The Unopposable Thumb

Thinking about Drinking

2012-01-21T11:17:00.003-05:00

I love alcohol. I really do. I love the ritual, I enjoy the tastes, I love the care and appreciation that go into crafting new and interesting flavors, and I'm a big fan of the way I can have an entire experience about tasting a 6 ounce glass of something. I would love to learn to have that same experience about non-alcoholic drinks. Honestly, I'm not sure the intoxication is much of the appeal for me.

I've been thinking about the "Five Hour Energy" drink commercials lately in a related context. The characters on the commercials say that the energy shot is "better" than coffee. It may be, in the way that a shot of everclear is better than a glass of beer or wine. This is something I just don't get. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I am addicted to caffeine. I do get headaches if I don't have it. But I could address the addiction with pills for a lot less time, energy, and empty calories than I spend on coffee, and I don't, because I enjoy the experience of coffee.

I think alcohol is the same way. Going out for a drink or sharing a drink with friends is a special experience for a lot more reasons than the intoxication, and I get intoxicated a lot faster and deeper than I'm comfortable with. I'm also noticing more and harsher hangovers as I get older (grr.) So, if I can learn to make non- or lower-alcohol drinks an experience in the same way, this seems like a win-win for me. I do well with session beers taking up the same social space. I've also enjoyed "mocktails" when they've been offered, but there's something missing, and I think it's more attitude than alcohol.

Monkeys like to climb

2012-01-19T21:40:00.001-05:00

So, here's a thing: I've taken an aerials class this month. Twice. There's a place close enough that I can get to it where they hang stuff from the ceiling and let you climb on it. It's freaking awesome. It's also freaking hard. Upper body strength, not so much. But there is enough that I can do that it encourages me to keep trying for the stuff that I currently can't do. The aerials class takes an hour, and does a little silks, a little trapeze, and a little aerial hoop. I like spinning on the hoop. I say "wheeeee!" and then everyone stares. This is how much I like spinning.

I haven't had anything active that I enjoyed doing since we stopped playing Dance Dance Revolution, so this is awesome on a couple of levels.

I think I really missed doing this. Posting, I mean. I could probably do this more often.

Meme via Willowanderer

2012-01-15T14:38:00.000-05:00

I liked this one.

Go to TVtropes
Click "Random"
This is how your followers see you.

I got Four More Measures: the phenomenon of starting singing too early. You should have waited four more measures.

Actually, I think that people really do see me that way. I finish other people's sentences. I jump the gun. I'm an impulsive planner. I'm also told that my embarrassment is often endearing.

Four More Measures, indeed.

Diary: December 2011

2012-01-15T12:02:00.000-05:00

Sigh. Cards didn't happen. I was thinking they'd be New Year's Cards. Now I'm wondering if I'll have time for St. Patrick's Day cards.

December: We went to Vegas. This year we stayed at the Encore. Wynn has the best "courting the gay dollar" website I've seen for the major resorts, so I've been wanting to try there. The Wynn/Encore complex also has the most vegan-friendly menus I've seen at any of the resorts. I really liked it, and would definitely go back.

Work continues to be the biggest thing in my life, and as I'm not comfortable writing about it in this context, I hope this goes partway to explaining why I don't post as much as I used to.

I did get a Xmas tree this year. This was the first year I've ever had my own "real" tree. In college, I used to have a plywood tree with cuphooks screwed into it that I could hang ornaments on. It was cute, and space efficient, but I wanted the smell. Grayskale was out of town for a business trip when I got it, so I got to set up the tree as a surprise. I covered it with black and gold ornaments, and put a tinfoil Stanley Cup on top so it was our Bruins Tree. It made me happy.

New Year's Eve found me out at a "drinking" party, which I haven't done for New Year's in quite a while. With the waffle party planned for the next morning, I typically don't indulge much on NYE, but this year I discovered that cognac isn't that bad, after all. I also looked up the words to "Auld Lang Syne." I didn't realize that the opening line is an rhetorical question: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" I had assumed this was "should" in the sense of "If it is forgotten", not "should you forget about this?" That was an entertaining surprise, as was the bluegrass rendition of Auld Lang Syne that I cued up to play at midnight. Didn't realize that was bluegrass. It was jarring.

The waffle party is technically in January, but is part of my holiday tradition, so I may as well cover it now. This year's challenge was Gluten-Free waffles. I think they came out OK, but could have been better. The cocoa-Teff were probably the biggest hit, although I liked the pumpkin-cornmeal ones a lot. However, all the gluten-free waffles lacked a certain wafflosity that I plan to keep working on.

Holiday cards 2011

2011-11-29T10:10:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to plan my holiday cards a little late this year. Let me know if you want one.Form not embedded? Click here to view form.
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Diary: May 2011-November 2011

2011-11-12T11:09:00.001-05:00

Whoops. I let myself get way behind again. To sum up:

May: We went to a Bruins playoff game, and took a weekend trip to Hartford. We hosted "Game of Thrones" viewing parties, and saw Justin Vivian Bond perform. On a sadder note, Grayskale and I both suffered deaths in the family: my grandfather and Grayskale's uncle.

June: The Bruins won the Stanley cup, and I spent my birthday at the rally welcoming the cup to Boston. Grayskale and I tried vacationing outside of Vegas and discovered it wasn't bad at all. I got a sunburn, but that was the worst of it.

July: I saw a deliciously geeky musical: "2010: Our Hideous Future". I spent a lot of time watching a rabbit in our back yard.

August: Grayskale started a new job, and took a week off between. I took a day off to go to Canobie Lake Park with him during his break. I held a Play in Public game night at Cambridge Brewing Company. Hurricane Irene knocked a chimney into our bedroom window. Another death: Grayskale's grandmother passed away.

September: We took another long-weekend vacation and had a lovely time despite chilly, rainy weather. We signed up for our annual fantasy football and hockey leagues. After nine years as a couple, Grayskale and I also started using a joint credit card. Sadly, we also ended up removing Wednesday game nights from our regular weekly social schedule.

October: We went to a hockey game, and I held a pumpkin-beer tasting on Halloween, which was lovely. I worked a lot.

November, so far: We're in the process of refinancing the mortgage. We voted. I had jury duty, but didn't get impaneled. I've had a cold for the past week, which forced me to sit still long enough to realize I was 6 months behind updating. ;)

How've you been?

The Uniform

2011-05-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

I've tried to maintain the fiction (at least in my own head) that practicality trumps appearance for me. But, like most other things in my life, this seems to be about control. I do enjoy spending time on my appearance, but I don't like having to spend time on my appearance, if that makes sense. I feel the same way about eating and sleeping, honestly. If I could do them only when I chose to... well, I'd add yet another prioritization problem to my life. It would probably just frustrate me.

In order to take control of "time spent on appearance", one of the things I did was self-impose a uniform. I've just realized that this experiment started in 2007, although I didn't really make a big deal out of it until 2009. It started with black button-down shirts. It doesn't matter to anyone but me, but it makes me happy, and I've slowly standardized my wardrobe over the past couple of years so I have different weights of the same outfit for different weather conditions. I find a particular garment I like and buy 2 weeks worth of it to get through the laundry/dry cleaning cycle.

The factors that define the uniform to me are:

Shirt: black, button down, black buttons, breast pocket
Trousers: grey, flat front, no cuff, buttoned pockets.
Shoes, hat, and belt: black
Optional Jacket: matching grey suit jacket only
Overcoats: black

This has been causing me some small amount of consternation over the past three months since I started my new job. It's a tie-wearing office. This isn't a problem, per se, but I just can't get comfortable with ties and shirt sleeves. Honestly, I'd rather go jacket and no tie than tie and no jacket. But I wore a jacket the first day, and my boss came and (jokingly, I think) said we'd have to "do something about that." I switched to sweaters. I can live with sweater and tie. Until we hit mid-April, and heat became an issue. Now I'm on (black) vest and tie.

It still felt like the "uniform" to me, but my therapist (who I've been seeing since late 2009, so she's only ever known me in the uniform) commented that between the sweaters and the vests, it felt like I was adding a dizzying amount of variety to my wardrobe. I'm surprised to find that this comment bothered me.

Maybe that's why I haven't talked about the uniform online before (at least, as far as Google and I can tell). Committing to it out loud makes it feel like something other people can judge. When I've mentioned it to people who asked (and when drinking, to people who haven't), their first response is often to look for exceptions.

I propose that the right question to ask when confronted with someone else's arbitrary-self-imposed-retrictions isn't "when do you break it?" but "why is it fun?"

Diary: April 2011

2011-05-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

April Photos

April was pretty awesome, I think.

I didn't talk about it in the March summary, but it was important. I stopped logging everything. I stopped recording every calorie I ate, every drink I drank, every cigarette I smoked, every store I visited. I have found it both difficult and easy (in a way I'm having trouble verbalizing) to give up the tracking of my own life. I think food it less frustrating, but I keep being frustrated that I don't have the data. By April, I stopped trying to do the Photo-Per-Day project, and it felt OK. Not great, but OK. I feel like it was kind of a failure, but I also feel like I have a lot more time. Not in any chunks big enough to add an activity, but I feel less hurried all the time. I don't have 3 or 4 things to log on my phone every time I change location.

On a related note, I changed phones. Grayskale and I switched from theiPhone 3G to the HTC ThunderBolt. As Grayskale says: "the speed makes up for the instability." That pretty much sums up our experience. For example, one of my favorite applications, Words With Friends: on the iPhone, I'd open the app, get myself a drink, head outside, and then see if my turn had loaded. On the Thunderbolt, I open the app, and about 50% of the time, I have to relaunch it before I can play. 10% of the time, it crashes badly enough that I have to sign in again. The other 40% of the time, I can just play. But in all these cases, it's still faster than waiting for my turn to load on iOS4. My favorite Thunderbolt story goes like this: our friend M has an iPhone 3G also. He was shopping online for his girlfriend, and the pages were loading really slowly. I turned my Thunderbolt into a WiFi hotspot, and he tried using the connection through my phone and his phone went faster. The network loading is ridiculous. Speed tests indicate that our mobile network is faster than our "high speed" cable internet connection. It's lovely.

In other news, the Bruins are in the playoffs, and we signed up for HBO to watch A Game of Thrones. I'm really enjoying it. Since we had access to HBO anyway, we started watching True Blood. What a delightful guilty pleasure that is. I'm still not an Anna Paquin fan (I will never forgive the planet for allowing her to be Rogue), but this is a fun piece of fluff.

Mostly, I think, I emerged from one of the worst cases of seasonal depression I've ever gone through. Luckily, it doesn't hit me that hard. But this seems like it was a particularly tough winter all around, and I'm glad it's over.

EASTER 2011

2011-04-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

EASTER 2011, a photo by Dan4th on Flickr.

Diary: March 2011

2011-04-14T23:36:00.003-04:00

Photos taken in March

March was the month of the vegetable. OK, maybe not so much, but I think I discovered that vegetarian diets (or vegetarian days) are far more tolerable when you actually eat vegetables: a Dan cannot live on bread alone. So I started bringing bags of raw cut vegetables to work for lunch, and Grayskale thought they looked good enough that he started asking for some, too. We ate a lot of vegetables.

Not that we only ate vegetables, by any means. We went out to a very lovely dinner at Mooo on March 14th, although we didn't have any pi(e). Mooo, some may recall, was the restaurant I went to for my birthday last year. It was very lovely for two, as well as for ten.

At the end of the month, I attended a work-related conference in New Orleans, LA, which was my first time visiting that city. I had a great time, and ate a lot. I caught up with a friend who was in town, too, which was fun. Incidentally, I also learned a lot about ITARs (Export Controls), 2 CFR 220 (Cost Principles for Higher Ed), and FERPA (Student Privacy).

This reminds me that some readers may not actually know what I do for a living, even if they know the name of the field. This was a major point of the keynote speech, and I feel slightly inspired to try to describe it. I'm a research administrator. My job is to help get money to people doing good research, and then try to make sure they're doing research with their money. It's not quite being a grant writer; it's somewhere between contract law and auditing, but with fewer professional degrees. I should sit down and write a 100 word description for people who haven't encountered the field before, but for now, let's just say I like it.

Small Rebellions

2011-03-04T08:46:00.003-05:00

Last night a friend pointed out that I do present identification to buy pseudoephedrine, but I won't let my bag get swabbed to take the subway. I am fairly certain he was just yanking my chain, but it did make me think about what battles I pick. It also made me think about getting a fake ID to buy decongestants.

What small acts of rebellion get you through the day?

Do you carry an X-ray invisible knife?
Do you wear subversive buttons to your button-down job?
Do you steal restaurant flatware?
Do you stand outside airport checkpoints shouting abuse at the TSA?*
Are you actively boycotting any public utility (or company so widespread that it might as well be one)?
Will you go miles out of your way to avoid toll roads?
Is there anything for which you inconvenience yourself so that you can believe you're not sheeple?

*Dan4th does not recommend this

Diary: February 2011

2011-03-01T22:05:00.001-05:00

February Photos from 365 project

I started my new job on February 7th with excitement and a lingering cold and back pain. Of course, that's a week into February, so I'll need to back up a bit.

This year we celebrated Groundhog Day in style with an all-day viewing on repeat. Nfkennedy started at 6:00 AM, like Phil does in the movie, but Grayskale and I didn't get there until after 10, but we took the day off from work and it was completely worth it. The final time we watched it dubbed into French.

Then there was a baby shower for Martini's impending offspring. It was possibly the first baby shower I've attended as an adult that wasn't for a coworker. I was utterly charmed by being provided Onesies and markers to draw on them. I wrote out most of "The Jabberwocky" on one of them from memory, but ended up having to verify spelling on some of the nonsense words.

We didn't host a Super Bowl party this year. I am extremely grateful to my friend who did. Thanks! It's nice to watch the ads with people. I tweeted about the ads to absent friends, but I was disappointed that there weren't any pretty maps of twitter-during-the-Super-Bowl this year. I guess that's so 2009

On the Saturday after my first week of work, I met up with my mother and siblings for lunch at a Fuddrucker's. It was the first time we'd all been in the same place in over a year, so it was something of an occasion. I thought I'd been to a Fuddrucker's before when I was touring with the circus, but seeing the place, I think I confused it with a Johnny Rockets or Steak'N'Shake. I didn't expect it to have so much of an arcade. I was surprised to find that Fuddrucker's did have a veggie burger, and it wasn't bad at all. My family gave me the holiday gifts they didn't get a chance to give me in December (I mailed theirs since I didn't want to wait), and I gave my mother and brother their birthday gifts, since they both have February birthdays.

It feels like I spent most of my discretionary time for the rest of February in bars. I went out for drinks with people from my old job twice, and out with friends a couple more times, including a farewell to two friends moving to California. Actually, the baby shower was in a bar, too. I went to a specialty beer and taco night sponsored by BeerAdvocate. I went to brunch at Johnny D's (another bar). And this past Sunday, even though I didn't go to a bar, I did get to try Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% alcohol-by-volume beer that surprised us all by tasting like beer.

Of course, I did have a minor adventure this month as well, but that's been covered.

More adventures in Commuting:

2011-02-22T10:54:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm on UniversalHub again for complaining about the MBTA bag screening.

Here's what happened (quoted from Twitter):
about 8:30 Bag screening at porter mbta. I got pulled. Taking taxi instead @universalhub
about 8:40 No taxis at Porter cab stand. Tried to catch bus, but two plainclothes MBTA police stopped me bc I refused bag screening. Ok. @universalhub
about 8:50 Finally found taxi at Harvard Sq; shouldn't be too late for work.

"Saul", on UH's website (link above) and on Twitter, asked for more detail about being stopped by the MBTA police. I just left the following comment on UH, which I think is being screened (ha!) by the UH moderator: (edit: it's posted now)

So, here's how the encounter with the cops went, and here's my concern about monitoring after I leave the train station.

I was asked to submit to bag screening at Porter MBTA train station, and declined. I left the station and walked off MBTA property: to the taxi stand in the Porter Square shopping center. I looked around and there were no taxis, and I didn't see any coming. I walked to the opposite side of the shopping center from the Porter MBTA station (Elm St, Somerville) and there still weren't any taxis in sight, but the 87 Bus was pulling up.

The bus stopped, people queued up to get in, and I happened to be last in line. Two people coming up the street started calling out "sir, sir!".

I didn't know what they wanted or who they were, so I didn't assume they were talking to me until they were pretty close. One said "can we talk to you, sir?" and I said "I need to catch this bus". They addressed the driver and said "he's all set" and sent the bus away. At which point they asked if I understood the security program. I said I did understand it, but I didn't agree with it, so I preferred not to participate. They said that I could do that, but that this meant I was not allowed on any of the MBTA system. I told them OK, and walked away.

I did not get names. I was thrown because this is the second time I've been followed out of the station for refusing the bag screening. Actually, the last time was almost exactly a year ago (Feb 23, 2010):

http://www.unopposablethumb.com/2010/02/adventures-in-security-theatre.html

When I was followed in 2010, they stopped me on the sidewalk at the subway station, arguably still on MBTA property. This time, they followed me off the property -- not far, but I find it a concern. At any rate, I'm wondering how far off MBTA property they feel they have a right to follow me. Is it until I get to work?

Diary: January 2011

2011-02-02T00:12:00.002-05:00

view full set

Photos: I started a photo-per-day project on Flickr for 2011. I managed the month of January without missing a day. I feel pretty OK about this.

Health: my back has been bugging me for about 2 weeks. I've been to the doctor, and I've been given a set of stretches and some muscle relaxants. I think it's related to my feet, via my snow boots. As you're probably aware, we've had a little snow. I think the boots are a little big with one pair of socks, and maybe a little small with two pairs of socks? My feet slip around, and now I have blisters, and I'm walking funny, and this has probably messed up my back.

Parties: Waffle party was great. This year's invention was Thai Green Curry Waffles, and the addition of a mini buffet server full of sausages and tater tots. Martini's annual cheese soup party was also awesome, but stupid back-foot pain held back my enjoyment more than it should have. Sad. Oh, and three probably isn't a party, but I had a really nice dinner with my sisters at a local noodle bar.

Entertainment: Saw a Bruins game and Cirque du Soleil's "Dralion". I'm pretty sure that "Dralion" is the touring show that I'd seen in 2001 or 2002, but there were a lot of new bits, and it was very cool. They made trampolines look cool. Also, I saw the movie "Tampopo" (inspired by going to the noodle bar with my sisters).

