Raelist

Cake

2011-10-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

This year, the Spawn declared that she wanted an Anpanman cake for her birthday. Anpanman, in case you are not familiar, is a Japanese superhero for the toddler set, and the Spawn is a fan. Anpanman's head is round; the design would be, as they say, a piece of cake. Here is my reference photo, taken from one of her picture books:

The other requirement from the Spawn was that the cake be vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. At first, I declined, but once I got started I realized it was possible - just not as she might expect.
I have, in the past, baked cakes from scratch. This day, however, I also had to open presents with the Spawn in the morning, take her to day care, rush off to the grocery, bring morning snacks (cut fruit and cheese) to the day care for birthday celebration (for almost 30 kids), AND bake and decorate the cake before picking up the Spawn around 5:30. I may be crazy, but I am no masochist. Boxed cake and frosting mixes for me.
I had intended to bake the cakes between dropping off the Spawn and going to snack time; but when I learned that snack time was at 10 am, I realized I would not have time to go to the grocery, wash and cut the fruit, and bake the cake before then. Instead, I started baking right after returning from snack time: two 9" rounds of chocolate cake. I did have the forethought to put the butter out to soften before even driving her to school.

With the cakes out of the oven, I mixed up the frosting. I had purchased one box each of vanilla and chocolate frosting mix - basically powdered sugar and flavoring, to which one added butter and milk. I knew that the chocolate was going to be too dark for Anpanman's golden brown complexion, so planned to use the vanilla to lighten it until I got to the right shade. I ended up using both whole boxes of frosting. In my experience (which proved right), a single box of frosting is only barely enough to cover a two-layer cake, particularly when the cake is darker than the frosting. The half-and-half mix of chocolate and vanilla turned out just the right color, I had about 1.5 cups of frosting left over, and it covered the required vanilla and chocolate flavors.
Once the cakes had cooled, I laid the bottom layer onto a sheet of parchment paper as a work surface. This also allowed me later to much more easily transfer the completed cake onto a cake stand - all I had to do was trim off the excess paper and slide the whole thing onto the stand. Getting the first layer off the cooling rack and onto the work surface was actually much more tricky than the second, as both layers were on the same cooling rack, so I couldn't lift-and-flip it onto a plate. Take note: get separate cooling racks for each layer.
I shaved off the "dome" from the bottom layer to make it flat on top, then spread Mama's Homemade Strawberry Jam, conveniently cooked and jarred the previous weekend, over the now porous top. It was a pretty thin layer, but the jam was so flavorful that it really lit up the taste of the cake. Strawberry flavor complete - Neapolitan Achievement unlocked!

Using a plate, a sheet of parchment paper, and a lot of luck, I got the top layer into position. I then carved the edges of the cake to make them flat. This helps in using less frosting to fill in the gaps and make the sides flat and vertical, but does make the sides crumbly, so you have to make sure your frosting is soft enough to spread properly.

With the basic cake taken care of, I turned my attention to the decorations. The E-i-C had discovered, in the depths of Google, a great many Anpanman birthday cakes made by doting mothers across Japan. One particularly clever baker had used canned peach halves for Anpanman's shiny round cheeks and nose. I stole the idea.
Is food coloring going out of fashion? I was completely unable to find Red No. 5 on the shelves of any of my local groceries. It's OK, though - I had a great Plan B. Or should I say, Plan BEET:

I peeled and cubed a beet and simmered it for a while in water; strained out the liquid, and used it to dye the peach halves. I dyed the nose a little bit longer for a redder hue. I left one unneeded peach half undyed for comparison in the last photo above.
The one flaw in my plan was that I did not drain/dry the peach halves enough. What you see above is about all I did. I should have put them on a stack of paper towels, on a wire rack, over a dish, for a couple of hours in the fridge. As it was, they slowly, continuously leaked pinkish juice onto the cake, which I dabbed away periodically throughout the day. Luckily, the frosting (being mostly butter) was water-resistant.
Referencing the original artwork mentioned above, I drafted my design on a sheet of paper, rubbed over the cake tin for the correct 9" circular size. While I was unable to find food coloring at the store, there was a good assortment of gel decorative icing available. I used black.

I had brought the Spawn with me on the grocery shopping trip in which I bought the cake mix, frosting mix, and icing; while at the cake decoration section, she pestered me to get all sorts of rainbow colored and glittery doodads. Most of them I refused, but I did recognize a role in my design for the chocolate sprinkles. I used them to fill in Anpanman's happy smile. (It looks pretty good from afar and in these photos; up close it kind of looked like he was ODing on coffee grounds.)

We went out to dinner that evening at the Spawn's favorite restaurant, and returned home to share the wonder that was the Anpanman Cake - baked to Her Majesty's specification.
Happy Birthday, Spawn!

Roses

2010-08-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

Rather than bore you with excrutiatingly cute photos of my kid, I am going to enthrall you with photos of the roses in our garden.

Oh, did I mention we bought a house?

Open Letter to the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority

2010-05-23T10:58:00.001-07:00

Dear MUNI,

It's over. We're through, you and I.

Our relationship has been going on for almost twelve years. It started out so light-hearted; we'd see each other for part of my trip to the office, when I'd hop off the ferry at Embarcadero and take any subway line straight to Van Ness station. It was a reverse commute, so it was never crowded, and even when there were delays - yes, even then, there were delays - the subway line was still almost guaranteed to be faster than one of the street-level buses or the F Market, since they had to deal with traffic and had so many more stops.

Then I moved in, and we took the relationship a step further.

When I moved to the Sunset, a coworker warned me about the N Judah. It's unreliable, she said. In the middle of rush hour, it will suddenly announce that it's turning around at Sunset Blvd, and leave you stranded. No problem, I thought, I live on 27th Avenue, nine blocks before Sunset Blvd, so that kind of flightiness won't be an issue. We're not that dependent on each other.

Well, even then I should have seen the signs. I'd be out late with friends and be waiting for an hour or more for you to pick me up and take me home. Once, I even had to walk from 9th and Irving at one in the morning, because you just didn't show - even though the N is supposed to be an all-night line. Even worse was just trying to come home in the evening from work during rush hour. You'd get your fill of marketing and advertisement girls, finance guys, and old Chinese ladies downtown, and by the time you arrived at Van Ness station, you wouldn't have room to pick me up. I'd be waiting until 5:45, 6:00, even 6:30 before an N Judah would come that I could board.

Eventually I got wise. Instead of just hoping you'd follow through on your promises, I started playing to your strengths. I discovered your 16 express buses. From the days I lived on 23rd and Judah, I started taking the 16BX to and from work, and it was fast! And reliable! And I could get a seat even at the height of rush hour! Sure I had to walk several blocks to the stop at Fell and Gough, but it was worth it. Even after I moved down to 45th Avenue - beyond Sunset Blvd, where the last remnants of the N Judah's reliability were torn away - I could take the 16AX to Sunset and Irving and just walk the last nine blocks. Healthy exercise, right?

Then came the Spawn. No relationship is the same after children, MUNI, and you and I both knew things would change. But I still had hopes. After a few chaotic months, we settled into a routine. I'd drive my car (*gasp!* You see the seeds being planted?) to the day care, park, and drop off the Spawn. There's just no direct route from our apartment to the day care - it would require two transfers and an extra hour of travel time, lugging a baby (and later a toddler) onto one rush-hour-packed bus or train after another. It just wasn't going to happen, so the car was a necessity. Then I'd either take the L Taraval in from 17th Avenue all the way to Van Ness, or take the 48 bus to West Portal station and any line - K, L, or M - in from there. The mornings were good, MUNI.

They still are, mostly, for what it's worth. In the mornings you're usually on your best behavior. I'm rarely late to work and sometimes I'm even early. But by 5 o'clock, you've knocked back a few breakdowns, traffic delays, accidents, absentee operators, derailments, downed power lines, whatever you need to keep you (not) going through the day.

MUNI, I had it all worked out. It should have been so easy for you. From Van Ness to West Portal, I could take the K, L, M, or even S on ball game days. Then I could wait for (or stay on) the L Taraval and walk the last couple of blocks, or catch the 48 outside straight to my car, pick up the Spawn, and head home. But even this, you couldn't handle. I'd arrive at Van Ness to find the outbound platform packed with people. You'd show up with a two-car N, a J, another N, this one practically empty. Then a one-car M Ocean Beach, packed to the gills. Little Chinese ladies with shopping bags and high schoolers with big backpacks would cram themselves on, to a chorus of curses from the passengers already in the car. After a few minutes with the doors unable to close, away it would go, followed by another J, another N. A one-car L, again packed. By 5:40, if I was lucky, I might squeeze onto a train. I'd arrive at the day care at 5 minutes past 6, apologizing profusely to Babi for the third time that week. It's MUNI, I'd whimper. I'm sorry, I tried to get here on time.

And talk about high-maintenance! When we started going together, back in the ferry days, I got a free subway ride along with my ferry ticket. Nice! Then when I started seeing you exclusively, I started paying for monthly passes. To be honest, I can't keep track of all the fare increases. It started out around $35, I think. Then $40. Then $45. This year it went up to $60, and that's if I drop the option to ride on BART within the city. Sixty bucks?

This Spring you announced "further cutbacks in service" due to the budget shortfall. I know you mean well. The cuts were to weekends, holidays, and late night service, and to the last few stops on the lines - things that shouldn't have mattered to me, shouldn't have been a problem for you and I. But something's changed, MUNI. Your peak hour service is getting worse - I don't think it's just me. More and more often I arrive late at the day care. And now, the St. Francis Circle construction? As if it weren't hard enough to get on a train to West Portal, now once I'm on a car, I'm stuck in the subway for half an hour just trying to arrive! You have nine or ten cars backed up before West Portal, waiting for every one of the Ks and Ms to turn around right outside West Portal! It's 6:15 or 6:20 before I get to the day care, and that's if I leave work early. At least once or twice a month - at least that often, MUNI - I abandon all hope and go up and spend half an hour trying to catch a $20 cab ride instead.

You can say it's just temporary, MUNI, but it's a sign of a bigger problem. You don't know how to deal with yourself. I'm not going to lay the blame on the operators, or the management, or the mechanics, or Breda. I can't get inside your head and find the cure - that's not my job. All I can do is deal with the results. And I'll tell you how I'm dealing with it.

I talked to the parking lot attendant at my office building. I'm getting a parking spot. It's expensive - $175 a month - but it's worth it. I'm worth it.

Goodbye, MUNI.

Dear Gap et al.

2010-05-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Gap/Old Navy,

I live in San Francisco - you know, the same city in which your world headquarters is located. It brings me some amusement to "buy local" from your selection. I like a lot of your clothes for my daughter, who is two but wears size 4T. The Gap-branded clothes, particularly, seem well-made, durable (enough), and are designed nicely - classic outfits in natural colors, without godawful gaudy prints, sparkles, or slogans on them (sorry, Old Navy).

Here's my issue. I mentioned that I live in San Francisco. It is now heading into late May, I know. Late Spring, you might almost say early Summer. It's bright and sunny outside. But have you checked the thermometer? Have you looked at the weather report? Have you walked from the BART to your office today? It's COLD. Well, chilly. It often does not get up to 60F in the day, rarely to 70F, and even when it does there's a cold wind blowing off the ocean and a damp fog covering the mornings and evenings - just when we're on our way in to and home from the office and day care.

Now I look for clothes for my daughter. She's starting another growth spurt, so all her size 2T stuff is way too small and her size 3T stuff, which I don't have much of, is getting a little tight. On your online catalogs I see.... tank tops! Shorts! Swim suits! Tube tops with shoulder strings! Strappy dresses! Cap-sleeve shirts with lacey holes! Skorts! The longest pants are flimsy cotton capris (I think I've already mentioned how these are less than flattering on stubby-legged toddlers).

If I dress my daughter in these, Babi at day care will chide me and put some other kid's sweater on my daughter so that she can play outside. Even I wear a windbreaker to work every day. If I wear a short-sleeve shirt, it's because the heating system at the office is stuck on - or because I know I'll be home early so I can put on a hoodie before the fog rolls in.

You live here too, Gap. You know I'm not making this up. There are other places in your market that are in the same boat, really. Pretty much the entire Pacific Northwest. Alaska. The mountain states. We need long sleeved shirts and pants, even in Summer. Maybe even a non-cropped sweater or two. How about those famous Performance Fleece pajamas, Old Navy? Why only thin cotton during the summer? OK, I respect that you only have so much display space in your stores and need to sell to the broad market (although I'm betting you'd do better in your flagship SF stores with cooler weather clothes). But it's the Internet, man, stock a few thousand in a warehouse somewhere and send it to us needy Eskimos!

Pretty please?

Taste the Rainbow

2009-11-28T12:25:00.001-08:00

So yesterday we headed up to Fairfax to visit our friends. The Spawn had been resisting eating all day, preferring instead to subsist on milk, and deigning to eat some of an apple, but refusing all other food. After her nap (and a second failed attempt at feeding her lunch), we packed up the car and headed north across the Golden Gate. The Spawn had a sort of weird look on her face for most of the drive - kind of squishy like she was going to go to sleep, but without the heavy eyelids.

Right after we went through the Waldo/Rainbow Tunnel, on our way down the hill towards Sausalito, the Spawn puked all over herself.

As we pulled into the next exit, the E-i-C (who was driving) and I attempted to console her. She was kind of shaken, and pitifully apologized, "I spilled my yogurt." Alas, my dear, that is not yogurt.

We stopped at an overlook and began the process of cleaning what we could with handi-wipes (which ran out too soon), diaper wipes, and washcloths. As we stripped her down and put her into her hideously clashing and too-small backup clothes (the day care asks us to always have backup clothes in her day bag, and we put her ugliest ones in there so we will notice when she's had a change during the day), we saw, over Tiburon and Richardson Bay, a spectacular rainbow. It soon grew into a full arc. The Spawn was enthralled. Karma was restored. We turned around and went home.

(On the way back across the GGB, the rainbow's end traveled across the Bay, making stops at Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the Financial District. I'll let you decide where to find the pot of gold.)

When we returned, the E-i-C cleaned up the Spawn and put her to bed, while I worked on the car. For the first time in the year we've had it, I had to figure out how to remove the car seat cushion. Of course, one does not normally need to do so until it is covered in something unpleasant. It is not an easy task. Halfway through, I discovered the User Guide tucked underneath the cover, which was helpful except for the part where it explained that I had to pull the straps, buckles, and chest and shoulder pads through the tiny little slots that were barely big enough for the straps themselves. I was even more appalled when I read, "Hand wash only." Oh yeah? That's why I have a washing machine with a "Hand Wash" cycle. Suckers.

10 Years

2009-10-14T22:24:00.001-07:00

I've been living in the Bay Area for 11 years, now. Ten of those in the Sunset (following one year in Alameda). All of them working for the same agency, on the same floor of the same building, though I've been in three nominally different positions and moved cubes maybe four times (never once by the window! So unfair!).

It occurred to me today, as I was pondering this on the same walk I have done almost every weekday for eleven years from my office to the subway (OK, for a while I walked to a different bus stop), that it won't be long before I've lived here longer than I lived in the town where I grew up.

