Posts in the Personal Category

Random observations and thoughts from the drive from New York City to Cleveland:

• There are these signs along Interstate 80 in northern New Jersey that read, “UPGRADE – MAINTAIN SPEED.”  They come just before each hill, and I thought they very nicely captured what it’s like to be a computer user.
• Peppered along the Pennsylvania stretch of I80 (all six hours of it), there are signs that read, “BUCKLE UP – NEXT MILLION MILES.”  My first thought was, As compared to what reference point?
• In the middle of Pennsylvania, we discovered that hunting season is underway.  There were a lot of cars pulled off to the side of the interstate, and we saw quite a few men wearing faded camoflauge and bright orange vests, which seemed like the ultimate in contradictory clothing choices.  Later on, we saw a truck with a deer carcass lashed to a platform extended from the back bumper, right underneath the rear window and its stickered slogan: “Life’s a bitch – then you die.”
• I’ve decided that if you’re a civilian and driving a Hummer, you’re basically piloting a giant self-propelled declaration of just how big a jerk you really are.  (I considered words other than “jerk” but this is, at least most of the time, a family site.)  As a civilian, you have no reason to own one, and even less reason to have it on the road.  That goes double for the H2, frankly.
• On a very related note, I spotted a bumper sticker that said, “Supprt OPEC: Buy an SUV.”  No kidding!  I can’t tell you how pleased I was to learn that Saturn plans to introduce a gas/electric hybrid next year.

• Roadmarks II was published on Monday, December 1st, 2003.
• It was assigned to the General and Travel categories.
• There have been no replies.

Random observations and thoughts from the drive from Philadelphia to New York City:

• A New Jersey license plate reading I4GOTT.
• Back home in Ohio, gas pumps give you all kinds of directions, almost to the point of silliness.  After you insert your credit card and quickly remove it, they’ll tell you to LIFT NOZZLE and SELECT GRADE and BEGIN FUELING.  Out here on the Eastern Seaboard, the pumps read your card and tell you to OPERATE PUMP.  That’s it.  I guess if you can’t figure it out from there, it’s not their flippin’ problem.
• There was a big sign right after we got on the New Jersey Turnpike that read “URGENT MESSAGE WHEN LIGHTS FLASHING – Tune radio to 1610 AM.”  There were no lights anywhere near the sign.
• If you’re the driver of the large white Durango that was cut off twice by a yellow hardtop Tracker approaching the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, and almost cut off a third time getting onto the Belt Parkway East, early this afternoon, I’m really, really sorry.  Between the dense fog and the unfamiliar territory, we kept realizing we had to be in your lane at the last possible instant.  I swear to Doug it was nothing personal.

• Roadmarks was published on Friday, November 28th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the General and Travel categories.
• There have been no replies.

Wow.

Kat and I have just returned from Morimoto, where we had one of the most amazing meals of our entire lives.  Although we’d been seated at a table to start, Kat decided (and rightly so) that we should move to the sushi bar.  So with a little help from the hostess, we moved to sit at the end of the bar, just a few feet from Morimoto himself, and after a bit of debate we decided to start out with the seared kobe beef and green tea soba noodles.  These were by themselves amazing, but they were just the beginning.  From there, we moved into the omakase, or chef’s tasting menu.  The best part of this was that we were seated right in front of the chef who was creating our meal, a sushi chef by the name of Alex, so we could ask questions and make requests while he prepared our courses.  And what did we have?

1. Toro tartare (one of the restaurant’s signature dishes)
2. Japanese oysters on the half-shell with four different sauces
3. Seared scallop
4. Sashimi salad of striped jack
5. Mango sorbet with tiny wasabi beigniets
6. Grilled half lobster in ginger sauce and rice noodles
7. Grilled kobe beef with pan-seared foie gras
8. Nigiri sushi including toro (fatty tuna), kanpachi (juvenile yellowtail), sawari (kingfish), Japanese tai (red snapper), needlefish, fluke, and fluke fin
9. Chocolate temple dessert

It’s difficult to even imagine being able to come up with the words to describe how good everything was. Take the scallop, for example.  Alex scraped the meat off of a shell, then sliced it in half and bent over to closely inspect the two halves.  We couldn’t figure out what he was doing as he switched his gaze from one to the other, then back.  After a few moments he beckoned us close and said, “Look at this one.  See around the edges?”

We looked.  In the light, the edge was puckering and moving slowly.

“It’s still alive,” he said happily.  And then he sliced the meat into chunks, seared it on the sushi grill, and served it up with spicy extra-virgin olive oil and cherry tomato halves.

Even though I hate scallop to the extent that it makes me feel ill, I somehow just had to try a piece.  It was actually rather tasty, although I did keep it to that single piece.

