from a recent yahoo article

About the housing crisis, I especially like the comment about wives pressuring... there must be a great amount of economic decision making out there that seems irrational by any means, unless the pressures of partners are taken into account. It seems the naive view had been that men were showy first as competition for mates, and then as competition between men. But in an age of divorce, the competition for mates never ends... it is very hard, and maybe the most important part of marriage, to find someone you can trust, and with whom you are able enough to face facts with.


Taken from yahoo without consent... if this is illegal (it may be) please someone say something. Fair use is thin ice.

A native Midwesterner, Mr. Killelea worked in Chicago in the mid 1990s before moving to Silicon Valley in 1997 to take a job at Sun Microsystems Inc. He was excited about the $77,000 starting salary -- a 55% increase from his previous job -- until he discovered how much housing cost in California. He and his wife, Leah, rented for a few years in Palo Alto before deciding that they might find cheaper housing in Berkeley.

"We spent several months looking at open houses and bidding on properties," Mr. Killelea recalls. "We bid over the asking price, but never enough to win. On the last one, they were asking $395,000 and we bid $500,000. We got a call afterward, asking us if we wanted to raise our bid. We said, 'No.' We thought that was enough. It turned out that the house sold for $530,000."

After losing that Berkeley home, Mr. Killelea told his wife they were calling off the home-buying search. She says she wasn't thrilled. But they moved to a new rental -- their fourth in five years -- and nestled their two children into an upstairs bedroom with bunk beds.

Even though prices have come down a bit in parts of California, Mr. Killelea vows to resist the pressure to buy. Recently he mused on his Web site about why more people don't follow his example. "I get the feeling many wives are pressuring the husbands to buy," he wrote. "I know it's not politically correct to say so, but I think a lot of irrational purchases are driven by female nesting instincts."

Mr. Killelea says his wife has been "very understanding" about his refusal to buy at today's prices: "She can do the math, too."

But Ms. Killelea seems more open to the idea of homeownership. "We haven't really talked yet about when we'd want to start looking again," she says. "I think we're going to need to discuss that."

Thank You

Thanks to the folks at PSE for bringing electricity back to our home.
After 72 hours in the dark (a whole weekend), I think I can gladly say how nice it is to have power.

Thanks to Monty for pointing out the black widow whose nest I was disturbing, strange to see an egg sack on a cable in an electronic enclosure.

As always, thanks to the CHP for pulling over the other guy. Nice to see you, hate to meet you.

End to Work

Well, we finally got the house in a bearable condition. Our bed is back in the bedroom, the walls are painted, the floors are in, the edging has gone up on the ceilings, and we even put garlands in the living room.

We threw a party, expecting between a dozen and twenty guests. Many called to say they couldn't come, and many more just didn't come. It was a fine time, for the five guests we had. Bacon wrapped apricots, bacon wrapped asparagus and horseradish sauce, and bacon wrapped sausage with bread crumbs. There were bacon wrapped blt's (cherry tomatoes), and cheeses, crackers, and salad. There are quite a few empty bottles of wine, and we all had a good time. I passed out too early, and missed some of the fun.

I will be in and out of town all week. Hopefully the warmth of sunny California will do me well.

Electric Orange from ING

I am a little wary of innovation, but as I am a little hungry for interest on my checking, I am pleased to find that ING Direct has come out with a no paper checking account. I don't know how confident I feel about the inability to order checks, but I have funded an account and look forward to switching completely within 6 months.

On the plus side, a 3.00% apr on checking seems like a steal. I can't wait to send a paper check through a web page. I have been a financial luddite, but this is easy and straightforward enough that I couldn't resist. And to announce it on payday! A double success.

Also, the fine folks there have increased the savings yield to 4.5%. What's your money doing for you?

Spam gets smarter than filters

Well,

Instead of an anonymous ad comment, I got one from a registered user (no profile... of course.)

Delete works well enough.

Mitre is evil!

House Work

We removed the door frames in the bedroom Wednesday. We removed the doors this morning. All new knobs and hinges, and a clean coat of paint.

Empire is installing new floors in the Bathroom and Bedroom right now. They are about done with the bedroom, same wood as the living room. The bathroom is going to be a white stone finish, with tongue and groove underneath. Some man is ripping out the vinyl tile (never fit or looked right).

Removed all the doors for the living room, that's the bathroom and both bedrooms. We have these out in the garage for sanding and painting. We struggled with sanding for about 30 minutes, and I was walking through the garage and realized we had an electric sander!

I got it for my birthday, it was a gift from Joe and Tam, and we never opened the box. There is also a saw that will see some prime use this weekend as we refit the cupboard doors. We found identical hinges to ours in silver instead of brass, and they were dirt cheap 97¢.There are matching handles... the downside is that they are ever so slightly different, and we will need to paint the cupboard doors to match the new handles. The hinges are new, not 30 years old and worn from holding up doors, so the doors don't want to close as much as they should. We had the same problem with the original painting, since the hinges got mixed all together, and we used quite a bit of parafin and sandpaper to make it fit. This time, a quick run through with a saw and they will be ready to rock.

The number of colours a room can build up over 60 years is amazing. It's like a little history lesson in an asylum. You strip away a layer and find orange cream, under that brown, below that pink, below that yellow. Madness! It will all be perfect in pistachio and almond. I'm thankful that monday is just a weekend away.

I will be in San Francisco all next week, at the $77 Holiday Inn (you get what you pay for!).

