Elm City Dad | Elm City Mom



Interesting Mirages


A while back I wrote about how the BBC had opened up their archives. This blog is about various amazing documentaries you can find in that vast trove, and beyond. I'm keeping this site bookmarked for those nights when there's Jack and Shit on TV and we want something interesting.

One thing that is very interesting is the new 'Street View' from Google. Here are 15 of the best shots that wee roving Bug + 11-lensed camera captured. Part of me is freaked out by this. Part of me likes it. I suppose it'll be like most other strange things about the world and I'll just get used to it. It's rather amazing what humans can accommodate in this world.

The awesome photo up/right is from this guy's flickr photostream. He's got an eye for squirrels, that's for sure.

Vegas this weekend. Some friends are already there. So far I've been told to put $5 on 24 for my friend Sheila. If anyone else has some suggestions, I'm all ears.


Many Paths


I had no idea that MMW had spun out into so many different directions. Martin and Medeski with a new album. Chris Wood playing music with his brother. It's cool to see a band as cohesive and interesting as Medeski Martin and Wood feel comfortable enough to explore whatever sounds and ideas compel them. I get a Beastie Boys feel from them. No matter, what they are in it to win it, together, and to the day they die, they'll always be a band. (The Mix-Up comes out on June 26. All instrumental, as if you didn't know that already.) And while we're on music, give this quiz a try. It's album covers you know, but some of them are reversed. So just how well do you really know them?

My friends are taking the year to travel the globe. I'm gonna try and find sites that will help them on their travels. Happy Cow tells you where there are vegetarian restaurants, all over the world. Lu would have loved this while we were in SE Asia. And it would have prevented a lot of wandering around looking for veggie pho in Vietnam! The image to the right is from our trip to Ho Chi Min City. It's the telephone and electricity wires and it absolutely boggled my mind. I can't wait to hear what boggles theirs.


Battles


A video of a skirmish between David Blaine and a few of his magical victims was just passed to me by my good bud Marty (half man, half party). In his words "Please watch this...thank me later." I couldn't agree more. Via another friend, Matt, I give you an intense battle captured by tourists while on safari. By the end I was shouting at the monitor.

An altogether different type of confrontation took place in Estonia this weekend. The NYTimes article had me captivated on the Muni this morning. And it looks like the NYTimes has finally started to allow people to link to their articles via URLs that will persist after the article is moved to the archive. Pretty cool. Always before you had to pay for access to archived articles. There's more info about the Estonia cyberbattle here and here. I've read about this kind of stuff before, but mostly in William Gibson novels. Apparently, just like in his new book, the future is now.

Last softball game of the season tonight. A victory sure would feel good.


Home Again


Back in SF and it's a gorgeous day. Looks like it's going to be that way for a while, too. Got camping on the agenda for the upcoming long weekend, and I cannot wait. Trees, friends, campfires, river-floatin' and beers is exactly what I need.

It was really great to be able to help out the family for the last week, but it also showed me how difficult things are for both of my parents. What my mom is going through dealing with MS is awful. And the pressure it creates for my Dad is just enormous. I don't know how he does it. That Lulu and I will be able to help out once we move back makes me very happy indeed.

One very cool part of the trip back was getting to hang with my oldest friends. There's nothing quite like kickin' it with the people you've known since you were like 3 years old. And to top it off, my buddy Maze just picked a Wii and it's so much fun. I pretty much stopped playing video games in the middle of college and haven't gotten involved at all in the whole MMORPG scene that's all over the net, but Wii is something completely different. I picked up the controller and knew immediately and intuitively how to play each of the games. Tennis, Bowling, Boxing and Golf were all so much fun. The crazy part was that I sweating after 2 boxing matches and I was ready to keep fighting! Turns out the Wii can be part of a weight loss regiment. I'm not surprised.

Oh and that photo is by Lu, of the Kaboom fireworks, from the back patio of Red's.


McNeill's Brewery -> Bro's House


Finally made it to my bro's house. They have lived here for a while, but this is the first time I've made the trip and I can't believe it took this long. He and his wife live in the gorgeous mountains of southern New Hampshire. It was a great drive from West Hartford and it really brought me back to the time of my life when I lived in Boston. I've cruised these roads many times. The rolling landscape and thick forests I passed between are quintessential New England. I can feel the difference in the geography here, from the hills of SF, all the way to my core.

