And now a few thoughts

One of the things I hoped to accomplish when I started posting here was to get a continuous stream of history of myself. Almost a reference of my life.
The purgative value of a diary can not be underestimated, but a forum where people you know will read what you write is a very different sort of place to write your opinions and fears.
There is a constant temptation to turn this into a running commercial for myself, with the disappointing realisation, that my life isn't nearly as exciting as the internet made it seem, ready to break at any moment.
How to balance the temptation to glamourise my comings and goings? How to achieve the honesty I hope will reward me in the long run with a useful and accurate record? How to accomodate the necessary privacy of my clients and employer, while including enough information to reconstruct it?
My current hope is that I add something every day or two, that I catch up when I cannot, and that I get a photo from any new place I visit. My fear is that I only do that.

I received a phone call from merit financial last night. They have found a loan for me to cover the nearly $30,000 in improvements I am undertaking on my house. The details are being fedex'd to me, and I should get an answer to them this weekend.

I also received a phone call from Sears, and they should be able to start replacing my windows on Tuesday morning. Luckily, I will be in Tumwater all week, so anything that comes up can be handled by a thirty minute drive, and meeting a contractor at 7AM isn't unreasonable. I have foregone a number of comforts due to businesses inflexibility in handling service visits. Qwest wanted a weekday visit with multiday advance notice and a $99 minimum charge. For those of you for whom it is a viable option, broadband or digital voice services are the way to go.

I am terribly behind on paperwork, and feel a tinge of guilt posting here. Forgive me, uncle, for I have slacked.

Tri Cities

One of my constant pleasures in traveling is Horizon Air. This is Alaska's northwest regional fleet of turboprops (q200?), flying to small or nearby cities. Horizon is home to the tacky shirt, and the free microbrew, complimentary wall street journal at the terminal in seattle, and northwest vintages. The stewardess often makes it through the aisles a second time to top anyone off if they want it.

I had the luck to be Horizon's guest on my recent trip to Pasco, for a visit to a winery nearby in Eastern Wa. Unfortunately, it was a very short flight, and I opted for coffee in the morning and slept on the return leg.

The Tri Cities lie at the confluence of the Columbia and yakima rivers, and seem to be in a boom. Looking at new construction visible from a short drive and a day trip, it looks like a lot of the live-work-play destinations they have been busy marketing near bend, or. I suppose that California will in time fill up, and the north will ironically be the new sun-belt. Since Portland and Seattle are overcast 9 months a year, the inland will fluorish. It should be an alternating patch of golf courses and homes stretching from the Coachella valley (or Yuma?) all the way to Spokane. Of course, it will come in spurts, and the snowbirds may still find deals in Guadalajara or elsewhere... but the north is it. How odd. How long until nice Southern men and women start retiring to the deals of the north? How long until the deals of the north evaporate, and rural missouri becomes the hot-spot? Where will the madness end? I can only watch, and hope the big one doesn't take me out.

Salem

Salem has a vintage (warning--euphemism) looking downtown, and it was clearly a happening place 80 or 100 years ago. They have free parking near the mall downtown, things could be a lot worse. The traffic at 5pm, however, is nearly unmanageable. Almost all the streets are 4 lane one ways, with mandatory turn lanes on either side. Unfortunately, once you become stuck in a left turn lane, you turn into a mandatory left turn lane. If the roads were clear of those other people who litter the streets like debris, this would be alleviable by merely changing lanes. At 5pm, this can lead to a frustrating cycle of turns through a maze, and a resulting loss of direction.
It took me twenty minutes to make my way onto the wrong highway leaving Salem, following a state route that took me through a handful of farming villages along the way to Portland. I hadn't seen a Grange Hall or a 4H in a very long time, but the town of Lincoln has them both, along with a single-steepled church on the corner of the only intersection.
In defense of this detour, I found a taco shop in West Salem that had decent Carne Asada burritos... guacamole, no beans, no rice, no options. Subway has led to a massive complication of the non-burger fast food industry, tempting even stalwarts like burger king to let you 'have it your way'.

