Guantanamo Bay

Camp xray is a national embarassment. These are POWs our draft dodger chickenshit of a president won't cop to. The courts are abandoning these poor bastards in the name of "national security". I don't know about you, but I feel less and less secure every day.

Let's see, there never were any weapons of mass destruction & the White House boldfaced lied about it, Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before but they sure are now, Islamics hate us the world over, Hamas won in a landslide yet we won't reach out to them, Isreal continues to paint itself in a corner and drag us alongside, the NSA has been wiretapping us illegally and the NY Times kept their mouth shut about it for a year, and Bush is still an asshole.

Yeah. I feel more secure.

Magic

I saw Crash again tonight. I cried more the second time than I did the first time.

Crash should be a double feature with Grand Canyon.

It's amazing that such films come out of Hollywood. All the shit they pump out and two gems like these sneak out.

Further poof that there is a God.

Photography in a police state

This sad news from down under is similar to the NY ban on taking photographs of bridges. Any half-assed terrorist isn't going to whip out a tripod and take pictures in broad daylight. Misguided totalianarism.

As misguided as the Capitol police arresting Cindy Sheehan for daring to wear an anti-war t-shirt to Bush' state of the union speech.

Now this is something The Man don't want us to know about. Talk about fotographee...

Tim Eyman

Tim Eyman, your 15 minutes are up. It's time for you to die now. No, really.

Flowers & Printing, Printing & Flowers

Anyone who knows me or knows my photographs knows that I love flowers and taking pictures of flowers. But this is a bit over the top, even for me.

Good news! (and bad)

Both my house number and street number are prime, though my ZIP code and phone number aren't. You have no idea how happy this makes this number freak.

Does a little to offset the horrid day I had yesterday. Four grand mals between my two oldest. Michael's first in 17 months, leaving Coleman to suffer three in 24 hours. We all cried, Bryan included. Hats off to our neighbor Rebecca for stepping in.

East Coast first

My recent trip to the East Coast (Boston, Dogfish Head, DC, NYC) included a first: my first AARP discount. Avis to be exact. Felt good.

misc. thoughts

"Misc. thoughts"? Those are the only kind I seem to have these days.

Why have a tachometer in a car with an automatic transmission?

I cut my ponytail off a month ago and it's just now that I've retrained myself not to pour out a glob of shampoo out of habit.

I like the stop lights in Washington DC because they have a count down that tells you how long it'll stay green before turning to red. Tells me just how much I have to speed up to make it. Very handy in school zones and near nursing homes.

Ordering a schooner of beer outside of WA and OR will often yield unintended results if not outright confusion. Bartender at a DC brewery didn't want to admit he didn't know what I was talking about so I ended up with an imperial pint, not a 12 oz or half pint glass. Fortunately it was an oatmeal stout. Not that the boneheads in the kitchen could serve up cornbread with their chowder despite promises to the contrary.

And traffic is worse in NYC than ever before. Don't get me started. I did get to ICP and ABC Home. Didn't have time for a Harry Callahan exhibit because I chose to walk through town. Soho next time on foot.

R.I.P.

What do Nikon and now Konica Minolta both have in common? Venerable camera companies who've recently announced they're abandoning the film camera business. Sign'o'the times...

Have fun, wish you were here.

Now this little ditty, while not available yet, is a novel idea. Of course, the question is how long before pornographers latch onto it?

A new personal record

Yesterday I drove from Cambridge to DC. Nothing particularly remarkable about that except it set a new record for the number of states I been in in one trip: MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, DC. Whether one counts the District as a "state" or not, 7 states is till my personal best. 8 makes it only moreso.

And yes, I got to Fish Brewing. The Mother Ship of Beer. In fact, I met not one but two couples who were also there on a Beer Pilgrimage. Both implored me to abandon plans to push on to DC and stay the night drinking with them. Turns out one couple just moved from Seattle. In fact, the woman (also African-American) lived in West Seattle! Against my impaired judgement I set out for DC anyway. We did exchange contact info so there's a really good chance we'll meet up again. I did walk away with a bottle of their vodka and rum. Saving them both for Seattle sampling. Mmmmm...

