December 2004 Archives

Two house finches taking refuge from the rain in the sill of the window.

I have lots to say, but I am on holiday, so I shall make the following notes:

1) A persistent family myth is about to be debunked by me. My genealogical research has proven that we are just Irish, with some Scottish, and not anything fancy. Sorry, Great Grandma Carrie and Great Uncle Dick, sorry.

2) I love my new Nokia 7610. Post to Web feature - easy. Ooohh... metadata galore... ooohhhh... I have been inserting metadata on all my photos and then when the phone posts to the Typepad Lifeblog, it all shows up. Lovely. I need a post to my moveable type blog feature that is that lovely.

3) I broke rank and went to Xmas mass yesterday. So happy. So nice. So not protestant. So right. Lots more comments later.

Fri 12.24.04 - Hanen Family Xmas. Me and brother Joe.

Photo of Bill and Cam Hanen taken by Ms. Jen on Dec. 24, 2004, with her Nokia 7610.

Hanen family Xmas - Grandpa Bill & Cam.

In the ever bizarre keywords world or how do folks find this website, I offer to you the most recent 10:

Last 10 queries:
1. "Flock of Goo Goo"
2. ms world nude
3. BIG PICTURE ON S.W.A.T
4. mckenna volkswagen
5. black woman photo
6. new year's eve "long beac
7. black phoebe
8. Black Phoebe
9. liam and jen
10. Ms Jen

SWAT? What? huh? Liam? Do I know a Liam? Ok, my baby cousin...
Ms. World Nude? Does that mean she is as big as the world? Or just as nude as the world?

Yes! Flock of Goo Goo is playing at Alex's Bar in Long Beach for the New Year's Eve New Wave Prom on Fri. Dec. 31st. Yes, I will be taking Prom Photos from 9-11pm again this year...

Tues 12.21.04 - The winerack at Kathy's shop.

Today is the shortest day of the year for the northern hemisphere.

Happy Winter Solstice. May we actually get some winter around here.

Mon 12.20.04 - John Johnson.

Mon 12.20.04 - Walking back from lunch, mom picked a few fragrant rambling wild roses.

The only way to get a good photo with my phone inside Alex's is to make sure the subjects are standing next to the front door light or in the office. Lauren and Melvin.

Karl Sighting, originally uploaded by Ms. Jen.

The ever elusive and rare Karl Izumi has been captured on camera at the Magrann Xmas party last night...

If one can't vent on one's blog, where can one? I have been sitting at the door at Alex's for over 3 hours now... and...

Band Beef #1: Ok. So. I just got called a fucker by a bass player, of a band that I have championed to Alex, because I was typing an email while the band was on stage. So. The bass player knows he would normally not get booked, I work at Alex for over 9 months to get the band back in, and then the touchy bass player calls me a fucker. Nice. Sigh. Someone needs to attend an Ego Adjustment Seminar for musicians...

Band Beef #2: River City Rebels. Wimps. Cancelled their 12/4/04 show with us on a very short notice for a very spurious reason. They only want to play all ages. Sponge Jen Cranky pants says that the River City Rebels are a third rate Motley Crue knock off and only want to play under 21, because that crowd didn't see Warrant or Motley back in the 80s like many over 21s or their parents weren't old enough to see Mot the Hoople or the NY Dolls the first time around. Wimps.

Band Beef #3: Thinking Aloud. A local Long Beach band. Just tried to bum rush the door and not pay. I stopped them and they demanded to see Alex. I told them I needed IDs and $5. One of them stormed through to the back of the bar without paying to see his friends. Alex comes around and it is a no go, they need to pay. I explain to the 3 band members still at the door that if they were playing wouldn't they want people to play at the door so they could get paid? They look slightly embarrassed. The nice one goes to fetch the bum rusher. The other two, embarrassed, leave. Bum rusher comes back and shoots me dirty looks. Nice. Next time Thinking Aloud plays, I will remember to let every Long Beach band in for free, of course they are all broke, and then tell TA at the end of the night to go to their fellow musicians for payment.

Cranky. I told you.

Gail linked to the Belief-O-Matic quiz. I took it and guess I should be a Quaker, does it count that the Vineyard came out of the Yorba Linda Friends (Quaker) church?

