Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

You dirty pedophile…

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I was having a good day wandering around Myrtle Edwards Park for the Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s festivities until someone sicced the security goons on me. Apparently a parent had decided that since I was taking pictures of kids playing in the surf at one of the small beach areas, I was some creepy scumbag who had to be brought to heel.

One security guy came up to me and pulled me aside, telling me that there had been complaints that I was taking pictures of children.

“Were you taking pictures of children?”

Well, yeah, I had been, along with quite a few other things. Knowing this was a battle I wasn’t about to win, I offered to delete the photos.

“Can I see your camera?”

I pulled up the picture display and scrolled to the most recent shots. Sure enough, there was the damning evidence — pictures of fully-clothed children, playing in the surf on a public beach during a public festival. He keyed his intercom and called another security guard over to look at the shots.

The two of them flipped through the shots, shaking their heads. Obviously, I was Bad People and had to be Brought Under Control. After watching me delete all the offending photos from my camera, they explained to me that while they couldn’t really prevent me from taking pictures, they would certainly be keeping an eye on me if I chose to remain in the area. “We’ll be watching you.”

That being quite the mood-killer, I figured it was best just to leave.

Now, before anyone accuses me of being too self-righteous, what bugs me the most isn’t that some parent might have been a little alarmed about some strange man taking pictures of their kid. What annoys me is the “guilty until proven innocent” mentality that prompted them to run to security instead of approaching me and either asking what I was doing or, if I’d taken any shots of their kid, to delete them. The same mentality that made the security personnel treat me as if in their minds, I was there for the sole purpose of taking pictures of children to go home and masturbate to (regardless of the many other shots of landscapes, water, Mt. Ranier, the Seattle skyline, and the tripod slung over my shoulder for fireworks shots later on in the evening). The same attitude that finished the little interview — after I’d voluntarily deleted all the shots, with them looking over my shoulder — with the warning that, “we’ll be watching you.”

So, I’m back at home. I’ve got a ticket to watch Batman in about half an hour, and then I’ll see if I feel like wandering back down there to try to get some shots of the fireworks or not.

Happy Fourth of July everyone. You know — independence, liberty, freedom, and civil rights and all that.

Tsunami Early Warning System

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(Mom sent this to dad and me, with the following note attached: “My boss’ mailbox was full and I had to remove some items, which means forwarding them to my computer.  This was among them the ones I forwarded.  I thought my guys would appreciate this.”)

After the massive destruction of the south Asia tsunami, the Red Cross has decided to distribute FREE Tsunami Early Warning System/ Earthquake Detectors.

Earthquakes can be dangerous.

Especially at beaches where Tsunamis can occur.

Know the signs to watch for of a nearby earthquake!

Read more

Fanfic

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There’s a short article in Wired today about fanfic, with one bit that jumped out at me…

As befits its beginnings, the genre is planted firmly in pop culture’s nerd division. The films most often given the fanfic treatment – The Matrix, X-Men, and Pirates of the Caribbean – wing straight out of dork central.

Well, chalk me up as a pop-culture nerd living in dork central, as my one — and so far, my only — foray into fanfic so far has been a short piece called ‘Glitch‘…and yes, it’s Matrix-derived.

“This is useless, we’re wasting our time here. Let’s go.” I stood up, letting my chair roll back a couple feet behind me. “Dan?” Dan looked up at me, then nodded, getting up from his chair too.

“I don’t think leaving will be quite as easy as you expect,” said our host. He reached out and pressed the button on his intercom. “Could you come in now, please? We’re having some…difficulties…in our negotiations.” The door to the conference room opened, and the two thugs that had ushered us upstairs came in and took positions in front of the door.

Dan glanced at me and rolled his eyes, then shrugged. We’d had to fight our way out of rooms before — it’s not our preferred exit strategy, but sometimes there just isn’t an option. “You know this is pointless, Rourke,” I said. “You can’t hold us here indefinitely. Even if you tried, we’d already called in to the precinct before coming in here, so when we don’t report in, more police will be on the way.”

