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Yesterday I worked pretty diligently from Noisebridge and went to lunch at Poc Chuc with some people from there who were mostly talkng about math. I ended up later that night reading a bunch about knot theory, cruising around in Wikipedia on linking coefficients, crossing number, and writhe. There are wild and tame knots and "unknots". It's over my head but fun to read about! If you are ever hanging out around 16th and Van Ness I recommend Poc Chuc. all their turkey dishes rock. I had platanos and a panucho, which is a small shredded turkey taco with black bean puree, lemon marinated cabbage, pickled red onions and avocado, and black pepper. Wow, it was perfect and delicious as was everything else I've ever eaten there. The horchata was good, a guy at our table asked for lemonade which they didn't have, but they made it for him fresh; they also made guacamole without tomatoes for some else with a food allergy. I might be obsessed with this restaurant now but won't desert La Taqueria. At Noisebridge I mostly just worked and didn't do any nb-related labor. It was just so cold and i had too much to do. Next time I will move stuff or organize and wash something or take out the trash. I did get into conversations about solar heating with black water hoses on the roof which was being presented as trivial. It would not be trivial at all, but might be worth trying for a mild improvement in heat in the space. My plan though is just to bring my own butt-warming heating pad for the couch I'm on. Then late last night I had to cope with a work situation, troubleshoot late at night which was super stressful, but I did figure it out. Whew, and yay? This morning I thought about it more and fixed the problem. NO matter what it was going to inconvenience and mess up some of the work of at least 8-10 people and require me to do a lot of explaining and hand holding and explaining up to management as well. I think what I decided is a decent way to approach it and keep the damage and time wasting to a minimum for the people whose work it affects. Still... 8-( Going in a bit to RWC to the holiday parade and fireworks. My car is full of stuff (mostly blankets and pillows) for the move tomorrow. I'll have to unload them at squid's house and then take Iz down to the street fair and parade and then watch Moomin int he parade, go to fireworks, meet up some point with Rook and then bring Rook and Iz up to Squid's and go to bed. I plan to have The Last Bath tonight late. Tomorrow morning I will drop off Moomin, move my stuff in and do some organizing, shopping, and settling in. I may or may not find open wireless there. Moomin knows I'm looking for a place but I'm not going to go into it with him till Monday when I pick him up and take him over there. I think, explain it when I get him, then drive over, which limits the amount of time he has to cope with uncertainties and his imagination. He doesn't like uncertainty.
lj-userpic: wind lj-tags: twitter, linkdump, short-attention-span-theater
In brief:
I often use twitter to mention what's happening or linkdump. I LT here for posterity.
Fri, Dec. 4th, 2009, 11:55 pm
![[i]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ennienyc: Oh well
My record of staying in the 6-7ish range on Friday/Saturday NYTs for several weeks is now broken. Friday, 12/4 (Martin Ashwood-Smith), 6:05 Saturday, 12/5 (Brad Wilbur), 9:54 Thursday (6:36) took me longer than Friday.
Lest all of November be eclipsed by the joys of Festa Week, let it be known that we did other stuff. ( The stuff and such. )
 at the craft fair
Originally uploaded by mamagotcha.linc wanted me to take a pic of his pretzel snowman to show his dad. you
all get to see, too!
--klsabin
Eric Woolfson, who didn't perform in public and never went on tour, died at 64. He was the songwriter and lead singer for one of my favorite albums. Woolfson, you see, was half of "The Alan Parsons Project", the other half being (duh) Alan Parsons. Before Alan Parsons, Woolfson's biggest hit was "Kung Fu Fighting". (Don't hit me.) During Alan Parsons, Woolfson wrote all the music and lyrics; he also recorded lead vocals on the demos. Starting with Turn of a Friendly Card, the favorite album I mentioned earlier, he usually sang the lead vocals as well; the's the vocalist on "Time", "Eye in the Sky", and "Don't Answer Me". Eye in the Sky contains a song cycle about casino gambling. The opening and closing song of the cycle is anindictment of Las Vegas. There are unsmiling faces and bright plastic chains And a wheel in perpetual motion And they follow the races and pay out the gains With no show of an outward emotion And they think it will make their lives easier For God knows up till now it's been hard But the game never ends when your whole world depends On the turn of a friendly card There's a sign in the desert that lies to the west Where you can't tell the night from the sunrise And not all the king's horses and all the king's men Have prevented the fall of the unwise. Alan Parsons' Poe album was one of the soundtracks when my friends and I played D&D; Turn of a Friendly Card was my private pleasure. Thanks, Eric Woolfson. I hope you laughed all the way to the bank.
