Not part of the mob

The T and I are two units in the masses traveling for the holidays.
There is a certain mindset you have to shoot for in order to stay sane
in the airport and truly appreciate the signs that read "Thank you for
participating in security." This time of year--and this year in
particular--winter wardrobes collide head on with TSA suggested
footwear. Sorry but I am not packing my winter boots when I'll need
them to board my dog sled transportation in the midwest.

Anyhooo, we left the house eight hours before our flight time in order
to give ourselves a huge cushion of time in case we had to deal with
any unexpected events on our way to the aeroport, like the yuppie
jackass in the Jeep Cherokee who was trying to reach warp speed on the
snow covered road. We made it to the Emerald City with no problems but
wonder where the plows are. The state must own at least one, right?

The scene at the aeroport is total simmering chaos but none if it
involves The T and I. Two airlines cancelled all their flights out
yesterday so there are a few stranded people standing around in
corrals. It was hard to navigate until we got close to the American
Airlines counter. Then the sea of humanity parted and we left the
crowds behind. We both feel like we cheated somehow. We even have
seats on the plane! Something is going to go wrong at some point but I
don't know what is left. The bag is checked, my belly full and my
boarding pass looks legit. I had no idea my karma account had such an
overflow of points.

On to Chicago and single-digit temperatures!!

Sent from my iPhone

If you'd been listening in

Overheard in Meanwhile Manor:

The T: I guess I'll get out of bed now.

Me: Why? Because it's after 12 noon or because you're asking questions that can be answered in the user's manual that I'm not bringing to you?

The T: You pick.

In merely two syllables, The T deflated all the air behind my passive-aggressive haranguing. I bow before the master.

Put down the donut and click here

Do you remember that internet game where you would enter two words into google with the goal of getting only one hit? I think a did it once with words related to flatulence and pachyderms. I was reminded of the game when I read these words on a blog: taro root Slushie with boba.

Some worlds just collided there.

I found that decidedly odd menu item on the One Dollar Diet Project. It's a fascinating read about a couple in California who fed themselves on only $1 every day for a month. Whoa. I think the cinnamon sticks in my morning brew go for 5¢ apiece. I'd never make it. Anyway, the taro root Slushie with boba was ingested the day after the flirtation with scurvy experiment ended. Just never thought I'd see those five words in that order and I had to share.

Didn't think that all the way through

Oh, a little forethought goes a long way. And I'm not just saying this
because I have a heater that blows directly into the refrigerator when
the door is opened. The set up is less than efficient but I don't
think the person who installed the heater knew we would be putting the
fridge there. I mean, who else has their fridge in their back entry way?

But that is not the lack of pre-thinking that is driving me crazy
today. I mean, in a week when things start to thaw around here because
Mother Nature gets back to dumping snow further east where it belongs,
the aforementioned heater will go back to being unused. I am fuming
about the lack of planning ahead on the part of a previously admired
author. If you think you're going to write a serialization of novels
revisiting the same characters, you should put a little thought into
their development as individuals and the evolution of the group
dynamics, to name but two important realms.

Book six came out recently so I went back to page one of book one and
started there before jumping into the latest offering. I listened to
all five books consecutively. This byte-cramming revealed the text in
new way. In the staggered, dragged out initial read, literary devices
such as the rehash of previous events worked well to get the reader up
to speed and make current events more sensical. Part of me gave the
author credit for allowing newbies to the series multiple entry
points. Alas, I now see that the rehash is there because the author
does not know how to move the characters forward from their springing
mostly fully-formed from her head for book one. I know that only two
years have passed in the lives of the characters and so situations
like living arrangements may be the same as they were in previous
books but the events of the characters' lives have been major and
their beliefs challenged and their perspectives impacted yet none of
this is revealed in the writing. I'm distraught about this because I
enjoy visiting their world and I like checking in with them to see how
they're getting on but I have better things to do with my time if the
answers to "how you doing?" are always the same. I don't spend time
with stagnant people here in meatspace and I'm certainly not going to
waste my time with similar folks in a fictional dimension.

This latest book in the series is so poorly written, so full of rehash
and so lacking in development that I think the publisher has pulled a
fast one. I honestly believe that the franchise has been handed off to
a room full of monkeys at typewriters and the original author does
nothing but contribute her name to the cover. This is the Chihuley
(sp?) method of artistic mass manufacturing: one person has the
initial vision and sets the groundwork for the form and then
apprentices crank it out on a mass scale without receiving any
individual credit and without the original artist ever touching the
final piece. I think this is what happens with many book series. I
read that one murder mystery author practices this. He sketches an
outline then a peon fleshes it out and-voilà!-instant best seller with
the known name slapped on the cover.

Of course, it may just be the case that the author was a one hit
wonder. She is up front about her lack of any formal training or
previous practice of the writing craft. Her first book was a gem and
the world she created is an amazing place. But now she doesn't know
what to do next to go forward from fantastic. The lack of thousands
pages of practice behind her is very evident in her current pages
reading as the road already travelled.

Oh well. I've moved on. I'm well into my next fictional work and
thoroughly enjoying it. And since the release dates for subsequent
titles by the same author are spaced out in 18 month intervals rather
than six month intervals, I believe he may actually be the author of
every title. The jury is out on whether or not he can reach the bar he
set rather high in title one.

