:: Life of Dave ::

:: Sunday, August 31 2003 ::

Well, we have some information on the apartment. The phone number is 011-33-1-40-33-13-78. So everyone can call, starting next Thursday or Friday. If you're outside of the US, the first three digits are the international dialing prefix, so change them as needed for your country.
:: David (11:48 in Michigan, 17:48 in Paris)
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:: Saturday, August 30 2003 ::

Interesting story in the Economist this week. It talks about something called the 'endowment effect,' which is a relatively new idea in economics, although you may not believe it is new when you find out what it is. Basically, the 'endowment effect' suggests that people place a higher value on things that belong to them than they would on something, for example, in a store. Having just had a garage sale, this seems pretty obvious. But some of the studies, and some of the implications, are quite interesting. For example, the research suggests this higher value is attached as soon as the item becomes 'yours'. No waiting for it to get sentimental value - just *boom* and it has, to you, a higher value than it did before it was 'yours'. Fun stuff.
:: David (15:05 in Michigan, 21:05 in Paris)
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Party party party! I was up until 2:30am on Thursday/friday, up until 4am this morning, and now there's a party at Fin's house later today (probably any minute now!)

Last night much of TOAD was reunited for a Magic night. We even managed to drag the elusive Jonathan Miller out of his home to come play cards. Very exciting! There was a run to the ice cream parlor, lots of old lines dragged from the vaults, and in general madness and chaos. This was also the final visit to Zach's place in Jackson, as it appears he is buying a house in Lansing. Woo hoo!

Leaving on Wednesday. Everything is set to go except my job when I get there. We'll work on that. Meantime, the US Open Tennis Championships are on....
:: David (14:50 in Michigan, 20:50 in Paris)
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:: Thursday, August 28 2003 ::

An article came up today which follows on my cork research from the spring. Titled "Le lynx ibérique en voie d'extinction au Portugal après les incendies" it talks about the Iberian Lynx facing even more danger of extinction after the fires this summer (which I had actually expected). For those that don't read French, here's a babelfish translation!
:: David (15:16 in Michigan, 21:16 in Paris)
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Heard an interesting report on NPR yesterday, and I wanted to get it out there. They were talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Schriver. She is the niece (I believe) of Jackie Kennedy and is also apparently a TV news personality. And Arnold has connections to the Bush administration. Who says we don't have an oligarchy that controls the press? I hadn't realized the connections, but when it was laid out I was a little creeped out - why do the same names come up again and again? And the connection to the news just adds to the unease. Time to leave!

Today in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a Dream" speech. Every day is a good day to celebrate this speech, and if you can't remember exactly why, read it again! Alternately, you can listen to the full speech.
:: David (12:13 in Michigan, 18:13 in Paris)
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In addition to the documents I received, I was informed that for $35 (labor, copies, mail, etc) I could have the whole history of Marsh Plating. Overall I have to say I am fairly impressed with the state, not necessarily as regards the spill and their reaction to it (although it does seem to have been fairly innocuous), but as regards their ability to respond to my request, supply a huge quantity of documents for free, and in general make me significantly more aware of what occurred.
:: David (02:01 in Michigan, 08:01 in Paris)
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All kinds of fun stuff today:

As of midnight this evening I am no longer able to drive a car. My insurance has lapsed and I am dependant on the good will of those around me to get anywhere.

Also sometime this evening I sold my first item on eBay - Sasha's old computer. For more than $150 dollars. Not bad.

Julie called, and is alive and well and attending classes. Good to know she is still alive and kicking. Lindsay also called me today, but sadly was cut off due to T-Mobile's crap coverage on the west side of the state.

And, of course, today I got to see all of my exciting documents from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality regarding Marsh Plating in Ypsilanti, Michigan. As you may remember, back in May the company had a little spill of Hydrochloric Acid which resulted in a cloud of poison gas in the city of Ypsilanti. I filed a freedom of information act request for all documents relating to the spill. I got a little more than I expected. In total there were perhaps 100 pages sent to me, lots of handwritten docs, correspondence between government agencies and the company, and some truly interesting pieces of information. I might make a web page with more detail, but some of the highlights follow:

According to an executive summary drafted in 1989 "The company's present operation consists of a full line of metal plating in which chromium is run in conjunction with nickel." Apparently in the 80's the company had some problems with the DNR, as evinced by a newspaper article someone had clipped, titled "Plant misses DNR deadline for hazardous waste cleanup" (Ann Arbor News, June 6, 1986). The article asked then plant manager Jim Sigman for comment, and he said "I don't have to talk to you about that". Talk about a public relations wizard! According to the article, Marsh had other problems in 1981 and 1983, involving heavy metals and cyanide. One of my favorite comments, dated August 28th, 1984 "Birds died on site from sw [surface water] puddles". Another data point from March 25th, 1985 found cyanide levels at 190 parts per million. If I'm reading the sheet right, the expected level was 0.3 parts per million.

