open thoughts of a procrastinator

5:11pm: Ready Player One
Just finished "Ready Player One" and enjoyed it. I don't regularly recommend fiction as I can consume and enjoy tons of things most people see as just plain trash but I'm ready to say that I think this was a good fun read that almost anyone who would read this post would enjoy.

7:56am: A Trip Upstate
Yesterday Z and I drove up to the New Paltz area, and on white cliffs over looking the calm and beautiful Lake Minnewaska, Z got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I said yes of course, and then he stood up dug the ring out of his pocket and got back down on one knee and offered me a ring.

We have no plans other plans or details yet and are waiting a bit to post to facebook so everyone who needs a personal call can get one.

It was a beautiful 64 degree day and the red and brown leaves were still present.

4:30pm: Pre Internet Legacy
Today is the 12th anniversary of my father death. I wouldn't have remembered the date except that my sister reminded me. In general I prefer to celebrate him on his birthday. It's been 12 years. I miss him chronically but am no more or less sad on this day. After so many years honestly it's not something i think about terribly often.

Today I thought I'd google him to see what I found. I'm not sure why I'm surprised there is nothing really there. He was a teacher at a public highschool and while terribly important to me, my family, and his students was not the kind of person that showed up in the news. But these days i can google my 10 year old nephew and find an entry that relates to him. Even my grandmother who survived him by 11 years can be found via google. But my father, the man who use to go to computer swap-meets and insisted on all of us learning to type and learn how to use a computer spreadsheet just missed the googleution.

Which of course has lead me to think about the semi-immortality granted to those of us who exist so completely in this digital format.

On Christmas day a friend in his 30s passed away due to complications related to a heart attack. His facebook page is still active. in fact people are still posting to his wall.

Will this all get washed away in the deluge of information to come? Or will our presence on this internet somehow be permanently cataloged? Will the pre-internet digital age seem like another dark ages for historians to come? With all of the data that will have been lost due to incompatibility of data storage and washed away inks from early print outs.

I'm sure this someone else has thought about this more elegantly than I.

3:53pm: RIP Harriet Alter
At 3:15 this morning the phone rang. Zohn somehow heard it as I wouldn't have woken if he hadn't gotten out of bed.

After weeks of going in and out of hospitals, Harriet Alter--Zohn's last remaining grandparent--passed.
She was a woman with a strong opinion of how one should see the world. She lived through close to 9 decades of radically fast culture shift in America and was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. She is survived by her only daughter, Muriel.

8:48am: Rock and a Hard Place
Today's New York mayoral election put many of us between a rock and a hard place. For those of you not following at home Mike Bloomberg pushed a vote through city council earlier this year to change term limits from 2 to 3. Something that voters had voted down twice before. Bloomberg himself was opposed to it when the previous Mayor, Guilliani, tried to do the same thing. This time most of the people on City Council were at the end of their second terms and this vote would give them all a chance to serve again. In addition instead of running as the independent he started as he ran as a Republican. Consequently all of the people who would have been running for Mayor stayed in City Council, and the democrats put up a fairly week opponent to Bloomberg. Who despite this terrible power play has been a fairly good Mayor and is doing many thing that I approve of for the city.

So vote for the guy who has a proven track record of misusing power and set up a poor precedence for circumventing the voters choice, but otherwise does a good job for the city and is in the middle of enacting some very important sustainable planning measures that will probably fall through if he leaves office?

Or vote for the other guy whom i don't really agree with on a lot of points but didn't just circumvent the voters choice?

By in large I think term limits are a necessary evil. They oust people just as they are just getting a real handle on the job and it's easy to get an entire administration of people wet behind the ears and the politics of them make it very hard to do any real administrating because you are always looking over your shoulder. But, incumbency is just too much of a factor especially at the city and district level.

The real issue here is the circumventing of voters decisions. This is a terrible terrible precedent. Especially in a city where things tend to get done by fiat.

In the end I voted for the guy I thought would be a better mayor but I feel absolutely terrible about it.

