Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

My ride home was on schedule and uneventful.  The recent DC9/MD80 crash in Madrid was a reminder that these things still occur, and was part of my awareness as I boarded a DC9 for my Milwaukee-Minneapolis flight.  As we rolled for takeoff, it seemed they were “babying” it into the air instead of the brash “rotate up and leap into the air” that I always anticipate and even now sort of thrill to.  I fancied FAA airworthiness directives, dialogue in the pilots’ lounge, lots drawn, losers getting the DC9 assignments.  Probably my imagination.

On the MSP-SEA leg, I was #3 on the upgrade standby list, but there’s no bronze medal in that event.  All of them showed up, and I trudged back to my seat in coach.  Not a bad seat, exit-row aisle, but still.

The woman seated next to me - petite, thankfully, eschewing the arm-rest - noted to her daughter that we were taking off at 9:30 and arriving in Seattle at 11:00, “an hour-and-a-half flight”.  In her 50s, reading a Ken Follett book that, OK, it’s thriller-stuff, but there are a lot of words and pages and you might presume that a person with an interest in such world-ranging, technology-intensive material would be at least dimly aware of the existence of time zones.

It’s one thing for your airplane seatmate to be geographically stunted, it’s another for your airport shuttle-driver to lack basic knowledge of your city’s layout.  There were 5 of us in the shuttle making four stops.  We had chatted amongst ourselves and with the driver about our addresses, etc, before we left and were having a lively conversation about our various neighborhoods.  We were arrayed in a fairly straight line northbound from SeaTac, and we passengers had settled the sequence of our drop-offs.

Then the driver consults his onboard computer and named the first stop.  It happened to be a guy who lived somewhere in the middle of that northbound line, and would have required passing right by two others of us who were further south.  One of us, turned out, worked for the Postal Service (and was returning from a work-related gathering in Las Vegas?  Just for that event, I can imagine, chips came in multiples of 42 cents, with the option to buy 1- and 2-cent chips if the house announced an increase), and I’m completely certain that he could hear your address and accurately spit back at you your zip+4.

With him as our bulwark, we performed an intellectual hijack of the shuttle from the computer and the driver, and verbally instructed the reluctant driver on required lane changes, exits, etc.  Through a combination of steely insistence cloaked in a tone of cheery helpfulness, we got at least as far as Chez Perils, where I grabbed my bags and wished them well.

Yesterday, a neighbor came to the door and asked if I had any gasoline he could borrow.  He had rented a pressure washer and was removing the exterior domestic encrustations that his wife apparently finds unsightly, the same natural encroachments that Mrs. Perils and I conveniently find add rustic charm to our place.

We’ve been using electric lawnmowers for about 15 years, and I doubted that I had any canned gasoline in the garage, but the spirit of discovery that the question engendered led me to pry open my infrequently-used garage door to re-acquaint myself with the 35+ years’ worth of stuff that I and at least 2 previous owners thought was too useful to throw away.

Well, “garage” is sort of gilding the lily regarding this “Appurtenant Structure” prized alike by tax assessors, insurance underwriters and neighborhood rodents.  Within its dank confines reside:

• an unfinished pre-hung front door that I purchased ca. 1978 when I was just getting up the courage to engage the major remodel of our house that I finally launched in 1981, at which time didn’t conform to our enhanced architectural vision;
• storm windows that once installed over the windows that I replaced in 1981;
• Scads of bicycle parts and tools that I accumulated in order to repair the generations of bicycles that we’ve owned since we first moved in here on New Year’s Eve 1974
• paint cans saved so that we could retrieve the color numbers for tints that we long ago covered with colors we like better, from paint companies long since bankrupt
• Oil changes that may have come out of my 1967 Pontiac Tempest and/or my 1973 Gremlin (don’t ask - I’ll post about it sometime)
• Paint brushes that we might be able to use to excavate for a new foundation or a bomb shelter, but that will never again be used to create deft brushstrokes on a quaint wood surface
• partial, tattered bags of fertilizer or some other substance that was once intended to enhance either soil or flora somewhere on the estate, but that would now expedite our application for membership in Al Qaeda or the Tim McVeigh Memorial Militia

You get the idea.  It took me mere seconds (because, actually, I’m sorta scared to go in there in the first place) to locate two rust-encrusted 1-gallon cans that said “Gasoline” and seemed to be mostly full of liquid.  I thrust them into the hands of my neighbor (whom I had fastidiously shielded from even a remote vision of the interior of the Appurtenant Structure) with the caveat that I (a) had no idea what was in them and (b) had no idea how old said substance was.

