Jarrett House North: Seattle

RIP, Anita Rowland

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:02:40 GMT

Sad news from BoingBoing this morning: Anita Rowland, the blogmother of the Seattle blog meetups and a longtime Internet presence, has passed away at the age of 51. Her cancer finally overcame her indomitable personal strength.

I’ll always remember Anita for putting out a welcoming hand when I first started trying to find my way in the greater Seattle community outside Microsoft. I can only hope that she’s welcomed upstairs with half the hospitality she offered everyone who met her.

If you ever met Anita, or if you ever knew anyone who had cancer and no health insurance, please consider making a contribution to her medical fund as a memorial.

There are worse fates

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:59:28 GMT

Early start to the morning today, with a presentation that ran from 8 to noon Pacific time (I have been in Seattle for a business trip since yesterday afternoon). And then? Driving back into Seattle with KEXP on the car radio. A relatively leisurely afternoon spent checking email, working on proposals, catching up on status with the home office. And, um, lunch (rock shrimp tacos!) with a beer or two at the Hilltop Ale House.

Now at SeaTac (viva!) after making my way through an absurdly long security line, waiting for my red-eye flight back. And sitting at (drumroll) an Anthony’s, just the other side of aforementioned absurdly long security line, with a Deschutes Black Butte Porter and a plate of oysters on the way.

As a very wise man once said, who can say I am not/the happy genius of my household?

Heading back

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:30:41 GMT

This was an amazingly quick trip; we landed at SeaTac (Viva SeaTac!) at 12 and were at our customer’s site in Tacoma at 1:30; headed to dinner at 5; watched Tennessee lose to Ohio State (sorry, Kelsey); and now I’m up, listening to the KEXP stream and sipping French press coffee in my room and getting ready to drive back to SeaTac (Viva SeaTac!).

We had dinner last night, at the recommendation of our prospect, at the Anthony’s Seafood at Federal Way. It’s closer in decor to the Anthony’s Homeport in Kirkland than the one at Pier 66, but the food was excellent. I steered the table in the direction of some fresh-caught Alaskan halibut, then had a moment of indecision and ended up getting salmon with a fresh Dungeness crab cake. The salmon was just OK—not really the right season for it’but the crab cake was nirvana. We also had some oysters, which I could have made a meal of by themselves given a free hand with the expenses.

Hotel 1000 turned out to be fairly amazing. My sales director came down blinking after dropping his things off in his room last night, saying that it was just like some of the boutique hotels he had stayed in in New York. For my part, the shower was amazing; the wired Ethernet was great (and included in the room price, as it should be); the aforementioned French press coffee a small bit of nirvana. My only complaint is that the wireless was too slow... and that we had to leave so soon. Ah well.

Old stomping grounds

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:39:09 GMT

I’m back in the air today. On the agenda: a meeting in Tacoma. It will be the first time I’ve been back in the Puget Sound area since I left on my cross country trip in 2004.

I’m looking forward to our overnight stay at Hotel 1000 in Seattle. I never spent much time near Pioneer Square, but I know the area around the hotel and it should be entertaining to introduce my coworkers to the sight of the Lusty Lady sitting cheek by jowl with all the other more family-friendly attractions in that part of town.

The entropy heat death of Starbucks?

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:09:05 GMT

Synchronicity is coffee related blog posts from both Doc Searls and Blogorelli arriving in one’s aggregator on the same day. Granted, it was Tuesday; I’m a little behind.

Anyway: first Doc Searls pointed out Howard Schultz’s mail to his troops about how Starbucks’s growth has endangered the customer experience in its stores. Doc further opines that the “milking down” of the experience has endangered the core product.

I would concur: I thought the chain was in trouble from a soul perspective ever since, in the late 1990s, it started heavily promoting Frappucinos. Why? Because a Frappucino is a lot of ice, sugar, and milk with coffee flavoring; it’s not really a coffee drink. I believe at the time it was a creative response to a short term supply constraint (there was a big spike in coffee prices at the time), but over time the milk has drowned the coffee. Nasty-ass flavored lattés are just the logical evolution.

Still, there’s part of me that pauses when I read Doc’s recommendations. One is to “go back to real commercial espresso machines. Too many Starbucks now feature automated machines that any idiot can use. I don't know what you call these things, but they are made to move customers through faster...” I pause when I read this, because I’m the guy who gets nervous when there are more than two people ahead of him in line at Starbucks and the line is not moving. Yesterday in the airport, in fact, there were two “baristas” (neither of whom would last a second in Seattle), who were each taking and then filling their own orders—no division of labor, no checking ahead to get drinks for the next person in line—and it took forever to get through and get my coffee. Why can’t that be sped up?