Energy and Food

When I was about ten, I read a book concerning possible plans for manned space outposts. A huge number of the facts and ideas presented are lost to me. I remember a long argument suggesting that planetary colonies were not the path to follow, due to the high energy cost of escaping planetary gravity. The analogy was struggling to escape a deep well, and looking around the plane for the first deep well to hurdle into.
I also remember an analysis of the relative merits of animals for foods, and a suggestion that their short time to slaughter, high fecundity rate, and low input food to output meat ratio identified rabbits as an ideal food source for confined quarters. They also have a relatively high surface area per unit of mass, this leads to cheaper leathers and furs than from cows or other large mammals.

Are the current outbreaks in poultry a dire warning to us before we stack a single species sky high in tight quarters?

Is there any new serious work being done on the economics of space exploration. I have seen recently an article explaining the large initial capitalization of space projects, that tends to limit their attractiveness to private investors, and arguing that government would need to fund these projects. If it is an unattractive use of private capital, why is it a good idea for any government to fund it? And will the government get enough rabbits?

Headshot

Maybe it is a little vulgar to just post my photo for no reason. Maybe this attempt to dress it with words is even more so.

Finally, Someone 'gets' me!

ING Direct has started a promotion where new funds deposited after 19 Jan earn a whopping 4.75% APY until April 15th. Unfortunately, they subtract all withdrawls from the 19th on to determine net new money, so I can't withdraw a few thousand now, wait a week, redeposit it, and let it ride. But anybody with cash in the couch cushions would probably find this an attractive rate. What's the average 180 day CD rate? 3.88%! Take that. Way to stick it to the man! However, if you have $10,000 to lock away, VirtualBank is offering 4.4% 90 day CDs.

I saw an add for a credit card, recomending that you get a high interest 'miles' card, then every month transfer your balance to their card. Keep your miles, avoid the interest. Clever. The banks are all tripping over themselves trying to get your debt. It must be worth a lot to go through all that effort.

checking and you

In a consistent attempt to make the world a safer place for billion dollar corporations, the congress introduced Check21, and I'm sure all of you received notice of this from your banks.
The main point of check21 is to reduce the amount of time it takes for a bank to be paid after receiving a check. It replaces physical check clearinghouses with electronic images of checks, which are zipped around the country. The net effect is that when you write a check, the funds may disappear out of your account in a day or two instead of a week.
At this point it is still only optional. All banks must accept copies of checks in lieu of checks. At some point it will be compulsory, there will surely be a law five years from now to cause that.
When will the consumers see the benefits of this law returned to them? Has anyone had their fees lowered on a checking account. My checking account returns with my statement a copy of every cancelled check. Three months after check 21, they send me a paper sheet with three checks a piece. I am still being charged an extra $2/mo for check return!
When will funds availability be updated to reflect the fact that the bank doesn't need a week to verify the validity of a check. If you have ever unexpetedly overdrawn an account based on these old fashioned funds availability laws, you've seen how quickly the check you wrote cleared. If it takes 5 business days for funds deposited to be released, then it should take five business days for my check to clear as well, and float is invisible.
I received a funds availability notice from one of my banks today. Five business days.

Kohala

I arrived yesterday afternoon in Kona, and was not prepared for the light desert, grassy wasteland appearance of Western Hawaii. The magma must have cooled last year, because the rock is still very obviously the result of flows. The few grasses that grow are spaced out by the foot, and there are brackish pools near the coast where the salt sea water seeps through the porous lava rock, and mingles with the rainwater and runoff.

I enjoyed taking the time to drive around, and felt strangely at home when I saw the donkey crossing sign. I did not enjoy the traffic later in the day, after I realized that the secret to the big island is they only have two roads, the high road, and the low road.