9:06am: Ric Masten
Many of my friends have heard me talk about my youth as a Unitarian and how that was so very formative. One of the things that was unique and unsharable up to this moment was a Unitarian Minister who traveled from congregation to congregation sharing his music named Ric Masten.
You can't buy his music commercially. We had had purchased the records at a church event but at some point in time Ric stopped selling them. So when the many travails of childhood had rendered the vinyl unlistanable it was like the music had been lost to all but memory.
so just a few months ago when an idle google search lead me to a site set up by his children i ordered two cd's.

Well they arrived yesterday and i loaded them onto my ipod. I was transported and thought immediately that i wanted to get these songs out to anyone i know with children.

Christopher Sunshine - by Rick Masten

Once a young hitchhiker stepped inside my car
He said I am Christopher Sunshine and I have traveled far
And I got things to tell you.
Got gifts that i will give
I am Christopher Sunshine and I've learned how to live

He said, Now every bodies got his own bag babe. You got yours and i got mine.
Every bodies got his own bag babe and ain't it fine.

His hair was on his hair was on his shoulders
His manner soft and shy
It was Christopher sunshine who looked me in the eye

As we flew along the highway
The spinning wheels they turned
And Mr. Christopher Sunshine
He told me what he'd learned

He Said, Now every bodies got his own bag babe. You got yours and i got mine.
Every bodies got his own bag babe and ain't it fine

I felt the feeling of freedom lift this old heart of mine
And when he got out at the cross roads he left a rose behind
And that's what Christopher Sunshine gave me as a gift
And then he put his thumb out and he caught another lift

He Said, Now every bodies got his own bag babe. You got yours and i got mine.
Every bodies got his own bag babe and ain't it fine
Ain't it Fine
Ain't that Just Fine

1:04pm: Food blog name ideas
So I know I'm terrible about updating entries here. If only because most of the times I think to post to this venue it's to complain and it just seems like I've become very whinny in this arena and usually stop myself from putting more bile out there. I'm not miserable 24/7 and I hate the idea of my online presence only reflecting that.

That being said I've been thinking about creating a food blog to diary my culinary escapades.
(Winner of the 2009 Tofu Takedown judges award "Best Interpretation of Current Trends" for my Salted Carmel Tofu Gelato on Asian Pear.)

I'm thinking about calling it Second Degree Burns. Since I seem to get them all the time.
For example. This weekend I learned that sticking a finger in hot caramel is very bad idea. Even if it looks like it's cooled down some it's still molten sugar. Of course everyone else in the world knows that even I know that but it didn't really stop me. And yesterday a roasting pan full of beets slipped out of my grip and well let's just say I'm glad that only my wrist and right middle finger seem a little singed.

Thoughts? Do we need yet another food blog? And if so is "Second Degree Burns" to negative?

9:25am: 4 Cities 4 conversations
So we just wrapped up what was essentially a 4 city book tour for our new book "Expanding Architecture"

We put together a panel conversation in New York Atlanta, Santa Monica, and Chicago around the issues of Design as Activism. I had originally hired a film maker to shoot these events but due to budget cuts the last two were all me. I shot and edited them with my little point and shoot digital video camera.

and those two conversations can now be seen here.

http://www.vimeo.com/3491868
Santa Monica

http://www.vimeo.com/3869915
Chicago

7:34am: bursting with pride
today z is defending his doctoral thesis. he's gonna be a doctah!

3:07pm: a non political pleasent picture

12:27pm: Seems i'm making a habit of it
Here is a blog I did on FIGMENT

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/?p=806#more-806

12:07pm: Blog posted elsewhere
Seems strange that i should post to a blog that's not this but i thought any readers here might like to see this as well

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/?p=782#more-782

11:01am: Bottom of that first cup
I recently purchased a SIGG coffee mug. It's powder blue, I can throw it in back pack and bike to work without worrying about it spilling, it's uber-cute, and it's one of my favorite items in my life at this moment in time.

Before I purchased it I had a slight ammount of angst about buying it. With the recent onslaught of comodification of the green movement, it makes every such purchase feel slightly dirty. Don't get me wrong I love that green is now cool. But blog postings like the water bottle posting on stuffwhitepeoplelike and books like Shopping our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves have made me really think twice about these kind of purchases. But I thought about it and the number of discarded coffee cups I see every day won out. Chris Jordan's work Running Numbers is a great illustration of what I'm talking about.

