home repair tip #4783

Need to find all the squeaky spots in your floors? Simple: Just walk around the house with a baby you're trying to put to sleep.

san francisco summers

As I was shivering at the pool today, I realized that I haven't had a true, warm, sunny summer in a decade -- literally, a full 10 years! In 1998, I spent the summer working in Scotland (more on that later). And by 1999, I had moved up to San Francisco, where all the tech startups in the world can't solve the problem we've got with miserably overcast and chilly summer weather.

Maybe it's time for a long vacation someplace where the people wear shorts in the summer and worry about tracking sand in the house. Where do you go with a two-month old?

goings on around the web

Some friends are doing some cool stuff this week:

Ben, who runs Virtually Blind and is an expert on legal issues in virtual worlds, has had an op-ed piece about the future of the Internet published in the Wall Street Journal.

Maggie, of Mighty Girl fame and a former colleague at Web Techniques, has launched Mighty Haus a new shopping blog focused on cool stuff for your house. As the tagline says, hooray for stuff!

Jeff, who runs the Digital Camera Resource Page, one of the top digital camera reviews sites, got to play professional sports photographer for a day at the Bank of the West Classic tennis tournament at Stanford. Love the photo of the flying braid.

why's daddy in jail?

Clearly, I've had a few things on my mind lately. So it's no wonder I completely forgot about jury duty. That's right, I completely blew off my civic responsibility and simply did not show at the courthouse on my appointed jury duty date. I, my friends, am a criminal.

And I'll tell you, when I finally realized what had happened -- on the day after I was supposed to be at the courthouse -- I got that feeling in my stomach that I sometimes get when I eat the leftover Chinese food from the cartons at the back of the 'fridge. And I imagined a frightening scene in which I would have to do the drive-of-shame down to the courthouse and turn myself in to the bailiff, who would proceed to handcuff me and haul me off to spend a night in jail, where there would be no Chinese food, just bread and water. An alternate scene had me on the lam in Mexico, occasionally sending the wife and kid some pesos and a letter signed with my pseudonym, Nacho; but I quickly dismissed that as a bit melodramatic (and plainly quite difficult to pull off given border security these days.)

Fortunately, when I called the courthouse, the world's nicest clerk answered and let me reschedule. I didn't even get a scolding.

swimming lessons

A lot of people say exercising helps them relax and takes their mind off things for a while, or else it helps them focus on a problem a little more clearly. When I jump in the pool, there's none of that. Instead, I've got two voices battling it out from the moment I break the surface (squealing like a frightened pig at the sudden temperature shock) to the moment I crawl out (flopping on the deck like a prehistoric fish taking its first evolutionary steps on land.)

The voice of Lazy Amit is saying, "Dude, you've had a busy week, everyone will understand if you just swim a handful of 50s and get out. Take your time." The voice of Type-A Amit cuts in, shouting, "Stop hanging there on the wall, you barnacle! You're doing 200s and you'd better keep moving. That 80-year-old in the Speedo over there is kicking your ass!"

And so it goes on like this for the first several hundred yards or so: the voice of Lazy Amit gently urging me to skip the flip-turn and hang on the wall to catch my breath; the words of Type-A Amit pushing me onward to the next lap. Then, as I'm seriously contemplating getting out and taking Lazy Amit with me in search of a slice of pizza, Type-A Amit pulls out this line: "You can only improve if you push yourself to do so."

Well, ok, sometimes he phrases it a little less gently. "You suck," he'll say, "and if you get out now you're always going to suck." Either way, it keeps me in the pool every time. And then, when I eventually do finish up and get out, completely exhausted, I keep hearing those words (the kinder version). I hear them even when I get home and when I get back to work. You can only improve if you push yourself.

I'm not saying Type-A Amit always wins. I've bought Lazy Amit plenty of beers and dude owes me one sweet party one of these days. But the other guy's got a pretty convincing argument. When I think of it, I can't come up with a single thing I've done well or do well that just came to me on its own; there was always that push.

speaking of poop

They asked about the peeing at the pediatrician's office. But they didn't ask whether he can also shoot poop a foot in distance.

We've since learned that the answer is yes.

Aren't you glad you know that now? Enjoy your breakfast!

i'll try to explain

I was not expecting to be so charmed by the minutiae of infancy. I mean, he's small and that's cute, and I get that. But watching his eyelashes grow little by little? Noticing that he stares just a second longer at the green frog dangling from his play gym? I'm fascinated. I could launch an entire blog just about the shapes his belly button has gone through in the past few weeks.

I think this is why it's so hard to explain what being a new parent is like to our friends who don't have kids. In conversation, it's the big, obvious things -- the negative things -- that get discussed: He kept us up all night; he wants to nurse all the time; we're so exhausted. Or else, it's the funny-but-poor-us stories that we tell -- like how he woke us up with his cries at 3 a.m. the other night, and how, when I went to pick him up, I realized that he had somehow worked his diaper down in his sleep, and then crapped. All over himself. And the blanket. And the bassinet sheet.

"That sucks," my friends respond.

But the thing is, it doesn't. Not at all. Because when I picked him up that night, he opened his eyes, looked at me, and smiled. Not a big smile, just a quick moment of recognition and then back to crying.

That may seem like a small thing in comparison to standing in the dark with shit on one hand and a crying infant in the other at three in the morning. And when the story gets told in the following days, it's the exasperation of the whole scene that gets the most attention. But secretly, I loved every minute it took to clean that kid up that night.

introducing kinverge

So what have I been doing with my time now that I'm a fancy-pants "Independent Technology Consultant"? In addition to working for some great startups and nonprofits -- and, oh right, that whole procreating thing (which I did in my off hours, I promise) -- I've teamed up with two sharp partners to build Kinverge, a free family intranet service.

In a nutshell, our goal with Kinverge is to make it super easy to set up a private Web site where your family can share and store family photo albums; set up birthday, anniversary, and other event reminders; post announcements and group messages; create gift lists; ...and you get the picture. We built it with the philosophy that photo sharing and blogging and other technologies don't have to be complicated and just for the tech-savvy. We think using a private family Web site can be easy enough to allow everyone in the family to participate.

We're still refining the site and adding new features, but if it sounds like something your family might be interested in or you're just curious, definitely head on over and get yourself set up. It takes all of a minute -- and did I mention it's free? Plus, it'd make me very happy.

(And if you perhaps felt compelled to tell others about it, or post about it on your own blog, I'll tell everyone you're the greatest.)

why, yes

At the pediatrician's office, one of the questions on the form asks if my child can shoot urine more than a foot in distance.

Yes.

first father's day

Yesterday was my first Father's Day, what with the little guy having been born about two weeks ago (and having kept us very, very busy for the past two weeks.)

His present to me: Falling asleep on my chest early in the morning and giving me and his mom an extra two hours of blissful sleep. Then, he was the perfect kid throughout the day: alert, cute as ever, calm on the changing table, hanging on between feedings, napping at the right times, letting others hold him, and generally not fussing.

And then, at midnight, the present expired -- and he succeeded in keeping us up all night. His parents are very, very tired today, but still very, very happy.

it's time

We are waiting for the hospital to call. So we can go in and induce labor and finally bring this kid out into the world. Except things are busy at the hospital. And so we are waiting for a phone call.

It's a bit like planning a great vacation, waiting nine months for it to start, and then finding out at the last minute that your flight has been delayed.

We are consoling ourselves with rootbeer floats. We're on vacation after all.

boring, but necessary

So there's no sign of the kid yet. In the meantime, we continue to prepare. And that means taking care of all the things you just don't want to have to be dealing with later when you're at the beck and call of a two-week-old child. But I'll tell ya, we're getting down to the bottom of the to-do list, the real dull stuff.

Take, for instance, task #436: Finally setting up a way to regularly back up the files on my laptop. Honestly, I've never gotten around to doing this until now, ever, on any computer -- despite recommending it to every unfortunate friend, relative, and client who has ever called me in panic with complaints of a crashed hard drive.

I get why they -- and I -- don't do what we all know we should: Backing up your hard drive is about as exciting as applying for life insurance. But since we crossed life insurance off the list last week.....

So to all my friends, relatives, and clients, here's the deal: I'm now backing up my computer with Carbonite. It's a subscription-based service that automatically and regularly copies your important files to a remote server (run by Carbonite.) If you accidentally delete a file, or your whole hard drive, you can get back the important stuff.

