Personal

Happy Birthday Jacqueline

December 10, 2019July 10, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Prairie and I spent a very pleasant evening last night at Jacqueline Passey‘s birthday party. There was a wonderfully odd mix of people there, as she’d invited people from all the various disparate areas of her life: webloggers, economists, libertarians, sci-fi conventionists, and school friends. Needless to say, this made for quite a few very interesting conversations over the course of the night, and we both enjoyed ourselves.

Her “crazy peace activist” friend Fred introduced us to a few pieces of slang that he’d discovered recently while following news from the troops in Iraq that he thinks might be recent additions to the long list of military slang soon to become part of the popular consciousness:

Salmon Day: You spend all day swimming upstream just to get fucked and die.
Adminisphere: The “powers that be” above your immediate superior.
Blamestorming Session: The process of determining who in the adminisphere is at fault after a salmon day.

We also met Mike Layfield, who created a Hexagonal Chess game that looks quite interesting. While I’m no huge chess player — my skill level is limited to knowing how the pieces move — the variant looks to be a fun twist on the game, and there’s even a java-based version I can practice on until I pick up an actual play set.

At one point we were treated to Jacqueline’s stump speech — she’s working on running as the Libertarian Candidate for Washington Secretary of State, and is working on getting the funds for her filing fee to officially launch her campaign. While I’m no Libertarian, I have absolutely no problems with the party doing their best to keep our elections as open as possible and keep themselves on the ballot, so I went ahead and donated a little bit to her campaign. Besides, I hadn’t brought a birthday present or card, so I figured it could count for that, too. ;)

Jacqueline had covered one wall of her apartment in butcher paper and left a box of crayons on the floor so that people could decorate her wall if they felt like it. At some point during the night, some unknown person scrawled a complex mathematical formula on the paper, and wrote “Limerick:” above it. This wasn’t discovered until later in the evening, after they left, and soon after the discovery most of the guests were gathered in the hallway, doing their best to solve the equation and figure out the limerick.

Now, my math skills are not anywhere near the level of math that had been written on the wall, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to help with solving the equation. However, while visiting the restroom, I started thinking about it, and realized that solving the equation probably wouldn’t help, as it would merely result in either a number or an expression, and wouldn’t actually produce a limerick — what they needed to do was find out how best to read the equation out loud, following the A-A-B-B-A structure that limericks use.

Unfortunately, by the time I got back to the group, one of the other guests — a math teacher at Shoreline Community College — had realized the same thing, and they were well on their way to solving the puzzle, so I didn’t end up contributing at all. Still, it was fun to watch everyone work it out, and Jacqueline got a kick out of having such a geeky party. :) She’s promised to post a picture of the equation along with the final limerick at some point, and I’ll point to it when she does.

At that point, both Prairie and I were pretty tired — I’d had to work the opening shift at work, so I’d been up since five in the morning (an incredibly rare event for me) — so we made our goodbyes and headed back to my apartment to crash out.

iTunes: “Hold On” by McLachlan, Sarah from the album Nettwerk Decadence (1993, 4:12).

Exploring Georgetown

December 10, 2019July 6, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Most days, my work schedule starts at 1pm. Occasionally, though, if we’ve had a slow week and need to save a little money on our payroll, I’ll be scheduled to start my day an hour later. Yesterday was one of those days — unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until I walked in the door and my manager laughed as he saw me walk in.

“Didn’t check the schedule, did you?”

“Argh — two o’clock?”

“Yup.”

Not a problem, though, as I simply dropped off my bag in the breakroom, grabbed my camera, and ducked out the back door to explore Georgetown for an hour. I’ve been working on poking around the neighborhood when I get the chance, usually on days like this one where I have some time to kill before work. Yesterday, starting from just by where exit 162 from I-5 empties out, I crossed Michigan and started following Corson to see where it went.

Georgetown’s an interesting little area of Seattle, though apparently relatively unknown to a good part of the city, as I’ve gotten more puzzled looks than anything else when I mention that I work in the area. Tucked in between I-5 and the Duwamish River and just north of Boeing Field, it’s not much to look at as you drive by on the highway, just another relatively anonymous strip of warehouses and industrial complexes, some bustling with activity, and some abandoned, waiting for new development or the inevitable march of time to pull them down.

But start wandering the streets, and you’ll find a lot of life hidden in the nooks and crannies of this seemingly barren area. The Georgetown residents that come through my work are generally rather proud of their little section of Seattle — and there’s a lot of history here to be proud of. Seattle’s first settlers arrived in what became the Georgetown area about a week before the Denny party arrived, though it was the Denny party that has received the lion’s share of the credit for founding Seattle. The Seattle Brewing and Malting company (later to become Ranier Beer) got its start here, as did Seattle’s first railroad. The first powered airplane flight in Seattle took off from Georgetown’s Meadows Race Track.