Because, of course, if you want quick coffee you don’t get to cavil about the quality of the preparation experience, or ask for the company to put in slower machines. But if you want fast coffee, why not just get McDonalds to do it? The answer is, of course, we all want to feel special, like we have a personal relationship with our coffee. What’s the best thing about going to Starbucks regularly? That the barista knows who you are and starts making your drink when you walk in the door. That is such the opposite of the mass market experience. So is the fact that I expect Starbucks to be clean, the employees to be intelligent and lively, and the other customers to be professionals. So maybe my expectations for Starbucks are classist?

Something else comes into the mix, of course: Blogorelli points to the newest East Coast trend of high service espresso bars, featuring ristretto shots, freshly roasted beans, and (most visibly) foam art on the lattes. (The article doesn’t mention it, but really good baristas can do a leaf pattern in the crema on top of a plain espresso shot even without any cream.) Having experienced this in Seattle four years ago, I can say it’s a pretty amazing difference from Starbucks and is clearly where the leading edge customer is going. So the question is, can Starbucks follow this customer?

Put another way, there are two markets for coffee drinkers: those who love coffee, and everyone else. Can Starbucks really continue to try to serve both? Or will its efforts continue to disorder its brand until it loses all momentum and is overtaken by another competitor?

Seahawks in the Superbowl

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:48:00 GMT

WSJ: At Long Last, Seattle Makes the Super Bowl. Interesting article, not nearly enough hometown flavor for my taste. Much better coverage at, of all places, Cracked (and who knew that they were even publishing anymore, much less online?), which to its credit the WSJ pointed to.

The sanitation of the Starbucks mermaid

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:17:16 GMT

If your first introduction to Starbucks was in the last few years, you may not realize that the woman in the logo is a mermaid—or that she’s holding her tails wide open in a fertility gesture. Dead Programmer traces the evolution of the logo from 15th century fertility symbol to 21st century corporate logo and explains how it has morphed over the years.

What he leaves unexplained is what happened when the first radical leap occurred, from the brown “coffee, tea, spices” logo to the green more stylized mermaid. As I recall reading in a print article about ten years ago, this happened as part of a general brand refresh (or first brand design) that also ushered in the use of subtle “steam” graphics in the packaging, the introduction of earth-toned paints in the graphics and the stores, and just about everything you think of as the modern Starbucks iconography. This all happened about the time Starbucks made the shift from mail order coffee into retail and began to appear on the East Coast. I think the article appeared in How magazine. (I can’t find the article online, but there was a recent article about the work of the in-house Starbucks design team that does appear on the How site.)

Original link via BoingBoing.

To Tom and Rachel (and all the kids at PS 192)

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:42:00 GMT

Tom Harpel and his lovely bride Rachel have come back from their honeymoon. Congrats, kids, and sorry I was on the wrong coast for the wedding. I only hope good beer was available at the reception.

(Now every time I say “Tom and Rachel” I want to add that bit at the end of Lou’s Coney Island Baby. What can I say: it’s a sickness.)

Can you IM me now? Good!

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 06 May 2005 17:50:39 GMT

Boing Boing: Space Needle to be converted to WiFi antenna. According to this KOMO TV story, Speakeasy (and two other firms) are teaming up to create a city-wide WiMax network that will eventually be available to individuals as well as businesses. Though I disagree with Boing Boing’s assertion that the Space Needle is a “white elephant” (the only other places with an equally cool Seattle views are Pike Place Market and Anthony’s Pier 66, and both of those have bay views rather than the incredibly cool Lake Union views), I can’t argue with the following:

Quinn Norton first observed that looking at some big weird chunk of metal (say, a Stanford radio-telescope) and saying “That would make a great WiFi antenna” is the twenty-first century equivalent of pointing at every hollow object and opining “that would make a great bong.”

Crossing paths

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:43:35 GMT

Dave has moved to Seattle just as I moved back to Boston. Come on, man, cut it out! This is twice now we’ve crossed paths…

He asks for advice today about places to eat in the market. Here’s my comment, reposted from his blog and annotated with past experiences from mine:

I like the Pike Place Brewery—their beers are outstanding and the pub cuisine is good. For fish, honestly just go to the Market Grill and get a salmon sandwich—spicy. It’s hot sitting at the grill and you have to wait a while but it’s outstanding.
For the best sunset and happy hour appetizers, Maximilien’s has a great view of the sound and an assortment of fantastic $2.50 plates, including really excellent mussels and pate.
Outside the market I like Etta’s—next block over, great seafood creatively done—and Anthony’s Pier 66, down on the waterfront.

Heh. I thought I had more links than that. I never once wrote about Pike Place Brewery or Maximilien’s… To make up for it, here are bits about some restaurants I didn’t mention in the comments: Zoë and Wasabi Bistro.

Hitting the road

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:22:55 GMT

Unveiling time: I’m moving back to Boston. Starting Saturday, I’ll be doing a cross-country drive from the Seattle suburbs to the Boston suburbs (with a several day layover with my inlaws in New Jersey).

This has been in the works for a while, but for various reasons I didn’t think the time was appropriate to break the news. Now I’m packing up from my temporary digs; I got the car checked out; and I have my Triptik and my copy of Roadfood. I’m ready to go.

