Back In Action

Back again after a brief interuption. Actually, on Saturday, when I discovered that Kate had loosened the phone wiring when raking the patio, I called Qwest and waded through their electronic message system (they had closed fifteen minutes before I called, Mountain Time), and scheduled a house call, and after ten minutes was told that a repair-entity would be dispatched to my house by 8 PM the following day (Sunday). I thought to myself "yeah, right", and hung up.

And the repair-entity showed up before noon Sunday, determined that yeah, it was a loose hookup, and repaired it then and there. No problem. Kudos to my phone company!

After that I stayed offline for a day because it was such a good day after all, and worked in the lawn with my weed hound. Like Shelly spouse to the Monkey King, I have one of these little weed-catching devices, which looks like a green cane with retractable prongs at the end. Sort of the gardening equivalent of Wolverine. I've been pulling bucket after bucket of yellow-headed dandilions out of the yard, leaving it green each evening, and coming home from work to find more sprouted.

Hey, its a hobby.

In other news, I'm adding two new sites and a blog to the checks at the right.

My Dovehaven is Shaun and Miranda's web page complete with message boards. Shaun and Miranda are former WotC, now in the heart of the heart of the country.

Stevemillersband belongs to Steve Miller (no, the other one), and is always under construction, so don't let that stop you. Steve's message board is cool, but be warned - he listens to a lot of Art Bell. The lovely and talented Steve is also former WotC, and is Kate's Star Wars GM.

Brainstormfront is one more old friend from WotC, Steven Schend. The talented and lovely Steven now has to post more often, since I've hooked him up to my chunk of the blogiverse.

In other blog-related news, the Sloganator is back, though as a private site. Here's your chance to make up your own sign ("Don't Change Horses in Mid-Apocalypse" is always a fave). Hurry, before the Bush/Cheney campaign catches up with them.

And in OTHER other news, while I was writing this, I was push-polled! Apparently I made it through the opening gates of their polling (Votes, mostly Democrat, local, yadda yadda). Then a lot of questions about an upcoming initiative on the ballot to alleviate property taxes by allowing non-tribal casinos to have slot machines. Lot of questions along the lines of if I think its fair that Indians get to have slots and other gambling establishments (we have card rooms here in Washington State) don't. You can imagine my response ("Hey, let's give the Native Americans back their land, THEN we can whine about fairness"). I was amused by the clumsiness of it all and the poor young man was very pleasant, but I don't think I was going in the direction he wanted me to. So obviously, there is now going to be more on this journal about this issue as we go along. (They asked if I was a newsperson - they didn't ask if I was a blogger).

AND in other, other, other news, have another quiz result:


You are Bob Herbert! You're not the most sparkling
writer, but one of the most solid and selfless
on the Op-Ed staff. You focus on New York
politics, the poor, race issues, and civil
liberties. You like to quote others, and rarely
place yourself in your columns. You keep it
real. Seriously.

Which New York  Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I can honestly say I have no idea who this guy is. I guess he doesn't hold the proper credentials to be a pundit.

More later,

A Pause

The greatest detriment to blogging is good weather, and its been beautiful out here for a week now, and I notice that my fellows have similarly been taking advantage of the warmth and sunlight.

As a secondary effect, there is a reduction to blogging because Kate has cleaned out the leaves around the phone box, knocking the computer line into the house out again. Running this on the house line right now, but want to keep it as free as possible.

More later, after repairs.

Another Unsurprising Quiz

Too nice a day, today - going out to the mow the lawn. In the meantime, this should hold you:

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

Seattle
Your dark exterior masks a caffeine driven activism.  You'll take up a cause and you'll get ugly to advance it.

More later,

Another Short and Whacky Bush Ad

We're done blaming the previous administration for our screwups. Now we're blaming the next administration.

