Doctor Awesome

Moving along

2007-03-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Part of why updates have been so infrequent on this site is that I've been busy working on a new blog.

You can find that here:

nanaze.com

I intend this to be my new primary blog, so please update your bookmarks and feed readers.

@ SxSW

2007-03-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

I'm at South by Southwest Interactive for the next few days, hoping to glean some insights on the Internets.

If, for some reason, you'd like to get in touch with me here, use that e-mail address over on the left.

Not much

2007-03-02T01:41:00.000-08:00

All sorts of random, yet marginally interesting things to tell you.

Let's suffice with this:

Over the last week, I've fallen in love with Python again.

Anyway, big changes for the site in the pipeline.

Contemplate:

ideas + motivation + time = results

Guess which one is missing (hint: it starts with a 't').

Cheap as free

2007-02-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

From Engadget:
How to nab free T-Mobile WiFi lovin' without running Vista

If you're like me, you've been yawning your way through the release of Windows Vista.

But if there's anything that Microsoft knows, it's marketing. In school, when they would be courting us soon-to-graduate engineers at the job fair, Microsoft had the cool toys. I'd walk over there, talk friendly for a while, and leave with a spider ball. (This is also the method we used to get Halliburton gear. It was so hard to keep a straight face).

This time around, Microsoft and T-Mobile are getting together (perhaps taking advantage of synergies?) and offering this deal:

Get Windows Vista and receive complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service until April 30, 2007

Actually, probably not that bad of a deal.

But how do you figure they authenticate you as a Vista user? Do they give you a special password? Do they run some sort of ActiveX control?

Nope. They check your user agent string. For the non-technical, the user agent string is the little bit of text your browser sends to the webserver to identify what kind of browser it is.

But in many browsers, you can set your user agent string to be whatever you'd like. So if you'd like free wireless at Starbucks for the next three months, just change your user agent (keep a copy so you can switch back too... some sites will send you an actual IE-specific page. I had Gmail problems).

Steps for Firefox:

In the location bar, type about:config
Add an entry under general.useragent.override with string value Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0).
Enjoy free wireless at "thousands of locations nationwide in places you already go like Starbucks coffeehouses, Borders Books & Music stores, FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Centers, select Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, airports, and the airline clubs of American®, Delta, United®, and US Airways®."

Have fun.

Don't wear a Cubs hat

2007-01-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

January 21, 2007

San Francisco, California
High temperature: 62

Madison, Wisconsin
High temperature: 26

San Francisco had gone through a few cold snaps for the last few months, but this last weekend was gorgeous. The SO and I replaced our old weekend morning routine (huddling for warmth with the space header cranked up) for a new one (urban exploration). Walking back from brunch Saturday morning, I pointed to the top of the rocks on top of Corona Heights and said we should climb it someday. The SO suggested doing it right then.

So up we climbed. At the top is the Randall Museum, a children's museum we never even knew existed. We climbed to the top of the hill, to the top of the nearby Buena Vista Park, and then down to the Haight (I'd never actually been inside Amoeba Music. I kind of had to -- I had noticed a Amoeba Music postcard on the wall when we ate breakfast at Cleveland's in Madison).

On Sunday, we took BART to the Embarcadero and hiked up to visit Coit Tower on top of Telegraph Hill (see entry for Coit Tower, O'Reilly invites Al Qaeda to bomb).

I took a few pictures. The view was nice.

We walked back towards BART through North Beach and Chinatown, two neighborhoods we get to infrequently. On my way out the door that morning, I had hastily grabbed a hat. It was a Cubs hat I had sitting around. I should have thought ahead, as I was stopped and asked about Chicago four or five times. I had to explain to people that despite my camera, a fleece jacket, and a Cubs hat, I was not a Midwestern tourist.

Anyway, I've developed a growing interest in walking in San Francisco, and potentially photography.

iRant about the iPhone and the "Apple Shackle"

2007-01-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Doctor Awesome: your source for up-to-the-minute commentary on last week's news.

First of all, today is a made-up-term day. Made-up terms are indicated by ^MUT (you know, for made-up term).

Today's topic: iPhone.
First reading: Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs, New York Times

Okay, he kind of gets it.

Look, OSX is cool, in terms of design, its Unixiness^MUT, and relative openness.

And part of why Apple is able to maintain a really cool operating system as well as a nice suite of first-party software is because they control the hardware. Steve Jobs knows this, and he's known it for years. In the early eighties, Jobs and Jef Raskin fought against expandability in the original Macintosh. Why? Because, quoting Hertzfeld's story, "hardware expandability made it more difficult for third party software writers since they couldn't rely on the consistency of the underlying hardware."

The video game industry is a demonstrative example. While the personal computer was once a popular target for game development, PC gaming languished in this decade. Why? PCs' expandability meant that they're not bound to the generational console cycle — the latest and greatest graphically intensive games were found on PCs with the newest graphics cards. But expandability is also a downfall — there were uncountable hardware combinations and game releases were plagued with bugs on certain pieces of hardware. Teams were developing for a moving target (as well as hardware that didn't exist during development). Not only is this a pain for development, it's a pain for tech support once the game is out the door (think software patches — you would buy a game at the store, install it from CD, and have to download a patch from the web site before you can even play).

Developing for a console, on the other hand, is a clear, static target. Every box is identical. Even Microsoft, the company that attempted to promote the PC as a viable gaming platform with DirectX, eventually jumped into consoles with the Xbox line. If you launch a game for a system, you know that that game will always work for that system.

So this is why, during the keynote, Jobs' "iPhone runs OSX" line got me so excited: a stable, featureful, well-designed hardware target for software development. Look at the thing — it's begging for novel apps: games, VoIP, a document reader, a sketchpad, and other things that I'm sure would be invented by the thousands of creative developers that would play with this in their spare time.

But late in the keynote, the Cingular CEO Stan Sigman comes out on stage, a bumbling dolt reading with a drawl from the cue cards he pulls from his pocket.

Apple had to work with these guys. And that's the problem with the iPhone.

Note two things: we were demoed iPhone versions of some major Apple software products: an iPod app for iTunes, a photo gallery for iPhoto, and a calendar for iCal. What's missing?

iChat. Despite iPhone's massive wireless connectivity and description as a "revolutionary Internet device," you can't communicate with anyone using iChat or any other IM service. Why? Because then you wouldn't use the bundled SMS app, which, of course, requires you to use Cingular's SMS service.

But that would be easy enough to solve by writing an third-party app. And Apple knows that. And so does Cingular. And that's why they won't let you.

Slashdot: No Third-party Apps on iPhone Says Jobs

Opening the iPhone to development would be a threat to Cingular's cellular phone business. The iPhone has all of the hardware necessary to route calls through VoIP. With massive wireless Internet available — see Google's plan to offer 802.11 throughout San Francisco — a VoIP-enabled iPhone user would rarely have to even use a cell tower.

I quote Jobs: "Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."

Bullshit. Cingular doesn't want to see third-party apps because their revenue is tied to their control of an expensive cell network. How do they make sure this doesn't happen? Force Apple to cripple the iPhone.

The iPod and iTunes had FairPlay DRM technologies so that the record companies would be willing to sign on with the iTunes store, even though the technology can be easily circumvented. Similarly, any wireless provider that would sign up with the iPhone would require Apple to take measures to protect its revenue stream.

And that's why the Apple Shackle^MUT is imposed once again (side note: denizens of the blogosphere, please start using that term. I want to coin a net meme like my coworker's Google Bomb. The rest of you — you saw it here first).

Apple needs a partner to get this thing out, and, without any market share, is going to have to make concessions. But I hope that Jobs is stewing about all of this. I hope that Jobs is just making a temporary deal with the devil to gain a market foothold. I hope that Cingular's Glenn Lurie's recent statements (see story: Cingular: We Made Apple Bend) do a tremendous amount to sour the relationship, and Apple bails as soon as possible.

I mean, a geek has to dream.

Until then, you can call me on my barebones Nokia.

Your tax dollars at work

2007-01-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

The SO and I were ambling the Castro yesterday. We stopped by the Eureka Valley Library.

I picked up Nick Hornby's Songbook. One of my work-related resolutions (I'm unsure to label it a New Year's or a fiscal year 2007 first quarter one) is to finally get my C++ to a respectable level (it is, at present, piss poor).

So I went to the card catalog terminal, looking for an good book on the topic. There was one. I clicked on it, looking for it's physical location (please, oh please be here). There wasn't one. It was one of those... e-books.

The UW had a subscription to Safari Books Online, which was nice. As long as you logged in with a campus IP, you had access to all of the Safari books.

But the San Francisco Public Library has a subscription. And you can access the books from your own computer, from home, by typing in your library card number.

Oh, San Francisco. Your government leaders might be squabbling and ineffective, your public schools sub par, and your public transportation sparse and unpunctual.

But kudos on free tech books for the citizenry. Seriously.

Meet the Real Sacha Baron Cohen

2007-01-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

From The Onion's Tolerability Index:

In-character interviews.

Is it admirable that Sacha Baron Cohen refuses to break character, or that World War Z author Max Brooks pretends that zombies are real? Yes. Is it funny? Usually. Is it also annoying to never get real answers? Definitely.

I largely was immune to a large portion of October's Borat media onslaught (not that my precious Times or Economist emerged unscathed).

But ugh. Letterman, Conan, Leno, Regis. The shtick gets old.

Anyway, I was reading Ann Althouse (so you don't have to) and noticed this: From NPR's Fresh Air, an interview with Sacha Baron Cohen.

That's right, not in character. Maybe I could ask him for my ten bucks back.

Not California

2006-12-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a nice two weeks or so of vegging. I've spent most of my time at my parents' house and a few days up near Minocqua, Wisconsin, snowmobiling and skate skiing. I snapped a nice picture back in the woods while on a snowmobile ride.

Snowmobiling is one of my guilty little pleasures. It's a dangerous (see last year's Wisconsin fatality report) and polluting (see Wikipedia. I can sleep a little better knowing that one of our sleds is a four stroke) hobby. In the winter, some Northwoods taverns have more snowmobiles sitting outside than cars.

Still, there's something I enjoy about it. There's no protective cage, like in a sports car, so the sense of speed is that much more present. On Wednesday, on a straightaway, I hit 75 miles per hour — in the past, I've been up to 85 crossing a frozen lake.

The state has a network of trails, both local and semi-arterial (you can ride across the state if there's enough snow to have the trails open). Particularly in the north, the wintertime tourist economy's fate hinges on snowfall accumulation.

We again attempted to mix it with the locals (see last year's Adventures in Small-Town America). Characters haunt the taverns on a Wednesday night.

My other goal has been to get Metal Gear Solid 3 beaten on my brother's Playstation, but it looks like that won't be happening before I fly back.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

(thanks Ben)

Just checking in. I'm in Wisconsin. I went to what could be Favre's last game at Lambeau last night.

The Christmas spirits dumped a good number of inches of snow this afternoon, so I'm happy to get my white Christmas.

Update: From The New York Times: Stultification: How Sweet It Is

Every year I arrive at my parents’ house in Springfield, Va., armed with my healthy self-edifying projects — big leafy Penguin classics, Chomsky-explains-it-all books and a backlog of fortifying magazines. And every year I think I am going to actually read a paragraph of one of these things. But then I walk in the front door, say ‘hi’ to my mom and dad, stand at the kitchen counter and start eating cheese.

more »

Practicing piano

2006-12-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

Camden had been renting a digital piano. I thought this was neat and had been contemplating doing the same thing. But a coworker put his Alesis QS8 up for sale and I bought it.

I hated practicing piano as a kid. It was presented to me as a chore. I didn't understand why I would want to learn. Oh, if I could only go back and talk some sense into my eight-year-old self.

My new year's resolution is to learn to play my favorite piano piece, Debussy's First Arabesque. I haven't been playing piano regularly for a long time (and I was never very good to begin with), so it's like jumping back in the deep end. I've spent the last two nights practicing the first five measures over and over. The song is ABRSM grade 8. It's going to take me a long time.

It makes me think about how Christopher Taylor is a god.

Keeping us safe

2006-12-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

I'm reading the TSA page on permitted and prohibited items in advance of a trip next week.

This was cute. Under Food and Drink, it specifies that you may bring:

Beverages brought from home or purchased before reaching the security checkpoint in a 3 oz. or smaller container and in your quart-size, zip-top plastic bag.

I realize they're saying this to be consistent with their three-ounce rule. But I still chuckle when I think of somebody bringing a three-ounce container of soda. You know, in case they get thirsty.

