Spoken In Sanskrit

Manila Phillipines

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 05:32:00 +0000

I'm on a work trip to Manila, Philippines right now. I'm going to talk more about the trip itself than the work stuff, since I'm not asking people permission to post their pictures and there's some sensitive information. Also, work is boring. :)

I left on Saturday at about 12:30p and arrived in Manila at about 8:30p on Sunday. The trip is a long one, but not as long as that might imply; you lose a day by flying over the international dateline. As a result, we are +15 hours relative to Pacific time.

This is my second trip to Manila and although security is much tighter as a result of world events like Pres. Dutarte (and I'll refrain from getting into any political talk beyond that), I'm really enjoying myself. It's been neat to see all of the team members from work that I met last year and to make new friends. Also, because I have some context for the Philippines now, which is definitely a developing country with its share of global-level poverty, I'm less shocked by that, and I can appreciate the other aspects of the city like the culture, the way most Filipinos live, etc.

One of the aspects of the culture that really hits you is the friendliness of the people here. I can appreciate that as a visiting business person from the US (who looks the part) I'm probably not receiving the same kind of treatment that another might. Even so, in both trips I have not had a single experience of a local that wasn't over-the-top friendly. This even includes security personnel and etc.

As part of my daily meditation practice I contemplate something I'm grateful for and my intention for the day. For the last few days my intention has been to be as friendly and kind as everyone I meet.

Manila itself is about 1.8 mm people in a city about 17 square miles, and as a result it is the most densely populated city in the world. Here was the view when I got in Friday night:

Here are some views from the office:

On Monday we had a long day and dinner with the team. Tuesday was a 14 hour day that included a conference call with some folks in the office in Portland. Today will be better, with a chance for me to relax and get some precious "Dave" time in, and Thursday we will be meeting in the morning and touring local museums in the afternoon, so I expect to have more photos then. Friday I fly back home in the morning, arriving back in Portland the same day (again, because of the international dateline).

Bolt Camp Shelter

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 18:06:00 +0000

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but there’s no reason to bore either of us with an explanation. Acknowledgement is sufficient.

I think what I will be doing for the summer, though, is posting brief recaps of trips, whether it’s camping or whatever, because experiences are important, fun to share, and fun to read about. A lot like politics. Er, wait….

This particular trip ended up being a bit different than we had originally planned. Jen and I had made a general plan to hike the Lewis River Traverse over July 2nd and 3rd. As the time for the trip approached, though, we realized that we hadn’t lined up care for the dogs, Sebastian, our Pit/Lab mix, and Belle, the Chihuahua. This isn’t a big deal and we last-minute the dog situation all the time, but this time it didn’t work out. So we needed to make an adjustment.

After talking through what we were each trying to get out of the trip, we identified the following goals. Jen: go running, spend time together, spend time with the dogs, read. Dave: sleep outside, disconnect from electronics, read.

Based on these goals, we decided to make life a little simpler to accomodate the dogs and to aim for the Bolt Camp Shelter, about 2.5 miles into the hike, and to set up a basecamp there that we could operate from. We’d spend a night or two and then hike out. Not great training for my PCT hike in 2019, but sometimes fun is fun and we don’t need to devote every waking moment to preparing for another.

As we hiked in, we were relieved to see that there were a few good open campspots available on the way in to Bolt Camp Shelter (BCS) from Curly Creek trailhead. The information I had read said that this place was pretty remote and unused, which I thought was important given the holiday weekend. There were quite a few other hikers around, but few enough that you knew when you were alone and when someone else was approaching. My thought was that if someone was already at the BCS we could have some other options. Luckily, we were the first-come and therefore the first-served at BCS.

I had brought my new “Colorado Flag” hammock by Kammok, and after inspecting the shelter carefully we decided that it was structurally sound enough to be our swinging spot. I’m a huge fan of the hammock and will definitely be bringing it along for my more “camping” (i.e., less “hiking” and being on the move) trips. With a puffy for a pillow, this is an ideal reading setup.

Happily, the fire threat is low and I felt comfortable getting a small fire going.

Campfire is my TV

Jen went running the first afternoon and I did camp chores and read. That night I slept well, although Belle was crawling all over Jen making it hard for her to sleep. Sebastian slept tied up to a tree outside the tent on my tarp, and didn’t make a sound all night.

I woke up early and while Jen slept in I started a new fire, filtered water, etc. I made breakfast and Jen woke up to join me. I have been reading this book called Behave by Robert Sapolsky which is great and fascinating, but is not a casual read. Lots of information comes at you 100 mph and as a result it’s not a book you can read for hours on end. Jen had just finished a book in two trips called The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel, so I thought I would give that a try. It is an incredible book about a hermit in the woods of Maine who lived without human contact for 27 years. I read the entire thing that day.

Rocks integrated to root system

While I was tearing through the book Jen got in another run. While she was out Belle and I took a hike a couple of miles north. On the way, I saw the underside of a tree root structure that was cool… the area is really gravelly and the tree had grown around the gravel, integrating it into its root structure. The tree this root system supports was probably about 50-60 feet tall, impossible to show in pictures.

