On Saturday, Carrie and I (after a nice hearty breakfast of grilled chicken sausage and eggs) went into Ranier Valley in Seattle so that we could go to a sale being held by Kate Spade, featuring her organics line of baby clothes. Now this was quite an event, since ordinarily this line of clothes sells for beucoup dineros in her retail stores, and this weekly sale was featuring many of her leftover and discontinued styles for wholesale prices; additionally, they were firre-selling everything at half off, so Carrie and I walked out of there having spent $130.00 for what could easily have been $500 worth of clothes.
Like I had mentioned, this was being held in Ranier Valley, which is a neighborhood just south of the trendier Columbia City business district, which happens to be where our favorite butcher, bakery, farmers market and diner is located at. Ranier Valley itself, however, is strictly a working-class neighborhood that has unfortunately suffered the effects of urban blight and neglect. So the neighborhood has its own set of problems; however, it's not an entirely bad place, and there are more than a few fine establishments there, so to hear well-off people complain about having to drive into the "Ghetto" in order to get their discounted Kate Spade Organics baby clothes was more than a little sickening. If these people felt so strongly about having to suffer the presence of the less fortunate while they themselves fill thier minivans and SUV's with discounted boutique baby clothes, they should have saved themselves the drive and paid retail price at a mall in the exurbs.
But that's just me. And I digress.
When we had first looked at what was then our future house together, Carrie and I fell in love with the place, but we knew that a few things had to be changed, chief amongst them the color scheme. The previous owners definitely had thier own sense of style and asthetics, which is fine, but it's not ours. So, we went down to Lowes with a basic idea of what needed to be changed, got a few paint samples, took them back home, and put them on our walls. Sunday, satisfied that we had made the right choices, we went back to Lowes and bought four gallons of primer and five gallons of paint so that we can paint the living room, kitchen, hallway and kids room. We'll also be painting our front door as well, so hopefully, the weather this weekend will cooperate and be decent enough for us to leave everything open so that we can air the place out without freezing to death.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Run to Columbia City Bakery
Saturday morning, I ran to the bakery to pick up my daily quad shot of espresso with vanilla and some breakfast items for Carrie. It took me 14 minutes to run down there, about 25 minutes to make my way back up. Going down was much easier than coming back up - we do live on Beacon Hill... :)
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Friday, August 21, 2009
One of the frequent misconceptions that some may have about me when it comes to blogging is that this is something that I do every day, or maybe even several times a week. Sometimes this is true, but - more often - I find myself with free time during which I can compose several different posts and then save them in draft form; I can then push my drafts to "published" status a few days later, and still be able to contribute something of meaning every day - or at least on a far more frequent schedule than would be possible if I were only posting whenever inspiration struck. I also believe in only posting thoughts that are substantial meaning that a fair bit of time and effort has gone into formulating, polishing, and transcribing them; this,to me, usually requires more than 144 characters ;)
Oh - and about the title -
For those of you who aren't scripters or programmers, I usually lapse into boolean jargon when saying that "something" is equal to (or isn't equal to) "something". In other words, if I wanted to say that "me blogging all the time at work" is equal to "me looking for a new job soon", I'd put it like this:
Me blogging all the time at work == me looking for a job soon.
I use the double-equals sign ("=="), since in most programming languages, "==" is a statement of equivalence, while "=" is assignment. If I wanted to take a placeholder, call it "a", and then assign it a value of "2", I would say this:
a=2
This convention should be familiar to anyone who has taken high-school algebra; "a" would be called an "attribute" while "2" would be the value assigned to attribute "a", just as 3.14 is the value assigned to Pi (Π), which is also a constant, or value that never changes.
