Monday, February 26, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Interview. Interview. Flight. Interview. Flight. Interview. Acceptance.
(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?
Monday, February 19, 2007
When It Rains It Pours...
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, February 16, 2007
Friday.... not so special?
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.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Unemployment... not too shabby!
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.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Duh
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.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Welcome
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
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
February, Week 2 - All New Year's Resolutions Begin to Die
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.
Friday, February 02, 2007
New Projects...
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.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Whoo hoo!
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.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Notes on the SOTU
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.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Weekend Wrapup (about me, not the world)
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.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Newsish Things
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".
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.”
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.)
Friday, January 12, 2007
New Year's Resolutions
(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.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Down an Alley in Plombieres Les Bains, France
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Reminder
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
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.Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Reminder
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.”
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.”
Monday, January 01, 2007
H-a-p-p-y New Year!
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...
Friday, December 29, 2006
I don't believe in the death penalty
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.
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.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
My Netflix Review for Lady in the Water
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
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Recognizing the Truth
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."
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.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Xmas summary
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!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
Finito
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.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Thanks, Metro Canopy!
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...
If Tom DeLay never stepped down, the GOP would have won...
Or at least that's what Tom Delay thinks. He's quoted by RWN on his own blog here: Tom DeLay.com
I think it's (because of) a variety of reasons. On the House side, taking me out so disrupted the leadership during the time that they should have been planning for a campaign and working towards campaigns (that) they were in chaos. If you remember, I stepped down temporarily because of a Republican rule, not a Democrat rule. They didn't know how to deal with that because no one has ever had to do that before.
Then, we had a full leadership race in January and February and it took John Boehner, I don't know how many weeks to get up and get going. By the time that they were ready to go, it was May and that was too late.
Then, we had a full leadership race in January and February and it took John Boehner, I don't know how many weeks to get up and get going. By the time that they were ready to go, it was May and that was too late.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers
I just finished watching this movie. While there's a little bit of melodrama and a few unexplained graphics, it does a great job of explaining the issue of war-contracting, war-profiteering and why it's bad for tax payers, bad for renlistement rates and bad for America in general (let alone the poor men & women getting killed as contractors and the poor men & women getting tortured by them).
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Why we should be buying diamonds from Canada
With the film Blood Diamond coming out soon (or is it out already?), the news media is getting on an anti-diamond cartel, anti-child labor kick. Good for them, but too bad that it takes a Leonardo DeCaprio movie for them to raise a stink. I read about the cartel a long time ago and chose to buy R's rock from a Canadian mine. This MSNBC multimedia article gives a lot of information complete with black and white pictures of repressed people and bleeding heart commentary by a Nordic-looking photojournalist. Sweet!
Monday, December 04, 2006
US UN envoy quits post
Washington's UN envoy quits post
The article makes sense and isn't too surprising, I just love the picture of Bush with that goddamn smirk on his face.
John Bolton was unable to win the necessary Senate support for him to continue in the job.
He took up the UN posting last year during a Congressional holiday after his nomination stalled in the Senate.
He is the second high-profile member of President George W Bush's team to leave after the Republicans fared badly in last month's mid-term polls.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Rumsfeld Memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment’ in Iraq
Rumsfeld Memo Proposed ‘Major Adjustment’ in Iraq
To limit the political fallout from shifting course he suggested the administration consider a campaign to lower public expectations.
“Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis,” he wrote. “This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’ ”
“Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist,” he added.
“Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis,” he wrote. “This will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not ‘lose.’ ”
“Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist,” he added.
Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.
A lot to catch up on and not a lot of time to do it in. Today I'm in San Francisco for a work conference. I'm reminding myself of college in that I'm procrastinating by writing when I have a presentation that I'm supposed to give at 11am for which I haven't completed the handout. It's OK. It's only 6:38 here.
A lot's happened since I last posted something on here that wasn't just a link to a news article.
(1) R and I got engaged. We had been planning on doing something special for our five year anniversary of our first... umm... make-out session, I guess, which is on Nov. 10th. I put myself in charge of picking a place to go and refused to tell R where it was until we were in the car on the way to the airport. All she knew was that she would need a passport and that the climate was about the same as that of DC.
I had chosen our oldhomBarcelona after I'd made the decision to propose, but used the surprise location to mask the larger ring-shaped surprise. The short version: After arrival, we had to wait two hours before check-in wherein I bought a cheap suit for an upcoming wedding and R got an equally cheap dress. Thanks, Zara! After check-in, we showered up and I convinced R that we should walk to Park Guell at the top of the hill. Once there, I steered us to an archway of branches behind the house that architect Gaudi used while he was designing the park. I rooted around in my camera bag for an extra batter because "mine had died" and instead produced a ring. End of story.
