what's in style

I exported my blog over to Wordpress because I was getting a bit bored with my layout and was eyeing new styles. They have some cool stuff over there but the facts of the matter are that it would be tough to get everything aligned how I’d like it, I’m a bit impatient, and it’s actually a more rigid formatting process than Blogger. For now, I’ll keep everything going here with some shadow work elsewhere. Don’t fret; if I move it you’ll be notified. I don’t want 3 or 4 people to now have my blog.

L. is arriving here on Tuesday afternoon and will be launched back into school at precisely 9am on Wednesday morning. The New School is fine with her later arrival and we can configure everything so she’ll only need an extra English/Literature class over the next 2 ½ years.

Our days and nights are wet and cool. The Eleven is heading back down to Warm Springs on Saturday for a night in the cool country and soaks in the springs.

game of squash

I guess you have to pass through the actual first day of autumn before the squash is ready. If only we had a root cellar.

We'll be on the road to Dickerson, Maryland this afternoon to stock up from the greatest squash farmer / stand that I know of in these parts. Well, I haven't done any actual research between farmers but this falls into the "I've found what I want and I'm not moving along." If I were to work out the probability of finding a better squash guy (that's what The Eleven call him) then I'd have to do a bunch of 1*(-x) and various other things I don't understand when all I really want it a myriad of gourds. I'm not interested; and, for the small possible increase in quality or farming technique it's not worth it. If you happen to live out here in the area then I give my full recommendation to Comus Market (in this case, that picture above is actually the thing I'm blogging about). As I passed along via other media, I got a million way to cook squash and there's nothing nearly as versatile. You can thank me later.

I finally got around to getting my new lenses ordered and installed in my old frames. I appreciate that they call them progressive lenses vice bifocals; I don't feel as old and it matches my political leanings. Anyway, this takes a bit of getting used to since the sweet spot for normal (or in my case, horrid-yet-corrected far sight vision) is a fairly small portion of the glasses. If I use my peepers more than my head to see off-center then I get into the blurry area. Add in the typing or reading and using on the bottom portion and I feel like I'm some sort of Cosmonaut. I'm sure it will get better. I'm sure all the older folk think I'm just a kid complaining. And to them I say, true enough.

X and G. headed to the National Book Festival on the Mall this morning. Huge crowds as expected and longish lines for authors to sign books. The target, Suzanne Collins (of Gregor and Hunger Games fame), had a line that wasn't going to get through in the hour she'd allotted. At least there was a visual sighting.

Off to Maryland. We have our passports.

t

bad form, redux

I drove down to Rosslyn today after work to complete my VA forms. Granted, I can pick up my baby just up the street but that's irrelevant.

I get the correct form at the Registrar (it's the exact same form without the duplicate carbon underneath). I show her my form and ask, "Isn't this the same?" "Oh," she says, "yes. but it doesn't have the duplicate. Here, I'll just make a copy of yours." What? Moving along. I go down to financial services, sign in, and get directed to my advisor for the calculator form. I wait 15 minutes for him to get it all done, check my ID number, print it up, play slapass with the rest of the office, and then head back upstairs with all my ish in order. I hand it back into the Registrar and she's seems happy...until she gets to the calculator form which he's completed for only 1 credit, not 12, and it's not even my name and ID number. She opens the World Championship with this salvo, "What I need is for this form..." End. As she looks up at me I tell her that she is more than capable of walking down a flight of stairs and getting what she needs. I've done this all twice and there won't be a third chance. She stares at me like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest whilst wondering why I'm not heading straight back downstairs. I let her know that it's her issue now and that I will come back if something actually needs to be signed by Friday to complete this process. She looks at me. I repeat the words: 'a c t u a l l y needs' to be signed. I tell her to let me know when it's all in order.

Case closed.

bad form

It was a mixed bag at Quiz Night: Our overall score wasn’t as strong as we’d like but we had fun and won a prize round when we aced all ten answers to “Famous People and Their Famous Mothers”. That’s a pretty embarrassing category to dominate considering we later answered “22” when asked how many claws a cat has. How a human (or group of humans) could talk themselves into 22 claws on four paws is completely beyond me. Are there any animals/mammals/walkie things that have more than five claws/toes on this earth? 22? “Yeah, great answer!” We were like really bad Family Feud contestants.

