LJ Love Okay, so, I've really been neglecting livejournal. I don't know why. Maybe I am succumbing to the impure pagan gods that are Facebook. I hate to admit that possibility, but I can't deny that there is an allure to writing one sentence versus a whole essay that nobody will even read. Especially when I'm busy as hell. Which I have been.
This summer, basically as soon as my teaching ended for the year, craziness ensued. I started my first semester of graduate school classes (Master's of Science in Educational Technology) -- it's an online program, which is useful, because I can set my own hours and do the work from anywhere... but it's still a LOT of work. Especially considering that I am taking 3 courses (9 credits) which is amost 1/3 of my total MS courseload, in one summer. In addition, the summer session is only 8 weeks long (whereas the classes are normally 16 weeks), so I have to do twice as much work each week.
Well, coinciding with that beginning of grad school, I also took a week-or-so-long trip to Oregon, Seattle, and Victoria, BC with Sarah. Then I came back, buckled down on the coursework some more (after finishing programming a website for a coworker/colleague of mine), and then my brother and the lead singer from his band came out to California to chill with me for a week. Except I don't believe in "chilling", so we did as much as we could: headed into San Francisco and Haight Street then fireworks on the 4th oF July, then a day of wine and beer tasting in Sonoma the next day, then 3 days of cruising down to Santa Cruz in the convertible, hitting the beaches hard, hitting the bar even harder (ouch), and then mountain biking Wilder Ranch the next day... camping in the redwoods (Henry Cowell SP) at night and then back up to SF via Pacific Coast Highway (Rte. 1) for a concert at Cafe du Nord on Wednesday. Thursday took it easy (well, as easy as a 4-mile jog through the vineyards followed by 20 laps at the pool can be), made some homemade crab-and-cheese (goat cheese and gouda) ravioli, and called it an earlier (and healthier) night before heading back into the city on Friday to check out Chinatown, Alcatraz, North Beach, and local jazz vocalist Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at Biscuits & Blues.
So, yeah... busy week. Needless to say, I was neglecting my master's program work during that time. And it's rapidly mounting now. So, I've spent one day feeling horrible and detoxing as much as possible, then back to the academics for 3 days straight.
But, of course, that's not all. I also had to do a bit of trip preparation (again), because in about 5-6 hours I head to the airport to pop to NYC and from there to Budapest for 3 nights, then railroad to Prague for another 3 nights, then back to NYC for a night, before returning to Napa.
Followed by 5 days of probably the most schoolwork I have ever done in my life (finishing the final projects for my classes) and then I'm on a plane to the east coast to have a get-together with some college buddies at my parents' beach house in Emerald Isle, North Carolina.
...
Holy fuck.
So, anyway. Once I get photos and videos on Flickr and whatnot, I might share but... don't be surprised if this is the last you hear from me for a while... (again)
Hahah... I'm probably late to seeing this. Randomly came across "cute" kid crap on YouTube (via Slate, whose creative director drew the album cover art for my brother's band)
Random Personal Update Start my Master's of Science in Educational Technology today (at Boise State University, though technically I will be doing all of the work online)
Traveling to Portland and Seattle and Victoria this week... should be fun! Going to hit up all my favorite restaurants -- Andina (Peruvian food in Pearl District), PokPok (Thai place and "Whiskey Soda Lounge"), Pambiche (Cuban food -- best breakfast ever), The Pink Door (quirky Italian restaurant with jazz and burlesque/cabaret, at Pike Place Market), Lola (2nd best breakfast ever), and more...
sadly, a fantastic restaurant in Victoria, BC -- called "Niche" -- no longer appears to be open. It was an amazing experience the first (and last, apparently) time I went. Ah well. At least this time we will get to see more in the Victoria area... going to go up to Butchart Garden, and taking a southern Vancouver Island wine tour
New Computer I really have to laugh at Mac users. Especially when those people end up complaining that they don't have enough money for [fill in the blank]
I just ordered a new computer (why? Primarily because the one(s) I have are not sufficient for viewing and editing the 1080p HD video I shoot on my 5D Mark II camera)
Here are the basic specs of it:
Case: CoolerMaster CM 690 Gaming Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Black Power Supply: 650 Watt -- Corsair CMPSU-650TX Power Supply SLI Ready Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 920 Processor (4x 2.66GHz/8MB L3 Cache) Processor Cooling: Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit Motherboard: Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset CrossFire and SLI Supported w/7.1 Sound, Triple-Channel DDR3, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, 3-Way SLI PCI-E MB 3-Way SLI Memory: 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1333 Triple Memory Module Corsair XMS3 Dominator w/DHX technology Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB PCI-Express x16 Hard Drive: 500 GB HARD DRIVE [Serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache] CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive: LG 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black
In other words, this computer is practically identical to Apple's "top of the line" Mac Pro. Actually, that $2500 Mac Pro is WORSE than this PC -- you'd have to double the RAM and upgrade to the Radeon 4870 card (which, not surprisingly, Apple overcharges you for)...
what is the end result? I am basically getting an upgraded Apple Mac Pro (pricetag: $2849) for $1222
This is why I think Mac users are retarded and so damn gullible. I especially love the argument that "oh, but Macs work better than PCs!" Please explain to me how something with the exact same parts (even the exact same brands of manufacturers) is going to do something different?