However, the most amazing part of my trip to Kona had to be the return. I actually watched a man stow away aboard the Aloha flight to Honolulu. It was so strange. He had a mother in a wheel chair. He was at the counter asking for a pass to get through security to wheel her to the gate. He must have either had a hookup at the gate, or a fake boarding pass, or gotten lucky, because without my even noticing it, he had gotten aboard, and was sitting one row behind his mother on the plane. I had to smile when I realized the cabin door was closed, and that he had pulled it off. They never ask you to surrender your pass when the day is over. I have to recommend more people try this. I wonder if the more 'efficient' mainland airlines could allow this. It's nearly as classic as the mexicans I saw years ago in Seattle opening the rear bus door for each other, and generally standing in the exit well to obscure the bus drivers view.

I remember stealing trolley rides in San Diego from time to time, that was an honor system with 'random' ticket checks and $75 dollar fines.

Claudius

Well, actually nothing to do with a usurping uncle, but a fitting title for this nonsense anyway.
Things move pretty quickly out here in Grover's Corners. Had a meeting with Sears to get home siding and new windows... now I need to start selling plasma to pay for it... but it should be pretty nice and new within 6 weeks. I can't wait.
Also, now we've rented a truck to go pick up chairs found for a sweet price on Craigslist. There is no reason not to waste hours a day scouring craigslist for interesting things to do, people to meet, and ways to bypass the goodwill. Move over Ebay, nobody liked the global auctionhouse anyway, so it ends up with a very local market, and that's where this new free classifieds has got to have the newspapers running scared. To date, I have offloaded old maps to a stranger, Beth got a job, and now we are buying chairs off craigslist.

Honolulu

Ahh, I've just returned from Honolulu. I flew out there Friday for a job over the weekend, fully expecting to be finished by monday or tuesday, and spend some time on the beach on Wednesday and Thursday. I could not have been more wrong.

First, I landed and met with CJ at the airport, since he got there about a half hour before me. We went to lunch, and then met with Charlotte at the job, discussing what we planned to do, the timeframe, and the requirements. Most especially, we went to grab keys.

We spent about three hours on Friday at the job in a meeting. Nothing actually started until Saturday. On Saturday we started replacing a lot of the panels, our engineer started the software working, and we got about 85% complete. Or so I thought. It was a short 9 hour day, and very productive. We all went out into Waikiki and drank.

Sunday, we arrived, and found that some major problems were happening, and that we were going to have a lot of work on our hands. We worked 16 hours on Sunday. Not a lot of time to drink.

Monday, by 8PM we were exhausted. We found a TGI Fridays, the bartender must have thought John was friendly, since she was a little flirty... it was alright, but nothing like a tall and a full stomach to make you not want to return to work. Only 12 hours on Monday.

On Tuesday, we knew there would be issues, but did not expect how severe it turned out to be. It seems a lot of the things we were expecting to just work did not happen, and we spent a considerable amount of time on Tuesday getting the system to catch up to where it ought to have been. THis, coupled with the nuisance that Tuesday was BAU for the site, made for a long day. 18 hours later, we returned to the hotel, tired and knowing that Wednesday would be no easier.

Wednesday, we started off at 7AM, just a few short hours after our arrival. I left at 7PM to catch my red-eye home (I worked on Thursday morning.) I got a call on the road from the airport from CJ, they were on the way back to the hotel, it was 415AM in Hawaii when he called me.

I was in Hawaii for 6 days, and never saw the beach, never touched sand, never swam, never got out really. I had a lot of things I wanted to do, and got stuck doing a catastrophic job to get a site up to where they were. I don't think I felt very good about the project.

