A note on Bogger Blog
Blogger Status
Saturday, November 05, 2005
One of the Blogger databases is down that causes some blogs to be unaccessible and general slowness on the site. We are working on resolving the problem and apologize for the inconvenience.
Maybe if it read, "One of the Blogger databases is down. That causes some blogs to be unaccessible..." ??
I read this note as saying one of the databases that causes some blogs to be unaccessible is down. Well, if you know one of the databases does that, why don't you just replace it?
Next up: unaccessible or inaccessible?
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Parrots have flown the coop, the headline said
"Parrots have flown the coop," the headline in today's Chron said. "After cypress felled, colorful birds are roosting on wires," it continued.
Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer, wrote,
If a sequel is made about the famous wild parrots of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, there's a chance it may not have a happy ending.
Since one of their favorite trees was chopped down Monday, and two others may also share the same destiny, the roosting patterns of those feathered stars of a best-selling book and acclaimed documentary have been disrupted, and life just hasn't been the same.
[...]
All of which is a bunch of horse hooey, of course.
When the huge cypress came down last fall, the parrots stayed away for a while and then resumed flocking to the remaining cypresses when they weren't flocking to other trees on the Hill.
This time? I wasn't home during the day yesterday to check out where they were hanging (they go home somewhere -- the Presidio, I think -- to tuck in every afternoon), but parrots roosting on wires is not news. They roost on wires every day. Today? Well, I just heard them squawking outside and went to see where these poor psychologically-damaged birds were gathering, and spotted them ...
... in the remaining cypresses!
They're fine and not permanently psychologically damaged by it all after all.
Who could've guessed?!??
Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer, wrote,
If a sequel is made about the famous wild parrots of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, there's a chance it may not have a happy ending.
Since one of their favorite trees was chopped down Monday, and two others may also share the same destiny, the roosting patterns of those feathered stars of a best-selling book and acclaimed documentary have been disrupted, and life just hasn't been the same.
[...]
All of which is a bunch of horse hooey, of course.
When the huge cypress came down last fall, the parrots stayed away for a while and then resumed flocking to the remaining cypresses when they weren't flocking to other trees on the Hill.
This time? I wasn't home during the day yesterday to check out where they were hanging (they go home somewhere -- the Presidio, I think -- to tuck in every afternoon), but parrots roosting on wires is not news. They roost on wires every day. Today? Well, I just heard them squawking outside and went to see where these poor psychologically-damaged birds were gathering, and spotted them ...
... in the remaining cypresses!
They're fine and not permanently psychologically damaged by it all after all.
Who could've guessed?!??
Save us the time and reject yourself
Daniel Lazar got a nice mention over at galleycat today.
galleycat said It's easy to see why [he got promoted], as well as why he's continually one of the most clicked-on agents over at Publishers Marketplace. I, of course, immediately scurried over Publishers Marketplace to read said listing.
After all the who-I-am and what-I've-represented, Lazar writes:
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
I am actively seeking new clients.
** Queries by regular mail or e-mail are fine. Include 3 - 5 sample pages (the first pages, not pages 45-50).
** If you're emailing: a) NO ATTACHMENTS; b) if you copy me and every other agent in the industry, save us the time and reject yourself.
** For regular mail, please include a SASE.
** Also, no need to send your materials double sealed in bubble wrap. It's paper, not anthrax.
** My response time is 1 minute to several weeks.
I look forward to hearing from you.
I like this guy's attitude.
galleycat said It's easy to see why [he got promoted], as well as why he's continually one of the most clicked-on agents over at Publishers Marketplace. I, of course, immediately scurried over Publishers Marketplace to read said listing.
After all the who-I-am and what-I've-represented, Lazar writes:
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
I am actively seeking new clients.
** Queries by regular mail or e-mail are fine. Include 3 - 5 sample pages (the first pages, not pages 45-50).
** If you're emailing: a) NO ATTACHMENTS; b) if you copy me and every other agent in the industry, save us the time and reject yourself.
** For regular mail, please include a SASE.
** Also, no need to send your materials double sealed in bubble wrap. It's paper, not anthrax.
** My response time is 1 minute to several weeks.
I look forward to hearing from you.
I like this guy's attitude.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
23rd-post-5th-sentence meme
Paula tagged me with the 23rd-post-5th-sentence meme.
I rarely do the tagging/meme biz. Seems akin to chain letters.
However, just this once ...
The fifth sentence of the twenty-third post ever on this blog:
Monday, February 25, 2002
I sent a note John Paczkowski at the Merc to find a link to the 9-11 blog that was also referenced in the article.John sez they're moving the archival stuff over to the new Web location and it should be available in a few days. (sorry! one sentence too many!)
In those days I oft times used the blog to reference the URLs I was using in my column and to make some use of the (usually huge) batch of URLs that didn't make the cut. In this case, between the time I'd submitted the February 2002 column and it had come out in print, several URLs had changed and I was updating the info.
The February 2002 column began thusly,
Blogs
Indecent exposures and passions on the Web ... by Sal Towse
Weblogs (aka "blogs," to spare fast talkers and slow typers that extra syllable) are Web-based collections of short snippets of content arranged in reverse chronological order. Sometimes they're stand-alone 'zine-like collections of articles by multiple authors or collections of annotated links giving in-depth coverage of a given subject. Whether the product of an individual or a group, whether standalone or chronological, they chronicle deep interests and passions.
Tim Berners-Lee is credited by some for producing the first weblog, his World Wide Web News. Beginning in January, 1992, back even before DARPA (the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) provided seed funding for the World Wide Web Consortium, Tim BL kept the cognoscenti up-to-date with what was happening with the W3 project using a periodically updated newsletter.
That update, the WWW News, was distributed both on line at w3.org and also sent as plain text for those who weren't able to browse the WWW yet. WWW News included hypertext links to new projects and content available on the World Wide Web.
Some claim that although WWW News had hypertext links to other WWW sites it wasn't really a blog. They point to Mosaic's What's New page, which burst on the scene the following year and listed all the cool new sites that were popping up like California mushrooms after a November rain.
The thing I really liked about that column was the way it almost wrote itself.
Hey. THAT must be the reason why ...
Web logs (aka "blogs" to spare all us fast talkers and slow typers that extra syllable) have been around since Tim Berners-Lee was a pup.
Berners-Lee, in fact, is given credit for the first Web log with his World Wide Web News pages. Starting in January 1992, Tim BL kept the cognoscenti up-to-date with what was happening with the W3 project with a periodically updated log, including hypertext links to new content available on the still-a-borning Web.
Was WWW News an online newsletter or blog? Hard to say, but because Tim BL was keeping it, the bloggers tend to point to his work as the granddaddy of blogging.
Was neither the first time nor the last that I'd taken something I was rambling on about on Usenet and turned it into something that paid.
[Yes, I am way behind with uploading all my Computer Bits columns and articles to towse.com -- now that the Computer Bits Web site archive is no more. Two down, a few score or more to go.]
I rarely do the tagging/meme biz. Seems akin to chain letters.
However, just this once ...
The fifth sentence of the twenty-third post ever on this blog:
Monday, February 25, 2002
I sent a note John Paczkowski at the Merc to find a link to the 9-11 blog that was also referenced in the article.
In those days I oft times used the blog to reference the URLs I was using in my column and to make some use of the (usually huge) batch of URLs that didn't make the cut. In this case, between the time I'd submitted the February 2002 column and it had come out in print, several URLs had changed and I was updating the info.
The February 2002 column began thusly,
Blogs
Indecent exposures and passions on the Web ... by Sal Towse
Weblogs (aka "blogs," to spare fast talkers and slow typers that extra syllable) are Web-based collections of short snippets of content arranged in reverse chronological order. Sometimes they're stand-alone 'zine-like collections of articles by multiple authors or collections of annotated links giving in-depth coverage of a given subject. Whether the product of an individual or a group, whether standalone or chronological, they chronicle deep interests and passions.
Tim Berners-Lee is credited by some for producing the first weblog, his World Wide Web News. Beginning in January, 1992, back even before DARPA (the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) provided seed funding for the World Wide Web Consortium, Tim BL kept the cognoscenti up-to-date with what was happening with the W3 project using a periodically updated newsletter.
That update, the WWW News, was distributed both on line at w3.org and also sent as plain text for those who weren't able to browse the WWW yet. WWW News included hypertext links to new projects and content available on the World Wide Web.
Some claim that although WWW News had hypertext links to other WWW sites it wasn't really a blog. They point to Mosaic's What's New page, which burst on the scene the following year and listed all the cool new sites that were popping up like California mushrooms after a November rain.
The thing I really liked about that column was the way it almost wrote itself.
Hey. THAT must be the reason why ...
Web logs (aka "blogs" to spare all us fast talkers and slow typers that extra syllable) have been around since Tim Berners-Lee was a pup.
Berners-Lee, in fact, is given credit for the first Web log with his World Wide Web News pages. Starting in January 1992, Tim BL kept the cognoscenti up-to-date with what was happening with the W3 project with a periodically updated log, including hypertext links to new content available on the still-a-borning Web.
Was WWW News an online newsletter or blog? Hard to say, but because Tim BL was keeping it, the bloggers tend to point to his work as the granddaddy of blogging.
Was neither the first time nor the last that I'd taken something I was rambling on about on Usenet and turned it into something that paid.
[Yes, I am way behind with uploading all my Computer Bits columns and articles to towse.com -- now that the Computer Bits Web site archive is no more. Two down, a few score or more to go.]
Tree ballet from a different perspective
Article in today's Chron.
A major tree was down by the end of yesterday. We see more of Piers 27-29 than we used to. Not something I'm happy with. Two smaller trees remain for now while the neighbors try to sort things out with the owner. The neighbors who object to the tree removal, knowing that it's perfectly legal, are media savvy enough to call in the journalists and try to raise a public hue and cry.
Without the trees, the birds could end up perched on some other limbs on Telegraph Hill, but not even Bittner knows exactly what would happen.
"I can't predict it," he said.
The birds would probably perch on the trees they perch on when they aren't perching on the cypresses. Unfortunately for Bittner, who loves the parrots, those trees aren't just outside his door.
My views on the disagreement are influenced by an uproar in Carmel, CA, some years back. A resident went through all sorts of grief to get permission to remove a Monterey pine that was growing too close to his house and forceably lifting the roof off the walls. The house predated the tree, but the tree huggers were out in force arguing that the tree should have precedence.
In the neighborhood case, the property owner has valid concerns about liability should one of the aging cypresses come down on a neighbor's house ... or a neighbor. Me? I like the green between me and the piers, but I don't think the parrots are a compelling argument to force the owner to keep the trees. The parrots hang out elsewhere, all over the hill and beyond. If these trees go, there are plenty of trees, some even on public property and subject to current tree rules, that they will flock to instead.
Solomon, where are you?
A major tree was down by the end of yesterday. We see more of Piers 27-29 than we used to. Not something I'm happy with. Two smaller trees remain for now while the neighbors try to sort things out with the owner. The neighbors who object to the tree removal, knowing that it's perfectly legal, are media savvy enough to call in the journalists and try to raise a public hue and cry.
Without the trees, the birds could end up perched on some other limbs on Telegraph Hill, but not even Bittner knows exactly what would happen.
"I can't predict it," he said.
The birds would probably perch on the trees they perch on when they aren't perching on the cypresses. Unfortunately for Bittner, who loves the parrots, those trees aren't just outside his door.
My views on the disagreement are influenced by an uproar in Carmel, CA, some years back. A resident went through all sorts of grief to get permission to remove a Monterey pine that was growing too close to his house and forceably lifting the roof off the walls. The house predated the tree, but the tree huggers were out in force arguing that the tree should have precedence.
In the neighborhood case, the property owner has valid concerns about liability should one of the aging cypresses come down on a neighbor's house ... or a neighbor. Me? I like the green between me and the piers, but I don't think the parrots are a compelling argument to force the owner to keep the trees. The parrots hang out elsewhere, all over the hill and beyond. If these trees go, there are plenty of trees, some even on public property and subject to current tree rules, that they will flock to instead.
Solomon, where are you?
Monday, October 31, 2005
Tree ballet redux
I heard the chainsaws this morning as I was downing my daily vitamins -- with the passion fruit juice I found at the Marina Safeway the other day. (Ymm!) Chainsaws are not a common sound here in the wilds of Telegraph Hill, unlike they are in the wilds of the Santa Cruz Mountains around, say, Boulder Creek.
I sat out on our spiral fire escape and watched workers having at the trees that stand between us and Teatro Zinzanni, between us and Piers 27-29, between us and the Bay. Sad sight. I like the bit of green that blocks our view of the piers without interfering with our view of Treasure Island. I like watching the conures/parrots flock to these trees and squawk on and pet and kiss and mock on these trees. Noisy creatures -- a squabble of parrots, we call them -- but fun to watch.
Tree Ballet Redux, I thought. The original Tree Ballet happened just about this time last year.
Turned out, much to my surprise last year, there are no San Francisco ordinances governing trees on private property.
Turned out some of the neighbors were furious about the tree ballet last year that took down a tree that the parrots flock to. (n.b. not nest in, the parrots nest over in the Presidio)
Turned out some of the furious neighbors, and residents elsewhere who were furious with their neighbors for removing trees, were pushing for a city ordinance to cover trees on private property. Could the neighbor down the hill be working on the trees because the proposed new ordinance would curtail his/her right to take out the trees?
As I came back inside, I heard another set of chainsaws elsewhere on the hill. Something must be up.
I searched the Web.
Ah. ... Tree preservation to be a decision made by voters
Daly’s controversial plan goes to June 2006 ballot
By Marisa Lagos, Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:20 PM PDT
A controversial proposal that would require private property owners to ask The City permission before cutting down trees — even those out of the public eye — will be taken straight to the voters, Supervisor Chris Daly announced Tuesday.
A less sweeping plan by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick — which would allow The City to landmark certain trees — will be voted on by the Board of Supervisors next week. The ordinance was shelved Tuesday to allow the City Attorney time to change and clean up some of the legislation’s language.
Daly’s proposal would designate most large trees in The City as a "landmark" and require private property owners to apply for a permit before cutting them down. McGoldrick's, by contrast, would require private property owners, city residents and city agencies to apply for landmark status for a tree and hold public hearings before it is granted. If passed, Daly’s proposal would immediately affect thousands of The City’s estimated 668,000 trees; McGoldrick's would apply to an estimated 150-300 trees a year.
[...]
At the October 18th meeting, McGoldrick's proposal was continued again to October 25th. At last Tuesday's meeting, it was continued again until tomorrow.
Today, the trees just down the hill are coming down.
The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
I sat out on our spiral fire escape and watched workers having at the trees that stand between us and Teatro Zinzanni, between us and Piers 27-29, between us and the Bay. Sad sight. I like the bit of green that blocks our view of the piers without interfering with our view of Treasure Island. I like watching the conures/parrots flock to these trees and squawk on and pet and kiss and mock on these trees. Noisy creatures -- a squabble of parrots, we call them -- but fun to watch.
Tree Ballet Redux, I thought. The original Tree Ballet happened just about this time last year.