Sent from my iPhone

Snnff. It's just so beautiful

Transcript (from Neatorama)
Shame on you. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re going to let it be the worst. And I guarantee a week won’t go by in your life you won’t regret walking out, letting them get the best of you. Well, I’m not going home. We’ve come too far! And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not THIS day. The line must be drawn HERE. This far, no further! I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You’re going to work harder than you ever worked before. But that’s fine, we’ll just get tougher with it! If a person grits his teeth and shows real determination, failure is not an option. That’s how winning is done! Believe me when I say we can break this army here, and win just one for the Gipper. But I say to you what every warrior has known since the beginning of time: you’ve got to get mad. I mean plum mad dog mean. If you would be free men, then you must fight to fulfill that promise! Let us cut out their living guts one inch at a time, and they will know what we can do! Let no man forget how menacing we are. We are lions! You’re like a big bear, man! This is YOUR time! Seize the day, never surrender, victory or death… that’s the Chicago Way! Who’s with me? Clap! Clap! Don’t let Tink die! Clap! Alright! Let’s fly! And gentlemen in England now abed shall know my name is the Lord when I tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Independence Day!

Condensed Time, Just Add Tech

Let's not discuss the lack of heat in ye olde abode right now. I want the remodel that has been a bright shining figment of my imagination for months now to magically occur over night, complete with new wood burning fireplace. If the elves can't make the whole thing happen, I'd just like the fireplace, please. How about just replacing the single-pane windows? I only feel my toes after a hot shower or first thing in the morning after a night of thawing, er, sleeping on Big Swampy.

Anyway, while my fingers are still warm and nimble enough to type, let me get this post going. Warmth may only be one factor leading to the downfall of this post, now that I think about it. The condensing of time might be what does it in. I read an article the other day on an old fashioned piece of paper, possibly bound together in what was known as a "news magazine" and the speaker pulled the Old Timer Walking 5 Miles Through Snow to School routine. My own 40-year-old brain has forgotten the subject of the article but the gentleman mentioned how hard it was for him back in 19-hundred-and-97 "when all we had was [the search engine] HotBot."

While that reference to way back when was kicking around in my head, I ran across this techno-gem this morning:

The third and last entry of the epic Toy Bot series offers a crescendo of challenges, superb levels and an exciting conclusion to this iPhone classic. link

The iPhone has only existed since June 2007 and the game is an iPhone classic? Was the word classic misused or am I becoming a fuddy-dud? Where is the line when something that was introduced becomes a classic? With cars, I thought it was around 30 years. Apparently with video games, the window is mere months. The App Store is not even a year old and a game has gone classic. I'm dizzy. How long before the game is so cool and old it is retro? When I start to refer to "back in my day" will I actually be referring to a four-hour window or might I be allotted an entire day?

A detail that is adding to this cognitive dissonance is that I'm listening to Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler on my old-school pre-3G iPhone and hearing all about London during WWII. In this time of the U.S. trying to get over itself in terms of international affairs, I considered how New York or Philadelphia or Seattle might have reacted if bombers had reached our shores during that war. Police phone boxes and hurricane lamps and typewriters and magnifying glasses were the tech of the day. (Also described are rationing and going to shelters and emerging to see your neighborhood has disappeared under a pile of rubble. I believe our American psyche with respect to hardship is sorely lacking as compared to the rest of the planet. I'm not saying we should have a war just to toughen us up but I do believe our collective perspective has some major holes in it.)

I'm going to ponder the speeding up of the passage of time more while I find some sticks to ... er, particles to rub together to generate some heat and warm up my coffee.

link for image

That won't be on the test

In precalculus, we've spent the last few days looking at various solution techniques for systems of equations. If you are a math-o-phobe, all you need to get from the last sentence is "looking at various solution techniques." In street lingo, it means we've been solving problems by hand and building up to the crescendo (in my mind anyway) of getting the calculator to do it for us. I prefer setting the stage for the Magic Button Method by first working problems by hand and analyzing why the steps are done and why they are allowed, etc. etc.

Today was the moment. What had been taking a minimum of 15 minutes of arithmetic agony took a mere minute of set-up and a second of waiting for the calculator to spit out the answer. One student immediately asked, "Are we going to be able to solve these with the calculator on the homework?"

What I wanted to say was, "Once the genie's out of the bottle, it's impossible to put him back."

What I heard myself say was, "It's like finding out that the wizard is just a creepy old man behind a curtain. There's no going back once you've seen that."

Six days and counting before break begins. Not a second too soon, me thinks.

Not sure what to call this

I just realized I have no memory of having combed my hair before
leaving the house this morning. Looking in the mirror does not provide
any evidence.

I'm not sure if not knowing says more about what kind of day I'm
having or my sense of style.

Sent from my iPhone

I tawt I taw a puddy-tat

I really didn't need to sit at my desk tonight, grrllzz. Don't mind me.

Feline Concentration

You would never know by looking at this shot that Meanwhile Manor has
approximately 1100-square feet in which one can stretch out (or curl
up) and relax.

Oh, really

My daily digital routine includes updating my numerous podcasts
(welcome to the herd, Ms Maddow), checking the bulletin boards for
files worth the download bandwidth, cycling through watched or
listened to files on the iPhone and replacing them with fresh, new
files, and looking for new and/or updated iPhone applications. It is
this last which caused me to double-take this morning.

iTunes makes updating easy to the point of annoying. Essentially,
updates are shoved your way and you either acquiesce and perform the
upgrade or subject yourself to endless nattering and nagging.

Anyway, one of the apps I have on my iPhone is a copy of the
Constitution. Perhaps you've heard if this document. Imagine my
surprise when it required an update this morning. As The T said,
"you'd think we'd have heard more about that."

Sent from my iPhone

I knew it!

Here's the last image sent from the Mars rover Phoenix. Looks suspicious, if you ask me.


Actually, the photo was slightly, uh, retouched as part of a contest over at Gizmodo.

Just let me finish this page

This is how I feel in the bookstore and at the library and while browsing Powell's Books.com and well, all the time really. I wish I had a touch of insomnia, just a touch. Maybe then I'd have a chance to read all the books I am accumulating.


Link

iYiyi

What is the fascination with bacon? Bacon wallets. Bacon band-aids. And now iBacon for your iPhone. I am verklempt.


from Gizmodo

How do I recharge this thing?

