My Archives: June 2005

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Jack has a pair of kilt socks, bought at the Tartan Thistle, that have developed holes after just a few wearings. So I have committed to reparing them since this item isn't readily available around here. Clear instructions and photos are here from Holly Schatz.

Hmmm, these socks aren't that expensive. But I'll try to darn them anyway.

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Posted by Anita @ 09:14 PM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Next Tuesday, July 5, it's the East Side Weblog Meetup! Start time is 7 pm, location is Crossroads Mall food court, between the stage and the big chessboard, 15600 NE 8TH Street, Bellevue, WA 98008 (Google map). Look for the sign! Weblog folks and weblog-curious who live and/or work on the East side are invited.

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Posted by Anita @ 04:17 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Andr00 is back to updating his "real" journal (he also has a livejournal and invented the hug counter thingy) with cool dead-pan entries (me and Andr00). He's had lots of dental work lately and has noticed the tech advancements in dentistry today: "The technological range from dentist to dentist is extreme. The most expensive thing I buy this year will be care for my mouth. The clinics are all state-of-the art. Digital X-rays, air abrasion, man I've never even heard of 'intentional reimplantation,' but my endodontist is familiar with it. And then at the other end of the range IN THE SAME DOWNTOWN BUILDING it's like the damn flintstones, pile of little metal hooks and a mechanical chair."

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Posted by Anita @ 04:20 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Monday, June 27, 2005

We saw the subtitled version of Howl's Moving Castle last week. Due to the kindness of our friend Kate Schaefer, Jack and I actually got to see it together! We both enjoyed it. Jack is a big Miyazaki fan, and I like his stuff also. There are a lot of differences from the book, more than I remembered even though I think I re-read it last year.

I'd read the beginning of Mely's LJ essay before seeing the movie. Of course, once I read the full entry and the comments after the movie, I was agreeing with it -- "I wished Miyazaki had kept less of the story if he wasn't intending to keep more. Without Jones' setup and themes, the presence of Sophie's (step)mother and (half-)sister doesn't make sense; neither does the flower-shop. Howl's assertion that he's a coward isn't borne out by any of his actions. The slimy temper tantrum is a marvelous set-piece that doesn't seem to have anything to do with war-wounded hero Howl."

More links via Mely:

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Posted by Anita @ 04:59 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Clarion West is boot camp for aspiring science fiction writers (or fantasy, or speculative fiction). It happens every summer here in Seattle, each week a different instructor. The public side of this is that each instructor does a public reading, Tuesday evenings, 7:30 at the Science Fiction Museum (four bucks, well worth it). The semi-public side is a party every Friday night for Clarion West supporters, students, and alumni.

Last night we attended the first party in the series, hosted by Jerry and Suzle. My favorite moment was watching our grandson who listened and watched very attentively while Jack played his Martin backpacker guitar and another party guest joined in on harmonica, playing cross-harp.

This year's slate of instructors:

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Posted by Anita @ 05:36 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Thursday, June 23, 2005

I won't be at Gnomedex to see Julie Leung speak, but I can read her delicious quotes marked gnomedexquotejleung. This is like seeing the ppt slides with no notes -- I can imagine what she might say in relation to various websites. (There will be live audio streaming plus mucho podcasts, so maybe I can tune in Saturday morning.)

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Posted by Anita @ 04:27 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Today is Jack's birthday! Through a friend's kindness we'll be able to go see Howl's Moving Castle tonight, sans grandson.

I wrote a journal entry dedicated to Jack's birthday when we'd been going out about a year. I still feel the same way. What a great guy! "he cooks for me; he doesn't mind that I don't debate with him as much as he'd like, but is appreciative when I do try to give him a good discussion on whatever topic is going around and around in his head; he is dedicated and devoted as a parent, but also makes me feel important to him; he lets me know he finds me attractive, just as I think he's very magnetic."

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Posted by Anita @ 04:58 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Monday, June 20, 2005

The Redmond Arts Council is putting on a series of free concerts, locations here. I think we'll enjoy the Smilin' Scandinavians July 27!