But this was not the point of this post. What I was getting at was the sweet and sad moment I now experience every time I finish my cup of coffee. I purposely bought the smaller model as I never drink more than a small cup of coffee on a week day morning. I've tried to buy larger cups of coffee but they never get finished. I'm usually left with a half full cup of coffee sitting on my desk until i finally throw it away or get another small coffee at 3 or 4pm.

But now the option is really gone and now there is this moment at the end of that first cup where I realize, yum that was good, oh no, there's no more coffee. It's actually a slight moment of panic.

12:20pm: My Nephew has a Blog
Okay I know I know I should have seen it coming. But today i got an email from my brother declaring that Owen, my 7 year old nephew has a blog about living in Egypt. (their foreign service so this is the 3rd country he has lived in (including the US)

for those of you curious what a 7 year writes about check it out.

http://oweninegypt.blogspot.com/

I could not be more proud of him.

Wondering if i should get him some good haxor books for his birthday.

3:12pm: 39D
To the man sitting in 39 D on NWA Flight 0156--or was it AA Flight 1192 or whatever you were originally booked on that made it so we are now both flying together from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Newark, NJ—please take a moment to consider someone beside yourself. If not today when you have just dropped your seat in my face after my asking you not to then perhaps the next time you fly the friendly skies or maybe just in the next few minutes or the next few hours or even the next few days. Yes we are all tired. Yes we are all cranky. We all expected to have been in New York hours ago and not still sitting on a plane going to a completely different airport, some of us on a completely different airline then we had planned. But perhaps if you had taken one moment to consider the comfort of your fellow passenger perhaps this flight might have been just a little less intolerable. Not just for me. It’s true you might think that I am considering my comfort over yours. Perhaps it is you who is angry at me for even daring to ask you not to extend you seat back to it’s fullest lounging capability. Maybe you were even booked first class but due to all the scheduling changes you have been downgraded to coach so far bellow your status as rich white male in this here the land of plenty. But think of this. What example are you setting for you son who is sitting next to you. For your fellow passengers who watched as you considered yourself over another. What if we all dropped our seats back as far as possible? As you said right before you slammed your seat into the back of my laptop causing it to dig deeply into my belly, “It’s a cumulative effect.” Everyone would be miserable and hating each other. What if I reacted as I am aching to to your self-centered asshole gesture but dumping my $5 mini bottle of red wine on your head. Would that not just create more unhappiness. So I’m pleading with you and for that matter anyone reading this. Take just one moment consider what 1 inch of recline will do for you in balance of 1 inch of recline does for the person sitting behind you. It’s an airplane seat. You are never going to be comfortable no matter what you do.

In defense of Mr. 39D it’s not entirely his fault. Could someone please tell what bit of industrial design genius thought this system was a good idea? When will someone design a better solution? A $300 ticket while bargain basement for this flight is not a cheap ticket. We do not deserve to be treated like cattle. Hell, cattle do not deserve to be treated like cattle but that is a rant for another day

10:24am: WE DID IT
So sorry i didn't post this on Sunday night. As you can imagine I was massively exhausted.

But we did it, 120 riders road from Gettysburg Pennsylvania to Manhattan and raised over $310,000.00 for HIV/AIDS services for the New York LGBT Center. I personally rode 276 miles, up many long steep hills--at the end of Saturday there was a 6 mile hill that followed two one mile hills. And down several fantastic green covered paths. We were cheered on by other riders, support teams, random Amish people passing me on the road. I met some amazing people, cried wrenching tears of exhaustion, and slow tears of sorrow for people i had met and had passed. I cried for people i had never met but had inspired some very fantastic people to do this amazing thing and laughed at crude fart jokes. I was hit on the ass with a giant dildo to encourage me up a hill and sang out of tune at the top of my lungs so that slower riders behind me would not feel alone.

It was an amazing adventure. Much better than last year.

9:41am: Anxious Excited Denial
I'm leaving the office in 1 hour to head to the bus that will take me to Gettysburg, PA. Tomorrow morning at 6AM i will get on my bicycle and begin a 3 day 275 mile ride. Tomorrow night I will be in Lancaster, PA then on to Clifton, NJ and by sunday my weary legs will have brought me all the way to the shores of the Hudson River.