Ingenious! A Japanese farmer put stickers on apples and then just sat back and waited. Brilliant and probably a trademark infringement lawsuit waiting to happen. Regardless, next year I am slapping stickers on every veggie I plant.


via Gizmodo

What Would Rorschach See?

As a follow-up to Gollum's particular perspective of a store display combined with my self-inundation in the national election, I bring you an interesting view of voting results. Way more info can be found at the author's site, not too far from the longitudinal midline of the contiguous 48.

The national election in 2004 spawned the Jesusland map, a (humorous?) response to the wave of red psychosis that swept the land:

Here's what it looks like in the more traditional colors of red and blue:

And now let's look at just the lower-48:


Now this is where things get really neat. If the map is tweaked based on population density and we look at the cartogram, the red and blue swatches look like:

For a fuller explanation of what's going on, check out where the maps came from.

Here are the results for the 2008 election:















I would love to see this map superimposed on on similar renditions of maps showing locations of cities. I wonder just how distorted location is. That claw on the west coast: is that San Francisco Bay? Where exactly is that pocket of red in the lower left corner, Arizona? The author offers up his software for free. I'm off to play.

At the end of the rainbow

Way back in The When, at the beginning of the presidential primary season when it seemed like every politician who had a pulse decided the run for the office, the question arose, "Who is this Obama fellow?" My favorite answer to the question—and this is real, I swear—was that he was a nice Irish fellow cut from the same liberal cloth as a previous generation's nice Irish fellow.

Irish. As in O'Bama. For a brief moment, I wondered if I was spelling his name wrong and that the apostrophe was actually some sort of glottal stop like in the word Hawai'i. Thankfully, the moment passed. 

I can only think that these poor mistaken folks, deep in their conservative closet, were so shocked that a man of mix-raced lineage would dare enter the campaign that they clung to their error for comfort. Did they also misconstrue the rest of his name? Did they hear it as Patrick Seamus O'Bama? Oy.

You're gonna need a bigger scoop

My apologies to Mr Scheider, Mr Spielberg, and the shark for the preceding title but my reasoning will be obvious by the end of the post.

I recently journeyed to Petco with Gollum for needed animal items like food and dog biscuits in the very particular shape of a postman. So there we are wandering the aisles, both wondering how Cooper the Happy Dawg would fare in such environs when Gollum stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the huge litterbox serving as the endcap on an aisle. If you've visited Petco, you know of what I speak. The bin is about three feet long and four feet wide and who knows how deep and is completely filled with clay cat litter. After bumping into the back of the stopped Gollum, I hear her say in an awed voice, "Wow, that's huge. You would have to have a really big room in your house."

I was forced to inform her that it was a bulk dispenser of litter and she should stick with dogs. Never a dull moment with Gollum, nosiree.

A New Age

I have been completely swimming in news since the election started. I find myself reading news constantly. All. The Time. I am reading feeds on my iPhone before I'm even out of bed. Yes, I have asked myself if this is unhealthy. I mean, how many people need the AP wire or Maureen Dowd before they need coffee? The name Rachel Maddow was also tossed my way as someone to provide a fix. Since I am tv-less and on the edge of radio signals, I think this will be another vid-cast watched in bed.

Anyway, the latest sign of the times is Obama's plan to provide video versions of his weekly address. I first heard this on NPR where the reporter closed the story by saying, "YouTube did not exist when President Bush was elected." Yes, and the fact that it came into being, became a huge piece of the cultural and informational landscape and that he still wasn't including video at the end of his reign of terror is yet another example of how quick he was to adapt to new ideas.

January 20th cannot come soon enough for me.

Go vote!!!

The NPR mobile site has crashed. I can't check election returns. Aaaa!

Sent from my iPhone

The Adult Version

I was hunting for a good book to read when I go to bed after a long day of staring at student papers. As often happens in these situations, I re-read a title I really enjoyed once (or twice) before. This time, I chose to re-read the Hollows series by Kim Harrison. Nothing like a witch bounty hunter who both lives with a vampire who has sworn off blood and has a pixie for a partner. It's a great series.

While waiting for my library copy of the first book in the series, Dead Witch Walking, to come rolling in from the coast on ye olde bookmobile, I acquired a digital copy of the audiobook. I have to tell you, this is the best. I laid on the couch Saturday recovering from Friday's Halloween party and read the first 100-or-so pages. Then I crawled back into Big Swampy 'cuz the house was cold and I wasn't up to faking it anymore. I dropped in the earbuds and picked up in the book where I left off without having to focus my poor eyes. It was awesome. Last night did both! This was like an adult read-along book. While I am not appreciative of the audio artist's rendition of Ivy the vampire*, it was oh so very cool to be lying in bed having someone read to me.

*Question for the audience: why oh why must every vampire have a silky-husky-breathy voice? The premise of the Hollows series is that Inderland creatures who have lived among humans for centuries and have thus learned to mask their differences in order to survive are now living openly. You, like, can't tell me that there isn't, like, at least one vamp in the whole clan that sounds like a valley girl. The vampire character is not filling any of the well known stereotypes or caricatures of the species but the reader's voice sure is.

Technology update

Not only has the iPhone broken barriers in the number of mobile phoning pholks and inappropriate web-surfing behaviors in social settings, it has opened up new vistas of humor. I would like to enter the following exhibits into the official record:





I'm off to work on my halloween costume (can you guess what I'm dressing as? hint: not a hammer) and acquire the Fisher-Price phone sound to use as my ringtone.

This is not the cat you're looking for

Chaos had a vet appointment today. Out came the cat carrier.

This is not Chaos in the cat carrier:


Nor is this Chaos in the cat carrier:


Neither Three nor Barque had a vet appointment today. When they do, I doubt they'll pose like this.