It feels like time for a change. Too bad my job has me shackled with golden handcuffs; now is not the time to be looking for a new job, and even before the economic "downturn," I did not see any comparable positions with comparable pay. But I sure wouldn't mind moving out of the City.

the entire scale or range

2009-07-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

This may be the single most interesting English etymology I've ever looked up. Incidentally, I looked it up because I was at a conference and a speaker (otherwise very good, with a very interesting talk) kept using the word, and kept mispronouncing it "gambit."

From Dictionary.com:

gam⋅ut

[gam-uht]
–noun
1. the entire scale or range: the gamut of dramatic emotion from grief to joy.
2. Music. a. the whole series of recognized musical notes. b. the major scale.

Origin:
1425–75; late ME gamma ut, equiv. to gamma, used to represent the first or lowest tone (G) in the medieval scale + ut (later do); the notes of the scale (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) being named from a Latin hymn to St. John the Baptist: Ut queant laxis resonare fibris. Mira gestorum famuli tuorum, Solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes

Unintended Consequences

2009-04-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

The preferential residential parking system was established in 1976 to preserve neighborhood living within a major urban center. It is designed to promote the safety, health and welfare of all San Francisco residents by reducing unnecessary personal motor vehicle travel, noise and pollution, and by promoting improvements in air quality, convenience and attractiveness of urban residential living, and increased use of public mass transit. The program’s main goal is to provide more parking spaces for residents by discouraging long-term parking by people who do not live in the area.

So sayeth the Municipal Transportation Agency.

The street on which the Spawn's day care is situated just became 2-hour parking, except for residents with area "O" permits. Previously, I had been driving a couple of miles from our apartment to the day care, parking on that block, dropping off the Spawn, and then walking a couple of blocks to the L-Taraval stop, which I would take in to work. In the evening, reverse.

Since I am no longer permitted to park on this block for the workday, and it would take about an hour and at least one transfer just to get the Spawn from our apartment to her day care by transit (and another half hour to get myself to work), I can only infer that the MTA would prefer that I drive to the day care, drop off the Spawn, and then drive into downtown, pay $18/day or $200/mo for parking and add to downtown congestion, and then drive home again in rush hour in the evening.

How does this meet their stated goal?

Test Post

2009-02-02T13:41:00.001-08:00

My laptop is in the shop again. Testing posting from my handheld

Adorable Smooshyface? Or Menace to Society?

2009-01-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

I have been told on separate occasions by the parents of two different children at the Spawn's day care that their children ask about her, or call out her name, at home (or maybe in the car, not entirely clear).

I am unsure what to make of this. The natural assumption for the proud parent of a Spawn would be that the other children so adore her that they pine after her when she is away. However, given my own experience with her, I wonder if perhaps there might be other explanations.

Maybe they are playing a game that they see the day care attendants play several times a day, when they look around and ask, "Where's the Spawn?" before realizing that she is in the other room, pulling all the board-books off the shelves.

Or perhaps the children in question are at home in their living room, peacefully enjoying themselves or playing with their parents or siblings, when a sudden fit of panic seizes them and they must ascertain that the Spawn is not toddling up behind them, ready to bonk them on the head with a plastic block and gleefully shout, "OW!"

We may never know.

2009-01-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

The stultifyingly monotonous routine and perpetual sleep deprivation of parenthood are conspiring to me carborundum. When the daily grind of work becomes your outlet for creativity, something's wrong. The user documentation I've been writing has been taking on characteristics of novellae: so wordy that most people won't bother reading it, not long enough to qualify for a Philip K. Dick award (does photocopy count as "paperback"?).

I am rethinking my desire for a Kindle or Sony Reader in favor of the iPhone I already have. I finished reading Tarzan of the Apes, which came with the eReader app, this morning. Why would I need a separate device for reading books? The Kindle seems to have a huge library (no - bookstore. Libraries are free.) behind it, which is nice. But there's a whole bunch of books on Fictionwise for both the eReader and Stanza iPhone apps. Once I'm finished with all the woodpulp books I have waiting for me, maybe I'll start buying some electronbacks.

The E-i-C and I are planning to go to the Edwardian Ball in a couple of weeks. We have a babysitter scheduled and everything. Seems like my whole gang of friends is getting geared up for it as well. Yay! That's a walking stick, but I'm also happy to see you.

My favorite Christmas gift this year was a pendant by Jeanine Payer in support of the anti-Prop 8 movement. It's engraved with Gandhi's quote, "What barrier is there that love cannot break?"

MUNI Update: Riding the N Still Sucks

2008-12-09T09:09:00.001-08:00

Generally in the morning, I go down to Judah & La Playa to get coffee and a bagel at Java Beach, where I relax (or don't, depending on how late I left home) for a few minutes. Then I catch the 6:48 N-Judah in to work.

Today, there was no 6:48 N-Judah. No 6:54 N-Judah, either. When the 7:00 N Judah came, it was only one car. And the front door was broken. I was going to just wait for the next train, as one-car N-Judahs can be a little uncomfortable during rush hour. But I quickly checked NextBus on my trusty iPhone and saw that another was not going to arrive for another 19 minutes. (N.b.: During peak times, N-Judah trains are supposed to run every 6 minutes.)

I decided to cut my losses and catch the one-car. The good thing about getting on at the turnaround is that I'm guaranteed a seat near the door.

Cheap Regression Therapy

2008-12-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

Friend CK is coming for a visit from Kansas. The Choppers are hosting a party in his honor this weekend, and the email invite prompted this thread:

CK:

And I would note that if you're going to get a sitter for Friday so you can party like adults, fantastic, but if so let's schedule something at some point so I can meet the little Spawn!
Looking forward to seeing you all!
ck

Me:

We are planning on bringing the Spawn with us and partying like 14-month-olds. Which is to say, falling off furniture, running around in circles, dancing "the Malfunction," poking people in the eyes, chirping and squealing like R2 units, bursting into tears unexpectedly when we've had enough, and falling asleep on the drive home.
- Raelist

CK:

Oooh! I'm going to be drinking, too!

You can always count on CK.

Finally, some reward

2008-12-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

I'm working at my computer a few minutes ago, when the Spawn toddles over holding my slipper. I stick my foot out and she places it carefully (if not thoroughly) on my foot. "But Spawn," say I, "my other foot is cold! Can you get my other slipper too?" And off she goes across the room, down the hall. She is briefly distracted by something on the floor but I remind her of her business by calling to her and holding up my foot. She goes the rest of the way down the hall, picks up the slipper, and returns to me to place it on my waiting foot.

Oh yes, it's so worth 14 months of sleeplessness, food and medical bills, day care payments as high as our rent, and constant demands for attention, to have a semi-autonomous slipper fetcher.

I see that there is good reason that the NextMUNI monitors recently installed in the Market Street subway stations are still in beta:

I only hope they've been keeping up with their patches.

The Bible says a lot of things... y'know?

2008-12-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

A Sexy, Shoeless God of WAR!!*

2008-11-24T20:50:00.001-08:00

Yokozuna Hakuho has done it again, and an impressive showing for ozeki-to-be Ama. What an amazing tournament! Who needs Asashoryu? Hakuho is so graceful and powerful; watching him wrestle is awe-inspiring.

Too bad my man Goeido got injured early on in his battle to retain the komusubi rank, which is arguably the toughest position in the banzuke. He'll be back among the maegashira in the next banzuke. Fan favorite/comic relief "Robocop" Takamisakari took an early lead, actually broke the edge of the dohyo with Kakuryu's foot on the tenth day, and finished the tournament with a 10-5 record (Kakuryu bowed out of the rest of the basho due to the injury sustained by getting his leg caught between the Cop and the hard clay). The E-i-C's favorite, gentle giant Baruto, defended his new sekiwake rank with vigor and gentlemanly conduct.

After 15 days of exciting matches, I'm suffering from a bit of post-basho let-down. New Years basho can't come soon enough!

(*Apologies to Belkar Bitterleaf.)

Glossary, for all you football-watching heathens:
banzuke : list of sumo wrestlers and their ranks, issued before every basho. Ranks assigned according to wrestlers' recent performance and an arcane formula of objective and subjective criteria.
basho : sumo tournament. Six tournaments per year, held once every two months. Each basho lasts 15 days, with each wrestler normally fighting in one match per day.
dohyo : the raised platform, made of packed and dried clay, on which the bouts occur.
komusubi : fourth-highest rank of sumo wrestler.
maegashira : lower ranks of the "makuuchi" top division of sumo wrestler, sometimes called the "rank-and-file." There are 32 maegashira in each banzuke.
ozeki : second-highest rank of sumo wrestler, sometimes translated as "champion."
sekiwake : third-highest rank of sumo wrestler.
yokozuna : highest rank of sumo wrestler, translated as "grand champion." Unlike the other ranks, a yokozuna cannot be demoted, but a yokozuna who starts to perform poorly is expected to retire rather than bring disgrace upon the rank.

Bats, witches, and ogres

2008-11-14T22:23:00.000-08:00

So the E-i-C and I have a new procedure, for days when she works in the City, wherein she parks the car near the Spawn's day care and drops off the Spawn in the morning, and takes the train in to work; and then in the evening, I take the train to the day care, pick up the Spawn, and take the car home, while the E-i-C takes a different train home. It's all very efficient. But that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is that because of this new setup, the Spawn and I were driving a few blocks through Golden Gate Park right after sunset, and there was a multitude of bats flitting over the street, one after the other, all the way from Sunset Boulevard to 44th Ave. So neat!

When I was a pup, on summer nights (yes, I am aware that it is currently November, but we here in the Bay Area are experiencing what the news media call a heat wave) my friends and I would go out at twilight and grab cut wood from the Grants' woodpile and throw it into the air at the bats. With marvelous dexterity, they would swoop in to the spinning logs, attracted by the sonar reflection they made, and dodge them just by inches. Never once saw a bat accidentally hit one, but they came soooo close. I've been fascinated by their aeronautical prowess ever since.

The Spawn's rash was completely gone by the time I got her home today. Toldja so.

With dinner, while watching today's sumo digest, I enjoyed a bottle of Van Steenberge's Witches' Brew, which is apparently a seasonal special and not featured on their website. 750 ml * 9.3% alc by vol = 70 ml of PURE ETHANOL, BABY. Consider me fueled.

Did I mention sumo? My favorite, Goeido, is not doing so well, at 1-5 so far (out of 15 matches in the tournament), and I am afraid he might be demoted from his new komusubi rank. On the other hand, everybody's favorite class clown Takamisakari is doing very well at 5-1, and is really doing a great job of using his upper body strength to overpower his opponents. As they say in the interviews, he's doing his "own brand of sumo." The E-i-C's favorite, "Estonian man-mountain" Baruto, is doing very well also. She likes him because he's such a gentleman - he always helps his opponent back up, doesn't get angry when defeated, and generally has a kind face and a sweet disposition. This despite being 198.0 cm (6' 6") and 177 kg (390 lbs). That is ONE. BIG. MAN.

Aaaand, tomorrow's sumo is on. Gotta go.

Lunacy

2008-11-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

According to an AP article published on HonoluluAdvertiser.com, "Fifth-ranked maegashira Dejima defeated No. 10 maegashira Aran of Russia while Miyabiyama, a seventh-ranked maegashira, overpowered No. 12 Kasuganishiki."

Kasuganishiki pulled out of the tournament with an injury, so Miyabayama won the match by default. I'm not sure I'd call that "overpowered." Nice reporting, AP. Miyabiyama is undefeated so far (a third of the way into the tournament), with some canny sumo and impressive footwork for such a big guy. Which, you know, doesn't do you any good (nor any bad) when you're winning by default.

If today wasn't officially a full moon, it was close enough so's to make no difference. The schizophrenic homeless people were out in force. I passed a fellow at Market & Van Ness talking (to no one in particular) about how there had been "a sewage pipe attached to my iris, my retina."

And I got to leave work at eleven to go pick up the Spawn from day care. She's come down with a cold (though it's hard to tell, because she's had one after the other, with no actually healthy periods, since October began) and the virus is giving her a rash as well. So the day care people were all freaked out and afraid it might be chicken pox or something. Admittedly, it's a pretty impressive rash, and we did go visit the doctor to make sure.

The E-i-C and I have been trying to figure out what to do for a Christmas vacation. Airline prices are so ridiculously expensive that even going to Portland for a couple of days is hardly worth it - forget about Japan at about $2K per seat. We're having trouble finding someplace we can agree on here in the Bay Area, or even anywhere within driving distance. Time is getting short! Any suggestions?

Defaced

2008-11-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Long ago, when Friendster was this big new concept and still in beta, I signed up. I "friended" a bunch of other people that I already saw on a regular basis (coworkers, local friends), and then never signed in again. Because really, what's the point of that? If I want to check in on those people, I can ask them what's up the next time I see them. Or IM them or something. I don't need some extrovert-centric web 2.0 invasion-of-privacy Googlefood thing for that.

So I've been avoiding Facebook for pretty much the same reasons. I update this blog rarely enough, and can barely get updates onto the Spawn's web page once a month for the grandparents. Why commit myself to yet another web presence that will languish in obsolescence?

Then this weekend, I got invites from my high school girlfriend and two of our other friends from those long-ago days - all people with whom I hadn't spoken (exchanged emails, whatever) in years and years. And I also, completely unrelatedly, got an email from a former classmate organizing the twenty-year high school reunion next year (GAH!). So, feeling somewhat nostalgic and morbidly curious, I signed up on Facebook today. And immediately discovered incredibly embarrassing pictures of myself from 1990. Nothing kills nostalgia like the realization that other people might remember (and have photographic evidence of) what a dork you were.

Projections

2008-11-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight the E-i-C and I opened a bottle of Perrier-Jouet that has been in the bottle since before W was elected. The E-i-C is elated, and keeps going on about how proud "you Americans" should be for electing our first black president. Much of this is due to the effects of the champagne, but she is also talking about applying for citizenship next year - so she can vote for Obama's re-election (assuming he does a good job in the first four years) in 2012.

In more sobering news, California's state proposition h8 seems to be passing. I am shocked and very, very disappointed. Maybe this video will help explain why.

Oculi Rosei

2008-10-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Spawn has a case of bacterial conjunctivitis. That's the sort of pink eye that is accompanied by great globs of yellow goo dripping from eyelashes. Highly contagious, so she's not permitted to go to day care until it's cured. Which it mostly is now, since we went to the doctor on Friday and she's been getting antibiotic eyedrops since then.

Now, normally I'd welcome a 4-day weekend, but when you're stuck at home because the baby is a carrier of infectious disease, not to mention she's oozing from the eyes and nose and is SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING HER FACE WIPED, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, by the fourth day you start to get a little bit of cabin fever. If the Spawn was not so demanding of my attention (and I mean that in the most literal way), I might have gotten some things done - chores around the house, writing, reading. As it is I managed to read through the state voter information pamphlet for this election's initiatives.

Yesterday the E-i-C and I put our friends at risk by asking them to spawnsit while we traipsed off to the Neil Gaiman reading of The Graveyard Book. It was neat! The E-i-C seemed very inspired, not only by the Q&A session in which he answered a few questions about his writing process, but also by the leaflet for fieldreport.com that was handed to her while we waiting in line.