In regards to mr anonymous and his great deals for online shopping, I have required registered users only may comment. Since the only people to comment otherwise were registered, this shouldn't impact too many folks. I have found that if the computer is shared (Beth and I use the same laptop) the last person logged in can post, you can type in a name, or you have to back out, log out, log in, and then try making a new comment. This cannot affect many more people than myself, and is more of an issue with blogger than with my attempt to reduce (there was only one, get over it) unwanted comments.

I got a spam comment!

Well, it took almost a year, but a spam comment showed up recommending an e-commerce site.
I guess it may be time to take strong action... delete? Defame? Decapitate?

I can't be the only one. My friend Kevin had to start approving comments. This is unacceptably time consuming. I guess forget and move on is the only answer.

Will Al Franken run for president? Would anyone really vote for him? I think pundits are careful to keep their words public and their actions private. Allows for irresponsible commentary, since it's much easier to criticise than to correct. My money's on Joh n McCain, and if he ran, I'd vote for him. Alot of Hillary fan's out there, but there's a large camp of folks just wouldn't vote for her before they even heard her arguments. At least she stopped talking national health care plans. I think that earned her a great deal of animosity some time back.

In other news, it's thanksgiving in the US. Anyone excited for this? I'm going to dinner with my father and aunts. I tried to deliver some scones next door to the elderly couple who live there, but I couldn't figure out which was the front door, and after knocking on both, returned home, a little wetter, and with all the scones in hand. I can't bring pastry to thanksgiving since there will be all of the pies, and not enough scones for an army of visitors.

Traffic was very light wednesday morning, and very heavy last night. I left my house at 7:30 AM and arrived in Seattle by 8:30. I left Seattle at 1:40, and got home at 4:00. I hope the Narrows bridge is lighter than last year.

It continues to rain, and the wind is blowing. A few weeks ago we got a very warm (mid 50's) blast of air from the south, that triggered a lot of rain. Rainiest November in Seattle history.

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes

I just discovered Librivox, where you can listen to poetry recorded by readers... all public domain.

For the non-readers, the hunting of the snark might not be so amazing, but listening is fun sometimes. And Cheap (free as in beer and freedom). And loadable on an iPod!

2 months in a row!

Welcome to the dead blog! I have not said anything in so very long this is officially a dead page!

Now it's the time for total anonymity... joy!

Dan

How to...

I was recently thinking about writing a series of how-to segments...

How to start a blog and then stop making entries should be pretty fun, but many people might take it too personally.

How to ?

Airport Ratings

Watching yahoo revealed a list of 5 great airports. Listed were MSP, SFO, CLT, DFW, and DIA. Having been to all of them, though Charlotte was years ago (and the first place I ever saw a moving sidewalk, age 18).

I am a fan of SFO, due to plenty of recent experience. If it was only not on 101, it would be perfect. Easy to reach, attractive, good food, great bookstore. I'm sure I say enough nice things to keep anyone disinterested. Downsides to SFO: a ghosttown in terminal 2, and $28/day parking.

MSP I have taken for granted living in Minneapolis and in Saint Paul, and all the on time reviews should have been offset by the price of boarding a flight on NWA, and the insult of paying for peanuts... can they just get bought? The sooner northwest folds the happier we can all be. And maybe southwest can start flying to MN after the demise of this ugly airline.

Quine

For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits".

Shameful Disinterest

Hmm,
behind on work, behind on laundry, behind on all sorts of education, behind the curve... and now, behind on blog entries! Shameful. I need a little boost of productivity!

Any concrete ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

Things that can be helped... things that can't

Sitting here at the Reno Airport... Waiting for my name to be called. The gate agent speakers are clear close to the gate, but very muffled in the gallery and most of the seating. That can be helped. Get new speakers.

Sitting in the rows of chairs full of patient folks waiting to board an already late flight, I here the agent calling a name. Whose? Mine? Who knows, there is a loud 10 year old and her busy parents talking, and groups laughing heartily eight inches behind me. People can't be helped. They'll talk. Why shouldn't they?

So now I am camped out in the gallery, figuring the noise from the folks won't be so bad. A long announcement regarding connections to Anchorage is being given. Apparently the Airport cannot stop the 'Don't park here, keep your bag with you, report bad people' tape from playing when the airlines are using their PA's. Separate systems, no lockout. In the interest of clarity, this can, and should, be helped. Get an interlock that delays the taped message that we all heard at least twice proceeding through the security line anyway until the airlines have finished their pages.

Got a call from Buzz. Moving day is upon her. Family come down to help move/unpack.

I may spend 12 hours here at the airport if I can't get on the two early flights. What to do to avoid drinking...

I was driving over Donner Pass last night. I have never seen it in the day. Whenever I have had an afternoon drive across the mountains I followed CA-89 (Truckee to Reno, November '05) or US-50 (San Francisco to Carson City in June '06). I have also come up 395 from Mammoth to Reno.

