4 October 05
Viral Notes
It is Pandemic Flu Awareness Week, so now is a good time to look at the Flu Wiki.
Meanwhile, there has been a mysterious viral outbreak at a nursing home in Toronto that has killed 10 residents and hospitalized 40. The virus is not SARS, normal influenza, or avian flu.
2 October 05
Sweet Caroline
Our friend Nicole told Pica today about an NPR story on the mystery of why Red Sox fans sing the song “Sweet Caroline” at every home game. Plenty of Red Sox fans are singing the tune tonight. Having trounced the Yankees 10-1 in the final game of the season today, the Red Sox are going to the playoffs! The fun starts Tuesday—Red Sox versus the White Sox in Chicago.
1 October 05
A New Department for UC Davis?
We can always dream.
This is in fact an art project by a student here. The sign moves about campus in very anarchist fashion, being tracked currently on the Davis Wiki. It looks in every way like the signs you see ubiquitously on campus (UCD stands, of course, for Under Construction Daily).
Goldman Dance Studio? Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Learning Center? Kropotkin Cafe? Count me in.
1 October 05
Final Weekend
There are two games left in the regular season, and the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians are still in contention for two playoff spots. The Red Sox beat the Yankees this evening, the first game of the three-game series, and the two teams now have identical records. There are many possibilities for the American League playoffs depending on what happens the rest of the weekend. Thankfully somebody else has calculated all of them.
Down the road at the Oakland Museum, the exhibition Baseball As America has just opened up, and will be running through January 22, 2006. Organized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, this is the first major exhibition to examine the relationship between baseball and American culture. Sounds like a trip to Oakland is in our future!
29 September 05
Bike City, USA
Davis has just been recognized as the most bicycle-friendly city in the United States by the League of American Bicyclists. This town of 65,000 has over 100 miles of bikeways, thousands of bike parking places, and most important, 25 grade-separated intersections keeping bicycle and motor vehicle traffice apart.
When I was in San Francisco on Tuesday I was fearful for the cyclists on Market Street. They have every right to be on the road but it’s tough sharing the street with crazed drivers and tramlines. Today, by contrast, I rode my bike from work into town: most of the two miles were on bike-only roads. This was the first day of classes and parking a car would have been a nightmare. Instead I parked my bike right outside Ali Baba and sat and had a very enjoyable time working on my Sudoku, which I just discovered last week. I’ve discovered an unwanted addiction…
28 September 05
Zen Hunting
If you meet the Buddha on the road, watch out, he may bear claws.
27 September 05
A Day at Adobe
I found out yesterday there was an Adobe conference in San Francisco today, so I joined some folks from the main UC Davis design office on a train jaunt down. Lots of interesting new features in CS2 but it was mostly a ploy to get us to buy it. If I’d had this earlier in the summer my big project would have taken a lot less time, at least if I knew how to use the features in question.
I did another doodle at one rare slightly boring bit. I’m too tired to scan it this evening but I’ll put it up tomorrow.
26 September 05
Move Over, Darwin Fish
Those who wish to proclaim the Revelation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster can now do so on the back of their vehicle.
(From Shakespeare’s Sister )
25 September 05
Place Bloggers Meet in Bodega Bay
Today we met up with Tim Lindgren of the Where Project. Tim was over from Boston for a wedding, and we had some work to do on my mother’s computer, so we met up for brunch this morning at the Seaweed Cafe.
Tim always asks interesting questions about blogging place, and it seems that people often ask interesting questions about place themselves when they are somehow in transition. We came up with quite a few blogs between us where this is the case. Being on the edge is what ecotone means, and it’s a challenge to find the edge when you’re feeling settled, of finding the extraordinary (or at least blogworthy) in the everyday. I think one way I’m able to do this is through sketching. (I didn’t do any sketching this morning but we did talk about it.)
Speaking of Ecotone, Tim is heroically moving the spam-beleaguered wiki to a Drupal interface. There should be a skeletal prototype available soon. Please indicate in comments here if you’d like to be involved in testing the new format—we’d love help here! (From highly advanced users to novices, people who have never even left a comment before.)
25 September 05
Winding Down
There are seven to eight games left in the season. The Red Sox and Yankees are in a dead heat, with a season-ending series next weekend at Fenway. Cleveland is 1 1/2 games out from the White Sox and in the lead in the wild card race. Alas, poor Oakland is fading from contention, 4 games back of the Angels.
What could be more fun?