Turned out, much to my surprise last year, there are no San Francisco ordinances governing trees on private property.
Turned out some of the neighbors were furious about the tree ballet last year that took down a tree that the parrots flock to. (n.b. not nest in, the parrots nest over in the Presidio)
Turned out some of the furious neighbors, and residents elsewhere who were furious with their neighbors for removing trees, were pushing for a city ordinance to cover trees on private property. Could the neighbor down the hill be working on the trees because the proposed new ordinance would curtail his/her right to take out the trees?
As I came back inside, I heard another set of chainsaws elsewhere on the hill. Something must be up.
I searched the Web.
Ah. ... Tree preservation to be a decision made by voters
Daly’s controversial plan goes to June 2006 ballot
By Marisa Lagos, Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:20 PM PDT
A controversial proposal that would require private property owners to ask The City permission before cutting down trees — even those out of the public eye — will be taken straight to the voters, Supervisor Chris Daly announced Tuesday.
A less sweeping plan by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick — which would allow The City to landmark certain trees — will be voted on by the Board of Supervisors next week. The ordinance was shelved Tuesday to allow the City Attorney time to change and clean up some of the legislation’s language.
Daly’s proposal would designate most large trees in The City as a "landmark" and require private property owners to apply for a permit before cutting them down. McGoldrick's, by contrast, would require private property owners, city residents and city agencies to apply for landmark status for a tree and hold public hearings before it is granted. If passed, Daly’s proposal would immediately affect thousands of The City’s estimated 668,000 trees; McGoldrick's would apply to an estimated 150-300 trees a year.
[...]
At the October 18th meeting, McGoldrick's proposal was continued again to October 25th. At last Tuesday's meeting, it was continued again until tomorrow.
Today, the trees just down the hill are coming down.
The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
Found your blog!
Old friends came over yesterday and we had a really nice time. After much discussion a couple few days beforehand as to which restaurants were within a reasonable walking distance and which were open for dinner on Sunday, his nibs made reservations for four at Iluna Basque [701 Union St., San Francisco, CA].
As we were walking down to North Beach for dinner, Carol said, "I have to admit that after John told me where we were going to dinner, I searched the Web for information about the restaurant."
"Of course you did," I said.
"Yes, and I discovered you have a blog!"
Funny world.
She's not the first person to find my blog with a search for /"Iluna Basque restaurant" "san francisco"/.
As we were walking down to North Beach for dinner, Carol said, "I have to admit that after John told me where we were going to dinner, I searched the Web for information about the restaurant."
"Of course you did," I said.
"Yes, and I discovered you have a blog!"
Funny world.
She's not the first person to find my blog with a search for /"Iluna Basque restaurant" "san francisco"/.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet
Friday, October 28, 2005
The Padre and Bloglines
I use bloglines to aggregate/monitor the plethora of blogs I read.
Firefox provides a cute little icon down at the bottom corner of my Firefox window which sports a red polka dot whenever one of the blogs I track is updated. Means I don't have to go clickety clickety through my list of blogs once a day or twice a week to find out who has and who hasn't posted something new. (Hi, Zen!)
When the red polka dot pops up, I click on the icon and Firefox brings up a window displaying my bloglines feeds list, with the feeds that have new entries clearly marked and the entries themselves shown in preview format. Click on the name of the blog, if any of the entries look interesting, and pull up the blog itself. Easy peasy.
Every once in a bit a feed that bloglines tracks goes sneakers up and I don't get notified of new posts on someone's blog.
Happened last week with Asha at Language Barrier.
Happened this week with Father Luke.
I don't know the feed's busted until I realize I haven't seen something new for a while from someone who usually posts fairly regularly. When that happens, I check their blog and find new posts that bloglines hasn't noticed.
Dropped Asha a note. She said she'd check into it when she wasn't connecting in from 'net cafes in Mexico. After I dropped Padre a note, he sent me his new RSS feed details. I popped that info into bloglines and Bob's your uncle.
bloglines claims Asha's feed is up-to-date, but when you preview the feed, the latest post showing is dated July some time. I'll wait patiently and click her blog link until she gets the feed cleared up.
Preetam Rai has a very lucid description of how Bloglines works and how to use it.
Firefox provides a cute little icon down at the bottom corner of my Firefox window which sports a red polka dot whenever one of the blogs I track is updated. Means I don't have to go clickety clickety through my list of blogs once a day or twice a week to find out who has and who hasn't posted something new. (Hi, Zen!)
When the red polka dot pops up, I click on the icon and Firefox brings up a window displaying my bloglines feeds list, with the feeds that have new entries clearly marked and the entries themselves shown in preview format. Click on the name of the blog, if any of the entries look interesting, and pull up the blog itself. Easy peasy.
Every once in a bit a feed that bloglines tracks goes sneakers up and I don't get notified of new posts on someone's blog.
Happened last week with Asha at Language Barrier.
Happened this week with Father Luke.
I don't know the feed's busted until I realize I haven't seen something new for a while from someone who usually posts fairly regularly. When that happens, I check their blog and find new posts that bloglines hasn't noticed.
Dropped Asha a note. She said she'd check into it when she wasn't connecting in from 'net cafes in Mexico. After I dropped Padre a note, he sent me his new RSS feed details. I popped that info into bloglines and Bob's your uncle.
bloglines claims Asha's feed is up-to-date, but when you preview the feed, the latest post showing is dated July some time. I'll wait patiently and click her blog link until she gets the feed cleared up.
Preetam Rai has a very lucid description of how Bloglines works and how to use it.
Mike Wallace interview
Leah Garchik writes today in the San Francisco Chronicle about her lively phone interview with Mike Wallace.
"I talked with Mike Wallace, whose new memoir, Between You and Me, is about his career as a journalist, by phone on Wednesday. We didn't forge a friendship."
To say the least ...
"I talked with Mike Wallace, whose new memoir, Between You and Me, is about his career as a journalist, by phone on Wednesday. We didn't forge a friendship."
To say the least ...
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Mark Billingham on writing the next book
Check out Mark Billingham's latest column for theBookseller.
(Funny guy with great stories to tell. Unfortunately, he's giving up the column because of time constraints. He needs to write the next book.)
"It was a horrible revelation that this actually got harder with each successive book. I thought, certainly after I'd managed a couple, that it would be like shelling peas. I mean, James Patterson manages to start 10 to 11 books a year! Each time, it takes perhaps 100 pages before I remember that I can do it; before I feel as though I may actually manage to write another book."
[from Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind]
(Funny guy with great stories to tell. Unfortunately, he's giving up the column because of time constraints. He needs to write the next book.)
"It was a horrible revelation that this actually got harder with each successive book. I thought, certainly after I'd managed a couple, that it would be like shelling peas. I mean, James Patterson manages to start 10 to 11 books a year! Each time, it takes perhaps 100 pages before I remember that I can do it; before I feel as though I may actually manage to write another book."
[from Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind]
Google Video brings you the Archive of American Television interviews
Google Video brings you the Archive of American Television interviews.
The archive contains over 450 interviews with the likes of Grant Tinker, Ted Turner, Norman Lear, Rita Moreno, Quincy Jones, Carl Reiner ... The video interviews come in multiple parts. To easily find the first segment of five, pop in a name (Ricardo Montalban, for instance) and sort through the hits.
Maybe Google is still uploading videos: in some cases, I couldn't find all segments in a series and the search results only show 501 hits, which means the number of interviews is probably more like 100-200 at this point, being as there's a hit for each segment of an interview.
Barbara Eden seems charming. I hadn't realized that she grew up in San Francisco.
[from GoogleBlog, natch.]
The archive contains over 450 interviews with the likes of Grant Tinker, Ted Turner, Norman Lear, Rita Moreno, Quincy Jones, Carl Reiner ... The video interviews come in multiple parts. To easily find the first segment of five, pop in a name (Ricardo Montalban, for instance) and sort through the hits.
Maybe Google is still uploading videos: in some cases, I couldn't find all segments in a series and the search results only show 501 hits, which means the number of interviews is probably more like 100-200 at this point, being as there's a hit for each segment of an interview.
Barbara Eden seems charming. I hadn't realized that she grew up in San Francisco.
[from GoogleBlog, natch.]
and a partridge in a pear tree ...
Well, actually, parrots in a pyracantha tree.
Came home from bulk-item trips to Safeway, Trader Joe's and Costco yesterday and did our usual double-park so we can carry things down the stairs. As we got out of the car, we saw our young next door neighbor Sadie and her uncle Marcus standing on Montgomery watching this sight. The birds squawked above and munched on berries: Sadie bounced with delight as bits of berry splatted on the ground around her.
The red heads of the cherry-headed conures and their green bodies blend in almost perfectly with the berry bushes. I took my camera out and turned it on. By the time the camera booted and I took this click, the parrots had noticed a camera pointed at them and half of them had taken flight.
[correction: conures in a cotoneaster tree. Sorry to be so compul^H^H^H^H^H^Hpersnickety.
I went back and forth. pyracantha. cotoneaster. pyracantha. cotoneaster. I couldn't tell from the pic, really, and I'd never checked the tree out before I saw Sadie and the conures yesterday. Parrots and pyracantha had a nice alliteration. ... Tonight, as we walked home from dinner, I checked it out. Cotoneaster it is, so conures and cotoneaster it is.]
Came home from bulk-item trips to Safeway, Trader Joe's and Costco yesterday and did our usual double-park so we can carry things down the stairs. As we got out of the car, we saw our young next door neighbor Sadie and her uncle Marcus standing on Montgomery watching this sight. The birds squawked above and munched on berries: Sadie bounced with delight as bits of berry splatted on the ground around her.
The red heads of the cherry-headed conures and their green bodies blend in almost perfectly with the berry bushes. I took my camera out and turned it on. By the time the camera booted and I took this click, the parrots had noticed a camera pointed at them and half of them had taken flight. [correction: conures in a cotoneaster tree. Sorry to be so compul^H^H^H^H^H^Hpersnickety.
I went back and forth. pyracantha. cotoneaster. pyracantha. cotoneaster. I couldn't tell from the pic, really, and I'd never checked the tree out before I saw Sadie and the conures yesterday. Parrots and pyracantha had a nice alliteration. ... Tonight, as we walked home from dinner, I checked it out. Cotoneaster it is, so conures and cotoneaster it is.]
Public Art
After the farmer's market last Saturday and before a looksee at the preview for Bonhams and Butterfields SOMA auction, we stopped by the dump for the Open Studio show for this quarter's artists in residence.
On our way in from where we'd parked the car, we found this public art outside the SF Recycling and Disposal office.
[22Oct2005]
The art was interesting. Unusual. The artists have three month gigs and it must be something, those first few days or weeks, trying to decide what to do, what to salvage, what to use. The possibilities are endless and yet, you wouldn't want to do something that someone else has already done.
Out in the open area courtyard outside the gallery area, I found this.
Found art.
[22Oct2005]
On our way in from where we'd parked the car, we found this public art outside the SF Recycling and Disposal office.
[22Oct2005]The art was interesting. Unusual. The artists have three month gigs and it must be something, those first few days or weeks, trying to decide what to do, what to salvage, what to use. The possibilities are endless and yet, you wouldn't want to do something that someone else has already done.
Out in the open area courtyard outside the gallery area, I found this.
Found art.
[22Oct2005]
Friday, October 21, 2005
Housekeeping notes and congrats to Clotilde!
Today, obviously, I've been playing around with my blog. I fiddled with the layout. Added a pic! instead of just a text link to towse.com.
A few hours were taken up with formatting and FTP-ing two articles I'd written for Computer Bits over so that I could link to them [1] [2] from Internet Resources for Writers again. When Computer Bits closed up shop, they also took down their website and !there went my archives! I do have copies of everything I wrote for them for the five or six years they ran my columns and articles, but it will be a bear to get them all in shape to put online. Part of the exercise today was deciding on a basic layout for the articles and that format can (and will) be used over and over. ...
The last bit of time today was spent moving the huge set of links that had accumulated on my blogrolling Random Blogs of Interest list (where I stash blog links I decide to save) into the "real" blogroll in my template.
Mission accomplished!
And while I was clicking and moving and clicking and moving, I discovered that Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini has a book deal! Congratulations, Clotilde!!
After the lengthy churn when Blogger republishes the updated blog and template, I discovered I'd forgotten to move Clotilde's [F] (for foodie) link down with the other [F] links. The alphabetizing and sorting of the template blogrolls are hand-done, you see, and mistakes happen.
But it takes too dang long for Blogger to republish the blog after updating the template so that update will just have to wait until the next time I'm fiddling with the template.
A few hours were taken up with formatting and FTP-ing two articles I'd written for Computer Bits over so that I could link to them [1] [2] from Internet Resources for Writers again. When Computer Bits closed up shop, they also took down their website and !there went my archives! I do have copies of everything I wrote for them for the five or six years they ran my columns and articles, but it will be a bear to get them all in shape to put online. Part of the exercise today was deciding on a basic layout for the articles and that format can (and will) be used over and over. ...
The last bit of time today was spent moving the huge set of links that had accumulated on my blogrolling Random Blogs of Interest list (where I stash blog links I decide to save) into the "real" blogroll in my template.
Mission accomplished!
And while I was clicking and moving and clicking and moving, I discovered that Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini has a book deal! Congratulations, Clotilde!!
After the lengthy churn when Blogger republishes the updated blog and template, I discovered I'd forgotten to move Clotilde's [F] (for foodie) link down with the other [F] links. The alphabetizing and sorting of the template blogrolls are hand-done, you see, and mistakes happen.
But it takes too dang long for Blogger to republish the blog after updating the template so that update will just have to wait until the next time I'm fiddling with the template.
NaNoWriMo ... for those gearing up for November 1st
Found today: Eric Benson's NaNo Report Card updated by Bec for use in 2005.
How cool is that?
Bec is NaNoWriMo ML for Brisbane ... Australia (not California).
[n.b. The report card is an .XLS file with auto-calculating cells. If you don't do Excel, this morsel is not for you.]
How cool is that?
Bec is NaNoWriMo ML for Brisbane ... Australia (not California).
[n.b. The report card is an .XLS file with auto-calculating cells. If you don't do Excel, this morsel is not for you.]
The Yang Ming Wealth and the wonders of the Web (... continued)
re the Yang Ming Wealth
Spent more time poking around and found a press release re the christening of the Wealth in March 2004 with the following commentary
Dr. Frank Lu, chairman of Yang Ming, and Dr. Chiang Hsu, chairman of CSBC, presided the christening ceremony and Mrs. Constance D. White, wife of Mr. Stephen W. White, vice president of Dollar Tree Store, Inc., one of Yang Ming's most important customers in Pan-Pacific market, was invited to be the Sponsor of the new vessel. Dollar Tree is a large retail chain store in the US, which has cooperated and maintained good relationship with Yang Ming since 1994. The total volume of its consigned cargoes reached 16,000 TEUs in the recent two years.
Dollar Tree! Of course!