This entry was originally posted at http://jonquil.dreamwidth.org/904674.html.  comment(s) on that entry.
This week I had surgery on Tuesday. This was the removal of the suspension wires. It went very well and Dr. Riley says everything looks great. He wants to see me in two weeks and at that appointment they'll take x-rays and if everything looks good he'll ok me for chewing. There hasn't been a lot of talk about it; but I assume just soft foods at first. One of the things people keep asking me about is the pain. From week to week it's kind of hard to explain in different ways. So, the first week, there was so much damage to my nerves that a lot of my face and jaw and mouth was just numb. Sort of swollen and numb and tingly. Uncomfortable to be touched or brushed; but most of the time ... not exactly painful. Under my chin and the front of my throat was very tender to the touch. The first couple of days I was home from the hospital, I took liquid Vicodin (omg tastes awful!!! "fruit flavored" my ass!) for kind of generalized, throbby, achy pain. I also slept a lot. For a couple of days after that, I was pretty ok during the day; but by evening the throbbing ache was back and I had a dose of Vicodin. By Sunday, I moved to just Alleve or Aspirin. The second week looked a lot like the end of the first. As the swelling was going down, I was getting some feeling in parts of my cheeks; but mostly everything was still pretty numb and tingly and uncomfortable if touched. Mostly feeling ok during the day; taking over the counter analgesics in the evening. As feeling was coming back, I was getting random sharp points of pain that would last for a short time and then subside back into numbness. Also, itching. So, by the end of the second week and most of the third week, everything below my eyes was either numb/tingly/asleep feeling, itchy, or sharply painful. Building in there, was the undertone of constant aching as I got feeling back in my jaw, palate, and mouth in general. Towards the end of the third week, swelling had gone down and feeling had returned in most of my cheeks, under my chin, and the top of my nose. My skin seemed to recover pretty well and most of the itching went away, too. Around my chin, lips, and nose, it stayed swollen and numb/tingly/asleep feeling because of the suspension wires. I did start being able to actually use my lips some. That was nice. The predominant feeling, though, became generalized aching with regular bursts of randomly placed sharp pain in my jaw, palate, and teeth. On top of that, I started using the triangle rubber bands at night. That pretty much immediately causes jaw and tooth pain, and headaches. And that's how it's mostly been this week, up to today. The remaining swelling is definitely going down now the suspension wires are out; though, I'm still some swollen. I continue to have a lot of general aching all the time. I am still getting the random spots of sharp pain. Sometimes I have a lot of strong, dull pain in one location for 20 minutes or so. And, just today, a new thing started were sometimes I have really fucking searing pain for several minutes at a time. Like, kind of makes me feel a little dizzy pain. Hurray for healing!
In brief: I often use twitter to mention what's happening or linkdump. I LT here for posterity.
This year makes 20 years since I first started working faire(s). ( Read more... )
regarding this attempt, by one of my Senators, to spike protection to citizen journalists within the proposed shield law. I wrote Senator Feinstein:
in re: US Sen 448:
Please do not strike the provisions that shield unpaid and/or anonymous journalists. The shield laws suggested here should apply to the *act* of journalism, not only those who can afford to be paid for it.
The spirit of the shield law -- protecting journalists for doing their work towards uncovering and reporting the truth -- is entirely in the spirit of American liberty. Anonymity (and unpaid work!) goes back at least to Ben Franklin and Tom Paine.
Choosing to create a "protected class" of paid or professional journalists merely leaves the unprotected class -- journalists working to report, agitate, or explore, despite the absence of a patron -- even weaker.
Please withdraw your amendment to US Sen 448.
[trochee]
California resident, US citizen and voter
[ETA] If you live in a state with a Senator on the Judiciary committee, write him or her yourself. The list is here.
