April 2004 Archives
Not even a month ago I posted about my frustrations with the cafeteria at my agency. Since then I've continued to try to stay away as much as possible, though it's hard to avoid for lunch since it's the only place on-campus; unless you bring your lunch, you have to drive off-site if you want to forego the "privilege" of eating in the cafeteria.
Recently I've been away a fair amount--in training, and then at the conference earlier this week--so I've had a reprieve. Today, though, I made the mistake of going back and, worse, actually engaging the manager in a conversation. She was standing next to me as I was in the cashier's line, so I asked if I could pose a question. "Is there a difference," I asked, "between the regular turkey sandwich on the menu at $3.60, with a slice of cheese for 25 cents more, and the 'special' of the day listed as turkey sandwich with a slice of cheddar for $3.99, which is 14 cents more?" She exploded at me and abraded me for the next five minutes while I waited to pay for my food; she said that the selection of cheeses available in the first sandwich is American, provolone or muenster, and that the cheddar is "special" and therefore more expensive. She then raised her voice even more, claiming that their prices are far too cheap in any case and that they intend to raise the price on all the sandwiches and additions--like a slice of cheese--in the next week. She told me I had the choice not to eat there--a true statement, though not exactly a stunning example of customer service or sensitivity.
Over the past few months, my colleagues have been sharing their own stories with me of rudeness, incorrect or misleading prices, mislabeled foods, etc. There's one cashier I discovered that we all avoid unless absolutely necessary, because she speaks rudely, rolls her eyes and audibly sighs when having to make change from anything larger than a five-dollar bill, or when providing change even from a quarter when one just wants a cup of hot water, for which they charge 19 cents. The manager has been observed berating other customers similar to the haranguing she gave me today.
Unfortunately, it turns out that we don't really have any recourse. I've just learned that the contract to the catering company isn't awarded even by my own agency, but is mandated for us by GSO, so we can't even elect to recompete it. Oh well, I love driving the Prius, so maybe this will encourage me to get away from the facility at lunch altogether.
Within seconds of posting the previous entry, the phone rang. When I picked it up, the caller ID showed Jeff's last name and for a moment I was confused, since he should be in the air a third of the way to California. Then I realized that the name following the last name was not Jeff's, but his father's. His mother was on the phone; this was the first time I'd spoken to either of his parents. She was worried and wanted to make sure he'd gotten to the airport and away on time, since this was the first time, apparently, that he hadn't called just before his flight took off.
Jeff had been running late at work today, to finish up before heading out of town for the rest of the week. By the time I picked him up and we got back home, that only left us 15 to 20 minutes before we'd need to leave if we were to get him to the airport 90 minutes before its scheduled departure. So he fixed himself a quick snack-like dinner, and then finished packing. We didn't end up leaving until more like 40 minutes later, which put us at the airport just about an hour before his departure time. Checking the JetBlue site, I see that the plane actually took off 10 minutes early (and when does that ever happen? I always get the reverse, at best), so he was probably scrambling to get checked in and boarded, in the process not having a chance to call his parents before take-off this time. Jeff was also musing in the car on the way to the airport that this was the first direct flight home he'd had in a while, so that he wouldn't have a layover this time--and it was often on the layovers, I suspect, that he would make the phone call.
I reassured his mother that I'd left him whole and well at the airport and that I'd heard nothing since so I was certain everything was fine, and also let her know that Jeff had worked late and that in turn we'd been running late to the airport. She thanked me for the flowers I'd sent them and we chatted for a few more minutes, which was very nice. I told her I hoped to come out to the Bay Area to meet them, and she agreed that she was looking forward to that.
After I got off the phone, I went to the JetBlue site--to check the flight information, as noted above--and was intrigued to find that in addition to the data about actual take-off time and estimated arrival (35 minutes early is the current estimate) the flight info also includes regularly updated information about the plane's altitude and ground speed (35000 feet and 402 knots) as well as a graphic showing the route and the current position of the plane. As of 11:03 p.m. EDT when I was checking the site, Jeff's plane was approximately near the border of Indiana and Missouri, with some possible light rain as he approaches Utah and Nevada later. It's cool to be able to keep tabs on his progress like this (though I'll be in bed well before he arrives at the Oakland airport, just before 3 a.m. my time).
Just a little while ago, I dropped [my] Jeff off at Dulles; he's on his way out to the Bay Area via JetBlue to spend the next few days with his parents. Having been away myself this past Sunday through Tuesday afternoon, this week we'll only have spent a few hours together yesterday evening (during which he was packing and talking on the phone, and I was catching up with email and other tasks) and only about an hour again this evening (during which I was distracted by a near-blinding headache), as he'll now be away until Monday morning.
We've actually spent very little time apart since he moved in last fall. And, though I'm looking forward to having some alone time (though it turns out there won't actually be much of that, since I had promised my Mom I'd visit this weekend, which really only leaves me this evening before bed and then tomorrow evening), I find myself already very conscious of his absence--missing him already, as it were.
As [the other] Jeff points out, he (as well as others) had been holding off on upgrading Movable Type to version 2.661 because of the new feature in comment pages that hides the URL of the commenter within a redirect. This had the effect of making it no longer possible to see the home URL for a given commenter merely by rolling over the name; so, when several people with the same name (like, say, Jeff and Jeff, or Thom and Thom) commented, it was no longer easy to see which one had left a given comment since the redirect URL always was the same. For that reason, I too had delayed in upgrading Movable Type. But when I moved my sites to a new hosting provider earlier this month, I no longer had a choice since the old version wasn't available for download.
