(sf -> dc) left bank

(sunnyvale) david byrne radio

http://davidbyrne.com/radio/index.php


"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." -Frank A. Clark

(mountain view) fresh

(nasa ames) home sweet work

how many years will go by before building 245 at nasa ames research center doesn't feel like home? possibly more years than it will actually exist. there is widespread talk of closing down the center, or changing it radically to be more consistent with nasa's new vision for exploration.

(santa cruz) it's family

they thought we looked alike - niece melissa and me


bathroom wall at pergolesi: good advice, whichever way you take it.


sister rebecca and nephew nikolai




carl in his element

(santa cruz) music!

music industry weekend at Bosch Baha'i School (cont.)


colleen,jerome, and rachel





colleen and jupiter lovejoy


sara solstice, devon gundry, jerome matthew and kelly



the group

(santa cruz) music!

devon gundry


curse the watchmen

(dc -> san fransisco)

(dc) bucket o' kids

buy one get one free.

(dc) inertia and entropy

two powerful laws of physics and thermodynamics that rule my life.

loretta, evan, and i had a work party to establish peer pressure to finish pressing tasks. loretta worked on yuri's night stuff. evan worked on master's thesis, and i worked on pre-tax organization.

(*dc) control

"LEO (July 23-Aug 22) Be prepared to experience your entire spectrum of emotional extremes before this day is out. You can indeed maintain control."

my entire spectrum of emotional extremes? I hope not. I thought that's what my 20s were for.

(*dc - new year) all things made new

rarely in my life have there been days as splendid as this one. spring is in the air.

(*houston -> dc - fast day 19) south goes north

today was the big day for south. she got yanked out of cattropolis, stuffed in a car carrier, and driven to the airport. she was panting and looking unhappy, and then we noticed a foul smell. we were approaching the terminal when we realized she'd pooped in her carrier and i reached in to clean it up. this must have put her over some edge because she lost it and puked all over herself and me and everything in her carrier. this made getting her in through security a true joy. when i didn't take her out of the bag, the security people made me go through again. even when i told them that my cat was covered in puke, they didn't seem to care and told me to take her out and carry her through the detector. i guess it was the bag they wanted. they got it. this would have been a good day for a first class upgrade, but instead i was crammed in a row with an extremely obese man and a very large girl in the middle. my heart really went out to her, wedged between a girl and her vomitous mass and a guy way too big for one seat.

but we made it with no further incident, and south seems to be already back to her normal self.

(*houston - fast day 18) still moving

i found a good home for the last of my furniture. it's fun giving things to jenni because she is so enthusiastic and expressive. there's the satisfaction of things having a good home. if i could only find a good home for south... i'm not sure she's going to like DC as much as i do. she's definitely not going to like the plane ride tomorrow. poor kitty.

as it is, she won't talk to me. i went to visit her yesterday, and she ran away from me and hid. she didn't come out, bessie said, till after i left. bessie says cats get mad. bessie also ascribes many other human characteristics to her 8 cats, though. i'm just hoping south will eventually get back to her normal self once she's settled.

(houston - fast day 17) window

(LPSC - fast day 16) tastes great, less filling

this morning,
as i was coming into the conference hotel from the parking garage,
i saw an odd old scientist
wearing a crumpled jacket and hat
approaching the elevator.
as he leaned in to push the button,
he muttered something to himself,
and then licked the frame of the elevator door.

it's moments like these
that one wishes one had a videocamera
permanently affixed to one's forehead.

it was even too quick for my phone camera.
and it was more of a taste than a lick.
but still,
if i see the man again in any of the sessions,
i plan to ask him what that was all about.
maybe he knows something i don't.
i wonder if licking the elevator doorframe would be breaking the fast...

(houston - fast day 15) argh

i am too intense. why can't i just chill?

(houston - fast day 14) toyota go go go

i just have to give props to my car (1983 toyota tercel 4WD wagon with 210,000 miles). it doesn't look pretty, but it just keeps going and going and going, showing almost no signs of petering out. there's a good reason why this is the car of choice amongst honduran taxi drivers.



i just noticed that every other vehicle in this photo is a truck. sigh...texas.

(houston - fast day 13) LPSC

i'm in houston for the Lunar and Planetary Science conference. 4000 scientists registered this year. woohoo!

today during a session about geology, one enthusiastic scientist actually pumped his fist in the air when the speaker talked about the source of drainage features being from subsurface water. it doesn't get more exciting than that, folks.

(houston - fast day 12) heavy labor

today might also have been a day to be exempt from fasting due to heavy labor (the moving of boxes never ends - this time from storage locker to storage locker). but i wasn't convinced, so i fasted anyway, just in case.

the weather in houston in the springtime (and fall) is gorgeous.

(dc -> houston - fast day 11) travelling?

it was a bit unclear whether i am exempt from the fast today or not. travellers are exempt, but the definition of a "journey" is 9 hours or more by the clock. so is that 9 hours from origin to destination? or is that 9 hours for the whole return trip? just in case, i decided to fast, but then in my grogginess accidentally ate a plate of fruit and half a bowl of special-k before remembering that i was fasting. this must have been due to staying up all night trying to finish taxes. in the end, i realized that it was still before sunrise in texas, so i just fasted on texas time. so it all worked out, and perhaps my soul is safe. we won't really know till it's too late to do anything about it, though.

isn't it odd that certain words can be spelled correctly more than one way? volcanoes/volcanos. traveler/traveller. whatever suits your fancy. i like my l's to have company.