More DHTML viewer goodness

2006-12-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

Google Patent Search

The seasonal pattern is beginning to look familiar

2006-12-12T23:31:00.000-08:00

I spent the first 23 years of my life under an uninterrupted cycle of cool springs, hot and muggy summers, crisp autumns, and doggedly cold Wisconsin winters. Seasonal variation was more of a general suggestion for Mother Nature to dance around — 70 degree days could easily be followed by 40 degree ones. In six months, you'd watch the temperature plummet from scorching triple digits to numbingly cold double digits below zero.

When I moved to California, my move was a common topic of conversation. One person asked me if I liked the California weather. I contemplated this.

"It's driving me nuts. It's like Groundhog's Day," I said, referring to the movie. "Every day is the same thing. Same temperature, same sky."

Anyway, I hit my one-year mark last summer. Now, entering my second winter, things are starting to repeat themselves. It's starting to rain regularly in San Francisco.

The familiarity of it struck me.

Things that drive me nuts

2006-11-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

What do you think this code will do?

var array = [4,24,8,627,10]; array.sort(); alert(array);

Or, for the laconic among you, alert([4,24,8,627,10].sort());.

Answer:

It will pop up the following window:

Why? Because, by default, sort() sorts things in lexicographic order.

Ugh.

A Flickr tour of my hometown

2006-11-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone gets to missing home. Like last year, I didn't go home for Thanksgiving (I generally take an extended trip back over Christmas).

I don't have many photos of my hometown as it didn't seem all that important to take any while I was living there. But I was browsing through photos on Flickr and thought to look for a Wisconsin Rapids tag. Lo and behold, there are digital cameras in the middle of Wisconsin.

And so, to leech on the work of others, a Flickr tour of my hometown:

McMillan Memorial Library. It's right next to the junior high and, so, kind of an after-school hangout. Parts of Google Page Creator were written in this library.

The Shopko Mall. Notice how the storefronts are empty. The area's stagnant economy and the big-box development in nearby Plover, Stevens Point, and Wausau have gutted a lot of the city's retail. Still going strong: the local Super Wal-Mart. I hear there's a new Home Depot too.

The Little Pink Restaurant. I think it's moved a couple of times, but I remember them having really big and tasty loaves of bread.

The city's economy has always been based on the local paper mill. The old industrial barons would put up big mansions by the river—many of them are still standing and beautiful. They're probably roughly the cost of a San Francisco condo.

Downtown. My high school rock band played the coffee house there a few times. I worked a summer as a software engineer in an office down the street. The office was converted from an old department store that went under.

A wedding at Red Sands Beach. It's a public shelter and, now that I think about it, I remember going to a lot of events in that building—company picnics, school events, triathlons, etc.

I'll be back in a month or so.

Self-Linkage

2006-11-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

I'm, uh, bloglinking myself.

A new way to browse books, The Official Google Blog

Update: Ooh, Ajaxian action.

Run Russ Run

2006-11-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

My mom emailed me this letter from Russ Feingold this morning.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

On Sunday, November 12th in Racine, I will hold my 1000th Listening Session with the people of Wisconsin. Before reaching that milestone, I want you to know that I've decided to continue my role as Wisconsin's Junior Senator in the U.S. Senate and not to seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

more»

It's sad, as Russ is one of the politicians in this world that I genuinely admire. But I think he realizes that a campaign would be quixotic and there are some very strong candidates in the field.

Well, at least I won't have split allegiances anymore.

Brief election thoughts

2006-11-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to see Doyle reelected. Wisconsin's a better place with him serving as a veto check on the Republican legislature.

I'm happy to see that John Gard was beaten. May his career in politics end tonight.

I'm happy the House switched hands. My congresswoman, Nanci Pelosi, is now speaker of the House, the ultimate good ol' boys club. My hometown congressman, Dave Obey, will likely be the head of the Appropriations Committee.

I'm less happy to see the gay marriage ban adopted. I hope to see that ugly smudge on the Wisconsin Constitution removed someday.

All in all, a bittersweet night.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

2006-11-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

No, not Christmas. It's... election season!

I've largely been avoiding the television, but it's hard to ignore the fact that a phonebook's worth of paper has been dropped on our doorstep or hung on our doorknob.

I hate propositions (if only they gave them letters instead of numbers. Then we could vote on Proposition H). There's a reason we have representative democracy—every citizen doesn't have the time to keep sufficently informed to make budget decisions or decide policy. But since the proposition option is there, all sorts of interests try to make biannual end runs around the legislature. I'd like to consider myself a relatively intelligent and informed cititzen, but I don't have an informed opinion on any of them. How am I voting? I'm bringing in a copy of the San Francisco Guardian's editorial endorsements.

And it's not like I'm voting in any competitive races. My House member is Nancy Pelosi, who will likely be the next House Majority Leader. The Governator (a palatible Republican) seems a shoo-in against his weak and unimpressive Democratic challenger Angelides (don't blame me—I voted for Westly). Even my city supervior race seems pretty sewn up.

At least I've been largely spared from robocalls. Not only are they largely ineffective, they strike me as absurdly insincere (see Soglin's rant, Gleemie's link, or the New York Times).

In my book, they rank right above the fake issue surveys I get in the mail:

Would you prefer a) less jobs, b) same number of jobs, c) more jobs?

You picked c? So did our candidate! Give us money! There's an envelope enclosed!

I wouldn't be so cynical if they wouldn't give me such reason to be.

Oh, so you're dressed as Borat, huh? How clever.

2006-11-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

The party follows me, I guess. Madison's Halloween festivities were notoriously rowdy and violent ever since 2002 (when I luckily left the scene a few minutes before getting tear gassed). Soglin had been pooh-poohing the city's efforts this year. But it ended up pretty tame (albiet costly).

Not in my neighborhood, though:

At least 10 shot at massive San Francisco Halloween street party

It happened about a block from my house.

I, gladly, spent very little time outside yesterday, instead tending to our guests that evening. Everyone I know got back safely. Our party was nice. I went as half of Hans and Franz. A guest showed up dressed as me (in flannel, of course). Photos to come.

"I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored."

2006-11-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

-Wayne Campbell

Now that my spat of jet-setting days are behind me, I'm paying the price. My flight back from Madison two weeks ago was grounded because of a flat tire—I got rerouted and missed a day of work. I worked really late the next night in order to make a deadline on Friday. The next day I nearly fell asleep at work a few times, despite sufficient sleep.

Ever since then I've just felt lethargic. I've been working to put in my eight-hour days, but I went home early twice last week.

Of course, I've been scouring Wikipedia ever since trying to self-diagnose, matching symptom lists to my own symptoms. Oooh, swollen lymph nodes—I've got that! Fatigue? Check!

With all this viral stuff, there's so much overlap, a net-enabled hypocondriac can't narrow it down. I could have a bad cold. I could have a upper respiratory infection. I could have mono.

Not that knowing which would be any help—there's nothing I can do about it. It just would be nice to plan the fact that I'll be sick for a while.

I brought it up with a med school friend:

"Give it six more weeks. If it lasts, it was mono."

Excellent.

I am so unhip.

2006-10-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe I shouldn't feel that terrible, but I'm finding that large, stodgy media outlets are more clued into pop culture than I am.

Two cases in point:

From the 'Mist: Google and YouTube - Two kings get together. The title is a reference to the 'Net meme started by the Sean Combs/Burger King announcement (can you say "career twilight?"). Of course, a coworker had to explain this to me.
It's unclear in the Economist article whether or not the writers are hip to the joke, though:
With this deal, “two kings have gotten together,” boasted Mr Hurley in a video clip on YouTube, with his team in stitches over the grandiose language.
It's entirely possible that they're not. They are British.
The Gray Lady had this: A Student’s Video Résumé Gets Attention (Some of It Unwanted).
Read that article. Watch this video:
Start your research: Wikipedia: Aleksey Varner.
Reading about this kid consumed most of my Saturday afternoon. I will, from now on, "ignore the losers."
Yale, I hope, for your reputation's sake, that this kid was a legacy. Lord knows that saves your ass on other embarassing alumni.

Corporate Cheerleading

2006-10-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Forgive me as I indulge in a wee bit of corporate cheerleading.

Google press release:

University of Wisconsin-Madison and Google Make Rich Historical Collection Available Online

As an a) Wisconsin alum and a b) Google Book Search engineer, I'm kind of excited.

In your face, Minnesota.

Update: related linkage:

UW-Madison joins massive Google Book project - news.wisc.edu
Getting started with the University of Wisconsin-Madison - Inside Google Book Search Blog

Sorry to miss you

2006-10-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend will be my last and final trip to Madison. I've been flying back every other weekend for the last six weeks. I've been trying to shoehorn in work and a social life in the remaning time. Blogging, as a result, has gone by the wayside.

So tonight, I thought I'd spend some time with you, my adoring readers.

Only one thing on the docket. The House's sole independent socialist is set to become the Senate's sole independent socialist. From CNN:

Polls: One-man socialist show could open in Senate

I'm not going to Germany

2006-09-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

Link.

While you were away...

2006-09-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty good at keeping up with the New York Times (I'm a site browser, not one of those self-importants that waltzes around with a print copy underarm pretending they could actually make it through that much news on a daily basis—ask Justin about the professor that made them read the entire thing every day. Besides, I have other publications I subscribe to that I can read in public when I want to be intellectually flaunting) , but during the week I spent in the Canadian wilderness, I missed this gem on July 3rd:

Thanks to YouTube Fans, 'Nobody's Watching' May Return From the Dead

I was spending the lazy Sunday morning watching YouTube in bed (why didn't they initially market household wireless as the joy of snuggling up with a Thinkpad?). Nobody's Watching Diet Coke & Mentos was featured, which led me to Nobody's Watching's pilot.

It's a sitcom about two Ohio twentysomethings that spend all of their time watching sitcoms who make a video about how bad modern sitcoms are and send it to a bunch of networks, one of which invites the two of them to fly to California to star on a reality show about them making their own sitcom.

Which is so awesome. And postmodern.

So, for your viewing enjoyment:

Nobody's Watching Part 1
Nobody's Watching Part 2
Nobody's Watching Part 3

Activist hotbeds: Berkeley, San Francisco...

2006-09-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

...and Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, population 18,435.

From my hometown newspaper, the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: Bush question will be on ballot.

The question reads, "Resolved: The U.S. House of Representatives should start an impeachment investigation against President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney now." … The question also will appear on ballots in San Francisco, Cunningham Township, Ill., Champaign City, Ill., Berkeley, Calif., and Pittsville.

Back home.

2006-09-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

From a January post about The Ultimate Madison Bar Tour:

I need to make it back to Mickey's on Williamson.

Mission accomplished. Pete and I patronized Mickey's on Sunday night. I was at work, 2,000 miles away, the next morning.

I'm a jet-setter that flys to Madison, Wisconsin instead of cool Parisian parties.

The reason for the spontaneous trip wasn't joyous—I went to attend the funeral of my great-grandmother. I've been lucky enough to have had my lifespan overlap a significant amount with both of my great-grandmothers. Marcella was the second to pass away.

On the topic of jet setting to Madison, I'll be flying there three times in six weeks. I'm back in two weeks for a wedding and two weeks after that on a business trip.

Gaming the Ranking System

2006-09-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

Recently, in the The Economist:

The ladder of fame

(and, also, an obligatory link to The Onion article: Oooh, Look At Me, I Read The Economist!)

It's a shame that it's one of the "premium content" articles, but it's primarily a critique of the U.S. News & World Report's college rankings. There's one key quote:

Colin Diver, the president of Reed College in Oregon, considers that "rankings create powerful incentives to manipulate data and distort institutional behaviour." A school may game the system by soliciting applications from students who stand no chance of admission, or by leaning on alumni to arrange jobs for graduates.

Keeping with the theme of this blog, let's relate it to my own personal life. Last week, I returned home to find a letter from the UW-Madison School of Business, which I've taken two classes from, but as an economics major, not a business student. It was signed by the school's dean. It began:

You and I have something in common. We both graduated from the UW-Eau Claire Department of Economics, which I understand is now the home of the Flying Pig. I hope your experience at UW-Eau Claire was as good as mine.

...