Your Results: The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Orthodox Quaker (100%)
2. Seventh Day Adventist (88%)
3. Eastern Orthodox (86%)
4. Roman Catholic (86%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (82%)
6. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (81%)
7. Liberal Quakers (64%)
8. Hinduism (58%)
9. Orthodox Judaism (54%)
10. Unitarian Universalism (54%)
11. Bah�'� Faith (50%)
12. Jehovah's Witness (45%)
13. Islam (45%)
14. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
15. Sikhism (42%)
16. Reform Judaism (40%)
17. Neo-Pagan (36%)
18. Jainism (35%)
19. Secular Humanism (29%)
20. New Age (28%)
21. Mahayana Buddhism (25%)
22. Theravada Buddhism (23%)
23. Taoism (22%)
24. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (19%)
25. Scientology (17%)
26. Nontheist (16%)
27. New Thought (13%)

I have had a few liberal Quaker friends over the years, but no Orthodox Quaker friends. I thought I would tip out on the traditional Anglican before Quaker... hmmm....

Funny thing... many of my friends have departed from evangelical or charasmatic churches for Eastern Orthodoxy and a few for Catholicism over the last ten years. A few of us have hung in there at a Vineyard or similar church have migrated to small bible studies or to small groups of arts oriented folk.

I have been burnt out on all things evangelical ever since Bush's first run for office in 2000. Just hearing much of the rote American evangelical party line gives me a case of the hives. Out of fear that Lance and the Vineyard Anaheim would promote the Reds, I stopped going to church for a good month or so before the election and today was my first sunday back. Chicken, I know, but I was just not up for it. It was enough to be teaching a class at Biola on election night. balk, balk, balk, balk...

[Side note: Does it strike anyone, besides me, funny in a good ironic way that after 40 some-odd years of rabid anti-communism that the Republicans are now proud to be "Red" states? Pinkos.]

And on other notes, Mahmood has completed an elegant re-design of his site that features his photo(s) more prominently. I first found Mahmood's Den through the Photo Friday viewer when he posted a great photo of girls sliding down a sand dune and have stayed a faithful reader for his insights and antics in Bahrain.

Why struggle for a day like I did trying to set up the Nokia 7610's access points to AT&T's (now Cingular) GSM network and deal with Sylvester the Cingular telephone tech guy who didn't know what Google was and how it could be used...

Use the Nokia's Configuration Tool to get all your email, browser, access points, and bookmarks(!!!!) configured directly from Nokia's easy to use interface and sent to the phone via SMS. Yeah Nokia!

Now that my happy little phone is all configured and working, I discovered that while I asked for a much larger plan the Cingular (formerly AT&T) sales folk only gave me 1 mb of mMode. I blew through that in the first 24 hours, so I called again today to ask for the unlimited plan. The sales lady told me it would take 24 hours to have the request approved?!?!?!?

Nokia = cutting edge cool. Cingular = wormy dog crap.

What I like best about the new phone:

1) The one megapixel camera. Look at the above photo from my garden yesterday. No touch ups needed, just resizing. Last night, as I walked home I did a comparison with my Casio 4 MP camera and the cell phone camera. (see below)

2) The user interface is excellent and easy to use. I like the large screen. I like the inclusion of Opera if I don't want to use the "web" function. I like the layout of the applications and the use once in them.

3) I can download and reply to my earthlink.net mail. Yeah.

4) The log gives running totals of minutes used of received calls, dialed calls, and GRPS used. Very nice.

5) The voice recorder is nifty, I wonder how long I can record for?

6) So far I quite like LifeBlog's interface and how it organzies all my photos, notes, and text messages. It will be even more fun when I get to upload all of the LifeBlog data and pics to the TypePad blog. Now the big question is when will their be a link between LifeBlog and MT??? Calling all MT plugin developers....

Quick comparison of similar photos taken with my Casio Exlim Z-40 camera (left side column) and the Nokia 7610 camera (right side column):

What I don't like about the Nokia 7610:

1) The Clear button for text just below the select button that is most of the time "Exit" and adjacent to the end call button. I have hit end call or exit more times than I have hit clear. ;o(

2) Oh... There is a phone on this fabulous device? Argh... it's ringing... do I have to pick it up? Argh...