I digress. If I wanted to assert that "a" did indeed already equal "2", I would say this:
a==2
the mathematical equivalent:
a ≡ 2
Conversely, if I wanted to assert that "a" does not equal "2", I would say this:
a!=2
the exclamation point ("!") being a sign of negation in many languages. In mathematical terms, it would be the same as:
a ≠ 2
A few more:
"a" is equal to either "2" or "3":
a == 2 || a == 3
a ≡ 2 ∨ a ≡ 3
"a" is greater than "2"
a > 2 (same in both)
"a" is less than "2"
a < 2 (same in both)
"a" is less than or equal to "2"
a <= 2
a ≥ 2
"a" is less than or equal to "2"
a <= 2
a ≤ 2
Okay - I think that I'll stop now... :)
Oh - and about the title -
For those of you who aren't scripters or programmers, I usually lapse into boolean jargon when saying that "something" is equal to (or isn't equal to) "something". In other words, if I wanted to say that "me blogging all the time at work" is equal to "me looking for a new job soon", I'd put it like this:
Me blogging all the time at work == me looking for a job soon.
I use the double-equals sign ("=="), since in most programming languages, "==" is a statement of equivalence, while "=" is assignment. If I wanted to take a placeholder, call it "a", and then assign it a value of "2", I would say this:
a=2
This convention should be familiar to anyone who has taken high-school algebra; "a" would be called an "attribute" while "2" would be the value assigned to attribute "a", just as 3.14 is the value assigned to Pi (Π), which is also a constant, or value that never changes.
I digress. If I wanted to assert that "a" did indeed already equal "2", I would say this:
a==2
the mathematical equivalent:
a ≡ 2
Conversely, if I wanted to assert that "a" does not equal "2", I would say this:
a!=2
the exclamation point ("!") being a sign of negation in many languages. In mathematical terms, it would be the same as:
a ≠ 2
A few more:
"a" is equal to either "2" or "3":
a == 2 || a == 3
a ≡ 2 ∨ a ≡ 3
"a" is greater than "2"
a > 2 (same in both)
"a" is less than "2"
a < 2 (same in both)
"a" is less than or equal to "2"
a <= 2
a ≥ 2
"a" is less than or equal to "2"
a <= 2
a ≤ 2
Okay - I think that I'll stop now... :)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
HEAT!!!
Well - it's back. The almost-oppressive heat that haunted us a few weeks ago has returned to put in an unwelcome encore performance. Fortunately, Carrie and I didn't take down the Ghetto AC unit that we had put up last month, and probably won't until late September, when we can be (reasonably) assured that this foolishness is behind us.
People who live in other parts of the country (except for San Francisco) probably won't get the point of my grousing, but people in Seattle generally aren't used to - and don't like - extremes of any kind (weather-wise, I mean); get too much above 75 in the summer, or below 40 in the winter, and you've got our attention. And our complaints :)
People who live in other parts of the country (except for San Francisco) probably won't get the point of my grousing, but people in Seattle generally aren't used to - and don't like - extremes of any kind (weather-wise, I mean); get too much above 75 in the summer, or below 40 in the winter, and you've got our attention. And our complaints :)
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The complicated narrative of a simple life
It occurs to me that lately, I've been "phoning it in" by posting little mini-vignettes related to mashups that are wrapped in a malleable gossamer façade mimicking sincerity, structure and substance. While such may make for a numerically impressive post count, it's ends up being inconsequential at its core.
But what to do when inspiration for the great missive of worth is lacking? Does one simply and blithely accept that, on this day, the muse is elsewhere, and, resigned to such a faith, elect to wait for her return, upon which ideas shall flow as a great river from the soul to the fingertips, whereupon they will be transcribed in binary form into the great ether that we call the World Wide Web? Or rather, does one, desiring not to lose the essential shell of ones art (even though it be hollow for the instance), commit ones and zeroes to their apportioned space, knowing that this particular sequence may be as insubstantial as the physical weight of the means of transmission? To do the former invites a sense of rarity, and, consequentially, disinterest on the part of the reader due to too great a temporal span between conveyances; to do the latter almost foreshadows a sense of desperation on the authors behalf, and for a surety generates an unwelcome noise-to-signal ratio heavily imbalanced to the favour of the former, thus creating disinterest on the part of the reader due to the general disinclination to constantly separate dross from gold whilst sifting through streams of literary conceit.