By 1989 it looks as though the company had cleared up many of the issues, with the exclusion of "the groundwater contamination problem" which had "not been addressed." No further documents seem to address the 1990's, so either my request was not broad enough (which, given the amount of data I did get, would seem odd), or Marsh managed to become a passable citizen for a decade or so.

Finally, we arrive at the evening of May 11th, 2003. There seems to be general agreement that wind damage to the roof of the building caused a break in a pipe which connected the roof mounted 8000 gallon tank of Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) to the building. The official report says "40-150 gals., or so" of HCl leaked out, reacted with the concrete pavement in their North loading zone, and created a cloud of HCl vapors which went into the neighborhood Northeast of the building. Apparently this cloud caused "damage to several large and small trees, bushes, shrubs, and plants of signficant economic value". Someone drove through this cloud about 8pm and called 911. The fire department went to the building, shut off the manual valve, and neutralized the acid/water mix (it was raining) with soda ash. According to the report, which includes a series of technical mishaps on the part of the DEQ (incorrect phone numbers and waylaid messages led to them being unavailable to offer technical advice), the water runoff was never acidic. A house across the street, however, received an "acid bath" which killed plants and vegetation. The owner of the house slept through the emergency, and was unaware anything was amiss. According to the DEQ's Air Quality Division report of the incident, the Ypsilanti fire chief Jim Roberts said in retrospect he "wishes they had evacuated the Fremont residence [the house in question]."

In follow up, in a letter dated June 7th, 2003, Matthew Marsh (presumably the person Marsh Plating is named after) stated the pipes were being rerouted through the inside, rather than the outside, of the building, to help prevent a similar incident. In addition, they were "investigating the feasability of installing" a more effective shutoff valve. As for the plant damage, they had agreed with the owners to wait to see if the plants recovered, and if they did not to pay for replacement.
:: David (01:55 in Michigan, 07:55 in Paris)
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:: Monday, August 25 2003 ::

Well, unless otherwise noted Sasha and Kimberly are off to the final inspection on their apartment as we speak, and then both Sasha and I will be living at the behest of Fin and Misty, until we leave for Europe next week. Next week! I can't believe it's almost upon us. And then the real fun begins, trying to get work and living setup all situated, getting my bearings in a new city, etc.
:: David (15:36 in Michigan, 21:36 in Paris)
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Excellent article on security in The Atlantic. It talks all about the idea that no matter how well you encode, encrypt, obfuscate, etc. your data, if someone puts a camera in your office and watches you type your password, your security measures have failed. It goes on to discuss failing well versus failing badly. Airport security, for example, fails badly. Ask any of the hundreds or thousands of people called out of planes to be re-screened when a single person jumps the gate. Badly.
:: David (10:31 in Michigan, 16:31 in Paris)
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You know, I was wandering around Kroger today at like 9:30 AM on a weekday morning, and I realized how horrific it would be to be unemployed in this country - I could definitely see days where I went to horrible stores (like Kroger) and then back to my apartment/house, and that was my day. How does anyone manage to not go insane when they are laid off for an extended period of time? Fortunately, I have a master plan. Now I just need to not go crazy in Paris!
:: David (10:00 in Michigan, 16:00 in Paris)
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Sasha spent the whole day cleaning house today. Fortunately, tomorrow is the last day, and at 3pm or so it will all be over. Our stuff is now in Fin and Misty's place, and hopefully the car, freshly washed and with a fresh load of oil, will return home shortly. Logistics and unpacking, mostly, for this week.

Coming back from Virginia was uneventful, if a little tiring - we were up and six and back by noon. Misty was being harassed by the police while waiting to pick us up because she had been sitting in the loading/unloading area for too long (five minutes). We showed up and she pointed to us with an expression of relief. And off we drove.
:: David (23:19 in Michigan, 05:19 in Paris)
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:: Saturday, August 23 2003 ::

Reading a couple of court cases - one, the inquiry into the death of the British scientist who recently committed suicide. Speaking to Alastair Campbell, spokesman for the British government, the judge asked about newspaper coverage. Mr. Campbell responded "It was getting worse. It was a Sunday and the Sunday papers often are even more difficult than the daily papers, and there was an awful lot in the papers about the dossier, about me, about my position and also a story falsely claiming that I had sent a written apology to the head of MI6 allegedly admitting that I had abused intelligence." The justice responded "Sorry, that is 7th June or 8th June?" Response: "That is the 7th." Thinking this odd, the justice says "The 7th is a Saturday." Much to my amusement, the response: "I get the Sunday papers on a Saturday night." - I guess the papers give him a little heads-up before they print anything....