PS. If you want to compare PCs to Macs, you'll have to understand that Macs call their processors "Intel Xeon Nehalem" and PCs call them "Intel Core i7", but they're the exact same thing...
Smurf Turf et al. Since I am now an official student at Boise State University (enrolled in their grad program; MS in Educational Technology), and since I'm a fan of football, I was amused to read about the new Boise State uniforms.
Some people have complained and remarked about:
a) The solid, monochromatic ultramarine color b) The orange butt stripes and name on back instead of front of jersey
I love analyzing designs for things, so I started thinking about this one... and I've come to believe that these stylistic desicions are not about style or fashion, and are actually more about winning
Yes, I think these uniforms were actually engineered to give BSU a winning advantage on their home field.
First of all, some people have remarked "Why would they make the uniform the same color as the field? Aren't they worried they won't be able to find their own players against the blue field behind them?"
Well, all I have to say to this is this: refer to (b) - bright orange back logo and butt stripes.
If you look at the designs, you'll notice that they have very little color (other than the bright blue that matches the smurf turf field)... just a little orange flair on the shoulder pads (and people have complained about that, too... but this way, the BSU QB can see his player if he turns around in a hook route or short dump)
My guess would be that those wizards at Nike worked with the school and came up with a design that does this:
1) When does the QB most need visibility of his players? When they are in front of him, facing away from him. This includes his O-line and his receivers who will generally be running down the field. Therefore, they only need to be really visible from the BACK. The butt stripes and rear logo support this purpose. 2) Meanwhile, when the D players are facing off against an opponents offense, there is much LESS color and so they "camouflage" against the field.
In essence, these design choices make the players just visible enough for the QB while making them smurf ninjas against the opponents.
Compare the home uniform to the away uniform. Notice the away uniform places the team name on FRONT of the jersey instead of the back. Why would they make it different? Because the uniforms for away games are not designed to take advantage of the blue Boise cloaking system.
This is my theory, anyway. And it seems pretty logically sound to me.
Sijo Sijo is a very old form of poetry from Korea... currently I'm teaching the 4th graders how to write these. I like this one:
The spring breeze melted snow on the hills then quickly disappeared. I wish I could borrow it briefly to blow over my hair And melt away the aging frost forming now about my ears. - U Tak (1262–1342)
What I should really be saying is... "Really? It REALLY took people this long to discover Awesome Sauce??"
I used to eat sriracha daily, but wouldn't you know it... I stop eating it just as it becomes popular.
Kind of like how I got ridiculed for wearing corduroy in 1989 (about 2 years before its oh-so-trendy comeback)
Anyway, Sriracha is, indeed, delicious... and if you want to know what my own version of ghetto soulfood staple breakfast used to be, check this out:
1) Toast 2 Eggo waffles in a toaster 2) Fry one or two eggs, over-easy 3) Melt some cheese (colby? cheddar? monterey jack?) on the eggs 4) Place the eggs and cheese on one of the Eggos 5) Give it some healthy squirts of sriracha 6) Place the other eggo on top and eat it as a sandwich (well, a messy one... in fact, you might want a fork. Or you could scramble the eggs or do them as an omelette)
You have a nice meal with your 5 basic food groups: starch, fat, sugar, salt, and hot sauce.
Can we get back to, say, the style of the 20's-40's, where adults actually dressed like adults, and people's waists were defined to be located exactly where they are -- at the top of the hips, not at the top of the ribcage?
Atonement. The movie Atonement = utter masturbation.
I do not mean that as a good thing, either. Completely self-involved, overly-polished, empty and meaningless rubbish. It's as if the "socially poignant" boredom of Sense and Sensibility were raped by the painstaking self-indulgence of The Thin Red Line, with smirking "clever-art" remnants of Across the Universe
So... we've booked a trip to Budapest and Prague I wasn't really planning on doing any big international trips this year... we had really wanted to go to South Africa in December, but that trip was very expensive (over $3000 per person), so considering the new camera I bought and the MS degree classes I am starting this summer, paying $6000-$7000 was simply out of the question.
But I saw an email from Gate1 Travel (whom we had used once before for a decent 5-day, 4-night deal to Prague for Thanksgiving a few years ago), and since Sarah has always wanted to go back to Prague ever since we went, I was quite curious about the fact that they advertised an 8-day Budapest/Prague trip for $899 per person (with a special discount of $100/pp off right now)... including airfare, 6 nights in 3-star hotels, and the train ticket from Budapest to Prague.