(dc - fast day 10) congratulations, robbie!

will, jessy, bojan, loretta, nishi, and george congratulate robbie.

congratulations, robbie the president's fellow.

congratulations, evan the soupmaker.

shame, kelly the taxes not-finisher.

(dc - fast day 10) vision

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." - John Lubbock

(dc - fast day 9) phone home

it is quite impossible in washington dc to make a deposit into a wells fargo bank account. i lost 2.5 hours to this truth today. plus i left my cellphone at home.

but then i made up for the day of frustration by having deep fried brie on a bed of apple rhubarb syruppy goodness at utopia. also, spinach salad and a (very realistic) veggie burger.


and here's evan, taking the hyacinths alain gave me home to babysit them while i'm in houston.

(dc - fast day 8) impromptu dinner party

breaking the fast today turned into an impromptu dinner party. i made guacamole and evan and keli cooked tacos and quesadillas. the new table was great.

jessy described her day on the hill in a weapons and disarmament hearing.
keli told us about russian language bootcamp and food combining.
george and alain told stories of past spacegen exploits.
i got lots of grief for the way i feel about florida (too many trees for how flat it is).
evan showed jessy how to play rush hour.
george and alain played with the vsynth.

(dc - fast day 7) d'oh

sooooo cold. 33˚F, feels like 19˚. brrrrr. not the best time for my warm fluffy coat to be at the cleaners.

(dc) today's horoscopes

According to the express:

Leo (July 23- Aug. 22) Stick to your own path and avoid intruding on other peoples' business. You'll have your hands full with your own life developments.

Libra (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) A disagreement is likely, but you should be able to avoid lasting conflict simply by coming clean.

(dc - fast day 6) from kat

"Happy are those who spend their days in gaining knowledge, in
discovering the secrets of nature, and in penetrating the subtleties of pure
truth! Woe to those who are contented with ignorance, whose hearts are
gladdened by thoughtless imitation, who have fallen into the lowest depths of ignorance and foolishness, and who have wasted their lives!"

- Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 136

(dc - fast day 5) the good life

breakfast and dawn prayers at kat's
whole foods
logan hardware
green lights
coconut curry
snap peas
tofu
sticky rice
dishwashing mini disco ball
rush hour
music
stories
soy ice cream
kitcheny kitchen

mmmmmmmmm good days.

(dc - fast day 4) lights up

my loft is transforming into a home, with the help of my neighbors. dan and anna, who own goodwood downstairs sold and gave me the perfect furniture to complete my home - a crazy 1940's dental stand, an old farm table, and a tall shallow hutch (free!) to be my pantry. i did some lazy unpacking, and then called evan to see if he'd help me put up my ikea spotlights. neither of us knew what we were getting into. there were problems at every turn - first locating a power source, then trying to drill into brick for the anchors, then trying to install the vertical hanging supports near the ceiling stud. they make it look so easy in the instructions, don't they? it wasn't easy, but we persevered (for many hours) and were ultimately successful.

(dc fast day 3) i heart washington dc

is it possible to fall in love with a city?
i have the feeling of being in love,
wherein everything sparkles with possibility.

i heart my new place
i heart my neighbors
i heart the u st corridor
i heart winter
i heart the metro
i heart logan hardware
i heart my new job
i heart the construction next door
i heart walking
i heart my new Baha'i community
i heart sunrise in my historic alley (why is it historic? i wonder)
i heart hearting where i live

i feel unstuck and liberated.

(dc - fast day 2) evolution of a bottle

"We don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an
infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human
beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself
a marvelous victory."
Howard Zinn, historian, in You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

feast tuesday night was really fun - new and old friends laughing and singing. it sounds cheesy, but it's not. it's just great. my new friend evan sent me this quotation.

the fabulous evan cooked dinner last night - vegan pasta and tempe. it was tasty, even though there were carrots. we then ventured to logan hardware, the magical store on p street.

the feeling of community is the best thing about the fast, i think. i love my neighborhood and that i have friends close by. i am feeling a deep sense of happiness and contentment setting in. it feels good.

my favorite bottle has died. here is a chronicle of its last days. not sure of its history prior to its appearance on the doorstep.

February 6, 2005 - 09:23

February 12, 2005 - 13:50

March 1, 2005 - 11:42

March 2, 2005 - 08:49

March 3, 2005 - 10:03

(dc - fast day 1) sunrise 6:41 sunset 6:01

the days of the fast are here. katherine and i started it off this morning with dawn prayers and music at her house. every year when the fast arrives, it seems to come just at a time when it's most needed. this will be a time of recuperation and a time of cleaning, purging, detaching, getting rid of stuff, rejuvenating, and starting afresh. what better starting point than the entropic state of my life at this moment?

i notice smells and drinking fountains much more when fasting.

(dc) connected

my dsl is finally up at home! it only took...what...38 days? three cheers for verizon. on the plus side, they did have a pretty good mac tech support guy to walk me through the installation when (of course) it didn't work.

(houston) whimper part 2

and now i will go back and backfill around the whimpers to document the (hellish) weekend and give credit where credit is due.

hero of the day: justin crane

after two solid days of schlepping, three trips to the airport, and a full day of work, justin went the extra mile (more like 100 miles, actually) to borrow his stepdad's truck (galveston), haul 8 months worth of 7 peoples' recycling to the dumpster (sorry, environment - fatigue won out), and move two truckloads of stuff from friendswood to the heights. he didn't make it to bed till after 3am.

i spent the day finishing the packing and moving to storage and generally making the house ready for the new tenants, who move in Mar 1.