At this time—although transportation to and fro was successful—we have no photos of Chaos in the cat carrier. I believe she is under the bed. Considering it's a waterbed, that's not an easy place to be.

Car 54 where are you?

The local newsrag reported that a local woman was shot through the leg after lighting the fire in her woodstove. A few weeks earlier, she spilled shot from a shotgun shell and apparently some made it into the newspaper that was used as starter fuel. The woman lit the paper, turned and began walking away when the shot exploded out of the stove and punctured her in the leg. She lived to tell the tell the tale.

But what if she hadn't? What if the shot had clipped an artery and she died and took the details of the ammo spill with her? Could Sherlock Holmes have figured out whodunit? I would have liked to hear his deductions that night:

From the trajectory of the shot, the assailant was standing on this side of the room. He is short, pot-bellied and has rather dark skin with a complexion like iron. He has four legs and an interesting gait. He cannot move too quickly. I believe we will also find he has a rather long, skinny neck.

Overheard in Meanwhile Manor

Me: Oh, that's rich! Bush is going to try to calm the nation's fears about the economy by giving a statement at the White House.

The T: Yeah, all he had to do was learn the word 'liquidity'.

Well, whaddyaknow

Thanks to KFluff, I've put off grading and planning for another few moments. More importantly, I've discovered that I'm gorgeous. I mean, check this out:

I'm an Ingrid!!

How can you argue with the results of an internet quiz that combines both advanced logic and magic? What I truly want to know is how you tell the difference between those two ingredients? Processes? Are they nouns or verbs?

Anyway, here's more info about me than you might want to know. I added the first comment, btw.

You abhor color and live in a black and white dimension.

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me
* Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
* Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
* Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
* Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
* Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting! (I love the exclamation point here.)

What I Like About Being an Ingrid
* my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
* my ability to establish warm connections with people
* admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
* my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
* being unique and being seen as unique by others
* having aesthetic sensibilities
* being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

I don't think this is accurate. I'm often unaware there are even people around me, let alone that they might have feelings. My aesthetics extend only to how many different ways the primary colors can be used in my daily wardrobe.

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid
* experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
* feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
* feeling guilty when I disappoint people
* feeling hurt or attacked when someone misunderstands me
* expecting too much from myself and life
* fearing being abandoned
* obsessing over resentments
* longing for what I don't have

Hmm, if I go through these extremes I am unaware it happens. I attribute any shame or guilt to lingering scars from Catholicism. Rather than feeling attacked when misunderstood I think the other person is a dolt for not seeing the obvious. Owning cats has alleviated any possibility of feeling abandoned. They do a good job of ignoring me to begin with.

Ingrids as Children Often
* have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
* are very sensitive
* feel that they don't fit in
* believe they are missing something that other people have
* attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
* become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
* feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)
Wow. The first five describe me as a pre-teen or teen dead on target. The last two, not so much. This is where neither advanced logic or magic came through in the test.

Ingrids as Parents
* help their children become who they really are
* support their children's creativity and originality
* are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
* are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
* are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Nothing to add here since I am not a breeder. I think children are a parasitic affliction that can be easily avoided.

I'm going to float back to the top of this post and stare at myself a bit longer. I think I'm hot.

You don't say

And the nominees for Line of the Year (thus far) 08-09 are:

• The energy on campus is so different in the summer. I like the fall quarter the best of all of them, though—at least there's still hope. —IT tech

• Don't take this the wrong way but you're not as big of a bitch as people said you were. —statistics student

• You lied. When people ask if they should take statistics with you I'm going to say, "No, Lee lies."—statistics student

Let's recall our other favorite lines from years past:

• I would rather put a gun to my head than take another class with Dr. Lee. —unknown student

• [to another math faculty] Don't take this the wrong way but you teach just like Lee. —precalculus student (for the third time)

Cast your votes in the comments. I'll post new ones as they are uttered.

Side Effect of Italy

While at the villa in the Italian countryside, the group of 13 did a very good job of feeding ourselves. M, ever the good girl scout, suggested that a different group of people take the duties for one dinner during the week. She even wrote the schedule down and kept track of menu ideas so that trips so the Super Mercado could be minimized.

M and E came to Italy from northern Europe with a suitcase containing—I kid you not—six kilos of licorice and two wheels of cheese. Let's leave the discussion of the quantity of licorice for another day, shall we, and focus instead on the cheese and the person it has turned me into.

I know not what the cheeses were. This is partially due to the fact that every time I asked what the name of the second one was, a different person answered with either a completely different name or a pronunciation of a repeated name that sounded so different as to be a different word in my head. Thusly, I gave up trying to track this info and came home with pictures in my head instead of names. I like cheese in red wax and no wax. This particular info has not made it easy to find similar cheeses here in the States.

I exaggerate—but only a little. The first wheel was Edam and the second unknown. Regardless, downstairs in the chiller I now have a deli drawer full of foreign words or words of foreign origin now bastardized into edible English. There is a wedge of gouda, a wedge from Costmo, a wedge made in Seattle, and two other wedges not yet opened. I have become a cheese snob, as much as is possible here in the northwest.

Individually wrapped cheese slices are out. Huge blocks of bland cheddar are banished. "Gimmee something I can't pronounce" is my new mantra on the solid dairy front.

If you'd been listening in

Here is this morning's pre-coffee conversation.

Me: Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever lived in a town where there were competing sex shops before. There's the one downtown, the lovely neon pink brick-and-mortar place—a well-respected member of the business community for years. And then there's that single-wide trailer just outside city limits that makes me hear the theme from Deliverance whenever I drive by. It's just a thriving business around here. (pause) Hmm, maybe I'm misusing the word "thriving". Maybe I want a different word.

The T: Like "throbbing"? I think throbbing is the word you want.

Fun with office supplies

This is worth the three minutes it lasts.

