Over 1500 photos later …
December 16, 2008
December 6, 2008
December 4, 2008
Holidailies
Got this from a well-spoken^H^H^H^H well-written (and interesting!) blogger whereof whom I know.
[Read her. You'll be happy you did. ...]
Heed:
For those all you-alls who need to get your butt in gear:
Holidailies participants solemnly vow to update their Web sites daily from Dec. 5 to Jan. 6.
I’ll be away from the Web for part of that time, but I think this is a useful project, so I’m passing it on to you. … you know who you are. …
December 2, 2008
Venice under five feet of water as the city suffers its worst floods in 22 years
Venice under five feet of water as the city suffers its worst floods in 22 years
I love Venice. I could spend some serious time there. I think it’s a magical place.
When we got back from our one and only trip there (followed by a walking holiday poking through Palladio sites in the Veneto), I had a dream … a nightmare.
In the dream, we had bought a palazzo in Venice and moved lock, stock and books to take up permanent residence. Knowing the dangers of putting heavy loads of books on upper stories of aging homes, I’d set up all my book shelves on the ground floor of the palazzo.
All this is backstory.
The dream opens with me leaning against a railing, looking across the canal to the palazzo that we had just moved all our worldly goods (and books) into and were making our home.
As I leaned against the railing, the rain began to fall and before you could say, “George Washington” (this was a dream after all), the waters start to rise and rise fast. I realized the waters will rise enough that everything on our ground floor will be flooded …
MY BOOKS!
I don’t have time to run down the paths to the nearest bridge and across the bridge and back down the paths to our palazzo and get the books shifted in time to save them.
… so, Freud. What is the deep meaning of this nightmare?
December 1, 2008
The Pownce Blog — Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart
The Pownce Blog — Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart
Pownce is closing down effective December 15th. They’ve added an export function so you can download all your messages. Leah Culver and Mike Malone are joining the engineering team at Six Apart, and bringing the Pownce technology along with them.
November 30, 2008
The miracles of modern science – notify a partner of possible STD via e-card
* Choose one of six e-cards (Figure 1),
* Type in recipients’ e-mail addresses (up to six),
* Select an STD from a pull-down menu,
* Type in own e-mail address or send anonymously,
* Type in an optional personal message.
PLoS article on inSPOT: The First Online STD Partner Notification System Using Electronic Postcards
Ah, the wonders of the Web.
Pier 39. Decked out for Christmas.
This is last year’s pic but saw it today and it looks just the same.
Went for a walk down the steps this afternoon. Mailed some letters at the bottom of the hill, walked out Sansome to the Embarcadero, then walked along the edge of the water until we cut in toward Cost-Plus and B&N. We cut in a bit earlier than we really needed to because the crush of people was shredding my nerves.
Our destination had been Cost-Plus because they were having a wicked sale with 2 for 1 Christmas ornaments and deals on this and on that, but once inside I saw nothing I really needed. A few things I wanted but not enough to open the wallet.
We skipped B&N, which is next door to Cost-Plus and always the next stop, because I have a mile high stack of books to be read. We did stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home for milk and for crackers for the Boccalone coppa di testa we’ll be eating for dinner tomorrow.
Tonight will be chicken thighs with trumpet mushrooms, shallots, garlic, sour cream, marsala. Rice. Some vegetable.
Last night was dinner at Coi with friends. Absolutely delish. We plumped for the paired wines with the tasting menu. We wound up with that and with a couple extra glasses of wine thrown in as well as one of the dishes none of us had ordered when choosing “or” at one point. Delish, that.
The Coi staff is wonderful. Welcoming. Relaxed. Not as starchy as Gary Danko. Did I mention the food was delish?
Our reservation was for five folks at 6 p.m. They ushered us into a private room in back that I didn’t know existed. We had the room to ourselves. Four hours later we rolled back out onto Broadway, us to walk up Montgomery home, our three friends to head down the peninsula.
We went for a walk today because the weather sparkled and we needed to make a vague effort to work off some of the calories for last night.
(0.9mi over and the same back, according to maps.google.com. 2 miles, if that.)
Did I mention we saw the Christmas tree at Pier 39?
November 29, 2008
Just hanging in the sun.
Sun peeking out from behind the grey for a few minutes. (And the grey has since drifted back into place.)
Sitting in my chair, which faces the bay. Reading a library book. Back from a walk down to the Ferry Building for bread from Acme and coppa di testa from Boccalone. Down to the Ferry Building and back up the steps, all 223 of them, but who’s counting?
Concentrating on the words before me (Elizabeth Berg: The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation). In the background I can hear the parrots — not chattering, not arguing, not squawking, as they usually do. Susurration. Murmuration. Low. Affectionate.
I get up out of my seat to see what they’re up to.
Just hanging in the sun. [Click on the picture for a closeup look. They blend into the cypress in the smaller view.]
November 28, 2008
Mumbai/Bombay – Twitter Search
Mumbai/Bombay – Twitter Search
… ongoing news and commentary on what’s happening in Mumbai/Bombay via tweets, some direct from India.
Also links to news articles and useful information and, as always with the Web, some wasted space and very stoopid people.