I stopped at the Donner Summit rest area. It was cool, probably low 50's (not bad for 7200 feet). It was dark, but there was some site lighting. I saw a toad hopping along in a sand pile. There was moisture collected in the shadow of a small boulder.
The toad hopped to there and then stopped.

things I like about pdx

1. On site rental cars!
Anyone who has ridden the bus for 30 minutes through the arrivals mess at LAX can sympathise with me here. Walking across the street to in garage rentals is a sheer joy. This is also the case at YYC and SEA. The next best way to go is a single shuttle or train (I prefer trains to almost everything!). SFO, SMF, and SJC have this system, it works well, and reduces congestion.
2. Still the cheapest beer!
The portland brewing company pizza parlor outside security in the food court has raised the price on a 25oz microbrew to $7 even, no sales tax. Compare that with the 9.25 domestic pints available at the expedia lounge in san jose, or the equally exorbitant prices in dallas. And all the Fat Tyre you can drink at one low price.
3. Elegant and attractive!
The white steel framework of the canopy over the departures driveway, the pair of bridges to the terminal from the garage, the ivy drooping down from the planters opposite the main terminal, and the clean, white and green appearance within get an A for attitude and futurism. I think SFO was trying for this effect with the international terminal, but a trip to SFO terminal 2 leaves some major bad tastes in one's mouth. SeaTac has a cold, mechanical feel throughout the terminals, with the possible exception of terminal A, which seems more like the color and tone of Lambert field. No wonder they put Southwest out there.
4. Free WiFi.
No more vexing pinch than firing up your laptop, seeing hotspot signs everywhere, having an hour to kill, and being asked for $9 to buy a day pass to access the network. Starbucks has a similar pay as you use scheme through TMobile. Given the ubiquity of free internet, the number of wireless networks available, it seems sinful to expect a traveller on an average of 90 minutes layover to buy time in 24 hour increments. Free is both a statement of progressivism and a marketing gimmick. albuquerque sunport, sacramento, and numberous small airports are offering this service. Corner shop coffee houses use it to get you out of starbucks. Why can't more airports spend the $200/mo and splurge on everyone's behalf?
5. Accessible by mass transit and micro transit.
PDX will become the second airport in the US (after Logan) to offer downtown to terminal bike path and racks on site. The MAX runs direct to the terminal (a personal favourite of mine is to take the trains to Midway airport. OHare seems a bit far for a train ride, but it is no more expensive on CTA). SFO has Bart and Caltrain, SeaTac expects trains by 2009, and I have taken the bus on long layovers for about $1.50 to downtown, it's much better food than the Anthony's in the airport.
6. Located near downtown.
Maybe I was spoiled by this while living in San Diego. I could walk from my apartment down harbor drive to the terminal, safely, with no hassle. Landing in San, a lightly packed tourist could get to the trolley in under a mile, and downtown in under three. PDX is inside the portland city limits, and only 9 miles from the Willamette river.
7. Decent Books.
Airports ought to have a sign that reads:
Newest hit from Mitch Albion, the eight books you'll find in every airport, and a few fashion magazines. Last time I spent a few minutes in the Powells Books at PDX I picked up Don Juan by Byron. Tonight it's Dawkins's Selfish Gene. I guess there is more to life than real estate investing.

Everyone Loves a Party

Got married this weekend. Going to review photos tomorrow. Filed the certificate and retrieved a few copies from the county auditor today.

Working in Seattle. Temps are cooling quickly up here. Sorry if you live in California.

The wedding was held in Tacoma, at Point Defiance-- a wonderful place to start a new life, now that I think of it. Many of Beth's friends came, pieces of families came together, and lots of people had a few too many merlots.

Going this weekend to Wisconsin to revisit some folks and give others a chance to come see us. Plenty of joy is just around the corner!

Life is good.

Catch up

Just spent some time at home, in San Francisco, at home, and in San Francisco again. On my way to Los Angeles. Hope to get some time to see people. Going to work tomorrow morning, hope to get an early flight home, and spend some time in Sunny Seattle! Well, my birthday is also coming up this weekend... kind of a non-event with all else that's going on for me. One week till I'm married... things are coming together for that, to. Beth and I wrote the ceremony, and outlined things... dance music and dinner music is being dropped on my good friend, Elena, since Beth and I don't have the time, energy, or taste to do this alone.

Looking forward to seeing plenty of folks there. Most of my friends had other obligations, even my brother is testing the waters to make sure he can come, and there is no sign of anyone from California... time, money, the usual... we'll remember who goes to who's weddings, come funeral time, some folks won't be getting very nice floral arrangements...

Weddings are every bit as expensive as people say. Even on a decidedly thrifty plan the total cleared 10,000 early, and crept upward from there.

I had a beehive taking shape on the front porch. I found a spray nozzle attachment for the hose, and took about three rounds of drenching before all the larvae fell to the ground, the shell stripped clear. I feel a little bad about causing harm, but it's nice not to be a nest for insects...

4th of July weekend

I got a four day weekend. It was very fun to be driving home last night and realize that sunday had become a kind of friday. I go to San Francisco again Wednesday morning for three days, but I have a bit of local work leading into the wedding, and a week of local work following it. I don't worry about making mileage, that's tending to be a given.

Things are going well for me, I took a final in my programming course yesterday, I got an A, with a 97.5 overall grade. It was easy, basic high school math, and simple control structures. With built in function reference in the software, as long as you know what you're trying to do, it is merely a question of being able to read, and write, and think. I never thought I was short in those.

Trying to get music organised for the wedding reception. It turns out I don't have nearly as broad, or narrowly focused, perhaps, a music collection as I had hoped. There may be some cash plopped out to iTunes yet.

Got the banquet license. Had to promise not to serve minors. Not to drastic a concern. Also, the one sticking point is that all alchohol has to be bought in the state of washington, with valid taxes paid... given that a large wine purchase almost merits a trip to our tax free southern neighbour, I found this a little disappointing.