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

Italy 2008 Days 0-13

Here's the rundown of my recent vacation, gang. Rather than drag this recap out, I will describe only the most salient points.

• Day 0 The Beginning: I was awake before the dawn and a total psychopath regarding getting to the airport on time. Perhaps this is what led to the following incident:

Agent: Oh, you're eligible for an upgrade to business class!
Me: (to The T) What do you think? It's a long flight?
The T: We don't have $1000.
Me: Yes, yes, we do.

And so we flew in business class. We sipped champagne while hoi polloi filed on. I ate grilled lamb at 35,000 feet. And while my nail clippers may have potentially been confiscated by the teen-aged zit-faced TSA agent, I was given real metal silverware with which to terrorize said lamb. The T watched as many movies and TV shows as she could before we laid our seats out fully flat and slept.

My first impression of Rome was made in the shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Rome has an energy not seen in American cities. It was vibrant and loud, bordering on chaotic. With respect to traffic specifically, the lines were a mere suggestion. As many cars as possible filled out the road from curb to curb and any open space was filled by a scooter. Yet as uncontrolled as it appeared, I saw no accidents or close-calls. This was amazing to watch—until I was a pedestrian, forced to be just as aggressive without the protection of a metal shell.

• Day 1 Rome: Walking the city was amazing. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some art. The Coliseum was cool, the ruins amazing, Trevi Fountain awe-inspiring, and I do not have words for the Pantheon.

• Day 2 On to Arrezzo: Why is it you have to strip naked to get on a plane yet the only uniform I saw in the train station was on the sweeping crew? I understand there is a certain horror surrounding the image of a plane accident but a train disaster is no less deadly or evil, yet you can buy your ticket and find your seat and sit with your wares beside you, non-x-rayed nor handled by another. I began to think this difference in transportation mode security as a symptom of our country rather than a difference in planes and trains. The difference was striking and the population indifferent. Was my surprise at the lack of security obvious to the other people-watching travelers? Regardless, I love trains. The Italian countryside was beautiful and went by all too quickly.

• Day 3–9 At the Villa: The city of Arrezzo is more my speed. Much smaller than Rome with just as much espresso and beer available for the asking. And for wa-a-a-a-y fewer euros. Rome is expensive. Similar to The Economist magazine's method for comparing currencies based on Big Mac worth, I will use beer. A small beer in a Roman cafe cost 8 euros. A similar size beer in Arrezzo cost 5 euros. When we got to the town of Talla, a beer twice the size cost less than 2 euros. Hence, the gang of 11 adults had no problem stocking up on beer and wine for the week we spent together.

M&E picked us up in Arrezzo and drove us to the villa where I stayed ensconced for the rest of the trip. The T went on a day trip to Florence (Bologna had been eliminated as a day trip destination because nobody knows what's in it) but I was content to walk to Talla every day and sip an espresso under the watchful and suspicious gaze of the elderly gang of men.

As I work through my photos and The T's videos, I'll post more details but we had an awesome time. The point to the trip was to celebrate M's birthday and to that end we were quite successful. I heard a goodly number of bawdy rugby songs, witnessed a prank of epic proportions, swam in a pool filled by a mountain spring and was sorry to see it all end.

It's good to be back. I can't wait for the next trip. Stay tuned for more details.

p.s. Frenchie: We now have a collection of euros which show the before and after of Norway's inclusion in the EU and the impact on the imprint of the flaccid penis. Thought of you the whole time.

Available over WiFi, you say?

Add "and tastes great" to the list of iPhone features.

Found at Macenstein via MacRumors

But how do you really feel?

So there I am yesterday, at my first day of school, all shiny and happy and ready to face the challenges of the new year. I will not actually identify those challenges each by name in this post—they are Legion and I would rather focus on here what was the focus of my yesterday.

The year began as is the tradition here at the CC on the Hill ... how have I not thought to call it CCHill before, folks, eh? (I now have David Bowie in my head singing "ch-ch-ch-chill" to the tune of "ch-ch-ch-changes") ... what was I talking about? Oh yes, I was heading off to the traditional morning coffee hour and welcome back by the Prez when I saw my new colleague's door open. Remembering all too well what it was like to be the fresh meat, I offered to walk over with him and introduce him around. We had a lovely chat during which I assured him, a southwest desert transplant, that the rain this corner of the continent is famous for would get here soon enough. And what's the rush, anyway?

After the Prez's greeting, the Veeps introduce the new hires in their respective areas. This is when the tone for my year was set, I believe. When the Veep got to my colleague, he introduced him by saying, "And you know Dr. Math is new because he is sitting next to Lee."

ba-dum-bum. Annnnnnnd we're off.

Sittin' on the Continent

Wow. Here I am in Germany after 10 hours in the air. I've got three
words for all you world travelers out there: upgrade, upgrade,
upgrade. Let's hear it for business class! That was the best
experience I've ever had flying. I'm going to go journal about it now
the old-fashioned way so I can give a more complete trip summary at
the end of the trip. Guten tag.

Sent from my iPhone

One more before I go

In our efforts to get files from the new vid-cam into some format we could edit in iMovie, we found the following. Kudos to the programmers.

The calm before the calmer

Those of you that know me at all know that the title of this post is complete fiction in my world. I am allergic to calm. I cannot handle serenity. I take moderation in, of course, moderation. So you can only imagine my current state as our trip to Italy looms right around the corner. Since I just read Kfluff's post, I am in the mood to award points to events contributing to this current turmoil.

