Archive for the Action Category

Lawrence Lessig has posted a brilliant video explaining some very crucial differences between Barack and Hillary. Please watch this before you go to the polls.

We both can’t vote on Super Tuesday because the system requires your presence for over two hours in the evening. And there’s no childcare. Seems unfair to me. There must be hundreds of thousands of people in this same situation.

In case my voice can influence anyone enough to change their vote, hence helping me actually vote, Obama is my person. I’m working hard to get Charlie to line up his babbling to say his name. I even heard Canadian Geese flying over the house say “Barack!” today…

Kathleen and I were talking about making dinner tonight and she says, “Oooh, wouldn’t a beer be great tonight?”

Oh, man, yes it would. Especially a bottle of 1554 from the local New Belgium Brewing Company. Boy, that would be tasty. “Why don’t I run down to the grocery store and pick us up a 6-pack?”

Oops, wait a minute. We live in Colorado, one of the last holdouts of the so-called “blue laws” which were created to prevent anyone from doing anything construed as enjoyment on God’s holy day. Laughing counts, so cut it out. And I just now realized the irony that the only states that have blue laws are red states.

This is almost enough reason for us to move back to Seattle. Don’t worry, parents, we’re staying. For now.

But, I swear, if the laws for selling beer, wine, and liquor on Sundays (and in grocery stores at all) are not repealed this coming election year, I’m slapping somebody. How else are we going to get Trader Joe’s to open a store here?

I’ve read that the objections to repealing the laws don’t come from irate fundamentalists but actually from outspoken liquor store owners who have an effective lobby in the local government. And it’s understandable, too. If the laws were repealed they might have to compete like real businesses do and that would be a shame. I mean, I wouldn’t want you guys to have to rely on ingenuity or anything. Heaven forbid you have to alter your business model. (Technically, I guess it does.)

This is starting to sound like a rant against the RIAA.

On my bike ride home from work on Friday I stopped to help three people get a cow back into the pasture after it had hopped the fence and was standing two feet from the road.

WASHINGTON — In a sign of congressional concern over record-high gasoline prices and global warming, a Senate committee approved legislation Tuesday calling for the most significant increase in vehicle fuel efficiency in decades.

A sign of congressional concern. Right. 35 miles per gallon? Thirteen! years from now and 35 miles per gallon is the best we can do?

Including Iran, in which these lovely people live in this lovely place.

Imagine your next-door neighbor is shooting men, women, and children on the sidewalk with a rifle. You’d call the police as fast as possible, wouldn’t you?

Now imagine your government is doing the same thing. Who do you call?

Believe it or not, you can’t give birth these days without having a plan. No birth plan, no birth. That’s just the way it goes, or so the birth books would have you believe. How do folks without birth books and birth plans have babies? It’s a mystery. Speaking of mysteries, did you know that the first birth plan was found underneath the Obelisk of Luxor? True story. You can read all about it in Dan Brown’s new novel, The Birth Plan Code.

Anyway, Kathleen and I recently sat down to create our birth plan for a very special little boy who should arrive at the end of January and who shall remain nameless at this time. Barring any difficulties, we expect the birth will take place as planned. These questions are taken verbatim from the birth plan questionnaire provided by our care provider.

1. Who will be your main support person?
   • Harry Love, husband
2. Please write the name of any other person who is important to have with you:
   • Frank Oz (he makes us laugh and we think it would be great to have him do Bert impressions during the contractions)
   • Christopher Guest (if Frank is unavailable)
3. Do you want the nurses to help you and your partner control the number of visitors?
   • No. The more, the merrier. See next question.
4. Describe the environment you and your partner hope to create:
   • Any of the following would be fine (all hospital staff and visitors should dress in costume and stay in character):
     • A military bunker setting, underground, as if Kathleen is the last woman on Earth having a baby and the fate of all mankind depends on a successful delivery (barbed wire surrounding the room would be a nice touch)
     • A dance party complete with disco ball and ten-piece mariachi band
     • Dodgeball, 6th grade, New Orleans
     • Ski lodge
5. Do you plan to videotape the birth?
   • What’s videotape?
6. If so, have you talked about it with your care provider?
   • We’ll send her the storyboards next week, but basically we’re thinking of something like a Sofia Coppola film.
7. There are a number of ways to manage pain during labor. Check the ones you might be interested in:
   • Be able to change position and walk around
   • Jacuzzi or shower
   • Heavy mallet (croquet type)
   • Ride-the-Duck tour of Seattle
   • Mimes
8. Please check the birth positions you would prefer for your baby’s birth:
   • Lying
   • Sitting upright
   • Squatting
   • Bench pressing
   • Clean and jerking

Wish us luck!

http://www.carchops.com/car-discussions/t-jifffy-lube-scam-230.html

See the video linked from the web site above. 5 out of 9 Jiffy Lube centers scammed a TV news crew and were caught on tape.

