Animal house

June is traditionally the time of year when strange animals come to visit our yard. A few nights ago we heard a car honking in front of our house, and a man yelling "There's a raccoon chasing your cat." He was pointing to our back yard. We ran down the path and came upon our cat Zoe frolicking with a young raccoon (at that point, she was chasing him). Her sister Kaylee was watching. The raccoon hustled around the corner into our side yard; by the time I got back around to the front, our next-door neighbor was standing in his driveway with a sack of garbage in his hand and an incredulous expression. Apparently the raccoon had ambled right over his foot and across his yard on its way to the underbrush in the nearby alley.

The following morning, there was an immense bug-eyed black and white cat on our back porch, eating Betaille's catfood. Zoe and Sheba begged to be let out to get him. I opened the door, and they got him to back off a few yards, but he didn't seem particularly intimidated.

We've been trying to bring Zoe and Kaylee in by 10 p.m. every night, which is increasingly difficult. Tonight we lured them into the house at the appointed hour. But a few minutes later, I spotted Zoe out on the back porch again. She turned around to face me, and I realized it wasn't Zoe, it was a nearly identical large gray tabby, who slunk down the stairs and across the patio. Zoe, it turned out, was behind me on the kitchen table and didn't see her doppelganger.

I give up. It's a zoo.

A different perspective on t-shirts

Zoe and Kaylee have befriended a frisky young raccoon, and I hope to have pictures of that soon.

In the meantime, something useful: A truly different way to fold a t-shirt. Can you do this?

Now we are three

The Mysterious Traveler Sets Out celebrates three years of blogging -- and 614 posts -- on Blogspot today.

Here's the first post from June 12, 2003:

Sheba attacks

Two years ago my husband adopted a deaf white cat. The shelter that found her wandering around had temporarily named her Angel, but it was clear to me within minutes of meeting her that this was a particularly inappropriate apellation. We renamed her Sheba the White Tornado. People often mis-hear the name and think we are referring to her as Shiva (the Hindu god of destruction)--a mistake that's understandable when you've seen her in action.

Sheba's deafness theoretically renders her vulnerable to surprise attack from other animals, but in practice this never happens. Sheba's defensive strategy is to savagely attack any cat, dog, or other small animal she sees. It's effective--no one has ever voluntarily gone a second round with Sheba.

Unfortunately, Sheba has got it in for the big gray cat next door, which is plainly terrified of her. Since we never take Sheba out at night, the gray cat has become more or less nocturnal. But yesterday the two collided in the neighbors' backyard. I separated them immediately, and carried Sheba home, but the gray cat seems to have suffered psychic damage and now won't come out at all.

Three-year follow-up report: Sheba and the gray cat (Kit-Kat Water Rat) have achieved detente. Every afternoon they sit on their respective front porches and stare at each other.

Why writers write

Jeff Pierce's new blog The Rap Sheet points to this short essay by crime fiction master Michael Connelly about the moment in his life that led him to the police beat and, later, to his crime fiction writing career.

Connelly is a terrific storyteller. He writes with enormous integrity and respect for the reader. If you haven't read any of his Harry Bosch series set in LA, this essay is a good taste of his spare, no-nonsense style.

NOTE: Blogger appears to be publishing blog entries as duplicates today. My apologies. - MT

Ooh, look what I found!

The latest addition to this blog's Hot Links list is Tag Sale Tales. ("Tag sale" is the East Coast version of "yard sale" or "garage sale.")

The weekend's here, happy sale-ing.

Mac as cat toy

If you like your cat better than your Mac, you'll find this video, Kitten vs Frontrow, hilarious. If you are an AppleCare technician, don't look. You'll have nightmares.

New I can admit that I enjoy Apple spoofs!

Like this one by Darren Barefoot and John Riviello.

Tea-d off, again

I like to think I don't complain that often, but that's probably not true when it comes to tea.

I used to complain about hot tea, but now I'm making the seasonal adjustment to rant about iced tea. If you could call it that.

To be accurate, what I'm ranting about is not iced tea, but the tepid fruit-flavored amber-colored heavily sweetened water in massive glasses that's masquerading as "iced tea" at trendy restaurants. At the more pretentious bistros, they have the gall to tart up this tropical bilgewater with a slice of fruit, a sprig of greenery, and a reprehensible price tag. Mind you, this is offered not as an alternative to real iced tea, but as a ghastly replacement.

Understand, I would not object to paying $2.95 for a glass of actual iced (meaning cubes, not shaved slush) tea (meaning a strong, dark caffeinated and flavorful liquid that has at some point in its history evolved from the lusty marriage of plenty of camillia sinensus leaves and boiling hot water). In fact, I'd pay quite a bit more. Last month, while visiting my friend Nina in Bellingham, we lucked out at The Big Fat Fish Company and found a waitress who, seeing the our appalled reaction when she confessed (under routine grilling from us) that their "iced tea" was truly some mango-flavored slop from a restaurant supplier, went out to the kitchen and made us a French press pot of hot black tea. She returned with the pot, two glasses brimming with ice cubes, and we proceeded to make real ice tea. And, of course, we left this woman a whopping big tip.

I try to imagine the reps from the restaurant supply companies selling restaurants on tropical iced tea, and it's not difficult. Good iced tea is a pain to brew, bulky to store, and, since it goes stale and even ferments after a day or two, it needs to be brewed daily. How much easier, the restaurant manager (probably a coffee drinker) thinks, to just open a big jug of mango-flavored liquid. The stuff looks so pretty in restaurant pictures, watered down with crushed ice! Who cares if it tastes like something that belongs in a toddler's Sippy Cup?

Customers? Oh, them.

Now that summer's here, I make a pathetic effort to obtain iced tea at restaurants, but it's getting increasing painful. Last week, at a place in Lynnwood, I got one that was, as the waitress promised, free of fruit flavor. It was also free of any flavor, essentially water with a reddish tinge that got even fainter as the shaved ice melted in it.

But what truly ticked me off and inspired this rant was the iced tea yesterday afternoon at Sazerac in downtown Seattle. Now Sazerac is a restaurant with Southern roots. Named after a bar in New Orleans, it lives up to its claim to serve "a damn good gumbo." This got my iced tea hopes up. In the South, when you want iced tea, you just order "tea," and it turns up a rich mahogany color with a few big ice cubes swirling in the glass -- a drink every bit as potent and refreshing as a chilled beer or or a "Coke-cola."

Feeling optimistic, I asked the Sazerac waiter if they served real iced tea, no fruit flavor, and he assured with much enthusiastic nodding that they did. When, a few minutes later, he presented me with a tall, chilled glass of vaguely tropical-flavored, pale gold, tea-water, gussied up with a big fat slice of orange, I considered storming the kitchen screaming "This. Is. Not. Tea. This. Is. Kool-aid." What stopped me was that I was lunching with a young man who recently married my cousin and I didn't want him to find out right away that food-related insanity runs in our family.

So I choked down my disgust and ignored the tea in the interests of a pleasant lunch (I got distracted by the good gumbo!) but this morning found I was still fuming. A Southern-style restaurant with lousy iced tea!

So, here's a plea to Jan and Jason (Sazerac's self-proclaimed "fearless chefs"): Sirs, Aunt Safronia would be spinning in her grave if she knew what passes for "iced tea" in your establishment. Heed your heritage, and serve up some "damn good" iced tea. Just brew it!

(And here's a whole webpage on how to make iced tea, courtesy of Texas chef Patricia Mitchell.)

Whose space?

Josh Kornbluth, a radio host on station KQED, discovers that a malicious prankster has created a MySpace account in his name, filled it with porn, and people are now emailing the station with complaints.

What could be worse? Well, he then discovers there is no mechanism on the MySpace website to contact anyone, MySpace Customer Care does not exist, and, when he finally reaches someone at MySpace via outside channels, they hang up on him. Read the details and squirm. (This story spotted on Scott Rosenberg's Salon blog.)

Adventures in pressure washing

When your brick walkway is growing more plants than your garden, it's time to get out the pressure washer.

Last year Consumer Reports identified a small, efficient pressure washer, the Campbell Hausfeld PW1310 - 1300 PSI Electric Pressure Washer, available on Amazon for $90. This looked like a great alternative to our traditional approach to pressure-washing. (That had involved going to Rent-A-Tool and lugging home some huge, gnarly machine, dripping oil and reeking of gasoline, that we'd have to wrestle with for the better part of an hour before it blasted into operation at 100+ decibels and the neighbors began slamming doors and windows.)