After you install the Carbonite utility, the software automatically does an initial backup of your My Documents folder. This part takes a few days, but it happens in the background while you're computer's on so you don't really notice. After that, the software only sends copies of new or changed files to the server. (You can set which files get backed up and how often.)

The only problem I had with Carbonite is that I noticed my hard drive seemed to be running all the time, even after the initial backup was done. I think that's because Carbonite was fighting to back up my email files every time I got a new message. My email is already backed up elsewhere, so I ended up removing the "AppData" folder from my backup schedule and that seems to have fixed things.

The whole thing costs $49.95 per year. But here's a secret: Search for "Carbonite coupon" and you'll likely find a $10 discount floating around out there.

So there you go -- no more reason to panic and call me when you lose all those MP3s you ripped from the CDs you "borrowed" from me. And speaking of ripping MP3s, if the kid doesn't show up within a few more days, I'll tell you about boring task #437.

improbable game sequels

Monopoly: Stagflation Edition

Chutes & Ladders & Glass Ceilings

Risk: Actuaries & Underwriters

Taser Tag

Grand Theft Auto: First Night in San Quentin

maybe they think you won't notice

Brita, the Clorox Company's line of water filtering products, has teamed up with Nalgene to help America reduce its plastic waste. The FilterForGood campaign encourages consumers to "take the pledge" to stop using bottled water and offers discounts on a Brita water filter and reusable Nalgene water bottle.

But if you've ever used a Brita water filter, you know that they rely on expensive, disposable plastic filter cartridges. And Brita doesn't offer a North American recycling program for these cartridges. (Sounds a bit like selling energy-efficient light bulbs but wrapping them in a giant plastic package....)

Granted, you only replace Brita cartridges ever couple months or so, which is a lot less plastic in the dump or recycling bin than a daily stream of water bottles. But let's be real: The U.S. has some of the best, safest water in the world -- and it comes straight out of the tap. Stick your Nalgene under that and cut out the middle man.

already? really?

For those of us here in the U.S., Daylight Savings Time begins next week. Did not see that one coming.

sacrifices

We're in the process of replacing my beloved two-seater soft-top convertible... with a station wagon. Apparently, it's not such a good idea to cart your infant around in the passenger seat of your roadster.

Granted, the station wagon is a far cry from the wagons with bench seats and faux wood paneling that we grew up with, and it drives pretty well. But if, one day, this kid is looking through our old photos and remarks at just how cool we "used to be", "way back when you owned a convertible," someone's getting grounded. For a long time.

wanted

Wanted: Helping-Arm Monkey

For data entry, dictation, chauffeuring, occasional odd jobs. Upward potential for high-yield diaper management position in near future.

• This is an on-site position.
• Must provide own transportation.
• Experience producing collected works of Shakespeare a plus.
• Equally able to work on teams or with little supervision.
• Potty-training a must.

Qualified candidates inquire within.

the exchange

First, I'd like to say that the Wife is pregnant and we are having a boy. Yes, thank you. It's true. We are quite excited about this.

But that's not the story I wanted to tell you. The real story is this: In preparing for the arrival of the little dude, we decided to clean the spare bedroom of all the old books we had lying around. And by that, I mainly mean the old textbooks and supplemental reading materials and management guides and coffee table books and started-but-never-finished books and every other in-between sort of book that we'll never read again and will never recommend that anyone else read again either sort of books. We put all these in five or six paper bags and loaded them into the trunk of our car.

Our town has a large and wonderful recycling center with a not-as-large and possibly wonderful book exhange in it, so we drove our five or six bags full of books over to the center and parked in front of the book exchange. The exchange is basically a half dozen or more bookcases lined up against the wall of the recycling center, and as we hopped out of the car we noticed a few people milling about.

I smiled at them. They looked at me. And this is where the story gets interesting.

I hefted one bag of books out of the trunk, carried it over to the bookcases, and set it down on the floor. "Is there any order to where the books go on the shelves?" I asked no in one particular.

"No," said a man in fleece just to my left, startling me with his sudden proximity. Before I could quite turn and focus, this man had bent down and was taking books out of the bag I had just left on the floor.

"Oh, hey, thanks," I said. I watched him for a moment as he dug through the bag, efficiently examining the cover and spine of each book and setting it in a pile next to him. Well, that's nice of him to help me stack the books, I figured. Then I went back to the car and grabbed another bag.

This time, a middle-aged woman with black hair silently intercepted me before I got to the shelves. Again, I nodded my thanks, but made sure to catch the Wife's eye as she handed off her own bag of books to another silent receiver nearby. She shrugged.

As I walked back to the car for my third set of books, I tried to understand why I felt a bit unsettled by the exchange. Should we have offered to help sort and stack the books on the shelves? Were we not supposed to bring old textbooks? I lifted another bag out of the car and carried it back, but this time, as both the man in fleece and the black-haired woman descended upon me, I tried to strike up a conversation. "So, are you volunteers here?" I asked.

"No," said the man in fleece. And then he took the bag from my hands.

"Oh, okay," I said and turned away. Wait, what?

I turned back and saw the man and the black-haired woman sifting through the contents of bag there in the same spot where I had handed it to them. And then it clicked: They were book scavengers. And it wasn't just one group -- there were multiple competing individuals at work here. They weren't putting these books away or choosing a few to read themselves -- they were taking the best of them so they could resell them elsewhere.

I met the Wife at the back of the car. She had clearly just had the same realization. "Is it bad that I don't want to give my books to them?" she whispered. We quickly debated the pros and cons of dropping off our books here. It felt as if somehow our posessions -- as valueless as they were to us -- were being preyed upon before we had even set them down. And yet, that was silly. Why shouldn't someone else profit off our old books? Weren't we going to donate them anyway? This way, maybe they would get recirculated to other communities and even other countries that might actually want old physics and psychology textbooks. Right? It seemed to make sense, sort of.

I quickly grabbed the last bag from the trunk and took it over to where a woman with two sets of eyeglasses strung around her neck was waiting. I set the bag at her feet, the way one might tentatively leave an offering before a goddess prone to sudden fits of anger. "Okay, then. Thanks," I said and backed away slowly. She didn't return the acknowledgement and started to pick through the paperbacks that had gone unfinished on our shelves for years.

The Wife already had the car running when I slipped into the passenger seat. "Why do I feel so used?" she asked as she threw the car in reverse.

"I don't know," I said, "but let's get out of here."

And that, my son, is the story of the sacrifice we made to give you your own bedroom.

what i learned from 2007

Okay, okay, so I'm a bit behind in posting the annual "what I learned last year" list, which is an idea I stole from Jeff. To be honest, I've had to think about it for a while this time. But here ya go, loosely in chronological order:

1. You can't come up with rational explanations for the actions of irrational people. Don't bother trying to understand these people or why they do the things they do. It will begin to affect your own sanity -- and most importantly, your happiness (and that of the people around you.) Just do whatever it takes to get the irrational people far away from you, or yourself from them.
2. You are rarely ever stuck. You may think you're stuck, but usually it's within your own constraints (such as fear or misperception or financial comfort level, etc.) There is usually a way out. Sure, there may be a tradeoff for taking this way out, and you will have to evaluate it carefully. But you're not truly stuck.
3. Work with people who appreciate what you do. Now, if you're doing something poorly, you should improve rather than seek out people who think poorly is just fine. But if you're doing something well and you're still not appreciated, then take your talents elsewhere. There are better ways to spend your time than trying to win the approval of people who refuse to give it.
4. Things you thought you never liked can be more fun than you realized. Like skiing. And coding. Ok, I admit it. So there.
5. Diversity of experience is more important than length of experience. I used to worry that my propensity for jumping between jobs -- and even industries -- would eventually be a problem for some potential employer who might think I'm unfocused. But then I started to notice that, at each new place I worked, there was always a group of long-time staffers who had been doing the exact same things, with the exact same tools, in the exact same way for years. And they had no reason to believe that there might be flaws in their current way of doing things, or more efficient tools for doing them, or even that they had the ability to do different things. Meanwhile the people who were truly coming up with creative solutions were the ones who had different skills and perspectives that they could apply to the problems at hand.
   
