Picked up Fred Flintstone (our friend Scott McDonald, who used that name as his online pseudonym) at the Denver Airport on Friday night. It snowed most of the day and Fred's plane was late, but so were we driving in...
Continue reading "Vacationing with Fred Flintstone" »
Went to Denver today to attend the Cherry Creek Art Festival, but didn't find anything except a retrospective book on the work of Michael Parkes and a nice antiquarian bookstore that we hadn't been aware of before. Jill and I...
Continue reading "Much Art about Nothing" »
Last year we visited my parents cabin near Durango and watched a small fireworks show over a clear mountain lake. This year, we joined our friends around the City Park to watch the fireworks explode over the small pond. The...
Continue reading "Fort Collins Fireworks" »
Received a call from Russ Treat of Ebasco Environmental today to offer me employment with them. Initially, I'm to be what they call a "P7" employee, a try-out for them and for me. After a couple of months, if they...
Continue reading "I've been hired!" »
Dispatch 961223 signal ALLCLEARED BEGIN... The aliens have landed! What we mistakenly assumed was a singular creature, washed up on our earthen shore (see last dispatch) was actually an advance scout. Sightings have been numerous all over the world, including...
Continue reading "Holiday Dispatch (the aliens have arrived)" »
Hello from West Richland once again! Contrary to evidence in our last two Christmas notes, the tumbleweed invasion has slowed, likely due to development of their local habitat. Not having to clear them from our yard, gave us plenty of...
Continue reading "Holiday Update" »
I mean a Top 100 Amazon Reviewer, not a mythical fighting woman. Right now my Reviewer Rank on Amazon is 34,975, based on having written 8 reviews. I have a number of reviews that I can cull from my writing...
Continue reading "What does it take to be an Amazon?" »
Jill and I didn't have very much time on Saturday (had to run some errands, including getting cat food and litter as well as getting the car washed) to go geocaching, but we wanted to do at least one since...
Continue reading "Duck Trial" »
Jill and I always go out on Friday. It's a tradition with her, kept from college, that Friday evening is not the time to do any work, including cooking at home, but a time to see a movie, a play,...
Continue reading "Arlington Movie Cache" »
This geocaching thing could easily turn into an obsession. Although it was getting late and we wouldn't have light for very much longer, we had found the previous cache so quickly that we thought that we had time to do...
Continue reading "Windy Run" »
We had a prior engagement this afternoon to see Kathleen and Yves off to Arizona (Jill had been a AAAS fellow with Kathleen, and Kathleen had also served on my thesis committee as the science representative). Jill also needed to...
Continue reading "Up the Creek (without a parking spot)" »
After having to spend two hours in line at the Georgetown office of the District's Department of Motor Vehicles to renew our driver's licenses, we were ready to do a couple of caches. We thought that we would do the...
Continue reading "Two in Wheaton" »
Time for another update on my quest to be a top Amazon reviewer. Here's a neat table of the progress: DateRankReviews WrittenVotes Received 9/3/0215,5446750 8/13/0224,5393126 7/18/0234,97584 Having a ratio where there are more reviews than votes is not likely a...
Continue reading "50 Votes and Counting" »
Jill called me up at work around 4pm to say that she had finished early at school and wanted to know if I was up for a quick visit to a cache tonight. We had picked up a couple of...
Continue reading "Revisiting Duck Trial" »
We needed to drop off another travel bug that we had found in Houston, so Jill and I visited this cache up by where she keeps Rogue, her Morgan mare. We parked off Rt. 28 and hiked through the forest...
Continue reading "Black Rock Mill's Cache" »
We had planned on placing our own cache this weekend, but unfortunately we discovered that the park we wanted to put it in is National Park land, and thus offlimits to caches. We're going to have to do some scouting...
Continue reading "Rainy Holiday Caching" »
Every year, Jill and I sit down to record what we did in the past twelve months to send to family and friends. Some people love these holiday letters; others are nice enough just to throw them away and let...
Continue reading "The 2002 Holiday Letter" »
The following entry is the lecture notes for my opening day of class, prompted in part by several rough cases and poor attendence from last semester. I had this reviewed by some of my peers, who warned that some students...
Continue reading "The Excuses I Have Heard" »
It's been awhile since we had gone geocaching, so when Jill came back from riding with the statement, "It's beautiful out there, we've got to get out and do something," it seemed only natural that we would pick up on...