I believe a Wisconsin MBA can greatly contribute to your success. I feel so strongly about it, in fact, I'm willing to personally cover the cost of your application fee. [emphasis in original]

Set aside the fact that I've never attended UW-Eau Claire (a follow-up letter later apologized for the mixup. The Eau Claire letter was sent to Madison economics alumni). And the fact that I'm about as interested in an MBA as I am in getting pneumonia. And the fact that now I'm very curious about this flying pig business (answer here). Why would they send me such a letter? Why waive the application fee?

I'd like to be self-flattering and assume that they were so impressed by my performance as an undergraduate that they'd like to bring me in to dazzle them with my academic performance, enliven classroom discussion, and eventually leave and make the school proud with my many post-graduation successes.

I, of course, have no intention of doing any of those things, nor, do I believe, do they think I do. It's more that, being part of UW system, the school has access to a lot of alumni information. The letter I received went to plenty of economics major alumni, and I doubt they solely went to those with a high GPA or those who landed particularly prestigious jobs.

Rather, the numbers have something to do with it. The current dean has been credited with rapidly pulling the school up in the rankings lately. Partially, it's been due to specialization to differentiate from powerful generalist schools like Wharton and Harvard (see B-Schools With A Niche).

But soliciting applications is a great trick for boosting numbers. Of course, intuitively, the more applicants you have, the better the pickings when selecting an entering class (boosting the average GPA and test score numbers). But any applicant, regardless of quality, is an asset because, if rejected, it's a boost to that other prestige-linked stat, selectivity.

Maybe I'm too distrustful if their intent, but hey, as the page on the flying pig reads, "good economists should have a healthy skepticism."

I am very angry

2006-08-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

Why did none of you tell me about this?

I should not be an entire month behind pop culture.

Alex, consider this a general shout out. You were into OK Go before OK Go was indie cool.

List of things to do before I die

2006-08-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Item #745: Ride a mustang along the beach and surf of the Pacific Ocean

Check.

I haven't been on a horse since Bible camp as a kid. Two friends of mine (both with significantly more riding experience) brought me along horseback riding north of Point Reyes. I was kind of excited to get back on the horse, so to speak (insert rimshot here). From memories of my childhood, "horseback riding," in my mind, meant "sitting on top of a horse as it walked along slowly." Today I learned that a horse has even more speeds.

I first learned to trot by being thrown in the metaphorical deep end. I learned to ride the trot as a matter of self preservation, or at least to prevent shattering my pelvis.

My trotting skills were to a tolerable level when we reached the beach. We brought the horses out in a line, and the leader took off. My horse, Nikki, had been waiting to tear off for a while and, when he saw the group ahead of us go, bolted down the beach.

Because of the up-and-down movement of the horse in a trot, it's actually harder to ride the trot comfortably than other gaits. My method of how to ride the gallop summarizes to "just hold on, for chrissake."

Anyway, during these fabulous sprints, flying along the shoreline, I was in an absolute rush, fascinated by the experience and simultaneously petrified by the speed and power of the animal. Stones thrown up by the horses in front of me were flying past, and the horse I was on was loving it—he seem to be very annoyed when we had to stop.

All in all, it was one of those memories I'll keep with me for a long time.

Gotta know when to fold 'em

2006-08-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Since everybody except me, the other guy, and the dealer had left (after being eliminated) or fallen asleep by 2:30 in the morning, I had a depressingly few people to gloat to after I won after a five-hour poker marathon last night (crazy long. Eight people took five hours).

But that's why I have you guys. I won!

It's all about life's little pleasures. Like, um, well, gambling, I guess.

Beers at the Big 10

2006-08-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Paul writes (and I add a few hyperlinks in green):

I recall you and I having precisely this conversation over a couple of beers at the Big 10. Though, in my opinion, we came to a slightly more refined (and more consistent) position: That ideally, most laws should be set and enforced at the most local level to which geographical considerations become trivial. For example, laws regarding soil and erosion control are most applicable at the state level or even county level, where the people most familiar with the consequences of such regulation are involved. Soil in Dane County behaves roughly the same as soil in Green County, but not at all similar to soil in, say, Orange County. Laws such those that Soglin discusses were (and are) more appropriate at a federal level. Those conclusions didn't stop us from noting, as Soglin notes, that we're all the same when it comes to exploiting the power we have at whatever level we have it.

I respond:

For the longest time, stances on federalism seemed parts of the party platforms—remember Republicans touting "states' rights?" Why? Because Democrats held the Congress.

But that's bullshit. Federalism is a great principle, but the parties just pick one side or the other depending on what's politically expedient—nothing inherent in either's ideology^* (what is the Democrats' ideology anyway?). Those with policy preferences will pull on every lever they can get their grubby little fingers on (Democrats too, especially now that it's the Blue States vs. Jesusland).

See federal crackdowns (or threatened constitutional amendments) on
State-passed laws permitting medicinal marijuana
Stem cell research
Gay marriage
Gee, how "states' rights." Grubby little fingers everywhere.

* Okay, I admit, that's bullshit too. There's plenty with traditional conservatism that favors sub-federal governments, and keeping the size of government bathtub-drownable, not to mention realist and neoconservative distrust of IGOs. And the further left you go, the more government intervention in the economy, which is almost necessarily done at the federal level. And of course it makes sense that Soglin, as a former mayor of a city with an often antagonistic relationship with the state legislature, is going to tout the importance of city-level autonomy.

Girls' day out!

2006-08-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

A female friend of mine was visiting from the south bay. We were going to go climbing but were too tired from having been out the previous evening, so we ended up just hanging out the whole day, clothes shopping and doing other traditionally non-masculine things.

Anyway, one of the day's adventures was a pedicure.

...

Yeah, a pedicure. Don't laugh.

So I'd write a full entry about the experience, but I figure I could kill two birds with one stone by copying in my Yelp review:

"Okay, first, let me say that "getting a pedicure" is not one of my normal day-to-day activities. My normal activities include "not shaving" or "belching."

But I'm ambling through the Castro with a female friend who, excitedly, decides we're going to get pedicures.

...

So, like I said, I'm not a pedicure guy. "Foot care," in my mind, is associated with "Odor Eaters" or "touch actin' Tenactin." But I'm also a good sport. We find a spa and walk in.

The host was friendly and really smiley. We ask for our pedicures and are led to a pair of chairs in the back. I remove my shoes and socks (my prized Green Bay Packer socks, to be specific). The pedicurist fills a foot bath for me to soak my feet in.

When my feet are good and softened, the pedicurist begins her work (and there's plenty to be done with the monster claws I've developed after years of neglect). The declawing begins. Things are clipped, sanded, scoured, rubbed, lotioned, and massaged. Very disgusting things are dug out. The nearby stylist chuckles at my lost pedicure virginity.

The result? I've been admiring my feet the rest of the weekend. They're very soft, the nails are nicely rounded, and I don't think I could even cut other people when wearing sandals anymore. The whole process cost $25.

I'll be wearing sandals to work a few times this week, and I might even go back for another pedicure in the future.

In fact, as of late, I've started to be disgusted by the hangnails and unsightly cuticles on my fingernails. Perhaps a manicure is in store..."

The Zone

2006-08-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Hola, bloggerinos. Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been in "the zone."

(fading echo: the zone, the zone, the zone, the zone, the zone...)

A perfect storm of deadlines, well restedness, and a capable mental state have, somewhat out of necessity, put me in "the zone."

Programming is a lonely pursuit. Google is a cubicle (and not an office) shop, meaning that, to block out audible distraction, I encase my pretty little ears in a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones. They do a decent amount of outside-sound muffling, but the music also serves as my daily companion.

I passively contemplate lyrics and melodies while staring at code in an emacs window. Almost always, my setup is as such: I have two widescreen LCDs, both oriented vertically, sitting next to each other. I refer to them as the "towers of power."

On the left one is the aforementioned emacs window. It takes up the whole screen and is generally split into two buffers, right down the middle. Normally, one side of the window is the file I'm working on and the other is methods of class I'm calling. Most of my work is in JavaScript, and, as the language doesn't lend itself well to an IDE and as I'm a Wisconsin grad (generally an emacs shop), emacs is the tool of choice, if for familiarity more than anything else.

On the right: a Firefox window, a JavaScript console, a debug window, and a terminal on the bottom. Maybe a DOM inspector or Venkman.

Anyway, the zone had been elusive for a while, but I've again come to encounter the plane of transcendent interconnectedness I've met before (at various times. In college, it used to involve Blind Faith).

The zone is kind of like zoning out while driving—it's not entirely conscious, but, somehow, you have everything in your head at once. You're plugging away, never getting stuck and, days later, you've got a thousand-plus-line changelist staring back at you. Pretty sweet.

That vision thing.

2006-08-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

As a for-all-practical-purposes Democrat, I should be pretty happy. Dub's poll numbers are really low, congressional Republicans have been mired in both scandal and intra-party disagreement, and the war in Iraq is, right now, only slightly more popular than cancer.

The Democrats are starting to look good to the voters. But I'm upset that this is "in comparison" as opposed to "through merit." There's no cohesive message and no leadership.

President Bush (the first one) once quipped about lacking "that vision thing." His predecessor certainly had it—"Morning in America," "The Evil Empire," etc. It painted the world in black and white, but at least it was clear and unmuddled.

The Democrats are totally lacking that vision thing. The nice thing about controlling a branch of government is that you get an official party spokesman with lots of press attention. The highest-ranking Democrat in America? Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a man that comes across as imposing and intimidating as bread. In the House, the minority leader is Nancy Pelosi, who I don't think could even pull off bread. Maybe a baguette.

And I doubt that either one could be picked out of a lineup by an average American.

Now, I'm just looking forward to when, after the fuss of the mid-term 2006 elections is over, we'll start picking the party's presidential nominee. Hopefully, the dust will settle we'll finally have a coherent mouthpiece.

Until then, though, I liken my party affiliation to being a Cubs fan.

Morning music

2006-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Scene: Civic Center transit station
Players: myself, guitar guy, harmonica guy

Guitar guy and harmonica guy are in the underground walkway with a hat for change. Guitar guy is playing and singing some minor key Mexican ballad, v to i, over and over. Decently listenable.

Harmonica guy is adding his own little fills, with a major-key harmonica. I cringe.

Dude. Look at that letter on the side of the harp. Go to a piano. Find that key. Count up nine (or down three). Buy and play that one instead.

I miss banjo guy.

"Tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking...

2006-07-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

...sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show..."

Well, Times readers aren't helping their cause any with this one:

The "most e-mailed" article at present is Communal Yoga Mats: Beware of Germs.

Anyway, back to my (vegetarian) sushi. Did I mention I like snowmobiling and football?

(The quote, of course, is from The Club for Growth's anti-Howard Dean ad from a few years back.)

We get letters

2006-07-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I get e-mails for this blog (there's an address on the left side over there). This morning I found this in the Official Doctor Awesome Inbox:

From: -----@uic.edu
To: Doctor Awesome
Date: Jul 25, 2006 9:18 AM
Subject: Found Innova Disc

I found a red Innova disc in the woods off the 18th hole in Round Lake which said if found to contact Steve aka "Doctor Awesome". If you are he and want the disc back you may email me at ------@uic.edu. If you are not I apologize for adding to your inbox.

My response:

From: Doctor Awesome
To: ------@uic.edu
Date: Jul 25, 2006 10:28 AM
Subject: Re: Found Innova Disc

For it to end up in Chicago, wow. Perhaps I can throw better than I thought.

As much as I'd love a free disc golf disc, I doubt the one is question is mine as I live in San Francisco and my name is not Steve.

Thanks, though.

Doctor Awesome

Midwest Turmoil

2006-07-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

Blogging has been sparse lately. My apologies.

I am not at all a fan of the current events in the Middle East. That being said, I stumbled upon this old Onion story I remember from long ago:

Midwest Peace Talks Shattered By Illinois Toll-Booth Bombing

"Lake Geneva Convention." Awesome.

There's always bit of interstate rivalry in the Midwest, a lot of it fueled by football rivalries collegiate and professional. I still despise the FIBs recklessly speeding north on I-39 to defile our pristine northern lakes with their obnoxious jet skis every summer weekend.

Anyway, I was reading about Minnesotan lakes today (yeah, I do things like that) and remembered, as a kid, being told that, even though Minnesota's license plates have the boastful caption "Land of 10,000 Lakes," Wisconsin actually has more lakes.

Nowadays, I'm armed with a laptop and a search engine. Result:

Minnesota: 11,842 lakes
Wisconsin: 15,081 lakes

Gophers suck.

Update: (Minnesotan) Justin, in his deconstructionist, relativist, there-is-no-knowable-truth manner, pointed out that Minnesota's number refers only to lakes larger than ten acres, so it's an unfair comparison.