Cake

Miscellany

1. I have photos which I will add to existing posts (Sheridan, Iowa, Hawai'i, etc.) I don't have the driver to offload them from my camera on my work laptop, so it will have to wait until after I am safe at home on the mainland.
2. Friday the 13th, nothing bad happened yet. Unless you count not getting upgraded to the executive suite at the hotel because my travel agent forgot to tell them how nice a guy I was when she booked it. CJ took care of it this morning, and he has a much nicer view! But if that's what I have to complain about, none of you will sympathise.
3. It is sure nice to be here in Hawai'i. I landed slightly early, didn't have an excessive wait, CJ handled the bulk of the questions at our meeting this afternoon, and it's going to be golf cart races all weekend. Going out with Kevin tonight, should be a fun time. Need to stay alert, stay alive so I can be sprightly tomorrow morning. We have a limited window, since classes start Tues morning.
4. I picked up Best American Short Stories at O'Hare last night, it is fairly good. One thing it took me a short time to grasp, the stories are presented in reverse alphabetical order by author's name. Everybody wants to be different. I wonder if that is a precedent that has been followed for a while, or whether the guest editor decided that especially for 2003.
5. Oddly, it is edited by Walter Mosley, of Easy Rawlins fame. I heard a snippet about him this morning on the drive to the airport. Thanks NPR! Something about 'character centered fiction' versus plot driven... I remember because Easy Rawlins at once is short for Ezekiel, and a cute analog for easy rolling...

Fliers are Readers

Update: Chicago O'Hare International Airport. En Route to Seattle.
I left Iowa City this afternoon. Everything went well, I was working just a few blocks from the old capital building. I fly here from Des Moines. I am finding it difficult to keep a decent stock of ready reading material. I set out monday with two books, Bait and Switch (Barbara Ehrenreich), and Shakespeare's MacBeth. Bait and switch was finished before I made it to Denver on Monday, a scant 220 pages of large type. Lefty books are all large type since there must be a lot of glaucoma cases on the activist left, otherwise there wouldn't be such huge shortages of 'medicine' for them. It worked as what it was, a diary of a trip through the interview process for an unskilled white collar worker. It lacked the kinds of facts that I would hope for, like big bar graphs and pie charts!
Macbeth had even fewer pie charts, and I regretfully got an instructional edition, with facing pages full of notes and decryptions of obscure phrases. I find this disruptive, and am a fan of footnotes, or an appendix. I also found this combined with the annotation where the MS was unclear very frustrating. I wonder who the audience is for these books. Most likely, it is the spend the gift card you got in July before it expires crowd.
Here in O'hare, all the worldy amenities a seasoned traveller expects are available. There is a bookstore with more than the Oprah Reading list and the NYT bestsellers. (I read Anna Karenina before it was cool). They even have a starbucks every 75 feet. Compared to Denver Airport, it's just like Downtown, Maynard.

One other interesting tidbit. The Iowa Rest Area are WiFi Hotspots. I didn't connect to see if it was a restricted service, but that must keep truckers really happy on the long road from coast to coast across I80.

Dan

Iowa City

I left Wyoming. It was a bumpy ride taking off in the Beechcraft. They had a barrier in place between the captain and the cabin this time, but otherwise the flight went well. This could be a good time to launch a lengthy complaint about the way codesharing is implemented these days... but I will save my frustrations for another time.

I arrived late in Des Moines. One of two things are possible. Either Fleur Rd is the right way to go, in which case Des Moines could benefit from an expressway to the airport, or I should have taken a right leaving the rental lot. It wasn't that bad, and I could see the skyline in the distance, so I knew I was bound to hit either 35/80 or 235 sooner or later.

Just in time, too. I found 235 right as Fleur becomes MLK. It seems that MLK is always in the worst neighborhood in every city in the US. Please someone offer a counterexample. Don't use San Diego, the MLK expressway (CA-94) goes straight to Encanto. There has to be a better way to honor the man.

I was thinking about taking up a workout regime... in a sort of new year's resolution. But I know I wouldn't follow through. Like tonight, when I am not working out. There is a pool, it's open til 11. I could swim for an hour. The exercise room is open til midnite. I could bicycle nowhere for a while. But I have decided to watch Ghostbusters 2, showing on Spike!