Quote for the Day

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
-- H. P. Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulhu

Superman's Pal, Jerry Seinfeld

OK, I'm posting this because I'm a comics goob, and because I was timing online animation at the office (no, really, it was work related!). I came across this new American Express Commercial - its a shade under five minutes long, requires speakers or headphones, and I think Supe's voice is Patrick Warburton, from The Tick and The Emperor's New Groove. Go check it out.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

About a month or two ago, Wizards of the Coast shut down its message boards dedicated to discussing WotC novels. They were very definite about the reason for the shut down. The boards were being shut down because people were getting online and trashing the heck out of the authors. This made the authors upset. This made the editors upset. This made the managers upset. The short version is - who needs this heartache? Why set up a bunch of message boards if you're going to get slammed? The choices were to shut it down, put up with it, or patrol the boards to the point that people felt inhibitted about any venting at all. They chose the first, and told the fans effectively that. I think it was pretty brave and straightforward of WotC to be upfront about it, and no, I don't think it was censorship - if you want to praise or yell at them (or at me), you can always go to amazon.com. Or you can grab me at a convention, buy me a beer, and yell at me there (that way I get a beer).

The reason I mention this is because of another bit of Internet bad-thinking - the Sloganator. This was the brainchild of some poor, now-unemployed webperson, a great idea for the Bush/Cheney Website. You get a graphic of the Bush/Cheney lawn sign, and you can personalize it with your own greeting, like "Renton Supports America" or "I Like Cheese". And then they went live with the site, giving people the chance to put in their own slogans.

Yeah, you just knew this would end badly.

The campaign tried to limit what words could be used ("miserable failure" quickly made the banned list"), but then wisely shut it down. Being the net, though, stuff like this never REALLY goes away. So here is a musical tribute (some of them cruel, some of them very cruel) to the Sloganator. It died so future campaigns could learn.

More later,

Who Watches the Watchmen?

OK, one more thing, I came across this in my web-travels, which hasn't gotten a lot of play.

The short form is that a Carlsbad, CA, household is sucking down a lot of power. The local constables connect that activity with growing pot indoors (its been a fact that for the past few decades, if you buy a lot of high intensity grow lights, you get your name on a list), and sends in the sniffer dogs under a state warrant. Turns out there is no pot, just a household that uses an awful lot of power. Not criminal - just wasteful. Oh, and they behaved in a suspicious manner by putting their trash out. On trash day. Hmmmm.

One moral of this story is: Remember to turn out the lights when you leave a room, or the Authorities will come knocking. (just what the kids need to hear if they aren't tired of us greybeards talking about growing up during the Energy Crisis)

A less-encouraging moral is: So they're watching your power consumption, looking for irregularities. What ELSE are they watching? And what will they find?

Maybe I'm getting the mojo back, after all.

Slump

So for the past two weeks I've been in emotional and creative neutral. Nothing serious, just a total lack of desire to produce. I'd like to say that its the result of spending the month of February with a "symptom of the week" cold, or a backlash from the very busy December and January, or being unable to get comfortable with the loaner laptop or just the fact that Kate's been wrapped up with her work at H&R Block, but I'm not sure what is causing it. Its just that for the past two weeks - nada. Nothing. No great desire to create, or even to share.

I'd call it Spring Fever, but its only been truly Spring for the past few days (sort of like blaming the Stock Market losses on the Spanish rail bombing that happened the third day of that particular slump). It has been wonderful (the weather, not the stock market) - bright and sunny and warm, and I've spent the days and early evenings working on the lawn (mostly pulling dandylions - after lengthy negotiations, it has been determined that while the garden is Kate's and the lawn is mine, the driveway officially counts as lawn with regards to weeding, mowing, and raking leaves).

And the day job has been pretty fun. I've been digging in deeply to figure out what people do for on-line activities (which involves a lot of solitaire games, I've discovered), as well as tracking down the official bibles of most of the Intellectual Properties I'm working on (Cry for me, I have to read EZ-Bake Oven recipes). Yet when I get home, I sprawl, read the paper, flip between channels, read books I've read before, and stay away from the computer.

Its not a totally weird situation for me - I've been here before, but usually with some demonic deadline breathing down my neck inspiring panic if not outright creativity. At the moment, I just feel like a body at rest, and thats OK for me right now. In another week, I will start worrying if I'm ever going to become a body in motion again.

