November 2008 Archives

I had the opportunity to handle two Google Android first generation mobile phones today, the T-Mobile G1, and while the shape (form factor) is a bit odd, I did enjoy playing with the user interface much more than any of the iPhones I have tried.

Gasp! Shock! Blasphemy!

Every time I use a friend's iPhone, I am left nonplussed and usually find it to be a bit frustrating of an experience. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I am weird. As with any interface, even learning to use the iPhone takes time. And the truth of the matter is that I am not intrigued enough by the iPhone to want to learn.

The iPhone, as I have detailed out before, has a crappy camera, no video capture, no MMS, and Apple has made it to be a closed sandbox.

For all the claims of the radical innovation and intuitive user interface, I will agree that bringing the metaphor of the web and Apple UI to a mobile device is new and can be delightful to use, but it is not for everyone. I am not the only person I know who has fondled and played with the iPhone and then went and bought another device.

Today I had the opportunity to talk with some folks who perused all the major smart phone options and decided to get the Google / T-Mobile G1 Android phone over the iPhone. After listening to them describe what they wanted and then saw how both of them had hacked/altered the home screen to fit their needs, as well as get a tour of the G1 mobile, I was intrigued.

Yes, the G1 has a crappy camera; yes, there is no video capture; but the UI and the physical handset made more sense to me than any time I have used an iPhone. I did not have to have steps explained to me as I was using it, my hands and mind figured it out. Everytime I use an iPhone, I get stuck and have to ask the owner what to do next - usually this is a question of what to do with the physical handset as I find it too abstracted.

The web browsing experience is good. As good or even better than the iPhone. I ran through a couple of websites that most mobile browsers choke on due to javascript & AJAX and the G1 rendered all the scripts and CSS correctly. Bravo!

What is most exciting to me about the G1 Android phone is that it is open source and one can use python to program it. I like Python. I like mobile python for S60 and will be interested in exploring the Android development platform.

The other two things I liked about the G1 was that it is smaller than the iPhone and I can hold it in one hand without fear of dropping it and it has a physical qwerty keyboard which was easy to use, even easier than the Nokia E71 keyboard.

So, Google, here are my challenges to you:

1) I love open source, but I love unlocked mobiles even better. I am willing to pay the extra for an unlocked phone.

2) Come on, Google, give Nokia, Casio & Sony a run for their money and put a real camera on the G1: at least 5 megapixels or better, with a flash, a quality image sensor chip, and then back it up with the computing power to process the algorithms for great digital camera work.

3) Video capture.

Looking forward to the next iteration of the Google Android phone.

Sun 11.30.08 - Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the last day of November, and the last day of the November NaBloPoMo challenge (3rd Annual).

Fare the well, November. Until next year...

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent.

If you are like me, Advent has little meaning other than a fun little calendar in your childhood of the days in December that you opened a colorful little paper door and there was chocolate or surprise in side. I grew up vaguely Presbyterian. Vaguely.

As a young adult, I found myself at charismatic churches were ritual is of little to no import. Since the 2004 election, I have been allergic to going to church, unless it is an ancient church in the UK or Europe with ritual. Oh, St. Bartholomew's, how I love you.

I still know very little of Advent, about as little as I know of Lent. The seasons of the liturgical calendar are a mystery to me, a mystery that I am somewhat intrigued by until my interior protestant gets in a big fight with my interior anti-authoritarian rebel. Not pretty, I assure you.

If you, like me, are Advent-curious but a little afraid to step out and experience it in an out way, then Ken Collins' Advent Wreath tutorial may be for you.

I have looked at pine wreaths for days at the market trying to determine if I will make the leap away from Calvin and the like and try out a Sunday advent practice starting tomorrow, but I have been unable to commit. I have 2 purple candles and a bunch of beeswax candles, but it seems a bit too heathen for me.

Silly me.

How do you celebrate Advent?

Compliments of the nice folk over at 3 Quarks Daily, late last week I read this article on The Imprinted Brain Theory by Christopher Badcock who writes on the genetic, gender, and environmental causes of mental disorders / diseases such as autism and schizophrenia, or how it may not be nature vs. nuture but nature + nuture.

Badcock breaks down not only genetics and brain development, but also how environmental factors such as good maternal nutrition can contribute to more cases of autism and famine can contribute to more cases of schizophrenia. Also, there is implications in less extreme cases of non-mental disorders such as tendencies to a scientific / rational persuasion versus folks who tend towards intuition, the arts, and faith.

I have been interested in the recent research of the last few years that is showing that one's belief in religion or lack thereof may be influenced by the processing of one's brain. If Badcock's research and theory are found to be correct, then may the decline of religion in developed countries may be a result of increased maternal nutrition and pre-natal care? Before you get all up in your biscuits defending rational secularism or religion, read the article and think about the implications.

Photo of the Taj Hotel and the Gateway to India taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 on 02.19.08 from the Mumbai Harbor.

Thurs 11.27.08 - For 2.5 days in February 2008, I stayed in the Colaba district of Mumbai at the end of the Urbanista Diaries adventure in India. I stayed a little less that 2 blocks from the famed Taj Hotel. I ate a small supper the second night at the upstairs bar at Cafe Leopold. I enjoyed wandering around on foot the southern part of Mumbai.

Most of all, what I did experience of Mumbai made me love it the way I love Los Angeles and London. A big sprawling vibrant world class city. The kind of city, like LA or London, that you either love or hate. After being in Mumbai for 15 minutes, I was deep down happy. It was love on first sight.

Yesterday, my heart went out to Mumbai as the news of the terrorist attacks on the Taj Hotel, the Oberoi, Cafe Leopold, the Jewish Center, and the CS Railway Terminus.

I first heard of the attacks on Twitter when an Indian friend wrote a cryptic anguished tweet, I went to the BBC and saw no news, 10 minutes later there was. The news and crisis has continued to unfold over the course of the last 36 hours, getting worse. And made worse by having been at 3 of the 5 places that have been attacked. And worse for loving the city.

Oh, Mumbai, I am dreadfully sorry. Words are failing me to express the upset.

Thurs 11.27.08 - Driving to Palm Desert to Cousin Lynn's for Thanksgiving. Today was just gorgeous as the last of the storm moved out.

So most of today, I have been singing the chorus to the worship song, "Give Thanks" in my head, "Give thanks to a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks..."

And then I forget the rest of the lyrics.

Today was a seesaw day. I had the opportunity to have an early supper with some old and dear friends - Mike and Kim from Channel Three (CH3) plus Kimm's wife Kelli. I have known and been friends with these folks for over 24 years. It was a blessing to hang out, have a few glasses of wine/beer and some food over good conversation.

But this was deeply weighted by some very bad news I received beforehand.

Therein lies the crux or the paradox of life, the good and the bad many times are entwined. Entwined some times in the same hour. The big challenge for me is how to digest it, what to make of it, and how I will choose to respond to the circumstances of life.