Other court cases, apparently (according to Neil Gaiman, referencing an Excite article) the "fair and balanced" case has been thrown out, and Fox News reprimanded for being silly.
:: David (11:28 in Michigan, 17:28 in Paris)
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I brought my Palm Pilot with me down to Virginia, in order to have plenty of reading materials (I use AvantGo's service to download several newspapers and somesuch to my Palm). One of the articles I recently read involves the black boxes in cars, which apparently have been recording data on auto crashes for some time. I'm torn on this one - for example, they currently provide a five second snapshot leading up to the crash, which clearly has uses (as in the recent accident of the South Dakota representative Bill Janklow). On the other hand, with a little modification they could as easily track where you had driven for a day, a week, a month, or even for the life of the car. They could even upload that information, were things to go truly Orwellian, to a central police (or Homeland Security, if you like) database. It's crazy how quickly things move.

But I suppose my major objection to the black boxes is that they didn't tell anyone when they put them in. Apparently all GM cars with airbags have them, for example, and I would assume others will or already do have something similar. Tech TV gives a more complete list of the data recorded, and has a list of GM cars (dating back to 1996) which have them.
:: David (11:10 in Michigan, 17:10 in Paris)
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OK - if you happen to be in Southern Virginia (it could happen!) you -need- to go to this little restaurant called Bistro 1888 in South Boston, VA. Please note that 'South Boston' is not near Boston, MA. Rumor has it some business people had a conference in South Boston, flew into Logan airport in Boston, and then drove around for a while before calling and asking exactly how far it was to South Boston. Don't be like them. At any rate, this place had amazing food, presentation, lighting and atmosphere. And it was (compared to Ann Arbor) pretty inexpensive, given what you got.

Needless to say, when I get to Paris I'll probably have lots more restaurant recommendations....

Apparently today we're going to see Creedence Clearwater Revisited, which has some of the original members of CCR. It's interesting in a time when 'Fortunate Son' has so much resonance that these guys are touring. Good choice on their part! (For those that don't know, 'Fortunate Son' is an anti-war/anti-establishment song - sentiments that wouldn't seem to be that popular around here...).
:: David (10:07 in Michigan, 16:07 in Paris)
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:: Friday, August 22 2003 ::

Another day, another state. I'm in Virginia, for the moment, visiting Sasha's parents and dropping off all of her stuff. It's hot here. But amusing. I learned (partially) how to play Bridge last night, and it really is the card game par excellance. My head was spinning before we got to the actual deal. Funny stuff. Next week is moving to Fin and Misty's, leaving my car at my parent's house, and hanging out waiting for September. The waiting is the hardest part, to quote Tom Petty (and probably some other people as well!)
:: David (12:04 in Michigan, 18:04 in Paris)
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:: Wednesday, August 20 2003 ::

Ack! This just in from The Economist:

SOMETHING is afoot in the still rather geeky world of “blogging” that could make publishing web logs as mainstream as e-mailing or instant messaging. AOL, a big internet service provider, is getting ready to offer its members free blogging in a few weeks' time. This follows Google, the world's most popular search engine, which in February bought the company that makes Blogger, a free programme for publishing web logs.

Every AOL user in the world, blogging. Think about it....