So, with that out of the way, I figure the "Further Adventures" I just posted could probably use a little explanation:

New Job: I knew I wanted to specialize more in research funding. I've been assisting the faculty in my department with proposal submission for the past couple of years, and I've really been enjoying it. So, when I was offered a job in the central office that handles funding agreements, I knew I had to take it. It's been (emotionally) hard leaving the department where I've worked for the past eight years, but I got exactly the job I wanted. I'm taking a couple of days off this week to catch up, so Thursday is my last day. *teardrop* I basically grew up on this job. I started as a receptionist with a theatre degree, and now I've got a career path. It's kind of cool. And scary.

FaceBook: I wasn't getting a lot of value out of FaceBook, and the continually changing privacy settings and the general skeeviness of the company was difficult for me to stomach. Much like when I left LiveJournal, it wasn't any big transgression in particular that pushed me over the edge. It was more that I'd been displeased with their business practices for a while, and I finally made the jump. FaceBook is not nice people. The "final straws", I suppose, were the addition of sharing contact information with marketers (marginally opt-in, and they later backed down), and a general discomfort with the "Special Vehicle" workaround to avoid revealing their books. Like LiveJournal's "Nipplegate" and "Interest Censorship" kerfluffles, these weren't enough on their own to push me out of the service, but they were enough to inspire me to make the move I'd been wanting to make anyway. Yeah: cause I need a lot of excuse to do things I already wanted to do. Buh-bye, notifications of being invited to another "Farmville" clone.

I also deleted my MySpace Profile, which I hadn't used in years, but that hardly feels like something that needed a separate announcement.

(mini) Further Adventures of Dan

2011-02-01T23:16:00.001-05:00

Apologies to Readers who are also on the mailing list for FAOD

Hi folks,

just a quick update this time, to pass along two pieces of news

1) I've accepted a new position at the University. I start on Monday, and I'm very excited. It's a great opportunity for me to learn more about the grants and contracts that fund academic research.
2) I've deleted my Facebook account (theoretically. It's a process that supposedly takes 2 weeks), so I won't get messages sent to me there. So, if you want to contact me: email is the best bet.

Happy February!
Love,
Dan

"You cannot outsmart crazy" -- Jon Stewart, 1/10/2011

Diary: December 2010

2011-01-06T20:45:00.000-05:00

Traditional Holiday Greeting

Health was the theme for December, it seems. I managed to get a nasty cold that kept me out of work for a couple of days, which was unfortunate. On an unrelated health issue, I ended up on a brief run of antibiotics the day before we left for our annual Vegas Xmas vacation. This led to a very different Vegas experience than what I'm used to: I wasn't allowed to drink alcohol for the first 2 days, and it made a huge difference in my Vegas experience. It was still fun, but it was different.

Before Vegas, I tried to do things a little differently for the holidays this year, and I think it turned out well. Grayskale and I decided to forgo gifts to each other this year, which actually turned out OK. I was concerned that I'd end up feeling frustrated by this, but I didn't. It was actually really nice. I also made my grandmother's Candy Cane Cookies, which is fun to do, and they're delicious. I did a little cartoon for holiday cards (see left) and got 50 of those printed. I had 93 addresses on my list this year, so I also got to support some of my favorite webcomics by buying some of their holiday cards, too. I like supporting artists.

And I decorated a little. I bought a strand of solar decorative LEDs to hang in the tree out front, and I love them. They're still up, actually, and they make me really happy every night when I get home. I actually want more of them for next year so I can set several strands to blinking. Even out front, our yard doesn't get a ton of light, so the lights fade out by probably 9' or 10'o'clock, but they're on for the commute hours, which is what I wanted. I also put the flickering LED candles in the windows. I got these last year, and I love them: they stay on for 8 hours and then turn off for 16, and repeat until I take the batteries out. It's perfect for me, I find running wires around the windows both frustrating and ugly, and they can use the AA rechargeable batteries that we keep around anyway.

I did not decorate the cats. Someone anonymously sent me an elf costume for cats which I have restrained myself from putting on either Mina or Moxie (yet). I do not think this person has my best interests in mind. The cats will kill me in my sleep.

But anyway. We did stuff. We played Monopoly, which really isn't that bad a game if you play by the rules. We had dinner with Grayskale's family. We went to a hockey game with Martini and his lovely wife, and were nearly stampeded by Santas at dinner before the game. Cuban Jon visited.

And then we went to Vegas. We got massages, had dinner at tender, saw Le Reve and Bite, and I got to try the flight of Beer-Ice-Cream floats at the Burger Bar, which was totally worth every calorie. We had a great time, and I tweeted enough that my friends complained when I got home. It was a lovely vacation.

And when we got home, Cabanasloth came to visit, and Drinkywinky held a little New Year's Party, and both of those were awesome. All in all, it was a busy month, and I was pretty well exhausted by the end of it.

YIR: 2010

2010-12-31T15:32:00.000-05:00

I was just noticing that I didn't end up doing the Year-In-Review meme (first sentence of first post for each month) for 2009, which is just as well, because I didn't actually post anything in September 2009. Still, that was the first year I hadn't done it since 2004 (as I noted in 2008).

This year, I did post something each month, but I still only made 55 posts over the entire year. At least there was something besides the monthly "diary" posts, but that's significantly different than my old average of over 3 posts per day when I was using LiveJournal regularly. Anyway, I decided to do it again this year. I've excluded the "diary" posts and the Further Adventures of Dan, because making a review out of reviews seems weirdly recursive.

I've gotten fairly sick of all of the spam traffic that T*uchyTr*nny.com gets, so I decided to change. So, I had a follow up appointment with my primary care physician this morning about the headaches. Look-it the pretty colors. So, as I've mentioned several times before, I've been keeping a log of my eating and alcohol consumption habits since the end of last July. I've startled Grayskale a couple of times during the last couple of months by using food politics as my conversational opener. My birthday is probably the only day I really like having a FaceBook account. Yesterday evening, I tried the "all you can eat" sushi special at Manna Sushi in Arlington. It's unusual for me, but there are actually a couple of movies I "wouldn't mind seeing" in the theatres. I have mixed feelings about this. I haven't talked much about my father's death in the intervening years since 2002. I've been indulging in a thought experiment this morning regarding the viability, or at least the logistics, of a brick-and-mortar e-book store. A thread today on the @UniversalHub twitter account started as follows: Random bag searches at park st station FYI.

2010: Best and Worst

2010-12-21T13:45:00.009-05:00

As I've done for the past couple of years, I want to put together a "best of"/"worst of" list for 2010. In 2008, I did this on poster-sized sheets of paper at the Waffle Party. For 2009, I did it on Google Wave.
This year, I'm using Google Form Poll. Unlike other polls, it's probably good if you know what other people answered before you fill it out.

If you don't see the word cloud gadgets (LJ-syndication readers probably won't), try going to here:

Worst Of:

Best Of:

And the poll itself:
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Tweeting the Screeners

2010-12-18T13:16:00.012-05:00

A thread today on the @UniversalHub twitter account started as follows:
RT @6x6pix: Random bag searches at park st station FYI.
RT @sarahebourne: They're not doing bag checks to see what you got them for Xmas. Is announcing time/location such a good idea?"

Even though I'm not the original poster, this is something I do, and I realized that there was no way I could fit my response into 140 characters.

I also tweet about it whenever I see the MBTA police bag-swabbing detail. I want to explain why.

Bag-swabbing is security theatre.
The current trends erode privacy.
The MBTA is not open to suggestions to stop doing it.

Security Theatre: I think Bruce Schneier describes this concept best: "Security theater refers to security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security. .... Our penchant for movie plots blinds us to the broader threats. And security theater consumes resources that could better be spent elsewhere." (11/13/2009).

Eroding privacy: Submitting to being randomly stopped, having your personal items examined, and generally being inconvenienced without cause is part of what we used to make fun of Eastern Bloc countries for during the Cold War. You can not generally expect to be left alone if you're not doing anything wrong anymore. How is this acceptable? It's not an assumption of guilt yet, but it is an assumption that the Watchers have a right to supercede anything the Citizens happen to be doing with their day. For what?

Closed to Suggestions: I don't particularly think that tweeting the time and location of the bag swabbing is an effective protest, but it has begun to feel like the only mode of protest I have left. The first couple of times that I was stopped for bag-swabbing, I opted out, and I wrote to the MBTA to ask why they were doing this and to ask them to stop. I got a politely worded form letter stating that a judge had decided it didn't violate privacy, and so they weren't going to stop. They're not open to discussion on this. Opting out seems like the only means of protest I have left, and I'm not giving it up. When asked to submit to swabbing, I say no, and leave the station. This isn't an option I have for airplanes, and I'm fairly conflicted about what to do with the TSA's increasing insanity.

"Stopping the Bad Guys" isn't nearly as important to me as "Being the Good Guys". Yes, I tweet about the bag swabbers to make it easier for other people to avoid the swabbing stations. I will continue to do anything I can do to point out the ridiculousness of the current system.

Since I started writing this, there's been additional comments on the twitter conversation that started this. Here's the entire thread so far, for the sake of completeness, all from @UniversalHub (edit: OK, started as all UH retweets, but then became easier to just search for "@universalhub"):

RT @6x6pix: Random bag searches at park st station FYI.
RT @lizthegrey: Remember that you have a constitutional right to refuse and leave the station (and get on elsewhere downtown)
RT @AlertNewEngland: You may have the right to refuse, but not to get on elsewhere. When they ask you to leave, they mean it. #mbta
RT @lizthegrey: http://bit.ly/g7gGFw Know Your Rights - MBTA
RT @jared_egan: Just don't bring any bombs on the T and you'll be fine. I've never had my bag searched, just swabbed. And I look suspicious
RT @sarahebourne: They're not doing bag checks to see what you got them for Xmas. Is announcing time/location such a good idea?
RT @rascalking: you really think the bag checks catch anybody aside from drunks and people with drugs/weapons?
RT @sarahebourne: We know that no bombs have exploded. We don't know if they've ever found any. We can't know how many deterred.
RT @shocks: considering even the TSA admitted almost all planted items get through, I'm gonna rate MBTA as security theater too
RT @sarahebourne: So, what should they do, in light of Interpol warnings? http://bit.ly/fDgrQT "Theater" at least puts eyes on platforms
RT @rritterr: I would think bomb-sniffing dogs would be more effective and efficient than bag searches.
RT @dan4th: Actually, the point about Security Theatre being theatre is that it takes eyes OFF useful targets, and onto us.
@sarahebourne: @dan4th ...only if theater is all you're doing. @universalhub @MBTATransitPD
RT @MBTATransitPD: Transit Police patrol 24hrs a day and (police line)617-222-1212 and 911 are staffed 24hrs a day
RT @tplants: Study Israel's behavioral analysis. Actually go after people involved in shady business, not random searches of every grandma.
RT @AlertNewEngland: K9 doesn't just stand around for hours sniffing for bombs. They have a limited working time & need specific areas/targets.
RT @rascalking: @sarahebourne when do you stop using that rationalization? t cops carrying uzis? backscatter xrays at every entrance?
RT @sarahebourne: @rascalking Security in any realm has to be based on layers. Focusing solely on any 1 layer is bad security <cough>TSA</cough>
RT @lizthegrey: If the screening were actually done more effectively, I would mind less. A cursory flashlight inside my bag does nothing
rascalking: @sarahebourne layers that work are great. layers that are just for show waste money that could be used elsewhere
Jonna_Rae: The TSA Let a Loaded Gun Get on an Airplane- http://t.co/S5hnHzc (via @gizmodo) cc @universalhub #securitytheater

That's more cutting-and-pasting than I'm prepared to do. Click Here for @UniversalHub Search results

Diary: November 2010

2010-12-11T00:26:00.000-05:00

In November, I may have proved that I am the last person actually interested in FourSquare. I actually had over 50 check-ins in November. Even more shamefully, I tweeted about it over 25 times. What's even more shameful than that? Quoting my own tweets from FourSquare in place of an actual November summary:

2nd: I just unlocked the "I Voted 2010" badge on @foursquare!
5th: Pete is a jerk. A wonderful charming jerk. Macho macho man. (@ Rafiki Bistro w/ @pscheidler)
7th: Getting my mayorship back is gonna be tough. I am way behind. (@ Deluxe Town Diner)
11th: Could have been worse. Could have realized I forgot my wallet after I ate. Ran home and got it. Now for sushi snack! (@ Masa's Sushi Bar)
13th: Yay Penny! (@ Green Elephant)
15th: The turkey/stuffing sandwich here makes me glad I'm not a full time vegan (@ Cosi - Kendall Square)
16th: Tea and books on a cloudy afternoon... (@ Dado Tea - Harvard)
20th: I just ousted Nicola G. as the mayor of Deluxe Town Diner on @foursquare!
23rd: Mountain food... But the "attitude" seems very Cambridge (@ Annapurna)
24th: Browsing for salad cookies... (@ Gourmet Express Market and Deli)
25th: How is it possible that I didn't have carrots?? (@ Gourmet Express Market and Deli)
28th: Banana Rellena (@ East Coast Grill w/ 3 others)

Terrible. Just terrible.

Further Adventures of Dan

2010-12-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

Apologies if this was also emailed to you: I like to keep the public version as complete as possible

I'm still here. I just checked when I sent the last of these, and discovered it was April 2009 - a year and a half ago. So much for these being monthly or quarterly updates, which is how I still think of them. I would ask why no one warns you that time speeds up as you get older, but I suspect they did warn me, and I didn't listen, on account of the speaker being "old." Sigh.

So, what's changed since April 2009? Not much, which may be why it hasn't seemed important for me to send an update. In fact, I may have been avoiding writing because of something that didn't happen, and probably should have. I officially gave up on completing my Master's in Psychology after a couple of attempts at getting a thesis proposal accepted. I've been thinking about starting a MBA program (or more likely, a Master's of Public Administration, since higher ed is something I've found I really enjoy), but haven't really done anything about it.

I'm still happily domesticated, 2 cats, and about 26 years left on our mortgage. I'm still working at [my employer], hosting game nights twice a week and going to brunch on Sundays. Things are stable, which is good. But all of the milestones that I usually use to mark time (new address, new job, new relationship) have been unchanged for a few years, and that makes it hard for me to note the passing of time. I need a new metric if I want things to write about.

I lost 30 pounds, went back into therapy, pinched my peroneal nerve and fixed it, shaved my head, and started wearing hats. I started investing in something more complicated than my work-sponsored 401(k) account.

***

Well then! So, I wrote the above portion in October, and never sent the silly thing. How do you summarize a year and a half of generally stable happiness? I think I'll go with: "Hooray".

Best wishes to you and yours for 2011,
--
Dan4th

"We don't fact check to be good journalists. We fact check because good comedy doesn't lie." Jon Stewart (source)

Address Book Update

2010-11-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

As I do every year, I'm updating my address book. Please let me know the best place to send you holiday cards, postcards, and anything else that occurs to me. If you're not thrilled with putting your address in a Google Form, feel free to get it to me via email, twitter, facebook, or whatever makes you comfortable.
Wintercards 2010 poll
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The Vegan Brunch Project

2010-11-20T11:06:00.000-05:00

As has been discussed, I'm kind of a huge fan of brunch. My biggest annual event is the Waffle Party. I go out for brunch at least once a week (and recently more often). However, I've been finding it challenging under the food "rules" I've been testing out since March, where I make sure I don't want the vegan/vegetarian options before I decide I do want to eat animal products. It's not a very strict rule, and it shouldn't be hard to follow. Heck, it assumes I'm ordering off the menu.

I haven't been, so much. Ordering what's printed on the menu, that is.

Another thing I have traditionally had trouble with is asking for reasonable things that I want. So, I've been working on that with the whole vegetable-heavy-omnivorousness thing. I've been starting to ask "can I get that without the cheese?" "can I get soy milk?" "can I have black beans instead?". Seeing it written out, I automatically try to correct to "may I? -- Ha! Thanks, grandmother!

Anyway, this has been both a challenge and fun for me. Since I can't seem to roll over in my sleep without involving my iPhone, I've been taking pictures of most of it. Today I created a photoset on Flickr: The Vegan Brunch Project. I'm not 100% sold on the name. If I'm eating in a restaurant, I end up assuming "close-enough" vegan: no visible animal products.

I think the next step is asking things like "is there any butter in that?" "what brand of soy cheese are you using?" "what's this fried in?" -- but I feel like there's a limit on the patience of my dining companions and the restaurant staff, and that would be pushing it before coffee for the former, and during brunch rush for the latter. Maybe if I go when it's slow...

What if you opened a bookstore with no books?

2010-11-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

I've been indulging in a thought experiment this morning regarding the viability, or at least the logistics, of a brick-and-mortar e-book store. What would a bookstore look like if you started with the assumption that books were things you downloaded instead of stacked? If you can get a book from anywhere, what gets you to go somewhere specific to think about them?

This starts because I love bookstores, but I don't buy paper books anymore (key exception: comics). So I'm trying to distill the essential components of bookstoreness and figure out what translates into a post-print culture. I should probably start with the caveat that I know nothing about the business of bookselling, and so my perspective is strictly that of a consumer.

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that you can't just remove the books. As much as I enjoy cafes and stationery stores, there isn't the same thrill of imminent choice that I get when surrounded by thousands of titles. The fetishization of reading, and the indirect knowledge of reading as a fundamentally shared experience, is a key component of bookstoreness. The store would still need to be focused on the written word and the communal experience of reading.

The two bookstore activities that I think translate from the print model to the e-book model are author visits and staff recommendations. Both activities give people a chance to experience the shared experience of reading as more than an abstract concept. Meeting an author invites readers to consider that a text came from somewhere; a staff recommendation puts a face to the nameless crowd of others who have shared the experience of a text.

One thing I'm not sure of is whether author tours would be less compelling without signed books, or whether an author would leave a visit with the same sense of satisfaction if he or she didn't get to witness a stack of volumes dwindling as they were sold. I'm not sure what incentives, if any, authors get from visiting bookstores. If it's a greater share in that day's sales, a different compensation model may be needed. This is one area in which my ignorance about bookselling as a business feels like a major hole in my thought experiment.

Staff recommendations, and featured books in general, are another problem entirely. While the idea of a one-on-one conversation with a staff member about books may appeal to some, for me it's intimidating and uncomfortable. Perhaps more to the point, it's probably not cost-efficient in the same way a featured recommendation display or shelf tag is. Additionally, the current format of e-books doesn't lend itself to knowing what book someone else is reading. It's difficult to follow a crowd when you can't see where they're headed.