Later in the day, having heard no explosions or sirens, I ventured up the block to inquire about the efficacy of my largesse.  My neighbor said that whatever it was had worked fine, and he’d used it all up.  My first reaction was one of approval, a sense of relief that the Appurtenant Structure would house 2 gallons less of the engine of its inevitable demise.

Then I got to thinking that, damn!  that gasoline had originally cost, probably, $.95/gallon.  Over the weekend, gasoline was selling for $4.39/gallon here in Seattle. My attitude changed from one of relief to the feeling I might have if I ever break into my 401(k) prematurely, one of having vaguely compromised my family’s future.

We’re having a block party tomorrow evening here on North 52nd Street, part of the national Night Out Against Crime.  We’ll be munching and sipping within sight of said neighbor’s pristine concrete stairs and retaining walls.  If he’s packing a righteous Northwest microbrew, I might get even if I work fast.

We ducked out for the sushi happy hour at our fave local joint, Rain, on Wednesday, and were pleasantly surprised by a trio that started playing just as we were finishing our tuna roll.  We shared an extra mojito and listened to the first set.

There are two kinds of musicians: those that have gigs

And those that don’t:

We think we’ve seen the dude on the bicycle playing real good for free in the tunnel between Woodland Park and the Zoo.  He was awfully good, but there was no tip jar.

I made a video of this trio, but my A720 only records in mono, and the movie-mode zoom is digital, not optical.  The good news is that Canon agreed to repair my S3 IS under warranty, and I now have it in my hot little hands.  It records in stereo, and the optical zoom works with the movie mode.   I take long enough to collect gear for our neighborhood walks as it is; now, I’ll take even longer dithering over which sub-SLR camera to sling - the compact one that fits on my belt, or the nicer one that requires me to carry a man-purse.

On to the weekend!

Mrs. Perils received an IM last week that purported to be from an online book group acquaintance of ours, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be from the woman’s daughter, saying that her mother had passed away suddenly.  We really haven’t been exposed as yet to that many contemporaries dying, so it’s a shock, still, when it happens, even to someone you’ve never met in person.

Which leads to another facet of this relatively new phenomenon of online socialization.  I’ve read people debating about the relative “reality” of “f2f” (face-to-face) friends and those we’ve met online. To me, at least, these online friendships are just as real as those corporeal ones.  So, it would seem to require a new protocol in how we prepare for our demises.  We may have elaborate conventional wills and other instructions to our real-life executors for the throwing of parties, the scattering of ashes, the presence or absence of in-laws at the memorial, and perhaps even how to adjudicate among the 5 people to whom you’ve promised that priceless Ming vase.

But what provisions do we make for disseminating the presumably unwelcome news of our demise to our online communities?  Does it just come down to a sudden silence that stretches on and on, without even a disembodied foot washing up on some cyber-Vancouver Island?  Or do we include instructions in our wills for the orderly scrolling through our IM Friends, Outlook Contacts, blog readers, World of Warcraft nemeses?  How about that Second Life that your spouse didn’t know you were leading?

In the absence of such a protocol, I was impressed that our friend’s daughter took the trouble to free-lance as she did.  I’ll have to consider what provisions to make myself.  But in view of my periodic extended silences, you’ll probably just think I moved to Milwaukee.

I did the bus-bike commute from Seattle to Redmond again today, this time heading to the Montlake “station”  near Husky Stadium to catch the 545 - the one that I took home the other night with on-board WiFi, the one that stops at the Microsoft campus.

When I got to Montlake, however, there were 5 other bikers there waiting for the 545.  Since the buses only have rack space for 3 bikes at a time, I’d have to wait for the second one (at least), and they’re spaced at half-hour intervals.  Damn Microsoft and its culture of earnest youth with free fitness club memberships.

There was an “out” if I wanted to take it: “deadheading” buses, empty and headed back to their base on the east side, pull through and will load a bicyclist.  This solution gets you across the bridge, but lets you off where 405 intersects 520.  Again, I’d have to do a bit of a climb, but most would be on a bike trail that parallels 520.

Better choice than waiting for perhaps an hour, so I grabbed the next deadheader along with another cyclist who had given up hope.  I found the climbing was a bit easier today, probably owing to my adventure Tuesday, so it’s all good.