So that's the facts.

But it's not real. Even though I did it last year I can't quite conceptualize it.

It's sort of how I imagine teenage mothers might feel before going into the hospital to be induced (of course majorily simplified as i will NOT be walking out of this with a new born child and it will not affect the rest of my life.)

Am i scared... no i'm too stupid to be scared
Am i excited... kind of
Am i in denial... absolutely

I've spent all of this sumer in denial of the fact that i signed up to do this ride again ...bitching about having to raise the money ...bitching about having to give the few weekends i was in new york up to training. i'm not sure i have the right attitude to go into this. but i do really really believe in the cause. AIDS service are not well enough funded. but i have a little bit of an "can't they do this without me" feeling.

Okay enough of this ... GO LGBT Center GO!

4:02pm: my very first youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7MVl4a7KIE4

5:49pm: Royal Palm more like Ghetto Palm
and in a follow up to the best hotels i've stayed in this year. the worst are

Royal Palm Miami Beach - this was the biggest let down. Right next door to the fantastic slightly over the top Loews Miami Beach, RPMB sells itself as a luxury hotel. Maybe in another lifetime. Right off the bat the lobby is sterile almost hospital like in that run down kind of way. The one person working at the front desk seemed to take a minimum of 10 minutes for every transaction, be it a non-working key card to registration to complaint. I checked in (a bigger hassle than i want to get into now but might be a latter posting)and had to run out immediately to meeting, so you would think that upon my return 4 hours later there should be no issues with my room. Not so lucky. The cleaning lady was still in my room when i tried to enter, flustered I dropped my bags and went away so that she could finish up. 4 minutes later i tried to get in but my key wasn't working. 30 minutes later security was reprogramming my door. To make this shorter rather than longer there are scuff marks all over the wall, the bed skirt is torn, there is no conditioner, the remote control is broken, the room service is only breakfast, the gym is hidden, the pool and the beach closed at 5pm. and the windows don't open.


this of course is a princess and a pea complaint compared to Howard Johnson Sarasota Florida on Tamaiami trail.
i will spare you the pain. just never ever stay there.

4:57pm: labor
My sister-in-law is in labor. Truth be told she's been in labor all day. She went in this morning to be induced, they broke her water, gave her pitocin, and an epidural but it was no big shakes till about an hour ago when the godmother called to say they had been kicked out of the room and the doctor looked like she meant business.

So of course now I've been twiddling my thumbs for the past hour.

I can't get anything else accomplished, I've called several friends and chatted with people online, but some how it's not really speeding things along. I'm wondering really what the point of me being in the office right now is as I'm spending my time chatting with friends and now posting to LJ. But over all of it I'm wondering why I'm so antsy about it. I was not like this for either of the other two, this will be their third child all three are boys. I'm beginning to think it's because they are so confident that and i feel like someone should be nervous so i've taken on the role for myself. They have known for as long as they can that it's a boy. They picked out the name and have been referring to the unborn child as Zachary for months now, and the date was even determined 2 weeks ago.. ahh the call 10lbs 10 ounces Zachary Andrew.

7:59am: Riding can be fun
So I think maybe it's true riding can be fun not just torture. Yesterday I went for a super pleasant ride with some non brakingthecycle friends. We did a casual 40 miles out to Rockaway beach (which was totally beautiful). There was no crying no gnashing of teeth. It's true it was almost completely flat and we were riding at about a B10 but who the heck cares. We added in a lap around prospect park--a 3 mile course which i use to dread for one hill at the very end.It seems some training must have happened this summer as the hill was really not that bad. I had one of those I'm taking this hill i'm not gasping for breath and hey look i'm even passing people moments. it was really lovely.

Today my btc friend and are are off to Nyack (about a 60 mile ride with some very ugly hills). Good to do back to backs rides. maybe it won't be torture.

10:11am: back to the grind
Well I think I've settled on having a little patience work wise. I'll give them till January to figure something out financially and in the meantime I'm going to be shoring up my resume and figuring out exactly what the next job would be. Plus I have every intention of going to Hawaii in December on my office's dime, no point in throwing that away, espicially as Z pointed out, i was working for this salary before and it was fine i can do it for a few more months.