My school has a never-ending run of administration issues. The one that most affects me is the quarterly certification sent to the VA in order to keep my flow of money in place. What they were allegedly doing up until now was submitting our paperwork at the end of the third week every quarter (after the add/drop date). Depending on the break between quarters, this caused serious issues if you didn’t see a check for 50+ days. Of course, what they don’t understand is that if the government gives you too much money (or if you drop a class) they’d get their money back, one way or t’other. They had at least three or four critical points of failure in this certification chain with the most common being inept people. Late last week they sent out an e-mail introducing all the VA / GI Bill students to a great new process that will ensure there’s no gap in payment or certification. My first thought was: How nice. My second? They’ll fuck this up. The outcome from my first response didn’t come true; from my second? Well, here’s the story.

In order to expedite the process we will be delivering the required paperwork for the next quarter to the Registrar by the end of the current quarter. (We got the e-mail last Friday and the quarter officially ends this Friday.) Great, methinks, I have class on Saturday so I’ll just print out this “certification form”, fill it out, stop by the student financial aid section (required by the notice) and pick-up my financial plan (what was outlined) and have them sign, and then drop it off at the registrar – task done. Man, that was easy! Unfortunately, the registrar isn’t open on Saturday so I was left with two forms in hand and plan to call on Monday to see if I could e-mail my scanned (.pdf) forms or fax them the paperwork. What follows is a rudimentary transcript of the 9am phone call on Monday morning (the registrar being open at 7:45am):

Me: [dial and ringing].

Them: Hello? Doc.

Me: Is this the Registrar’s office?

Doc (apparently): Yes, why?

Me: Doc, how about you answer the phone with something akin to “AiW Registar, how may I help you?”

Doc: Oh. This isn’t my phone.

Me: I guess that’s a good excuse then.

Doc: I can help you with anything. What do you need?

Me: I have a GI Bill certification form and my student financial plan that needs to be delivered to your office. Since I’m in class at night I was wondering if I can either e-mail a .pdf file with the signed forms, or send them via fax.

Doc: Wait. What do you need?

(Writer’s embellishment: “Hey, wedge, what is your problem? Trust me when I say that my phone skills are impeccable. I speak slowly, I listen to you, I describe what you need, and you’ve got nothing to say but ‘Oops, I was lost after my last breath. I’m a dumbass.’”)

Me: I need to send some VA forms to your office.

Doc: That would be Vanessa who would help you.

Me: Okay. Great. Can I fax them down there for her or can I send them via e-mail?

Doc: See doesn’t come in until 10am.

Me: So? Why do I care about that? Do you have a fax? Can I e-mail them? Does your office accept forms via those methods?

Doc: Well, she handles all of that.

Me: Great. Can you give me her e-mail address?

Doc: Didn’t she send you an e-mail.

Me: Yes, she did. But I’m asking for her e-mail address because I don’t have it here.

Doc: It should be in the e-mail she sent.

Me: What is Vanessa’s e-mail address?

That went swimmingly. I typed Vanessa’s hard-won e-mail address into my correspondence and attached both required documents along with a brief background while making reference to her widely distributed, and well considered, e-mail. What I get back about an hour later is an e-mail from Vanessa letting me know that the included certification form was actually just a sample and not the actual letter that will be signed. Those letters are in her office. Second, the Financial Services section gave me the wrong data sheet and that I’ll need to stop back down there and get a different fuckity-fuckity form. See how this works? My response is a bit curt and includes three questions and a small diatribe: I have to come down to your office to pick up another form, go down to financial services and tell them I need a fuckity-fuckity form, and then walk back to your office with paper in hand. Those are the questions. The itsy-bitsy diatribe is this: have you spoken with financial planning to make sure they know what form it is that you want? That might have been something you could have coordinated before your first, and somewhat urgent, e-mail was sent to a bunch of people, who after all, have been in the military and who might expect checklist-like directions to actually work. She sent back that ‘yes’ was the answer to my questions and this little nugget of wisdom:

“…but as with anything new there can be kinks in the system.”

Listen, you ARE the system. There’s something wrong with you. How about you say this:

“I made a mistake in not ensuring the financial services office was up-to-speed on the new process. I’m going to head down there now, get the form I need for your certification, and take care of it from here. I’ll let you know when it’s done. We won’t have this issue in the future. Thanks for taking care of your paperwork so quickly.”