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Posted by Anita @ 04:47 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Wow, the local strawberries that Larry's Market is selling this year are great! There's a daily report on the website for exact time of delivery. I was too early the first few days this week, but arrived around noon on Thursday and the strawberries had arrived from Puyallup to the Redmond store. Field to store in one day! Plus I had a postcard for free Devonshire "creme." Two more days for this promotion -- check it out, the strawberries were so sweet and red all the way.

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Posted by Anita @ 07:01 AM PST [Link]

The MAKE Blog linked to Sean Ragan's page on building a chair out of Coroplast herbalife signs or political signs. I was reminded of Rob of cockeyed.com who uses these signs for art projects. Sean has a lot of ideas and projects on his site. I especially liked the puzzle table (might be good for our grandson). The Bookrate is also cool; Sean, like me, has long admired the Nomadic Furniture books.

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Posted by Anita @ 03:31 AM PST [Link]

Friday, June 17, 2005

I saw a sidebar about salad bar hacking in the first issue of Make magazine, but the only link was to a PDF written by Chinese developer Shen Hongrui. Googling the words got me to this Boing Boing entry from last December. Salad bar hacking is the art (science? it's engineering, after all) of building layers of salad bar ingredients so as to get the absolute most food for your money (when you only get one trip to the salad bar). Check this photoset for examples.

The topic amuses me because Jack talked to me about this and gave a demo on our first date way back when!

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Posted by Anita @ 04:52 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Super-bad traffic and being low on gas meant that I arrived at the meetup about a half-hour after the official start time (and an hour and a half after I prefer to get there due to NPS -- neurotic promptness syndrome). People were sitting at the small tables lined up along the rear wall of the deli area at Ralph's -- not the best arrangement! So I did some tweaking of the tables, comfy chairs, and potted trees in the middle of the room and encouraged folks to move around during the gathering. They took my herding instincts in good part. We had around twenty folks present, with two small children. The kitty donations did well enough to cover this month and next, with a tip for the staff at Ralph's.

Those attending (did I miss anyone?):

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Posted by Anita @ 04:54 AM PST [Link]

Gah! I just closed the window where I was previewing my meetup report, after about a half-hour's work. Now I have to recreate a few paragraphs and the list of attendees. Phooey!

Posted by Anita @ 04:24 AM PST [Link]

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I enjoyed Scott Beale's Laughing Squid entry and photo set about the Henry Ford Museum. Jack and I visited there a few years ago (back when he was working in Michigan) specifically to see the Dymaxion House. There is a ton of other stuff there; we'd have spent much longer if it had been possible.

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Posted by Anita @ 04:30 AM PST [Link]

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Adam Lasnik (a never-met dance buddy) talks about dance plateaus. He's felt burned out on the lindy scene, but occasional great dances keep him coming back. "I've thought about just calling the whole swing/blues thing quits again a lot lately, but then every once in a while (apparently just often enough) I have such a wonderful dance and I just have this humungous grin on my face and I'll go home happy, vowing to stick with it all. From a an acquaintance of mine who gushed 'That's the best dance I had all night!' to other wonderful follows who literally run up to me to catch a dance... it's just hard to throw it all away."

It's been way too long since I've been dancing. I just get more tired in the evenings now! But I never felt burned out on the dance.

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Posted by Anita @ 04:55 AM PST [Link]

Monday, June 13, 2005

The funniest thing I've seen for a while was Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Michael Jackson trial (I confess we didn't get it from ifilm). We had to watch it twice because Jack was laughing so much that there were parts we couldn't hear! There's a photo on Yahoo of Triumph interviewing some French Jackson fans. But my favorite bit was when the woman in the clown suit refused to be interviewed -- she doesn't talk to dogs. Triumph: "Yeah, I wouldn't want to compromise your dignity."

Smigel, the dog's creator, is so brilliant! The Suicide Girls interviewed him about the Triumph DVD. "There was another issue with Triumph because we didn't make that puppet. My wife bought it for me at this odd country furniture and animal puppet store. It was just something that she saw and it was so realistic looking that she knew I would go crazy for it. In fact she bought me ten puppets of different dog breeds, a seal and a sheep some of whom have had sex with Triumph. Then by the time they wanted to start milking the Triumph cow they had to deal with the complication of not knowing who created this puppet. The company went out of business years ago. They researched it far enough to find out that the mold had been broken and they had no idea who had a claim on the puppet."

