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Journal TV
Thursday, July 2, 1998 I was back to work today after jury duty yesterday, with a lot of email to work through. Much of it is scan and delete, but not all. It's no longer a slow time at work. Team members are developing samples and demos that need to be on our internal website; there are lots of specifications and documents that need to be integrated into the larger team website; and an intern and I are developing a huge mega-demo to show off many aspects of the product. Add to this the external websites that I write to when an HTML problem on their end causes a problem for IE users, the questions I answer on internal and external mailing lists and newsgroups, and the random questions that come my way because some folks think of me as their contact on the team, and I keep busy! I do prefer things being busy, since I want to keep my job and feel valuable on the team.
Dance class at the Russian Center started up again tonight. I'm glad to be back! The class is intermediate, which means there is quite a range of ability and experience, from those who have been dancing for a long time, to those who just scraped through the beginning class in the previous session. I'd put myself in the middle of this range; I'm not the best dancer in the hall, but I'm not the worst either. "Hep" Jen and "Cat Daddy" Chris had the lesson well planned, with four new steps, plus a disquisition on the importance of keeping eye contact with your partner. I've danced with both of them, and they practice what they preach. Both do a do a lot of fun, unexpected steps, and their partners need to pay attention. Normally, I'd have stayed for the dance after class, but tonight I had to leave, to go be on Wally's TV show for the second time.
I was on "Don't Quote me on This" at the end of April, to promote our Radio-Controlled Art Car Parade. I'm making this event a monthly thing, by the way. At that time Wally had the idea of doing another show, talking about online journals, since there are a number of journalers in the area. I had arranged to give my buddy Bluejack a ride to the show, since I know that he still has no car in Seattle yet, and is staying on the east side. He walked to my place from his uncle's, who lives in my neighborhood. Of course, I was waiting on the sidewalk in front of my building, but I was not tapping my foot! He was only a few minutes late, if that, but I was worried about how long to wait if he didn't show. Then I saw him in the far-off distance, and walked to meet him. We drove north through the twilight to the studio in the North End of Seattle. It's a funky building, a small house attached to a larger warehouse-type of structure. Wally was driving up just at the same time we did, but he sent his co-host David away to get doughnuts immediately. These snacks are required to be on the desk for the show, and normally Wally gets them, but his tire had gone flat on the drive up so he couldn't perform that task. Wally is going through some bad car karma lately. Bluejack pitched in on getting the studio ready for the show, helping to move the backdrop screen, desk, platform and funky couch. We were hoping for some other journalers (Julie had called to offer me a ride earlier in the evening) but the only guests turned out to be Bluejack and me. I had a chance to see myself on camera this time, more than last, so while we waited I tried to find the best ways to sit while on camera. We had lots to talk about; the perennial topics such as why we write, why we write publicly, what about privacy, who would read us. The show seemed to go well, and Wally and I never have a hard time finding things to say. Bluejack insisted that it was fine to drop him at the Montlake bus stop, rather than drive him back to where he's staying, even though it was raining, and I let him convince me. He said the bus he would take drops him off just a block or two from the house. I love journaler meetings! I don't know if Wally's audience understood the point of it all, and I haven't received any email from viewers yet, but at least we got our URLs on TV!
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