Returning to Boston is a little bit of a dream come true for Lisa and me, because it’s much closer to both our parents and my extended family, and because quite frankly we love the town. Plus we like Dunkin Donuts and heavy snow.

Finally, I have to point out the irony that I’m moving back to Boston just as Dave Winer has finished his stint at Harvard and is looking for a new gig elsewhere, since Dave moved to Boston just a few months after I left. I’m not stalking you, Dave, honest. I’m actually stalking David Weinberger. (Joke, folks. Laugh.)

What I did on the hottest day of the year

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 04:54:52 GMT

I spent what I can only hope will be Seattle’s hottest day this year touching base with some old tourist landmarks, beginning with the Pike Place Market. I came away with four good photos to reward my Saturday sweat.

The a cappella quartet in front of the original Starbucks in the first picture should be publicly acknowledged Seattle treasures. I first saw them in 2001 when Lisa and I went to our first Mariners’ game, and they can be found alongside Pike’s Place most summer weekends, even when it’s hotter than a red-assed bee outside. I especially like the Asian tourist with the Burberry hat and purse peering through the window behind the quartet. As I snapped this picture, the lead singer (leftmost) was calling out “Even at Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spices, I’m gonna let it shine.”

Loback Meat Company: Quality Always in the second picture. I always wanted to get a good clear photo of this. I didn’t want to use a flash, so I had to steady my hand to adjust for the slower shutter speed, and took three or four pictures propped against a nearby pillar. I like the backsplash of the red neon on the ceiling paint, and there’s something thematically appropriate about the steady sign contrasting with the blurred faces below.

Next is today’s silly phonecam picture, taken outside SAM (where I had just seen the Van Gogh to Mondrian exhibit). I wanted to contrast the big Borofsky sculpture with the shorts-clad tourists. (Also good in the museum this time: the two oversized Joseph Cornell hommages by Curtis Steiner and Galen Lowe; discussed at the bottom of this article on the untold story exhibition.)

Finally, the old barefoot guy in shorts. I liked this man’s face, and the baby being pulled up the hill next to him.

MetUp

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 04:31:17 GMT

Just got back from the Seattle Weblog Meetup. Lots of old familiar faces there tonight—Anita has the full list. I was bummed not to see Jake there, but I got to meet Samantha, Chaz, Ian and Mary. —Yes, Ian as in Ian Spiers of BrownEqualsTerrorist.com fame. We all had a lot of fun taking pictures of each other and then asking each other for ID as a result. (That’s a picture of Ian to the right.) Ian described his feelings of wandering around the Ballard Locks watching other tourists happily snap photos after his encounter with The Man as feeling as though he had been “raped at Disneyland”; we promptly decided that that phrase would have made a much better title for his blog.

I also met Manuel, who actually road-tripped down to LA for the opening of the SENT exhibition. I tried not to mention the exhibition, feeling somewhat photographically overshadowed with tyd, Tara, Jeff, and Flipdingo there, but Jeff was kind about the photo. Manuel and I got into a conversation about the experience at the exhibition. (In a word: alienating unless you’re in the right crowd. And no matter how tall you think Xeni is, she’s apparently taller.)

All in all, it was a pretty good time for my last Seattle weblog meetup. But that’s a story for another time.

Salumi lives up to its reputation

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 01:24:36 GMT

As promised, I finally made it (after two years) to Salumi, and finally got around to posting my writeup. It’s easy enough to find, being right across the corner from the intersection of 2nd and 3rd Avenues South. —Yes, I know, but it’s Seattle and here parallel streets are allowed to intersect. Even at 2 pm the line was out the door, so we decided to get our sandwiches to go.

The physical set-up for the restaurant is like something out of the North End. Long and narrow—just wide enough for one table for two to be separated from a four-foot-wide counter service area by a low wall, and just long enough for a counter with a window area and seating for 12 in the back. Curing salumi hung in a walk-in cooler next to the counter inside, where three different sandwich guys struggled to keep up with the line.

By the time we got there, they were out of tongue (which I was dying to try) and a few other things. But I got the culatello, which came on a crusty roll with a little olive oil and basil and some marinated onions, and was transported immediately (well, after I waited in line for half an hour and then paid) into ecstasy. The meat was lightly salted, almost sweet, with a soft mouth feel followed by a massive flavor explosion after a few bites. Unbelievable. I also picked up a hot soppressata with homemade fresh mozzarella for my drive south to Portland, which was similarly impressive—alternately hot and sweet with an assertive slightly salty body.

I once complained that there were no sammiches to be found in the Seattle area. I hereby retract that statement. There are sammiches, and world class ones, but only between the hours of 11 and 4 Tuesday through Friday in a little storefront restaurant run by a retired Boeing engineer.

