A blog
Mail from Kenny’s cousin David this morning:
From: Pashman, David
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 5:58 AM
To: Kenny Wolf; Lauren Lavoie
Subject: congratulationsAre congratulations in order for the birth of your new baby OS?
Yes, I suppose you could say that Kenny and I (and the thousands of other folks who shipped Windows Vista) released our own little baby into the world today. I think she has a bright future ahead of her. :)
Living just off of 15th Avenue, Kenny and I find ourselves at Twenty-Two Doors quite often. Tonight, Kenny had a hankering for their burger (apparently snowboarding makes him crave beef), so we went there for dinner upon arriving home from Whistler. Their menu changes relatively often (more often than the website gets updated, it seems), and at certain times it seems to have more chickentarian* options than others. Tonight there were only two I hadn’t tried: a chicken dish and the veggie lasagne. I am generally loath to order chicken when I dine out, as it is often either dull or just as easily made at home. I asked our waiter, who seemed new, for some advice.
Me: How is the lasagne?
Waiter: The vegetarian lasagne? I haven’t tried it – I’m not a vegetarian. But I’ve seen it – it looks good.
Me: Okay, well, I’m not a vegetarian either, but I’ll try it.
I hadn’t realized that non-vegetarians couldn’t eat vegetables. I’ll have to file that one away.
Also, when Kenny and I were in Whistler this weekend, we saw a new restaurant/bar in the Village called 21 Steps. And I wondered: when one ascends 21 steps, does she find 22 doors at the top?
* Reminder to self: should write a blog entry defining this term at some point.
Via the Slog, I found that my neighbor and friend, Jonah Burke, had been written up in the PI for his non-profit web project benefiting the victims in Darfur, called the Darfur Wall:
By asking visitors to the site to contribute $1 or more, Burke has so far raised more than $28,000. Each dollar turns a dark gray number into a white one on the site, “lighting” it up as a visual to represent each of the estimated 400,000 people estimated to have been killed because of the fighting between Sudanese armed forces and rebel groups.
It’s a very cool project, and I definitely recommend that you head on over there and light up a few numbers (click on a number to light it up by donating $1; every additional dollar you donate will light up a random number elsewhere on the wall). I finally lit mine.
On a side note, I was amused by this little bit of the article:
The first donation came in November from a friend in China.
I know that friend in China. He’s back in Seattle now though. :) (Seattle really is a small town, isn’t it?)
We found these neat “Vintage Edition” board games that are packaged to look like leatherbound books, and contain wooden pieces and cards with old-fashioned typefaces (it turns out they are manufactured exclusively for Target, but I can’t actually find a link to the product on their website). We purchased Risk and Monopoly.
Monopoly is a long and boring game, so we bought that one pretty much for looks. But when Kenny discovered that I had never played Risk before, he decided to teach me the game.
We’ve played three times now, and I’m wondering: is it just me, or is Risk a really stupid game with only two players? It seems that the game is decided by the end of the second round, if not earlier. At that point, someone has Australia or North America or both, and it’s pretty much over. And actually, in the three games I’ve played, there seems to be a very simple rule in play: he who goes first wins.
Yes, I’ve only played three games, so I’m sure there are many exceptions to these generalities. And supposedly it’s a much more interesting game with >2 players, so I’ll wait to try that before dismissing it altogether.
It’s hard not to be skeptical, but this actually seems somewhat promising.
NEW YORK – Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. is engaging in industry talks on possible U.S. greenhouse gas emissions regulations and has stopped funding groups skeptical of global warming claims — moves that some say could indicate a change in stance from the long-time foe of limits on heat-trapping gases.
Exxon, along with representatives from about 20 other companies, is participating in talks sponsored by Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit. The think tank said it expected the talks would generate a report in the fall with recommendations to legislators on how to regulate greenhouse emissions.
Of course, we’ll see what they come up with in the fall, but this news seems to suggest a step in the right direction.
Kenny and I didn’t try to brave the icy roads to get into work today, but rather spent some time working from home and from Remedy Teas, a hip new tea shop around the corner from our condo (Kenny blogged his first impressions of Remedy a few days ago).
A man and a woman were sitting at a table near ours, and the woman was advising the man on how to get his own blog up and running. Her sage advice included:
And you need to provide an RSS feed on your blog, just for the small slice of geeks out there who use it.
Incidentally, I can see myself spending a lot of time at Remedy Teas in the future. Huge tea list + free internet + pleasant environment = happiness.
For the first time since it opened, Mount Rainier National Park is now closed due to storm damage. Park officials hope to have the roads passable by August.
November delivered the most damaging storm in the national park’s 108-year history. During one hellacious 36-hour span, 18 inches of rain fell — taking out roads, bridges and campgrounds. The current damage estimate is $36 million, and that’s only a starting point. The staff is waiting for the snow to melt to find out what else will need to be repaired or replaced.
You can volunteer or donate here.
Capitol Hill Seattle, tireless after their big Capitol Hill Tourney, are running a new contest: The 15th Ave/19th Ave Popularity Contest (which is built on Amazon’s interesting new UnSpun service). You can vote on which establishments you enjoy/do not enjoy by upgrading or downgrading them.
Go show your favorite establishments some love. Personally, I am rather partial to 15th Ave, but I love Vios (on 19th). In fact, I indulged in their warm eggplant salad tonight. Yum.