I took a 90+ minute nap today while the Spawn did likewise; it was much needed, but left me feeling a bit squishy. Napping always does; I'm not right in the head for the remainder of the day. At the moment the Spawn is down for her second nap, which is itself uncommon these days, and even more so considering that she napped for more than 2 hours, and woke up only about 4 hours ago. She must be feeling under the weather; and I guess she didn't sleep well last night. Now that I have the potential for a few minutes of focus, I'm not sure what to focus on...

But blogging isn't really what I want to spend this precious time on.

A testament to my bladder. Or lack of hydration.

2008-09-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

It's 3 pm and I just discovered that I put on my boxers backwards this morning.

Wednesday is our anniversary.
Friday is my brother's birthday.
Sunday is the Spawn's first birthday party, and Monday is her actual birthday.

Not only am I feeling a little overwhelmed this week, it would seem that I'm going to be overwhelmed this week every year, forever.

Oh, and it's time for another sumo tournament, which happens this time every year, too.

Adventures

2008-08-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I blogged.

The E-i-C has ordered a Mini Cooper S. Dark silver, hardtop, no moon/sunroof. If I sit in the front seat, whoever sits in back of me had best be a double amputee. It will not arrive until Novemberish.

In the meantime, that slow coolant leak in the E-i-C's old Golf turned into a fast coolant leak. Or shall we say, coolant spurt. Naturally, this occurred while I was driving it. With the Spawn in the back seat. Car overheated. Smoke pouring out from under the hood, etc. Took Muni the rest of the way home.

So, we have inadvertently, unwillingly, temporarily become a single-car household. Now, our regular schedule is that the E-i-C drops the Spawn off at the Russian Mafia Daycare in the morning, sometime past 8 am on her way to work, and I leave work at 4:30 pm, take Muni home, get my car, and pick up the Spawn shortly before 6 pm, while the E-i-C slaves away until 9ish at her office in the great white north. Except now we have only the one car. Yesterday was no problem; I had already RTO'd til 9 am at work, since the E-i-C was hosting the Reykyavik Summit at work beginning at Early AM. So I just drove my own car to both Pikov Andropov, as Click & Clack might say.

Today, however, the E-i-C had to return to the great white north, so she took the remaining car. I took Muni to work. And me being carless, the E-i-C was tasked with both the dropping off and the picking up of the Spawn. And I am not only carless but taskless, especially tonight being Game Night. So presently I am sitting in Cafe International in the lower Haight, enjoying my third (and far from last) beer and blogging.

So much work stuff to talk about, but I don't blog about work.

Instead, I will leave you with this. I know there are ladies out there who purchased for your gentlemen a classic Brooks Brothers Fun Pant. And you are wondering, "But what's in it for me? The Fun Pant doesn't come in ladies' sizes." I have the answer for you, but to find it, you'll have to seek out the printed Neiman Marcus catalog (known in such circles as receive them in the post as, The Book). In it you will find an exquisite, yet fanciful and, yes, fun, coat by alleged fashion designer Robert Cavalli. This coat is in technicolor, much like the amazing dreamcoat, and furthermore, and most importantly, is trimmed with hamster fur. Yes. Hamster. From Italy.

Feeding the Jaw that Bites You

2008-07-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

You remember when you were a kid, and your baby teeth were falling out one by one? And whenever one was loose, all day long your tongue, seemingly of its own accord, would poke and prod at the loose tooth, until you had a sore spot on the tip of your tongue and the tooth was so loose you could taste the blood underneath it?
Ah, dentistry.
I now have a temporary crown on my bottom left first molar. The tooth had a large cavity on it, which was drilled out long ago and filled. But the filling doesn't really provide any structural integrity to the tooth, and when I chew on that side - or when I grind my teeth, as I do at night - the molar kind of starts to break apart. It had a big ol' crack down the middle, just waiting to give way. I've been unable to chew on that side of my mouth for several weeks.
I know some people stereotypically fear and loathe the dentist. Not me. First of all, I have a great dentist. Secondly, I appreciate my teeth. Oh, it wasn't always the case. When I was in elementary school, I barely ever brushed, and never flossed. I ate candy whenever I could (though I didn't have a major sweet tooth), and by the time I was in high school I literally had an addiction to Coke. I actually had fun creeping out my friends by audibly grinding my teeth together.
But now, I'm thirty-six years old and my teeth are falling apart - literally. I still need them! I intend to chew for at least another thirty-six years! Why were humans not designed to have a third set of teeth come in around midlife (or, for that matter, a jaw that all their teeth could fit into)? Elephants get six sets. But then, when that last set falls out, they die of starvation. Still think you can wait another year before you make a dentist appointment?
My dentist tells that once the permanent crown is in place, I will never have to worry about that tooth again. Bring it on!

Pater Familis

2008-06-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first Father's Day. It started out with sleeping in until 7:30 (about 2 hours later than I usually awaken), followed by a wonderful breakfast fixed by the E-i-C: lox, creme fraiche, red onion and capers on genuine German-style pumpernickel; tamago; and yogurt with fresh fruit. Along with the breakfast was a veritable shower of gifts, which I will refrain from listing, except to mention that they included the 4th edition D&D core rulebooks.

In the midmorning we drove up to San Rafael to go to the Marin farmer's market at the Civic Center, which is really a lot more pleasant than the SF Ferry Building market on Saturdays. There are a couple of vendors whom I miss, though: the dry-farmed potato man (who actually comes to the SR market, but doesn't sell potatoes there); Cap'n Mike's salmon sandwich booth (again, Cap'n Mike sells his wares at SR, but there is no sandwich booth); and we're going to have to go to the Ferry Building later this summer to get myoga from Happy Quail Farms. Despite these absences, it's really quite a large market, and the parking and crowds are still better than at the Ferry Building.

We were able to move pretty quickly through the market to get what we wanted, and finished up around 1:15 pm. After a brief pause to feed the Spawn, we sped off to the Fairfax Festival. Parking here was a little more tricky, but we took an opportunity to visit an open house for a beeyootiful $1.2M craftsman home. Do you think they'd accept a 1% down?

We met up with the Choppers for breakfast at Koffee Klatch and then away to the Redwood Stage to catch Chopper's friend Steve playing with the Fairfax String Ensemble. To be truthful, we didn't see much of the rest of the Festival. Before we even left the house I was coming down with a headache, and by the afternoon it was nearly intolerable. We were all three of us exhausted and sunstruck, and it was a bit of a relief to return to the foggy Sunset.

Most of the remainder of the day was spend cooking, first for the Spawn (steaming and grinding veggies from the market) and then for the E-i-C and I (tacos!). I think I logged on to WoW for about 15 minutes before deciding I'd rather do something productive like sleep.

Yeah, fatherhood.

New Housebot

2008-06-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Typically this post, in which I introduce our new Roomba, would be titled, "The Newest Member of the Family." But let's face it. J Edgar is not a member of the family. He is a slave. We speak of him in the third person while he is in the room. When we do speak directly to him, it is always a command ("Get to it, J Edgar!") or a criticism ("You missed a spot, J Edgar."). Though he has only been working in our household for a couple of days, his once-dapper attire is already scuffed, scraped, and dusty. In the evening he huddles by our feet as we dine, his amber LED pulsing with resentment as he seeks his own meager direct-current sustenance.

Our floors, however, have not been so clean in months.

When I mentioned the new slavebot to my coworker, Ellen, her comment was, "You must not have a lot of stuff on your floors." We do, in fact, but I would have to pick that up even if I were to use a regular vacuum cleaner. Indeed, it is much easier for me to prepare a room to be vacuumed if I know that I don't have to do the vacuuming afterward. Picking stuff up and pushing furniture around is something I can do while the Spawn sleeps, or plays, or even while I am holding her. Vacuuming, I cannot.

I also am very happy about J Edgar's relatively quiet performance. Yes, you can hear him from anywhere in the house. You may not want to talk on the phone or listen to music in the same room where he's working. But a regular vacuum cleaner - especially on hardwood floors such as ours - makes me want to flee. The loudness of the noise literally induces disorientation. This afternoon, however, I actually spent about a half hour playing with the Spawn and surfing the web on the couch while J Edgar trundled away underneath us.

Pity J Edgar. He is a workaday appliance on wheels, a brushing, sucking hockey puck with a herky-jerky navigation system. Never shall it be said that he glides across the floor, or that he floats across the room. Nay, so pedestrian a rolling automaton can only be said to trundle, or scurry, or at best, scoot. Can you imagine a prima ballerina tiptoeing and leaping across the stage while calling out square-dancing steps? Nothing is as graceless as a cacophony, and though J Edgar is quiet for a vacuum cleaner, he is still a loud little robot, and never will he steal, slip, or sail.

Our First Vacation

2008-05-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

It all started out so well.

We flew to NYC on a full flight. The JetBlue "Even More Legroom" seats are TOTALLY worth the extra $30-35 per flight. We had this on every leg (ha ha) of the trip, and it was a godsend. I have never been more comfortable on an airplane (I always fly coach). The Spawn shifted between my lap and the E-i-C's, but she was in a good mood and the lady who shared our row was very friendly. We arrived at JFK on time, caught a cab without too much trouble, and made it to the hotel. The Benjamin is a little close-quartered, but hey, it's Manhattan, right? Real estate is tight. The Spawn slept in the Peapod tent we got for the purpose, but she really didn't like it; I'm not sure if it was the zippy noise the nylon made when she moved, or the claustrophobia of the tent itself. She spent half of the second night in bed with us.

Sunday in NY was a good time. Satoko, a childhood friend of the E-i-C's, and her two sons met us at the hotel. First stop was nearby Ess-a-Bagel, since I had requested Real New York Bagels as a destination for the day. Tasty, and with real (non-whipped) cream cheese. Next was Grand Central Terminal, where we ogled the market, oohed and ahhed over the grand concourse architecture, visited the railway museum, and mumbled to one another in the "whispering chamber." Good times. From there, we went to Bryant Park, where the Spawn lunched and we all (except photographer E-i-C) rode Le Carousel under the watchful gaze of Goethe.

After that, we escaped from the quickening rain into the New York Public Library, where we saw neat antique photos of French countryside and historical landmarks; a Gutenberg Bible; Christopher Robin Milne's original stuffed animal toys; and a great number of excellent portraits and murals. If only we had more time and less children, we could have spent a week in there! Back to Grand Central to have lunch and bid farewell to Satoko and the boys. We started to walk up Madison Ave to a shop the E-i-C wanted to visit, before realizing that the street address numbering system in Manhattan is not one hundred per block, but in fact not directly associated with the blocks at at all and somewhat closer to ten per block, and we had roughly fifty blocks to go. So we hailed a cab.

Using cabs with the car seat/stroller turned out to be much easier than anticipated, once we got the hang of it (i.e. by our second cab ride). All the cabs have middle seat belts, so one person would jump in, the Spawn (in her seat) would be passed in, the fist person would buckle her seat in place while the second person collapsed the stroller frame and popped it into the trunk. By the time the second person got into the cab, the Spawn would be all settled in and we'd be ready to roll.

After shopping at Calypso and getting the dress the E-i-C wanted (on sale!), the rain let up and we walked back downtown along Madison Avenue. Our feet were just starting to tire when we saw a Marie Belle cafe on the second floor of a shop across the street. Mmmm, hot chocolate (or, in my case, iced chocolate). And omiyage for the Floridians. Afterwards, we continued downtown, crossing at Central Park South. We then realized that we didn't have the address of our hotel and couldn't remember the precise address. In fact, we weren't even sure if it was on the East or West side, and, as it turns out, guessed wrong. We ended up catching a cab from Rockefeller Center and taking the three block trip back to our hotel. Guess we were closer than we realized.

We called down to the concierge for a recommendation for a nearby restaurant that would be stroller-friendly, and at which it wouldn't be difficult to get a table. She suggested Cellini, saying that it would be no problem to just walk in and get a table. We walked over there and found that (a) it was decidedly not stroller-friendly, being so cramped that the waiters had to walk sideways between the tables, and (b) there were several parties in front of us, including at least two that had reservations for 10 minutes previously and still were waiting for their tables. After waiting for about ten or fifteen minutes ourselves and not even being acknowledged by the maitre d', we gave up and went in search of another place. The E-i-C had in mind a steakhouse very near the hotel, which she had previously seen while we were circling the block in cabs. After a while of directionless wandering, we found it again - Smith and Wollensky, which is apparently a tourist-trap chain (we saw another branch in downtown Boston the following weekend). But oh, it's a good one. We waited at the bar for a table, and I had a Hendricks martini without vermouth (er, that's just gin, isn't it). I ordered a filet Oscar, which I cannot recommend enough - it seems like a lot to slather on a steak (some sort of cream sauce, lump crabmeat, asparagus tips), but the steak was still very predominant. The E-i-C was happy enough with her filet au poivre, but felt that the pepper was just a little bit overpowering. We had cold leek-and-potato soup (much like a vichysoisse) for a starter, and creamed spinach and hash browns for sides, both very good. We ended up getting a single giant slice of carrot cake to go, because we were far too full to eat it just then. Milos, our Belgradian waiter, was refreshingly courteous, appropriately friendly, and quite helpful, especially considering the unpleasant lack of service at Cellini. We came out of dinner feeling very good about New York again.

Which was nice, because Monday morning it was off to JFK. The Spawn slept through a good portion of the flight - around two out of the three hours of flying time. Another friendly lady shared the row with us - we had good luck on that score. We arrived in Tampa feeling fairly good, picked up the rental car, discovered that we could not fit two suitcases and the stroller frame all in the trunk at the same time, put the stroller frame in the front seat, and headed to Great-Grandma June's house. We got lost about two blocks from her house, because of lousy directions from Google Maps (I ended up finding the way from memory). There the Spawn met, for the first time:

Great-Grandma June
Grandma Kathy
Cousin Ben
Great-Uncle Ron, and
Great-Aunt Joyce.

We all went swimming in the backyard pool, exchanged omiyage, cooed over the Spawn and took pictures of one another. The Spawn was in an excellent mood, and smiled for everyone.

After that short visit, we drove up to Ocala, where Grandma Kathy and Cousin Ben live (along with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Audrey). Ocala would be our base until Friday. We arrived late to Silver River State Park, just outside town, where we had rented a cabin; Grandma Kathy, knowing we would be late in arriving since we took the long way along the Interstate (and left later than she did, and had to stop for diaper changes), checked in for us at the ranger station, which was good, because I realized at fifteen minutes to closing time that the reservation printout I had didn't list the phone number. Grandma Kathy lent us a playpen that she had acquired, used, for the visit of her other granddaughter a couple of years previously, and the Spawn was quite happy to sleep in that, since she's accustomed to using them at day care.

The E-i-C spent Monday evening and almost all of Tuesday working from her laptop at Grandma Kathy's house, while the rest of us hung around either in other areas of the house or at our cabin. We did get to go to Silver Springs on Tuesday morning, which is always fun. On Wednesday Grandma, Ben, the E-i-C, the Spawn and I went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch, where Ben astounded us all with his ticket-garnering skills and the E-i-C and I indulged our competitiveness in the arcade. Later in the day, we went to Bennigan's for dinner along with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Audrey (you may be beginning to recognize the dearth of dining options in central Florida).

