Archive for the People 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…

The questions we answered last year still feel relevant this year so we’re going to answer them again.

What are you happiest about?

Kathleen: Having a baby.
Harry: Having a baby.

What’s the baby’s name?

Kathleen: Justin Uhlotta
Harry: Asurp Rize

No, really

…did some of you fall for that last year? We know you did. Here’s the birth announcement we posted last year.

Share a memorable laugh you had

Harry: These are two of my favorites: Charlie and the Crazy Cow; The Hand

Kathleen: I like Harry’s choices, as well as a night not so long ago when Harry talked while sucking in air and I communicated only through gesturing. Harry’s inhalation comments made me laugh so hard that I was crying.

If you could walk through any door, what would you like it to open to?

Kathleen: The honest answer is the inside of our friends’ homes in Seattle.

Harry: The honest answer is the inside of one of these.

Who is your favorite neighborhood cat?

Kathleen: Do coyotes count?

Harry: Yeah, I think the coyotes eat the cats around here because I’ve never seen one.

Will you be happy to say goodbye to anything from 2007?

Kathleen: Moving.

Harry: If I’m honest, my job at UW. I enjoyed the people, of course, but the job dynamics didn’t fit my personality. I was there 6 years, probably 4 too many.

Who has inspired you?

Kathleen: Harry. Charlie. Angie. Nickie.

Harry: Kathleen is my hero. I’m inspired by her endless thoughtfulness for Charlie, me, her family, and her friends. She has more care and concern for people than anyone I know.

When do you feel like time flies?

Kathleen: When I reflect on how much Charlie has changed since birth!!! Otherwise, it’s felt quite slow this year.

Harry: Working on Jetrecord. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Any favorite movies or videos?

Kathleen: All our videos of Charlie on Vimeo. Bourne Ultimatum. Ocean’s 13.

Harry: Dramatic Prairie Dog, I Trusted You, Beverly Hills Cop, Bridge to Terabithia (watched without sound on the plane to Louisiana), Superbad, and surprisingly, Blades of Glory. Yet again we’re way behind the times on movies. We became Netflix members this year so I hope we’ll at least catch a few recent releases.

Any favorite music or books?

Kathleen: I’m still playing the same music from last year’s post! I finally read One Hundred Years of Solitude which was incredible, but probably not a good choice when I’m feeling a bit of solitude myself these days…

Harry: As for music I discovered The Acorn this year. I also bought Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows and I love it. Sadly, no books to mention. And really, my music appreciation has been restricted to passive listening at work so I’m not sure that counts, either. Maybe four years from now when someone buys the business for $20M I’ll take some time to read fiction again.

Favorite web sites?

Kathleen: Same answer as last year: “I’m not much of a web surfer, so my vote is for my email account. Harry always shows me funny sites, so I get to see the good stuff without searching for it.” Although—and I’m hesitant to admit—I joined Facebook after getting roped in by a friend (you know who you are!).

Harry: Tip: for the last few years I’ve found all my interesting sites from two places: Delicious/popular and kottke.org. Of course there’s more going on out there but that’s where I start. I joined Twitter in March. Interesting communication medium.

Other than the baby, what are you looking forward to this year?

Kathleen: For the first time in my life, I have almost no idea what this year will bring…apart from spending most of my time with Charlie. I hope to get back to work (very) part-time if we can figure out good care for Charlie and I hope to visit Seattle. I am looking forward to starting the seeds of new friendships and fellowship, growing relationships in Colorado, and the treasured conversations with friends of old.

Harry: The day after Christmas this year I realized that I have everything in life that I’d ever hoped for. That said, I’m looking forward to opening the doors on Jetrecord for the second year in a row.

The End.

As always, we update Loveoirs from time to time with our thoughts so you can keep up with what we’re doing. Our photos (all 2,700 of them) are still on Flickr and we’ve put together a set of 2007 highlights to spare all of you who aren’t his grandparents from looking through our hundreds of pictures of Charlie. Our videos are on Vimeo. Everything else will at least be mentioned here.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

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?

Our son, Charlie, was born Monday, February 5, 2007, at 6:20pm, weighing in at 9 pounds, 2 ounces (0.65 stones). He was a little over 20 inches long (51 cm).