Fortunately, a plugin solution--Optional Redirect by David Raynes--exists. Now those pesky redirects are a thing of the past. Thanks for the pointer, Jeff.
Day two is over, and I'm beat. I ended up skipping the "networking dinner" because I didn't have the energy to schmooze any more after breakfast, lunch and nine half-hour one-on-one meetings with vendors, along with the plenary sessions. While exhausting, it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be; a few of the one-on-one sessions were a complete bust, but a couple of them were promising. I also met someone else from the Department of State at lunch, and we had a great conversation, and may try to pull together a joint pilot project. The day as a whole, though, wasn't helped by the steady rain outside.
I did get a little bit of cool schwag, though. One vendor provided a really nice portfolio, another a weird rubber mat that somehow sticks without adhesive to your dashboard and can grip a cell phone, PDA, sunglasses or the like, along with a great little optical travel mouse (which I'm now using on the laptop), and a third provided their materials not on a CD-ROM but on a 32kb USB key disc. And at one of the breaks, the conference organizers had Haagen-Dasz ice cream bars and cans of Diet Vanilla Pepsi (my favorite).
Tomorrow morning I only have two more one-on-one sessions, and then lunch. I should be back on the road for home around 1:00. I may even have time to stop by the outlet center I saw on the other side of the road just on this side of the bridge and still make it home in time to pick Jeff up at the Metro after he gets off work.
I'll be so happy to be home.
I got your messages. That was certainly an ingenious way to reach me. Thanks for the kind words. I hope you're well.
Last Tuesday I posted about an upcoming trip to a conference in Cambridge, Maryland. The conference is now underway, and I arrived around 1:00 this afternoon after a pleasant drive (averaging 50mpg, thanks to the Prius!) from Virginia.
My boss's boss told me the other day that I "would owe" them for their having let me take this trip, the implication being that this was potentially a boondoggle (though not especially at government expense, since the conference, hotel and all meals except today's lunch were comped by the conference organizers), conjuring images of me lying by the pool or receiving a hot stone massage at the resort's spa while they remained hard at work back at the Institute. Well, they couldn't have gotten it more wrong.
For starters, they had today off. I, however, spent my Sunday morning traveling here, having time only for lunch on my own before the first session started at 2:30. Between then and 9:30 this evening, when I finally got back to my room after dinner--where I was sandwiched between two vendors, so it wasn't the most relaxing time of the day--the conference provided for only a half-hour of free time. So I've spent 6-1/2 hours of one of my weekend days, plus 2 hours of travel time, attending sessions and that "networking" dinner.
And tomorrow it gets worse. The day begins with breakfast at 7:00, at which point we'll be given our schedule of one-on-one meetings with vendors that take place at various times between plenaries and workshops. Throughout the course of the day, we're given only one hour of free time--lunch and dinner again being "networking" events that are part of the conference rather than on our own--with dinner not ending until 10:00 tomorrow night, for a total of 14 hours of sessions and meetings. And, when I say only one free hour, I really mean it; there aren't even any 15-minute breaks, as sessions and vendor meetings are scheduled completely back-to-back throughout the day.
So even if I wanted to pay the absurdly expensive $175 charge for a massage or $110 for a facial, I wouldn't have the time to indulge in them, since the spa closes at 5:00, which is before our one free hour comes around. The hotel grounds look beautiful, but my only exposure to them will be the views through the windows as I move from one session to the next.
In the earlier post, I talked about the expensive Internet access--$30/hour--the hotel charges in its business center. I've ended up connecting via low-speed dialup from my room; a $1 connection fee for a local call, but at least they aren't charging per-minute rates after that. The high prices for Internet service, though, have been mirrored throughout the hotel, as the spa prices above also indicate. In the gift shop, a 16-ounce bottle soda costs $2.50 and a candy bar $1.50, the vending machines on my floor charge $1.50 for a 12-ounce can of soda, and the medium-size bottles of water on display in the room itself bear little signs nothing that they cost $3.75. During my half-hour break today, I drove to the Wal-Mart out on the main highway and bought a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper, a bag of popcorn and a 10-pack of small candy bars for a total of $5, what I'd pay over here for just two bottles of soda.
I figure I'll need the candy bars just to get through tomorrow's 14 hours of meetings. Truth be told, perk though this trip might have seemed, I'd really rather be back home with Jeff, vegging out in front of the TiVo, and going to the office for just my usual eight hours of work.
And now I should get to bed. The long Monday starts very early.
Jeff has reported over at Rebel Prince about our outing last night to see the Washington Opera production of Rossini's La Cenerentola. It was a very enjoyable evening, even though it appears that we differed somewhat in our reviews of the performers. He said:
...I wasn't familiar with La Cenerentola--though it's basically the Cinderella story--so it was interesting to hear the music for the first time and be carried along by a plot that takes some departures from our well-known version of the tale. An excerpt from the program notes:
Audience members unfamiliar with the opera may be surprised to find the more fanciful elements of the fairy tale, as immortalized by the storyteller Charles Perrault or animator Walt Disney, completely missing. There is no fairy godmother, no pumpkin carriage, and even the glass slippers have been transformed into a simple pair of bracelets.
