Archive for December, 2003

Speed dial replaces memory: In a sign of the times, more people are relying on speed dial to keep track of their phone numbers instead of their memory. And of course there are a few holdouts for paper and pencil. But with so many numbers to keep track of, why not let the phone do it for you?

One problem is losing the phone. Here’s an idea for the cell phone companies: come up with a way to store all your contacts on the company’s computers if you choose, transparently. Those who have privacy issues may be afraid of hackers or evil corporations or law enforcement getting access to your call list (hmm… a future Law & Order episode?), but they could opt not to sync up. Then when you replace your phone, hit a button and all the info comes back. You’d have an incentive to stay with that company.

The historians who guard the lineage of Mohammed have corrected the falsification that Saddam was a direct descendant.

Here are a couple pics of Dad’s piece-de-resistance (sorry, I’m not sure how to do the french accent marks on a blog) from Thanksgiving that included golden and red beets, crab, shrimp, avocado and field greens. I’m sure he’d describe it much better than I am…
Tara & the Beets
Beets de Resistance

ok, who all wants to come over for dinner?

I got a mass email today saying to watch out for UPS drivers because lots of uniforms were recently bought through eBay. I did a quick Google and found this great resource for finding out if an email is a hoax:
Trend Micro Hoax Encyclopedia
UPS Uniforms Email Hoax
So check out those chain letters before you pass them on!

Yes, Nathaniel is officially 5 months old today! He is doing well–he’s in a mellow mood today. The latest thing is bananas in a hand-held net-type thing that lets him suck out the good stuff while minimizing the mess. He’s had this on 2 occasions now. We freeze the sliced bananas and he gets to suck on them. He likes it a lot, but we figured out two doses are too many. We have lots of other food items to try next.

I changed the name of the blog after I received some negative feedback about the previous name. So now the concept is of course that we have people on both the East Coast and the Left Coast, but also that the content has a wide scope, and has a broadcast or communication quality to it. I plan to be updating the typeface and logo, but this is the direction I’m thinking. Anyone have a contribution about the name or style? Add a comment after clicking “Comments” below!

Got this article from ariped. Finally, research is backing up the idea that well-funded libraries in schools can lead to higher test scores.

Last night we had a blackout from 6:30 to 7:30. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one, so it was a strange feeling. It was about dinner time so thankfully the carrots were mostly cooked and Andrzej was cooking the salmon on the grill. We managed fine: found the candles, had a non-electric phone, ate the asparagus when we could cook it later. It’s strange to call the power company to report an outage and not reach a human being–just report your outage by pressing the right keys– not reassuring. At about 7 we found out there was a fire in the power plant in Sandwich by calling local police.

And today we had our first real snow! Not quite a whiteout. Just a couple of flurries. Unfortunately it’s the one day when Maggie could not postpone going in to work.

View out my office window, featuring 2 new trees

Really interesting article about where different communities of homeless people exist in SF.