I was thinking that I'd like to re-read the Gossamer Years, a diary from a thousand years ago that I read in my Japanese lit class at A.S.U.. I was fascinated by the woman's habit of marking the date (as it were) by referring to the natural phenomenon that were occurring. It was be the equivalent of saying, "I saw the first robin today" to mean spring had come. And then I thought that I could follow that conceit myself. But there is so much in bloom today I'm not sure where to start, although my early tulips are coming on and the super earlies are blown. I did notice the species tulips under the apple tree were blooming today - the Pulcella Violacea I planted a few years ago. They're doing well, as are their friends Little Miss Clusiana. Go, species tulips!
At any rate, it was incredibly beautiful today, 62° (hitting enter since I have a phone call now, back to blogging soon ...) and hazy, warm enough that I didn't even need my cardigan this afternoon. I spent part of the morning (after having tea with my wonderful neighbor Kevin) pulling weeds, which, given the balmy weather, was actually quite pleasant. The Blue Marlin team came over as planned at two to discuss house plans, gave us a bid that was 2/3 the cost of the house (completely impossible, we're discussing canning the bathroom addition), and headed off, leaving us hungering for barbeque due to oblique product placement in a discussion of window stores. So we put the dogs in the back of the car and headed to West Seattle to discover the wonders of the Backdoor Barbeque. It was tasty, and we got to eat with the dogs sitting on the patio completely entertained by the huge beef ribs the bus girl have to them (after we said OK - I have to clean up after them tomorrow though).
We spent the rest of the afternoon on a loooong walk in West Seattle. We started at a little park off of Beach Drive I had never been to before, then strolled up the street along these charming shingled beach houses (only $800K!) to where Lincoln Park hit the sound. There was a compact dirt trail all the way around the park, at the foot of the bluff but above the pebbly beach, perfect for biking and walking dogs (who aren't permitted on the actual beach). In the near distance, we could see tree covered Vashon Island and another island, and it was clear enough to see the curve of the Olympic Mountains around the peninsula. We watched the ferries and container ships float by on the glassy water, and just before we got to the ferry terminal a log I had been tracking as it floated in the water near a canoe finally resolved itself into a sea lion. I love living here.
Somehow it was almost 7 PM when we got home, and after some phone calls to see if we could find anyone to play cards or other games with us, we've wound up at home, doing nothing. Worthy Opponent is reading Pattern Recognition (I finished it last night), and here I am on the computer. Soon I will make some tapioca, and the night may end with a little Carcasonne. The Hours will still be there tomorrow, I feel certain.
Oh yeah, tomorrow our only plans are cards at Cathy's at 6, and Monday I'm getting the thing on my leg cauterized.
I stayed up too late last night reading William Gibson's new book, Pattern Recognition. I'm enjoying it, and I like his blog, too, now that I finally ran across it. Interesting that someone else besides me basically stopped watching TV at around 15, and I was fascinated to discover his big influences were not ER but WS Burroughs. What a laugh! The character in his book clips labels off of her clothes. It's funny, I never imagined anyone else cared about that besides me. I remember taking an Exacto to a pair of Nike hikers to try to get rid of the logo - slicing away and carefully pulling out the threads.
I asked the guys at V*** yesterday why they wanted me over the other candidates. They gave some good answers (well, good for my ego, anyway). They admitted I had less technical expertise than some of the candidates, which was kind of a relief since I feel at least they were open eyed about that. 1) They liked my "leadership experience." Not sure why but since other companies have been afraid of it this made me happy. 2) They thought I would be able to help them improve their development practices, to "help them be a better team." I certainly agree. 3) I think some noise was made about the personality fit, but maybe I was just reading this into their commentary.
Since I start tomorrow, perhaps I should call the temp agency and tell them I won't be working for them anymore.
Did I mention yet that my Red Emperor (aka Madame LeFeber) tulips are blooming? I remember hoping that they would naturalize. The ones that are blooming now are the ones I planted this fall, though, and not the ones from the year before. We'll see if the old batch comes up. I think this may mean it's time to prune the roses, too. I'm also very curious to see how my new Japanese irises did. I think the extremely dry October did most of them in.
I really need to try to do something productive here at work, and what I seem to have settled on (now that I'm a short timer) is updating my Spain travelogue, basically because it's either that or do a cut-and-paste activity that will put me into a coma. (See "link"/"more" for the Day One, Barcelona entry.)
Man, the people in Barcelona are protesting up a storm. I'm so proud of them! Check this out:
"An estimated 300 demonstrators tossed bottles, garbage and eggs at an official of the governing Popular Party, which supports the war in Iraq. Alberto Fernández, a mayoral candidate last year in Barcelona, accused the protesters of beating him.
