Year: 2004

tired and uninspired. suddenly reminded, on this rainy day, of all the things I probably should’ve done yesterday, when it was nice out.

although I did wash a few of the windows, and isn’t it lovely to look out of a perfectly clear window onto…the rain?

and our trees are the kind that don’t do beautiful colors. honestly, they haven’t even really started doing anything at all. only the handful of yellow/black leaves on the uncut lawn give any clue that the leaves are going. (yes, black. aphids leave this gnarly honeydew stuff that turns black on the leaves. yes, ew.)

Saturday I was tripped out by a bit of google-snooping. my first big crush? now a poli sci professor. even funnier? the last time I did a bit of vanity googling, including him, and blogged about it: that’s now on the first page of results under his name.

also, my feet are cold and kinda damp.

someone in my department had a birthday earlier this week, so we went out to lunch. she had suggested the East-West Cafe in Tacoma.

the last time I went was in the summer of 1996, before I met C. WP took me there for a date, the only time we actually went out anywhere during our 2-week fling that summer. I think it may have been one of the first times I had Thai food, and I just loved it. I remember the place being tiny and charming: a little bitty house converted to a restaurant, and it still felt more house than restaurant. (the location gave it a surreal air, being just a block from the freeway.)

they’ve expanded drastically since then around the framework of the house: it looks nothing like a house from the inside. beautiful elegant decor (too fancy for us, one of my colleagues said), a back garden with a patio & fountain, even a bar.

in a weird fit of nostalgia, I ordered exactly the same meal I had 8 years ago: swimming angel, which I’ve seen elsewhere as swimming rama, and which I make myself as “gai tua.” it’s a bit less peanut-flavored than most places, more curry. but the flavor was what I remembered, as was the entirely elegant presentation.

a strange push-pull of memory and the present, sitting with my co-workers chit-chatting over lunch, overlaid with the memory of dinner with WP.

doing a bit of tweaking: added a new home page header (sunflower!) and a link to The Kitchen, plus a new album of pictures from Rochester. I have more, of course, but it’s taking me time to work through them.

Piko and Sasha (then, later, Maddy) kept waking me up, and I had a strange dream which has faded down to a mere outline, but which still disturbs me. (airplane flight, giving birth, betrayal, firey death that was transmuted to puppet-like animation on a tv screen.)

which means now I’m working very hard at just being awake & coherent.

Should it make me as sad as it does that Mark Pilgrim has quit blogging?

I may write more about this later, or I may not. I’m not sure yet.

# I just got back from the HighEdWebDev 2004 conference, and my (insanely copious) notes are online. Summaries and recommendations coming later this week.
# I’m working on a few things for “The Kitchen” and the Weblogger Wikipedia, Shelley’s two-week blogging clinic and ongoing webloggers’ resource. This could be really interesting for anyone interested in weblogging in any of its myriad aspects.
# I’m expanding my expertise outward from my work life. Okay, so that’s vague. More details coming eventually. 🙂

intro to web accessibility

* basic principle: make web content and services available to as many people as possible
* various guidelines: WCAG, Section 508. (mention international laws.)
* what to ask/look for re: accessibility in working with a web designer (beyond Bobby)
* how to learn more (Joe Clark is DA MAN!)

intro to weblogs

* what makes a weblog different from a normal web site?
* ways to use weblogs
* tool options
* IT Kitchen 🙂

must give examples, of course. for accessibility, make sure C has the laptop so I can use the Web Developer Extension. for weblogs, log into this thing, plus one of my Blogger accounts. (kinda wishing I still have a Movable Type blog, just for that reason.)

I think I just realized that I can’t design on the laptop. I can program, surf, and write, but I can’t design. So at some point I need to kick C off of the shuttle so I can work on two projects for him and one for me.

then again, it would help if I turned up the brightness on this thing, too.

I’m in the hotel lobby, doing one last sweep of both email & blogs, and at the same time listening to KUOW. (local news from thousands of miles away!)

a bit of a headache this morning, not sure of the origin, but I’ll probably remedy it with some caffeine once we get going. (strange: the little coffee shop/gift shop in the lobby is closed.)

I watched the debate last night. as Rebecca Blood said, my guy could’ve come up & puked on the podium and it wouldn’t have changed my vote. however, it’s the first time I’ve seen Kerry speak for any length of time, and I was more impressed than I thought I’d be. he sounds like a guy who’s president.

Bush, on the other hand, had the usual effect he has on me, namely the impulse to run screaming from the building.

I’m sort of glad I got to see one of them, although I think it’s a good thing I was in a space by myself, where I could argue with the TV w/out anyone else around. yeah, it’s a terrible habit; I think I got it from Mom, who argues with the Sunday morning political talk shows.