(Oh, almost forgot: I had a brief conversation with Armandino himself. He asked if I was enjoying the experience, and I told him how thrilled I was to finally be there after two years. I also mentioned that I had dragged all my co-workers along so I wouldn’t be missed. He asked, “How many?” I said, “These nine folks.” He looked significantly up and down the line—at that point there were at least fifteen people waiting inside the store—and said no more. I think he was genuinely bugged to have such a big crowd, because he disappeared to the back after that exchange. —Oh well. As someone once said in another context, he doesn’t have to be the most personable host. His product speaks for itself.)

Taking a little breather

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 19:22:48 GMT

I’m just about to head to lunch at Salumi. For those who aren’t familiar, Salumi is run by Armandino Batali, Food Network Mario Batali’s dad and retired Boeing engineer, and it’s only open for lunch four days a week between 11 and 4. Batali cures all his own meats, serves amazing Italian specialties, and you can even adopt a prosciutto. For more info, check out the drool-inducing review in the New York Times. I’ve been trying to get to this restaurant for almost two years, and finally decided that if I didn’t take time out for a long lunch today that it wouldn’t ever happen.

Afterwards, I’m driving south to visit Shel and Vik in Portland. It should be an entertaining visit, as I will be good for approximately two hours of consciousness for the whole weekend and fear that I’ll spend the rest of the time in either drooling repose or (worse) making unconscious zombie-like conversation that I won’t ever remember or understand. Thank goodness they’re old friends.

Change of plans

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 03:48:28 GMT

Tonight was supposed to be Eastside Sing night for me—the Haydn—but instead I ended up meeting Tom Harpel for a drink at the Stumbling Monk. This is an obscure (in a more literal sense than normal—there’s not even a sign outside) bar in Capitol Hill with no food, no decor, and mostly Belgian and Belgian-inspired beers available. So naturally I had to go, and it was close to where Tom was so it was even convenient.

Tom brought pizza (see the part about not serving food) and we chatted for a while about various stuff—object oriented programming, SQL skillz, beer, east coast vs. west coast, celebrity spotting—and had a relatively conservative number of beers each. I had a Dick’s Silk Lady, an Oregonian beer that contrary to their claims is not exactly light but certainly carries the classic Belgian esters, though with little of the associated complexity on the palate. Better in that department was the Liefman’s Goudenband, the classic darker Flemish beer that is considered a classic of the Oud Bruin (Old Brown) style. It was good but sweeter than I remembered, though still sour enough to raise an eyebrow.

The real danger, of course, was the Monk’s proximity to Half Priced Books. Fortunately I escaped with self control mostly intact. (I couldn’t pass up the Ivor Noël Hume book about Martin’s Hundred, having grown up next door, and the illustrated Comus was a steal.)

Anyway, on the way out I thanked Tom and noted in passing that I would be at the Sonic Youth show tomorrow. “Oh!” he said, “I’ll be there too.” Apparently Rachel is quite the fan. So this is turning into Tandoku week—never a bad thing.

Miscellany

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 20:22:16 GMT

Here’s what I didn’t write about while we were shipping the Microsoft.com Blog Portal last week.

First: Spider-Man 2 at the Cinerama. While I should definitely have gone to an earlier show (I was, shall we say, a zombie by the end of the 10 pm show), I thought this was a very well done film. A touch heavy perhaps on the “poor Peter Parker, his life is so hard” schtick—but then without that it wouldn’t be Spider-Man. And it was nice to see Dr. Curt Connors (“The Lizard”) and John Jameson (“Man-Wolf”) make appearances, though I don’t think either of them would be a big enough bad guy to carry the third film. That honor is clearly going to go to Harry Osborne as the Hobgoblin.

Second: had a great time at the Cyclops on Friday courtesy Arvind and Kim (who sent the Evite) and Peter, Catherine, Jay, and Ravi, who came and hung out for a while.

Third: thanks to Erikka and Jeffrey for the fabulous Sloan barbecue.

Fourth: looks like it will be a busy week. The East Side Sing will cover some good Haydn; Sonic Youth on Wednesday; and it looks like I will be heading to Portland to hang out with Shel and Vik on the weekend. So much to do, so little time.

Life imitates fiction

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 05:00:24 GMT

A story from the weekend I haven’t told yet: I had to stop by the U-Haul on Saturday to take care of my grill’s propane tank. When I stepped into the store, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was playing. And all the clerks—the long-haired one who appeared to be in charge, the tall thin taciturn black-haired one messing with the reservation computer, the heavyset guy running back and forth to the lot getting rental trucks ready—were singing along. I found myself unconsciously singing too: Magnifico-o-o-o… And the guy who walked in a second later behind me started doing it too.

And here I thought that only happened in the movies. Apparently it happens in slacker Seattle, too.

Coming back on line

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 24 May 2004 01:15:29 GMT

It’s a crazy few days—a full day offsite on Friday that was bookended by some frantic product plan production. I’m back now and should be able to blog uninterrupted for at least a few days. Then we go to Boston on Wednesday to stay with Charlie and Carie through Sunday. The offsite, incidentally, had some cool stuff. It was at the Blue Ribbon Cooking School, where they showed my new work team how to make paella (and supervised us as we actually cooked it). Among the things I learned: both my boss and his boss are big Wim Wenders fans, and both think, along with me, that Until the End of the World was one of his best films.