"The party, which alone among major Spanish political groupings supports the war, said 120 of its offices had been vandalized or attacked by demonstrators. "We are talking about people throwing bottles and excrement, smashing windows, writing insulting graffiti," an exasperated Javier Arenas, secretary-general of the party, told reporters. "What type of pacifism are we talking about?"
Jeez, I don't know, the kind of pacifism that is AGAINST WAR? What a dope.
Damn, the thing on my leg is bleeding again. It's been there for a month now and I'm wondering if it's cancerous. I knocked the scab off of it when I crossed my legs and the blood started running so fast that it soaked my pants then ran down my leg into my shoe. The room has this nasty rust smell now and I've left blood on the floor. I wish I could leave the room and go get a bandaid or something but I don't want to leave a trail from my office to the lunchroom. I did make an appointment to go into the doctor Friday so maybe she can figure out what the hell is going on. Gag, my pants are clotting. I need to rinse them out, they are just soaked with blood. Pardon me, it's time to log off.
I've got confirmation from two people on my list of references that they were called by Z****. This is making it really hard to concentrate on doing a copy-and-paste on the test cases for the project I'm supposed to start working on tomorrow. I should just focus on the dream I had where I DIDN'T get it so I don't get all obsessed again. Obsessed with -- all of those good meals I'm going to be eating again soon!
There is going to be a cool event at ConWorks on Friday -- the Girlie Fun Show, with Queen Bee's Cabaret at 9:30 and the Burning Hearts Burlesque show at 11 PM. We're going to Rodney's birthday party at 7, but this sounds like a load of fun and well worth the $10 cover charge. I wonder who I can talk into going with me?
Things are looking good for the new job ... they just called to ask me my salary requirements and when I could start! They're checking my references today ... I wonder if the so-called other candidate is just a backup?
1. Chicago! The clips, the actresses, all of the awards it won. Yay! 2. Aaron Brody's big smooch. Was Halle really mad? I figured for a lot of those guys it was as close to a really hot chick as they were ever going to get. 3. Michael Moore's speech. It was like Boondocks on TV. Is he going to run for president? 4. Spirited Away as best animated feature. Of course it was! I'm ready to see it again. 5. The review of Oscar best song presentations of years past, with Liza Minelli and The Theme from Shaft. I'd love to have a video of those performances! 6. Chris Cooper for Best Supporting Actor for Adaptation. Simply a great movie. I was so glad to see it get some formal recognition! But I was reminded of the Long Beach hick's comment about The Matrix: "You can see it, but you can't understand it" (which is what I think a lot of mainstream Americans will feel if they go to this movie. 7. Caligula being mentioned as one of Peter O'Toole's many roles. Yeah, that's what I remember him for!
We were wondering if Catherine Zeta-Jones was going to break her water when she was up on stage. Now that would have been an Oscar memory for the books!
(Worst moments and movies that I am inspired to see now at "more"/"link.")
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I have been thinking about things I would like to do in the future. I kind of started this while watching the first act of the current Pacific Northwest Ballet program, because the choreography by Kent Stowell was incredibly boring, but the music by Rachmaninoff was quite nice. And off I drifted ...
Sometime soon I would like to see the movie The Hours and perhaps rent the movie Darling ("starring Julie Christie as an ambitious, miniskirted social climber in mod London" - sounds fun!). There's also two director retrospectives coming up at the Grand Illusion that I'm looking forward to.
On the longer timeline, I would like to go to Jerez for the equestrian fair and to do a trip across Andalucia on horseback.
I was re-reading my diary from Spain last night, thinking that it would make me feel all nostalgic, but instead it made me think that I didn't have a lot of time to write when I was there! Most of the details were still in my head.
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I actually had work to do when I arrived, and shortly after I finished it another little pile came my way. I got most of the dirty stuff out of the way and settled down to a little writing on the Spanish trip. I've appended it to today's entry for anyone interested.
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Well don't you know just when you get settled into doing nothing someone comes by and gives you work to do. The nerve! At any rate I got Toledo done today, and I'll bring the Spain diary in so I can do the rest of the trip when I do have time. (See "link"/"more" for the Toledo entry.)
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My second interview seemed to go well today, and stepping out of my car into the sharp sea air near Elliot Bay put me into a reverie. I couldn't exactly watch container ships get offloaded at this site, but it was damn near perfect otherwise. I hope they offer me the job.
I got asked two really cool questions in my interview. 1) We develop software that is very specific to the kind of browser/version/connection speed people have on their computers. When we receive a "user agent string" from someone's computer, we send exactly the right version out to them. However, we have only covered 93% of all browsers. How can we test to make sure that the other 7% are getting back valid stub code from us and not 404 errors? (He liked my answer) 2) A program changes the values between A and B. Write code to do this. (I did two ways, one the safe way, one the cheesy way but the way the interviewer wanted to see.)