Big Horn

I went to the Big Horn Merc for lunch... yes, it is also the post office. And the hitchin post... but the burgers are good. I have all afternoon. The building across the road had a stage coach that said Bozeman Trail on it.

I got a call from the county sewer department. Apparently they have been attempting to tax me for the last six months by sending bills to my old apartment in Minneapolis. Although she seemed very polite, I am a little concerned to find out how much I may owe.

Sheridan

I arrived in Sheridan tonight. The ride was a little bumpy, in a beechcraft 1900D. There is no door between the crew in the cockpit and the cabin, so I could see straight out the windshield. If you haven't ever seen the runway swaying 5 degrees to each side as you approach through the buffetting winds of the Powderhorns, you haven't lived. Or maybe you haven't narrowly escaped death. The seats don't recline, the heater is in the back only, and there are no tray tables. It keeps the safety brief short. Buckle up and turn off those cell phones.
The flight out was at an unmarked gate, no sign, no number. The information lady on the phone said gate 50, since neither Alaska nor Delta was able to help me. Big Sky Airlines was identified only by a young girl in a blue coat behind this unmarked gate. The Departures sign said it was gate C00. Not the most welcoming sign.
One of my favorite things about Wyoming is picking up 830 WCCO in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it only comes in on the highway, in the lowlands I was getting Cat Country from Calgary. AM radio is part of the magic of the American outback.
I managed to find a Perkins down on Coffeen, though perhaps the foodies out there had been rooting for 'Daddio's Pizza' accross the street. I am a huge fan of the corn beef hash with hash browns and over easy eggs. It's the fastest way to fill your gut, and all the textures and flavours quickly meld together.
The airport is the smallest I have seen yet. I thought Columbia MO would hold that place, but it has been unseated. (I am not counting St Paul Isl, AK, but they don't get smaller than that.)
I hope the sun brings new joys to behold.

Joys of Homeownership

Or the constant barrage of 'offers'.
Yesterday we bought a wireless phone, so now we can get phone calls in the house. Due to a quirk in wiring only the garage was connected previously.
This morning I got a very nice phone call from a window/siding company looking to do business, and a phishing attempt from a 'mortgage co'.
My friendly assistant at Fidelity asked what my payments were, how long I had been here, what I had paid (all of which are easy to figure... and available from the Pierce County Clerks webpage). Then she asked how much my taxes and insurance were. I suppose her computer program asked her, so she asked me, so they can give an accurate quote... I would have been okay with a simple mortgage payment quote, I can add escrow myself, due to the fine education I received at the St Paul Public Schools.
Then she asked for my birthday. I may be paranoid, but I refused to give her that. She hung up, no goodbye, no offer to send a written quote, no acceptance and simply waiting until they pull my credit to find it out (it's right at the top of the report, by the ssn). It's also too creepy to call me unsolicited with an offer that you never reveal until I answer a few basic questions...
I had a man call me a few months back asking me for my checking account information over the phone. I forget what marvelous product they thought I needed. Probably a phone card with unlimited minutes or some similar hoax.
I rather liked the phone not ringing.
Lastly, to all you telemarketers out there: I appreciate the commissions you receive from a buyer contribute the greater portion of your check, and that time on the line is a factor in your evaluations. I suggest you quit now, and find respectable employment, but I understand if that's not an attractive option. Please, at least say goodbye, and perhaps thank me for my time. It's bad business not to take care of your customers. Feelings will trump pricing all the time.

I'm so excited that I could eat someone.

I feel like I have been eaten, rather. I woke up at 10:30 to the feeling of congestion, useless sleep, and a sore throat. I'm the pretty one, I'm not supposed to get sick.

Huge congratulations to Buzz for buying her plane ticket. My wanderjealousy is growing. Not only going farming, but crazy not farming, going on tour. My retirement funds accumulate slowly, but this free spirit is quitting, moving out, leaving no lease, no leash. The only reason she would need to come back is to renew her passport. You can do that via the embassy, I'm sure.