The rest of the article, which talks about blogs trying to become commercial, can be read here.
:: David (15:38 in Michigan, 21:38 in Paris)
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Blogger finally started working with my site recently. No real reason or explanation, although I have a theory it was the way my web server is configured. Of course, having spent the time writing my own blogging software, I don't really feel like going back to someone else's software.
:: David (12:33 in Michigan, 18:33 in Paris)
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I suddenly wondered when I made the comment 'as likely a woman as a man' whether that was actually the case, and if anyone was tracking those numbers. I was only able to find one article, which suggests men and women blog about the same.
:: David (12:16 in Michigan, 18:16 in Paris)
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Following on this, of course, are the more obvious blogs, like Where is Raed? where he was on the scene of the bombing in Baghdad within an hour of it happening. Of course, in part this is true of anyone who lives in Baghdad, but that's the point! Anywhere, anytime, can suddenly become The Place Where News Is Happening, and suddenly we all have our very own 'man on the scene' (who is as likely a woman as a man).
:: David (11:22 in Michigan, 17:22 in Paris)
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So at what point does one's life become interesting to those beyond your immediate circle of friends? Or perhaps I should say 'of interest' rather than 'interesting.' I say this because I read a blog today (my so-called lesbian life) which talks about her love interest (a foreign national) who cannot stay in the country because, of course, they cannot get married. And then she mentions the fact that there is a bill in congress which would fix this, and links to a place where you can write your senator to support the measure. So suddenly it goes from being something personal, and of interest only to her friends, to something which should be of interest to everyone (regardless of whether they support the measure - one could as easily use the link to tell one's congressman -not- to vote for the measure). And in addition, it gives a human interest story to go along with the bill - one person's reason for wanting a particular bill passed. It used to be politicians would trot these people out. Now we can just do a web search for (for example) "The Permanent Partners Immigration Act" and come up with (presumably) everyone's individual pros and cons for this issue (although I have a sneaking suspicion that bloggers are more liberal than non-bloggers, taken as a whole, and thus the search might yield more pro than con).
:: David (11:18 in Michigan, 17:18 in Paris)
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:: Tuesday, August 19 2003 ::

What is Raging Cow? And why does it have a boycott aimed at it?

:: David (13:46 in Michigan, 19:46 in Paris)
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So you say you never want to lose power again? Try Home Power Magazine and see if they can't get you off the grid!
:: David (11:45 in Michigan, 17:45 in Paris)
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Finally got the TOAD reunion photos posted to the website - this isn't all of them, and I may have to redo it at some point because I left some of them at too high a resolution. But it's a start.
:: David (11:33 in Michigan, 17:33 in Paris)
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Giant gerbils run riot in China. What else, really, is there to say?
:: David (09:10 in Michigan, 15:10 in Paris)
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:: Monday, August 18 2003 ::

There's something wonderful about the ability to read virtually any court transcript online (as I just did with the Gilmore case, and as I have done in the past on Supreme Court cases). On the other hand, I'm not certain it makes me any more free, or protects my rights, or makes it less likely that the government will make me or my loved ones disappear. "Name and Shame" seems a particularly thin defense if you think about it. An example is the recent Reuters reporter who was shot by US forces. Everybody knows more or less what happened - just a really stupid action by some young people with big guns and jumpy trigger fingers. But will anything change? Is the military going to do anything differently? Nope.
:: David (12:30 in Michigan, 18:30 in Paris)
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Wonderful article on ReasonOnline concerning a recent lawsuit by John Gilmore (not the one from Albion - the one from Sun Microsystems). He's suing a couple of airlines for their requirement that he show ID when he boards a plane. Of course, you might ask why, but the article makes some good points. My favorite is the "What if Hitler had had a database of all the Jews?" which reminds us why sometimes the government is not our friend. Interestingly, the article made no mention concerning the current inclination in the US to round up anyone of Arab descent - in fact it says "[r]ounding up the Jews is not going to happen in America" - indicative that sometimes people don't look at all of the logical extensions of their own arguments.
:: David (11:55 in Michigan, 17:55 in Paris)
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Eastern Michigan University has signs up all over campus warning people not to drink water from fountains or taps without boiling it first. Apparently the power outage may have shut down the filtration system and there is some fear of ooky badness in the water.

So, of course, having seen like twenty of these signs posted around campus, I walked over to the student union to get a soda. Needless to say, all the soda fountains have been shut down. I felt sheepish.
:: David (11:20 in Michigan, 17:20 in Paris)
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Another day, another update (to the web page itself, not to the blog)(although I suppose this is an update to the blog, so it's really a combination, isn't it?)

I've changed the layout of the blog slightly. Hopefully you won't notice anything, just a more polished look to the page. If it doesn't look more polished (i.e. if it looks bad) let me know.
:: David (10:43 in Michigan, 16:43 in Paris)
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Wired magazine has a link to an article in New Scientist which discusses the fact that people are unintentionally putting private information on the web because newer word processing programs often store information that is intended to be deleted. Of course, this has been happening for a while - remember a couple of years back someone wrote a virus in Word and was tracked down because the document contained identifying information. But this article asserts that the problem is tremendously widespread (and given the ubiquity of MS Word and programs like it, who is really surprised?)
:: David (10:06 in Michigan, 16:06 in Paris)
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:: Sunday, August 17 2003 ::

The beanie baby market is dead (long live the beanie baby market!)