Rourke leaned back in his chair, tapping the table with his pen. “Maybe,” he said, “but you don’t play this game as long as I have without taking a few risks when necessary. We have a little time, at least, before your superiors start to get restless. So may I suggest, gentlemen,” — the pen stopped tapping as he leaned forward again — “that you sit back down.”

Okay, while it’s not likely to win any awards, it’s not too shabby, either. Feel free to give it a look if you haven’t seen it before.

Which fireworks display?

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Two out of the past three years, I’ve gone down to Gas Works Park for the annual WaMu Family Fourth fireworks display. However, seeing as how Seattle is blessed with two major fireworks shows, I’m considering switching over to the Fourth of Jul-Ivar’s event at Myrtle Edwards Park.

The biggest reason is simply convenience. Much as I’ve enjoyed the displays at Gas Works in years past, I have to bus out to it from where I live, and trying to get home afterwards can be a nightmare, with buses packed to capacity and traffic slowing to a near standstill.

Myrtle Edwards park, on the other hand, is an easy walk from my apartment, and it’d be far easier for me to get there and then back home afterwards. Besides…fireworks are fireworks, and no matter which park I head to, there should be lots of opportunities for good shots over the course of the day.

Has anyone local to Seattle been to both events (on different years, I’m assuming)? And if so, is there a definite preference for one or the other? Or does anyone have a house atop Queen Anne Hill for me to invade that would let me get a clear view of both? ;)

Office Depot bootlegs

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I stopped by the downtown Seattle Office Depot on lunch to do some coveting, and had to wonder how customers were expected to compare the quality of the various LCD displays when they were all playing a highly-compressed (crappy) video — possibly a VCD — of music videos taken from CMT‘s broadcast stream (complete with a “Ripped by…” banner that popped up every few videos).

I halfway considered saying something to the one employee on duty, but as he could barely manage to grunt a greeting at me as I walked by since he was so engrossed in watching a (highly-illegal) bad quality (overcompressed and the wrong aspect ratio) bootleg of Star Wars Episode III — yeah, the one still in theaters — I didn’t think that it would be worth it.

iTunes “Four Sticks” by Rollins Band from the album Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin (1995, 3:31).

Just a coincidence

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I’ve updated my original post to reflect this, but just to be perfectly clear, it does appear that North Shore’s “I’m just here to get laid…” shirt is nothing more than a coincidence, as I knew was possible.

From what I can tell from a couple quick Google searches, my I’m Too Sexy… shirts (“I’m too sexy for my blog” and “I’m too sexy for your blog“) are still one-of-a-kind, available only from my site and (sigh) CafePress.

Wo0t!

iTunes “Chickasuarus” by Pigface from the album Preaching to the Perverted (2001, 5:04).

Imitation, Flattery, and All That Jazz…

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If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I suppose I should consider myself flattered — either that, or there’s a rather surprising coincidence going on. Update: Coincidence! See the end of this post for more…

In October of 2003, I dreamed up my “I’m just here to get laid” t-shirt and put it up on CafePress, where it’s sold a whopping…um…five. Maybe.

One of the things about CafePress I’m not terribly fond of is that they don’t offer white-on-black merchandise, so for my birthday on May 3rd of this year, I had a white-on-black version of the shirt custom made. Since then, I’ve worn it around town from time to time, both to the Vogue and to the major festivals (Folklife, Fremont Solstice, and Pride), where it’s gotten a lot of good laughs.

Earlier today, thanks to a comment in Brandon’s LiveJournal (where I’m described very accurately and amusingly as “the kilt wearing skinny dude”) that North Shore Shirts (an offshoot of the local weblog Then You Discover) is selling a shirt that looks very familiar (aside from using a different font and ending with an ellipsis rather than a period). According to the store weblog, their shirt was introduced on May 30th of this year.

