Food

I finally finished reading Fast Food Nation.

I wrote previously that the book didn't contain many real surprises for me. I'd say that is still the case. The book has been accused of being merely anecdotal and spun heavily against the food industry, corporations in general, and Republicans. I came out with the same taste in my mouth. Although the book is painstakingly researched with 60 pages of bibliographical references, it does seem to me that the facts were carefully chosen to spin those forces in a negative light.

That said, the research and anecdotes seem undeniable, and I do feel affected by the content. The gory realities of feed lots and slaughterhouses; The questionable, albeit legal, manner in which livestock are fed and maintained; The effect of fierce price competition on all stakeholders including employees, franchisees, and consumers. It all definitely adds up to a bit of a sick feeling about the dark side of capitalism, democracy, and human behavior.

These are the points that stuck with me most:

- Livestock should not be fed the remains of other animals. It is a common practice in the US. It is not a natural feed and it opens the door for foodborne illness.
- The price of meat is determined largely by line speeds and safety practices at meat packing companies. Fast food companies often get better,safer meat than stores, because their brands depend on it. I may start buying higher priced meat as a result.
- More food than you think is flavored with chemicals that are not disclosed to you.
- Obesity costs far more to the economy than fast food companies earn.
- Advertising to children is powerful and probably should not be legal. It is already illegal in some countries.
- The US government doesn't have much power or inclination to protect the public from poor quality food. The large food chains are actually much more effective at creating positive change in the industry. And they answer mainly to their customers.

I have considered the possibility of becoming a vegetarian after reading the book. It probably will not happen, and it may not even be a good idea for me. But it's the first time the thought has ever crossed my mind. I fully expect, however, to eat better and think more about what I am eating all the time. Many people may believe that overthinking every aspect of life this way is a downer. I now see that attitude as a form of denial.

Open

I made my first contribution to the open source community today. I noticed a grammatical error on the George Pataki page of the Wikipedia. I knew that common folks were allowed to make changes to any page on the website and so I clicked edit, made my update, and bang, my change was made public without any sort of workflow approval process. Interesting.

I've also, coincidentally, just begun looking at SourceForge to see if there are any open source projects on which I might be interested in collaborating. It seems like a good way to use and improve my skills, and a good way to connect with the software developer community at large.

We'll see what I find.

Smart

I sometimes get the feeling, when pondering Google's inner workings, that the people there are so smart, their service sometimes seems like magic to us peasants.

They clearly seem to have the notion of "simple yet functional" down to a science. And functional is a tremendous understatement. They are the Ghooda.

I did some upgrades to my lyrics website last week, including 10,000 new song titles. Also, since my visitor volume has been up (about 150,000 page views in November), I decided to re-evaluate my advertising.

I looked at Google's AdSense optimization tips which suggested that my ad clickthrough rate might go up if I put my Google text ads across the top of my content (aka Leaderboard ad) rather than down the right side (aka Skyscraper ad). I figure they must have done plenty of research, so why not take their advice.

After a week using the new configuration, I noticed an unexpected trend. My clickthrough rate actually went down a tiny bit, but my earnings per impression went up by about 50%. What this means is that fewer people actually click through the ad links on the website. But the ads they click on tend to have a higher pay rate.

My conclusion from this is, although it is a bit early to conclude anything, is that Google actually rewards me for taking their placement advice by sending me more lucrative ad links. More likely is that they are ensuring they get the best possible clickthrough rates (due to placement) on the highest paying ad inventory, thus making more money for themselves.

Google tends to be very mysterious about their logic and policies on these matters, but at every turn, they always seem to be doing the smartest possible thing.

My advice: Always do what Google tells you to do.

Mosquito

Apparently someone has finally figured out a way to keep loitering teenagers away using a high frequency sound device, called The Mosquito, that only young people can hear. Genius.

Green

One cannot help becoming more environmentally conscious living in this city.

A few weeks ago, I went to The Green Festival, essentially a trade show for environmentally friendly products and services. I definitely got the impression that these were mainly entrepreneurs, certainly with a profit motive, that targeted well-meaning left-leaning individuals as their primary market.

As I see it, if you're going to be in business for profit, there is certainly nothing wrong with keeping environmental preservation as a top priority. However, it seemed to me a bit like they were using people's tendency to support this cause as a way of digging deeper into their pockets. I was somewhat disturbed by that. Sigh. Always a skeptic.

I did learn one thing there that I found interesting and valuable.

Shannon and Michael, who are buying a boat soon, wanted to know how they might use biodiesel fuel in their boat. I had heard that these fuels burn cleaner than fossil fuels and are mainly vegetable based. So I set off to the festival with the mission of finding out.

I have seen various diesel cars on the road, mostly old Mercedes, with biodiesel stickers on them and have always been a little curious. I imagined some process of taking your car down to the local university to have some hippy grad students fit your engine with some kind of vegimatic machine like the DeLorean in Back to the Future. A fun science project to impress all the dreadlocked girls around campus.

As it turns out, there are no modifications required to burn biodiesel fuel. All you need is a diesel engine in your car, and you can pour the fuel right in to your tank with any mixture of fossil fuel you choose. That's it.

Now biodiesel gas is a bit more expensive than regular gas, currently about $3.65 per gallon at the local biodiesel co-op. But compared with the new hybrid cars that come at a several thousand dollar premium over standard engines, this type of fuel is a great way for people to do what they can for a cleaner, less oil-dependent environment, one dollar at a time.

I feel a bit sad that I found this out after I leased my new Jeep Liberty, which now comes with a diesel option. Oh well. The next car.

Convergence

I checked out a cool website today that took a relatively small amount of effort but delivers a substantial value. Housingmaps.com appears to be a mere hobby project for a clever programmer.

It combines Craigslist apartment listings with Google maps to give a visual representation of apartments for rent in San Francisco and other cities.

Small wonders.

Threads

I was struck yesterday by a contrast.

This week I got to take a tour of the new St. Regis Hotel, specifically the luxury homes located high atop the hotel high rise. I have to say that, for all the money rich folks must spend to live there, it didn't seem much more livable than any other homes I have been in. The views were certainly impressive, although I did feel a little woozy way up there.

One thing that impressed me was the doormen's uniforms. Each door to the hotel was manned by a large, hyper-polite man wearing a beautiful full length coat. They seemed to be made of some soft luxurious fiber. I wondered how much the hotel paid for each coat.

The very next day, I was walking in the financial district among many nicely dressed individuals when I saw a group of paramedics. They were also in their uniforms, only theirs were dark blue cotton, and they were very worn and unimpressive.

I considered the relative importance of each of those men's jobs. One opens doors, the other saves lives.

I wondered if there was any significance to this.. if it makes any statement about our world. Clearly the five star hotel is selling a product that cannot be tattered, while paramedics are out on the asphalt every day.

But somehow it still struck me.

Natural

I'm currently reading the book, Fast Food Nation. I fully expected this book to contain all kinds of horrifying facts sure to send anyone screaming from their nearest McDonald's restaurant. In truth, there is relatively little in the book that I find surprising so far. There is a fair amount of interesting history of how the industry came to be, and an in depth investigation into the inner workings of food suppliers, franchise agreements, labor standards, etc. Not a thriller by any measure.

One section I found very interesting discusses the semantics surrounding natural and artificial flavoring. We see these ingredients listed on many of the foods we eat. I often read ingredients labels and have always been suspicious of these entries on the list because they are just so darn vague. What's in an artificial flavor?

As it turns out, the vagueness is intentional and authorized by the FDA. In order to protect the secrecy of food recipes, food makers aren't required to list flavor ingredients as long as they are "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). This designation, after looking at the FDA website, does not appear to imply that the FDA has, itself, determined the safety of the ingredient, but has examined the evidence supplied by applicants, and does not object to it. There are interesting exclusions to this rule as well. For example, additives commonly used in food before 1958 are automatically considered safe.

Also, the difference between the designations natural and artificial are not what one would expect. They both allow for the same list of chemical ingredients. The difference is in how the chemicals are produced. It seems that older methods may be considered natural, while newer, more scientific methods would be designated artificial, even if the latter produced a purer, safer end result. Since the natural designation is more appealing to consumers, those methods are more likely to be used, even though they may result in a less-safe product.

As a result of the GRAS secrecy rule, these flavor recipes contain many chemical ingredients that are not listed. For example, a typical artificial strawberry flavor contains the following:

Amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amylketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone, a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, neronlin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, y-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

Remember, all of these ingredients are on the GRAS list. The fact that this is an "artificial" flavor merely indicates how these chemicals were extracted from their sources, not what chemicals are present.