That night we met up with an old friend/roommate right in front of our old building on Rambla De Prat. Once we had established, to our relief, that we all basically looked the same after 4 years, we started walking to find a place to eat and ended up at our favorite old Middle Eastern place, Habibi.
The next day we went out to the suburbs of Barcelona to visit the same friend and her husband and to meet her daughter of one and a half, Maya.
And the day after that we left again.
(2) A Week in the Dominican (see picture, right) - Two weeks later, on Nov. 21, we left again for the Dominican Republic for a friend's wedding. The wedding took place on a Resort about 30 minutes Southeast of La Romana, the Wyndham Dominicus Beach. The week was spent almost entirely going between the beach, the dining hall and various bars all in the company of at five other couples that we usually spend New Year's with. Thanksgiving dinner at the dining hall wasn't the same as the US, but they still provided a Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, so I wasn't complaining.
I only managed to escape the contrived atmosphere of the resort twice. Our second day there, we took a cab to the capital, Santo Domingo, to have lunch with the former host-family of one of our friends at the wedding. It was great to get out and have an authentic Dominican meal with shredded cabbage and carrot salad, two different varieties of rice and beans and some excellent fried yucca cakes that I really need to get the recipe for (something involving anise).
The second escape was made on my last full day at the resort (the 27th) when I accompanied the groom and another groomsman to La Romana to return the suit jackets that had been rented for the wedding. We got a little lost and my Blackberry saved the day by letting us call the rental place. I got some great shots of the street and various signage.
We all agreed that it seemed like everyone in the Dominican was always extremely happy. We also agreed that the resorts make the rest of the country seem a lot worse than it is to try to scare their patrons from leaving and spending their money elsewhere. Having been to India was excellent preparation for the Dominican. The country is dirty, but not that dirty. Poor, but not that poor. The people were also a lot more tolerant of three white guys in a car than I know they would have been in New Delhi. There was no following, staring or requests for money.
We landed on Tuesday this week, I went to work on Wednesday and I left again on Thursday morning for this group meeting in San Francisco. I'm a little jet-tarded, but not too worse for wear. Maybe it's the tan.
OK. Done procrastinating.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above
Heck yes. I first found this off of a free mp3 at ampcamp's free mp3 site
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Projections, projections C'mon Webb! C'mon Cardin!
It's 11:39pm, November 7th, 2006, let's see what the news says:
CNN
Projections: Dems win House
CNN projects that when all votes are in, Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives. The Senate remains in the balance, with projections so far having Democrats winning three of the six seats they need.
Dems Win House
4 GOP seats still up for grabs in Senate; Allen, Webb locked in Virginia Senate battle
Democrats complete swing of power in House; Pelosi poised to be new majority leader; control of Senate in the balance
The Revolution of 2006
ABC News projects that the Democrats will reach the magic number of 218, gaining more than 15 seats in the House and giving them majority control of the lower chamber.
Democrats regain House, promise changes
Clinton says message to Bush is ‘not so fast,’ and McCain essentially agrees
Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections
Politicians WASHINGTON, DC—After months of aggressive campaigning and with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted, politicians were the big winners in Tuesday's midterm election, taking all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, retaining a majority with 100 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and...
Democrats Take The House
CBS Estimate: Dems Win 15 Seats Needed For House Control, Also Add 3 Senate Seats
Monday, November 06, 2006
Reminder - Check out Kiva.org
Check out Kiva.org - Loans that change lives. This micro-financing has you loaning small amounts to entrepreneurs and generally getting at least 95% of your money back. Thereby enabling all the emotional benefits of altruism with only minor financial loss (basically just the interest that you would have earned if you held on to the money that you loan).
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Bible Study
Religion and the bible seem to be popping up a lot lately; there's this whole Pastor Ted thing going on and I also just finished reading a great article on Atheism in the latest issue of Wired.
My wanderings led me to a few different places that are definitely worth a look:
Slate Blogs the Bible has Slate's David Plotz reading through the "good book" and logging
A video on YouTube of Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins arguing with Pastor Ted himself about evolution popped up as particularly popular on technorati.com and is actually a segment of the larger documentary "The Root of All Evil", which can be found on Google Video here.
Another interesting spot is the Skeptics Annotated Bible, which reads through the bible and makes whiny gripes every five verses or so.
There's also Capella's guide to Atheism.
In other news, R and I saw Borat! last night and it was fan-freaking-tastic. I'd recommend it to anyone. In fact, I recommend it to you, right now.