Meanwhile, out in Bothell, I've got jack shit to do at work today, since they decided yesterday to can the German version of the product I've been working on (sort of yay since it was full of bugs but sort of boo because it was keeping me busy). So I'm working on writing up our trip to Spain, which will eventually get turned into a more proper web site once it all gets linked up to Worthy Opponent's pictures. (Speaking of which, I'm ready for a digital camera.) If you want to check it out, there's a huge entry appended to this one: either "more"/"link" will take you to it.
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We're supposed to hit the Grand Illusion and see Ikiru tonight. I'm looking forward to it. Last night we played Hunters and Gatherers and Carcasonne, with a brief detour to Twice Sold Tales to get that book about the decline of community in America I want to read in preparation for writing my big article for Tablet.
I did some research on hedges. Basically, everyone agrees we have the worst possible kind.
I'm going to be writing an article about blogging for Tablet sometime soon. My theme is that blogging creates community, although I'm planning on exploring many of the other reasons people blog. This has me thinking about other ways of creating community, but kind of focused on urban design, such as getting good transit and in-city development. I could actually imagine getting an even bigger article about creating community in general, outside of cyberspace, but I don't know when I'd write that. That would focus on things like gaming, bowling, and book clubs. I'm planning on reading Bowling Alone in pursuit of both ideas. I'm not sure when I'm going to get my hands on a copy, so maybe I can work on the online except to entertain myself in the meanwhile.
Meanwhile, I need to find some people who've been blogging for a long time to interview for my article. I want to talk to Molly, but I don't know who else I should try yet.
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I was planning on keeping track of all of the movies I've seen this year, but the other service I use doesn't have a search feature, so I'll update here with what I've seen. My theory is that I go to over 30 movies a year but I want a definitive number instead of just a guess.
So ... here are the movies I've seen so far, with ratings for the curious: January The Way Home Chicago 3 1/2 La Jetée 3 Sans Soleil (NR, got bored and left) Spirited Away (again!) 4 (I'm pretty sure Adaptation was in December ... 4) February Ascent (the Russian movie, a.k.a. Voskhozhdeniye) 4 The Russian Ark (also Russian in case you were wondering) 2 Talk to Her 3 1/2 The Two Towers 2 1/2 February How the West Was Won 3 ( + 1/2 for being in Cinerama) March Ikiru 4 Wings 2 1/2 (too pro-war) April Tarnished Angels 3 Written on the Wind 3 1/2 All That Heaven Allows 3 1/2 Under Heaven 3 May The Matrix Reloaded 3 Down with Love 3 The Good Old Naughty Days 2 June Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan 3 36th Chamber of Shaolin 3 Chow Yun Fat Meets Brownie Girl 2 (bonus points for exotic story line, otherwise muddled) L'Auberge Espanol 2 1/2 (fun and clever but not life changing in any way) Sally of the Sawdust (D.W. Griffith silent movie) 2 Various Buster Keaton shorts: 1) The Haunted House 2) One Run Elmer 3) The Blacksmith 4) Cops July More silent shorts (Funny, Funny Forgotten Men of the Silent Screen, courtesy of Denis Nyback) 1) It's a Gift (1923) Snub Pollard 2) Super shorts: Phoebe's Flames, The Three Passes, Nightie Night 3) Swiss Movement (c. 1922) Al Christie 4) A One Night Stand (1915) Chester Conklin, Harold Lloyd, Mae Busch 5) Baby Blues (1928) Billy Barty 6) A Movie Star (1915) Mack Swain 7) Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925) Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde (this was the best movie of the night - after this there were more but I got tired and skipped 'em) Finding Nemo 3 (awesome animation) Buster Keaton Silent Cowboy Movies (at The Paramount 1) Go West, 1925 2) The Paleface, 1921 Rivers and Tides 3 Night of the Hunter (1955) 4! Cremaster 1 & 2 (art movies, unratable) Tumbleweeds (1925) Charlie's Angels 2 Xmen 2 Le Fils (The Son) 3 Vendredi Soir 2 1/2 August They Drive By Night 3 September Revenger's Tragedy 3 So Close 3 (The review compared it to Charlie's Angels but I found it actually was better served by being compared to The Matrix 2, which it was better than.) Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn) 3 Hell's Highway 3 October Lost in Translation 3 1/2 Bend it Like Beckham 2 1/2 Intolerable Cruelty 2 1/2 Love Actually 2 (sorry, it was just a waste of all of that good talent, even though it was modestly entertaining) Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary 3 (very cool if you're a silent movie buff)
November Matrix: Revolusions 1 1/2 horrible disappointment Pirates of the Carribean 2 1/2 right fun
Is that anti-French sentiment "natural," or is it being orchestrated by the Bush administration? Bushies say they'll discipline Mexico if they don't toe our line. So now the "land of the free and the home of the brave" is the world's biggest bully. Cripes.