So I bought the Campbell Hausfeld, and today I tried it out. It's a very small machine, smaller than a cannister vacuum cleaner, and has everything you need to clean: its own long power cord, a long hose, and two cleaning wands. All you do is attach your garden hose, and plug in the power cord.

It had no trouble blasting off all the dark green moss, and did a great job of cleaning the dingy concrete on the raised beds. Of course, flying moss and sand ended up all over the nearby plants, various planters, the recycle bins, and the front steps. That's when I discovered the pressure washer does a wonderful job of cleaning cedar steps! I began seeing all sorts of uses for it, and tried it out on the weeds in the cracks in the driveway asphalt.

It's a fairly quiet machine, similar to a vacuum cleaner, so the neighbors didn't mind. Amazingly, the cats were happy hanging out on the front porch as I worked.

After putting away the pressure washer, I used a regular hose to wash the overspray of sand and moss off the plants, the planters, the steps, the garage door, and my shoes. All that remained was to get the sand and moss off me -- I was covered head to toe, including my glasses. Sorry, no pictures.

What ho! Golf, anyone?

Next Saturday, June 10, is Seattle's first Urban Golf Tournament/Bar Crawl. Wonder if I can get my friends at the Angler's Rest (Seattle's outpost of the P. G. Wodehouse Society) to throw together a team?

Spoiled by Apple

For 20 years, my Macs have just worked. Whenever I venture outside to a hardware or software product from another company (such as Palm) I have an experience remarkably similar to what David Pogue describes with his new (well, sorta) GPS system.

Lots of heart

Don't miss this. Click through to the trailer for the award-winning documentary The Heart of the Game about the girls basketball team at Seattle's Roosevelt High School.

The film opens June 9 in New York and LA; June 16 in Seattle.

Problem exists between bagel and cream-cheese brain

At the supermarket today I noticed the bins of bagels have a sign saying:

Regular bagels 79¢
Specialty bagels $1.29

The "specialty bagels" are the ones with melted cheese or cheese and tomato sauce all over the top. The regular bagels are plain, seeded, onion, etc.

The problem, apparently beyond the comprehension of the supermarket bakery manager, is that there are not just two types of bagels, there are two brand names of bagels:

Seattle Bagel Bakery
Specialty Bakeries

Thus the plain and seeded bagels from bins labeled Specialty Bakeries are not priced as Specialty bagels; they're priced as regular bagels. Got that?

And...you've probably guessed it...cheese-covered bagels from the bins labeled Seattle Bagel Bakery are priced as Specialty bagels.

Yes, I went and talked with a store employee (not the bakery manager) who agreed this might be a tad confusing. We agreed the pricing sign should refer to regular bagels and deluxe bagels (or perhaps cheese-topped bagels). Or perhaps there should be prices on the individual bins.

What puzzles me most is that the folks at Specialty Bakeries haven't been up in arms about this signage, which appears to render their (IMHO superior) bagels twice as expensive as the rival brand.

Folklife Monday

"This was the best Folklife ever."

That's what I've been saying every Memorial Day for 22 years. I'll post details tomorrow. Meanwhile, please enjoy some of Doug Plummer's fabulous Folklife photos.

Folklife: Saturday Sampler

I was on site at 11 a.m. to hear Bob Archer and Shepherd's Rho open the day of dancing in the Roadhouse. Experienced English country dancers loved the elegant set that encompassed many styles of English dance: fancy (with a rigadoon), fast-paced, and flowing.

Another highlight of the morning in the Roadhouse was a contra set with Thursday Night Special. The caller, Morna Leonard, told me later fiddler Alan Roberts had chosen the music, which was some of the freshest, most distinctively Western contradance music I've ever heard. It was like dancing to something scored by Aaron Copland.

I caught the Louisiana incarnation of Bellingham's versatile Happy Valley Sluggers in the afternoon (the photo shows vocalist and accordion player Mike Schway and fiddler Laurel Bliss). Their set of traditional Cajun songs had people dancing on the grass.

On the way home at 7, I heard Portland's March Fourth Marching Band's performance titled "Punk as Folk: Trad Strikes Bank." Sassying, swinging, and accompanied by stiltwalkers, this was clearly Fremont-Solstice-Parade-Meets-Folklife. M4 is headed for Germany for the World Cup and Battle of the Carnival Bands competition in June.

Still haven't found any really exciting new food at Folklife -- but there are still two days of the festival yet to go. Any recommendations?

Folklife: The Crafts Report

After a three-hour volunteer shift, I spent the afternoon dancing in the Roadhouse and checking out the crafts booths. There are several new crafts vendors -- or at least, several who are back after a hiatus of some years -- with some very cool stuff. Here's leatherworker Linda Avery of Blachly, Oregon, with her mandolin bag. No, this is not a mandolin, it's a bag.

Jewelry displays abound, but one with a distinctive new look is Earthwork Jewels, featuring the stone-and-silver work of Bellingham artist Beate Degen.

I'm not much for pottery, but Liz Russell's work, R Honey Pots, was eye-catching, particularly her teapots. Two of her teapots are in the famous Kamm Collection.

You'll find crafts in several locations at Folklife:

• The Crafts Marketplaces, on the walkway just east of the fountain, in Founders Court (outside the Exhibition Hall), and in Alki Court (below the Northwest Court). These are primarily regionally crafted items.


• The UnCommon Markets on the Bagley Roadway, the Fisher Terrace, and near the Mural Amphitheatre. These are primarily imported items, with lots of cotton, rayon, and silk dance clothing.

Northwest Folklife Festival tradition

Tomorrow I head off to the 35th Northwest Folklife Festival for the weekend, where I'll be volunteering for the 22nd year.

Tonight I performed my own personal Folklife tradition. It involves frantically hemming or altering some item of dance clothing to wear during the weekend. That's done (two skirts and a pair of jeans), though if my mother saw the workmanship, she'd disown me.

Friday is a wonderfully mellow day at Folklife -- the crowds don't materialize until Saturday afternoon -- and some excellent workshops and performances are scheduled:

• 2:30 p.m. - Ballard High School Jazz Band on the Mural Amphitheatre stage


• 3 p.m. - Sengalese rhythm workshop in the Rhythm Tent


• 7 p.m. - Arab dance party (DJs and live music) in the Center House Court (til 11 p.m.)


• 7 p.m. - Honky-Tonk and Hot Twang on the Northwest Court Stage (til 11 p.m.)


• 10 p.m. - Les Fabulous Girls Du Ouest Coast w/ David Kaynor calling New England contra dancing in the Roadhouse

Bring your drums, your dance shoes, and -- if you really want a great time at Folklife -- go up to Festival Services on the third floor of the Center House and volunteer to work a shift behind the scenes as a greeter or on an info booth team.

Friday night is also an ideal time to eat dinner at Folklife. The food vendors are chosen through a competitive juried process, and there is some outstanding ethnic and homestyle American food. My fave is the Kenyan Kitchen, but I'm hearing great things about Warthog Barbeque and La Jitana (Lebanese). And I know that somehow I'll end up at the strawberry shortcake stand.

If you are reluctant to come to Folkife during the weekend because of the crowds, try this "low stress" festival: Enter from 1st Ave North at Key Arena, turn left, and go up the stairs to the Northwest Court. The Northwest Court stage will be on your right; on your left, a building that features the Rainier Room performances, the Olympic Room workshops, and uncrowded bathrooms. At the back of the Northwest Court stage you'll find a beer garden. I know some folks who spend the whole weekend at this "mini festival."

Another way to enjoy a low-stress festival (and plenty of parking) is to arrive just as the stages open at 11 a.m. Check out some performances, have lunch, and head out as the crowds arrive at 2 p.m.

I'll be posting Folklife information all weekend. Feel free to send questions.

Positive thinking about saving the environment

Al Gore, quoted in today's Seattle P-I (but, oddly, this sidebar from the story is not in the online edition):

"Granted, America has been slow to recognize the problem and that's depressing. But when it does recognize a problem we're capable of incredible amounts of energy. In 1941, it was absurd to think the U.S. could build 1,000 airplanes. But in 1943, it was really easy. You can look at lots of similar examples of how we, as a nation, came to a shared understanding that our national survival was really at risk. Then everything extraneous to the effort gets put aside. We have two gears in America: slow and lightning. Shifting into that other gear is not easy, but once it happens -- stand back! Because we're gonna move."

As much as I admire Gore's positive spin on this deeply troubling situation, I don't share his optimism. No matter how fast we move, I doubt we can roll back much of the damage we've set in motion. And, even if America "gets in gear," our effect is limited because we no longer hold an economic or political leadership role in the world. An increasing amount of environmental damage is being caused by rapidly industrializing third world countries who, thanks to our centuries of exploiting them, have no respect for the U.S. and Europe and little likelihood of sudden getting interested in our goals or leadership.

