an occasional feature

September

I am working for a headhunting firm doing online research right now. I have been looking at resumes for the better part of an hour. Mostly they are fairly straightforward -- team players, motivated, freshly scrubbed, skills up the wazoo. I just came across on that said, in the Honors section [one of the only places to find interesting stuff on resumes, besides hobbies] "High School Valedictorian, 1988; national chess master and Lithuanian Women's Chess Champion." I am going to try very hard to get this woman hired.

Still hard at work on the resumes... what kind of a crazy person would put family under the Hobbies section? And is there anyone who won't furnish references upon request?

More resume highlights:

• "Learned to solve the Rubik's Cube at the age of fourteen. Can still solve it in under three minutes. Am also an decent chess player."
• "I like to windsurf in the summer and have made the French ski slopes unsafe for many winter seasons now"

9/24/97

Yesterday I went to a brainstorming session with other members of the Speakeasy Foundry board of directors. We met at Dominic Capello's place in Belltown, notable for its 3-piece 8-foot-tall folding white board. Dominic is a genius, even if his kitchen cabinets are mostly filled with books [or perhaps because of that...] and the meeting was fun. We are charting new ways to help community organizations use technology to assist them in their missions. Got any bright ideas? Email me.

Here's a picture of me on the steps leading to the loft in my new house. I am still looking for a caretaker. I am off to play pool at my regular weekly gig, Temple Billiards. Ladies play free every Wednesday [and me, too!].

9/21/97

At this very moment, my web log has 666 lines in it.

This birthday has been the birthday of tapes. I got tapes from many different people, some of which I am only now starting to listen to. Here is an incomplete listing of the new tapes I have gotten: Ben Harper, Ani DiFranco, Utah Phillips, Goody Blick and the Country Kind, Old 97s, a mix tape from a mix tape from Matthew, Southern Culture on the Skids, Abunai!, Arlo Guthrie, Dave Wilkie and Jasiri Media Group.

9/19/97

The rest of this month the images are going to be mostly barn pictures -- this is my barn from the backyard -- because I have barns on the brain. Actually, right now I have polkas on my mind as there is a polka band playing upstairs. I woke up at 4:30 Seattle time in Boston and headed out, arriving in Seattle at 8pm, Seattle time. Seems that a circuit blew on my plane so they had to delay us at the airport for an hour or two while they fixed it. While I'm glad it got fixed, I didn't really see the point of having us sit in the plane while they made their repairs. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired and the Polka Gals aren't really what I'm in the mood for. The Sufis are coming in tomorrow at 7:30 am, but they're usually quiet.

My web page has been getting tons o' hits in the past three days anyone know why? This will be a weekend of quietly communing with my computer and my friends and putting up the new barn pix and installing the new CD ROM drive and snoozing. Anyone who would like to come over and nap in the heavy gravity that my house exerts is more than welcome to. Forgot to mention, I lasted an entire extended visit with my family without fighting with a single one of them!

9/16/97

According to Yahoo: "Web users spend an average of 2.8 hours a day watching television". Compare this [somehow] with the average adult who has almost 40 hours of free time per week and spends fifteen of those watching TV. I can remember a time when I was upset as a babysitter because a place I was sitting didn't have a television [but who needs a TV when you've got The Whole Earth Review to read?] and now I'm freaked out enough just reading these statistics.

Here's a picture of me taken in the upper floor of my new barn. It was taken w/ a digital camera and uploaded directly to the weird laptop LAN here at Chez Dad and altered and placed in my html directory. Cool huh? My other barn and house pix should be up on the barn page by this weekend at the latest. They sure do look great. A wonderful suprise find was a 6' x 4' metal sign advertising Nehi that was being used to hold some pieces of wood together. Sugaring season starts in March. See you there.

9/15/97

Bought the farm. More soon...

