Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

CascadiaCon

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For the past few months, there’s been two different events on my radar for the Labor Day weekend that I was interested in: Bumbershoot and CascadiaCon. Some time ago, I’d decided to forego CascadiaCon in favor of Bumbershoot, but then over the past week I got a bit ticked at the Bumbershoot people over their “no cameras” foolishness, and ended up deciding that I didn’t want to head that way, either. So this weekend was looking to be pretty low-key.

Thursday evening Prairie and I went out for dinner with some friends from the Vogue (something that’s becoming a weekly event), and found out that Erin had been asked to showcase some of her clothing in a fashion show at CascadiaCon. Over the course of the conversation, I ended up getting asked to photograph the show, and Prairie was asked to be one of Erin’s models!

So, Saturday evening, Prairie and I headed down to the SeaTac Hilton, picked up CascadiaCon attendee badges at the registration desk, and found our way up to the designated “green room”. Prairie was soon buried in hair, makeup, and clothing, so I wandered back and forth between the green room and the conference room where the show was going to be.

The show itself was much fun — three designers showcasing four clothing lines (Imp of Satan, Fetishwear, Winter Couture, and Notorious Curves) in a late-night, 18+ only Fetish for Fantasy Fashion Show, hosted by Betty Rage of Glitzkrieg Burlesque and Cherry Baum (aka Mickey, who I know from the Vogue).

There are, of course, lots of pictures in a Flickr photoset. While my photos aren’t nearly “professional” quality (after all, there’s only so far you can push a little point-and-shoot, no matter how many dials and buttons they stick on it), I did the best I could. Here’s a few sample shots…

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The New Apartment

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Finally — pictures of the new apartment!

Each of the following shots has notes added if you click through to the Flickr page, pointing out some of the bits and pieces you see in the rooms.

And now…tour time!

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Sometimes predictions come true

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The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level — more than eight feet below in places — so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t — yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

— National Geographic, Gone With the Water, October 2004

A freakishly prescient look at what could happen if a major storm hit the New Orelans area. Well worth reading to understand just what happened, why…and some of the reasons it’s so bad right now.

I’ve been absolutely awestruck at the news reports coming out of the Gulf Coast over the past few days. I’m really not sure what to say other than that — the whole thing is just mind-numbing.

(article via Doc Searls)

No Cameras at Bumbershoot?

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According to the Bumbershoot website:

What is the camera policy at Bumbershoot?
Cameras are not allowed at Bumbershoot—please leave them at home.

So, there’s no public photography allowed at Bumbershoot this year?

The best word I can come up with for this is ludicrous.

Anyone out there have any more info? What’s the deal here? And how are they going to be enforcing it?

(And anyone feel like getting together on one of the days and blatantly defying the ban?)

(via Seattle Metroblogging)

Happy Anniversary!

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What with still being neck-deep in moving I’m a day late on this, but — yesterday was my parents’ 38th anniversary.

John and Berta

Happy Anniversary, mom and dad!

Boxes Everywhere!

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Our living room is filled with boxes. Some full, some partially emptied, some waiting to be broken down and taken out to the recycling…but it’s still a lot of boxes. Most of mine are still over at my old apartment, too. Uff.

The end result is going to be nice, but man is moving a pain in the butt.

Anyway. :) A quick recap, somewhat brief because I’m hot, tired, and fighting off a cold (which I’m going to blame on my little brother):

The weekend with my family was great. We hadn’t had a chance to have the whole family together since Kev and Emily got married about a year and a half ago, this was the first chance I’d had to meet my nephew Noah, and this was the first time Prairie was around my family as a whole — while she’d met Mom, Dad and Kevin before, it had always been separately as one or another of them was stopping through Seattle on a trip.

Noah’s a great little kid, too. Thirteen months old, and out to explore everything. Pictures from the weekend are, as usual, uploaded to Flickr.