Admittedly, my first reaction was to get a little peeved — but then, I’m also running on about three hours of sleep today, and my temper can flare up pretty easily — but wasn’t too long before I just thought it was funny. Now, it is entirely possible that it’s nothing more than a remarkable coincidence that another Seattle weblogger would come up with a near-duplicate idea…but if it isn’t a coincidence, then I’ll settle for flattery.

Besides — they obviously have the ability to actually create and sell these things without resorting to CafePress or the like, which I don’t have the ability to do. A pity, too…after the number of compliments I’ve gotten on the shirt, I was starting to poke around various shirt printing sites to see what it would take to make a batch to sell myself. Looks like North Shore beat me to it!

So — if you think the shirt is funny, and would be satisfied with a fair-to-middling quality black-on-white CafePress version, pick one up here and I’ll get a whole dollar (ooooohhhhh…) for each one ordered. On the other hand, if you’d prefer a high-quality (I’m assuming) white-on-black version (and cheaper than CafePress, to boot), you can pick it up from North Shore Shirts, and I’ll get…um…the satisfaction of helping them out with their sales. Yeah. That’s it! ;)

(Oh, and North Shore…if this is all coincidence, then I like your sense of humor. If it isn’t coincidence, is there any chance I could get an “idea by…” or “inspired by…” link on that shirt’s page?)

Update: Word from Mikey at North Shore is that, as I said was very possible, it’s just a coincidence. She also pointed out that there are at least two other variations of the idea floating around out there.

Guess I’m not as creative as I’d like to think. ;)

Hopefully there’s no hard feelings left behind (I did recommend their shirts over mine, after all)…

MiS Day Two: 2005 Seattle Gay Pride Parade

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Day two of the “MiS (Men in Skirts)” weekend has come and gone. Rick, Kirsten, and Kory joined Prairie and I to head up the hill to this year’s Gay Pride parade.

We staked out a spot right about where I was last year, just in front of Seattle Central Community College. Over the past couple years, that’s become my favorite place to set up for the parade — wide sidewalks, so you don’t get too claustrophobic from the crowds if you’re on the sidelines; and a median divider running down the street that I like to hang out on, as it’s a great spot for getting photos as the parade goes by. Chas was just a bit up the street from us, and he came down to say hi before the parade and then again after everything was done.

I always forget how long this parade is. It started right on time (a pleasant surprise for Seattle), and wrapped up three hours later! I ended up filling three of my four Compact Flash cards (one 512Mb, one 256Mb, and one 32Mb) with photos, topping out the day at around 550 total. I’ve culled out about half of those for my Flickr photoset — I didn’t see any “oh wow” shots this time around, but there’s still a lot of fun stuff in there.

www.flickr.com

Once the parade was done, we all went down to Charlie’s for lunch, then split up. Rick went up the hill to the rest of the Pride celebration at Volunteer Park; Kirsten and Kory went off to go shopping, and Prairie and I came back home, as she had to head back out to Ellensburg. I grabbed a nap for a bit after she left, then spent a few hours working on getting photos ready until Kirsten and Kory came back.

After they crashed out for a short nap, the three of us headed back up the hill to hit the Vogue‘s Sunday night fetish night. Bounced around for a bit, saw some people I’d met a while ago but hadn’t seen in a good year or so (Toni and Deandra, and met their friends Kane and Teresa), and then headed back home round about midnight.

And with that, the Men in Skirts weekend is done. I’m blearily making my way through the morning, and the work week is about to begin.

Of course, on the bright side, there’s a three-day weekend coming up next weekend thanks to the Fourth of July….

iTunes “Leather” by Amos, Tori from the album Little Earthquakes (1991, 3:12).

MiS Day One

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Today was day one of what I’ve dubbed the “Men in Skirts” weekend, with a jaunt out to Golden Gardens Park for the Utilikilts 5th Anniversary party.