During the garage sale, Liz and Lori were trying to sell some extremely old (1994) beanie babies. Four years ago all of them would have gotten $100 or more. Now one can't get the original retail price for them, at least on eBay. I am amused.
:: David (15:17 in Michigan, 21:17 in Paris)
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:: Saturday, August 16 2003 ::

I fought it out this evening with the MSBlast worm. Needless to say, my mom's computer was infected. It was cute, and a worthy adversary. In fact, it is still being a worthy adversary as I type this - Symantec has a 'Blaster.Worm Fix Tool' which... doesn't seem to, actually. Nor does F-Protect seem to work. Sad.
:: David (00:53 in Michigan, 06:53 in Paris)
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Funny sign seen today (on the road sign of a hobby shop): Our games don't need electricity!

It seems I am doomed to bad weather whenever I drive across the state now. On the way to Kalamazoo from Ann Arbor I hit yet more flash flooding, this time in Jackson. Puddles easily deep enough to sink my car - everyone was driving into the center lane to avoid the mess.

I got a response to my query regarding the chemical spill in Ypsilanti - The Office of Financial Management of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality sent me a letter dated August 12th, 2003 which informs me they have received my Freedom of Information Act request to examine or receive copies of documents regarding the Marsh Plating chemical spill / release. They also informed me they are forwarding the request to four different divisions in their organization. Each organization will then send me information regarding documents they possess. They finally inform me that due to the forwarding of this request to these divisions, they must issue a 10-business day extension (as permitted under Section 5(2)(d) of the FOIA). So theoretically I will have information regarding the spill (or at least information about docs concerning the spill) on or before September 2, 2003. Cutting it a little close, aren't I?

Given the power outage of the past couple days, I wonder if they will issue an additional emergency extension or something....
:: David (22:36 in Michigan, 04:36 in Paris)
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:: Thursday, August 14 2003 ::

I was visiting Blog*Spot today, which is one of the blogging tools available for those who want to blog, but don't want to write the software (and keep updating it - I think I fixed the date again, but I'm not sure). Their basic plan is $15/year. The price I'm paying for this website (all of it, with email): $15/year. The price Yahoo wants to charge just for email: $25/year. Wacky stuff.

And speaking of wacky stuff, some of you may know (or have read my post) about one of the foster families I lived with, the Pahls. I mentioned them when I was writing about the Columbia disaster earlier this year. Amazingly enough, word must have gotten back to them via the wonders of email word of mouth, because I received an email from them yesterday. I'm actually quite excited about this, although it's always hard to tell how much one should write.

Part of this is due to my own curiousity about my personal history. Unlike people who lived with the same people, or in the same places, for an extended period of time, I have rarely had the opportunity to revisit old memories with someone else. This means that my (in this case nearly 20-year-old) memories become the only version of reality. And very often, a 10-year-old doesn't really have the most accurate view of what's going on. Especially when it is viewed through a lens of almost two decades. Things that would be re-created, re-viewed, re-examined, brought up in conversation and, as a group, made into 'history' never get that process, because I'm the only one I know who was there. So my personal history becomes reality. But it isn't a 'trusted' reality because I don't always trust my memories going back that far. Or they have holes. And sometimes, over time, the holes get filled by things imagined, or other pieces of unrelated memory. So it's always exciting to me to hear from people from my past.

That said, of course, how does one leap into the 'remember the time when' part of the conversation with someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger?
:: David (13:59 in Michigan, 19:59 in Paris)
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:: Wednesday, August 13 2003 ::

Oh - I forgot - as an added insult to injury, the U-Haul truck we rented wasn't waterproof, and several of the boxes got all wet on the bottom. Very helpful.
:: David (2003: in Michigan, 2003: in Paris)
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Yesterday we woke up around 9am. Because the U-Haul people still didn't know where our truck was coming from, the first thing I had to do was get with them and find out where the heck my truck was coming from. It was all the way on the West side of Ann Arbor, at of all things a gas station (which also rented out U-Hauls). So, we had coffee, and drove over to pick up the truck. Andrew and Finian met us at the U-Haul place, and getting through the paperwork was slow, but uneventful. We did a walkaround of the truck, signed off, and got in our various vehicles. Fin drove the truck, I took my car and Sasha and Andrew headed off in Andrew's car to meet us at the place.