You may fire when ready, Gridley.

San Francisco

Ah, the city by the cloud. Been in San Francisco since Tuesday night, worked at a law office yesterday, had chinese, went to grab a drink at a bar on Haight and Ashbury, where there is a GAP on the corner. Lots of hippie bumper stickers, and bongs... not much else. It's a largely tourist destination, it seems...

But how bad can it be. Chris tried to order a coke, but they don't sell coke, since it doesn't grow in california, they did have some home brew root beer.

Traffic is better here than normal. Or maybe it's just that I haven't had to go to San Jose.

R and R

Had a spare day from vacation today. Mowed the lawn. Raked.
Found our roses growing fine, had our doubts to begin with (instructions say prune--anything above a few inches died horribly!).
Doing laundry. Dishes to do, and watching Hannah and her Sisters. "I've got a tumor in my head the size of a basketball." Gotta give it to Woody Allen to write think good healthsome thoughts.
Great sunny day, light breeze, fine to see some downtime.

Banff, Alberta

Just returned from Canada last night. Spent four nights in Banff and one night in Jasper, AB.

Our campsite in Banff was very good, there was a huge woodpile, and you just drove up and took what you wanted. I was slightly reminded of the piles of old shoes found outside the 'showers' in Nazi concentration camps, but that's not a pleasant idea.

We had very few neighbors, were only about a mile or two outside the town of Banff, and had plenty of opportunities for hiking and sightseeing. After a few days, we were pretty hiked out, and we went into Calgary for a day to do our laundry, eat well, and see the Calgary Zoo.

Banff town looks a little like Vail or Aspen. Lots of shoppes, restaurants (even Earls), hotels, and museums. Jasper is smaller and flat. Jasper sits on CN tracks (with Via service), and Banff is on CP tracks.

Camping in Canada

Spent all weekend in BC camping. Lac Le Jeune Provincial Park is located between Meritt and Kamloops in the inland interior, right off highway 5. The drive was scenic, we crossed at Abbotsford/Sumas and drove right on in.

Some notes regarding LLJ.
1. BYOB. BC liquor sales are all handled through government owned liquor sales. We arrived late on Saturday night, and it was closed. We tried back Sunday, and the site in Kamloops was not open on Sunday. This should not be a problem, since the new Signature store near Save-on-Foods in Kamloops has bank hours on Sunday, but it did not open until the day we left.

2. No showers. There is a faucet and toilets (flushing) throughout the campsite, but if you want a shower, you had better bring a camper or plan ahead.

3. Colder than we anticipated. Beth's sleeping bag is rated to 40F, mine to 30F, but we both found sleeping pants off very challenging. Thankfully there are plenty of oppurtunities to buy warmer clothes in nearby Kamloops.

4. Firewood must be purchased from the gate guard/park operator. It is $5 for a nights worth.

5. Mountain pine beetles are decimating this area of BC. Many well treed areas have been thinned-- severely-- to prevent the spread of this dangerous pest. Our campsite looked like loggers had just come through.

6. Wild roses and strawberries abound, as well as pine and birch trees. The lake is home to several ducks, and there are plenty of ponds in the area around the lake. However, there are also a lot of mosquitoes. Bring bug spray, and buy a paper to start your fire.

7. Apart from birds, very little wildlife was present. We did see some salmon in a creek over by the resort (private property). They are tenacious swimmers. They sure look like they don't belong in streams that size!

8. The trails around the park have minimal signage, are hard to follow, the first indication of length is after one mile, and jut in and out of private property. At two times you are to follow streets. Also, some of the ponds that drain into the lake do so over the trail. Some interesting adventures followed with us either finding ways through the woods to dry land or over fallen logs across 8 feet of water and mud. Bring good boots.

Self Indulgence

Well,
I don't have much to say, or more to say than time to say it. Things are moving smoothly? toward our July wedding. We are going to Bannf next week, and I am off to Winnipeg this week. I am not particularly looking forward to a trip to Santa Barbara on Friday, but such is life, and how can I complain about that?

I tried iWeb, not very nice, I don't trust the site navigation, and I haven't much been a fan of templates anyway. Once you decide, I'm sure it's not an issue. I haven't noticed the template here since I started months ago. But I think I will stick with the web page export from iPhoto in the future.

Photos

I have added some photo pages from iPhoto onto my other site djuber.com using iWeb. The old iPhoto2 had a web page output, it was ugly. The new one (from ilife 06) is nicer looking. Neither can handle direct ftp uploads (I think this is an intentional shortcoming on apple's part to sell more .mac memberships). I am moderately happy with the outcome. The site navigation links at the top of the page work great locally, but get chewed up on the remote server. This required some manual editing on my part. Clunky.

registered

This weekend, Beth and I registered at Sears and Target.
Both stores required a computer setup prior to 'shopping'. Sears had me hand over my ID in case I wanted to keep the scanner. Target did not. The Sears scanner was a kind of palm piot that sat on a gun. Numerous times the scanner went to sleep and had to be turned back on. There were times that the scanner didn't recognize items on the shelf. There was a manual entry system, but it required using the palm handwriting recognition pad. This was a little awkward.
Target just handed us the scanner (and a gift tote.) and away we went. The scanner was a cleaner interface, and a little more fun to use.

I recommend registering for just about anything you would want to do. I am excited to register for my thirtieth birthday!

Crater Lake

Taken from a Horizon flight from Santa Barbara to Portland.