On the way back Belle made me carry her, for a half mile or so, but when I put her back down so that I could have footing on the mud she was revved up and wanted to lead the whole way back. I spent the day doing camp chores like filtering water and tending the fire and reading. Ideal.

When Jen got back we decided that spending a second night would put too much strain on our Tuesday July 4th because we have a number of errands to run and etc. We packed up camp late in the day (around supper time) and hiked out with the dogs.

Introducing Oh Boy!

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:48:00 +0000

I've published my first Android App, "Oh Boy", which you can find on the Google Play market. As I describe in the market:

This app does one job and one job only... it gives you a button that plays the words "Oh, boy" with as much weary derision as a person can legally muster. Optimum uses include:

Parties

Arguments with your significant other

A witty response to your parents

Opening an unwanted gift

The app is very simple and was really just a way for me to test writing an app, getting it working on different devices, and pushing it out to the market. I'll make a few enhancements to the app moving forward but my plan is to start working on a paid app soon. In the meantime, here's what you can do to help:

If you know how to say "Oh Boy" in another language, let me know here in the comments. Think of it as the kind of "oh boy" you'd say after someone tells you a bad joke.
If you have an android device, give my app a try, it's pretty fun!
Tell other people about my app.

Thanks for your help - let me know what you think!

Oh Boy!

Sears Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:08:00 +0000

We’re running out of places to buy appliances. Seems like given the profit margin on white goods we’d have a better chance. Here’s the letter we just sent to Sears.

Dear Sears,

My husband and I have purchased several items from your store in the past few years we have been home owners. We have purchased a dyson vacuum, two dryers, and one washer. We have done most of our shopping in the Lyod Center store near our home. However our recent experience trying to shop online was terrible. I would like you to know that you will never have our business again. We are both very busy professionals and have been researching products for our recent kitchen upgrade. We did our research and decided to shop on line to purchase two items for our kitchen a fridge and a stove. After much online research and reviewing different products we decided that a Kenmore and whirlpool would be best and we could order them online from your company in order to save on time. Within an hour after placing our online order, we were called by a customer service representative. I hope you listen to the call, she was incredibly rude and definitely would benefit from some communication training, something in the past I would have believed your company would value. Today you lost not only our future business but our referrals to friends and family. I will share this negative experience with everyone I know who may be purchasing such products for their home. My husband was questioned about the one line purchase by your customer service representative and when he indicated that we had bought several purchases from your company in the past, they questioned how they were to know it was us who had actually purchased them. Furthermore, they ran the transaction through as pending and demanded that we run down the store and show our identification to the store along with our visa card. Nothing of this sort was indicated on the web page discussing online ordering and pick up. Since we have been frequent customers within your company we assumed that you kept a record of these purchases. In the future you need to have disclaimer that when your customers want to order online they will treated like security risks as well as be dealing with rude inconsiderate customer service and management staff, as we did ask to talk to a manager that experience was exactly the same. In addition, one would assume that your business process in these situations would include the verification step *before* you charge our credit card, not after. When we shared this with your customer service representative she completely ignored the feedback, saying that Sears was not my financial institution. I understand that, thank god, Sears is not my financial institution. One would assume, however, that you could control when you charge us, although apparently this is not the case. We have no problem showing our ID when we pick our items up, but they demanded that we go down there now today, our very reason for trying to do this type of business on line. Thank you very much for wasting our time. You will not be receiving our business as customers again.

Meditation Journal

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:51:00 +0000

Slow start today, very encumbered especially thinking about music. One insight I had was that my head is constantly filled with music. I think about particular songs and usually at any one time I have a song in my head. This started when I was in middle school or so, which was a particularly tough time for me growing up. I was feeling very alienated and that's about when I remember realizing that I always had a tune going on. I would walk to school (pre-Walkman, or at least before I had access to one) and think about how it was kind of cool that I had my own radio station with me.

Interestingly, when I realized this I was able to let go of the music and experience silence, or at least the kind of silence you get when you're in your house and have various appliances humming and so forth. It was tough to stay with it but for the most part I could.

Meditation Journal Entry

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:55:00 +0000

I’m trying to develop the habit of meditation so I’ve given myself the goal of meditating 20 minutes every day for 30 days in a row. So far I’m on day 6 in a row, which is a good start. I thought it also might be good to jot down occasionally how the meditation goes or what the experience is like so that I can look back at it later.

Almost all meditations begin by focusing on the breath and that’s how today’s went. Once calmed, I focused on experiencing the feelings and sounds around me as “2D”. I tried to experience them as you might a 1980’s video game where the sounds aren’t immersive but are more externally generated. The point of this meditation is to realize that the reality we experience isn’t true reality but rather a construct of mind and perception. The meditation fell apart a bit at the end. I’m not yet at the place where I can concentrate singularly on a particular subject such as breathing for the entire time, but rather I fall into deep meditation for a period of time and then my mind begins to wander and I have to lead it back to my breath or whatever it is I’m trying to achieve that day.

After 6 days here’s what I’ve noticed of meditating:

- I have a generally more positive outlook

- I’m less tired

- When I’m upset I have less intense feelings of anger or frustration when things don’t go my way

Next week I will add running back into my routine so I’ll be doing that in addition to meditating.

