Archive for the ‘Op/Ed’ Category
Saturday, July 28th, 2007
Or, Best Blind Dates Ever.
It’s one thing to go in with an agenda, another entirely to stick to it. I was happy to let go of mine, after all, it wasn’t a very clear one to begin with. Letting it all go meant I had time for some off-the-grid activities. They weren’t entirely out of scope - the people I spent time with were bloggers that I’d not met before in 3-D.
What’s better than when your blind date for dinner shows up in the lobby of the hotel carrying a Fish Wednesday ID Badge? Not much, unless you count getting to tag along with that blogger and her groom to be to an old school Italian restaurant. We chowed down on giant plates of pasta at Volare, at the best table in this busy place. Sinatra played over the sound system at the bar. It was great to hang out with Chicago locals and hear about life in the windy city. N, who prefers to blog anonymously, writes Kinetic Loop, a blog about Chicago with lots of interesting links to stories about - um, killer bunnies and photography. I don’t read her enough - the blog is funny and snarky and smart and the links are really interesting. There was much talk about how to avoid the bridal industrial complex, life without cars, what to do in Chicago, blogging, photography, and lots of other stuff. Good company and a fine feed at a place I’d probably not have found on my own. Good luck, you two, and don’t get suckered into registering for crap you don’t need or buying a 4000 dollar dress that you’re only going to wear once in your life. You won’t, I know it.
This morning, I breakfasted with Mr. Virtual Tapas Bar himself. It’s truly serendipitous that he was in Chicago during the brief time I’m here, and he was a great sport and agreed to drive in to the city to meet me at 8 am. We ate at West Egg, as recommended by last night’s dinner hosts but I gotta be honest, I couldn’t tell you what the food was like because I was too busy noodling with Mr. Virtual Tapas Bar’s new ukulele. Plus, we’ve been email pals in the virtual world for a year and half and fellow sufferers of expat life, so we had what I believe would be best called A Lot To Talk About. (Di, Christina, I so wished for you to be with us!) After breakfast we sat in the lower lobby of the hotel and I insisted that Sal play the uke for me. For the record, he sounds pretty good for a self taught guy. Expatapalooza Chicago Lite 2007 rocked the house.
Fortified by what I really like about blogging - that it allows you to connect with likeminded people you’d never otherwise meet - I headed back into the fray. I wandered off track for a while under Chicago’s many elevated roadways through weird intersections made out of rivets and I-beams. Finally, I found my bearings and was back at the conference center. I attended two sessions that I rather enjoyed, one about podcasting, the other about food photography. I fear I was obnoxious in the photography session, throwing up my hand every three minutes because, duh, I had questions. Are glam Fish Wednesday pictures in our future? Here’s hoping.
At the end of the day - and I’d really stuck it out - I went to the keynote address where I was, sadly, disappointed and bored. I’ve heard Elizabeth Edwards speak before, I was excited to see her in person because she struck me as funny and smart. That didn’t shine through in this Q&A session at all. I kept drifting, every now and then I’d see someone get up and walk out, someone would ask a question and Ms. Edwards would take a long walk around the issue at hand… I was relieved when it was over. Then - I was really determined - I went to the after party. I was so grateful when a woman I met wandered by and said this: I hate everything about this. Because while I was enjoying the company of some terrific people, everyone was shouting, the space was packed, it was a chore to be in the space. Hearing her say that made me realize that I didn’t like it much either, so I squeezed my way out into the warm Chicago evening.
Was it worth it? Did I learn anything? Well. Yes and no. I rather enjoyed the conversations I had with the people I met. But I’ll admit that now that I’ve been to BlogHer, I’m still not clear on the value. The focus - women who blog - remains too broad for me to get behind. This was something we discussed at Volare, Kinetic Loop and I. Get two women together, she said, and there’s no guarantee they have anything in common. Women are wildly unalike as a species. Men are a bit more like each other. I’m inclined to agree. Just because you’re a woman with a blog, doesn’t mean we have common ground. I know that makes me sound cranky, but so be it.
Will I attend next year? That depends. One of the things I enjoyed seeing was the panels that were focused on subject matter. Food blogging got some good play. A conference that tracked by subject matter would be wildly appealing to me. I’d love to attend the travelbloggers conference, you know? Bundle workshops that teach writing about travel with workshops about travel photography, pitching your stories to travel publications, and technical issues - your travel kit, what makes a good travel blog, cool plugins for travel sites, that sort of thing… I’m there. If I see a sharper focus in next year’s program, I may jump in again.
I don’t feel like I got any closer to answering the questions I had about the organization, but it was fun. I’m glad I went.
Posted in Administrivia, Op/Ed | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
Two Brazilian guys showed up on my porch yesterday morning. They proceeded to crawl all over my house, make a huge racket, and throw stuff into the yard. They were supposed to do that. They also broke one of my windows, which they were not supposed to do. It was totally an accident, I get it. I’m sure it happens from time to time. I wasn’t really mad. When the foreman called me to let me know that not only was the window broken, but that the roofing company (A Better Roofing) had already contacted a a glass guy to make the fix, I told him that I appreciated that they were taking care of it, that I knew they would make it right, and I went back to my project.
Later that evening when the estimator stopped by just to check in, apologize for the hassle, and confirm that the glass guy was on his way, I was still not mad. The roofing company had shown good follow-up and intent to make things right. But by the time 8pm arrived and there was still no glass guy, I was pissed. I was even more cranky when I was up on a ladder putting the storm window back on to cover the broken pane - though I was glad I’d done so when I heard the rain early this morning.
