Chili

Monica and Daniel’s cat. Has his own facebook page too.

Come on in…

…the water’s warm, and there’s a bottle of tequila floating nearby somewhere.

Alameda Fork

From the other island that makes up Alameda, with an airport on it.

Flowers from Filoli

Clichéd, maybe, but I like the almost sugar frosted look about them.

Waqf WTF?

It’s been an off week for the Scrabble, the nadir being this game where I was outclassed by a far superior player who nonchalantly placed WAQF on the board. I managed to pluralise it with a bingo (daisies, I’m in red), but still… It came out of nowhere and put me right off. I hope I can similarly demoralise my opposition with the same word one day.

wafq

Sita’s in SCruz again today teaching the younglings the basics of sociology. I’ve no right to complain about my commute to Santa Clara when she’s going the extra mile to Santa Cruz. Hopefully in September all this will be nothing but a distant memory and everything’ll be walkable or MAXable. Talking of SC, they just got donated a load of Grateful Dead memorabilia and stuff. “This is the first step toward having a library that is a destination for scholars interested in studying an important aspect of America’s vernacular” spluttered UCSC music professor Fred Lieberman. People will be studying tequila next… All a couple of days after another important Santa Cruz event. No relation I’m sure.

Last Sunday I went on a Flickr tour to the local abandoned Naval Base, and here’s the photos I took. They’re a bit abstract cos it’s not the most exciting of areas, but there was a nice light which I think I captured in one or two. My favourite is the interior shot of a warehouse and since it’s in portrait orientation, I’ll post it here because I’ve yet to configure my photoblog to display them right.

[flickr]photo:2429553001[/flickr]

Sita’s folks have just made a big purchase in North Downey… email if you’d like more info on that teaser. And CONGRATULATIONS if you’re Martin or Sally.

And that’s the news. File the rest of this post under geekery.

New features on this blog:

Due to public repridemand you don’t have to risk losing your comment and swearing at your computer any more when the “enter these squiggly letters” spam detector is playing silly buggers. However, if you want to write a comment and have your own icon appear rather than Atticus staring lovingly back at you, you can sign up for a gravatar. Then any comment you left in the past should display the picture too. And not just in this blog neither.

Apparently video comments are going to be the next big thing, but I don’t think any of us are ready for that just yet. Meanwhile, as a stepping stone or gateway drug, if you prefer, upload yer avatars and make the comments look even nicer than they already are.

The top emailed articles list on the left is probably going to be replaced with a “Most Polemic” list, ie. posts with the most comments, as, understandably, people are not rushing to email posts to each other. I think it’ll stay on the photoblog though, which I’m starting to really like. I might get round to making themed e-cards for birthdays, weddings, bah-mitzvahs, quinceañeras…. and maybe branch out later into printed cards. Just ideas, just writing them down. May not happen.

Alrighty, thanks for stopping by again, now go off gravitarise yourself. Cheers!

Alamedal Bridges

From an impromptu solo photo tour around the edges of Alameda at sunset.

Bay Bridge

Linking San Pancho (SF) to Oakland.

Grass on 4-20

A bench in Alameda’s old, abandoned naval base.

Posey Tunnel

Alameda’s underground connection to the outside world.

Coastal flora

Set the magenta controls for overdrive. (From Alameda’s golf course. Looking in through the fence.)

Brocauliflower

This unholy vegetable was sitting in the overpriced organic market in Alameda.

Next stop: Portland

Sita accepted Lewis and Clarke’s offer last night for a post-doctoral position in their Latin American Studies dept. It’s a one-year gig, but they’ll be paying for our moving expenses (U-Haul for our craigslist furniture and limousine for the schipperke). We’re very happy about all this. If you’ve ever written an email to Sita, you may have received a letter this morning about it, if not… Sur-prise!