Rock Crab, Golden Gardens Park, Seattle, WAPrairie and I had a lot of fun exploring the park. Neither of us had been there before, so we bounced back and forth between the picnic and wandering up and down the beach. While clambering over rock piles and underneath a pier, Prairie got to show me a lot of sea critters that I hadn’t seen outside of aquariums before, from huge starfish to tiny rock crabs that skittered away from us after she kicked over the rocks they were hiding under.

Me, Frisbee, Utilikilts Annivesary Party, Golden Gardens Park, Seattle, WAThe picnic was also quite fun, with really good sausages and other potluck goodies to munch on, and quite a few Utilikiltarians (some of them employees, others, like me, customers and fans) chatting and playing. I spent some time playing frisbee out on the sand with Steven, Jenniviere, and Ben‘s daughter (amusingly, Ben and I know each other from Anchorage — long time ago) until my feet couldn’t take the hot sand anymore.

We ended up bailing out around 4pm, as there were chores to putter with at home (fun things like laundry and a little bit of straightening up for visitors tomorrow). Good day, a park that we’ll definitely be heading back to so we can explore it in a bit more detail, and much fun meeting some of the people behind the Utilikilt empire!

www.flickr.com

iTunes “Phorever People (D’s Mellow)” by Shamen, The from the album Phorever People (1992, 4:52).

Shake, rattle, and roll

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“Good night.”

“Good night.”

(pause)

“Did you feel that?”

“Yeah…what is that?”

“No idea.”

The entire apartment was shaking, slightly, but very noticeably, about once every second and a half or so. It felt like a small earthquake, except that it was far too regular, and it kept going.

And it seemed to be getting stronger.

I got up, tossed on some clothes, and started to see if it might be coming from somewhere in the apartment building. Someone banging on a wall, maybe? Some late-night work on their apartment?

It was a little stronger on the floor below us — strong enough that the door to the apartment directly below mine was rattling lightly in its frame. As I continued on my way downstairs, it kept feeling a bit stronger. I got to the ground floor and saw a girl from one of the other apartments out in the hall. “Do you feel the building shaking?” she asked.

“Yeah — that’s why I’m up. What’s going on?”

She didn’t know. It seemed to be strongest by the mailboxes. A few moments later another tenant came out of their apartment, then another, and another. Eventually there were eight of us, all wondering just what was going on.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” I said. “They’re doing a lot of construction on I-5 this weekend…that’s gotta be it. Some construction equipment pounding the ground for some reason.”

That made sense, and it seemed to be fading a bit, and people started heading back to their apartments. Prairie and I were quite awake by this point, though, so we decided to head out and see if our guess was right. Jim (one of the other tenants, and the one who recognized me earlier this week) came along, and we wandered the two blocks down to the Spring St. bridge over I-5.

Pavement breaking, I-5, Seattle, WASure enough, a few lanes of I-5 were shut down, and a large truck was slowly moving down one lane, a huge contraption on the back sending what must be an insanely heavy metal slab slamming into the pavement again and again, breaking it up to be removed.

We stood on the bridge and watched it for a few moments, feeling the bridge shudder with each drop, marveling at how heavy this thing must be. “You should have brought your camera,” Prairie said. That sounded like a good idea, so we came back, Jim went back to his apartment, I grabbed my camera, and we headed back out to the bridge.

Construction (817 Kb .mov)I took a few shots and a few seconds of video (things like this really are more impressive when you can actually see and hear what’s going on — a still photo just doesn’t give the same impression), and then we headed back home.

The building’s still shaking every few seconds, but it’s not as strong as it was…and now that we know what’s going on, instead of just being somewhat freaked out and envisioning the building foundation suddenly cracking and collapsing, it’s not as disturbing as it was. Prairie’s already crashed out, and I will be as soon as this post goes up.

A bit of an unexpected adventure on a Friday night. Kinda fun, actually.