climb without oxygen

Orange flavored soda with natural flavors

2008-07-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Following II

2008-07-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

Following me

2008-07-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

This brand of soap has been following me all day now.

Demolition Derby: Forks, WA

2008-07-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

This was an awesome part of our 4th of July -- A real demolition derby.

Jury Duty

2008-07-09T21:51:00.001-07:00

Just today I completed my Jury Duty for the year, after two deferrals
and one outright evasion, with a total of about four hours of service.
I say this to brag, because everyone knows how annoying jury duty is
(civic pride, America, rights, yada yada. It sucks, admit it). In my
case, I was called to civil court in San Francisco, which is a much
easier commute and generally cleaner experience than criminal court.
We filled out questionares yesterday and came back for selection this
morning, only to have the judge tell us that we were free because the
parties had settled. The whole pool applauded.

I was resigned to being there, so getting released was a kind of
bonus. I'm surprised to feel the return of weeks of imaginary lost
time and what a relief that is. I feel funny though, because we
facilitated a game of legal chicken. The judge even praised us for our
mere prescence - 70 people made the parties think twice about shooting
the dice. That means that everything in the suit leading up to today
was just a lot of clucking and showing of tail feathers, all to see
who would blink. I felt kind of strange facilitating that kind of
resolution.

Something else was strange. Sitting in the jury room yesterday, I felt
that I had seen many of the people in that same room before. When roll
call was read, I recognized all of the names. When I returned today, I
had the same experience, with a different set of people. Everyone was
familiar.

I wonder if nothing ever changes there except for the trials. The same
people serve on juries over and over, thinking that it's their first
time.

\t : iPhone->you

Last night in Seatac Limbo

2008-07-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

From the window of our La Quinta Hotel, right by the airport. We're in one of those nebulous, anonymous, airport area cities, all fast food and hotels, overnight guests and bumped passengers sleeping a few hours until they can get back onto an airplane.

Olympic National Park: Hoh Rainforest and Sol Duc Falls

2008-07-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

It was really rainy this day, which was actually a plus, considering where we were. Both astonishing places.

The Hoh Rainforest is here and Sol Duc Falls is here.

Full screen slideshow (new window)

Forks, Washington 4th of July and Demolition Derby

2008-07-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

We went to a real 4th of July celebration in the wonderfully unpretentious and untouristy town of Forks, Washington (here). For the first time, I experienced the 4th as a real holiday, where people felt their patriotism deeply and truly honored the commitment of those who have served our country. Also, there was an awesome demolition derby.

Full screen slideshow (new window)

Rialto Beach - Olympic National Park

2008-07-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

An absolutely beautiful place. It's located here.

Full screen slideshow (new window)

Forks vs. Port Angeles Demo Derby

2008-07-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

This has been the best heat of the day. 2 cars through the wall. Lots
of smashing.

Tator Tots at the Cornerhouse, Port Angeles

2008-07-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

The tator tots at the Cornerhouse in Port Angeles, Washington are perhaps one of the best things I've ever tasted. I say this without reservation, and include in my list having eaten at the French Laundry in Yountville, La Super Rica Taco in Santa Barbara, and any number of fine dining establishments in the SF Bay Area and beyond. They were crisp, with a spectacularly light and soft interior, a sweet, bright potato taste. A bit oily, but not greasy. I was literally speechless after I bit into the first one.

The Cornerhouse is a really good traditional coffeeshop, with a large menu. We went there because it was packed with locals and it had a good bustle.

I also really enjoyed the sign next to the "cocktail lounge", i.e. room with bar, posted by the Sheriff citing an ordinance disallowing guns in this place. All the "no guns" signs I've ever seen in a bar were posted as jokes, not printed on lime green paper, with city codes and legal langauge.

Whidbey Island and the Olympic Peninsula

2008-07-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

We hit the Olympic peninsula with this morning's ferry ride from Keystone to Port Townsend. The piney essence and gray moody skies really make me feel as if we're in the Northwest (which we are).

Fullscreen slideshow (new window)

More Seattle & Washington

2008-07-03T23:04:00.000-07:00

We visited the Boeing Plant in Everett, but weren't allowed to bring *anything* electronic into the plant itself, not even an iPhone. Needless to say, visiting the LARGEST building in the world, the Boeing airplane assembly facility, was an awesome experience and one which I wish I could share with you, but I can't, because they will hurt me bad.