What My Dyson Taught Me About Cognitive Bias

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:48:00 +0000

The purchase

Jen and I moved into our house about seven years ago. My previous apartment had hard wood floors, so I didn’t need a vacuum cleaner and didn’t own one. My new, wonderful, highly mortgaged home, purchased near the height of the housing bubble, however, contained what we’ll put politely “champagne” colored carpets in almost every room. A less discriminating individual may refer to them as pink, but such a brute would never be allowed in my new, highly mortgaged, house.

I am the kind of person who will pay extra for quality, operating under the assumption that in the long run I’ll save money – instead of buying a new pair of shoes every six months I can buy a pair of Doc Marten’s or Red Wings that will last two years. Sure, in the short term I pay more, but by buying for quality when it makes sense to do so I consume less in the long term.

With this mindset I knew that I had only a few choices for the new vacuum, and the Dyson value proposition of a bag-less upright had me sold. In addition to being one of the few bag-less uprights on the market at the time, the Dyson looked and worked so *different* than anything I had seen before that it was hard to compare to other vacuums. Subsequently, Apple’s iPhone, Toyota’s Prius and BMW’s Mini Cooper have followed a similar model, introducing novel solutions to common problems, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I honestly didn’t even consider a different brand than Dyson. Based on nothing more than a marketing campaign and a hefty price tag I considered my purchase to be totally congruent with my strategy of buying for quality.

My concerns mounted the moment that we brought the Dyson home. The quality of the components on the Dyson are atrocious. Vacuums are by and large plastic crap, but as plastic crap the Dyson is low-quality stuff. The pieces snapped together perilously without screws or any kind of reinforcing connection. The electrical cord frayed within the first few months of use. The swiveling mechanism for the brush assembly was constantly going askew. The brushes themselves were barely a mechanism. I made a mistake, but it would take me more than a year to come to that conclusion because I was still invested in the purchase.

Marketing Hype

People who market things have it all over on people who buy things. First and foremost, they have the time and resources to spend the majority of their energy thinking about what it takes to get someone to buy something. They don’t stop there – they subdivide the science of selling into parts – how to get someone to buy something once, how to get someone to create a relationship with a product so that they’ll buy frequently, how to trade out one product for another. There are as many varieties of selling as there are gradations of plastic crap.

In terms of resources, marketers know a lot about psychology. But even better, they get a huge quantity of something that academics don’t (at least not without concerted effort) – data. And unlike an academic, who attempts to explain why things happen or what data may mean about the systematic effects at work within their area of study – marketers only need to know what works and how much it works. They are freed from introspection or causality because their scope is so much more limited. Who cares if plasma TVs use far more electricity than other kinds, driving up their customers’ electric bills and adding pollution to the air? Manufacturers know how to make them for a price that sells. All other considerations are delegated to the consumer, the retailer, or elsewhere.

Consumers can get some insight into what the marketers know, though. My favorite site on wikipedia is the list of cognitive biases. This site is a treasure trove of information. Peruse it now, if you’d like. Print it out. Hang it on your wall.

Looking down the list, we see some biases that are at work in my Dyson situation:

“Bandwagon effect – the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behavior.

Choice-supportive bias – the tendency to remember one's choices as better than they actually were.

Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

Loss aversion – "the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it".

Outcome bias – the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

Post-purchase rationalization – the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value

Selective perception – the tendency for expectations to affect perception.”

- Wikipedia

And that’s just to name a few.

For me, immediately after purchase I was convinced that I had made a good decision. Dysons are expensive. That means they work well. I am a smart person. I make good decisions. You get the picture.

But alas, the quality of the product was always low. After a year, when the sting of the investment wore off, I began to become disillusioned. When the belt broke on the machine, and I realized what an incredible hassle it would be to fix myself, and how expensive it would be to have someone else fix it, I threw in the towel on Dyson. Besides the belt there were numerous other problems and I just didn’t want to deal with them anymore.

A New Day

Before I replaced this vacuum, I utilized my consumerreports.org subscription to do some research. I found that, just as I assumed, price is a poor absolute indicator of vacuum quality. A Hoover WindTunnel, for example, was both extremely affordable and highly performing. I evaluated it largely based on how well it cleans, the bagless feature, which was important to Jen, and it’s overall construction and quality. I made a short list of similar candidates and headed to Sears.

The purchase experience at Sears was comical. The sales person is obviously incented to sell particular brands by commission, and Hoovers were definitely not on that list. She seemed to judge quality based on how often items are returned, which I’m sure coincides with a report that she pays close attention to, since it drives her commission. She wasn’t sure about the Hoover we were looking at, because she hadn’t sold many, and she’d never had one returned. During the course of the conversation we learned that she had only worked in the department (or possibly at Sears) for five weeks. Viewing her as a source of information with only misinformation to supply, I moved forward with my plan.

After getting the vacuum home and getting it put together I can attest that in terms of quality of construction it’s far superior to the Dyson. It also performs its primary function very well – it gets the carpets (and the hardwoods for that matter) very clean. It has kind of a cool feature where the cord unwinds from its base, and retracts when a pedal is depressed. In terms of price, it sells for about a third of what I paid for the Dyson seven years ago. My only complaint a month after is that the cord is too short. It needs to be moved around outlets a lot, which is a pain.