Anyway this means i have to prepare for the rest of the year. A quick count tells me I've been to 14 different North American cities this year some of them twice, plus the week spent in Tuscany. This fall I will return to several of them adding Dallas and Honolulu to the list and revisiting, Miami, Minnesotta, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, SF, and LA. DC and Philly are for family but still by the time this year is over I will have achieved gold elite on continental airlines, from 0 points this January. I'm actually kind of excited about that. it means that i may actually get to fly first class for the first time in my life.

So far my favorite hotels have been.

The Lofts Columbus Ohio
A restored building owned by the same people who own the chain hotel next door to it but with way more charm and a lot less cold nasty hotel vibe.. The room was a fantastic big old loft style room, with 20ft celings and big beams. They had put rose petlas on my bed to welcome me (it was a slow day) And room service delivered the best hamburger I have had all year. ALso the staff was very friendly including thecute young woman at reception who told me all about her trip to new york right after 9/11. And her husband who flips houses.

Le Germain Toronto, ON
Beautiful. Amazing Shower, comfy comfy chair. Bellini's for breakfast. and free wifi all over even when our rooms weren't ready.

Loews Miami Beach
This only makes it on here for the fantastic pool roof access and best view ever. Oh the jelly bellies on the pillow were a nice touch too. I'm going to compare it to the Palms where i am staying on Thursday. we will have to see. i was however very upset with the $9 bottle of water, the $15/day fee to use the gym.

Chambers Hotel Minnesota
This is the boutiqueiest of hotels we stayed at. A fantastic art collection. Including a Damien Hirst behind the reception desk. They gave ma giant plate of chocolates that were amazing, oh yeah a super comfy bead. and Video installation art to shock pretty much everyone.

Most puzzling mini bar offering: Oxygen at the Opus in Vancouver


Will see if we can't get another favorite to make it a top 5 list.

9:40am: and i was like ... i'd rather walk to than run
So last night I set out to see my new indy-pop crush band, Herman Dune--thanks to Brigitte McQueen for turning me on to them and to providence for helping me to see their poster when i was waiting in line for the bathroom last week--I made a point of not getting to the venue until 9:30. Doors opened at 7:30 and i got there just in time to see the last 3 songs of the first band in a 4 band line up. They have been touring in Europe since I discovered them and according to their website they had no plans to be in NYC anytime soon. So last week when i found out I knew i had to go.

For once the bar was not a crush and i was able to sit and enjoy two really amazing bands before all of a sudden a rush of people came. They were there and everyone else in the audience was right there with me and the buzz in the audience was physical, including harassing the band about never playing in new york. Towards the end of the 2nd bands set i heard the guy behind me talking to someone else

guy 1 "hey you playing tonight?"
guy 2 "yeah, i'm playing with herman dune. I'm really excited these guys are amazing. i got to play on their last album and they almost never come to new york."

Well he was right
The set was awesome and the tiny stage was packed and jamming.

3 horns (including the guy who had been standing behind me playing this amazing looking vintage saxophone as large as me)
2 back up singers dubbed "the baby skins"
1 drummer/co-band leader
1 base player
1 leed singer

they even a guest baby skin. the stage was so packed that when the drummer wanted to come to the front of the stage for a rocking shaken percussion solo he had to practically knock people over.

"and they baby skins go whoooo"

11:14am: where the hell is everyone
okay so as i mentioned z is out of town this week and i am left by my lonesome. great i think i will hang with some friends i haven't seen in awhile. Except the mass exodus to burning man has taken a good number of people and then it seems everyone else is on vacation, trying to find an apartment, or packing to go on vacation this week. come on people, can't a girl catch a drink with an old friend?

sheesh!

9:52am: Treehunger is my hero
So Z headed of to a week of vacation with some friends yesterday, and I spent the rest of my sunday watching lots of eco-tv and finishing my sister's xmas present. (i'm knitting for everyone this year so i had to start early)

There was a fantastic show called Ecozone. If you haven't seen it it's the best house remodeling tv show i've ever seen.

Then this morning i opened up tree huger and they had this great article. Which i am now going to send to all of my family members.
Big Houses Vs. Small Houses Let the Insullation battle begin