What this means is that when you see the words natural flavor or artificial flavor, you must assume that a list of similar chemicals are likely involved whether it is a strawberry candy or a cup of Stonyfield Farm Organic Strawberry Yogurt.

Buyer beware.

Uptight

Last weekend I wanted to rent a movie. Since I have a great pay-per-view selection on my cable TV at home, I rarely rent movies anymore. But for some reason, it seemed like a fun thing to do and the Blockbuster store happened to be right there in front of me.

As I walked in, I vaguely remembered leaving annoyed the last time I had visited the store - without renting a movie. I couldn't remember why, but continued the movie mission anyway. There is something about Blockbuster that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe its size, maybe the fact that I don't care for their movie selection. In any case, it has never struck me as a company to celebrate.

I searched for The Corporation, a documentary I wanted Monica to see. I walked around the whole store twice before I found the documentary section - probably about 20 titles. No luck.

We settled on The Life Aquatic, a Wes Anderson film, and proceeded to the checkout. I realized I didn't have an account there and would probably have to open a new account. I figured it was probably pretty streamlined by now, considering the movie rental industry is about 20 years mature. Again, no luck. They made me move to a different window and gave me a long legal sized form to fill out. My attitude toward the movie mission began to deteriorate.

The form asked for my name, address, date of birth, driver's license number, credit card number, and a series of signatures waiving various rights.

I filled out the form, getting more and more annoyed at each question and check box. It occured to me that the thin piece of plastic I was renting was actually worth less than the restroom keys you borrow from gas stations, and they don't require nearly as much paperwork. After filling out the form, I was sent back to the original window to pay my $4, and we left.

After getting only a few feet from the store, I was reminded of the security process hoops I am currently jumping through at the city for collecting similar, although much less sensitive information from those making payments on our websites. I am not, even as a pseudo city manager, entitled to possess those pieces of information even for a few minutes. The people I work for consider it far too great of a security risk. The information is processed and then erased forever in some cases.

But I had just handed over even more sensitive information to a video store clerk who would probably stuff it into a file cabinet in the back that's likely used frequently to deal with non-returned videos. Now, the staff at Blockbuster seemed very friendly, competent, and trustworthy. But video stores just seem like the kind of place that would have high employee turnover, and besides, it seems to me Blockbuster should be able to come up with a better system than paper stuffed in drawers for that type of information.

I began to become very uneasy, even though I knew many people hand the same information over all the time. The fear started... Identity theft!! Ugh.

We got home to watch the movie, and it didn't work. The picture was all screwed up. Double Ugh.

That was the last straw. I decided I would take the movie back, get my money back for the defective DVD, and get my precious paper form back.

The next day, I did just that. I was bracing for a hassle, planning my rebuttals.. but alas, the friendly, competent, probably trustworthy manager returned my money and my form without argument. He seemed a bit inconvenienced. He had to rummage through two separate drawers stuffed with forms. But was far more compliant than I expected. He did have to use a key to get into the drawers, but the key was in the cash register drawer... Not super high security.

So after getting what I wanted, I was left wondering if I was just being paranoid. I was also left with a slightly better taste in my mouth about Blockbuster, at least the Church & Market store. I feel a little bad about not trusting those people.

I may be a little uptight. But I'm glad I got my form back.

Nikka

I have a new favorite recording artist for whom I'll likely hold a torch for at least a few weeks. Her name is Nikka Costa. When I ask others if they've heard of her, they say yes. But somehow I never have until yesterday. She is performing at The Independent next month and I have the fun habit of pre listening to upcoming shows there to gauge my interest in attending. Napster has two of her albums which are both excellent. She continually reminds me of many great artists (Prince, Chaka Kahn, Stevie Wonder to name a very few) and integrates all of those influences seamlessly. I can't wait for her show.

Update: I saw her show on Sunday night. All I can say is don't ever miss this woman if she is performing near you. The energy in that room was tremendous and her voice and band are fantastic. I think everyone in attendance was blown away.

Napster

Along with thousands of other early adopters, I've been undertaking a grand experiment in digital music consumption. The introduction of digital music files several years ago and the, at first, illegal trade in them via services such as Napster has since evolved into a new, still immature business model for the music industry.

The Apple iPod has become an extremely popular consumer electronics device, and millions of music files have been purchased legally to fill them up. Apple is now enjoying a cultural phenomenon that businesses only dream of. Because of its popularity, their product's name, iPod, is now becoming synonymous with the class of product (think Band-Aid, Kleenex, etc). Since their product is closely tied with their music purchasing service, they only need stand by and watch as a whole generation passively accepts their business model for selling music online - Pay a dollar, get one song.

But theirs isn't the only model. Napster re-emerged as a legal subscription based service. Their model is - pay ten dollars per month, listen to anything in their catalog - pay fifteen, and transfer all of it to a portable device as well - but you still don't "own" the song until you pay the dollar for it. Depending on one's music listening habits, this model may or may work better for some people.

I, for one, don't like the idea of paying a dollar for a song I haven't heard before and don't know if I will like. Apple and other services allow you to listen to a 30 second snippet of the song before purchasing. With Napster, I can listen to the song as much as I like, then only if I wish to burn it to a CD, pay the dollar. This way works better for me because, you see, I'm cheap.

A side effect I have noticed from this easy access to music is jade. It's now very tough for me to find music so interesting that I believe I'll listen to it frequently enough away from my PC to justify paying for it. When I listen to music now, I'm much more inclined to sample artists and titles I've never heard. Read a review in a magazine - take a listen. An artist I've never heard of is playing in the city - let's see if I'd like them. Why buy it?

So lately I've been trying the portable music model that Napster offers called "Napster to go". I bought one of the compatible mp3 players (iPods are not an option) called the Creative Zen Sleek. It held 20 gigabytes worth of music, or about 10,000 songs. It seemed like an awesome notion to have that much music walking around with me all for the price of my monthly subscription. Napster liked to point out in their ad campaigns that to put that much music on an iPod would cost $10,000.

My fantasy that I would just dump 10,000 songs onto my new portable player was just that. Not only did I have to actually dream up that much music to transfer, but each song can take up to a couple of minutes to download from Napster. I soon realized that 20 GB worth of storage was probably overkill, and that a smaller, lighter player would probably work just as well.

I returned the Sleek and bought another Creative player, the new Zen Microphoto. It holds 8GB and is much smaller than the Sleek.

Now am I happy? Well.. not so sure. I've discovered that it's really not all that comfortable for me to dink around with headphones and player controls while I'm walking around the city. It's alright to have music with me, but it certainly isn't changing my life.

Also, I was expecting to use one of those fancy FM transmitter things to play music from my player while I'm in the car. It turns out those things are pretty crummy so I can't really do that.

So we'll have to see if this thing survives my 30-day no-questions return policy from Best Buy. At this point, it's kind of a cool toy, but probably not worth the price tag. We'll see.

Funk

Urban living is getting to me today.

Working the entire day in a ten story concrete cube means that I usually need to escape for lunch to get some sunlight and fresh air. Unfortunately, I work in civic center which isn't always so fresh, so I regularly ride some form of public transit to a more pleasant lunching atmosphere.

That journey takes me through an especially colorful part of town. The Tenderloin district is known for it's drug dealers, users, and other shady types. I used to be so disturbed by the cast of characters, that I would take the underground train just to avoid the spectacle. Over time, I became used to it, and now rather enjoy the show much of the time.

Today though was somehow my day to find myself next to far more than my statistically likely share of smelly people. Young and old, street and professional. There were laundry mildew mishaps, musty old men, leave-behind BO, and urine stench a go-go.

I couldn't help but wonder how this could happen. Today was nice and cool... no hot day sweaty excuses this time. I know that some of my fellow citizens live in much less luxury than I do. But one thing seems likely to me: If you have a home, you have access to bathing facilities. Some form of sink, shower, or tub comes with anything you could possibly refer to as a home. That gives one the ability to wash clothes and self.

I imagine that cultures change on this subject. I know that Europeans think Americans are far too concerned about such matters. Cleanliness is one American trait I'd like us to hold on to. If notions of cleanliness ebb and flow in culture, I wonder in which direction this one is headed.

Today wasn't a good sign.

Ghosts

I Googled myself today and came across a document from the California Court of Appeals. The document describes in great detail the dramatic story of several of my high school friends, one of which eventually killed the other in cold blood. I was close friends with the killer's brother Joey growing up and also good friends with the victim, Steve, who actually helped teach me to drive my first car.