Grab a towel

May 25 is Towel Day, in tribute to the late Douglas Adams. His Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reminds travelers that a towel is "about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have."

ISP pulls plug on writers' info site

Absolute Write, a website where writers exchange tips and information (including comments about bad agents) went down last night. According to Making Light, one of agents who made the site's Twenty Worst Agents list called the site's Nashville ISP, alleged that posting her name and business email address on the Absolute Write site violated various laws, and as a result the ISP pulled the plug on the site.

I found this a very odd scenario...I mean, if you pay money for an ISP for hosting, aren't they in breach of contract if they shut you down for content (short of terrorism or child pornography)?

If you're an internet free speech enthusiast, you might want to dig more deeply into the details in the Making Light blog entry. I confess, this flap is a bit beyond me.

One little problem with online package tracking

When my mom returns to her summer place in Seattle, she ships a few boxes of stuff by UPS and takes just a small suitcase on the plane.

Her stuff was scheduled to arrive at my place Friday, the day before she flew in, but nothing was delivered.

She arrived Saturday night, handed me the UPS documents, and asked me to go to the UPS site and look up the packages. Despite being sent three-day air from Naples, Florida, four days later the packages still appeared to be in Jacksonville, Florida.

The packages didn't arrive Monday, either, and this morning my mom called UPS and let them have it.

"Your packages aren't lost," the UPS customer service drone told her. "We just don't know where they are."

My mother isn't a patient soul at the best of times, and she really lost it when the UPS person told her she could check for updates on the packages' status by logging on to the UPS site with the tracking number.

"And just how am I supposed to do that?" my mother demanded. "One of the packages you've lost has my computer in it!"

According to the UPS tracking service, the package with the computer arrived in Redmond at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. But there's no indication it was ever put on a truck, and they certainly didn't deliver today.

I have a bad feeling about this, and am wondering if the package was vandalized in transit and they're scrambling to figure out what happened to it and come up with an explanation.

(UPDATE: The "three-day delivery" packages arrived safely -- 8 days after they were sent.)

How to get your emails read

As I brace for the Monday morning email onslaught, I can only hope that the people writing to me have read this excellent writer's guide from Blue Flavor.

A couple excerpts:

"For god's sake, have a subject line." -- Amen. Emails with meaningless subject lines like "Hey!" and "Help!" so deserve a quick click of the Delete button. Heaps of thanks to the folks who respect my time (and intelligence) with informative subject lines such as:

• Need help staffing Thursday's meeting
• Just checking in after the conference
• Found partial funding (was Re: re: re: will summer program be cancelled?)
• Lunch Wednesday at 1?
• Fun: Three ways to get your cat to do the dishes
• FY review: First two chapter drafts

"Make your requests clear. You should set them apart from the rest of the message by paring them down to one sentence, with white space before and after." -- Again, amen. In fact, consider making them the subject line itself.

Bad news? Well at least you can dance to it

Here's what happens when you try...putting the headlines to music. I like the very Beatles-esque "Google Launches Calendar" and the funk-heavy "FBI Searching Michigan for Jimmy Hoffa's corpse." Nice old-timey rendition of "NSA Collected Massive Database of Phone Call Records," too.

(Thanks to the blog Making Light for this tip; they credit iblog, you blog, they blog, weblog.)

Wright light

Last year, while in Phoenix for my cousin Alex's wedding, Zorg and I toured Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's desert studio. In the late 1930s, Wright had led a team of students building the place to fit the site: local stone, designs that channeled cooling breezes through the residence area, and an amazing studio with a ceiling made of canvas panels.. According to our guide, the canvas blocked the heat while allowing a soft, natural light that was perfect for working on architectural drawings.

All I knew was that I loved that light.

Our house in Ballard has a bedroom with a cathedral ceiling and French doors that face West. Above the French doors, the previous owner installed (rather crudely) a sizeable (6 feet wide) triangular window. In the summer, the afternoon sun coming through the glass doors and window bakes that room. We pull linen drapes over the French doors, but what to do about the triangular window?

I explored triangular shades (a square one won't fit, because the wall is triangular) and they're expensive. The first year, I put cardboard over the window -- the effect was pure trailer park. The second year, I got a thin piece of white foam insulation, trimmed it with clear packing tape, and fastened it in place with wingnuts. It was sturdy enough to be put into use last year as well. This year, I decided to make a Taliesin West canvas panel. (The panel would go inside of, not in place of, the glass window -- this being the Pacific Northwest and not the desert.)

Surprisingly, there were no references to canvas ceiling or window panels anywhere on the web (except for some sites about Taliesin West itself).

Because of the convoluted trim on our triangular window, the frame for the canvas would need to be shallow -- less than an inch thick. I got some high-quality 3/4" x 1-1/2" fir from Limback Lumber, used a miter box to make the sides of the frame, and fitted these to the not-quite-symmetric window. When it appeared there was a fit with all three pieces, I put together the pieces using a staple gun and 1/2-inch staples.

Ballard being a nautical center, there was no problem getting canvas (Canvas Supply on Ballard Avenue). I got a 4 x 4-foot piece for $12, stapled that to the frame, and, with a little snarling, got it wedged in to the window box and secured with the wingnuts. Here's a picture of the canvas frame, followed by a shot of the bedroom in the natural canvas light.

Someday I want a studio with canvas skylights.

Ultimate Friday night music

In honor of my 30th college reunion next weekend (which I won't be attending): the music the guy across the quad from me used to blast from his dorm room on Friday nights...The Grateful Dead "Live at the Hollywood Palladium."

The concert recording is courtesy of Live Music Archive, pointed out by Wil Wheaton's blog. As Wheaton notes, if you've had doubts about the Grateful Dead, this recording will dispel them.

The Live Music Archive also introduced me to the delightful Hot Buttered Rum String Band, with a concert recorded in California in 2004.

The sound of one wheel, exploding

I've always taken wheelbarrows for granted, and that, I learned today, was my mistake. Reading Consumer Reports and scouring the wheelbarrow reviews on Amazon, I learned that there are a lot of poorly designed wheelbarrows out there. Lightweight plastic ones that crack; one-wheeled barrows that tip over under heavy loads. And, the case of our old metal hardware store wheelbarrow, ones with wheels that explode.

I went off to Home Depot to get a replacement wheel, but found there were several variations on wheel size and axle length. It was back home to get the wheel off ours and bring it in for comparison. Unfortunately, the wheel was attached to the wheelbarrow structure by two steel braces, and each of the braces was held in place by two long threaded bolts, and each of those bolts was kept in place by two rusty nuts. The nuts were cleverly positioned right up against the braces and the metal barrow itself in such a way that it was impossible to get two wrenches, or one wrench and one pair of pliers, into postion to hold one nut while loosening the other. (Are there such things as needlenose wrenches? That was one of the more pleasant thoughts that crossed my mind during this episode.)

With the wheel still firmly attached to the wheelbarrow, I relinquished my grip on the wrenches and I went inside to do some online research. It was not as conclusive as I'd hoped. One of Consumer Reports' top three wheelbarrows was roundly slammed by five irate buyers on Amazon. All five gave it the lowest possible rating, and one seething review concluded: "After two months with no response from the manufacturer, I left it at the curb for the trash pickup."

Sigh. The Brentwood Industries Double Wheel wheelbarrow got top ratings from Amazon buyers and, since we have Amazon free shipping, I ordered it -- after first scrutinizing the photos to make sure it has a better system for attaching the front wheels. (Yes, it has double front wheels for stability.)

How can a wheelbarrow get this complicated?

Still haunted by the wheelbarrow experience, I headed down to the basement tonight to see about assembling the little 20" glass occasional table I bought for my mom's condo balcony. I unpacked it and discovered that you just pop the legs into little plastic braces under the table; no screws, no bolts, no nuts, no fuss. Divine. I wonder if they make wheelbarrows.

Tristan Louis on the future

Here's some well-reasoned speculation about technology-driven social changes likely to occur in the next decade. I was particularly interested in the section on virtual worlds:

As computing power continues to increase, this blurring is going to become more and more scary. At the current time, videogame platforms like the Xbox360 or the PS3 are presenting us with videogames that look close to reality. When those types of things start appearing in online community models, the lines will become so hazy that it will be difficult to tell what is the real world and what is a virtual one.