One of the things that I have learned in the last 15 years is how to count my blessings or count the things that I am grateful for, even if very small, each day. Write them down if necessary to make the things that I am thankful for more concrete.

Today, I am thankful for dear friends with whom I have walked the miles with, in good times and in bad and in mundane times. I am also thankful for all the folks who did not get shot today in Mumbai. I am praying that peace will reign today in Mumbai. I am thankful for Scruffy and Belle, even when Scruffy had diarrhea inside in front of folks (oops) this afternoon. I am also thankful for the rain that SoCal received last night.

Rather than go on, I would like to link to Mary Beth Crain's essay in the SOMA journal on "Reasons to Be Grateful":

My great-aunt Lillian was a real pill--a stern spinster-type who made a loud practice of going around doing good and letting everybody know about it. And she was always lecturing you. One of her favorite admonitions was to "Beee grateful!" Whenever she caught you complaining, she'd deliver an unsolicited sermon on everything you had to be thankful for. Unfortunately, she was so sanctimonious about it that all you wanted to do was kill her.

As a result, Aunt Lil and her "Beee grateful!" became a standing family joke. We kids were always going around imitating her. If my brother stubbed his toe and let out an expletive, I'd respond with "Beee grateful! At least you have your toe! There are some people who don't have any feet!" Then we'd all crack up.

Well, it took me about 40 years to realize that Aunt Lil was actually right.

Ms. Crain does not only recommend taking stock of what one is thankful for but also what one is angry at or un-thankful for. She hopes that the thankful list will be longer than the other list.

I think it becomes a spiritual discipline to choose to find more things each day to be thankful for than not. Let's start today and tomorrow to enumerate out our blessings and what we are thankful for and keep doing it each day from here on out.

It is official, Nokia viNe has been released into the wild and is now available for download. This version of Nokia viNe is a mobile geo-path-tracking / photo / video location based mobile app that allows one to create "vines" or "journeys" on one's phone and then upload it to the nokia server to be displayed on the web or via a widget.

Nokia viNe version 1.02 released by Nokia today is for the following Nokia mobiles: the E71, N78 & N79, N82 & N85, and the N95 8GB & N96. I have tried it with my Nokia N95-1 and it won't login to the server and start working, sad this.

I promise to write a new Nokia viNe How To tomorrow that will reflect the changes in the new version that has been released to all. Not only are there some nice improvements and changes to the mobile app since I wrote my tutorial (faster uploads!), but the Nokia viNe web interface has greatly improved.

There are three features I would love to see in the next iteration of the Nokia vine mobile app and web interface:

1) Multiple logins on the mobile app. I currently have two logins and would like to toggle between accounts as to what I upload where.

2) Be able to have finer control of what is public and what is private, not only on Nokia viNe, but also on Sports Tracker and Share on Ovi. I like Flickr & Vox's approach of up to 4 plus levels of privacy to public with: private (only you), Friends & Family, Contacts, and Everyone. At this point, there is no way I can control this from the Nokia viNe mobile app, nor from the web interface. Given that Nokia viNe is a location based service this is extra important for trust and safety.

3) Be able to determine in my account settings if I want my photos or video to be able to be downloaded once they are up on the Nokia viNe site. Right now, I have no control, which as a beta tester over the last 2+ months didn't bother me, but over time it will. Flickr allows me to set who I want to be able to download my photos (none, family, friends, friends & family, contacts, and everyone). This is important for trust and copyright.

Overall, I would like to say Bravo! to the folks who have been working hard to make both the Nokia viNe mobile app and the web interface.

My other posts on Nokia viNe:
The Nokia viNe Promo Video is Cute & Funny!
Nokia viNe How To Tutorial (The Alpha Version)
Nokia Nseries Widget or Why Nokia Really Needs a Good Internal Communication System
Batteries for Ricky
Nokia's (life) viNe

Tues 11.25.08 - This afternoon, my Mom and I drove down to the Laguna Art Museum to see the William Wendt exhibition, which is entitled, "In Nature's Temple: The Life and Art of William Wendt".

While some of Wendt's paintings were a bit too landscape-y and verging on the academic, many of them were delightful and a few were transformational. Almost all of the paintings in the exhibition were from his California days (1901 - 1930s) and they represented a California that is now gone or at least highly developed over.

For all of the wide, open landscapes, sycamore and eucalyptus trees as figures, and canyons turned majestic, I loved his approach to color the most: greyed out greens and darks that were purple, as they were the colors of California when she is cloaked in glory. And in that glory is how Wendt portrayed her. A glory that can only now be found in glimpses, if one takes the time to go hiking in the hills or up a canyon and one diverts one's eyes from the stuccoed McMansions on the ridgeline.

A docent overheard us talking about one of the paintings, and asked how we knew so much about painting and the California Impressionist era. I explained that I was the 5th generation of artist along my mother's line and that my mother's grandmother (great-grandma Rachel) dabbled in the California Impressionist style in a few of her paintings dating from 1910 - 1925 and that we still have the paintings in the family. I grew up with looking at those small paintings and we as a few others that my mom and grandmother have by other artists of the genre.

It is a genre I like and possibly love, as the California Impressionists were not painting in the vein of the American Romantics or Hudson Valley School or even the Ash Can School, but were taking queues from the innovations coming out of France and then applying the plein-air, loose marked strokes to the California that they saw.

Some of the best of the paintings we saw today could only have been painted in California, all while one could see the cues that Wendt had taken from Cezanne's Provencal period as well as a few tips from the Les Nabis. As we stood in directly in front of Wendt's work, most of the paintings dissolved into marks and colors, but when we backed up 15 to 20 feet, the paintings would look refined and defined, much like may Impressionist and post-Impressionist pieces.

Cues from the French or not, the true glory of the Wendt show at the Laguna Art Museum is the vibrant views of a California gone by. At times, I giggled at some of the works, "Look, Pacific Coast Highway as a one-lane dirt road." "Hey, when did Aliso Creek ever have that much water in it?" "This painting looks like the grand view of Santiago Creek and its Sycamores" etc.

A celebration of Los Angeles and Orange Counties long before the current blight of stucco and strip malls.

Ok, so I have failed the last 3 days to write something substantial in the morning for my NaBloPoMo challenge to myself. I am writing but...

Due to the headache and the nearness to the midnight hour, you all will be getting a few tidbits out of me.

1) The new Nokia viNe update for alpha/beta testers, Nokia viNe 1.02 (11/20/08 release) is FAST! Yay! Instead of the upload time taking forever, my 5 photos of this evening's sunset went so fast that I thought viNe was lying to me when it announced the upload was done. But it wasn't, all my photos were up on my Sports Tracker account and up at the nseries.com Nokia viNe flash viewing thingy. Yay!