I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox last night, and enjoyed it very much. It managed to simultaneously be very much a Roald Dahl story and very much a Wes Anderson film, which is something of a feat. Visually, absolutely marvelous.
A BERKELEY GIRLI just accepted a job as a research specialist at Berkeley. It'll be starting sometime in January and it will be 30 hours a week, leaving me a bunch of time to work on my startup as well. While I'm working at Berkeley, I'll be doing some internet technology wrangling and online experiment management (usefully related to my own startup goals!), some scheduling and running experiments in the lab, and some miscellaneous admin stuff. It should be a lot of fun, and I'll be working with a bunch of old friends who have all ended up in the Berkeley psych department. Oh, and the job includes benefits, which is a huge relief. My dad went to Berkeley. He's so thrilled that I finally came over from the dark side (Stanford). :) I love the Berkeley area and am excited to be working there -- and living there -- soon. I'll just have to work on remembering that the words to the UC Berkeley fight song do not go, "The dirty golden bear is losing all his hair..." DR. SCHMIDT, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORI am in the process of making final edits to and submitting a grant proposal to the NSF on behalf of HeadLamp Research. It's been a ton of work, but also really useful in planning ahead and mapping out specific business goals a ways into the future. Plus, I got to refer to our company as "Dr. Schmidt and her colleagues" a few times, because I'm listed as Principal Investigator of the grant. That was way more fun than it should have been. :) E-BIZ POC, AORThe silliest part of applying for grants? The process of registering to be allowed to start the application. We had to apply for a DUNS number (nobody knows what this stands for; don't ask) for our company, and then start a bank account as well so that we could use our DUNS number and our bank routing number to register with the CCR, or Central Contractor Registration. Then we had to go through the CCR to appoint an E-Business Point of Contact (me) so that I could apply for permission (from myself) to be an Authorized Organization Representative, someone who has permission to apply for grants. Then I (as E-Biz POC) was able to approve myself (as AOR) as an official company grant person. Then I (as AOR) had to apply for an account on the NSF's FastLane website ("a Web 0.5 technology", as one of the NSF program managers told us, seemingly accurately), which involved my printing and faxing to the NSF some forms that I (as AOR) had signed, while giving them our CCR information as well. Then I (as PI, or Principal Investigator) was allowed to officially start the application. Now I (as AOR) am allowed to edit and submit it. At this point we should be all done with the registration, except that it turns out that we didn't use exactly the same capitalization and/or punctuation when putting our information into NSF FastLane and the CCR registry, so something went awry and our DUNS number is missing. I'm going to be fixing that soon. Why they can't auto-correct such issues is beyond me, but probably it'll turn out that I have to register as the TPOC (typography point of contact) or something like that in order to be allowed to fix the two registrations so that they match exactly. Things are going pretty great in general. I'm really excited about the Berkeley job, and about how things are going at HeadLamp Research, and about being done with this damn grant. Almost, anyway. Off to try to submit!
Wed, Dec. 2nd, 2009, 09:24 am
jonquil: Ephemera
Bess Lomax Hawes (yes, the daughter and sister of those Lomaxes) was a folklorist, a folksinger who performed with Woody Guthrie, and a teacher. Those, she considered, were her important achievements. In 1949 the Progressive Party was brainstorming how to advance their candidate, Walter A. O'Brian, for Mayor of Boston. They noticed that the Metropolitan Transit Authority had recently raised subway fares. The Progressive Party promised to roll back the nickel increase and asked Bess Lomax Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner to write a campaign song. I think you know where this is going. The team wrote "Charlie on the MTA", a folksong about a man doomed to travel forever on the subway for the lack of a nickel. The Progressive candidate lost; the song, presumably, had served its purpose and was dead. However, the song had a catchy tune and a funny story; it was hard to let go of. It was recorded by Will Holt, but buyers said "We're not advancing a Communist candidate!" and that was that. In 1959, the Kingston Trio turned Walter O'Brian into the imaginary Charlie George O'Brian, and the song became a nationwide hit. If you're an American over, say, 45, you've probably heard it, sung it at summer camp, or been bombarded with your parents' or Classic Pop's copies of the Kingston Trio recording. In 2004 the MTA introduced its new automated payment card. They called it the CharlieCard. Bess Lomax Hawes: may her works, all of them, praise her in the Gates.