Continue reading "Sniffing out Angus and Ambrose" »
Some people are just too clever. What do you get when you mix a chemist with a fascination for eating treats? Why... The Periodic Table of Dessert And, like the author says, this one tries to stay true to the...
Continue reading "Periodic Table of Dessert" »
A sudden jump in my Amazon reviewer rankings now has me under 1,500. Maybe another month or two and I'll have made the first goal--top 1000 reviewer. After that, everything's gravy. Here's the updated chart: DateRankReviews WrittenVotes Received 05/12/031,445346391 04/04/031,980345328...
Continue reading "Almost to the first goal" »
About seven years ago, I had a different job and a different life. I had fallen into a programming job (basic stuff, really--just front-ends to databases) after originally being hired as a technical writer, and I was traveling constantly. In...
Continue reading "A member of the club" »
It's been awhile since I've mentioned our geocaching expeditions, partly because we just didn't do much of it in the last six months. Too much rain in the East coast has made traipsing around in the woods a not-so-pleasant task,...
Continue reading "Walking in the District" »
The adult furniture arrives this coming Friday, so we need to clean out the bedroom for all of the pieces. This includes a couple of very nice--dare I even say adult?--dressers that were given to us by Jill's parents. They...
Continue reading "Furniture for Sale" »
The Dean meetup thingamabob is growing out of hand--I mean, 200 people at Aqua Ardiente (or whatever that restaurant's name is)? Yow! I'm a bit like Groucho Marx in the sense that I'm not sure I want to be a...
Continue reading "Meeting for Dean" »
I'm quite happy with tonight's Dean Meetup at Gua-Rapo in Arlington. Jill and I showed up a little after 7pm and signed in then waited in line for the slow barmaid to get a couple of beers. We retreated to...
Continue reading "Gonna Sit Right Down and Write New Hampshire a Letter" »
Arnold Shwarzenegger, like the true media animal he is, took advantage of his appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night to announce that he is going to place his name on the recall ballot for California governor....
Continue reading "Ahhhhnold for Governor" »
Today is my birthday--or, as Jill prefers, part of my birthdays (you get a day for every decade you have attained). The latter works well for this one, because yesterday the adult furniture arrived: a complete bedroom set of beautiful,...
Continue reading ""I'm only 37...I'm not old"" »
Aiee. I need to catch up and don't have much time to do so. First, thanks for all the well-wishes and the Amazon votes (I've finally topped the 500 positive vote mark--we'll see how that affects my ranking next time...
Continue reading "Birthday Aftermath" »
Here's a useful thing--a way to register to vote online. Linked from and sponsored by, of course, that leader in empowering people in the democratic process, the Dean for America Weblog.....
Continue reading "Register to Vote Online" »
Roll out the defensive postures, because Patrick's upset that someone wants to talk about fandom who isn't one of us. Never mind that the post in question is not even directly about SF fandom, but is about media fans; never...
Continue reading "Circle the Wagons!" »
When I first started immediacy, I was still thinking about my now-defunct reading diary, First Impressions, leavened with the blogs that I had just discovered. It's only natural that the first year of this blog then resembled, both in look-and-feel...
Continue reading "Make-up!" »
Thanks to some birthday balloting (thank you, thank you!), I'm truly within striking distance of the first goal to be a top 1000 reviewer. If I would get to reviewing more (I've only been adding a review a week, which...
Continue reading "Amazon Review Update" »
J and I returned last night from a week in Great Britain where we covered quite a bit of territory, including Stratford-on-Avon, the Burghley Horse Trials, the southern coast, and an evening of curry, ale, and conversation with Windy Baboulene...
Continue reading "Back from an English Holiday" »
Someone at the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority thought that Hurricane Isabel was going to cause trouble for the outside platforms and bus stops, so they quit running public transport in the District at 11am. That meant the Federal Government...
Continue reading "Waiting for Isabel" »
Even though we'd been over for a wonderful meal on Saturday, Jill and I drove back to join Medley, Now This and Divinest Sense for the House Call from Dr. Dean, the single largest ever conference call (as verified by...
Continue reading "Texas is Better Than Bush" »
As a resident of the United State's first (and largest in population, I believe) colony, I just signed the 'Vote Jan 13 Pledge' and so should you today! http://dcfirst.org/pledge/ Two things will happen at the DC Primary: 1. Candidates will...
Continue reading "District Resident? Pledge to Vote!" »
I'll freely admit I'm not a journalist, nor have I have ever taken any journalism classes. I spent a month or so with the Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas which rivals many city dailies, and...