So now, I’m on a 545 headed homeward, but no WiFi on this one.  At the Microsoft station, I picked up the signal from a different Sound Transit bus in the vicinity for a few minutes, but didn’t at that point have any business to transact.  But now I’m kind of fixated on hitting the “refresh network list” button every now and then as we crawl on 520 just to see what other vehicles might be packin’. The result is sort of a Yellow Pages of businesses along the corridor: Mercedes, Physical Medicine Group, 3Dental, ApexWAP, ActionEngine etc.

All seem to be security-enabled, which warms the cockles of my post-SarbanesOxley IT-auditin’ heart.  There might be a business opportunity in this - the drive-by IT security audit. I’d sub myself out to these entities’ CPA firms and charge a sweet little pop for my life-or-death “deliverable”.

For a couple years now, I’ve been shooting photos with a Canon S5 IS.  I love the 12x optical zoom, the awesome movie capability, the super-macro mode and a whole lot else about it.  It’s larger than your usual Point and Shoot, but a lot less bulky than a full-on digital SLR.  My only problem with it has been that Canon did not, and will not, make one of their nifty waterproof cases for it.  This puts a serious crimp in my ability to take it along in my kayak.

A while ago, I invested in what I thought would be a reasonable solution, a waterproof “bag” with a long snoot that accommodates the zoom lens.  In practice, the bag has been difficult to use because it’s tough to operate most of the controls on the camera, starting with the on-off switch.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my paddling buddies scored an enviable package on Craigslist - a Canon G7 and a waterproof case for $400.  The G7 (and its successor, the G9) has a 6x optical zoom and a lot of the functionality of my S5 IS, plus the waterproof case.  I started obsessing about trying to find a similar deal.  I bid and lost numerous eBay auctions, and combed the Craigslist landscape frequently, hoping against hope to encounter a deal as good as my buddy stumbled into, either for the G7 or the G9.

At some point, I was reading a user review of the G7, and the review referenced another Canon as a lower-priced alternative, the A720 IS.  As luck would have it, Seattle Craigslist had an A720 available for $175 (the going eBay price for the G7 seemed to be about $425), AND Canon makes a waterproof case for it.

I nailed down the Craigslist offering, passing my trusting currency to a stranger in the parking lot of an AM-PM minimart on the east side.  I then went to eBay and nailed a “buy-it-now” deal for a compatible waterproof case, whose progress westward from New Jersey I track periodically on the UPS website.

The A720 actually has some advantages over the G7 for my purposes.  First and foremost, the price and the eerie instantaneous availability on Craigslist;  plus, it uses AA batteries instead of the G7s proprietary Canon battery.  I learned on our trip to Joshua Tree a couple of years ago that a camera with a proprietary battery can be a problem if you’re out somewhere where you don’t have access to electrical outlets for recharging.  If a camera uses AA batteries, you can carry a supply of commercial batteries to supplant your rechargeables.

So, by the time I get back from Ashland, I will have a sweet setup for kayak photography, as my waterproof case will have completed its cross-country journey (I resisted the temptation to purchase expedited delivery).

Here’s a sample of the A720’s zoom capability:

Of course, embedded in this consumerist bliss is the inevitable worm of desire:  The feature set on the A720, combined with its smaller size, may start to compel me to carry it, instead of the S5 IS, on my peregrinations, rationalizing that the A720’s “good enough” for most applications.  Of course, it’s not “good enough” for all applications, but how much more does the S5 bring to the party?

The logic of which leads me inexorably towards upgrading the S5 with a full-on DSLR.  This juggernaut of rationalization needs to be derailed by the reality that I’m not a professional photographer, that I use only 15% of the capabilities of my middling cameras and, back to the reason I was infatuated with the S5 in the first place, I probably won’t be inclined to carry a DSLR and a coterie of lenses on 95% of the outings that afford me most of my photographing opportunities.

The only positive of this quandary is that I’m having it about cameras, and not cars or houses.

A song you should never hear in a men’s rest room in the Minneapolis airport: Close To You.

I did Friday night, but not in that rest room.  I still had to chuckle.

Two stellar Google searches landed inquisitive pilgrims on these shoals of disappointment:

• one from Turkey: “The perils of fucking a horse”
• while in Maryland they’d like to see “chicken pox on dicks pictures”

As much as I give, it grieves me when I know I’ve failed someone again.

It must have been a dyspeptic season in this household:

Hope they can find some peace after today.