The way up here took me through Brattleboro, VT and that meant there was a stop I had to make. McNeill's Brewery is a longtime favorite of mine, but I haven't had their delicious beer in many, many years. I selected a tart, hoppy concoction called Dead Horse IPA (cask-conditioned) and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I first heard about this nanobrewpub years ago and it became a tradition to stop there whenever we were heading to Bread and Puppet in Glover, VT. Today I grabbed a few bottles on the way out, and I can't wait for my bro to try them. His very pregnant wife will have to wait!

It's quite wonderful to have a chance to see Melissa only days away from giving birth to my first nephew. I'm a little freaked out that soon I will have a new title. I can only imagine their feelings about becoming a Mom and Dad.


This Sucks


I'm very happy to be here at home to help the family, and the timing for my trip worked out very well. My youngest bro Mike left on Wednesday for a business trip and he has been able to go over to the rehab center nightly to see Mom and help Dad. But since he's gone, I can cover for him and make sure Mom always has one of us nearby.

But I tell you this: walking out of the center at 8pm when visiting hours are over and leaving Mom to sleep there all alone is absolutely heartbreaking. I can only imagine how awful it feels to Dad. My wife is fine, just far away and it sucks to not have her near. It can only be a million times worse for my parents. MS is a horrible fucking disease. But Mom is getting better and stronger day by day. She's the toughest person I know and I love her so much.


Trick Shots and Other Digital Fun


To the right is another image from Guatemala, but this time from Laura. I love the colors in this photo, and the way the little is nearly lost in the vibrant patterns around her.

a.placebetween.us is a great Googlemap tool. The name says it all. You need to meet up with someone, but you maybe don't know the area, and so this site tells you what cafes are half way between the two of you. Simple and useful.

Check out these 2 videos. First one is dominoes + pool and it runs out over 3 tables! Next is a clip of these 2 guys who have an amazing talent. I am 100% sure there was no trickery or special effects used. I'm just that trusting.

And the last bit for today is a site that is Exhibit A of why I love the net so much. It is over 5000 images from the LA Times and the LA Daily News, selected by researchers at UCLA, digitized and made freely available. The images span from 1920-1990 and they are really fun to look through. Pick a year and see what went down.

I'm on a plane tonight. Heading east for a little surprise visit with the family. Mom hasn't been well, but she's on the upswing and I want to be nearby to keep her company as she gets her strength back, and to give Dad some help getting things done. It's also Mom's 60th birthday on Monday and I really want to be there for that. I'm also quite excited that I'll get to see Melissa only weeks before the baby is due. That's going to be a real treat!


Singing in the Sunshine


Happy Friday! Gonna be a good night. Bustle In Your Hedgerow is playing at the Indy. Sure, it's a cover band, but the musicians are incredible and they're covering The Zep, so it's gotta be sick!

My brother's baby is due in about 33 days. As soon as he's old enough I'm getting the kid this book! Sounds like exactly the kinda stuff we loved to learn and play with growing up.

And this here takes you to a new form of art that has been created solely for the web. They are definitely a fun scroll.

Have a great weekend!


Pistel


These songs are really, really sad. I love some of them. (25, 23, 3)

It is wonderful to have your friends over for dinner. Especially when salmon is cooked.

And when you eat, you must drink something. Some people like wine. Others like beer. I like both.

Above is a flower (as if you didn't know that), while here are American myths. But the bottom line is I need to go to bed. Now.


Must... Not... Talk... Politics...


It is getting increasingly difficult to pretend that everything is okay. That is what we're doing, right? Pretending? It's been a fun game, but I'd like it to end now, please. Please?

No? Not yet? Okay. Instead I'll just gaze at what Scott captured out his Guatemalan window. Ahhh, much better.


Strike 3


Wow, what a weekend. Not only was the beer magically delicious, but the weather was spectacular both Saturday up north, and Sunday back in SF. After Saturday's 1pm-5pm Beer Extravaganza we headed back to the site to cook up some dinner, then somehow found our way to the softball field where a game of kickball was just, well, kicking off. After that it was time for some full-contact wiffle ball under the lights complete with arbitrary scoring, tackling, pegging, pig piles and hilarity in general. Truly, everyone won.

Alright, on to links. Here's a site that aggregates Ebay auctions that are still under a dollar with a minute left. Next is a site I've mentioned before, but it's finally available in beta: Joost. Lu and I watched an episode of Heroes on her Macbook the other day, because we missed it when it was on and the DVR didn't record properly. It was the first real TV show-via-computer experience for us, and it was quite pleasant. I find it rather amazing that it has become so easy to do that these days. The future of TV is happening now. Joost is the next step.