One thing I do have to share is an update on the Dinosaur Birds (see below). The development hearing has been moved to Tuesday, April 20th, 8:30 AM (!) at Renton City Hall Renton City (1055 South Grady Way, Renton). If you're local to this journal, I recommend you check out the heron colony (before the leaves come out on the cottonwoods, its good viewing), and if you're interested in aiding the cause, check out the website here.

OK, I haven't completely ground to a halt. More later,

Ya Know

I don't know if I'm pleased with this or not.


You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shorter 9/11 Hearings

CLARKE: The previous administration failed to do everything against the threat.
The current administration failed to do anything against the threat.
MEDIA: And that's the same thing, right?

Mythology

In lieu of real content (I'm going to do some Tai Chi):


Your guardian animal is a Gryphon!  Gryphons are
fiercely protective animals who use their
intellect to vanguish foes.  Gryphons are
monogamous creatures who mate only once in
their life and stand guard over their young at
all costs.  Ancient mythology holds that at one
point three creatures fought for control of the
skies: the dragon, chimera, and gryphon.  The
gryphon, after studying its opponents for a
long time, lured the dragon into the seas where
its fire was of no use and killed it.  The
gryphon then burrowed under ground and attacked
the chimera from the one direction it could not
look.  The gryphon won this battle as well and
has since been regarded with great respect by
all other beasts.

What Mythological Animal is Your Protector?
brought to you by Quizilla

Political Mailing

Contrary to appearances, I don't publish every damn thing that comes into my head in this blog. Sometimes there are passing fancies that never get written down, and then there are the subjects that are started, and for some reason or another, abandoned.

There are already a double-handful of half-written and unposted comments littering my computer's desk top. Here's the one where I view the Democratic Presidential Candidates a week before Iowa and declare that the wheels have come off the Kerry campaign. Here's the one where I marvel at why people fear Hillary (She's an Evil Genius!). Here's a bit on zombies that I started when I had that heckuva head cold that seemed inspired at the time, but now seems sort of limp. And, in a touch of irony, here's a list of books I've abandoned and the reasons why.

And then there's this, a mailing I got about a month ago now from State Representitive Jack Cairnes of the fighting 47th Legislative Disctrict. I had mentioned the red-meat Democrat mailing from Geoff Simpson a few weeks before, and thought I should analyze this one as well. Well, I didn't, and in doing so kept myself from commenting on other local issues, such as the current boondoggle on the Primaries (more on that later, maybe). So anyway, the weirdness that is Jack Cairnes. You can follow this along with the rant here. It's a PDF file, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat to read it.

So the mailing in question has three columns. In the first column leads with a declaration of victory in getting the Boeing 7E7 into Washington State. This is an odd victory to be declaring, since the general opinion is that Boeing basically held the state upside down and shook it until its fillings dropped out on the floor. Weirder still is the fact that the Rep. from southern King County is so pleased with the plane being built up in Everett, north of the city. But still, there's going to be Boeing in Washington State, so that's good. Except that Boeing is consolidating of late, spinning off pieces and moving everything into Renton in a "Move to the Lake" which, last time I checked, wasn't in the 47th district either. And from what I can gather, Boeing has been pulling out its southern operations to do so. So its an odd victory to be claiming credit for.

So, the next entry is on the importance is saving our health care system. That's good. The way to do this, of course, is to throw the clamps on malpractice insurance. Because its important to keep employers happy. I kid you not, that's the spin he's giving it. This tone goes on through the middle column as well with long passages on Increasing Competitiveness, Tort Reform, and Reducing Nasty Laws against our corporate masters. No, I'm serious about this. The answer to the question "What are you doing for me?" seems to be "Well, I'm making your boss's life easier". How . . . nice.