The Nokia viNe 1.0 was supposed to be released to the wild last week, but they have delayed it and I will let you know when it is out.

2) As for MOCA's economic failure and near collapse of the institution, I have a few things to say. I bent Tammy's ear about tonight, but it can be all summed up in the fact that I think they have been way to rock star-y high brow about the contemporary art they were showing and did not really interact with the community over the last decade.

The Hammer museum has done a *great* job of involving the community by putting on annual group best of shows (best LA MFA graduates, best of LA young artists, etc), as well as having lectures and other community events that draw folks in. I would love it if MOCA were to have a best of LA young artists or best of Downtown artists or best of east side taggers or best LA mid-career artists that haven't had a one person show yet. Etc. etc. etc.

MOCA, I would rather drive downtown to see great local events at either your Main MOCA space or at the Geffen then drive to Westwood. Give me a reason to care about you. Give me a reason to want to participate. The Hammer does. The Getty does. So, why don't you?

The LA Times' art critic, Christopher Knight, has an Open Letter to MOCA.

Not really. Today was my day to get a lot of little things done. To finish up the pieces. To tie up all the strands. While I got a lot done, I did not complete everything on my to do list.

Let's cross our fingers that it can happen by tomorrow. In the meantime, I am off to bed.

'Night.

Sun 11.23.08 - File this screenshot, taken today at 5:38pm, under "Fun with Dashboard" or "How Mac OS X Keeps Me Amused in Little Ways".

I would also like to point out how SoCal is *supposed* to get some real weather on Tuesday in the form of rain. Yay!

Anyone who has known me for any length of time, knows that I am not a big movie person and that I eschew TV completely. Due to the lack of TV, unless I rent a DVD and watch it on my computer, I don't see movies.

But this last year, in an effort to join the rest of the human race, well - at least be up on some movies, I got a Netflix subscription to be able to watch some of the films that I have missed out in the last 25 years of luddite behavior. I have mostly received a movie or two a month from Netflix of which are either art house movies of the last two decades or movies of Jane Austin books or adaptions thereof.

Tonight, after the movie sat on a shelf since August unopened, I watched Mira Nair's "Mississippi Masala". I love Mira Nair films, esp. "The Namesake" and "Mississippi Masala", as well as lighter fair such as "Monsoon Wedding". Mira Nair hits the mixture of family, displacement, life changes, tradition vs. modernity, and identity on the head in her movies.

I have spent most of my life in Southern California, born here to folks who have been in SoCal for 3-5 generations. For all of my living in SoCal for most of my life, I come from a long line, on both sides, of folks with itchy feet. Folks who move frequently, both in&out of California and within California. Folks who travel. Folks for whom settling is really something that other people do. Even though we keep leaving, we always come back to California in one way or another. I love this big, crazy sprawled out cities within the city / metro area with all the people in the world who have also made this city their home.

While I love Los Angeles, I have always felt not of this place. I love the land fiercely, but am also fiercely frustrated by the transient nature of this space which causes folks to abuse it so badly or attempt to mold it into what they had before they moved here. I have spent most of my life not feeling like I match any of the majority cultures or sub-cultures.

As a short, brown haired, brown eyed woman in a region that celebrates the blond beach bunny or blonde starlet du jour, I have felt culturally displaced most of my life. Did I mention that by and large, I dislike Hollywood? Maybe it is my dislike of the stereotypes that Hollywood pushes out to the rest of the world that makes me so fiercely reject watching or consuming their products. More than just maybe.

Most of my Netflix watching this last year has been British, Italian, or Indian films or films made by British, Italian or Indian folk who live in other places. Not so odd that.

What I like about Mira Nair films, is while they celebrate the Indian expatriate or migrant experience, she also keenly shows us characters that are trying to navigate cultural spaces that are not always home. Ms. Nair's films focus on the experience of characters who are navigating the waters of cultural otherness all the while they are fighting for their own space in that place and discovering their identity between two worlds.

When I watch a Mira Nair film brings into sharp focus a question that I ask myself almost every day, really where is home?

I haven't found it, yet, I yearn for home with all my heart.

Sat 11.22.08 - Very amusing window dressing at a hair salon on Main St. I love the juxtaposition of Nick Notle's DUI police photo with Chairman Mao, George Washington, James Brown and Michael Jackson. The question my Mom and I had upon viewing this tableaux, is who is the fellow on the far left?

When I was very young I was a serious early bird, popping up each day around 5:30am and going to bed by 8pm. My best hours of energy and alertful-ness was between 5:30am and 10am. As I aged into teen-twenties-hood, my body clock flipped where my best hours were in the evening and I struggled to wake up any time before 8am, even for school.

Now as an adult, I find that I like to go to bed around midnight and I wake up, depending on the light & the situation, between 6:30am and 9am. When I wake up, I am usually up and peppy. Sometimes I wake up wanting to sing, and I do.

Over the years, my energy levels have somehow melded between my childhood early bird and my teen-twenties late bird. In the last few years, I have lots of energy and concentration from 7am to noon and then again 5pm to 9/10pm. Even more interesting, to me, is that I do my best writing in the mornings and my best designing/coding in the evenings. Afternoons are a bit of a loss for any task of concentration other than talking and reading.

When I was writing my masters thesis, I did my draft writing in the mornings, my further research/reading in the afternoon, and my rewriting in the evening, with insertions of 15-30 minute procrastination/fun breaks at odd times.

I have a list of things that I want to write "longish", thoughtful blog posts about, but I keep telling myself that I can't blog until I have finished my allotted work for the day/evening. If I let myself blog when I am most "on" for writing, I feel guilty, as if I am cheating a client or myself or some schoolmarm in the sky. If I do like I have done for the last week and wait until after 10pm to blog, I know I have a whole *real* post in me, but I can't concentrate long enough to do anything other than vaguely think of the title of the topic and certainly I have not been able to write about it.

I can write about writing late at night. I can write about funny stuff or what happened that day. But if I want to write about, flesh out, and make a good argument for an idea or larger essay, well that is morning work.

I need to get over my blogging vs. real work guilt complex and start allowing myself two hours every morning or at least four mornings a week to write out all the big ideas in my head. Starting tomorrow. Maybe Sunday...

A few weeks ago my brother went to a funereal of a fellow* we both knew in high school. At said event, another fellow that we had gone to junior and senior high school asked after me. When my brother reported that so&so asked after me, I was very surprised.

Me: "Really, he asked after me?"
Joe: "Yes, he did."
Me: "But he was SO mean to me in school and even at our 10 year reunion."
Joe: "Well, I guess he got over himself."
Me: ((disbelief))

Fast forward to this evening's family pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner** with the family. Me, wearing my favorite pink sweater and a pair of comfy (read roomy) black jeans.