Congratulation

Dear Beth & Dan~

Congratulations!  Elena just told us the great news, we are so happy for you both-it's such a rare thing to find your equal in life and true love! 

 

You must be so excited!  A summer wedding on the west coast will be so beautiful-you'll have to email us tons of pictures!

 

Tons of love and happiness to both of you-we couldn't be more thrilled for you!

 

Love,

 

E & S

Best Hampton Inn Ever

I am staying at the Hampton Inn Downtown Vancouver right now, and it is by far the best Hampton Hotel I have stayed at. The Location is great, the service is friendly. There is a spa on the 16th floor, and the beds are super comfortable. Everything looks very new. There were belgian chocolates waiting on my pillows. Oh, and such pillows.

We took a very liesurely stroll down Robson Street to the Lost Lagoon at Stanley Park. We found a few nesting swans, and had no idea how very large these birds are. So passive, and very accustomed to people passing by. The birds took notice of us, but did not move away.

Return of the Wild

I saw the raccoon last night. We stepped outside, and ten feet past the door was a raccoon. He saw us, and bolted across the street. The old raccoon from last year was lame in one foot. Could this be that same one, or only another? Do raccoons have good health plans and get casts during the winter? I don't know if my last year raccoon was limping to favor a sore foot, or had a broken leg. He was a sure slow tree climber, you have to admit that.

Happy Day

1. I mowed the lawn. I ran out of fuel just as I started the front, and had to walk to the gas station four blocks away to get another gallon. I believe I had just finished the gallon of fuel from August '05, so I feel good about the amount of gas I used over the last few months for the lawn. The oil is still very nearly full.
2. The tulips are opening. I had daffodils growing last month, they have wilted and the tulips are now very bright, some red, some yellow, and quite a few 'sunset' orange and red. The insides are so very flowery. By late afternoon they had closed again, but it was fine to see them open.
3. I got a sunburb yesterday, and was looking to see some inside time, but the sun shone here all day, and I had to take it down to a wife beater by the time I was raking.
4. Starting to see wasps. A few yellow jackets are buzzing around. I saw a small green frog in the front lawn. Three weeks ago when last I mowed the lawn, there was a frog (maybe the same one?) in the back yard.
5. No dead birds this time, though there were a few rather brazen black birds pecking about the lawn after I cut it, oblivious to the man with the lawn mower passing four feet away. Hunger, or acclimatization?
6. Sent all my paperwork off, phoned in a raise, and ordered some parts. In short, the world is in good order. I even paid the mortgage.
7. The moss on the front lawn has gotten so long that I trimmed it with the mower when I passed through. I guess I should be more agressive in getting rid of moss, but it is both inevitable and pleasant. To walk barefoot on a thick mat of moss, inches long, and soft, is one of the dearest pleasures the north can offer.

Happy Easter

Like all the other C&E catholics, I will be attending the late morning mass before heading out to see family today. Hope all your kneeling and rising goes as well as mine will.

Rehab part 3

Rehab part 2

These are from a few weeks ago.

Engaged

Beth and I will be marrying this fall. Tentatively Sept 30th 2006. Invitations to follow final arrangements.

the need to create bonds and the urge to tear them apart

Ah, the curious position of humanity! Bonds... the things which enable our society to exist, our lives to be productive, our joys to multiply in the lives of others, how onerous they all must be. Isn't that the key to a bond, that in giving your word you give up your freedom... and each of us jealously measures the value of each of these promises, contrasts them against the freedom we can reclaim through a few simple assertions. Anyone who has ever broken up with someone from caprice will attest to this. It is easy, it only stings a little, and the joy of doing something new rather compensates for the cost of a hard won tie.
I have been selected as a groomsman for my friend Kevin's wedding. It is a joy to me, kind of funny to get measured for a tux every summer, but I am glad that most of my trips have been to see my friends become married men since my return to life a little more than a year ago. Still, I think it is cruel to marry on a monday, and many of us have jobs, and there is the cost involved. Will I go? Will I attempt to squirm out of it? I most likely will go.
I am very happy to be young enough not to be attending funerals of my friends. That will be in thirty or forty years, I hope. What do we do with our friends after they have started on the path toward their family, and we on ours, and until they are old and dying? What bonds do I have. What value can I get from these connections, and what obligations do they entail.
I would happily shelter any of my 'tribe', for a time, and expect my friends to not overstay a welcome extended. Welcomes, I imagine, are good for the amount of days it will be a pleasure to see you. I believe my father set his limit at two weeks. After two weeks, I would become a lodger, a burden, and a bore. That's for his own fruit!
I suppose I would joyfully put up any friend for a weekend, some for a week, and some strangers for so much as two (most friends are not welcome for two!). I will endure anyone, even foul smelling and beligerent people, on my doorstep for five minutes.
I never send christmas cards. I very seldom make gifts on birthdays, and have been mostly buying wedding cards on the day of the event. Are christmas cards a way of territory marking when it comes to people you expect a funerary invite from, and plan to extend one to? Would you invite people to your funeral whom you would not send a christmas card? Would you keep someone on a christmas card list and not expect flowers on your departure?
Will anyone be attending my funeral? Please send a SASE and the name of your particular holiday each year, and I may yet reply with a few short lines to say how well off I am.