A method for browsing is probably necessary, although I can't say I've ever found it a major part of my experience of bookstoreness. I typically browse the postcards and gift items instead, but that's mostly because I know I'm not buying a book. I'm told that Barnes & Noble has implemented something like this with their stores and Nook. As a Kindle devotee, it's not something I've tried. As above, I'm thinking it's necessary to have some way to show what people are looking at. Maybe reading stations with title display screens overhead? That feels excessively invasive, but maybe not. When I think about in-store browsing, the mental image that's conjured up is the bright and airy Apple Store model, but that feels aggressively unbookstorelike. If nothing else, the lack of chairs feels anti-reader.

An e-book store would need to carry, and possibly service, a selection of e-book readers, and you'd need to be able to download in store. Staff recommendations for devices might be more important than staff recommendations for content. As much as I emotionally enjoy the idea of plugging your device into a store terminal and transferring purchases, I see that as a major barrier. Why plug into the store when you can download on the bus on the way home wirelessly? Why go to the store at all?

Perhaps this is the main point. Rather than a seller of books, the e-book store would need to be a sommelier of books. I find myself chuckling at the concept of book pairings: "Oh, you simply can't read Hemingway with a soy Chai Latte. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have an Americano?" Recommendations and bookish culture would need to be the added value, not the content itself. Part of me really wants the e-book store to have a section for free books. But perhaps the key element of bookstoreness that I'm missing is the selling of books. It seems like a tautology, but without the purchase, maybe all I'm picturing is a reading-themed café.

Diary: October 2010

2010-11-04T10:46:00.001-04:00

Rally Robot
by M.V. Jantzen

Wedding Robots
My iPhone

I held a sign

October was eventful.

I feel like I had a really good October, but I'm exhausted now. October started with the full-swing grants proposal season at work, and that always takes a lot of my attention. As I mentioned in the July diary, we'd been looking for a Human Resources Coordinator. My department made an offer to a candidate in October, but unfortunately, the candidate decided to move cross-country the weekend before she was going to start. I totally understand, but it was frustrating to hear after several months of searching.

But honestly, work isn't what I'm going to remember from October. It's sort of a toss-up between our trip for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear to DC and a friend's wedding the week before. Both were spectacular events, full of interesting people that I knew and didn't know (but wanted to!), and I had a great time at both. Both had robots, but the robot-to-person ratio was higher at the wedding. Also, the wedding was better planned!

The wedding was held at the Museum of Science, and was awesome. I really need to find an excuse to hold an event there someday. The ceremony was brief and sweet, and the reception included a lightning show in the Theater of Electricity. Then, as if to make sure that it included all things that Dans like, there was a brunch with more robots.

The Rally was, ironically, insane. We headed down on Friday night, and wandered Alexandria for a bit looking for a place to have a drink. We ended up at 219 King Street on the recommendation of some random guy on the street. It turned out to be a spectacular lounge-y sort of bar that I can highly recommend. On the way back to the hotel, I decided to stop by CVS to grab sign-making materials, as I hadn't brought a sign for the rally.

Saturday morning, I made a sign. I'm quite pleased with how it came out. It was 2.5 feet tall by 15 feet long, and took at least 4 of us at a time to hold it. The sign was quite popular, and so far, I've found 6 instances of other people's pictures of it online. Unfortunately, the Rally was crowded enough that we didn't end up close enough to the stage to hear anything. The sound system was woefully inadequate for 200,000 people. Sadly, so were the preparations made by the DC Metro subway system. We had a heck of a time getting back to the hotel, but eventually made it and had a nap.

While we were in DC, we had the 3rd CHOMP! event, this time at the 1789 restaurant. 1789 differed from the previous CHOMP! restaurants in that it focused more on sourcing and ingredients than on a particular cuisine. The menu, rather than being divided into "appetizers" and "entrees", was divided by main ingredient; all the pig-based dishes were one section, while all the fish-based dishes were another. This was a little confusing, as more than one person accidentally tried to order an appetizer as their entree. But a good time was had by all, and the meal was lovely.

Apart from that, Rock Band 3 was released, for which we upgraded from a Wii to a xBox, I got sick, I got better, and I worked a lot. I got some new pants and new shoes. We only got two trick-or-treaters. It was a pretty good month with extra robots.

New feet!

2010-10-27T19:27:00.000-04:00

This is mostly a note for myself, because the shoe shopping thing has been such a pain in my tukhus for the past several months. I am tentatively hopeful that the Skechers Salutary (sz 6.5) shoes that I'm currently wearing will actually fit and be comfortable over a reasonably long period.

I had been wearing Dickies Oxfords (sz 7) for the past two years, but they're falling apart. I am hard on shoes.

I would have bought the Dickies again, but couldn't find anyone carrying the right size. Seriously, boys must go through my size while they grow, right? So how come I can't find anything bigger than a 5 in the boys section, or smaller than a 7 in the men's? I can find sneakers, but not shoes, and I don't wear sneakers. My coworkers have been teasing me a bit for the two shipments from Zappos that have arrived and been returned (4 pairs each time), but I can't find a brick and mortar store that carries smaller men's shoes.

My frustration, let me shoe you it.

Diary: September 2010

2010-10-21T10:08:00.000-04:00

I blame it on 10 years of public school, 5 years of undergraduate education, and 8 years working in academia (23 out of my 34 years!), but Autumn always seems like more of a "new beginnings" time of year than Spring does. I'm a lot more connected to the cycle of the school year than I am to the cycle of growing things. I even find myself planning to buy "back-to-school" clothes as I approach Labor Day, which makes extremely little sense since I haven't grown in about a decade (I kept growing into my 20's).

September is one of my busiest times of year at work, and this year was particularly hectic. The new faculty and students arrive, and this was my second year holding a series of workshops on the grant proposal submission process for the incoming academics. The first deadlines for proposals happen in September, even before the incoming people have had their first "welcome" lunch, so I write them basically as soon as they sign their offer letters to let them know to be ready. It may be busy for me, but I have to imagine it's a bit overwhelming for them, receiving pressure from me to prepare a research proposal before they even start their first post-PhD job.

However, in the middle of my busiest month of the year, Grayskale and I decided to take a long weekend and make up for missing our now-traditional June trip to Vegas. It was a lovely time, mostly punctuated by eating a lot. I have become an enormous fan of the Burger Bar at Mandalay Place. The Burgers are fantastic, but it's also one of the best beer bars we've found in Vegas. It's also the only place I've ever seen offer a flight of ice-cream-beer-floats: I didn't get to try it this time, but it's definitely on the to-do list for Xmas.

We also went on the tour of Zappos corporate headquarters, which I highly recommend if you've ever got a couple of hours to kill in Vegas. It's always nice to see people who love their jobs and are passionate about them. The Zappos Insights team actually does consulting on how to make this happen for your own business, and the tour is run by this division, so that culture is what the tour focused on. The Pick-n-Pack facility is in Kentucky, so we didn't get to see that.

We also got to check out the Pinball Hall of Fame, which Grayskale has been wanting to check out for a while. That was a great (and relatively cheap!) way to spend an afternoon: much cheaper for Grayskale than for me. I am horrendously awful at pinball, but he posted a couple of high scores on machines while we were there. It's not all pinball: I also spent a couple of dollars playing with a claw machine and an old arcade Tetris machine, which was a nice confidence booster after my appalling pinball performances.

It was actually really nice to take a break in the middle of my crazy month, but going back into work and trying to give a presentation on Conflict of Interest after a red-eye was a little overwhelming.

In health news: I got my hearing checked. It's fine. Grayskale gives me a bit of a hard time over how loud I keep my phone, and I'd wondered if 7 years in show biz had blown out my hearing at all, but I'm well within normal ranges. Alas, my excuse for hating the phone (that I have trouble understanding spoken words without visual cues) is that much weaker. I guess I'm just not paying attention.

He'd be 57

2010-10-15T15:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't talked much about my father's death in the intervening years since 2002. I haven't been particularly receptive to talking to family or family friends about it, and I didn't speak at my father's funeral. Apparently it raised some comment that I didn't get up to speak: all of my siblings did. Some folks have mentioned that they thought I was too upset to speak. Others have remarked that they thought I must not have already made my peace with it. Honestly, it didn't occur to me that people would like to hear from me, and it wasn't going to make me feel any better, so I didn't do it.

I think about him and miss him a lot. Probably most days I'll think of something funny that he would have appreciated, or I'll do something clever that I'd want to brag to him about. But there are 3 days each year when it moves past being a generalized hole in reality and becomes a nagging pain: September 13th (the day he died), Father's day (thanks, Hallmark), and October 15th, his birthday.

Getting presents for AElfwine was tough. He picked up the moniker "The Bunny Lord" when I was really young, and so rabbit-themed gifts were played out by the time I was old enough to think about giving him more than a construction paper card. I would usually try to get him a clever gadget or tool that I thought he would enjoy using, but he also loved playing games. Now that I play board games regularly, I'm saddened that I didn't get to share more of them with him. He would have liked them, if we could have dragged him away from things that needed doing. He would have loved most of the ThinkGeek catalog.

This is the part where I want to write something like "the present he really wanted was for us to succeed" or something corny like that. It feels false, as well as corny. I think what he really would have wanted is more time with his family. Not so much in the "he died too young" sense (although he did), but in the "you never visit" sense. Maybe in the "no one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at the office" sense, too.

I don't know. He was in my life, and now he's not, and the world makes that much less sense as a result. Some days I feel like I know exactly how he would be now, and other days I feel like I barely knew him at all. He was larger than life, and desperately shy. I don't know how to talk about him to people who knew him, and even less to people who didn't. For everyone who knew him, he was utterly irreplaceable, and for people who didn't, descriptions don't do him justice.

Happy birthday.

Diary: August 2010

2010-10-09T09:42:00.000-04:00

Ah, August. The month when I prepare for fall. It feels sad to me, somehow, that August is definitely still part of summer, but I spend most of the month getting ready for it not to be summer anymore. At work, I prepare for the incoming faculty and the first push of grant proposal deadlines. For fun, I do Fantasy Football drafts and set up teams. All of my attention is future-focused in August.

This August I managed to do a couple of things that were more focused on the now, which was a nice shift. After the staggering success of my birthday dinner, Martini and I decided that it would be a fantastic idea to hold big group dinners at nice restaurants every two months or so, and (based on a theme in the responses), "CHOMP!" was born. CHOMP.v2! was held at the Oceanaire Seafood Room in Boston, after cocktails at Woodward. It was delicious. We even found fishes that Grayskale enjoyed, and he typically doesn't care for fish.

I think my favorite thing about CHOMP is the variety. When Grayskale and I go out to dinner alone, or with another couple, we can really only try a couple of things. With a party of 12, we can pretty much order every appetizer or side that looks delicious, and try a bite of them. It's spectacular.

Also, our gaming group participated in the Play in Public Campaign. CSniezek was the main driver on this one, but declared me "Chief Internet Liaison", as I Tweeted and Facebooked our event to excess. The PIP Campaign is a drive to get people to play good, interesting games in public settings to raise awareness of the vast variety of games available for adults. We took a couple of our Sunday brunches and extended them into the afternoon with board games at a local bar. CSniezek and I created table tents and take-away information cards about the games we were playing, and this caught the attention of the organizer enough that we won a free game for our efforts. I wrote up our techniques in a guest post for the blog "Seize Your Turn."

Diary: July 2010

2010-10-04T12:38:00.001-04:00

In July, the major thing I did actually carried over from June, a bit. I spent the week of June 27th through July 3rd in Portland, Maine, a city I hadn't visited much. I still didn't see much of it, since the purpose of the visit was to provide aftercare for my friend Pants_of_doom, who had just had some surgery and needed a little coddling. Considering how much coddling I've gotten after my surgeries, I felt it was only fair to pay it forward, and it was a good excuse to spend a week puttering around.

I have to say, the most fun part of the week, for me, was taking her shopping for groceries. Since she wasn't moving too well, I pushed her around the (fantastic) Whole Foods in Portland in one of the wheelchairs with a shopping basket. This was ridiculously fun for me, and the interesting thing was that I was able to say "excuse me". I have this thing where I have a really hard time asking people to get out of my way. When pushing a chair this became possible. It was rewarding enough that I actually considered finding a volunteer opportunity to take people shopping. Several months have passed and I haven't acted on it; I suspect driving would be a part of it, and I do hate to drive.

Speaking of driving, I did some of that in Portland, too. Pants_of_doom's car is a manual transmission, which I haven't driven since I sold my truck in 2007. I was pleased to discover that I didn't have much trouble with it. I would say it was like riding a bicycle, but I actually have forgotten how to ride a bicycle, so it was even easier than that.

At the end of July, Laurenhat visited from California, and I got to spend some time with her, which was fantastic. I was a little concerned it would be awkward because we hadn't really talked as much as I might have wanted since she moved last summer, but it was still just lovely. I also saw my friend Julia from Chicago (and her new wife), who stopped by town for a whirlwind honeymoon/vacation. Looking at my schedule, July may have been the most women-focused month I'd done in a while.

The personal-growth quote of the month may be this, which was a note I made to bring up to my therapist at a session: I have strengths and weaknesses, like everyone else, but I have made choices to put myself in a position where my strengths are more important than my weaknesses. This sentence came up while trying to find a method where I could value myself for something other than "unconditional positive regard" or "innate worth of human beings." Since self-worth based on fuzzy "everyone is special" logic is a stumbling block I run into in therapy often, this assessment let me keep going where I'd had to stop in previous attempts.

Randomalia:
- One of my credit cards was compromised, and I had to spend some time cleaning that up. It wasn't bad: the hardest part was getting the final valid charge paid.
- At work, we began looking for a new Human Resources Coordinator, and I was more involved in the interview/hiring process than I'd ever been before. It was enlightening.
- I had my final visit with the Physical Therapist for foot drop, and we didn't schedule more because I'd regained 90%+ function in my left foot.

441 days later

2010-09-04T15:36:00.000-04:00

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's something I worked on, and achieved a goal I set for myself, and I feel pretty good about it. On the other hand, it's kind of a crappy, arbitrary goal, and I really hate the message around "fat". This is something I did because I wanted to, but I can't pretend I wanted it in a vacuum, or that I don't buy into the social B.S. about being thin, or that my motives had squat to do with health or fitness.

It's, as they say, complicated.

But, I do feel like I achieved something, and I feel like my eating habits are better in a lot of ways than they were last summer, and not all of those ways are B.S. And as B.S. as it might be, I feel a lot more attractive than I did, which probably makes me more attractive.

So, despite the fact that I don't like talking about "weight loss" as a goal, and that I think it reinforces a lot of social garbage that nobody benefits from, I still feel perversely proud of this, and I want to share it. I am certainly not suggesting that anyone else should want to do this, or that they ought to be able to get the same results, or that they should even want them. In short, I have guilt issues, and I'm doing this anyway (so at least that hasn't changed!).

Without further equivocation, here is Dan4th, before and after a year of portion control, in the same clothes.

Beyond #firstworldproblems

2010-08-23T16:51:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite Twitter tags is #firstworldproblems. I feel really lucky that most of my problems fall into this category. I don't like the ringtones available for my phone. I wish that my memory foam mattress pad was a little bigger, because it doesn't reach the edge of the mattress. These are first world problems, and they kind of rock. I suppose #yayprivilege would be another reasonable tag for these posts.

However, in a chat with someone today, I tried to explain that I was now moving into problems that were beyond #firstworldproblems. I think it's important to point out that these are polyamory and relationship problems. Not like "I'm having relationship problems", but like "I have no time, and so many people I want to see!"

Like #firstworldproblems, I think they are problems I'm lucky to have. But they take up time and energy, and they get bigger and more fundamental the deeper I dig. And the more I invest in them, the more unmanageable they seem to be. I tried to describe it in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and couldn't get where I wanted with words.

So, I drew a picture.

That's what Dan said!

2010-08-04T13:17:00.000-04:00

It's unusual for me, but there are actually a couple of movies I "wouldn't mind seeing" in the theatres. I'm not a big movie-goer. It feels like a big money and time commitment, and I could be doing other things. But for a stretch of a several years there in the early oughties naughties? zeroes? have we picked something to call the decade that's ending yet?, there was one movie every year that I OMGHADTOSEE, and it hasn't been that way for a while. I see maybe one or two movies per year in a theatre, and usually in IMAX or 3D, because with a 50 inch television at home, regular movies don't feel like much of an experience upgrade.

Anyway, I've been thinking that "Dinner for Schmucks" and "Despicable Me" both look pretty cute. And that I wouldn't mind seeing them. I won't be sad if I don't see them for 5 or 10 years, but if someone suggested it as an activity, I don't think I'd object. However, just this moment now, I realized that those two movies have something in common. And that something is Steve Carell. Which led me to consider my television watching habits. The three live-action shows that make up most of my TV time are "The Daily Show", "The Colbert Report", and "The Office". One where Carell used to work, one where he's a frequent guest, and one where he's the star.

I remarked to Grayskale this weekend that sketch comedy shows were no longer producing worthwhile comedians; that the comic actors worth watching were all coming from the Daily Show of course, now I can't think of anyone but Carell. His response: "All the other crap that people did on Saturday Night Live was just trying get a shot at Weekend Update."

Thoughts? If you were going to be on a comedy show, would you prefer to comment on the news, or create a new character?

Seeking cleaning advice

2010-07-27T10:03:00.000-04:00

I didn't mention it in April, but I got myself a little present that has become one of my favorite things ever: a reusable iced coffee cup. I love iced coffee; I hate throwing out all of those plastic sippy cups. This has been fantastic.

However, I noticed at the beginning of July that my drinks were starting to taste "off." I wash the cup daily, but running soapy water through the straw wasn't cutting it, so I bought a tiny cleaning brush to clean out the straw, and that helped. But now, 3 weeks later, I'm still finding it hard to get the cup as clean as I want. I scrub the threads and the seals with a toothbrush, but there just seems to be gunk or residue that I can't get off.

As far as I can tell, this isn't a problem with the cup. I always have this problem with drink containers: water bottles, travel mugs, and so forth, especially ones that have threads near a drinking surface. I don't have this problem with regular glass and stoneware - I've had the same cups and mugs at home for years. But the travel containers seem to accumulate ickiness, and I can really only get a couple of months of use out of them before it starts to affect the taste of the drink. I does seem like one bottle every 4 months is still an improvement over throwing out 100 disposable bottles in the same period, but I can't recycle the reusable ones. So I feel a little frustrated.

How do you clean your water bottle?

And then you'll be sorry...