Spent more time poking around and found a press release re the christening of the Wealth in March 2004 with the following commentary
Dr. Frank Lu, chairman of Yang Ming, and Dr. Chiang Hsu, chairman of CSBC, presided the christening ceremony and Mrs. Constance D. White, wife of Mr. Stephen W. White, vice president of Dollar Tree Store, Inc., one of Yang Ming's most important customers in Pan-Pacific market, was invited to be the Sponsor of the new vessel. Dollar Tree is a large retail chain store in the US, which has cooperated and maintained good relationship with Yang Ming since 1994. The total volume of its consigned cargoes reached 16,000 TEUs in the recent two years.
Dollar Tree! Of course!
The Yang Ming Wealth and the wonders of the Web
Yang Ming Wealth came into port last night around 6:30, gliding at glacial speed past the piers and the Ferry Building, before hooking a left after it passed under the bridge to head over to Oakland.
(The Wealth was moving verrry slowly and the ferries had to dart around it coming and going ...)
His nibs used the telescope to check the ship for a name, Yang Ming being a shipping concern out of Taiwan, and discovered the ship was named Wealth. How lucky a name is that?
This morning, when I was checking to make sure I remembered the name correctly, and hadn't misremembered Prosperity, Plum or Orchid (just a few of the Yang Ming ships), I discovered that I could go to the Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. site, pop in a vessel name, and find out where it had been and where it was going.
Vessel Name : YM WEALTH ( MWLH ) (click to view Vessel Information)
Current Lane : KY- PSW2 SERVICE ( PSW )
Current Comn Voyage : 17E / 17W
Current YML Vsl Voy : 57617E / 57617W ( PSW539E / PSW539W )
Current Voyage
Current Data -
Lane : KY- PSW2 SERVICE ( PSW )
Comn Voyage : 17E / 17W
YML VslVoy : 57617E / 57617W ( PSW539E / PSW539W )
[ports w/arrival date, departure date, &c.]
1 YANTIAN
2 HONG KONG
3 KAOHSIUNG
4 KEELUNG
5 PUSAN
6 LOS ANGELES, CA
7 OAKLAND, CA
8 KEELUNG
9 KAOHSIUNG
Vessel information includes
General Detail -
Flag Liberia
Operator YANG MING LINE
Lloyd's Code 9278088
Call Sign A8EI4
Port Register MONROVIA
Delivered Date 2004/03/22
Alternative Vessel Code 576
Build Detail -
Gross Tonnage 64005 Tons
Net Tonnage 34700 Tons
Service Speed 25.9 NM
D.W.T. 68615 Tons
Capacity Detail -
Reefer Capacity 400
Total Capacity 5551 TEUs
400 Reefers! Zounds!
Now if I could only figure a way to know what the bill of lading shows 'cause that's a heap of reefers visible up on deck for the plimsoll line to be that far above water. Those containers can't be empty, can they? What would they be picking up in Oakland? Used paper to make into cardboard cartons?
 |
(The Wealth was moving verrry slowly and the ferries had to dart around it coming and going ...)
His nibs used the telescope to check the ship for a name, Yang Ming being a shipping concern out of Taiwan, and discovered the ship was named Wealth. How lucky a name is that?
This morning, when I was checking to make sure I remembered the name correctly, and hadn't misremembered Prosperity, Plum or Orchid (just a few of the Yang Ming ships), I discovered that I could go to the Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. site, pop in a vessel name, and find out where it had been and where it was going.
Vessel Name : YM WEALTH ( MWLH ) (click to view Vessel Information)
Current Lane : KY- PSW2 SERVICE ( PSW )
Current Comn Voyage : 17E / 17W
Current YML Vsl Voy : 57617E / 57617W ( PSW539E / PSW539W )
Current Voyage
Current Data -
Lane : KY- PSW2 SERVICE ( PSW )
Comn Voyage : 17E / 17W
YML VslVoy : 57617E / 57617W ( PSW539E / PSW539W )
[ports w/arrival date, departure date, &c.]
1 YANTIAN
2 HONG KONG
3 KAOHSIUNG
4 KEELUNG
5 PUSAN
6 LOS ANGELES, CA
7 OAKLAND, CA
8 KEELUNG
9 KAOHSIUNG
Vessel information includes
General Detail -
Flag Liberia
Operator YANG MING LINE
Lloyd's Code 9278088
Call Sign A8EI4
Port Register MONROVIA
Delivered Date 2004/03/22
Alternative Vessel Code 576
Build Detail -
Gross Tonnage 64005 Tons
Net Tonnage 34700 Tons
Service Speed 25.9 NM
D.W.T. 68615 Tons
Capacity Detail -
Reefer Capacity 400
Total Capacity 5551 TEUs
400 Reefers! Zounds!
Now if I could only figure a way to know what the bill of lading shows 'cause that's a heap of reefers visible up on deck for the plimsoll line to be that far above water. Those containers can't be empty, can they? What would they be picking up in Oakland? Used paper to make into cardboard cartons?
Sunset
Sun setting behind me to the west. Mount Diablo visible just to the right above Yerba Buena. [19 Oct 2005]
Monday, October 17, 2005
Wisteria
I started trimming the wisteria that winds up our fire escape earlier than usual this year, before the bulk of leaves had fallen. I'd only made a little progress before we left. When we returned two weeks later, we discovered that the combination of balmy fall weather and naked branchlets made the wisteria think it was spring, SPRING! (as Babar used to say).
Photo tweaking courtesy of Picasa, as are most recent blog posts that include photogs.
Photo tweaking courtesy of Picasa, as are most recent blog posts that include photogs.
Only in San Francisco
Sunrise. Ferry coming in. Traffic on the Bay Bridge.
Can you believe I took forty some pictures of the pre-sunrise, sunrise, post-sunrise this morning?
Sure you can.
Can you believe I took forty some pictures of the pre-sunrise, sunrise, post-sunrise this morning?
Sure you can.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
"Home again, home again, riggety jig"
... as my DOD used to say. We're back. Aunti K's departure included a bit of excitement, more than enough to wake us up after the red-eye flight back.
This morning we walked over to the Ferry Building after breakfast for his nibs' loaf of sour batard and a bag of sour croutons from Acme Bread and for some vegetables.
I scored a bag full of tomatoes from the heirloom tomato lady -- a few of these, a couple of those, some for salads, some for eating with the fresh basil that's overwhelming my pots up on the deck -- yellow, lemon, red, purple, orange -- plus assorted shapes and colors of peppers.
Home.
This morning we walked over to the Ferry Building after breakfast for his nibs' loaf of sour batard and a bag of sour croutons from Acme Bread and for some vegetables.
I scored a bag full of tomatoes from the heirloom tomato lady -- a few of these, a couple of those, some for salads, some for eating with the fresh basil that's overwhelming my pots up on the deck -- yellow, lemon, red, purple, orange -- plus assorted shapes and colors of peppers.
Home.
Monday, September 26, 2005
You DON'T SUPPOSE that McAfee is purposefully trying to get people not to redeem their $20 rebate, do you?
13 August 2005
Dear Diary ... Today, I re-upped my McAfee coverage by purchasing McAfee Internet Security 7.0 online. The deal came with a mail-in rebate for $20.
woo hoo.
"Please save this email as confirmation of your purchase."
"How To Redeem Your Mail-in Rebate."
Please follow the instructions in the Terms & Conditions to complete and submit your rebate form.
yad day yad day.
Rebate form says.
1) Print out this page.
Done!
2) Complete the form.
Done!
3) Enclose a copy of your receipt (proof of purchase) from McAfee.com with the purchase circled. Enclose proof of previous ownership of a retail stand alone version of ...
Done!
4) Mail to ...
Done!
Mailed and, being the conscientious person what I am, copied and filed.
05 September 2005
Dear Sal Towse Tracking number: nnnnnnnnn
Thank you for your rebate inquiry. We have received your submission, but we are currently unable to honor the rebate because the email confirmation for the MCAFEE INTERNET SECURITY SUITE V8 was not received. Please forward the email confirmation to the address below so that we may complete the processing of your rebate.
&c.
Being as I'm the sort who keeps e-mails from way back and forever, I JUST HAPPENED to have a copy of the email confirmation. How many of their customers would, eh?
The packet from August 13, 2005, was remailed along with a copy of the confirmation e-mail ALONG WITH A NOTE circled with an arrow pointing to the note from Rebate Special Services:
"Note that the rebate form asks for 'a copy of your receipt' NOT 'the email confirmation.'
Other comments re their foot dragging are part of this go-round.
26 September 2005
Postcard received in the mail with yet another address to send stuff to (the third, if you're keeping track) and the note
Dear Consumer
Thank you for participating in this promotion.
Unfortunately we could not honor your request due to the following reason(s):
$20 MISS v8 UPG Rebate - Missing Proof of Purchase (um. nope!); Missing Purchase Date (um. nope!); Missing receipt. (um. nope!); Missing Purchase location (your website. duh). Invalid Postmark Date. (um. nope! not when we started all this waltz).
Checked the site and I'm told, specifically, that the problem is that I didn't submit proof of purchase. Really. ... this is all too silly.
Yet another note sent on to the folks handling McAfee rebates saying, hey. I already sent all that stuff in. I can send it in again!
You DON'T SUPPOSE that McAfee is purposefully trying to get people not to redeem their $20 rebate, do you?
Dear Diary ... Today, I re-upped my McAfee coverage by purchasing McAfee Internet Security 7.0 online. The deal came with a mail-in rebate for $20.
woo hoo.
"Please save this email as confirmation of your purchase."
"How To Redeem Your Mail-in Rebate."
Please follow the instructions in the Terms & Conditions to complete and submit your rebate form.
yad day yad day.
Rebate form says.
1) Print out this page.
Done!
2) Complete the form.
Done!
3) Enclose a copy of your receipt (proof of purchase) from McAfee.com with the purchase circled. Enclose proof of previous ownership of a retail stand alone version of ...
Done!
4) Mail to ...
Done!
Mailed and, being the conscientious person what I am, copied and filed.
05 September 2005
Dear Sal Towse Tracking number: nnnnnnnnn
Thank you for your rebate inquiry. We have received your submission, but we are currently unable to honor the rebate because the email confirmation for the MCAFEE INTERNET SECURITY SUITE V8 was not received. Please forward the email confirmation to the address below so that we may complete the processing of your rebate.
&c.
Being as I'm the sort who keeps e-mails from way back and forever, I JUST HAPPENED to have a copy of the email confirmation. How many of their customers would, eh?
The packet from August 13, 2005, was remailed along with a copy of the confirmation e-mail ALONG WITH A NOTE circled with an arrow pointing to the note from Rebate Special Services:
"Note that the rebate form asks for 'a copy of your receipt' NOT 'the email confirmation.'
Other comments re their foot dragging are part of this go-round.
26 September 2005
Postcard received in the mail with yet another address to send stuff to (the third, if you're keeping track) and the note
Dear Consumer
Thank you for participating in this promotion.
Unfortunately we could not honor your request due to the following reason(s):
$20 MISS v8 UPG Rebate - Missing Proof of Purchase (um. nope!); Missing Purchase Date (um. nope!); Missing receipt. (um. nope!); Missing Purchase location (your website. duh). Invalid Postmark Date. (um. nope! not when we started all this waltz).
Checked the site and I'm told, specifically, that the problem is that I didn't submit proof of purchase. Really. ... this is all too silly.
Yet another note sent on to the folks handling McAfee rebates saying, hey. I already sent all that stuff in. I can send it in again!
You DON'T SUPPOSE that McAfee is purposefully trying to get people not to redeem their $20 rebate, do you?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
Woophy and The Degree Confluence Project
Woophy - World of Photography. As of this moment, 2,053 registered users and 16,267 photographs. Woophy is fun and interesting. Zoom in. Find Brussels. Find Ruud van Ruitenbeek's photo of Manneke Pis as Fireman. Click back and check out the other photographs van Ruitenbeek has uploaded to Woophy.
Woophy has no photos yet from Bhutan. Only one from Tibet.
The Woophy project reminds me, in a way, of The Degree Confluence Project.
Photographs. World maps. What's not to like?
Woophy's having a photography contest. Check it out.
Woophy has no photos yet from Bhutan. Only one from Tibet.
The Woophy project reminds me, in a way, of The Degree Confluence Project.
Photographs. World maps. What's not to like?
Woophy's having a photography contest. Check it out.
[FOOD] Jaeger's on Broadway
300 Columbus Ave @ Broadway
SF 94133
Open 6 PM - 2 AM Daily
415.781.8222
Went off to dinner last night with the last folks left from the "open." They were game for almost anything in North Beach so we suggested Andrew Jaeger's House of Seafood and Jazz located in the Condor Club, Carol Doda's famoose setting.
Jaeger's from New Orleans and had plans to open a satellite restaurant in San Francisco and get it settled before heading home. His heading home plans have been delayed.
We'd read about his restaurant in the Chron on the day Karin Slaughter was in town. We didn't want to surprise her (or us) by taking her someplace we'd never been, so we hauled her off to Ristorante Cinque Terre, mentioned a while back, and had a nice, quiet dinner.
On our way back home from walking Karin to her digs at the Mark Hopkins, we stopped by to check out the menu at Jaeger's. The jazz band was sitting by the window that opened near the posted menu. One of the musicians turned toward us. "Great food," he said. "I've eaten here every night this week."
"Well," we answered. "We've already eaten, but we'll give it a try some other night."
Last night when we stopped in, the waitress, who was herself an evacuee from New Orleans and had only started work two days before, told us that there were troubles in the kitchen. Nothing grilled from the menu, nothing fried ... no grilled Andouille sausage.
We shared a bottle of wine for the four of us. Our partners in dine shared a salad while I had some file gumbo and his nibs had turtle soup, with a small glass of sherry 'longside to add to taste. He added all of it, of course.
For the main course, I opted for jambalaya, as did his nibs and the other guy. The other gal opted for Taste of New Orleans, which had a sampling of jambalaya, file gumbo, red beans and rice and fried catfish. She has a wheat allergy and after a taste of her cornmeal dusted catfish, wasn't sure they weren't mixing the cornmeal with wheat flour, so she gave us her bits of catfish.
Everything was great. Spicy with a nice zing. We'll be going back again to explore the menu further, to try some grilled/fried items from the menu. The kitchen should be fully operational tonight, shouldn't it?
SF 94133
Open 6 PM - 2 AM Daily
415.781.8222
Went off to dinner last night with the last folks left from the "open." They were game for almost anything in North Beach so we suggested Andrew Jaeger's House of Seafood and Jazz located in the Condor Club, Carol Doda's famoose setting.
Jaeger's from New Orleans and had plans to open a satellite restaurant in San Francisco and get it settled before heading home. His heading home plans have been delayed.
We'd read about his restaurant in the Chron on the day Karin Slaughter was in town. We didn't want to surprise her (or us) by taking her someplace we'd never been, so we hauled her off to Ristorante Cinque Terre, mentioned a while back, and had a nice, quiet dinner.
On our way back home from walking Karin to her digs at the Mark Hopkins, we stopped by to check out the menu at Jaeger's. The jazz band was sitting by the window that opened near the posted menu. One of the musicians turned toward us. "Great food," he said. "I've eaten here every night this week."
"Well," we answered. "We've already eaten, but we'll give it a try some other night."