Lingering Doubts

But, my friends, our brains are very powerful and our biases are strong. Despite my experience, I still have lingering doubts. For one, the fact that the Hoover was literally cheap makes it hard for me not to see as figuratively cheap. It’s also cheap plastic crap – almost all vacuums are – and although I know that the construction of this particular cheap plastic crap is better than the Dyson’s I can’t help but have doubts.

I was at a friend’s house and noticed that he had the same Hoover vacuum I had just bought. My friend, however, is exactly the kind of person who would never put the amount of effort into his purchase decision that I did into mine, let alone spend an hour writing a blog post about it. He basically lucked into the same decision I made, assuming that you agree that I made a good decision. The lack of value in scarcity in this instance drives down my sense of value in the Hoover.

So I am stuck with my cognitive biases, as I suspect we all are. The difficulty with such a rich system of biases is that knowing you have them, there’s very little you can do to change them. You can address them one at a time, but accommodating for all of them is very difficult. Awareness is helpful to some degree, but at the end of the day we are made how we are made.

Christmas 2010

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:56:00 +0000

We had a great Christmas this year. We started out with just our family in the morning opening presents and spending time together. In terms of gifts there were a few highlights…

Dave got a new favorite hoodie and a hat that says “the boss”

Jen got some chocolates

Andrew got a much wanted Wah Wah pedal for his guitar:

And Brianna got a new iPod

Andrew got some skinny jeans for Christmas, but they were too skinny.

Later on in the day we went to Annie and Chris’ house and had a great time hanging out with their family. They had a Kinect with a dance game. The kids were hilarious with it.

Best Christmas Decorating Ever

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 22:19:00 +0000

We had just about as much fun decorating for Christmas this year as we ever have. It was a ton of fun.

We went with a live tree again this year, but a little bit smaller than we have in years past.

The kids were a lot of help, now that they’re entering teen ages they can be a lot more participative and the tree went up in no time.

Every year we take a family picture in front of the tree. This year as we were getting one of the shots going I didn’t quite make it back to the tree in time for the timer and we got a pretty funny picture of my butt.

Luckily, we kept at it and got to a good shot.

Thanksgiving 2010

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:46:00 +0000

Okay, so it’s been a year since I’ve posted anything here. It’s understandable when I think about it because it’s been a crazy year. This year I was busy working on the smart meter project at PGE. I went back to college to begin the process of finishing my bachelor’s degree – I took 8 classes and was on the dean’s list 3 times, albeit at a community college, but still… Kids got older and life generally zoomed by.

For a year I also had the pleasure of no publishing dozens of spam comments to the blog. Thanks to all those who showed interest and I apologize that I couldn’t accommodate more information about hot stock tips, commerce in foreign countries, or viagra, which I hear is great.

I thought it was appropriate that a year later I follow up my last post, which was about Thanksgiving 2009, with a post about Thanksgiving 2010.

Similar to last year, we spent the holiday with Jen’s sister Annie and her family – Chris and Jasmine. This year they came over to our house. Overall it was a very laid back time, with a minimum of fuss. We forgot that football games were even on. Instead, we had a nice dinner and talked a lot. After dinner we watched “Eight Crazy Nights” by Adam Sandler, which is borderline appropriate for kids. While we were watching the movie Andrew got out every lego he owned and went to town with Chris making all kinds of things.

Thanksgiving '09

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:47:00 +0000

For Thanksgiving this year we spent the evening with Jen's sister Annie, her boyfriend Chris, and his mom Rhonda. We had a great meal, we brought salmon for me and made mashed potatoes, apple pie, green bean casserole, and we brought hummus and crackers. Annie took care of the turkey, which was gigantic, and made pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, and salad. I'm sure there was more, but that's what I can remember right now. The kids enjoyed themselves and it was great for everyone to have a chance to hang out.

The next day we went to Fort Stevens for some yurt camping. We brought along Annie's daughter Jasmine and Andrew's friend Frank. The first night we got ourselves warm in the yurt and watched a movie. Saturday we went swimming at the Astoria Aquatic Center and the kids played a lot of tag with glowsticks we bought them. Sunday we went to the Peter Iresdale shipwreck and stopped by the outlet mall at Seaside. We had a great time and the kids did a great job.

The yurts typically have a set of bunk beds and a futon. The kids slept on the bunk beds and we tried the futon. Turns out that because of the way it gets folded up it had a huge ridge down the middle that made it impossible to sleep on. The second night we folded it into a couch and slept a lot better.

Maybell and Jack Fashion Week

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:18:00 +0000

Today we got little hoodies for Jack and Maybell. You may be one of those people who think "I'd never put my dog in clothes". If so, to you I say "Lighten up. My dog has a pink sweater. It's cute and hilarious."

Flight to Orlando

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:56:00 +0000

I'm on the plane now - headed to an Agile Conference in Orlando Florida. I left first thing in the morning, and the trip started off, well, not so good. When Jen was dropping me off on the tarmac some hick in a huge truck who was dropping off his mom got upset at Jen and I for taking too long to say goodbye. Jen and the redneck got into a verbal altercation, and I thought Jen was going to take his head off.