Really, you cannot begin to qualatively assert whether or not one state has more or fewer lakes than another—our contemporary understanding of what is a "lake" versus, say, a "pond" is caught up in a social construct of a lake's identity—that is, when considering a body of water and its potential properties (depth, area, or volume, for example), there is no universally apparent metric that can be used to determine, at exactly what point, that the "lakeness" of the water in question is such as to undeniably bestow "lake status" upon it. We can not hope to objectively reach a consensus as to what configurations of these variables do and do not constitute lakes. Using the strictest of standards, neither state has any lakes, while if we choose a point far too low on the continuum, we're charged with tallying up every insignificant puddle.

With that, I argue that the number of lakes in either state is, then, inherently unknowable.

...

While I begin the process of removing my tongue from my cheek, I will say that it's probably a wash and I shouldn't dare be boastful, as I very likely could be wrong. I saw a blog post on the topic while searching along:

Bill asks: Does Wisconsin or Minnesota have more lakes?

As Cindy writes,

My official answer is that both states have a WHOLE BUNCH OF LAKES.

Door-to-door, finally.

2006-07-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

I finally rode my bike to work today, from my front door to the Googleplex along The Bay Way. 42 miles or so. With, like, no training. One flat.

I'm a rather dawdle-along kind of biker. The guys I rode with were not.

Ow.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2006-07-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Or, alternatively, Where the Wind Hits Heavy on the Borderline.

Prepare yourself, reader, for a odd series of connections and associations. This is how my mind works. I've got two things in front of me: a laptop and a long plane ride.

To begin:

My car use is down significantly, but when I do use it, I use it for longer drives. A few weeks ago, I put a copy of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in the CD changer. When listening to music, I'm latently considering new songs to cover for open mics. Simple Twist of Fate's sparse instrumentation made it a candidate. Camden, rather, preferred You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go.

I kept both in mind and, later, found the chords for each. The two songs are, actually, quite similar musically—both are played in an open-D tuning either capoed or tuned up to an E, so, for both, I've been playing around with chord shapes in an open tuning. They've both worked out well—I intend to play one or the other at my next open mic. I even bought a harmonica rack and a new D harmonica (identical to the C harmonica I got for a present last Christmas) in the hopes of being able to provide a harp fill over one of the verses.

But here's the important tangent: While perusing the chord site for Dylan, I clicked on Girl From the North Country, a song I've played around with before. I'm more fond of the version off of Freewheelin' Bob Dylan than the sloppy, rehashed and forced duet with Cash on first track of Nashville Skyline—besides, I like the E-minor fingerpicking more than the G-major two-and-four chops.

While my roommates were out, I was vegging out in the living room, playing the song over and over, contemplating the lyrics. The "North Country" in the song is a region of Northern Minnesota, bordering Canada, north of the Iron Range where Dylan is from—he spent his early years in Hibbing. There's a great article, Highway 61, Visited, by a New York Times reporter that makes a pilgramage to the area after reading a passage from Dylan's Chronicles. During a night of Guinness downing between Dylan and Bono, Dylan pegs Alexandria, Minnesota as the birthplace of America, where Vikings settled in the 1300's.

Thinking about the North Country made me recall my childhood. I spent time during my summers at Camp Chippewa, a boys' camp considerably further west, on Cass Lake, near Bemidji. One of the hallmarks of the camp was the canoe trips the older boys took to into Canada. My longest trip was taken in the Quetico, the wilderness area just on the other side of the Canadian border from Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Alex visited me in San Francisco a few weeks ago. I had been mulling taking a week to spend back in the Midwest, maybe Minocqua, possibly even making it a working vacation (again, the joys of SSH tunneling). I mentioned this to Alex to see if he'd have any time to come along. He said that he'd be starting his rotation for medical school in early July, but would be free until then. The long July 4th weekend was rapidly approaching and I noticed that many of my friends had already made plans to skip town.

So I took three days off and extended my four-day weekend into a weeklong trip. Alex booked a permit for the Boundary Waters and I booked a ticket to Minneapolis.

Our trip was from Monday to Friday. I was completely cut off from modernity. We paddled out and back, portaging and paddling. It was meditative, soul-cleansing, and exhausting. Other than the GPS (which Alex brought in case of emergency and we didn't use), my most technologically advanced item was my flashlight. We spent a good portion of our time following the U.S.-Canada border.

The drive also gave us a chance to stop by the Wellstone Memorial and Historic Site, a small memorial near where U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone's plane went down in 2002. I had met Wellstone when he stumped in Madison during the 2000 elections, and I wanted to stop to pay my respects. The memorial was three miles from the highway, in the Iron Range. At the entrance, a poem was engraved on a smooth table of rock, at the base of which lay flowers and American flags, and on top lay an assortment of buttons, ones concerning labor and peace and one that, touchingly, read "ITMFA."

I smiled. I wore my own IMTFA button in the Pride Parade (see the photo)—it was a gift from Trisha, who had ordered and gotten it from the man himself.

The Iron Range is so named for the mining operations there. It, as well of much of rural Minnesota, is known for its leftist politics—atypical of rural America. On a highway overpass, I saw, scrawled out with spray paint, in big red letters, "Jobs Not Bombs." Much of it is the legacy of the German and Norwegian socialists (or damn-near socialists) that first settled the area. The state Democratic party is still known as the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor_Party after a merger with the Farmer-Labor party in 1944.

As a whole, the trip was a nice escape. Life in California (or contemporary America, for that matter) can be overstimulating, frenetic and frenzied. Visiting Minnesota allowed me to take a step back, unplug, and revisit a previous chapter of my life.

Back on the grid

2006-07-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Minneapolis. We just drove the van back from way up north (we started and ended the canoe trip at Moose Lake, east of Ely). I've been away from civilization (like, any civilization) for a while. It was nice. I celebrated the 4th of July by drinking whiskey from a plastic bottle on an uninhabited island just across the border in Ontario.

I'd like to never touch e-mail again. I'd also like to stomp on my cell phone.

More as I get reacclimated to this laptop thing. I've got a flight back to SFO tomorrow and I'll probably get a chance to write a nice big essay about something clichéd like the pointlessness of modern conveniencess and accumulations. Stay tuned for that.

Expanding on Mermaid Avenue

2006-07-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

From Chronicles: Volume 1 by Bob Dylan:

On one of my visits, Woody had told me about some boxes of songs and poems that he had written that had never been set to melodies—that they were stored in the basement of his house in Coney Island and that I was welcome to them. He told me that if he wanted any of them to go see Margie, his wife, explain what I was there for. (page 99)

Dylan takes the Brooklyn line out to Coney Island, walks through a swamp to Woody Guthrie's house on Mermaid Avenue and knocks on the door:

A babysitter opened it slightly, said that Margie, Woody's wife, wasn't there…I stayed just long enough to warm up, said a quick good-bye and left with my boots still waterlogged, trudged back across the swamp to the subway platform.

Forty years later, these lyrics would fall into the hands of Billy Bragg and the group Wilco and they would put melodies to them, bring them to full life and record them. It was all done under the direction of Woody's daughter Nora. These performers probably weren't even born when I had mad the trip out to Brooklyn. (page 100)

I read this passage while thirty-some-thousand feet over the Rockies last December, with my iPod (yes, I'm a tool) playing—wait for it—Wilco.

I had known about the album's backstory before, but I'd never heard Dylan's story. It'd odd to think that history is so dependent on tiny bits of circumstance. I filed Mermaid Avenue away in my mental to-listen-to queue.

I finally got around to it this week. It's charming. There are some absolute gems—One by One is a moving ballad I remember from last year's Kicking Television. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key is sparse and a pleasure, as is She Came Along to Me (the "protofeminist love song"—it still makes me smile when I hear the line "And maybe we'll have all the fascists out of the way by then"—the word "fascist" seems like such an anachronism). It's weird to see song credits like Guthrie/Tweedy. Jeff Tweedy was born ten days before Guthrie passed away.

July 4th in Canada

2006-06-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

Alex and I have organized a last-minute trip to the Boundary Waters (seriously last-minute. I booked the flight yesterday).

From San Francisco to the middle of nowhere. From cosmopolitan to canoe.

Also, I've developed an absolute obsession with Mermaid Avenue.

That is all.

Pride!

2006-06-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

My first pride parade. I got to march in the San Francisco Pride Parade with the Google contingent. I found a photo of myself on Flickr.

The shirts rule. Camden helped design them.

Punk Rock Girl

2006-06-22T10:17:00.001-07:00

I've become completely obsessed with this song:

Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen

Redneck Intellectuals

2006-06-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

From my current read, Population 485. I finished it yesterday:

How does one negotiate the terms of belonging? Speaking perhaps too broadly, I consider my loyalties divided between the Gun Rack Crowd and the Pale and Tortured Contingent.

The book was a find while on a used-book shopping trip with Justin. It really reminds me a lot of Lummox—a talented writer with a backwoods Wisconsin background. Lummox is Magnuson's novelized quasi-autobiography (Perry actually mentions going biking with Magnuson in his book—woah, Northwestern Wisconsin memoir worlds colliding, man). Michael Perry is a volunteer firefigher and EMT in New Albion, a tiny town in the northwest corner of the state—the state's poorest congressional district, the same one I'm from.

Perry's book is engaging. New Albion is presented like Lake Wobegon stripped of the nostalgia and romanticism. The town is filled with small-town eclectic souls, and no attempt is made to gloss over the hickishness—I particularly loved the section on customary lawn ornaments in the general locale (bent-over gardening grandmother and little boy peeing are meaningful to me because I remember them from my childhood).

But let me elaborate on the quote. This plays into my own concept of identity. In the Valley and in San Francisco, I'm surrounded by young professionals—products of suburban upbringings and ambitious peer groups. I too, admittedly, am the son of professionals, but from a small town where, last time I visited, I helped my dad scout turkey-hunting locations in rural Adams County, Wisconsin. I love what the Valley is—this crucible of tech, capital, and talent—but after reading the book, part of me wants to move to a small Wisconsin town, volunteer with the local fire department, and watch the Packers every Sunday.

Of course, nothing about me would thrive in that environment. Besides what little wear they get from guitar, biking, and boot camp, I've got typists' hands—pink, uncalloused things that can dance out code but wouldn't be all that good with a hoe—or a fire hose, for that matter.

Maybe I could telecommute...

Debate at Work

2006-06-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

The folks in my cube are arguing over this one.

Which has a higher chocolate-to-peanut-butter ratio: regular or mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Where am I?

2006-06-13T00:17:00.000-07:00

They added geocoding to the Google Maps API.

Finally.

Mustache Madness Mug

2006-06-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

I got the photos:

It's all gone now, though. Sorry.

Bike to work day

2006-06-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

...was a few weeks ago.

But due to Lilly's insistence, I finally took the Creamcycle (which has been in pieces for almost a year) to the bike shop and had them assemble it and tune it up. At 6 AM, I took BART from San Francisco to Millbrae and rode in from there with Lils and a Google group. 28 miles. Not bad for a guy that hasn't been riding in forever.

I'd like to start doing the rides once or twice a week. Just keep thinking Magnuson.

Yes sir!

2006-06-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

I lack discipline.

When Dave and I had our SERFing adventure, I had one thing that would keep me actually going to the gym: Dave. Dave would knock on my door at the (then-ungodly) hour of eight in the morning. Dave would keep me from skipping reps. Dave would, mostly, keep me from cheating.

When I was in cross country in high school, one thing kept me from running: Mr. Steve. Mr. Steve would make us run sprints barefoot across the football field. He'd make us run fartleks. He'd make us, well, run period.

Whenever I try to run or lift as a solo endeavor, Doctor Wellness and Doctor Lazy fight it out within my psyche, and Doctor Lazy tends to win (he then goes and gets a beer).

What I need is somebody to yell at me.

So today, Camden guilted me into signing up for "boot camp," which is a short name for "run a few laps, do too many situps and pushups and things, then repeat ad nauseam." It's three days a week for the next five weeks. I pay the instructors to yell at me and make me run around (actually, they don't yell, they're very friendly. But still).

I'm now laying in my bed with the best post-workout high I've had in years.

Mustache Jokes

2006-06-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

So you know, May Mustache Madness is complete. I'm waiting on the photos from Jeff so I can share them with you, my faithful readers.

Anyway, Thursday night my roommate made dinner for a few friends. Mustaches were one topic of discussion (on account of my recently created one).