Last night when we stopped in, the waitress, who was herself an evacuee from New Orleans and had only started work two days before, told us that there were troubles in the kitchen. Nothing grilled from the menu, nothing fried ... no grilled Andouille sausage.
We shared a bottle of wine for the four of us. Our partners in dine shared a salad while I had some file gumbo and his nibs had turtle soup, with a small glass of sherry 'longside to add to taste. He added all of it, of course.
For the main course, I opted for jambalaya, as did his nibs and the other guy. The other gal opted for Taste of New Orleans, which had a sampling of jambalaya, file gumbo, red beans and rice and fried catfish. She has a wheat allergy and after a taste of her cornmeal dusted catfish, wasn't sure they weren't mixing the cornmeal with wheat flour, so she gave us her bits of catfish.
Everything was great. Spicy with a nice zing. We'll be going back again to explore the menu further, to try some grilled/fried items from the menu. The kitchen should be fully operational tonight, shouldn't it?
Friday, September 16, 2005
[FOOD] Albona Ristorante Istriano
Yesterday, I wrote,
We've made arrangements for dinner at Albona Ristorante Istriano (545 Francisco St, SF.(415) 441-1040) where we'll listen to Bruno Viscovi tell us how each dish is made and which ones he learned to cook at his grandmother's knee. Pan-fried gnocchi. Braised rabbit. Roasted pork loin stuffed with sauerkraut, apples, prunes. Ymmm. Pine nut strudel. Luckily, we can walk down. Out-of-towners should grab a cable car (cross street is Mason) or a taxi. Parking is impossible. Well, not impossible, just unlikely.
We gave ourselves fifteen minutes to walk from Filbert and Montgomery (más o menos) to Mason and Francisco. We probably should've given ourselves a cushion. As it was, we left five minutes later than planned and boogey'd down the hill. (We boogey much faster than we did back when we first arrived here.)
Correction to my "parking is impossible" comment yesterday. Last night, we noticed a "valet parking" sign, so there's hope for those with cars looking for a place to stash them.
Bruno wasn't there. His nephew was (or a man who claimed to be his nephew). [cue spooky music ... Sal tends toward the "but is he =really= the nephew or is Bruno tied up in the wine cellar?" school of thought.]
"Nephew" was dashing and suave and charming. Quite a hit with the tables. He (the nephew) said he'd sent his uncle home because ...
... because Bruno schmoozes too much and the house was full?
We like to see our local food places successful (so long's we can still find a table). Albona was hopping last night. Multiple tables for four, a table for five, a table for six. Us'ns. Others. The place really isn't that big and I was glad we'd opted for a reservation even though we'd thought, "Thursday? Surely there'll be room for us."
There wouldn't've been time for Bruno to do his thing, the schmoozing, but I missed it. The nephew told us about the tomato soup: blanche the tomatoes, cook with the speck, take the speck out, add the Yukon gold potatoes. Whiz everything up so you wind up with a thick soup without the cream, just with potatoes with thickener. Sure, he had the same soup description down pat, but it wasn't Bruno.
The food, though, was still what we remembered from our last visit.
His nibs had the chifelete, grandma's pan-fried gnocchi with brown sirloin sauce. These gnocchi are puffy and light, not like any gnocchi I've ever had elsewhere.
I asked if they had fresh sardines and could I have the sardele in saor a la veneziana (fillets of fried sardines with glazed onions; marinated with red wine viengar, raisins, pine-nuts). Certainly, the nephew replied. I picked up the sardines this morning. You're lucky. We had no sardines yesterday.
The sardines were cold, which was not what I expected, and were exceptionally yummy. Very.
For entrees, his nibs chose braseola de porco con capuzi garbi e prosuto (pork loin stuffed with prosciutto, sauerkeraut, apples and plums) well... prunes, actually. Very good.
I had the stinco de videl a la triestina (braised veal shank with Burgundy wine and rosemary glaze) with a soft polenta and sauce. Excellent. One thing I really like about Albona is they =always= put a plate and spoon at each place so you can share your food with the person you're dining with instead of, as we usually do, scooping things up on forks and hoping the bits don't fall on the tablecloth while you're passing them back and forth.
Remember me mentioning how I couldn't cut my pork chop at Frisson? Well, the folks at Albona gave me a serrated knife and I could cut my veal shank with my fork.
Delish.
His nibs had a coffee-flavored cream zabaglione-type dessert with black cherries. Darn if I can remember what it was called (I'd scored a dinner menu but not a dessert menu). I had a glass of Donnafugata 2003 Ben Rye Sicilia Passito Di Pantelleria, a Sicilian dessert wine. Well, we shared the dessert and the wine.
Dinner was comfortable, yummy, quiet. Albona is definitely on our "go back again" list.
We've made arrangements for dinner at Albona Ristorante Istriano (545 Francisco St, SF.(415) 441-1040) where we'll listen to Bruno Viscovi tell us how each dish is made and which ones he learned to cook at his grandmother's knee. Pan-fried gnocchi. Braised rabbit. Roasted pork loin stuffed with sauerkraut, apples, prunes. Ymmm. Pine nut strudel. Luckily, we can walk down. Out-of-towners should grab a cable car (cross street is Mason) or a taxi. Parking is impossible. Well, not impossible, just unlikely.
We gave ourselves fifteen minutes to walk from Filbert and Montgomery (más o menos) to Mason and Francisco. We probably should've given ourselves a cushion. As it was, we left five minutes later than planned and boogey'd down the hill. (We boogey much faster than we did back when we first arrived here.)
Correction to my "parking is impossible" comment yesterday. Last night, we noticed a "valet parking" sign, so there's hope for those with cars looking for a place to stash them.
Bruno wasn't there. His nephew was (or a man who claimed to be his nephew). [cue spooky music ... Sal tends toward the "but is he =really= the nephew or is Bruno tied up in the wine cellar?" school of thought.]
"Nephew" was dashing and suave and charming. Quite a hit with the tables. He (the nephew) said he'd sent his uncle home because ...
... because Bruno schmoozes too much and the house was full?
We like to see our local food places successful (so long's we can still find a table). Albona was hopping last night. Multiple tables for four, a table for five, a table for six. Us'ns. Others. The place really isn't that big and I was glad we'd opted for a reservation even though we'd thought, "Thursday? Surely there'll be room for us."
There wouldn't've been time for Bruno to do his thing, the schmoozing, but I missed it. The nephew told us about the tomato soup: blanche the tomatoes, cook with the speck, take the speck out, add the Yukon gold potatoes. Whiz everything up so you wind up with a thick soup without the cream, just with potatoes with thickener. Sure, he had the same soup description down pat, but it wasn't Bruno.
The food, though, was still what we remembered from our last visit.
His nibs had the chifelete, grandma's pan-fried gnocchi with brown sirloin sauce. These gnocchi are puffy and light, not like any gnocchi I've ever had elsewhere.
I asked if they had fresh sardines and could I have the sardele in saor a la veneziana (fillets of fried sardines with glazed onions; marinated with red wine viengar, raisins, pine-nuts). Certainly, the nephew replied. I picked up the sardines this morning. You're lucky. We had no sardines yesterday.
The sardines were cold, which was not what I expected, and were exceptionally yummy. Very.
For entrees, his nibs chose braseola de porco con capuzi garbi e prosuto (pork loin stuffed with prosciutto, sauerkeraut, apples and plums) well... prunes, actually. Very good.
I had the stinco de videl a la triestina (braised veal shank with Burgundy wine and rosemary glaze) with a soft polenta and sauce. Excellent. One thing I really like about Albona is they =always= put a plate and spoon at each place so you can share your food with the person you're dining with instead of, as we usually do, scooping things up on forks and hoping the bits don't fall on the tablecloth while you're passing them back and forth.
Remember me mentioning how I couldn't cut my pork chop at Frisson? Well, the folks at Albona gave me a serrated knife and I could cut my veal shank with my fork.
Delish.
His nibs had a coffee-flavored cream zabaglione-type dessert with black cherries. Darn if I can remember what it was called (I'd scored a dinner menu but not a dessert menu). I had a glass of Donnafugata 2003 Ben Rye Sicilia Passito Di Pantelleria, a Sicilian dessert wine. Well, we shared the dessert and the wine.
Dinner was comfortable, yummy, quiet. Albona is definitely on our "go back again" list.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Out the window
The west-facing windows in the office look out over the fig tree out front, the walk below -- if you're standing right by the window -- and bits of the buildings up hill.
Today the windows also look out on a flutter of goldfinches, poking around looking for goodies in the fig tree.
Today the windows also look out on a flutter of goldfinches, poking around looking for goodies in the fig tree.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner on a typical Jueves
Woke up at 6 or so to see the marine layer wasn't as thick as it can be. Decided not to get up and walk around Telegraph Hill and back up the Filbert Steps because I didn't get to bed until 2 a.m. Rolled over and went back to sleep.
The parrots squawking woke me up gradually as did the workers yakking at each other in the building up the hill and the smell of fresh paint from our downstairs neighbors' project. Showered. Fixed my usual pot of espresso thinned with 1% milk and flavored with a dash of Torani caramel syrup. Read the Chron and worked the sudoku puzzle while I tried to decide between option A or option B for breakfast. A or B? A or B?
10 a.m. option B wins out. Toast the English muffin. Cook the bacon, saving the bacon fat for a morning when fried mush with butter and maple syrup is on the menu. (Bacon fat is just what fried mush needs. Much tastier than sunflower oil or canola, although, yes, less good for you.) Sliced a dry-farmed tomato from Dirty Girl Farm from the stash I picked up at the Ferry Building last Saturday.
Piled the muffin high with bits of bacon and sliced tomato. Sprinkled a dash of lavender sea salt and voilà ! a tomato-bacon sandwich for breakfast with some leftover juicy tomato slices on the side. his nibs had fixed himself some huevos rancheros earlier, so I didn't have to share.
Later, we walked down to the WaMu on Grant and deposited a check. Walked back up to the garage space and took out the car. Down to Trader Joe's at Bay and Mason to stock up on supplies for the first of two open houses we're having this weekend and next: some dark San Miguel, white wines and red, plus a pink (white zin) because Kitty will be coming by this Sunday. More whole grain English muffins for me. Cognac. Single malt scotch, "lite" sour cream, cottage cheese. The necessities of life.
Came back, re-parked the car, and toted all the swag up Union to Montgomery, down Montgomery to Filbert, down Filbert ... well, you catch the drift.
After our stashes were stashed away, it was after 2 p.m. and surely time for lunch! Lunch was a reheated stuffed red pepper leftover from a recent dinner. Cut off the top of the peppers like you would the top of a jack-o-lantern, saving the top. Take out the innards and wash the peppers. Parboil the peppers to give them a headstart on cooking. Stuff them with a mixture of cooked (leftover) rice and cooked ground beef, chopped purple onion, diced fresh tomatoes, a bit of chopped fresh basil, oregano, mixed cracked pepper, salt, iirc. Put the tops back on. Prop the peppers in a glass dish. Top with tomato sauce and cover. Bake in a bain marie so the sauce won't cook dry before the peppers are done.
Today we sliced the remaining pepper in half and reheated. Served with some more sliced dry-farmed tomatoes from Dirty Girl alongside.
I'm going to be crushed when my fresh tomato fix fades with the season.
We've made arrangements for dinner at Albona Ristorante Istriano (545 Francisco St, SF.(415) 441-1040) where we'll listen to Bruno Viscovi tell us how each dish is made and which ones he learned to cook at his grandmother's knee. Pan-fried gnocchi. Braised rabbit. Roasted pork loin stuffed with sauerkraut, apples, prunes. Ymmm. Pine nut strudel. Luckily, we can walk down. Out-of-towners should grab a cable car (cross street is Mason) or a taxi. Parking is impossible. Well, not impossible, just unlikely.
Put a [+] next to Albona Ristorante Istriano. Worth a visit. Or two! We're going back, aren't we?
The parrots squawking woke me up gradually as did the workers yakking at each other in the building up the hill and the smell of fresh paint from our downstairs neighbors' project. Showered. Fixed my usual pot of espresso thinned with 1% milk and flavored with a dash of Torani caramel syrup. Read the Chron and worked the sudoku puzzle while I tried to decide between option A or option B for breakfast. A or B? A or B?
10 a.m. option B wins out. Toast the English muffin. Cook the bacon, saving the bacon fat for a morning when fried mush with butter and maple syrup is on the menu. (Bacon fat is just what fried mush needs. Much tastier than sunflower oil or canola, although, yes, less good for you.) Sliced a dry-farmed tomato from Dirty Girl Farm from the stash I picked up at the Ferry Building last Saturday.
Piled the muffin high with bits of bacon and sliced tomato. Sprinkled a dash of lavender sea salt and voilà ! a tomato-bacon sandwich for breakfast with some leftover juicy tomato slices on the side. his nibs had fixed himself some huevos rancheros earlier, so I didn't have to share.
Later, we walked down to the WaMu on Grant and deposited a check. Walked back up to the garage space and took out the car. Down to Trader Joe's at Bay and Mason to stock up on supplies for the first of two open houses we're having this weekend and next: some dark San Miguel, white wines and red, plus a pink (white zin) because Kitty will be coming by this Sunday. More whole grain English muffins for me. Cognac. Single malt scotch, "lite" sour cream, cottage cheese. The necessities of life.
Came back, re-parked the car, and toted all the swag up Union to Montgomery, down Montgomery to Filbert, down Filbert ... well, you catch the drift.
After our stashes were stashed away, it was after 2 p.m. and surely time for lunch! Lunch was a reheated stuffed red pepper leftover from a recent dinner. Cut off the top of the peppers like you would the top of a jack-o-lantern, saving the top. Take out the innards and wash the peppers. Parboil the peppers to give them a headstart on cooking. Stuff them with a mixture of cooked (leftover) rice and cooked ground beef, chopped purple onion, diced fresh tomatoes, a bit of chopped fresh basil, oregano, mixed cracked pepper, salt, iirc. Put the tops back on. Prop the peppers in a glass dish. Top with tomato sauce and cover. Bake in a bain marie so the sauce won't cook dry before the peppers are done.
Today we sliced the remaining pepper in half and reheated. Served with some more sliced dry-farmed tomatoes from Dirty Girl alongside.
I'm going to be crushed when my fresh tomato fix fades with the season.
We've made arrangements for dinner at Albona Ristorante Istriano (545 Francisco St, SF.(415) 441-1040) where we'll listen to Bruno Viscovi tell us how each dish is made and which ones he learned to cook at his grandmother's knee. Pan-fried gnocchi. Braised rabbit. Roasted pork loin stuffed with sauerkraut, apples, prunes. Ymmm. Pine nut strudel. Luckily, we can walk down. Out-of-towners should grab a cable car (cross street is Mason) or a taxi. Parking is impossible. Well, not impossible, just unlikely.
Put a [+] next to Albona Ristorante Istriano. Worth a visit. Or two! We're going back, aren't we?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
SiteMeter. Foodie reviews in the paper. Foodie blogs. SFMOMA.
I was checking my SiteMeter, because on not infrequent occasions I'm an ego surfer (who could guess that???) and wonder who the heck is coming here and why.
Today, well, someone came here with ... a search for "manresa egg egullet."