The blogger is Tristan Louis, formerly the publisher of iWorld and, more recently, involved in the development of technology standards for things like RSS.

Ballard loves a parade

Spent more than an hour this evening at the Norwegian Independence Day Parade on 24th Ave. NW in Ballard. It's a big, colorful event that benefits from Scandinavian enthusiasm and organization.

Marchers assembled on 62nd Ave. NW and headed south on 24th at precisely 6 p.m. There were marching bands, including the outstanding Ballard High School band, a band from Vancouver, Wa., with a terrific rhythm section, and the band from Olympic View Middle School, which must be the largest marching band in the planet (and certainly the one with the most wind instruments). Floats included two fire-breathing (well, smoke-breathing) dragons, several beauty queens and princesses, and a hydroplane (hey, this is Seattle). The drill teams were rather hideous (now we know where the army finds female drill sergeants) with the exception of the one from the Ballard branch of the Seattle Library, which did a precision formation with red library carts to wild applause. Groups represented in the parade included two or three of the local Scandinavian retirement homes; the Foss Home and Village had borrowed the Duckmobile! Here are a few more photos of the marchers.

The spectators were just as interesting as the parade, but I didn't think I should take pictures. I saw a massive, red-nosed Viking-lookalike with long gray hair watching the parade from the doorway of a dark sports bar. The parking strips were filled with families who had brought folding beach chairs and complete picnic meals. The balconies of the apartment buildings along the route were packed with elderly Ballardites obviously attending their annual parade-watching parties. Up by the parade assembly area, virtually every driveway and yard had a barbecue grill going and a picnic table filled with goodies. On my walk back home people kept offering me food. I ended up carrying some flags for an elderly woman in Norwegian costume so she could use both hands to eat a barbecued chicken drumstick on her way to her car.

Ballard really knows how to party.

iMac with built-in Roomba?

I just installed version 1.0 of the iMac SMC Firmware Update on my Intel iMac.

This process involves quitting all apps and restarting the computer. At restart, the machine briefly makes a sound unlike anything I've every heard from a Mac...sort of like a fan running, or a Roomba. It's accompanied by an animated graphic of a white bar turning gray.

Sign of summer

The 2004 blog entry with the directions for using the Waring Ice Cream Parlor is suddenly the most popular page in the Mysterious Traveler archives.

Berry good tomatoes

You've seen cherry tomatoes in salads. You've heard of pear (shaped) tomatoes if you make authentic Italian tomato sauces. Last year the grocery stores had tiny grape tomatoes for salads. This year, it's "strawberry tomatoes" from Dole. They come in sort of scarily symmetric vines that nestle into a long plastic clamshell box like eggs in an egg carton.

They're delicious.

The back story is that they were bred in Holland, and are now grown in hothouses in Canada. Super sweet and meaty, they need to be kept on the counter, not in the refrigerator. Who knew?

You can get the seeds and grow them yourself. Or pick the Dole variety up at the Ballard Market.

The wild world of online pricing

Barbeque season is upon us.

Problem: rusted grate (grill) on the four-year-old Char-Broil gas grill

Solution: replacement parts available online

Paradox: online replacement parts pricing

The first site I checked wanted a hefty $41 for the larger of the two grill grates we need to replace. Ouch.

I was quite relieved to find a second site that wanted just $28.

Relief changed to delight when I checked a third site, bbqparts.com in Florida. Not only was it the easiest site to search by model number and part number, but it wanted only $10 for the same grill grate. Got both grill grates and splurged on new grease clip for $2. Very reasonable shipping price, too, considering that these grills are hardly lightweight items.

(Keywords: Replacement parts for gas grill)

More bad news on the Ave.

In the 20-odd years I've lived here I've watched The Ave. transform from shabby chic to soul-less wasteland. It made another huge leap in that direction this month.

This is not a whine about something neutral like a Starbucks going in, either. Frankly, gentrification, Yuppification -- all of that would be welcome at this point. I'm talking about something butt-ugly with Aurora Avenue-style, garish red-white-and-blue signage and whole wall of sidewalk-to-ceiling black security gates. This store on the corner of 50th looks like it should be an all-night convenience dive across the street from the King County jail, but it's apparently a PC repair place.

Check out the before-and-after images on Seattle Metroblogging.

Great cheese

The Seattle Cheese Festival began today with a seminar on Parmigiano-Reggiano, the pedigreed cheese commonly referred to as "Parmesan."

Most other Italian cheeses have names (Pecorino Sardo, Assiago) that are purely descriptive. The name Parmigiano-Reggiano means that the cheese has been made under the scrutiny of a regional cheese board that sets forth standards for everything from the care and feeding of the cows to the processing and aging of the cheeses themselves.

Selling in this country for prices between $10 and $20 a pound, the Parmigiano-Reggiano is marked on the rind with distinctive stamps that indicate its origin, its pedigree, and its age. Wheels of the cheese that have not passed the regional inspection can still be sold as grating cheese, but not under the coveted Parmigiano-Reggiano name. (These second-rate cheeses are scored along the rind so they can't be passed off as the true Parmigiano-Reggiano.)

Seminar attendees got to sample four freshly cut Parmigiano-Reggianos, shown in the photo: a two-year, a five-year, an organic version, and a Vache Rossa (red cow). The last is made with the milk of the red cow breed that provided the milk for the original Parmigiano-Reggiano. A vastly more productive Swiss cow is now used, but some artisanal cheese makers are returning to the red cows' milk. It has a higher protein content, and yields a more complex cheese that can be aged past five years.

(You'd think that after this presentation I'd have rushed off to make Aromatic Tagliatelle with Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese, but, no, I bought some fresh cod at the Market and cooked it in olive oil with lots of garlic. Should have made the Tagliatelle instead. Or maybe the Parmigiano-Reggiano Chocolate Bon Bons.)

The festival runs through this weekend at the Pike Place Market. Look for cooking demos at DeLaurenti Speciality Food and Wine, which carries all the Parmigiano-Reggianos served at the seminar. I recommend the organic and the Vache Rossa.

Still there

At last, Paul Simon has another hit album, apparently one to rival Graceland. It's called Surprise.

And today three of the top 10 albums on the iTunes Music Store were by folks who were rock stars when I was in high school or college: Paul Simon, Neil Young (Living With War), and Bruce Springsteen (We Shall Overcome).

This is the day I was looking for

I was out early this morning, mailing packages to folks I'd sold things to via eBay, plus sending off a package of three favorite mysteries (The Death of a Lake by Arthur Upfield, One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, and Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill) to Terri and Rob, friends I stayed with recently in Bellingham.

I came across an unusual estate sale on 24th Avenue NW. It was in an apartment in a commercial building. The items were quite contemporary — beautifully framed posters of Broadway shows, coffee table books, lots of first edition hardcover fiction, and some lovely kitchenware. I got two first edition mysteries (one signed) and a big Pyrex baking dish to replace the one that wandered off with a new owner after a recent potluck we attended. It was one of those estate sales at which you want to buy something just to connect to the good karma.

I swung by the bank to deposit a payment from the marketing firm I've been writing for, and then whipped through Bartell for packing tape and through QFC for fresh roasted turkey and some major bargains on detergent. I'm still marveling at the convenience of weekday shopping, though the parking situation in Ballard verges on the insane. Parking for the bank only. Parking for Bartell only. Parking for QFC only. Or you can pay for street parking and deal with those annoying little stickers.

The weather was windy, threatening rain and occasionally making good on the threat. Not sure that there was enough rain to keep the garden happy, though. It did keep the cats inside, napping, instead of going in and out every five minutes.

I did a lot of bookkeeping, and ended up with heaps of paper all over the dining room, being sorted for filing. Fortunately, Hutch called a little after four and swung by to take me out for a drink at the Lockspot. It's been years since I've gone out for a drink after work; it's easier to do if you haven't been working at all.

Kaylee the little cat is now licking my ear. That's her early warning system. I can get up and feed her now--or she can demolish my bulletin board. It's nice to have choices.

Battlestar Galactica meets...the Simpsons!

See more of this brilliant cartooning.

Cuteness wins

Meg Frost's Cute Overload site won a People's Choice Webby Award! Awwww!

A hard-boiled lesson in economics

The Scaled Fang, Velvet Claw blog calls our attention to this very L.A. noir perspective on the economy racket.

I'll be blogging more about what I've been up to when Blogger's photo-upload feature resumes functioning.

What's hot in grilling

Wandering around Ballard this past weekend, my friend Chris and I came across a Big Green Egg, aka "World's Best Smoker and Grill" aka "The Original American Designed Ceramic Cooker." It was cooking two stuffed chickens and a some sausages outside the Sutter Home & Hearth store on Ballard Avenue.