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Posted by Anita @ 05:29 AM PST [Link]

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Adam Barr of Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters likes having two guest chairs in his office at MS. So he has to go through some machinations to make that happen, when the office moves come around and the form for the movers seems to allow only one such chair. "Now I did have two guest chairs in my old office. I had also had two guest chairs in my office two offices ago, and when we did that move (last November), I snuck one of the guest chairs home so I could bring it back once the coast was clear (the movers are around for a couple of days after the move is done, double-checking office setups and whatnot). But, lo and behold when I was setting up my new office last November, I found a guest chair in the hall, so I grabbed that one, and was back to two guest chairs."

When I was contracting I used a knee chair, so I brought my own into the office. I actually have two: one for home use, and one in the garage to be used again when I am working away from home someday.

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Posted by Anita @ 08:14 AM PST [Link]

When Jack showed me his post about the anti-nanotech protestors, I laughed out loud! He ends up with a great rant about what he'd say if actually confronted with such a demonstration. "I would rush home, put on my Nano-Tex pants, and go right up to the protesters. 'You'd better back away,' I'd say. 'I'm wearing nanopants!' Then I'd turn around and shake my butt at them. 'Nanopants! And they are going to eat all your yogurt!' "

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Posted by Anita @ 04:14 AM PST [Link]

Friday, June 10, 2005

Next Wednesday, June 15 2005 at 7:00 PM, it's the Seattle Weblog Meetup! Location is our usual spot, Ralph's Grocery and Deli at 2035 4th Ave in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood (info, map). Food, drink, and free wi-fi available -- you can buy stuff in the grocery area and bring it into the deli, too. Look for our sign in the deli area. Parking can be tight but I usually get a spot on Sixth. You don't have to be a Meetup.com member to attend, but if you join I can contact you about any last-minute changes (these are rare).

What happens at the Meetup? Local weblog folks (and often some visitors) chat, eat, and drink. Conversation topics are tech and non-tech. See you there!

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Posted by Anita @ 04:45 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, June 9, 2005

I haven't gone to the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) for the past few years, but I'm still subscribed to the Fool Serious mailing list. I've enjoyed doing a full series pass at SIFF for a long time! Getting into the movie zone, doing hardly anything else during that time, comparing notes with other pass-holders and not having to choose which movie to attend ahead of time -- bliss! This Seattle PI story is a fair profile -- "Fools for SIFF: Nothing gets between them and film festival."

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Posted by Anita @ 03:36 AM PST [Link]

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

We had fun at the East Side Weblog Meetup last night, the first time it happened under the auspices of the Seattle Weblog Meetup. Tommy Williams, Eric Haddock, Julia, and Jack were there, with Garrett Fitzgerald making a spur-of-the-moment appearance. His daughters had a lot of fun tickling grandson R----- and keeping him entertained, which I appreciated greatly!

Science fiction and blogging turned out to be the topics of the night. Besides talk about Star Wars, Clarion West, and Jack's purchase of the latest John Varley novel, I tried to think of blogs that I'd call required reading for sf fans. My list included Making Light, Cheryl Morgan and Emerald City. There are a ton of blogs written by science fiction authors, but they are usually more about the process of writing than about science fiction.

We also talked about tagging technorati-stylee. You might have noticed I've been doing this but it hasn't worked yet. But Jack has no trouble getting his tags picked up by Technorati! It's a mystery.

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Posted by Anita @ 04:53 AM PST [Link]

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Jeff Youngstrom at Mad Times is talking about carlessness and his transportation choices. He lives a few miles from his work, near Issaquah's downtown. "The point I want to make is that none of these factors just happened. They were choices we made. People say to me 'oh that's nice that you live close enough to work that you can bike' as if it's some kind of fluke."

He and his wife don't own a car, but they do use cars sometimes. I especially like that they occasionally borrow a car from someone who uses the park and ride lot during the day -- a friend of theirs, they don't randomly hotwire a car.