   That may sound self-congratulatory or as if I'm trying to defend my resume. But really it's a note about what I look for in others' resumes, and perhaps a warning about complacency to my future self.
6. The "official" results can sometimes be wrong. When it matters, verify on your own. Then verify three more times.
7. Parts wear out. That goes for humans as much as it does for cars and houses and technology. I don't have any good advice for this one. It's just something I learned in 2007.

the ultimate Christmas album

A few years ago, I was complaining yet again about traditional Christmas music, and the cheesy Christmas-sweater-wearing guys who sing it, when the Wife smartly suggested I put together a CD of Christmas music I actually would want to listen to. And so a tradition was born -- one for which I spend way too many hours scouring iTunes in search of both modern renditions of traditional holiday songs and entirely new holiday songs by modern artists.

Here's what got onto the CD this year:

• The Christmas Song, The Raveonettes
• Don't Shoot Me Santa, The Killers
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Bare Naked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan
• A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So), The Flaming Lips
• Father Christmas, The Kinks
• Christmas Time, Aimee Mann
• Home on Christmas Day, Cyndi Lauper
• I Saw Three Ships, Sting
• Christmastime, Smashing Pumpkins
• Christmas, Leona Naess
• Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), U2
• O Holy Night, Tracy Chapman
• Christmas All Over Again, Tom Petty
• Silent Night, Stevie Nicks
• 2000 Miles, Pretenders

Here are some other selections that have made it onto CDs in years past:

• Calling on Mary, Aimee Mann
• Thank God It's Christmas, Queen
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Smithereens
• Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Bruce Springsteen
• Do They Know It's Christmas?, Band Aid
• Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight), The Ramones
• Happy Christmas, John Lennon
• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Pretenders
• Heavy Metal Christmas, Twisted Sister
• Oi to the World, No Doubt
• Lonely Christmas Without You, Mick Jagger
• Christmas in America, Melissa Etheridge
• Here is Christmas, Heart
• I Believe in Father Christmas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
• Children Go Where I Send Thee, Natalie Merchant
• Yellin' At the Xmas Tree, Billy Idol
• Ave Marie + Intro, Chris Cornell and Eleven

parts wearing out

The surest way to realize that you're getting older -- that your body is getting older -- is to inexplicably injure yourself doing the exact same thing you've been doing every single day for years. And I'm not even talking about one of those crick-in-the-neck sort of things you feel when you wake up some mornings, but rather the type of injury that sneaks up on you one unremarkable afternoon and makes you say out loud, "Ooh, that smarts."

Better yet, make it a slow-healing injury that disrupts everything -- the way you work, the way you sit, the way you drive a car, even the way you sleep. But absolutely, absolutely make sure it has no outwardly visible symptoms. That way, you can surprise even yourself with just how fake your excuse sounds when you say, "Sorry, I can't help you with that right now on account of my injury."

blue heron, richmond, ca

san diego, continued

Walking down the main street through town, we surprised a family of deer (and they us). They'd apparently been forced out of the canyon to the road's edge to find food.

post-fire, san diego, ca

ashes from hippos

Last week was a bit on the tense side, what with my family, G's family, and the families of many of our childhood friends being evacuated from the paths of the Southern CA fires. Depending on where each family's home was, they were forced to do little for 24-48 hours but sit with whatever few possessions they had gathered up and wait for the release of the next "homes destroyed" list that might have their addresses on it. Fortunately, our families' addresses never showed up on that list. Some of our friends and acquaintances were not so lucky.

It's surreal to turn on the news and see folks like Matt Lauer and George Bush standing in the neighborhoods where you went to pre-school, where you learned how to do pop-a-wheelies on your bicycle, and where you and your friends would take the trails up into the hills late at night and confess everything while looking out over the lights of a sleeping town.

Except, Matt and George don't see that town -- they only know it as a disaster zone, lot after lot of blackened rubble.

We've had bad fires threaten our hometown before. It's not something unimaginable, out of reach, like so many other potential disasters often seem. Both of our parents were evacuated in 2003 as well. One Fall, maybe a decade before, I was on the roof watering down the old wood shingles, trying to keep them from lighting up in case an ember blew over from the nearby canyon. Even earlier, in my pop-a-wheelie days, I remember hearing that a large fire had reached the nearby wildlife park and proclaiming macabrely that the ashes snowing down all over the streets were those of rhinos and hippos.

Because of this familiarity, and because there often tends to be advanced warning, threatening fires like these don't usually make me think tritely of life and death and the ephemeralness of it all the way other disasters tend to. Instead, they have me thinking about property. What could we bear to lose if it were all to go up in flames? What would we be thinking about as we sifted through the rubble once the politicians and reporters had gone back to their homes?

Sometimes I like to believe none of it would matter: that I could walk away and, so long as G were right there with me, the rest would all just be stuff -- just the objects that any two fortunate, middle-class people living fortunate, middle-class lives in a fortunate, middle-class version of America might choose to surround themselves with. But then I have a particularly tough day at work, or the weather is particularly unforgiving, or a particularly heinous accident unnerves us on the way home, and I come through the front door and shut it behind me and lock out the things I do not want to get to me and I realize all over again just how much there is to lose.

You see, ours may be a modest home by Californian standards, but it -- and the stuff in it -- offers us something that few other places on this planet can offer: protection from the world when we need it, whether it's protection from the elements, or from people who would hurt us, or cheat us, or argue with us, or don't think we're capable of achieving what we know we are; protection from big things but also little things -- from offices that are too hot or too cold, from trees that trigger allergies, from music with too much screaming, from uncomfortable chairs, from sheets that are too stiff, blankets that aren't soft enough, from boredom, from bad news.

The world as you want it: that's the real benefit of home ownership. A financial investment it may be, but if you're doing it right, it's an opportunity to create an envelope that seals you and your world from the one outside for just as long as you need.

It's true that if it all were suddenly to light up orange and then turn black and then grey and then to dust, you could eventually work your way back to creating another envelope in another home. And perhaps, with time, you might even feel that the new place was again impenetrable as the first. But that time in between? The loss seems overwhelming.

redesign: the post office

As I stood in line at the local post office this afternoon, muttering under my breath at all the people in front of me -- in particular: the guy with the lamp that he decided to wrap only after reaching the counter; the woman with the home business who showed up with three sacks full of badly wrapped t-shirts to ship; and the two aging grandmothers who, separately, wanted the clerk to show them every single stamp design in the catalog -- I was reminded yet again of why I hate the post office so much, and why I only go once or twice a year when I have no other choice.

The only good thing about the experience is that it gives me a chance to daydream about how I'd redesign the place to make it more efficient. Here's my plan:

First, get rid of the one-line-fits-all-needs model. Break it up. When you walk in, you should see several clearly marked areas of the post office. Need stamps? Over here. Need to mail a letter or some documents? Over there. Need to send a package? That counter. Need bubble wrap? The packing table. Don't know what you need? The info desk. Right away, the wait time is reduced because you don't have to stand behind every single person in the building.

Next, rely more on self service. You shouldn't need to stand in line and talk to a clerk just to buy some packing tape. At the packing table, slide your credit card through a slot in a vending machine and pick your own supplies. Likewise, the majority of people don't need to talk to a clerk to send an international, express, or oversized letter. They just need to know what their mailing options are and how much each costs. How about a scale and a quick way to find out how much postage I need? (And no, I don't mean leave a scale on a table in the corner like they do now; the "quick way to find out how much postage I need" is critical.)

Finally, use technology. In the scale example above, why not let me set my letter on a kiosk that automatically measures the weight, scans the address, and gives me all my mailing options on a touch screen? Once I select an option and pay, the kiosk prints out a mailing label and I'm on my way. A similar kiosk system would work just fine for stamp buyers who want to see what else is available besides the American flag booklets. Now, your grandmother can flip through the entire catalog on a touch screen. Want to see more stamps with birds? Easy. Like the kittens? Here's more. What are other grandmas getting? We'll show you.

Of course, change requires incentive. And a postal service that has a $5.4 billion deficit is not about to invest in an overhaul of its customer service centers -- at least, not when it doesn't have to worry about competition. (It's the same problem with the DMV.)