According to the brochure the Sutter Home & Hearth fellow gave us, The Big Green Egg is based on a traditional Asian cooker called a "kamado." The idea is that it cooks at high heat without drying out the food it's cooking. It smokes at low temperatures and grills at high ones...up to 750 F...using coals, a lighter (but no lighting fluid), and a starter like a few sheets of newspaper. It comes in several sizes, including a Big Green Egg Chiminea. But it's always...green.

One more click

Today's entertainment is at Smile of the Day.

The evolution of an online hoax?

What better way to study the evolution of an online hoax than to create one?

I can't help but wonder if that's what the new Shangri-La Diet is all about.

It has all the earmarks of a harmless hoax with Bay Area techno roots:

• a lone-ranger Berkeley psych professor with a hip, geeky appearance
• a harmless diet regimen that won't get the experimenters sued
• "seeding" of diet endorsements by high-traffic bloggers such as Creating Passionate Users
• a book about the diet on Amazon

By following reader comments on the various blogsites where the diet is being discussed, and traffic to various blog pages about it, hoax researchers could easily track the rise (and eventual wane) of interest in it. It would also be possible for them to follow the effects when the glacial print media finally get the idea and the diet (or a debunking of it) hits the mainstream.

Of course, the first major report on the diet was in the print media, specifically an article by the Freakonomics folks in the New York Times in September, 2005. But that focused more on the researcher's highly personalized approach to self-improvement (including diet) than on the diet itself.

I think the Calorie Lab website puts it all perspective:

On the face if it, if you had to cook up the ultimate stereotype of a wacky fad diet for use in a comedic novel or film, the Shangri-La Diet would fill the bill. While we’re not necessarily saying it won’t work, the one-man lab rat nature of its development is far from proof of its effectiveness. And it suffers from the key flaw of most fad diets, in requiring a lifetime of somewhat unnatural behavior (e.g., calorie restriction) that, even if you yourself can maintain, will eventually drive the people around you crazy. On the other hand, if you are on the verge of deciding to undergo bariatric surgery, it might be worth a try before permanently modifying your body.

What do you think?

Apple Ads

The new Apple ads. Very amusing.

Take a deep breath

Then go to the American Lung Association site, type in your ZIP code, and see how the air in your neighborhood rates.

Yes, that was his point

At the April 27 White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Stephen Colbert followed George Bush's humorous address to this press with a devastating satiric attack not just against Bush, but against the press corps that panders to him.

The embarrassed press corps, however, had the last word. And they buried it. Most of them who covered the dinnery glossed over Colbert's brutally truthful presentation, or simply didn't mention it at all.

Or did Colbert have the last word, tricking the press into acting out his point that if they don't print it, well, it couldn't have happened?

The way those of us outside the Beltway know it happened is that a few attendees wrote about it online. Here's the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin's excellent online story about what happened and his survey of the media's bizarre failure to report on it to the general public, along with links to independent bloggers who did write about it for the limited online audience. The reportage on the dinner runs 3 pages; be sure to click through.

Here's the video of Colbert (including his own vignette in which he plays the new White House press secretary relentlessly pursued by correspondent Helen Thomas asking "Why did we invade Iraq?"). It's the most brilliant performance I've seen since Colbert's colleague Jon Stewart destroyed Tucker Carlson on Crossfire. Colbert is a national treasure.

What, you're worried?

The Weather Channel has a new show that explores U.S. weather disaster scenarios, "It Could Happen Tomorrow." Here's the (very nicely designed) interactive website. The Weather Channel is creating templates for likely disasters; what's interesting is that they're sharing them with the public.

Reservations about the Federal Reserve?

A hip response to the new chair...from some students at the Columbia Business School. Makes me proud to be a Columbia grad.

Fighting fire with...

One of the great things about living in Ballard is that the neighborhood still has "real" stores in addition to the growing number of frou-frou places and salons with names like "Beruffled" "Roodi Mop."

One of these real stores is Western Fire and Safety. I've driven by it on Market Street thousands of times, vaguely aware of fire extinguishers in the display window.

I've also been vaguely aware that somewhere in our house is a tiny fire extinguisher, lugged over here when we moved in four years ago, and probably purchased some years earlier than that.

Not good.

I looked up fire extinguishers on the web, found Fire Extinguisher: 101, took some notes about types, and made a note on my to-do list.

Eventually I located our extinguisher tucked in the back of the broom closet. The gage measuring pressure had dropped to "discard." I tossed the spent cannister in the car, and yesterday stopped by Western Fire and Safety.

I confess, I'd been afraid that by going to a serious fire extinguisher store (rather than picking up a generic at Fred Meyer) I'd feel over my head. But, no. The person who helped me was a young woman who has been in the business for years. I needed an extinguisher with a C rating for the kitchen, and one with A and B ratings for upstaris, and wasn't sure about the basement heating area and garage. She recommended the ABC combo (same price as the others) for each area.

These were a bit larger, and much nicer, than the defunct extinguisher. And, instead of being discarded, they get refilled. They also come with sturdy metal holders that attach to the wall, so the cannister doesn't end up hidden at the bottom of the broom closet.

She tagged them so I'd know when to check the pressure (once a year). She also reviewed with me how to use a fire extinguisher (not something you want to be figuring out while your kitchen is aflame). I didn't know, for instance, that you are supposed to aim at the base of the fire, not the at the flames themselves.

I went home and found good locations for the fire extinguishers, which don't exactly coordinate with most decors. The kitchen and upstairs extinguishers are concealed in closets and alcoves, but the one for the basement is mounted prominently on the basement stairway wall, also in clear view of the stove on the main floor. Now they're installed, Zorg and I both know where they are, I've put the yearly pressure check on my iCal calendar with an alarm reminder, and I hope we never use them.

I have, by the way, used one in someone else's kitchen, putting out a fire started when an old blender cord sparked and ignited some curtains.

It was kinda fun.

The ultimate t-shirt

For the past two or three years, I've been looking for plain V-neck t-shirts. J. Crew and Eddie Bauer used to make these; they were like men's gym shirts, in a variety of colors.

But in recent years, all the things called t-shirts have cutesy little cap sleeves, cling like girdles, and the V neck plunges below my bra. Worse, the material is no longer normal lightweight cotton. It's either a heavy jersey with lycra or a limp, featherweight ribbed knit that alternately clings or bags. To add insult to injury, the price for one of these V-neck t-shirts runs from a semi-reasonable $24 up to an absurd $38.

Big yuck.

I've scoured websites -- Norm Thompson, Orvis, L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, J. Jill, even the well-made but dumpy clothing at Land's End -- to no avail.

A few days ago I was reading a personality profile about a flamboyant entrepreneur who heads a company called American Apparel that makes trendy, affordable t-shirts in hip styles and colors. Oddly, American Apparel had never come up when I Googled "V-neck t-shirt." As it turns out, the American Apparel site did, indeed, have dozens of t-shirt styles in great colors, including the Fine Jersey Short Sleeve V-Neck. The price was beyond right, it was $15 a shirt!

I am writing this wearing my American Apparel t-shirt, in a very trendy slate gray. It is lightweight, non-clingy cotton, with generous sleeves and a moderate V neckline. At last!

Good ideas and bad ideas

Are you sitting down? Be grateful.

I was going to blog about the extensive April 25 New York Times story (reprinted in the Seattle P-I today) exposing plans hatched by Airbus and various client airlines to replace chair-type seating with "standing seats" (in essence, tilted body boards) enabling airlines to cram lots of additional people onto the new Airbus planes. Of course, Airbus is already busy denying it.

Instead, I'll blog about today's Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by business professor Gary Hamel. In "Management a la Google," Hamel describes four characteristics he believes will lead to continuing success for the online hydra:

An expansive sense of purpose

An organization that is flat, transparent, and non-hierarchical

A company-wide rule that allows developers to devote 20% of their time to any project they choose

Keep the bozos out and reward people who make a difference

The first characteristic, an expansive sense of purpose, is hardly unique to Google. But the other characteristics are rare to find in practice, particularly the final one (keep the bozos out). Most expanding organizations collect dead weight the way a black velvet jacket collects pet hair.

Hamel explains that Google "understands that companies begin to slide into mediocrity when they start to hire mediocre people. A-level people want to work with A-level people. B-level people are threatened by class-A talent. So if you let a B-lister in the door, he or she will hire equally unremarkable colleagues."

