Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

So, fresh off the excitement of the extended weekend, I flew off Sunday morning to Milwaukee for the week. I usually space my trips so there’s a 4-5 week gap, but we had our board of directors meeting this week, so I had to return with only 2 weeks’ respite in Seattle. It actually works out well, since I’m continuing a project that I started when I was here the week before Labor Day, and it would have been harder to pick up on if I’d waited a month.

As you might have observed, my trips here serve to dull my senses and stultify my already suspect posting capacity. I’m not sure why this happens, since that ball bearing that’s always ricocheting around inside my skull (unimpeded by gray matter) doesn’t stop. It’s probably due to the fact that all my stimulation during these trips is related to work, and the work that I do is mostly uninteresting to people that I’m not billing for it, (and may actually repugnant to those that receive my invoices).

I’m a sole practitioner/independent consultant, but since I spend so much time with this client, I run the risk of plunging down the rabbit-hole in terms of commitment to/embedding with their organization. Obviously, I like them, or I wouldn’t countenance the disruption of my life that working with them entails. So, I maintain an arm’s-length relationship, despite the fact that sometimes I’d like to, and probably should, linger over a project.

Luckily, I have a lot of Seattle-area clients to keep me grounded (or run into the ground, as usually happens once I get back there), including one that’s been rivaling the Milwaukee client for billable time. And, despite some suasion I got early in the relationship, there’s not much short of a Lear jet and beachfront on Maui that would entice me to move to Milwaukee.

It’s a sort of strange, but awfully stimulating, workspace.

Ed: OK, I wrote that last week and it languished due to doubts that it deserved the space, but I need to re-prime the pump.

Those of you who pay attention to these things may have noticed that Ohio State is playing at Washington on Saturday.  That means HERE, in Seattle.  My youngest brother and his wife arrived last night and will stay through Sunday.  We’re headed for Port Townsend this morning just for a change of venue.  We’ll stay there tonight, and tomorrow we’ve arranged for a boat trip through the San Juan Islands, with a stop in Friday Harbor and perhaps some whale-watching.

We’ll come back to Seattle Friday night and Saturday, of course, we’ll walk down to Husky Stadium to watch the football game.

The Buckeyes have played here twice before, and both times they’ve gotten thrashed, so I’m puckering up and practicing my cringe.

I’m taking my laptop and camera, so I’ll post from the road if there’s connectivity.

Flying certainly got more interesting last weekend. Especially since I fly through the Minneapolis airport, I was obsessively aware of other guys’ feet in the restroom due to the recent elucidation of an intricate set of politico-sexual signals of which I was heretofore blissfully ignorant. Actually, I’m only half-informed. I know that, if a guy in the next stall moves his foot toward me, taps it and makes a hand-signal under the divider, it means he’s receptive to talk of promoting property rights and the Federal Marriage Amendment; but what if I’m in the mood to talk about troop withdrawals and a national health care program? How do I discern when broaching these topics would be acceptable?

It’s all moot anyway - I always use the women’s rest room when I’m in MSP. OK, not just there.

When I’m homeward-bound, and at the gate for my Seattle flights, I’m amazed that, for as often as I fly, I almost never see anyone I know. Last Monday was an exception. At some point, the gate agent called my name, and that alerted a sometime commenter hereabouts, Mr. Miss Piggy Lunchbox, of my presence. We first met him at a Drinking Liberally gathering. He’s a musical encyclopedia, and when he comments it’s usually to gently correct me after I’ve made some fatuous and ill-informed musical observation. We only had time for a brief conversation before boarding.

OK, the whole purpose of this post, at one week’s remove, is to present these photographs of Seattle as we approached SeaTac. The last of the evening light was having some really cool effects, even through the opacity of an airliner window (click to enlarge):

The first three are of the Seattle skyline as we approached. The fourth is looking east to along the 520 bridge, past Bill Gates’ house and Bellevue to the Cascades in the far distance.

Due to the 4-day weekend I took over Labor Day, plus working in Milwaukee the week before, my shortened work week in Seattle last week was just nuts. There was probably time to post, but I never felt like I really had permission to be in front of my computer and not working. (Shut up. Spider Solitaire is working).

So, I’d like to nudge the Wayback Machine back to last weekend, mostly just to share some photos. As I mentioned, we left Columbus on Sunday and headed north to Perrysburg, where we grew up and our mom still lives. Our journey there took us through the town of Findlay, famous for being the site of the Perils’ nuptials back when dinosaurs stalked the earth. Nowadays, it seems to have a distinctive municipal flavor (Click any photo to enlarge):

(Thanks to my SIL for pointing out this scene as we were stopping for gas)

We did the same thing last year, and went up to Detroit to see the Tigers play at Comerica Park. Since the Tigers were playing out of town this year, my youngest brother hatched a plan to go to downtown Toledo to see the Mud Hens play in their new ballpark. It seemed like an amiable way to spend the evening, and a lovely evening it was. Those of you who watched M*A*S*H might remember that Klinger was from Toledo, and regularly mentioned both the Mud Hens and Tony Packo’s Hungarian cafe.