Turns out his mom was right behind me in the ticketing line. It was going to be awkward. I went ahead and acknowledged it by saying something like "well, I'm glad that didn't get out of control".

She said "I know, he was very angry with you."

Unable to resist the urge, I said "It must be wonderful to have raised a boy who knows so much about how everything in life should work". Luckily, she was good-natured about it.

"I know! That's exactly how he is!" She said.

This morning I was teasing Jen that since I'd be flying all day (I boarded my first plane at 9:35a and will land at around 5:30p Portland time) I should just go ahead and start drinking to make the whole thing fly by. It's the kind of teasing I do to acknowledge the fact that what we worry about when our spouse goes on business trips is that they will have fun as party animals every night while we're stuck at home.

Unfortunately, the guy on the plane next to me for my flight to Dallas had exactly this strategy. He smelled of alcohol, presumably from the night before when he later confessed that he had gone to the "titty bar". He had two cranberry and vodkas during the flight. He was incredibly good looking with perfectly straight, white teeth. This was a professional necessity since he's a dental equipment salesman. Despite the fact that I have so little in common with a dental equipment salesman from Houston, we had a long conversation throughout the flight. This was an example of a time during which I was a "good listener" - a term used for people who let people who like to talk talk without interrupting them. Good listener == back conversation ender.

Dallas Fort Worth is huge, but I made it to my connecting flight and here I am on the plane waiting for Orlando. This flight has been far less eventful.

Non-Working Sundays

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:30:00 +0000

I've gotten into a terrible habit of working over the weekend during the last few months and I'm trying to break myself of it. Originally I was just trying to get a jump on the week but unfortunately I started to add work into that time-slot and as time went on it just ended up being a way that I could increase the time I had available to work. Well, no more.

The only problem is that since I decided to stop working during the weekends I feel guilty Sunday nights, when I feel like I should be panicking. So I've decided that instead I'm going to try to get into the habit of updating the blog and keeping in touch with my friends & family.

In terms of running I'm trying something a little different now. My friend Adam let me borrow a book called Daniels' Running Formula. Prior to this I'd been doing training off of Hal Higdon's website, but I'd like to increase my speed and I wasn't finding that simply jumping up from Novice programs to intermediate programs was really doing anything for me. What I really hated was the speedwork in the Higdon program.

The great thing about the Daniels book is that he talks a lot about the physiological aspects of running, such as how the body systems respond to different training and why runners do different kinds of training. He explains some running concepts that someone like me, who came to running as an adult, wouldn't have had an opportunity to learn.

With the help of the book I've identified that the purpose of my training now should be to be to build a base of weekly mileage that will help me get my cardiovascular systems improved and avoid injury later down the line when I start doing more challenging workouts. At the moment I'm running about 16 miles per week. I run 5 times a week, with a long run of 4 miles on Sunday and 3 mile runs Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Sat. I'll be doing this for the next two weeks, after which I'll increase my mileage. I've started to suss out my plan here if you're interested.

As far as Halloween goes the kids were both with their other parents this weekend so yesterday Jen and I headed down to the beach to have a date night. We brought our new/old little dog Jack along with us and he was absolutely adorable on the beach - so cute.

We decided to spoil the dogs and picked up a bounty for them at Petco on the way home. I am now officially the kind of person who has a dog that needs a coat. And I don't care at all.

Wedding Playlist

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:31:00 +0000

One of the details I could really get excited about during Wedding planning was the playlist for the reception. We didn't hire a DJ - I wanted each song to be selected by hand and for the order to be carefully planned exactly to my specifications. For the reception itself I rented a PA system and hooked up a laptop to the console. My brother Dan ran the PA during the event and did an awesome job - we didn't have even one squeal and the music sounded great for the whole time.

As with all things, the reality of the "dancing" part of the reception wasn't quite what I envisioned. My friends are a little more reserved and didn't all participate to the extent I thought they would. For the first few songs it was pretty much Jen and I plus a lot of kids. Also, the playlist is kind of long and we didn't quite get through the whole thing. Overall, I'm really proud of this playlist and its importance to us and our relationship.

Here's the playlist:

Song #	Song Title	Artist	Purpose
1	Sweet Darlin'	She & Him	Perfect first song - fun and makes me feel like I do w/ Jen.
2	Say Hey (I Love You)	Michael Franti & Spearhead	Fun new song that's about love and great to dance to.
3	La La Love You	The Pixies	Jen's request - a favorite love song
4	In Case We Die	Architecture in Helsinki	Fun up-tempo dance song
5	Lloyd I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken	Camera Obscura	Nostalgic dance song
6	U-Mass	The Pixies	Get it rockin'
7	My Doorbell	The White Stripes	Keep it rockin'
8	I Feel It All	Feist	Easy to dance to, slowing things down
9	Love and Some Verses	Iron & Wine	Slow dance and extremely romantic
10	Sweetie	Josh Rouse	Jen and I used to listen to this song all the time. Has the lyric "We'll sleep on rooftops/We'll ride on Bicycles/Honey, we'll get married/Don't you want to sweetie?" Seems perfect for us.
11	Oregon Girl	Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin	I always tell Jen this is my song about her
12	Never Had Nobody Like You	M. Ward	Love song from M. Ward
13	Idioteque	Radiohead	At least one Radiohead song
14	Expectations	Belle & Sebastian	For a year I had this as the wake-up music on my alarm. We used to wake up to it every day.
15	Sweet Sweetheart Killer	Say Hi To Your Mom	Fun dance song
16	1020 AM	Spoon	When we were very first together Jen and I used to stay up late listening to this song.
17	I'm the Man Who Loves You	Wilco	A song from me to Jen.
18	O' Valencia	The Decemberists	A favorite of the kids'
19	Absolutely Cuckoo	The Magnetic Tapes	Funny song - give people a break from dancing
20	LTWTMS	The Trouble with Sweeney	Groovy 70's sounding rock song
21	Mr. Tough	Yo La Tengo	Fun silly song to dance to
22	Simple X	Andrew Bird	This song makes me want to move every time I hear it.
23	Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye	AMFM	Slow-dance song, cover of a Leonard Cohen song.
24	No One's Gonna Love You	Band Of Horses	Slow song, one of Jen's favorites
25	1234	Feist	Pick things up a bit
26	Letter to Memphis	The Pixies	Rocking Pixies song, very romantic
27	Big Time Sensuality	Bjork	Sexy dance song
28	All My Friends	LCD Soundsystem	Up-tempo dance song for all my friends at the wedding
29	Chinese Translation	M. Ward	A little buddhist wisdom from one of my favorite artists
30	She's Losing It	Belle & Sebastian	Another favorite of Jen and mine from the past
31	The Navajo Know	The Pixies	One of my favorite Pixies songs
32	Eyes on the Prize	M. Ward	Great romantic love song for Jen.
33	Here Comes Your Man	The Pixies	Jen's song for me (her "Oregon Girl")

Eat your heart, everyone else - I'm on vacation

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:09:00 +0000

I'm writing from the house we've rented on Devil's Lake in Lincoln City.

We've been vacationing after the wedding before our big honeymoon trip with my brother Dan, his wife Kacie, and their children Bethany(10), Brynlee (3), and Kaitlynn (2), who are all adorable. Yesterday I went on a long canoe ride around Devil's Lake with Dan, Brynlee, Andrew, and Katie while Kacie, Jen, Brianna and Bethany went for a horse ride on the beach in Pacific City. I'll write more about the horse ride later when I get the pictures - lots to tell. During the canoe trip we found an awesome playground on Devil's Lake where the kids could play. It has a really cool wooden structure with all kinds of nooks, crannies, tires, and so on for the kids to run around and have fun on. The little girls loved it.

Fun stats from the trip:

30	Times (so far) Andrew has played "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on his guitar, which my brother Dan just taught him
7	Miles we paddled around Devil's Lake yesterday
2 (about to be 3)	Views of the movie "Coraline" during the trip
3	Meals consisting of left-over wedding food (I'm still loving Salmon, beans, corn on the cob, and cornbread)
4	Times Andrew has asked me whether or not we can rent a Jet Ski
4	Times I told Andrew no
9:30	Average time I've been waking up in the morning
At least 5	pounds gained so far on my part
2	Guitars brought along on the trip
3	Times we had to stop on the way here to fix the canoe from slipping around on the roof of our car (we finally resolved the root cause thanks to Dan)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10	The numbers I can say with Katie to get her to give me a kiss
1	renewed birth control prescription - no coincidence

Brianna's Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:12:00 +0000

This year we had an at-home birthday party, complete with sleep over. Brianna had a great time and we had lots of friends over. On the list of events we had:

Three ships and a mermaid:

A cake walk:

A pinata:

Presents, and of course, the cake.

And here's a great pic of the kids all watching a movie at the end of the night.

Canvassing for Portland School Board

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Today I donated some time in the afternoon to canvass for Scott Bailey, who is running for Portland Public School board, in the Westmoreland area of SE Portland. This was in relation to the work I've been doing for Stand for Children. I was actually on the committee that interviewed and then subsequently endorsed Scott. It's been a pretty cool experience just to see this whole side of the process occur from beginning to end.
Canvassing is an inherently difficult task. First off, almost everybody whose door you knock on thinks you're trying to sell them something. It's amazing how many folks are closed off to what I was talking about before I ever opened my mouth. I know that I've been the same way in my life and I know there's some sort of karma at work there, although to my credit I remember being very excited when the last canvasser for Obama came to my door and the guy being a little taken aback by our enthusiasm.
It's been years since I've gone door to door for any candidate, and I was reminded that if nothing else an afternoon spent canvassing will reveal some pretty interesting stories. For example, some of the interesting stories from today:

Elderly gentlemen who answered the door in his bath robe and boxer shorts. There was gape-age. I averted my eyes as I offered a flyer.
After I got through my spiel a gentlemen in his forties asks me if I noticed the "No Solicitors" sign by his front door. The following exchange occurs -

Homeowner: "See here? It says no solicitors."
Me: "Well, I'm not selling anything. I just want to share some information about the school board election."
Homeowner: "I am apolitical."
Me: "It's a non-partisan election"
Homeowner: "Get off my porch, jackass".
Door shuts.
Me (to self): "I'm going to mark you as hostile." (in a TAKE THAT manner)

Lady starts shaking her head back and forth almost as soon as I start speaking. She interrupts me to say "No." I just barely got in "I'm here about the school board election" as she shut the door.

