unwrapped gifts and then had breakfast. After breakfast we took the dogs for a long walk up in the woods outside of town. I managed to get some pretty good pictures of trees and dogs and such, which I'll post once I've had a chance to get them up on flickr. After getting back from the walk, we hung around the kitchen while mom worked on dinner again, ate and then played hearts over dessert until 11pm or so.

I had to be back at work on Tuesday morning. I was originally going to take the train back down early on Tuesday morning and just get in late around 10, but Mom offered to drive me down as she wanted to see R, R's parents and was considering visiting her friend W outside Philadelphia on the way back. We considered leaving Christmas night, but decided to just wake up at 3:30 and leave by 4am to have me at work by 9.

For some reason, we both woke up with no problems and had an uneventful drive back down to DC. I'd burned a mix of all my favorite Wilco songs and we ended up listening to that for pretty much the entire drive. We switched drivers right after the Maryland border and I took over. When we got to my place, Mom took a nap on the couch and I went to work. Luckily, the office was so dead that the boss made us all go home at 1pm and I got to meet Mom down at the Natural History Museum. Once there I forced her to come with to go see two different photography exhibitions, Robert Creamer's Transitions and another exhibition called "Visual Griots of Mali", which features 40 black and white photographs taken by Malian children.
At 3:30pm, Mom and I met up with R's parents and we all went to see a new exhibit at the Ripley on the British, French and Indian War called Clash of Empires. After I fell asleep on my feet looking at one of the displays, I realized how tired I was from traveling and not sleeping and decided to sit down until we left for home.

We all met up with R back at our place, sat around and shot the shit a bit and then all went out to a delicious dinner at a Latin-Asian fusion restaurant a block from our house.

Mom left this morning after she dropped me off at work and here I am blogging about it all.

Time for lunch!

Astrid Tuschen

2006-12-20T14:13:00.000-05:00

My Friend Astrid's website. Check it.

whatever-will-be.com

Finito

2006-12-18T12:28:00.000-05:00

What a great weekend! I wish I wasn't back at work. R and I finished all of our Xmas shopping on Sunday and also managed to watch a couple of good movies (Thank You For Smoking was OK, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was fantastic and Broken Flowers was slow, but interesting.... I wouldn't venture to call it "good") and get our Holiday Photo done. If you didn't get a copy of the photo in an email, drop me a line at elgreg@gmail.com and let me know that I should send you one.

Today, a friend also pointed out the Selk Bag to me, which I agree should be everyone's purchase for everyone else next year for xmas.

Slashdot | Unrefined "Musician" Gains a Global Audience

2006-12-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

Slashdot | Unrefined "Musician" Gains a Global Audience

Thanks, Metro Canopy!

2006-12-13T20:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Metro Canopy!
Originally uploaded by El Greg.

Took this shot on Sunday when we went up to Bethesda to visit R's parents. I like it. It's shiny in parts and dark in others...