Then in the last column, lower right, there's a bit on the Ravensdale Market. This is a great local issue - the short form is, through current regulation, a small local market that's been serving the community for almost a hundred years is in violation because an existing well wasn't grandfathered in with the new law at the time. There are a couple ways of dealing with this. The column notes that owners are seeking a Federal Grant to help, and thanks to local residents for their support. Sounds like great local interest, except there's no mention of what Cairnes' office is doing in the matter? Helping to get the grant? (He's state-level, though), Working to appeal the ruling? Its an odd entry, because while it points out a local issue, it doesn't say what he's is doing to help. It is particularly weird given the . . . supine . . . approach to Boeing at the top of the newsletter.

All in all, its a strange little document. Most people would toss it without reading, but to be honest, the picture of the plane (the holy 7E7) caught my eye and dragged me into this particular rabbit hole. I put off commenting on it, wanting to do a little more research into the matter (particularly if Ravensdale situation). Then I realized - the major networks don't fact check, why should I? This is commentary! (Well, actually, I did find a lot on Boeing pulling out of the Kent area, but nothing new on Ravensdale).

The mailing does have some good news. Because its an election year, Rep. Cairnes can only send out two legislative mailings a year (any others would be on his dime). In Cairnes case, this is a good thing, because I think he'd really be in trouble if people started actually READING what he's up to.

(Well, its good to get THAT out of my system).

More later,

Five By Friday

Another Friday Five -

If you...

1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve? World Fusion Seafood or Traditional Italian. Big Servings. Doggy bags provided.

2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell? Books, games, and zines. Particularly stuff you couldn't get through the chains. No, I wouldn't be planning on making a profit.

3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be? Ah, that's the question in my life, isn't it? I'd love to write something so quirky it would create its own genre, and drive booksellers crazy where it would go, until the imitators showed up to fill up the rest of the shelf.

4. ...ran a school, what would you teach? Analysis of systemic behavior - in shorter words - why your boss is always a crazy person and why intelligent people make stupid decisions.

5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it? Old Rock and Older Folk.

More later,

True Encounter

Usually you have a conversation, and 15 minutes later think: I should have said that instead.

And sometimes you find the words immediately:

Phone Rings
Telemarketer: Hi, I'm Stacy, from Arglebargle Singles, the largest Singles organization in the country.
Me: And you're calling married people because?
Telemarketer: (Pause) Oh. (Pause). I guess we have your name by mistake.
Me: I hope so.
Telemarketerer: And we should put you on a do-not-call-list?
Me: That would be nice.

More later (but hopefully not from Stacy).

Young Googligans!

So here's a little site called googlism, which feeds a name into a search engine that returns with something that's not quite free verse, but more "found verse".

jeff grubb is a game designer at wizards of the coast
jeff grubb is a civil engineer turned "adventure engineer"
jeff grubb is currently working and living in the seattle area
jeff grubb is a featured series writer
jeff grubb is president
jeff grubb is a great writer
jeff grubb is possibly the best magic the gathering writer
jeff grubb is an award
jeff grubb is the fifth in a long and distinguished series of gamma world editions
jeff grubb is a gifted veteran of game design
jeff grubb is the author of the original manual of the planes
jeff grubb is working on the new manual of the planes
jeff grubb is based on the popular computer game
jeff grubb is a free agent
jeff grubb is now available in stores
jeff grubb is

It doesn't know about John Kerry. Don't ask it about George Bush - it just gets cranky.

Thanks to the Monkey King for the link. More later,

The Monster Mash

Game designer Andy Collins is hosting a March Monster Madness at his site, pitting one D&D monsters against each other in a popularity contest until only one emerges. It you have fond memories of Grell, Githyanki, and Giant Space Hamsters, go vote for your favorites in daily match-ups.

More later,

Dinosaur Birds

This morning and early afternoon I spent some time on the remains of the Black River, watching herons. The occasion was a gathering/open house hosted by the Herons Forever group, that is trying to raise community awareness over a new development going up nearby. But more on that later. Let me start off with talking about the land itself first.