Long day

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 13 May 2004 02:42:37 GMT

It’s been a long (albeit fruitful) day at work, and I’ve had no time to blog at all. All I have to say is, this is an interesting week in the blogosphere to be away from the blog. More later.

Aftermath

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 16:00:27 GMT

It was pretty nasty yesterday afternoon and evening, the first real East Coast-style wind/thunderstorm we’ve seen since we moved out here two years ago. My first clue of the intensity of the storm was a lightning strike directly outside the office across from mine, so close that I could feel the hair on my arms stand on end and my forearm muscles clench. (As my next door neighbor said, “Suddenly I don’t mind not having a window office so much.”)

The drive home was slow, compounded by downed branches. Fortunately, having recently had our trees pruned, the damage in our front yard was minimal—lots of downed leaves but only one branch. The back yard didn’t look too bad, a lot of small clusters of branches off the enormous pine tree, but as I fed the dogs I watched and heard more and larger branches fall. Then a few minutes before Lisa came home we lost power. A few minutes later the storm was over, and it still took an hour and a half to restore the power, but it was still a little adventure.

Weekend

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 04:18:43 GMT

I had a long weekend, pretty exhausting. It started out well, with a good lunch with Tom Harpel. He covered our discussion pretty well (clarification: my site is run on Manila, but I use NetNewsWire as my primary posting tool). If it’s any consolation, Tom, I get lost at RedWest all the time. In addition to Tom’s commentary, we discussed his experience as an “embedded” ops guy on a product team.

The concert went well. UPC organist Joanne Stremmler proved that Bach is still the master with her organ rendition of “Come, Sweet Death,” which set up the Brahms perfectly.

From time to time, I forget how emotionally and physically taxing singing can be, particularly the “warhorse” masterworks. The Brahms is particularly insidious in this way, because while the music is not especially complicated (the fugues, while tricky, are nothing compared to the nightmares in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis), it’s emotionally so powerful that I was drained after three movements and totally exhausted after the seventh and last.

Saturday the dinner party went well—our new stove did meatballs, meat sauce, lasagna, eggplant sandwiches, and sugar syrup for lemon granita without breaking a sweat. We, on the other hand, sweated.

Today I had three services this morning, performing the Robert Shaw/Alice Parker arrangement of “Ride On, King Jesus.” Then home to collapse for a while before I went out to get a nail puncture in my tire patched. It turns out I waited too long to do it—I had driven on the underinflated tire (though I diligently kept it topped up with air) too far, and had damaged the sidewall. Plus the rear tires were too worn to go too much further. So I’m now hundreds of dollars poorer but with four new tires.

You know, I think the week actually might be more restful than the weekend was.

Day of lunches

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 15:18:55 GMT

In particular, I’m having lunch with Tom Harpel of Tandoku.com (and sometimes of local band Onalaska, it seems). Looking forward to hearing about his Microsoft experiences as well.

Alive

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:08:54 GMT

Not much posting this week. I’ve been fighting both health issues (a cough that migrated upwards into my sinuses; I could hardly hear anything at all last night during choir practice) and computer issues (my work laptop melted down) for several days now. Hope to clear the logjam shortly and get back to the rhythm of things.

In the meantime, a quick pointer to fellow Microsoft blogger and MSCOM teammate Peter Svensk, who was once an EditThisPage.com blogger like me.

Coming up

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:51:19 GMT

I’ve been a bit under the weather for the last four or five days; a weird kind of cold that started in the throat, with totally clear sinuses, but which has in the last day migrated up into my face. At least I’m on familiar territory.

Our guys have completely recovered from their “tutoring” and are once again making pests of themselves in the garden. We haven’t yet succeeded in training them to only uproot weeds. Maybe with time.

Thanks to my cold, I’m feeling a bit basso profundo. Thankfully I have another two weeks before my first solo at church—if eight notes total are considered a solo. After that, it’s not a full week until our performance of the Brahms Requiem (also known as the German Requiem, but it feels silly calling it that when you’re going to perform it in English).

Hero

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 15:20:05 GMT

A local man (from Bothell) won the Beerdrinker of the Year award in a competition about beer knowledge (no, it’s not about volume).

I read this article in the print edition of the Seattle Times yesterday and (to my surprise and shame) thought: “This is going to be on Fark, and the tag is going to be ‘Hero.’” Sure enough…

Oy

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 02:54:05 GMT

I’m baching it again this week, but with a twist. In the past I’ve been lonely and depressed with Lisa gone. Now I’m nervous, anxious, and harried—and happy, chasing after the puppies.

And I’m buried under the weight of 183 subscriptions and 577 unread headlines… At least the guys seem to be settling in for the evening. This is all by way of apology—blogging may be light for the next day or three.