This document describes the events in greater detail than I have ever heard before. Up until now, I have relied on newspaper articles and hearsay, mostly.

I don't know what has become of Rob, the defendant. I know that he was the subject of controversy in past years because he was paroled but kept in prison by then governor Gray Davis.

I had heard that the San Francisco gay community had rallied to Rob's side, arguing that he was the victim of gay bashing. Although there is truth to that as described in the case, it doesn't appear to me to rise to the level of justifying death to the basher. It always seemed to me that Steve had been forgotten by the courts, the press, and the activists. And that always bothered me. It still does.

Steve didn't always behave well. But he was a good guy. And I miss him.

This is the document

Baggage

Shower faucets are like relationships.

Yesterday was a fun day. Although it was a normal Thursday at work, there was also fun to be had. Not only was it a beautiful warm and clear day in the city, it was also the first day ever, San Francisco hosted a ski jump competition on its steep city streets.

It was going to be tough for me to make it there because the event was held in Pacific Heights, across town from civic center where I work. The bus rides alone would have eaten up my whole lunch break. But Shannon came to the rescue and offered to chauffeur me from work to the event and back and even brought me a sandwich to eat. She's so nice.

We made it up there along with thousands of others and witnessed what could be a once in a lifetime event, judging by the controversy surrounding the disruption it caused.

Here are some pictures

Later on, after work, Shannon and I were expecting guests. Her previous roommate, Sue, who now lives in Los Angeles, and her band, Tsk Tsk, have a couple of shows in the Bay Area this week, and we agreed to put all of them up for a couple of days at our apartment. We're so nice.

They rolled into town about two hours before they were supposed to go on stage last night. Since we have two bathrooms in our house, I offered to let a couple of them use my shower to save them some time.

They made it to the venue, put on a lovely show, and a good time was had by all.

This morning, when I got into my shower and turned on the water, I noticed that the previous occupant had pushed down the faucet handles really hard, using far more pressure than necessary. I felt bad for the poor little handles.

I imagined that whoever last used the shower must have a real problem with water continuing to drip out of their own home shower after shutting it off. Even though my shower does not have the same problem, that person applied their usual compensating solution anyway.

People do this in relationships also. Not that it has happened to me recently, but I think people have a habit of compensating for the issues of past significant others, even though it's not necessary with their current partners.

If you're in a relationship, try applying only the amount of pressure needed when shutting someone down. I know you'll try. Because you're so nice.

Points

One good thing about being the master of a tiny little domain in government is that I have the opportunity to apply my own personal values and opinions in the formation of public policy surrounding my little world.

The project I work on at the city was started as a pilot program to test the feasibility of taking city payments online. It seems like an obvious idea to improve efficiency and customer service, but everything has to prove its fitness in the real world. For the past three years I have managed the project and watched it grow slowly into a fit, soon-to-be self-funded, well-received corner of city government.

Then, just as I was finishing a forecast showing that in just 12 short months, the project would no longer require any city budget, funding itself solely on the small convenience fees charged on some payments, an article came out in the Chronicle. The article described a photo op the Mayor had been on the previous day at the Department of Parking and Traffic. The article mainly told how the department was a nightmare to visit for any reason, mainly due to long lines and long waits.

Since some of the people were there merely to pay a parking ticket, the question was asked, "why do people have to pay a fee to pay tickets online?". That question had the unfortunate consequence of causing a city official to go (trumpets please) "on record"... as saying that he and the Mayor would try to eliminate those fees. Once on record, my project and its funding became the focus of great scrutiny by those wanting to carry out the Mayor's wishes.

I am one of the only people on Earth who knows this project and its business model intimately. The other person is Marco, my client at the city. He and I unfortunately do not share the same outlook for funding this project. He believes in eliminating fees. I believe in retaining them.

Since I am mainly here to serve his needs as his consultant, pushing my own agenda is something I only do when particularly passionate about a subject.

I have two passions in this case. One is that I truly believe that services should, if at all possible, be paid mainly by those who use the service. The other is that I'd like to see this project continue without struggling for funding. We are just so close now.

My problem became how to try and see my own wishes carried out without causing conflict with my client on this very visible issue.

I wrote up an argument for my case intended for consumption by a city official unfamiliar with my project, someone like a county supervisor. I thought maybe I could get the ideas to them through a third party so that I could remain ostensibly impartial. However, the information is so detailed, I am certainly implicated as its author.

Below were my points:

------------

Facts:

• The Online Services Group within DTIS processes online payments for several city departments.
• If left alone, the Online Services Group will be self-funded by convenience fees in about 12 months, requiring no additional money from city budgets.
• Convenience fees are small amounts added to online payments to cover processing costs.
• Convenience fees are paid by citizens and others who actually use the online services.
• The Mayor wants to eliminate convenience fees for parking tickets.
• Most Online Services transactions are parking ticket payments.
• About half of convenience fees collected go to project expenses and about half to Visa/MasterCard fees, which are charged as a percentage of the credit card transaction.
• Eliminating convenience fees from transactions will require the city budget and, by extension, all San Francisco citizens to pay for Online Services whether they use them or not.
• 35% of online parking ticket payments are made by non residents of San Francisco.
• Eliminating convenience fees would transfer the entire cost burden of the project to SF residents and relieve the non residents of any costs.
• Eliminating convenience fees is expected to sharply increase online services volume since it would become the cheapest method of payment.
• Larger payment volume means proportionately larger Visa/MasterCard fees and some project expense increase.
• Currently Online Services processes about 10% of all parking ticket payments.
• For the past 3 years, online payment volume has increased at a rate greater than 30% per year, with no changes to convenience fees.
• Doubling the volume to 20%, which is conservative if fees are eliminated, will cost the city about $1 million more than current volume, much of that in Visa fees that would no longer be covered by convenience fees.
• Tripling or quadrupling of online volume over one or two years is not an unreasonable expectation.
• The actual reduction in check processing labor by DPT for a 10% reduction in paper payments is unclear.
• With forecasted growth and economies of scale, convenience fees could likely be reduced over time as costs per transaction fall soon after the break even point around 12 months from now.
• The city contractor that runs online services for the city does not receive a "cut" of the fees. They are paid a flat monthly rate. The city is the only entity benefiting from those fees.
• Eliminating this consistent funding source for the service makes its future less certain as its budgetary worthiness would continue to be reviewed each fiscal year.

Conclusion:

Although eliminating convenience fees from online transactions gives the appearance of making the services more accessible and less expensive to the public, the expense to San Francisco citizens would be much greater overall and threatens the continuation of the service. Alternatively, if the fees were reduced little by little over time, the service is ensured continued growth, assuming DPT continues to use Online Services as a payment processor.

------------

So far, I have not sent these points directly to anyone influential, mainly to maintain my client relationship. However, I did get to meet yesterday with the city's Deputy Treasurer. Marco and I both met with her to discuss these issues. I was pleased to find that, although I didn't go the meeting intending to split from Marco's wishes, she was clearly receptive to my ideas and I was able to make most of my points, leading her in my preferred direction whenever possible. Since she will be making recommendations directly to the Mayor's budget office, I feel that I have made a real difference.

These types of moments are rare in my world and I have taken note the satisfaction it brings. For all the frustrating, petty, political bickering in this city's crazy government, it feels good to see my own wishes carried out on a relatively large scale.

I'm not sure that alone is enough to keep me around city government too much longer. But we'll see.

Sick

I have a crummy immune system. I think I always have. It's not that I get horrible diseases. I just get all of the little ones - mainly colds and flus.

It's a familiar cycle:

1. Do something bad for my immune system (e.g. drink too much, get no sleep, etc.)
2. Start to feel a sore throat
3. Sit by helplessly as the sore throat turns into an inferno
4. Get sniffly, sneezy, achey, and stuffy headed to the point of disfunction
5. Cough for about three weeks.

Just like everyone else, I try all the latest, hipest remedies, but the cycle remains largely unaffected. I've tried vitamin C megadosing, drowning myself in fluids, Echinacea (now proven to be snake oil), Homeopathics like Oscillococcinum, tea, honey, chicken soup, etc. And somehow I always manage to have one day of dread knowing what's coming, a couple days of misery, a couple more days of embittered sniffling, and weeks of nagging cough.

Over the past year, I have been trying a new strategy that has worked very well. Wanna know what it is?

Sleep.

Previously, I would only stay home from work if I was too sick to work. This was my major mistake. By the time I feel that bad, there is no amount of rest or remedy that will break the sick cycle.