The E-i-C noted that the Spawn was seeming kind of lethargic; earlier in the day, I had mentioned that the Spawn's noggin was feeling particularly hot. On the way back from dinner, we stopped at CVS and purchased a pacifier-style thermometer. Yep, she had a fever, over 102. No other symptoms, though. Her appetite was good, no rash, wasn't tugging at her ears... nothing but a hot head and a listless gaze. We called the pediatrician's office; the Spawn's doctor was not there, but one of the partners was, and she suggested just using children's Tylenol to reduce the fever and call back if the fever continued. Well, about 4 hours later, the fever had increased to 103.6 even with the Tylenol, and by that time the pediatrician's office had closed. Off to the ER.

10:15 PM - Decide to go to the hospital, depart from the cabin.

10:45 PM - Arrive at the hospital, check in at the ER.

about 11:15 - Initial examination/triage. We find out that the pacifier thermometer is somewhere around 1.5 degrees F on the high side... should we even have bothered taking her to the hospital?

about 11:30 - Registration and insurance information taken.

about 12:00 AM - Triage nurse checks temperature again, administers dose of Motrin.

about 2:30 AM - We are moved from the waiting room into an examination "room" (i.e. curtained-off area) in the ER. Next door is a woman with a kidney stone. Later a 78-year-old man with appendicitis comes in. There is one chair in the examination room, which the E-i-C and I trade off using. The AC keeps the hospital nice and cool, and we are wearing t-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

about 3:00 AM - The doctor (there is only one in the ER) examines the Spawn. He can't find anything else wrong with her, either, and thinks it could be either a viral infection or a urinary tract infection. He wants to do a urinalysis. His minions return about twenty minutes later with a "PD bag," a plastic bag which adheres over the Spawn's private parts. We tell them, that's nice, but she had four wet diapers while we were out in the waiting room, and nothing to drink since we arrived. You can't squeeze water from a stone. They give us two bottles of Pedialyte which, the E-i-C sees after the Spawn has finished drinking, expired three weeks previously. The doctor says he wants to insert a catheter to her bladder, but we can overhear the nurses having problems finding a tube small enough for a baby. We're already concerned about secondary infections, and this does not reassure us. We argue against the catheter, and express our doubt that it's a UTI at all, since she has expressed no discomfort while peeing. The tube they finally present looks so big I'm not sure it would even fit in my urethra.

about 5:45 AM - The Spawn, having fallen asleep about 90 minutes earlier, finally pees into the PD bag (and her diaper, and the gurney).

about 6:30 AM - The doctor informs us that her urine "is dirty." No actual details on the test results, but he is satisfied. We depart the hospital with a prescription for Augmentin, a multifactor antibiotic (the ER does not have the infant/liquid formulation on hand) and a cold that follows us for the rest of the trip.

about 6:45 AM - We arrive at CVS down the street from the hospital. I turn in the prescription. There's only one pharmacist working, and he tells me it may be about 30 to 60 minutes before he can fill the Spawn's prescription. The E-i-C and the Spawn are waiting in the car.

about 7:10 AM - Prescription filled. I also pick up a better thermometer, and some Airborne in the hopes of fending off the cold I could feel coming on (it came on anyways).

We went home, fed the Spawn, gave her her first dose of Augmentin and another dose of Tylenol and slept. I got up at about 10:30 to go to Publix for Pedialyte, water, and ice cream (for the E-i-C). The remainder of the day was spent sleeping, with occasional interruptions for doses of Tylenol. We finally got out of bed at around 6 pm. We had originally planned to go out to the new Indiana Jones movie on Thursday night while Jeff and Audrey looked after the Spawn, but this was clearly no longer an option. The E-i-C had bowed out of all her work meetings that she had been scheduled to attend during the day. Grandma came over for a short visit after we woke up, and then we foraged for dinner (me: Sun Chips and hummus that I had bought on Tuesday; the E-i-C: fried chicken, biscuits, and a root beer float from a combination KFC/A&W).

We talked to the Spawn's actual pediatrician. He was also uncertain about the hospital's diagnosis (but more because he doesn't trust anything but a catheterization for sterile collection of urine), and suspected a viral infection, probably roseola. However, he didn't want to contradict the hospital's prescription without examining the Spawn himself, so he said to continue with the Augmentin.

By now the antibiotic's side effects were showing up, i.e. diarrhea, loss of appetite, and irritability. We had to give her each dose on a full stomach, which meant that we had to feed her. See the quandary? It only got worse; by the end of the trip she was refusing all solid food, and only drinking a little bit of formula at a time. I also realized my worst fear about checking the rectal temperature of a baby with diarrhea. Oh yes.

Later Thursday night the Spawn's temperature went up to 104.6. We gave her Tylenol, turned up the AC, stripped off her clothes, and washed her down with cool water, and it went down to 102 shortly. By Friday the fever was mostly gone - not much above 100. But Grandma called to say that her AC was busted. We stopped by in the morning to pick up the E-i-C's laptop, but refused to take the Spawn out of the air-conditioned rental car; even at 11 in the morning it was over 80 F. We all went to Jeff, Audrey, and Ben's house and hung out there for a little while before going to Longhorn Steakhouse for a farewell lunch, a fine dining establishment that Cousin Ben was very excited about (there are few chain restaurants that have a gluten-free menu, and this happens to be one of them). Grandma had to depart early to let in the AC repairman. We made one last pit stop at Publix and headed for Orlando.

Around the time we arrived at the airport hotel, the Spawn busted out in a rash - red speckles all over her face and trunk. We googled roseola in the hotel business center, and the description completely fit the bill: extremely high fever for 1-3 days, which abruptly disappears, followed by a rash that sounded just like the Spawn's. Roseola is a viral infection, which means that antibiotics like the Augmentin that was having such nasty side effects are ineffective against it. However, Augmentin also has rashes as a possible side effect - so maybe it was just that?

We dined that evening at Hooter's, a first for all three of us (though I've had their wings, picked up "to go," in college), and a true Florida experience. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of couples and families with children that were also dining there. The E-i-C thought we had the cutest waitress in the place, but I reserved judgment.

Saturday morning was the flight from Orlando to Boston. The flight was less than full this time, and so the Spawn slept in her own seat almost the entire flight - so nice! The only problem we had was as we were taxiing to the gate, when the Spawn, having just finished a bottle, emptied her bowels so extensively that she needed a complete change of outfit in the terminal bathroom. We were met at the airport by the E-i-C's friends Tomomi and Jill. They put us up in their condo for the night. The Spawn was out-of-sorts due to the Augmentin and lack of food (due to lack of appetite); just before giving her her evening dose, we got a hold of one of the pediatricians again, and told her about the rash. He said, "either it's roseola, in which case the Augmentin won't do any good and you should stop giving it to her, or it's an allergic reaction to the Augmentin, in which case you should stop giving it to her." I cannot say how relieved I was to hear those instructions. I poured the Augmentin down the sink (sorry, Boston Harbor!). By this time, though, we had begun to notice that the Spawn was refusing to smile at the E-i-C or me, though she was very friendly and social with everyone else - flight attendants, waitresses, Tomomi and Jill, complete strangers on the plane. A week of close quarters and she was just done with us. Two days of rectal temperature-taking probably didn't help.

We went for a stroll in Coolidge Corner, the neighborhood of Boston/Brookline where Tomomi and Jill live. Coffee at Peet's, dinner at Shiki. The Spawn started getting irritable again towards the end of dinner, but managed to mostly hold it together while we went for ice cream at JP Licks around the corner. Back to the condo, where the Spawn crashed out on the futon while the rest of us stayed up and chatted until around midnight.

About twenty minutes after the E-i-C and I squeezed into the full-size futon with the Spawn, the latter woke up wailing. She cried inconsolably for about 5 minutes (which is an eternity in the dark, at half-past midnight, with two other people trying to sleep in the next room), until the E-i-C stuck a bottle of water into her mouth. She sucked at that for a couple of minutes, accepted a pacifier afterward, and fell asleep - for about 2 minutes. Then she woke up again and repeated - for about the next three hours. Finally, around 3 am, she fell asleep for good out of complete exhaustion. Until 6 am, when she woke up crying again.

In retrospect, we think the problem may not have been her illness nor the drugs. We think she may just have been annoyed at us sleeping so close to her. Even when she shares a bed with us at home, or the previous night at the hotel in Orlando, we have/had a king-sized bed, with plenty of room for everyone. Tomomi and Jill are both 5'1" tiny. They have a full-sized bed, and probably lounge around on it like guinea pigs on a football field. But the Raelist family are built to a different scale, and even teetering on the edge of the mattress we were bumper-to-bumper. Once the E-i-C and I got out of bed, the Spawn went right back to sleep for a couple of hours, until we had to wake her up to start the day.

Tomomi and Jill made coffee and brought us bagels for breakfast, then drove us around Boston to see the sights. Our tour was a little derailed by a footrace going through downtown, so we had to cut it short to head to Logan airport.

The flight home.... It was again underbooked, so the Spawn got her own seat again, but this time we asked ahead of time and so brought her car seat on board. In retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. She'd been riding in it - either in cars or in the stroller - all week, and was sick of the car seat. And as mentioned previously, she was sick of us. She was sick of all the toys she'd been playing with all week, sick of jarred baby food, sick of sitting on our laps, sick of getting her diaper changed, sick of airplanes. The only thing that interested her was novelty - and on a 6-hour flight, this pretty much consisted of other people, walking up and down the aisle (to look at the other people), and standing in the galley (for no more than ten minutes, please). Other than that, she would not go more than about 30 seconds without crying. THE WHOLE FLIGHT. Well, she did sleep for the first two hours, I will admit. But after that, it was all downhill. We were all three of us miserable. Probably everyone around us was miserable. It was pretty much everything you might fear from a plane ride with a baby, except that she managed not to vomit or have another leaky diaper.

The Pacific fog on the car ride back to our apartment was like a cool bath after a trip through the desert. Sleeping in our own respective beds was like the ultimate luxury. After a good night's sleep, the Spawn's rash has disappeared, and she is generally back to normal, though still pretty bored with us. The E-i-C and I are still afflicted with a cough and congestion.

Life Update

2008-05-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Passed the exam.
The Editor in Chief is paying me back for my previous absence by working until 9 pm every night, coming home, and working some more. No one is getting enough sleep except possibly the Spawn, who seems generally to be in good spirits. My right eyelid has been twitching, a symptom of chronic fatigue.
The E-i-C's first Mother's Day was a success.
Got a flat tire riding my bike to work on Tuesday. Rode the bus on Bike to Work Day.
Flying out to the East Coast tomorrow afternoon with the E-i-C and the Spawn. First stop, NYC. Second stop, Florida. Third stop, Boston MA. Returning home the day before Memorial Day.
Summer basho is occurring. Go Hakuho!

Gruel

2008-05-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Besides the lack of vegetarian-friendly food, the training has been pretty exhausting. We've been going from 8 am to 7 pm every day, with a 1-hour break for lunch and ten minute breaks every hour or so. Then it's back to the hotel room for more homework and studying. Today we finally completed the curriculum; tomorrow is all review, and Sunday is the exam. Although this exam has actual consequences for my career, I actually feel less stressed about it than about my quarterly Japanese exams. I suppose it's because I'm spending so much time studying for it, as opposed to my Japanese tests, where I mostly stress about how little I've studied for them. I hope it's also because I feel like I'm actually prepared for this one.

I still find myself uncertain about many of the review questions they provide, but the instructor also says that these questions are not anywhere near the quality of the actual exam questions. Which is reassuring in the sense that the exam questions will hopefully be less ambiguous, but also makes me wonder how I'll know if I actually am well-prepared. Still, a 70% is all that's required to pass, and I feel pretty confident that I can beat that. I'd better -- I would be incredibly pissed at myself if I went through this grueling week, and put the E-i-C through her own super-grueling week, and didn't get certified at the end of it. Despite the cranial force-feeding and homesickness, I'm sure I've been getting much better sleep, and undergoing much less stress, than she has been.

The weather news predicts that Sunday will be be hot - as much as 78 degrees, though I confess that I'm not sure what location that prediction was for. I hope the examination room's air conditioning stands up to it.

I bit my tongue really hard eating my exciting salad at lunch today. Nothing like a painful, swollen bump on one's tongue to really focus the mind.

Dreaded Words: "Lunch Provided"

2008-04-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

My training class lunches thus far:

Monday: Green salad, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, (and roasted chicken which I didn't eat).

Tuesday: Potato salad, green salad, half a veggie sandwich (I was late and the carnivores had already eaten the rest of the veggie sandwiches), and half a chicken salad sandwich which I thought was tuna salad.

Wednesday: Green salad, mexican rice, (and chicken enchiladas which I didn't eat).

[UPDATE:]

Thursday: Green salad, dinner rolls, (and beef lasagna which I didn't eat).

Friday: Green salad, white rice, dinner rolls, (and baked chicken which I didn't eat).

This is totally par for the course for catered lunches, in my experience. I can hardly wait to see what's in store for the rest of the week.

We are on our own for dinners but we have only an hour to find a place, eat, pay, and return. Monday was at Johnny Rocket's. Last night the class elected to push thru and leave an hour early instead, so I went to downtown Redwood City and visited "Angelica's Bistro." Fantastic microbrew menu! A shame I could only have one (since I needed to a. drive home and b. study). Decent panini. Open mic acoustic country music.

Being "out of town" for training, even though I am only a 30-minute drive from home, is disorienting. The nice thing is it's easy to focus on my studying. Aside from the food, the not-so-nice thing is missing the E-i-C and the Spawn. The old saw "absence makes the heart grow fonder" has some validity, but I think it's more like, absence makes one appreciate what one normally takes for granted.

Schooled

2008-04-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

For the first of what I am sure will be uncountable times, I have been lectured by my daughter. While she was being changed after her evening meal (green beans, oatmeal porridge flavored with winter squash), I noticed that a fragment of green bean had managed to lodge itself in her nostril. I attempted to remove it, much to the Spawn's irritation (perhaps she was saving it for later). After several unsuccessful seconds, the E-i-C picked up the Spawn and the Spawn turned, looked me in the eye, and shaking her finger in the classical method of a scolding schoolmarm, said "Vah vah vah vah!"

A minute or two of hysterical laughing was followed by somber introspection.

I have returned to work and the Spawn has begun day care. Neither of us are sure we're happy about this situation, but the common consensus is that we have little choice. In order to pick up the Spawn on time, I have to leave work by 4:30 pm; in order to do that, I have to arrive at work at 7:30 am; this requires me to leave the house around about 6:30 am (slightly later if I commute by bicycle instead of Muni); which in turn necessitates me waking up at 5:30 am. This, if I may say so, is wearisome. Oh, the sacrifices.

Although the E-i-C can wake up as much as an hour later than I do, she has the unenviable task of dropping the Spawn off at day care. The Spawn regards this as an act of the most base treachery. There is much wailing and gnashing of gums. And tooth! She got her first tooth last Friday. She also brought home the first of what I am sure will be uncountable upper respiratory infections, which then spread to the rest of the family. Consequently, the E-i-C and I called in sick today. We have been guzzling hot lemonade and Emergen-C. Maybe it's helping.

Why he ain't dance?

2008-04-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Kansas and Memphis are playing for the NCAA basketball championship. The only thing I'm wondering is, why hasn't CK blogged about it?

Bad analogy

2008-03-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

Imagine you inherited a car. Not just any car, but an expensive, rare, antique sports car in beautiful condition. The catch, though, is that you are required to drive this car whenever you go anywhere.