Nobody really knew any mustache jokes. One of the diners was a Yahoo! employee and suggested using Yahoo! Answers. I did, and put up a question: What is a good mustache joke?.

From the results that came in (surprisngly quickly, I must add) that weren't lol-ridden, there were two gems (I'm going to paraphrase slightly):

An angry mob is walking along the street. Someone yells, "Hey, let's hang that guy with a mustache!"

Someone else yells, "Nah, let's use a rope!"

I'll give you a moment to regain composure.

Ready? Number two:

"You know, except for the mustache, you look a lot like my mother."
"But I don't have a mustache."
"Yes, but my mother does."

Thank you, technology.

Falling in love again...

2006-05-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

(Cue Queen)

You've all met Sparky before. I'm coming up on a year of ownership. When I first bought the car, it represented a big step in growing up. I was a car owner.

Sparky first cut his (yes, it's gendered, Justin) teeth on the 3,000 mile drive over the western United States, a straight shot on I-80 from Iowa to San Francisco. I saw the fabled vast, empty stretches of the country zip by at 80 miles an hour (which, while less romantic than my long-held dream of doing it at 15 miles an hour on a bike, is much more romantic than seeing it from 30,000 feet).

But at some point, the car came to represent rockin' it on 101, where "rockin' it" can better be interpreted as "getting stuck in traffic." I had become a (shutter) freeway commuter. My car turned, in my mind, into a lame-mobile, a relic representing the stifling suburbs of the south bay.

When I moved to San Francisco, my car didn't make the trip. It lived at work, in the parking garage, where I would occasionally take it in place of the shuttle. There are two options for it: sell it, or rent a garage space.

A garage space seemed like such an extravagence. Pppt. Parking should be free, like water or air. I don't need one. I can become one of the snotty, carless hipsters—we transcend car ownership.

So, this was Memorial Day weekend, right? I drove my car up Friday night and have been travelling the (much) greater Bay area all weekend. Saturday: Camden, Point Reyes. Sunday: Justin, Berkeley hills. Monday: Joanna, Stinson and Muir. I always have this issue: the sprawling mass of development known as the Bay Area seems so extensive, I forget that it's surrounded by some of the most beautiful natural areas in the country, which remain largely undeveloped. I forget about them because they're not accessible by MUNI or BART.

And so "car," in my mind, has shifted from a confining concept to a enabling one. My car isn't a trap, it's an escape from urban life, from monitors, keyboards, and ethernet cables.

So, I love my car again. I'm getting a garage space.

Breaking and entering

2006-05-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

I got home on Monday around 8:30 in the evening. Walking up to the house, I noticed that my light was on, which I thought was weird. I unlocked the door to see if my roommates were rummaging through my stuff or something, but they weren't. Nobody was home. I was still curious, so I walked to the living room to see if anything was missing. Nope, the stereo was still there.

I figured I had just forgotten to turn off the light that morning. I trimmed my beard and did a little web surfing.

My roommate came home. "Woah, what happened to the door?" he said. He came in the back way. I walked out there. The door had been forced open and the wood by the handle was cracked.

Somebody had broken in while we were gone during the day. My roommate would often not bother to lock the deadbolt, and the deadbolt wasn't latched. I quickly did a check of my stuff. The only thing I noticed missing was the new Casio EX-850 that I got last week. That's about $375 I lost (including the SD card). My roommate's laptop was also gone.

So, Wednesday I got a chance to go see Daniel Gilbert talk, author of Stumbling on Happiness (surprisingly small crowd for a guy with the #23 book on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller List—I would have gotten my copy signed but I gave my copy to a friend).

Sometimes, events in my life can totally throw me for a loop. Sometimes, I totally overestimate the impact they'll have on me.

One would think that a burglary would affect me profoundly—that I would, from that point on, feel insecure or unsafe in my own home.

Really, honestly, this being Friday, I'm pretty much over it. Gilbert talks (in the book and in person) about the impact bias, where we overestimate the severity (positive or negative) that an event will have on us. Had you asked me a week ago how much it would bother me if my house was broken into, I'd figure that it would affect me significantly.

Anyway, the book is a Doctor Awesome recommended read.

Punishing my liver

2006-05-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Bay to Breakers was yesterday. It's a seven-and-a-half-mile road race across town. I didn't run it, but instead followed the costumed (and the completely costumeless—that is, butt-naked) revelers that followed on the route. Suffice it to say that it was crazy.

It's a good time to show you how May Mustache Madness is going (inspired by The Liver'd One):

I went as "America Man," while Camden went as "United States Man."

Why yes, those were last-minute costumes. Why do you ask?

I found my phone

2006-05-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

I had misplaced my phone on Wednesday. I had looked for it everywhere—my room, my desk, my car. I was rather upset by the whole thing, as I managed to lose my wallet a few weeks ago.

On Friday, I had mentioned to a number of people that I had lost my phone, so I'd only be in contact via e-mail unless I found it.

Friday night, I made it home late (I had taken the train from San Mateo) and had settled in to watch TV. I was sitting on the cushion on the floor in our living room.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt my butt vibrating.

I reached under the cushion, pulled out the phone, and answered it:

Me: Hello?
Camden: You found your phone!
Me: Yeah! I was sitting on it.
Camden: Cool! Let's go drinking!
Me: OK!

And then I ambled up to the Noc Noc where we celebrated the finding of my phone.

Berkeley Revisited

2006-05-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

A sold-out Giants game and a general lack of planning left me with a Saturday afternoon without anything to do, so I hopped a train to Berkeley.

I stepped out of the BART station and, almost immediately, a kid asks me to sign a petition. I chuckled. I also wandered through the farmers' market (Madison's is so much better), where cute college girls hawked copies of the Socialist Worker. I politley declined and smiled to myself, knowing that, despite the fact that I had my hair cropped short and the unkempt two-week beard of a left-wing grad student, I had a copy of The Road to Serfdom in my messenger bag.

I ended up wandering used bookstores. I need more reading material (though I'm not sure when or if I'll make it through all of these).

The haul:

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam. Replaces the hardcover copy I have back home.
Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein. It's the sequel. Bowling Alone II
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, Paul Krugman. It's a little old, but ever since Times Select, I haven't been reading much PK.
The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich August von Hayek. I'm no rabid Hayekian, but I feel that I should at least own a copy.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris. Purely pleasure reading. I'll probably read that one first.
They Marched Into Sunlight, David Maraniss. I ran into Maraniss randomly at a Dean campaign office in Iowa during the caucuses. Maraniss is a Madisonian-turned-Washington-Post journalist. The book is important read on Vietnam and the UW. I also need to read his biography of Vinci Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich. It seems like everybody has read this but me.
The Good Society, John Kenneth Galbraith. He died recently, so I think I should read it.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac. It's amazing I've never read it, it's just that I've never had a copy around. This should fix that.

Shoddy logic

2006-05-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Freecycle page had this in their sidebar:

Incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates 1 job, land filling the same amount creates 6 jobs, recycling the same 10,000 tons creates 36 jobs.

Yes, I like recycling. But this is such a terrible argument for it.

Paying people to pick their noses creates jobs too, but I haven't seen that legislated yet. If you could "create" jobs by just putting people on the government payroll, then we should have had that whole unemployment problem solved years ago.

Recycling is good because of the social benefit of reusing resources and reducing landfill usage. The fact that recycling 10,000 tons of waste takes the labor of 36 people is a bad thing, as it makes it comparatively more expensive and less likely to be used. It also takes 35 people out of the labor force that could be doing something else.

New Jersey and Oregon still have mandated full-service pumps (that is, you can't pump your own gas at the gas station, even if you'd like to). Purportedly, the law was put on the books for safety reasons, but that argument is pretty weak these days.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, N.J. clings to full-service pumps:

And Bill Dressler, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline Retailers Association, which represents 2,200 gas stations, said self-serve could jeopardize many of the 36,000 jobs at gas stations across the state. "Say you lost half of them," he said. "That's 15,000 people who don't have jobs anymore."

Ugh. The thing is, those jobs only exist because of this ill-conceived law. If you were to ask motorists to pay an additional fee (covering the extra cost of labor) to get full service, they likely wouldn't.

In essence, you're forcing people to pay for a service they don't want. You might as well pass a law requiring you to buy a scone along with coffee at Starbucks.

Update: Comment from Mr. P:

True, true. But if you're the guy responsible for the legislation that takes those laws off the books, one of those 36,000 people is gonna run against you at reelection time. Even if they have no chance, you've still got to put some resources into the race. Keeping the log on the books doesn't put your job in jeopardy. Good government? Of course not. Simple math? Of course.

Precisely. Allow me the argument that protectionism hurts the U.S. economy (yes, antiglobalists, it also encourages cultural homogenization and strengthens multinationals. But hear me out). Why, then, would the U.S. government ever adopt protectionist policies?

Because the benefits of protectionism go to a small group of people and the harm of it goes to everybody (in the form of higher prices, poorer products, and a less efficient job market). It's robbing a thousand Peters to pay one Paul—the Peters hardly notice. But the Pauls sure do, and they vote on it. See Bush and steel tariffs.

This is a problem with electoral politics. Those that would do anything to get elected are generally the ones that do get elected.

Following Sean

2006-05-07T08:49:00.001-07:00

I was wandering around in the Haight-Asbury area yesterday when I passed the Red Vic Movie House. I glanced at the schedule. Following Sean was playing. I had never heard of it, but, from the description and the fact that it started in three minutes, I decided to plop down eight bucks and watch it. The movie concerned Sean, a four-year-old boy living that lived with his hippie parents on Cole Street during the 60's. Following Sean's director, Ralph Arlyck, had lived below Sean had made a student film with Sean as the subject in which Sean talks about pot use and living with speed freaks.

That student film garnered significant attention, but did more to show the movement in Haight-Asbury as irresponsible, infantile, and self-indulgent, and Sean was a poster child for the failures of the counterculture.

In Following Sean, the director flies back to San Francisco to meet Sean and his extended family. Sean, actually, leads a pretty normal life. He's an electrician and is contemplating going back to law school.

It was a fantastic meditation on the legacy of Haight-Asbury, the failures of the Old and New Left, and the role of choice in our lives.

It was also rather meaningful for me. In high school, I was fascinated by Haight-Asbury. I was into psychedelic rock, and I'd write my book reports on novels like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest. I'd go to Phish concerts.

Justin lived near me in the dorms freshman year. If you ask him about me then, he'll refer to me as the "bearded hippie kid that lived downstairs."

But over the course of my college career, I was lured away by the bright and colorful lights of economics and largely abandoned my high-school interests.

I never actually made it to Haight-Asbury until last year, when I stopped by for an hour after I flew out for an interview (I felt that I owed it to my seventeen-year-old self). I parked my rental Ford Taurus a block or two away and walked the street for a bit. It was, in short, a (highly commercialized) carictature.

Things like this are reminders to me of who I was before and who I am now. I had a similar experience last week when I visited Madison and my hometown (including my junior high school). I remember experiencing this when I visited Tower Hill ten years later.

And all that from just ambling into a little art film theater.

Proof that I ran Crazylegs

2006-05-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

I told you the story about me losing my timing chip, so I didn't get timed and, thus, have no proof that I actually ran the race.

Well, kids, I have proof now. I got an e-mail from those people that take your picture and sell you a photo for more than the price of a disposable camera and film developing.

The two photos are here:

Photo 1 Photo 2

You can tell that they're proof because they have "Proof" written all over them.

Time goes by so slowly...

2006-05-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

I am dying in anticipation:

A Prairie Home Companion (the movie) comes out June 9.

May Mustache Madness

2006-05-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

In college, winter breaks were long—nearly a month. They were, actually, the longest breaks of my year as I would normally work or take classes during the summer. I generally spent the holiday parts of them doing holiday-type things, but Januaries were time for all the videogames, piles of movies, and lazing around that I didn't have time for during the semester.

Of course, since I spent each day bumming around the house, I never bothered to shave. The above photo was me finally shaving a few weeks' worth of beard down to just a 'stache, which went the way of the beard a few hours later.

Yesterday morning, I shaved for the last time this month. At work, it's the second annual May Mustache Madness (it's only annual now because it's the second year). My friend Jeff is running it (my roommate refers to him as "Lightning Jeff," though he no longer sports the 'stache).

I've got some facial hair, but I'm no Jeff. But we'll see. It's not about what you're endowed with, it's how you use it. Or something like that.