Now, when I feel like I am certain the sick is coming on... I just don't get out of bed. Even though I'm able to work, I set out to kill the virus as a first priority. I just call in sick, albeit a little guilt ridden, and sleep until I am totally unable to stay in bed anymore.

The result: One day off of work... and then.... nothing. Totally fine. No sneeze, no sniffle, no cough.

I wonder why no one has ever pushed this remedy on me before. I suppose because you can't bottle it and sell it in a health food store.

Someone get me a Nobel prize.

Paper

Paper is so important to our culture, we can't live without it.

• We use paper to write love letters.
• Agreements between people are practically null and void unless they are written on paper.
• We exchange paper money as currency that has no other real value except for our own acceptance of it.

But one of the most important kinds of paper.. the one so crucial that it's considered almost inhumane to live without it? Toilet paper.

I had a realization in the men's room stall at work today. It occurred to me while I was trying to unwind a wad of TP from the roll, that our public and home bathroom tissue expectations are wildly different.

When one goes to the supermarket to shop for home supplies, the TP aisle is an abundance of luxurious, pampering goodness. Cushioned, multi-ply softness dominates. Generally, even if you buy the cheapest generic store brand, the products are by and large very useful and satisfying.

In public restrooms, however, it's a whole 'nother scene. The paper is sometimes so thin, that the inertia from the rest of the roll is just too much for the poor micro thin fibers, causing a single square to vaporize while exerting the gentlest pull humanly possible. Sometimes it takes two hands. One to turn the paper roll, and the other to gingerly catch the coveted prize as it is revealed inch by inch. Other times, the paper is thick like paper towel material, making one wonder if someone made a mistake when pulling packages from the supply closet.

Whatever the deficiency, two things strike me:

1. That the people in charge of choosing products are clearly more cost conscious than, let's say, "customer service" conscious. Obviously, these public papers are not the type anyone would like to use themselves. But they somehow feel justified in inflicting them on the faceless masses.
2. This cruel stinginess is so widespread and institutionalized, that commercial restroom supply companies stock and sell heaping masses of these tortuous products even though no supermarket wouldn't dream of carrying such substandard toiletries. These products are conceived of and manufactured purely to satisfy the cheapskate commercial world.
   

So what does this say about how our institutions' level care for their fellow man? I think it's true what the FBI says about solving mysteries...

Just follow the paper.

Ideas

As if I'm not busy enough, I like to fill my tiny bits of free time with website hobby projects. These sites only occasionally get finished and rarely get used by anyone. Though I usually have a glimmer of hope that a substantial number of folks may someday find the fruits of my work useful, I doubt I'll ever make any real money from them. But you never know.

My lyrics website, Lyricsbeat.com, is probably my best success story and actually does get a fair amount of traffic - about 4,000 page views per day. Not only do that many people find the song lyrics they're looking for, it makes enough money with Google AdSense advertising to pay for its own hosting and will probably subsidize my next, more ambitious project. So I can chalk that one up as a success.

I tend to like to build projects I would want to use myself. That way, the worst case scenario is that I have a useful tool that will at least be used by me and any pliable friends I might recruit.

Lately, I've been wanting to work on a project that might do some actual good in the world. Short of volunteering for someone else's project, I haven't come up with one yet.

Past projects have included:

- SpeakUp.com - A website that matches users with their elected government representatives at all levels (do you know who your state senator is?), then takes surveys of current events and routes users' sentiments to their matching elected officials in nice summarized constituent reports. Outcome: Keeping the current event surveys current was a daunting daily task and there was no indication that any elected officials actually wanted these reports.

- FilmPal.com - A website that helps circles of friends pick movies (theatre or rental) to watch together. By emailing new release titles to members and having them rank new releases by desire-to-watch and already-seen, a quick visit to the website could pick the most wanted movie for a given group. Outcome: Keeping the new releases current wasn't a huge job, but big enough for me to slack off. Also tough to find users.

- EzWF.com - A workflow and task manager tool that a group can use to communicate, track, and assign task list items to one another. Outcome: I use this for my current project at the city. I had a few hundred users try a free trial, but I suspect that it was too complicated for most to use without training or consulting.

Now I have some new ideas I may work on:

News recommendation website - A website that would use collaborative filtering technology to create a single website users could visit and view blog entries from many blogs ranked by the recommendation engine that would use their own rankings of blogs they read to determine other articles they would be interested in. The articles would all be displayed on a single website, not linked around to others. It's not as hard as it sounds - I don't think. Possible domain names: newzer.net, newsface.com, newzo.com, bloghog.net, customfitnews.com

Online Checklist - A website on which one could build a daily checklist of recurring tasks that may recur at different intervals. The items are similar to recurring calendar reminders, only this would create a record of those tasks actually accomplished and when. It could also be used by a group who shares tasks. Possible domain names: cheqlist.com, cheklist.net, checklistmaker.net, taskcheck.net.

Wish me luck... and motivation.

Playa

I returned to the Black Rock Desert last week. There is something about that place that is beyond words. There is of course the art, the interesting people, and activities that make Burning Man what it is. But the desert itself, the playa, the landscape, the vastness of the blank canvas is what makes one feel as if he or she has left the earth. The dusty, cracked, and completely flat white soil and cold nights evoke a sense of what the moon might be like.

People return there every year for different reasons. For me, I really enjoy the human painting that spreads across miles of the desert in a cooperative, organized manner. Most of the people are coming to help paint it, not merely to come see it. Everyone is an artist there in his own way. Some people contribute to large art installations, while others decorate themselves and their belongings in such a way as to add to the overall visual experience. At times it appears to be an enormous petri dish with life forms at all levels, from tiny sand robots, to bikers, to giant animal machines, to even larger art cars carrying scores, to giant raves hosting hundreds. The occupants organize into small groups and large groups, often in response to some rumored stimulus like a parade, a popular DJ, or free sushi. There is a schedule of events, but people rarely heed it. Instead there is a collective wandering. The serendipity of experiences are part of the fun and memories.

It's a painting. It's a petri dish. It's a circus. It's a party. It's a city. It's at very least a spectacle.

It's also a lot of preparation, time, energy, and money to make it there. It is miraculous that people keep returning. I'm not sure I will. It is a common sentiment during the recovery period known as decompression. That time when we all return from the moon and re-enter the earth and wonder which place we like better.

This week, I'm choosing Earth. We'll see what I say in a few months when tickets go on sale again.

• Here are some pictures from our camera
• Here are a bunch of pictures by people I don't know posted publicly on Flickr
• Here are some great pictures posted by DJ Goldilox on her website
• Someone sent me this link with some really great pictures
  

Toxic

My friend Erin is very interested in environmental safety. She may actually go to graduate school soon to study it and get more active in bringing information to people about environmental dangers.

She gave me this link to Skin Deep, a study by the Environmental Working Group who rated a large number of personal care products that may contain harmful ingredients. You can look up the products you use to check what types of toxins they contain. It is a bit gloomy to read some of the possible health effects, but it could help you make your next toothpaste or deodorant purchase at the supermarket.

Wow

This morning I was watching the KRON4 morning news while ironing my shirt for work. While spritzing my collar a grandma neuron fired off and I realized something fantastic. Terisa Estacio, one of the bay area morning anchor women, is actually the lead singer of Von Iva, the rock band I saw this weekend. What a woman!

Judge for yourself.

• Newswoman by day
• Rockstar by night

Shows

It was another week of great music in the city.

Once again I saw Alana Davis on Thursday night at the Red Devil Lounge. I thought I might be bored since I saw the same show just a few weeks ago. Once again I was totally moved by her charismatic and technically flawless solo show. Beautiful. This time Monica got to go as well.

We also went to the Von Iva show at the good ole' Independent. I had never seen or heard them, but Shannon saw them once and told me I simply must go check them out. Von Iva is an all girl, high energy, hard rock and roll band... the type you'd expect to see at a West Hollywood rock club during the Guns N' Roses era. The lead singer is an energy explosion the likes of Tina Turner and Mick Jagger. Great, strong voice and loves to interact with the audience. If you like rock, go see Von Iva.

But the act that opened for Von Iva was a surprise, the likes of which we never expected for a hard rock show. We walked in to the venue to see a small effeminate man dressed in tight white clothes and another young guy in front of a laptop on stage, performing what can only be described as boy band music. Except there was only one boy singing - one boy with a lot of guts. Some of the crowd booed him after his first song. But little by little he won the crowd over. His mastery of boybandisms, his well crafted songs, and especially the backup dancers he eventually brought up, ended up being a real hit. The band, called Hey Willpower, was an extremely intriguing mix of trite radio trash and uber hipster style. Very entertaining. And not just to laugh at. The music and his singing voice was probably up to the level of a Justin Timberlake, just without a gram of pretense. I hope they keep it going.