Increasing industrialization and the construction of the I-5 highway prompted the gradual decline of Georgetown through the latter half of the century, but long time residents never lost their sense of community, and the neighborhood has been showing more signs of life in recent years. Relatively cheap housing and warehouse space has led to a number of artists setting up shop in the area, mixing in with the already existing industrial businesses, and I’m often amused by the mix of customers that come wandering through my store. During the day we get primarily white- and blue-collar businesspeople working on business proposals and engineering plans, but once the business day ends the clientele becomes dominated by local artists working on their latest creation, punk bands creating flyers for local shows, and political activists out to change the world. It’s a fun mix.

I followed Corson down to where it hits East Marginal Way, then crossed Marginal and followed 8th Avenue until it ended at a tiny little park overlooking the Duwamish. A small trail led me down to an outcropping of mud and debris jutting a little way into the river, and I took a few moments to stand next to a rotting pier and watch the river roll past. A barge was moored across from me, idle cranes on the shore stretched overhead. Geese idly paddled back and forth just off the bank, bobbing up and down on the wake from a passing private motorboat.

Turning, I climbed back up the hill and found a small memorial stone bench on the crest, overlooking the river. Later that evening, discussing my wanderings with one of my customers, I found out that the inscription on the stone was dedicated to Tim O’Brian, something of a local Georgetown celebrity who fought hard to preserve the neighborhood, its buildings and the river, who passed away just a few years ago. “You found a great piece of this funky little neighborhood,” she said, smiling as she turned to leave the store. “Keep exploring.”

I plan to.

(Cross-posted to Seattle.Metroblogging.)

iTunes: “Riverhead” by Prick from the album Prick (1995, 4:39).

Memo to me

December 10, 2019July 5, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Trying to read 700+ weblog posts from the last few days, import CDs, and delete upwards of 100 spam comments one by one all at the same time results in getting less done, not more.

Funny, that.

iTunes: “Come On In Out of the Rain” by 12 Rounds from the album My Big Hero (1998, 4:25).

4th of July at Gas Works Park, Seattle

December 10, 2019July 5, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Even after having seen it almost every year since I’ve been down here, it always amazes me just how many people can fit into Gas Works Park for the annual July 4th fireworks show over Lake Union.

While in past years I’ve headed down to the park just a few hours before the show was scheduled to begin, this year Prairie and I decided to make a day of it. We packed up books, munchies, and lots of sunscreen, and headed out to Gas Works Park just about the time they opened the gates at noon. We managed to find a parking spot relatively close, only about six blocks away from the entrance, wandered our way in, and started the process of staking out a spot for the day.

Initially we set ourselves up on the side of the hill overlooking the lake, but I took a moment to go explore, remembering where I’d been the year before. Sure enough, the lawn on the other side of the old gas works looked far more inviting — less people, quieter, and still with a perfect view of the barge that the fireworks are launched from — and we soon moved over there.

The rest of the day was very pleasant. Reading, napping, enjoying the sun, and a lot of people watching. I’d occasionally wander around the park with my camera, snapping random pictures of the families out enjoying the day, then find my way back to our spot to flop back down again. We’d hit Twice Sold Tales on Broadway the day before, so we were both set with reading material for the day — Prairie with a few Stephen King novels and Roald Dahl books, and myself with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, a fantasy series I’d enjoyed as a kid and have wanted to re-read for a while.

Prairie had also brought along a couple bottles of bubble fluid, which soon caught the attention of a couple little boys seated near us on the lawn. Initially happy to run along and pop all the bubbles they could, soon they decided that they wanted to blow bubbles too, and I suddenly had the younger of the two standing next to me, declaring that it was his turn to blow. I let him blow some bubbles while his brother popped them, then they switched…but it wasn’t long before each of them had appropriated one of our bottles of bubbles and were quite happily wandering around, sending bubbles floating across the sky.

Kites, of course, are always a popular summertime activity, and Gas Works Park generally has the perfect amount of wind for perfect kite flying. While most people lined up on the side of the hill to fly their kites, you could easily find them popping up from among the crowds throughout the park, and we had one little girl just in front of us who spent a good portion of the day flying her kite — or running back and forth trying to get it back up into the air when the breeze died down for a few moments.

Eventually the sun started to set, and the open spots on the ground started to fill as all the people wandering around the park grounds filtered in to find seats to watch the fireworks. The one slight down side to the day was that now that I’m using a fancier camera than my old point-and-shoot, I had to guess at the correct settings to use for catching pictures of the fireworks…and as I found out when I got home, I didn’t guess quite correctly. A slight disappointment, as it was a good display, and I’ve gotten some rather surprisingly good fireworks shots in the past, but not a terribly big deal all told.