This is definitely the kind of thing that I see as a challenge for myself - way outside of my comfort zone - but I'm glad I did it. I don't know if I could ever run for an office knowing how many doors I'd have to knock on in order to do so, but I'm proud of myself for getting out there to do it.
Oh, and also... if you live in Portland, vote for Scott Bailey for Portland School Board. (Along with Martin Gonzalez and Trudy Sargent).

Andrew's Fencing Classes

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Andrew has been taking fencing lessons for almost a year now. He's now taking classes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he's gotten quite into it. He goes to the Studio of American Fencing with his friend Frank, and it seems to be a sport he can really get into. No surprise - it involves swords!

Wii Fit

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:42:00 +0000

We finally bought a Wii fit. More accurately we finally saw fit to expend the enormous amount of energy and resourcefulness needed to locate a Wii fit to buy. After calling 4 Best Buys and 5 Targets I finally located a Wii Fit at the mall. Nothing taps into my American consumerism more directly than scarcity. I realized as I worked through this process that there are truly very few instances in my life when I want to buy something and can't go do so almost at will.

The kids love the game(s), which I'm really glad about. I wasn't really sure that they would be into a game that is pretty much based on exercise but luckily they are. If nothing else, Andrew and I keep going back and forth on who can set the highest score on the balance games.

And nothing is quite as funny as watching someone else play a game on Wii fit.

Dry, Itchy, Watery Eyes

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:18:00 +0000

My eyes have been bugging me for a couple of weeks now. I think it's mostly because of the incredible amount of laptop and reading time I've been putting in, but especially recently I've been getting headaches and my eyes have been feeling puffy and dry.

Today I finally broke down and went to see the optometrist. Turns out I'm far-sighted, and I have astigmatism in both eyes. I had been prescribed glasses about 10 years ago but stopped wearing them because I didn't like the frames (which made me look like an old lady). Looks like since that time my eyes have gotten worse. The doctor said I will need "progressive" lenses soon - which is really a code word for bifocals. Blech.

In the meantime Jen helped me pick out some cool non-grandma frames and I'm very much looking forward to my glasses coming in so that I can see better and get rid of these headaches. Here's a picture of the new glasses. The ones I'm getting are this shape but have a cool kind of wrought-iron look thing going on.

What you can expect from your job

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:19:00 +0000

I had a job interview about 6 months ago that I've been thinking about lately. During the interview, the interviewer wrote the following six phrases on the whiteboard:

Challenging work
Proximity to home
Good money
Fun, exciting coworkers
Opportunity to advance
Reasonable hours

He then proceeded to explain that in his experience it was reasonable to expect that in any job you can expect to get at least three of the items in the list. He said that if you only have two, you can do better and you should find a new job. If you have four you're doing well. If you have more than 4 you should never, ever quit. Do all you can to retire from that place.

Most people, though, can only get three items from the list. He then asked me which three I thought were the most important.

Lately I've been thinking that I'm probably in the top half of the list.

Some of you reading this are my coworkers and I can say with 100% certainty that if I work with you you're the exception to the rule when it comes to that fourth item. It's all the OTHER people. You know what I'm talking about. ;)

I haven't been that optimistic about item 5. I'm trying, but it's been slow going. Option 6 is out of the question for the foreseeable future.

How do you think your current job ranks (assuming you have one)? Leave a comment.

A dog park I can visit

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:35:00 +0000

I have a great dog, Maybell. She's a German Shepard mutt of some sort that we got at the humane society about four years ago. When we first got her she had a lot of behavior problems. We've worked with her quite a bit over the last few years and she's gotten much better and has become a really close member of our family. As I type this she's laying right here next to me, the picture of tranquility and obedience.

There are only a couple of issues we just haven't been able to work through. The first is her aggression towards veterinarians. She hates them. It's like she knows how much they're overcharging me.

She'll be friendly and warm to them when she firsts sees them but as soon as they start to poke and prod a line gets crossed that she doesn't like. We've been through about three vets, the last of which was a vet that does home visits. When he visited last time he casually commented "A dog doesn't necessarily need a rabies shot every single year. Lots of times you can even skip a year. It might even be better if we just kind of avoided visits unless there's a big problem". Message received - I don't want to do this any more than I have to.

The other problem we haven't had terrible success in resolving is her desire to play rough with other canines at the local dog park. She doesn't mean harm to other dogs, but she is aggressive in her play and it's caused some very uncomfortable interactions with my fellow Portland dog owners. Usually the problems relate to other dog owners who are either a little too "Hey, it's ok. They're dogs! They love this kind of thing!" or "Oh my god! My baby! My baby! You terrible brute and your dog!" Either extreme is not good.