Maybe then the biggest change the postal service can make to become more efficient is to open up standard mail delivery to competitors. Isn't the US long past the point where it needs to nurture the postal communications network? At this point, if a private firm can find a way to get a letter to my relatives' mailboxes faster and cheaper than USPS can, why not let it?

more questions

Is it possible to address a letter by just writing the Zip+4 code on the envelope?

diy

Many years ago, I applied for a job at Microsoft, was flown up to the Mountain View campus, and was put through eight hours of infamous Microsoft interview questions. You know the type: brainteasers intended to reveal to the interviewer how I solve problems. Most of the questions were standard riddles, like, How do you match up three light switches in one room to each of the three light bulbs that they control in another room while making as few trips as possible between rooms? (Hint: there's a way to do it in one trip.)

But one question, toward the end of the day, caught me off guard. The interviewer asked, "Why do the drainpipes of sinks have P-traps on them?" (P-traps are that curve in the pipe under the sink.)

At the time, I thought it a pretty strange and irrelevant question. (Yes, more so than the one about the ratio of blue paint to red paint in two buckets where the same spoon has been dipped into the red one and then the blue one and then back into the red one.) After all, why would someone applying for a job at Microsoft need to know how the plumbing under a sink works?

If I remember correctly, I figured that since the trap often gets clogged -- like the time I tried to put a whole colander of old spaghetti down the garbage disposal -- the trap must be for, well, trapping chunks of food before it gets into the sewer system. Not quite, the interviewer explained. Turns out that getting clogged is actually an unwanted side effect of the P-trap. Its real function is to stay full of water so that sewer gases don't come back up into the house.

I didn't get the job -- not just because I didn't know what a P-trap is for, but also because I wasn't much for brainteasers back then, or perhaps because I generally wasn't all that bright at the time. But anyway, for the most part, I soon forgot about the seemingly silly P-trap question.

It wasn't until not too long ago, when G and I bought our house, and when I suddenly realized that I really like do-it-yourself projects -- and suddenly found myself fixing leaking drains and pulling toilets off their bases and rigging washing machines so as not to overflow -- that I remembered the P-trap question again. And it was then that I finally understood what an interviewer could gain from asking such a question.

See, if I were to answer the question incorrectly, as I had, then it would be no big deal: the interviewer could assume that I simply had lived in apartments and dorms for a long time and never had to deal with plumbing. However, if I were to answer correctly, then the interviewer could immediately imply a handful of things about me -- like that I had at some point fixed a sink myself, and therefore had had to teach myself a new skill in a limited amount of time, and that I was the type of person who would do it himself rather than wait for a plumber to show up (and that I probably could have waited for that plumber but was just too cheap to want to pay one.)

In other words, the interviewer could find out if I was a do-it-yourselfer. And in doing so, they'd find out quite a bit about my personality.

It's clear to me now why I like meeting other do-it-yourselfers so much. Sure, we share a hobby in common. But also, I can be pretty sure that they're self-reliant people. They believe they can learn new things. They like to learn new things. They like to solve problems. They like to make things better. Sounds like the perfect qualities to look for in a new hire.

If I'm ever interviewing you and you want to impress me, find a way to tell me about how you spent the past weekend tiling your kitchen floor.

victoria

Parliament Building, Victoria, BC, Canada

little guy

We went up to Yosemite for a while last month. I'm just now dealing with the photos. And this ain't the best of them, but I swear that's a bear cub hanging out on that limb.

so many questions

Why do the express lines at the supermarket still allow people to pay by check?

Do Safeway executives really think I'll be a more loyal customer if their clerks mispronounce my last name while they hand me my receipt?

Why doesn't Krazy Glue just give up and admit that the only thing it's good for is bonding your SKIN together?

mr. amit went to washington and then he came back and was incommunicado for weeks

It's true. I went to Washington D.C., and gave my two presentations at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (which wins the award for conference with the most descriptive title), and I even flew in a day early to help out at the conference's "Day of Service" which entailed a fun day of teaching residents at the country's largest homeless shelter how to refurbish computers, and then stayed several days after to complain about the precipitous drop in temperature while eating at a bunch of great D.C. restaurants with M and K (who are making their first appearance on this blog I believe, congratulations.)

And it's true that I have come back from D.C. and have not said anything about how after coming back I left my job at TechSoup and have started to contract for several startup firms and have been doing so for slightly more than half a week now and have been doing so out of my home office and, despite having to get used to the somewhat sudden switch in environment and pace, have been increasingly enjoying the improvement in my quality of life.

mr. amit goes to washington

It's been pretty hectic around here for the past month, and it's about to get even more so. I'm off to DC on Tuesday for the Nonprofit Technology Conference, which means there's plenty of work to get done before I go (including a couple presentations to prepare for.) (Not that I've been procrastinating on preparing my presentations, of course.) (Trust me, they'll be good.) (If you happen to be at the conference, drop by and say hello.)

observation

It gets better as you get closer to home.

armchair anthropology

I've been trying to come up with a short list of the most important things I learned in 2006, so I can keep up what I started last year (based on Jeff's idea.) But I wasn't able to come up with anything really interesting -- it was one of those years -- until I saw a post over at Bluishorange about the insanity that is office small-talk.

I, too, used to despise office small-talk -- thought that it was dull, pointless, irritating, a sign that god is dead. You know, that sort of thing. I was the master of avoiding it. In the mornings, I could slip into the break-room unnoticed, fill my mug with coffee, and sneak away quietly like a ninja. In the hallways, I'd maintain course and breeze past you even if it looked like you were slowing down to really tell me how your New Years' was. And if you tried to strike up a conversation about your weekend plans while standing in the bathroom, I'd give you a look that left no doubt about which Circle of Hell I thought you should go spend some time in.

But over the past year, I've started to see how small talk really has very little to do with what's being asked or said. Hearing that your coworker did "you know, not a whole lot, just hung out with friends" for New Years' or telling the guy in the marketing department that you "hope the weather holds up this weekend" isn't really the point.

Rather, it's all about social protocol. The whole "nice day out, huh" exchange in the elevator is really about saying, "Hey, I'm human; I acknowledge your presence and that you're human, too; I speak your language; I'm not going to attack; Oh, and I acknowledge that there's this thing called the Sun outside; If we do business, I'll likely be a fairly functioning being in that transaction."

So, that's what I learned in 2006. I'm not saying that all the questions about what people did over their holiday are completely hollow or that everyone should go running around thinking they're social geniuses when they ask whether you're "working hard or hardly working." But if you ask me if I have any plans for Martin Luther King day, I'm a whole lot more likely to answer without sarcasm these days.

Oh, but I am still likely to give you a dirty look if you try to strike up a full-blown conversation in the bathroom. Because that's just weird, dude.

don't forget the sunscreen

Ah, San Diego. One of the few places where you talk about "summer car care tips" in late December.

life tips

1.
Now, I don't know much about things that end in "Faire," but it seems to me that if one were to find one's self in the apparently embarrassing position of having shown up to a Renaissance Faire wearing clothes that would be more appropriate for a Dickens Faire, it would be possible to alleviate the situation simply by throwing one's arms wide and shouting, "Behold! I am from the future!"

2.
Men, the skinny black pant is not for you.

that time of year

I'm adopting a new strategy for my Christmas shopping this year. Everyone's just getting whatever shows up in my Amazon.com Gold Box, in the order it shows up:

Merry Christmas, Honey, it's a Black & Decker Auto Clamp!

Dad, it sounds like the Pike Street Flannel Sheet Set in Holiday Patterns would be right up your alley!

Mom, you're going to need batteries for that Norelco Multi-Trim All Purpose Groomer.

Uncle Gupta, if you really don't like that Pike Street Wraparound Throw in Three Colors, I'm sure you can trade with the nephews for their copy of Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in America.

...

I really have to reset my Amazon account.

observations

I am enjoying a bottle of Hefeweizen from Gordon Biersch, a local brewery, when I notice that the label describes the beer as being full of "citrus, bubble gum, clove, and banana" flavors.

I stop and imagine what it would be like to mix those ingredients together in a bowl and dip a spoon into it.

Gak. I am no longer enjoying my bottle of Hefeweizen.

~ ~ ~

Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness is quite good. It's a look at the buildings and styles that have inspired us throughout history, woven into a convincing explanation of what that all means about our own beliefs and longings as humans.