I think I have matured somewhat in the centrifugal urge to break away from entanglements. I had a solitary life for quite a while. It has its advantages. Monks are pretty clever, and there is some very selfish aspect to solitude. I did not like to keep a job, a girl, a friend. Some people I know take this to the extreme of moving apartments annually. Yes, with every new situation there is a thrill. Then the thrill goes, and all you have is the situation. Its merits are weighed again when clearer heads can see.
Endurable and enriching situations strengthen themselves, and the others pass away. Long distance relationships fail partly because of a lack of oversight and judgement--the idea that you can get away with cheating certainly facilitates it-- and partly because they are not as enriching as the authors of literature would have us believe.
But the urge to break away from what you have is, like all other urges, manageable.
The need to form a bond? That's a necessary condition of human life. There is no state of nature, and never has been. Man is a political animal.

Rehab

This is what we found hiding under our faux bricks. What you barely see is the real masonry hiding
in the area near the stovepipe. The glue didn't stick too well to the wood/paint. But it sticks better to the brick than the brick sticks to itself.
We started early--noon? I added an outlet in the living room (and it worked!). Beth and I started to sand the walls to prep for painting. Then I noticed the top left brick peeling away from the wall when I pulled some edging trim (also faux wood) away. Everywhere else it had been nailed to the wall, but here it was held by the brick glue. It was all downhill from there.
But we called it quits at 9:30, have only a little sanding to do, the wall is now a project screaming "find a better way to fix me."
Not sure how to cover the masonry. Personally, I would be happy with a 2'x2' piece of stainless steel flashing. We'll see what to do.

You said it, sister!

The Oglala tribe are planning to open a planned parenthood within their nations borders, near South Dakota.

Congratulation

Happy day to Elena, who has been accepted for residency in a Psychiatric program at the University of Minnesota Hospital.
Congratulations to Buzz on her safe arrival in Ireland. Good luck in finding a path, and an hotel.

Should we talk about Africa, or about Baseball?

Ah, Hemmingway! What a guy...

You have no chance to survive. Make your time.

Good things are going on in my life right now. It snowed twice
yesterday, never sticking for more than a few hours. It was light and
patchy by sunrise, and by ten AM the rain had dealt with last of it.

I have had two off days in a row... things are not so bad, n'est?

I have local work next week in Belleview, and there is nothing on
Monday... Beth has that day off, and then I have a 10AM appointment
in Tumwater, but should be finished beffore 1PM...

Now I need to go to the Bank... deposit my fat check. Visit the folks...

Fun...

Dan

Reno

Leaving Reno is a slow process... I have a ticket for a 330 flight to seattle... it is the last flight on alaska out of Reno... so I understandable made sure that I was done on time. However, there are no flights after 940 until 330... I had no idea this was a backwater... I rather would have liked to try a 1200 flight out of Sacramento if there had been one.

It was colder here than I anticipated... there is no snow in the city, but the hills are still clad in white. I woke to 28 degree chilly air, and went to the new mall to do my job. A brand new mall is a strange place. The parking lots are empty, the signs for many of the stores are not installed yet, and there is craft paper covering many of the storefronts. I walked for a while before I found the Apple store. It had bare cupboards and emtpy countertops. When I was in LA at Beverly Center, it was just before the opening (days) so the team in their joiner t-shirts were buzzing about, having little meetings, and setting up displays. This was just a man with a putty knife and a bucket of putty, a couple electricians, and a PM with a laptop... it was obviously a few weeks away from move in. The whole mall was just late phase construction workers. Strange.

I have been at the airport for hours, since after taking breakfast at 920, I had no imagination or desire to visit Reno. I wish I had followed I Know Somethings advice and researched the cultural history of such a colorful city...

In more important Matters, Michael from Saturn called because my blower came in. My car is going back to the dealer on Friday at 900AM for repairs! Go warranty! Go me!

Saturn and me

I successfully took my car to the dealership, enjoyed a number of free replacements (warranty issues), discovered that I have a service warranty until 50K miles, and got the fuel filter changed out. The one thing I really wanted, to have the blower for the heat and A/C fixed, will have to wait, parts on order... at least I didn't need to have someone tell me it was a fuse.

Usefulness, and Human Nature

Headlines in the BBC today include a study that 18 month old human children from diverse backgrounds will uniformly offer help when they understand that it is needed, and that they understand it better than chimps. It also suggested that 18 month olds would not fetch an object if it looked like you meant to drop it.

In the spirit of usefulness, I have been keeping my otherwise idle cpu very busy chewing on some climate model data. It is fairly altruistic of me, but it seems slightly wasteful of electricity. Perhaps it seems more glamourous to be part of the analysis of the problem that to just turn off the unused computer.

In the spirit of idleness, I have been working 40+ hours per work. Oh, idleness... well, there are always weekends... this one will be dedicated to signing a large packet of paperwork for my second mortgage... to pay for the siding. Which was nice, and will take ten years to pay off... (doubt that), and had better be nice years from now. The windows are already good.

I will also be taking my Saturn to the dealer for maintenance, 30K checkup, replacement of very hard to get to rear break lights (above the rear windshield--does anyone know how to get these out?) and to see about replacing the blower for my heater/air conditioner, or be made fun of for checking the wrong fuse...

I have a chip in my windshield from a wayward rock thrown at me by a trucks rear tire on the way home from Vancouver... I wonder what that may cost... I'm sure they will try to give me a stern lecture on the dangers of having a partly chipped glass in front of my face... it seems more dangerous to be the passenger.

Lamb Shanks Continued

Lamb Shanks

Here is tonights dinner... phase 1!