2010-07-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening, I tried the "all you can eat" sushi special at Manna Sushi in Arlington. When I mentioned to people that this was to be my first "all you can eat" sushi experience, they all warned me to be careful. "I never eat all-I-should-eat" said one friend. "Rice expands in your stomach" said several others. Even my dining companions warned me.

But no, I had to show off. I had to send back the waitress for one more heaping plate of fishy goodness.

As a result, I spent a good portion of last night sprawled out immobilized on the couch, in definite discomfort. The fishes, they got me. Ouch.

My dining companions will also be pleased to hear that I later discovered that I had laughed sushi rice into my nasal cavity. I didn't realize this until blowing my nose later in the evening. That's how uncomfortable I was.

I never learn.

Diary: June 2010

2010-07-08T10:21:00.000-04:00

June is pretty exciting for me. June is my birthday. June is when I traditionally take vacation (to make sure I'm off campus during commencement, which is loud, invasive, and generally hellish). June is when strawberries become cheap and plentiful. What's not to like about June?

Unfortunately, as June came in, I got sick for the first time in what felt like forever. At first, I thought it was allergies. But it was pretty clearly a cold after a couple of days, and I spent most of my traditional Commencement Week Staycation* in bed, instead of reading in my hammock.

My birthday this year was an exceedingly good time. We went to Mooo for a lovely dinner, and LimeLight Stage and Studios for karaoke. This is my second time at LimeLight, and I really think I need to find a better karaoke venue. It seems like it should be awesome, but I haven't been really happy with either experience. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the fact that the software that they use for the music stutters. It gets hung up, and it's got a really terrible user interface. It's just not good. Mooo, however, was spectacular, and I can't recommend it enough.

I also ended up with a new Kindle 2 in June, due to some awesomeness on Grayskale's part. I still love my first generation Kindle, but I've moved over to the Kindle 2 for most of my reading, because the battery life is better, and it seems to get better reception for downloads. It's pretty awesome.

Health Update: I'm largely recovered from the foot drop. By the end of June, I was only wearing the foot brace for long walks, and it was hard to remember to do my physical therapy because things felt pretty OK. I'm still not back to doing the stairs at Porter Square station every day, but I'm about ready to tackle them again.

* I am by no means advocating the use of the word Staycation. It's ugly and awful and I hate it. But it was concise here.

I can sleep when I'm dead ... or when I have to work

2010-06-26T08:48:00.001-04:00

I don't know why, but it seems to be consistent:

On workdays, I set the alarm for 6:15 and nearly always sleep until almost 7:30. I just keep pounding the snooze alarm until the cats lose patience. Even once I get up, I'm groggy for a couple of hours. This usually gets me about 6-7 hours of sleep. On days when I am not working, I seem to wake up consistently before 7 am, and can't go back to sleep. I am fairly alert, and want to get up and do things, even if I stayed up fairly late the night before. Last night, for example, I got about 4 hours of sleep. I'm hoping I'll be able to take a nap this afternoon, because otherwise my weekly Rock Band singing will be interrupted by yawns.

Of course, now that I'm up and dressed, "want to do things" has gotten a lot less ambitious. When I was still horizontal, "want to do things" included weeding the back yard, washing the dishes, and cleaning the bathroom. Now it mostly involves puttering on the internet and reading a book. Maybe I should try to grab that nap now...

***

Edited at 10:55am: So, the nap didn't happen, but an hour-plus of weeding did. Additionally, I went through the backlog of junk mail, and found a cash back check from my credit card dated 2 weeks ago. Glad I didn't shred that. I'd say it was a nice surprise, but I had to request the damn thing. I just forgot. D'Oh!

Blog-worthy

2010-06-24T16:15:00.004-04:00

In the May Summary, I said

I think "stuff worth blogging about" is a big enough topic that I should give it a separate post

It only now occurs to me how "meta" that is.

Anyway. I give my blog posts a lot more credit than I think they're due, at this point. I used to write posts because I knew they would start a conversation. Of course, that's back when I was posting on LiveJournal, where my blog wasn't so much a "blog" as part of a really slow chat. So, I thought very little of writing one-line posts, or posts about nothing in particular. Now, I feel like my posts have to stand on their own a lot more. I'm unlikely to get comments on them, and if I do, they're often delayed by several days. That's not a quick enough turnaround to get two people commenting at each other, which made for some of my favorite parts of keeping a blog on LiveJournal.

So, for lack of a running commentary worth reading, I feel like the post itself has to be worth reading. And that feels like a mighty tall order to live up to in the time I have available for writing blog posts (also shorter than was available Back In the LiveJournal Days). I think FaceBook and Twitter have taken up some portion of the conversational aspect of LJ that I missed. The FaceBook Fuzzy Feelings I wrote about last week are certainly related to the way that posts are more rewarding when they get comments. This is coming off as a blatant cry for attention, and it's not meant that way (at least, not more so than any other blog post is).

At least on FaceBook, I don't feel like I'm setting each post out into the wilderness to fend for itself with nothing more than a can of beans and a pocketknife wrapped in a handkerchief and tied to a makeshift walking stick. It's more like I'm sending it off to a group home where it can drool on itself and make a couple of ashtrays until I remember to visit. It will be supervised, and not much is expected of it. I'm going to cut this analogy off before I feel any guiltier about it, but I think you see where I'm going. The things I write on the internet are my children, and I knew I wasn't cut out to be a parent.

Early morning vignette

2010-06-21T12:21:00.003-04:00

Dan blearily stares at a screen...

Huh. Is it supposed to stay the same for this long? Maybe there's something wrong with it. Do I need to be doing something with it. Huh. That's weird. If I shift my eyes this way, it looks like the screen is moving. It still hasn't changed. I bet there's something wrong with it. Wait, if I move my head and my eyes, it shifts a different way. That's weird. So wait, what am I looking at here. I don't think I'm doing anything to the display. This must be a television. This is a really boring show. Wait, did it just change? I can't tell. I feel like it just changed, but now it's staying still. Hm. There's no keyboard under my fingers. This is definitely a television. This show is really boring...

It took me a solid two minutes to realize I was staring at my alarm clock. I kid you not.

That fake fuzzy feeling

2010-06-18T08:48:00.004-04:00

My birthday is probably the only day I really like having a FaceBook account.

I'm not that great at remembering people's birthdays myself, but I probably hit over 50% of my Facebook friends (who have a birthday listed) with a "Happy Birthday" wall comment. So, on my birthday, I get email notifications of wall posts all day long, many from people I've barely spoken to (but who are far more committed to FaceBook than I am). Anyway, it strikes me as a little sad that I actually do feel more "loved" based on the FB notifications on my birthday.

Not that I don't feel awesome from the things that actually take effort, the things my wonderful friends do (or put up with) because it's my birthday. Getting a monkey card from my mother, a comic book from my sister, the REALLY funny and inappropriate card from my coworkers, these are all great too. It's nice to feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm making more people happy than I'm pissing off, on the balance.

Still, the fact that the zero-effort, could totally do if I was a shut-in, facebook fuzzies have an effect at all bothers me. I wish they didn't, but I can't pretend that I don't get a little smile when each of the little notifications comes in. Yes, oh classmate from 2007, it is great to hear from you, and I'm so happy that you noticed my birthday on the FaceBook home page! Except, I kind of am. Every time someone notices me and doesn't remove me from their "friends", that feels like some kind of win.

I'm partying tonight, and wearing my karaoke hat to work. And my friendly local convenience store gave me free coffee. So far, it's a good birthday.

Diary: May 2010

2010-06-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

So, I've already discussed that in May I was diagnosed with foot drop and also I shaved my head. That's old news. I don't see anything in the older posts about the fact that I joined Harvest Co-Op on May 1st and fell in love with BerryLine Frozen Yogurt.

These are things that I would have written entire blog posts about Back In The Day, but I find it harder and harder to convince myself that anyone would care. I think "stuff worth blogging about" is a big enough topic that I should give it a separate post (if I ever get around to writing it). I kind of want to put current events in these summaries, just to give myself context when I come back to look at them, but I can never tell what's going to be big news ahead of time. Like, the BP Oil breach happened on April 20th (2 days before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day? Really?) but I don't think I realized how big a deal it was until May. Hell, I still can't wrap my mind around it.

I also finally filled up the native memory in my 1st gen Kindle, which I got two years ago. The SD card still has space, but it felt satisfying to get the "no more room" message. I think May was also the month when I realized that I could no longer reasonably keep all my music on my 16GB iPhone. Storage is cheap, but apparently I will fill all the available space. Unsurprisingly.

Gah: for a summary, this post really isn't coming together. Maybe it's time to revisit the annual summaries that I was working on in 2006 and see if I have the perspective to work on a couple of years.

Head to Toe

2010-05-22T10:04:00.001-04:00

Head I still don't feel like I have a good picture of my newly shorn head. I've discovered that I basically have to shave every day: otherwise, it becomes so much like VelCro™ that I have trouble pulling a t-shirt on. My scalp is still extremely pale. You can easily see where my hair used to be, and I think that's making me funnier looking than I will eventually be, but I'm also still adjusting to it. Today I'm off to shop for hats; five minutes standing in the sun earlier this week drove home how necessary this will be. I didn't burn (I'm putting on sunscreen every morning), but it was uncomfortably hot.

Toe Treatment for my foot drop has begun in earnest. Monday, I had my initial intake with a physical therapist. Wednesday I received an Ankle-Foot Orthosis (AFO) which allows me to walk essentially normally. Friday, I had my first real appointment for physical therapy. Ouch. Still, not as bad as it could have been.

The AFO has made walking around possible again, although it's not comfortable for long stretches. Going down stairs isn't great, but manageable. Upstairs is almost normal. The exercises are manageable, but I need to remember to stretch more. I've woken up in the night twice this week with painful leg cramps. Ouch. The physical therapist gave me a couple stretches to deal with this specifically.

Reasons

2010-05-16T09:46:00.003-04:00

Why would you do that?!

The weather seemed like it was finally going to stay warm while I got used to it.
Last year I shaved my beard when the Bruins were eliminated from the playoffs, but I thought I looked really funny without a beard.
I started on a whim, but once I got going I couldn't really back out of it.
If I do it now, I still have a choice to grow it back. In two years, I don't think it will be an option.
But really, it's because: I got tired of saying I was going to do it but not doing it.

My Left Foot

2010-05-15T09:00:00.005-04:00

"No: is too long. Let me sum up" -- Inigo Montoya

So, as mentioned in yesterday's April summary, my doctor and I discovered that I had foot drop. I could point my toes down, but not lift them up. It was making me trip over the pattern in the carpet, and was generally inconvenient.

First I had a spinal MRI: they found a compromised disc (I believe the words "radial tear" were used) at the L4/L5 vertebrae.
Then I had an EMG, which found "peroneal neuropathy" originating at my left knee.
When I went to the orthopedist (who had a schedule opening earlier than the neurologist), he was convinced the issue was spinal, and was going to send me for a consultation with a spine surgeon. He kept insisting that the EMG results were normal, but when I had the EMG done, I'd been told in no uncertain terms that they weren't. After asking him 3 times, the orthopedist agreed to have someone else take a look, and came back to say "well, he showed me how to read it." Sigh.

My "spinal surgeon" consult was changed to into a knee MRI, and a recommendation that I start using a cane. This was Tuesday, May 11. The orthopedist also put in a referral to the neurologist. I already had a neurologist referral from my Primary Care Doctor, but this time they got me in for an appointment 3 days earlier, but at a different facility (same doctor). This caused a certain amount of phone tag, and confusion on the afternoon of May 11, but generally was not too bad.

Luckily, there was a cancellation, and I got to see the neurologist on the afternoon of May 13th (Thursday). And finally, I got a cause and a treatment plan. I find the cause funny beyond belief, so I have to share. You ready?

Weight loss
Habitual Leg Crossing

That's it. That caused partial paralysis and numbing of my left foot, and made me walk like Igor for a few weeks. Apparently, the fat that had been protecting the nerves as they ran through my knees was burned off, and I managed to pinch the peroneal nerve at my left knee by "habitual leg crossing."

The neurologist was everything I love in a doctor. Warm, funny, efficient, and answered all my questions. The two things I wanted to hear, he said: "I know what's causing this" and "I know how to fix it." So, I have a prescription for an ankle brace and physical therapy, and I've been told to try not to put stress/weight on my joints unnecessarily. I found it especially comforting that the neurologist was frustrated and disappointed that no one had put me in an ankle brace two weeks ago, because apparently ankle braces are basically always indicated for foot drop. He also said that I didn't need the cane, which I found a great relief.

The thing that makes this extra funny to me is that I had been Googling "peroneal neuropathy" and "foot drop" since Tuesday. Mind you, none of the doctors had said "peroneal neuropathy" to me. I'd had to overhear it from a tech calling in my MRI appointment. I saw "weight loss" and "habitual leg crossing" as potential causes in most of the online descriptions; it kind of made me hope I'd be prescribed therapeutic Ben & Jerry's! The other major causes were trauma, and I hadn't had any noticeable spine, knee, or ankle trauma (basically ever). So, two things that I thought were normal, possibly even healthy, led to a condition that gave me 3 doctor's visits, 2 MRIs, 1 EMG, 5 vials of blood tests, and an unnecessary cane before I got a diagnosis.

If that ain't comedy, I don't know what is.

Diary: April 2010

2010-05-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Which brings us, O Patient Readers, to April...

So, having determined that I was going to eat what I wanted to eat, which sort of went with the New Year's Resolution (see January), March gave way to April, flooding gave way to more flooding, and the grass seed I'd put down in March actually displayed signs of sprouting.

Right around the beginning of April, Grayskale and I finished up our work-designated "fitness" programs (both about 12 weeks), and decided it was time to get new clothes. At the beginning of April, I passed the 20% mark: I had lost 20% of my starting weight in about 8 months. Since most of my clothes had been purchased more than 8 months earlier, nothing fit. I now weighed less than I had in over a decade. We bought a lot of clothes, and I discovered that I was wearing a smaller waist size than I did in college. I also bought a new pair of shoes, since I never did get around to replacing the beat up shoes I complained about in December.

In what seemed like an unrelated matter, on April 12, I tripped on the way to work. Fell right on my face. It was embarrassing, but I didn't think much of it. Over the next two weeks, I found myself complaining about my walk a lot. I thought maybe my shoes didn't fit: I ordered (and ended up returning) 4 pairs of shoes from Zappos.com trying to find ones that felt right; they didn't feel weird on my feet, but my footfalls sounded weird and unbalanced when I wore them, and it was uncomfortable.

Then I had a recurrence of my January headaches in the wee hours of April 26th, and went back to the doctor. When he asked if I'd had any dizziness or balance problems, I mentioned that my gait seemed off. He did some basic reflex tests, and noticed that my left foot wouldn't lift as much as my right. He sent me off for a spinal MRI, an EMG, and gave me a referral to a neurologist. When the MRI results came back, a compromised disc at L4/L5 added a orthopedist into the mix.

But April wasn't all clothes shopping and foot problems. I also searched for, and eventually received as a gift, Kosher-for-Passover Coke (made with cane sugar instead of HFCS). We discovered Keldon's great Rock Band Scores website. In conjunction with our neighbors, we replaced our back fence and I got quotes from 3 arborists for trimming our elm tree, and I even found time to have a bonus Waffle Day with extra bacon.

It amazes me that I got all of this done while finding myself volunteered for no less than 4 committees at work. My participation in these would be severely hampered by the many doctor's appointments I had scheduled starting in the first week of May To be continued tomorrow...

Diary: March 2010 (part 4)

2010-05-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

And after San Antonio and Austin, it was time to go home...

When I got home from the conference, I decided I was now making conscious decisions about my meat consumption, and that it was probably time to talk to Grayskale about it. Considering that the man runs on deep fried, I was surprised at how unfazed he was. This is probably because I had utterly forgotten the conversation we'd had in September where he totally saw this coming. In short, I established that I'd be cooking vegan at home, and that if he got to a point where it got to be too much, I wanted him to say so. If he wanted cheese or meat, we'd get take-out.

I didn't verbalize my personal rules for ordering restaurant food for another 10 days. However, the rules are pretty simple and very easy to follow, since "the rule" is to get what I want most:

Identify any vegan options on the menu.
If there are no vegan options, identify vegetarian options
Choose one of these that looks good.
Now read the rest of the menu
If something looks better to you than the vegan (or vegetarian) item you picked, get that instead.

Most of the time, I don't have that strong a preference, so most of the time I end up sticking with the vegetarian option.

Thus ending this far too wordy "summary" of March, and now I'm going to break my habit of not posting spoilers in diary posts. The "rule" has been working really well, and it's getting easier for me to ask for different food. There's been a couple of work things recently where I specifically requested a vegan meal, which goes far beyond "taking the vegetarian option presented." This not only inconvenienced my coworker, but also the caterer. And I still feel OK about it. Which is pretty awesome, actually.

Diary: March 2010 (part 3)

2010-05-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

When last we left our hero, he was pissed off about attitudes towards vegetarianism in Texas...

I did get to check out the Alamo while I was in San Antonio, which I didn't expect to be right in the middle of town, across from the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. It's pretty damn cool, and one of the volunteer historians at the site presented a 45-minute off-the-cuff argument argument to me and my convention pal about how different America might look if the folks at the Alamo hadn't decided to sacrifice themselves. It struck me as nigh-on religious. Actually, I think it may have been literally religious; a sign on the door informs you that you are entering a shrine, and instructs you to keep your voice down. Anyway: the grounds are beautiful, and I really liked it.

After the conference, I took advantage of already having flown to Texas, and swung up to Austin to visit Meta and Rothko for the weekend. I hadn't seen them in several years, since they moved to Austin from Cambridge. As mentioned in the February update, traveling to visit friends was still a little nerve wracking for me. Adding it to the end of 3 days of forced extroversion (the conference) made me really concerned that it would be too stressful, but again, it wasn't bad at all. I don't think that attention to self-care hurt at all with that. I made a conscious point of taking quiet time to myself to nap or write postcards, and I think that kept my spirits high. Writing postcards was particularly rewarding, partially due to a stop at BookPeople on Friday night. I don't buy (non-illustrated) books in physical formats anymore, but I do love postcards, and they had a great selection.

Meta and Rothko appear to be seriously in love with their city, and I can't say I blame them. What I saw of Austin seemed pretty darn cool. On Saturday, thanks to a tweet I saw from Danielle Corsetto, we checked out the Staple! Independent Media Expo. I spent far more on comics and artwork (more postcards!) than I planned to, but I had a great time. The highlight of the entire expo for me was getting drawn on by R.K. Milholland and Danielle, but Meta and Rothko got to get a little fanboy/girl squee in as well, when they bumped into one of the creators of Metroid Prime. After the expo, I lost my Frito Pie virginity at Spider House Cafe, and ended my vegetarian experiment with some chocolate covered bacon from Big Top Candy Shop.