However, I'm noticing a certain undercurrent in de Botton's similes and asides that makes me wonder if the author's home life wasn't on a, uh, solid foundation at the time he was writing the book...

P.12: People "...have imagined living in unattainably expensive houses pictured in magazines and then felt sad, as one does upon passing an attractive stranger in the street."

P.22: "We may need to have made an indelible mark on our lives, to have married the wrong person, pursued an unfulfilling career into middle age or lost a loved one before architecture can begin to have any perceptible impact on us..."

P.182: "Over generations, these codes prevented architects from using their imaginations; they hand-cuffed them to a narrow palette of acceptable materials and forms, and, like the institution of marriage, restricted choice in the name of delivering the satisfactions of restraint."

splitting hairs?

What's worse: Having to oppose someone who's just absolutely convinced that they're doing the right thing -- or someone who knows they're doing the wrong thing but does it anyway, whether out of spite or some other motive.

take a bow

Most funerals claim to be a celebration, but one that I attended the other week really got to me. The service was somber and moving, like all. But then, at the end, as the pallbearers approached the casket, one let out a sharp whistle and began to clap. The other pallbearers immediately joined in and pretty soon the whole room was applauding -- not for those who spoke during the service, but for the person we were there to commemorate. It was the final thank you, the ultimate gesture of respect, as if to say, "Great performance; job well done."

Whatever I end up accomplishing in my time in this world, I should be so lucky to earn such praise at the end of it.

yikes

We were enjoying a great day at the beach, near where we were camping for the weekend, when suddenly the lifeguard came cruisin' by in her truck, telling people to get out of the water -- and fast. The reason? A great white shark was just spotted nearby.

bookmark

This one is for the in-laws, since I've been boring them with some of my posts recently and since every good editor knows it's never wise to alienate the core audience:

The latest issue of Fortune magazine features a half-page flap titled "Executive Bookmark: Required Reading." The items on the list are all about environmental issues.

What's item #5? The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture, by Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne.

oh not too much

This is a little late but, if you asked me last week what I did over the weekend, I probably would have told you, "Oh, not too much. Just caught a ferry over to a little Korean island in the Yellow Sea and had barbecued clams and oysters on the beach with a couple new friends from San Francisco and one from Kathmandu."

Not a bad way to spend the day.

And yes, our host, who owns the little beach restaurant, is wearing a San Francisco 49ers cap. I don't think he understood why we were so excited to see him.

mr. amit goes to korea

I'll be at the OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters' Forum in Seoul this week, moderating a panel featuring Craigslist's Craig Newmark, Ourmedia.org's J.D. Lasica, and Witness's Bryan Nunez. We'll be talking about the technologies that are enabling (or could enable) people all around the world to contribute news, opinions, and stories to media organizations large and small.

I'm only there for about three days, mostly at the conference, but if anyone's got tips on what I absolutely must see or do in Seoul, let me know.

Successories

This photo (taken by Michelle on our half dome trip a couple weekends ago) is just begging to be turned into one of those "Successories" motivational posters. I can see the title now:

EXHAUSTION
Think it's bad now? Guess what buddy, you've still got to get your ass off this mountain before sundown.

half dome, 8am

Six hours later, we were standing at the top of it.

a real winning streak

That's the glass from my car window -- now on my seat. At least the bastards didn't get the radio they seemed to be after.

What was I saying yesterday about trying to fight the chaos?

the absence of entropy

The past month has brought a lot of chaos to our lives -- unexpected bills, ruinous weather, surprise changes at work, sudden phone calls from the hospital. So to cope, we have had to create our own sense of order -- have had to apply it to those things which we do have some control over.

Hence, the abandonment of the old black-and-white minimalist Web design.

Also hence, the replacement of the overflowing standpipe in the laundry room; and the repair of the long-jammed garbage disposal.

And the installation of the new light switch in the bedroom. And the hanging of the photos we had framed half a year ago.

We did it all this weekend. And to tell the truth, we didn't set out with the explicit purpose of making a stand against entropy. But once we got started and realized how good it felt, finally, to put things right again -- to make progress even -- we just couldn't stop.

Not that all the other issues aren't still waiting for us tomorrow. But for now, if just for one night, we're going to bed with that restfulness that comes with knowing we've got it under control.

small gods revisited

Remember those small gods I was referring to the other day? The ones that are supposed to keep snails from getting underfoot and umbrellas from popping inside out?

I forgot to mention the little god who keeps trickles of rainwater from finding their way inside your kitchen wall and slowly building up until it ruins all the Sheetrock and forces you to knock down most of that wall you had just repainted a few weekends earlier.

And they're forecasting even more rain for tonight, lasting through the week.

We're not the only ones the gods have abandoned, either. Jeff's house got hit, too.

just crunched a snail

I would have said something about all that nice weather we had a week and a half ago and about how quickly the restlessness and the anxiety and the depression disappeared. But then the gods decided we hadn't suffered enough and unleashed some storm so horrible upon us that it literally blew the downspouts off our gutters.

And it's not just the major gods getting in on the beating here, but the little ones too -- like the one who's responsible for keeping your umbrella from flipping inside out when you're trying to look nonchalant as you stand on the train platform. And the one who keeps all the snails and worms off the pathway from your garage to your front door so you only have to make that "I just crunched a snail" face maybe once or twice a year at most. Even the one who's supposed to protect the native buckwheat plants that your kind neighbor brought over last summer so you'd have something to plant in the strip of dirt that's between the sidewalk and the street.

* * *

On an unrelated note, here are just some of the many, many incredible and horrifying things described in A.P Maudslay's translation of "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico," a first-person account written in the late 1500s by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador who accompanied Cortes on the first expedition from the Old World to reach Mexico City:

• The discovery of two Spaniards who had already been living for years amongst the Mayans on the Yucatan peninsula -- one as a slave and the other as a respected member of the community.
• The reunion of Dona Marina (the native translator who was offered to Cortes as a slave but later became his mistress) with her mother -- the woman who had turned Marina over to traders when she was just a child.
• The intentional sinking of the fleet so that none of the conquistadors could desert the expedition.
• The realization that the "special" slaves that some tribes were holding behind bars were being fattened up like veal.
• The priest who counseled Cortes that destroying ancient Indian idols was probably not the best way to get the village chiefs to adopt the Virgin Mary as their new idol.
• The daring climb to the top of a volcano -- the first the conquistadors had ever seen.
• The initial march down the causeway to Mexico City, past island cities, floating gardens, lofty temples, and thousands of Aztecs who had come out of their homes to see white men and horses for the first time.
• The constant exchange of gifts between Cortes and Montezuma.
• The numerous expeditions that the Governor of Cuba sent to arrest Cortes and prevent him from starting a settlement in the New World.
• The discovery of Montezuma's treasure room.
• The palpitating hearts pulled from human sacrifices intended to appease the gods.

where your collar comes away

The weather has finally gotten to us. There is no other explanation for this mood we've been in for days. No fights. No rut. No irritating ways of sighing loudly when the other person commandeers the remote control. Just the sub-40-degree nights that blow in around the leaky doors and windows, just the black umbrellas, just the waking in the dark, just the eating breakfast in the dark, the leaving work in the dark, the coming home in the dark, and the thought of waking again tomorrow in the dark, just the chill wind, just the chill wind hitting you where your collar comes away from your neck as you stand waiting for the train, just the steamed windows of city buses, just the absence of shadows, just because, just all of this, just wanting no more of this and just the rain, the rain, the rain.

* * *

I've remembered another lesson I learned in 2005: There are many interesting and fun people in this world, but when it comes down to it, I am most impressed by those who possess the following two qualities:

• Kindness. Not simply politeness. Not diplomacy, though that's slightly better. But true kindness. The kind that doesn't exist on nearly the scale that it should. Once, in college, tired, hungry, and achingly lonely after friends, family, and even mere acquaintances had left town for the holidays, I wandered into the only sandwich shop within walking distance of my empty apartment and, upon seeing that the owner had already put everything away for the night, was so stunned that I could do nothing more than stare, the owner, perhaps deciding to take a chance, chose not to chase me out and instead told me to sit down and proceeded to turn the lights back on and retrieved the cold cuts from the fridge and the day-old bread from the bin and made me the driest, mealiest, yet wholly nourishing sandwich I suspect I will ever taste. That kind of kindness.
• Competence. Anyone can run a business and manage to get by. Anyone can write software and come up with a decently functioning program. Anyone can pour coffee and get it in the cup. But do it with skill -- do it so that everyone in the company is working toward the same goal, do it so that the program is not only elegant but solves a difficult problem, do it so that the brew is fresh, the liquid hot, and the lid snapped tight around the cup when you hand it to me -- and you will have my respect.

so this is the new year

Happy New Year. I bet you're still trying to turn all your clocks back one second, aren't you?