We had driven about three tenths of a mile when I looked in my mirror. Whether I had heard something or was just looking I don't really remember. I saw the truck rocking violently from side to side. Fin turned off down a side street and I made a U-turn and caught up to him. He said maybe the road had narrowed more than he thought or something, but whatever had happened one of the back passenger side tires was dead. Audibly leaking air. So I hopped in and we drove back to the gas station / U-Haul dealer. The man told us, I am not kidding, to get on the highway and drive down to the U-Haul center in the South of town and see if they had a spare. We discussed this option and opted to call the emergency number instead. The woman on the other end of the phone spoke heavily accented English and I had her repeat nearly everything twice. In addition, she was as bored with my emergency as could be. Regardless, she finally called a tire shop in Detroit (the city of Detroit) to come out and fix the tire. About 20 minutes later the shop calls me to verify my location and, sure enough, she had gotten the address wrong. They corrected the error and said someone would be along in about 45 minutes. Fin thought they might be underestimating, but at that point we didn't care. I called Sasha and Andrew and told them to go hang out, get food, whatever, 'cause we were going to be a while. Fin and I, who had been hanging out in the hot, hot parking lot up to that time, wandered over to the book store nearby and hung out for a while.

After about 45 minutes, we headed back to the truck. Noone was waiting for us, so we hung out and waited. And waited. About a half hour later we called and asked where the guy was. Actually, I asked when their guy had left. The response was "Well, he left about... he's not there yet?!" Never a thing you want to hear. It turned out he had hit traffic, and gotten slightly lost. He rolled up about ten minutes later, and was all efficiency. Nothing but a manual jack and an air wrench, and boom! we were ready to go.

So this time I drove the truck - we took the highway and zipped up to my place. Pretty much everything was in boxes, so other than the massive and oversized TV it all came out fairly smoothly. Load up the truck just as rainclouds start to accumulate overhead. The only real problem was a couch I had meant to donate couldn't be donated, so I took it to Sasha's, where hopefully it could go with their stuff when they get around to donating it.

I got behind the wheel of the truck just as the skies opened up and the wrath of God fell in the form of water on the city of Ann Arbor. It was madness. By the time we were halfway across the city water was standing on the road deep enough to make me worry about my Toyota making it through them without stalling. Absolutely insane! Finally, just as we're on the final stretch, some idiot construction company has blocked the road - parking a big truck on one side of the road and some earth moving equipment on the other. I stop the truck and start to back up, but the idiot behind Fin won't budge - he's going forward, dammit! So I get out of the truck and go to talk to Fin. By the time I get back to the car (perhaps 25 feet) I am soaked to the bone. We discuss our options until a guy apparently associated with the construction equipment appears. I go to ask him to move it and he says 'oh - you can get through that!' So I tell him to guide me through, and sure enough, I make it through (with inches to spare - Fin later tells me it is at this point he decides he's very glad I drove the truck.) Regardless, we make it to Sasha's, unload the stuff I'm leaving at her place, load up the stuff she's storing at my house (not very much - a desk, basically) and a bookshelf which is to be delivered across town to some people who bought it at the garage sale. Fin and Misty (Misty joined us at Sasha's place) head off to get some food, we head off to get some food and drop off the bookshelf, and after some confusion we meet up at a truck stop outside of town. The drive to Kalamazoo is fairly uneventful, and I manage to get ahold of Tammy to tell her when to meet us at my place. Everyone manages to meet up at my place, and other than the part at the beginning when I nearly maneuver the truck into our septic tank the move goes smoothly. Everyone heads off and it's time to take the truck back. It is also at this point that Fin and Misty inform me that there is a smell in my car like no other. It turns out that a bottle of milk which had been in my car for (some long period of time) had not been completely empty, and had gone seriously off. Fortunately this is not my problem to deal with until the truck is back. We head out, find a gas station and the U-Haul dealer in Kalamazoo (which was in a somewhat sketchy part of town), and pile into my car. Which smells bad. They had sprayed some kind of potpourri thing to cover the bad milk smell, and it did not mix well at all. So this is the wonderful fragrance which came with us back to Ann Arbor. We dropped off Fin and Misty and headed to bed.
:: David (2003: in Michigan, 2003: in Paris)
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:: Monday, August 11 2003 ::

So yesterday was the TOAD reunion. Great good fun - nice to see everyone, hear the stories, see the (plethora of) children, and of course, play frisbee. I took a zillion pictures, which I am hoping to organize sometime, but I can't imagine when.

The reunion actually ran really late this year - I got back near midnight, which was a shame because I had been hoping to go clubbing up in Royal Oak with Sarah Coburn, who was in town for the weekend. But no soup. Fortunately, I was able to catch her today on her way to the airport. She was driving, I was driving, we were somewhat near each other, so we swung into the nearest food establishment (she hadn't eaten lunch yet, and had a plane flight still to go) and caught up on old times. She has a crazy life. Some folks just don't make up their mind on what the next step is, and she is definitely a member of that group!

