todd’s posterous

Thursday: Me Today

A busy weekend ahead, and a week away on business-related travel next week, but for tonight, I'm hanging out at my cafe, relaxing with an espresso, and thinking about the week, and what lies ahead. I love my Thursdays. I also love it when my better half isn't working on Thursdays, but most of the time, he is, and that's cool because I have a great backup plan.

I'll be in Los Angeles next week for work, staying at a hotel in Hollywood. Anybody else but me would probably think it was pretty cool, but I've never been excited about Los Angeles. I love cities, but I like my cities less sprawling, less star-studded, more gritty, and with a subway that goes farther than a few token blocks. In fact, I can't think of a city that I like that doesn't have a subway. It's not a deciding factor, but it's a commonality.

I've not yet lived permanently in a city with a subway; if I did, I'd probably have a much less-idealized view of them. But with a gas prices so high, it's less a fantasy and more just plain common sense to think about what it would be like if I didn't have to own a car. This is the cherished dream I have and I might be able to make it a reality next year.

It won't be simple. I live about two miles from work in a city well-served by buses. But my morning commute is at 4:20am, about 45 minutes before the first bus. Walking isn't perfect because my route would take me through some areas that are a little unsavory. It can be done; I'm just a little nervous about a 40 minute walk carrying a $2500 computer, wearing a dress shirt and pants. The kind of look that says, "Mug me, won't you?" I might get a scooter or a bike. Hell, taking a cab to work every morning and riding the bus home would be cheaper than the monthly lease payment, insurance and gas for a car. My lease runs out in May, so I have time to make my gameplan. But I'm 95% certain I won't be getting another car. Currently, we drive it about 300 miles a month. You can't even justify the lease payment on usage that low.

This weekend will be a mix of hurricane-watching, trying to get some work done ahead of next week's trip, trying not to obsess over politics, and the usual mix of sleep, workouts, eating and farmer's marketing.

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Tuesday: Me Today

I let a couple weeks go by between posts. It felt more appropriate to let our vacation sink in... last week shortened by vacation leading into this holiday-shortened week. A couple of times, now, we've scheduled a vacation in such a way that we return a few days before another holiday. I don't know why I haven't done this more often, but I like it a lot. If the holiday merely prolongs the vacation, that's great, but there seems to be some kind of psychological boost to ending one vacation only to get another.

Or it could be that I'm gullible enough to believe anything I tell myself. Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who suffers from that problem. That's about a third of the human condition, isn't it?

I've tried very hard to avoid politics, and I have to say, I've succeeded admirably since about 2004, even though my job makes it very hard to do. I used to follow politics closely, but the last few years have been demoralizing. Not merely because some politicians whom I don't like have been in power - that's always been the case. It's a combination of the tone of today's politics, its positioning as a sport suitable for play-by-play, the proliferation of lighter-than-air talking heads on TV and elsewhere, the shear weight of millions of people expressing their opinions about things about which they haven't bothered to learn a single thing. (There's another third of the human condition, huh?)

This is our god-given right, as Americans, to categorically take sides on issues about which we know nothing. But the Internet has changed the scale. Before, it was just the two loudmouths at work; now it's about 5 million loudmouths coming at me every time I open my notebook. This isn't a sickness of politics alone. About 80% of Friendfeed content consists of people commenting on posts they haven't read. After a while, you wonder how it can be that so many people derive such an intense feeling of self-worth by offering thoughts such as, "FAIL."

This seems an appropriate time to pile on a bit, by including Merlin Mann's priceless description of Friendfeed: "... the platform of choice for the web’s least interesting narcissists — and the slow-witted woodland creatures who enjoy grooming their fur."

I use Friendfeed. I like it. I like it so much, I bought the company. But, while the key to maximizing the effectiveness of the app is selecting the right friends and then weeding out the irrelevant content, sometimes I grow concerned that nobody is going to share something interesting and thoughtful; that everybody is going to port all their delightful cat videos into the service, or make pointless statements, hoping lots of people will comment back to them, and maybe add them as a friend. Thank goodness not everyone is using it as their own live puppet show.

Well, there are worse things in this world. Which brings me back to politics, doesn't it? I'm kind of starting to get into it. My subscription to The New Republic, which has languished since 2005, now gets my attention again. I've started reading a couple political blogs. Wow, that's intense, Todd. Why so deep? Maybe because I think Washington stands a fair chance of getting smarter, come January.

We can hope.

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Monday: Me Today

This is a short week. Shortened in a couple of important ways. First of all, it's rare for me to be finished narrating the New Yorker for Audible.com on a Monday night - usually, I'm deep into the work right now, rather than sitting and enjoying some coffee at a cafe. But I started early and that means a little bit of pain on Saturday and Sunday is followed by a rich reward tonight. And I'll get to enjoy that reward again tomorrow night.