My Aunt: "I love your sweater... Have you lost weight?"
Me: Looks down at said comfy/room pants and pulls out waistband to show lots of room. "No"
Aunt: "But you look like you have lost weight!"
Me: nonplussed, "No, I just like these jeans because they are roomy."
Aunt: "Oh, with your figure you must always have room at the waist." (Aunt is not being a witchy here, she is just referring to the fact that my figure is hour-glass and modern fitting jeans never fit).
Me: "I am used to pants not fitting, it has been this way for years, nearly 30 years now."
Aunt: "You are over yourself now."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, 40 years old must be the official demarcation line, not between youth and middle age, but between being full of oneself and being over oneself.

Notes:
div class="note"* Somehow a fairly simple procedure descended into MRSA-flesh-eating-bacteria-dead-at-39.
** At my mother's mother's house and conducted because we are all going to separate places on Thanksgiving.

Wed 11.20.08 - At the family pre-Thanksgiving party: Dana, Anne, and my mom - Sue.

From 37 Signal's blog, Signal vs. Noise, comes the question:

Now that Jerry Yang is out as Yahoo CEO, what would you do if you became the next Yahoo CEO? How would you turn Yahoo around?

The 8th commenter down, Super B, replies:

"Immediately hire someone named Jerry Yin, and everything will turn around..."

I will admit that I have a photography problem. In any given week, I will take over 200 photos and if the day contains a good event or if I am out and about, I can take up to 100 photos in a day.

Most days, per reviewing my iPhoto install, I will take between 10 - 20 photos or more. It has been my goal the last few years to take at least a photo everyday and then to post, usually via moblogging directly from my camera phone to this website, everyday.

There are a few days every month where I don't take a single photo. At all. Usually the no photos days are a day where I am chained to my computer working and I am too involved in said project to go out and about or even to remember to take a photo. Or if I do take a photo, it is a dud that involves the interior of my house or my dog. Y'all have seen enought photos of Scruffy.

Today, I have been wrapped up in finishing a website redesign. I thought that I should take the Nokia N82 with me when I went to the store, but I by accident left it on the charger at home. I did see two very extraordinary California Pelicans flying close to the car, that if I had the mobile camera phone with me, I would have a photo for you all today. But I left it at home.

Due to absent mindedness, I didn't take a pelican photo. A good mobile camera phone, like a Nokia Nseries, always at hand is essential to my daily photo workflow, but if I forget to take it with me... well, it becomes a day with out a photo.

I hate that word/phrase. It is vaguely insulting and has airs of superiority from the person who utters it or types it.

Normob is a shortened catch phrase for "Normal Mobile" or the average mobile user, to indicate that the person one is speaking of is not of the heightened level of knowledge and superior usage of a mobile phone or device as the speaker / typer.

I am calling bullshit on this.

Get off your high horse. There is not some special tier for mobile tech bloggers and folks who stand in line to get the first edition of any given high end mobile phone, other than the tier known as fanboi*. Fanboi does not equal superiority. Fanboi equals passion and extraordinary desire to dig deep into one's wallet for the newest, latest, and greatest, frequently.

Just because your mom, your boss, your neighbor has the free phone with the monthly plan/tariff does not make them worthy of a derisory term like normob. It just means they have other priorities.

I have a friend who runs a literacy project in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa, and she *loves*loves*loves* Nokia phones. She loves how reliable they are, how they will keep working no matter what, how they can be used as a flashlight. No, she is not talking about an Nseries or Eseries phone, she is talking about the cheapest, most reliable phones that can be bought by the folks in Freetown, of which model number I have no idea what it is. So, are she and all the folks in Freetown "normobs"?

No. They are using mobile devices to the fullest extent of the ability of their budget, their local networks, and it suits them well. This is good.

Is my mom a "normob"?

No. She loves her Nokia N82. She loves the photos she can take. She likes to moblog her photos to her Vox blog. Can she use most of the other features on her N82? Mmmm... mostly not, not due to stupidity or normality but due to the fact that she wanted a phone that was also a very good camera. Those are the features what she wants from a mobile besides the ability to make phone calls.

Dear Mobile Bloggers and Journalists, let's drop the word "normob", to use it is snotty and below you, unless you would like to use it about yourself. There is no distinction between you and the folks worldwide who love their mobiles for very different reasons and ways from the way you do.

Sun 11.16.08 - Today I set my alarm clock to wake me up at 8am (on a Sunday!) so that I could meet up with Julie Wanda, Jessica B, and their friend Beth at Julie Wanda's house in Orange, so that we could drive up to the Shriner's Auditorium near USC in Los Angeles for the Felt Club.

There was a huge line around the building and parking structure a good half-hour before the event even started and once we got in it took rigorous, organization to be able to see all the booths and not get too separated. I went along, not because I was planning on shopping, but to see a bit of the world that many of my friends love - crafting - and have the time to hang out with and talk to Julie Wanda, which was worth it. After 3 hours of the zaniness that was a couple of thousand folk milling around the Shriner's, I was ready to get the heck out of dodge and have some lunch.

All in all it was very good to see the amazing creativity of the folks who are involved in the alt-craft / alt-art scenes. My favorite booth was the Nifer Fahrion felted elf ladies, super cool nifnaks and the Nifer elf gals were also super cool. Julie Wanda bought one of the black & white flower brooches to wear with her conservative work suits as a sprucer-upper.

Jessica was very excited to buy two squirrel prints from the Berkley Illustration, which were super cute and subversive all at the same time.

While very crowded, the Felt Club was fun browsing and great people watching.

Sat 11.15.08 - Santa Ana Winds + Fire = Fire Season

Wonder Twins... Activate!

Unlike the Wonder Twins, my memory for what I wanted to blog about today has not activated with a fist bump between my brain and typing fingers.

All week, when in the car or or walking the dogs or otherwise equally far away from my laptop, I kept thinking up long, involved blog posts on life, the world, politics, and the universe. But when I returned to my laptop with time to write, after 10:30pm, all these lovely and grand ideas had fled, leaving only remnants or contrails of what they could have been.

Instead, I can only remember to write about stuff that is indiscreet* or inconsequential** or of no interest to anyone but me***.

Thus, you have no in depth analysis of mobile, world events, politics, or the farts of small dogs****. Sorry folks, maybe tomorrow.

Notes:
div class="note"* Boy Oh Boy, did the Brohas next door ever have a Boy-to-Boy conversation yesterday. I will not write it down, but they were loud, right next to my window, and did I EVER here more than I wanted to. Not even @constantine could be as indiscreet and crude if he tried on one of his post-prandial jaiku posts!
** Scruffy is starting to achieve his I-haven't-been-bathed-in-a-week-and-I-smell-like-a-drunken-sailor-who-has-peed-on-himself-one-too-many-times smell. Time for a bath tomorrow.
*** Need to write a filter for all emails from a certain client who loves to use the ALL CAPS KEY AND NO PUNCTUATION ALL THE WHILE TRYING TO CONDUCT A BUSINESS COMMUNICATION. The filter I want to write would reduce the whole email to small caps, as at least that would be easier to read.
**** Ever since I switched Scruffy & Belle to the all natural, no gluten of any sort, Precise lamb & rice for adult dogs, there have been No Farts. Miracle. Thanks, Precise, you rock!

