BeachHead

She said: Sorry for the blog silence!  We've been distractaphone lately, with planning our wedding.  A great thing to be distracted by, I must say.  :) 

In case you're here looking for the font Geir designed for the occasion, here it is: Gaston (download here). 

And in case you got to BeachHead while looking for info about the wedding, go here instead. 

 

She said: It's been a while since I've posted.  Reviving a regular stream of posts is something we have to revisit.  What's happened in our lives since the last post?

• We went to the beach a lot.
• Geir's been cranking on his new company.
• We went to H and J's beautiful wedding in New Hampshire.
• We got engaged!
• An historic election!
• S and R had a baby!
• After a reasonable delay, we started swimming in Google Docs spreadsheets.

And more recently, some sad news from MIT: Henry Jenkins, the CMS co-director, is leaving MIT for USC.  A huge boon for USC, and I'm delighted to welcome Henry to SoCal.  But an even larger loss for MIT.  Henry has worked so hard to build the CMS program and a strong community around it.  After 10 years of constant block and tackle to build the program, MIT's support for the program has been, in a word, weak. 

My 2005 CMS S.M. classmates and I decided to lodge a protest, and write an open letter to Susan Hockfield, president of the Institute.  Rekha posted it to her blog here.

The seven of us wrote the letter using Google Docs collaborative editing software.  We trusted the cloud.  We had conference calls, connecting Cambridge, New York, Los Angeles, and Mumbai.  We talked and joked and enjoyed working together for the first time in three years.  I'll echo Rekha and say that the silver lining of Henry's departure, for us thus far, was the opportunity to come together in writing the letter. 

I hope you'll give it a read.  While you read,  think about the role of your own humanities education, and what your life might be like had you not had one.  Here's the link again: http://tinyurl.com/MITletter

She said:  Does this person realize the irony?

 

She said: In honor of this morning's (11:42am PST) 5.4 earthquake (my first in LA!), I've asked the barkeep at our Tuesday-frequented bar, Mandrake, to whip us up an Earthquake cocktail tonight.  We'll see if it's tasty. 

Apparently the Earthquake, also known as the Tremblement du Terre, was invented on the early side of the turn of the (last) century by Toulouse-Lautrec.  Originally made with Absinthe, now it's most often made with Pernod.

Recipe (HT: Wikipedia) goes as follows:

--1 part gin

--1 part bourbon

--1 part Absinthe/Pernod/licorice liquor

Shake in cocktail shaker with ice. Serve over ice cubes in a collins glass.

Photo credit: Flickr/Caroline on Crack

She said: One of my least favorite things in the world.... and it happens a lot more in LA than anywhere else I've lived: When walking on the street, crossing paths with a man (or men) who offer their thoughts on your physique or their availability just at that moment when you're passing them -- so you have no time to respond. 

Yesterday?  Two such men, crossing 3rd St. in downtown LA. Man one: "Bounce." Man two: "hey baby, I'm up for adoption." 

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

She said: We were riding our bikes back from the Potholder this morning, and screeched to a halt on the sidewalk at the same time -- we'd both seen the same thing: a shiny steel 50's tanker desk, with original chair, and a cardboard "FREE" sign propped up on top of the desk.  We got off our bikes and circled thoughtfully -- what an opportunity!  We love the style, but had never thought to acquire one because these vintage desks are worth a couple hundred bucks if un-rehabbed or in fair condition, and more than that if spruced up or in perfect condition.  This one was a little dinged, but recently stripped so the steel shone through, and perfect action on the drawers.  Only problem, we were on our bikes.  And no way would it fit in our car. 

So we went back home and borrowed our friend Eric's truck, and returned (half expecting it to be gone).  Nope - still there.  Someone else clearly had been there since we left, and had hidden the chair and one of the drawers behind the porch, probably to stake a claim while they went to go get THEIR friend's truck.  Too bad -- we were there first. 

We set about jigsawing the desk into the back of the truck when the owner came out of the house and introduced himself.  He was catching a flight to Hawaii tonight, he said, and just couldn't deal with moving these big heavy things.  So he just hoped they'd go to someone who would appreciate them.  We assured him we were thrilled.  Actually, he said, I have a matching side chair and another weird cabinet thing -- they were in the back -- he'd just set them next to the trash.  We went back to inspect, and sure enough -- a matching side chair, and two unusual things I'd never even known existed:

The first was a small steel stand with lots and lots of clips.  The guy said he didn't know what it was for, but upon closer inspection (the wiping of dust) it was clearly labeled as a dentist X-Ray film development rack, manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester NY.  Sweet!

The second was a scratched-up yellow cabinet on wobbly improvised casters resembling a large computer tower.  Lifting up and sliding back the front panel revealed about 20 shallow, narrow and very long drawers holding unusually shaped plastic folders, laid flat and overlapping each other.  Anything in the folders is viewable, and you can flip through them easily.  What in the world was this for?  Turns out it belonged to the Department of the Interior in the 1950s, and it still contained a few original records of contracts, receipts and work orders for various parks and public works.  One drawer is even labeled "Lake Mead."  Pretty cool.

Needless to say, we crammed all of the above into the truck and it's all now in our loft.  Completely free -- he wouldn't even let us buy him a six pack of beer!  Don't quite know where we're going to PUT them yet, but we'll figure it out.

And here's the desk:

She said: In my last post I said we had to move.  And we still do.  But in a stroke of luck, we've found another loft in our building to rent -- and save some Ben Franklins while we're at it.  Good news, and an easy move awaits.  Only downside? Now I don't need a scooter to help out with the commute.  So the research of the last post, and the many emails I've received with good ideas for scooting options, might turn out to be just research and no action, for now.

She said:  You may not know this, but we need to move out of our sweet sweet loft.  *Sigh.*  *Wist.*

Moving ahead... now we're looking for a new pad.  Kind of a slow process, but it's fun, too -- and I'm starting to imagine what life would be like upon moving just a leeeetle bit outside of DTLB.  Lower rent is the aim, and it'll probably be just far enough away that I need to bridge my commute with some other way of getting to the train.  I don't want to count on biking every day, because maybe I'll want to wear nice clothes, so I'm thinking scooter. 

I want to go electric if I can, and I have a big soft spot for those old-style Vespas.  So here are my favorite options as I see them:  ZAP's Zapino.  The Oxygen Lepton-E.  The 168 from EVT America.  (Even though the price of the traditional gas-powered Meitian Retro is hard to argue with.)

The LA Metro doesn't allow gas scooters on the train, but I haven't found any rules against electric ones.  If that's right, I could ride an electric scooter to the train, haul it onto the train with me, hop off the train and up the elevator, and ride the last six blocks to work.  Only drawback I can see is losing the half mile walk each day to and from the train in downtown LA....amidst the throat-choking, snot-blacking fumes of downtown rush hour.  Pass.  (So I lose the walk.  I should go to the gym more anyway.)

So what do you think?  Which scooter looks like the most fun, and the best deal?  Would you go electric?  Which one would I look cutest on?  Got any other recommendations? 

 

She said: It's been almost two months since either of us put anything up here.  And I'm too tired to say anything interesting right now.  I almost wish this was Twitter because then I wouldn't feel like I had to say something of substance.  Oh well.  (It's a start.)