Distribution

It has occurred to me that there are about two people besides myself who ever look at this page. Far from disappointing, it is rather chummy, and I don't much mind. However, there seem to be a lot of folks who could be looking and aren't aware of the location. I am very disinclined to mass email alerts about the existence of this page, and probably would forget after two or three trips to the page anyway...
My friend Kevin was trying to tell me about the reasons people return to webpages. First, they have to expect to find fresh content. Second, if it can be interactive, that's better. Third, if it allows them to short circuit the mess everywhere else (like an aggregator) then that makes it useful. The only other reason people go anywhere on the internet is the quest to relieve ennui, or the never ending search for photos of naked women. I can't offer much to make your lives less tiresome, and won't be posting nudy pics here...
In short, thanks to my few readers, and a long apology for lack of anything to say.

I went to mass this morning. The recessional was a sort of jazzy hymn, sounded a lot like take 5 on the first few bars of drum and bass, then got fast lyrics riding over the top of it...

Also, I recently reimplemented my wireless network. Since the phone line is run to the garage, and does not work in the house, the router for my dsl lives in the garage. From my office, which is on the south side of the house (nearest the garage) I get a tolerable signal. But from the living room ten feet further (and one wall) the signal is transient, at best. A few weeks ago I tried to install a dlink range extender, but found out that it only works with Dlink routers... it saw the router in the garage fine, but for whatever reason (I think it was more marketing than engineering) it refused to communicate with mine. I returned it and added a second wireless router. It stayed in the garage for a few weeks, and left a marginally better footprint. After a long tiresome struggle to get it pleasant, and after riding on a neighbors unsecured connection for a week or two (I think that's a federal crime?) I moved it into the house, and tied a ethernet wireless client to it, setting it up in the office. Now I get an uninterrupted high quality connection... I'm sure there is an increase in latency since it leaves the living room, hits the office router, goes out on its external interface, moves to the pocket router in client mode, hits the router in the garage and becomes a dsl signal... I find it's not bad once the DNS lookups are out of the way. Big delay getting to the garage. I sometimes miss wires.

1  192.168.2.1  2.909 ms   0.636 ms   0.699 ms
2  * * *
3  tukw-dsl-gw13-205.tukw.qwest.net (63.231.10.205)  45.926 ms   43.922 ms   43.668 ms
4  tukw-agw1.inet.qwest.net (63.231.10.93)  45.473 ms   44.504 ms   43.873 ms
5  tuk-core-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.11.97)  44.928 ms   47.444 ms   57.397 ms
6  svl-core-01.inet.qwest.net (67.14.12.6)  62.616 ms   61.623 ms   62.095 ms
7  pax-brdr-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.214.38)  62.857 ms   62.005 ms   64.222 ms
8  205.171.4.170  64.071 ms *   63.748 ms
9  * * *
10  66.249.94.10  65.579 ms   63.101 ms   77.231 ms

Wine

Beth called and said she was going to pick up some wine on her way home!
She even talked to me as she selected the different value price selections off the shelves...
I am fairly excited.

Also, Elena sent me a mexican voodoo doll... I think I will let Beth use it as a pin cushion, and pray no little girl is getting stomache pains on account of my carelessness...

Yesterday I heard geese as they flew nearby... is it springtime?

Remade

Portland Roadtrip

It was chilly this morning, but it cleared and warmed throughout the day. I sufferred the usual wait trying to get over the bridge into Portland. Portland is a city of rivers and bridges, and getting from east to west, or from Washington to Oregon, is a matter of waiting for the hundreds of other people in front of you to realize that there is only one way through. I am constantly amazed at the traffic pileups these bottlenecks cause.
Yesterday, I drove to Vancouver, BC, and waited to get through the massey tunnel on Hwy 99, always a jam, since the east-west road hooks into 99 just before the tunnel. They even close the oncoming traffic to one lane to steal a lane from the southbound folks, but it is a mess, and then everyone makes it into the tunnel, and zips along at 80km/h like nothing had ever happened.
Well, here is my file photo of Portland. Enjoy.
Really big news, the siding is complete on my house. Before/After to follow.

Snow?

I saw a snowshower in Seattle today. It was a bizarre experience, the snow started almost immediately after I crossed the ship canal, and there was some slush on the lanes in Everett. Vancouver was clear and crisp, with no sign of our southerly troubles.
It got up to 45, par for the course, and the nasty folks at the weather service are foretelling some cold snap to drift down from the Yukon... could be the first cold weather I had to deal with since I moved out here. It was a little boring driving seven hours today, how many folks go from full to empty on their daily commutes?

Hmm, yes. Happy Valentines day. Please don't send me any happy hearty emails.

Dan

Happy Birthday

---

Beth and I went to my grandmother's 70th last night, we had a fine seafood dinner at Anthony's in Gig Harbor. The service was a little inconsistent, but polite, and the food was good. We were there over three hours.
We had made agreements to go to Aaron's Birthday last weekend, and lots of folks had made plans, and then a large storm hit, and three of four folks lost power. Lots of nice ice cream spoilt, it was a terrible shame.
Overall, it was a good time for all in attendance.

Lying and Honesty

Where is the moral imperative to honesty? I understand that when we don't expect people to be honest, we don't tend to deal with them. Much of this is presently handled by the law, and stands beyond morality. Laws keep men good regardless of the wrong ideas they may have, and irrespective of their bad upbringings.