The week is also shortened by our vacation to San Francisco and northern California this week - five days that we've been looking forward to for some time.

We usually make two trips to San Francisco a year, which is never enough. This year, a variety of circumstances, not least of which was the dramatic increase in airfares, caused us to cancel the Spring trip. We've come to see this as a big mistake, especially because our financial situation is rock solid, lots of money in the bank, no debt beyond a mortgage. Yes, being frugal is good and, frankly, if I was more frugal, I'd be in an even better place. But I believe in a balance of frugality and excess - the definition of moderation, right? Life should include travel to places we love and we've decided that, from now on, we won't be penny-wise and pound-foolish about the good things in life.

For me, one of the keys to this way of living is prudence, certainly. And the other is putting an end to as many expenditures as possible that don't give us commensurate pleasure. This worldview led us to do away with our cable subscription and our TiVo, for instance - a savings about about $75/month or $900/year. We still watch lots of TV - over-the-air HD, Internet streaming via Hulu and other platforms, Netflix, etc. But $75/month to have several hundred channels coming into our home was a lot of money for little benefit. For us. Anyone who goes through an exercise like this will have different conclusions, make different decisions, but possibly arrive at the same result. It has worked for us, in any case.

Well, that's quite enough about saving. Let's talk about spending.

Our trip will include a long-awaited dinner at one of the best restaurants in the country, The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. We've dined at some real gems, including Alinea in Chicago (which, depending on whom you ask, either gets the number one spot ahead of French Laundry or is a close runner-up) but this dining adventure feels more like getting to the roots of what really works with dining in the US. Thomas Keller, despite branching out to New York and Las Vegas, still puts out quite a spread in Yountville, by all accounts. It will be an evening to remember, and we'll be spending it with our closest friends, Michael and Bob, who are getting married on Wednesday. This is possible, at present, in California.

Here's to tolerance and equality.

We will have the privilege of watching them exchange vows in the hallowed halls of the San Francisco City Hall, and then we'll join them for three days in Napa, doing little beyond eating, being lazy, visiting a couple wineries, and working out (we're gay after all). Yes, it's their honeymoon, but hey, if it's fun, shouldn't you be able to share it? If Chuck and I are ever allowed to get married, (and that won't be anytime soon in Kaintuck) we'll do the same. Maybe in California. Maybe in Canada.

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Saturday: Me Today

You know, I felt like I needed a week to clear the air after all the horror of some completely innocent cool kid being knifed to death, decapitated, then cannibalized. Well, that's just me. We humans are interesting - we can grieve, process and move on. Thank goodness, we'd be screwed if we couldn't.

We had a good time last night, hanging out with some friends for dinner at a cool restaurant, and then a walk down the street to the cupcake store, to end the evening in spectacular decadence. I had sangria, which despite all my hopes, always turns into a mistake. I like wine; I like mixed drinks some times; I like fruity mixed drinks, sometimes. When it all comes together, however, it's kind of a trainwreck. It's either too sweet, too "hot" with alcohol, or the wine is cheap and you get a damn headache. It's my own fault, though... I suck. The server recommended the sangria with sauvignon blanc, saki and Asian pears, and I ignored my inner warnings and ordered it.

It wasn't bad. For sangria.

Summer is made for white wine. I love all wine. ALL wine. I drink it every day, but in the summer, for every glass of red that I drink, I consume 3-4 of white. (Not at one setting.) In the city where I live, diners either a) aren't educated about wine, or b) don't care about it, because the restaurants, almost without exception, serve up lists filled with cheap commodity wine. I don't *hate* Mondavi or Fetzer or Bogle, but if that stuff makes up most of your winelist, don't call it "fine"... just call it wine.

And that's the biggest rant you'll hear from me. Blogs are not for ranting, unless you desire never to be read by anyone. I like to have people read my stuff, so thanks to both of you.

Saturdays are very simple and cool days. Sleep in till 7am, walk to Farmer's Market, buy stuff and take pictures, stop at a coffee shop on the way back, do some clothing, eat a great lunch, workout, go hang out at cafe. Lots of steps... easy to execute.

Everybody talks about farmer's markets and how great the produce is, often using the tomato as an example. Easy to do because supermarket tomatoes are terrible and tomatoes planted, cared for, picked and sold by human beings (usually the same human beings) are amazing in their variety and flavor. But here's an off-the-beaten path example: potatoes. You know, potatoes grown by real people actually have taste - wonderful potatoey tastes, in addition to all of those textures we're accustomed to from different varieties.