• Bought airline tickets for trip 3 months ago (+5)
• Seats on plane may be the last row on the plane (-6) but are side-by-side (+2)
• Bought sound dampening earmuffs to wear on the plane so I can hear my iGadgets without threatening the integrity of my eardrums with excessive volume (+2 per ear)
• Had to move rifle ammunition, shooting glasses, and recoil sleeves to the side to find the earmuffs at the local general store (=)
• Already booked hotel in Rome for two days on our own surrounded by ... uh ... Rome (+3)
• Have no idea how we're going to get from the airport to the hotel (-2)
• Hotel is 1 block from train station (+4)
• Already have train tickets to Arezzo (+3)
• Know that M&E will meet us in Arezzo with a car to whisk us to the villa (+++ a lot)

Now to the technology category:

• Bought a voltage converter for all our gadgets (+2)
• Called AT&T three times, each time asking a slightly different question which moved me closer to my goal of having one phone work without gouging a hole in my wallet and unlocking another phone which we can put a pay-as-you-go SIM card in once we're overseas (+1, +1, +1, over the course of three hours)
• Headache from the automated phone system (-3, -3, -3, during the same three hours)
• Bought an amazing video camera with which The T has been documenting our daily lives so as to practice (+4)
• Discovered the vid-cam does not play nice with my Mac out of the box (-4)
• Read on discussion boards that a free application can translate video files to iMovie friendly files ... 
• but only if I pay $20 for a QuickTime module (~ a wash)
• Filmed Chaos yawning, transferred file to Mac, translated movie file, opened in iMovie and added a special effect (+10 and all hassle forgotten) (bonus!)
• Currently loading movies and books onto iPhone and iPod for flight. 16 GB holds a goodly amount of video. (+, nothing but +)

Folks, we and our gadgets are off to Italy. We promise to document the adventure well. No matter what the arithmetic above results in, we are on the plus side.

No kidding?

File this under Headline of the Day (though I'm not done with the Sunday paper yet)

Speedo Now Selling LZR Racer Swim Suit to the Public, U. S. Whale Sightings Way Up

-- seen at Gizmodo

It fits, ergo it must be so

Crossword clue: Columbus discovery of 1493

Grid so far: -n----a

Well, Indiana fits both the spaces and the timeline. My public school
education must have failed me again.

Sent from my iPhone

Is there a prize for this?

So I'm thinking of using a wiki in one of my classes this fall. Generally, I'm motivated by the "why one when many" model of information delivery. More specifically, since I never know where the next calculator question is going to come from, the students could work from their collective knowledge. Sounds good in theory. Post what you know, it is more than I could ever tell you.

Problem one with the theory is where does the wiki wiv, er, live. One option is at pbwiki. While surfing throught the employee information, I found the following:

Lynn Wu got her undergraduate degree in Golf and Sports Turf Management. She won silver in the biathlon in Torino. She also took on Wolverine on American Gladiators. Coming in at 6 feet 4 inches, Lynn keeps the PBwiki team in line with her amazon-like ferocity. In her spare time Lynn enjoys LOLcatting, practicing the art of bowyery, and writing fake biographies.

I'm leaning toward pbwiki as the external host for the class wiki if only because the upper-level mucky-mucks are cool with this and see amazon-like ferocity as a plus.

Updated 12:40 PM — The tagline for EditMe: "geek tested, newbie approved" is also a useful measure of quality.

More thrilling words were never heard

"All jurors in the pool during August 4th to August 15th are released from service. We have no upcoming trials. Thank you for your service."

Oh, no. Thank you. I was called at the beginning of the term and sat in on a three day trial. I was gripped the whole time. This was the first time I've served and the whole procedure was fascinating. The case involved a plaintiff appealing the decision of the Labor & Industries Board to not re-open her injury claim. She wanted it re-opened and the Board said the injury was healed and denied her request. She appealed. That's when I became involved as a juror.

I have to say, with all my complaints about bureaucracies and red tape, I like that such an option exists for us little people. Hopefully I never need to appeal for medical attention (knocking on all wood within arm's distance right now) but I was happy to serve on this jury.

The cool part was that, rather than recall all the witnesses who testified in front of the Board, the lawyers read the transcripts to the jury. OK, it wasn't as dynamic as watching Hang 'Em High Harmon strut around on Law & Order: The Perpetual Trial but it was not boring. Each lawyer read the answers of their witnesses and they did a good job not putting us to sleep. Even the judge stayed in tune—we jurors were checking to make sure he was turning the pages at the same time as the lawyers. I wonder if my listening almost non-stop to books on bytes affected my listening skills during the read through.

Before we began deliberating, a juror asked the bailiff what the shortest time deliberating was that he knew of. He replied "about 18 minutes." Well, if our lunches hadn't already arrived (thanks to the County for that one, btw), we would have beat the record. Based on the fact that we all had ordered iced tea as our lunch beverage, I suggested we take an informal count to see if we also agreed on the decision. Turned out that we all agreed on that too! So we tucked in, discussed why we decided the way we did as individuals, recalled the bailiff, and skedaddled after agreeing with the Board's decision to not re-open the injury claim. I'm glad my first experience did not involve an actual crime.

Another manifestation of the obesity epidemic

The ongoing societal problem of obesity has recently become an individual problem for mói. 

No, my friends, I did not wake up to find myself a pre-teen taking medication for cholesterol. Nor did I have to purchase two adjacent seats, one for each buttock, on the plane that will be whisking me to Italy. My friends, societal obesity is now directly affecting my wardrobe. "How can this be?" I hear you cry. It's quite simple, really. 

I do a great deal of clothes shopping at the local Bonne Velonté outlet ... er, the Good Will eight blocks up the hill. Considering that I shop near the bottom of the clothing food chain, think for a moment about who these clothes once belonged to. Obese people donate just as much clothing as, uh, norms do and since there are more obeses in the wild, there is more obese-size clothing hitting the racks. 

Very rarely do I walk out empty handed but I did after my last trip. The shirts looked like car cozies. The fleece vests were the size of large sheep. The pants resembled two industrial smokestacks sewn together. The footwear ... well, footwear is not something I buy used but one has to glance at the rack, right?