Monday morning Prairie and I got up early, hopped in the car, and came back to Seattle. I crashed out at my apartment for a few hours while Prairie went off to the first day at her new job, and then we headed out to Ellensburg that night. Got up the next morning and managed to get her entire apartment packed into her dad’s truck and a U-Haul in just a few hours. We caravanned back to Seattle with me in front driving the U-Haul, Prairie following me in her car, and her dad behind us in his truck, corralled K, H, and P into helping us unload, and dumped everything into the new apartment. While Prairie and K got a few things organized and cleared a little workspace, the rest of us went over to my place to grab a full load. Back again, another round of unloading, and then we declared ourselves done for the day.

Now we’re in the process of getting everything unpacked, sorted, assembled, and put into its proper spot. I think this place is going to be a really nice little apartment once it’s all done…but we’ve got another few days worth of work to do before it’s really going to be ready.

So, things have been and continue to be busy here. More updates as time and energy allow.

Incommunicado

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The weekend from hell!

Well, not really, the next few days should be pretty good overall. They’re just going to be really busy, and probably not entirely unstressful. As such, I’m likely not going to be reachable or even online until…um…Wednesday, at the earliest. I think. No guarantees.

  • Today: After work, Prairie and I drive down to Vancouver (yes, down…the Washington Vancouver, not the Canada Vancouver) to visit her mom.

  • Tomorrow: Drive from Vancouver to Corvallis, OR for a family get together. My parents are flying down for their 37th anniversary weekend, and we’re all meeting up with my brother, his wife, and their kiddo (my nephew!) at their place for the weekend.

  • Monday-Friday: I’m on vacation for a week! No work! Yay! Not going to be resting for all of it, though…

    • Monday: Drive from Corvallis, OR back up to Seattle. Prairie’s got a class to teach that evening at one of her new jobs, then after the class, we drive out to Ellensburg to her apartment and meet up with her dad there.

  • Tuesday: Rent a U-Haul, and put everything Prairie owns into the U-Haul and her dad’s truck. Drive from Ellensburg to Seattle and put all of her stuff into the new apartment. Drive over to my apartment and grab the big stuff (bookcase, desk, dresser, futon, electronics, boxes) while her dad’s here to help and take all that over to the new apartment.

  • Wednesday: SLEEP IN! Sometime that afternoon the installer from Speakeasy will be by to hook up the DSL line in the new apartment.

  • Thursday-Sunday: Rest and relax in between trips back and forth between my old apartment and the new apartment to get all the rest of my stuff and do a cleaning sweep.

And then it’s back to the usual routine.

So…really busy, lots to do, and I’ll be electronicaly nonexistant. Analog only…meatspace all the way.

Weird.

In honor of the weekend’s family get together, though, I took a couple minutes to scan in some of the old family photos I absconded with last time I was up in Alaska. Some of these have been posted before, some haven’t, so sorry if I’m boring anyone with repeats…but if you’ve never seen ’em before, enjoy!

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Bad UI: Mozilla Thunderbird

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I’m honestly not entirely sure if I should be grumbling at Mozilla’s authors or Windows’ authors, but this drives me up the wall:

badUI.png

Those last two options are way too close together. If the only places for them to go are the last two items on the contextual menu, could there at least be a seperating line between them? I’m just glad Control-Z works after delete operations, or I’d be in a world of hurt, far more often than I’d like to admit.

(Admittedly, this is somewhat compounded with my having to use a mouse on the work computer instead of the tablet that I use at home, which is far easier, more comfortable, and accurate…but I still think this is a bad thing.)

Webpage Screenshots on OS X

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One of the perpetual “how am I going to do this?” questions that will pop up from time to time when working with websites is how to get a screenshot of an entire webpage. Most of the time it’s not at all easy to do, and unless you’ve stumbled across some specialized software, involves taking a screenshot of however much fits on your screen, scrolling down, taking another, repeating until you’ve captured it all, and then stitching the images together in Photoshop.

Enter Paparazzi for OS X: give it a URL and dimensions, and get a single image of the entire page. Quick, simple, and occasionally very handy.

A sample image follows behind the cut…

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