We were talking about Facebook last night, driving to dinner. Leave it to my boyfriend to hit the nail on the head: "I hate Facebook because everybody is on it and now I'm back in high school again, forced to be friends with people I don't like."

I feel bad agreeing because I'm kind of one of those social media people. Facebook is a big success, in that it's one of the only social networks to go truly mainstream, spanning demographic categories. But, when every person you've encountered in your short, or long, life starts adding you, it gets to be too much.

I still think of social networks as places for me to connect with people who have similar interests but different experiences; I can learn from them, and, over time, I meet a number of these people in person, adding another dimension to being "friends." Over time, my interests and curiosities change, and my network shifts in reaction to that. I'm not as much into transplanting a social network that has diminished in value and recreating it on a new platform.

That said, so far only the cool people from high school have added me. The rest of 'em might not get Facebook. They might not even get the Internet.

Those dumb bitchez.

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Saturday: Me Today

I had a pretty good birthday on Thursday, and the day ended on a high note, with friends and dinner. But all day Thursday, and still tonight, I still find myself thinking about Tim McLean and the horrible end to his life late Wednesday night near Portage La Prairie, MB.

I don't get into trying to insert myself into someone else's grief, and I have no known connection to Tim or his family and friends, but there's something about all this that doesn't go away easily.

It's certainly the horrifying circumstances of his death, the entirely random nature of it (which is chilling, no matter how rare), the loss of a young man who was just barely an adult.

I don't want to write a post here that tries to wrap it all up in some trite statement about how fleeting life is, how valuable, etc. I might think some of those things are true, but they don't neatly resolve a tragedy; sometimes, they smother it.

Thursday morning, I sent a twitter saying this incident was one of the saddest and most horrifying I'd ever heard about. Someone read about it and wrote back, "I know you warned me but that story almost ruined my day."

Well, it should.

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Tuesday: Me Today

DJDeedle kicks music mix ass. 'nough said.

If I said it once... actually, I'm not sure if I've ever said it, so let me say it now: there's nothing like getting work done early to make you feel good.

That's mainly about the freelance work that I do - narrating audiobook-type stuff - but it was really about today from the crack of dawn until evening. Work was a non-stop celebration of accomplishment, complete with marching band and dancing girls. My freelance work went swimmingly, and obviously, now that I've had an Americano to celebrate, I'm feeling in such a good mood that I can be completely dorky and feel no embarrassment.

My birthday is also this week and that makes me happy. I get to go to the restaurant of my choice, a tradition which has been in force since I was 7 years old (as if I really remember). But what I do remember is at least two trips to Long John Silver's for my birthday. I'm not sure what it was about Long John Silver's that I thought was so special. But we were not wealthy folk, so my choices consisted mainly of Long John Silver's, Hardee's, Godfather's Pizza and Sirloin Stockade. I liked something about all of those restaurants - who wouldn't be intrigued by the mysteriously named "Chicken-fried Steak?" - but I don't know what it was about Silver's that compelled me to choose it as Birthday HQ.

I could go back to Silver's today and eat a meal (OMG) but I wouldn't be able to re-create the thrill. It was not-very-good food back then, and it's even-worse-food now.

My boyfriend makes fun of me because I'm a sentimental eater. Quite often, I want to eat something awful because it was something I ate and enjoyed as a child. That list is long, ranging from Big Macs, to Hormel Canned Chili, to movie theater candy. When I do eat it, the experience is either immediately awful, or it's awful about 18 hours later. Sometimes both.

But it doesn't stop me. The next time, it's Pringles. I ate a "Fun Size" ($2, exact change appreciated) can of Pringles recently when my airline didn't upgrade me and I had an empty stomach. I swear, I could taste each chemical in those perfectly-formed chiplets. That's what having a boyfriend who only cooks farm-raised organic food will do to your stomach: it ruins the enjoyment of all that fake food crap... sigh.

Speaking of real food, we're now less than a month away from dining at the French Laundry, widely regarded as the best restaurant in the country. I'm excited to compare and contrast it to Alinea in Chicago, where we ate last year, also regarded by some as the best restaurant in the country. I'm doing my best to keep up with Ruth Reichl, who declared French Laundry the best restaurant in the country a few years ago, then went to Alinea in 2006 and declared it the best. In the world of food, no decree is permanent.

Oddly enough, my concern about Thomas Keller's Laundry is related to my adult experiences with childhood favorites: what if the French Laundry isn't as good as I think it's going to be? What if the unbelievable experience that I want to have there simply doesn't materialize?

Well, we could always just get drunk on the wine.

