Web Journal

Notes/Archives - Slog (a sloppy Blog)

December 2006
OK, the red paper clip was an amazing study in bartering. I have to admit I was skeptical at first; but then I realized it was more about the sociology experiment. It was a really heartwarming story - and the 'author' was very entertaining on the blog all the way through. So his brother and a friend next decided to try to hitchhike to all 50 capitol cities. They made it - and I'm sure had just as much fun. They do a great job of blogging and storing images on flickr for people to browse. Fun. I wish I thought of that during my college years... yeah right. I wasn't that creative. I think there's a book coming out about the paper clip soon...
Also heard about a good book that I'm going to have to have a look at - "They Call Me Naughty Lola" It's about 'lonely hearts' ads from the London Review of Books. Sounds entertaining. Meets the non-fiction criterion.
After my last post and recent despair over the decline of society, these creative entries give me hope that we're at least going to be entertained and charmed on our way to damnation.
Finally - an update from a 3 year old entry. Our new baby girl was named Dana. So now we can study the effect of giving a girl a popular name 'Emma' (#2) vs. a much less popular one 'Dana' (#396). At least we didn't name her Angel - which has been shown to be well correlated with low intelligence. [source Atlantic Monthly and Freakonomics] :)

November 2006
As a human race we can't continue to 'grow' our population and economies while promoting a wasteful, inefficient, western lifestyle. [We must almost entirely scrap the prevailing model of a competitive, growth economy and adopt materially simple economies that stress cooperation and participatory control. Above all, we must move to a steady-state or zero-growth economy. There is now a global ecovillage movement pioneering the development of new settlements that are required for sustainability. Hopefully, the coming "mother of all oil shocks" finally will get all this on the public agenda.] ..from Ted Trainer, the author of The Conserver Society and Towards a Sustainable Economy.
http://www.dieoff.org/index.htm#consensus

January 2006
Wow, how time flies... and all I can come up with is this lame site:
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/
You thought snappy/catchy/funny phrases on t-shirts had been DONE; this takes it to a whole new level. You want it on a t-shirt, mug, whatever - they got it.

Also check out Bro Pivin's Band - Dimonet -> Playing a gig near you...

August 2005 - Katrina

I still can't believe the level of destruction and desperation in Louisiana/Mississippi in the wake of Katrina. The NAOA site and 'Google Earth' have been good for a techy to get a survey of the details.
NOAA Katrina (imagery post-Katrina plus all the gory storm details)
Google Earth (type Superdome, New Orleans)

If you ever want to blow your mind and weekend figuring out a movie, see Primer. You can surf the web for everyone's try at an explanation. Good nerd flick. It won the Sundance Film Festival.

August 2004 - "Ode to P-Town" [found on the web - it's perfect]

from time to time i get asked about portland - the city that i love to call home. rather than reinventing the wheel with each inquiry, i thought i'd give it one final and enduring post here on my blog.
let me begin by noting that i am a transplant. i was an air force brat who grew up all over the country, and who was raised by new yorkers. i've now been here since the fall of 1995, much longer than any other place i've ever lived.
i love portland because it is a big enough city that you get yelled at by crazy people on the bus, yet it is a small enough city that most people say thank you to the bus driver. i once had a bus driver who always smiled and announced SW 7th and Jackson as "james' stop"...
portland is big enough to have a varied and interesting nightlife, but small enough that it's hard to find a GREAT dinner after 10 pm on a wednesday. surprisingly few people actually live downtown. but it's very common to live 5 minutes out.
portland is high-brow enough to have a decent opera, ballet and symphony, but it is laid back enough that you will see people wearing jeans to each. there is GREAT art and theater in portland, but sometimes you have to know someone who knows where to find it.
portland has great food. great coffee. great wine. exceptional beer.
if traveling by car, one can be skiing in the mountains, flying a kite at the beach, or windsurfing in the columbia river gorge, in under two hours. in under three hours, you can be in seattle.
portland is the home of powell's, the legendary independent bookstore. portland metro has more farmers markets than the nyc metro area. portland has more strip clubs per capita and more free wi-fi than any other city in the us. portland has some of the highest unemployment rates and shortest school years in the country.
portland does not have a major league baseball team. we do not have lightning bugs. we do not generally get hurricanes or tornadoes.
the summers are dry and mild. today it will be 85 and sunny. (we break 100 only if my brother is in town trying to escape the heat.)
it does rain in the winter, but not like seattle. you are much more likely to get damp than soaked. umbrellas are for suits and tourists. it is quite literally overcast from october to april, so if you need sun - portland is not for you.
in the depths of winter, if you arrive at the office at 7:30 and leave at 5 - you will never see the light of day. it is perfectly normal on a sunny day in december for people to stop on the streetcorners of downtown and stare at the sky.
portland winters are perfect for curling up with a cup of tea and a good book. it usually snows once a year.
and a special section for new yorkers:
portland does not have good bagels, and it is impossible to find cannoli. while public transit is plentiful, portlanders generally own cars. you have to call a cab - you cannot simply hail one.
on your average day in new york city, you will talk more politics with cabbies, bartenders and complete strangers than you will with all of your aquaintances combined during an average week in portland.
portland is on the west coast - there is no hurry.