I have always had rosy cheeks. I sunburn easily. I windburn easily. I blush easily. If I eat something I am allergic to, everyone notices within minutes, as my face & neck turn bright red (or in the case of canola oil a violent purple-red). If I go skiing or in freezing weather, my nose rivals Rudolph's. I have such sensitive skin that it is very difficult to find skin products that don't make me break out, burn, itch, crack, etc.

But in the last year, I have moved from low level manageable facial skin troubles to outright Jen's face skin v. Jen. Yes, war. Actually, it is rosacea.

I have spent most of my life joking about my pink-piglet Scotch-Irish skin. It is no longer a joke. I am over the burning and itching. I am over spending in excess of $150 for sensitive skin product lines to find that a month or two into using it that my redness, burning, itching, and red bumps that aren't acne are worse from using said skin care line.

This summer the situation worsened due to the fact that I found my skin rejecting every sunblock I tried all the while the redness and bumps were aggravated by the sun. Yes, I live in the land of the perpetual sunshine, but my teenaged tactic of avoiding the day and going out at night really is not workable as an fairly responsible adult.

Another interesting bit that I found in my research this week is that rosacea is common amongst folks with migraines (both are a neuro-sensitivity response) and folks with migraines tend to have either IBS or celiacs disease. Ding ding ding.

I have all three. And my rosacea is worse on my right side, which is the side that I tend to get most of my migraines. Upon reading all of this, I was in tears and wanted to trade in my body for a better model, not just one free of sensitivities and auto-immune attacks but also a taller body. Thank you very much.

I know my triggers - sun, cold, hot, skin care products, sun block, canola oil, some wines, diet coke (oh, my beloved), among a few others. I try to eliminate what I can, but I do like to go out & about in the day.

And on Monday, I have an appointment with my dermatologist to talk about possible treatment. I can't do the pill form antibiotics nor the accutane nor the retin-A that is the normal course of treatment due to allergies and other sensitivities. Many other folks with rosacea who have written online about their struggles with the condition say that photo derm / photofacials have worked where other treatments have not.

One friend and one family member with the same level of irritation that I am now experiencing have gotten the photo facial treatments to good results - not just a reduction of rosacea redness & bumps but also of irritation and burning. Both are active in sports and are out in the California sun without much trouble now they have gotten the photo facial treatment.

Have you had problems with rosacea? If so, what have you done to help alleviate the symptoms? Has anyone here gotten some photo facial treatments for rosacea? Has it worked?

Wed 11.12.08 - I have truly enjoyed using the Nokia viNe mobile app the last two months and the word on the streets is that it will be released into the wilds this week.

This should be fun to see how it has been refined from the testing stage. Looking forward to seeing the released mobile app later this week.

Do watch the video above as it is cute, funny, and a great use of flash, animation, dog walking and Nokia viNing... I don't know anyone who ever walks their do while they are running Nokia viNe... ;oD

I may have invited y'all before, but the Seal Beach art | music | writing salon meets once every two months for a night of art, music, and poetry/reading - and drinking & snacking & talking. It really is a mishmash of folk from all over SoCal and from a variety of creative disciplines. This Saturday is the 1 year anniversary and they are moving the location to Dan Callis' new studio on Marina Dr. Come join us, it will be fun.

What: The Seal Beach Salon's First Anniversary
When: Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008
Time: Starts at 6pm, ends at 10pm.
Where: 700 1/2 Marina Drive* at Dan Callis' new studio (just back from the corner of Marina & PCH, in the yard behind the flower shop & plumber that are on PCH in the same building) - Google Map
Who: Filmmakers Hobo Soul will be showing their film in an RV, Dan Callis will be having an Open Studio, poet Aaron Belz will be giving a reading, and Avi Buffalo and Band will be performing.

Bring: Yourself, friends, and beverage of choice.

Come and join us in Seal Beach on Saturday evening.

While the news has been doom and gloom about the economy in recent months, and specifically this last 6 weeks, I have not noticed much change in my immediate world other than a few small signs. Bizarrely enough, clients still need web work done and are paying on time. Only one of my friend's has lost a job and it was in a vulnerable industry (construction). So far, knock on wood, the financial crisis has been an abstract explosion many thousands of miles away that has made my stock portfolio crash significantly.

The only major change I have had to make is that I *was* planning, for months if not for over a year, to depart in two days to London for the Future of Mobile 2008 conference and my yearly trip to a northern place to experience a real autumn. Unfortunately, due to said financial crisis, the place I had stored my funds for this trip is now only worth 1/3 the amount I saved for the trip. So rather than cashing in on my air miles and hying off to London on the 13th, I am staying home. I am jealous that many of my friends will be in London next week and I will be at home in Seal Beach. Grumpily staying home.

The one thing that has effected my world in the last six months is that the Credit Union I have belonged to for over eight years is starting to behave a bit erratically after years of stellar service. First odd to do was that they redesigned their website for the much uglier in the spring. I called up a friend who also has an account with them and said, "Yikes! What do you think of _________'s new website?" "Yuck. I hate the yellow, red, and blue." She thought it was ugly, too.

Then in late spring, early summer they changed their name for the worse.

In June, a bizarre event occurred where for no reason whatsoever the credit union decided to but a "security hold" on a largish client check that I had deposited about a week before all my automatic payments were to hit my account. They held the deposit for over 2 weeks causing all my payments to bounce. Then to make matters worse, they decided that I had attempted to fraud them with a bad check. Except the check wasn't bad. It cleared with no problem, though it took another two weeks before I could convince the credit union that it had cleared. They had no explanation and decided to blame me. Very very very odd and very frustrating.

Mid-summer I received a letter informing me that the Credit Union was closing all business accounts to focus on personal accounts and that we had until Sept. 15th to move to a commercial bank for business accounts. Hello?!??!???

Up until the name change and the mortage crisis, my Credit Union has been a dream for me. They believed in my fledgling web design business back during the last crunch and helped me get started in 2001 & 2002. They were great when I was in Ireland for graduate school and made it very easy to do all my banking online from Dublin. When I returned from graduate school and had barely got my business back online, the Credit Union gave me an auto loan for my Prius with no questions asked. I have been faithful back to them by paying my debts on time and putting my savings at the Credit Union.

Thus, the increasingly small erratic behaviors since the summer have been more keenly felt.

After the closure of the business accounts, I moved my business account to a large commercial bank of which at the beginning of every month, I have to transfer money from the commercial bank to my Credit Union to make sure I cover my automatic payments. As the credit crisis has progressed this fall, I have noticed that the large commercial bank has honored all of my client's checks within a day or two but when I transfer monies to the credit union it will take 3-5 days to be actionable on my account. Not just a few times but every time since September.