* * *

Jeff has the right idea -- instead of focusing on resolutions for '06, he's thinking about what he learned in '05. Here are a few things I learned last year:

1. People will follow the leader. If the boss arrives late for work, spends most of her time in the office with the door closed, lets staff members argue hostilely during meetings, promotes unskilled people just because she needs to fill an open position, and never gives anyone feedback -- positive or negative -- you can bet that most of the people who report to her act the same way. On the other hand, if the boss takes the time to train each of her direct reports, gives them feedback on their progress, and encourages them to openly discuss and debate ideas for making the organization better, chances are good that they will turn around and do the same. (This lesson applies to politicians, too.)
2. Don't waste time worrying that the next step might lead to a fall. If you don't like where you are -- and your reasonable attempts at making things better aren't working -- then it's time to move on. If you still dislike where you end up, then you can always move on again.
3. There will always be something around the house that needs fixing. Your attempts at crossing everything off your to-do list are futile.

the only people who

So, back in September, the marketing department at Simon & Schuster sent me a review copy of Untouchables, by Narendra Jadhav, in the hopes that I'd comment on it here.

You see, the kind folks at S&S apparently didn't realize that the only people who read this site are my wife, my in-laws, and the occasional ex-girlfriend who Googles my name to verify that her lot in life has indeed turned out a whole lot better than mine.

In any case, I was skeptical -- but I said I'd take a look at the book as long as I didn't have to guarantee a good review or anything like that. And they said they were fine with that. So I did take a look, and the thing is: It's actually a captivating read.

The subtitle pretty much gives you the synopsis: My Family's Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India. You could say it's a more uplifting companion to Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance.

Go get yourself a copy.

confessed

Leaving the theater where we saw Capote last night, we both confessed that we had, at one point in our lives, assumed that Harper Lee was male... and looked like Gregory Peck.

bloodletting

Man, I am a weenie when it comes to lacerations. Last night when that knife went right through the thumbnail and into the flesh -- hooee! There was a moment there when I thought I was about to get friendly with the kitchen floor real fast. Thank god the Wife got home and patched things up when she did. No wonder married men live longer.

But you should have seen that dinner: handmade spinach lasagna noodles layered with goat cheese, ricotta and roasted eggplant, onion, bellpepper and tomato. Plus, plus, a delectable all-vegetarian minestrone. And there are leftovers, too. Can I follow a recipe or what?

By the way, if you're keeping count: this clearly makes up for that rubbery cake I produced for the Wife's birthday a few months ago.

a bed of lies

I like to think of myself as a fairly smart guy. You know: I can calculate tips of varying percentages without needing a calculator, I don't fall asleep before finishing a New Yorker article, I never use more than one exclamation mark at a time -- that sort of thing. But it seems my wits are no good when pared against cunning mattress salesmen -- or one cunning mattress salesman somewhere in the East Bay, to be specific.

To make a long story short, I found out today that, for the past six years, I've been sleeping on a full-size mattress when I thought I was sleeping on a queen.

That's right, I measured my mattress today (because it's about time we finally get it off the floor and put it on a bed frame, don't you think?) And guess what? My mattress guy pulled the old switcheroo! And I didn't notice for six years!

Oh, sure, go on. Laugh. Ask me why I didn't get out the measuring tape a long time ago -- like when I first bought queen-size sheets and they were just a little bit too big for the bed? Why haven't I ever wondered why my feet stick out over the bottom of the bed at night? Why did it take me six years to figure out that I got duped by a mattress salesman?

I assure you, there are good answers to all of those questions. For instance, imagining one's self to be taller than reality might have something to do with it. But let me ask you something: Has it really come to this? Do people really get out the measuring tape and verify that their mattress is indeed the size that the package says it is?

I have so, so much to learn.

The worst part is, the bed was a decent size for the Wife and I yesterday. Now it feels like we're sharing a coffin.

"One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense.

"If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful.

"Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever.

"I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to a man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account.

"Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect."

-- Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
    (Paragraph breaks are mine.)

Originally, I was supposed to have written about the space shuttle launch on location at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The article would have been part of a series of pieces I'd been working on for Wired News for the past four months.

But then the launch got delayed and so my photographer and I came home.

Eventually, the launch was rescheduled for today, and I was supposed to have watched it live on NASA TV and written about it from the office. It wouldn't have been an ideal scenario, but it would have been something.

But then, yesterday, Wired News laid off its writing staff.

So instead, I watched the launch on the Today Show (because the online version of NASA TV was bogged down). Matt and Katie chatted for a couple minutes about the problems that NASA has been having and then went on to a segment where they patted themselves on the back for arranging to get a scholarship for a young amputee. This was followed by an interview with an actress who's appearing in a new movie about online dating.

As of an hour-and-a-half after the launch, the Wired News page that advertises my series of launch-related articles still claims that NASA may attempt to launch the shuttle on Tuesday, July 26. Stay tuned for further updates.

Right. Good luck. I'm going to go make myself a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats.

hey d.j.

O, Florida,

I have let go of my anger over what you did to America in 2000. I have stopped shaking my head over what you did to those medical students.

I have even learned to get past my annoyance with the toll boths that you've conveniently placed. every. two. miles.

But there's just no excuse for what you call radio out here.

I mean, really -- Axle F is on your regular playlist? Seriously?

on a conquest

Everyone's got comfort items.

For instance, in the days right after Sep. 11, 2001, when it seemed like every stranger on the street might suddenly turn and attack me for the way I look -- and a few actually did, though only verbally, thankfully -- I was up to two and sometimes three cans of Coke a day.

I didn't really need the extra sugar. I just found something relaxing about that damned red can.

Right now, my item is literature.

I dropped by the bookstore tonight in search of Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness and Studs Terkel's Working.

Take from that what you will.

Actually, though I'm a fan of Russell, I hadn't heard of The Conquest of Happiness until I started reading the bibliography to Scott Berkun's The Art of Project Management the other day. The title may make it sound dry, but trust me: Berkun's book should be standard issue for anyone who works in an office.

Anyhow, the bookstore didn't have The Conquest, but I happened to walk past Bill Clinton's My Life, which is now in paperback, and I couldn't help picking it up.

A few steps later, I walked by the audio version. On the package it said "Read by the Author."

Of course, I had to get it. If there is any more comforting voice than his, I have yet to hear it.

somewhat slow and anticlimactic

There is something to be said about not having anything to say.

*

I've recently finished David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day, which was not a bad thing to have had with me on the morning commute for a few days. But I think I was expecting the essays to build up to something more than they did. Sure they're mildly amusing, but then what?

Also, Camus' The Plague was somewhat slow and anticlimactic. Not nearly as good as The Stranger or, in the plague genre, Jose Saramago's Blindness.

If anyone would like to debate this or simply has some insight into whatever allegory The Plague represents (besides "evil"), I'd be interested to hear it.

Next up: Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father. It's non-fiction, so perhaps I'll be a little more accepting of the story than I was of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.

*

Oh, and lest you think I'm nothing but a critic -- I'm writing again. Fiction, I mean. At least, I'm trying to, whenever I can spare an hour in the evenings. Nothing concrete yet, just trying things out again. We'll see where it leads.

the grass is greener on our side

In the morning, when I left, there was nothing but a brown field. When I looked again, in the afternoon, a thin green carpet had come up through the soil.

Something from nothing: this is the joy of conspiring with nature.

(More dirt stories over at Sweat Equity, a house blog...)

i didn't disagree

In the darkness of the Ajanta caves, I snapped a picture of a 2000-year old painting and was immediately accosted by an angry attendant who, though I couldn't understand his Hindi, was no doubt about to throw me out because I had neglected to turn off my camera's flash.