This is the type of experience I had at Jiffy Lube at Northgate. They recommended 20 extra services I didn’t need, including changing the radiator fluid. A week later, having never had any radiator problems in the 14-year life of the car, it overheated on the highway when the radiator failed and leaked fluid all over the engine. I won’t be going back and I wouldn’t recommend their services to anyone.

Google Earth was released for Windows XP at the end of June last year. Playing around with the software, I created a few of the beginning stages of the 2005 Tour de France. The effort was quickly picked up by the Google Earth BBS community who completed the routes and improved upon my initial attempts.

This year, with plenty of time to spare, the stages for the 2006 Tour de France have been completed and it appears to be the work of Satan. Ha!

One noticeable difference between last year and this year is the addition of Google Earth for the Mac. That means—and I’m spitballing here—there’s potential for a lot more coverage of the virtual event due to the influence that Mac-using designer-developer-bloggers have on the blogosphere. I think this is a good thing. Money follows the news.

Here are some ways you can get involved in the Google Earth coverage of the 2006 event and help create a richer experience for everyone:

1. Upload and geotag your event photos to Flickr (you can view geotagged photos in Google Earth by grabbing the kmz file from the GeoTagging Flickr group)
2. Also, be sure to tag your photos with “tdf2006″
3. Extend the Flickr photo proximity scripts by focusing on Tour de France photos (i.e., photos tagged “tdf2006″)
4. What about pulling down geotagged videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and Google Video?
5. Create a networked link that gets the current position of the pack, the teams, and the major riders
6. Find a way to recreate the race using the above data so that historical replays can be preserved
7. Are you involved with the Tour de France or one of the teams? Provide Google Earth data feeds from the race (race positions, times, current location, speed, etc.)
8. And finally, spread the word! Do you want to see the technology get better (or cheaper)? Talk about it. Money follows the news.

Update: I just found a super simple method for geotagging photos in Flickr and it appears to work worldwide.

If you’re already working on stuff like this for this year’s TdF, please provide a link in the comments. And be sure to share your work with the Sports and Hobbies forum of the Google Earth BBS. Cheers!

Only Maya Angelou can use this metaphor to discuss life and pull it off without sounding like an elementary school student. It was her inspirational theme while speaking to a large Seattle crowd last week, an event I was able to partake off due to a lovely collision of Harry’s thoughtfulness and my birthday! Think of every adjective to describe someone who is larger than life, and it would describe Maya. She was truly the phenomenal woman about whom she has written.

Of course, I am biased. I have read her works with awe and gratitude since high school, one of the few authors whom I sought for that long without obligation from teachers. I even deferred admission to Wake Forest, where she’s on faculty, hoping that someday I could learn directly from her. That still makes me shiver, but meeting Harry, going to Siberia, meeting my college friends, and allowing my dad’s retirement to occur before 80 certainly outweigh that scant possibility.

Anyways, her voice and message were rich. She alternated between sharing her own life experiences and reading poetry (both her own and others) to encourage us to believe in our unique gifts, see our potential to be rainbow amidst others’ clouds, and be thankful for those who have done so for us. She shared that without rainbows in our clouds, none of us could say “Good morning” everyday. None of us could continue through life keeping our heads high. At the end of the night, the woman sitting next to me, who came by herself, tearfully told me she really needed to hear Maya’s messsage. I could see in her eyes that she had been in a desperate place and was leaving it. I may never cross paths with this woman again, but she blessed me that night through her vulnerability. I believe she left changed, encouraged, and renewed. I believe this was the case for most of the audience. What incredible work.

This is what I want to remember to strive for: to be like Maya was for the audience, so that each person I encounter may know they are loved, unique, and special. In the midst of the daily grind, it is hard to remember that this is so important. Not only for our loved ones, but for strangers. For those whom a simple “Good morning” could make their day.