A hundred years ago, the Black River was the outlet for Lake Washington, running through Renton itself. The Black flowed a few miles, then joined the White River to form the Duwamish (the White is now the Green River, but that's another story). In 1916, a new outflow for Lake Washington was created, at the Montlake Cut, at the north end of the lake. The lake level dropped nine feet when the cut was open, exposing a lot of new land and lowering the lake level to a point below that of the Black River. The Black River dried up quickly, such that fish were stranded in small pools in the former bed and people gathered them up by the armload. I have yet to find anything in my research that indicated people thought about the fate of the Black when they opened the Cut.

Removing the Black River did not end the river entirely, because there continued to be other streams and creeks leading into the former bed, and there were continued flooding problems along the former bed of the Black. To control these, they excavated a pond, fed by the Streambrook Creek (A name that could only be found on bad D&D Map), and allowed the remains of the Black River flowed out of that pond into the White (now Green) river to form the Duwamish.

The marshy land around the pond made this area a low priority in comparison to the wider, flatter lands to the south (where Longacres racetrack later gave way to Boeing offices), and it was pretty much ignored - its current neighbors are a quarry, an active rail line, a sewage treatment plant and a couple low warehouses (including one for Seattle's Best Coffee). The land was controlled by King County, who in turn spent money (about 8 mil) to turn it into the Black River Riparian Park. In the eighties the herons moved in, starting with about ten nests and now having over a hundred and thirty. They originally made their nests to the eastern part of the park, but moved west this year - part of this may be due to eagle predation (bald eagles, on the rebound in our area, are big heron-hunters), and part of it may be due to some commercial development along the eastern border (A lot of empty offices, when I checked, and a branch of local TV station Channel 11).

Now, across the railroad tracks and up the hill the City of Renton is planning to allow new residential construction. Originally it was going to be apartment buildings, but now has slimmed to single-family dwellings. I've looked at the land, and while large-scale construction looks "doable", it will have to involve retaining walls to keep the hill from coming down. The development has the optimistic name "Sunset Bluffs". Its going to have an impact on the Black River Park downhill. The vote is coming up next week in the Renton City Council, so Herons Forever is making people aware, and has had a few newspaper articles on the subject.

Herons congregate here at the rookery (more properly called a heronry) in the spring to mate and raise chicks - the rest of the year they have a more dispersed range. They are HUGE birds, with great, sawtoothed wingspans, and to see them in flight is to make you think of the age of the dinosaurs. Heavy beaks and slate-grey plummages, you can see them gliding in, carrying sticks for bundle-nests in the crooks of the cottonwoods. They're starting earlier than normal this year, which means a good year for fledglings.

The cottonwoods are still bare, so you can see the birds pairing up, displaying, nestbuilding, and mating. The people (about fifty when I was there) were gathered on the far side of the pond, with binoculars and scopes. Given the description above of the land previously, you realize that the heron are relatively tolerant of human presense, but do need some undisturbed turf to raise their chicks.

So its a short walk, and if you're in the area and HAVEN'T seen this, definitely go - The park is on Oakdale right before you hit Monster Road, and I've driven by it a bajillion times without realizing it. Its interesting that this abandoned and problematic chunk of land has been turned into a wetland greenspace, and the community has been rewarded by attracting a thriving population of these huge and attractive birds. It would be a pity to lose it just for one more development.

More later,

Another Shorter Bush Commercial

Boo! Scared Ya? That's why you need me to protect you!

More later,

On the Road Again: To Say Nothing of the Dog

So the road I live on crosses Benson Highway, also called 108th, which is the main four-lane north-south corridor along the top of the East Hill. And my normal commute has been to go west to Benson, North to 190th (the first major E/W road, where there is a light) then left and down the hill. The light at 190th is a long one, and if you hit it wrong, you can wait, oh, a minute (which is an eternity in car-time).

A few months ago they put a NEW light at the end of my road, so its now easier to go straight through the light (its well-timed for cross-traffic), then right onto 104th, the next North/South street over, THEN left on 190th, cutting out the original long light entirely.

This new route is probably not what the folk who put in the light had originally intended. The idea was to make it easier to get traffic on and off of Benson, not to push more traffic onto the side streets. Actually, its worse on my stretch of the road as well, since because of the new lights, it is now to the advantage of people coming up Petrovitsky (a really major east/west line) to cut through my neighborhood to get onto Benson heading south.