The question need not be anything less than trinary in nature, for, where inspiration may be lacking, possessing a certain grammatical and syntactical acumen may suffice, and, in part, serve as an adequate apparition for the true nature that the author indeed aspires to posses and display. When such a course is followed, it is hoped by the author that the reader willingly mistake such empty rhetorical flourishes for genuine belabored thought; such an endeavor could be assisted and enhanced by pre-pending a lofty title to the post in question, therefore generating an expectation of a certain loftiness in the mind of the reader - one that can only be dispelled by a certain close reading that demands more of an investment of time and mental facility than most are wont to spend. In this case, said author should be amiable enough to, at the very least, define his post as being nothing less pretentious than a complicated narrative of a simple life, sow the fertile grounds of his space with high words and phrases, and bid the reader a fond adieu, with the assurance that, perhaps next time, something of true worth shall indeed find its way into a land that is not to be.
But what to do when inspiration for the great missive of worth is lacking? Does one simply and blithely accept that, on this day, the muse is elsewhere, and, resigned to such a faith, elect to wait for her return, upon which ideas shall flow as a great river from the soul to the fingertips, whereupon they will be transcribed in binary form into the great ether that we call the World Wide Web? Or rather, does one, desiring not to lose the essential shell of ones art (even though it be hollow for the instance), commit ones and zeroes to their apportioned space, knowing that this particular sequence may be as insubstantial as the physical weight of the means of transmission? To do the former invites a sense of rarity, and, consequentially, disinterest on the part of the reader due to too great a temporal span between conveyances; to do the latter almost foreshadows a sense of desperation on the authors behalf, and for a surety generates an unwelcome noise-to-signal ratio heavily imbalanced to the favour of the former, thus creating disinterest on the part of the reader due to the general disinclination to constantly separate dross from gold whilst sifting through streams of literary conceit.
The question need not be anything less than trinary in nature, for, where inspiration may be lacking, possessing a certain grammatical and syntactical acumen may suffice, and, in part, serve as an adequate apparition for the true nature that the author indeed aspires to posses and display. When such a course is followed, it is hoped by the author that the reader willingly mistake such empty rhetorical flourishes for genuine belabored thought; such an endeavor could be assisted and enhanced by pre-pending a lofty title to the post in question, therefore generating an expectation of a certain loftiness in the mind of the reader - one that can only be dispelled by a certain close reading that demands more of an investment of time and mental facility than most are wont to spend. In this case, said author should be amiable enough to, at the very least, define his post as being nothing less pretentious than a complicated narrative of a simple life, sow the fertile grounds of his space with high words and phrases, and bid the reader a fond adieu, with the assurance that, perhaps next time, something of true worth shall indeed find its way into a land that is not to be.
Monday, August 17, 2009
All the way there and back again...
A few weeks ahead of schedule, I managed to make it all the way from Orcas to Columbian Way on Beacon Avenue South. It's 1.2 miles round trip, and it took me about 12 minutes to do it - but hey, that's a start, and considering that I've just taken up running in the past month for the first time in six years, I think that it's a pretty signifigant accomplishment for me. Meaning I'm pretty proud of myself :)
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Saturday, August 8, 2009
Sad,Sad, Supemall
Carrie and I went to the Auburn Supermall today to shop for maternirty clothes, and were reminded as to why we rarely like to go to malls in the first place. The mall was quite far from home, and, despite having a promised plethora of factory outlet stores and big-boxes on the premises or nearby such as Sam's Club, Marshalls and Wal-Mart, we didn't really get any deals there that justified us driving past Southcenter in Tukwila. Plus, unlike Southcenter, which recently got both a facelift and an expansion, the Supermall looks quite dated, ill-maintained, and has a (I'm guessing) 15 - 20% vacancy rate.
All in all - not a very satisfying trip. Carrie regards malls as being evil, I regard them as being - when well maintained and upgraded every now and then - a necessary evil. The Supermall - hmm - is probably closer to Carrie's estimation than mine. ;)
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