Absolutely stunning. These make me think a bowling shoe mated with a ... bowling shoe. In fact, many generations of inbreeding must have occurred. Or is this what happens when Christian Louboutin has nipped a little too frequently at the bubbly while at the design table?

Link Analysis

I've been pondering what my links say about me. 

I regularly visit about 30 different sites, loosely categorized according to humor or technology or comics/graphic novels or design or games or random or environmental issues or consumer issues. There is also a small category called People Behind the Curtain which consists of blogs by people I know here in meat space.

That last category was not part of my analysis of my link habits. However, the other ones are a batch of inconsistencies I cannot resolve. For example, since we are beginning a lifetime long remodel here at Meanwhile Manor, I check in on Apartment Therapy much like I flip through design magazines in the library. Usually my reaction to this blog is that peoples' lives must be very small indeed if they lose sleep over just what shade of eggplant goes with the divan throw. However, the site is useful from the mechanical side of design. I have seen lamps made of egg crates, ball-point pens, and milk jugs. And why the hell not? I love it when the function of an object is not changed but its form is so radically different from what came before. But why should I replace the small bowl my change collects in with one that has been designed for just that purpose and has some famous designer's name stamped on it? The bowl works fine. This is the part of design I do not understand and refuse to be a part of: the lemming-like dash to re-do my house with the year's hottest trends. ... but I still like looking at the evolution of the lamp.

That site is in direct conflict with another site I visit regularly: Unclutterer. This latter site makes me feel bad over my consumer side. I have guilt over my gadgetry habit and I go back to the site because of the taint of Original Spend on my soul. There is great info like ideas for thinning my material possessions and organizing what is left.

Two other sites I visit are also in direct conflict with one another. Treehugger and Cool Gadgets. The first is all about trying to save the planet from the wasteful habits of the virus known as homo sapien while the second announces the latest toy that may be entertaining or useful but will also have to be updated in 18 months resulting in even more finite resources being wasted so I can watch tv shows on a handheld device in better resolution.

So what is a humble web-surfer to do? Do I shun my gadgets and gadget sites to reduce the temptation to buy the next one? Do I say minimalism or bust and not bring anything new into the house unless something of equal mass is expunged? (My, that sounds much like life in a bubble; is that type of existence possible for lifeforms above krill?) And can I ever truly expunge anything when all that means for me is throw it on the communal pile at the end of the road known as the dump?

I'm off to ponder this more, iPhone in hand while I turn the compost pile.

Buffalo, NY: the new world power

I just had the most bizarre wiki experience that has shrunk my view of the planet. Follow along, kids.

I have acquired a copy of War and Peace in the Nuclear Age. I went to The Wik to learn more about this documentary before I committed myself to watching all thirteen hours. On the incredibly brief page, I clicked on the link for ...

PBS. I read way more about the tagline " ... and people like you" than I could have predicted. The page included a list of major PBS affiliates including ...

WNED. I had flashback overload to childhood hours spent wondering why there were no commercials on this station. I knew it had something to do with "people like me" but wasn't sure what because my parents would just bitch about the fund-raising campaign and change the channel. Then I clicked on ...

Buffalo, NY. I love that information about the climate is the first major wiki subsection. I miss snow and thought about the Blizzard of '77. I lived it. The rest of y'all can play the board game. As part of the discussion surrounding the cultural nuances of Buffalo, the 4 AM last call for bars is front and center.

I believe that this drinking convenience is a major reason for InBev locating their American headquarters in Buffalo. I mean, with those extra two hours, think of the research the company's interns can do investigating the beverage selection of the locals.

Look at that loop. It started with a documentary about the Cold War and ended with info on what the population of St. Louis sees as a foreign invasion by a Belgian company headquartered in this hemisphere in the city where I grew up.

I don't know what it means but it means something.

Protect your valuable stuff

Hmm, was there some sort of problem for which this was the answer?

Fling is in the air!

Ah, the sweet stench of the political campaign season. There is nothing else like it. For three years and six months out of every four year cycle, I believe most Americans try to be conscientious about not littering and leaving only footprints and packing out what they packed in, etc., etc. And then a campaign for political office starts and you wouldn't believe what people will pound into their lawns.

My current favorite campaign sign is the following:

Dino Rossi

Don't Let Seattle Steal This One!

So positive! So uplifting! It just screams leadership, rationality, decisiveness and forward-thinking. Blech. 

I offer this link in the spirit of sharing what I found in my efforts to find a picture of one of these signs. Apparently these are not "official" campaign signs and are produced by a special interest group. Big whoopee squat. I hate the ethical slight-of-hand behind these stunts where the candidate professes his discontent while backers sling slop.

 How many more weeks of this nonsense?

Always thinking of my peeps

In my ongoing efforts to maintain a modicum of respect amongst my friends the fashionistas, I offer up the following link.

That is all.

IM ;)-ing @ U

His name is Nick Thune.

Put the water down and no one will get hurt

Here's another cycle of three, gang, and it involves the mother of all chemical bonds: H-2-O.

Item the First: we did some recreational plumbing and created quite a display here at Meanwhile Manor. We call our installation "Water on a Perch."


Check back for a very detailed—i.e., possible boring—post on the creation of said plumbing contraption. The purpose of this project was to collect rainwater for the garden and flowers. The barrels are all connected and there is a hose attached that goes off to the veggie beds. We worked on it the entire 4th of July weekend. The date stands out because it hasn't rained since and all these barrels sit empty. I believe Poseidon must be giggling his gills off. We hustled to get all the pipes connected and checked for leaks for what? For three solid weeks of nothing but sun. Remind me of this whining when I'm sobbing about being soggy during the winter.

