Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

When I noticed that the other one had come up and started climbing the cedar, I ran upstairs to our son’s bedroom and opened the window to get a better photo, and saw that there were three of them just hanging out on the tree branches.  They started advancing towards me, either because they were interested in coming inside, or were simply preparing to eviscerate me while I squeezed off just one more shot.

Since the cedar is a convenience that our cats use to come up to the roof and importune my mother-in-law to open her bedroom window and let them in at night, we taped a note to the window reminding her not to open it tonight, or at least to make a friend-or-foe check before offering our hospitality.

After two weeks of too much travel, I spent Saturday at my mom’s place near Toledo.  Over the last few years, I’ve been fortunate in being able to tack a visit home onto a business trip to the midwest.  Indeed, these trips became almost routine, and I believe I’ve popped in more often than I might have if I had lived across town.

This was the first such visit, however, since my dad died in October, and it was strange not to have him greet me at the back door when I came dragging my bags in.  Since October, I in many ways just went back to the parallel “me” life in Seattle to the “their” life in Toledo that has existed over the 30 years we’ve been out here, and I’d catch myself seeing something or reading something in the paper and thinking, “Dad’ll get a kick out of that - I’ll email it to him.” 

Being there last weekend was a way to see that life has rotated a few degrees on its axis, my mom taking entire responsibility for the house and financial affairs, making incremental changes in the daily routine.  I set up an Excel worksheet and she and I worked through a monthly budget, trying to list all the expenses she and I could think of, matching against her income, seeing how things shake out.  She’ll have enough left over to travel to pester her sons, go out with friends for bridge, plays, etc.

We went out Saturday and purchased an artificial Christmas tree, did some other shopping and had lunch at Chili’s.  I strung lights on the shrubbery outside, assembled the tree, and we decorated it, sort of prosaic activities that seemed convivial and festive.  We took the dog for a long walk, and later made a reservation for her to visit her brother in Phoenix, a startlingly spontaneous thing to do when compared to the level of politicking she’d had to employ to maneuver my dad into a trip, especially to see HER relatives

My plane left Detroit for Seattle early Sunday morning, just beating some of the nasty cold that enveloped the eastern half of the country this week.  I wish this picture was a little clearer - this guy on the DTW ground crew had a Freddy Krueger-like mask on his face, and, with his light sabres in hand, looked like a minion of the Dark Side.

The Alice in Wonderland world of the Washington state governor’s race is approaching its climax, and the rhetoric and legal maneuvering are intensifying.  To recap, Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes after the initial tally.  A machine recount lowered that lead to 42 votes.  The Secretary of State certified the election at that time, but either party had the opportunity to request - and pay for - a “hand” recount, which the Democrats did.  That “hand” recount is nearing completion.

Rossi has picked up a net of 32 votes in this latest recount, but King County, the largest county and Democratic stronghold, has yet to report.  During the hand recount, King County found that about 550 ballots had been rejected in the initial canvassing because the signatures on them were missing from an electronically-scanned file of voter registration signatures.   A King County councilman was shocked to see his name on the list of rejected ballots, and his complaint disclosed that the votes in question had valid signatures, and were rejected simply because the county elections board hadn’t scanned their registration signatures into the matching file.

If Gregoire’s 60-40 trend in King County holds for that batch of votes, she could become the winner.  Predictably, the Republicans are suing today to block counting these votes for a whole panoply of reasons.  No one knows, or has disclosed, at any rate, whom those votes favor.

Another interesting development is that some Republicans are now saying that this election is so tainted that we should vote again.  It’s interesting because

Democrats scoffed at the proposal, saying Republicans were raising it only because Rossi’s whisker-thin lead appears in jeopardy.

“Last week the Republicans were saying we need to resolve this as quickly as possible,” Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said. “This week they’re saying we need another election.”  (Seattle Times)

There’s real peril for Democrats in a new election.  First, while Republicans will have no trouble mobilizing their base, Democrats will have to once again round up the students and other first-time voters, people who arguably are probably disillusioned with the results of the Presidential election that got them motivated in November.  Second, the Democrats spent something like $750,000 to fund the recount, though I believe they’ll get it back if the recount reverses the election.  Still, there can be little doubt that Republicans can much more quickly funnel money into a fast-track campaign than Democrats, with their comparatively ragtag sources, can.  I just don’t like our chances in a rerun.

I broke down and replaced my cell phone Sunday, sort of a surrogate for actual Christmas shopping.  My old one has been misbehaving for several months now.  It receives and sends calls just fine, but the display doesn’t work unless I squeeze the phone a certain way and press a button a couple times.  The worst part of that arrangement was that I couldn’t see who was calling me when the phone rang, and I found myself simply letting all my calls go to my voice mailbox during those periods when there were one or more people that I wanted to duck for various reasons, usually because I didn’t have something done that I’d promised them.  That actually turns out to be most of the time.

Turns out that my Verizon contract renewal period is up, so I get a free phone for re-upping for two more years.  I’m delighted with their service, so I had no qualms.  My choices of phones are constricted a bit because I want a tri-mode phone, capable of receiving calls in either analog or digital areas. I have clients in eastern Washington, and also tend to hie myself, either on foot or in a kayak, to areas with pretty sketchy reception.  I have one of those national plans where I have no roaming charges anywhere, even if I’m in some southeastern US haunt connected to Jimmy Sue’s Beauty School and Wireless Service.  So, that requirement cuts out a lot of the sexy phones with melodic ring tones, cameras you can use to take pictures up skirts or down blouses, and optional laser attachments to perform field appendectomies.  All I want is a solid phone with decent battery life that gets reception anywhere I happen to wake up.