The whole time, Alex graciously answered our every question of “Ooo! What’s that?” and “How is that made?” and “How do you get a meal prepared by Morimoto himself?”  He didn’t even take that last question personally; I’m sure he gets it all the time.  From our perch we got to watch Morimoto make mini-sushi, which we’re told is all the rage now in Japan.  Each little piece was maybe a centimeter long.  Not only did we think they were too cute for words, so did most of the staff.  We saw one waitress run after the server calling, “Wait, let me see, let me see!”

It was, in every sense, an incredible experience.  If we ever do make it back to Morimoto, we’ll not only try the omakase again, but we’ll ask to sit at Alex’s station on the sushi bar.

• Morimoto was published on Wednesday, November 26th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Food and Travel categories.
• There have been no replies.

When I woke up this morning, it was gray, chilly, and rainy, the way fall is supposed to be.  For the past several days, it’s instead been warm, which is fine in September or maybe even early October, but not at the beginning of November.  It just feels wrong.  So today, as much as the weather was less pleasant than yesterday’s, I felt a little more comfortable with the world.

As I stood in the kitchen looking out at our back yard and contemplating the week ahead, the rain suddenly shifted to what we call a “wintry mix”—rain, snow, and ice pellets all mixed up.  It literally went from one to the other in the space of ten seconds.  Now, an hour later, it’s snowing.  The ground’s still warm enough that it’s mostly melting upon landing, except for the few lucky flakes that manage to cling to the tops of grass blades and give the lawns a pale frosted look.

I dislike it when writers use weather and seasons as a metaphor for their internal states; it’s a cheap device and a rather tired cliché to boot.  So I won’t actually do it here, but instead allude to the fact that I could have very easily done so, if it weren’t for my pride.

This week we have the American holiday of Thanksgiving, and possibly not a moment too soon.  Kat and I have suffered a great deal in the past year, and it’s easy to become a tragedy diva in such circumstances, focusing on and complaining about everything that’s wrong and terrible in one’s life.  This week we need to dedicate some energy to remembering the good and positive things that happened in the past year, and give thanks for every one; to remind ourselves that life, no matter how hard it seems, is not uniformly dark and painful; to celebrate the good instead of dwelling on the bad.  In that way, we can together light a candle rather than curse the darkness, and use that light as a guide toward happier days.

• Seasons Change was published on Monday, November 24th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.

If you’re on the east side of Cleveland and want a nice warm caffeinated place to get online, the new Arabica on Lee Road, just a block or so south of Cedar-Lee, is the place to be.  The network SSID is 2WIRE173; it is a closed network but they’ll tell you the password at the counter.  Note to Mac users: you’ll need to enter the password as a 40-bit hex key, not as a plain password.  Something about their security setup causes this, although neither I nor they knew exactly what that might be.  I figure it’s no big deal, since once you enter the information and add it to your Keychain, you’ll never have to worry about it again (unless of course they change it).

• Hot Steaming Internet was published on Sunday, November 23rd, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Cleveland and Tech categories.
• There have been no replies.

The title of the post exists mostly because I vowed in a public setting to use it, but there is a story behind it.  I just don’t remember the details right now, because it happened more than 24 hours ago and I’m very tired.  I remember that a small group had gathered at Crepes on Cole for brunch yesterday, and the conversation kept veering wildly from highly geeky to very much the opposite. At some point, the subject of Tantek being in trouble (for a comment? an action? a bug in IE/Mac?) came up, and it was asserted that he needed to be spanked.  (“Oh, yes, yes!  A spanking!  A spanking!”) Then it was observed that we should probably check first with his girlfriend to see if that was acceptable.  So I turned to her and said, “So, is it okay with you if we spank him?”

Her reaction was so priceless (and his nearly as amusing), I ended up teasing both of them about it several times, and I wasn’t alone in the effort, either.  She never did answer the question, so we still don’t know where she actually stands on the subject.  It was a weird day.  Relaxing, but weird.  Early on we were discussing relationships and the subject of polyamory came up.  I speculated that the increasing practice of polyamory might be linked to the rising incidence of attention-deficit disorder.  It’s so crazy, it just might make sense.

Pretty much the opposite of ADD is the viewpoint espoused by the Long Now Foundation, which aims to get people thinking about the next ten milennia as opposed to the next ten minutes.  Tantek and I met up at the Herbst Pavilion to see Brian Eno give a free talk on the Long Now, and there turned out to be an even Longer Line.  With space for 700, and probably 750 in the hall by the time they closed the doors, there were very likely three or four times as many people in line as were eventually admitted.  The talk itself was interesting, and Mr. Eno’s presentation style was done in such a calm, deliberate, paced manner that I felt a little more in touch with the Long Now by the time we left, which may or may not have been done on purpose.  The instant the talk was over, Tantek and I headed out a side door and toward the parking lot at a jog so we could the crowd to their cars; we had no desire to get stuck in a traffic jam trying to leave.  This would be ironic except for the statement I remember from the presentation, that the Long Now perspective is meant to make the world “safe for hurry” by slowing other parts of life a long way down.  So we hurried safely, and benefitted from the effort.  Yay us!