But for the unenforceable lie, there seems to be a second set of rules. Isn't it sometimes a question of the consequences, as appraised by each individual prior to his telling either the truth or a lie? Should you decide about the potential harm versus the potential good, and make a decision? Should you try to avoid positions where the truth becomes harmful?

It seems that many times we are told the truth would cause great distress, and upset 'good' people who don't need or deserve the stress involved in its discovery. Isn't this merely indicative that we have been acting wrongly, holding false belief, causing real harm with ignorance. Isn't the trauma of the truth in many cases the sting of guilt on our minds? Especially in the case where one lies to himself.

Does the desire to be truthful, or the belief that it is better, cause more distress to the man who lies than the absence of such feelings? I think it does. Some men would prefer to be truthful in the face of rather serious consequences, and for a variety of reasons. Some feel that to lie would perpetuate a bad name not only on them, but on their children and relations. Indeed, to some extent this principle is still in effect in our modern society. Some believe the conciousness of sin would bear down on them, and perhaps they can relieve that through confession. Deep inside, the only way to rid themselves of this feeling is to confess to the victim. Some may understand this and fear that a 'victim' of the lie may die in ignorance, and take the sin to the grave, irredeemable.

Some people may find it easiest to be truthful, accept the consequences of whatever they do, and strive to be better. Some may simply not want the complications of remembering various versions of reality dependent on the lies they've told.
Most of our decisions seem not to be simply moral but a decision between morality and the benefits we can reap, monetary and social, from following a less strict plan for our lives. Many of us don't want to be thrown into the ring with lions to prove our worth. Martyrdom is for those who cannot get anything better than sainthood.

• Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said.
  --Mark Twain
  


• Be good and you will be lonesome.
  --Mark Twain


• A truth that's told with bad intent
  Beats all the lies you can invent
  --William Blake

Complete

Reassembly complete, tiger installation complete, only 4 extra screws left on the table, and no important damage... I forgot to reconnect the built-in speakers, but that is acceptable. And an irrecoverable hard drive failure... oh, well. Hoorah!

Good and Bad

I just got brand new windows from Sears. I am pretty excited about that. But on the other side, the hard drive in Beth's iBook (which had for a few years been my iBook) failed violently today. I had just thought about backing it up this weekend... irony is difficult to appreciate. Also, I am very disturbed at how well apple seals the iBook up! There is a reason the tech book looks like a car parts book. Well, I managed to pry it apart 'gently' and set the harddrive in an Ibm, and attempted to get a disk image from dd. The other computer showed the same indications (loud clicking noise from the hard disk when spinning.) No recognition of /dev/hda... bad juju.

Step two is to place a new disk in the old iBook, and cross my fingers... and format.
But the windows look great!

Also, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who was waiting for a man to pick her up at a bus station. She met him on the internet, he offered to pick her up and take her to his place...

I hope everything works out okay, for us all.

Dai Sho

A long day, a short day. I struggled to make it in and out of Long Beach on time, plenty of small issues, and no easy or clear answer.
Gilroy, however, I was on my way before anything opened up, and caught an earlier flight out of San Jose to get me home hours earlier. My 5PM flight was moved to 1240, which gives me a lot more time... I wish I had followed I Know Something's advice and looked around, but I would much rather go home than go sightseeing for a few hours.
I tried to sit down at the Expedia.com bar, but the bartender must have gone for a smoke, since no one noticed me, I left after a few minutes, got a burrito (San Jose has never given me a good tasting burrito yet.) and sat to read the paper.

Gilroy is beautiful. The hills are such a bright green, and the trees are a contrasting dark green spread sporadically along the sides. I don't know that I have ever gone that way when the sun shone. I can understand why someone would like to live there. They are building it almost all at once. The guys I worked with today finished a Johnny Carino's last year, a Famous Dave's this week, and are going to Arby's next month. The mall is sprouting up at the highway intersection. Target, the sign of status! I often joked about how a town in Montana becomes a city when it gets a dairy queen. Mostly, this impression was aroused during long greyhound bus trips during the UPS strike in '97. The Dairy queen was the post office, the western union, and the bus stop all in one. That's one step short of a wall mart.


I took Highway 101 last night from the San Francisco Airport to San Jose. I know better than to do that (the proper thing to do is take 380 to 280 to San Jose, and if you are going farther, catch 101 south there.) But I figured it was 10PM on a weekday, how bad could it be? It's four lanes on either side, and there cannot be that many people on the road. I wasn't counting on every trooper on the peninsula being out there at the 101-92 interchange picking up body parts. They had three officers in bright yellow pants crossing through the two lanes they hadn't cordoned off with flares to pick up evidence from the left shoulder. I spent the first hour of my trip in the 10 miles south of SFO. I was in pretty good humour through it all, but I had to wonder how powerless a mapquester must be to find an alternate route on his 1" square area map on his turn by turn sheet. There was an article in the AA magazine about how maps were antiquated and on the way to obsolescence. His general point was that no one would buy a highway map when they could always get accurate directions. His concern was that it took the fun out of a road trip, why bother going at all if you can't hand this enormous road map that is guaranteed to be the wrong detail for the destination you are approaching to your passenger, and then harrass him if he can't give you a definitive answer on the route. That was the fun, wasn't it.
My concern is that without accurate area maps, we all get stuck on Hwy 101 waiting for CHP to finish picking up the pieces. Never again. I'll take El Camino Real before I follow 101 again.

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!