David's egg is yummy, but ... I strolled through the other hits (I was ten on the list, six if you don't count the sub-domains of the prior hits.) and wondered whether I belonged with these folks whose true passion is digital pictures of their dinner plates and being on first name basis with the Davids and Lukes of the world.
Do I belong with them? I don't ... think so. I love a good restaurant, admire a creative food genius, enjoy watching a staff seamlessly working a room, but ... I'm not Pim (whom I met at David's at a dinner put on by Alder) and won't ever be.
I haven't been interested lately in writing up where we've been eating and how yummy it all is. Call it foodie-blog fatigue and apologies to those who came here looking for foodie porn. Maybe I should just list the week's visits with + 0 - sorts of reviews with mini-reviews.
I was admittedly appalled to find out today that my cynical his nibs was absolutely right. Can you believe it? Local papers have foodie columns ostensibly written by foodie sorts who are actually ad types selling ad space to restaurants and using their columns as a "hey! I'll mention you here if you'll buy ad space."
How crappy is that?
As a "there're no free meals or ads in my blog" service to readers, I'll tell you where we've been in the last week or two:
Ristorante Cinque Terre has an unfortunate location a half block off the Columbus Avenue tourist restaurant corridor. Cinque Terre has Italian food that will please the turistas (if they'll only walk half a block up Vallejo from Columbus) and will please the locals. his nibs liked the Insalata Di Polipo-Octopus salad. Ymmm. I had the carpaccio because I happen to be the (sorry, vegan friends) raw beef sort of gal.
For the main squeeze, I had the Gnocchi Mare-"Potato and seafood dumplings with fresh clams, roma tomatoes, and fresh basil in a white wine sauce." Tons of clams. Ymmy gnocchi. his nibs had Cannelloni All'Astice-"Homemade crepes stuffed with Maine lobster in a zucchini sun dried tomato saffron béchamel."
The dinner we had was excellent enough that we brought an out-of-town visitor (one who doesn't like "funny" food) back the next week. She cleaned her plate(s). Another good meal and a happy out-of-towner. Try it.
We also went to Capp's Corner within the last week. his nibs was craving Leg of Lamb. I knew I'd be getting Osso Bucco with Polenta. Dinner is a deal and comes with bread and butter, a pot full of minestrone and a bowl of green salad. Filling. No room for dessert before we headed back home. (I took some back and had Osso Bucco with the vegetables I didn't have room for for lunch later that week.)
Where else have we been? We headed over to Flytrap (606 Folsom St San Francisco, CA 94107 (415) 243-0580) for lunch before we walked on to SOMA to see Paul Sack's photography show.
Flytrap has a history. I wanted to see what their sweetbreads were like. We shared an Oysters Rockefeller as an appetizer.
Ymmm for the oysters. Double ymmm for the sweetbreads.
Call those three pluses -- places we might come back to.
Paul Sack's show was ... amazing. It's over, so I won't tease you too much about what you missed. Check out SFMOMA, though. I didn't much care for most of the Richard Tuttle work, but I'd really enjoyed their René Magritte show a while back. Sorry we'd missed their Chagall show.
On the minus side we went back to Frisson, where we'd eaten on Easter Sunday and scored two chits for $$ off our next meal. Easter Sunday was immediately after Daniel Patterson had left the restaurant and they'd had an abbreviated menu and sparse clientele. What we had was certainly edible. We decided it was worth another visit -- especially considering we had two $25 chits. After our return visit I say, Frisson? Don't bother.
The food was hit or miss. I order what was billed as pork ribs. I got a pork chop (Not the same, eh? and I am not a fan of pork chops) that was thick and solid enough that the knife I had wouldn't cut it. I had to ask our server for something serrated, but they didn't have such a thing. He went back to the flatware layout and found a "newer" knife that was sharper than the one I had.
There are so many restaurants in San Francisco, some of them very excellent, some of them undiscovered. Why would I want to go back to Frisson?
Where else have we been recently? I can't remember, but looking at the foodie-focused sites, ... I'm not sure that I'm all =that= focused on food.
Maybe when I have less weighing on my mind ... and life.
Until then maybe I'll do the + 0 - rating.
Next week we're due for a Penfolds dinner at French Laundry. Whether it will live up to expectations is the question. At any rate I'd like to see if the hype is deserved. We've booked the same hotel we stayed in when we had a big family hoo-hah for my parents' 75th six years back. The hotel is within a block or two of the restaurant so we can stumble back after imbibing Penfolds.
Today, well, someone came here with ... a search for "manresa egg egullet."
David's egg is yummy, but ... I strolled through the other hits (I was ten on the list, six if you don't count the sub-domains of the prior hits.) and wondered whether I belonged with these folks whose true passion is digital pictures of their dinner plates and being on first name basis with the Davids and Lukes of the world.
Do I belong with them? I don't ... think so. I love a good restaurant, admire a creative food genius, enjoy watching a staff seamlessly working a room, but ... I'm not Pim (whom I met at David's at a dinner put on by Alder) and won't ever be.
I haven't been interested lately in writing up where we've been eating and how yummy it all is. Call it foodie-blog fatigue and apologies to those who came here looking for foodie porn. Maybe I should just list the week's visits with + 0 - sorts of reviews with mini-reviews.
I was admittedly appalled to find out today that my cynical his nibs was absolutely right. Can you believe it? Local papers have foodie columns ostensibly written by foodie sorts who are actually ad types selling ad space to restaurants and using their columns as a "hey! I'll mention you here if you'll buy ad space."
How crappy is that?
As a "there're no free meals or ads in my blog" service to readers, I'll tell you where we've been in the last week or two:
Ristorante Cinque Terre has an unfortunate location a half block off the Columbus Avenue tourist restaurant corridor. Cinque Terre has Italian food that will please the turistas (if they'll only walk half a block up Vallejo from Columbus) and will please the locals. his nibs liked the Insalata Di Polipo-Octopus salad. Ymmm. I had the carpaccio because I happen to be the (sorry, vegan friends) raw beef sort of gal.
For the main squeeze, I had the Gnocchi Mare-"Potato and seafood dumplings with fresh clams, roma tomatoes, and fresh basil in a white wine sauce." Tons of clams. Ymmy gnocchi. his nibs had Cannelloni All'Astice-"Homemade crepes stuffed with Maine lobster in a zucchini sun dried tomato saffron béchamel."
The dinner we had was excellent enough that we brought an out-of-town visitor (one who doesn't like "funny" food) back the next week. She cleaned her plate(s). Another good meal and a happy out-of-towner. Try it.
We also went to Capp's Corner within the last week. his nibs was craving Leg of Lamb. I knew I'd be getting Osso Bucco with Polenta. Dinner is a deal and comes with bread and butter, a pot full of minestrone and a bowl of green salad. Filling. No room for dessert before we headed back home. (I took some back and had Osso Bucco with the vegetables I didn't have room for for lunch later that week.)
Where else have we been? We headed over to Flytrap (606 Folsom St San Francisco, CA 94107 (415) 243-0580) for lunch before we walked on to SOMA to see Paul Sack's photography show.
Flytrap has a history. I wanted to see what their sweetbreads were like. We shared an Oysters Rockefeller as an appetizer.
Ymmm for the oysters. Double ymmm for the sweetbreads.
Call those three pluses -- places we might come back to.
Paul Sack's show was ... amazing. It's over, so I won't tease you too much about what you missed. Check out SFMOMA, though. I didn't much care for most of the Richard Tuttle work, but I'd really enjoyed their René Magritte show a while back. Sorry we'd missed their Chagall show.
On the minus side we went back to Frisson, where we'd eaten on Easter Sunday and scored two chits for $$ off our next meal. Easter Sunday was immediately after Daniel Patterson had left the restaurant and they'd had an abbreviated menu and sparse clientele. What we had was certainly edible. We decided it was worth another visit -- especially considering we had two $25 chits. After our return visit I say, Frisson? Don't bother.
The food was hit or miss. I order what was billed as pork ribs. I got a pork chop (Not the same, eh? and I am not a fan of pork chops) that was thick and solid enough that the knife I had wouldn't cut it. I had to ask our server for something serrated, but they didn't have such a thing. He went back to the flatware layout and found a "newer" knife that was sharper than the one I had.
There are so many restaurants in San Francisco, some of them very excellent, some of them undiscovered. Why would I want to go back to Frisson?
Where else have we been recently? I can't remember, but looking at the foodie-focused sites, ... I'm not sure that I'm all =that= focused on food.
Maybe when I have less weighing on my mind ... and life.
Until then maybe I'll do the + 0 - rating.
Next week we're due for a Penfolds dinner at French Laundry. Whether it will live up to expectations is the question. At any rate I'd like to see if the hype is deserved. We've booked the same hotel we stayed in when we had a big family hoo-hah for my parents' 75th six years back. The hotel is within a block or two of the restaurant so we can stumble back after imbibing Penfolds.
Completely Done!
Completely Done!
Received my paperwork from the Registrar today. Signed it. Filled in a couple bubbles. Initialed for the absentee ballot question and ...
The paperwork is in the mail. My days as a declared Republican grow short.
Do I feel any different?
Received my paperwork from the Registrar today. Signed it. Filled in a couple bubbles. Initialed for the absentee ballot question and ...
The paperwork is in the mail. My days as a declared Republican grow short.
Do I feel any different?
Mass. Legislature votes 157-39 to reject constitutional amendment
Mass. Legislature rejects proposed amendment banning gay marriage
By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press Writer | September 14, 2005
BOSTON --A year after the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex marriages began taking place, the Massachusetts Legislature on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions.
It was the second time the Legislature had confronted the measure, crafted as a response to a 2003 court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Under state law, lawmakers were required to approve the measure in two consecutive sessions before it could be put on the 2006 ballot.
After less than two hours of debate, a joint session of the House and Senate voted 157-39 against the measure, far more than the majority vote needed.
[and the article continues ...]
By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press Writer | September 14, 2005
BOSTON --A year after the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex marriages began taking place, the Massachusetts Legislature on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions.
It was the second time the Legislature had confronted the measure, crafted as a response to a 2003 court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Under state law, lawmakers were required to approve the measure in two consecutive sessions before it could be put on the 2006 ballot.
After less than two hours of debate, a joint session of the House and Senate voted 157-39 against the measure, far more than the majority vote needed.
[and the article continues ...]
Grade The News
Grade The News: Evaluating Print and Broadcast News in the San Francisco Bay Area from A to F (a project of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State).
Interesting stuff, including
1) Make the Call -- What would you do if you were the editor?
2) Bouquets and brickbats
3) Articles include
SF Examiner and Independent agree to end payola restaurant reviews.
The Examiner used some restaurant reviews as an advertising tool.
After San Francisco Examiner and Independent restaurant columnist George Habit told Grade the News he is really an ad salesman who uses the column to reward advertisers and solicit ads from eateries, the newspapers have decided to label the column as advertising. Mr. Habit described how payola works in the news business. [...]
By John McManus
Posted Sept. 13, 2005
4) More!, including The Coffeehouse, an online discussion forum.
Interesting stuff, including
1) Make the Call -- What would you do if you were the editor?
2) Bouquets and brickbats
3) Articles include
SF Examiner and Independent agree to end payola restaurant reviews.
The Examiner used some restaurant reviews as an advertising tool.
After San Francisco Examiner and Independent restaurant columnist George Habit told Grade the News he is really an ad salesman who uses the column to reward advertisers and solicit ads from eateries, the newspapers have decided to label the column as advertising. Mr. Habit described how payola works in the news business. [...]
By John McManus
Posted Sept. 13, 2005
4) More!, including The Coffeehouse, an online discussion forum.
Men's Vogue -- is his nibs au courant or what?
his nibs received the premiere copy of the new quarterly, Men's Vogue, in the mail earlier this week.
How he got so lucky is anyone's guess, but it might be because of other Conde Nast magazines we subscribe to (Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, CN Traveler, Gourmet, House & Garden, The New Yorker, Wired ...) (most of which we won't be renewing because we want to save the efforts of our through-storm-and-sleet mail deliverer and Save The Trees ...).
Trust me on this, though, he is as much the proper target audience for the magazine as I am the target audience for Lucky.
How he got so lucky is anyone's guess, but it might be because of other Conde Nast magazines we subscribe to (Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, CN Traveler, Gourmet, House & Garden, The New Yorker, Wired ...) (most of which we won't be renewing because we want to save the efforts of our through-storm-and-sleet mail deliverer and Save The Trees ...).
Trust me on this, though, he is as much the proper target audience for the magazine as I am the target audience for Lucky.
Lewis Lazare on "the Target issue" of the New Yorker
Anyone see the August 22, 2005, issue of the New Yorker?
Lazare of the Chicago Sun Times sez,
New Yorker dodges a bullet
It surely will go down as a black mark in the annals of the American Society of Magazine Editors. On Tuesday, ASME's 14-member board of directors agreed not to issue any letter of reprimand or otherwise censure the New Yorker magazine for what, by the ASME board's own admission, was a breach of the organization's editorial guidelines for an issue of a magazine supported by a sole advertiser.
The subject of Tuesday's ASME board discussion, the New Yorker Aug. 22 issue, included a number of illustrations in the style of New Yorker cartoons and illustrations that were, in fact, copyless Target ads inserted throughout the magazine without any tag identifying them as advertisements. The ASME guidelines state a single advertiser issue should include a letter of explication from either the magazine's editor or publisher, but the New Yorker's Aug. 22 issue had none.
[...]
How anyone reading that issue could not have been fully aware that the whole issue was wrapped around and with Target is beyond me. A letter from the editor explaining that this was so would've been a waste of the ink.
(I even stashed the issue away because I thought all the Target tie-ins and unlabeled "ads" were an entertaining advertising exercise.)
My first thought (knowing what one of the puny New Yorker half-inchers cost) was, gee, that must've cost an arm and a leg.
My second thought was, why? Hereabouts, we're getting the ad campaign (sponsored by California Consumers United which is ticked at the $$$ that Target has given to organizations supporting Schwarzenneger's agenda) telling seniors and tweenies not to shop at Target.
Target defends their contributions, saying they work with both major parties.
The New Yorker issue appeared about the same time a batch of senior-oriented "Don't buy your drugs at Target" ads started up on Bay Area radio. Connection? Well, no. Probably not. Coinkydink? Probably.
While the ASME board might have discerned no improper advertiser influence, numerous others beyond the realm of ASME's self-serving board of directors could see problems. "What troubled me about the Aug. 22 issue was the lack of transparency about what was going on with the Target ads," said Bob Giles, curator of Harvard University's prestigious Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
'Lack of transparency'? Man, anyone who couldn't see that the entire issue was sponsored by Target would have to be =very =unaware. Should the New Yorker have made mention of something so obvious?
Whyever?
Lazare of the Chicago Sun Times sez,
New Yorker dodges a bullet
It surely will go down as a black mark in the annals of the American Society of Magazine Editors. On Tuesday, ASME's 14-member board of directors agreed not to issue any letter of reprimand or otherwise censure the New Yorker magazine for what, by the ASME board's own admission, was a breach of the organization's editorial guidelines for an issue of a magazine supported by a sole advertiser.