This entry was originally posted at http://jonquil.dreamwidth.org/904411.html.  comment(s) on that entry.
Not one minute goes by without interruption from a kid! Wow! I have to sneak off every so often and regain my composure. Moomin and I have been reading long bits of Dr. Dolittle's Circus at bedtime. He's been playing well with Iz and Mali, and warily stays clear of L. I had a funny moment where I spelled "croissant" and Squid answered cryptically "He already had one". Leelo understood perfectly what we were talking about. That was an eye opener; some of it was context but I also suspect he saw through the spelling. The atmosphere while somewhat chaotic is punctuated by specially developed routine which I find fascinating and running through it all... Squid's quick and dry wit flashing out in the middle of her long explanations to the girls who poke at her to provoke it and then are hypnotically fascinated as they try to decipher whether they're being made fun or not and what information is encoded within (often very complex, just beyond them, which is like candy to their intelligence.) and L. who incredibly trusts her through the times when he is clearly very frustrated. I like the peaceful moment when she plays the totoro theme on a little recorder or flute to him at bedtime (which i only hear from below since the long run of stairs and then hallway after it daunt me) I think I managed not to say anything dirty or bohemian in front of Squid's mom today but it was close. As Moomin was drifting off to sleep i said "I'd like to take your Dragonology book... I'm going to read it in the bath while eating cake. Gosh, I love being a grownup." Oh the outrage! He thought it was very funny after I explained it was a kind of cake he didn't like. For his brochure about the human body and its various Systems I suggested several funny ideas - like illustrating it with tiny talking organs a la Cricket magazine - which he rejected until the one where it was a brochure written by aliens for other aliens on the care and health of human pets. He is very worried that Ms. F. would not like it. I swear... that school! Of course they like a creative idea. I don't usually pepper him with suggestions for such things, but hey. If he takes it and runs with it, great. Otherwise hands off! It's not my project! This Saturday his dance class is performing in the "hometown holiday" parade which is our town's attempt to bring some holiday shopping action into downtown -- the 4th of july parade is very popular here. There's a street market, a field of snow, a parade (where we used to just join since it isn't all that formal) and incredibly great little fireworks *right next to the library*. It is hard for me to stick with the fireworks part from a wheelchair in an enormous crowd in the street but we'll figure out a spot and stick in one place off to the side. I think the spot under the giant tree by city hall should be okay. I'm going to bring Iz to the parade to give her mom a break. Keeping in mind she's working like 30 hours a week. I worked today from Main St. (having wormed out the password) & had a very good cosy chat with M. about our lives. She's very interesting! We have some similarities that I didn't expect. When I go there I think of the role I played at my co-op as I would run a cooking crew and bring out bowls of steaming food in a motherly way. Though for me it was just dabbling in a role and for her it seems to be the history of her life and of course, her business for years. Tomorrow I think working from my sister's house! She is sewing a million spats or something for her bazaar! and i will set up selenium and run test tests. Then haul ass back here to pick up M. and take him to dance lesson if he isn't too tired from the "Lap-a-thon". He will make $10 per lap with pledges from a bunch of us! Last year he ran 18 laps. I feel a little more fired up to blog but am emotionally really strange and a bit messed up. Moomin steadies me though. It is very cheering to be here. if i were staying much longer I would buy that 50 foot ethernet cable and plug in my airport express so i could have internet in bed. Walking pretty decently, especially today - I walked through a store, and stayed off my cane almost all the time in the house even though it's a huge house, with a few periods of lying down when my leg started being horrible. I think it helped that the weather was amazing. I picked Moomin up right after school so he could play on the back porch, trampoline, and explore the yard while I worked on the porch. It was nice to be here in daylight.  The view this morning as the sun came up across the bay ... spectacular. Moomin mused about the sun looking like a huge egg yolk. But I will never like dogs.
Today A. died. I didn't know him very well at all, but what few times I met him, he was 100% awesome. It was like hanging out with Miles Vorkosigan. Not too many people you can say that about. Yesterday two friends of mine welcomed a brand new baby into the world. Everybody's crying tonight, but for different reasons. I think I'm going to go hug my guy. 'Night, all.
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