GlennLog

Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo

May 5, 2008

Why Politicians Kiss Babies

It just struck me why politicians are required to kiss babies. Because to hold a baby and interact with it requires some measure of empathy. Parents recognize real empathy. A politician with children (or even without) that can't fake that--yes, I'm trying to be funny--can't connect. The Bush photo is him hamming it up, obviously, but look at the genuine delight on Hillary's face at right. One could argue that by mirroring the baby's expression, Bush is showing true empathy, too, just not of the appealing kind.

Posted by Glennf at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

May 3, 2008

We Request the Pleasure of Your Sitting

I was given the pleasure of babysitting this fine child last night. My first time being asked to babysit, though perhaps nearly three years of caring for one child and one year of caring for two may qualify me. She's a sweetheart.

Posted by Glennf at 9:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

April 26, 2008

Wordy

Rex has been gaining words apace. He has "car," "buh-bye," and a few others. Last night was the capper at dinner, though. "Are you all done, Rex?" "Ah duh." Whoa. "All done?" He does it again: "Ah duh." Pretty cool. Two words!

Posted by Glennf at 6:24 AM | TrackBack (0)

April 18, 2008

Vultures over News Carrion

I was about to leave my house to drive to Tacoma to a bar (crazy thing for a parent to actually a. leave the house at night and b. go to a bar) on Wednesday, and while I was putting the baby down for the night, I heard this loud humming I couldn't identify. At first, I thought our newish furnace was acting up again, but then realized the sound was coming from outside.

I walked out front to the car, looked up, and saw three freaking news helicopters hovering over the bus accident in the Arboretum. A genius bus driver, following his GPS and ignoring four signs (including flashing lights) about overheight vehicles shaved nearly two feet off his bus, and injured dozens of Garfield High School students on board.

This bridge is about six blocks from our house, a lovely and historically recognized bridge across Lake Washington Boulevard to the Washington Park Arboretum.

Goddamn copter vultures. I can understand sending photographers out; it's definitely news. But, please, breaking news? Bus hits bridge. That story ain't going to have more developments. Oop, wait, they got the bus out from under the bridge! Hurray! I wanted to call 911 and report the copters, but I couldn't figure out how to claim they were violating any laws. Just the laws of sanity and reason.

The students on the bus were members of the high school's softball teams, and one of the teams had just had a shutout loss. Adding insult to injury would be a severe understatement of the event. It sounds from reports that there were no serious injuries, but several kids were taken to the hospital.

The bridge was largely unhurt.

The bar I went to was Doyle's, which was superb.

Posted by Glennf at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

April 7, 2008

Little Time

Rex is nearly 1! Lynn is nearly __! (Never reveal a woman's age.) We are a bit tired. My parents just passed through on a visit; Lynn's mom is here now, and her dad arrives shortly. Rex is sleeping generally well, but 6 am is the latest he's getting up. Some mornings it's 5. He's waking at night every few nights. The ear infections are over, and we're trying to get into a new rhythm. Lynn and I are (knock wood) going to the nicest restaurant in Seattle Tuesday night to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary...which was last September.

Posted by Glennf at 8:12 PM | TrackBack (0)

March 20, 2008

New Blog, New Birthday

I was hired by PC World to write regular posts about hardware for small to medium sized businesses; it will appear as Glenn Fleishman on Hardware, a suitably dramatic name. Tomorrow, I am 40. Not terrifying at all. 41? That worries me. 42? Secret of the universe.

Posted by Glennf at 5:19 PM | TrackBack (0)

March 12, 2008

Choo Choo

I'm turning 40 in 9 days, and I know what I'm getting from my birthday. From Ben, at least. Ben started wearing underwear on Saturday; he was ready, and he is doing terrifically well. But he's concerned about my underwear. It's plain and white. He said, "I'll get you Thomas the Tank Engine underwear for your birthday, daddy." It's a deal!

Posted by Glennf at 4:14 PM | Comments (3)

March 7, 2008

Well, This Is a Fine Turn of Events

Before I even turn 40 later this month, I find that someone is out to get me (and a million other people). (I did not make this up. It would be very hard to write this funny.)

Hello

I am very sorry for you , is a pity that this is how your life is
going to end as soon as you don't comply. As you can see there is no
need of introducing myself to you because I don't have any business
with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to KILL you and I
have to do it as I have already been paid for that.

Someone you call a friend wants you Dead by all means, and the person
have spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told
me that he wanted you dead and he provided us with your name ,picture
and other necessary information's we needed about you. So I sent my
boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary
investigation needed for the operation on you, and they have done that
but I told them not to kill you that I will like to contact you and
see if your life is Important to you or not since their findings shows
that you are innocent.