Oh, and though I almost think it would be a bigger surprise if I did show up, I won’t be at the Weblog Meetup tomorrow for the same reason.

What a day that was

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 17:53:40 GMT

Among the things I consider a good prelude to a day skiing, being awakened every hour by a dog with a bad stomach does not rank high on the list. In fact, I’m not even sure it appears on the list. Our little girl puppy had a really bad night and kept us up, so by the time morning came I was discombobulated and non-functional. We decided not to feed them (Jefferson, our boy puppy, had been throwing up as well), so I left for work feeling guilty and leaving Lisa, who hadn’t slept any better than I had, to care for the puppies.

I soon realized how out of it I was. When we got into the shop and I started to put on my boots, I realized I had brought Lisa’s ski boots rather than mine. So it was another fun filled day of rental boots...

It was a beautiful day at Snoqualmie, though it took a while for the guilt to wear off enough for me to enjoy it. We found some fun runs I hadn’t experienced before, including a trail that led around the back of the mountain through the trees. Unfortunately, when a few of us went over to Snoqualmie Central to check the trails there, I ended up on a black diamond run by mistake. Fortunately after some trial and error (and considerable support from my partner in crime and fellow product manager, David Gordon), I managed to ski my way to safety.

This morning was a little better with the dogs. After a trip to the vet yesterday, the dogs got shots and pills and we got the go ahead to start feeding them again on a bland diet. They’re sleeping now. I think today will be a better day.

Unscheduled outage for scheduled ski trip

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 04:09:21 GMT

I didn’t get much blogging in today because I was out—at a work event. At Snoqualmie. This was anticipated; what was not anticipated was the one-two punch on my energy level of a morning skiing after a night of taking the dogs outside once every hour. (Story to follow later.) More stuff hopefully tomorrow.

A singer once more

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:20:43 GMT

After last year’s time with the Cascadian Chorale, I took the fall off from singing. I had started to realize during my therapy last year that part of the reason I kept looking to singing groups was to feel needed, and I had to break myself of that cycle.

But this fall I really missed being in a choir. And I realized I also wanted to explore my faith more, and to be in a position where my singing meant more than just applause.

So I’ve joined the Cathedral Choir at University Presbyterian Church. It looks like it will be a good group, both vocally and spiritually.

Culinary nirvana in Wallingford

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 18 Jan 2004 18:04:28 GMT

Lisa and I have finally found a worthy Italian restaurant in this mostly Pacific Rim cuisine city. Wallingford’s Asteroid Café, despite its non-Italian name, has some of the finest Italian food and wine we’ve seen since leaving Boston. Just down the street from Dick’s, with twelve tables barely fitting in the storefront in front of the open kitchen, the atmosphere was nevertheless festive and the food was spectacular.

Perhaps because of the mad cow scare, osso buco was off the menu, replaced with rabbit in a white wine, sage, and rosemary sauce with tomatoes and olives over polenta. Knowing how Lisa feels about polenta, it will perhaps come as no surprise that I enjoyed the rabbit while she had the duck, which was served with a sauce made from stonefruits and berries over balsamic-tossed cabbage. With such divergent meals (I kept quoting Looney Tunes in my head: “Wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season!”), and the 125 Italian reds on the wine list, we could very well have fallen into vinicultural disaster, if not for the timely intervention of owner and sommelier Marlin Hathaway. He recommended a fantastic Nebbiolo from Lombardy that was made with part dried grapes for an Amaronesque slight sweetness that played off the rabbit sauce and the cabbage. We had a great conversation with him about Italian wines, the difficulty of keeping a good white wine list in a restaurant that’s barely big enough to have a bathroom (you have to go back through the kitchen to find it but it’s there), frozen desserts, and the neighborhood (he remarked that I looked familiar, but maybe it was just because I resembled Dave Matthews, who apparently lives a few blocks away).

I think we’ll definitely be going back.

What quake?

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:16:11 GMT

Looks like I’ve just slept through my third earthquake: we had a 3.6 just after midnight last night, centered at Bremerton (just about 20 miles away). For the record, the first two quakes I slept through were in the summer of 1995, when I was jet lagged and essentially sleeping with my eyes open in a conference room at Ridgecrest, California, during a 5+ magnitude tremblor; and of course in April 2002, when we had a 5.1 in Boston that almost woke me up.

I will not post cute dog-in-snow photos.

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 04:16:30 GMT

Though I have them.

In the meantime, here’s a New York Times article about Washington State wines to keep you occupied.

Snow? In Seattle? Quick, start a blog!

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 16:33:56 GMT

I just got a reminder that the amount of snow that has fallen is never the issue; it’s how the infrastructure deals with it. In the case of the Seattle suburbs, that would be: not well at all. We’ve only had a few inches of snow here, but there are no snowplows, no sand trucks, no salt spreaders, nothing. I made the mistake of leaving my laptop at the office, so I had to go in and fetch it—and see the madness first hand.