In another departure, this production gives the opera a mid-20th century setting. The prevalent formal attire is a suit and tie, Cenerentola is carried off to the palace in a luxury car, and the chorus often takes the form of camera-wielding papparazzi. The set, which a Post critic wrote looks like John Waters' Baltimore, is bright, and a little surreal, I thought, given its extreme forced perspective. (It has such a steeply raked floor that we feared one or two of the singers might come rolling into the orchestra pit if they leaned too far downstage.) Some of the staging, especially during the inner monologues, bolstered the surreality, comically so at times, with the actors seeming to wander about confusedly in a kind of daydream.
The singing was rather good; everyone ably took on the trademark Rossini vocal acrobatics, and Sonia Ganassi's (Cenerentola) voice sparkled, though her facial contortions (or supposedly comic mugging?) was a bit distracting. The smoldering Jesús Garcia (Don Ramiro, the prince), whom I saw previously as Rodolfo in Baz's La Bohème, did a good job, but was overshadowed by the affable Simone Alberghini (Dandini, the prince's valet, with whom he exchanges identities). And the singers who played Cenerentola's family were all good comic foils to the lovebirds: Hoo-Ryoung Hwang and Ann McMahon Quintero (stepsisters Clorinda and Tisbe), and Alfonso Antoniozzi (Don Magnifico, the stepfather). ...
And I commented:
Interesting. I wasn't as impressed by the singing, which I thought on the whole was merely satisfactory (I saw Tosca in Tucson last year, and it featured some awe-inspiring performances, especially from the lead; I guess I had even higher expectations for a city like Washington). I also didn't find Alberghini overshadowing Garcia notably, though admittedly that might have been because I found Garcia much more physically attractive, so I was probably cutting him some slack without realizing it at the time. :-)
As for Ganassi's "facial contortions," I found them wildly distracting; if they were meant to be a comic affectation rather than an unfortunate natural characteristic, they seemed out of place with the rest of the cast's more understated comedic turns. I kept expecting her to suddenly start shouting out obscenities to match what I almost took to be the physical manifestations of Tourette's.
I don't mean to sound overly negative, though. I thoroughly enjoyed myself last night. I just think my expectations going into it perhaps were higher than perhaps they should have been; this was, after all, my first attendance at the Washington Opera, so I should have gone in with no preconceptions.
The renovated Opera House certainly was gorgeous and spectacular, though, ne?
Hm. We live together. Is it weird that we're having a conversation, of sorts, through our blogs?
Wow. The headline below pretty much says it all:
"Michigan Preparing to Let Doctors Refuse to Treat Gays"
Doctors or other health care providers could not be disciplined or sued if they refuse to treat gay patients under legislation passed Wednesday by the Michigan House.
The bill allows health care workers to refuse service to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.
The Republican dominated House passed the measure as dozens of Catholics looked on from the gallery. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which pushed for the bills, hosted a legislative day for Catholics on Wednesday at the state Capitol.
The bills now go the Senate, which also is controlled by Republicans.
...Paul A. Long, vice president for public policy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said the bills promote the constitutional right to religious freedom.
"Individual and institutional health care providers can and should maintain their mission and their services without compromising faith-based teaching," he said in a written statement.
This makes me absolutely sick. Well, thank goodness I don't live in Michigan, then.
And this was pushed by a religious organization? A so-called Christian religious organization? It almost makes me wish there really were a god and heaven so these hate-filled fanatics would get their just reward in the end, when Jesus meets them at the barred Pearly Gates to remind them that they believe that he had healed lepers, eaten with prostitutes, and praised the good Samaritan over the pious but uncharitable Pharisees and exhorted his followers to do no less. Since when does "faith-based teaching" suggest that the faithful aren't supposed to help others, even if not especially those with whom they disagree, or suggest that the faithful, in fact, are to let others die while they stand idly by secure in their hateful, smug false piety?
What has happened to America? I don't need to be told by "Christians" that I'm going to hell; I think I already live there.
[Via Tin Man]
Today is a black-letter day in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As Equality Virginia reports, earlier this afternoon the state legislature ratified a bill that would outlaw any "partnership contract or other arrangements that purport to provide the benefits of marriage," with the likely chilling effect of stripping such otherwise legal contractual agreements between same-sex partners as powers of attorney, estate planning and wills, and custody decisions, among others. It goes further than any other law in the U.S. in stripping rights from gay Americans.
In an outrageous and short-sighted defeat for fairness and common-sense, the General Assembly today ratified the so-called "Marriage Affirmation Act," one of the most discriminatory pieces of legislation to be considered by the General Assembly in decades.
By a vote of 69-30 in the House and 27-12 in the Senate, the General Assembly narrowly missed garnering a 1/3 vote in each house that would have killed the bill outright. Delegate Robert Marshall (R-Manassas), patron of the bill, led the charge with a barrage of anti-gay rhetoric during the floor debate.
"Today, Virginia codified second-class citizen status for the hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian Virginians," said Dyana Mason, Executive Director of Equality Virginia. "We are not only disappointed, but we are outraged that short-sighted Virginia extremists succeeded in condoning a return to an era of legalized discrimination."
HB 751 not only prohibits the state from recognizing civil unions (which it already didn't do), but strips private contractual rights between same-sex couples by outlawing any "partnership contract or other arrangements that purport to provide the benefits of marriage."
Once this bill is enacted, it will likely deprive gay and lesbian Virginians of some of the few choices that they currently have to protect their families including:
*Advanced Medical Directives (also known as Power of Attorney)
*Custody decisions and arrangements
*Health Insurance coverage through those companies in Virginia currently able to offer benefits to unmarried partners. [Not many, since Virginia is also alone in the nation in prohibiting private companies from deciding whom they will insure, specifically prohibiting them from offering insurance to same-sex partners of their employees.]