I called my client back and ask him of your email address which I
didn't tell him what I wanted to do with it and he gave it to me and I
am using it to contact you now. As I am writing to you now my men are
monitoring you and they are telling me everything about you.
Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? As someone has paid us to kill you.
Get back to me now if you are ready to pay some fees to spare your
life, $15,000 is all you need to spend You will first of all pay
$8,000 then I will send a tape to you which i recoeded every discusion
i hade with the person who wanted you dead and as soon as you get the
tape, you will pay the remaining $7,000. If you are not ready for my
help, then I will carry on with my job straight-up.

WARNING: DO NOT THINK OF CONTACTING THE POLICE OR EVEN TELLING ANYONE
BECAUSE I WILL KNOW.REMEMBER, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOU VERY WELL WANT YOU
DEAD! I WILL EXTEND IT TO YOUR FAMILY, INCASE I NOTICE SOMETHING FUNNY.
DO NOT COME OUT ONCE IT IS 7:PM UNTIL I MAKE OUT TIME TO SEE YOU AND
GIVE YOU THE TAPE OF MY DISCUSSION WITH THE PERSON WHO WANT YOU DEAD
THEN YOU CAN USE IT TO TAKE ANY LEGAL ACTION. GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT
YOUR REPLY via mail,killerofsoul11@gmail.com

Posted by Glennf at 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 19, 2008

Nigerian Spam Moves to Hong Kong

This has got to be the laziest Nigerian-style spam I've ever seen:

Good Day ,
I'm Song Li, I work with the Hang Seng Bank here in Hong Kong. Although the internet is a very hard place to meet people because you don't know who to trust, what to believe and what not to.
I have an obscured business suggestion for you. There is the sum of
19,500,000.00 Dollars in my bank "Hang Seng Bank" Hong kong. There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which means no one would ever come forward to claim it. That is why I ask that we work together so as to have the sun transferred out of my bank into your account.
Please do not be offended with the manner I contacted you. It was
necessitated by the urgency and nature of this transaction. Should you be interested please send me your;
1. Full names
2. Private phone number
3. Current residential address

Your can reach me on my private email: lisongli@yahoo.com.hk

Kind Regards,
Mr. Song Li.
sngligbiz

I have an obscured business suggestion for you, too, but it wouldn't involve a place the "sun" don't shine.

Posted by Glennf at 2:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 15, 2008

Pollanated

Last night, I went to a restaurant to eat good food, mostly plants, not too much, with Michael Pollan. We weren't at the same table. Rather, the restaurant Lark was turned over on Valentine's Day into a two-seating, super-special book event, organized by my officemate Kim Ricketts, who runs a book events business that includes regular Cooks & Books events with folks who are chefs or focused on food, like Pollan. He was there to promote his manifesto, In Defense of Food. Pollan is a journalist and a writer whose prose I admire and would like to be able to emulate. The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma are two terrifically readable books with great underlying themes, never too heavy-handed. In Defense is definitely a polemic, however.

Lynn and I have been to Lark before, and had a great meal last time. Last night, we had wine paired with each course, which included nearly all local food, including farro (a wheat berry) prepared beautifully with foraged local mushrooms.

The restaurant's chef spoke briefly at the onset, then Pollan said a few words about good food and why he's trying to help lead a kind of movement to eat well, locally, and less intensively as a kind of new approach to health that's rooted in the best parts of food and eating before the 1900s and commercial-scale agriculture. He noted, ironically, that being on the road for 5 or 6 weeks to promote the book so far means that he's eaten horribly at every meal. At Lark, he had one of the few traveling meals that met the standards of his book!

Pollan stopped by each of the 20 or so tables for a few minutes to chat and sign books, and he's a cussedly nice man, even after spending hundreds of hours talking about his stuff, and signing thousands of books. (He signed 850 at Powell's just for them to sell to all comers; smart man.) I told him how my dad and I had switched from various forms of vegetarianism (I was really a fish-a-tarian at that point) after reading Omnivore's Dilemma; he said he'd heard a lot of that, but also the reverse. Some omnivores, reading the first half of the book about conventional food, which is terribly frightening, became vegetarians!

The Cooks & Books events--which sell out quick, so you can sign up at Kim's site to be notified when they are announced--pair a signed copy of the book by the author or chef, a terrific prix fixe meal typically with wine, and convivial communal seating. We were at a table of about 10, and found a close, late friend in common among my wife, me, and the fellow sitting next to me; talked about the history of agriculture; compared notes about favorite joints in the U District; and talked about nursing, the profession not the mothering kind, as one of our number was a nurse who just started at the big trauma/low-income hospital in Seattle.

Oh, and this also marked the first time Lynn and I went out for dinner since Rex was born. We've been out together before, and we've been out individually, and we regularly go out on our own on the weekends. But each time we'd tried to do a dinner out, one kid got sick, or two days before Rex starting waking up every hour after going down to sleep, etc. Our marvelous post-partum doula, who knows Ben and Rex very well, pinch-hit for us last night, and the kids didn't wake up. (She checked in on Ben, who she thought was about to fall out of bed, and he gave her a funny look and then went right to sleep. We had told him she would be there while we were out, but he was in bed before she arrived.)

Posted by Glennf at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)