Once the show was over, Prairie and I just stuck around in our spot for as long as we could to let the first major crush of people leave. Getting home took a while, of course, with post-show traffic backed up all over the place, but it didn’t seem to be nearly as bad as we’d feared (I’d never driven to and from the show before, always either taking the bus or walking with friends), and we made it home right about midnight, almost twelve hours to the dot after we’d left that morning.

(Interestingly enough, Prairie and I both noticed that while there were Kerry supporters out in full force, there were no Bush/Cheney signs, campaigners, or anything of the like at all that we could see. Not that I’m complaining in the least, I was just somewhat pleasantly surprised by that.)

All in all, a very good day. Hopefully all of you had an equally enjoyable Fourth (for those of you that celebrate it — otherwise, I hope you at least had a good day). And for those of you who get today off of work — I’m jealous!

iTunes: “Magnificat” by Industrial Monk from the album Magnificat (1998, 8:55).

Independence Day

December 10, 2019July 3, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Have a happy and safe 4th of July, everyone.

iTunes: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Mormon Tabernacle Choir from the album Sony Classical: Great Performances 1903-1998 (1958, 4:44).

Unintended consequences

December 10, 2019July 1, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

A few months ago, I was contacted by a writer for a national magazine who wanted to interview me regarding my fallout with Microsoft. Turns out that the magazine he writes for was planning a story on some of the things that can suddenly and unexpectedly go wrong when weblogging (such as blogging yourself right out of a job). I was one of a few different webloggers interviewed for the story, and we spent about two days doing the interview in two phone sessions. It seemed to go pretty well, though at times I wondered if my story was a little on the boring side — no book offers, movie deals, incredible job offers or anything along those lines, just the incident itself and then life proceeded more or less as it normally does.

In any case, the interview was fun to do, and I was looking forward to eventually having my story (and possibly my photo) pop up on newsstands across America. Unfortunately, at the time the Powers That Be eventually decided that there wasn’t quite enough material (not just with me, but with all the other webloggers that were interviewed) for a full feature, and the story was shelved.

However, it appears that it’s possible that not all is lost. I got an e-mail yesterday from the reporter who interviewed me letting me know that there is an attempt being made to resurrect the story! To do so, though, they’re looking for more material — and here’s where you all come in, if you’re able and willing.

They’d like to expand the scope of the story to go beyond just employment difficulties, and include stories from people who have suddenly found their relationships affected by their weblogs. Here’s the note I got from the reporter:

Hey! The editors…are trying to ressurect our blogging story. So I just wanted to let you know that all hope has not been lost.

BUT, we’re desperately trying to find other “My Blog Ruined My Life” stories, esp. ones that have more to do with relationships than employment.

Can you please recommend any major blogging sites where I should look, or to contact their administrators, or, if you can tap into your readers and ask them if they’ve ever had a romantic/dating blowout w/ someone because of their blog — that’d be helpful.

Now, as I put this post together, I realize that this may strike some people as being rather sordid and muckraking — and, to be honest, for all I know it may be. However, at the time I was interviewed, that was not at all the impression I got from the gentleman who interviewed me. Yes, we were talking about some very unfortunate events in my life for a story about weblogging which focused on the problems that weblogs could cause, but at the time, I didn’t get the feeling that it was going to be overly sensationalistic in nature. It’s entirely possible that with the change of focus of the article, the tone may change as well — which, admittedly, would be something of a shame.

I’d hate to eventually find out that the final story focused solely on the “dark side” of weblogging, painting a picture of webloggers as a legion of sad, jobless and loveless souls pouring their hopes, dreams and inspirations out through their keyboards and onto the web in a desperate attempt to find justification and company in the few kindred souls that might end up poring over their writings in the wee hours of the morning, the wan light of the monitor washing over their skin as they avoid the troubling dreams that they know await them when they fall asleep.

(Whee — I like that. But anyway…)

Of course, I’m merely an interviewee, and as such, won’t really know what the final article will be like until it finally sees the light of day and hits the newsstands. But, really, I’d like to see the story come out, and so I turn to you, my loyal readers. If you know of any good resources or any potential interview subjects that may be willing to tell their stories, I’d love to hear about them so that I could pass them on to the reporter.

I’m sure that the venerable LiveJournal is a veritable fount of such stories, but I’m not active enough with LJ to know where too look or which communities to poke into. There’s also the web at large and the multitude of TypePad, Movable Type, WordPress, Blogger, and other assorted weblogging/journaling tools, but I don’t know of any stories that fit the bill off the top of my head.

So — anyone have some good pointers?

Update: I just sent the following to the reporter, expressing some of my concerns with the apparent new direction the article may be taking. Hopefully I’m not shooting myself in the foot and editing myself right out of the article with this, but the more I thought about it, the more it started to concern me.