Diary: March 2010 (part 2)

2010-05-12T09:00:00.002-04:00

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I went to a conference in San Antonio in March...

Possibly the most lifestyle-affecting part of the conference was a little experiment with food politics. The short version is that for a week, I pretended to be a vegetarian. I had been reducing my meat consumption for a month or two by the time the conference rolled around. I suppose it would be fair to say that for a week, I was a vegetarian, but that feels somehow cheap or dishonest to me. (Somehow more dishonest than telling strangers "I'm a vegetarian" for a week?) At any rate, if I'd been picking my own food, this wouldn't have been that big a change, but eating at the conference made this a more interesting trial run than it would have been at home.

The conference provided three days of catered lunches for several hundred people. There hadn't been any "food restriction" check boxes on the registration form. The lunches were plated, not buffet-style, so there weren't really any choices I could make for myself, either. I asked the waiter if a vegetarian option was available. Asking for what felt like "special treatment" was extremely uncomfortable, but I had to imagine I wasn't the only one asking. I only found one other self-identified vegetarian during the conference, and we kind of bonded over it. The catering staff was reasonably accommodating; on all three days, they were able to provide me something to eat that didn't have any obvious meat products. There was probably some beef stock or something in most of it. The dishes tended to be cheese-heavy, but that's normal for "vegetarian options" in catering.

My fellow conventioneers were the ones that surprised me; on all three days, my request for a meatless entree was a matter of table discussion. The discussion often included anecdotes about teenage relatives who "claimed" to be vegetarian, but occasionally ate meat. The tone felt really derisive, and I suddenly worried about every one of my friends I'd ribbed about vegetarianism. On that note, consider this post my official apology.

Diary: March 2010 (part 1)

2010-05-11T09:00:00.007-04:00

This post got significantly out of control, so I've split it up into what I hope are digestible sized pieces

One thing I didn't mention in the February update was an award I received at work (which I found out about in February). The award ceremony was at the beginning of March. The thing that made this award especially touching to me is that the nomination was submitted by the faculty. Typically, at least in my department, it's tough to get faculty involved in the recognition program, and so I was really touched that they thought enough of my work to write a nomination. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the award ceremony. I had already booked a trip to San Antonio, TX that week to attend a conference in my somewhat obscure field. The conference itself was pretty good. I made a real effort to network, and I feel like I learned things about my job and about myself. More on that in part 2.

Also in March, Grayskale and I went to a "Restaurant Week" prix fixe at the Blue Room with Drinkywinky and Cinder, and it was awesome.

We also went to a hockey game, and I experimented with putting my hockey photos on Picasa Web Albums instead of Flickr.

Unseasonably warm weather encouraged the first grilling of the season, and adding grass seed to the lawn. This was followed immediately by late snow, and then enormous amounts of rain that caused flooding emergencies all over the state (and washed away most of my grass seed).

Organic / Fair-Trade / Local / Vegan

2010-05-08T08:00:00.011-04:00

I've startled Grayskale a couple of times during the last couple of months by using food politics as my conversational opener. It's unusual for me for several reasons, not the least of which being that I tend to shy away from confrontation, and (unless I know my audience), food politics is not a topic that people tend to be neutral on.

Part of it is the major shift that we've made in our eating habits. I've shifted from "mostly take-out" to "mostly groceries" in the last year. By way of illustration, and because it's What I Do, here are some data:

1 March 2009 - 1 May 2009: 34 orders with Foodler.com
1 March 2010 - 1 May 2010: 11 orders with Foodler.com

Buying groceries has mostly been part of the weight loss exercise. It's easier to control portions and empty calories when you're making your own food. But it also led to a new and exciting way to exercise my liberal guilt, as initially described last September in the post, Beta-testing Awesomeness. Actually, I probably described this first in my 2007 comic, "Not Homogenized". So as much as I feel like these are new concerns for me, my data-driven life shows that I've been worrying about them for a while. Unlike organic vegetables, my liberal guilt stays fresh a long time.

At any rate, when I have choices in my purchases, I spend a fair amount of emotional energy, but not much critical thought, in making the "right" choice. I've tended towards buying things labeled "organic", "fair-trade", "locally produced", and/or "vegan". I'm unswayed by the "natural" tag, because it's fairly meaningless. I don't consider this a triumph of my own skepticism: I've had the value of various food labeling pointed out to me several times (e.g. this lifehacker guide to food labels, via csniezek).

The point I'm trying to make is that, like many people, I make most of my purchasing decisions based on vague emotional cues, not on rational arguments. I've always been fascinated by the way advertising tells us that a product can make us closer to the people we want to be, from "Choosy mothers choose Jif" to "Meat. That's what real women need". So, I'm trying to determine what these four buzzwords tell me about the person I want to be.

Organic: This is probably the one I have the most problems with. I'm not sure that I actually care about organic farming. Well, I do have concerns about industrial-level pesticide and hormone pollution. What I don't care about is the personal level health benefits. Jeebus, I smoke like a chimney, and drink more than I ought to. Health benefits are low on my priority list all around. Actually, I have a psychological block against doing things because I think they'll benefit me personally, but that's a whole other topic, and the post is getting too long as it is. Suffice to say that I mostly use "organic" as a placeholder for "probably shares other values with me", which is odd, since I'm unclear on what my "values" are.

Fair Trade: This one feels more like it has value on its own. I like the idea of paying people a living wage for their work. I do find myself a little troubled by the economic arguments against Fair Trade, but more troubled by accusations of inconsistent standards among the certifying bodies, although this does seem to be improving.

Locally Produced: This is another one where I'm not sure what benefit I'm trying to encourage. I feel like my main driver behind favoring local products is environmental, but this runs into efficiency issues. Is the carbon footprint for an item lower if it's locally distributed in small vehicles, rather than mass distribution by train or boat? Actually, I suspect that argument is disingenuous, since I'm not shopping at major distribution hubs. It's going to get from the train to the warehouse to the store via truck anyway. There's also the value of stimulating the local economy, but that's too close to my "personal benefit" block, so I shy away from that as a selling point.

Vegan: I can not stress this enough: I do not follow a vegan diet. I am a fiend for brunch, and I still haven't found anything that can replace a poached egg. Mmm, eggs. Still, I've started choosing vegan products in any case where it would otherwise be a toss-up, mostly for environmental reasons. While I suspect that the environmental impact numbers for meat production are inflated, even at 33-50% accuracy, they still present a compelling argument for cutting back on meat consumption. The unsavoriness of the meat industry is another strong argument toward veganism. I generally feel like (and I feel like such a privileged douchebag saying this) meat should be a luxury item, and more expensive. But if I'm opting out of subsidized production, I should probably be cutting out corn, soy, and tobacco first. The little fluffy aminals [sic] can go fuck themselves. It's not a cuteness thing, and it's not an intelligence thing. It may be a respect thing, though. It does seem disrespectful to kill something living when I'm just eating because I'm hungry. [Edit to add: Finally, part of my drive to keep my food at home vegan is tied up in my responsibilities as a host. I don't host vegan guests that often, but non-vegans can and do eat vegan food, whereas vegans can't eat non-vegan food. Defaulting to vegan products seems like the easiest way to meet everyone's dietary restrictions. In fairness, however, I still find myself having trouble feeding people who are avoiding soy, gluten or other plant products.]

Sadly, I'm fairly sure that all my these arguments come after the fact, as rationalization. There are a couple pithy quotes that ring in my head when I'm shopping. I'm not sure how deeply I believe in them, or whether I think they ought to be exercised in the grocery store. But I thought I should list them, because these Jiminy Crickets in my ear probably do more to influence my purchases than any amount of rational argument:

"Live simply that others might simply live" -- Elizabeth Seaton
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" -- Michael Pollan
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that wish you were on the other side." -- Jascha Heifetz

Diary: February 2010

2010-05-05T17:00:00.001-04:00

Oh dear. I've let months go by before writing a "monthly" update again. Here's what happened to me in February, largely based on notes I wrote in March.

In February, the biggest deal was traveling to Nashville for a strictly social visit. Those who know me closely in real life may recognize that this is a Big Deal for me. I haven't really traveled for social purposes in a few years, because I found it so stress-inducing that it actually strained my relationships with the people I visited. I keep meaning to write about this, but I don't think I actually have.

At any rate, when an opportunity came to visit a friend in Nashville, I decided it was time to get back on that horse. I'd call it an unqualified success. The trip was fantastic. I got to spend some time catching up with a good friend, visited lovely and horrendous local attractions, and a good time was had by all (I hope!). I believe my enjoyment of the trip was distinctly influenced by the presence of Martini, who as far as I can tell is a fun magnet. Good times. (More Photos)

Also while in Nashville, I bought some art (expanded story). It's now hanging in my office. Yay.

Google Buzz appeared suddenly (and without pre-hype) in my GMail inbox in February. Perhaps it was the utter lack of prior notice that made me reflect on why Google Wave, as neat as it was, really didn't go anywhere, and why I had stopped using it. While many of my acquaintances freaked out about privacy problems and the fact that things shared "publicly" were now a lot more searchable, I found it charming. I didn't disable it from my inbox, but quickly determined that it wasn't going to be the integrated FriendFeed replacement I'd been craving.

I was "randomly" selected for additional screening to ride the subway in February. I have no interest in being part of their security theatre, and declined to participate. (Expanded story here)

In health news, with my headaches from January disappearing entirely on their own, I went back to one of my favorite drugs: caffeine. Ah, sweet coffee bean, how I missed you.

I also signed up for my employer's annual fitness motivation plan, a 12-week exercise reporting system. As a fairly direct result of this, I started taking the 199 stairs at Porter Square up and down every day. It is not pleasant, but it is vaguely satisfying. Because Grayskale's employer had a similar winter/spring health program, I started packing lunches for both of us in February, cutting a few hundred calories a day from his diet, and possibly adding a couple hundred to mine, since I've had a bad habit of skipping lunch for the past couple of years. We also started eating breakfast. Three meals a day was an odd transition, but really seemed to help with our weight loss goals.

So, that was February. It was a pretty good month, all told. With any luck, I can get to March before July. I do apologize for the delay.

Chart of the Day: for realsies

2010-04-02T15:41:00.006-04:00

So, clearly yesterday's chart was bogus: I'm not drinking a half-pint of whiskey in my coffee Monday morning.

Maybe next week.

At any rate, I can't leave bad data alone, so I thought I should post the actual drinks-by-day-of-week chart, which is far less exciting, and not Particularly surprising.

So, here's the original chart, that I modified for use in my apparently dull April Fool's Day post:

And, for those who are unaware of my regular weekly schedule, here it is again, labeled in a way that explains all:

Chart of the Day

2010-04-01T14:05:00.004-04:00

So, as I've mentioned several times before, I've been keeping a log of my eating and alcohol consumption habits since the end of last July. So, I have 36 weeks of data to play with, and periodically, I take it out and poke it to see if there's a pattern. I've posted these graphs before, showing the differences between weeks: November 4, March 6th. It never occurred to me to see if there was a difference within the week, though. So, for your chart-viewing pleasure, here's my newest dietary graph:

Next week: my work absences graphed by which end had the problem.
more info here

Cultural Appropriation

2010-03-29T15:00:00.001-04:00

This post is about cultural appropriation, but more specifically about "bad cultural appropriation". If you're not familiar with the concept already, I'd recommend this Feministing post from 2009 as a quick and good read. A lot of the other discussion I've found about cultural appropriation is really too dense for a primer, and, as The Angry Black Woman says, characterized by a "stunning amount of ignorance and defensiveness." I suspect what follows is no exception. If you know of a better FAQ, I'll be happy to link to it.

I spent a lot of the weekend thinking about this phrase: back in the 1990's, when I thought cultural appropriation was cool. There was a hippie store a couple of towns over, when I was in high school, that sold a lot of South American- and Native American-inspired crafts and clothing, which I thought was pretty damn spiffy. In college, I was fascinated by "tribal" designs, because it was the 1990's, and everyone was, and I don't feel a lot of guilt over it (which doesn't mean I'd get one tattooed). I feel like I might have at one point bought and worn a bindi, but my memory isn't clear.

In the late 1990's, I finally had it explained to me that adopting the customs of a culture that isn't yours because they're cute, or charming, or even because you identify with the parts of the tradition that you understand is not OK. The argument seemed legitimate, and I was reasonably chastened, and I generally cut it out.

I had one female relative take me to task on this because I was completely uninterested in celtic or scandinavian culture or artwork. I think it's more that I didn't want her to knit me a snowflake sweater, and the Society for Creative Anachronism may have put me off of celtic knotwork for a lifetime. I think my real problem with this is that I don't feel like I have any more right to Swedish, Dutch, or Irish cultures (based on my genetic makeup) than I have to Kokopelli. This has to do a lot with my prejudice against hereditary understanding; if I didn't live through it, I don't get it. I'm not Dutch/Swedish/Irish; I'm a geek yankee. The closing of Wang Computers is a lot more culturally relevant to my experience than The Great Famine.

Now, I hope this isn't a dominant culture thing, but it could be. Tt's different when the culture being appropriated is the dominant one. For example, I feel very few qualms about my annual Easter Cartoons, even though I'm not Christian. On the other hand, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to have a seder, because I'm not Jewish.

So, the example I thought of this weekend was the use, by bisexual women, of the label "dyke", and whether I considered this cultural appropriation. And if I did consider it cultural appropriation, does that slippery slope get me all the way to "womyn-born womyn", and other concepts I can't countenance at all?

Diary: January 2010

2010-03-26T14:53:00.002-04:00

A new year, a new resolution. While last year's charitable donation resolution was pretty fun, I decided that for 2010, I'd make more of an effort to do things because I wanted to, rather than because I felt that it was expected.

The Annual Waffle party was much smaller than previous years, and for the first time, 100% vegan (at least, the stuff I provided was vegan -- guests brought non-vegan things, and that was fine). It actually made my job a lot easier: in previous years, I'd stocked cow's milk and soy milk, butter and earth balance, eggs and EnerG, and that was a lot of ingredients to keep track of. I think the item I was most proud of was the "Bacon Potato Cheddar waffles" (always a favorite) which I managed to produce using all vegan substitutes this year. They came out very well, I think, but I need to refine the recipe. I feel like they should be crispier. The leftover vegan ingredients from the waffle party led to the beginnings of a second resolution for 2010, which was to reduce my meat intake again. I'd done it several times before, but kept resetting to daily meat consumption.

Unfortunately, in January I also had a mysterious health problem, which I blogged about at the time: headaches. I had recurring headaches for two weeks in January which were easily the worst headaches I'd ever had. I saw doctors, went in for a MRI, and ate a lot of ibuprofen. They went away on their own. See pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, and pt 5 for more detail if you missed it and are interested. The main result was that I gave up caffeine, and was then informed by my doctor that I probably shouldn't have. Oh, and I got my eyes checked, which was overdue.

I tried two new social networking doodads in January: FourSquare.com and GetGlue.com. Foursquare I loved; I had been doing a similar thing for my own records by making notes of my travels in my Google Calendar. GetGlue I didn't care for. It was notable only in that I actually deleted a social networking account two days after opening it.

Apart from that, I just made an effort to be social, and overbooked myself a bit. We went to a hockey game (sort of), a couple of parties, saw a couple wonderful people I don't generally see a lot of, and stumbled along as I always do. Apart from the headaches, it was a pretty good month.

Overbooked

2010-03-22T14:03:00.005-04:00

In an email this weekend to a friend I haven't seen in several months, I wrote:

we should get together for dinner. I think I'm currently scheduling in May.

This was not blowing her off. Checking my calendar today, I find that I really am scheduling into May at this point, just to hang out with people. This strikes me as a sign that I am doing something wrong in my life.

I'm thinking specifically of Dunbar's Number: that is, the theoretical limit on the number of people with whom you can have "stable social relationships." The theoretical mean suggested is 148. I'm starting to suspect that my personal optimal number is much lower, but I'm also wondering what "stable" means for me. I have a large number of (what I consider) stable relationships with people I see only every few months, and a very small number who I see regularly (i.e. >50 times/year). Being the habitual number-cruncher that I am, I'm very tempted to make spreadsheets.

Social networking services like FaceBook seem to make it harder (for me at least) to let people drop out of the social network as new people enter. I'm not sure I have anything meaningful to say about this, but it's been on my mind as I struggle to keep in touch with the wonderful people in my life. There's a lot of them!

One option I've considered is setting myself a socializing budget each week, much like the budgets I set for myself on caloric intake, money, and cigarettes. I seem to be pretty good at staying close to budgets for those items. I'd considered the social budget several times in the past, but I'm feeling like it may be time to implement it. What's your social budget? But which activities should count? Should internet time count, if it's maintaining social ties? Should I only count face-time? How would you define the time you spend grooming your relationships?

Poll: Personal Checks

2010-03-16T17:53:00.003-04:00

I've lived at my current address for over 3 years, and my checks still have my previous address on them. I haven't bothered to replace them. Finally, I am nearly out of personal checks. I don't think this has ever happened before.

Back in the bad old days, I would order personal checks when I moved, but since I was moving nearly every year (sometimes more than once), and the minimum order of checks was 150, I usually ended up shredding a lot of checks -- like, 130 of them.

I only write checks when dealing with the government (parking tickets, passport renewals, etc) or for my therapist. My therapist takes cash or check. Those seem to be my options. I really hate writing checks. I thought if I got fun checks, maybe I wouldn't hate having to carry them and write them so much. As it turns out, there are no good monkey check designs. I would have to get custom printed checks to get a good set of monkey checks. I actually picked a creative commons photo to use already. I'd have this guy on my checks, if I was going to go that route. Adorable.

So, please take my poll about checks
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Graph of my Drinking habits

2010-03-06T20:48:00.002-05:00

Look-it the pretty colors. Last fall I posted a graph of my drinks per week. Here's my estimated calories, divided into protein, fat, alcohol, and other carbohydrates:

Poll: Conferences!

2010-02-25T10:56:00.002-05:00

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Results page

Adventures in Security Theatre

2010-02-23T09:01:00.006-05:00

This morning, they were screening bags at the Porter Square MBTA stop. A uniformed officer asked me to bring my bag over to the screening table. I smiled, and said "No thank you", and walked out of the station.