This also means Sita will finally be Professor Sita with the hat and everything sometime in June with a PhD signed by none other than California’s own Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Oregon is a surprisingly cool place with lots going on, plenty of bars, music and has all manner of parks, dormant volcanoes and borders with Canada to explore. So it’s all good. And keeps our record of never staying in the same zip code for more than 10 months at a time unbroken… It’s still 8 hours behind GMT but maybe the change of scenery will encourage friends and family from t’other side of the pond to visit us again.

The problem with California… and it has many… is that it costs a small fortune to live here. You’re paying a premium just for the privilege of living here and after a while it starts to grate. Especially if you’re not out and enjoying the surroundings to the fullest and just treading water in the (su) ‘burbs. It’s like living in the carpark of Disneyland but paying for a family ticket every day. And it takes an hour to get anywhere in the carpark. And all the cars look the same. And you’ve got a dog. And you were never that keen on Disneyland in the first place. Yeah. Reading back, it’s Just like that.

Talking of dogs. Our neighbours have started feeding the squirrels in the back garden so they’re often running around our little green patch like they own the place. Of course, they don’t own it. Nope, that title belongs to one Atticus Gaytan-Fisher. And he’ll defend the place even if it means flailing blindly against a ground level window until it shatters into small pieces like what happened this morning.

Plus points:

  • He didn’t hurt himself.
  • We live one block away from the DIY shop.
  • It was squirrels he was after, not the neighbours or landlord.
  • I’ve learnt how to replace windows in Victorian style homes and shall put up a page advertising this new service at agaveweb.com soon enough. That’s if Kevin Fennelly isn’t available.

Minus points:

  • He didn’t hurt himself.

Not a scratch. No lessons learnt whatsoever. So I’ve put up cardboard in front of his office windows so he is less apt to throw himself at them. That’s the theory anyway. He’ll probably just start tunnelling.

This evening I’m meeting Fernando from Guadalajara in Amoeba records, San Pancho so I might have a power nap now so I can hit the ground running later over the Bay Bridge. So there you go. Life in the fast lane, Alameda (25mph max).

Skip the first 5 paragraphs. Skim the rest.

I finally got round to updating the many WordPress blogs on this site to 2.5. Somehow along the way agaveweb.com‘s database disappeared, but luckily google had cached the site and copying and pasting was ridiculously easy in the visual editor. The pagerank might suffer, but it’s better than total collapse.

Anyroad, while updating I added a couple of new features to the blog. Namely the “email this to a friend” link at the bottom of each entry and page caching for faster loading. Also my photoblog is probably about another week away from being resurrected, plastered with more google ads than before and with smaller pictures!

[flickr]photo:2420485044[/flickr]

Now I can insert photos from my Flickr stream with a great little plugin which also uses lightbox… Go on, have a click on the chameleon car above and thrill to the ajaxy goodness… That’d be a good scrabble word.

I had to transfer the links in the blogroll by hand, so if I’ve missed you off, it’s by accident and shoot me an email and I’ll add you right back. On the plus side, there’s now categories once again.

I’ve been using FireFox 3.0 Beta 5 for a week now and can’t recommend it enough. It’s faster, stabler and altogether more of a gem. Favourite feature you ask? The address bar and its in-built search function. Once Firebug works on it I’ll be uninstalling FF2.5.

Sita’s had some big news lately which may well necessitate another move later in the year to a place beginning with P. Get in touch if that sounds intriguing. We’re still in negotiations but it’s looking very promising.

Yahoo! can’t make their mind up as to when they need professional English speakers, so unless I get yet another email I’ll be in Santa Clara next Monday…

We’ll probably be going to Downey in a week or so to catch up with Sita’s dad who’s had a very painful run in with gallstones and a spell in hospital. He’s on the mend now though, but we wish him all the best.

Just came into a load of new albums. In no particular order: Goldfrapp, REM, Portishead, Vampire Weekend, & Hot Chip. Most of which I’m enjoying no end and it’s reassuring I haven’t stopped liking new music just cos I’m 33.

While I’m youtubing… here’s Vampire Weekend

And another photo!

[flickr]photo:2420478618[/flickr]

You’re forgiven if you choose not to send this post to a friend. Cheers!