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It's a very quiet day at work, or "work" as it appears right now. I'm spending my time working on getting the bank loan lined up so we can do a remodel, and looking at books or airplane tickets or whatever distracts me for the minute. I broke in a new Tasty Bite today, Jaipur Vegetables, which actually had a taste very similar to real indian food. That makes, what, 3 of 7 I'd consider buying again? There's another five or more to try before I've exhausted the possibilities, but at $1/serving (if you buy from Trader Joe's and bring your own rice) it's much better than the sandwiches that come out of the vending machine.
I didn't say much about our trip to Arizona. We saw my sister, her husband, and two kids (one of them for the first time), my grandparents, and Worthy Opponent's brother. My sister really seems to have her act together these days, for all that her husband's talk about becoming a recording engineer to me seems not well-thought-out. But she's a good parent and her kids are sweet. Meanwhile, grandma is looking really ill ... I should have called already and seen how things went when she went in for more tests (that was the day we came back, but shame on me). Roosevelt was just beautiful. It had been raining for two weeks so things were sprouting all over. At the same time, on the way there much of the desert looked dead dry, a burnt grey, and some of it was genuinely burnt from the fires of last summer. We finally got to the Tonto National Monument indian ruins, which were pretty neat but very small. The grandparents seemed very happy to see us and for the day and a half we were there we pretty much talked incessantly with each other. Grandpa had lots of good stories about growing up on a farm in Nebraska.
On our way back to the airport we dropped off the car and snuck the luggage into a hotel, then strolled around our old haunts in downtown Tempe. Mill Avenue is a sad shade of its former self ... or rather, an arrogant, commercial bastardization of its original charming incarnation. Coffee Plantation is still there, but there's no Cookie Basket, no Changing Hands, not a single punk record store. Thank goodness for the Valley Art, but it's little consolation for Hooters, Urban Outfitters, and (I kid you not) My Big Fat Greek Restaurant. Gaak! Depot Cantina was the shoddy mexican I sneered at when I lived in the valley, but still easy to get to and pretty inside, and fine for a gal whose standards of bad mexican have dropped since my move to the Emerald City. We were totally exhausted when we got home, and now Worthy Opponent is talking about going back in April to see his dad. I can't blame him, and it's cheaper (and less irritating) if he just goes by himself.
I got a call back from the interview I had right before the trip. Yay! Only the second interview won't be until the week AFTER this one. Oh, the waiting will KILL me!
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Just got off the phone with my brother, with whom I'm trying to set up a "play date" to play Puerto Rico. Tonight is looking good, and with any luck tomorrow we'll see him and the girl and all go see a play together and have extensive conversations about their wedding, now planned for September 13th. We wound up discussing the wonderful book American Gods, and he said that the Castle on the Rock is very much a real tourist attraction, in Wisconsin. Then he gave me a link to it on the web. Suddenly I see a whole road trip opening in front of me. Who knew the midwest had so much to offer?
When we came back from our trip to Arizona, I was highly disturbed to find not only a complete lack of water in the cat's bowl, but two huge puddles of urine sort of randomly located in the kitchen. Did Hestia just pee out there because she wasn't happy with the texture of her litterbox, or what? Now, although I've scrubbed with PineSol until the linoleum is peeling off, the kitchen smells like pee, and there's a blast of piss when you walk in the front door. That has to be coming from someplace else that Boo colonized as a new pee spot while we were on vacation. I can't find the spot so I can't attack it, but it just makes every moment of my time at home just a little more gross. I'm envisioning a future with the living room having no carpet at all (except for the ever delightful Monkey Rug to protect the wood from the dogs' feet). And I think I want to spend this weekend cleaning every damn surface in the house until it sparkles, but I feel confident that as usual I will find a million other things I'd rather do. The house looks like it's owned by some half-assed college kids who don't know what "clean" is. I can't imagine getting it appraised. Who would spend money on a house that smells like pee and has disintegrating linoleum in the kitchen? Gag.
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I kind of pride myself on my dog breed knowledge, but after talking to Worthy Opponent about the Mysterious Asian Mastiff he saw at the Whale Park today, I realized there are a few breeds I haven't yet encountered. And a search for "Asian Mastiff" revealed a web site with many, many dogs I haven't heard of. I guess I'll have to memorize a few more!
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