Wedding Vows
Woah, i just looked up wedding vows on wikihow.com and saw this!Cross-posted to knotiniowa.com
Surprise Shower for Schwa
Last night, under the guise of a house-warming, we surprised the Schwa with a baby shower. I did take some photos but due to my general chaotic life right now I don't know when they'll be up so in the meantime you can gaze upon this beautiful sight:
Photo of Schwa on Flickr, presumably taken by Mark.
Thanks to everyone who made it out...and to Vinca especially for getting word to Schwa's lacrosse posse. We had some great food, champagne (thanks Ang!) and some crazy delicious halibut cheeks (Bridge!!!) and lots of cute gifts. Momma Marta laid down the ultimate practical kit, as a mom who knows. It included cream for stretching the labia...uh, yeah, Jenny and I just looked at each other with silent panic in our eyes for that little display. I don't know about pushing out babies...so I gave Schwa a book called 'Hannibal the Doll' that I wrote and illustrated for an English class in high school. I just know Schwa and I will always be friends and that some day she will read it to my progeny too. It's now in the best of hands, and that little baby is in the best of bellies! You lucky sprout!!!
It all reminded me of those who were missed. First of all, Bevin, who unfortunately broke her ankle!!??!! And of course, the brand new momma Katie. We all miss you girl!
Anastasia and Bridget stayed late and we discussed shimmera, vitamin D and...(pause for effect)...Bridget's upcoming move to the farm on Vashon!!! I gave her the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that I just finished (she promises to pass it on Marta and Ang! Sorry!!) - it made me dream of turning my whole yard into crops. I wanted to read it again, but Annie couldn't help her gift-giving self and brought Tim & I and organic cook book, that will keep me busy.
Katie & Gi’s Second Installment
Katie and Axel gaze at Alagna, b. 2008.06.20.
Axel has a baby sister! She doesn't have Gi's nose yet, and definitely doesn't have Gi's hair - where did those dark locks come from? Check out the gorgeous photos on Flickr!
Related: Axel's new baby pics from August 1st, 2006.
Stuff, Stuff and Stuff
Angela sent this link to me today, it takes 20 minutes but you should watch it! It was a timely call to action, as we've just moved and are currently swimming in boxes at our new house. It's embarrassing.
Biking, Moving, etc.
As y'all prolly know, Tim & I just moved to Beacon Hill. It's bike to work month and I've committed to 2 round trips a week and try to do it every day...I used to do this as an act of solidarity since it was easier to walk from the stadium area. But now I'm up a hill, easy to work, not so easy getting home. But I'm still going to try to bike every day, maybe forever now (or until I have kids to schlep). If you're driving, please don't hit me, and on that note...this is funny...
Visit dothetest.co.uk.
Food, Cooks and Kids
Stopped by Jill & John's for a visit and some amazing grub by Jill's brother Drew, who is a chef, currently working on a roving restaurant ship. While in their kitchen I noticed their well stocked recipe book shelf was reminiscing about an NPR story I recently heard extolling the virtues of the Nowruz feast (Persian New Year) but didn't find any Najmieh Batmanglij books in their collection. I was hoping to borrow one, because I want to see if I can actually cook any of it before buying one. Oh, how I want my very own housewife!
In the meantime, I have one more righteous meal to look forward to, the public debut of chef Bridget Meyer at the Hideout on Sunday April 27th. It's a limited-entry 4 course dinner included pea vines, halibut cheek sautée and more...if you're interested drop Bridgie a line at eat AT lovinfromtheoven.net.
Finally, speaking of debuts and chefs, Greg Johnson, the husband of Angela's childhood best friend Dawnelle and fancy cook and budding film-maker has a trailer for his newest work online at ChefAndFather.com, "how a chef cooks for his daughter and keeps his family together". The movie appears to be a hybrid of how to cook for your baby or toddler and the importance of eating together as a family. The following is a linked vid from Youtube but the quality of the trailer on Greg's site is much better, a must see! By the way, that cute kid is not only a movie star but a model for Twig Children's Boutique in Greenwood (she's on the far left in the purple dress on the home page at the moment).
Dance Moves
Yes please, yes. I want MORE!!Uncle Jim on ABC World News
On the news article Polaroid Closing Instant Film Factories you should be able to find the video 'Polaroid Goes Out of Style' which aired last night and features a photo of my uncle, Jimmer, for a split second. An ABC news producer found the photo on my Flickr feed, which I titled Friends with Lapels.
Photo posted to Flickr by Mahalie, taken sometime in the seventies.
In retrospect, I probably should have called it Friends with Butterfly Collars, although they do sport lapels as well.
UPDATE: Jimmer just chimed in:
Yep, that's Lance. That is Sonja - she was homecoming queen (and my date - go figure) and the first girl ever kissed (go figure again). Lance and Sonja and I were always "buds". This was taken sometime in the mid-late 70's in Monti - at a wedding.
Last names removed cause some ppl don't like their name floating around the internets!
Comcast Pays People to Take Up Room
Bribery….it’s COMCASTIC! The only thing redeeming about this recent episode is that Comcast’s sophistry is so blatant and silly that perhaps more non-hardcore-geek citizens will get involved.Comcast paid people to show up early to a public hearing to fill seats so that other people (er, actual interested, concerned citizens) couldn’t get in. Tell me this is illegal! Will they be sued? Why couldn’t they get their own employees to do this…their tactic is so blatant. SavetheInternet.com broke the story and Conde Nast publication Portfolio.com actually got Comcast to admit to paying people to obstruct the public process!
Their goal is to:
- Charge website owners for premium bandwidth so their site is fast. In other words, big business sites will be fast and all the sudden your baby blog will give a whole new meaning to crawl.
- Charge you, the average consumer, varying rates for internet service sort of like a cable plan. You get some sites for $, more sites for $$, and access to all of the internet for $$$$$. In other words, you’ll get to surf AOL sites and Amazon, maybe even eBay all day, but you’ll have to pay a premium for equal access to “non partner” sites.
- They’ve decided bittorrent is bad, so they will block it and any other type of traffic they see fit.
Please take a moment to learn more about this. As you know, money talks. The best thing you can do is drop Comcast if you have them and if there’s an alternate internet service provider. Make sure to let them know why. Speaking of which, are there any other internet service providers in Denver/Northglenn?
Related news and links:
- 2 minute video succinctly explaining what the hubbub is all about.
- Google’s Net Neutrality Site
- Baltimore Sun, 2/28/2008: ‘Net Neutrality’: Ignore at your own risk
- A grass roots site advocating Net Neutrality: savetheinternet.com.
- There is actually a site that opposes Net Neutrality regulation - handsoff.org. However, a Wired article did a trace on owners and interests of the site which led them to TSE Enterprises, a PR firm and eventually it was admitted that primary funding came from AT&T and BellSouth.
- Video of the FCC’s hearing at Harvard, visit www.fcc.gov and look for the En Banc Hearing on Broadband Network Management Practices (direct link to RAM/video file).
MSNBC-Like Header Experiments
A couple of weeks ago I posted a little Photoshop experiment that came out of a quest to figure out how to achieve the rainbow light-ray effect used at MSNBC and elsewhere. Many folks chimed in here and on Flickr. I saw that PSDTuts posted Reader Request: MSNBC Style Effect, so today I squeezed in a bit of experimentation time…and this is what I got.
Note: Click any image to see bigger version / slide show. If your monitor is too small to see the whole thing and you can’t see the controls you can use Alt+B (back), Alt+N (next) and Alt+C (close). Or click in the left/right half to navigate and outside the image to close the slide show.