Some don't age well

No, I'm not talking about me (though I am unsettled about having to select such an "old" category in surveys). Barley wine.

For those of you not familiar with this high-alcohol content malted'n'hopped beverage think high octane with a murky/musky growl. OK, just try it.

The reason age and barley wine are on my mind of late is that Lisa and I have tapped several from my cellar of late only to be disappointed by how poorly most of them have stood up against the ravages of time. (Again, unlike moi.) To date, offerings from smaller brewers have bombed almost unanimously. I have a couple from Fish Brewing and Lagunitas awaiting trial.

Salvation may be at hand: I'm on the East Coast right now ready to descend upon Dogfish Head tomorrow. Not only one of my all-time favorite brewers but rumor has it they're also doing microdistilling, now have two establishments, tomorrow is their monthly brewer's dinner, and they close the DE facility Tue for remodeling. Wish me luck.

Meanwhile the spirit shopping in Beantown ain't that bad. I finally caught up with a bottle of Tito's Vodka only to have the cashier gush over how good it was and tell me to ignore the VT and Nantucket.

Oh yeah, I caught up with some blood orange bitters and imported rose water too. Given the rain in Seatown, I may never go back!

DIY mouse scanner

No, we're not on the lookout for rodents. Rat season isn't for another couple of months. What we're talking about here is someone hacking their optical mouse into a ghetto b&w scanner.

DVD annoyance

You know what bugs me? What sets me off disproportionate to the event? Starting up a DVD and having it display subtitles. Then I gotta stop the movie, go to the menu, turn subtitles off, and start it up again. Shit...

Fotos anyone?

Got a minute? Read this.

No more marked socks.

Tyler's dad is also into the 'matching your white socks' thing. He uses colour! What a concept.

Funny how "dating" in one's fifties is so different from high school puppy love. In a good way.

Blogging this time isn't about internet self-publishing personal angst. I'm not sure just what it is but it ain't what I was doing 3 or 4 years ago. You can count on that.

So now it's 2006.

It's aught six. I've even written my first check. And didn't mess up the date either.

New Year's Eve was as mellow as Xmas Eve. Both spent in Mukilteo. A pleasant time was had by all. Low key, private, and intimate. Slept like a dead man. Near catatonic sleep for hours on end. Quick, put a mirror under his nose. Is the body still warm?

The kids need to check back in to school. I need to finish moving into this house. I need to think about where next. The juicer needs to make a reappearance.

I've looked at dictionary.reference.com and m-w.com and I still stand by my use earlier of the word "volatile".

All said and done, it should be a great year. Not just a good one, a great. Going to Boston, DC, and NYC 13jan-19jan. Yes, a much needed solo East Coast road trip. Lots of photo exhibits and a trip to beer mecca, Dogfish Head!

Camera hack for privacy's sake

Read this about this.

Whoa.

Leap Second

Have you given serious consideration as to what you'll do with your Leap Second this New Year's Eve?

Don't waste it now.

Reflections on a year

As 2005 comes to a close, the shortest day behind us as is my solar return, reflection is in order.

All said and done, the family seems somewhat resiliant and faring well in spite of the kids' less-than-stellar academic performance (or lack thereof). I smell three New Year's Resolutions in quick succession. One clone actually.

Speaking of children, now we have two with seizures. Different Dx, different Tx, and different Rx. Got that SEA/OAK round trip in a day thaing down pat. Big shoutout to Miki.

The Frau and I continue. The extended family seems to get along smoother than us. I'm not sure there's been another year I've used the word "volatile" as much. Ahhh, love...

Join AARP this year. Killed a startup too. Photography again. With a renewed vigor.

Fortunately strangers still send me money for barcode software. The boutique survives. Prospers actually. Still a killer view. Recycled faces. And still seriously PT post-sabbatical.

And now on to aught six.