But roads sometimes work like that (laws, too, but that's another rant). You put in a light to make things safer, and the result is more people driving faster on less-adequate residential roads. I don't think the traffic engineers had quite figured this out, or if they had, they prioritized it beneath such matters as further development in our area. But just as the road-builders did not anticipate drivers finding new short cuts, they also didn't count of the Dog.

The Dog (he's a capital D) is an ancient golden retriever/mutt that stands on 104th in the middle of the road, and looks like he's been doing it for years. Clearly visible from either direction, his very presence causes drivers to slow down on that part of the road. He's sort of a canine traffic cop, standing in the middle of the road, keeping people from speeding. He's pretty effective, too.

Which is a both good thing and a frustrating thing. Good because we really need to be going slower in residential areas. And frustrating because, if not for the Dog, everyone would be going faster, and its not like the Dog was in the original plan for how the roads were supposed to work.

More later,

Tales from the Dark Side

So Groucho the Weezy Laptop PC died today, at a tender age of four weeks. It was a minor catastrophy - I just opened her up this morning and the screen would not function. Judging this to be A Bad Thing, I took it back to Fry's Electronics to get it fixed, armed with my receipts and warranties.

Now, as a long-time Mac user, I am more than prepared to find myself pitched headfirst into the perdition that is consumer service. In reality, it went suprisingly smoothly. I was still under warranty, the young man I dealt with was knowledgable, and where he was out of his depth he brought in those that were knowledgable. He tried the same stuff I tried right off the bat, then brought in another monitor to prove it was the monitor light, not the CPU. Filled out paperwork to get it repaired, and then gave me a loaner of the same make and model. It took about an hour to wade through the paperwork, another hour to upload the programs I had on the original, and a half hour to and from. Hardly the pain and agony that you normally hear about at the web. Good job for Fry's.

I'll keep you posted on the progress, but for the moment, things are going pretty well in the face of a rather nasty catastrophy.

More later,

Dog and Pony Show

So, I haven't posted for a few days, primarily because I spent most of it sleeping. The cold settled in and finally wiped out my Friday, parts of Saturday, and Sunday. Nasty and unpleasant, I only roused myself to mow the lawn (because if you don't take advantage of a sunny weekend in Seattle, it will be three weeks before you see another) and to play in John Rateliff's most excellent Cthulhu game.

And so I was nearly back at full speed as my writer's group, the west coast branch of the Alliterates, met at the Dog and Pony Ale House in Renton, down the street from the remnants of Boeing.

Now, the Dog and Pony has the makings of a semi-permanent hang-out for the gang. It is an old garage/gas station, of blockhouse mode, and has excellent food, a no-smoking environment, and more excellent beer than you can shake a stick at (I am partial to the Farwest Ireland Dubbel, myself). The couple at the next table were arguing about their EverQuest characters. They have wireless (found that out from the web site).We will be returning to this place for a unprecidented third month in a row next month, and while we may wander again, its nice to have a regular joint.

Six of the seven West Coast Alliterates were present, and while the Alliterate cone of silence masks our secret meetings, I can report that three short stories were presented and reviewed - two for an upcoming Forgotten Realms collection, and one for as a submission for a Zeppelin collection of shorts. Praise and constructive criticism was lavished upon the manuscripts, gossip was swapped, and one of our number reported on a convention of children's book writers that he attended in New York. And one of the group threatened to kick my ass if I don't start writing original fiction (though he meant it in the most positive and supportive way possible).

At the close of the evening, the waiter, who had been at the table as we discussed dragons, Realmslore, cannons, history, and Patrick O'Brien, wanted to know if we were from Wizards of the Coast. A few of the others laughed, and at that moment, I suddenly realized that, while all of us had been WotC at one time or another, none of us were currently officially Wizards employees. It was a strange post-apocalyptic moment for me, in that we were all survivors of our previous employer. It felt interesting, relaxing, and strange. But then, that could have been the Farwest Ireland dubbel.

More later,