The subject of Tuesday's ASME board discussion, the New Yorker Aug. 22 issue, included a number of illustrations in the style of New Yorker cartoons and illustrations that were, in fact, copyless Target ads inserted throughout the magazine without any tag identifying them as advertisements. The ASME guidelines state a single advertiser issue should include a letter of explication from either the magazine's editor or publisher, but the New Yorker's Aug. 22 issue had none.
[...]
How anyone reading that issue could not have been fully aware that the whole issue was wrapped around and with Target is beyond me. A letter from the editor explaining that this was so would've been a waste of the ink.
(I even stashed the issue away because I thought all the Target tie-ins and unlabeled "ads" were an entertaining advertising exercise.)
My first thought (knowing what one of the puny New Yorker half-inchers cost) was, gee, that must've cost an arm and a leg.
My second thought was, why? Hereabouts, we're getting the ad campaign (sponsored by California Consumers United which is ticked at the $$$ that Target has given to organizations supporting Schwarzenneger's agenda) telling seniors and tweenies not to shop at Target.
Target defends their contributions, saying they work with both major parties.
The New Yorker issue appeared about the same time a batch of senior-oriented "Don't buy your drugs at Target" ads started up on Bay Area radio. Connection? Well, no. Probably not. Coinkydink? Probably.
While the ASME board might have discerned no improper advertiser influence, numerous others beyond the realm of ASME's self-serving board of directors could see problems. "What troubled me about the Aug. 22 issue was the lack of transparency about what was going on with the Target ads," said Bob Giles, curator of Harvard University's prestigious Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
'Lack of transparency'? Man, anyone who couldn't see that the entire issue was sponsored by Target would have to be =very =unaware. Should the New Yorker have made mention of something so obvious?
Whyever?
Friday, September 09, 2005
Google Earth
Google Earth. The newest generation of Keyhole software. It includes several new features: - Integrated Google search for finding businesses and more - Driving directions - Drawing tools for annotating the earth - Sharing of places and images via Gmail - Ability to load data from GPS devices - Data import from CSV files
If your computer can support it, download it. This app is frickin' extraordinary.
If your computer can support it, download it. This app is frickin' extraordinary.
Houston Independent School District in need of help
The younger younger guy has been spending time on another Katrina-related project, after hearing from his friend beri, who is from Houston.
beri told him that HISD is one of the fastest growing school districts in the US and also one of the worst. "how they are going to properly educate these kids is beyond me," beri said.
(One of the worst? Really? I thought. But wasn't HISD Rod Paige's school district? The school district that was touted as the model for No Child Left Behind?)
Well, perhaps the miracle of Houston was not so miraculous.
The younger younger guy came up with a plan. He decided students at his university should gear up to collect school supplies for school districts that will be educating the children evacuated from the Katrina-ravaged Gulf region. Next he started contacting people in different schools around the United States, telling his contacts they should start similar drives at their schools.
So far his posse includes students from two small schools in Rhode Island, one at San Jose State, one at Santa Clara, and one at Saratoga High School. Next up: Stanford, Berkeley and NYU. He's talked other people at his school into contacting their friends and their parents (seeing as some are educators around the state). Viral fund-raising, eh?
He's partnered up with the head of the student body and the head of a group called Help Now. Help Now was set up to raise money and gather supplies for victims of Hurricane Katrina but, he says, had no idea yet what sort or for whom. He offered to combine efforts so they all could focus on the evacuated kids and their school needs. (Appropriate for university and college students, wouldn't you say?)
The drive might move beyond HISD to other schools in need, but the basic groundwork is still in process. He's contacting HISD to make sure they're ready and willing to take supplies collected. I suggested he contact DHL, UPS, FedEx and others to provide comp'd shipping. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, got Matson and APL (you see their container ships coming into Oakland from our perch) to donate trucks to haul the donations collected in Oakland over the weekend.
As part of his project, he asked me to post the HISD link and I promised I would.
beri told him that HISD is one of the fastest growing school districts in the US and also one of the worst. "how they are going to properly educate these kids is beyond me," beri said.
(One of the worst? Really? I thought. But wasn't HISD Rod Paige's school district? The school district that was touted as the model for No Child Left Behind?)
Well, perhaps the miracle of Houston was not so miraculous.
The younger younger guy came up with a plan. He decided students at his university should gear up to collect school supplies for school districts that will be educating the children evacuated from the Katrina-ravaged Gulf region. Next he started contacting people in different schools around the United States, telling his contacts they should start similar drives at their schools.
So far his posse includes students from two small schools in Rhode Island, one at San Jose State, one at Santa Clara, and one at Saratoga High School. Next up: Stanford, Berkeley and NYU. He's talked other people at his school into contacting their friends and their parents (seeing as some are educators around the state). Viral fund-raising, eh?
He's partnered up with the head of the student body and the head of a group called Help Now. Help Now was set up to raise money and gather supplies for victims of Hurricane Katrina but, he says, had no idea yet what sort or for whom. He offered to combine efforts so they all could focus on the evacuated kids and their school needs. (Appropriate for university and college students, wouldn't you say?)
The drive might move beyond HISD to other schools in need, but the basic groundwork is still in process. He's contacting HISD to make sure they're ready and willing to take supplies collected. I suggested he contact DHL, UPS, FedEx and others to provide comp'd shipping. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, got Matson and APL (you see their container ships coming into Oakland from our perch) to donate trucks to haul the donations collected in Oakland over the weekend.
As part of his project, he asked me to post the HISD link and I promised I would.
Done!
I've stayed for years trying to bring a modicum of sense to the land of outlandishness, but some things (Karl Rove comes to mind) are just too hard to align yourself with.
I'll have to drop out of the Republicans for Choice and stop being one of those sorts that my Dem friends use as an example that all Republicans aren't nutcases.
https://ovr.ss.ca.gov/votereg/OnlineVoterReg
I decline to state a political party.
My ethnicity is White
I am requesting to become a permanent absentee voter.
I will be at least 18 years old on or before the next election.
I am not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction.
... and so it goes.
Next, the Registrar will send me paperwork to confirm the change, which I need to vet and sign and send back.
I'll have to drop out of the Republicans for Choice and stop being one of those sorts that my Dem friends use as an example that all Republicans aren't nutcases.
https://ovr.ss.ca.gov/votereg/OnlineVoterReg
I decline to state a political party.
My ethnicity is White
I am requesting to become a permanent absentee voter.
I will be at least 18 years old on or before the next election.
I am not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction.
... and so it goes.
Next, the Registrar will send me paperwork to confirm the change, which I need to vet and sign and send back.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
You know you've done something right
You know you've done something right when
(1) you get a note from the younger younger one saying, "I am trying to find ways I can help out the hurricane victims and since you told me once not to donate money cause you would do that and really its kind of your money anyways, I was wondering if you know of places I might be able to help out in boston, i already asked the red cross but they have a lot of people helping already. Even if its me helping in a soup kitchen in boston, i looked and couldnt find anything"
I told him he should check with my uncle -- the ex-Massachusetts pol with more knowledge than I'd ever have of local Boston good causes -- but he should also check with the local Second Harvest folk. America's Second Harvest is good folk.
The Greater Boston Food Bank
99 Atkinson Street
gbfb.org
(2) Next note from him was a BCC: a few hours later of something he'd posted to the college server in which he offered living space to the Tulane University students that his college is offering space to: "I live in a larger sized single that has a kitchen and a bathroom and am willing to add a bed, a desk and a person into my room."
My first thought was, man, we are paying a bucketload extra this year to give him a singleton space for his last year in school and he's offering some stranger a space in the room he'd just sent us e-mail about earlier that day: "my room is awesome, i love it. its actually kind of big and I have lots of wall space. I bought my books today and they dont take up much room so thats good. Have you mailed my boxes?"
He's a good kid with a good soul and the thought that he's offering to share his space with someone he doesn't know who has had a bucketload of sorrow makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
We did something right. He's a really =really= good kid. I'm very proud of him.
(1) you get a note from the younger younger one saying, "I am trying to find ways I can help out the hurricane victims and since you told me once not to donate money cause you would do that and really its kind of your money anyways, I was wondering if you know of places I might be able to help out in boston, i already asked the red cross but they have a lot of people helping already. Even if its me helping in a soup kitchen in boston, i looked and couldnt find anything"
I told him he should check with my uncle -- the ex-Massachusetts pol with more knowledge than I'd ever have of local Boston good causes -- but he should also check with the local Second Harvest folk. America's Second Harvest is good folk.
The Greater Boston Food Bank
99 Atkinson Street
gbfb.org
(2) Next note from him was a BCC: a few hours later of something he'd posted to the college server in which he offered living space to the Tulane University students that his college is offering space to: "I live in a larger sized single that has a kitchen and a bathroom and am willing to add a bed, a desk and a person into my room."
My first thought was, man, we are paying a bucketload extra this year to give him a singleton space for his last year in school and he's offering some stranger a space in the room he'd just sent us e-mail about earlier that day: "my room is awesome, i love it. its actually kind of big and I have lots of wall space. I bought my books today and they dont take up much room so thats good. Have you mailed my boxes?"
He's a good kid with a good soul and the thought that he's offering to share his space with someone he doesn't know who has had a bucketload of sorrow makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
We did something right. He's a really =really= good kid. I'm very proud of him.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Aftermath
A lot has been said about the insured damages from Katrina. $25b, they say. What about those uninsured damages? Another $4b, $10b, $25b, they say. How many people had flood insurance? The National Flood Insurance Program has coverage, but how much? How many people will just walk away from their battered homes and the mortgages that cover them? How about the renters? How about the landlords who rent to the renters who walked away? Where will they find new renters? How will they make the payments on their income properties? Will they just walk away?
How much money do the mortgage lenders have in reserve to cover the foreclosed mortgages on homes that aren't homes anymore? And even for those with insurance, will it cover enough? State Farm is the largest homeowner insurer in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. What happens to State Farm? What happens to Allstate, who is the runner-up in the insurance competition? How much paper did the insurers have covered by reinsurers? Is Warren Buffett still carrying that risk? Others?
What about industry and jobs? How goes the guy who teaches school with no school to teach in, the woman who works the casino, when the casino is toothpicks, the guy at the dry cleaner, the one who delivers food to the stores that aren't open, flips burgers, drives a taxi, installs cable? What about jobs? And when your job is gone and with it your health insurance, if you had any, and you were already living on the hairy edge, what then?
Schools. How can a school district afford to take in the kids whose parents left NOLA or elsewhere and probably won't be going back for a while, if ever? How can a state afford to educate another state's kids? How can Louisiana afford to deal with the damage done? How can the feds afford to help out the states with billions already spent elsewhere?
And the Mississippi and all its bustle ... the port of New Orleans is out of commission for a long while.
And the basics. ... No power for a million, two million people. Scarce drinking water. Contamination. Pollution. Gas out of supply. Batteries. Food.
An editorial in the Biloxi Sun Herald.
Tony Ridder, my local boy whose publishing empire publishes the Sun Herald, also had something to say.
And us'ns and USns ... what happens when the next straw is placed on the camel's back?
How much money do the mortgage lenders have in reserve to cover the foreclosed mortgages on homes that aren't homes anymore? And even for those with insurance, will it cover enough? State Farm is the largest homeowner insurer in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. What happens to State Farm? What happens to Allstate, who is the runner-up in the insurance competition? How much paper did the insurers have covered by reinsurers? Is Warren Buffett still carrying that risk? Others?
What about industry and jobs? How goes the guy who teaches school with no school to teach in, the woman who works the casino, when the casino is toothpicks, the guy at the dry cleaner, the one who delivers food to the stores that aren't open, flips burgers, drives a taxi, installs cable? What about jobs? And when your job is gone and with it your health insurance, if you had any, and you were already living on the hairy edge, what then?
Schools. How can a school district afford to take in the kids whose parents left NOLA or elsewhere and probably won't be going back for a while, if ever? How can a state afford to educate another state's kids? How can Louisiana afford to deal with the damage done? How can the feds afford to help out the states with billions already spent elsewhere?
And the Mississippi and all its bustle ... the port of New Orleans is out of commission for a long while.
And the basics. ... No power for a million, two million people. Scarce drinking water. Contamination. Pollution. Gas out of supply. Batteries. Food.
An editorial in the Biloxi Sun Herald.
Tony Ridder, my local boy whose publishing empire publishes the Sun Herald, also had something to say.
And us'ns and USns ... what happens when the next straw is placed on the camel's back?
Washing away
A prescient report. "Washing Away" from the Times-Picayune. Five-part series from 2002 which begins, "It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day."
Stage. Restage
Here's the place as it looked last May.Since mid-July and up until Saturday, there was not a stick of furniture in the place. Because we'd taken the large carpet that had been in the living room as well as all the furniture of ours they'd used last time, Upstagers had to rework the whole idea and came up with a very different set. Great people to work with. If you're looking for a stager in the Silicon Valley area, they come highly recommended.
The stage is set. Act II opens.x'd fingers it's a two-act play.
Karin Slaughter spotted at B&N this morning.
(Well, her latest book anyway ...)
Karin's fifth book in five years, FAITHLESS, was released in the U.S. yesterday. She'll be at Bouchercon in Chicago over the long weekend while I'll be missing my first B'con since B'con Monterey in 1997.
After Bouchercon, she starts flogging the book. She's in town next Thursday, talking and signing at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 1 p.m. and at "M" is for Mystery in San Mateo at 7 p.m.
After her gig in San Mateo (if her publisher doesn't have other demands on her time), we plan to kidnap her and take her to Hill, which she hasn't seen yet, and then feed her dinner as we walk her back to her hotel.
Friday morning bright and early she has a phone interview and then flies off to L.A. Her tour schedule sounds brutal.
Morgan Freeman. Class act.
Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman partners with Charity Folks and the American Red Cross for Hurricane Relief Auction - September 2nd
That's Friday, folks.
Freeman sez, "Now, charity begins at home, so we call on anybody who has even the thought (of giving) to get beyond the thought and help these people."
That's Friday, folks.
Freeman sez, "Now, charity begins at home, so we call on anybody who has even the thought (of giving) to get beyond the thought and help these people."
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Man, I love this place ...
Headline in today's Chron: Ostrich takes hike on bridge. Evening commute halts, tourists gawk at bird on the lam
I would've said "bird on the run" but I'm no headline writer ...
Piccie!
I would've said "bird on the run" but I'm no headline writer ...
Piccie!
Think globally. Eat locally.
Worldwatch Institute's pitch for eating local food. What is local food? Why should we eat it? Go thither and ponder and go forth and do thou likewise.
Goodin keeps track of sales announcements in Locus
Melinda Rose Goodin keeps track of sales announcements in Locus. She conscientiously fills out an Excel spreadsheet with who sold what to whom, via which agent.
Locus spreadsheet: July 2004 to May 2005 (updated 17th May 2005)
Locus, for those who are unfamiliar with the magazine, "focuses on news of the Science Fiction publishing field and coverage of new science fiction books and magazines." If that's your playground, Goodin's spreadsheet is a trove of agent-related information.