When I got to the street, I saw that there was a bus headed the right direction across the street, and was about to run for it when a hand clapped me on the shoulder. Someone who I have to assume was MBTA staff (not uniformed) stopped me, and we had this conversation:

Him: "I want to ask why you didn't want your bag screened."
Me: "I think it's an invasion of privacy, and I don't want to participate."
Him: "But you understand what we're doing here?"
Me: "Yes, I've written the MBTA about it, and I don't agree with the program. I can't do anything about it, so I'm going to take alternate transportation rather than participate"
Him: "OK, thanks [pause] sorry, I'm out of breath from chasing you up here."
Me: [blank stare]

I feel like I'm forgetting part of the conversation, but that's essentially it.

Things I didn't remember to say until I left, and wish I had:
"I think this is ineffective"
"This is just security theatre that doesn't make us any safer."

Things I thought to say, and am glad I didn't:
"I think I understand this better than you do, buddy."

The issue is that I don't necessarily consider this a violation of privacy, but I do hate the "show." I don't like placebos in general, and that's what I think this is. I walked down to Harvard, and got on what was probably the next train after the one I would have caught if I hadn't been picked for screening.

Buzz: Why I'm unconcerned about the privacy thing

2010-02-11T17:01:00.006-05:00

So, here's a little Google Buzz privacy test I just ran.

1) One of my friends (we'll call her A) has a Google profile set up with three options checked:

hide my Buzz followers/following
don't let people search for my profile
Do not use my gmail address as my profile URL

2) I looked for A's profile, but didn't couldn't find it through search. This is good.

3) I went to the (public) profile page of one of A's followers. When I clicked on the list of followers, I saw not only A, but also her gmail address. Oh noes!

4) I signed out of the "Dan4th" google account and signed into another google account I have sitting around. When I went back to that same page, A's information was no longer listed in the stranger's "followers." Now it listed the same list as I saw as "Dan4th", but additionally "... and one person without a public profile". Apparently, Dan4th could see A because Dan4th is already following A on Buzz.

So. I'm sure this isn't "secure" (whatever that means), but it also appears to be non-trivial to find information on people's Google profile pages unless you already have them in your Google Contacts. Granted, this is assuming that the person who wants to be private has set up a Google Profile and opted out of public participation. There are many many many people complaining that a public footprint should be "Opt-in", not "Opt-out". I'm not so sure, but I'm also not ready to verbalize why. I'll think about it.

How private is your Google Profile? Try searching for yourself and decide on your own. Personally (speaking as someone with an enormous online footprint, who has had a public Google Profile set up for far too long), I'm unconcerned.

Take my money!

2010-02-10T13:58:00.006-05:00

This past weekend, I visited Nashville, TN. It was a good time.

Friday night, I saw a painting that I got really excited about, hanging on the wall of a wine bar that we visited. I checked the price, and it was actually within the range of what I was willing to pay. I decided to buy it. I also decided that it was probably a bad idea to haul it around for the remainder of the night, and so I took the bar owner's card (she's also the artist), and dropped her an email to arrange shipping. I sent the email on Saturday morning.

She responded to my first email within a couple of hours (Saturday afternoon), saying that she'd be happy to ship the painting on Monday, and could I please write her back with my phone number to arrange payment (via credit card).

Attempts to provide payment information so far:

Sat PM: I replied with my phone number. The email bounced: "MAILBOX FULL"
Sat PM: I called the bar, but she wasn't there. Like a fool, I did not leave a message, and figured I'd be able to get through via email
Sat PM: email #2, mailbox full.
Sat PM: Her email signature had her Twitter account in it, but found out that you can't Direct Message people on twitter unless they're following you.
Sun AM: email #3, mailbox full
Sun PM: The 4th email attempt (Sunday afternoon) did not result in a bounced mail message, but it also hasn't resulted in a reply.
Tue PM: Yesterday I called the number on the wine bar's card, in the hopes I could leave a message with my phone number. The fax machine picked up.
Wed PM: Today I tried the phone again. This time I got "The voicemail box for [NAME OF BAR] is full".
UPDATE: She did respond to a regular @reply on Twitter, and I managed to provide payment information on Thursday. Hooray!

I really, really, really want this painting. It is not normal for visual art to affect me this strongly, and it's something I'd like to have in my house. However, I am having no luck in getting it, and it's making me a little frustrated, and a little confused. I don't *get* having a business and being hard to reach. Then again, being easy to reach is one of my quirks. Possibly one of my kinks. Seriously though. I'm trying to give you money. Why is this hard?

Head Ouchy, Pt 5 - Conclusion

2010-02-04T16:57:00.003-05:00

So, I had a follow up appointment with my primary care physician this morning about the headaches.

I'd like to tell you that they were all gone, but I am still having headaches about every other morning. However, they are much less severe, less frequent, and respond to lower doses of ibuprofen. Still, this is manageable, as long as I remember that taking painkillers isn't a moral failing. baggage, much?

My doctor and I agree that it looks like they are going away on their own, and that we have no idea what caused them. The symptoms do not match the profile for migraines, cluster headaches, tension, or caffeine-related headaches. My bloodwork and MRI turned up nothing, so we're going to do nothing except watch for a while. If they get worse again, I'm supposed to go back in (after 2 days of pain, not 9 like I did this time).

My doctor also said that he wouldn't have recommended giving up caffeine with my symptoms, and if I want to add it back in, I can. I don't really want to. I've been on decaffeinated coffee for two weeks, and I don't see any reason to go back, except possibly to keep my geeky "addict" t-shirt from being a lie. So, if you see me on the street, yes, I really am naturally this perky. Whee!

Head Ouchy, part the fourth (and hopefully last)

2010-01-26T21:55:00.004-05:00

I now have scientific proof that I have a brain. Actually, I suppose this is hardly scientific. But it's awfully pretty. Neither the bloodwork nor the MRI came up with any explanation for the headaches I've been having, though.

On the other hand, my headaches do seem to be getting better, which is sort of what everyone expected. It looks like this is going to turn out to be one of those weird, unexplainable health things that just happen (and make me a little nuts). I haven't had a bad one since Sunday. I talked to my doctor today about the MRI and bloodwork results, and he said I should just manage the headaches with OTC meds (assuming this didn't require going over recommended daily doses), and follow up with him at the end of next week. Quite nearly "take two aspirin and call me in the morning."

I haven't had a caffeinated beverage in over a week, which is a little weird. I'm still dubious that the headaches were caffeine-related, but now that I'm off the stuff, it seems silly to start having it again. Excedrin worked on the first headache I tried it on, but not on the second, and only okay on the third, so I stopped. I'm probably still getting trace amounts of caffeine in, say, the chips in Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, but not enough that I think it's worth worrying about. I don't particularly mind the taste of decaffeinated coffee, and I haven't been drinking much soda since I started dieting in August.

Mostly, this image makes me worry about my head-shaving plan for the spring. Has my head always been this lumpy? If I can be that vain again, I suspect things are back to normal...

OpenID via Google

2010-01-21T22:11:00.005-05:00

Google owns my soul. This is not news.

So. This is mostly a note for myself so that I can remember this handy tip that Jonathan found. Google wants me (and you, and everyone with a Google account) to use the following URL as an OpenID login:

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id

This apparently connects to your Google Account, so you don't have to remember another password. I had really only used OpenID previously with LiveJournal, which creates a special LiveJournal account type associated with each URL you use to login using OpenID. Sadly, it does NOT associate these URLs with, say, the syndicated feeds coming from those URLs. Grump. This means that I now have no fewer than FOUR OpenID accounts at LiveJournal:

Dan4th [Google.com]
Dan4th [t*uchytr*nny.com] (syndicated here)
Dan4th [unopposablethumb.com] (syndicated here)
differenceblog.com (syndicated here)

... all of which use my Google log-in to authenticate that I am who I say I am (the 3 custom URLs check through Blogger). What a lovely use of unique identifiers.

The fact that there are this many of them is the reason that I suggested that if you want to add me as a friend on LiveJournal, you should add <lj user=Dan4th>, not one of the OpenIDs. Since they are all unique LJ accounts, if you add one, and I'm logged in with another, I won't be able to read your locked posts.

Grr. Argh. I think I need to make "There's got to be a better way" into a tag.

You can follow The Unopposable Thumb on LJ, but responses may be delayed.

Head Ouchy, Pt 3

2010-01-21T13:28:00.004-05:00

I was blaming caffeine withdrawals for the past couple of days. Excedrin helped enormously more than ibuprofen, and I remembered that I'd put decaf into the "regular coffee" bag at home, which meant that when I thought I was getting full-test, I was only getting 25-50% the caffeine I expected. My therapist called this "the most elaborate story of self-sabotage [she'd] ever heard". I doubt this very much, but am still somewhat annoyed that I didn't re-label the bag when I put decaf in. I usually do. Whoops.

I'm not sure that it was caffeine withdrawals anymore. Because I keep such ridiculous records on everything that goes into my mouth, I was able to go back over the past 4 weeks and make an estimate of the amount of caffeine in milligrams. The days the headaches started don't seem significantly different.

See the chart. Headaches were on the 12th through the 20th: does that look different?

So, I have an eye exam in ten minutes, and an appointment with my Primary Care Physician tomorrow afternoon. And therefore, I woke up without a headache this morning. It always stops making the noise when you bring it in to the shop. Alas.

Which is fine. Better to not be in pain. But still.

You can follow The Unopposable Thumb on LJ, but responses may be delayed.

Head Ouchy, Pt 2

2010-01-18T14:06:00.003-05:00

Thank you! I got some interesting suggestions on what could be causing my headaches; some I'd thought of, some I hadn't. I also thought of a couple other things that could be contributing, which I didn't list in the previous post. I present the suggestions and new ideas here in no particular order:

Anemia
Angle of light
Caffeine
Eye-strain, related to needing new glasses
Ibuprofen withdrawals
Ice-related posture changes
Neck strain related to recent addition of new pillow
Rhythmic Headbutting Class
Sinus-related
Smoking, less
Soy, excessive
Stress
"Going vegetarian or vegan suddenly"

I did try eating hash and eggs for breakfast yesterday, and still had headaches all day, so I'm leaning away from anemia and "going veg". I probably need an eye exam anyway, since it's been a couple years, but the timing of symptoms feels wrong for eyestrain. Today, I am trying going without caffeine, since I don't have work. I am marginally hopeful; I woke up with a headache, but it faded relatively early without painkillers.

The one thing on this list that I'm really hoping it isn't is stress. I can probably adjust the rest of these items without much effort. I am spectacularly bad at reducing stress.

You can follow The Unopposable Thumb on LJ, but responses may be delayed.

Head Ouchy

2010-01-16T14:05:00.004-05:00

I'm opening myself for a world of hurt here, but since I'm already in a world of hurt: here goes.

Okay, when I say "hurt", what I mean is "really unhelpful advice that makes me want to gouge my eyes out and yet I know that since I actually solicited it, I should smile and nod and say 'thank you'". I don't know why I respond so poorly to solicited advice. I'm fairly certain that in this instance, I am looking for advice, not sympathy, so I will hopefully not respond badly. Still, it's hard for me not to hear an unspoken addendum to most advice, as follows:

"Are you drinking enough water you f*cking moron?"
"are you getting enough sleep you f*cking moron?"
"did you take your head out of your ass first you f*cking moron?"
and so forth...

So, now that I've totally put you off the opportunity to give me advice, let me continue on to asking for it.

For the past several days, I've had a headache, or possibly headaches. It does seem to respond to ibuprofen, when I remember to take it. It goes away for about 3 hours with 400mg of ibuprofen. I have been keeping notes since I noticed it wasn't going away, and I have definitely had headaches every day since Wednesday, although I feel like it's been over a week. I can only vouch for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with certainty.

It seems to be worse in the mornings till 10 or 11, and in the evenings starting around 5. Thursday and Friday it hit hard enough to make me wince while actually riding the escalator up from Porter Square T station -- striking suddenly enough that I wondered if it was elevation related. Last night it was bad enough that it woke me up several times while I tried to sleep, and I ended up getting up in the middle of the night to take more ibuprofen -- and then woke up 4 hours later when it wore off. It occurs to me that I should probably also keep notes on how much ibuprofen I'm taking.

The only big lifestyle changes that I can show for the past couple of weeks have been what I'd consider positive:

I've been eating less meat (although eating fish on Thursday did not seem to relieve the headache.)
I've been smoking 50-75% less than before Xmas.
I have been eating less dairy (I had a bunch of vegan substitutes left over from the waffle party).
I don't think my caffeine intake has gone up, but I suppose I could try cutting that out and see if it improves.
I have been actively trying to drink water, and think I'm getting enough (the skin on my hand seems to snap back pretty well from a pinch).

So, what other risk factors for headaches am I not considering? If it doesn't clear up by next Wednesday, I'll go to the doctor, but if I'm just being a f*cking moron, I'd rather not make the appointment.

You can follow The Unopposable Thumb on LJ, but responses may be delayed.

Content and Style

2010-01-14T09:22:00.005-05:00

My friend Jonathan wrote a post back in October which I keep thinking about, regarding the difference between "content" and "style" for webpages. When I first read it, it felt overwhelmingly obvious to me. Of course, I cut my Web 2.0 teeth on LiveJournal, so the idea of viewing content in multiple styles seems like the default. But it made me think about my old Angelfire page, where I did have to manually change the actual page to change the content. Boy, did that suck.

The thing is, I've accepted this difference so whole-heartedly that it doesn't really occur to me that my online footprint has a style (writing style notwithstanding). It doesn't occur to me that people will ever see the default page for http://www.unopposablethumb.com/ -- I assume that they'll view it through a Livejournal syndication page, or through Google Reader, or whatever syndication reader they're currently using.

The idea of navigating to a specific web page in order to view content is completely foreign to me. This is a topic I've addressed before, and I'm always surprised when people say that they do visit individual sites, no matter how many times they tell me that they do.

Of course, commenting is still the main issue. One of the main things I hoped would come out of Google Wave was integrated commenting, so that people could/would comment on posts in the location where they read them. The Google Wave promo video suggested this would be possible, but doesn't seem to be integrated yet. As things currently stand, people can read content from all over the place, but the options for commenting (apart from following a link to the main site) seem to be few and far between. Honestly, I have to add this to the list of things that LiveJournal did right. I do miss the "reply from email" feature.

Am I missing something totally obvious? Has everyone dealt with this issue but me? Not only do people have to click through to my main page to leave a comment, this also means that they then have to look at my butt-ass-ugly lack of style -- otherwise known as "Blogger default."

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Nom, Nom, Comics / Privacy in Blogging

2010-01-09T14:17:00.006-05:00

I guess I need to thank Astrogeek again for pointing out the webcomic "Kevin and Kell". I love reading established comics. I've killed nearly two weeks so far catching up on archives, and I'm still only in 2004. It surprises me that I haven't encountered it before. The best part, for me, of reading webcomic archives from the 1990's is the dated internet jokes. It's making me nostalgic and smiley.

This comic in particular makes me grin; it reminds me of one of the complaints I have about friends-locked blogs. However, I've just realized a particularly silly paradox about forcing myself to keep all my posts public: since I switched from LiveJournal, I actually have fewer people seeing each post, even though I don't have any posts locked.

These are the things that amuse me.

However, I don't post as much anymore now that I don't have access control. Which means I haven't been using my blog to keep track of little things that I want to remember, because some of them I don't want public. I've come up with a solution for that recently, though: I created a separate Google Calendar for private notes. It's sort of like twittering to myself. Whatever works.

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Diary: December 2009

2010-01-08T16:32:00.001-05:00

In December, I voted in the Democratic primary for the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate. This is back to voting-as-usual: my choice didn't win.

Also, Grayskale and I went to Las Vegas for "Ecksmuss" again: this was our 5th Vegas Xmas (we took 2006 off because we purchased the Unnamed Condo in November 2006).

This year we stayed at the brand-new Aria resort, which was just ridiculously awesome. Part of our tradition is that on the 25th, we get a massage and eat a steak dinner. Unfortunately, with a brand new spiffy resort, we couldn't get a reservation at Aria's steakhouse for the 25th, so dinner was across the street at Planet Hollywood's "Strip House". It was fine, but I still haven't found any ambiance in Vegas that stands up to either of the incarnations of the Steakhouse at Luxor. It's still my favorite.

Really: I think the massage bears more talking about. I have never had as good as massage before. When we checked in, they asked if we'd ever been to Aria's spa before. Grayskale asked with some amusement if they'd had a lot of repeat customers, having only been open since December 16th. Apparently they have, and I'm not surprised. It was a great experience.

Mostly, I relaxed. We read a little, we gambled a little, we ate a lot (the restaurants we did try at Aria were awesome). We watched a lot of TV. I saw both "Pawn Stars" and "Cake Boss" for the first time, and called them good. We actually took the Deuce (Vegas bus) down to the pawn shop featured in "Pawn Stars" -- we should have known better. It was a madhouse of similar reality-show fans. I've never seen the "As Seen on TV" sign on a building before, but it was amusing.

I actually turned off my work calendar and email on my phone, and did a pretty good job of not thinking about it for almost two weeks. It was fairly difficult, and totally worth it. However, I have to say that this week (my first back at the office) has felt like one of the longest work weeks in quite some time. Oof.

Speaking of which: back to it. (I had half of this post written already, but realized if I didn't go ahead and hit "publish", I'd be posting about December in March again)...

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Changing Domains

2010-01-04T14:54:00.004-05:00

I've gotten fairly sick of all of the spam traffic that T*uchyTr*nny.com gets, so I decided to change. As of 2010, this blog will now be known as "Unopposable Thumb", and it will be available at www.unopposablethumb.com.

Now: how do I let people know? I seem to have already switched over to the new domain name, which means that anyone checking the old one is getting a 404 error. I think I've gotten the URL redirect set up correctly, but it won't populate for a couple hours, so I'm not sure. I don't think that Google Reader subscriptions or LJ's syndication will redirect, though. Crap. Now I need someone to re-syndicate me to LJ, don't I -- do I still know anyone with a paid account?

I am also concerned that hundreds of internal links using the old domain name will now be busted. Alas.

Whatever. Even if this takes months to get in order, it's better than the skeezy traffic that TT was getting.

Survey instructions

2009-12-20T09:36:00.004-05:00

I think I may have mentioned before that I participate in surveys online. It's a hobby. However, I just got the WEIRDEST instructions I think I've ever gotten for a survey:

"Please go to the closet/drawer where his pants are kept and gather up all the pants he owns. Please make sure to include any pants that may be in your laundry room/basket or that he may be wearing."