There is a picture of the crazy "dreamlifter", a converted 747, which is used to transport parts of 787 planes being built to the factory. How much sense does it make to have someone in another part of the world build a fuselage, which you then have to *fly* to the plant for assembly? Seems wrong to me, but hey. I'm just a visitor.

The Museum of Flight is exceptionally good, probably the best one we've been to since the Smithsonian or Huntsville.

Full screen slideshow (new window)

Couple of days worth of Seattle Photos

2008-06-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

A brief slideshow of our current fun-time vacation type trip to Seattle.

Full screen slideshow (new window)

Seat to seat chat on Virgin

2008-06-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Blue lighting on Virgin

2008-06-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

This is the lighting throughout the cabin. In first class, it's really
pronounced.

Another reason to like VirginAmerica

2008-06-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

The picture sucks, but you can see that Virgin uses Linux for their
Red interactive systems.

Seattle

2008-06-29T12:58:00.001-07:00

Heart-Nest-Silence restaurant serves all variety of "Neat-Loaf" and
other vegetarian treats. Also, the inspirational aphorisms of Sri
Chinmoy.

IcedTea: The First 100% Compliant Open-Source Java

2008-06-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Somehow I missed this. It passes Sun's giant test suite, which makes
it a tastes the same JVM.

http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/06/icedtea_tck

\t : iPhone->you

Dads love meat on a stick

2008-06-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

OS X new Finder Window from Command Line

2008-06-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

open [dir[

For instance, in the current directory:

open .

"open terminal finder command line os x window"

Tables

2008-06-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

S. pointed out that a warped sheet of plywood on legs, serving as a table, is an ugly thing. A tablecloth thrown over the top merely covers ugly with excuses. One of the worst meals I've had in a long while was served on a big, warped, dinged and gouged circle of plywood. All the white polyester in the world can't disguise cockroaches on visible kitchen walls.

That's Civilization, I think: gouged, warped, and covered with a clean cloth. Last night, we were at a party in a beach town that is no resort, rather a serviceable bedroom community of surfers and the working folk; inexpensive housing near an expensive city, permanently gray skies and the faint smell of ocean must. The party was in an apartment with almost no furniture and nothing decorating the rented apartment white walls. The industrial gray carpet was stain resistant and a large window overlooked unmown state land with spiny pines where teenagers lived in the bushes. Needless to say, one bachelor lived there and another was squatting, eating donuts and writing software on the couch where he'd slept for the better part of a year.

The party took place in the living room around food and drinks on boxes covered with a sheet. Some of us sat on floor pillows, others on the swaybacked couch and mismatched wooden chairs. A friend's iPod and portable speakers provided music.

In the kitchen, a table was the only piece of furniture in a stark, white room made glaring with an overhead light. A yellow and brown crocheted table cover was in turn obscured by our bottles of wine, cheese wrappers, fruit salad containers, and takeout boxes from gourmet supermarkets. During a self-mocking tour, our host lifted up the edge of cover to reveal a beautifully crafted thing, with elegant joints and a cleanly finished surface. It had leaves, which could slide out to seat 6 or 8 people. Everything else in the apartment was perfunctory, functional, at best an ironic joke, but this was something that spoke of social interaction, dinner parties and pleasant obligations, cooking and drinking and eating. In a building held together by mold and failing stucco, here was something made intentionally and well.

Having admired this beautiful thing, and planned future engagements around it, we returned to the dimly lit living room, where people laughed, drank, grew angry, made jokes, and otherwise acted civilized.

GWT 1.5 RC1 !!!!!!

2008-05-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've seen it elsewhere, but the GWT 1.5 Release Candidate 1 is out. I haven't fired it up yet, but it sounds sweet, sweet, sweet. The biggest change is probably Java 5 support (requires Java 5, actually), including generics, autoboxing, and annotations. There's also compiler improvements, something called JavaScript Overlays (which I don't fully get as of yet), more JRE emulated classes, and some sweetened UI action, including "themes".

Git for OS X

2008-05-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

Not like people can't find it on their own, but here's a good build of git for OS X Leopard. I'm using it on two MacBooks.

tinydb

2008-05-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

This is really cool: a very simple database using tiny urls like those
used by tinyurl.com to store data in url parameters. It's so awesome,
I'm not quite sure how to deal with it. http://tinydb.org/