*Estate planning and wills.Because each of these "arrangements" grants rights contractually that are otherwise available only through marriage, they can be set aside or voided by the action of the General Assembly.
"Unfortunately, gay and lesbian Virginians can no longer call Virginia home," said Joseph Price, Equality Virginia Board Chair. "Because of this hostile legislation, it is clear that many families will choose to move to Maryland or other states that embrace diversity and welcome difference."
Last week, Governor Mark Warner made recommendations to remove the most egregious and unconstitutional language surrounding contract rights. Those amendments were sent back to the House for ratification where they were rejected by a vote of 65-35.
"Equality Virginia will now get to work to challenge this law in every appropriate forum," said Mason. "In the courtroom, or in the General Assembly, we have no doubt that this law will quickly be found unconstitutional. We call on all fair-minded Virginians to send a strong message to their elected officials that this fight is far from over."
Shortly after posting my previous item about seeing Elegies: A Song Cycle last night, I received the following email from Metro Weekly in my inbox:
For a chance to WIN A PAIR OF FREE TICKETS to Signature Theatre's production of William Finn's ELEGIES: A SONG CYCLE, please send an email to
with the word ELEGIES in the subject line, or simply reply to this email by no later than Sunday, April 25, at 11:59 p.m.
Please include your FULL NAME and a phone number where you can be reached during the day. ENTRIES WITHOUT FULL NAMES will be discarded.
FIVE LUCKY WINNERS will be selected at random from all entries received. Tickets are good for the Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday performances April 27-28 and May 4-6. Winners will be notified via email on Monday, April 26, at noon, with instructions on how to claim their tickets.
Last night Jeff and I went to see William Finn's Elegies: A Song Cycle at Signature Theatre here in Arlington. It was a simple but very well-performed and powerful production of two dozen songs Finn (best known for his Falsettos musicals on Broadway) wrote to memorialize the dead and dying people (and, in one case, pets) in his life.
The Washington Post provided a terrific review last month. Rather than trying to improve upon it, I'll just quote some sections that particularly resonated with my own experience of the production:
Easily one of the high points of the season, Signature Theatre's "Elegies" is, in a word, heavenly. Performed to perfection by a gifted, seamlessly assembled quintet, William Finn's cycle of songs about death and dying transcends a gloomy subject with the healing power of wit. If any human attribute offers consolation, it's talent.
..."Elegies" is a tapestry threaded with sentiment, but never of the cheap variety. Finn's idiosyncratic lyrics, which loop and twist over the rambling melody lines like curls of smoke, see to that. ...
Signature's trademark garage space has been stripped bare for the production, the elegance confined to the presence of a baby grand piano; artfully handled by Jon Kalbfleisch, it is the singers' only accompaniment, and all they really need.
[Director Joe] Calarco keeps the embroidery simple. James Kronzer's set is the mere idea of one: a door frame, a few bolts of fabric. Chris Lee's mood-enhancing lighting paints the stage in brilliant stripes and shadows. The monochromatic costumes, a stylish eggshell-and-cream wardrobe by Anne Kennedy, provide a satisfying counterpoint for the broader palette of color in Finn's music and the actors' voices.
The five performers display extraordinary control over their material, and they quickly establish a winning rapport. There is the vague suggestion of a tight unit being formed, a family organized around grief. At the opening of the show, each of the singers is frozen in a spotlight, clutching a cherished photo. By the evening's end, the memories inspired by those snapshots will have all but brought their subjects back to life.
On a level of technical achievement alone, "Elegies" offers some of the loveliest vocalizing on a Washington stage in quite a while. The head-turning cast is all doing top-tier work. ...
Death, it must be reported, becomes them all, just as intimations of mortality seem to bring out the best in Finn. It's strange to say, but this melodic trip to the cemetery gates leaves you feeling swell. Dearly departed, indeed.
The staging really was perfect in its simplicity. It was amazing how the stark industrial cube of the Signature's space evoked, with only a single door and a few chairs, all the spaces and settings of the songs--a hospital waiting room, a hospital bed, a small suburban house, a funeral home, a theater (within a theater), and more. Occasionally, there was also some simultaneously understated yet suitably dramatic and unexpected use of the vertical aspect of the space.
And the performers simply were wonderful. Stylistically each very different, and well-suited for their individual solos, yet they also were remarkably able to blend into pairs, trios, a quintet of the whole. They very aptly projected a sense that they'd known and loved not only the people about whom they were singing and memorializing, but each other--and even us--all their lives. I was really quite touched.
The program, performed without an intermission, runs a little more than an hour and a half, and continues through May 9. Several days Signature has offered half-price tickets via Ticket Place; two weeks ago we couldn't take advantage of that deal because the show sold out by the time Jeff got to Ticket Place, but yesterday he was able to get the half-price tickets. Less than half the theatre actually was occupied last night; in a way, though, that just enhanced the sense of poignancy and intimacy this show fosters.