Why? Because that’s how you do it. Do I need her to stroke my ego? Nope. Do I need her to be competent? Yes. That’s what it boils down to in the end: know your job, understand your process, or don’t participate. Gumming up the system because you’re inept doesn’t actually help anyone.

I rest.

t

(If you're wondering about the picture, find the famous mother of a famous child.)

the birds

Sunday morning was gutter cleaning and bird blocking on The Hilltop. Ah, my youth spent on the roof of our duplex, once a year, cleaning the crap from the gutters; remembered. We borrowed an extension ladder from down the street because the big step ladder wasn’t even close enough to get the job done; it was on X’s list of things to accomplish before winter sets in. Honestly, about half of them needed cleaning and that was clear from our earthbound view during any given rainstorm this summer. The bird blocking was a matter of filling all the openings at the tops of our front porch pillars: sparrows had moved in and this seemed a better idea than getting X a shotgun which she felt firing multiple times into the nearby tree might do the trick. She has no love for the sparrows.

This all followed a Saturday that included my finish to the summer quarter at school and the annual Hilltop block party that raged through the evening. The party is always quite fun as the adults sit around eating and drinking while the eleventy-million block kids (led by the eldest present, G.) ravage the block with endless games that appear to involve no particular rules aside from screaming and running to-and-fro. This year’s focused almost exclusively on swords, shields, various helmets and breastplates. It’s funny to see G. as the biggest kid on the block since he’s always seemed quite a bit smaller than most kids – growing up will do that. It could also have to do with the volume of food he ate throughout the day. (He and his mother came to my final Garde Manger class to sample all the foods be prepared over the quarter and presented at the grand buffet.)

In breaking news, it seems likely that L. will be moving back here around / after the Holidays and be finishing her high school life (two-and-a-half years at that point) here in Northern Virginia. It’s a longer discussion than needs to be addressed here.

With my two-week school break we’ll be crashing Quiz Night at the pub over the next two Mondays (tonight included) but will the rust cause a slowing of my trivial mind?

There a loads of stories I’ve jotted down to pass along but they’ve all disappeared. I’ll give them a think.

Everything here is peachy.

t

honk honk

Traffic flow and jams came up the other week while I was listening to a podcast and it reminded me of a traffic TV special on BBC or ITV while I was living in England. They were working on the M25 orbital and talking about two main issues: traffic waves and lane jumping. The nuts-and-bolts were that the less space between cars the worst the ‘jam’ and, you don’t get anywhere faster in a jam by lane chasing/jumping. Over the years I’ve sort of followed what I learned on the show – and this area certainly allows for it – but I ran down a video of a guy describing the theories while driving. It’s pretty good stuff and might lead to some discussion amongst the crowd. (His Web site is here if you want to read anything else or watch traffic waves.)

Breaking Up a Traffic Jam! - Watch the best video clips here

I managed to ‘install’ the new board in the kitchen on Sunday. I had to move a few things this way and that in order to make enough room; needless to say, working on such a massive surfaces is quite nice. We had the entire clan over for an early birthday dinner: figs with crème fraiche and salmon to open, homemade tortellini with lemon and sage, stuffed red bell peppers, and homemade pie. There wasn’t much left behind after the onslaught.

It’s my final week of class with just one final and a buffet plating/service for the other; Nothing too much to worry about. I’ve taken a tour of a smaller, and older, culinary school nearby that I might transfer to after the Holidays. My current place, enjoyable for the most part, is getting way too overcrowded for the space they have. They’ve got 11 skills classes and 7 Intro to Baking and Pastry classes (both make-up the first step of new students) beginning next month. As a measure, when I started, and granted it was autumn, there were two skills classes and two B & P classes going on. I honestly don’t know where they’ll find the room since there are only four kitchens (or 3 ½ if you consider that one kitchen is only set-up for baking). Not only that, I think having 20-25 students per class is too many by half. The other school only has three kitchens but they run essentially the same courses with classes along the lines of 8-11 students. If I transfer it won’t be anything significant as far as upheaval, just a new place for my evenings.

We’re thinking of a trip to Warm Springs in about 10 days. That’s good thinking.

cut up to size

It was bout 75° on Sunday, and only a tad warmer yesterday, so all is good in the World.