So, I checked it out, and decided to upgrade the hotels to 4-star ones in slightly better locations, and it ended up being about $1000/per person. That's not bad! Still, we have to fly out of JFK (New York) to do that, so we'll fly to NYC first, then transfer and fly to Budapest from there. But we'll get to be in Prague on Sarah's birthday, so I figured she would be excited about that.
I'm pretty excited, though. I've been to Prague (twice), but still haven't seen everything there is to see (we missed out on a tour of the Mucha-decorated state building -- and we love Alphonse Mucha; the Jewish quarter was closed because it was a Saturday, and I'm also curious to possibly see Cesky Krumlov... and I'd like to go back to the Kutna Hora and the Bone Church, now that I have this amazing new 5D Mark II camera)
Never been to Budapest, and we only get 3 days in each place, so time will be tight, but it should be a good experience anyway. I think we'll do a night or two in NYC on the way back, since we'll be coming through anyway.
How dumb are some people? So, my girlfriend works as a merchandise coordinator for a retail fashion company. Essentially, this means she travels around (locally and also to other states) and helps set up new displays for their goods, keeps tallies on what is selling and what isn't selling, deals with the department stores in how they set up and market the product, etc. It's sort of part marketing, part creative display setup, and part management.
Recently, she has had to hire some people under her so that they essentially do more of the "legwork" and she has more of a managerial roles. One of these was a position for "shop manager", which essentially is a person dedicated to their specific brand at one specific store location, to ensure that the shop is always neat, new product on display in the right manner, etc.
Well, anyway, this girl that was hired was pretty young (no college degree yet, I think is somewhere between 19-22 years old), but she was just... such a flake. I mean, EVERY weekend and/or Monday, for several weeks in a row, she would have some excuse why she couldn't work.
She got into a car accident. She was sick. Her house burned down (wtf??) She had to sign a lease on an apartment and it was the only day possible.
I mean, I understand it's possible to really have a series of unfortunate events like that (hey, it's happened to me), but it's HIGHLY suspicious, and even moreso that they would all occur at the same time every week.
In any case, I sort of counseled my girlfriend that she should force the employee to set established hours of when/where she is going to be working, so that if my gf ever wanted to stop in and see if she is actually working, she would be able to do so (in that world of merchandising, it is very independent work, hard to supervise, and with flexible hours... which are all actually PERKS in most peoples' books, so why would you go and abuse the system even more by NOT EVEN SHOWING UP to your work that you can do practically whenever you feel like it, with nobody breathing down your neck or micromanaging you?)
Anyway, I gave this advice and encouraged my gf to keep tabs and drop the hammer ASAP if there was actually something amiss... because how to discipline people effectively is one thing I've learned from being a teacher. And unfortunately, a lot of people have so little self-discipline that you do have to impose it on them, swiftly and justly.
Anyway, so my gf shows up unannounced one day -- this coming just a week AFTER she did an official written warning because the employee ducked out early one day when she was supposed to be working, and was caught and said "oh, I came in early to leave early so I can sign a lease because it can only happen today." So what happens? You would think that, with an official notice and warning that if it happens again you'll be fired, you'd get your act together.
Not so. My gf goes there, the employee is nowhere in sight on her scheduled work day. My gf stays all day, for the entire allotted shift, and not once does the girl show her face. So, basically, she's just been... NOT EVEN SHOWING UP TO WORK for who knows how long, and billing the company?
I mean, how dumb are you? In these economic situations? This girl has NO college degree, no job experience to speak of, and she just flushed down the drain a job making $17/hr (sure, it's not big bucks, but it's better than most jobs you can get with no degree or experience) and with a very flexible schedule where you basically get to define your own hours, with no supervision.
Does she REALLY think something better is going to come along and land in her lap? I wonder how many people would clamber for that opportunity, considering the number of layoffs and how difficult employment is to come by these days?
The sense of privilege, entitlement, and sheer ignorance of Americans these days is truly staggering.
Surreal Man, last night was pretty strange to me... never did I think that part of my job would involve helping out a wine auction at a castle in Napa Valley to help raise money for my place of employment.
Completely different world from where I grew up. But anyway, it was pretty cool... the Castello di Amorosa is a castle that was built a few years ago by winemaker Dario Sattui, in northern Napa Valley off of Rte. 29/St. Helena highway. Apparently they used all-traditional building materials and methods, and the castle is built in different "stages" to sort of show off 7 different phases a castle would move through as it evolved and grew and extra sections added on.
Anyway, I suppose it's a pretty cool site to use to do something like a fundraiser/wine auction (or a medieval banquet or classical music concert, which are other events they hold there sometimes) The view of the valley at sunset is somewhat spectacular.
If Sarah and I don't end up going to Prague and Budapest for her birthday, I might attend a concert of Vivaldi's Four Seasons there (hosted by Robert Redford, because it is a benefit for The Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve)
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