He's hit on a key dynamic that I've seen take teams, groups, and companies right down the drain. While individual B-listers are merely deadweight, as a group, they're poison. They actively squash, hush up, or sabotage the A-listers' work and will eventually drive the A-listers out of the company. At the end of this process, some outside analyst turns up to say wistfully "What happened?" Do you think the B-listers will tell him?

Huh?

A team of Belgian researchers has discovered what one of my female newspaper reporter colleagues in Connecticut knew 25 years ago: Sexual cues impair men's decision-making skills.

The scientists showed male test subjects pictures and objects before asking them to enter into a financial negotiation. Half of the men were shown pictures and objects (such as women's lingerie) with heterosexual "cues." The research found that the men who had viewed sexual cues made worse decisions during the subsequent negotiations, presumably because they were distracted.

I remember watching Mary as she interviewed one particular town official. She sat across from him, legs crossed, skirt hiked up, batting her eyelashes for all she was worth, taking notes while her victim happily blathered out quotes that would cost him his political future.

The only ones immune to her charms were the cops, one politician (who later revealed himself to be gay) -- and our editor. After she juxtaposed a sex offense with a parking ticket while transcribing the weekly police log (and it got into print), he fired her.

Making the case for sentence case

Three reasons why I favor using sentence case* (as opposed to title case) for blog headlines:

1. Sentence case is the trend in print and on the web.

2. It seems more credible and natural, like a person's voice. (Though, on the other hand, title case is more authoritative.)

3. With lots of blog newsreaders, all the prospective reader sees is the headline (before clicking through). That's why I favor (potentially) more provocative headlines, which are often sentences ("Want to overthrow your dictator manager?") in sentence case rather than labels ("Overthrowing the Dictator Manager") in title case.

Seth Godin’s blog usually illustrates the power of sentences and sentence case in blog headlines.

*"Making the Case for Sentence Case" is title case, meaning the capitalization follows the style used for book titles; "Making the case for sentence case" is sentence case, following the style for...you guessed it, sentences.

Blackbird Bistro

We eat out occasionally but I rarely write about it because, so often, good ingredients are spoiled by pretentious seasonings or amateur cooking, or pleasant food is tainted by untrained or self-absorbed waitstaff.

So, three cheers for the small, friendly, and highly professional Blackbird Bistro in West Seattle. Their tagline is "local, seasonal & organic flavors" and that pretty much described what we ate, from tasty greens in subtle dressings to manila clams in a nice reduction of butter and proscuitto to a steak with seasoned potatoes. Everything tasted fresh and subtle, including the desserts: vanilla bean ice cream (me) and creme brulee (Zorg).

The Blackbird is mid-size and spacious. Even when it was full (by 6:30 on a Friday evening) the buzz of conversation was not overwhelming. Much of the seating is in high-backed booths, which enhances the sense of relative privacy.

Top marks go to the friendly Blackbird staff, who seemed genuinely interested in how we were doing. They weren't at all put off when our party of four didn't all arrive at the same time. When I remarked that the espresso-infused vodka cocktail garnished with coffee beans I'd ordered was, well, a bit overwhelming, our waitperson offered (twice!) to replace it with a less powerful cocktail. I had to reassure her that it was not a problem.

We certainly have our share of trendy new bistros here in Ballard, but I like the Blackbird Bistro better. The food is far superior to that of Dandelion (and less expensive), and Blackbird is more welcoming and less of a "scene" than the delicious but rather precious Volterra. Chalk one up for West Seattle.

Contraltos vs. contractors

Shortly after posting my previous entry about the loud contractors the next street over, I poked my head out the back door and heard...opera. Very loud opera.

I realized that our neighbor Joe, who regaled trick-or-treaters with the Harry Potter score, and played The Messiah from his balcony on Christmas Eve, was addressing the construction din in his own special way.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later the contractors cranked up a deafening rock radio station. When I drove by to run errands, I noticed that the remodel has reached the siding stage (cheap alumnum siding — ugh). Things should be getting quieter as they move to the interior phase of the project.

Who's squawking now?

A 2002 article in The Seattle Weekly described our neighborhood, Sunset Hill in far western Ballard, like this: "It's quiet: By day, seagulls squawk, starlings jabber, and crows forewarn; at night, the sea lions bark from Shilshole Bay."

Hah.

I stepped out onto our back patio at 10 this morning to have a cup of tea and study a book on herb gardens and was greeted by what have become the new sounds of Sunset Hill: The screeching of power saws and the pounding of nail guns. On the street behind us, a developer is raising a small house three storys in the air to create a megamansion with view. Welcome to Ground Zero of the "Supersize Me" housing movement infecting 34th Avenue NW.

Move over, seagulls -- I'm squawking too.

And now, for something a little different

How would you like to join the Mysterious Traveler (and Zorg) at the Northwest Folklife Festival for the third annual Folklife Breakfast, Sunday, May 28? The breakfast is a great way to start a fabulous Sunday at the festival — with plentiful early morning parking spaces and a delicious meal with Folklife performers, organizers, and supporters.

I've been a performer, volunteer, and supporter with the Festival for more than 20 years, and would love to share some of my excitement about it with you!

Two years ago, at the first Folklife breakfast, Yeggy Michael (now a Folklife board member) told us frankly about what happened when Folklife invited the Ethiopian, Eritrean, Somalian, Sudanese, and Kenyan communities of Seattle to put together a program for the 2004 Festival. It quickly emerged that conflicts from their African homelands continued to resonate in these communities, presenting serious barriers to cooperation. But the desire to present East African culture and art to the greater Seattle community prevailed. These communities overcame historic differences and worked together to create a powerful Horn of Africa program, a festival-within-a-festival of dancing, music, visual arts, and food. Better yet, the the Horn of Africa communities now have a continuing role in the Festival. (Tip: Check out the Kenyan Kitchen, near the Mural Amphitheater stage.)

The happy story of the Horn of Africa presence at Folklife is just one example of the increasingly significant involvement of Seattle's ethnic and immigrant communities — African-American, Native American, Jewish, Scandinavian, and Korean, just to name a few — in Northwest Folklife and its sister festivals at Seattle Center.

This year, Folklife has invited members of Seattle's diverse Arab communities to create the festival's 2006 featured program. As you might guess, this is a considerable undertaking in the current political climate. But that's part of why Folklife feels it is so timely to put the vast Folklife audience — more than a quarter million people — in closer touch with Arab culture.

Please make the Arab Communities of the Pacific Northwest program a part of your Folklife experience this year, along with the Cajun dancing, the bluegrass, the Dylan tribute, the Celtic stage, the rockabilly, the contra dancing, the hip-hop lessons, and the Klezmer workshop. And please consider joining us for the breakfast on Sunday to hear some of the fascinating stories about how Folklife does what it does.

Breakfast is on us. You'll enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at the festival and be invited to join in as a Folklife supporter and community advocate.

Please contact me for further details or to let me know (by April 27) if you can attend, and if you'd like to bring guests (please do!). I'll see that you and your guests receive a formal invitation from Northwest Folklife in May with directions and all the essential details. I hope to breakfast with you May 28!

Rain. Sun.

Our fascination with the mystery

Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic has an insightful piece on why we love mystery films (and the novels they're based on). [signup, no verification, required]

Greetings from the Easter Kitty

Where I went today

Where I went in real life today: Nordic Heritage Museum (rummage sale); Gypsy Trader (consignment); Ballard Market (to pick up more matzoh -- did you know they have a "salts of the world" festival coming up next week?); Ballard Plaza Pharmacy (a compounding pharmacy -- they made up a special prescription of antibiotics in fish oil for Betaille); Curves (exercise).

Where I went online today: Bathtub Art Museum; Potlatch 16 (signup); The Winds That Never Moderation Knew (quotations); Smile of the Day ("Are You Crazy?").

What am I doing?

First of all, a HUGE thank you to everyone who hasn't asked me what I'm doing with "all that free time" now that I've left Apple. I'm not particularly upset with folks who are asking...it's just that I don't have any one succinct answer. So, everyone gets the answer I think they're looking for, such as:

• Catching up on major home repair and organization tasks I haven't done for the past three years. This is really scary and time-consuming and eventually will involve the plumber and the electrician.


• Going to writing seminars to try to figure out which type of fiction writing I want to focus on in the coming months.


• Trying out a nice 2-day-a-week writing gig for a local web marketing company — short, fun, do-able projects and great people.


• Staying away from iChat and trying not to pay too much attention to the phones. Trying to dampen the Pavlovian response.