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Posted by Anita @ 03:54 AM PST [Link]

Says Steve Bogart at Now This, "Looks like I picked the wrong year to give up weblogging." He's got a test post up. Steve started blogging back in 1998 or earlier.

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Posted by Anita @ 03:23 AM PST [Link]

Monday, June 6, 2005

Manuel details what he brings along when he does his tech support house calls. He includes anti-spyware, anti-virus, various apps and utilities, network tools, and service pack installers in his bag of tricks. Best-named tool? Crap Cleaner!

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Posted by Anita @ 07:10 AM PST [Link]

Saturday, June 4, 2005

We are off today to have fun at the (Warning! Sound on page!) Bellingham Highland Games. They've got it all here -- bands, dancing, highland cattle, beer, and more. We've attended before but I apparently didn't write about it. This trip plus Vanguard tonight (monthly sf fannish social) will make a full day, indeed.

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Posted by Anita @ 05:06 AM PST [Link]

Friday, June 3, 2005

The other day Jack took the car to work, so grandson R----- and I set off on a bus expedition. I looked at the list of buses that come to the Overlake Transit Center, and saw that the 245 to Kirkland was coming by shortly. We made it to the stop in time (I felt bad about urging R---- to get there quickly, but waiting a half-hour would have been worse).

I was pleased to see when the bus pulled into Kirkland that Wednesday was the day of the Farmers Market there! (Seems obvious since the formal name is Kirkland Wednesday Market, but I hadn't heard about it.) We walked through on our way to to the waterfront, and I decided to check it out in more detail on the way back.

We had fun looking at the boats (Argosy's MV Kirkland, a 110' original 1924 wooden hull ferry, was notable) and R----- dabbled his feet in the chilly water at the beach -- his shorts only got wet on the bottom four inches or so. We ran around on the grass and under the large gazebo.

On the way back I encountered something I'd never heard of before: pedestrian flags at crosswalks. There are racks attached to the crosswalk signs at various places in downtown Kirkland, and you are encouraged to take a bright orange flag and signal the cars as you attempt to cross. This worked a treat! A Washington Post article describes the experience of using the flags for the first time. "The orange-flag idea was born in 1996 in Kirkland, Wash., a Seattle suburb, after a boy who was a crossing guard at his elementary school was hit by a car. From Kirkland, the program has spread to municipalities in at least 13 states. Flags wave in Portland, Maine, St. Paul, Minn., Madison, Wis., Cambridge, Mass., and Salt Lake City."

One drawback to the program: people tended to steal the flags when they were first introduced. What did they want to do with them? In one city they found the flags being used at construction sites.

We went home from the market with a bag of cherries, first of the season!

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Posted by Anita @ 05:05 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, June 2, 2005

This weblog doesn't have a tagline. Jack likes to change his every week! Right now he says, "It's like a joke without the punchline..." Jack, are your previous taglines archived somewhere?

Vaspers the Grate (aka Steven Streight) thinks they are very important! "SUGGESTION: I strongly urge every blogger to use a tagline on your blog. It can give your blog that little extra edge of clarification or intrigue that could prevent a first-time reader from leaving your site, due to not seeing any personal relevance."

He's posted a list of around 59 different tag lines from real blogs (some blogs rotate through a number of tag lines) and asked folks to pick their favorites, or comment on whether these examples seem to be doing the job he thinks they should be doing.

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Posted by Anita @ 04:30 AM PST [Link]

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Tuesday, June 7, 7 pm, it's the East Side Weblog Meetup! Location is Crossroads Mall, 15600 NE 8TH Street, Bellevue, WA 98008 (Google map). Look for us between the main area by the stage and the giant chessboard -- there will be a sign. This is the first time the gathering will be under the auspices of the Seattle Weblog Meetup. All weblog folks (or weblog-curious) are invited to attend. You don't have join Meetup.com, but if you do so and RSVP, it will help the group make plans. Lots of good food at Crossroads, and free parking!

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Posted by Anita @ 04:04 AM PST [Link]

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