the anonymous senator

not so anonymous, really 
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September 8, 2008

seattle pics

The first is my shadow on the bridge from the Westin to their parking deck, where I escaped to get a few minutes of sun between sessions. The second is a bit of ridiculousness spotted among the residential construction boom going on along Westlake at the north end of downtown.

   

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September 7, 2008

back

I haven't gone dark, I've been in Seattle for a conference. It was okay. The biggest in it's history for my niche field.  I enjoyed getting out of town and living out a hotel for a few days where I could have my own big room and eat out every meal.  I missed the family. I did get to see an old friend, so that was nice.

Brought my running gear and camera thinking that being out of my element would encourage me into a new routine, but didn't use either. Conference was 8-5 and I had events every night. Could have packed lighter if I had replaced my running shoes with an index card that said "guilt" or "take a bath." Been to Seattle before so that was no big deal.  It's beautiful, but they roll up the sidewalks at night downtown. Found it difficult to get into a working mindset, probably because I travel so seldom that my brain thinks travel = vacation.  Travel work routines haven't been developed. Also, I didn't have a laptop.

Didn't really make any connections.  I do fine in small groups, but being around 800 strangers makes me shut down socially. Especially since I didn't have a big idea or presentation; I was just out there to moderate a session I organized. I know many people get energized by going to these types of things but I tend to get down - because 20% of the people are doing incredible things that I feel I could never do, while the remaining 80% are doing mediocre things not worth doing.  All the good ideas have already been taken.

I can't wait until every adult understands text messaging. Trying to arrange a prep meeting for my session would have been so much easier if I could have texted instead of called - but I wasn't sure my panelists all knew how to use it and wouldn't take offense at the text charges.

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August 29, 2008

Red Hoek Walk

K and I took the day off today for her birthday (Happy Birthday!) and went into Red Hoek via PATH and the free Ikea ferry for me to show her the neighborhood. A man on the ferry with us had a John Deere bike just like the one I posted photos of recently. It turns out those bikes are not that rare, and you are allowed to take bikes on the ferry. Too bad; we wanted to bring bikes but I assumed it wouldn't be allowed.

She was left with the general impression of "is that all?" which is also my opinion. Even the residential part is 30% industrial, if your don't count the projects. Still, we saw some honest to goodness hipsters, dressed straight out of the 80's underground. Bowie lives on. Also plenty of young pioneers. I kind of felt bad walking past the old Puerto Rican guys - like I should be wearing a shirt that says: "Don't worry, I'm not moving here."

I was also uncharacteristically down on NYC in general - the boring, oppressive architecture around Wall Street, streets dominated by tackiness and advertising, and having to walk through South Street Seaport. It all repelled me. This is where eesh writes a comment that this is not the real New York. I know, but lately the city as a whole has seemed to me to be too much like a retail and commercial theme park.

Anyway, I took some pics.

         

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August 26, 2008

reQall rocks

Recently, Jott, the voice-to-email transcription service, announced they are coming out of beta and will be charging subscription fees for all but the most basic level of service.  That's fine, more power to 'em. (Don't get me started on all the whining in the comments on Lifehacker. "I was a beta tester, I should still get it for free, waa, waa.")  I'm trying out the free (for now) alternative, reQall. It does what I want, which is to email myself short reminders and ideas with my voice while I'm out walking or driving. As you can see, the transcription quality is impressive.

Also, I'm grumpy. Hey, you, git off my internet!

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August 17, 2008

olympic billboard

Photographed this billboard from the window of a cab, riding down to Penn for the last train to Jersey. Sean John apparently shares my feelings about the Olympics.

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August 17, 2008

but will it plow?

For the farmer who has everything.

   

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August 14, 2008

art is weird

A funny thing about where I work is that my school at the university shares a building with the visual arts department of the art school, and these two schools are kept entirely physically separate.  One side of the five story building is us, and the other side is them. Separate elevators. Separate stairwells. The floors don't even line up - the shared freight elevator has to stop between our floors to get to theirs. The only place they connect is in the lobby. I'm sure there's something profound that could be said about it, but it's enough for me to recognize that I'm on the art-free side.

Anyway, there's a gallery on their side that shows student work, and I stop in if it happens to be open.  Here's some stuff I probably wasn't allowed to take poor-quality cameraphone pictures of - a suspended wire disc, and something made out of pipecleaners.  I didn't know they still made pipecleaners.

   

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art_is_weird.zip (1005 KB)

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August 14, 2008

accountability gnome

I need an accountability gnome. You know, a mythical creature that stands behind you checking mail on their iphone, or sits off to the side reading the paper. Not getting in the way. Just there. Glancing at your screen every few minutes. Not saying anything. Just watching. Someone to make you feel bad when you spend all your time on wikipedia and facebook when you're supposed to be mapping for Red Hook.  I'm telling you, I got so much work done that morning in the coffeehouse last week. There were gnomes everywhere.

I also need to move my blog to Wordpress. Not this blog, the official one. The themes are prettier, you can create static pages, it handles tags better.  I've been avoiding it because you have to pay to map to your domain, or mess with your CSS. And because of the learning curve. But I hate it when seeing someone's rinkydink blog of their favorite burrito places, or something, makes me feel like an amateur.

I was thinking today that I haven't been running, biking, or doing yoga in such a long time that I'm starting to forget what it feels like. Just starting, mind you.  But the mental image of me doing those things is starting to fade. And I'm starting to feel guilty about it. And about not keeping up with Red Hook, and about work. I thought, why am I prone to feeling guilty? Then I thought, you were a "gifted and talented" child raised Catholic in an alcoholic home - how many more sources of guilt do you want? And I laughed.

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August 12, 2008

pulpspace

K: I don't like the way my book is going.
Me: Audiobook?
K: No, paper.
Me: You know the internet joke about calling real life interaction "meatspace," as opposed to cyberspace? I wonder what the literary equivalent is? I suggest "woodspace."
K: You know, we in the industry already have a technical term for it: "print."

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August 6, 2008

everywhere all the time

Things are generally going to shit around here.  Things are probably going to shit everywhere all the time, you just notice it more when it's happening around you. A friend of my grandmother died. My friend's father died. My wife's colleague has cancer. My Mom's boyfriend got into a minor motorcycle accident. They say deaths happen in threes - I'm hoping that a cancer and a motorcycle accident add up to a death because I can't take anymore. Plus, son b is home with a minor cold, so I spent the morning working in the coffee shop and the afternoon taking care of him. All this in a week when all I had to do was look forward to playing hooky with gooddirt in new york on thursday and taking the family to summerstreets on saturday.

It's not all bad. I got more work done in the coffee shop in half a day than I do at work all day. And my son only has a minor fever, so we were able to have some fun.

Also this week, I created this silly profile picture and printed up more non-business cards. I was going for a "man has idea but still bears a blank expression as in a Wes Anderson movie" look. You may notice that's a picture of my head. I've realized it's patently impossible to separate my private whining blog from the rest of my online crap without using something that offers privacy controls. When I created the antifailblog, Gwen Bell shared it over twitter by linking to this posterous, not the antifailblog site itself. Why? Because she googled it, of course.  

Also, I've started swearing. I mean, in this blog. I'm always swearing in my head or in real life. 

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