Having a new phone, however, is a lot like being a new parent and bringing a baby home from the hospital.  You’re not sure what appendage to plug into which orifice to nourish it.  It makes unfamiliar sounds when it wakes up, goes to sleep, or wants some sort of response from you, and, as often as not, the button you push in response makes things worse instead of better.  And like a newborn, it surprises you with how much behavior is preprogrammed and irreversible, as opposed to lovingly instilled by you, the doting new owner.  Beyond “nature” or “nurture”, they’re preternatural.  Fortunately, the phones don’t last long enough to become teenagers.

So, if you’re trying to call me, have a little patience as I acclimate to this thing.  Except if I owe you any work.  In that case, I’m out of the office or away from my desk - leave a message at the bong.

Off to points east and south this week: Milwaukee today, Atlanta midweek, Toledo this weekend to visit Mom, back to Seattle (pant, pant) Sunday to buy the gifts and send the cards that you won’t get until New Year’s.

I’m a fairly indifferent baseball fan, so I’m not following the baseball winter meetings with ‘bated breath, but can you imagine the atmosphere in the hotel where they’re being held?  General managers and player’s agents circling each other like sharks, a whispered tete-a-tete between a pair of them causing anxiety and suspicion in all those not privy?

But this struck me as the funniest thing:

One possible barrier to wheeling and dealing here: The Anaheim Marriott is a cell phone dead zone. The front drive is littered with people trying to get a signal

All those type-A dudes reduced to an arcane technological dance step in the driveway.  And you can bet that, in the fine print of the Guest Services Directory, it says, “Outgoing local and long-distance calls: $3.50 per call”. 

I walked down to the University District to do some pre-Christmas shopping last week, and found a few curiosities to shoot.

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A novel way to show your support for the UW Huskies.  I clench my butt-cheeks and hurry by, just in case the intent is not gender-specific.

I’m flying to Tucson again today for two days of dealing with auditors.  Fun in the sun - NOT!!!

Quite often, I’m flying on Northwest, where I have “elite” status and get upgraded to first class frequently (for no good reason I can think of except that I fly too much), or on Alaska or Continental, which honors Northwest elites.  Today, however, I’m on Delta, which thinks, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that I’m just another unwashed creep to be tasered and prodded to my seat in coach class.

I’ll survive, I think - I’ve still got the blue-collar grit from when I was a poverty-stricken stranger to the nation’s airport concourses.  Bring on your ersatz ham sandwiche and Sun chip “dinners”.  I’ll eat every crumb and STILL exit the plane under my own power.

I was a TSA “selectee” again today, most likely because my outbound and return tickets are on different airlines.  Always happens when I do that.  When you’re a “selectee”, you get funnelled to a separate chute in the TSA abattoir, and one person goes through ALL your carry-ons while another waves a wand over your entire body, looking for marketable transplantable organs.  The woman pawing through my backpack knocked my Canon S300 camera onto the floor.  She handed it to me and asked me if it still worked, and I removed it and took her picture.  I’ll post it tonight if it’s any good.  Wonder I wasn’t shot, but she had a good sense of humor about it, and, after all, I was the injured party. 

The comfort to you, dear citizens, is that TSA has once again ensured the flying public that I’m not an imminent threat. 

A venerable local high-tech company, WRQ, Inc., was sold by its founders to a venture capital group.  That in and of itself isn’t really bloggable news (we have our standards here), but a euphemistic term used by someone in the article to describe the deal hit my funny bone:

“I saw the whole thing as so positive,” she said. “It was a joyous moment for a long-term company in our community to have a liquidity event of this particular kind, where it didn’t mean redeployments and downsizing and having the headquarters move.”

“Liquidity event”?  Hilarious.  What would a birth be to this person - a “uterine anomaly”?  It’s kinda “liquid”, too, actually.  My hat’s off to her, this term will stick with me and go directly to work.

I didn’t realize until I read this article what a monumental mess the “hand recount” of the votes in Washington’s governor’s race will be.  Three-person teams will be assigned something like 11,000 ballots to count, under the beneficent gaze of “observers” from both political parties.  In precincts where touch-screen voting was used, ballots will be printed out, one vote per page, and hand-counted.  Raise your hand if you think they’ll come out with the same 42-vote margin. 

I began to realize that the idea of a “winner” in this race is more a philosophical, chimerical concept than a mathematical one:

“There is a margin of error in connection with any measurement system, whether we’re counting fish in a lake or counting votes for a governor,” said Kirk Wolter, a statistics professor at the University of Chicago who did research on what happened in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

It’s startling to me to look at the electoral process as approximate, asymptotic, rather than precise.  A poli-sci professor in the article said

“You folks would do as well to flip a coin as to try to determine who actually won.”

I suggested as much last week, and I’m more inclined, seriously, to see it settled with that simple arbitrary, binary mechanism.

And it’s still hard for me to reconcile that the state that voted for John Kerry and Patty Murray also voted for Dino Rossi.  And the answer might just be, as Knute Berger in the Seattle Weekly wrote:

One almost certain legacy is that her campaign’s incompetence has jeopardized other Democrats by validating the GOP strategy: U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell is in serious trouble in 2006 if she draws a Republican opponent who can match her money and her centrism and has a campaign message that connects with voters. The wonkish Cantwell, like Gregoire, is vulnerable as a smart insider who loves policy details but has little ability to paint the big picture for the folks back home. It’s one reason she lost her House seat to another faux GOP moderate, Rick White, in 1994. And there might be sexism at work, too: The GOP has discovered that tough ladies are vulnerable to soft soccer dads.

I thought Murray would be by far the most vulnerable of our two senators, but perhaps we’d better shake off our torpor and start working for Cantwell.