joygantic

No Idle Hands

Sally, fondue savior, is blogging.

City of Glass

We've just returned from a weekend getaway in Vancouver to celebrate our birthdays.  We aggregated the kindness or our fabulous parents (time share points from Dia's folks, cash money from mine) to spend the weekend in a one bedroom apartment in the Canadian sky.

On the face of it, we didn't do too much.  We had a fabulous Friday dinner at Bin 941, which is in my Top 10 places to enjoy a meal.  Yesterday involved a quest for the new Huruki Murakami novel and the Bin 941/942 cookbook, and a rainy day spent hanging out in our plush pad.  Rather than go out we watched movies and drank wine and ate food we bought within a two block radius of our abode. 

It may not sound like a spectacular weekend in a city but to us it was perfect.  Vancouver is one of the six cities on our list os "places we'd like to live for an extended time that aren't Seattle," the others being Amsterdam, San Francisco, Manhattan, Chicago, and London.

This was our second Vancouver weekend in three months and kinda felt like a test run of being there for awhile.  When we were in Amsterdam last year we spent a week playing house on a houseboat, buying our provisions, getting to know each block of the surrounding neighborhoods, and I think this is our travel M.O.  We've each done the breakneck, ride the rails, gobble-up-as-much-of-a-country-as-you-can-in-a-week thing multiple times.  Now, I guess, we've started to ripen as individuals who have seen enough surfaces to know that we want some depth, where "depth" means being in a place for more than a bit. 

Slap Happy

One of the beautiful things about new technologies is watching the way they predictably produce (a) unintended and unimagined effects and (b) outrages and panics about (a).

The latest evidence of this rule is "happy slapping" and the report comes to us from The Scotsman:

Head teachers have banned children from using video phones to stop them slapping other pupils in the face and recording the attacks on their mobiles.

The violent new craze among teenagers – dubbed “happy slapping” – has been plaguing commuters on trains and buses in London.

Yikes.  Must be serious.  Or just a slow news day and a cranky headmaster.  Either way I'm sure that this story will be making the rounds.
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Update: Boing Boing has this important breaking news story. Let me make it clear that getting slapped and filmed by a stranger would of course suck, but the impulse to ban technologies, particularly increasingly ubiquitous ones, is just stupid.

Cranking

I had a few things I was going to post about, but I'm just beat and have an early start to my day tomorrow before I fly back to Seattle tomorrow night.  But I'm pumped.  Getting into a very happy and productive work groove with plenty of air pockets for the rest of my life.  This is a good thing.  I'm really stunned at how quickly a bunch of people who didn't really know each other have come together at the startup to make shit happen.  It feels great and we're doing really well, zooming ahead of any expectation I had when I joined in November.  Today's been work from about 6am to 10pm, but it's fun stuff, engaging, and I'll be knocking off early Friday so Dia and I can start our weekend in Vancouver Friday evening.  Wheeeee!

Based on the Evidence I'd Say "Divider"

I'm just loving this CNN headline:

Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider

Hopping on a Plane

I'm flying to San Francisco early tomorrow for work and coming back Thursday night.  I've gone almost three months without a business trip.  I'm infrequent travel will shortly change, but it's been a complete delight to hang around Seattle for so long (interrupted only by a great vacation weekend in Vancouver and a delightful holiday week in California).  I feel decidedly less transient, which is good.

1st Night Out

Well I thin my first stint as quizmaster for the Belltown Pizza trivia night was a success.  There was an iPod meltdown (with full recovery) during the music round and a few ambiguous questions that resulted in scoring leniancy, but overall things were grand.

I'm a bit surprised that what I though to be the easiest round ("Fashion & Clothing") was the hardest and the round I presumed to be the hardest ("A River Runs Through it") was the easiest.   I'm proud of the fact that I included an "MLK & Civil Rights" round, though I was disappointed that so few people knew, among other things, that LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But that's why I labor: to entertain and enlighten urbanite lushes for two hours every Monday.

Whoa.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Matt is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. 

But that's not important.  What is important is that you go to his website chronicling  recent round-the-world exploits and download his dancing video.  It will provide you with much happiness.

Tragedy for Clan Destino

I wrote yesterday that I'd driven past the town of La Concita, where ten people were killed this week in mudslides, many times without knowing it. 

It turns out I also must have walked past at one of the people  killed in the slide, Charlie Womack, many times without knowing it.  Charlie was one of the pillars of Clan Destino a gorgeous Burning Man camp that was right down the street from us this year.  Seven of the ten people killed in the mudslide were part of or friends of this group.  Here's a picture which puts the horror in sharp relief. 

There are funerals to pay for, kids who need homes, and lives needing rebuilding.  Donations are being accepted via PayPal.

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