Locus spreadsheet: July 2004 to May 2005 (updated 17th May 2005)
Locus, for those who are unfamiliar with the magazine, "focuses on news of the Science Fiction publishing field and coverage of new science fiction books and magazines." If that's your playground, Goodin's spreadsheet is a trove of agent-related information.
Lillian Virginia Mountweazel
Henry Alford column in the New Yorker
Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia and you'll find an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled "Flags Up!" Mountweazel, the encyclopedia indicates, was born in Bangs, Ohio, in 1942, only to die "at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine."
If Mountweazel is not a household name, even in fountain-designing or mailbox-photography circles, that is because she never existed. "It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright," Richard Steins, who was one of the volume's editors, said the other day. "If someone copied Lillian, then we'd know they'd stolen from us."
Alford's column tracks down a made-up word in the New Oxford American Dictionary.
The word has since been spotted on Dictionary.com, which cites Webster's New Millennium as its source. "It's interesting for us that we can see their methodology," McKean said. "Or lack thereof. It's like tagging and releasing giant turtles."
Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia and you'll find an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled "Flags Up!" Mountweazel, the encyclopedia indicates, was born in Bangs, Ohio, in 1942, only to die "at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine."
If Mountweazel is not a household name, even in fountain-designing or mailbox-photography circles, that is because she never existed. "It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright," Richard Steins, who was one of the volume's editors, said the other day. "If someone copied Lillian, then we'd know they'd stolen from us."
Alford's column tracks down a made-up word in the New Oxford American Dictionary.
The word has since been spotted on Dictionary.com, which cites Webster's New Millennium as its source. "It's interesting for us that we can see their methodology," McKean said. "Or lack thereof. It's like tagging and releasing giant turtles."
Goin' to Surf City
SFGate covers the latest news
Wading into murky waters where no legislator has ever hung ten before, the Senate Rules Committee declared that the Orange County town of Huntington Beach -- which also fancies itself as Surf City USA -- cannot claim exclusive rights to the name.
Sorry, Paula!
"You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
Two boys for every girl"
[apologies to Brian Wilson and Jan Berry for the lyric change]
Wading into murky waters where no legislator has ever hung ten before, the Senate Rules Committee declared that the Orange County town of Huntington Beach -- which also fancies itself as Surf City USA -- cannot claim exclusive rights to the name.
Sorry, Paula!
"You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
Two boys for every girl"
[apologies to Brian Wilson and Jan Berry for the lyric change]
Sunday, August 28, 2005
NEWSMEAT - politics, headlines, federal campaign contribution search
Authors on the Web on Recurring Characters
AuthorsOnTheWeb on Recurring Characters
[Apr 2001] Authors on the Web talks to six of today's top serial novelists --- Nevada Barr, Carolyn Hart, Robert B. Parker, Ridley Pearson, George Pelecanos and Ian Rankin.
[Apr 2001] Authors on the Web talks to six of today's top serial novelists --- Nevada Barr, Carolyn Hart, Robert B. Parker, Ridley Pearson, George Pelecanos and Ian Rankin.
Authors on the Web does ChickLit
Authors on the Web does Chick Lit.
[February 2004] AuthorsOnTheWeb.com has brought together 16 writers --- Meg Cabot, Jennifer Coburn, Elizabeth Crane, Valerie Frankel, Wendy Holden, Donna Kauffman, Marian Keyes, Deanna Kizis, Harley Jane Kozak, Sherrie Krantz, Alisa Kwitney, Whitney Lyles, Carole Matthews, Sarah Salway, Gemma Townley and Jennifer Weiner --- to discuss the essential elements of a Chick Lit novel, the impact these books can have on female readers, and the scenes or characters that they are especially proud to have written.
[February 2004] AuthorsOnTheWeb.com has brought together 16 writers --- Meg Cabot, Jennifer Coburn, Elizabeth Crane, Valerie Frankel, Wendy Holden, Donna Kauffman, Marian Keyes, Deanna Kizis, Harley Jane Kozak, Sherrie Krantz, Alisa Kwitney, Whitney Lyles, Carole Matthews, Sarah Salway, Gemma Townley and Jennifer Weiner --- to discuss the essential elements of a Chick Lit novel, the impact these books can have on female readers, and the scenes or characters that they are especially proud to have written.
Who Named It?
www.whonamedit.com
Whonamedit.com is a biographical dictionary of medical eponyms. It is our ambition to present a complete survey of all medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person. Eventually, this will include more than 15.000 eponyms and more than 6.000 persons.
e.g. Want to know who the Kaposi was behind Kaposi's sarcoma? whonamedit.com has the great and gory details.
Whonamedit.com is a biographical dictionary of medical eponyms. It is our ambition to present a complete survey of all medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person. Eventually, this will include more than 15.000 eponyms and more than 6.000 persons.
e.g. Want to know who the Kaposi was behind Kaposi's sarcoma? whonamedit.com has the great and gory details.
A productive Saturday, but not what we had planned
Arrived at the old farm. Introduced ourselves to the real estate agent, who was patiently waiting for drop-ins. He hadn't realized there'd be no furniture in the place -- the last time he'd been there was back in May when it was furnished and staged. He had no place to sit, except on the built-in buffet space between the family room and the kitchen. His nibs chatted with him, explaining that all the furniture had been removed in July prior to the original COE date but that there'd be furniture arriving tomorrow (today, Sunday) with more to follow.
I swept the front paths and the back patio, even though Juan's showing up Monday to do a proper blow. We were expecting visitors today, and the front paths couldn't wait.
Chuck brought his old friends by to look over the place. "Not what you were expecting to do today, is it?" he asked. His old friends were the couple from up at the end of the street. "Diamond Jim" our tree guy calls him. I was glad I'd swept up before Diamond Jim arrived.
I headed off to Home Depot for a mop and a toilet brush, a toilet flapper, plants, &c. While I was gone, his nibs vacuumed and patched up the holes the stagers had left the first time they came through. Painted over the patches after they'd dried. Tried to fix the lock on the back house. Couldn't. I'll have to arrange for a locksmith and sit and wait next week some time.
$112.50 later, I arrived back. Handed off the toilet brush, toilet cleaner, toilet flapper to his nibs, who proceeded to clean four bathrooms and fix the flapper in the upstairs master bath while I potted and planted flowers and placed the pots.
The stagers showed up early with stuff. They didn't want to interfere with the unplanned open house, but we said, "Come on in. You'll just be more proof to visitors that the escrow fell through yesterday and the house is back on the market." They promised to have the place ready for the Wednesday broker tour and commiserated over the failed escrow.
The real estate agent left. He'd had a so-so day. Four couples/family groups came by, maybe five. Plus Diamond Jim and his wife with Chuck.
Did I mention the real estate agent drove a shiny new BLACK HUMMER? No? I thought that was an interesting car of choice for an agent.
Turned out he'd graduated HS a year before I did and spent his earlier career as basketball coach at my alma mater, starting there four years after I'd graduated. He knew Diamond Jim's wife because she used to be married to the basketball coach at St. Francis. We talked about my alma mater. He said, did you know Dick B? He was a senior when I was a freshman, I said. You wouldn't've been there when Jim P was there. I was: he was a senior when I was a freshman too. He named about six or seven guys, all but one of whom I knew of.
Small world.
Six hours after we arrived, we left. Flowers by the front steps. Flowers out by the back patio. Flowers in the front. Clean. Spackled. Painted. Vacuumed. Staging in progress. The place is ready to shine. Again.
I swept the front paths and the back patio, even though Juan's showing up Monday to do a proper blow. We were expecting visitors today, and the front paths couldn't wait.
Chuck brought his old friends by to look over the place. "Not what you were expecting to do today, is it?" he asked. His old friends were the couple from up at the end of the street. "Diamond Jim" our tree guy calls him. I was glad I'd swept up before Diamond Jim arrived.
I headed off to Home Depot for a mop and a toilet brush, a toilet flapper, plants, &c. While I was gone, his nibs vacuumed and patched up the holes the stagers had left the first time they came through. Painted over the patches after they'd dried. Tried to fix the lock on the back house. Couldn't. I'll have to arrange for a locksmith and sit and wait next week some time.
$112.50 later, I arrived back. Handed off the toilet brush, toilet cleaner, toilet flapper to his nibs, who proceeded to clean four bathrooms and fix the flapper in the upstairs master bath while I potted and planted flowers and placed the pots.
The stagers showed up early with stuff. They didn't want to interfere with the unplanned open house, but we said, "Come on in. You'll just be more proof to visitors that the escrow fell through yesterday and the house is back on the market." They promised to have the place ready for the Wednesday broker tour and commiserated over the failed escrow.
The real estate agent left. He'd had a so-so day. Four couples/family groups came by, maybe five. Plus Diamond Jim and his wife with Chuck.
Did I mention the real estate agent drove a shiny new BLACK HUMMER? No? I thought that was an interesting car of choice for an agent.
Turned out he'd graduated HS a year before I did and spent his earlier career as basketball coach at my alma mater, starting there four years after I'd graduated. He knew Diamond Jim's wife because she used to be married to the basketball coach at St. Francis. We talked about my alma mater. He said, did you know Dick B? He was a senior when I was a freshman, I said. You wouldn't've been there when Jim P was there. I was: he was a senior when I was a freshman too. He named about six or seven guys, all but one of whom I knew of.
Small world.
Six hours after we arrived, we left. Flowers by the front steps. Flowers out by the back patio. Flowers in the front. Clean. Spackled. Painted. Vacuumed. Staging in progress. The place is ready to shine. Again.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
House for sale! House for sale!
Escrow on Dale died a slow death this week. Our Realtor guy called the other agent early in the week to remind him that for escrow to close on Friday, the $$$ had to be in escrow by Wednesday.
"Well, if the $$$ aren't there, I guess you'll just have to put the house back on the market," the other agent said.
!!!
Wednesday came and went. Thursday our guy FAX'd us the paperwork to sign demanding performance of the contract. We returned the paperwork on Friday and signed some more paper telling the escrow folks it was time to close out the escrow. While his nibs was working, I finished clearing out the stuff I'd moved to Dale from the warehouse when we vacated it at the end of its lease, at the beginning of the month. I hadn't =quite= finished sorting through all the boxes of clips and magazines and papers. Still had eight or nine to go. Oh, well. Pack them into the pickup and move them out.
Swept the floors. Deadheaded the agapanthus. Watered. The place is clean albeit bare. The yard lives.
Friday, the other agent wasn't returning our agent's calls.
The money never showed.
ELEVEN WEEKS AND STILL NO $$$!
Feh.
We at least got their deposit into our bank account back in July when we renegotiated the terms of sale. We'll be using part of that stash to put the place back on the market, but we'd never intended to have the place up for sale in September.
The weather's fine, though, and some people will be thinking about buying a new place in time to move in before the holidays, so maybe it will all work out.
We'll be back at Dale today whipping things back into shape. Boy, am I glad I kept the yard alive.
Tomorrow the stagers return to refurnish the house. We've signed up the gardener guy to blow off the tree debris and water the yard once a week. I'll water and check on the place at least once a week too.
Our guy has the house on broker tour this upcoming Wednesday and plans for open houses on the weekends.
In fact, one of his Realtor guy cohorts had nothing better to do today, so, even though there's no notice in the paper, he's putting a sign out on the highway and he's going to have an open house this afternoon. We'll be around working on the place, but our guy says, hey. No problem.
Our guy's also going to bring by some good friends who have good friends who are moving back into the area so they can look at the house and see whether they think their friends might be interested. ...
Our Realtor's a great guy -- thorough, honest, smart -- and I think this past lousy escrow will have a silver lining in the end.
x'd fingers.
"Well, if the $$$ aren't there, I guess you'll just have to put the house back on the market," the other agent said.
!!!
Wednesday came and went. Thursday our guy FAX'd us the paperwork to sign demanding performance of the contract. We returned the paperwork on Friday and signed some more paper telling the escrow folks it was time to close out the escrow. While his nibs was working, I finished clearing out the stuff I'd moved to Dale from the warehouse when we vacated it at the end of its lease, at the beginning of the month. I hadn't =quite= finished sorting through all the boxes of clips and magazines and papers. Still had eight or nine to go. Oh, well. Pack them into the pickup and move them out.
Swept the floors. Deadheaded the agapanthus. Watered. The place is clean albeit bare. The yard lives.
Friday, the other agent wasn't returning our agent's calls.
The money never showed.
ELEVEN WEEKS AND STILL NO $$$!
Feh.
We at least got their deposit into our bank account back in July when we renegotiated the terms of sale. We'll be using part of that stash to put the place back on the market, but we'd never intended to have the place up for sale in September.
The weather's fine, though, and some people will be thinking about buying a new place in time to move in before the holidays, so maybe it will all work out.
We'll be back at Dale today whipping things back into shape. Boy, am I glad I kept the yard alive.
Tomorrow the stagers return to refurnish the house. We've signed up the gardener guy to blow off the tree debris and water the yard once a week. I'll water and check on the place at least once a week too.
Our guy has the house on broker tour this upcoming Wednesday and plans for open houses on the weekends.
In fact, one of his Realtor guy cohorts had nothing better to do today, so, even though there's no notice in the paper, he's putting a sign out on the highway and he's going to have an open house this afternoon. We'll be around working on the place, but our guy says, hey. No problem.
Our guy's also going to bring by some good friends who have good friends who are moving back into the area so they can look at the house and see whether they think their friends might be interested. ...
Our Realtor's a great guy -- thorough, honest, smart -- and I think this past lousy escrow will have a silver lining in the end.
x'd fingers.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Is anyone there? Hello? Is anyone there?
I hate phones. Have I mentioned?
I much prefer F2F or e-mail. I get no joy from hearing someone's voice. I don't know what the problem is, perhaps that there's this disconnect between the voice and the face. E-mail's OK because I can save an e-mail and parse it before I answer. F2F is okay too because I can see the person I'm talking to.
In any hoo.
Today was my day to call people. Last week, my day was Monday as well. Might as well start the week off with a bang, eh?
Last week I was calling people to ask if they wanted their names in the directory I'm putting together as LAST NAME, First Name (Nickname) or LAST NAME, Nickname. Call after call after call to everyone for whom I was carrying a nickname who didn't have an e-mail address or who hadn't answered my e-mail asking which variant they preferred.
Today I'm calling to change my billing/notice address with a variety of entities that do not have an online way of changing my address: my 401K with Honeywell (for whom I never worked but who bought a business for which I worked many year ago now), my 401K account to which I should be transferring my Honeywell 401K, my BankOne accounts which are now my Chase accounts, my Macy's account.
So, fine. Macy's. I tried online and got a "cannot update your account. try again later."
I called their accounts line and got an intelligent design voice asking me for my old ZIP and "is that right?" and my new ZIP and "is that right?" and my address and "is that right?" and no, it wasn't. So we tried a couple times. Each time the street name was garbled. So we tried just the street name and the repeat back didn't work. After three or so attempts and after much hoo-hah, I was transferred to someone who kept saying, "Is anyone there?" I answered. "Is anyone there?" I answered louder. "Is anyone there?" And even louder. He finally heard me and said, "Ma'am. I can barely hear you." I said, "I'm almost shouting. If you can't hear me, that's a failure in your customer support line," or in the trans-Pacific cable or the satellite link, I didn't add.