Ok, yesterday was a very big and exciting day in the personal neighborhood of my life....

7am - I depart my house, with freshly washed hair, to drive up to Beverly Hills by 9:30am (Evil Traffic) to pick up my new PHONE!!!!

I think that I am being smart by taking Chapman all the way to Seal Beach to avoid the traffic on the 22. Smart. Then I jog up Valley View to Katella westbound. Katella turns into Willow after the 605, continue on Willow. See the 405 in Long Beach is very clogged, it is 7:50am, I am making good time, I stay driving west on Willow. Pass the 710, enter into the Port of LA, it is 8:15am, good time. Happy. Notice that Willow has turned into Sepulveda Blvd! Gold Mine! Pass the 110, am now very smug that I am driving 50 m.p.h. on Sepulveda and am now in the SouthBay. Call JulieWanda and my dad to brag about my new street shortcut.

Somewhere in Redondo Beach, my shortcut went all wrong. I ended up at the pier and PCH, not Sepulveda at 9:15am with 15 mins. to get to Beverly Hills. Even with no traffic, this is a 45 min. drive. Suck.

At 10am, I am driving, 3 times, around the Santa Monica / Wilshire Blvd interchange trying NOT to get a ticket from the 4 traffic cops pulling folks over while trying to find my Nokia contact. I finally met them in the scoop out of the Peninsula Hotel, they handed me the bag containing the Nokia 7610 (unlocked, no less!!!) and peripherals, and off I went in desperate search of a toilet.

Then me, my new little phone, and Sugar Plum sped off down side streets to avoid the BV motorcycle police to drive back to Orange for my 11:30am appointment at St. Joe's for an EKG, chest X-Ray, blood work, and chat with Dr. Ho, that took plus 3 hours. No, I am not sick, I am donating on Jan. 3rd.

Late lunch at Pho May. Then off to the Cingular, formerly AT&T store, on the corner of Main & Chapman. I am supposed to have AT&T or T-Mobile GSM service to participate in the LifeBlog study that is giving me my new fancy pants camera, I was assured earlier in the week that I could, as a AT&T customer, get a new AT&T sim chip and mMode even though they are migrating everyone to Cingular. Store in Orange does not have a AT&T sim chip, off I go down the 5 fwy. to south Tustin to the store there. They do have a chip, but due to high volume of aggitated AT&T customers who are being forced to switch to Cingular phones, there is a long wait.

The very nice and helpful Kevin gets me an AT&T sim chip, sets up my mMode account, and even transfers all the contacts from my Nokia 6630 to the 7610. Super Kevin to the resuce!

Return home at 5:30pm. Then spend the next 45 mins. trying to get my phone set up to my earthlink main email account, LifeBlog, and other bits.

7pm - At Biola, for the last night of Web Design class before finals. It was a work night, and I mostly answered folk's questions about their flash websites. I realized that lunch was wearing off and there was no dinner on the horizon.

Jen goes home, eats cereal, and collapses on the couch to read the 7610 manual and takes a pic of her feet and living room...

Watch out world, here I come. Let the photoblogging begin...

Sunday, November 21 (Los Angeles) and Monday, November 22 (Ireland), 2004

Photos in chronological order via row, left to right:

Row 1: Miracles of all Strange Miracles - Snow on the far, low hills of Orange the day I left for Ireland (colder in SoCal than in Dublin, odd but true); Thomas and Erika saying goodbye at LAX; Mella the elderly.

Row 2: The Sunset from the window of the Bradley Terminal at LAX; Seatmate Tilly's hands, age 84, folding origami (on her way to visit grandkids in Dublin); the river Boinne on the way to Newgrange.

Row 3: View of Newgrange while waiting for Frank* the Really Smart & Cute Tour Guide to lead us onwards and upwards; Newgrange's two portals and carved kerb stone; walking around the monument.

*Yep, got a crush on Frank, but no pictures. Now where do I find a smart, cute, witty, slightly ascerbic young man in SoCal???

Photo Friday : Reflections

Mon. Nov. 22, 2004, approx. 3pm - The River Boyne as viewed from the Brú na Bóinne walking bridge on the way to Newgrange. The river ran surprisingly fast and calm.