Next Sunday I'm heading to a government IT conference in Cambridge, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. I was looking at the web site of the event hotel--the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and Marina--which in some ways sounds pretty sweet: its own 18,000 square-foot spa, attached marina, multi-level indoor and outdoor pool, etc. However, I also discovered that they charge $7.50 per fifteen-minute period to access the Internet in their business center. The last few hotels at which I've stayed included free business center use and high-speed Internet access; the Roger Williams in New York, where Jeff and I stayed over Valentine's weekend, additionally had wireless access points on each floor. At a minimum $200/night for the room (though that's the non-conference, non-government rate), I think it's absolutely obscene for the hotel to charge an additional $30/hour for PC and Internet access. And given that I don't golf (though with the name T[h]om Watson, I've heard all the jokes) and couldn't afford the green fees anyway, and that the onsite spa is likely to be very expensive (though maybe I'll treat myself at least to a massage)--I don't actually know, since they don't provide any information about what's included, what's not, and what the various services cost--I guess I'll be spending my non-conference time vegging in-front of the TV rather than at the keyboard. Sigh. At least there are walking trails and a wildlife refuge on the grounds; I wonder if they'll even try to collect a fee for those. Although, given that they also offer kennels for the hunting dogs of their guests, I'm not sure that I'll want to be outside near the waterfront, refuge or not.
My boss had suggested that I take Jeff along and that we make a mini-vacation out of it, given the location and amenities, and since the room and mileage (I'm driving) wouldn't cost any more for two as for one. Unfortunately, Jeff's already planned to take the latter half of next week off to visit his folks in California, so he can't go with me. So I'll be away Sunday morning through Tuesday evening, and then he'll be away Wednesday evening through the following Sunday.
Dorchester County, though, does sound both interesting and charming. It was on the route of the Underground Railroad and, in fact, Harriet Tubman lived in Cambridge (as did Annie Oakley, who apparently had the roofline of her home altered so she could step outside her second-story windows and shoot waterfowl over the bay). Nearby there's also the unique-sounding Neild Museum, devoted to agricultural history of the region, and its colonial-style Herb Garden.
My site has been moved (relatively) smoothly and successfully from its old host to its new. I'm having some trouble with the automatic crossposting to my LiveJournal site, but I'm confident I'll work out the kinks soon.
I'm in off-site training all this week, without access to the Internet (and in fact they confiscate our cell phones and electronic devices when we enter the classroom; it's security training in a secured classroom), which is why I'm not posting much this week, even to my quicklinks or my mid-century modern blogs. Because I've been working on migrating the web site and blogs to my new hosting provider, I've barely had time to keep up with my personal email in the evening, much less post.
Jeff already has posted about our delightful brunch at David Greggory earlier today, after he performed his duty as a Christmas-Easter Catholic (I did my part by driving him to the Metro but, as pretty much a naturalistic pantheist/atheist I didn't even bother going to my own liberal Unitarian-Universalist services today).
I enjoyed the brunch a great deal, though I must confess to feeling a little guilty at times about the extravagance (the brunch regularly features an entire roast pig). My food critic moment, spoken innocently and earnestly at the time--that "the bison is kind of dry, but the polenta is very good"--nonetheless postprandially leaves me feeling a little conspicuous in my consumption, especially after such a overindulgent trouser-tightening brunch of bison with horseradish and three kinds of mustard, roast pig, a whole salmon, three kinds of bacon and at least that many of sausage, mimosas, fine cheeses, crême brulée and much--way much--more. Marie Antoinette, c'est moi.
Brunch also provided us with a Wonkette moment, or what passes in Washington as a celebrity sighting. The attractive African-American couple seated next to us looked familiar, and their conversation with each other and with the group seated on their other side moved between discussions of famous Northwestern alumni, Stanford's success at attracting a diverse student population, housing prices in such upscale DC neighborhoods as Kalorama, and what sounded like a mention in passing that they both had been part of the Clinton administration. My suspicion that the gentleman was Larry Irving, former assistant secretary of commerce under Clinton, and as such the former boss of one of my former bosses and the originator of the phrase "the digital divide," turned out to be correct; and his beautiful wife, it appears, is a colleague of mine at the Department of State.
Over the next few days, I'll be moving my site from one hosting provider to another. Since the new hosting provider offers PHP and MySQL, not available at the same price point on my current host, I probably will reinstall Movable Type from scratch to take advantage of the additional functionality. Because of this, and since the domain names will be migrating as well, the site might be wonky until everything's fully transferred and up and running smoothly on the other server. Bear with me.
This evening after work I picked Jeff up at the Metro and we headed over to Alexandria Toyota, where we'd been invited to a new owners' "Thank You" event. After all, they promised food and drink, door prizes, and a coupon for a free oil change just for attending. For some reason I was thinking that it would be just Prius owners, but when we arrived and saw the quite large crowd (probably 40 or more), it became apparent that the invitation had gone to all recent purchasers from the dealership. And the first portion of the evening--when the host talked about warranties, service schedules and the like--clearly was geared to the non-Prius-owning bulk of the crowd, as some of the information just wasn't correct when applied to the Prius.
After that, we were split into smaller groups; one group was invited for discussion and a view under the hood of a quintessential Toyota--a Camry or a Corolla, probably--while another was offered the same opportunity for a look under another, with the understanding that the groups would switch after some time. After a few minutes, a third mechanic arrived to take the Prius owners to go over the unique engine and maintenance of a Prius, and to answer any of our specific questions.