And, of course, today was the last day of the yard sale. Thank goodness! I couldn't take another day of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to carry furniture. We still had a number of items, but we're simply going to donate the rest. Free to good home. Come and get it! Still, the haul was respectable. All together we had maybe $700 or so. Lots of big ticket items (lots of just plain BIG items - believe me - I carried 'em!) and lots of stuff. I took photos of the craziness as well, and those also are waiting until I have moved out of my apartment.

Lisa Dugdale swung by at one point to pick up her old couch (the one I slept on while job seeking in Ann Arbor). She was driving a tiny little U-Haul truck, and I asked with foreboding how big it was. Her response? "10 feet." The truck I have rented for Tuesday? Also ten feet. Sasha swears up and down that it'll all fit, but I am... dubious.
:: David (2003: in Michigan, 2003: in Paris)
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The clock broke again! I cannot believe it! It looks like it treats numbers differently if they have one digit versus two. Ack!
:: David (2003: in Michigan, 2003: in Paris)
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Woo! Jose Bove is at it again! Story here (French, English).
:: David (2003: in Michigan, 2003: in Paris)
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:: Saturday, August 9 2003 ::

The Yard sale moves on - it's almost 11AM, and we've sold lots of stuff already (including a delightful woman in her mid 30's who claimed the whip we were selling, along with a good percentage of other random items). I'm headed to the TOAD reunion up in Lansing in a couple of hours, but until then it's all about the wild and crazy people shopping in the front yard.
:: David (10:38 in Michigan, 16:38 in Paris)
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:: Friday, August 8 2003 ::

More on that - my thought was that the company should have to send us (residents of Ypsi, or some area like that) a flyer, perhaps detailing the badness and maybe even saying "we're sorry we scared the living crud out of you." Questions, of course, abound - how many people should it be sent to, what kind of details should they provide, etc. It's just a shame that it is always in a company's interest to cover these things up, and incumbent instead on the affected parties to seek out details, etc.
:: David (10:26 in Michigan, 16:26 in Paris)
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I was thinking further today on the chemical spill which occurred in Ypsilanti a few months back. After the initial hubub, nothing more was said about it. I thought maybe I had simply not heard about it, so I searched the Ann Arbor News, but it turns out they only keep 14 days of archives. A google search turned up nothing. It does appear, however, that I can request the results of the report from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. There is apparently a 'small fee' involved, so I'm going to send the request to see how much it would cost.
:: David (10:23 in Michigan, 16:23 in Paris)
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How's this for a random 'today in history' bit - 40 years ago today "The Great Train Robbery" occurred. Reading the article, noone was killed in the robbery, which jibes with what I remember from the movie (if I really saw it - I can't find the movie on IMDB). For those with moderately long memories, one of the train robbers went back to the UK fairly recently for medical care. The Wikipedia article tells the full story - apparently the guys were caught and then two escaped to Brasil.
:: David (10:10 in Michigan, 16:10 in Paris)
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:: Wednesday, August 6 2003 ::

Neil Gaiman has an interesting commentary on his website regarding the first amendment, including references to a story he wrote which was nearly banned. Amusingly, it's a bible story.
:: David (15:22 in Michigan, 21:22 in Paris)
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August 6th, 1945. 広島(Hiroshima). They had a peace ceremony near the dome a few hours ago.
:: David (13:16 in Michigan, 19:16 in Paris)
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From The Guardian
Tuesday August 7, 1945

"Japan has been hit with an atomic bomb 2,000 times more powerful than the ten-tonners dropped by the R.A.F. on Germany. President Truman, disclosing its use to-day, said that even more powerful bombs are in development. British and American scientists have been working on it for years out of reach of German long-range weapons.

Hitler's V1 and V2 were the forerunners of the atomic bomb, but Germany lost the war before her scientists attained this goal. President Truman described the bomb as-

The harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. We have spent $2,000,000,000 (about £500,000,000) on the greatest scientific gamble in history, and we have won. "

:: David (12:53 in Michigan, 18:53 in Paris)
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I think I managed to fix (for the time being) the clock problem I was having - it was a really odd thing - I think the problem was that the 'date' function started returning a completely different style of date in August than it had in July, and my little program just broke. Hopefully that won't be a problem in the future. Now I just need to deal with Daylight Savings Time....
:: David (11:16 in Michigan, 17:16 in Paris)
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Well, if it's not one thing it's another - it looks like, despite having finished classes in June, I will not get any sort of graduation paperwork before I leave for France. So I'm going to give them my address to send some of the goodies in case I need them. Fun fun with administrative offices!