Gather up all the pants he may be wearing? WTF? Did gnomes write this survey?

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12 Donations: World Resources Institute (and summary)

2009-12-18T15:30:00.004-05:00

The final donation of the year went to the World Resources Institute (WRI). Their webpage describes the group as "an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people’s lives." I'm not sure what going "beyond research" means -- I find that troublesome -- but Charity Navigator has WRI listed as one of their top environmental charities (CN profile). I think the thing I liked most about WRI was the focus on people as part of the ecosystem, instead of on protecting the ecosystem from people.

I decided to give to an environmental charity for December because I think the biggest lifestyle changes I've made this year were for sustainability. I still think I'm consuming far more than my fair share of resources, but I'm doing a lot better than I was this time last year. I can do better. Maybe that should be the resolution for next year.

This may be the first time I've successfully completed a New Year's Resolution. Here's where I completed it, and the reasons I chose each charity:

GOAL

January: ACLU (Homeland Security DNA collection scared me)
February: SCORE Boston (NHL's "Hockey is for Everyone" initiative for Black History Month)
March: Planned Parenthood (Birthdays in December suck)
April: DonorsChoose (George Orwell is awesome)
May: Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (Terry Pratchett's Alzheimer's made me sad)
June: Council for Economic Education (Economy tanking scared me)
July: American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education (Anti-immigration rhetoric upset me)
August: Electronic Frontier Foundation (Internet Privacy panel I attended motivated me)
September: Donors Choose (Blokus is an awesome game)
October: ACLU (potential sunsetting of parts of the PATRIOT act gave me hope)
November: Ali Forney Center/BAGLY (Maine's Question 1 results upset me)
December: World Resources Institute (Buying guilt offsets)

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Shoes

2009-12-03T17:28:00.002-05:00

my Dickies Twin Gore Oxfords

This post is so not worth the electrons it's inconveniencing.

So, one of the habits I developed when I was on LiveJournal was posting whenever I bought a pair of shoes. I'd use different filters, depending on how embarrassed I was about having bought another pair of shoes. The level of embarrassment depended on a couple of factors: the shoes themselves, how long it had been since my last shoe-related-post, and whether I thought I'd overpaid for the shoes. But I definitely used those posts to curtail my shoe-purchasing behavior. Whenever I started thinking it was time to get new shoes, I'd check how long I had the pair I was wearing. This usually was enough to stall me for a little while.

So, while filling out a survey a moment ago, I was asked "what types of footwear have you purchased in the past 12 months?" So, I went to the blog to check. Nothing. I checked Mint.com for my transaction history. Nope, no shoes. I checked Flickr.com. I checked my Google spreadsheets that I used to keep my budget before signing up for Mint. I checked LiveJournal. I checked my Google Calendar (which includes several months of my tweets). And yet, I failed to find a single shoe purchase.

I did not make any diary entry (that I can find) regarding the shoes I've been wearing for a while. I found one for the pair just before this pair (January 18, 2008). I found one for the pair that Grayskale bought in Vegas (December 26, 2008). I'm estimating that I bought them after May 2008, based on this photo where I'm wearing the Doc Martens I purchased February 20, 2007, but I remember having them in Vegas last Xmas....

I finally came to the conclusion that I haven't purchased any shoes in the past 12 months. But I'm still having trouble believing it. I'm hard on shoes. I walk funny (it's genetic) and wear out my heels at a sharp angle. The balls of my feet are abnormally wide, which is made worse by what I'm told are called "Tailor's Bunions". I usually wear out the sides of the shoes as fast as the heels. Possibly most importantly, I don't take care of my shoes: I don't keep them dry, I don't polish them, I scuff my feet when I walk. So, I'm used to getting new shoes every 4-5 months. Even when I was wearing army surplus combat boots regularly, I'd still only get 6-8 months out of a pair before I was holding them together with duct tape.

10 minutes pass...

Ah-ha! November 15th, 2008! That's when I bought these shoes. So, a year, but just barely. As it turns out, Twistory.net (which I use to archive my tweets on my Google Calendar) only indexed back to December 1, 2009. Friendfeed.com had my tweets searchable much further back. I don't have to remember anything. I have the internets.

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Diary: November 2009

2009-12-02T16:08:00.005-05:00

Chapter 401, in which Dan4th learns that 10 pounds is too many potatoes...

I started out this month by voting in my first-ever municipal election. Given the standard voter turnout for these things, it's not uncommon that I didn't care about the city-level positions in previous years, but I still feel better for having researched the candidates and participated. The members of the school committee just don't impact my life appreciably, but I felt like I got a much better sense of how Cambridge runs. I do have to offer a hat-tip to my friend NFKennedy, who was kind enough to put together a guide to the twenty-one candidates running for the nine city council seats in Cambridge, which was an invaluable help.

I entered therapy again in November, after nearly three years without regular visits. I think I lucked out into a good therapist. I always tell my friends who are starting therapy that they need to be prepared to have several initial consultations and shop around, but it's always nice when it just goes smoothly.

Grayskale and I joined a large group of our friends in Providence for Thanksgiving with Drinkywinky's parents, who were noticeably outnumbered by people not related to them. Altogether there were 14 people in attendance, which makes it by far the largest Thanksgiving I've attended since going to my grandmother's house with all the aunts and cousins and whatnot (larger than some of those, even, I think). The hosts provided turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie; I think everything else was potlucked.

I brought a salad, a Tofurkey, vegan gravy, and 10 pounds of garlic mashed potatoes in vegan and non-vegan preparation (5 lbs each). Ten pounds of potatoes, as it turns out, is way too much for 14 people, but I was so used to seeing someone recreate the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind just before the potatoes get to me that I was determined to make too much. Success! It was the first time I've skipped the Turkey at Thanksgiving and left satisfied. One of my first attempts at vegetarianism was foiled by Thanksgiving disappointment. I think vegan gravy makes a big difference in the success of this plan. I was ostensibly making the vegan options available to encourage Pants_of_doom to attend, but I was fairly excited about having them myself.

For the record, I haven't gone vegetarian, but I'm making a real effort to cut down on the amount of meat I'm eating. It's not that I particularly care about the animals (although I was very excited by the lab-grown meat story that hit the news in November), but meat is environmentally very costly. So I've been trying not to eat it every day. I think ideally I'd like to get down to the point where meat is like ice cream: it's a treat I have when I really want it, but it's not in the same class as "food." However, I'm not there yet, and I still have days with meal meals more often than not.

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It's Xmas card time again

2009-12-02T11:56:00.002-05:00

I am planning my Winter-holiday-card-list, and I want to send one to you!
Click here if form not embedded
Loading...
If you're not comfortable putting this into a Google Form, please feel free to email me. My gmail account is under "dan4th".

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Lazywebs: Thunderbird help

2009-11-25T11:11:00.003-05:00

I use Thunderbird to manage my work email account. I haven't really deleted an email message in 7 years working in my department, and I feel reasonably justified, since I'm searching for a 6+ month old message a couple of times per day. I'm usually working on 5-10 new-ish projects at a time, and have another 20-30 accounts in "monitoring" status, so I create a folder for each of them, so that I can find the emails that refer to a particular project. For example, each time I start a new research proposal, it gets a folder named fiscalyear-investigator-program (e.g. "2010-smith-topology").

As a result, I have, as of this morning, 606 mail folders. In Thunderbird, the only ways I've found to move a message from the inbox to one of these mail folders is to scroll to it and drag it in. This is stupid.

Before I switched to Thunderbird, I was using PINE. Saving to a folder in PINE was easy. I hit "S", typed the first few characters of the destination folder name, and hit Tab. The rest of the folder name would auto-complete, and badda-bing: my inbox was clean.

I've searched Thunderbird Help, the Mozilla add-ons directory, and Google-generally for something that will let me save emails to a folder by typing the name of the folder. I don't even need auto-complete, although it would be helpful. I can't find anything like this.

So far the ideas/suggestions I've had/received are:

File less, search more: Sadly, Thunderbird's search function doesn't seem particularly robust. I'm probably just spoiled by GMail, but Thunderbird chokes on searches in folders containing more than a couple hundred messages.
Use subfolders: I'm not sure how well this would work. Wouldn't I still need to drag each message to the appropriate subfolder?
Go back to using PINE: sadly, PINE on my work-Mac seems to be incapable of opening PDF files. I end up having to save them somewhere and go into Finder to open them.
Tags: There are reasonable tagging add-ons for Thunderbird. I could theoretically replace folder names with project tags. Is anyone using tags in Thunderbird? I had leaned against it because the native tagging appears to be mouse-driven, which doesn't save me any work.

What other options should I be looking at?

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Accessible Humor Fail

2009-11-23T17:11:00.008-05:00

So, as many of you know, I work at a university math department. Today, I was asked what should be on our holiday cards. The development (read: fundraising) people wanted something mathematical, festive, and accessible to send to the alumni.

I suggested something like the image to the left. From the blank stares I received, I think it wasn't quite accessible enough.

image from Wikipedia.

Keyboard Commands = Teh Awesum

2009-11-18T16:16:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, CaptainDomestic tweeted:

It really shouldn't bother me this much when people don't know the basic keyboard commands for their software. Shift-Tab, Dammit!

This prompted a discussion with Grayskale about keyboard commands that people we work with didn't know (a surprising number of people use "right-click" to copy and paste, rather than Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V). Moreover, it got us discussing differences between Mac OSX and Windows.

See, I've been sitting behind a Mac for 8+ hours per day since Fall of 2002. This means I've developed some fairly strong Mac-based habits, even though I have never owned a Mac of my own. At home, on my aging HP laptop, I will routinely hit "F9" to activate Exposé. This never, ever works -- because it's not a Mac. On the other hand, I had no idea about a keyboard shortcut that swapped between applications on Windows machines, which Grayskale considered the greatest keyboard shortcut to know, and which I have now utterly forgotten: Google tells me it was Alt-Tab, which seems to be Cmd-Tab on a Mac. Behold: a Mac-to-Windows Keyboard Command list!

So, CaptainDomestic: I have tried shift-tab on my Mac, and can discern no difference between that and plain-old-tab. Tell me what it does, and on what operating systems. And to the rest of you, what are your favorite keyboard commands? Teach me a new trick -- but let me know which computer to use it on. I have access to a Windows laptop, an iMac and MacBook, and half a Linux machine (Eee!).

Sadly, thinking about it, most of my favorite shortcuts are specific to particular programs instead of operating systems:

Ctrl-F (or Cmd-F): to find text within a webpage
Ctrl-T (or Cmd-T): to open a new tab
Ctrl-W to close a window or tab.
Keyboard shortcuts inside Gmail: [,j,k,c,r,f

All the neat shortcuts for "Paste Special"* that NFKennedy tried to teach me in Excel are unavailable in Mac. Alas. On the other hand, Ctrl-1 doesn't seem to bring me "Format Cell" joy on the Windows machine. Also alas. Here's a cute story about "Paste Special" in word that starring several keyboard commands, including Alt-Tab.

While typing this, I found myself really noticing how little I thought about keyboard commands, which I'm not sure is possible. Does it create a paradox if you notice how little you notice something?

Comment Spam again

2009-11-13T11:08:00.003-05:00

Continuing from Wednesday, after the same post from 2008 was hit with seven spam comments in the course of two days, I finally gave up and called that post a lost cause. I deleted it and recreated it, which gives it a new URL. We'll see if this does me any good in terms of not having to visit blogger to delete a comment three times per day.

I really don't want to turn to moderated comments. Does Blogger give you captchas to leave comments here? I never know, because I'm always signed in. *sigh*

I've been wondering about the complaint that LJ users have about leaving comments on an outside blog, that they have to click a link. The "leave a comment" action on LJ is also clicking a link, which makes it seem like sort of a silly complaint (I guess that it's actually two clicks to leave a comment on outside blogs, versus one. It's more equivalent to reading something that has an LJ-cut). I read basically all of my blogs through Google Reader, which means that I end up clicking a link when I want to comment on anything. Cutting a single click from my routine doesn't feel like a huge savings to me.

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Comment Spam: wtf

2009-11-11T08:22:00.003-05:00

So, I've been hit with another round of comment spam lately. Not much, but it baffles me. The comments have been on older posts -- stuff from 2008 and before. I have to assume that these are like the $0.87 gasoline charges on a stolen credit card: that these posts are just tests to see if the blog is monitored. I don't know that this is the case, but I delete the comments as soon as I see them anyway.

The content is confusing. Many of the spam comments have no links. There have been a few of what I think of as "normal" spam comments - lists of linked keywords for online pharmaceutical sales. A couple recent ones have had links, but linked to Google.com -- I have to wonder if someone missed the point? Is there a way for them to retroactively edit that link if I had let it stay? Sometimes they're in Cyrillic characters.

This morning I was left a lengthy Cyrillic comment on something from 2008 that was a "test post". There were no links, and no obvious sales pitch in this comment: often, even if I can't read the comment, it will be clear what is being sold, like when the comment is a list of movie titles. For fun, I ran it through Google Translate on Russian to English. Either this comment was written very simply, or Google Translate is getting really good. It was a political diatribe about tax corruption in ~~the~~ Ukraine.

It's bizarre enough that I was very tempted to let it stay up.

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12 Donations: Ali Forney Center/BAGLY

2009-11-10T09:44:00.005-05:00

For my November donation, I've given to New York City's Ali Forney Center and (because I'm really not such a huge fan of NYC), also to the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth (BAGLY).

I struggled with this one. I avoid giving to groups that I'm theoretically a part of, because it feels selfish, and that sort of feels like defeating the purpose of charitable giving. Additionally, neither of the groups above is rated by Charity Navigator: I have to take it on faith that they're using the money well, and faith isn't one of my strong suits. But lately I've been thinking about how easy coming out was for me, and how easy transition was for me, too. As with many things in my life, I was undeservedly lucky.

It doesn't go like that for everyone. As demonstrated by the (admittedly close) results on Maine's Question 1, about half of people seem to still think that being queer is, well, queer. During the campaigns in October, a lot of people linked to video of Philip Spooner, the WWII vet who spoke publicly about supporting gay marriage: "What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?" After watching it, I cynically found myself asking why people need gay family members before they accept queers as human. Then it dawned on me: coming out is Really Important, and a lot harder than I think it is.

So, one particularly unflattering way to look at this month's donation is that I'm buying "privilege offsets." But I like to think that by supporting safety nets like the Ali Forney Center and BAGLY, I can help encourage more people to come out, and maybe their families can tip the balance over that 50% mark.

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Diary: October 2009

2009-11-05T10:00:00.001-05:00

In October, the work crunch continued, as did my attempts to cut down on calories, cigarettes, and wasteful spending. I suppose this is easier when you're at work all the time, and working through lunch. I was still fairly well on track for my 1 pound per week weight loss goal.

It was a big media month for me as well. I downloaded two much-anticipated books to my Kindle: new Neil Gaiman and new Terry Pratchett. I read them both in about a day and a half after receiving them. Sigh: now another year or more of waiting for one of those authors to put out another one. I also added a ton of webcomics to my Google Reader account, based on recommendations I solicited. I've also been watching the Fox series Glee, which is charming and a lot of fun.

There were many, many Halloween related events happening, and I only got to attend a few of them. One highlight was a Thriller Dance Class, where they taught a group of non-dancers how to do the dance from the "Thriller" video by Michael Jackson. About six of us went, which was just about the minimum group I needed to feel less than entirely foolish about it. I did discover that a two hour dance class is a lot more tiring than 45 minutes of Dance-Dance-Revolution.

On Halloween itself, I didn't dress up, but I did get to go to my first Bruins game of the season. A lot of folks dressed up for the game, and we ended up sitting next to a group of four guys who apparently decided that getting on the Jumbotron a lot was the best part of going to a sporting event. They came as superheroes, and poor Grayskale ended up with several super elbows in the ear. Still, it was a good game, and I got some photos I really liked:

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Diary: September 2009

2009-11-04T09:38:00.006-05:00

I barely remember the month of September, but I have a lot of data about it.

My fall seasonal allergies kicked in, and I was miserable for a couple of weeks, despite all my attempts to medicate. As I wrote in April, I had to change allergy meds this year because my health insurance stopped covering the kind that had been working. Apparently the over-the-counter Claritin was insufficient to battle the ragweed pollen. I was an unhappy camper.

Being sick was not made any easier by the fact that September is one of my major deadline seasons at work. In September, the students come back to Cambridge, classes begin again, and for some reason having to do with government fiscal years, most of the funding opportunities for my faculty have deadlines in early October and November (which means I have to start processing them in late September and October). This year, however, I did one thing that I'm extremely proud of: I held a serious of training sessions for new faculty to teach them how to put together a grant proposal. I feel like our proposals were much stronger this year.

On the positive side, however, I did get to catch up with a couple friends I hadn't seen in far too long, I participated in a study about Twitter, and most importantly, Martini got married. It was far and away the best wedding I've ever attended, and a good time was had by all (although the effects were felt for the better part of a week). I feel like this story can be better demonstrated by way of a graph, which (luckily!) I just happen to have handy:

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12 Donations: American Civil Liberties Union

2009-10-19T09:49:00.011-04:00

This image is a screen capture from my Mint account. Mint decided that this month's charitable donation to the American Civil Liberties Union should be classified as "Health & Fitness", and I'm not inclined to disagree (although I did reclassify it as charity, just so it would show up in my graphs correctly).

[EDIT, 5:29pm More comedy: I just noticed that my Discover Card has also classified this charge in their "Spend Analyzer". They've decided this was "Services" -- like my Comcast bill. Ha!: Yeah, I'd like the high-speed internet, movie channel, and due process bundle!]

I had planned to give to 12 different charities in 2009, but the ACLU got my attention by pointing out that parts of the PATRIOT Act are expiring this year. This is the message they've asked me to pass on to my friends:

After 9/11, with the passage of the intrusive USA PATRIOT Act, our country radically departed from the rule of law and authorized our government to spy on innocent Americans under the guise of “national security.” Last November, voters at last demanded a change in our country’s direction.

A change in administrations is not enough, however. At the end of this year, several important provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act will expire. This is a perfect opportunity for Congress to reform the government’s expansive spying powers and to restore civil liberties.

We cannot afford to sit idly by while the federal government continues to trample on our civil liberties and privacy rights.

I just wrote to my Senators and Representative urging them to rein in government surveillance and use the upcoming expiration date as an opportunity to make crucial changes to the PATRIOT Act. You can do the same here: http://action.aclu.org/

When I mentioned to Grayskale that I was giving to the ACLU again, he asked "aren't you still annoyed with them?" It's a fair question. I had spent a couple of months aggravated about what I felt was too much emphasis on revenge (pursuing war crimes convictions) rather than on changing the current laws.