As previously discussed, the cutting board (seen above with life-sized reference person) has been completed and delivered to the house. Corey brought it over last night after knocking it out over the weekend. I believe that unless someone can prove me wrong (with evidence), I have the largest privately-held cutting board in the civilized World. It is about 50 lbs, made purely from mahogany, and there’s an inlay pattern that’s hard to see in the picture. Very, very nice. I gave him pizza. Fair deal. (I’m actually going to pay for the wood.)

Our refrigerator has gone into a death spiral. It’s not dead yet but it’s only running at about 50° and the freezer is too hot by about the same ratio. Our landlord stopped by to take a look at it yesterday and immediately pointed out that he really had no idea how to fix or diagnose it: he did bring along a hammer and some pliers. A call is in today for a service visit but I suspect we won’t see anyone until later in the week. We’ve gone with the big cooler and ice blocks to keep the essentials cold. Funny, his refrigerator at home also died over the weekend so we’re investing the strangeness of it all.

My moral dilemma of the weekend is as follows. I swung by REI to buy a new Nalgene® water bottle since my six year-old version is about worn out and busted. While there I wandered over to the men’s section to peruse the clearance items and see if they had any shorts I could stock up on for next year – I’m pretty picky in the shorts department, if you’re inclined to ask. I ended up with the water bottle, a pair of shorts, a pair of pants, and a shirt. At the register I’m rung up (there was a slight sigh of frustration from the clerk whilst scanning the stuff). The total comes to something less than what I expected – each bit of clothing was about $30 and the bottle $10) – so I look at my receipt on the way out the door assuming something was marked down lower than the tag price. The first item is 2x the water bottle for $20, at which point I put together the sigh and second scanning of the bottle. I continue reading as I’m heading back to the counter when I’m struck: She was clearly looking for four lines of product on her screen and when there were only three she’d assumed a miss on the bottle. Of course, she’d missed one of the clothing items instead and now I have some massive ethicist issue on my hand. The line isn’t too long and I’ve basically gotten a pair of pants for the price of a water bottle, so, what to do? The quick math in my head says this: her register will be fine, the inventory will show a pair of pants missing and probably be written off as stolen, and one extra water bottle will be living on the rack o’ bottles. Do we go with the two-of-three aren’t bad outcomes so it’s okay, or not? One wonders. I won’t give you my answer.

Too rah.

spare change

There’s really no good way to run an experiment like this because there’ll always be suspicion on the receiving end. It seems like it would be better to just give away the card and then review the purchases or at least the location since without input from the spender you probably can’t see itemization. Maybe it seems like some human experiment gone wrong, or maybe right.

I’ve long held one belief about panhandlers on the street and I’ve added a second in the years I’ve lived with X (it was her input, honestly, that made so much sense). My first thing is this: if I give money to panhandler then I’ve done it by choice and it’s a gift. What they do with it is wholly their prerogative; it’s no business of mine. If I have concerns then I don’t give money. Pretty simple. The counterpoint to my position is always weighted by the expectations of others that I know, “Oh, they’ll just use it to buy liquor, cigarettes, or drugs.” Proof of that isn’t forthcoming from them after they make that statement because they assume it’s a given. Even if true, so what? The second belief, doctored in my head, is this: No one wants to be standing out on a hot/cold/rainy/snowy/shitty street begging for money. If by providing them with $10 they can gain some respite in time spent on the corner, or a day away from begging, then I’m all for it. Imagine a chance to have some time off from an endless hour-to-hour or day-to-day survival slog where you can simply either stop for a bit or grab something to eat. Imagine.

Maybe it’s rose-colored glasses. Maybe it’s progressive. Maybe it’s just something that makes a small slice a life a little better.

Do with it as you will.

what's the frequency, kenneth?

I don’t keep up with all the dalliances of a videophone company or communications law firm. I don’t have Silicon Daily on my morning reading list. I just hang around in the kitchen and eventually the news hits my brain (or in this case, the car.)