We've also been hitting the gym pretty hard in preparation for being seen on the beach in the Dominican when we're there for a wedding over Thanksgiving. I'm up to four miles in 35 minutes, which is crap compared to what I used to run in high school... but since it's been almost 10 years since then, I guess I can't be too disappointed.
Tonight we're off to the engagement party of some friends of ours in Adams Morgan, but for the moment, I have a load of laundry to fold.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Friedman on the Kerry "gaff"
Here's a link to Friedman's Op-Ed in the Times today on how stupid Bush, Cheney, et al. must think we all are link [link is from myspace through technorati, because Times Select is dumb].
Oooh, that's not going to help come Tuesday.
Man, the republicans just can't catch a break. The BBC and NYTimes report that the US had to close down the "Iraqi Freedom Document Portal" because documents on the site may have contained detailed materials on how to build nuclear weapons. From the BBC:
The website, Iraqi Freedom Document Portal, was set up in March after pressure from Republican legislators that intelligence experts were taking too long to comb through thousands of documents from Saddam Hussein's Iraq...
The documents reportedly contained detailed information on the radioactive cores of atom bombs and how to build nuclear firing circuits and trigger explosives.
One diplomat told the New York Times that the documents were "a cookbook".
The documents reportedly contained detailed information on the radioactive cores of atom bombs and how to build nuclear firing circuits and trigger explosives.
One diplomat told the New York Times that the documents were "a cookbook".
From the NYT:
The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.
And in other not-so-good-for-republicans news, the top evangelist who resigned over gay sex claims is now admitting to having bought drugs and received a massageThe head of a US evangelical body who quit after being accused of paying for sex with a gay prostitute has admitted he bought drugs.
The Reverend Ted Haggard, ex-leader of the 30m-strong National Association of Evangelicals, said he bought methamphetamine but "never used it".
He denies having sex with the man but said he did receive a massage.
Who wants to bet that, if this story goes any further, it will turn out that Pastor Ted is a big time speed freak who hangs out with tina every morning and that his definition of the word "massage" is loose enough to allow for plenty of santorum? In a very Clintonesque statement, he even said in an interview with KUSA-TV, "I never had a gay relationship with anybody." Could this be the same sly that's-what-sex-means-to-me maneuver? A massage definitely doesn't dictate a relationship and they weren't buying each other flowers (just drugs) or going out to dinner... and even then, the word "relationship" is deniable.The Reverend Ted Haggard, ex-leader of the 30m-strong National Association of Evangelicals, said he bought methamphetamine but "never used it".
He denies having sex with the man but said he did receive a massage.
Hopefully this hypocrisy and irony on Friday will be followed by some irony and hypocrisy on Monday to create an Election weekend sandwich.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Note to Self: Avoid Conventional Peaches
My Whole-Foods-Organic-Food-Loving self saw this story on nbc4 the other day while I was at the gym regarding which foods are found to absorb the largest and smallest amount of pesticides.
WASHINGTON -- Organic fruits and vegetables often cost twice as much as other produce, but now shoppers concerned about both pesticides and their budget have a new tool to help them pick and choose what's best.
Scientists for the Environmental Working Group poured over government tests on 43 popular fruits and vegetables, focusing on the pesticide loads.
They compiled two lists: one containing foods with the most pesticides and a second list of the cleanest produce.
Dirty Dozen (Foods With Most Pesticides):
more...Scientists for the Environmental Working Group poured over government tests on 43 popular fruits and vegetables, focusing on the pesticide loads.
They compiled two lists: one containing foods with the most pesticides and a second list of the cleanest produce.
Dirty Dozen (Foods With Most Pesticides):
- Peaches
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
R and I are on a health kick in preparation for spending the week surrounding Thanksgiving at a wedding in the Dominican republic. I've been running four miles four days a week and watching the blisters on my feet grow. I think I need running shoes with a bigger toe-box... or just new socks... or new feet.
Also in health news, the articlue "Can a pill let you pig out with impunity?" by William Saletan in Slate Magazine, explains that a new study is showing that wine is going to make me live to be 150. Sweet!
A substance in wine, grape skins, and peanuts might protect you from the harmful effects of a fatty diet. Mice that were fed the substance, resveratrol, with a fatty diet got just as fat as mice that ate the same diet without resveratrol. But they didn't get the same heart damage, liver damage, or pre-diabetic blood changes. They also lived 15 percent longer, just like mice that ate healthier food.
more in the NYT...
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Reminder - Read: An economist's critique of The Omnivore's Dilemma.
My mom just sent me a copy of this book. Maybe I'll read the review after I read it... Can You Really Save the Planet at the Dinner Table - An economist's critique of The Omnivore's Dilemma. - By Tyler Cowen - Slate Magazine
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