Nevertheless, I replied: "There is no other organization fighting for everything that's important to me. I can't get too upset with them for caring about other things, too. That's sort of the problem with liberals. There's always more things to work on, and you're not going to agree with all of the agendas."

I'm sure I had a point. Oh yeah: Write your representatives.

In other privacy related news, I got a letter from the MBTA police in regards to my complaint about screenings at the Porter Square MBTA station. It said, essentially, "the courts say it's not too invasive, so we're going to keep doing it." It was the least ingratiating form letter I've ever received, and while I'm not happy about it, I think I respect it.

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Infrequent Crude Humor

2009-10-16T09:36:00.005-04:00

While browsing the iTunes App store, after realizing that I'd accidentally deleted my copy of Bejeweled 2 on one of my recent computer purges, I noticed an App titled "iBoobs" in the top rated apps, and I had to look. Clearly I'm late to the party. The geekboy blogs pissed their pants about this months ago, but in case you missed it, too, here's the description.

Seriously? The "Wobble iBoobs" app is rated 9+ for "infrequent" crude humor and suggestive themes? What's frequent, then? I've been off-and-on paying attention to the iTunes App store censorship debate, and I haven't really found much positive on Apple's side with it. Apparently "Wobble" got approved back in January (Gizmodo), and I just wasn't paying attention. But if they were rating dictionaries as 17+ as late as August (MobileCrunch), then I just really don't get what criteria they're using.

However, while reading up on this just now, I tripped over this NewsFactor story that questions the dictionary censorship claims, which makes me wonder how much of the hype is just hype. Interestingly, this story also says that the paid Sex Offender search app had been rejected (although apparently the free one was OK?). This caught my attention because it was published on the same day as I tweeted about the Sex Offender registry app: August 7th. The free Sex Offender search app was in the top free downloads that day, which is why I noticed it.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I don't fucking get it. I don't get how you determine age-appropriateness for tools or content. Maybe the reason that it seems so irrational is that some items are rejected for content, and others are rejected for competition. Maybe it's just because it's irrational. But I don't understand including a browser and a camera (allowing access-to and creation-of nearly anything the twisted human mind can imagine), but deciding that iTunes Store content has to meet some moving-target standard of decency.

It's not that I don't understand being offended; I offend myself all the time. But trying to predict what will offend other people? Apple has some pretty clever folks on staff, but I suspect that's beyond even them. My safest guess is "everything". Everything will offend some of the people: any standard of decency is just a numbers game, trying to keep the number of people not offended big enough to pay off the people who are.

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Bad Mojo

2009-10-15T08:03:00.006-04:00

About two weeks ago, I brought in the coffee mug pictured here to my office. I am beginning to suspect it jinxed me. I feel like I've done nothing but whine since I brought it in.

A lot of the whining has been about insomnia. I'm more than a little confused about my sleep symptoms lately. The timing screams "work stress", but the symptoms seem to indicate personal issues. I've been having trouble sleeping, but only on "school nights". In my experience, this tends to indicate dread about going to work. However, part of the sleep disturbance has been troubling dreams about personal relationships. I've been waking up with vivid recollections of fights that never happened, and the desire to mend fences with people I don't have any reason to think I've pissed off.

I'm wondering if I just need to cut back on the caffeine. But I have this great new mug, and I'm really excited about using it.

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What I did with my holiday weekend

2009-10-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

This weekend I/we:

- threw out the expired food in the pantry
- inventoried the closet full of "cool presents in search of a recipient"
- bought and tested a slow cooker
- read all of the Girls With Slingshots archive
- read Unseen Academicals
- managed to feel productive anyway.

What webcomics, if any, do you follow? I was turned on to GWS by a recent crossover with Something*Positive, but I can't find a RSS feed for GWS, which means I have to remember to go to the webpage to check for new comics. This is... unlikely ... to be consistent. Currently, I'm reading:

- Something*Positive
- Questionable Content
- XKCD
- Stupidity in Magic

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12 Donations: DonorsChoose.org

2009-10-08T13:00:00.002-04:00

For my September donation, I went back to one of my favorites: DonorsChoose.Org. I gave through DonorsChoose in April, as well. It's probably inefficient, but I get a real kick out of supporting a particular project rather than an organization in general. The project that caught my eye in September was The Blokus BrainBuster. A teacher from Massachusetts requested seven copies of Blokus for her students to play.

When I "shared" my contribution on Facebook, I received the comment "sure- send a game to a random classroom when you know teachers personaly..." from a high school friend who is now an English teacher. I keep coming back to that comment in my mind. I've written before about my issues with personal-experience-driven charitable giving. It sort of creeps me out to imply that things that affect me are more important than things that affect other people. I know that the sentence should be "are more important to me than things...", but I've never been good at the difference between "important" and "important to me."

At any rate, I have no evidence that playing Blokus actually makes you smarter, or that it's a good educational tool. I suspect that it is, and I think board games are fun. So that's where I put my donation dollar in September.

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Diary: August 2009

2009-10-07T13:38:00.002-04:00

You know, I'm sort of amused by how difficult I'm finding it to write two posts per month when I was averaging over 2 per day a couple years ago.

So, I saved up a couple of items that started in late July to report for August, and speaking from October, I can say (with only limited embarrassment) that I've stuck with them. In the last week of July, I realized that if I could use my iPhone to "track my happiness", I could use it to track a lot of other things. The result of this not-particularly-profound realization was that I started to track every calorie I ate, every cigarette I smoked, and every dollar I spent through iPhone apps (Lose It!, Smoking Counter, and Mint, respectively).

Most of the psychology studies on the subject that I've read agree that keeping track of a behavior tends to push it in the desired direction (whether that's "do it more" or "do it less"). How did the app-driven methods work?: well, over the past two months: I lost about 5% of my body weight¹, reduced my smoking by 8%, and ... well, the money's harder to judge. I put less per month in savings, but paid more towards my debts.² All in all, tracking things seems to be good for me. Even if it's not, I enjoy it.

Also in August: Laurenhat moved away from Boston. During the last two weeks of her time here, she stayed in our super-spiffy guest room. I'm glad we had a room with a bed for her to crash on, because she got the Evil Death Flu From Outer Space. It was evil. I felt very bad for her. Luckily, in an attempt to get rid of some of my spectacular bank of stored vacation time, I worked 3-day-weeks through most of August. This gave me a bit more time to spend with Laurenhat, and then to take care of her.

Finally, for the last weekend in August, Grayskale and I attended Martini's bachelor party in Vegas. Since we had just gone in June, this was ... well, did I mention that my financial progress was harder to judge? This is part of why. My August and June budgets are slightly above average -- but it was totally worth it. A good time was had by all, and I'm looking forward to Vegas Xmas #5 in December.

1 that's an estimate. We replaced our scale when we discovered it was desperately inaccurate.
² Hell, two years ago, the phrase "put in savings" was foreign to me.

Dan's Greatest HitCount

2009-08-27T10:00:00.001-04:00

Since I haven't been posting much lately, I haven't checked my Google Analytics account much lately either. Here's some of my favorite keywords by which people found this blog, and my best guess of where they landed -- I wish I could see which page they viewed!

good god i'm tired 28Jan2009
+countif +criteria +wildcard -excel +google (???!?!?)
30% find annoying at dinner table 27Mar2009
arguments for not being a werewolf 18Dec2008
bottom left corner of the political spectrum 24Jan2009
broccoli and asparagus 31Mar2009
foundations donating to medical research 5May2009
how to be cute but not too touchy 23Feb2009
most funnest games evar 4Dec2008
social media lifecycle today 7Mar2009
throw away cds and keep the scanned music 2Apr2009
two months of stomach trouble 1Apr2009
words before room 11Mar2009

The most popular landing page (excluding TT.com) was Tranny Socks, a post I made about keywords in June 2008. Crap, I've turned into one of those sites with nothing but keywords on it. *frown*

More than 75% of the keywords included "tranny" or some misspelling thereof, and have been excluded. Suffice to say, I'm slightly offended by some of the adjoining keywords

Skin Colors

2009-08-26T10:05:00.005-04:00

This weekend, Grayskale and I went to the "Friendly Toast" in Kendall Square for brunch. In the midst of this hipster paradise, I realized that I've developed certain prejudices based on skin color, by which I mean tattoos. I realized I was making several assumptions about people wearing tattoos, most of which are demonstrably untrue about tattoo-wearers in general. When I considered most of the tattoo-wearers I knew in high school and before, they did not seem to match any of these assumptions. However, those tattoos were largely relics of military service or prison time.

that you had a fairly decent chunk of disposable income at some point (they're fairly expensive)
that you are confident of skilled employment (your appearance won't prevent you from being hired)
that you still think you're immortal (you haven't considered aging, sagging, or fading)

What tattoos, if any, do you have? What do they mean to you? What made you decide to get them?

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Expected Failure Rates

2009-08-25T12:53:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about social expectations, especially in the context of how often people expect follow-through on statements. I've been thinking about it as the "flake factor." I have come to the conclusion that most people expect a certain level of flakiness: a multiplier that gets applied to any promise, to estimate an actual level of fulfillment.

I recently ran into trouble with this with Lauren. She recently moved back to the West coast, as we knew she would eventually do. It seems that many of her friends made extensive promises about staying in touch. In contrast, I thought about how well I stay in touch with my friends when they move away, and made a conservative estimate. Lauren, understandably, applied the same FlakeFactor multiplier to my promises as to other people's. She fully expected people to contact her 20-50% as much as they said they would; I expected to contact her 100-110% as much as I said I would. So when I said "I'll probably write once a month", she heard "I will never speak to you again." Hilarity ensued.

Grayskale and I, when discussing this, realized that this also applied to work. We both have a habit of making schedules that we think we can keep. This does not seem to be widespread. Turning in projects a week or even a month after they're promised does not to be uncommon or unexpected. This confuses me, despite the fact that I see it all the time. Building in a flake factor does not come to me naturally.

Of course, the appropriate way to respond to this post is to point out a time I've flaked on you: a time I kept you waiting, a time I didn't call, or maybe even just that it's taken me 3.5 months to write my last 10 blog posts, when that used to be my volume for 3 days.

Holy Crap, I know! An actual post that isn't a monthly summary or a charity description! I'm surprised, too!

12 Donations: Electronic Frontier Foundation

2009-08-20T10:59:00.000-04:00

For the month of August, I donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). I first really heard about EFF because of the panel on Internet Privacy that I attended in May. Shava Nerad was there, discussing the TorProject, which is one of the EFF's initiatives. Further discussion with Grayskale convinced me that EFF was really something I wanted to support -- another area that EFF patrols is changes to Terms of Service for popular online service providers.

Basically, it seems like EFF is trying to speak up for the individual user on the internet, and that's fairly important to me. It would be way too easy (and arguably is already the case) that the government and large corporations have access to an entirely different set of internet tools than an individual user has. That strikes me as uncool in a variety of ways. A friend of mine is fond of describing the internet in the socialist terms of "the masses seizing the means of production". That strikes me as just about right, and right about just.

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Diary: July 2009

2009-08-18T12:28:00.000-04:00

Looking back on the month of July, it feels like I didn't do anything but work. I can dig up a few highlights from email and my various online services, but it was a generally work-dominated month. This is probably not unrelated to taking two weeks of vacation in June.

Perhaps the most fun thing I did in July was participate in an online research study. The site TrackYourHappiness.org is formatted for the iPhone so that people with mobile devices can participate on-the-go. For 33 days, I would receive an email or text message 3 times a day asking what I was doing and how happy I was. Each survey took 3 or 4 minutes to complete, and I really enjoyed it. It's funny: if a person asks me how I'm doing in a way that encourages an honest response, I immediately get flustered and suspicious. Having a computer-driven research study ask me gave me warm fuzzies. Supposedly they're going to follow up in 6 months: we'll see what happens with that. I have limited belief in the staying power of cool online projects.

Speaking of staying power, I should probably mention that the twice-weekly-game nights and weekly Rock Band get-togethers have not died out. It looks like I last mentioned this in March:

Rock Band Saturdays (and the limited music library available for Wii Rock Band) contributed to a karaoke outing in July, which was a lot of fun -- although private-booth-karaoke is very different experience than bar-karaoke. I think I prefer it, but it's different enough as to make comparison difficult.
Game days are still a lot of fun, but I'm feeling a bit guilty lately because I don't seem to be as interested in the long-haul games as many of my friends. Any game that takes more than 40 minutes to play is a bit frustrating for me; most of the really meaty strategy games take two or more hours. I fear commitment, clearly.

In June, I really thought I would remember 2009 as the summer I learned how to grill corn on the cob. The near-constant rain in July will probably end up overshadowing this.

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Diary: June 2009

2009-08-12T13:45:00.000-04:00

As everyone eventually says, "Dear God, I've turned into my mother..." Personally, I hope that she takes comfort in the fact that I'm playing catch-up on old summaries. My mother, you see, is doing the same thing over on her Livejournal, because she got behind in the weekly updates on her household due to the annual Pennsic War trip. I don't find it especially comforting that I seem unable to write two paragraphs once per month, but she always seems relieved when I show signs of not being Superman. ;)

So, in June I took a vacation. I've made a tradition of being out of the office during the week of Commencement (I work at a university) because my office overlooks the lawn upon which the ceremony is held: a week of "Pomp and Circumstance" isn't my idea of a good time. Grayskale and I went to Las Vegas for about half of the time I took off, and got to watch the final game of the Stanley Cup finals in the Sports Book at Mandalay Bay. Watching sports in Vegas is nearly as much fun as seeing them live: the crowd gets really excited.

When I returned to work, I had a lot of catching up to do, but that didn't stop me from holding a small get-together for my 33rd birthday the following Saturday, which included gifts of Blue Hawaiian cocktail (in a gallon pump) and Bacon Ice Cream. My tongue was blue for days.

Other highlights of June include a swarm of bees migrating through my back yard and Laurenhat's thesis defense. Which I suppose brings us to the theme of June: I was very busy, but most of the month was frivolous. This may have made my friends less than sympathetic to my situation, since a lot of them seemed to be reaching Big Important Milestones, and I was running around with my tongue blue.

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Diary: May

2009-08-04T12:49:00.001-04:00

My attempt to make a monthly summary post choked in May. It's possible that this is one of the main themes for May. That's probably also the time that I pretty much stopped reading the internet. I fell desperately behind on reading LiveJournal and other blogs, and didn't catch up. I wrote the following paragraph partway through May to be part of it, but never completed it:

It's possible that the warmer weather made me appreciate the outdoors more, or it could just be the general social pressure to be more "green" that got under my skin. I think I made a significant effort to do a little better this month. One thing that we cut way back on was food delivery. Grayskale and I tended to order delivery for dinner almost every night for the past couple of years. So, in May, I started trying to pick things up on foot on my way home. I wasn't ready to start cooking, mind you, but at least avoiding having someone drive to us every night seemed like a good start.

The other big accomplishment for May was that Grayskale and I finally got around to seeing a lawyer. We'd been planning this since we purchased the Unnamed Condo in November 2006, but we never had the money and the motivation at the same time. We knew we should have a formal ownership agreement in place, and we had agreed to the terms, but we needed someone to write it up. We also requested wills, living wills, and health care proxies.

Looking at my Google Calendar for May, I feel like it's also necessary to mention the cancellations. I flaked on a lot of social obligations in May -- or at least, I made more than I could reasonably accommodate (if I feel like being generous to myself, which I rarely do). Work ate up a lot of my month. I had a large, complicated proposal that I was assisting on, and I put in a lot of hours. Still, I found time to go to a talk on Privacy and the Internet hosted at the MIT Museum, which was basically the only work I did towards my Master's thesis proposal in the month of May.

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12 Donations: American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education

2009-07-27T09:55:00.005-04:00

There are plenty of holidays about patriotism, but the one that always makes me think about what my government means to me is the Fourth of July. Over the July 4th weekend, I decided that I wanted to make this month's donation to a charity that supported immigrant's rights. Granted, there are plenty of other things for me to be disgusted about with my country over, but the treatment of immigrants has really been irking me this year.

I did a bit of research through CharityNavigator, and I found depressingly few charities that serve immigrants in general, although there are plenty that serve sub-populations of immigrants. There also appear to be several advocating for tightening immigration law and enforcement. But the only one I found that seemed even vaguely right was the ACLU, which I've already donated to this year. Then I found the American Bar Association's "Commission on Immigration": "to ensure fair treatment and full due process rights for immigrants and refugees within the United States." Yup, that's what I was looking for.

I don't usually find myself at a loss for words, but I'm really having trouble describing how I feel about immigration. Maybe the real problem is my failure to understand the idea behind immigration controls. "Sorry folks, but we're fresh out of American Dream"? I'm desperately under-informed on this topic, but none of the arguments I've heard (stolen jobs, infrastructure costs, increase in crime) seem to apply to to immigrant populations in principle, but instead seem to be a side effect of the gate-keeping itself. What am I missing here?

I also threw a few dollars to the Somerville Youth Hockey Association. It's been nearly 6 months, and SCORE Boston hasn't cashed my check. I suspect they lost it: a donation of the size I made wouldn't be high-priority. So, I've been feeling like February didn't count, and now I'm making up for it.

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12 Donations: Council for Economic Education

2009-06-26T10:33:00.003-04:00

This month, I chose to donate to the Council for Economic Education (CEE). This was the only organization I could find on Charity Navigator that works on financial literacy, but I found myself excited about their model. They provide workshops and lesson plans for K-12 teachers to teach financial literacy. I don't have a specific tie-in between "financial literacy" and June, but I feel like the recent economic climate makes a need for this kind of curriculum pretty clear.

I don't think I was ever specifically taught financial literacy. I've never taken a finance class in my life: I took Microeconomics in college, and I don't even remember what we covered. I certainly didn't live within my means for the first 10 years of my adult life, and I'm still paying for that. On the other hand, I've been really lucky, financially, and I've never missed a payment on anything that I can recall (or that my credit report shows). I just took out additional loans to pay off existing ones... for years. I'm finally getting out of that hole now. Actually, I will be making the last payment on my student loans in a couple of months (Huzzah!).

I hate the rhetoric about "predatory lending" because an arrogant elitist part of me thinks that people ought to understand any agreement they enter into. I like to think that contributing to CEE is a step towards making that happen. On the other hand, when is the last time I fully read a software product's user agreement?

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