I didn't disagree with his take on the situation -- the paintings were clearly fragile and I had clearly taken a photo with flash. But the thing is, I hadn't meant to. In fact, I had made it a point to turn the flash off when I entered the cave. But, I was also using a new camera and, most likely, had disabled some other function instead.

Seeing as it would have been pointless to try to explain this to the irate attendant, the best I could do was put my head down, let him escort me to the door, and wish dearly that I knew how to say I'm ashamed in Hindi.

home

You thought I had abandoned you. And to be honest, there was a time when I considered it. After all, there is a point when you have not spoken for so long that it seems there is nothing more to say. But then you remember an anecdote. Or you force yourself to remark on the weather, or a book you just read. And slowly, you learn to make conversation again.

*

Though the trip to India lasted just two weeks, I have stretched it out for another two by reading A Fine Balance on the recommendation of a friend at work. Somehow, Rohinton Mistry has managed to capture everything I remember about Bombay from my summers there -- and then some -- from the way vendors market their wares on the sidewalks, right down to the descriptions of the beggars and their various deformities. It is only now, after having finished the book and putting it away for a few days, that I feel like I've left the country.

Of course, we never saw the worst of what Mistry describes. But, still, I am incredibly envious of his talent. It is the story I wish I had the capacity to write.

Regardless, you should get yourself a copy.

singapore

I have been to Changi International Airport in Singapore a half dozen times in my life, and it looks bigger each time. It is the sort of place where they hand you a map just so you can find your way around.

Seriously, you could live here. There's a 7-Eleven in this place, not to mention enough fancy stores to fill a mall. And dozens of free Internet kiosks. You can even play Xbox games over in the arcade.

We wasted most of this opportunity, sadly, and opted instead to check into one of the airport's guest rooms, which you can rent in blocks of 6 hours at a time. Then we had an omelette made from fresh eggs at Joe's Griddle.

If we have more time before our flight, I may insist that we go check out the swimming pool and jacuzzi.

utah, day ii

You open your eyes just minutes before the three alarms that you have set are to go off. It is 3:45am. You turn off the buzzer on the clock radio. And the one on the cell phone. And the one on your other cell phone.

To your surprise, you are wide awake.

On the road, there is nothing but a dashed white lane line reaching out beyond your headlights to where you can't see anymore. To your left, darkness. To your right, darkness and more darkness, which you assume is the murky expanse of the Great Salt Lake.

You wonder if the salt in the lake makes everything float.

At the gas station, you wait for the clerk to make change. He looks gruff, weathered. And you ask him how the drive to Dugway is. "Lonely," he says. You laugh at this. But then you realize that he isn't making a joke. And you walk back to your car with two bottles of water and a packet of trail mix with the realization that you are the boisterous city slicker in this picture. Just another khaki-clad visitor amongst the descendants of ancient, tired settlers.

Or, at least, you make yourself feel that you are.

The road to Dugway is not as lonely as you would like. Pickup trucks blow by in the darkness at 20 mph over the speed limit, even though there are signs warning you to look out for cattle. The trucks rush up behind you, their headlights growing brighter and brighter like full moons until finally they are gone, hidden just inches behind your rear bumper. They pass you on curves that are marked with double-yellow lines. You keep expecting to find a twisted wreck around the next bend, but, thankfully, you never do.

It is still dark and you wonder if there are mountains nearby.

At the entrance to the Dugway Proving Ground, you board the bus with the other reporters, glad to get out of the cold. Later, in the sweltering heat of the desert, you will wish for it to be cold again. But for the time being, you zip up your jacket and settle gladly into a window seat where you can keep an eye on the military guards and their machine guns.

The sun rises over the edge of distant mountains.

They set you up on folding tables in a hangar in the middle of the desert. This is where you watch the helicopters take off. And this is where you and dozens of others crowd around a television monitor to watch a close-up of the space capsule tumble out of the sky. It is 9:58am.

The capsule hits the ground like an asteroid, burying itself in a crater three feet deep. You think you a hear a thud when it hits, but you know that can't be. It is, after all, 30 miles away.

You file updates every other hour, calling back to your editors on the West Coast with the one cell phone that gets any reception. Between those calls, you sit. And you wait. And when the press conference starts, you frantically take notes and arrange facts into neat story updates. And then you sit. And then you wait some more.

What news? Is the capsule intact? Will the mission be saved?

You eat a $2 hotdog that looks more hot pink than light brown. You hold up your press credentials for the guards with the M-16s to inspect each time you return from the bathroom.

By 3:30pm, you know there are likely to be no more major updates for the day. You head home. Or rather, for the hotel an hour and a half away. The drive is lonely.

All the news channels are replaying the capsule's fateful drop. Fight Club is on F/X. Tomorrow, there will probably be another press conference. Early.

You are tired, but you can't sleep. You close your eyes and try to sink, but you only float.

utah

Landed in Salt Lake City earlier in the day. Maybe I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to do in this town in the summer, especially once you've walked down to the temple and back. (If anyone's got any ideas, let me know.)

Of course, I should be working on my article. But who wants to sit in a hotel room when it's sunny and 80 degrees out? Besides, the WiFi only works in the hotel lobby.

At least there'll be some excitement tomorrow -- I'm due at the Dugway Proving Ground in the middle of the desert to cover this. Let's just hope I can get up at 4:00am for the two hour drive.

magic mushroom

The Wife found this oddity in a carton of mushrooms the other day. I made her throw it out. There's no way I'm letting a mutant mushroom get near my salad.

Seeing the little weirdo reminded me of one Saturday morning, a year or so ago, when I cracked an egg into a bowl and found three yolks inside. After tossing the triplets, I cracked another egg from the batch and found yet another three yolks jiggling up at me. Another egg, another trio of blondes.

This continued through all twelve eggs -- I kid you not.

Though the episode had me thoroughly creeped out, I must say that I am somewhat intrigued by the thought that, on some farm somewhere, there is a crotchety old hen that consistently lays triple-yolkers.

survive out there

It always starts the same way. First there's the tingle high in the back of the throat. This is followed almost immediately by a stuffy nose. And within the hour, I'm sneezing and looking for the Cold-Eeze.

By morning, it's a full-on cold.

This will be my third one in three and a half months. And I'm beginning to think I am the reason that Procter & Gamble's stock is on the up and up.

Take note, my friends: Going back to an office job after working from your safe, clean home for two years is one of the worst things you can do for your health. How the heck do all of you survive out there?

Oh well, at least I'll sleep soundly tonight knowing that the money I earn from my schemes will one day allow me to retire to a germ-free life.

Simple Rules

Though I'd like to pretend that I pass the minutes away on my morning and evening commutes by thinking grand and wonderful thoughts, the truth is that most of my time is really spent crafting silent missives to the ridiculously annoying people who are everywhere.

Seeing that this is the case, I have decided to publish the aforementioned missives here so that I may return to thinking grand and wonderful thoughts (or that I may, at least, begin thinking them.) Please study them carefully.

Rules for Riding Public Transportation

1. Upon arriving at the turnstyles, have your ticket in hand and positioned such that it slides neatly into the appropriate slot at the side of the turnstyle. Should you realize that you have neglected to prepare your ticket in hand at this moment, get out of my way. For god's sake, do not stand in the turnstyle and block traffic while you search through your Gucci knockoff.
2. Once on the platform, politely join the appropriate queue and wait calmly until your train arrives. Should the arriving train turn out to be one that is not headed in your direction, step aside and get out of my way. Whatever you do, do not remain in queue, thus forcing others (namely, me) to fight their way around you to get on the train.
3. A corollary: Should the arriving train indeed be the one that will take you to your destination, wait your turn and be mindful of the passengers who are departing onto the platform. Do not try to get on while I am trying to get off. This will most certainly result in your receiving the worst sort of nasty glare that I can muster.
4. For many, the morning and evening train rides are a time for reflection and meditation. Should you feel the urge to answer your mobile phone, whose ringtone you have set to the William Tell Overture at the highest possible volume, tell your caller that you will return his or her call once you depart the train. Do not yack on and on in a manner that reveals to everyone else in the train just how terrible you think it is that Fantasia broke her shoe.
5. On occasion, the train car will be so full that some passengers will be required to stand in the aisle. Should this happen to you, be mindful of the passengers who are fortunate enough to have found seats. Do not stand so close that you are waving your backpack -- or worse yet, your crotch -- in their face.
6. It is an unfortunate fact of life that we all, at one point or another, will fall ill and our heads will, inevitably, fill with mucous. Should this happen to you, stay home. Please.
7. As with all social outings where people must gather in close proximity to one another, good hygiene is a must. If you have not brushed your teeth or masticated a pack of Listerine Oral Care Strips in, say, twelve hours, you should not board the train. Please.
8. When your train arrives at its destination, stand and calmly file out once the doors open. There is no need for pushing or shouting -- unless, of course, you are standing in my way. In that case, there will be a moderate amount of pushing and shouting.
9. And finally: Singing along with your iPod at any time is expressly forbidden.