In many ways, I’m intrigued with and approving of the Long Now concept.  If we as a society could take more of a long-term view, we might make different (and hopefully better) choices about how we relate to our surroundings.  If you knew that you’d be around for five centuries, how would you live your life differently?  If you knew humanity would occupy the Earth for the next ten milennia, how might that alter your patterns of behavior?  I’ve generally lived my life employing a long-term perspective, but the longest term I employ tends to be my lifetime.  While I might plan for retirement and how I’ll pay for the education of children I don’t even yet have, I don’t generally make plans that are centered on my great-great-grandchildren, because I will almost certainly never live to meet them.  Does that make them any less real, or worthy of consideration?  Maybe it does, but even the act of deciding that will require a longer view than I usually take.

Clay Shirky’s recent essay on the Semantic Web has stirred enough attention that I had non-techie friends forwarding me the URL.  I found it interesting, especially since over the last few months I’ve been working with a few sharp people on a way to address one of the points Clay touched upon.  We’re almost ready to make our work public, so watch this space for details as well as an addition to this page.

• Tantek == Spanking? was published on Sunday, November 16th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal, Travel, and Web categories.
• There have been no replies.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, I received some amazing news I just have to share.  You may or may not be aware that I once claimed the title “Friend of the Developers’ Children” for myself.  This was a play on Jeffrey Zeldman‘s “Friend of the Japanese Children,” which I always found kind of amusing and cool all at once, just like the Toho movies that I presume inspired it.  Well, I have an even better title to claim now: “Namesake of the Japanese Children.”  Congratulations to the Sasano family on their new arrival!

Speaking of children, Kat and I had our own experience with a small one recently:  we played host to the four-and-a-half year old daughter of some friends while they went out of town for a weekend.  We all had a pretty grand time, what with taking her to see Brother Bear, but I discovered something about myself that I’d long suspected.  I have not only The Voice of Authority, but also The Look.

Here’s what happened.  We were all having dinner together and Emma was sitting next to me.  She was swinging her legs back and forth and giggling and generally acting her age.  It was really kind of cute.  But then she rotated in her chair to face me, paused a few seconds, and, giggling, kicked me in the leg.  Not hard, but still kicked, which is something her parents don’t tolerate any more than I do.

My head snapped around to stare her in the eyes, but I didn’t say a single word.  I just… looked at her.  The effect was in some sense astounding; Kat told me later that she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  Emma’s broad, slightly mischievous smile very slowly faded into a concerned expression, then a pout, and then a hangdog expression.  I think she glanced over at Kat, who wasn’t saying a word either.

“What do you say, Emma?” I asked her in a quiet, level tone.  She didn’t say anything, but looked almost hurt and turned away to face the other direction, head hung low.  I asked her again if she knew what she’d done, and what she should say.  In a voice so small it could have been eclipsed by a proton, she said, “M’sorry.”  Then she went around the table to crawl into Kat’s lap.  I found out later that she whispered to Kat, “Uncle Eric is a scary man.”  (“Uncle” is an honorary term in this case.)  Kat laughed and agreed with her that I can be a scary man when I get angry.  Kat reminded me that I needed to tell Emma I still loved her, which I did and she accepted.

Here’s the slightly strange part: I knew, as I stared at Emma, what I was doing.  I could feel the blaze in my eyes, the set in my face, the rebuke in my stance.  I knew I was admonishing her without words.  I was just as confident that it would have the intended effect.  I’d been on the receiving end of similar rebukes when I was a child, and had learned my lessons well.

Later that night, I called my sister Julie to relate the story, which she found very funny.  We’d been talking about Mom in recent weeks, and Julie had told me that she felt closest to Mom when riding a motorcycle.  I found this to be very odd, because I was unaware that Mom loved motorcycles.  Apparently she’d planned to ride one before she died but never got around to it.  Anyway, I told Julie that I’d discovered I feel closest to Mom when disciplining a small child.

It was, mostly, a joke.

• Child’s Play was published on Saturday, November 15th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.

Just as I was reaching the end of my radio show this morning, the Emergency Alert System (EAS) suddenly activated.  I hadn’t triggered our equipment; this was an external alert coming in, taking over the air signal.  My stomach immediately clenched and I swore softly, firing up the browser on the in-studio computer to hit CNN.  Wondering, desperately and dreadfully, what had happened now.

It was a test of the system, of course.  But here’s the thing: there was no leading announcement.  They hit the tones, and then told us it was a test.  Maybe that’s the way the system ought to be tested.  It felt every bit as real and scary as I expect it should.  An hour later, I was still wound kind of tight.

• This Just In was published on Wednesday, November 12th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
• There have been no replies.