Some people don't care about cars, and they'll just pass by without a glance. But car lovers - and there will suddenly be more of these in your vicinity than you had any idea existed - and the just plain curious will ogle your car, ask you questions about the make and model, how it is to drive, what kind of fuel you use, etc. etc. All while leaning over it, peering in through the windows, maybe even getting their greasy fingers on the finish. Little kids are the worst, and their parents of course do little to rein them in. As if the only reason you might have for driving this car is to exhibit it to others, when if you had a choice you'd keep it locked up in the garage under a tarp. Even when you're at home, if anyone comes over, they always want to take a look at the car and ooh and aah over it. Some will even have the audacity to ask for a ride in it or - if they're good friends or family - if they can take it for a spin.

This it what it feels like to take a baby out in public.

Caught with his pants down

2008-03-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

When I first read the news article about the $5500/hour prostitution ring, I thought to myself, "Who has that kind of money to spend on hookers?" And I thought I knew the answer: big-cheese corporate executives and slimy stockbrokers, who make tons of money at the expense of shareholders and consumers, and get extra perks by fraud and deceptive business practices. And I'm sure those guys did make use of this particular service, but guess who's the first person to go public about it? Our knight in tarnished armor, Eliot Spitzer, who made his career, all the way to the CEO of the Empire State, on being the righteous crusader who brought those bad guys to justice.

I mean, no one would have blinked an eye if it were Uncle Mario. Heck, if it had been him, the whole thing would never have come to light.

Insecure for reasons of national security

2008-03-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

Whistleblower: Cellular carrier giving FBI unfettered access

So according to this article, a major cellular service (they're suggesting probably Verizon) has a big pipe straight to Quantico; this connection has complete access to the information about, and content of, calls handled by the carrier, which is more than the carrier's own staff has.

But, you know, the FBI has its own internal checks and balances to ensure that they only monitor communications in a legal manner, right?

Wrong. Even their director says so. Thousands of illegal and improper subpoenas issued (under the previous director). But you know, we've reformed our procedures, it will never happen again.

So what I want to know is, if they admitted to these crimes, who's going to charge, prosecute, and sentence whom? Do the crime, serve the time? Pay the fine? Toe the line? Anything? Or do they just go before Congress, say, "Yeah, we did it, but we're really sorry, and we promise not to do it again," and Congress says, "We are outraged! Bad FBI!" and FBI casts its eyes downwards in shame, but also to hide the smirk it cannot fully keep from its face.

Because it's still got that pipe, and that pipe's still pumping your calls to Quantico. Who needs a subpoena?

Below the Belt

2008-03-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

Two totally unrelated things to post about today.

Sumo comes to L.A.! We are seriously considering going down there for the weekend.

Also, something to consider. The Spawn drinks 32 oz. of formula and milk every day. And she has a bladder the size of a walnut.

Baby's First Con

2008-02-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

The E-i-C, the Spawn and I went to WonderCon together today. The Spawn wore her "Eat. Sleep. Worship Cthulhu" onesie (which was unfortunately completely obscured by her car seat/stroller buckles) and her new pink monster-toe socks. There was a lot to see, but not so much to do. With the Spawn, it's a bit difficult to attend presentations and the like, so we wandered through the exhibit hall for a couple of hours. The E-i-C got a T-shirt from an illustrator neither of us have ever heard of, but that she thought was cute (the T-shirt, not the illustrator). I got The Life of Groo and had Sergio Aragones sign it, and also got the first two books of Girl Genius, and had Phil Foglio sign those. In person! I like to buy autographed books, but it's not often I get to ask the authors/creators to sign them, and I've been enjoying both these cartoonists' work since I was a kid. I'm hoping someday to add the Girl Genius series to the Spawn's library, but I kind of want to find out how it ends first. We ogled the cosplayers and surreptitiously stalked such Hollywood personalities as Lou Ferrigno (pictured, badly) and Peter Mayhew. It was all good.

All those Curves

2008-02-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note that ironing women's shirts is damn near impossible. All the darts, pleats, curves and creases make ironing incredibly difficult, particularly in comparison to men's shirts. How are you supposed to flatten something with no straight lines?

Cydonia oblonga

2008-02-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

First, let me state for the record that I have no idea why Blogger is making the first paragraph of every post double-spaced and then all the remaining paragraphs single-spaced. As far as I know, it's not anything I'm doing. Or maybe I'm only seeing it this way because I'm using Safari.

So yeah, we went to Quince for a Valentine's Day date. It was underwhelming. One might even say disappointing. We were seated quickly, which was nice. It took a long while - ten, fifteen minutes? - for the waiter to come by and take our orders, but when he did he was fairly helpful, helping me choose a couple of glasses of wine to go with the meal.

The E-i-C had a Japanese octopus dish - recommended by the waiter - for her first course, which was incredibly succulent and not chewy in the least - probably the best octopus I've ever tasted. She said the soy sauce, though, made it a bit too salty by the end. I had smoked sablefish, which was mild but good, though I expected it to be a bit richer. The accompanying cauliflower puree was actually even better.

For the second course, I had tortelloni filled with a very mild cheese which I have forgotten; it was good in that the tortelloni pasta was delicate and the cheese was creamy, but one likes to have flavor accompanying the nice texture. The E-i-C had a tagliatelle with minced sweetbread; when it was served, a moment of recognition dawned upon her and she said to me, "Do not remind me what sweetbread is." I did not. It was again fairly tasty, but not of any particular savoriness or complexity. What's the point of eating something so exotic when the taste barely registers?

The main course arrived just as they cleared the plates from the pasta course. The waiter had apparently forgotten to bring my second glass of wine. We had to get the attention of one of the bussers to ask for it, and by the time it arrived (sans apology), the E-i-C had finished her dish and I had eaten half of mine (trying to take it slow to wait for the wine). I had pork loin, which was, again, good but not particularly flavorful. It was served without sauce (that I could taste), and so the meat had to stand on its own. It was capable of doing so, but was limited to that single note, a little disappointing for what one would expect to be the highlight of the meal. Again, the accompaniment (which I've now forgotten) was needed to bring some intrigue to the plate. The E-i-C had a salted sea bass with artichoke puree. It was nicely cooked, but nothing to write home about. This seemed to be the tenor of the entire meal.

Dessert was by far the best course - my hat is off to the pastry chef. The E-i-C had a vanilla souffle with chocolate sauce, which was colorfully served: at the table, the waiter poked a hole in the top of the souffle and poured the sauce into it. I had a trio of frozen citrus desserts - grapefruit granite, blood orange sorbet, and, if I remember correctly, a lime gelato. Fantastic! Just the thing to finish off a meal.

The waiter came around once more to ask if we were interested in coffee or tea. The E-i-C ordered tea, and I... watched as the waiter turned on his heel and walked off. A couple of minutes later we grabbed him as he sashayed past the table and I asked him for a cup of decaf. Again, no apology was apparently necessary. The coffee, served in a french press, was merely acceptable, but it was decaf after all. The E-i-C said her tea was weak and unimpressive.

All told, including valet parking, the check came to somewhere over $200.

The valet, who (the E-i-C observed) did not appear to be of an ethnicity that might be accustomed to standing out in the damp cold all night, had the E-i-C's beat-up Golf ready for us when we walked out the door, and gave us a brilliant and very friendly smile as he opened the car doors for us. It was the best part of the night. Keep that guy!

My impression is that Quince attempts to straddle the line between European haute cuisine and California slow food, but doesn't really succeed at either. The SF Ritz-Carlton Dining Room is still our favored place for elegant dining, after several impeccable visits. And for savoring the true taste of local, seasonal, wild or organic fare, we'd rather go to Manka's Inverness Lodge, the Olema Inn, or Chez Panisse. We had read good things about Quince's service, but we were unimpressed not only by the mistakes the waiter made, but by his unapologetic attitude. The restaurant was loud; they do a reasonably good job of aligning the tables so that they do not seem too cramped, but we did spend some time eavesdropping on the table of French Canadians next to us, and the atmosphere did not feel particularly romantic. Long and short: for dropping the big bucks like this, I'd like to have had a more memorable experience. The food, service, and ambience all left us feeling disappointed.

But that's OK! At least we could drive home feeling the warm glow of smugness at having had better dining experiences at less trendy restaurants.

On the way home, we fearfully envisioned the Spawn at her babysitter's, bawling all night, waking up the babysitter's kids and husband, inconsolable. When we arrived, she was cheerfully sitting in a sling slung from the babysitter's shoulder - our Spawn, who refused from birth to be slung! She had only been awake for a half hour or so, and had just happily finished an ice-cold bottle of formula (the babysitter breastfed her kids, and wasn't sure what to do about warming up the bottle). All's well that ends well.

Proceeding Hairline

2008-02-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

It's like the opposite of male pattern baldness. Female pattern hair growth? Hopefully hers fills in before mine falls out.

Spawn Photo 2/15

2008-02-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Another Hurdle Leapt

2008-02-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

So we signed up the Spawn with a day care today. We've been mulling this for months, and doing actual searching and visiting for, um, a few days. Last Thursday and Friday we visited four places: (1) a "small family day care" that's been in operation for about 25 years, is very impressive, seems to have its best practices down, is somewhat expensive, and a little bit inconveniently located; (2) another small family day care run by one woman a block away from our apartment, who's been operating for a few months, seems to still be running things by the seat of her pants, and is only a little less expensive; (3) a Montessori day care in Marin which seems to be a little bit run down, costs the same as the second place, and only the E-i-C would be in a position to pick up or drop off the Spawn; (4) our friend BK, formerly a professional nanny, at her place in Fairfax (central Marin), which is even farther off the map, and if we paid her minimum wage we'd still end up paying the same amount (or maybe more) per month as the day cares, plus she doesn't have the facilities, equipment, and backup personnel of the other places.

Only the best for our Spawn, of course, so we went with the most expensive, slightly inconvenient place. I'm going to ask my boss if, when I return to work, I can change my hours to 7-4. This way the E-i-C can drop off the Spawn in the morning, and I can pick her up in the evening.

When we move to Fairfax, of course, we'll have to do this all over again. But at least we have things settled in for now, since we don't know how long it will be before we can move.

In related news, tonight is our first night out without Page since she was born. We're going to dinner, for Valentine's Day (we never go on V-Day itself), to Quince. Neither of us have been before, and we're quite excited. I guess it's going to be a kind of double celebration.

On Leave

2008-02-05T22:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday marked the first day of my "baby bonding" leave. I'm taking 10 weeks off of work to hang out with the Spawn all day long. The E-i-C goes back to work next week, so we have a nice transition period this week.

So far, not so good. Not so much because of the Spawn, who has actually been quite cooperative, but rather because I seem to have come down with a bug of some sort. I spent most of the afternoon and evening yesterday fighting with chills and aches (but, according to the thermometer, no fever). This resolved itself overnight with dehydration and consequent overheating, and after drinking a couple of glasses of water, pools of sweat. I'm beginning to doubt the accuracy of our thermometer. Today I had no chills, but some minor digestive issues.

Nevertheless, we've tried to be productive. I sent out four or five emails inquiring about day care availability (note: in the local market, we're about a year behind schedule on this. You're supposed to get on waiting lists before you actually get pregnant). The E-i-C cleaned out her bedroom closet. We've been to the local co-op about four times in two days.

Oh, and I went shopping for a couple of things for the spawn, specifically a rain cover for the stroller, diapers, a pack of onesies that will fit her, and some formula. Target supplied the diapers and formula, but I could not find a rain cover there, and the onesies they had were either in opened packages (which would have been rejected by the E-i-C) or had "made in China" stickers on them. Yeah, yeah, what's wrong with made in China for t-shirts, right? Well, color me paranoid, but I heard something somewhere about formaldehyde and other unpleasant chemicals in clothing, and if I can't buy organic (which I can, if I look hard enough), then I'd at least like to avoid buying from scary industrial waste country.

So after that the Spawn and I went around the corner to Babies 'R' Us, which was completely sold out of rain covers (there having been a solid week of rain in the days previous), and had no plain white onesies of any kind in the Spawn's size.

I went home, feeling sickly and frustrated, and spent an hour or so surfing the web for what I wanted to buy before giving up. Some days I just shouldn't shop.

Yesterday was also the Editor-in-Chief's birthday. Happy Birthday, Chief! In celebration, she got to spend the day out on the town. This mostly consisted of going from salon to salon trying to find someone who would cut her hair without an appointment. She came home with the same hair, but she did at least get to go to the Imperial Spa to get her skin scoured off. A new birthday suit for her birthday! Oh, I also got her some shoes. Yet another tale of going to multiple stores to be turned away. Bloomie's, Nordstrom's, Barney's, Neiman Marcus... none had that pair in her size. Yes, I am sure you cannot interest me in another color, I have specific instructions and to deviate from them would mean my imminent demise. I ended up ordering them online from the designer's website. Retailers take heed! People are turning to the Internet in droves, because your brick-and-mortar stores don't stock merchandise reliably! At least with the shoes, I had helpful customer service. Looking for baby goods, I'm lucky if there's an available cashier.

Oh, today is Super Tuesday. I voted for McKinney. I am sad to see that Nader is in the lead in California - not because I don't like him, but because he's not running. I mean, come on, McKinney is a former U.S. congresswoman with a campaign, a platform, the whole deal, and registered Greens are instead voting for a guy who is only on the ballot because of a "Draft Nader" movement that's trying to get him to run against his own wishes. The poll results - which are hugely in favor of Nader - have got to be based purely on name recognition. It makes me think that people aren't doing any homework, they're just going to the polling station, looking at the ballot, and saying "Oh, I know who that is..." and checking a box. And if that's how my party is, I might as well be a Democrat. I'm seriously considering changing to Undeclared. When it comes down to it, the only time party registration matters is for primaries (oh, and so that party organizers can call and ask for money). The GP primary was a farce; and in California, undeclared voters can ask for a Democrat ballot. When it comes to the actual election, I can still vote to my heart's content.

Maybe Ralph will hand his delegates over to Cynthia, in the end. That would be nice.

What Have You Done for Me Lately?

2008-01-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

So in case you're wondering to yourself, "You know, Raelist hasn't been blogging much, lately. I wonder what he's up to?" the answer is, not a whole heckuva lot. Recent accomplishments include:

- Surviving the holidays, mostly. In the sense that I've survived thus far, but with both the E-i-C's birthday and Valentine's Day coming up, I can only say that the holidays are mostly over.

- New job. I'm still working at the same place, but I have a new position. It's new both in the sense that it's new for me, and in that I will be the first person to hold this position at our agency, ever. So I'm sort of making it up as I go along. Wish me luck.

- Returning to Japanese class. This starts again in two days. I'm taking it easy (hopefully) the first go-round by re-taking Intermediate 4, which is where I left off a year ago. I need to get back in the swing of things, though. I already feel that I'm losing what I had.

- My gnome mage hit level 70 last night. 19 days, 23 hours, 32 minutes play time. I'm going to clear out some quests in Netherstorm, then grind Consortium rep to get the Elemental Seaforium Charge schematic, so I can build a flying machine. If you don't WoW, this achievement means nothing to you. But let me explain that the above "play time" stat means 479.5 solid hours of computer gaming.