So the very small subset of the larger group--just three sets of Prius owners among us--separated at that point. There was an older gentleman there alone--he owns an older Avalon and a brand-new Prius--and the other gay couple there that evening, who had been sitting behind us during the earlier presentation. The Avalon-Prius owner moved on to one of the other groups, but the four of us continued to talk about the Prius. Eventually we briefly joined one of the main groups getting the under-the-hood presentation, but it was so unrelated to our cars and our interests that we ended up talking among ourselves until the group was brought back together as a whole for the closing remarks. Mark exhibited the same Prius-obsession to which I've admitted, so I told the two of them about my Prius blog and the 2004 Prius Yahoo group that has lots of good information, especially in the files section; after getting back home, I emailed them the URLs. They were really cool guys, and it was nice to connect with them in the midst of the room of strangers, even more so since the evening was largely just a big marketing ploy for the dealership to continue to enforce that we need to come back to them for all our parts and service; given that I've bought $20K+ of extremely new technology, I'm not likely to take this car anywhere but a Toyota dealer for service, so the commercial was a little unnecessary. But who am I to pass up free chocolate chip cookies and star fruit? Star fruit? It's like they were expecting us queers.
And then there was all that talk about the express lube jobs and having our fluids topped. On the other hand, though, none of the service technicians present were at all likely to fuel any of my garageman fantasies; they looked nothing like the "mechanics" gracing any number of issues of Men or in the Colt and Falcon stables.
After telling my stylist--the wonderful John Cullen at Studio 2000, where I've been going since 1996, just above Larry's Ice Cream on Connecticut Avenue half a block north of Lambda Rising--that I was conflicted about whether to stay long or go short, but that I'd been getting a fair number of comments on the longer, curlier hair, I left the decision pretty much in his hands. In the past, he's generally recommended taking my hair pretty short, but this time we agreed to try something a little different, going just to the shorter side of in-between. He did a fabulous job of cleaning up the hated bushiness on the sides, while leaving some curls in front and some wave in back. Actually, I've never known anyone else who spends so much time focusing on cutting the back just right; today my boss, who had begged me not to get it cut short, nonetheless confessed that she thought he'd gotten it right, and specifically mentioned how nice the back looked.
So I'm pleased. It's short enough that I can grow it out again if I want, but with just enough body to make it not look like the prototypical short gay 'do.
Jeff went with me, so he got to meet John, who himself has recently become engaged. John showed me some pictures of his fiancee; she's adorable. He also remarked privately to me how cute Jeff is, and out loud how much he likes Jeff's hair; I concur. Afterwards, Jeff and I decided to do dinner downtown and headed over to Lauriol Plaza, but the huge crowds and estimated 45-minute wait changed our minds. We ended up at Mercury Grill instead, where we had a fantastic dinner outside at dusk on a (so-far) rare and very welcome warm spring day. We also ran into my dear friend Randy, the first friend I made in DC twenty-two years ago when I first came to town one summer as an intern at the State Department. It was so wonderful to see him, and to have a chance to introduce Jeff. All in all, it was a truly delightful evening.
This evening I have an appointment to get my hair cut. My last haircut was January 3, when I used the Grooming Lounge gift certificate Jeff had given me for Christmas. And even then I didn't get my hair cut very short, so it has continued to get rather shaggy and curly. The Bozo bits on the side are really starting to drive me crazy.
However, I can't decide whether to just get it trimmed and keep it longer and curly--which is a little more frustrating for me in terms of the manageability, but at the same time prompts quite a few compliments from my co-workers--or get it cut really pretty short like I wore it as recently as last summer (like the pix from 2003 and 2000 at the bottom of my stats page). With the current style, a few weeks ago Jeff and I had mused, and today my boss's boss said much the same thing, that I look like I should be wearing a houndshair jacket with elbow patches, carrying a pipe and teaching creative writing at a small New England liberal college.
I don't know if I had any pix of me with this longer hair online, but as I was checking, I discovered that the site I was using to store all my online photos (hundreds of them, captioned and arranged into albums)--PictureCD.com--apparently has deleted them all anyway, with no warning and no explanation. Sometimes I feel like Bad-Luck Schleprock. Cornelia has some online from our dinner together, but in them I'm always inadvertently situated so that my head is against a dark background, making it impossible to see my hair.
Headache? But honey, you wouldn't want me to get cancer, would you?
A U.S. study suggests that men with a lifetime average of ejaculation of 21 times per month were one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer then men whose average was only four to seven times a month, with the reduced risk starting at around an average of twelve times monthly.
I particularly love the cheery last line of this article from the New Scientist:
Frequent sexual intercourse and masturbation protects men against a common form of cancer, suggests the largest study of the issue to date yet.
The US study, which followed nearly 30,000 men over eight years, showed that those that ejaculated most frequently were significantly less likely to get prostate cancer. The results back the findings of a smaller Australian study revealed by New Scientist in July 2003 that asserted that masturbation was good for men. ...
[Australian research Graham] Giles notes that neither study examines ejaculation during the teenage years--which may be a crucial factor. But he says: "Although much more research remains to be done, the take home message is that ejaculation is not harmful, and very probably protective of prostatic health--and it feels good!"
Mmmm... Finally the scientists discover something that feels good is actually good for us. It sure is a nice change from the usual "x causes cancer" news.
Another television show to get the axe this past week was CBS's legal drama set in 2030, Century City, which wasn't really all that good, to be honest. I watched it anyway for its mild sf-genreish components, but mostly because of the delightfully adorable Ioan Gruffudd and swarthily hunky Nestor Carbonell.
Gene notes that in the wake of Fox's sudden and immediate cancellation of the wonderful series Wonderfalls, they've already excised all mention of the show from their web site (there used to be a Wonderfalls-specific site at http://www.fox.com/wonderfalls but that URL now redirects to the Fox home page).
Wow. They certainly didn't waste any time.
First of all, I'm glad I visited the site yesterday; I hadn't been to it previously. I had suspected Fox might do this, so I wanted to see if there was any media there that might be worth hanging onto, and indeed there was a cute (if low-resolution) Flash movie of the music video for the theme, which I found in my cache and copied to another folder in order to keep.