So here's my proposal, Portland. Let's open a jerk dog park. Let's take one of the dog parks we already have and just acknowledge that all of the jerk dogs, like mine, can go there and play just as roughly as they want without the need for fear or shame on the part of any dog owner. Your dog is playing too rough? No problem. I'll just walk to the other side of the park. I get it, your dog is a jerk. So's mine. We're all good.

M. Ward March 8th at the Aladdin

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:14:00 +0000

photo credit: vassego in Washinton, DC 2/21/09

I went to see M.Ward March 8th at the Aladdin theater here in beautiful Portland with my friends Chris and Audry. The opening band was Port O'Brien, who I really enjoyed. Port O'Brien plays a whole lot of guitar. In particular the lead guitar player was playing a reverbed Rickenbacker that sounded incredible. The singer has a kind of Neil Young / Kurt Cobain screamy nasally thing going on that I quite enjoyed. They had a female banjo player, but I couldn't really hear the banjo too much. In all they were quite enjoyable and I plan on picking up their newest record.

M.Ward was incredible. He played quite a bit off his new album but also mixed in quite a few songs from Post War for those of us who hadn't quite caught up with him yet on Hold Time. One of the best things about M.Ward was the total groove he laid down, whether it be by himself or with the band. I was really impressed how he could sing with the acoustic guitarists laying down the chords but still come off so tightly in his phrasing and musicality. Quite impressive.

Of course, he has an incredible voice that's just one of those things he's blessed with, and he used it to great effect. His songs are sensitive and thoughtful, and I loved the way he put arrangements together. He's also a far better guitar player than I had anticipated. He did a great instrumental guitar song that showed off his Bakersfield style Buck Owens skills quite nicely. It was very impressive.

He must be a pretty shy person because the lighting was very dark. For the most part he was in a blue shadow and not very visible. He had a really cool lighting effect of a window pane on the back curtain. As the concert went on the window went from showing a day scene to a beautiful night with lightning bugs flying around back to morning orange sunrise for the encore. It was really cool.

I loved the concert - definitely one of the best I've seen in a while. Can't wait to get the new record.

Random Updates

noreply@blogger.com (./dave) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:24:00 +0000

Work

Work has been on the very busy side since changing jobs last December. I've joined a new project at the electric company (same place I've been) that's installing all of those automated meters you may have been hearing about from Barack Obama and others. The ones we're installing will communicate two ways (the meter giving us readings and us sending the meters info) and a good portion will support remote disconnection/reconnection. It's a huge project, much bigger dollar-wise than the web projects I'd been working on for the last few years. It also has a lot of implications for how different facets of the company's core business run.

The project had been going for more than a year so quite a few things are already kicked off and some phases have completed. I've been put in charge of Software Requirements, IT Quality Assurance, and Release Management. This all falls in with the work we've been doing and I've been advocating to transition from a waterfall style of software development to a more agile method.

What this means for me right now is that we're implementing new processes and while I have a broad responsibility. I didn't join the project with a team to support me in these roles, but it's more of an initiative and change that I'm advocating and leading. For the last few months I've been a part-time Business Analyst, a part-time program-level planner, and a part-time politician and cheerleader for the changes we're implementing.

Slowly the team is taking shape. I now have two Business Analysts (BA) on board, as well as a QA lead. I probably still need at least one more BA and perhaps another QA person. The folks I've brought on are transitioning out of their current roles which creates some bandwidth for me so that I don't have to on-board everyone at once. The time commitment should start to let up over the next few months and then things will settle back down to a more normal pace.

What this has meant in practicality is running very close to maximum capacity work-wise. Working every weekend going back since December, long days during the week, and a whole lot of understanding required from my family. They've been great, but the situation is untenable over the long-run and I very much need to focus on transitioning some responsibilities. I've already exhausted all of the "work smarter not harder" and time-management techniques - right now I just need more bodies - capable, smart, self-motivated bodies - who can lend a hand.

Wedding

Wedding planning is ongoing. We're taking a new tact, doing the kind of planning I might do for a project. Jen and I have identified the logistics (mostly stuff we need), roles, clothes, and script for the ceremony itself. We've also identified reception information including food , decorations, logistics (again "stuff"), and setting items (mostly stuff to do to the yard). Next we need to tackle the Honeymoon and activities around the time we're spending with my brother Dan's family.

After we've finished identifying all of the different stuff that we need we'll need to come up with a list of what we have to do in order to get every item done and then create a schedule for how to fit all of the items in so that we're not trying to do everything at once. We'll also create estimates for how much everything will cost and begin procuring items.

Health

With everything going on at work I've had a really hard time fitting in both riding my bike to work (which I love doing) as well as runs. Late last week I came to the conclusion (highly related to the "work" section above) that I needed to get back into the running habit. I've been feeling funky and grumpy and kind of put-upon and a lot of it has to do with not getting out there and sweating. There's a huge amount of calm I get from running that I just don't get out of biking. The relationship for me between running and biking is like eating a great satisfying meal versus eating desert. Desert is fun, but the great meal keeps me going. I started running again on Friday and ran 8 miles today.

I've also started the two hundred situps program. I've always sucked at sit-ups so that would be a good next thing to tackle I think. My first exhaustion test had me doing eighty crunches, which was a lot more that I thought I could do, but still paltry compared to Jen's 135. She's a mah-cheen.