100 Hikes in Oregon

Thursday Michelle, Jason, Scott and I went down to Patagonia to see Douglas Lorain’s slide show and discussion about 100 great hikes in Oregon. The show was timed with the release of his new book, 100 Classic Hikes in Oregon, and was quite an impressive collection of both stories and images. One of the most appealing aspects of the show was that he includes a best time to visit, which is often missing from many books. In Summary – Don’t go anywhere in July because of flies and mosquitos.

One of the most inspiring parts of the show were the images of places in Oregon that I didn’t know even existed. I know Oregon to have plenty of beautiful locations, but I didn’t know it had some of the great granite wonderlands like the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of Washington. Now, all I need is some time and gas money to visit these places.

Finding parking in The Pearl was a challenge. There was a block party up near Rogue, a massive party and concert at a Jamison Square, live window galleries, a farmers market, and throngs of fit, hip, and attractive people. As a new urbanist, I should have been ecstatic at this proof of life, but at the time I just wanted to park and get to the slide show. It took half an hour to find a spot, and another 15 minutes off my life from the seething anger and stress that parking creates in me. Chill dude, Go by Street Car.

Kerryopoly – the point is?

The RNC has commissioned a game called Kerryopoly that supposedly mocks the jet-set lifestyle of Presidential Candidate John Kerry.

Am I missing something? Are they making fun of his wealth? Are they ignoring the hands that pull their strings? I guess they could be mocking the diversification of his wealth, which Bush has done an abysmal job at. I guess W. doesn’t need to diversify if he can use the entire will of the country to fill his pockets.

I’ve made my own copy for W.

dubyopoly

Concerned that about the source of some of these numbers? I found them all using Google. To the best of my knowledge, they are accurate, but if the RNC isn’t concerned about the truth, neither am I

Empee3

I’ve been working on my Mp3 collection for way longer than I expected. In a somewhat entertaining exchange, my friend Ben and I were comparing collections (make as many jokes as you’d like). We had each been trying to catch up with the other and were somewhat surprised at how close we both were to each other. It was within a few hundred songs.

I’ve been working over the last 2 years on tagging (ID3v2) and sorting my collection. During that time I’ve made an effort not to accumulate more music. Sometimes I failed, but I ran into a physical limit on my hard drive which has allowed me to focus more on the task. I’ve now completed as much as I can manage and I’m backing up to a FW HD (thanks Phi) and reformatting my HD to make more space. No more partitions.

Today, right before backing up, I went through and deleted a rather large selection of items that didn’t fit into full albums or sounded like crap. Which brings me to my main point.

PC users are idiots. Who else encodes mp3s with the wrong names, at crappy bit-rates, and adds comments about “encoded by -=dipshipt=-“? PC users. That’s who. Now, I may have been guilty of some mp3 faux pas in the past, but I’ve easily made up for my initial errors. Besides, we’re talking about 1998, not 2002 or anything. And to those of you using a Xing or RealJukebox to encode, do us all a favor and destroy your computer. It sounds like crap.

Back in the day I used SoundEdit 16 to encode SWA files directly from CD. It took forever. But you’ve probably come across some of the tracks I encoded. Seriously. Ever come across Soul to Squeeze? The splash symbols and high-hat may have a slight wash, but that was in 1997.

Regardless, I want to thank all those who shared their favorites with me. My life has been enriched by the variety of music I’ve been exposed to. And to the artists, I’m still buying music and even going to some shows when I can afford it. I’m heading your call KRS, and if you come to Portland, I’ll be there.

Netscape 7.2?

AOL/Netscape has said that they will release a version 7.2 of the Netscape browser based on the release of Mozilla 1.7 (supposedly a long-life release). I’m an advocate of Mozilla and have been pleased that Netscape 7.x has been available as an alternative to IE. Netscape at least gets some name recognition when you tell people that their computer is hopelessly mired in spyware and crap and they’re better off using a different browser.

Mozilla, despite being a better product, and the real software behind Netscape, doesn’t seem to register on most people’s “Legitimate Software Meter.” This is problematic in a situation when Netscape is viewed as a dying company/browser (it is). I was relieved at first to hear the news of the 7.2 release, but then realized its just extending the slow death of Netscape, hindering the option for Mozilla to go mainstream. All the Netscape/Moz-haters may recognize 7.2, but it’ll be the last time they’re so generous.

