july 2006
july 31 2006 18:36 pdt lots happened in the last two weeks, but i haven't had any time to write about it. now everything is on the truck and en route to eugene and we are about to (finally) close the doors on 332 victoria for the last time. it's going to be very odd if we ever end up coming back here to visit chad and amy, since they should be moving in here after us in about 2 weeks. i'm sure i'll wake up in the night and trip over furniture.
i beg patience, faithful reader, as we come up to speed in the new place. lots of new stuff to write about soon. for now, goodbye california.
july 18 2006 13:39 edt note to self: javascript must be in page template for wordpress.
july 14 2006 20:57 edt well that wasn't so bad i guess. it will be even better if it turns out that it stays put in the box like it is supposed to do.
july 14 2006 20:14 edt this post is from michigan. it's an excercise in preparing for a two-column layout at martinglista.com. of course, before you can split text up into columns, it is helpful to have enough text to fill more than one column at a time. so here is some text, and i'll be messing with layout details over the next hour (if things go well) or couple of days (if they don't). happy bastille day. we're campaigning. i can't begin to explain how odd it is to see your name on signs posted in peoples' lawns all around the neighborhood.
the function i'm looking for has been coded and built by cédric savarese and published by the good folks at a list apart for the enhancement of the web. upon second thought, this is one of those things that seems like it should be in the default behavior of whatever the browser is that you're trying to use, as long as the length of a given entry doesn't outreach the vertical space in your display window.
now that this seems to work in the base implementation, i guess we need to decide if the weight of the javascript is worth the display behavior we're looking for. now i gotta wait for the good folks in michigan to go to sleep so that i can put it in place to see if anything else breaks as a result.
july 7 2006 18:42 pdt still haven't packed a damn thing.
july 7 2006 12:25 pdt i love the internets. they're made of tubes, you know.
july 5 2006 1:05 pdt tonight we walked up the hill to see if we could see any fireworks. moeser avenue has a couple of flat spots where cross-streets force it to pause in its precipitous ascent of the east slope of the hills that rise above the hayward fault. we stopped at the lowest terrace and watched the san francisco fireworks compete for relevance with the fireworks from the berkeley marina. the sf rockets had more red glare, and they were fired in matching pairs and exploded in tandem. the berkeley pyrotechnics were closer, and therefore bigger and brighter, at least from our vantage point. the boom from the explosions in berkeley was delayed by a good 25 seconds from when we saw the flash. and it's true what they say- the sf show finishes a good 10 minutes or so earlier than the one in berkeley, so if you're from the east bay, it probably isn't worth dealing with the hassle of driving into the city because the show at the end of University is just as good and it lasts a lot longer.
i remember a day, not so long ago, when some good friends of mine had just rented a house in el cerrito. "what an exotic name," i thought. "i wonder where that is?" little did i know that we would live here for two whole years. even before they had the keys to the place, we drove up there on the 4th of july to watch the fireworks. this must have been july 4 1999, or 2000 at the latest. the view from their balcony was staggering. at about 1200 feet above sea level, there was an unobstructed view straight out through the golden gate. that night, we could see 5 separate fireworks shows- sf, berkeley, oakland, richmond, and marin (or maybe sausalito/tiburon?). on clear days, you could see the farallon islands from their kitchen window. the land the house sits on is probably worth millions, apart from the value of the house itself. that house is still one of the neatest places i've ever been in the bay area, and we would have been there again tonight- except for the fact that an era is coming to an end.
the place was called 'the shumpound' which was a play on the concept of a compound, and the name of the guy who made the rental happen in the first place. there were 6 or 7 people living there at any given time, 5 in the main house, and 2 in the converted 3-car garage. during the time the lease has been continuous, i've been to probably 30 parties there, and many more informal gatherings. i've had 6 different jobs and lived in 6 different apartments. the best man in my wedding lived there for a time, and i think that one of those parties was where we first introduced the house's namesake to his future wife. the owner of the property has built two additional houses on the same lot- but neither one blocks the view of the bay.
now, there is only one of my tribe who still claims residence there, and it's not clear that he plans to stay. everyone else has moved on, and now we're planning to move on too. it would be nice to have one last chance to say goodbye... but as i realized tonight, it's just one place on a long list of amazing and wonderful places that i may never see again.
july 4 2006 10:40 pdt happy 4th, everyone. so far, we're spending ours lounging around the house. this afternoon i have a plan to start cleaning out the garage and packing for the upcoming move. we've got to start somewhere, and it seems like most of the projects involving bike parts or old tools are on hold at least until we've relocated.
even though the new place has more square feet, at least on paper, i'm beginning to be concerned that each of the constituent rooms is actually smaller than the ones we have here. note to self: next time you do something like this, it's very important to bring a tape measure along for the ride.
july 2 2006 12:55 pdt i'm farming snails in the backyard. i found literally 100 of them nestled in among the nastursiums today. didn't have the heart to kill them all, so i guess that means they win. i should have a race, or a convention, or something.
as it turns out, not everything came up roses- all the teams i was cheering for are out of the world cup. argentina lost on penalties, spain just couldn't pull it off, and brazil got the sucker-punch from thierry last night. i couldn't believe that brazil didn't really test the goalie at all- if you don't take shots, you're not going to score, and they didn't really take any shots to speak of. good thing i didn't bet any money on this one.
july 2 2006 11:35 pdt we're on the home stretch now. making a list, checking it twice, counting the days until our home address is in a new zip code. despite some concern from the folks in michigan about our approach and our negotiations strategy, we both think that everything worked out about as well as it could have. we probably could have packed everything and moved into another apartment, and spent six months waiting to see if interest rates might settle down (prediction: we'll see 10% before we ever see 5% again) or if the perfect perfect *perfect* property ever came on the market in the price range we were comfortable with... but this way is going to work out better for our sanity and our peace of mind. i can't imagine what a pain it would have been to move twice within six months, but i'm glad now that we won't have to find out.
we haven't really had any downtime to celebrate our good fortune. by my count, we've got three fantastic achievements that each merit a nice dinner somewhere fancy, at the very least. they say that good things come in threes- i hope our streak isn't over yet.