I think I’ll get out of here before things get too much worse.

In the meantime, I found this Snow Storm Blog at the Seattle Times pretty amusing.

First ski of 2004

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 05 Jan 2004 05:01:00 GMT

Lisa and I went back to Snoqualmie today for another half day ski. The difference is that we had our own boots and brought our rented skis with us, both courtesy REI. We are definitely getting into skiing as a serious lifestyle, and we figured ski boots were the right place to start investing in gear. Man, were we right. My feet feel so much better than they ever have after skiing.

The skis were a mixed blessing. On the plus side, we paid $10 less per pair than we would have at the mountain, and didn’t have to deal with the line (which cost us almost an hour on Monday). On the minus side, the skis were crappy. I don’t know if all Rossignols are bad, or just the ones we’ve rented. But then we did rent them on Saturday.

And, oh my goodness, it was freezing up there. Icy road conditions from Issaquah all the way to the summit, and about 7° F on the slopes. (Fortunately it warmed up. A little.) But good skiing, even a little fresh powder on the slopes, which for Snoqualmie is really saying something.

Snow falls; Seattle surrenders

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 17:26:20 GMT

It’s so quiet here this morning. Except for the dogs, who are having their usual morning romp, in spite of the thin snowfall. Yeah, sadly, the first real snow we’ve seen in Seattle is hardly “real.” The area under the tree shows nothing but green grass, and the stuff that fell on our skywall has already been washed off by the rain. But it’s still pretty.

And, apparently, a hazard to Seattle drivers. Area blogger Jake’s girlfriend Kymberly writes on his blog that her work declared a snow day today. Apparently the “up to four inches” might “test the resolve” of Seattleites. I’m remembering trudging to grad school in Boston with a foot of unshoveled snow on the sidewalks and I’m laughing hard.

I’m a reasonable man, MacArthur, so I know this isn’t snow

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 05:39:41 GMT

Sometime in the last hour, we suddenly got snow. We now have a light dusting of the white stuff over the patio and our back lawn. Calls to mind the old line from Doonesbury, where in the American Samoas, after volcanoes, hurricanes, and locust plagues it starts snowing.

After all, this is Seattle, not Boston…

Last ski of 2003

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:32:14 GMT

Just got back from a quick morning’s skiing at the Summit at Snoqualmie. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I very quickly started writing about other resorts shortly after our visit last January. That was because Snoqualmie lived up to its nickname, “Snow-crummy”—less than 3 feet of base snow, coupled with rain.

Today, Lisa and I left the dogs in their crates for four hours and made a blitzkrieg assault on the slopes at Snoqualmie—elected because of its proximity (less than an hour away) and because the snow conditions are so much better than they were last year. The base at Summit West, which last year stalled around 30" all season long, was 63" today, with more falling later this week.

We fell right back into the routine. After one cautious descent, we quickly moved up to more difficult blue runs. Given our short time on the slopes, I don’t anticipate too many aches and pains, but we didn’t really have the time to stretch out and explore more difficult runs. Still, if you had told me two months ago that I’d be able to ski even a few hours so soon after getting our dogs, I’d have thought you were crazy. It was really nice to get in one last ski before the calendar year ended.

Back in the land of Mad Cows

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:34:59 GMT

It’s weird to be back in Washington State, knowing that there may be a sponge-brained mad cow lurking in my grocer’s freezer. Guess I’m crossing the Sunny Dene Ranch off my list of places to visit in Yakima.

Scary to read this article in the New York Times speculating on the probability of additional undiscovered mad cows. And funny to hear that the infected cow has been traced to a Canadian herd. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be the same “blame Canada” phenomenon that sought to put the blame for the August blackout on our Northern neighbors’ shoulders.

Ski season opens early

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 17:41:20 GMT

I spoke too soon when I mentioned that the Washington Weather Alert RSS feed showed no active watches, warnings, or advisories. For the past few days, there have been winter storm warnings throughout the Cascades and Olympics.

As a consequence of all the snow that has fallen this month, several of the ski areas are opening early. My local fave Stevens Pass is actually open today, with 48" of base and 7" having fallen in the last 24 hours. Whistler is holding the line and will officially open on Thanksgiving, Snoqualmie opens on Friday (with 26" at the West Summit, they’re definitely getting the short end of the snow stick yet again), and Mt. Baker (which we never got to last season) is open today with the biggest opening day snow base in a decade—70 to 80 inches!

Sadly, I don’t think we are going to be able to take advantage of any of the early skiing, at least this week. But that’s a story for another day.

How shall we sing in a strange land?

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:10:35 GMT

I sang for the first time at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle on Sunday. The group was a pick-up men’s chorus made up of men from the Cathedral Choir and from the general congregation, which is how I got to participate. For having only half an hour of rehearsal I thought it went quite well.