This is a problem. Items are bouncing or not clearing, even though I put monies in up to a week beforehand. I am getting phone calls from unhappy creditors. I am unhappy. And I am surprised that my highly rated, 1937-founded, locally large Credit Union is being stingy, holding funds beyond what is necessary, and treating all comers as if they are out to do the Credit Union wrong. This is not why I signed up with them in the first place.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that I will need to have three accounts: a business account, a personal checking, and a personal savings at the large commercial bank just to get my monthly personal financial business done until the credit crunch eases and the Credit Union decides that they are going to go back to behaving like a real credit union and not like a scared grinch.

Come on Wall Street and the Banking System, let's get the system moving and stopping panicking. That goes for you, too. People, stop panicking. Let's get moving. Forward.

Intertubes Technology - For Men Only : Once again the Web 2.0 conference sparks controversy for the lack of women speakers. You know it is bad when it is men who notice it and blog about it. Hello Web 2.0, innovative thinking and great web creativity is not exclusive to male geeks.

How to Grow Rice in Your Garden

8 Ways to Help Your MacBook Battery Last as Long as It Can

Sun 11.09.08 - For various reasons, my local Whole Foods market is the worst store in the chain in SoCal, I won't go into all of it, but let's just say 2 things on the matter : stock & employee morale. It is not fun to shop at a market where one gets guff from the checkers & baggers about one's purchase choice and general bad attitude. On the stock issue, even before it switched from Wild Oats to Whole Foods, it has been hard to convince this local (was Wild Oats, now) Whole Foods to carry items that would be of interest to folks with multiple food allergies. Thanks for the gluten-free bread you carry, but Glutino is corn & yeast full, how about carrying a lot more of the gluten-free, yeast-free rice bread that sells out very quickly, obviously I am NOT the only customer who buys it*.

Thus due to the idiocy of the local Whole Foods employees and purchasing/stock management, I find myself driving at least 2 times a month to south Huntington Beach to the Mother's Market to purchase a much wider and deeper range of gluten-free, yeast-free, dairy-free, egg-free, canola-evil-oil-free, and corn-free items. My local Whole Foods is less than a mile away, the closest Mother's Market has been over 30 minutes away.

No longer, the genius' at Mother's have decided to do battle against the corporate bloat that Whole Foods has become and they have opened a branch in Santa Ana, that is technically farther away from me but is actually much easier to get to due to easy freeway access. All hail the nice Mother's Market folk.

Now, our family of food allergy sufferers has been frequenting the original Mother's Market health food store mothership in Costa Mesa since the early 1980s when we were first diagnosed. I am over the top excited that Mother's is expanding and is now in a lovely big store in Santa Ana, just across the street from the Westfield Main Place Mall on Main St, just north of the 5 fwy and just south of the 22. Great location, big wide aisles (all the other MM stores have very crunched aisles due to trying to fit as much stock as possible into a small store), and a great selection that far outstrips the average Whole Foods in the variety department.

Whole Foods only real distinctives over Mother's has been their butcher & fresh meat, wine department, and multiple locations. This new Mother's is the first store that has a good selection of packaged meats and not just frozen meats. Yes, there is no wine, but I can go to BevMo. What Mother's lacks in meat & wine, they more than make up for in vegan, raw, allergy-free, and just plain selection of multiple brands of local or health food over the ever increasing corporate organic banality that is Whole Foods.

Here is an example of what I am talking about, beyond gluten-free bread choice: My local Whole Foods only carries one brand of Japanese styled nori and seaweed products, only one brand. The BIG problem with that one brand is that it is grown & produced/made in China. HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! Wake up Whole Foods! I don't care what you say, you need, if you want to retain your indy/organic/wholefood reputation to provide a non-Chinese grown/made brand. I don't care if you have had an organic certification on the brand, HELLO! China is poisoning its own children in the name of profit.

Whole Foods did you test the nori and the water that it is grown in to make sure it is pollution free? HELLO! Now Mother's Market, even in their tiny-ish, cramped Huntington Beach store, has a selection of 4 Nori brands of which 1 is made in Japan and 1 in Canada. Whole Foods in a huge store only offers one brand made in a country which is terribly polluted and has crooked producers that add plastic additives to extend food. Nice, how marvelously whole food of them.

I want more than a label that says "Organic", I want to see that the company and the individual stores are putting thought into their purchasing decisions. It has become more and more obvious that Whole Foods is buying in bulk at the corporate level and not thinking about why they started the Whole Foods stores for in the late 1960s/early 1970s in Austin for in the first place. Additionally, I would like to go to my local Whole Foods and think that the employee type folks I interact with care enough to remember what customers want and do more than mock me, yes I have been mocked for my purchases more than once, when I get to the check out counter.

Dear Whole Foods, get your act together. Remember your roots. Do something about employee morale and attitude, while you are at it, please train your lovely college-aged employees on why insulting customers is bad and why folks would want to shop at your store.

Dear Mother's Market, thanks for staying independent and expanding into Santa Ana. Thanks for still hiring dreadlocked, tattoo'd vegan kids** rather than well-scrubbed college kids, cause vegan kids understand odd diets and don't mock. You rock.

Notes:
div class="note"* The obnoxious, bad attitude employees always say to me when I inquire, "It just sells so fast." Me, "Why not carry more of it then if it is so popular?" WF employee, (brain explodes), "ahhhh.... Well, you should check back next week." Idiot. How to sell groceries in an upscale, speciality store & keep your job => keep popular items in stock. And furthermore, be nice to the customer who is merely making a request.
** Much like you can tell a good restaurant by who works there, a good health food store should always have an employee ratio of 60% vegan/hippy/punk/crusties/tattoo'd folk over straight/clean/oblivious folk. The local Whole Foods when it was Wild Oats had a good ratio, but with the advent of the Whole Foods takeover, the vegan/raw/hippy/crusties have fled leaving cranky CSULB students as employees. Damn folks, its Long Beach, y'all should be able to find a vegan, LGBT, crusty somewhere in town... And the fact that you can't only puts the final nail into your corporate coffin. Or at least demonstrates the incompetence of the store manager***.
*** Who by the way has the worst attitude of all the employees at the Long Beach Whole Foods.
</rant>

Either I have a box or two of books that are lost up in the further, black widow guarded, reaches of the loft in my brother's garage or the box(es) are propping up furniture in my storage room, but I am missing books.

A box or two of books that I did not find the last 3 times I have scoured the loft, side sheds, and back shed at my brother's for my books. A box or two of books that I have not found the last two times I took everything out of my storage room, except some of the big furniture in the back.

I have been having an itch to start at the beginning of the Charles de Lint Newford Series and work my way all the way through, as I have all the books and have read most of them at least 3 times before. I keep thinking of the the stories and having bits reverberate in my head, so it is time to re-read all the way through the Newford (loosely termed) series.