9/13/97

I'm in my Dad's kitchen looking at four laptops as I type this on one of them. All I can hear outside is crickets and that -- plus the complete outfreakeage [all good] that I've gotten from my family -- makes me think that I'm doing the right thing by wanting to move into a barn in Vermont. I'm going to go see it tomorrow. Watch this space.

9/11/97

One whole lane of Fourth Avenue [right by Westlake Center] was closed around lunchtime today because Frasier [the show that's set in Seattle but really is shot somehwere completely different] was in town, doing something. Add to this the elephant shit that's all over Fourth, and you have a downtown hell experience in the making. I wasn't even driving, just trying to take the bus! Honestly, I am a big fan of roads and stuff, but it seems that every neighborhood has a good share of streets torn up and mostly in the interests of large building projects, not even road repair [though that's picking up too, now that it's election week].

Did you know that the Ballard Library has a higher circulation of materials than Atlanta or Nashville or Providence public libraries?

9/9/97

I finally found the watch I was looking for, mostly because I lowered my standards. This one isn't super clunky, but it is square, which helps. It was also cheap. The Revolution of Lowered Expectations sometimes works in my favor.

I got smart today and turned my fruit into smoothies and drank it instead of ate it. Pretty good, though cleaning the Cuisinart is going to take the better part of the evening. I now have a kitchen filled with fruit flies. Where do these things come from? It's as if they spontaneously generate from the fruit itself.

9/7/97

Pancake B'fast was another terrific success: about 50 people, about 250 pancakes [plus waffles] and more leftover fruit that I can ever eat. Come over and have some fruit! Still casting about for a theme for October 1st. Any suggestions?

I got on the bus at about 7:30 to go see Bell give a free show at the Speakeasy [which was simulcast on the Internet, I guess]. It was about 7:30 and I asked the bus driver how late my transfer would be good. For those of you car drivers, this is because after about 8 or 8:30, transfers are good all night, thus saving you another $.85 to ride home at midnight or so. The bus driver had just gotten bitched out by his previous rider who had called him fat and old and "unlucky with genetics" so he said if I was nice [and how hard is it not to call a bus driver fat?] he'd give me a transfer good all night. Not a bad deal.

9/5/97

Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 To: jessamyn@eskimo.com Subject: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I know, I know, I'm shouting, but I'm happy for you and with you. I was thinking this morning about how much I liked, admired, and respected you. I don't always tell you, but a birthday is as good a time as any. Glad you're alive. Glad I know you. I love you. Mom

9/4/97

Tomorrow is my birthday, please send me email or call. Please do not send me virtual blinking birthday cards, I've seen them. I'm going to try to take the day mostly off.

Today I called Gateway 2000 [makers of my computer and the really cool boxes in my basement] and complained that my CD-ROM player didn't work and they're sending me a new CD-ROM drive [hint: the trick is to tell them it makes a bad noise, which mine certainly does] just like that!

My Dad split to go back home. Yesterday we went to Sears and got me a hand sander. I love the tool department.

9/3/97

My Dad's in town. I took him to see Spearhead yesterday and today we ate Pringles and drove around and ate food at looked at the housing inspection report from my soon-to-be barn. Unlike many angry young women, I get along with my dad pretty okay, so it's fun to have him around.

9/1/97

I am listening to Mary Lou Lord on KNDD [so kill me, I hate listening to Savage Love Live which is messing up KCMU at the moment] live, via someone's cellular phone busking outside Bumbershoot. Seems that now the cops are coming to bust her since there's suddenly a huge crowd. She's on a major label. Glad she hasn't lost touch with the people. Marko wants me to buy her CD.

Besides Ms. Lord, todays Bumberlineup included Goodness, Duffy Bishop, Goody Blick and the Country Kind, and some rad taiko drumming. My blissful day was cut short when Anne and I got hassled by security guards [crowd management specialists I think they call them, no joke] and she got pushed and we complained and we got free passes for tomorrow [big deal, we've both got four-day passes] and I got to call a total stranger a dickhead, but it blew our Bumberfruity mood. At least I wasn't involved in the Beck Riots of '97...