- Reading the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake. I've almost finished the second book, Gormenghast. I've been intrigued by this world since a friend lent me the BBC miniseries DVDs. The prose is amazing, and kind of weird. The vocabulary is enormous - although I confess I usually just guess from context, if I were carrying a dictionary with me when reading (on the train, at lunch), I'd be looking up about a word a chapter (short chapters). Examples include "pranked" (not in the jokester sense), "prate," "hawser," "equipoise," and on and on. And the intricacies of the sentences can be truly exquisite. To wit:

"To Titus they seemed curiously alive, these copses. For each copse appeared singularly unlike any other one, though they were about equal in size and were exclusively a blend of ash and sycamore.

"But it was plain to see that whereas the nearest of these groups to Titus was in an irritable state, not one of the trees having anything to do with his neighbour, their heads turned away from one another, their shoulders shrugged, yet not a hundred feet away another spinney was in a condition of suspended excitement, as with the heads of its trees bowed together above some green and susurrous secret."

See what I mean? What is more odd is that Peake will spring an unusual word on you, two hundred pages into the book, to describe something that's been omnipresent throughout the story... and then use the same word in the same sense two pages later. He did this with "umbrageous," in the sense of "shadowy," which I assure you is an exceedingly common description in the story. I can't tell if this was intentional, in the sort of way that a poem repeats a rhyme or theme, or if it was accidental and the result of poor editing. The prose is so elaborate that it's difficult to believe the latter.

One of Those Mornings

2008-01-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

6:00 AM: Wake up with a small headache.
6:30 AM: Get out of the shower, put right contact into left eye and vice versa.
6:55 AM: Leave the apartment. Realize that contacts are in wrong eyes.
7:00 AM: Commiserate with coffee shop owner, whose upstairs neighbors intentionally shut off her power at the circuit breaker (to which she does not have access), because they want the space for their friends to open a bagel shop.
7:05 AM: Go to backup coffee shop down the street. While waiting for bagel, watch N-Judah turn around without taking the customary break. Go outside and stand in the cold while waiting for the next train.
7:15 AM: Get on train. Eat bagel, drink coffee, read Titus Groan.
7:50 AM: Train stops outside Church & Duboce tunnel due to electrical failure at Duboce junction. No trains entering tunnel. Headache has now blossomed into grinding agony. Walk the rest of the way to work.
8:10 AM: Arrive at work. Boot up computer. Switch contacts into correct eyes. Take "fast-acting" pain reliever. Whine about morning to coworkers and blog.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

2007-12-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

Best idea I had for Christmas this year: giving a new, family-size do-nabe to the E-i-C.

Mmm, nabemono. Just the thing for a cold, windy evening. And the E-i-C does the new pot justice with fantastic "wild chicken" meatballs. She was so inspired that she went out and got a tabletop butane grill! Can you say yakisoba?

I raked in some goodies myself. Top of the list is the beer-of-the-month club subscription from the E-i-C. Of a slightly less ephemeral nature are a pair of beautiful handmade bento boxes. I am looking forward to bringing them to work, full of tasty goodness!

The Last Bastion Falls

2007-12-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday I was Christmas shopping at BevMo. On the PA they were playing holiday music, as one might expect. What I didn't expect was a rendition of "Here we come a-wassailing" politically-corrected as "Here we come a-carolling...."

At BevMo! O, the irony!

Journalism at Its Best

2007-12-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

If you, like me, like to keep abreast of current trends in computing, networking, and other technology, you may be on the lookout for a decent media outlet for such stories. Most tech news, though, writes either for the general consumer (focusing on gadgets, consumer software, web sites, and 'cool' stuff) or for the business and stock trading audience (focusing on tech companies' press releases, corporate buyouts, and executive success stories). Precious few are really geared toward telling you what's new in tech, and most of those are niche publications specializing in one small industry or product.

Enter The Register. This UK online tech news site has interesting, useful news articles. And the writing is not only easy to understand, it's also tongue-in-cheek in the classic British style. They opine upon the subjects of the articles, the public's reaction to them, and even the way the mainstream media reports on them.

For your perusal, I submit the following examples.

S Korea joins hunt for stuff with frikkin' laser beams on it
Santa putting children's information at risk, warn experts

It's tabloid journalism for geeks.

Green Taxes in SF

2007-12-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

This is fantastic:

Newsom proposes carbon tax

The Mayor is going about this in exactly the right way: taxing something we don't want - energy usage - and linking it to a reduction in taxes on something we do want - payroll. Increasing taxes on utilities will encourage businesses to reduce the amount of energy they use. Reducing taxes on payroll will allow businesses to hire more employees and/or increase employees' pay.

I am so voting for this.

I can't make this up.

2007-12-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Put this on your shopping list for all your favorite guys this holiday season:
Brooks Brothers Wool Flannel 4-Plaid Fun Pant.
The photo in the print catalog is fantastic. The model has this incredulous smile on his face, like, "Are you seriously expecting to sell these!?"
Fun. Pant.
I think that says it all.

Katsu FTW!

2007-12-04T19:39:00.000-08:00

Today I had an interview for a new position at my current place of work. In preparation for this, the E-i-C offered to make katsu for me. This is a bit of a light-hearted tradition in Japan; students often eat katsu the evening before exams, for instance. This is because "katsu" is a homophone for the verb that means "I (will) win." Alas, we had company the night before my interview, so we decided to have it the evening after - reasoning that I wouldn't know the results yet anyway. This turned out to be somewhat incorrect, as my boss stopped by my cube about two hours after the interview to tell me that I was the choice for the position [our organization is in the beginning stages of a hiring freeze, though, so it's questionable whether the position will be able to be filled at all].

Katsudon never tasted so good. Mmmmm, katsudon. And just in time for the holidays!

A better word might be "moot"

2007-11-27T16:14:00.001-08:00

Zimbabwe inflation 'incalculable'

When there's nothing to buy, there's no point in estimating the value of your money.

Being one of the few places in Africa that I've visited, I feel really bad for the people of Zimbabwe. I went to Victoria Falls, and had a great time hiking around the falls, cruising on the Zambezi, visiting a "traditional village" (sort of like a local version of Colonial Williamsburg) [side note: how early do you have to jump in to get "history.org" as your domain name?], and checking out a Nile crocodile farm. At the time (2001, I think) the Victoria Falls area was relatively isolated from the economic and social unrest of the rest of the country, due to its status as a tourist destination. There was a general strike going on in the capital, with the expected response from Mugabe's government, but everything was up and running where we were. Unless you had to deal with banks. I think the most I could get from the ATM was the equivalent of about $40, which was a fat stack of local bills. And shops were having issues getting credit card transactions authorized with the central banks in the capitol. I wonder how things are there now.

Oh. The solution to the nearly-two-months-old trivia question, which not one person attempted to answer, is that all of the listed countries have active death penalty programs. China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea... we're in some good company, eh?

Today the Spawn, now two months old, got her first round of vaccinations: DTaP, PCV, HIb, and Rotavirus. No bad reaction so far, but who knows. We've been giving her vitamin A/C/D supplements (and will continue doing so for another 10 days) in the hopes that the vitamin A will boost her immune system and decrease any problems. I watched to make sure the vaccines all came from single-dose, refrigerated vials (therefore requiring less preservatives). All the vaccines except the Rotavirus (which is generally considered pretty safe) are either dead viruses or virus fragments, so there should be no possibility of infection. Nevertheless, I hate to send her immune system into overdrive like this. If you lost count, that's 6 different "infections" her barely formed lymph nodes are working on as I write this, and that doesn't include all the everyday germs she picks up when we go to the doctor's office, visit the market, or pick her drool-laden pacifier up off the floor and stick it back in her mouth. I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about vaccinations.

Buy Our Marketing Crap!

2007-11-21T22:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm excited about the 4th edition of D&D being released next Spring. Everything I've read and heard suggests it's going to have some great improvements, and that they're really rethinking everything from the ground up. But, like most players, as soon as I heard the announcement, I forswore buying any more 3rd edition books - no more D&D purchases until May 2008.
Wizards of the Coast knew this was coming. Not only are the long-time hobbyists going to stop buying 3rd edition supplements and sourcebooks, but game store clerks are going to warn holiday shoppers away from buying the soon-to-be-obsolete core rulebooks as gifts. This is gonna hurt their bottom line this season.

So... you're an executive at the publisher (WotC) of the world's foremost roleplaying game (D&D), and you have the execs of your parent company, one of the biggest toy companies in the U.S. (Hasbro), breathing down your neck telling you to get some new books on the shelves for the kiddies for Christmas. But you know if you try to introduce any new products using the old rules edition, the players and retailers are going to just completely ignore them. What do you do?

Apparently, you do three things.

You collect all the rules from all the various sourcebooks from the previous edition and rehash them as a "compendium" that purports to make looking up those rules more convenient. You know, for the next six months, until the new edition comes out and all those rules are made obsolete.
You issue a couple of books that aren't really part of the game; they're sort of flavor books geared towards the children of the thirty-somethings who are now a major part of your core demographic, to get them as interested in fantasy roleplaying games as their parents were (and are). Note: this is actually a pretty good idea, and not badly executed.
You put out a bunch of books that tell how cool your upcoming products are going to be, and how cool your old products were, and charge $20 apiece for them. That's right, no actual content here, just a full-color, glossy, hardbound brochure.

To add insult to injury, they revoked the license for Paizo to publish Dragon and Dungeon magazines, so that WotC can publish them online. So they eliminated an established, popular, much-beloved print product that brought them monthly sales... and printed a bunch of marketing material that should have been posted as advertisements on their website.

I'm a little bit insulted, here.

VPN Blues

2007-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get my new MacBook Pro to connect to my work VPN. My work VPN, however, has a problem: it doesn't tell clients the proper list of DNS suffixes (there are several) to check by default. In Windows, there's a workaround: you go to the Cisco VPN virtual network interface in the Network Connections control panel, modify the TCP/IP settings, and add in the DNS info. With MacOS, though, this doesn't work. The Cisco VPN client for Mac does not, as far as I can tell, create a virtual network interface, at least, not one that shows up in the Networking preferences or in the ifconfig output.

Looking around on the Web, I found a third-party VPN client called VPN Tracker. It's pretty well-respected, I guess. I downloaded the trial and configured it for my work VPN, including the extra DNS settings. It works! Excellent. But the demo stops working after 30 days and, worse, only maintains a connection for 3 minutes at a time. OK, I'll happily support software writers for products that solve my problems. Click on the Buy Now... menu option, go to the equinux website... 94 euros!! That's $138!

Guess I'd better try to get the DNS config fixed at the network side...

Ma Bell & Big Brother

2007-11-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

Former AT&T worker details federal Internet spying in S.F.

Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance. He is retired, so he isn't worried about losing his job. He carried no security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about "turning in," as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years, until he retired in 2004.

This is great stuff.

The Answers to Life's Persistent Questions

2007-11-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

Almost forgot to give up the answer.
But since not one of my four readers even attempted a guess (well, the E-i-C did, but she didn't do it in writing, and she didn't get it right anyway), I'm only going to give a partial answer. I'll give you some more time for the rest of it.
The country that does not belong on the list is: Panama.
Why?

A Matter of Comity

2007-10-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

There's not much I can say about this that Ron Rosenbaum hasn't already said. Read the whole article - it gets better toward the end.
As someone who works on disaster recovery and business continuity projects, I understand the need for such planning. But when you're planning for the continuity of the national government, the scope of things... changes.

One of These Things is not the Same

2007-10-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

Which of these does not belong on the list - and why?
Hint: You can't guess the answer based on the names of the countries on the list, alone.
Red Herring Alert: Yes, these are all sovereign nations. I didn't make any of them up.

Afghanistan
Antigua and Barbuda
The Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
China
Comoros
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Cuba
Dominica
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Ghana
Guatemala
Guinea
Guyana
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Kyrgystan
Laos
Lebanon
Lesotho
Libya
Malawi
Malaysia
Mongolia
Morocco
Myanmar
Nigeria
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Panama
Qatar
Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Somalia
South Korea
Sudan
Swaziland
Syria
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
United States of America
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

A Genetic Dead-End

2007-10-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

Neanderthals 'were flame-haired'
My take on this? More reason why red-heads have been ostracized since time immemorial.

Not to say I'm talented...

2007-10-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

...but I never seem to have any time.

I just axed him to leave

2007-10-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

Clerk uses ax to fight off armed robber
Take a look at the video. That ax ain't something you can pick up at the lawn & garden store. I strongly suspect it's a family heirloom they brought along from the old country.

This Guy

2007-10-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Share and Share Alike

2007-10-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

While I'm blogging about my blog, to the right you'll notice a new little section called "Things in the News." This is a newish feature of Blogger and Google Reader where I click a little flag on my Reader RSS feed and it (eventually) puts the article links in the section of this blog. It can only handle 5 articles at a time, though, and doesn't happen with any sort of immediacy - I can't control when the links appear, and if I share more articles too quickly, the older ones will roll right off the list.

So I'll put stuff on there that I found amusing or interesting but don't necessarily care to comment on. Occasionally there may be a real gem on there, though, like this one.

Top of the Heap

2007-10-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

This blog is (at the moment) the top result (of "about 831") when Googling for "Raelist." Which is nice, because I was always worried about being confused with the Raelians.

Blog Action Day

2007-10-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day.

Utilities have been on my mind lately. We installed the new, high-efficiency washer and dryer in the garage. I got a gas dryer because the price of electricity is so volatile in California. The two together (along with installation, tax, warranty, etc.) comes out to almost $3K. Gasp. I'm sending in high-efficiency rebate forms to PG&E and SFPUC to get a little bit of that back, and I'm hoping we'll save some money in the long run by no longer spending $40+ a month at the laundromat.

My landlord had a plumbing contractor come in to hook up the gas to the dryer. While he was there, we also brought up the fact that our hot water has been spewing little crumbs of what looks like calcium buildup. The contractor recommended getting a new water heater, which is exactly what I wanted to hear; not only is our current heater about 10 years old, it's also horribly inefficient, apparently by design. The EnergyStar label on it shows a range of "similar models" with therms/year from something like 236 - 274, and shows our model list at 283. Um, er.

So my landlord says he has heard about these electric coil water heaters that don't have a tank, they just heat the water as it passes through. I'm not sure which is more efficient, but I have to think that anything electric is going to end up costing me a lot more than a gas heater. Something I need to look into. My landlord, happily, has the same concerns and is willing to do whatever I think is better - assuming the heater actually does need to be replaced.

Shades of Shadowrun

2007-10-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Gov. signs laws to track bullets, ban toxic toys
Either Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020, I don't remember which (maybe it was both) figured that by the time the events of those campaign settings took place, every firearm would leave a unique signature on bullets or casings fired from it, allowing law enforcement authorities to trace shots to a particular gun (and theoretically to a specific gun owner, if the gun was still in legal possession). Looks like that time has come.

A Quick One While She's Away

2007-10-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

General update on things I mentioned before.

Washer & dryer installed today. Expensive, but working on getting rebates to the tune of several hundred dollars to make up the difference.

Mac laptop working out nicely so far, except I need a few pieces of software. I'm liking Safari for the most part, but have to use Firefox for some things (like Blogger). WoW runs just fine, thank you.

The Spawn is having food issues, to wit, she doesn't think she's getting enough when she breastfeeds, and only gets sated when we totally overfeed her with the bottle (thus risking massive spit-ups). As a result, she has been AWAKE and ANNOYED all day long today (and most of yesterday). I am at my wit's end trying to keep her calm, and the E-i-C is in even worse sorts, being the aforementioned source of purportedly insufficient food.