I know that "Spirits in the Wires" is currently visiting on Thomas Bertling's bookshelf and another 4 are here at my house, but where are the rest?

There are a minimum of 12 novels & story collections, not including the young adult books, in the Newford series that should be living in one of six bookcases in my apartment but aren't.

I can't have loaned that many out. So a box of books must be hiding from me. It must. I hope they are findable, somewhere. Must drag out the big ladder and go through the loft again in mid-winter when the spiders are in semi-hibernation.

Sat 11.08.08 - One of the delightful bits of Dog Beach at Huntington Beach is at low tide there is a layer of glittering fool's gold on top of the standard issue beach sand in the inter-tidal zone.

Be it mica or pyrite, the inter-tidal zone glitters and shimmies as the water pulses in and out with the waves. Scruffy, who previously hated water, has learned this past summer to love running in the low tide zone.

Fri 11.07.08 - We celebrated Scruffy's 5th birthday at Dog Beach this morning.

Today I am going to combine my photo and text of the day into one post rather than two.

So, Mr. Scruffy McDoglet was born five years ago today in North Carolina, whether to a reputable Maltese breeder or to a puppy farm- we don't know, but he was the runt of the litter with a few "defects" that precludes him from being AKC. The truth of the matter is that is doesn't matter because Scruffy McDoglet is the best.

Scruffy is so full of personality, gumption, and pure sheer bloody mindedness, it doesn't matter that he has thin hair and too many skin spots. Who cares if he doesn't match some ideal that the AKC has set for pure-bred Maltese, as he is perfect as he is. I can't imagine him being smaller, more hairfull, and dumber.

Scruffy has truly been a joy and after growing up with lots of dogs, he is the first dog that I have truly grown attached to.

Happy Birthday to the best 12 lb bundle of squirmy, poopy, running, barking, sleeping joy!

Usually, I don't mind the time change in late October. Ever since I was a little kid, I have liked it getting dark early. It seems mysterious and different for SoCa, which is BRIGHT and sunny all the time all day and all evening, whereas now the long shadows start at 3:30pm rather than 7pm and it is getting dark at 5pm rather than 8pm (in high summer). Basically, standard time is a nice break.

Except this year. I am not adjusting to the time change well. In the past I have only needed a day to adjust to the fall standard time, if that. But here I am 4.5 days later and instead of fully adjusted to the new time, my internal scheduling department decided to move to Texas, as I am ready to do everything 2 hours before the normal time.

Instead of waking up at 7am, I am bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am (waaaaaa??????).
Instead of lunch at noon or 1pm, I am ravenously hungry at 10am, even if I just ate breakfast at 8am.
And worst of all, by 9:30pm, I ready to fall over in sleep.

This is just not right. I am the lady who stays up until midnight or 1am as the quiet of the evening is my best work time. I have been forcing myself to stay up until 11pm at the least, but then when I pop up at 5am...eeeek! Not good.

If I am going to have a 2 hour offset of jet lag, I would at least like to have gone on a trip, not stayed at home.

Today, my dear friend George Kelly wrote on Twitter:

"California voters who voted for Obama and voted yes on Proposition 8: I need to hear you explain why."

I do know at least one voter who was passionate about both voting for Barak Obama and voting Yes on Prop 8. This person is an immediate family member.

After all of the conversations that I had with this person about why we were both going to vote for Obama, it was a shock last Sunday evening at dinner to find that this person was going to vote Yes on Prop 8. At the time, I felt betrayed and we talked about the Bible vs. discrimination and true love. My sister kindly brought up that we should not be burdening the State Constitution with non-structural/non-governmental moral issues.

But the person remained steadfast that it would be wrong for a Christian to vote No on Prop 8. I held my tongue after I made my arguments and walked away from dinner quite disappointed. A couple of days later, I had a long talk with Erika about the subject, as we are both Christians who were voting No on Prop 8.

Here's my stance: I have wanted to get married since I was a little girl. I had hoped for years to find a man to love, to have, and hold who would also want the same with me in return. An equal in intellect, faith, reason, reading and passion for life to make a life with and have a family with. I now stand before you at age 40 and somehow by the roll of the dice of life, I have yet to meet such a man. I have yet to fall in love. I have yet to get married. I have yet to have children. And it breaks my heart.

Given this, I can not any way or fashion deny another human the desire to marry their one true love, I am too much of a romantic to do such a thing. I have for years joked that it is everyone's right to get married, get a mortgage, and grow boring together. Everyone's right.

Not just the right of the ultra-more-perfect-than-thou Biolan's I went to college with who not only were virgins at marriage, but many of them were saving their first kiss for the wedding*. Not just the right of the folks who met their one true love and married them right away just after high school. Not just the right of middle class people from undivorced, unbroken homes**. Not just the right of the righteous.

Are you righteous? Are you really that perfect? Judge not, unless ye be judged.

Tue 11.04.08 - Jackie and Alex on Election Night.

Since I choose to live without a TV, I am "watching" the online election results until 6:30pm when I go out for drinks with Judy and other friends, whereupon, I will start watching the mobile web results.

Here are the most entertaining results, commentary, and stories:

Twitter (I recommend watching Skeskali's feed as she has took the day off from work, is on west coast time, and has started drinking Jack & Coke. Her tweets should get good in about an hour, as drunk tweeting is the best.)

The Daily Dish : Andrew Sullivan has been hitting the ballpark home all day with notes from his readers and links to other stories.

Making Light - Bruce Schneier
is guest posting as the election progresses.

FiveThirtyEight - a blog that is bringing the various polls together in a statistical manner.

There is also the Daily Kos map.

Various News Networks: CNN | BBC | MSNBC | LA Times | NY Times | The Guardian | NPR

And if you need a good laugh, Stewart & Colbert's Indecision 2008.

California's polls are open for another 2.25 hours, so if you haven't voted, get thee to your polling station.

Tomorrow I will be voting in person at my local polling station. I did not vote by mail or via early voting in any one of the places that one could vote early in my county.

Early this morning on twitter, Dan Benjamin asked:

"For those of you who are voting but haven't yet (neither early or absentee) I ask you: why? Is it the in-person/on-the-day thing?"

A bit later this morning I replied:

"@danbenjamin it is for me the vote in person at the poll experience."

And just a couple of hours ago, I tweeted to the world:

"Tomorrow is going to be a circus, so I am going to line up to vote at the local poll at 4pm w/ camera & notepad in hand, then go to Walt's."

I spend all day and most evenings in my apartment on my computer both for a living and for the pure, shear joy of my love for the internet. I, the borderline introvert/extrovert who needs both a couple hours every day to myself & time with folks, have had quite enough of being all by my lonesome and doing things "virtually".