This week is killing me. I haven't had a job since Tuesday. I've been making up work, or not making anything to do. I only left the house yesterday to get the mail. Today I am going to return some movies to Blockbuster and get a haircut. They never said how high stress a salaried position could be.

Internet Radio

There seems to be a lot of good feedback around WOXY.com , so I gave it a try. Sometimes it's a little different than I would have preferred, but I enjoy it so far. I used to be a very big listener of BBC 6, also gets a big thumbs up for anyone willing to use Real Player. I have some friends who on rather silly principled arguments avoid content based on its medium. Have you ever met someone so firm in their belief of the superiority of Ogg that they refused to listen to an MP3? I understand avoiding restricted use content, but that is not the argument at all, since these friends have no qualms about the locked mp4's Apple sells on iTunes. Usually they combine this with an open standards argument... blind to the fact that locked content on an open standard is about as open as a toll road.
Well, I digress. Good news: Woxy, 6 music. Bad news: tech bigots.

Time Traveller

I went to UPS to send my paper tickets back to the company, so I could have them exchange them and next day them back to me by this weekend.
Apparently, Sheridan WY is so far away that you actually have to go back in time to get there. I had hoped to go to the 18th century, but it turns out I end up connecting in the 1980's. The flexibility that e-ticketing has provided me was taken for granted until there needed to be a change to my itinerary--flying to IA instead of back home. Now I need to have my current paper tickets exchanged for different paper tickets, since there is only one flight out of Sheridan, and you can't mix itineraries and expect your luggage to be in Des Moines.
If anyone knows how to bring big sky airlines into the electronic age, please take action immediately. I am looking forward to goats and sheep in coach. If there were only painted duchesses in first class!

Return to Tumwater

I was on my way to pick up Mark from the hotel, when I thought to call him. I guess my trip to gig harbor was cancelled today, leaving me with a free day. As I was settling down, I received a call from Tumwater. Since I had nothing better to do, I elected to meet them down there, to clear up all the issues.
While I was there, I grabbed this shot of the olympia airfield.
I also found out what a week I'm having next week! I fly monday to Sheridan, WY, and on Wednesday fly to Des Moines, drive to Iowa City, and fly back home Thursday night. Friday I go back to the airport for 6 days in Honolulu... and then home on Friday morning the 20th. Way to start the new years frequent flier program!
-Dan

Moving time

Congratulations Tawnia and Aaron for buying the big house pictured here.
Welcome Joe and Tammy on your return to Washington.
My father, Joe, is moving the hand truck into my car here.
Yesterday we went to his house to move the washer and dryer back into the house, that's why we borrowed Aaron's hand truck. We went to lunch, and Joe got a to go box. We got so carried away in moving the washer and dryer, that when we got back into my car, the to go box was still there. He had just locked his house, and decided to throw it in his truck and put it in the fridge when he got home.
After a long night at the hospital with Tammy, who I am glad to report is doing well and on her way today, he left the same arroz con pollo in his truck all night, and as of 8:30 this morning, it was still in his truck, getting mas sabroso por momento.

Photo Success

Getting the photos onto the tmobile site was simple. And I fixed the problem, long a nuisance, of her text messaging not ever working. She could receive but not send. There was a 4 missing from the end of the phone number in the phone for messaging, and it had lived on the sim, moving from phone to phone for years!
Worked in Tumwater, WA today. Off to Gig Harbor, WA tomorrow. Hoping to see my father this afternoon in Port Orchard. There's some paint job at the Crane House...

-Dan

Razr V3 and my mac

Great news! Beth got a Moto Razr v3 for christmas. They come in Pink!
Now I need to find out how to get the pictures off her phone onto the computer.
I am looking at the Tmobile pictures web site. It looks easy enough...
Or I might have to buckle down and read the instructions.
-Dan

Independence Pass

This is me on June 2nd, 2005 on the road from Aspen to Denver. That's a lot of snow.

Special thanks to Cristin for fixing my erroneous memory!