Blaster

I've just about completed work on my PortoBlaster, a portable disco sound and light system to be towed by my bicycle out into the deep desert at Burning Man. I conceived of it several months ago and somehow managed to make it happen over the past few months. It looks like a fairly puny project from the looks of it.. but it took plenty of pondering, rule checking, and dumpster diving.

Here are some pictures

Normally at the event, the only vehicles allowed to drive on the playa are art cars which have been licensed and approved by the event's DMV. This normally requires an especially extravagant setup which I don't really have the means to pull off myself. However, bikes are permitted free access to everywhere in just about every configuration one could imagine. I knew the only way to get sound and light equipment far out into the darkness was pulling with my bike. After months of agonizing over how I might accomplish this, here are the parts I assembled:

A twin baby bike trailer - holds 100 lbs. $69
A Stereo Amp - Sony home stereo amp from Craigslist - $20
Two decent bookshelf sized speakers - Salvation Army - $7.50
An old mini-portable CD player that's been collecting dust for years
Some Xmas lights from last year's tree
A red tube-light I've had laying around that I've never used
A blue twirling police beacon light - Target - $12
Purple spray paint
Some velcro and wire hooks to keep things in place
1 yard of plush white faux fur.

The last and largest hurdle to bring powered equipment into the desert is where to get electricity. Generators are expensive, heavy, and loud. This was the toughest piece of the puzzle. I could have gone the car stereo route and used a marine battery for power, but I wasn't sure about the lights and I'm not super handy with car audio. I became enamored with the Honda 1000 generator, which weighs 29 lbs, and is apparently about as quiet as a sewing machine. Unfortunately, they are expensive and not easy to find second hand. After doing the math on renting vs. buying and sizing up market on eBay and Craigslist, I decided that if I could find one for $400, I could easily re-sell it after the event for the same amount - making it essentially free for my use. I found one on eBay after weeks of searching and it's waiting for me to pick it up at Fedex right now. I really hope it works.

Whew

A guy who sits next to me got a call this morning from a ham radio operator friend of his. The friend said he had just overheard a call from a police officer in downtown San Francisco that a bomb had just gone off on the street and it appeared to be a terrorist attack. For several minutes I raced around the web, searching for some news that might have been published. I remember feeling like "here we go".. as if San Francisco was overdue for an attack and this was just the beginning.

It turned out to be an underground explosion of some power equipment that blew off a manhole cover and actually did injure a few people. The policeman had just jumped to a conclusion. Shocking.

In any case. I suppose we've bought one more terror-free day.

Chair

I bid farewell to my trusty old office chair today. I'm putting it up for sale on craigslist. It was the chair I bought when I first decided to quit my job and work for myself back in Arizona. It was only marginally comfortable and I can't say I got nearly enough work done while I was sitting in it.

What is it with men and their chairs? Maybe it's the throne in our castle. Frasier's dad, Archie Bunker, and now me. Dumb I suppose. But I'll miss it nonetheless.

Bye Chair

Mayor

One thing that no one that works with government wants is media attention. Media has the ability to turn regular everyday life into outrage at its own whim.

One outrage that has existed just fine without media help is the San Francisco Department of Parking & Traffic. It's no secret that the project I work on is funded mainly through convenience fees collected from people paying parking tickets online. Our online citation payment feature is one of the few bastions of convenience surrounding DPT these days. They have been terribly understaffed and overworked lately, and it appears the long lines and teller window freakouts have finally caught the attention of the mayor.

This article underscores some of the understandable frustration people have been experiencing while trying to do business with the department. Somehow, the mayor has now associated our convenience fees with the public's frustrations and has indicated that he wants to see them eliminated. Great. In reality, we don't receive many complaints about our fees from the public. When there are complaints, they tend to be aimed at the misconception that our services are a cost savings to the City.

There is nothing the public likes to see more than swift and drastic cuts in taxes and fees. Yee haw! Unfortunately, the costs of our services don't become free. Those fees will now have to be paid from some general fund that is currently used for other, less visible services.

I am a fan of the idea that people should pay mainly for services that they use (e.g. bus fares, bridge tolls, and dog licenses). If he funds our project through unrelated sources, that means that people who aren't Internet users will be paying for part of our project either through reduced services or higher taxes - in theory.

I am glad, however, that my project is anywhere on the mayor's radar and that there doesn't appear to be any danger of us getting cut entirely. Personally, I think our services are a ray of light, as city projects tend to go.

I just wish our project were allowed to thrive along the same business model that has been so successful thus far. Ah politics.

Pea pods

Monica and I were fortunate enough to get tickets to a last minute show put on by the Black Eyed Peas at The Independent on Friday night. I'm on the venue's email list and they sent out an email about two hours before the tickets went on sale. Within ten minutes, they were sold out, so right away I felt a sense of privilege even gaining entrance to the place.

Their two opening acts were top notch. Jennifer Johns is a great soul singer who was on stage with only a percussionist and turntablist. She really had a great energy about her. After her, Crown City Rockers came on and really brought down the house. I've never heard of them before, but they have a new fan in me. Each member of the band is a tremendous musician and the performance was impressively tight. I believe they are from Oakland and so I was looking forward to seeing them again some time soon. Unfortunately (for me), they appear to be blowing up a bit, and are now on a long road tour. Ugh. I hope they don't get too big before I see them a few more times in small venues. But if they do.. good for them.

The Black Eyed Peas didn't come on until about 12:45am and by that time we were pretty exhausted from dancing so much. They had just come from SBC Park where they had opened for Dave Matthews and seemed a little tired. But they still put tons of energy into their show, most of which was completely freestyle. They only played one mainstream BEP song that I recognized. In the end, they had both opening bands on stage with them and also brought up Eric Krasno from Soulive on guitar. Quite a finale.

A curious thing about the show was that they kept insisting that the show was supposed to be free and that we should all go ask for refunds. They kept incorporating that mantra into their freestyle raps. I emailed The Independent to see what that was all about. They said I should hear something about it soon via email. Interesting. We'll see what happens.

Like

There are a couple of words in the modern west coast vernacular that have been sitting snugly on my nerves for a while now. You know them. You probably say them. I do. Sometimes I hear myself and think, "how did this happen?"

The first has been with us since the early 80's and was introduced during the Valley Girl period of modern slang. I'm not sure how the word "like" became such a versatile term, but somehow it manages to creep into about 90% of some people's sentences at least once, sometimes multiple times - in one sentence.

Apparently the Brits have taken notice and have begun educating the public to this word's origins and effects. It is seen as an American plague spreading to their continent.

The author of this BBC article and I both agree that the word's use amounts to laziness in speech and an unwillingness to bring concrete commitment to one's thoughts. Sometimes it's difficult for me listen carefully to someone's message because I am so distracted by the word peppering their speech so much.

The other word that has crept in a bit more recently is "er", as in, "are you going use that chair?, er...". It's really "or".. but tends to come out "er", and implies that the speaker is about to provide an alternative to the preceding statement, but generally just trails off in awkward vagueness.

When I first moved to San Francisco, I had a boss who would say "er" after almost every question. I had never heard this before and was certain it was just her own weird habit. Maybe she was patient zero in this epidemic, because it seems to be sweeping the nation. It's now so common, I hardly notice it anymore.

Do you think that, like, er is the new like?, er.....

I have fallen prey often to both of these verbal ailments and invite anyone who detects it on me to alert me immediately so I can use my special spray to eradicate it (I wish they really had that). Really though, these words and phrases are just part of our everyday speech and are perfectly acceptable in small amounts. Also, we all know that word nazis can be super annoying - those folks that like to point out incorrect uses of words, grammar, etc. I know - I used to be one. People hated it, so I stopped.

I wonder if someday, young people will rebel against their Valley-talking parents, and start to use painstakingly proper speech, just to get on their parents' nerves. It could like totally happen.

Hitman

I wrote a few weeks back about my lack of understanding of the furor surrounding globalization. I didn't (and still don't) understand exactly what all of the protests have been about.

The new book I started today will likely shed some light on that. Confessions of an Economic Hitman is the biography of a man who claims to have been a central player in large-scale economic deals that have had far reaching effects on developing countries.

I'm really not a huge reader, but this is my third book in three months. This is really unprecedented for me. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

Unions

I like the idea of collective bargaining. I don't generally like unions so much.

I think it's important for people to protect themselves from abuse by anyone. This can include employers, neighbors, government, or anyone else. Unions have historically been a good method for unskilled people to protect their own welfare from tyrannical employers.