Every venue must have its rabid fans. One between-innings interlude introduced us to this truly entertaining variety of fandom:

Here’s a couple of group shots. On the left, me, my mom and one of my SILs; On the right, middle brother, youngest brother and me.

As the night wore on, Fifth Third Field imperceptibly became Third Fifth Field. Here, my youngest brother is quite full of himself for being the impresario of a lovely evening:

I’ve had a crazy week putting out fires and buttoning up projects in preparation for my week in Milwaukee next week. One last loose end was to stop in at my bakery client’s to get their info ready for the 9/15 corporate tax filing deadline. Everybody should have a bakery client (click any photo to enlarge):

The cake on the right has a sort of tiramisu layer with fresh strawberries embedded, then a layer of chocolate cake on either side, topped with chocolate buttercream frosting. I got a taste of it when the decorator gave me a cup with pieces of the side trimmings. I was drafted to help load the wedding cake on the right into a van, from whence it was whisked off to a happy nuptial somewhere. At first, I thought the lopsidedness was due to the heat and my inadequate ferrying technique from the cooler, but I was told that it was designed that way.

I’ve worked with this business since 1984 as a consultant, CPA, VP-Finance, and back now to a consultant. They have a nice little mail order business here.

They probably won’t be able to send the above cakes via mailorder, but there are a lot of other delightful pastries that do very well via second-day air. I suggest the kringle, which is a puff-pastry filled - and I mean filled - with almond paste. If you’ve had those flattened things in the midwest that they call “kringle” and think you like them, you’re in for a real treat with Larsen’s. </shill>

I remember one night about 15 years ago when someone was delivering a 5-tier wedding cake - chocolate cake, mocha buttercream frosting, each tier topped with a poured chocolate layer - and the weld on the cakestand broke on the way to the wedding venue. This poor devil came back to the bakery, opened the back of his van, and the floor and walls were just covered in chocolate mess. While we were tempted to grab spoons and just eat out of his van as if it were an ice cream carton, the wedding had to be covered. All the decorators had gone home, but we found a wedding cake in the cooler that was the same size (though a lot plainer and, well, just white), and that cake was whisked off to the panicky, but caterer. They were happy to get it.

So, almost all of my fires are banked, and now I’m cooling my heels at SeaTac waiting for a redeye flight to Minneapolis. I pushed my client to let me work Sunday - Thursday, because I’m flying to Columbus on Friday to once again play with my Ohio State Marching Band alumni. More on that tomorrow.

Last week, I received the following from my web hosting service:

In an effort to improve MySQL performance on our hosting platform, on the morning of August 20, we will be upgrading the following database servers from MySQL 4.1 to MySQL 5:

Your database is hosted on one of these servers and, as a result, Monday morning there should be approximately 15 minutes during which your database will not be accessible–at this time, we’ll be copying and upgrading your database to run using MySQL 5.

MySQL 5 better handles the many simultaneous requests our new database servers receive. The upgrade should therefore enable your site to take fuller advantage of the improved hardware we’ve added in the past couple months. We’re expecting that this upgrade to MySQL 5 will help to resolve any intermittent MySQL issues you’ve been experiencing.

Since Monday (at least), however, the site seems extremely balky and slow. If you wander in now and then, have you noticed this, too? It seemed like things had improved since the last episode, and I decided not to look around for another host. Now, I might start looking again if the “improvements” introduced this week seem permanent.

I love this:

A big drop in the cost of gasoline in July contributed to the smallest rise in consumer prices in eight months while industrial output posted a solid gain. (Seattle P-I)

When energy, housing and food prices were climbing meteorically earlier in the year, we were encouraged to ignore that and concentrate on “core inflation”, or the ISNB (Index of Shit Nobody Buys) - that market basket of key economic indicators that includes:

• asbestos baby rattles
• Knox gelatin
• industrial floor sweeping compound
• Ronco monocle repair kit
• American-made automobiles

Meanwhile, the cost of stuff people can’t avoid buying:

• health insurance
• heating fuels (sure, it might be cheap in July, but check it out in January)
• repairs to American-made automobiles that brothers-in-law give you when they buy a new Camry
• that little peep-show down on First Avenue

rises relentlessly. Granted, houses might be cheap soon, but you’ll have to pay cash, and U.S. currency might not cut it.

Well, this morning I am the personification of the title of this blog. I had an espresso after dinner and I now find myself, at 2:45 AM, to be extremely alert. I should probably be working - it’d be my best work in a week, likely. Let’s keep this between us, ok? Because if Mrs. Perils finds out, she won’t let me make coffee again after dinner. Just for this post, I’m using a secret font that I’ve set the browsers on her computer to render as a butterfly love-making, which will distract her.