I do have one concern, though, which I touch upon in my post (and which, admittedly, could be entirely unfounded…or even if it’s not, it may not be something you have any control over). At the time you interviewed me, I never got the impression that this was going to be an overly sensationalistic story, though it was dealing with some unfortunate circumstances. However, expanding the scope to include relationship issues, coupled with the “my blog ruined my life” concept — well, I now worry a bit that the story may end up painting a rather unflattering portrait of weblogs and webloggers in general.

While weblogs are becoming more known and more popular, there is still a large segment of the general population that sees them as nothing more than online journals for angst-ridden teenagers to whine to the world (often doing so with absolutely atrocious and nearly unreadable grammar, slang, and ”leet-speak’). One of the reasons your story interested me when you first contacted me (at a time when, to be honest, I was getting rather tired of rehashing the events around my dismissal) was that I got the impression that it was going to look at both the bad and the good of the situation and the aftermath, both for myself and for the other webloggers being contacted for the article. Now, though, I’m a little less sure of the tack that the final article will be taking.

Of course, I’m quite aware that I may be reading too much into what you sent me (and even if I’m not, it may be out of your hands). All in all, I’m just hoping for a good article, and wanted to let you know of some of my concerns. However it turns out, good luck with the current round of searching, and should I get any worthwhile pointers from the post on my site, I’ll pass them your way.

Orchids

December 10, 2019June 28, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

One thing I stumbled across this weekend that I’d never seen before was the Volunteer Park Conservatory, which has five different sections filled with all manner of plants, from cacti to orchids. I’ll definitely want to head back up that way again and try to get some better shots, but for now…

iTunes: “Pale Your Mind” by La Morte De La Maison from the album German Mystic Sound Sampler Vol. I (1990, 4:21).

Sunburn

December 10, 2019June 28, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Ow. Ow ow ow.

Even with sunscreen, I think six hours in the sun for yesterday’s Pride events was a bit much.

I am so red.

Ah, well — it’ll fade and heal within a week or so, so I’m not really that worried about it. I just feel a little stupid when I see myself in the mirror right now. I figure that I get one “stupid” day each summer where I quite handily roast myself, and yesterday was most definitely that day.

iTunes: “Blowpop Generation” by DJ H. Geek from the album Heaven Says Move (1999, 6:48).

Seattle Pride Parade and Festival 2004

December 10, 2019June 27, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

All the recent attention on gay rights, marriage, proposed constitutional amendments and the like have directed enough attention on the gay community to allow the Seattle Pride festivities to expand to two days, and I spent some of yesterday and much of today wandering around and enjoying the show.

As always, I took a ton of pictures — 364, in fact, most of which are from today’s Pride Parade. I’ve uploaded the entire kit and kaboodle to my photo gallery — you can start at the beginning, or just click on Miss Broadway to jump straight to the beginning of the parade. Kick back and enjoy!

Update: Nose to Signal also has a Pride gallery up.

Update: Another gallery, from Nina Forsyth.

iTunes: “Tripnotized Vol. 3 (Part 2) (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Tripnotized Vol. 3 (full mix) (1996, 1:03:43).

KMFDM at the Fenix Underground

December 10, 2019June 25, 2004 by Michael Hanscom

Just got back from tonight’s KMFDM show. Very good, and very loud (but then, this is KMFDM we’re talking about).

I skipped out on the two opening acts — I’d been given a free CD from the first act, Charlie Drown, a while ago at a Pigface show and wasn’t terribly impressed; and whoever the middle act was simply made a lot of noise. I poked my head in from time to time, but decided to just stay downstairs.

When I headed upstairs to find a spot to watch the show, I ran into Ron again, along with Angel, a friend of his, and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with them. We worked our way into a spot underneath a staircase that had a fairly good view of the stage, and chatted while waiting for the show to start.

WWIII (off the album of the same name) and Blackball opened the show, and Sascha and company were in fine form. Unfortunately, as I was afraid of last week, I’m no great fan of the Fenix for a show like this. While it worked decently enough for a smaller show, there were just too many people this time, and it quickly got far too crowded and hot, and the three of us bailed to stand outside the bar about halfway through the show. We could still hear everything fairly well, though, so we didn’t feel like we were really missing much of anything.

We did wander in to catch the encores, though, and the night closed out with Godlike — very, very nice.

All in all a good night, though I’m no great fan of the Fenix as a concert venue. I still wouldn’t mind going again at some point on just a standard club night to see how it fares, so I’m not entirely writing it off — I’m just going to reserve concerts there for shows that I really don’t want to miss out on.

iTunes: “Dogma” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album XTORT (1996, 4:06).