• Serious cooking for large social events. I went to a fondue party (brought chocolate) and a Passover dinner (brought vegetarian matzoh ball soup for 20), and am scheduled to make Swedish meatballs to take to a confab of Zorg's World of Warcraft guild.


• Going out to lunches and dinners with friends. Fun!


• Attending parties and even volunteering to host one!


• Installing and updating software on two new computers.


• Demo-ing my Macs and .Mac.


• Taking part in a yard sale with friends and selling furniture via Craig's List.


• Saying "no" to offers of full-time jobs. No. No. No!

I'd be gardening, but the weather has been damp, windy, and chilly. Brrr!

Joy

Monday I attended the Golden Tennis Shoe Awards, an unusual luncheon event that is part fundraiser for Senator Patty Murray and part community recognition event for outstanding (but previously unsung) good Samaritans.

Senator Maria Cantwell opened the program, introducing Murray. Unfortunately, Cantwell speaks just like a politician -- with that mind-numbing half shout, half chant that would make a starving Doberman suspicious of someone offering a steak. Murray, on the other hand, speaks like someone resuming a great talk with a roomful of friends. She comes across smart, diplomatic, and respectful of her audience.

Check out the stories about the award winners (currently on Murray's campaign homepage).

After the awards, political humorist Al Franken entertained. His is an odd mix of edgy humor and dead-serious political advocacy. He ended his talk on a whimsical note, insisting that the Democrats' platform for 2006 should include the manufacture of a dark chocolate-covered Almond Joy bar so we could enjoy both the almonds of the Almond Joy and the dark chocolate of the Mounds bar. A good idea, and probably more likely to happen than universal health care, a balanced budget, and an end to the war in Iraq. [NOTE: There was a dark chocolate Almond Joy produced in 2004 or 2005 as a limited edition, and a few bars are still available...check on eBay.]

Cherimoya

When I encounter something really weird, like a cherimoya, it makes me feel much better when someone else says they've seen it, too.

I bought one at the Ballard Market last week and Zorg and I had it for dessert. Great taste, way too many big seeds.

Fremont. Rocks.

I have a whole new appreciation for the Fremont neighborhood now that my schedule allows me to do more than zoom over, hunt frantically for parking, race to a lunch meeting, and then fight the road-repair traffic back out again.

Friday afternoon I parked on the Fremont-Ballard border and strolled East along N. 36th to meet friends for lunch at the Tawon Thai in the heart of Fremont.

I noticed tall piles of ominous-looking stones on the muddy parking strip and realized that the cairns were being guarded by a wild-looking, weather-beaten man sitting on a bench and growling incoherently. He was apparently the artist. He had placed strips of masking tape on the sidewalk at the entrance and exit to his display, warning pedestrians not to disturb the rocks. I certainly didn't.

After lunch (discussions of movies, the internet, web design, local real estate development, and books), two of us headed back along N 35th. A Starbucks employee carrying a tray of drink samples offered us iced green-tea lattes and they were wonderful enough that we turned around and headed back around the corner to Starbucks to get full-size versions of the drink and sit and chat for more than an hour.


When we parted ways, I stopped in at Frankie and got a lovely pair of what I hope will be dancing shoes, a fanciful European brand called Campers I'd never heard of before. So, can you guess which of these Campers I bought? Yeah, right.

On the next block over, I checked out a store selling exotic import items. One of the saleswomen was pounding nails into the wall to hang some items. An employee from the hair salon next door rushed in, looking distinctly annoyed, and explained that all the mirrors on the salon's side of the wall were bouncing up and down. "Oh, wow, really?" said the surprised and clueless saleswoman.

It was on to Fetch, a pet supply boutique with a canine emphasis. I did, however, see some really fabulous pet beds in washable faux suede (aka ultrasuede) in designer colors (purple, lime) that any cat would be delighted to shed on. Finally, I swung by The Refeathered Nest at 309 N. 36th. It's a small and very tasteful store selling "reclaimed" home furnishings, definitely worth a visit.

Friday catty blogging

Instead of the traditional Friday cat blogging, we'll have Friday catty blogging, featuring the Washington Barbies. Different sites have variations on the list, so check out as many as you can stand.

The Northwest Barbies are FINALLY Available

Yay! A new iteration of the Washington Barbies!

Since North Seattle is represented only by the Laurelhurst Barbie, I'll add a few:

Ballard Barbie: A tall, sturdy blonde doll with khaki slacks (Nordstrom), a handknit Norwegian sweater, bright blue Gortex windbreaker, and clogs. Two blonde kids and a mini van. Matching Ken doll comes with an older Volvo, brand-new lawnmower, and a fully-equipped woodshop.

Fremont Barbie: A petite version of the Barbie doll with long, dark hair, lots of eye makeup, and a subtle tatoo. Optional face painting. Basic outfit is faded jeans, a black top, hand-made jewelry, and a big woven shoulder bag from a third world country. Additional outfits include belly dance costume and colorful tiered skirt with coordinated halter top. Shoes are optional. One or two kids (she's not always sure). Ken also has long hair and he, too, could be wearing a skirt. Or a utilikilt. Vehicle? Bio-diesel vehicle for her, mountain bike or unicycle for him.

Green Lake Barbie: This Barbie comes equipped with a cotton/Lycra exercise outfit for walking around Green Lake and a Starbucks card to keep her in grande soy lattes. Accessories include small to mid-size dog and identically dressed Midge doll for accompanying her on walks. Ken? She's all about looking for Ken.

Bright idea

I stopped by Limback Lumber in Ballard today to buy a wood closet rod and, as usual when I visit a great hardware store, I made an impulse purchase. This time it was the Headlite G2 LED, a baseball cap with an LED flashlight.

Twenty-four hours earlier, this would never have interested me. But after an encounter with a 4" roofing nail in a dark corner of our attic yesterday (followed by an emergency room visit for a tetanus shot and the most expensive shampoo of my life) the Headlite seemed just the thing. Wearing the hat, I ventured back into the attic today to search out and pound down a few other 4" nails left by the *&$#%@ roofers.

Best April Fool's blog

The man behind Apple's reality distortion field reveals all.

Notes on the media

Last night Zorg and I caught a new film at our neighborhood theater: V for Vendetta. The odd title (it sounds like a Sue Grafton mystery) is also misleading (a vendetta is Italian, and personal; this was British, and political) but I thought the film, with Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, and Stephen Fry, was beautiful, troubling, and thought-provoking. The reviews have been mixed; I'm finding these days that films with mixed reviews are the best ones. It generally means there's enough substance to get people thinking, talking -- and disagreeing. Irish actor Stephen Rea plays the cop with the conscience, caught between the terrorist/freedom fighter and the dystopian fascist government.

Prefer to wait for V for Vendetta to come out on DVD for home viewing? Get your dude den ready.

Friday's cat blogging

Zoe asks "Why are you pointing that thing at me?"

It's starting to feel...different

I left Apple to focus on writing, but the past month I've been focused mostly on shifting gears.

Two major out-of-town trips, two writing conferences, and several out-of-the-office weekday appointments helped me break away from the tied-to-the-desk routine. I'm now exploring a freelance arrangement that "feels right." It's part-time, project-by-project web writing. Being a sub-contractor seems very appealing right now.

I've been busy re-arranging the house, selling furniture that just doesn't work (a loveseat, some Craftsman stuff from the previous house) and replacing it with things I hope will be more functional: a maple bookcase from Ballard Bookcase Company for the dining room, and one of those neat sewing machine cabinets where the sewing machine rises up in the middle like a Las Vegas cabaret act.

Here's the Ekornes chair I found on Craig's List. Very comfy for sitting in the office and using Front Row on the new iMac.

Friendlier skies: $44

It's no secret that airlines are packing each flight to capacity to save money, while decreasing cleaning and cosmetic maintenance (the planes are rarely on the ground long enough for serious cleaning). As a result, economy class seating for long, cross-country flights is becoming unbearable.

Earlier this month I flew on Delta in an economy row with a woman so wide we couldn't get the seat arm lowered beside her; another flight had a carpet so encrusted with goo (a smushed Cinnabon roll, perhaps?) that the purse I put under the seat in front of me was ruined. The United flight to from Seattle to Chicago Thursday featured an icy window and wall -- extremely uncomfortable, and more than a bit frightening.

This morning when I checked in for the flight back from Chicago, United offered me an upgrade to an Economy Plus seat in a reconfigured section of coach, providing 5 inches of extra leg room. I forked over $44 and, let me tell you, it was worth every penny. On the way out to Chicago, I'd twisted and squirmed to get away from the icy window, plus found myself nearly chewing on the hair of the tall man in front of me when he reclined his seatback into my face. In the upgraded seat, I had plenty of room for my feet (without wedging them on top of my carry-on backpack), and I didn't even notice if the person in front of me reclined. I was pathetically, gratefully happy to pay for humane travel conditions, and wish more airlines would offer this option.