There was also an interesting discussion during the service with US Marine Colonel Andy Hutchison, a reservist who was called away from his work at Boeing (and membership in UPC) to become deputy for Logistics Operations for the Marines during the Iraq war and subsequent occupation (article mentioning Andy’s work here). He spoke about his faith and the progress being made in Iraq. Acknowledging the bad news that was coming from Iraq, he also discussed his witness first hand of the relief of the Iraqi people of being out from under the Hussein regime. It was interesting hearing the voice from the front lines.

Tony Pierce goes to dangerous ground

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 04:51:37 GMT

Tony Pierce asks: “dear bill gates, let me write your blog.”

Be careful what you wish for, Tony: you might get it.

On the other hand, it would be pretty cool to have Tony in Seattle. At least until his Southern Cal ebullience wears off in the perpetual darkness of the Northwest winter and he turns into another Starbucks addicted Seattle blogger like the rest of us.

Wait, I’m sorry: was that bitter?

Whew…

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:38:22 GMT

…I got slammed today. Between the company meeting and the work I need to get done before I leave tomorrow, and trying to get the leaves up off the ground before I disappear for a weekend… I’m finally getting things done, just in time to get to bed and hop on the merry go round in the morning.

Man, do I need this vacation.

Fall

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 30 Oct 2003 03:57:54 GMT

Ross Mayfield nails how I feel about autumn in Seattle, describing the effect of being in northern latitudes after the equinox:

In Estonia, where I lived once, its compounded by the fact that coming winter solstice the sun barely skirts the horizon and its basically dark except mid-day. A strange and wonderful cycle ensues. From summer solstice, the party of the year, on to Christmas people get a little depressed. From Christmas to party time moods heighten.

I miss the amazing glowing late afternoon light that used to come in early October afternoons in Charlottesville and Boston. The hardest thing about working right now is getting in with the light, and leaving after it’s dark. Plus the fact that there’s no late afternoon light most days.

For all that, I’m feeling pretty good compared to last year. Amazing what a change of job does. Not to mention good music.

View from a fogged window

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:00:22 GMT

The rain started a day early, dashing
hopes of keeping ahead of the falling
leaves. While the moving ahead of clocks
should bring more sleep it brings no more
daylight; the days are shrinking fast.

Urgh. I should know better than to try poetry, even free verse, out in public after a long hiatus...

Apropos of nothing, I’m starting to think seriously about taking up some woodworking projects for our home. Driven partly by our increasing need for storage, partly by the low attractiveness/cost ratio of prebuilt shelves, and partly—I confess it!—by articles about built-in bookshelves in This Old House magazine and on their website, I’m now fighting visions of magnificent wood Craftsman built-in bookcases in our third bedroom cum library.

This is of course compromised by the fact that I’m totally inexperienced in woodworking, and have no idea of what sort of design would be in keeping with the Craftsman bungalow architecture of that part of the house.

Research, here I come...

And in other EMP news…

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 03:15:03 GMT

Looks like everyone’s favorite underattended Seattle rock and roll museum will be joined in June by another Experience…the Experience Science Fiction museum, to be “co-located” with EMP in the Geary building. Guesses as to which galleries it will displace in the EMP?

Impressive advisory board, too: Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Ray Bradbury, David Brin, Octavia Butler, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Freeman Dyson, Harlan Ellison, Lucas and Spielberg, Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Majel Roddenberry… practically a Who’s Who (and still alive) in the field today.

Oh hell

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 17 Oct 2003 02:29:47 GMT

Prayer, if you believe in it (and maybe even if you don’t), is in order: Seattle’s blogmom Anita Rowland has diabetes and ovarian cancer…and no health insurance.

Folks, this is really bad news. Anita, as she is wont to do, is putting a really brave face on it, but this is not a good situation at all. I wish there was something we could do for her.

Missed the Meetup

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 03:33:16 GMT

I was planning to go to the Blog Meetup tonight but fate and work intervened. Hope it went well.

Photos from the Museum of Glass

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 02 Oct 2003 16:11:51 GMT

I was cleaning out my phonecam’s memory today to make room for BloggerCon photos and found this collection of photos from our recent trip to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma with Charlie and Carie. Unlike our previous trip, the temporary exhibit was about glass this time—fine glass art from early 20th century Austria and Germany, including a lot of phenomenal pre-Bauhaus and Bauhaus pieces.

Unfortunately I lacked the presence of mind to take pictures of that exhibit, but here are a bunch of shots from the permanent outdoor installations (yes, outdoor glass exhibitions. Amazing, no?). To my dismay, the photos don’t quite convey the dazzling transcendence of the color experience, even taken with my Lomo-esque Nokia, which tends to oversaturate the colors in every shot. But they aren’t too bad.

November in Napa?

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 02:04:22 GMT

George just emailed us a link to the perfect excuse, now that we’ve been on the west coast 15 months, to finally head down to Napa (and spend some time with him and Becky): the Wine and Food Affair. Two days in the Alexander, Dry Creek, and Russian River Valleys, over fifty wineries, $40 bucks a person. Sounds like a road trip to me!