I've got a month to brainstorm awesome mustache ideas.

P.S. I miss the Andystache.

P.P.S. I kind of like the concept of having a mustache. It makes me feel Magnuson like. And Magnuson is the man.

Are you looking for a challenge?

2006-05-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Open challenge to Justin (my Berkeley Unitarian theologian friend):

I will read any book of your choosing provided you read Naked Economics. We will then blog about the experience.

Ground rules:

It has to be something you've read.
The book has to be something substantial and thoughtful. Through making you read Naked Economics, I hope to expose you to ideas that you haven't had a lot of exposure to. I intend for you to do the same for me.
No choosing a book that is absurdly long or has an absurd topic for the purpose of just making me sit through it. For example, The Illustrated Medical Guide to Really Disturbing Dermatological Diseases would be off-limits, as would Webster's Dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume E.
I think you'd potentially enjoy Naked Economics (all of the economics, none of that pesky math). Please choose something that won't put me to sleep or make me (excessively) curse Derrida.

You can e-mail me to accept. You can wait until after exams if you're busy at present.

Backstory of this challenge: As Justin had blogged, I ran into him randomly on the Civic Center BART platform yesterday (I was on my way home from the airport). In the discussion, he pulled out one of his theology texts. I pulled out Naked Economics, which prompted us to begin arguing about the merits of capitalism.

Paraphrased conversation:

Me: When properly regulated, capitalism is mostly good and can be an incredible engine for economic growth and poverty reduction. Global trade is the best hope for pulling the third world out of poverty.
Him: Capitalism is oppressive, corrupting, violent, uncaring, amoral, and destructive.
Me: You nonsense-spewing postmodernist!
Him: You complacently oppressive neoliberal!
Me: Jerkhead!
Him: Dorkface!

Okay, so it didn't go exactly like that.

We'll see. He'll probably make me read "Das Kapital" or something.

Doctor Awesome's running tips

2006-04-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Running tip #452:

Drinking a lot of beer the night before a race does not qualify as carboloading.

On Friday evening, I met some college friends at the student union. We took care of a few pitchers. We then moved on to the Essen Haus, where we passed around a number of boots (yes, boots of beer. It's German).

I finally got to bed on Pete's couch at one in the morning. I only slept until six and spent the next hour or so staring at the ceiling. Pete and I went up to the Madison Farmers' Market to see some friends and grab some food. It was also the location of the start of the Crazylegs Classic, which I ran somewhat hungover.

I lost my timing chip before the race. I think I threw it out with the registration packet. I spent a bit of time trying to find it in a garbage can near the race start (and got some puzzled looks as a result), but couldn't find it, so I didn't get timed (and I owe some money to the timing people now). I watched the clocks at the start and the end, though. My time was 40:37, which, actually, compared to other years, isn't that bad of a time.

Paulzy and his better half ran it too. I got a chance to grab a beer with the two of them afterwards.

My trip, by the numbers...

2006-04-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

Miles flown: about 4000
Miles driven: about 400
Miles run: about 5 (well, 8k, so 4.97)
Beers consumed: well, a lot

I'm back in San Francisco. I have a much more substantive post coming...

Warm and sunny Madison, Wisconsin

2006-04-26T20:42:00.000-07:00

Warm and sunny California my ass. It's been pretty dreary the last month or two in the City by the Bay. A lot of rain and a lot of gray skies.

But I wasn't in San Francisco today. Today I had a beer on the Wisconsin Union Terrace with my old boss (she and I got along really well). There wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was 60 degrees, bright, and sunny. The campus looks gorgeous—everything is in bloom, and the kids are smiling and happy to be done with winter. There were also a conspicious number of guys in Favre jerseys (commemerating the good news).

I knew I missed Madison. I had just forgotten how much. May, June, and July are when Madison wins its awards. Those months almost make winter worth it.

I walked along the Lakeshore Path back to the University Housing offices with my boss, then hopped a bus to the Capitol to meet Kzo. We ambled through the Capitol building and down State Street, stopping to buy new shoes (I finally threw out my Chuck Taylors from high school), to see the new Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and to pick up my car. We stopped at Monty's Blue Plate Diner (one of my favorite restaurants in the city), then I dropped off Kzo and headed north out of Dane County on my way back to Wisconsin Rapids, my hometown.

The sun was setting during my two-hour drive, casting long, dramatic shadows across the rolling farmland flanking the interstate. Silhouettes of farmhouses and silos would roll by on the horizon.

I've made that drive hundreds of times, oftentimes never even contemplating the scenery. We get to taking it for granted, I guess.

I don't ever remember it being that pretty.

Dispatches from an Airport Bar

2006-04-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

I don't like flying. Despite my trust in human progress and technology, no amount of self-reassurance is going to get me over the fact that I'm five frickin' miles in the air.

Today's solution to pre-flight anxiety? Same as the solution to so many other things: beer. So this post is booze-inspired (which, really, isn't that out of the ordinary). I'm on my second pint here at "Perry's," laptop in front of me, admiring the nicely lighted bottles of alcohol. This place looks like it was built in 1998 and strived, very hard, to look like an authentic bar. There are quotes about San Francisco circling the top of the walls—the same ones that are posted along the construction sites in the Embarcadero.

One day if I do go to heaven...I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco' -Herb Caen

I'll have to look up who that is when I have access to Wikipedia again.

At airports, people seem to assume I'm a young punk grad student or something. I've got a pair of business types next to me—they've got no idea what I do for a living. But he whips out his Thinkpad, so I whip out mine.

Ugh. Sales guys.

Take that, mister businessman. Pointin' your plastic finger at me... I've got a fancy laptop too.

We're gonna make it after all!

2006-04-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

(doin' it our way, of course)

My plans to fly home this week were endangered by my losing my wallet (and with it, all my credit cards) and US Bank totally bungling the process of rushing me a new one (it was supposed to be here already, but now it's going to take another week). But a friend bought me the ticket, so everything's cool now. He bought me the ticket this afternoon, and I fly out tomorrow (with a just a passport, cash, and luggage).

I'll by flying into Milwaukee (the city of my birth) tomorrow, starting off a wild Wisconsin week of driving around the state and visiting people. I'll be borrowing my brother's car, the 1996 Dodge Neon I drove in high school.

By choosing this week, I can also kill three birds with one stone:

(there may be some drinking involved, at least for the last two. The first one maybe too)

This will be my fourth annual Crazylegs. I have either been in or seen the LHS musical every single year for more than a decade.

Extreme Commuting

2006-04-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

From the name, it seems like it would involve a bungee cord or a hanglider.

From Newsweek: The Long and Grinding Road

(an extra point just for the pun)

So I'm not quite an "extreme commuter." According to the article, that category begins at 90+ minutes. Me? About 60-70 (it's generally faster getting home at night). I hop a MUNI train in the morning to catch a Google shuttle downtown. Of course, this puts me in a very strange category of being a more-than-an-hour commuter who doesn't use a car.

Now, among my varied interests is transportation economics (hey, I'm a hipster. What can I say?). I took two classes on it in college as part of my economics degree and found it fascinating—it piqued an interest in urban planning, public transportation, and land use. In Madison, these issues were present, but not pressing. But in the Bay Area (the amorphous blob encircling—or strangling, maybe—the San Francisco Bay), "pressing" would be an understatement. Among the reasons I was excited to fly out to initially interview with Google was to see BART (the getting the job thing and seeing the bridge were up there too).

Why do people commute such long distances? A few reasons:

With the rise of the automobile, it's now possible. Large-scale long-distance commuting is almost entirely a 20th-and-21st-century phenomenon (but this wealthy-suburb pattern has been evident even in pre-industrial societies). Giant freeways in and out of cities have been essential for growth, but they've also fueled the proliferation of the suburbs.
Housing prices. Land values are generally based on proximity to an urban center (with standard exceptions for waterfront and other geographic-feature related attributes). So, per square foot, housing gets cheaper the farther out one lives. But this isn't attractive only for people that can't afford to live in cities—wealthy folk flee the cities to build McMansions, for better schools, and an environment to better raise children in (Ironically, wealthy suburban enclaves pop up where the land values were initially quite low). The housing boom of the last few years has caused more families to extend their commutes in order to buy larger houses at lower prices.

The worse thing is that the population densities in suburbs is so low that it makes public transportation infeasible and leaves the automobile as the only viable option. This, in turn, fuels the growth of box-store style commercial development, generally only accessible by (wait for it...) car.

My latent sociologist (I don't let him out much) wonders what impact this has on community and family life. I was glad to see a reference to Robert Putnam in the article (I'm a big fan). Working hours have gotten longer. Commute times have gotten longer. That extra time has come at the expense of

Sleep
Family life
Community involvement

Everything is interconnected. Where you place a road and how you design a city can vastly impact happiness, crime rates, or education quality. Like Putnam, I even like to point my finger at suburbia for the drop of civic involvement, decreased voting rates and disillusion with government.

There are butterflies flapping their wings everywhere.

Here, There, and Everywhere

2006-04-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

My small hometown is finally getting a Starbucks.

I have a feeling that this means something deeper.

Death and destruction! Yay!

2006-04-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

It's the 100-year anniversary of the Great Quake, so how does the city celebrate its most tragic and scarring event?

A parade!

It's not entirely morbid, though. The day has been more a celebration of the rebirth of the city. It's also given me a chance to see a lot of photos of collapsed houses, which really helps me sleep at night.

One other thing on le menu:

1) I'm on the Google shuttle bus, and I just saw a guy in the next freeway lane in a pickup by himself playing a harmonica. It made me smile, as I do that when I drive. I can't sing or make music when I'm on the bus.

ka ta ko ra suichi

2006-04-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this, you're probably not doing anything important anyway. I can't think of a better way to spend the next 12 minutes and 54 seconds of your life than watching this video:

Now if I just knew what that song meant.

Update: Someone out there in the blogosphere knows. It's "pitagora suichi," meaning "pythagorean switch," meaning "rube goldberg machine." Thanks for your comment, anonymous commenter.

A charming little anecdote

2006-04-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

From Slate:

In January 1996, I visited William Sloane Coffin Jr. in Appleton, Wis., where he was a visiting professor at Lawrence University. I was 21 years old and in the midst of writing a senior essay about Coffin's sermons. The legendary Yale chaplain had agreed to be interviewed, but only in person; he thought that would be more fun than talking on the phone. And it was. After picking me up at the small airport, Coffin brought me and his dog, which had come with him in the car, to a little cemetery in town. We walked over to a tombstone etched with the name "Joseph McCarthy." The pooch sauntered over to the memorial slab, lifted his leg, and shot a nice, warm stream of urine on the dead senator's grave. "Our daily ritual," Coffin joked, leading me back to the car.

Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., 1924-2006

Wisconsin Week

2006-04-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

So there was the Feingold coming out for gay marriage thing.

In the election on Tuesday, 24 of 32 communities that had put up Iraq War resoulutions voted to withdraw troops.

And the Badger men's hockey team is playing Boston College in the Frozen Four final in Milwaukee. They beat Maine 5-2.

Pete has likely wet himself repeatedly at this point. If the Badgers take it, I fear he might explode.

Update: We won! Pete probably exploded.

U rah rah Wisconsin!

Backbone

2006-04-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Feingold Backs Legalizing Same-Sex Marriages

First the censure thing and now this. Kind of quixotic if you ask me, but I don't care.

Feingold '08!

Neat little domestic life

2006-04-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

After some not-too-subtle prodding, I've decided to write a blog post.

I've begun to settle into a neat little domestic life here (it would almost qualify as quaint, small-towny and traditional if I wasn't surrounded by pride flags). I'm starting to identify my little go-to businesses. I've got a barbershop, a coffeehouse, a little diner, and so on. I even got a chocolate malt craving the other day and satisfied it at Orphan Andy's (yes, I too love the name).

I was listening to public radio the over the weekend. Wisconsin Public Radio was always pretty good about trying to be relatively objective and unbiased. Not the case here. Even though I'm a pretty committed Democrat, I still find it annoying. I suppose that the WPR stations were always closely tied to the UW Extension and, in turn, the State. Here, I think they're much more independent. Think WHA versus WORT back in Madison.

Anyway, there was a pledge break on (yeah, go figure), and the announcer was talking about how terribly "nasty" the weather was outside.

"Nasty weather," in my mind, is bitter -10 degree temperatures. Maybe multiple feet of snow. Or sleet and ice snarling traffic.

But I took the announcement to heart, bundled up, and grabbed my umbrella. I stepped out the front door on my way to the coffeeshop.