A related note: Three cheers for MasterPark, one of the off-site parking lots at Sea-Tac. After a couple frustrating and scary experiences with other Sea-Tac lots (like the one that was padlocked shut when I arrived on a evening flight!) I've started using MasterPark when I take longer trips. Their three lots are right outside the airport and all have a covered drop-off area with a valet who takes your car. They whisked me immediately to the terminal at 6 a.m., even though I was the only person in the shuttle. I've never had to wait more than 2 or 3 minutes for a terminal pickup when I return. They even put my bag into my trunk for me! Not the cheapest parking choice, but possibly the most reliable. And they have web coupons.

Beyond "Dilbert." Way beyond.

If you think all Scott Adams does is "Dilbert" cartoons and some amusing books about workplaces and management, you're in for a wonderful surprise. Check out this beautifully crafted feature story, masquerading as a blog entry.

All humor, all day

Several of us hit our humor limit after dinner last night, crept off to bed, and didn't emerge until "second period" this morning. I have to disagree with Commander Cody; at a humor writing conference, you can have too much fun.

Today's seminars were the best of the bunch. I did "Yoga for Your Funnybone" with Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant of accidentalcomic.com. Leigh Anne, from Eugene, OR, via Abilene, TX, focuses on standup and quip-filled books. (Leigh Anne won the 2004 Erma Bombeck Humor Writing Content with a piece about her first mammogram, at which the x-ray machine caught fire with her, er, clamped in it.) During one of her humor exercises, I wrote and performed a short stand-up piece on "jealousy, shame, depression and comedy writing." (People laughed, and even applauded!)

The lunch speaker was Asheville, NC, newspaper columnist Susan Reinhardt, notorous for her Southern bad-girl persona. Her outrageous tales of family and redneck neighbors are syndicated and her first book is out: Not Tonight, Honey -- Wait Til I'm a Size 6. She explained the title original referred to a size 10, but the publisher changed it so it would work for New York readers, who think that size 10 is grossly obese. I found Reinhardt a tad over-the-top, but it was sure fun watching the (mostly mid-western) audience figure out what to make of her.

After lunch, I caught Gordon Kirkland again. I'd thought he was a bit diffuse at the luncheon presentation yesterday, but he was fabulous with the smaller group. I don't think I've laughed so much in years. A Canadian (from Vancouver, B.C.), he at one point in his pre-humorist career worked as a writer in the Trudeau administration in Ottawa. The office secretary was French Canadian and not always comfortable with colloquial English. He recalled the day she answered the phone and told the English-speaking caller looking for his subordinate, "I'm sorry, Linda eez busy right now. Would you like to talk with Gordon Kirkand? He eez on top of her."

More from Dayton

Yep, this is a lively bunch of folks. Many of the 300 attendees are mid-career in some other field -- including technical writing, marketing writing, and academic writing -- and want to cross over into humor writing or add humorous elements to their current work.

David Barry, the keynote speaker, certainly lived up to his reputation. His speech started out fairly straight, but by the end the audience was howling as he described the flap that occurred after he wrote a column lampooning North Dakota's plan to change its name to "Dakota" for PR reasons. Barry wound up traveling to North Dakota to attend a ceremony at which the offended North Dakotans dedicated a sewage treatment station to him. And (they should have seen this coming) Barry then made fun of the sub-zero dedication ceremony. "You heard whump, whump, whump!" he exclaimed. "That's the sound of lots of mittens, clapping."

Never engage in a battle of wits with a syndicated humor columnist.

Dayton, Day 1

Seattle, Chicago, Dayton. I've just arrived in Dayton for the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers' Workshop.

Just as a science fiction convention is peopled with...science fiction types, this is peopled with, well, live wires. Class clowns. The women are perky and assertive. The men are wise guys. More on my fellow attendees later.

The Dayton Marriott, where we are staying and having our evening meetings, just screams "1970s," with low ceilings, tired mahogany paneling, and dim hallways set at mind boggling oblique angles. But my room is clean and well lit, with a hair dryer, bathtub, large closet, and full-length mirrors. (It's amazing how many of the new boutique hotels are dim, with one ornate mirror set just at the height required for man to adjust his tie.)

The room's one concession to trendiness is a queen-size marshmallow-type bed with six - six! - pillows. Perhaps there's a pillow fight on tonight's conference agenda? And maybe I should check to make sure that my bed hasn't been short-sheeted.

Ballard water service outage

The water heater is fine...but much of western Ballard is without water for the day because "a contractor cut a pipe." Repairs are estimated to take 4 to 6 hours, so water service should be back late this afternoon.

Things fall apart -- in threes

It wasn't the malfunctioning DVD drive in the old iMac, or the discovery of the leaking master cylinder in the 1990 Honda that had me worried. It was the knowledge that at our house, things break in groups of threes.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I took the iMac to the Apple Store at 8:15 last night (you can make a same-day appointment at the Genius Bar); they called at 10 p.m. to say the new DVD drive was in (free, since I'd bought the three-year Apple Care coverage). High Road Automotive was able to replace the master cylinder with same-day service as well, so the only pain there was the bill.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Then, it happened. I got up this morning, took a shower, had breakfast, and was rinsing the breakfast dishes when I noticed that the water pressure had dropped quite a bit. Thinking nothing of it, I took my tea into my office and sat down to work on a new project.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

At 11 I got up to make another cup of tea, and figured I'd run a load of clothes in the laundry downstairs. As I walked in to the basement laundry room, I heard a sound like a running dishwasher. Or a running washing machine. But the dishwasher was off, and so was the washing machine. The loud gurgling, swooshing, sloshing, noise was coming from our year-old, high-end, gas water heater.

The plumber who installed it has since relocated his shop to Mukilteo, and we've switched to a local Ballard plumber (Paris Plumbing) that we've been quite happy with. I dialed them immediately. Their dispatcher called back and advised that I try to turn off the water heater. Praying that nothing would explode, I sidled closer to the gurgling water heater and located the gas shut-off specific to it (high up on the basement wall, how convenient). As soon as I flippped it, the swooshing and sloshing ceased. Now I'm waiting, checkbook at the ready, for the plumber to arrive and get to the bottom of it. I'm so hoping that the problem is the waterheater (under warranty) and not the new gas system, as that would involve the stove and the dryer. Sigh.

Test #3 of Blogger email posting system

Test. Test. Test.

Street cleaning

The Roomba takes it to the street at SxSW!

Taking away information

...to achieve a better decision.

Malcolm Gladwell explains.

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"Woof! Woof!" -- that must be the cat

Three years ago I bought a Lentek Pet Chime.

After it arrived, I decided it would never work for our cats. But tonight, while cleaning the basement, I came across the Pet Chime and figured, "What the heck?" If Sheba, Zoe, and Kaylee can figure out that they need to step on the big yellow button to get me to open the door and let them in, I'll be impressed. (Actually, I'll suspect divine intervention.)


The Pet Chime is made up of two components: A brown paw with a yellow "doorbell" in it and a white chime. The doorbell gets a 9 volt battery and goes outdoors; the chime gets three AA batteries and stays indoors.

I sat down at the kitchen table and installed the batteries, with Zoe and Kaylee helping out. Then I got to the part where you toggle a switch to set the chime tone. Toggled one way, it goes "Woof-woof!" (It seems the Pet Chime is a canine-centric device.) Toggled the other way, it does the traditional "ding-dong" sound. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear which direction yielded which tone.

So I toggled it to the left, and hit the yellow button. Mistake.

"WOOF-WOOF! WOOF-WOOF! WOOF-WOOF" roared an electronic Rottweiler, sending the cats airborne. I quickly switched it to "ding-dong," but by then the Kaylee and Zoe were long gone.

Yep, they're going to love this device.

[NOTE: The Pet Chime also came to the attention of columnist Dave Barry. Now I'll have something to chat with him about at the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers Workshop in Dayton next weekend.]

Partition your (Intel) Mac and run Windows

The website of Colin Nederkorn, who hosted a contest to see who could get a new Intel Mac to run windows, is swamped with visitors now that a winner has been validated. But CNET News.com has the story and an audio interview with the thoughtful-sounding Nederkorn.

The contest has a $14,000 prize, which Nederkorn seeded with just $100.

This is a superb example of how creative, energetic individuals continue to power the tech culture and the online community.