And I also found some extremely limited information still available at the FoxNow site. Most intriguing of all, though, is the following:
Performance Highlights:
WONDERFALLS had a solid sampling in its first 2 weeks, averaging 4 million viewers. The series delivers its best performance among teens on Friday night, ranking #1 in its time period. WONDERFALLS is also popular with young men, ranking #2 in its time period among Men 18-34.
Source: Nielsen, NTI 03/12-03/19/2004
So on their site, they claim successful ratings. But in their decision to axe the show, they cite abysmal ratings. It's like listening to the Bush administration. Oh wait, it's Fox. Same thing.
I hate the cafeteria at my office. In the greater scheme of things, of course, it's pretty unimportant, but on a day-to-day basis it does have a fairly significant impact on my own happiness.
At the main office for the Department of State downtown, they have an incredible cafeteria, with more than a dozen separate stations, including a fresh seafood bar, Tex-Mex, wraps, Greek, sushi, Chinese, Italian and more. Then there's the separate deli, ice cream shop and espresso bar downstairs from the cafeteria proper. Moreover, while they're not in the heart of the DC business district, they still are within a few blocks of a number of other eateries. Here, on the other hand, we do have a beautiful site--and I certainly can't complain about the commute, being less than two miles from door to door--but our cafeteria sucks, and the management of it leaves a lot to be desired. And there's nowhere within a reasonable walking distance, so if you want to eat off-campus, you have to take your car.
I finally did stop buying coffee here at all, after continually being frustrated by arriving at 8:30--only fifteen minutes after the official start of the workday--to find that they already were down to the bitter and burnt dregs of a single urn, especially when a small cup of this mostly water goes for nearly a buck fifty. Granted, I still buy the occasional espresso drink from the ubiquitous coffee shop chains, but I chafe at what must be obscene profit margins anywhere coffee is sold. And when they started charging $1.00 for an orange or banana, I stopped buying fruit here as well.
I've still continued to go there for lunch most days, though, despite the constant frustration. Today was not atypical. The cafeteria is ostensibly open until 2:30, yet arriving at 1:00 I found that while the sign at the soup station promised clam chowder, which is one of only two things I think the cafeteria does well, the other being their wild mushroom bisque--the soups actually are catered by Au Bon Pain, rather than by the overall cafeteria catering contract, so no real props to them for this mere soupçon of success--there was no clam chowder available. So I moved over to the sandwich line, where the special of the day was listed as cajun tuna salad. I ordered the special, to be told that they had no cajun tuna salad. I asked if she meant that they did not, in fact, have the item listed on the sign in front of her--a small letter-size piece of paper attached, non-permanently, to a small easel sitting on the counter that could readily be taken down, turned face down, turned around, etc.--and she agreed that they did not.
A couple of months ago I asked for the listed sandwich special--a turkey sandwich with a bottle drink--without paying enough attention to the price printed on the menu. It was only as I checked out and was told the price for the special that I realized that its price actually was higher than the cost of all the individual items added together. Yet the cashier insisted that I couldn't buy the drink and the sandwich separately, since together they constituted a "special."
Not surprisingly, I noticed today, while looking especially for them, that they've removed the comment cards and box.
I really should try to bring my own lunch and just boycott the cafeteria altogether. It's too bad, then, that I'm essentially a lazy bum.
Thanks to ChastMastr for pointing out this good albeit surprising news, and for leaving a comment here the other day noting it as well:
Employees are protected from discrimination based on their sexual orientation, the White House says.
The White House position, made in a March 31 statement to Federal Times, appears to contradict recent statements by President Bush's appointee to the office that handles such discrimination claims.
[Federal Times, March 31, 2004]
I previously had noted (in February and again last month) that the new director of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, had taken the position that the federal government does not protect against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Last week, though, after nearly 80 members of Congress sent letters to Bloch asking him to reverse his decision and received no response, they then wrote directly to President Bush, asking him to clarify the Administration's position. Via a spokesperson, the White House responded:
Longstanding federal policy prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation. President Bush expects federal agencies to enforce this policy and to ensure that all federal employees are protected from unfair discrimination at work.
The Washington Blade has a longer and much more detailed description and analysis of the issue.
So I just received some spam that attempted to come across as a personalized email. However, the spammers didn't have my primary email address, but the one I created just for use in connection with my blog, or when I comment to other blogs. So the subject line of the email read:
"Save up to 50% on downloadable software, Blog."
Jeff and I have been following the terrific new series Wonderfalls from its first airing; a darling of the critics, too, the show was everything that network television usually is not: charming, smart, witty, funny, human and so wonderfully quirky. We loved it. In fact, I turned to Jeff after the first episode and said, "It's too good, and I love it too much; it's bound to fail."
And Gene said much the same thing when he blogged about it last week: "[I]t's on Fox, and I feel certain that they will not give it the attention it deserves. It'll probably go the way of Futurama, another brilliant gem that got the Fox treatment."
Sadly, we were all right, and oh too soon. As [my] Jeff told me earlier this evening, and as [the other] Jeff just reported in his journal, the show has been cancelled, effective immediately. Sigh.
Thirteen episodes have been produced, but only four have been aired. And that's all we'll see, unless the brilliant folks responsible for it are able to get them aired elsewhere or, more unlikely, get a DVD released. I'm wishing them success.