It was raining. Not even all that hard.

Californians are pansies.

Web 2.0.1

2006-03-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

There was a bug in the first release.

Newsweek is on it, so it must actually be real now (and mainstream. I'm starting to wonder if it can even be hip anymore).

Ugh. You know what I hate? Silicon Valley terms. Vocabulary out of Wired. What was XML and P2P is now AJAX and Web 2.0. I swear, this time it'll revolutionize everything.

...

Now that I've crabbed about Web 2.0, let me gush over one of its offspring.

Yelp has been rocking my world. I had heard of (and used) it before, but I never really got it. But this isn't surprising. Why would I be in any position to get what's upcoming and cool? I work on an "app for your mom."

A few weeks ago, I somehow stumbled back to it and saw Yelp Map-tastic (yes, technohipsters, that's a mashup. Gold star for you). And then I got it.

Moving to a new neighborhood, it's been invaluable. I got my hair cut the other day at Male Image (a very different experience from talking basketball with Don at the College Barbershop). I can find hardware stores. Clothing shops. And I get the highest-rated results in an arbitrary map window, which is ideal for finding things within walking distance.

But most importantly, Yelp has kept me from starving to death. I'm a bachelor in the city and can hardly operate a microwave, so I've kept from starving by taking leisurely walks to Lower Haight, the The Castro, and the upper Mission and trying out the restaurants.

Update: I've been thinking about it. Yelp is to Google Local as Google is to (circa 1998) AltaVista.

In the web search problem, the collecting and indexing problems are, while massive, the easy parts. The key insight of Google was PageRank, which solves the ordering-by-relevance problem, which is what kept web search from really being useful. Thank heavens there's a nice elegant little algorithmic solution to the problem.

There isn't a nice algorithmic solution like that for ranking location data. So what is the solution? Collaboration and participation. Get the users to generate that data for you. That's the novel thing about Yelp.

Checking in.

2006-03-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

I worked from home this morning and am taking the last shuttle down to Google, so it's primo blogging time.

I have two more days of work until a week-long vacation. To say I need a vacation is an understatement. I'll be staying up in Napa for a few days, then heading down to Monterey, and then spending a few days in San Francisco.

I've also signed up for ZipCar (a car sharing company) recently. I have a discounted negligible annual fee, and there are a bunch of cars around my neighborhood, most of them available for $8.50 an hour (including gas). I'm going to see how that goes and contemplate selling my car at the end of the summer. I'm most excited about having access to a pickup truck. I'd never actually drive a pickup as my primary vehicle, but, you know, sometimes a guy just has to move things.

I am thankful for...

2006-03-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

...the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends.

Sorry. Needed a party quote, so I Googled for one, and I thought that one was touching. It comes from I Am Thankful For... by Nancie Carmody. I have no idea who that is.

Two weeks ago, I got an evite from "Sarah" (not a blogger, fake name used). I know two "Sarahs." One is a friend of my through a coworker and the other is my roommate. When I got the evite, I assumed it was from non-roommate Sarah. When I saw non-roommate Sarah, I said "Hey, I got your invitation. I'll probably be there, though my roommate had said something about having a party around St. Patrick's day, so we'll see."

She had no idea what I was talking about. The evite, I figured out, was for a party at my own house.

So we had a party last night. Sarah invited a bunch of her friends and I invited a bunch of mine (and encouraged them to bring whoever they liked). It was a really fun, diverse group. It was fun to watch Justin corner guests and engage them in conversation concerning theology or gender deconstruction. My other roommate (we'll call him Mike) spent his time in the living room, spinning. We'd occasionally get somebody at the door that neither Sarah, Mike, or I would know, who would explain exactly through whom at the party he or she knew us.

Many parties I get invited to are primarily Googler parties. Part of my goal in moving to San Francisco was to extend my social group beyond work contacts. We more than succeeded last night. It was really a lot of fun. There were so many people here over the course of the night. There was a huge pile of shoes in our front hallway.

Anyway, back to cleaning. Justin and I are spending the day hanging out in the city later.

How I spent my Monday vacation

2006-03-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

I took my time getting out of bed, eventually showered, and read a few chapters from Writings on an Ethical Life. The one that I've been thinking about all day is "The Singer Solution to World Poverty." I've actually been thinking of it in terms of welfare economics, Jeffrey Sach's work, Bono (yeah, sorry), the collective action problem, and the role of inequality in catalyzing economic growth. Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate in another post.

I ate a bagel and and nutrition bar (which, of course, I swiped from a Google minikitchen) and then headed out the door without a plan. I figured I might go shopping or hit the Alcatraz tour.

I hopped on the Muni and rode it out to the Embarcadero. I then began walking. I walked a lot. I walked along the Embarcadero, climbed up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, went back down to Fishermans' Wharf and along the shorline to the Golden Gate Bridge, crossed the bridge, crossed back, wandered the Presidio, and then walked all the way back (partially on the very steep Divisidero) to my house in Duboce. The Gmaps Pedometer says it was a little under 15 miles in all, all done in my flat-footed Ben Sherman Comptons—not good walking shoes. I was out for five or six hours. My feet hurt now.

It was nice to have a nice, slow tour of the city. Walking the shoreline, all I could think about was the San Francisco level on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, which is a replica of the Embarcadero area and Pier 39.

I then came home and watched Garden State, which I've never seen before and, surprisingly, I really loved it (much like I really loved High Fidelity). Behind my stoic exterior, I've got a soft spot for bittersweet romantic comedies. I then watched Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill. Otherwise, I've been hanging out at the house this evening, doing laundry and cleaning up.

Well, now you all know the exciting details of my dull little life. I'm going to go to bed now. I'm exhausted.

Tourist in my own town

2006-03-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

It's my birthday. The big two four.

I'm sitting in my desk at work. I stopped by to drop my car off in the parking garage. I'll be catching a CalTrain to get up to the city tonight.

This weekend wasn't particularly relaxing—I spent it cleaning out my place in the south bay and preparing for, cleaning for, having, recovering from, and cleaning up after a little birthday party I held on Saturday night. Mr. Party here ended up going to bed at one before everyone left (I'm on a bed-by-midnight schedule right now).

As a result, I'm taking tomorrow off work to have some birthday alone time. I'm going to be a San Francisco tourist for the day. If I really feel up to it, I'll visit Alcatraz. I don't want to be one of those people that lives in a city for years and never ends up doing half of the stuff there. I think this will also make me a better tour guide. My folks, specifically, are coming to visit at the end of the month.

Update: I called a cab to pick me up at the Googleplex at 8 to take me to catch the 8:23 train back, but he didn't show up until 8:15, so I ended up taking a $20 trip to get the station, watch the train go by, and come back. The cabbie was kind enough to offer to pick me up again at 9 to make the next train for free.

Sigh. What a hassle.

Take my own advice...

2006-03-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

Last night, while in a sentimental mood, I was reading through old blog entries (from where this blog used to be hosted). It's kind of an odd experience to read your own words when so much time has passed, as I don't remember writing some of the stuff. I find myself laughing at my own jokes.

Anyway, on March 15th, 2005, almost a year ago now, I answered a set of questions. The tenth question was pertinent to my current vacation decision.

10. What would be your ideal 2-week vacation?
Either a bike tour (along the Missisippi, Great Lakes, tour of Belgium, maybe) or a canoe trip.

It's certainly too cold in Canada right now to go on a big canoe trip, and I'm not going to Belgium by myself. But I've wanted to do a big epic multi-day bike tour for a long while. Someday, I'd like to do the full-on cross-country trip.

By taking a week off, I could have 9 days (5 days plus 2 weekends) to bike to Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Trail and then fly back. I'm not in great biking shape right now, but with that amount of time, I could do it in a little over 60 miles a day.

Hmm... I'll try to put the bike together tomorrow.

Oh hell, blog dump...

2006-03-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

I've got a bunch of things to say, but I've been doing scrappy little entries. Forget that. It's time for the blog dump (if there was a way to textually represent a large, booming, echoing voice, I would have used it there).

So, to recap:

1. Vacation. Need to take one. Who wants to go with?
2. Goat. I got a goat.

Continuing on:

c. We had a 5k at work. It was supposed to happen during Mardi Gras, but that got rained out. So it got moved to Wednesday. I ran it. Because of the Google Page Creator launch, I've hardly run at all. But I have an incredible ability to hardly train for things and still pull them off (see the 1999 American Birkebeiner, or every Canterbury or Crazylegs run I've ever done). My wafer-cookie-and-Diet-Coke training regimen really paid off, and I came in dead middle (35th out of 70 in the men's category).

iv. A long time ago, I wrote a post about subscription audio services. I never signed up for one until now. I'm trying out Yahoo! Music Unlimited for a while. It's useful at work, where I'm going crazy listening to everything on my iPod over and over again.

6. I've been taking the Google shuttle back and forth from San Francisco. Despite the length, it's tolerable. It's actually good reading time. To get to the shuttle, I'm a MUNI (subway) rider, and I wear a ratty olive green jacket and a black ski cap. It occurred to me the other day when I was unshaven and unshowered that I was probably one of the more intimidating looking people in the car.

7.2. I got a birthday cake at work. They tried to make it a surprise, but I knew it was coming as another coworker had his birthday on Tuesday. A coworker dragged me to a conference room and their "surprise!" was met with my "oh, f***." They sang happy birthday, so, instead of just standing there and taking it, I yelled "I want three-part harmony!" and proceeded to lay my own counterpoint on top. On Tuesday, they had asked the other guy what he wanted to accomplish in the coming year. He listed technologies he'd like to improve and read up on. When asked what I wanted to accomplish in the next year, I responded "World peace, an end to hunger and poverty, and a Bush impeachment." We'll see how that pans out. Gotta set your goals high.

n. I ran again today, but my Garmin was out of batteries. I still have to upload the route from the 5k. I need to get back into the habit.

My birthday present.

2006-03-10T17:16:00.000-08:00

I got my birthday present from my mom today in the mail.

It was a goat.

I got a goat for my birthday.

In actuality, it wasn't a real, live goat. It was a goat purchased through the ELCA Global Barnyard program, which buys animals for needy families.

I'm more than happy with it.

Vacation, had to get away

2006-03-10T13:57:00.000-08:00

Cue the Go-Gos.

So I'm looking to take a vacation, probably right around the start of April.

I need two things:

Suggestions on places to go.
People to go with (of course, here I'm looking for people that I actually know outside the blogosphere). I'll meet you there, as soon as we determine where there is.

Leave comments.

My little town...

2006-03-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Thank heavens that Governor Doyle has been there to play veto goalie for the last few years, blocking atrocious things coming out of the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature (concealed-carry law, local property tax freeze, etc.)

But I was really dismayed to see that my state will now be holding a state referendum on November 7th to put a ban on gay marriage and civil unions into the state constitution. First, I don't agree with it (really? A guy that lives next to the Castro opposes a gay marriage ban?), and second, it's such an ugly California-proposition-style end-run around the legislative process. But I feared that people around my hometown and home state wouldn't feel similarly and Wisconsin would become one of the first purple (well, bluish-purple) states to pass one of these things.

So I've been more than happy to be reading the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (yes Mom, I visit the page every day). On Sunday was this piece all about local legislators from Central Wisconsin opposing this amendment. Today, the Wausau Daily Herald had Conflict on gay marriage hits area, which, in addition to being interesting, has this little bit in the sidebar:

Organizers of Fair Wisconsin are seeking volunteers to help with their campaign against a gay marriage ban. Those who are interested may attend a training session at 5:30 p.m. today at First Presbyterian Church, 406 Grant St., Wausau.

That's right. At the church. I'm so proud.

Update: From the comments: Fair Wisconsin's No On The Amendment Blog. Shira is a contributor. I knew her in college.

On getting recognized as Doctor Awesome on the street

2006-03-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm on my inflatable mattress in my room in Duboce Triangle. It and my bike stand are the only pieces of furniture here with me. I've also got a few shirts in the closet, a small suitcase, a laptop, and Marin.

I had gone, earlier in the evening, to a party up in Sausalito in Marin. It was a friend-of-a-friend-type invite, and ended up being a lot of people I didn't know very well. My designated-driver status didn't help me loosen up to them very well (my fabled personal-space bubble collapses with sufficient alcohol consumption). A large number of them were Europeans living in the states, which didn’t at all help my already-existing city-rural cultural divide. I spent most of the party fielding questions about Google from a few people which, really, isn’t all that fun (now that Google Page Creator is out, I can’t as easily use my dismissive "I work on things I can’t tell you about"). I go to parties to get away from work.