Continue reading "A Stupid Question about Journalistic Ethics" »
In the tradition of Swift's modest little proposal, I've got an idea. Now, follow me here:There's a number of reporters (some reports say 6) who know who the "senior government official" is who dropped Valerie Plame's name, including Bob Novak,...
Continue reading "Passing the Leak" »
I, and it seems quite a number of other Movable Type users, have been suffering a plague of the scum of the Internet who don't understand that a person's personal web site is not the spot for them to advertise...
Continue reading "Comment Spam Killer" »
Although quite annoying (especially given that my wife was showing off the capabilities of blogs to her advisor right after someone posted a stupid "penis enlargement" spam to my comments), I wasn't being hit as hard by comment spam as...
Continue reading "Say Goodbye to Comment Spam" »
I'm not normally a follower of the Libertarian party line (I've got a real problem with their stand on environmental issues, as I understand it), but I have to hand it to them, they are dead right on their call...
Continue reading "What Drug War?" »
Never the one to turn down an invitation (even if received as part of a listserv mailing), I made my way over to the Rendezvous Lounge in Kalorama to meet some of the bloggers in my area on Thursday night....
Continue reading "Blogorama V" »
As a writer and a teacher, I'm quite fond of metaphors and similes. The restatement of one thing as another often opens up a better understanding of a thing, revealing the similarities and differences because of how well, or not...
Continue reading "Your Computer is a Home, Not an Appliance" »
UPDATE: Revisionist that I am, I was able to snitch some important URLs and names from Chad Orzel's writeup of the meetup and correct some of my more obvious blunders that will now be lost to Google's archive for a...
Continue reading "A Busy Social Agenda" »
I posted here back in June about our decision to give up searching for new digs and deciding instead to get adult furniture, with the idea that if you can't buy a new place you can make the place you...
Continue reading "Completing the Furniture Set" »
In that last piece on Sondheim, my first draft contained the phrase "the players equitted themselves well." Unfortunately, when I did a spell-check, I couldn't find "equitted" in the dictionary. I googled the phrase, and others have used it, usually...
Continue reading "Equitted?" »
The silence around here was not due to an over-consumption of turkey and stuffing, but rather our annual vacation, this time to Belize. The trip report will follow shortly (over at Engel-Cox Travels), as soon as I get out from...
Continue reading "Back from Belize" »
Another thing that happened while I was away is that I finally obtained the first goal in my quest to be a top Amazon.com reviewer: DateRankReviews WrittenVotes Received 12/08/03994371641 08/30/031,119362510 05/12/031,445346391 04/04/031,980345328 01/14/032,976217221 10/16/024,441171125 09/28/029,91615394 09/03/0215,5446750 08/13/0224,5393126 07/18/0234,97584 It took...
Continue reading "Top 1000 Reviewer" »
Oy! Now I'm really kicking myself for spazzing out on the World Fantasy Convention, where I could have had the opportunity to give Graham Joyce his annual American dousing. Congratulations to him for another wonderful win, and off I pop...
Continue reading "Graham Joyce on World Fantasy Con" »
I missed this when it came out, but the Daily Kos has the ballot that will be used for the first-in-the-nation primary here in the District (which, as a reminder, has less democracy than Iraq). Howard Dean was going to...
Continue reading "DC Primary Ballot" »
This is an open call for comments, for people to place what really irks them about the holidays and Christmas shopping, as this weekend is the biggest shopping days of the year. I was out in it yesterday, and I'm...
Continue reading "The Pet Peeves of Christmas" »
This year, the holiday letter took the form of a blog, except I note now that I forgot to reverse chronologically arrange the entries. Ah, well, consistency is not my strong suite. PDF version of the 2003 Holiday Letter...
Continue reading "2003 Holiday Letter" »
Back from Texas with all the Christmas loot, thanks to the parental, sibling, and extended family units. A bit of a quick trip this time, due in part to the timing of Christmas day itself along with the lack of...
Continue reading "Post Loot Wrap-up" »
Yesterday we finally got the penultimate piece of furniture in our renovation plans: the big screen television. We had actually been talking about getting one of these for the longest time, to replace the 13-inch Sony television that J had...
Continue reading "It's Going to be a BIG New Year" »
Here in the transition between the years, many people gather their best of lists. Most people point towards the best other sites, or particular writing and posts, that they read in the year. I feel that totally misses the point...