We’re playing host for a few days to a young woman from Australia. She’s the daughter of someone we met in our online book club, and is exploring the western states before heading east for a year of university study in Virginia. Her visit literally started off with a bang. She arrived Saturday evening and we took her out for a bite of sushi, followed by a stroll down the hill to Gasworks Park. I can hear my flatland relatives groaning already, as they recognize that activity as the start of what they not-so-fondly call “Camp Ph*lbin”, but it gets better.

As luck and/or the groveling money grubbiness of the Parks Department would have it, the park was the scene of a huge extravaganza of a private party, complete with a temporary band shell, substantial fenced-off area (where we usually meander on our evening walks to the park), gospel choir, off-duty-cop motorcycle escort and, lastly, an enormous barge on Lake Union which they used to launch a fireworks display.

That’s why I had gently nudged us down there, and we stood around for awhile waiting for the display and watching rich people nosh on rich-people food. Mrs. Perils started to get jumpy and, indeed, it seemed silly to arrange our evening around someone else’s entertainment schedule, so we started to leave. Just then, the fireworks began, and I have to say it was one of the best I’ve seen, short, but no blank spaces and refreshingly devoid of patriotic hoopla. Here’s a short video from the P-I. I inexplicably didn’t have my camera along.

While I’d get a kick out of hauling our guest around on hikes and kayak trips and beach walks and all the other stuff that elicits a collective shudder from my relatives, she seems to have picked out an agenda from friends’ advice and Lonely Planet, and I think it’s her first really independent away-from-home experience, and she wants to do her own navigation. Our place is pretty ideally located for that. Yesterday, she caught a bus to downtown and did the Underground Seattle Tour and wandered up to Capitol Hill and Volunteer Park, and seemed very pleased. We’ll just sit back and be B&B operators.

OK, still very alert here even though you’re probably stifling yawns or already snoring unattractively. I’ll show mercy on you and go play Spider Solitaire or something until sleep finds me.

On Wednesday, we stepped out after dinner to hear a jazz performance at the Good Shepherd Center a couple blocks from the house. I’d been tipped off about the performance because I’m on an email list from a bass player that has been one of our favorite musicians over the past decade. His name is Paul Kemmish, but most often he goes by “PK”. He plays both upright string bass and electric bass guitar.

We had never heard of the trio he was performing with Wednesday and didn’t know what to expect, but no matter what incarnation we’ve heard him in, we’ve seldom been disappointed.

The Good Shepherd Center and the adjacent property is a former nunnery and home for “wayward girls” that the Catholic Church sold to the city back in the 70s. It’s a huge hulk of a building that now houses a senior center, a private elementary school and various headquarters for non-profit organizations. As often as I’ve been in and around the building, I’ve never been to the upper floors.

This performance, then introduced me to a chapel space that I’d never known about, located on the fourth floor of the building. It’s not that often that we’re seated concert-style for a PK performance - it’s most often in a bar or a nightclub-style music venue.

The music this trio played was mostly improvisational, although it seemed “tight” in the sense that they knew where they were headed and were very attentive to each other. It was interesting to see PK playing outside his more familiar funk and groove riffs. The pickup on the video below is not the best, but you can see how hard the guy works and pick up a few of his riffs:

We latched onto PK back in 1998 0r 99 when he was part of a groove jazz trio called Rockin’ Teenage Combo. I had just returned from a business trip and we were hosting a young co-worker who wanted to visit Seattle for the weekend, and Mrs. Perils had read an interesting review of RTC. So up to Pike Street we went. By the time they had played 5 bars, I was hanging over the rail in rapt attention. They were a trio of PK on bass, a woman named Dara Quinn on keys and several different drummers. They played a driving, yet intricate acid-funk-jazz that you could either stand and drink in or boogie down to. Dara was a gifted keyboard player who was just as comfortable with a baby grand as she was with a Roland and a synth.

We stalked them (and a couple of other bands) around town after that, and they sort of became our house band. We hired them to play for both of our 50th birthday parties. Mrs. Perils’ was really cool, held in a loft in a warehouse south of downtown. RTC’s drummer that night was Jason McGerr, now the drummer for Seattle band Death Cab for Cutie.

Here’s a podcast of a few selections that I really like. The first is sort of breezy and poppy, and you can feel PK providing the solid foundation. In the second number, PK is playing bass guitar and Dara is playing her Roland electric keys. The other numbers are there if you like it and want a soundtrack for awhile.

[audio:RTCPodcast.mp3]

RTC broke up a few years ago. I think you might still be able to purchase their cd’s here.  I’m still going to make a podcast some day of bands that we’ve killed with our attention.

It’s good to fly west into a 3-hour sunset and descend over the beckoning Cascades and a post-card view of Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle:
click any photo to enlarge

That’s Glacier Peak in the center of the mountain picture.

And while I can’t complain about the quality and service at my new Milwaukee coffee vendor, it’s comforting to return to the place where it’s an art form. Here’s a pair of drinks we got at Chocolati on a lazy Saturday morning:

The top is Mrs. Perils’ hot chocolate, the bottom is my double-shot nonfat mocha. Ahhhh.