"Is anyone there?" he asked.
So, I hung up.
If Macy's doesn't care enough about customer support to let me update my account online or to provide a phone line that their support staff can hear me on, it's not really my problem.
I'm sure they'd like me to use my $2000 line of credit, which I haven't used in a long while, but I'm disinclined at this point and who knows where they'd send the bill anyway.
... as though I'm ever very inclined to shop at a place whose tagline is "way to shop!"
"Way to shop" indeed. ...
I much prefer F2F or e-mail. I get no joy from hearing someone's voice. I don't know what the problem is, perhaps that there's this disconnect between the voice and the face. E-mail's OK because I can save an e-mail and parse it before I answer. F2F is okay too because I can see the person I'm talking to.
In any hoo.
Today was my day to call people. Last week, my day was Monday as well. Might as well start the week off with a bang, eh?
Last week I was calling people to ask if they wanted their names in the directory I'm putting together as LAST NAME, First Name (Nickname) or LAST NAME, Nickname. Call after call after call to everyone for whom I was carrying a nickname who didn't have an e-mail address or who hadn't answered my e-mail asking which variant they preferred.
Today I'm calling to change my billing/notice address with a variety of entities that do not have an online way of changing my address: my 401K with Honeywell (for whom I never worked but who bought a business for which I worked many year ago now), my 401K account to which I should be transferring my Honeywell 401K, my BankOne accounts which are now my Chase accounts, my Macy's account.
So, fine. Macy's. I tried online and got a "cannot update your account. try again later."
I called their accounts line and got an intelligent design voice asking me for my old ZIP and "is that right?" and my new ZIP and "is that right?" and my address and "is that right?" and no, it wasn't. So we tried a couple times. Each time the street name was garbled. So we tried just the street name and the repeat back didn't work. After three or so attempts and after much hoo-hah, I was transferred to someone who kept saying, "Is anyone there?" I answered. "Is anyone there?" I answered louder. "Is anyone there?" And even louder. He finally heard me and said, "Ma'am. I can barely hear you." I said, "I'm almost shouting. If you can't hear me, that's a failure in your customer support line," or in the trans-Pacific cable or the satellite link, I didn't add.
"Is anyone there?" he asked.
So, I hung up.
If Macy's doesn't care enough about customer support to let me update my account online or to provide a phone line that their support staff can hear me on, it's not really my problem.
I'm sure they'd like me to use my $2000 line of credit, which I haven't used in a long while, but I'm disinclined at this point and who knows where they'd send the bill anyway.
... as though I'm ever very inclined to shop at a place whose tagline is "way to shop!"
"Way to shop" indeed. ...
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Pretty things: NYPL Digital Gallery
NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 337,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.
Search.
Browse.
Explore.
Useful things: Free public records search
Pretrieve is a search engine that is specifically geared towards finding public records relevant to a person, business, or address. Our search database knows about thousands of public records sources, and can match your search information to the relevant sources for you. And, even though we already cover a large number of public record sources, we are constantly expanding our coverage to offer even more search results.
As an added convenience, most of the search result links that we provide take you directly to the results page on the associated public record site. For example, clicking on a "Property Record" link usually takes you directly to the property record data, rather than simply taking you to the home page of the property record site. This means that, in most cases, you only have to type your search criteria once to view public records on multiple sites.
Pretty cool. Fairly effective. Public search of county records doesn't cover all California counties. Other states are similarly hit or miss, and if your target has a common name and/or you aren't quite sure where he or she might be, this tool will give you far more information than you'll know what to do with.
As an added convenience, most of the search result links that we provide take you directly to the results page on the associated public record site. For example, clicking on a "Property Record" link usually takes you directly to the property record data, rather than simply taking you to the home page of the property record site. This means that, in most cases, you only have to type your search criteria once to view public records on multiple sites.
Pretty cool. Fairly effective. Public search of county records doesn't cover all California counties. Other states are similarly hit or miss, and if your target has a common name and/or you aren't quite sure where he or she might be, this tool will give you far more information than you'll know what to do with.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Chocolate and Zucchini
I just discovered that Chocolate and Zucchini made the Time Magazine list of 50 Coolest Websites 2005.
How cool is that? Congratulations, Clotilde!
How cool is that? Congratulations, Clotilde!
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Patch of blue
Beautiful day at the Saturday Farmers' Market at the Ferry Building.
We stopped off at Acme for a sour batard (our reason for the excursion) and an olive bread. After going out in back and tasting our way through cheese, peaches, tomatoes, dips and more, we left with a pot of garlic quark, some dry jack, some peaches, some dry-farmed organic early girl tomatoes, a large bunch of basil (with roots! I plan to harvest the basil and try to get the roots to re-grow up on the deck to replace the basil which has never taken hold), and a small jar of lavender sea salt.
Spotted James Ormsby on our way back inside, checking out cheeses and other food stuffs. What the heck was he doing at a yuppie farmers' market, certainly not gathering the goods for his dinner trade? We finally decided he was probably there, killing time before Patricia Unterman's 1 p.m. book signing at Book Passage for the 4th ed. of her San Francisco Food Lover’s Guide.
Our quark needed to be in the fridge. The smell of the basil was making me hungry, so we decided to skip the Unterman signing and head home.
At Levi Plaza, before crossing Sansome and heading up the Filbert Steps, I realized that the day was perfect to take a picture of our place.
Patch of blue
See the brick-colored building just beneath Coit Tower? It's not really just beneath Coit Tower. It's down on the east side of Montgomery, just north of the Filbert Steps. That, believe it or not, is a single family home. 10K sq ft. SEVEN CAR PARKING! Yowzaa.
Just below and to the right of the zillion dollar home is our HSH, a typical 25' wide, lot-line to lot-line, San Francisco dwelling. The patch of blue is the east-facing wall of our deck.
The brick building in the right front of the picture is part of the Levi Strauss & Co. campus. The off-white building just visible behind it is the Pearson Addison-Wesley and Benjamin Cummings building on Filbert, just below the Steps.
Now that you've been given the grand tour, think you can spot the place from this angle?
We stopped off at Acme for a sour batard (our reason for the excursion) and an olive bread. After going out in back and tasting our way through cheese, peaches, tomatoes, dips and more, we left with a pot of garlic quark, some dry jack, some peaches, some dry-farmed organic early girl tomatoes, a large bunch of basil (with roots! I plan to harvest the basil and try to get the roots to re-grow up on the deck to replace the basil which has never taken hold), and a small jar of lavender sea salt.
Spotted James Ormsby on our way back inside, checking out cheeses and other food stuffs. What the heck was he doing at a yuppie farmers' market, certainly not gathering the goods for his dinner trade? We finally decided he was probably there, killing time before Patricia Unterman's 1 p.m. book signing at Book Passage for the 4th ed. of her San Francisco Food Lover’s Guide.
Our quark needed to be in the fridge. The smell of the basil was making me hungry, so we decided to skip the Unterman signing and head home.
At Levi Plaza, before crossing Sansome and heading up the Filbert Steps, I realized that the day was perfect to take a picture of our place.
Patch of blue
See the brick-colored building just beneath Coit Tower? It's not really just beneath Coit Tower. It's down on the east side of Montgomery, just north of the Filbert Steps. That, believe it or not, is a single family home. 10K sq ft. SEVEN CAR PARKING! Yowzaa.
Just below and to the right of the zillion dollar home is our HSH, a typical 25' wide, lot-line to lot-line, San Francisco dwelling. The patch of blue is the east-facing wall of our deck.
The brick building in the right front of the picture is part of the Levi Strauss & Co. campus. The off-white building just visible behind it is the Pearson Addison-Wesley and Benjamin Cummings building on Filbert, just below the Steps.
Now that you've been given the grand tour, think you can spot the place from this angle?
Pablo Cruises
Pablo had been one of his nibs' physics students back in his nibs' academia days -- back at UCSB when his nibs was node 3 on the brand spanking new ARPANET. Those days are decades ago now and Pablo's gone on to his own career and fame (beds of nails, baseball, physics). We keep in touch, have each other over for dinner, exchange e-mail.
Pablo's offer couldn't be beat.
"You free Thursday? Come down to the Brisbane Marina and we'll take the boat out for a look around the Bay and stop in at McCovey Cove for the Giants vs. Rockies game. I'll provide the sausages and beer. You just need to be there on time."
Of course we were late. There's some construction going on King Street near Third and the traffic skinnies down to one lane just as it's backing up for all the folks trying to turn left. The light cycled through again and again as the traffic merged into a single lane and inched through the traffic signal. We finally made it onto 280, took the 101 split and hightailed it down to Brisbane.
Pablo wasn't there when we arrived, five minutes after he'd been planning to leave. Had he really left without us? I was bummed.
We walked around the edge of the Marina to see if we could see his boat out on the Bay and give him an ahoy!
No.
So where the heck was he?
We bumped into another guy who looked like a physicist sort, who was also wandering around looking like he was looking for a lift in a boat. Turns out he was Lew, a retired physics professor at City College and he was, indeed, looking for Pablo. Seems Pablo had sent out an e-mail that morning saying he'd be leaving an hour later than originally planned.
We weren't five minutes late, we were early!
Pablo arrived and the rest of the gang showed up. One of the gang was a guy we knew from Week 11, Stanford Sierra Camp, whom we hadn't seen since we swapped weeks something like seven years ago. Physics nerds. Stanford. Small world.
We set off later than Pablo'd anticipated and wouldn't've been able to get out on the ocean and back in time for the game so instead we took a shortened tour around Treasure Island and Yerba Buena to take an up-close look at the construction of the new Oakland span. Differences of opinions as to whether the new construction is necessary or not. I think it's a good idea and worth the expense, if only they'd keep the costs under control. Others think the whole idea is a complete waste and a boondoggle.
We arrived and set anchor at McCovey Cove in time to hear the Star Spangled Banner. The boat was perfectly positioned. We could peek through the gates and also keep an eye on the scoreboard. We had the game playing on the radio as well. We spent the afternoon eating grilled polish sausages and drinking beer and wine and other libations as we enjoyed the game and wide-ranging talk.
The Giants came from behind in the eighth and won the game so all were happy.
After the game, we weighed anchor and set off on our game-delayed cruise around the Bay -- out under the Golden Gate Bridge, back in to Sausalito, around the Belvedere/Tiburon point, over to Angel Island and Ayala Cove, then back around along the edge of the city, under the Bay Bridge and over to Brisbane.
Pictures (20% of the ~ 350 I shot. Digital. Ain't it wonderful?)
Pablo's offer couldn't be beat.
"You free Thursday? Come down to the Brisbane Marina and we'll take the boat out for a look around the Bay and stop in at McCovey Cove for the Giants vs. Rockies game. I'll provide the sausages and beer. You just need to be there on time."
Of course we were late. There's some construction going on King Street near Third and the traffic skinnies down to one lane just as it's backing up for all the folks trying to turn left. The light cycled through again and again as the traffic merged into a single lane and inched through the traffic signal. We finally made it onto 280, took the 101 split and hightailed it down to Brisbane.
Pablo wasn't there when we arrived, five minutes after he'd been planning to leave. Had he really left without us? I was bummed.
We walked around the edge of the Marina to see if we could see his boat out on the Bay and give him an ahoy!
No.
So where the heck was he?
We bumped into another guy who looked like a physicist sort, who was also wandering around looking like he was looking for a lift in a boat. Turns out he was Lew, a retired physics professor at City College and he was, indeed, looking for Pablo. Seems Pablo had sent out an e-mail that morning saying he'd be leaving an hour later than originally planned.
We weren't five minutes late, we were early!
Pablo arrived and the rest of the gang showed up. One of the gang was a guy we knew from Week 11, Stanford Sierra Camp, whom we hadn't seen since we swapped weeks something like seven years ago. Physics nerds. Stanford. Small world.
We set off later than Pablo'd anticipated and wouldn't've been able to get out on the ocean and back in time for the game so instead we took a shortened tour around Treasure Island and Yerba Buena to take an up-close look at the construction of the new Oakland span. Differences of opinions as to whether the new construction is necessary or not. I think it's a good idea and worth the expense, if only they'd keep the costs under control. Others think the whole idea is a complete waste and a boondoggle.
We arrived and set anchor at McCovey Cove in time to hear the Star Spangled Banner. The boat was perfectly positioned. We could peek through the gates and also keep an eye on the scoreboard. We had the game playing on the radio as well. We spent the afternoon eating grilled polish sausages and drinking beer and wine and other libations as we enjoyed the game and wide-ranging talk.
The Giants came from behind in the eighth and won the game so all were happy.
After the game, we weighed anchor and set off on our game-delayed cruise around the Bay -- out under the Golden Gate Bridge, back in to Sausalito, around the Belvedere/Tiburon point, over to Angel Island and Ayala Cove, then back around along the edge of the city, under the Bay Bridge and over to Brisbane.
Pictures (20% of the ~ 350 I shot. Digital. Ain't it wonderful?)
Hip Liz ... this one's for you ...
We saw the Giants game Thursday from a spot in McCovey Cove and miracle of miracles, the guys beat Colorado 6-4 with an amazing five run eighth inning. Some of the kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco left after the seventh inning when the score was a still-dismal 4-1 Rockies. I think, I hope, they were too young to worry about what they missed.
The guy whose boat we were on would like me to pass on this link.
Seven seats in a row. Section 317, Row 2, Seats 3-9. Up high. Right behind home plate.
Buy three, buy four, buy all seven. $30 a pop.
Paul has the alternative, you see, if he sells all seven tickets to invite six or eight or fifteen friends and just sit in the Cove and listen to the game, watch the scoreboard. Thursday there were six of us, not including Paul.
You can sorta kinda peek through the gates and see the field, but mostly it's the game on the radio, the scoreboard, floating, eating sausage, hanging out. Sun. Water rocking. Watching the other boats. Watching the cops in their boat flush the kayakers out from under the path overhang.
We puttered around afterwards. Out through the Golden Gate. Back in around Sausalito and Angel Island before heading back.
Nice day. Pics to follow.
The guy whose boat we were on would like me to pass on this link.
Seven seats in a row. Section 317, Row 2, Seats 3-9. Up high. Right behind home plate.
Buy three, buy four, buy all seven. $30 a pop.
Paul has the alternative, you see, if he sells all seven tickets to invite six or eight or fifteen friends and just sit in the Cove and listen to the game, watch the scoreboard. Thursday there were six of us, not including Paul.
You can sorta kinda peek through the gates and see the field, but mostly it's the game on the radio, the scoreboard, floating, eating sausage, hanging out. Sun. Water rocking. Watching the other boats. Watching the cops in their boat flush the kayakers out from under the path overhang.
We puttered around afterwards. Out through the Golden Gate. Back in around Sausalito and Angel Island before heading back.
Nice day. Pics to follow.
Monday, August 01, 2005
The Creative Muse: Stories of Creativity & Innovation
Madhukar Shukla's Creative Muse is an entertaining collection of descriptions of the mind spasms that resulted in rubber heels, the Band-Aid, the sewing machine and more.
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