My own personal feelings about modern day unions, however, is that they tend to have drifted from the notion of reasonable treatment more toward the notion of fanatical protection. They seem to be institutions that are interested primarily in their own survival regardless of their actual usefulness to their subscribers. That's a fairly unsubstantiated feeling though.

During my time working at the City, which is a union employer, I have heard some pretty appalling acts by employees, from drunken bus drivers to six-months-absent computer operators that have gone unpunished (and un-fired) by management due to aggressive union leadership. That sort of thing tends to leave a bad taste in one's mouth.

This is my common sense take on why unions exist. It's not based on any particular education on the subject:

In the free market, supply and demand for jobs are fairly stable. Workers and businesses are able to equitably agree on fair compensation in return for good job skills and reliability. Most of the time this seems to work pretty well. If I as a worker feel I am not being compensated fairly, I can choose another more generous employer. My current employer loses out on a skilled, reliable employee - a scarce asset. This is the market in which I have operated throughout my career.

The folks who don't do so well in this arrangement are unskilled workers. Since it's easy to find people with no skills, employers aren't as incented to treat their employees well - because they can find plenty of people willing to do the job. This is where unions came from. By drying up the supply of unskilled labor through organizing potential workforce (often heavy handedly), unskilled people got negotiating leverage they wouldn't otherwise have had. This has worked well for jobs like bottling soda pop, bagging groceries, and collecting garbage.

It's less clear to me why there are unions for skilled, experienced people like airline pilots and nurses. It seems like those positions might be more difficult to fill if disgruntled employees left their jobs. But I suppose a large enough organization could weather the vacancy.

The fact is, 65% of US workers, both skilled and unskilled don't operate under any sort of union - and that number is apparently growing.

The Guardian has an article this week about the recent unraveling of the AFL-CIO, which as far as I can gather, is a union of unions. By uniting local unions into a larger national union, they can all enjoy greater political and economic power. That is if they can all get along.

It appears that major factions of those local unions are starting to disagree about the future direction of of the AFL-CIO. The major disagreement seems to be over whether they should pour more money and resources into political contributions or into growing union membership through recruitment. A perfectly valid controversy.

It has been becoming clear lately to the local unions that they don't have nearly as much power as they had hoped when negotiating with international corporations. You see, even if, for example, the Safeway workers in the entire state of California were to strike, Safeway still has thousands of other stores to keep themselves economically healthy. In other words, they can weather local or even regional strikes pretty easily nowadays. The only way for unions to be effective is by organizing nationally. Which means a whole lot more consensus among previously sovereign local chapters. Yikes.

With the growing importance of national solidarity and the deteriorating consensus on agenda, it seems like the very fabric of unions are at a crossroads. Would two or three splintered national unions collectively hold the same clout as one united AFL-CIO?

Interestingly, the book I just finished, Freakonomics, has a compelling argument about the effect of increased campaign spending on election outcomes. There is apparently good evidence that pouring even large amounts of cash into a campaign budget will not have more than a 1% effect on the outcome. I wonder if anyone in these unions has read that book. That might help them choose a direction.

I haven't given up on unions altogether, but I would like to see them focus more on employee development and protection and less on power and politics. We'll see what happens.

Wish

I wish everything worked the way I wanted it to.

My project here at the City has been an interesting experience. Coming from 15 years working in the private sector, the city government environment has been a major adjustment.

I realized early on that the normal motivating factors that drive decision making are very different in business and government. Concepts like competition, efficiency, profitability, and customer service, although not always accomplished in the private sector, are at least normally at the heart of most important decisions.

Since I tend to lean Libertarian in my civic thinking, I came in to the project already possessing a healthy skepticism about how governments operate. That skepticism has been nourished during my 3 years here and is as healthy as ever. I now know that many day to day decisions are made using the notions of survival and power as their basese rather than what we would all hope they would use, optimal service to the public.

My experience is that most city workers want to serve the public, and hold that as their best intention. But over time, those intentions seem to get pushed aside to make way for more basic realities. In this environment, virtually no organization, whether an entire department or a small specialized group, is safe from being reduced in size, taken over by other groups, reorganized, or cut altogether. For this reason, a substantial force in any decision involves looking at how mere survival might be affected.

My project here is a good example. We are here to provide the facilities to take payments for any city services over the Internet. Right now we offer about 14 services. The City contracts with my employer to provide our time, expertise, equipment, and support. It makes sense for the City to use contractors rather employees for this because of the flexibility we provide during the pilot period of a new project and the specialized nature of our work. The city pays for our services both by charging convenience fees for many types of payments (similar to Ticketmaster) and also out of the budgets of those departments we serve.

For the first three years of our project, convenience fees have not been able to cover our costs by themselves. It takes time for the general public to get used to the idea of using the Internet to do their business and many are only becoming aware of our existence online little by little. That said, our daily payment volume has grown at a healthy rate month by month, year by year.

We often have to fight the perception that taking payments over the Internet is a cost savings to the City. In theory, if a substantial enough portion of business was done this way, fewer human resources might be required. However, we are not there today, and it is unlikely any workers will be laid off due to our success any time soon. So what it does mean is more man hours and more equipment which is not how costs savings happen. As it is, the City has to come up with money from its budget to provide this convenience to its citizens.

Since much of our equipment will be paid for soon and our fee collections have been on the increase, I decided to forecast when the day might come that our project pays for itself with its own fee collections and no longer requires city funding.

It turns out that day is likely about a year from now, sooner than I thought. To me, this validates my project as a healthy exercise in providing services to citizens. At that break-even point, only the citizens that use the service are required to pay for it. I personally like government services that work this way, like riding the bus, paying a bridge toll, or licensing my dog to provide city animal care. Revenue structures like these allow services to naturally expand or contract based on citizen demand rather than being based on politics or skillful fund raising by city officials.

I went to report my great news to my city client. Unfortunately, rather than celebrating this news, he proceeded to explain to me that our fee source is still, like every other city source of income, subject to being cut or reduced due to political demands or the whims of certain departments. And further, that giving services to departments for free is inadvisable because of the feeling of entitlement it imparts to them. Departments must pay for services they receive otherwise they begin to abuse them. This conversation went on for a while and I became further and further disappointed in the fact that something wonderful like breaking even couldn't even be considered worthwhile in this environment of doom and gloom.

For now, I'll sleep better knowing that money is available for my job to continue, at least for the time being - money that will likely build up in city surpluses, whether they appreciate it or not.

Tolerance

Every now and then I see a story on television or hear something on the radio touting a new "zero tolerance" policy about one thing or another. Sometimes it's drunk driving, racial discrimination, schoolyard bullies. This week it's speeding on the freeways in the Bay Area.

A morning news traffic reporter was gracious enough today to let us all know that the CHP is instituting a "zero tolerance" speed policy on the freeways this week. It didn't appear that he was leaking secret information. It seemed to have likely come from a Highway Patrol press release.

The implication to me seems to be that during any other period in the past or future, this behavior is tolerated to some degree. Why are they telling us this? First, it has the effect of warning would-be speeders not to speed this week, but lets them know that next week they're less likely to be punished. Second, they are advertising their own lax enforcement for the other 51 weeks of the year. Is that the message they're trying to send?

Next time you hear the words "zero tolerance". Consider the implication.

Jump

I jumped out of an airplane on Saturday.

I've always wanted to do it. I'm not really a daredevil. But I wanted to know what it felt like. And now I know.

Toby's 30th birthday provided the excuse. He invited me and a few others. I couldn't say no. I was doing it. No matter what.

Almost everyone else he invited somehow befell some sort of problem that prevented them from making it. Go figure. So he and I drove up to to Byron on our own and met two of his old friends there.

During the drive up there, we were getting a little anxious for what we were about to do, Toby especially. I really had no idea what my reaction would be once it was time for me to face the open door in the plane. I actually packed an extra pair of underwear in my backpack - just in case.

Byron, which is near Tracy just passed Livermore, is a desert. It doesn't resemble the rest of the bay area to me at all. When we arrived at the small private airport and opened the door, the 100 degree air was a shock to us both. Luckily I had also packed some shorts and flipflops.

The skydiving company is essentially a hangar with carpeting and gear and is full of people packing parachutes and nervous-looking people waiting around on couches. Occasionally some jump-suited, wide-eyed, jittery folks would stagger in with big smiles to change their clothes, sign the log book, and thank the employees before leaving.

We chose to do a tandem jump. It requires next to no training (about 25 seconds) and you have the peace of mind knowing your life is in the hands of an experienced professional. All you have to do is fall - which is easy.