The Spawn has not slept for more than ten minutes for about 14 hours now. Most of that time has been spent crying her lungs out. The rest of it was eating, or pretending to eat, or looking for something to eat.

The Spawn stares unblinkingly into my eyes.
E-i-C: Is she trying to tell you something?
Spawn: Buuuuurp.

Yaki-iiimoooooo

2007-10-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

Yaki-imo: A hot potato for Japan's traffic authorities
Japan has almost as many restrictions and regulations on public life as the U.S., but in very different ways. For instance, broadcast radio/TV political advertisements (I've read somewhere) are not permitted; but trucks with loudspeakers mounted on them, driving through residential neighborhoods, are allowed. In fact, the ice cream truck of the U.S. has many counterparts in Japan, with fire-roasted sweet potatoes being only one of the more tasty (in point of fact, I don't even know if they have ice cream trucks in Japan).
The E-i-C and I make our own yaki-imo in our apartment's fireplace, but last time I was in Japan, for New Year's, I was very excited to hear the truck go by with the driver singing the praises of his potatoes over the bullhorn. Is there a word for nostalgia for something that's not in your own past?

Spawn - the Movie

2007-10-06T20:08:00.000-07:00

Not much better than the Todd McFarlane version.
This retrospective/debut in lieu of actual comment on the process.

Shrieking Constipated Homicidal Gnome

2007-10-06T18:39:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the world, Spawn.
World, welcome the Spawn.

Ready As I'll Ever Be

2007-09-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

My inbox is empty, my voicemail LED is dimmed, my trouble ticket queue is cleared, my projects are reassigned... and I still have 90 minutes to go in the work day. Time to blog!

We finally found a pediatrician we like. Tuesday after work we went to interview him, and he seemed very friendly, open, and concerned. He does a housecall for the very first checkup at 2 weeks, which is really cool. The E-i-C and I were calculating out how many hours he works and figured that he's either really dedicated or totally insane.

My 5-week "vacation" begins tomorrow. I think I have basically two more agenda items to take care of before the Spawn arrives. First, I need to pack my hospital bag. Probably will do that tomorrow. Second, I need to look into purchasing a washer/dryer. We love our laundromat, but transporting the clothing and hanging around for two hours is not a productive use of our time, and having them do the laundry for us is prohibitively expensive. And everyone tells us that we will have way more laundry than we ever anticipated, though I still can't quite get my mind around that.

So the laundry machines are a concern. We have only room for a stacking pair or a single machine, I think. We don't have easy gas hookups, though we could probably pay someone to install some new fittings off our gas line to make it work. There's an outlet, but it's only 110V, and most washer/dryers are 220V. I really need to talk to my landlord and find out how they're doing it in their garage (we have a duplex, and the garages are theoretically identical). The garage door is kind of sticky and heavy, and the E-i-C doesn't like trying to open it, so she's been insisting that we get an automatic opener, but there's no other way into the garage, so if the power is out or the opener breaks, that's it - there's no way in. Not a good setup. Finally, there's the problem that these appliances cost a lot of moolah, which we could certainly afford, but it's not something we want to buy one to "make do" with the above concerns, only to buy another later when we move. Which we really do hope to do sometime soon, if we can get our collective act together to do it.

So speaking of expensive purchases, I bought a new computer. This wasn't entirely planned. Last Sunday the E-i-C and I were playing WoW, and we both noticed that my computer was making boopbeepbeepboopbeep noises pretty much nonstop while I played. Not from the speakers, mind you - from the chassis. I soon realized that this was the motherboard warning that the CPU was overheating. BACKED UP MY HARD DRIVE to my external USB drive. Started doing what I could to clean all the dust out of the computer. All the fans were running fine, and I didn't really thing there was so much dust that it was insulating the CPU cooler, but you know, it's worth a try. In the process, I removed the CPU heatsink/fan and blew the dust out of it. I then realized that the thermal paste (which was probably pretty old anyway) was full of freshly-blown dust. So I went to Best Buy and got a can of compressed air and a syringe of thermal paste. Came back, gave the whole chassis interior a good cleaning with the can o' air. Used rubbing alcohol to clean off the old paste. Spread a nice layer of thermal paste on the heat sink and applied it. Plugged ol' Blufusion back in. Beepboopbeepboopbeepboop. Lost of beeping, no display, no boot. Uh oh. Try to reseat CPU. Realize that there is thermal paste everywhere and the CPU just got pulled out of its socket because it's adhering to the heat sink. Uh oh. In the process of removing the CPU from the heat sink, smear silver thermal paste all over the CPU contacts. Oh, crap. Clean, clean, clean the CPU. Remove most of the excess thermal paste. Reinstall. No beeps, no display, no boot. She's dead, Jim.

Oh, I gave her CPR and all. Reseated a bunch of things, took out various parts to see if I could identify where the problem lay. No dice. Either the MB or the CPU, or both, were dead. Now, if this were 10 years ago, I would have taken stuff apart, tried some spare parts, rebuilt the computer. Maybe bought a new MB and CPU for the existing system, make it run a little faster - it was getting on 5 years old and I have been turning green with envy every time I watch the E-i-C boot her computer to the desktop in half the time it takes mine to get to the logon screen.

But it's not 10 years ago, and I'm not an eager-beaver techie anymore. I bit the bullet, logged on to the E-i-C's computer, and bought myself a laptop. A Mac laptop. With extended warranty support.

I'll be by in the morning to turn in my badge and pocket protector. They don't go with the diaper bag anyway.

Woof

2007-08-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

I saw another coyote in the park this morning. It trotted across the road a few yards in front of me, then ran into the brush. Not nearly as brazen as the other one I saw. Too fast for me to get my camera out. I've seen other bicyclists with helmet-cams connected to laptops in their shoulderbags, maybe I should try that someday.

Anyway, I hope this coyote doesn't get so acclimatized to humans. It's fun to see them now and again, though.

Democracy abroad

2007-08-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Kenya's leader rejects media bill "Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has refused to sign into law a bill which has been condemned as a crude attempt to muzzle the media."
This despite the fact that Kenya was recently named one of the countries with the most rampant corruption.
What does that mean about the Bush administration?

A couple of items

2007-08-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Fla. Girl, 4, Rescued From Car in Canal

"The girl's mother, Tatiana Columbus, had been strapping the little girl into a car seat Tuesday when her 13-year-old son turned the ignition and the car lunged forward.
"Columbus was cited for leaving children unattended or unsupervised in a motor vehicle."

Wait a minute. The mom is standing by the back seat of the car. The son is in the front seat (presumably), maybe the driver's side, maybe the passenger side. How is this "unattended" or "unsupervised"? Even if he was in the driver's side, this kid is no more than three years from being able to legally drive. He can probably legally drive a tractor in Florida. Did the cops just feel an overwhelming need to charge someone with something?

Bullet From Police Gun Range Hits Man

The fluke accident isn't the real news here. The real news is tucked away in the last paragraph.

"Bolechala, a city councilman from nearby Burns Flat, said he has no ill-will toward the police, who told him they will pay medical bills related to the shooting. He said he has no plans to sue."

(A) He's not suing. (B) The agency is taking responsibility and paying for the guy's medical bills, without being sued. What is this civilization coming to.... civilization?

Thought for the Day

2007-08-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

In a discussion with the Editor in Chief, it occurred to me that the saying, "It's the thought that counts," really means, "It's being thoughtful that counts." In other words, what counts is how much thought you put into choosing a gift - not simply that you thought about giving a gift at all.

"Thought" is going on my list of words that look wrong if you look at them too much. Crazy English.

Chiba City Blues

2007-08-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

I went to see William Gibson last night. He read from his new novel, Spook Country, did a Q&A, and signed books. His voice started out a bit high and tight... quavery, like an old man's voice. With his Texas drawl, I half expected him to start complaining about young'uns and the dad-blasted weather. A couple of minutes into the reading, though, he relaxed and the bass resonance that I remembered returned.

Last time I went to one of his readings, for All Tomorrow's Parties, I only got the new book (which I bought at the reading) signed. This time, I brought in my dessicated twenty-year-old mass-market paperback copy of Neuromancer, and the Editor-in-Chief's Penguin UK edition of Idoru and her Japanese translation of Count Zero. The guy from Booksmith, which arranged the reading, came through the line ahead of time, asked for whom we wanted the books inscribed, wrote the name on a sticky note in big capital letters, and put it on the title page so it'd be all prepped for Bill to sign.

I got up to the table and, since it was a bit strange (the pagination being right-to-left), handed him the Japanese book first ("Oh, that's rare," he said). I attempted to make friendly conversation ("Thanks for coming to both sides of the Bay") but I guess there's something about me that is sort of ignorable. I thanked him for the autographs and headed for the door. On my way out to the street, I suspiciously checked the inscription on the Japanese copy, for the E-i-C. Yep, he misspelled her name. Damn. I should have just asked him to sign it.

Rereading, I find myself intrigued by the word "suspiciously." Besides being one of these words that looks wrong when you look at it too long, it is also curious in that "suspicious" can mean both "tending to arouse suspicion" and "disposed to suspect." For the record, I was using the latter definition. Shouldn't there be a separate word for that? "Suspectively"?

Completely unrelated, if you happen to find yourself hiking in the mountains of Japan, please watch your step.

We all knew this already

2007-08-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

...but they did a study on it (again). And were surprised about the results (again).
Bad bosses get promoted, not punished? Oddly Enough Reuters

Another joins the danse

2007-07-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

Poop Dreams

2007-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

I dreamt last night that I was changing the baby's first diaper. I was at home, alone, changing her on the bed. She had a wet cloth diaper. I was not in the least bit grossed out, even thought the diaper was quite wet; it just seemed like water. I took off the diaper, and then realized that I had no replacement handy. I was standing there trying to figure out where the disposable diaper was, which I thought I had left nearby. At some point I realized that she might start peeing again, so I laid the wet diaper over her crotch as I searched. As I tried to figure out what to do, I realized she had pooped on the bedspread. Again, no reaction of disgust, just minor frustration mixed with a bit of amusement.

I think I'm ready for this.

(Don't quote me on that.)

On Saturday we went to an all-day class on infant CPR and newborn care. I think I didn't sleep well the night before, because I was exhausted from the moment I got there, and had my head on the table by the end of the class. I had fun, though, and about halfway through the day I got this sort of surge of self-confidence and realized that I was actually looking forward to taking care of the baby. Maybe it was just an increase in blood sugar from eating lunch.

By the way, I'm adding a new label as of this post: "spawn." I expect you'll see a lot of posts with that tag.

Last night the Editor-in-Chief fixed an elaborate, incredibly tasty Japanese meal. Well, it certainly seemed elaborate to me. Anything with more than two dishes is elaborate. Yamaimo simmered in a yuzu broth, daikon and aburage in a different broth that I can't remember the name of right now, and a "tricolor" (saniro?) gohan consisting of ground chicken in a shoyu-reduction sauce, chopped sugar snap peas, and what I call "popcorn-style" scrambled eggs, all on top of steamed rice (they are placed in sort of stripes, not mixed together, to get the tricolor effect). Oh, and also cucumber spears with miso paste and minced umeboshi for dipping.

I have tricolor gohan bento for lunch today. Yay! If I remember, I'll take a picture before digging in (I can't download the photos until I get home anyway).

Update: I forgot to take a picture.

Very, Very Sad

2007-07-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Two coyotes shot to death in Golden Gate Park
The drawing looks exactly like the one(s) I saw. On the map, I saw it at the fork in the road just above the "W" in "MIDDLE DRIVE WEST". The big mulch pile they describe in the article as being the site of the attack is just a little farther down the same road (not, actually, where they point with the balloon in their diagram).
"Campbell said wildlife officials believe the normally skittish coyotes turned aggressive because they became used to humans."
Does this make me part of the problem?

GGP Coyotes Make the News

2007-07-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Coyotes attack dogs in Golden Gate Park
Same place - these must be the one (or two) I have seen. I put batteries in my camera this morning, but no dice yet.

Canis latrans?

2007-07-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

This morning, riding my bike through Golden Gate Park on my way to work, I encountered for the second time what I'm pretty sure is a coyote. It was in the same place, by a fork in the road along Middle Road, and I stopped this time to try to take a good look; definitely no collar, huge ears, wild-looking eyes. But by the time I get to work, and look them up on the internets, my memory is kind of fuzzy and it doesn't look the same. According to the articles I've read, I guess the most identifiable characteristic is the bushy tail - I need to look for that, next time. And, I need to start carrying my digital camera again.

The E-i-C is concerned that it's going to grab me, carry me off to its den, and eat me.

Bolt from the Blue

2007-07-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

It does happen.
Looks like someone pissed off the DM.

Practice what you Preach

2007-07-01T10:22:00.001-07:00

Last night the Editor-in-Chief, MG, and I were driving down Fell Street on our way back from seeing "Live Free or Die Hard" (highly recommended). The E-i-C looked at the Mini Cooper in the next lane and said, "Hey, that woman was in the parking garage elevator with us." And then all at the same time, we realized that she had a bumper sticker taped to the inside of her rear driver's side window that said "Hang Up and Drive," and she was chatting away on her cell phone.
We all laughed.
Then the E-i-C turned to me and said, "You're going to blog about this, aren't you."
Hell yes.

In other news, we were walking through San Francisco Centre after the movie and MG stopped talking mid-sentence. After a moment's pause, she and the E-i-C squealed excitedly. Confused, I asked what was going on. "We just had a minor celebrity-sighting," answered the E-i-C. Apparently we had just walked past Heather Champ, a local blogger of some repute. Later, in the food court, they spotted her husband too.
I am totally celebrity-blind. I don't think I'd notice if Bruce Willis himself walked into the room and sat down. Well, maybe if he looked like he'd just been hit by a dump truck full of gardening tools.

Some day, we are going to have a house. In this house we will have a library. In this library we will have happy, happy bookshelves in which we will put lots of books and ourselves. We might even have three. Or four.

Global News Update

2007-06-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been talking much about current events here lately, so here's a brief rundown of recent headlines.

Has Apple Created an iPhone Monster?
Customers Lining Up for Apple's iPhone
Analyst Says Using iPhone Is 'Almost Joyous'
The iPhone: How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?
Verizon on iPhone: 'We're Going To Be the Beneficiaries'
IPHONE NOTEBOOK / Report: Apple will need an encore / Cheaper iPhone needed by next spring to keep momentum
LAUNCH OF THE iPHONE / FAQ
TWO CENTS / Have you heard too much or not enough about the iPhone?
Behind all the iPhone hype
If successful, iPhone could raise the bars
IPhone's assault on batteries
AT&T Now Ready for iPhone Launch
Eager buyers finally get their iPhones - San Jose Mercury News
Analysis: iPhone arrives Friday to huge expectations - Macworld
The wait is over! Here's the scoop on the iphone - Orlando Sentinel
Is the iPhone the 128KB Mac? - PC World
Would-be buyers plot paths to iPhone ownership - Indianapolis Star
IPHONE NOTEBOOK Report: Apple will need an encore - San Francisco Chronicle
Camping out for the iPhone - Salon
Your iPhone Will Cost You at Least $60 a Month - TechNewsWorld
Apple's iPhone makes it to stores

REVIEW / Apple's simple, versatile iPhone changes the game
Wait 'worth it,' but unnecessary
Jobs hints at iPhone Wi-Fi and 3G - VNUNet.com
Gadget's Apple of their eye - New York Daily News
Frenzy as iPhone go on sale
Apple iPhone launch draws gadget geeks, hired help
Gave Up Sleep and Maybe a First-Born, but at Least I Have an iPhone
Thousands of tech faithful buy iPhones at launch
Apple faithful queue for an act of techo-worship in New York
iPhone mania hits flagship stores
Do Not Fear The iPhone

iPhone Causes Big Apple Swarm in Big Apple Storms
Mayor Quits Over Apple iPhone
Fans turn out for 'rock star' iPhone
American heroes? Customers hold up their newly purchased iPhones
iPhone Hysteria
His place in iPhone history is secure
Queuing up for iPhone: Do's, don'ts if you must have it NOW

Apparently there's nothing else of interest for the media to write about.