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Friday: Me Today

Fridays rarely disappoint. Well, except that when I got up this morning, I realized that all of my jeans were in the washer, damp... and that I would be wearing "work" clothes to work on a Friday. This minor annoyance gnawed at me for the first 2 hours of work.

I'm newly reinstalled in a real office at work in a real building where real colleagues of mine also work. This, after 18 months in a job where I worked virtually (in cafes, usually), wearing whatever I darn well pleased. I miss that way of working sometimes because it fits very well with the kind of worker that I am - solitary, not working on a fixed schedule.

One of the pleasures of going to a real office to work with real colleagues is once again participating in the "Casual Fridays" ritual. The ripple effect begins with that extra 5 minutes I can sleep in because I don't have to fuss around with dress pants and shirts. I grab a pair of pants and a t-shirt with some hip web2.0 company on it and head out the door.

Not this morning, though... and I had a brand new Plurk.com shirt that I was going to debut.

Plurk. Plurk, plurk, plurk... plurk.

My boyfriend took one look at the web site and said like, "Nice, if you're 7 years old." He's right, but hey, I have the shirt.

And next Friday, it will be the conversation starter:

"What the hell is that???"

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Friday: Me Today

Fridays are such weird days. On the one hand, there's all the anticipation of the weekend, of staying up later, of sleeping in, of having more free time, of seeing friends... and yet there's also a shade of melancholy that I can't put my finger on. Unfortunately, Friday doesn't seem to be the day for introspection, so I'm not going to explore it in depth today.

I think it's my music choice - Groove Salad may be too laidback for a warm sunny Friday afternoon. Speaking of warm, it's 6pm and it's 90 degrees in the River City... likely to be warm all weekend. From my perspective, spending my first summer here, it's not a humid climate, at least compared to what I'm used to after living elsewhere in the midwest.

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Me, Mobile

I'm in a minor level reassessment of GTD apps. Yes, I was doing same last week. And the week before. And.... um, yes, I remember now. The week before that, as well.

I'm using Remember the Milk. I'm also using Omnifocus. I like Omnifocus more, but up until the launch of Omni's new app for the iPhone, I didn't have access to my lists on the phone. RTM stepped in nicely and filled the gap, so I used RTM for the day to day to-do lists, and left Omnifocus for higher level prioritizing. (What does that mean?)

RTM's iPhone app has been super cool since the beginning and I've had few complaints about it. But, now Omnifocus comes along with an app that's been hyped for a few weeks, AND it seems to deliver. All the list functionality you expect, a really cool interface that has a lot of people talking, and this location awareness thing that is killer. I walk in the store, iPhone location services figures out that I'm in the store, and Omnifocus gives me the list of things I wanted to buy.

That's one of those "future of computing" apps that gets everyone excited. Like the old Windows movie where, in the very near future, a young woman sits down at her computer, which recognizes her and greets her by name. Except that location awareness is something I actually care about.

~

I think that there's a decent possibility that the delightfully named MobileMe still isn't working for some people, so I feel bad saying it, but it's working perfectly for me and I'm loving that I don't have to sync my phone whenever I make a major "must not forget" last minute change to my schedule. Sync is slow from my Mac to MobileMe, but if I add a calendar item or contact to MobileMe, the update appears almost immediately in my phone, and vice versa. Perfect... and it leaves me in this weird position of not using Google Calendar for the first time since the day it launched in 2006.

However, I've not closed down Gcal. It still syncs to iCal every couple of minutes. And good thing because the .Mac record was less than illustrious when it came to up-time, and I'm still a bit about skeptical about MobileMe, especially after the "rocky" launch last week.

Me. Me. .me

Speaking of myself, I registered my name in the new .me domain today. Not my first name. I was asleep at the wheel during that landgrab, and let's face it, my chances of grabbing my first name were slim to none. But I've added .me to my broadcast empire on the web. What will I do with it? Who knows? Like a radio station owner who buys a new station because it's there and then can't figure out what to do with it, I'll probably simulcast my main website on it for a while. Maybe my .com will be my professional site, with my professional blog and my CV and all that; and .me will be my personal blog. Except that this is my personal blog. And then there are two other personal blogs of mine. I've got a lot of little bits of me, floating around like space junk.

Don't run into any of them.

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Thursday: Me Today

The past week has been too damn busy and I'm looking forward to a slow(er) seven days... beginning right about... now. 

I do a lot of freelance narration, and in the last two weeks, there's been a pile-up, but now that I've worked through the backlog, I'm free for about another week before the next project hits my desk. That means that when I'm done with my main job, I'm done with work for the day, and I can concentrate on the things I like - working out, reading, cafes.

The order of business for today:

• work
• workout
• reading
• cafes

Such a full day.

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