After a couple of hours of waiting around watching folks continuously drop out of the sky right in front of the hanger, it was finally our turn. We were the last group of the day. By that time, our nervousness had waned and we just wanted to get up in the air.

We made our way out to the 12 person airplane, which only seats 12 if you stack yourselves in there like Pringles. After take off, all of the experienced people cheered. Apparently the take off is the most dangerous part of the trip. In a few minutes, we had climbed to 14,000 feet, high enough to see San Francisco in the distance and to peek over the Sierras as well - in other words, very very high.

One by one, people would get up and stand in the doorway with their butts out the door, holding on to the top of the door frame. Then, whoosh! they were gone! This was the point I had most worried about my own reaction. Funny thing was - I wasn't afraid at all. Knowing I had Vic, my jumping partner, taking care of me was very soothing.

We were the last ones out of the plane. He walked me up to the door where I stood hanging out the opening, strapped to his belly. I held on to my harness straps and he rocked me forward and backward three times... One, two, Go! For about the first two seconds, my body struggled to figure out this unprecedented situation, and quickly the feeling of panicked falling turned into a feeling of flying or riding. The 120 mph freefall lasted about one minute, enough to drop about 10,000 feet or about 2 miles. It was a fun ride.

The view jumping out looked something like this

Then Vic pulled the rip cord. The jolt wasn't as hard as I expected, although the harness was pretty tight around my legs. After our chute opened, he loosened me up and it was more comfortable. I can't describe how serene the rest of the ride down was. The difference between television pictures and the true-life view coming down toward earth is indescribable. Looking down at my dangling feet while floating down toward the ground felt like being delivered by the stork.

Then, on our way down, Vic let me know very calmly that we were going to land "somewhere else". I thought maybe the wind was blowing us off course and he was having trouble getting back to the hangar. But he explained that one of my friends' main chute had not opened properly and had to be cut away. Their reserve chute had opened and they were fine. It turns out that it was Toby's old roommate, Ekart. Our task at hand was to retrieve the chute they had cut away. That was fine with me. I rather enjoyed landing out in the countryside in a cow pasture. The landing was perfectly gentle and we even missed a giant cow pie I had my eye on by about six inches.

I unhooked and he instructed me to walk up the hill to retrieve a small parachute and then down a little further to pick up the larger one. He had scoped out the surrounding roads so he knew which way to walk. We lugged all the gear about 200 yards to the nearest road, which was really a long driveway to a farmhouse. He said he didn't have a radio, but that the others had seen where we landed and a truck would be by to pick us up soon. They didn't. Apparently we were tougher to reach then he thought.

After a half hour or so of waiting in the heat, I was ready to just walk the mile or so back to the airport which we could see from where we were. He was concerned about leaving his expensive equipment by the road. I wasn't nearly so concerned about his equipment. After a while longer, he got very irritated that no one had shown up and decided to leave the equipment and cross a long expanse of dry brush, cow pasture, and barbed wire to get to the airport. I decided against that plan and told him I'd walk down the road and to send someone for me. Off he went at a full jog toward the airport.

I only got about 200 yards down the road, when the trucks showed up. We gathered up the gear and they took me back to my friends who were a few beers ahead of me by that time.

During the whole process, I kept being reminded of movies where military men dropped into foreign territory, not so different than Byron. To those men, the ride down wasn't the end of their adventure. They were in unfamiliar territory with unfriendly residents to look out for.

My lasting sentiment during the whole journey was how grateful I was to have such a nice ride without having to worry about anyone shooting at me when I got down. Even though most days I take that for granted, that day I didn't.

Serendipity

It's fun to live in San Francisco.

It's a both a big city and a small town. After living here for over five years now, I have met quite a few people. I can't nearly call all of them close friends. I don't even remember many of their names. But it's always fun to run into people around town because it makes me feel like a member of the community.

First Thursdays is the day in San Francisco and many other cities when art galleries around town invite the public to come into their spaces and see what's on display. It's a social event as much as anything else, but what better place to hang out than a building full of art you could never afford.

Monica and I ran into four people we knew during the 45 minutes we were there yesterday. Some who's names we remembered, others' we didn't.

But before we got there, and while I was waiting for Monica to arrive, I did some window shopping on the block surrounding the gallery. I came upon an open door on Maiden Lane alley with some good loungy music playing inside and interesting decor. There was no sign outside the door, but I was curious, so I went inside and asked the people if it was open to the public. The girl working there said that it was a new bar named Otis and that it was indeed open.

So after the galleries got tired of all the rif raf hanging around and kicked everyone out, we found ourselves in a sea of aimless schmoozers with nowhere to go. We, of course, had our secret hideaway staked out already and went over to Otis. It had that air of a place that someone had spent a lot of time and money dreaming about and setting up. They passed that dream onto their customers in the form of a cool vibe and high drink prices. But the best part of the bar by far was the real grass they had covering the floor in the upstairs open-windowed loft area. How fun to be both inside and outside at the same time sipping $10 cocktails in a place no one knows about. Neato.

Then it was off to Tokyo Go Go for some tasty sushi dinner.

While we were eating, I couldn't help wondering about people living in San Francisco during, say, the 1920's, having exactly the kind of time we had that night 80 years previous. Different music, different art, different fashion, but otherwise the same brand of fun. Just another regular San Francisco after-work happy hour, full of gleeful happenstance.

It's fun to live in San Francisco.

Wireless

For a while now, I have been interested in the possibilities of location based applications for mobile phones. These are applications you could use on your cell phone that would incorporate your exact current location on earth in providing some service to you. Obvious uses for things like this are tracking people's movements, finding your way around town, etc.

GPS technology is clearly mature enough to include into cell phones. Unfortunately, cell phone companies have been reluctant to incorporate this technology into mainstream phones, presumably because of privacy fears of the public. In short, people don't want others to know where they are all the time. If the technology is present in their phone somewhere, someone might secretly track their movements. Bah! Personally, I don't think anyone cares where I go. Not even the FBI, Cingular wireless... not even terrorists. Yes, some companies might find some use in the aggregate information, like say, Safeway tracking my purchase patterns with my club card. But personally, I'm not threatened by that.

But wouldn't it be cool to be around town and have your cell phone tell you that your friend Fred was in the bookstore you're walking by right now? You could go say hi. Or maybe tip you off that your blind date is standing right next to you. Eek! Now you can make a quick getaway!

In any case, for me, the benefits outweigh my fears.

The other night, Shannon had a dinner party at our house where I met Ryan, who writes for Wired News. He told me about an MIT project that is faking GPS functionality in an experiment where the data gleaned from tracking participating cell phones are used to predict users' everyday behavior. I'm not sure how useful that information is to anyone (So what if they know I'm probably going to the gym right now?), but it's interesting that they were able to do it without GPS.

Ryan also suggested, after talking with me for awhile, that I might enjoy reading Reason Magazine. After taking a quick look at their website, I think he's right. And he didn't even need a PHD from MIT to help him predict that. Although I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt.

Retrospect

We have all had that moment when we were first introduced to the Internet when the sheer vastness of the available information sinks into our understanding, and we realize there's no way we'll ever really get our minds around how much is really out there. I had that moment in my college computer lab at ASU around 1994. I was working on a business school paper and stumbled on an early version of Netscape and a very early Yahoo!

Since then, companies like Google have undertaken the mammoth effort of indexing every useful web page into their enormous databases in an attempt to put as much of that vastness at our fingertips as possible.

I've noticed that Google has been taking stabs into other dimensions of life, like indexing every word spoken on television and mapping the entire earth.

My mind got wondering the other day at what could be next. I thought, "What if I could Google everything that ever happened in my life?"

Then I realized that the technology for that isn't too far away. We now have video cameras in cell phones, and key chain storage devices. Presumably, someone has the technical know how to store at least audio, and maybe some crude video in a wearable device (hopefully not as goofy as those Star Wars cell phone ear pieces). Pair that with the latest in speech-to-text technology, and Poof! You have a set of documents which can already easily be indexed by Google Desktop or packaged into a nice slick friendly home application or maybe even an Outlook add in.

What would life be like for people who really did record everything in their lives? Would they spend time watching themselves in their own personal reality shows? Would spouses pressure each other to record everything to keep tabs on one another? Would people get to see themselves the way the rest of the world does and use this technology as a tool to improve their behavior? What kinds of legal battles might occur over the use and rebroadcast of one's own life experiences. Do we own those?

I think we'll see something like this in the not so distant future. I'm not sure I'll be an early adopter, but I'm always very curious to see what's next on the horizon.