Home from the party and back at my place, my roommates wern’t around, so, to pass the time before bed, I assembled my bike stand and put it up on the wall. Outside my window, a car alarm went off.

This, of course, was annoying. So I peeked out the window to see what was going on. A guy was standing outside an expensive-looking car, and apparently there was someone inside. Damn yuppies. The honking alarm was getting annoying, so I grabbed my jacket and went outside.

"Hey, what’s the deal?" I asked. The guy explained the situation: this woman (who he didn’t know) was apparently drunk and upside down, feet on the window, inside her car, and he was trying to get her attention. Scarily, she appeared to have driven herself there.

A friend of hers soon came up and started trying to coax her to give up the keys. The first guy had seen me come out of the house. He was a neighbor, so he introduced himself. Upon further conversation, he made the connection that we both worked at Google. He mentioned what project he worked on, and I mentioned mine.

"Wait, so you’re Nathan, right?"

I was confused, but acknowledged the fact.

"So then you’re Doctor Awesome, right?"

Through coworkers and his being a loyal Doctor Awesome reader (seriously, he is. I referenced a number of my previous posts from months ago and he remembered them), he knew me, despite the fact we had never met. And he knew a lot about me. An eerily large amount.

It turned out, in fact, to be Chris Wetherell of Massless. We ended up talking for about an hour there, on the street, at one in the morning, and got along pretty well. He had just gotten back from a gig.

Randomness. Almost meetingPaulzyesque.

Pee-my-pants awesome.

2006-03-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

I got The Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic in the mail yesterday.

Sunlandic Twins is okay, but Satanic Panic is pee-my-pants awesome.

My mousepad

2006-02-28T21:23:00.000-08:00

Lils was working in my cube the night we launched. She had her little cameraphone with her, took a shot of my mousepad, and blogged it.

Of Montreal

2006-02-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

Alex had a post today about getting into The Go Team! as a result of getting tipped off to the Morning Becomes Eclectic podcast seven months ago.

In my old job, I used to sometimes fumble through the iTunes radio stations when I got sick of my own music. I listened to WEMU's jazz and blues a lot (music without lyrics can be less distracting when programming). Because of the time difference between CST and PST, I'd also listen to KCRW in the mornings so I could listen to NPR news. When that ended, Morning Becomes Eclectic would come on, but I'd generally not take an interest and flip the station.

But it's in podcast form now, so I loaded it up (two of my other favorites: Radio Economics and Feldman's weekly monologue). I started on the first one, today's episode with Of Montreal.

Holy crap I loved it. It was so Bowie's Berlin Trilogy. I love the Berlin Trilogy. But I never went on into Eno or anything.

I listened to the podcast three or four times, over and over. I then ordered their latest two albums from Amazon.

It was totally a butterfly-effect thing. Somebody tells Alex about the Morning Becomes Eclectic podcast seven months ago, gets into a band because of it, blogs about it, I read it, sign up for the podcast, then get into another band because of it.

Nice friggin' meatloaf

2006-02-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

Jessica, who left this message, was one of my roommates last year.

Back then, I worked half-time during my last year of school as a programmer for University Housing. Most of my work was in PHP creating little web apps to handle employment data and other things. It was really, really important for everything to work in every browser, so mostly everything was done by generating HTML, having the user fill out a form, and making a POST or GET request, just like every other web app since 1932. Being part of the state, accessibility was very high concern for us (this is an extremely big problem with AJAX and Web 2.0, by the way). I used Javascript rarely and, if I did, I did it in such a way that it would "degrade gracefully" if you didn't have Javascript on (I don't know, maybe there are some Lynx users out there).

Jessica helped teach a class concerned with web design. We were once discussing the topic. I was complaining about how much of a mess Wiscmail was and how slow and Javascript-dependent it was. I described my philosophy on the subject:

"Javascript is like a spice. You can use it to make things a little better, but you can't make an entire meatloaf out of spice. Don't make Javascript meatloaf."

She loved the analogy and started using the phrase in class.

Of course, I get here, and, due to my frontend/design background, I'm placed on Google Page Creator, which is the biggest piece of Javascript meatloaf I've ever seen.

The irony of this hit me very hard when I started, but I couldn't say anything to Jessica about it as the project was still internal. Of course, it's out now. So this morning, I have this this comment on the last post:

"Nice friggin' meatloaf, Nathan"

Of course, once you restrict to a set of browsers, you can start doing some very impressive things with Javascript (Maps floored me when I first saw it). I have, in the process of being here, become a convert.

Here's to browser apps. And meatloaf.

In the trenches...

2006-02-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Google Page Creator

That would be my project. I'm at work, hard at work. Something I did got Slashdotted. I'm so proud.

More info as time permits.

Movin' on up...

2006-02-17T01:24:00.000-08:00

...to San Francisco.

I think there's a song that goes like that. Or something.

On Monday, I interviewed to be a roommate in a house in Duboce Triange (a coworker is moving out and alerted me to the opening). As part of that karma kick I've been on, today, they called back and offered the room. I'm taking it.

I'm going to keep two places for a bit so I can move leisurely and have time to find a replacement for me in my current house.

Things are looking up...

2006-02-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

Between not getting eaten by a mountain lion, the fact that today's 5.35-mile run was easy, the fact that I bowled a 203 tonight (with another five bagger!), nearly matching my 207 of last week, and a bunch of other things, I'm actually having a good week. This hasn't been the case for a while.

Gets me on the topic of superstition. My similarly rationally minded roommate and I had a discussion on superstition. Something on television sparked it. I commented on how John Lennon thought that the number nine had followed him around in life. Me, I've found that the number twelve has done that.

Of course, my rational side recognizes this as bunk. The only reason I notice a pattern of twelves is that the pattern already exists, and if I spent my time searching for other patterns, I'd find something. Our noticing such things is exemplative of our psychological tendency towards superstition.

But still, I notice a pattern making up my good week. It's flawed logic, yes. But it's probably evolutionarily advantageous to make quick associations and theories of causation, even if they're often premature and wrong (yeah, so dancing doesn't bring rain. But eating the wrong plants can kill you).

There's something fatalist about reading into signs and patterns for deeper meaning—totally against my rational nature. But I still find myself doing it.

Getting the hell out of Dodge

2006-02-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

Silicon Valley is much more sexy in concept than in person.

From Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift:

[There] are two problems of portraying Silicon Valley:
There is very little there, there.
What is is shrouded in secrecy

Silicon Valley isn't particuarly pretty. It's a big flat part of the inner peninsula that was near a big city, had plenty of space to put in big ugly office buildings, and happened to be near Stanford. Yes, cool stuff happens here. But it happens in cubes and boardrooms. The constant churning tides of capitalism are crushing and surging different companies' fortunes, but you'd never know it standing on University Avenue. We, too, have to read about it in newspapers, magazines, and the web.

I oftentimes forget how boring it is here and spend my weekends hanging around the area, hitting up University Avenue or (Mountain View's) Castro Street, or, worse, putting in a few hours at work so I can grab some food and not cook.

This is stupid. In nearly every direction, there's marvelous beauty. To the south is Santa Cruz and Monterey. To the west there's a bunch of state parks and the gorgeous coastline-hugging Highway 1. To the north, there's the city of San Francisco and Marin County. And if you're willing to put in the time in the car, there's Tahoe and Yosemite within a reasonable drive.

When I have friends in town, it's a good time to play tourist. As I said, Ali's around, so we've been hanging out a lot. Last week we spent some time in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and the Marin Headlands.

I had decided I wanted to visit the famous Muir Woods (one for reputation, and two since Muir was a Wisconsin alum and used to live in North Hall where the political science department is today. The small woods between Bascom and Lake Mendota there are also called Muir Woods).

On Saturday, I called Justin and Ali, picked them up in Oakland, and headed back into the city and over the Golden Gate into Marin. I suggested we stop by to see Point Bonita (to which I've never been), as it's only open 12:30 to 3:30 on Mondays and weekends. The lighthouse is gorgeous, but it ended up chewing up a bunch of time. Justin wanted to be back in the city for the Chinese New Year, so we ended up just getting a late lunch in Sausalito and dropping him off in the city. Ali and I met up with a another Wisconsin alum and went to see Why We Fight. We then crashed at Ali's cousin's house in Oakland.

The next morning, we got out the door bright and early and headed right for Muir Woods. It was gorgeous. We ended up hiking all the way from Muir Woods to the Pacific Ocean at Stinson Beach and back, walking a huge loop and going covering elevations from 0 to 1500 feet and probably covering 10 or 15 miles. After a late lunch at Stinson, we took the less-traveled Matt Davis Trail back up.

When hiking, I have the unfortunate habit of ignoring when the sun sets. This is a regrettable attribute. At some point while laboring up the Matt Davis Trail switchbacks, we realized we were running out of daylight. We ended up coming down some pretty steep and dangerous trails with little light. We came out of Muir Woods in near darkness, without a flashlight. An annoyed ranger was there to greet us in the parking lot, wondering if the last car belonged to us.

What was did was pretty irresponsible. In the last few hundred yards, walking across the boardwalk in the short deserted touristy path through a patch of redwoods, I said to Ali, "You know, we're pretty stupid."

"Yeah, but just smart enough," he replied. A half hour more might have been real trouble.

207!

2006-02-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

Bowled a 207 tonight. First time I've ever broken 200. Six strikes, including a five bagger.

People I'm thanking my stars for tonight

2006-02-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

It was during college. I believe I was driving the time, listening to Simply Folk on the radio, back when Judy Rose was still the host. She played For All the Good People. I hadn't heard the song in likely a decade, but it was recognizable and familiar.

As a kid, my parents had me listening to Tom Pease and Robbie Clement. They were local folksy children's artists that played in the area. We would go to concerts. I had all of Tom Pease's tapes.

Tom Pease used to play For All the Good People, so when I heard it again, it struck an emotional chord. The song was written by Ken Hicks, but was popularized by a folk singer from Chicago named Fred Holstein, who played in a folk club owned by him and his brother in Chicago.

The version played on Simply Folk was Holstein's. I remembered the name, looked it up, and was intrigued. I planned on eventually making it down to Chicago to see him play--take the Van Galder bus.

I went back to the website sometime during the spring of 2004, looking to see if there were any dates I could attend that spring. I was saddened to find that Fred passed away in January. I've regretted not going earlier ever since.

During my last year in Madison, I had built up a desire to get on a stage again. Ben and I made a pact to start attending open mics. We started with the Union, in the Rathskellar, playing occasionally to crowds that were largely disinterested in anything we played that wasn't flashy or familiar. We eventually lost interest ourselves and quit going.

But on a fateful night at the Mickey's, Ben and I found a newspaper with a listing of open mics in the city. Ben picked out the open mic with Stephen Lee Rich (which used to be in a little market near Tenney Park called the Urban Market and Coffeehouse. I wrote an entry about it before).

We attended regularly until I moved away. I decided to play For All The Good People the last time I went. The chorus is very simple, and the other folks in the audience sang along for each one:

This is the song for all the good people,
All the good people that touched up my life.
This is the song for all the good people,
People I'm thanking my stars for tonight.

It was really touching. Stephen Lee Rich was very happy to have heard it played and talked about seeing Fred perform it. Fred traditionally played it as his closing song.

I haven't really performed (excepting the opera story) again since I've moved, at least until last night. Ali's in town, and his cousin lives in Oakland near Justin, so we made plans to all meet the open mic at the Starry Plough (the same place I saw Robbie Fulks last August). I played a very slow and emotive version of Good Year for the Roses and a very fast and playful Rocky Raccoon. I was particularly impressed by the audience's attention during the slow ballad. The room was almost quiet, and I tried to focus all my emotional strength into delivering the lyrics.

It comes full circle, somehow. Serendipity determines who we meet along the way. Justin and Ali only became friends of mine by chance in college--I was fairly sure I'd never see Justin again after he moved out, nor did I expect to see Ali again after I moved. Ali used to come with to see me play at open mics in Madison.

On Monday, a CD arrived at my desk. It was Fred Holstein: A Collection. I listened to the whole thing through. The last track, appropriately, was his closer, For All the Good People. Fortunately, I sit behind a divider, so nobody could see my eyes water up when I heard it.

Anyway, Ali, Justin, Fred Holstein, and everyone else I've mentioned are just some of the people I'm thanking my stars for tonight.