The apartment continues to work its way towards boxhood. I'll drop by after work and finish putting away the kitchen and bedroom, which will just leave the living room as a madhouse of disarray. With any luck a large segment of my junk will sell over the weekend (so if you want a VCR that makes a -lot- of noise but works great, better get yourself over to Ann Arbor this weekend!)

I continue to read the news (a lot), but despite some interesting developments with the Episcopalians, nothing really seizes my attention. We'll wait and see who's running for governor of California, and then start complaining....
:: David (15:48:33)
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:: Tuesday, August 5 2003 ::

Added some more photos from around the city of Ann Arbor to my July Random Photos web page. I've been taking so many photos of late that they started to build up on my desktop. Hopefully now I'm somewhat closer to having everything up.

I've boxed a great percentage of my stuff now, and brought a big box of clothes over for the yard/moving sale Sasha's house is having. Sounds like Fin and Misty will be bringing some stuff as well. I'm quite curious how many things will be piled up in and around the house when this all gets going. It's almost frightening.
:: David (17:41:49)
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:: Monday, August 4 2003 ::

I applied for a crazy job recently - I would be working with one of the online game companies. Read the description in my job search page.
:: David (03:21:11)
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:: Sunday, August 3 2003 ::

Sunday morning, and I am -sore-! We managed to get Fin and Misty moved in under eight hours (barely), and I do not envy them them mess they have in their place now. It was a nice preview of what I'll be doing in a week. On the upside, I feel pretty good that I'll be able to fit everything I am keeping, and everything Sasha is keeping, in the smallest U-Haul truck. Actually, that was what slowed us down so much - U-Haul gave them a smaller truck than they had reserved, so they had to make two trips. Very unfortunate.

On the upside, the new place is quite nice, which is good, since I'll be living there for a couple of weeks starting later this month. I'm a little concerned about that, but I suspect it will work itself out. For now, the main things I need to do are pack and find things to sell at the big yard sale Sasha's house is having next weekend. There's lots of stuff at my house to sell, although I'm not certain how much of it I will actually be able to sort out in time.

The apartment I'm living in is just about sorted out - I've boxed most of the living room, and the bedroom is ready to be boxed although I've been holding off, primarily because (a) it's a mess, and (b) I ran out of boxes at one point. Obviously that won't be a problem now that Fin and Misty have moved.
:: David (17:05:02)
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:: Saturday, August 2 2003 ::

Changed the date and time function on my blog - I don't know why things blew up - I think I tried to get too pretty with the whole thing. Perhaps one day I'll be motivated enough to fix it....

...but probably not anytime soon!
:: David (17:15:03)
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Did a little website cleaning this morning - got the rest of my Thailand photos uploaded, put my personal web page into a bit more order, got the Chicago photos sorted a bit. Sasha is playing Star Wars Galaxies right now, and we're going to help Fin and Misty change houses in about an hour.
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 3: AM in Paris)
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I've added my photos from the trip to Chicago - once again I failed to take a movie worth putting on the website, but despite that I do like the fact that my camera can take movies.
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 3: AM in Paris)
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:: Friday, August 1 2003 ::

An absolutely amazing thing has been presented to me: a blog I ran across pointed out that the american press was telling us we didn't support gay rights, and pointed to a number of articles. One of the articles was on the Gallup Website, those folks who do the polls. If you look at the story, it suggests that fully 20% of the population changes its mind on gay rights from week to week. I find that more than a little difficult to believe. What's so troubling is that people use this data to make important decisions.
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 2: AM in Paris)
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Eastern Michigan University had a department called Academic Service Learning. It was a good idea - have people learn by doing, and do something useful. I worked there for a while. I visited the building today, and it's gone. Killed by political infighting. Truly a loss.
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 2: AM in Paris)
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Looks as though my date process has blown up again. I should really just dump it in favor of something else....

For those that followed the link on the Robert Jordan book, you'll notice the reviews were, well, bad. I can't disagree. It was definitely a waste of my time. But the book was free, more or less, as I managed to get store credit for those Magic the Gathering novels I bought on auction, so I really can't complain. Perhaps when they are all finished (hah!) I'll re-read from the start and see if they actually make sense....
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 2: AM in Paris)
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A wonderful evening of reading and television watching (Robert Jordan's Crossroads of Twilight and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, respectively). Nothing really exciting at all. Perhaps by next week I'll be rested up from the trip, but also probably exhausted from moving Fin and Misty this weekend.
:: David (Evening in Michigan, 2: AM in Paris)
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