Simple

Hurray. I have a new book to read entitled Freakonomics. Once again I'll be slurping up new knowledge on what is normally mindless bus stop down time.

The book is written by some young, hot shot economist named Steven Levitt. I'm not sure what kind of story will evolve here or if it is just a collection of things that make you go, "Hmm." But I already like the way he thinks.

In his first observation, he explained a previously mysterious reason for a giant drop in this country's crime rate in the late 1990's. He very simply took one of the largest correlates for people turning to a life of crime, being an unwanted child, and matched it with a historical event that drastically and immediately changed the number of new unwanted children, Roe vs. Wade. So simple, but no one ever explained it before.

I like it. Good start.

Nerds

There's just something about those revenge of the nerds stories that's so satisfying. Especially for nerds.

I finished reading Moneyball, the book I mentioned a few weeks ago. It's pretty rare for me to whiz through a book that quickly, but this one really kept me interested. I discovered how much I can read just during my travels from place to place. I read this book almost exclusively while on public transportation or while walking.

It's a great story of the how Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A's, used statistical analysis techniques to make player choices for his team. Choices that allowed the A's, one of the poorest, lowest-payroll teams to compete on par with the richest, highest-payroll teams. A true David and Goliath story.

One would think that, given the amount of money spent in Major League Baseball, careful analysis would already be prevalent in the sport's front offices. One would be wrong.

The book uncovers the reality that baseball is more of a culture than a business in the US. The normal checks and balances for ensuring that sound decisions are made aren't present in the sport. In my estimation, this is because baseball teams don't go out of business if they make poor choices like real world enterprises do.

There is no Darwin in baseball.

Those parts of our culture that are there out of love rather than for economics, like religion and sports, are subject to gross deviations from reality since their existence is guaranteed by tradition. This book shows how this denial can be used to one's advantage just by being smart rather than loving blindly.

I love stories like that.

Google

So I've been trying to get this blog indexed by search engines. It's nice that a handful of my friends read what I have to say now and then, but I'd be delighted to have a total stranger read it and maybe comment on it. That's what networks are for, right?

I submitted this site to Google (who owns Blogger now), hoping they would be happy to index pages on their own web servers. Asking Google to do anything is like asking Jesus for a favor. Maybe someone is listening, maybe they aren't. They don't talk back. So the only way to know if they've complied with my request is to check and see if my site is listed when I search for myself.

After searching for "Miles Gordon", I found that, although no one has answered my prayers yet, there are a few sites of interest.

Miles Gordon Technologies, U.K. - A website called Binary Dinosaurs showcases computing relics of days past. The funny thing is that my dorky career started around these devices. Does that make me a binary dinosaur?

Miles Gordon of Cornwallis 1848-1951 - An extremely brief biography of some guy even older than me. The only real information about him was that he married a woman 12 years younger than him. Younger women. Hmm. I guess we have two things in common.

Miles Gordon, Social Studies Teacher, Ukiah, CA - A PLO-loving fellow who wishes to spread hatred of America and Israel through public school channels.

Miles Gordon, VP of Education, New York Natural History Museum - Now that's more like it.

It looks like some further search engine research is called for on my part. Maybe soon I will be able to join the ranks of these fine folks. Pray for me.

P.S.

For all of you who love the new sattellite image maps available on Google, check out its cute little cousin: moon.google.com

P.P.S.

I read that Google isn't inclined to index sites, even on its own Blogger system, that have weak ranking potential. So I tried putting a hyperlink to this blog on my Lyricsbeat.com website which has a 5/10 Google page rank (pretty high). That should give this blog some Google-cred. We'll see.

Dairy

Sometimes we think we have beaten an affliction, and we haven't.

My battle with dairy products started in my early twenties. I didn't know what was causing me to feel so sick so frequently, and the problem gradually got worse over a couple of years until I finally surrendered to the notion that lactose is not my friend.

Every now and then, a thought pops into my head that maybe I was mistaken about my handicap or that maybe it's the type of thing that subsides over time, and maybe I'm being too careful about food unnecessarily. Usually what happens is that I start pushing the envelope.

Put some butter on my bread.. Ok that had no effect. Cool.

Have a tiny bite of ice cream.. I survived.

Ok. Just give me the full salmon-bathed-in-cream-sauce dinner. I'm impervious!

Smack! Slap! Bif!

No, Miles.. still afflicted... dumb ass.

Nothing wrong with a little optimism. Until it hurts a lot. Ugh.

Beck

Ah Beck.. Who doesn't love Beck.. He's so creative and fearless.. a great thinking man's rockstar.

So I saw him at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium last night. I had never been there before. Today I can say that the venue has now been added to my list of places I'd just assume not see any artist, no matter how good he or she is. The evening seemed to be a great experiment in how many people you could pack into an already huge space. Since we arrived merely on-time to see Beck (i.e. 2 hours after the show's first act started), we were relegated either to the far back of the flat arena space, or up in the sidemost nosebleeds. We chose the latter. That view allowed one to look down upon the lucky (or perhaps dedicated) masses who managed to stake themselves a 12"x12" claim of the concrete floor with too little room to stand much less dance. (Moo!)

I always wonder, in those scenarios, whether the artist has any control over (or cares about) the extent to which they pack a venue to the detriment of the fans. If any artist has ever said, "Hey man I'm [rockstar name here], and I won't play this place unless you cut down the ticket sales by at least 20%."

I'm not so naive that I don't realize that reducing the supply of tickets for such a popular performance would merely drive up the ticket prices and only allow the priviledged to gain entry. However, I just don't think there is any priviledge to seeing a show under those conditions.

In addition to the tight squeeze, venues this size tend to have trouble making the music sound very good. No matter how much money they pour into using the very best festival sound systems available, the concrete echoes just made it sound like a high school dance to me.

As much as I love Beck, and thought he and his band put on a great show, I still didn't feel like the experience was worth nearly what I've seen other less-popular artists do at much smaller venues. It's the price of fame I suppose. It's ironic that the artists working the hardest to bring their huge talents to the most people end up putting on shows that are arguably not worth seeing.

My advice to every artist that wants me to buy a ticket: Don't play any venue larger than The Fillmore.

Ring

Today while I was working in the City Hall offices, there were a couple of people up from MUNI talking business with a nearby coworker. Then I heard my cell phone ring and did that quick-look-around-for-where-my-phone-is move but quickly realized that it wasn't my phone. The MUNI person had the same goofy song as their ring tone as I do.

Somehow I never get sick of this tone. I like it. It makes me want to do a little dance every time someone calls me. Sometimes I let the phone ring longer than I would otherwise, just to enjoy it.

Even though, realistically, we both had only 10 or 15 different tones to choose from on our phones, I immediately felt a sense of camaraderie with her and felt like alerting her to this little piece of our lives we both shared unknowingly. Obviously, doing so would make me a weirdo, so I refrained. But how funny.. those little overlaps.

Baseball

I like to read the free weekly papers during my lunch break. Some of the writers are at least entertaining, if not entirely agreeable to me.

This week's cover story in the SF Weekly is about some controversy surrounding the book, Moneyball. It's a pretty interesting story about a new way of managing a baseball team using statistical analysis, but the magazine article mainly focuses on Joe Morgan, who is a spirited opponent of the book and its ideas.

The article spends quite a number of words painting Morgan like a total idiot, which may or may not be deserved. It smells like a revenge piece to me. But it got me thinking about the two sides of the controversy - at least as well as I could think about it without actually reading the book (yet).

The book is about using a series of mathematical techniques to place a money value on players' skills in a fashion historically more suited to valuing financial securities. It's a very scientific method, and, arguably, seems to have had some success with the Oakland A's in recent years. This is in stark contrast to the age old method of valuing people based primarily on popularity and egotistical opinion.

The part that interests me is that, although baseball is a competitive sport that places a great deal of importance on winning, it is also a game that people love for other, less quantitative reasons such as family entertainment, excitement, loyalty, etc.

It strikes me that, in these times when science and money can influence the outcomes of many sports, America is beginning to lose sight of the reasons why people play games in the first place. Is our national pastime having fun or winning at all costs? And why attempt to be entertained by sports that aren't about having fun? It seems a little like watching a stock ticker for casual enjoyment.

Tennis

Tennis anyone?

Monica comes from a tennis family and was kind enough to give me my first tennis lesson yesterday in the park. We've been trying to find common exercise activities we both enjoy and this looks like a good one, especially on a nice day like yesterday. Turns out I'm quite the natural. Look out Williams sisters.