I highly recommend that anyone who wishes to partake of the wonders of public transportation study and memorize these simple rules. If you are found to violate any one of them during my commute, rest assured that I will find a way to smote smite you.

out of business

I went and got myself another phone, in case you were wondering. It's actually the same phone, but a slightly newer one in which the stupid "can't change the default make-me-sound-like-a-fourteen-year-old-wannabe-rapper ringtone" bug has been fixed. I suppose that makes it a slightly more tolerable phone, although I just realized that this makes it my seventh cell phone in five years. Those rat bastards got me good.

Oh, and I also went out and got myself a job. Of course, I already had a job, but no seems to have noticed. I swear, if another well-meaning relative begins a sentence with the phrase, "So now that you've got a job..." or says "It's so great that you were able to find a job in this economy" or muses "It must be hard not to have so much free time anymore" ....

What did you think I was doing with my time for the past two years -- licking food stamps? Sitting in queue outside the dole office?

In any case, there is some truth in that last comment, about the free time. Shaving every morning, fixing your lunches, ironing your shirts, making sure you don't wear the same sweater two days in a row, buying BART tickets, getting to the train on time, waiting for the bus -- these are the things that tend to shred all your free time into strips that are too short to finish a New Yorker article, but just long enough to ponder why the concept of the central office still thrives despite every indication that people are usually better off working elsewhere.

Speaking of which, I've got myself my first office illness since I quit my last office job a couple years ago. It's an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness head cold. I'm not sure if it's from the office itself or from someone on the train, but it's a real pain either way. They should make everyone wear sterile gloves when using public transportation. That'd put Nyquil out of business for sure.

Disarray

I had four articles due this week. Another one is due Monday morning.

It's a little past 11:00pm on Friday night. I just got off work.

I work for myself.

We're painting this weekend. Again.

The bedroom sounds as hollow as it did on the day we moved in.

The clothes are all over the living room. Also like the day we moved in.

The mechanics set the Honda on fire.

We're sleeping on the couch this weekend.

I'm not done with that fifth article.

I can't find my pajamas anywhere.

Tuesday will be better.

Fresh

If, for whatever reason, you haven't yet invited the wonder that is TiVo into your living room, consider this: TiVo lets you pause commercials so you can see all the fine print that the marketers don't really want you to see.

Take, for instance, KFC's new ad in which the company touts its "Kitchen Fresh Chicken." While the camera pans over buckets of tender chicken, the off-screen announcer tells you that the KFC stamp means that your food is "delivered fresh and cooked fresh in your KFC kitchen." But if you pause the picture on this scene, you'll be one of the fortunate few to catch this comforting tidbit splayed across the bottom:

Fresh claim not applicable to wings or in select areas on the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii.

Mmmm. Now that's good eatin'!

Kind Request

Dear fortune-cookie fortune writers,

This is a proper fortune:

This is not:

Please stop being lazy and come up with more of the former. I'm tired of finding dull aphorisms in my cookies.

Lesson

So SBC still still STILL doesn't have my DSL connection up and running. It has been weeks since I ordered it, and 10 days since it was supposed to be online. Anyway, they've lost my business. I've ordered a Comcast cable modem. I should have listened to you all. I've learned my lesson.

Update: The technicians at SBC have "discovered" that I'm too far from the central station to get DSL. It would have been nice if they had told me this before I waited a month for service. SBC is dead to me now.

Holidays

I ate too much. Definitely too much.

Letting the Days Go By

I try not to quote lyrics here or anywhere else for that matter, partly because it seems a bit grade-schoolish, and partly because I like to think I can be a bit more original than that. However, as anyone who has spent the better portion of his years listening to pop radio will tell you, it's simply impossible not to want to pair up certain songs with specific events in your life. And for that reason, I found it hard not to think of the Talking Heads this afternoon as I stepped out of the real estate agent's office holding the key to our new house.

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house,
with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself -- Well... how did I get here?

Of course, David Byrne was singing about losing it all when the money's gone, but even that's a bit too perfect. After all, when I pulled up to the curb outside the biggest purchase of my life, all I could think was, "Dear god, they let me have this?"

And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Maybe I'll have to ask Santa to bring me the new Talking Heads box set for Christmas this year. That is, if he can fit down our new chimney.

Relief

Thank god for Nyquil, the night-time, sniffling, sneezing, what-the-hell-am-I-doing-on-the-kitchen-floor medicine.

Sign of the Times

My four-year old niece, upon finding the fireplace in our 60-year old house, says to her father, "Daddy, where's the switch to turn it on?"

Magnitude

Hmm... I'm predicting that quake was a 3.1 magnitude, tops.

Update: Nope, it was a 3.9, apparently.

Updated Update: Oh, so now it's 3.7 is it?

If We Want

It has all been a whir lately. Somehow it is already November. And we have just bought a house. Well, we have not actually paid for it yet. But they say they'll give it to us if we want it. And we do.

I know I should write more on this topic. But like I said, it's all been a whir lately.

At the Same Time

I am both a bit awed and a bit disgusted at the same time:

Part Of Roy Horn's Skull Removed

The removed portion of the skull can then be surgically placed in the abdomen or frozen until it can be replaced, Hammargren said. He said he was told Horn's skull had been implanted in a pouch in Horn's abdomen.

The Name

It had to happen sooner or later. I was testing out a new spam filter and decided to change my email settings to use a fictitious name and address in order to try out a particular feature. Only, I forgot to change the name back when I was done with the testing. And so, for the last couple hours, I've been sending out emails as Dee Snider. Sorry, Dee.

Named

All my editors are named David. Well, okay, three of them are. But that's still a veritable lot -- provided that a veritable lot consists of at least three items.

In any case, this situation poses a problem for me each time one of the Davids calls up and says, "Hey, it's David. I have a question about the article you just wrote."

It's not that I don't want to be on a first name basis with these Davids. But you can see how this is just a sitcom in the making.

Anyway, the point is that I'm sure there are still other Editor Davids (or is that Editors David?) toiling away unnoticed in the offices of the publications for which I write. And I am sure they will come out of the woodwork soon enough. And when they do, they will refuse to identify themselves thoroughly just to spite me.

In One's Head

It is 2:20 in the morning, I am still trying to finish up an article that I have been working on for days, and I cannot find a single ballpoint pen anywhere.

Update: Now it is 7:00 am. I have slept for a couple hours, although I actually finished the article quite some time ago. The problem was that I lay awake for a while trying to stop myself from composing emails in my head. This soon turned to thoughts about composing blog entries about composing emails and all hell broke loose.

Before I went to bed, I did not find any ballpoint pens with which to compose a few notes, by the way. I did, however, run across an old charcoal pencil that I bought back when I thought I might like to try being an artist.

The good news is that I will be watching Radiohead in just about 12 hours. I do not think they sing any songs about ballpoint pens. Although, they may quite possibly have something to say about composing emails in one's head when one should be sleeping.

Then Say So

I'll bet you that it's written down somewhere that anyone with a blog must make a "pet peeve" post at least once in their lifetime. And since I'm not one to argue with requirements that may or may not be written down, here's my obligatory pet peeve post:

If you say you're going to do something by a certain time, then do it. And if, for some reason, it looks like you're going to be late, then say so before the deadline. That's all I ask.

These are simple words to live by, my friend. Adhere to them and you will go far. And you will annoy me far less.

A Poor Job

The apartment has reached its expiration date. Or rather, everything in the apartment has decided to expire all at once. First, it was the refrigerator -- which, despite being only a year old, got very loud all of a sudden. Not too long afterward, the ki