Items that overlap the First: I'm reading Bottlemania, a pleasant little tome about the privatization of water. If you think the battles over oil are a little extreme, just wait a smidge longer for the water wars, gang. Humans can't live without water. So why do we allow corporations to own it? I can own this piece of land but, Mr. Nestlé, what happens when your well over there sucks our common aquifer dry? Do I have any recourse? How far underground does the law reach? Is it actually "my" water in the aquifer that you have stolen/borrowed/slapped a label on and sold? What are the surrounding towns going to do when the public water tower is dry and you have all the water sitting in little plastic bottles, available for over twenty times the price?

I'm eagerly waiting for my barrels to fill while I ponder the moral tangle that is the right to not be thirsty. I'm feeling all righteous with my bad ol' self. I'm waiting for a drizzle in which I can do a happy dance. I'm calculating just what it is I will be collecting: the Monolith garage is about 30x30 feet and one inch of rain results in 561 gallons of water coming off that roof. Gee, if I only had a barrel to store it in. Well, I now have five barrels and see the system increasing to 12 barrels for reasons of symmetry and volume. The T then brought this article to my attention and therein lies the rub.

Item the Third: Washington state has an "archaic" law that is poorly defined and may result in my next posting coming from the Big House, thanks to my barrels. From the state Dept. of Ecology site:

• (link) The waters of Washington State collectively belong to the public and cannot be owned by any one individual or group. Instead, individuals or groups may be granted rights to use them. A water right is a legal authorization to use a predefined quantity of public water for a designated purpose. This purpose must qualify as a beneficial use. Beneficial use involves the application of a reasonable quantity of water to a non-wasteful use, such as irrigation, domestic water supply, or power generation, to name a few. An average household uses about 300 gallons of water per day.

• (link) Washington State, like most of the rest of the western United States follows the Prior Appropriation Doctrine, the major tenet being first in time, first in right. State law defines water resources as “all water above, upon, or beneath the surface of the earth, located within the state.” RCW 43.27A.020. Rainwater is therefore legally considered a water resource of the State.

Where things really get fuzzy is when you ask "how much water can I collect to stay off the radar of The Man?" At what point do I go from doing a resourceful thing that is within my rights because it is beneficial to committing a crime because the water belongs to the state? Is it the addition of the sixth barrel that will bring the authorities? Granted, the measurement may be different for me here just east of the Hoh Rainforest than it is for the farmers in central Washington where the land is irrigable only because of the Columbia River. I see now the difficulty in writing a single state law when the state is split like Sybil.


Well, I'm off to check the forecast. Other link(s) for your perusal:
HarvestH2O

Looking a little parched

Here's an update for all you foliage fans out there. I checked in on the car tuft and it's looking a little dry. It's taking a lot of will-power on my part to not water the little fella' but I want to see how far it can get on its own. I did notice a few weeks back—during the rainy season—the tuft had begun to seed. Now I'm wondering if it is going to survive July. In an effort to not directly assist or interfere with tuft's survival, I have begun looking for parking spots that in the shade or in the path of lawn sprinklers. You know, accidental watering. Stay tuned.

My, that plant is green

Our little garden plot is FINALLY a success! After three years of planting seeds and starter plants only to watch them shrivel up and die, we are at long last eating veggies we have grown ourselves! Woo-and-Hoo, baby!

So what did we do different this year as compared to other years? Well, for starters, I have it through my thick head at long last that my own level of thirst is in no way related to the need of the plants for water. Just because I am lounging on my stoop enjoying the cooling of the sun and listening to the twittering of the birds in all comfort and ease, I should not project this feeling of calm and peace onto the plants who may very well be gasping for water. So, tips #1 and #2 and #3 for all you aspirant farmers out there: Water, water and then water some more.

The other thing we did different this year was add our own compost to the soil mix. We started the garden box three years ago with a bag of compost, a bag of (something else I cannot remember now) and many purchased bags of soil/dirt/potting mixture. We needed to haul in all the dirt-type stuff because our entire 50'x150' city plot is nothing but backfill from the foundation hole. My little joke yesterday about mowing the lawn in my barefeet? Ain't gonna happen, folks—at least not until the high priest teaches me how to walk across burning coals with no shoes on. Now that I think about it, it is probably a good thing I use a non-electric sheep to mow the lawn. If I was running something with an engine, I might very well be flinging projectiles from my lawn through the neighbors' windows. A lush carpet my yard is not. Where was I? Oh yes! Our compost.

Our compost is a lush rich mix of all the veggies from years past that were lovingly selected, purchased, transported to our home only to be abandoned in the veggie drawer to rot. In addition to these former plants, the major ingredient in our compost comes from our morning mugs: coffee grounds and tea leaves. A little mental math tells us that it is too early in the morning for me to try to compute anything so let's go with the round figure of tons of coffee and tea sitting in the compost bin. We have some happy, happy worms in that bin. They only have to crawl over to the next deposit of kitchen refugees and they get a jolt of chemical glee that keeps 'em gnawing and digesting and excreting with a sparkle in their eye ... eyes? ... do worms have optical organs?

Anyway, I believe that the main reason our veggie patch is doing so well this year is because the plants are caffeinated from the compost!! The broccoli is HUGE—and it hums! The spring peas are multitudinous—and I swear the buds wink at me when I walk by. That unknown root plant is monstrous—I'm afraid to pick it. Could it have limbs? The lettuce plant is trying to keep up with the broccoli but I fear the broccoli have formed a gang and beat up on the lettuce when my back is turned. Actually, we were so caught off guard by successful plants that we crammed things in a little too tightly when planting. Honestly, I didn't know broccoli could get that big so I think we planted more in the box than we should have. Thus, I now have guilt over setting up the lettuce to be the runt of the garden. sigh

I'm off to water the veggie patch and admire the results thus far and keep my fingers and toes out of the reach of the broccoli gang.