Is Mozilla ready for the mainstream? Yes, it has been for some time. It does everything that most people need (except windows update), blocks pop-ups, has a built in html editor, javascript debugger, mail client, tabbed browsing, great CSS/XSLT support, and its not susceptible to the same exploits that IE is and will be for some time.

So, what is wrong with Netscape? Well, being an AOL property, it installs with all the AOL crap you’d expect from another dying company. Netscape 7.x does include a popup blocker, but by default, it allows pop-ups from Wal-mart/Netscape/AOL/Time-Warner/etc. What a crock.

From the support standpoint, I understand that it would be easier to just support one browser. But with IE, that means supporting their Zone Alarm Firewall, spyware, toolbars and pop-up blockers, all which often negatively effect the browser or the Internet experience in some way.

I suppose this all gets back to the support for standards versus the support an application discussion. I think you’ll be able to figure out which side I take.

Cruelest of jokes

Last night we said goodbyes to some of the other students Michelle’s been cloistered with over the last 3 years. We laughed about the absurdity of life, moving with cats, and how cruel law school is. Cruel? How? Well, before you start, everyone who has been there assures you that the first year is the worst. It harder than anything you’ve done before, but the second year is harder by far, and you know that you can “do law school”, so the sobbing outbursts are fewer. The third year is just as hard, even harder if you’re writing papers, and then you finish.

But that’s when one of the biggest lies is revealed. You’ve just graduated from some of the most intensive work you’d hope to ever do, get your diploma, then start bar review the next Monday. And the review is 10 weeks of very intense studies; typically a subject a day. And you’re supposed to outline and write sample essays after classes in the afternoon/evening.

Luckily I see all this from the sidelines. I never had any interest in going to law school before, but now I know not to. Ah… Geography. But best of luck to all of you suckers. You were duped 3 times.

Michelle’s Graduation, etc.

This weekend was a blur of family, friends, and celebration. Family came down from Yakima and beyond for the graduation party on Friday and the commencement on Saturday. All in all, the weekend was a blast, and now I’m married to a J.D.

Friday’s party was nearly a bust because it had been raining most of the day. Fortunately the 2 months of yard work paid off because the clouds parted and we were able to play croquet and enjoy the yard and deck to their fullest. Chandra and Michelle – the hostesses – spent much of the day frantically preparing food, and I helped by grilling tortillas, zucchini and squash, and a flank steak. Both of our parents helped here and there by cleaning or cutting, which made it more enjoyable for us. It was quite a bit of fun, and good to see these hectic students happy.

The commencement was pretty cool, though took a while with all the graduates that walked. The guest speaker was New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who eloquently warned of the challenges that modern life is having on civil rights, environmental protection, and generally on the future of democracy. It might have been a shocking speech at other schools, but was both time and place appropriate.

But now its Monday and she’s started her bar prep courses, and is sporting an upgraded iBook and a new gmail account.
Michelle the JD

Bermuda – Day 6/7

I’m combining day 6 and 7 because they were fairly uneventful. Plus, no one really cares anyway.

Saturday morning we woke to complete darkness. When your state room is in the middle of the ship, there’s never any clues as to what its like outside. There’s a channel on TV that shows the view from the bridge, but its annoying to look at. When we eventually did make it up to breakfast, we were surprised by the surrounding fog that had enveloped the boat. While reading in of of the comfortable chairs by the coffee bar, I heard some Boston natives lamenting about the weather. It was the comment that one of them made that captivated me the most:

“Those Bermutian bastards don’t know how good they got it.”

I barely stifled my laughter. Bermutian? like Martian? He was right though. It was raining and cold when we left Boston, and rainy and cold when we returned. But I think the Bermudians understand just how well they have it. I think that’s quite well reflected everywhere in the island.

We finally ended up eating with other people on the last morning. We’d managed to sit alone for meals until then, and liked it quite a bit. I’ve enjoyed sitting with others on cruises in the past, but they included my mom and grandpa, who are both very outgoing and could strike up conversation with Attila the Hun. Regardless, it wasn’t too bad, and we were able to talk dogs. That filled up almost 70% of the conversation, and the rest was either filled with us watching two of the older women at the table make confusing requests of the wait staff, or explaining that we were from Portland Oregon, not Portland Maine. They were surprised that we came all the way from Portland for the cruise, and I was surprised that 80+ percent of the people lived within an hour of the port.

All in all, the trip was amazing, and as I’ve typed this I’ve become eager for the next trip. Maybe we can try diving this next time.