I was a bit short with the foreman when we talked. Yes, I know you’re sorry, I said, and yes, I totally get that this was an accident. But you need to get the glass guy on the line, set a time, and have him contact me to confirm. I have places-to-be-things-to-do-work-to-manage and I can’t be sitting around my house waiting for some imaginary guy to fix something that’s your responsibility to take care of. Sorry is all fine and well but my window is still broken.
In spite of the fact that what I thought was to be a one day job is taking two days, the crew seems to be doing a good job. However, things have shifted such that my satisfaction with their work in the short term is going to revolve not around the roof, but around the repair to my window. This is risky for a roofing company. The foreman told me that he was going to send someone to the glass guy’s house to find out what the hell happened to him. If they don’t send me a glass guy today, I am going to get my own repairman and deduct it from the roofing bill - plus hourly costs for my time to arrange the repair.
Grrr. Homeownership is a joy.
Related items from the archives:
roofing, home repair, windows
Posted in Op/Ed | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007
I subscribe to a certain Lucy Van Pelt type of psychology, a belief that “carpe diem” is really more than enough to go on, in fact, it’s almost all you need to know about getting by in the world. It’s served me well enough, but at times, it falls just short. The day has been seized, tightly and by the throat, and perhaps throttled a little for good measure, but the heart is somehow left out of the process.
When the day you are attempting to seize insists on skittering away across time zones, how can you ever grab hold of it? And even if you have it, if your feet are in, oh, Seattle, and the globe starts to spin away from you towards, let’s say Vienna, there is no way your arms are long enough to keep your feet where you want them to be. You will have to let go by the time you reach the Eastern seaboard or you will get very, very, sore. Your feet will be dragged across the peaks of the Rockies, your shins all marked up by the pointy Continental Divide, your belly scraped on the corrugated metal grain elevators of the plains. It really hurts when you hit your chin on the Eiffel Tower. Don’t even get me started on the Atlantic crossing. And anyway, who can reach that far?
Carpe deim doesn’t make it possible for you to be in two places at once, either. It can’t magically make you able to browse the shelves the local public library while you are also off to some farm festival to find out what makes for a handsome sheep. You cannot eat Ethiopian food, seated on the outdoor patio surrounded by African accents, sopping up the curry with that odd spongy bread while also having kaffee und kuchen in a tiny jewel box bakery where the ladies are wearing fur hats. One of you can not have the cake while the other eats it. Carpe deim is all fine and well, but then you get to the point where there’s no cake.
Maybe I’m looking for a sort of “seize the cake” ideology. I’m flustered because not only don’t I know the word for cake in Latin, but seizing cake makes a big mess all over the place, though I guess you could lick the whole sweet disaster off your fingers. It has a certain sexiness to it, seize the cake, but also the cake is ruined.
It’s Independence Day. There is a surplus of independence, but very little cake.
Posted in Op/Ed | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
I can’t contribute anything to the conversation that hasn’t been best said by the stations themselves, but I will say this: I LOVE INTERNET RADIO. Tune in.
D-Day for Webcasters
Internet Radio
Posted in Nerdio, Op/Ed | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 20th, 2007
Production notes: The ocean sound is from the indispensable Freesound. The music is from Blue Hawaii, nothing says cartoon beach cliche like Elvis. I produced this podcast using MixMeister Propaganda. The full text is below the jump.
(more…)
Posted in Nerdio, Op/Ed, Seattle | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
“Wow, those are all ours!” That was Bob Sauerberg, VP of Conde Nast, the magazine publications house. About 90% of the 55, that’s right, 55 magazine subscriptions coming to our house, are Conde Nast mags. The assistant to the CEO of Hearst Publications was helpful, too, and assured me of follow up. The folks at Conde Nast had their subscriptions guy call me and he’s told me that he’ll see if he can’t get in touch with Time Warner and Hearst to get my account blocked. He even offered to give me his email address so that should I ever want to see a magazine again, he could put the subscription in for me. The guy at Hawthorne Village assured me that I would NOT be getting the Thomas Kincaid Angel Nativity, thank you Jesus, and said he’d mark my account for fraud. I can mark anything that is shipped to us as “Refused” and send it right back, but he’s canceled the first figure in the “Faith Mountain” series that some clown thinks I should own.
Did you know you could get a nativity by subscription? Me neither! Once figure a month until you’ve got the whole thing, I guess. If you’re gonna get a religious set in the mail, wouldn’t Genesis be more fun? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, so this month you’ll receive your very own to scale heaven and earth kit, no assembly required! The perfect gift or decor for your mantle, and for only 1.99 more, you can get this handy wall mounting kit! But don’t order yet…”
It’s surprisingly easy to get the VP of the company that’s getting up your nose on the phone. The good folks at Consumerist tell you how. Every single one of the customer service reps I’ve talked to has been very helpful - I was sure to tell the execs that - but customer service has been unable to Make It Stop. The post office responded to my online complaint by sending me a whopping great stack of paperwork, which annoys me because what’s the point in filing online if it’s just going to end up in paperwork?Jim McDermott’s office offered to contact the FTC, which I can do directly, and said that I should be sure to carefully document my calls so that my intent to NOT make these purchases is clear, just in case we end up in court.
I do hope that it doesn’t come to that, but I can tell you that I also hope that Bob Sauerberg, who really was quite sympathetic about the nuisance factor, sees this as critical enough to see if they can’t prosecute.
Today’s new subscription? Vegas Magazine. Coz you know how I loooooove Vegas.
magazine subscription fraud
Posted in Op/Ed | No Comments »