The next step for me, though, is out to the ballgame. Giants v. Mets. And even though I love SF and I really do like the Giants, B. Bonds is a jerk and I'd rather see him strike out than get another steroid fueled home run.


Faster


Wow. 33. Hard to believe. I thought 33 was an age for old people, but I certainly don't *feel* old.
32 was an amazing year. With planning for the wedding, the wedding itself, and then the whirlwind of those few months before heading off for Southeast Asia, this year has gone by rather quickly. But that's also a mathematical fact. As we move through life, from birth to death, we accumulate years. Your first year alive, it was 100% of the time you had been here. By the time you turned eleven though, that 10th year was only 1/10 of the time you've spent on earth. And the number only shrinks from there. Percentage-wise, this year was shorter and therefore, faster. If we ever figure out how to live past 100, those later years will be but blinks of the eye.

I always think of my birthday as the start of my own personal new year. The one on January 1st is a collective agreement to keep the calendar in line. But birthdays, for me, mark a moment of restart and return. I guess it's 'cause I'm such a space geek that I can't help but feel something fun and jittery about the idea that today this planet passes through the area of space where I first drew the air of this earth. I know it doesn't really matter to anyone else, but I love it. I love other people's birthdays, too. I love feeling, for one day, the un-feelable velocity of this planet around the sun. And at the speed we are moving, about 12 miles per second, that's pretty damn fast. (That's SF to NYC in about 4 minutes.)

Time to make some bacon and head to the museum. Gonna try and take this day slow. I only get one of them a year.


Scooped!!


So today Digg.com was essentially unchanged. There were the usual posts and a few referring to the insanity of the night before, but it seems that the ripple of the event has now spread out into different parts of the net. Here's a good roundup of what all went down and why it matters. Oh and today is a first here on thrunk. I scooped the NYTimes with my post last night! Incredible I know. Really it wasn't hard to do. Timing is everything! If only I had their circulation.

JazzFest is now
. We're not there. I wish wish wish we were in Nawlins this weekend. But the Boonville Beer Fest is a wonderful alternative. Camping + Delicious Microbrews + Friends = My perfect birthday.

So this is the type of house I'm certain Lu wants. It would be a rather amazing way to live. I also really liked the sound of the city described in this Wired article.

Alright, this post is deep with words behind those clicks, but I might as well stick with the theme: 20 crazy coincidences. I don't believe all of them, but they're fun to read.

I can feel the velocity of the Earth around the sun whenever it nears my birthday. My 32 year ends tomorrow.


Softball, Sur and Strange Net


Oh how sweet it is. Victory on the softball field tonight, and it was my first time pitching in many, many months. Apparently, the time off did me good. I was more confident and had better control than my previous trips to the mound. There were multiple one-two-three innings with fly outs or ground outs all the way around. Good stuff.

Here are our pics from Big Sur. Lu's new camera takes nice shots!

So surfing around the net this evening, I've stumbled across a rather amazing phenomenon. Over at digg.com, a user revolt is in progress. It seems that sometime yesterday someone submitted a site that contained a string of numbers and letters that is the code to crack HD-DVDs. Soon after that the company that owns the code told the digg.com owners that they were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since digg doesn't want to get shut down because of this stupid law, they deleted posts that contained the key. This set the users off, bigtime. In addition, it turns out that digg has taken HD-DVD as a sponsor in the past. Digg users are angry at the censorship by the digg administrators and in retaliation the users have filled up the entire story que and front page with joke submissions about and containing the code. The result is utter mayhem, and it will be very interesting to see the aftermath. Oh and as usual, Metafilter fucking nails it. That third comment is GOLD Jerry, GOLD.

Here's some more bizareness: 4/29 Truth! I can't tell if it's serious or a joke, but it is definitely a rather interesting look at the MacArthur Maze fire over in Oakland on Sunday morning. Careful where the links on that page lead you. Could end up on a government watchlist.

And if you need to tell yourself something in the down the line FutureMe can help.

digg update: as of 10:45, digg is unreachable. Also, here's a blog post from the founder from about 2 hours ago. Oh and here's a kitten with the key and the cracking code, in tune form (~wipes tear~).

Maze fire update: New info has come to light. Turns out it was all Ikea. Obviously.


Back from Big Sur


Big Sur was incredible this weekend. Waking up under those amazing redwoods was wonderful. Pix soon.

For now check out this recent Wilco show from Australia.



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