Fox so sucks, and not in a good way. Thank goodness for HBO, Showtime and the other satellite/cable channels, where intelligent and even provocative programming can find a home; network television is almost entirely superfluous in our home.
These are the mantras that Sarah Vowell, brilliantly wry observer of American life and politics, whispers to herself as a reminder that bad as things are, they can always be worse.
"Andersonville" is a code word for "You could be one of the prisoners of war dying of disease and malnutrition in the worst Confederate prison, so just calm down about the movie you wanted to go to being sold out." "Texas School Book Depository" means that having the delivery guy forget the guacamole isn't nearly as bad as being assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald as the blood from your head stains your wife's pink suit. Though, ever since I went to Salem, I'm keen on "Gallows Hill." As in, being stuck in the Boise airport for ten hours while getting hit on by a divorced man with "major financial problems" on his way to his twentieth high school reunion is irksome, but not as dire as swinging by the neck on Salem's Gallows Hill.
[from The Partly Cloudy Patriot, the wonderful book I'm reading at the moment, borrowed from Jeff]
So today I've been trying to find my own mantras as I deal with another day from hell, from the really petty missing guacamole-level things, like the fact that my hosting provider's servers would choke anytime I'd submit any HTML-based form--to edit a comment, add a new blog entry, or change a template, say--if it had HTML code in it until just a few minutes ago, to the really scary messy stuff, like finding out while I was at the doctor's office--after sitting waiting for 45 minutes before they got to me at all--that despite the presence of completed forms in my file, the annual receipt of renewed welcome materials from the insurance company, and even the reality in my hot-little-hand of a membership card from them that says I'm covered through December 31, 2004, apparently I do not, in fact, have health insurance nor have I actually been covered for the past two years. So I didn't end up seeing the doctor after all--the office offered to let her see me for a lot of extra money and a ton of additional paperwork including a request to record my complete medical history again, even though it's already in my file, but I was so tired, angry and frustrated by that time that I finally just walked out in disgust. I'd only decided to go to her because I thought the paperwork and hassle would be minimized; I don't actually like her or prefer her care.
My HR and payroll staff are still trying to figure out what happened, and why I apparently have no health insurance, but tell me they won't have any answers before Monday. Here's hoping I stay healthy and safe at least through the weekend. I'll say one thing for this experience, though: Right now I feel nothing but a warm hypertensive flush in my face, and blood pounding in my neck, temple and ears, all of which at least has taken my attention away from the pain and pressure in my balls and gut, for now.
Andersonville. Gallows Hill. "Fallujah," I whisper to myself. Things could be worse.
Recently I haven't been posting very frequently. There are probably a few reasons. One, to which I just alluded, is that I've been maintaining several other "quicklinks" blogs in addition to this primary one, and on those I've remained reasonably active (they don't require much thought, really, since they're primarily just pointers to resources, with fairly minimal analysis), taking away some of the time and energy I normally would spend here.
I must confess, though, also to having been in something of a funk, a particularly introverted mindspace, or both; and "having been" may not be the most accurate verb tense, since I'm still at least partly in that state of mind. There are several potential contributing factors to this, one being that I'm in a bit of a hypochrondriacal, anxious place right now, experiencing a range of distressing and physically very uncomfortable symptoms most likely indicating some problem with my prostate. Most likely it's just a benign prostatitis of some sort, but now that I'm in my 40s, and given that my dad experienced a number of prostate-related problems before (though ultimately unrelated to) his death, including one potential (the lab results were never conclusive one way or the other) course of prostate cancer and a partial prostatectomy, I'm stressed and worried, which obviously aren't at all helpful. As a result, I'm sleeping fitfully, and then falling asleep on the couch early; I'm not eating much or well; and I suspect I'm coming across to others as distracted, cranky and/or (more than usually) self-absorbed.
And I'd been putting off making an appointment with a doctor. I never completely connected with the doctor I was seeing a few years ago, up to the point I was laid off; I felt that while she wasn't openly judgmental or critical, she didn't seem completely comfortable with my sexual orientation, and there was also sometimes a language barrier, or at least an understanding barrier, with English not being her first or best language. I truly believe she's a perfectly competent physician, but I just never developed the kind of rapport and comfort I'd have preferred. Especially when it comes to dealing with urogenital issues.
Since late 2001, I hadn't seen any doctor with the exception of those who examined and cleared me as a likely kidney donor for my father in late 2002 (though that turned out not to be necessary, as a cadaveric match almost miraculously was located two weeks before our surgery was scheduled in January 2003) and hadn't yet identified a new primary care physician.
So today I finally went ahead and made an appointment with my previous doctor anyway; she is, at least, a known quantity, and she accepts my current insurance plan. And, amazingly, she had an appointment slot available tomorrow afternoon, so I don't have to wait as long as I thought I might to find out what's wrong, and start addressing the uncomfortable symptoms as well as the underlying cause, whatever it may be.
Sigh.
If you only read the RSS feed of elf-reflection, you may not be aware of my other blog pursuits, the "quicklinks" I maintain separately of cool, unusual, topical or otherwise interesting links I come across during my surfing. The first one of these secondary blogs, serendipity :: a journey of elf-discovery, XML is the catch-all site for the bulk of these links. Two others are devoted to more narrow topics: the Prius blog XML aggregates links to articles and discussion about the Toyota Prius hybrid, while sputnik :: atomic age style in a quantum world XML, the newest at just a day old, is a repository of links to sites and resources about atomic age, retro, midcentury modern and other related modern and contemporary style, architecture and design.
