A fire at my neighbor’s house

The power went out around 5pm in southeast Redmond yesterday, including in our neighborhood, the English Cove HOA. OMG EMERGENCY! Said the children. Who couldn’t get on screens. Oh the humanity!!!!! My wife, Katie, and I were already feeling lazy about dinner—it’d been two straight months on lockdown since returning…

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eBay Amusement

It’s all about the last few seconds. I have been trying to buy a Canon L-Series f2.8 16-35mm wide-angle lens. The going price used is somewhere between $950 and $1,050. I have set a top bid at around $1,000 three times, and in the last three to seven seconds, someone…

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Carless in Seattle

I’ve been ramping up my blogging again since uninstalling Warcraft, and my transit blog is taking off. I’m hitting about 100 page views a day, helped greatly by a brief entry from the Capitol Hill Seattle blog. I’m getting more comments, too. Not a lot. But, you know… I almost…

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I named the storm

Months ago, the NOAA held a “Name that Storm” contest for the 14-DEC-06 windstorm that shut down the Puget Sound region for eight+ days. I suggested it be name the Hanukkah or Festival of Lights storm, not just because the storm started that day, but because of the parellels–how long…

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Gary Locke is SHORT

I saw former Washington Governer Gary Locke interviewed this evening at the “Not Another Elevated” party. He’s short. My height. For the past decade, I have claimed that several things–including but not limited to my time in Palestine–would prevent me from ever having a political career. But really, I figured…

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A very good week

I own my own home now. Or, at least, a bank does, and I get to pay off a huge mortgage. I got Julia’s buy-off on what Ricker called a “black-hole” project. I learned that Dennis and I–and Roel and Thanos and the whole Oracle Java team–turned the dial. Really…

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Rumpole on Wine

[Asked, how can you drink that wine?] You raise the glass to the lips, you tilt the head slightly backwards, and you let the liquid trickle down gently past the tonsils <sip/> like that. Of course I’ve had an awful lot of practice, but even you’ll come to it in…

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