Continue reading "Best of 2003 in immediacy" »
I've been meaning to mention this for awhile, and today is my last opportunity to do so before it becomes history, but David Gammel and I will be presenting on "Blogging for Associations: Effective Knowledge Sharing at Low Cost" today...
Continue reading "Blogging for Associations" »
A new ad by the conservative corporate interest group, Club for Growth, is airing in Iowa, attacking not only Dean, but the Dean campaign. The "character" in the ad says, "I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking,...
Continue reading "For the Record" »
Our friend Terri came over today to help finalize our planned trip to New York to see a couple of Broadway musicals, something that we're hoping becomes a tradition. Last year, it was just Jill and I heading there at...
Continue reading "Visiting New York in April" »
Tomorrow, District of Columbia residents go to the polls to express their presidential preference in a non-binding primary, the goal of which is not really to say whom we prefer becomes the next president, but just that we'd like whoever...
Continue reading "The Night Before Primary" »
At 8am, an hour after the polls opened, we were numbers 18 and 19 into the ballot machine at our polling location. Given normal elections, it looks like the turn-out for today's DC primary is going to be light, as...
Continue reading "I Voted in the First-in-the-Nation Primary" »
Recent comments here might imply that I'm negative towards Dean, and I'm not--not at all. I'm still very much a supporter, as I truly believe that Dean's the best candidate to beat Bush. Gephardt? He couldn't even win extra seats...
Continue reading "Carol endorses Howard" »
It just must be political week here at immediacy, and there are some things you just can't fight. With the departure of Moseley Braun from the race and a general increase in knowledge of the various candidates positions, I revisited...
Continue reading "Current Candidate Selection" »
From a post on Brainstorms, I visited a new beta Web site on travel that has this neat tool for picturing where you've been in the world: create your own visited country map I really need to visit the East....
Continue reading "I Need to Get Out of My Hemisphere More" »
Here's one that seems ready made for the young Karl Rove wannabes: Northrop Grumman is hiring for a Denial and Deception Web Developer (screen capture for posterity). Get in on the ground floor with a wonderful opportunity to develop new...
Continue reading "Are You a Republican Looking for a Job?" »
I just discovered, through a comment left here, that my recommender buddy Brian has a blog. Brian and I know each other from the newsgroup that supports Alexandria Digital Literature, and we both have an inordinate fondness for collaborative filter...
Continue reading "I Can Pronounce It, But What *is* It?" »
I've really fallen behind on writing comments on the various media (what this weblog is supposed to be about) as I've been so wrapped up in the political season. I hope to change that soon, as I've got a number...
Continue reading "Top 900 Reviewer" »
This past Sunday, we celebrated eight years of marriage and our 2nd anniversary of the date of our marriage with both sets of parents and an aunt and uncle. The big party was held at our favorite local restaurant, Chef...
Continue reading "Our 2nd Anniversary" »
(The Angina Monologues, part 1) For a little over four weeks, I've been experiencing some reoccurring symptoms whenever I exert myself, such as climbing a large hill, walking up the Metro stairs, or playing tennis. I'll get shortness of breath,...
Continue reading "A Message from the Heart" »
I'd been holding steady in the Amazon ranks at around #808 until I checked today, when I jumped nearly 100 people to rank 723: DateRankReviewsWrittenVotesReceived 04/03/04723378801 01/12/04890376724 12/08/03994371641 08/30/031,119362510 05/12/031,445346391 04/04/031,980345328 01/14/032,976217221 10/16/024,441171125 09/28/029,91615394 09/03/0215,5446750 08/13/0224,5393126 07/18/0234,97584 I'm still not...
Continue reading "Top 800 Reviewer" »
(The Angina Monologues, part 2) Today was the first day that I didn't feel any symptoms of my angina on my walk to work. That's not too surprising, since the cardiologist didn't actually do anything during my cardiac catheterization on...
Continue reading "Closer to the Heart" »
Surprised myself by making this next jump much quicker than the last, even though I'm only under the 700 mark by a couple of places, which means the next jump will take much longer: DateRankReviewsWrittenVotesReceived 04/26/04698380833 04/03/04723378801 01/12/04890376724 12/08/03994371641 08/30/031,119362510...
Continue reading "Top 700 Reviewer" »
This is a meme replicated from The Republic of T. (who got it from ej flavors). Here's how it works: Everyone who reads this asks me 3 questions, no more no less. You may ask me anything. Then to