Early on in my freelance web design / development career, I discovered that the best way to keep from going completely nuts with feelings of isolation was to spend my mornings, when I had social energy built up, doing errands and then go out to lunch, and then to spend my afternoons and evenings working*.

To counter all this on the computer time, I have made sure that I talk to friends on the phone (not IM) or get together with them in person frequently, as well as attend all manner of fun community events - from the mundane (botany) to the cool (concerts) to the bizarre (house movings & demolitions) to professional events (SXSW and other conferences**) - in person and experience them with all of my senses and all of my person.

The very idea of even more time online or diverting communal activities in real life so that I have more time to "work" or be with my family is rather bizarre and revolting to me. Humans, be we introverts or extroverts, are social creatures. Getting out and about, even if only on a occasion is good. Different folk have differing needs for social activity, but I do think it is important that we gather together as a community more than once every four years or so.

Much as been lamented about the decline of civil involvement and civility, much has also been lamented about the decline of community involvement and the like. I get it if you don't want to go to church/mosque/temple/whatever & teach Friday/Saturday/Sunday school on top of attending every other event on the docket. Neither do I. Or if after a long day of work or school, plus commitments to your family & friends, that you don't have a lot of time to volunteer or attend civil / community forums every week. But I think it is important to get out and about and involved in the greater community, however you define it, at least a couple of times a month.

There is a good reason that we humans have, regardless of culture or religion, a wide range and a rich tradition of gathering together for festivals, holidays, elections, fairs, games, and sports. In these events, we bond in community and build culture.

I am not going to miss the community and spectacle that will be the election tomorrow. I want to go to my new polling place in Seal Beach, The Little Church (whereas our previous elections have been held in a living room on 15th Street). I want to stand in line. I want to participate in my community. I want to have a chat with the folks I know from our mutual dog walking. I want to be inconvenienced. I want to experience this once in a lifetime election viscerally, not virtually.

Notes:
div class="note"* If you have clients who have a strict 8am - 5pm schedule, it drives them nuts that I don't get to my "desk" until 1pm at the earliest (one savvy client copped on to me and started calling me before he went to bed at 11pm to discuss what was needed before 8am the next morning).

** Much has been made recently about virtual conferences, saving the planet, reducing your carbon footprint (ie not flying), and attending conferences virtually. Did I mention that folks say that it is environmentally unhealthy to travel to conferences?

Ah... I don't want to go into a long rant about carbon counting as the new puritanism, but folks, if you are already living in a good to moderate environmentally aware lifestyle*** then attending an in person conference or two or three per year will not kill any polar bears. The whole point of a conference is to convene with other human beings.

For all of the pro-polar bear smugness that can warm the cockles of the neo-enviro-puritan heart, I can't get into the virtual conference experience. I recently was given a pass (thanks, Andy!) to attend the <head> conference. Basically, I didn't like it. The speakers were good to great, but beh.

It was not a community event, it was a virtual event. Aral & Stephanie did an incredible job putting the whole thing together, of which I aplaud them for, but I really did not like the virtual conference attendance. If I am going to sit for multiple hours nicely and listen then I want the pay off of 15 minutes of socializing with real humans in between each speaker, not chatting on an im/irc/chat interface. bah.

Maybe if I had been at one of the in person, in real life hubs, I would have liked the head conference better. But maybe not, the very essence of humans from a variety of walks of life all coming together and the random meetings that occur in a real-life/meatspace conference can't be replaced by the online experience. The only time that I can see this working for folks is if they are deep introverts for whom a regular conference is fraught with social peril and upset.

*** In case you are doubting my enviro-cred, while I am NOT a neo-enviro-puritan and I do have Hanen-Anti-Authoritarian rebellion issues****, I do my part to not buy into and live out the American Consumption Dream. I live in an 224 sq. apartment of which I neither run heat nor A/C, I own and drive a Prius, the meat in my freezer is locally raised by my cousin (grass-fed & no anti-biotics) and butchered locally, I buy local produce year around (w00t SoCal!), I recycle, etc.

**** My brother also has Hanen-Anti-Authoritarian rebellion issues and as a result is so sick of the neo-enviro-puritans that he goes out of his way to be as un-enviro-friendly as possible. This raises up another issue that I need to blog about, remind me to do so, but that the environment movement needs to get off its high horse and make it fun. At best, religion has proven that you are lucky to get anywhere between 10-20% of folk truly believing in a puritan movement (pick any historical movement of your choice) who may then bully the other 80-90% of the population into complying, but not for long. If we are to really and truly environmentally save the planet we need to take a moderate diet & exercise style plan that allows for occasional cheating and good dollops of fun.

The Great Hack by Heather Gold (a complimentary parody of Sarah Silverman). Heather encourages us geeks to open source marriage.

And for further argument, Anil Dash's excellent blog post, "In Defense of Marriage."

If you are over 18 and a citizen of the U.S., vote tomorrow.

In my last 1.5 years of university and the first year of being out in the big world, I purchased quite a few household items. I belong to the set of folk who would rather spend good money for objects that will last, rather than the purchase objects for as cheaply as possible at Walmart/Ikea/Target/Costco and then discarded a few years later when the object is unusable.

To that end, most of what I purchased in that time period, I still use daily 18-15 years later. My towels, my kitchen knives, my dishes, my Reed&Barton flatware, my Chantel blue enameled cookware, etc, etc, etc.

In the last year, I have noticed that my towels, which are lovely and don't shed, are starting to fray. My good Gerber knives are now, even though I take them to be professionally sharpened, starting to have dings and dips in the blade and small rust spots are forming, although those are attacked with Bon Ami. My lifetime guaranteed Chantel enameled pans have a few dings in them, also with some spider cracks in the enamel.

Everything is still very usable and in good condition, but I will have to replace the towels soon unless I like having frayed towels hanging in my bathroom and getting stuck in the washer. I don't mind the idea of upgrading my knife set to Wüsthof or the like, but I do mind having to buy new towels.

New towels, no matter if you buy the cheap ones at Target or the more expensive ones at Macy's, shed. They shed all over you when you are drying yourself. They shed when washed. Shedding of the new towels lasts for up to a year, though declining after each wash & dry.

New towel lint is more pernicious than Black Lab fur scattered around the house. I wish there were pre-washed, lint-free, 100% cotton bath towels available for sale.

Now I could only get an upgrade on the gray hairs that are breeding like rabbits on my head... I suppose I will shortly be forced to dye all my hair purple.

;o)

I am throwing my textual hat into the ring for the November (traditional month) National Blog Post Month.

Yes, I know, I have been blogging (or moblogging) daily to this space for the whole year so far as a part of the Blog 365 challenge for 2008. So how will participating in NaBloPoMo be any different?

My daily blogging for the year has been a combined photo / text effort and for the month of November, on top of my usual mobile photo blogging, I will challenge myself to write a text post of some sort each day.

Here it goes.

Rabbit Rabbit!