Rather Pointless Activities, Indeed

2007-06-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

Something akin to chain mail, only without the sending part, from ANt.'s blog to mine.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next three sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

You can steep parsley stems in hot water and pour their juice into the bottle. In other words, never throw away any vegetable or its leaves or its juices unless they are bad; else count yourself a fool. [That's right!]
If you keep your old gin bottle cold and reasonably on the move it need never spoil nor be anything but a present help in time of trouble, and a veritable treasure jug for vitamins and minerals that otherwise would have gone down the drain. [That's so right!]
MFK Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

Which is what looks to be a very fun and informative book that the E-i-C gave me for my birthday. It's a cookbook written in 1942 for the difficulties of rationing of World War II, a cookbook in the style of an advice book with some recipes in, as opposed to simply a list of recipes. The author edited the book in 1951, when the years of rationing were over, and added parenthetical notations (see above) where she had something more to say (or not). I'm rather eager to read it, I'm just trying to find the right time. In the meantime, it's been sitting atop the paperwork on my desk, right next to my mouse, which made it ever so slightly closer than volume 25 of Vagabond lying between my keyboard and monitor.

Bruce Sterling Predicts

2007-06-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Out of all the cyberpunk novelists, Bruce Sterling has never been one of my favorites. Yesterday he had an article in Wired with his latest futurisms for ten years out, focusing on what he calls hyperlocality. It's mildly entertaining, if nothing more. Tech hasn't changed all that much in the last ten years, and I don't think it's going to change that much more in the next ten - at least, not in the ways that he foresees.

Foodian Slip

2007-06-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

The E-i-C, lamenting the end of the blueberry season: "What are we going to buy at the Farmer's Market this weekend now that there's no jelly beans?... um..."

More dodginess

2007-06-22T10:48:00.001-07:00

Livermore CEO pleads guilty to dodging income taxes

Can you seriously tell me that none of the investors noticed something was fishy when the company was named VaporTech?

Cheney, You Dirty Bastard

2007-06-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

OK, I haven't blogged about politics in a while because there wasn't anything going on over which I didn't feel like just shaking my head in sadness. Well, the Ed Jew thing has been interesting, but I didn't really have anything to add about that.

But here comes Tricky Dick Cheney to rile me up again.

Dick Cheney is so secretive, he won't even let the people in charge of keeping secrets make sure he's keeping secrets properly. And when they persisted in trying, his staff tried to get rid of them entirely.

Here in San Francisco the city and county government has a little something we call the Sunshine Ordinance. It ensures that the goings-on of government are done publicly - no backroom deals, no shady secrets. Everything every government employee, department, commitee, etc. does, writes, or says is public record and can be requested by members of the public.

You heard it here first, people: The Office of the Vice President is Where the Sun Don't Shine.

Silicon and Brass

2007-06-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

Steam-Driven Dreams: The Wondrously Whimsical World of Steampunk
Link courtesy of Kim.
Steampunk has never been a serious interest of mine (despite having read all William Gibson's other novels, I still haven't read The Difference Engine). But I do love the quality of artisanship that goes into some of the objets created by steampunks. I've also been reading Girl Genius as part of my daily intake of webcomix.

Bad News

2007-06-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Chronicle to cut 25% of jobs in newsroom

This is sad. SFGate is one of the places I go to on the web when I'm feeling out-of-touch with the world.

Wheat from Chaff

2007-06-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

We're hiring a temp-to-perm to work directly with me and my colleague. The boss has delegated a lot of the stuff to me. Now, I've been in several job interviews during my life, and I've interviewed several job applicants as well, so that part of the process didn't throw me much. But now he handed me one of the candidate's reference lists and said, "Here you go, let me know what you think." I have neither called nor even been called as a job reference before. I have only the smallest idea of what it entails.

I talked to my colleague about this; he did some hiring a few years ago at his last job. He said, "Well, keep in mind these people are hand-selected. They will only have good things to say about the person. So you have to take anything they say with a grain of salt. They probably have a preconceived statement that they're going to give you." All of which I knew. But he talked about a few basic questions he asks ("Did you work with the candidate?") and said he generally just "takes it from there." Gah. I don't work that way.

So, I pulled up the ol' Notepad and came up with the following set of questions.

How do you know [candidate]? How recently have you worked with him?
Have you worked directly with him on projects?
How does he work in a team? What sort of role does he usually take?
How would you describe his work habits? Punctuality, professional etiquette, organization, that sort of thing.
How would you describe his relationship with his coworkers?
What would you expect his reaction would be if assigned to work with a coworker whose work ethic or skills weren't very good?
If you were giving a performance review to [candidate], what would you say is an area in which he needs improvement?
If you were hiring a [position], would you offer the job to [candidate]?

I'm also going to preface this with, "This is the first time I've called a reference, so please pardon me if my questions are a bit awkward or unconventional. And please let me know if you're uncomfortable answering any of these questions."

I'm really kind of excited about doing this. Good experience for the future, I think.

Virtual Dubh Linn?

2007-06-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, the E-i-C and I were talking about careers (again), and specifically about the fact that Google requires applicants to provide their college GPA. I mentioned that my Master's degree GPA was much better than my undergraduate GPA, and wondered if I could substitute that in... if they cared how I did in my coursework in Medieval History. "You never know," said the E-i-C. "Maybe they will want a medieval historian."

Wait til Google Earth gets a load of this:
Ancient Rome Is Rebuilt Digitally
Mountain View, here I come!

Chewy nuggets of goodness

2007-06-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

'Takoyaki' czar looks to spread tentacles to U.S.
"The firm aims to have 20 stores in California by 2010."
I am so there.

Also, in case you thought I was exaggerating about the Japanese work ethic requiring one to put one's job before one's own welfare...
Stressed cop stabs self to avoid work
This guy was weak.

Sasquatch Doodles

2007-06-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick mystery to chew on...
Scientists Puzzled by Patterns on Logs

Book Learnin'

2007-06-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

A related topic on which the E-i-C and I had a conversation yesterday was parent-training. That is, the education of parents-to-be on how to raise a child. You've no doubt heard the aphorism that "it takes a village to raise a child." This really does get to the heart of the issue. Most Americans don't live in villages anymore. Heck, most citizens of first-world nations don't live in villages. We live in tiny nuclear families, isolated from our extended families, friends, and neighbors. Our family lives are carried out in the privacy and secrecy of our houses and apartments. We see our friends on occasion, our relatives even less frequently. And as a result, we generally have little to no experience in actually raising children. I have several friends now with children, and I can't say I've learned a whole lot about parenting in the few hours a month I see them.

Back when people actually did live in villages (and all the way back to when people lived in caves), the parents would all hang out together in a common area, with all their children mixed together. Older children would help take care of younger children. Mothers-to-be would help the veterans, and the veterans would help the new mothers. On-the-job training, all the time. Raising kids was just a part of everyday life, from childhood.

Nowadays we depend on books, maybe one or two classes (though those generally focus on the actual birth process), and a few weeks' visit from grandma right after the birth.

When you think about it, it's just unnatural.

Goals, Ambitions, and Happiness

2007-06-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

The E-i-C and I had a long talk this afternoon about our philosophies about work. We've been having quite a few long talks lately.

Coincidentally, I also had a similar discussion last week with my coworker. He summarized his philosophy about career as this. Back when he was beginning a family - he was fairly recently married, and his wife was pregnant - he estimated that he would require an income of $60K per annum to be able to get by supporting his family (note that this is a pretty slender margin in the Bay Area, I'm guessing he was also factoring in his wife's income); anything above that would be "gravy." That was his goal. By setting this realistic goal, he could achieve contentment and a sense of security, that he would be able to live a minimum lifestyle that he had decided was appropriate. He then set about finding a job (the one we're both in now) that would get him that income (and more) and also enable him to maximize the time he could spend with his family.

I didn't really set myself such a specific goal, but I suppose my philosophy is very similar: find a good balance between income (ability to provide) and time (ability to enjoy my time away from work). The latter, when I was a bachelor, was spent playing computer games and otherwise indulging in my hobbies and recreations. Now it's spent enjoying time with my wife, and soon with my daughter. Notice that nowhere in either of our philosophies (my coworker's and mine) is there a goal to climb the organizational ladder, to become a leader or innovator, to make our marks in industry or even in society. Nor, for that matter, is there a requirement that we find our work fulfilling or meaningful. That said, it would be nice to do something at least somewhat fun, and to be able to do it well. We both ended up in the same job, and it turned out that it's usually enjoyable, isn't unduly stressful, and actually pays pretty well (more than either of us expected to be making at this point in our lives).

And you know what? We're both pretty happy guys.

The E-i-C has a different philosophy. She is dedicated to her career. This simple phrase is a sort of shorthand for several different things. First, it means that she feels a distinct need to do her work to the absolute best of her ability. She is completely incapable of doing a half-assed job, even if it means sacrificing her own well-being. Second, she is ambitious; she is motivated to progress in her career, not only for her own benefit but also because she honestly believes that by climbing through the ranks, she can bring real benefit to her employer, to her (potential) subordinates, and possibly also to the industry and society in general. And this leads to the third aspect of this dedication: she really feels a sense of responsibility and duty toward her employer and coworkers. This is a very Japanese outlook, in the tradition of the sarariman.

The problem is (and sarariman in Japan are running into the same problem) that employers (being corporate entities that respond only to the bottom line) no longer share the same sense of responsibility and duty to their employees. Employees are no longer individuals, workers, or even staff - they're "resources." Despite management buzzphrases and corporate consultants' facile advice, there really is no appreciation of employees as individual contributors to the operation and improvement of the corporation. An employee's knowledge and skillset have been replaced with documentation and institutional memory; their understanding of product and clientele have been replaced with customer relations databases; their blood, sweat, and tears have been replaced with automation and low-cost offshore outsourcing. This is the workplace of the twenty-first century.

But the E-i-C was raised with values belonging to the early twentieth century and rooted in traditions far older than that. They are admirable, righteous, and extraordinarily well-intentioned. And they make her frustrated beyond measure and generally unhappy at the workplace, because they just don't fit anymore. In my opinion - and I've shared this with her many times, but she can't just change her spots - the employee of today should feel as much responsibility and dedication to his or her employer as the employer shows to the employee. In today's workplace this can vary dramatically. The E-i-C gets nothing but insults and brush-offs from her management. Our friend MG, on the other hand, works at a small business with an employer who treats her like one of the family (if not better).

So here's the second issue with the E-i-C's philosophy, and it's actually the part that was on her mind when she started the conversation this afternoon. The attitude she has about work fits in, as I said, very much with the sarariman tradition. Problem is, this is the traditional man's role in Japan. She's enough of a member of Generation X that she's very comfortable as a career-minded woman. More so, really, than she would be abandoning all the work she's done: a brilliant academic record since grade school; an innovative, business-and-technology-oriented course of study in a prestigious university; working diligently to find a position that would allow her to emigrate to the U.S., even at a cut in pay; and subsequently building a career at a Fortune 500 company working in a field that essentially is about bringing technology to the global market and, in her words, "making the world smaller." She's very proud of her career, and rightfully so. But her Japanese peers (and, I suspect, her family) are shocked - shocked - that she's not planning on dropping all that to become a full-time housewife now that she's having a baby. They're aghast at the idea of sending a child to day care at less than a year old. They question how I feel about all this (because surely I am expecting her to bear the lion's share of the household duties and childrearing).

The E-i-C's wise, if somewhat martyrly, perspective on this is, let the person who is most suited to working, work, and let the person most suited to staying home, stay home. Out of the two of us, it's clearly me who would be more comfortable abandoning the workplace for the home. I'm generally more interested in domestic chores (with the possible exception of cooking). While I like my job, and I'm comfortable with working, I won't feel like I'm throwing away years of hard work if I leave it (come on, I already did that once when I left grad school with a M.A. in History for a job as a computer technician). I don't have an ambition to continue advancing up the ladder into management, nor, as my buddy Chopper pointed out to me once, am I realistically in a career where I can keep doing what I'm doing into my old age, at least not well (in my book, septuagenerians should not be on 24-hour on-call status). So hey, if the E-i-C can bring home the bacon, I will happily drive the little one(s) to ballet and kung-fu and Japanese school, while working in my spare time on the Great American Sci-Fi Novel.

Which is of course largely a moot point, as neither she nor I really make enough to keep up our currently lifestyle (much less add a child) on only one of our incomes. But maybe, someday in the future, she will be a VP of a major Internet/software company, and I will, with deep contentedness, direct the gardener to please rake the gravel where the youngest just ran across the karesansui.

Income Not Included

2007-05-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

http://realestate.sfgate.com/RealEstate/Sales/Listing.asp?lid=312-665399
Larry Ellison is selling his Nipponophile Dream House.
Anyone have $16M I can borrow?

Weekend Activities

2007-05-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

The E-i-C and I went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. I brought along my camera.
The lighting over the flower shop inside the Ferry Building was fantastic. It was like looking through a soft-focus lens. The only difficult thing about taking the pictures was timing it for the very rare parting of the crowds - and for like-minded photographers to get out of the way.

We picked up a bunch of peaches, blueberries, apricots, and cherries while we were there, and the next day the E-i-C made a fruit crisp out of the first three. Yum!

In fact, the E-i-C spent a good portion of the weekend cooking. I, on the other hand, spent most of Sunday ironing. I got a bunch of shirts from my in-laws for my birthday, and I laundered them all Sunday morning. Eighteen shirts! That's a lot of ironing.

Wow. Can this blog be any more insipid?

Monday night I skipped Japanese class to go to Japanese Heritage Night at AT&T Park with the wife, to see the Giants shut out the Astros. Kind of a boring game, I'm afraid, but the garlic fries were pretty good and the beer was nothing to complain about. Unless you're the E-i-C and you have to suffer through my drunken, aromatic snoring for the rest of the night.

Oh, by the by, I'm totally getting into sumo. I've been following the summer basho news on SumoTalk, the Japan Times, and Nihon Sumo Kyokai (the sumo association of Japan)'s website, goo Sumo. Unfortunately, since I don't have TV, the only way for me to watch the matches would be to catch the live feed on the goo Sumo website from midnight to about 2 am. That's just not happening. I haven't even been able to find more than one or two of the top matches on YouTube. Very exciting basho so far, though. Everything from multiple winning streaks to allegations of corruption.