I don’t know if Apple has had its presser yet but word is that the music cloud idea may be on the agenda. For background on what exactly a music cloud is meant to be, pop over here and you can read or listen to the story. My first thought is this: aren’t we really just going back to radio? Actual radio? (“Hey man, I can totally listen to a mix of music on this little radio. Anywhere!) Clearly there are differences between a DJ choosing music for me and me sort of setting up what I want to hear but the last thing I want responsibility for is coming up with my playlist for the day – or hour – ahead of time…or right then. If I understand the basic premise of having all your music off on some server somewhere in the big blue correctly, I’m paying for the music but I don’t own it. I’m simply paying for access to the tunes and then…what? I get in the car with my iPhone and pull-up my ‘music’ app and then what? Pick songs? Open a playlist? What? Do I select a Cloud Cult album (see how I tied that in?) and hit play? I’m not much for being tethered to something for my music. Here’s how my music life works. I buy music, I put it on my iPod in artist playlists, I pick who I want to hear (I’m not much for one song by artist A, one song by artist B, etc.) and either shuffle or play the list straight through. If I want to set up a Pandora station that aligns with a certain artist or type of artist then I do, but I’ve even grown away from that. If I want actual ‘radio’ then I listen to the Current out of Minneapolis and let someone give me whatever music strikes them – the Current music, overall, strikes me. (This sort of reminds me of the e-reader/Kindle panel a few years ago where one panelist pointed out that having a Kindle was convenient: small size, light weight, you can read it anywhere. The comeback to that was that we already have that technology…it’s called a book.) Even if I forego the discussion about bandwidth, quality of sound, connectivity wherever I might be, etc. I’m not initially sold on this idea. What if I’m up in Leyden and want to listen to my music? As if that would be possible…

at the buzzer

While I was watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals, where the Lakers came back from a double-digit deficit to beat the Celtics, a few light bulbs flashed. The first was this, “Why am I watching an NBA game?” The second was “How come there’s only one really good player on the court?” Lastly, the coup de grace: if you’re making a push to comeback in a free flow sport (basketball, tennis, hockey, etc.) you better get over the hump the first time or you’re finished; the expended energy leaves nothing for a second run. And for the lead defender, you simply need to keep the top of the mountain free from challenge. In Game 7 you could see both sides of the battle with the Lakers clearly having the bit between their teeth and the Celtics defending the summit; it was enthralling stuff to watch. The Celtics are considerably older than the Lakers and throughout the fourth quarter you just knew that if they could survive the rush, and not fall behind by even 3 or 4 points, then they’d win. As the Lakers got within a few points, tied it a few times, and the Celtics fought back, it looked like they’d win the title. But, alas, the Lakers put their nose ahead by 3 or 4 and you knew the game was over: The Lakers had cleared the summit. If they’d been unable to put that small distance between themselves and the C’s then everything would have still been in play. This is a VERY long back story, I know, but the point is that you get one shot: over or you’re out.

What I realized this morning, after watching some interviews from the big rally in D.C. over the weekend, was this: The Republican party is trying to summit and they’re gambling on getting over-the-top in one push. That idea is a perfectly considered strategy if their current compromises weren’t taken into account. The compromise is twofold: the crop of tea party candidates and the pandering of the ‘moderate’ candidates in order to survive a challenge. What’s happened so far is that the party is putting forward (and the voters are supporting it) tea party candidates for the general election and we don’t really know how they’ll fare against Democrats or Independents when the voting public pulls the lever. All of these ‘upsets’ so far have been Republicans losing to Republicans.

The mid-terms will give the Republicans/Tea Party a significant increase in seats in Congress. Since the Civil War there are only three instances of the mid-term elections not taking seats from the President’s party: FDR in 1934, Clinton in 1998, and Bush in 2002. Add in that the country is quite split right now and there may be a bigger swing than normal. But, that swing won’t be 40 seats in the house. Same with the Senate – only twice has a swing of double digits been seen and that’s what would have to happen this year. It’ll be close in the end but voters across the board will probably give us the Dems with 52 seats in the Senate, plus two independents, and something like 225 to keep control of the House. I don’t want to see those seats lost but it’s the nature of the beast. At the same time, let’s go back to Game 7 of the NBA Finals and add in another damning fact.

If the Republicans don’t gain control of either end of the capitol, or both, then they’ll spend even more years in the wilderness. This is the one push they get and if they only get close, but don’t get a nose in front, then not only will they have to battle an Obama reelection campaign in 2012 they’ll have to fight their own past. Imagine they find themselves short in numbers after this election and a good number of those seats are filled by incumbent tea party members come 2012. How do you address that election? The party is going to need to rid themselves of the extreme incumbents they elected in this desperate 2010 election season whilst trying to also battle another massive surge of Democratic campaigning. Getting even this year will not be enough to prevent a slaughter in 2012 and I don’t see them getting there in two months time. It is the long view, isn’t it?

52 and 225. Mark it.

Up next, music clouds.