Here is a slideshow of pictures from his first week: http://www.flickr.com/photos/loveoirs/sets/72157594525817218/show/

In addition to learning how to live again and recovering from labor and delivery, Kathleen and I are trying to recover from illnesses we acquired before the birth. Kathleen has a cold and a bad cough and I have strep throat. So, please be gentle when you email or call.

Speaking of which, we really do appreciate the well-wishes and the support. I am overcome emotionally by all the love we have received bringing Charlie into the world and in the near future I hope to write about what this experience has meant (and is meaning) to me. He is here–and we are surviving–because of all of you.

That said, while we would love to call or email all of you, our most likely action right now will be to not. We’re in biggest-bang-for-the-buck mode, so if we have anything to say, we’ll probably say it here as it reaches the most people at once.

So, that’s it for now. Take care. Until our next communiqué, this is Harry writing on behalf of the Love family in Seattle.

Huh! Good God. Jump back, wanna kiss myself! Ha!

My favorite JB lyric: “Don’t raise your hand if you don’t mean it.” Thank you, James. Get on wit yo bad self.

One day we’ll dance on their graves, one day we’ll sing our freedom.

With the recent news that Pluto is out of the exclusive Club Planet, Kathleen and I decided to come up with ten ways to help you avoid becoming the Pluto in your group.

10. Beware the outskirts. In your group are you trying to be the fringe member, always wanting to do things your own way? Is your orbit a little farther out than the rest? You may be in danger.

9. Be big. At least, be bigger than someone else in your group. And it’s okay to start small, but don’t become complacent. Pluto’s seeming contentment with remaining the smallest of the planets ultimately led to its downfall.

8. Choose your allies carefully. Yes, Pluto had three moons pulling for it, but were they the right moons? Also notice that the number of moons makes no difference. It’s always about quality. Earth, for example, seems to be doing just fine with one. Of course, Earth chose to align itself with not just any moon, but The Moon.

7. Don’t give us the cold shoulder. Pluto shot itself in the foot twice when it chose to go that far out there. Not only was it on the fringe, it strayed a little too far from the Sun and bang! it iced over completely. You gotta crack that shell and come sit by the fire if you want some lovage, my friend. Pluto’s mean temperature is 37° Kelvin. That’s ice, ice, baby. Word to your mother.

6. Pick a good name. Pluto, the god of the underworld. It doesn’t get much more depressing than that. Unless of course you also have a moon named Charon.
“Hey, let’s all go out for drinks!”
“Great! Okay, who’s calling the god of the underworld?”
“Not it!”
“Not it!”
“Is he going to bring Charon, the ferryman of the dead, with him this time?”
“Ooh, I didn’t think about that.”
“Let’s just go and then we’ll send him a link to the photoset on Flickr.”
“Agreed!”

5. Dress up a little sometimes. Apparently, bracelets are still de rigeur for a night out on the town with the planets; just ask Saturn. Jupiter has a spinning, red tattoo. Mars is all red and has a big tattoo of a face. Pluto could learn a big lesson here.

4. Atmosphere is important. Look at the Earth. It’s where all the party people are. Why? Atmosphere. If you don’t have a unique ambiance, why bother?

3. 37 pieces of flair. You know you need 15 minimum, but if it’s the only thing you’ve got going for you, go for broke. The Sun’s definitely got flair [sic]. Pluto refused to buy into this superficial social booster and was severed from the group.

2. Avoid Disney entanglements. We’re just speculating here, but knowing how tight the leash is on company trademarks, we think someone at Disney probably infiltrated the IAU. If that’s the case, Pluto never had a chance.

1. Embrace lifelong learning. Take a dance lesson. Learn a new language, or master your first one. Learn how to cook, how to take photos, how to paint, how to ride a horse, how to play a sport, how to choose wines, or how to build a web application using Ruby on Rails. See 43 Things for more ideas. Get rid of your cable TV ($1,000 a year) and travel to a foreign country (or at least to the beach). Sell your TV on Craigslist and crack open a book (tip: books are free at the library). The point is, people enjoy meeting and talking to interesting people. People who are passionate about their subject are interesting, even exciting, even if the subject isn’t exciting to anyone else. As far as we know, Pluto only cared about Pluto. Not a smart move.

We hope this has been helpful to you. We certainly learned a lot from Pluto’s demise and think it’s worth further exploration. The planet with ears to hear, let him hear.