lumbar microdiscectomy

Surgery.

Thursday. Wish me luck.

watch

Yeah. Real funny.

New Phone On The Way!

Yes!

The new phone is here, and coming. The wow is in about a week or so.

I have a new hobby.

Bringing joy to the world.

www.thebelay.com

And yes, I am insane.

Mike and Suzanne as Simpsons Characters

Can it be?

Nope.
The phone comes out in November. Hope it's worth the wait...

Hillbilly Speed Metal Birthday

Is 3x the charm?

Can't read my blog in China

Blue Velvet

TNF

Ken, Monique and Eva on final Approach

Bolivia. Looks like it was a nice day. What a line!!!

The New New Cameraphone

Looks an awful lot like the one I lost in Vegas.

The Perfect Cup

Knock another one off the list.

Went through preliminary barista training from stumptown. Finally, was able to create the perfect latte, from grind to tamp to pull to steam to pour. Took a few tries, and I'm sure it'll take many more, but drinking the final product was a revelation.

Also learned about coffee cupping.

Trainer: "How many of you have cupped before?"

Jesse: "I have, but I don't think what I did is what you are talking about..."

If you google coffee cupping, the first link is a pretty good one.

My first self-created latte art looked like garlic, something like this -

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y230/home-barista/brewtus-latte-art.jpg

Of course, mine was much better than this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonx/sets/48921/

Just now coming down from the buzz, after 20 or 30 tastings and probably ingesting the equivalent of 8 cups of coffee.

It turns out, you need to get the same size bubbles in the foam and the crema, so that the milk suspends the bubbles in the crema for longer.

Starbucks is absolutely no threat to these people. You can't corporatize this kind of passion.

bbq

Military Commissions Act

No Pics from DC (someome stole my phone and renamed it 'dummy') so my descriptions will have to suffice.

Smallish crowd (4000) on a very hot day (95 degrees, 90% humidity). It wasn't much, but it was something. It's up to us to hold those responsible who have contempt for the constitution and the rule of law. Great article in Harpers this month about this exact subject, and compares the administration's approach to law to the Weimar republic of inter-war Germany.

Scary stuff.

leaving las vegas

Heading south on the strip is an interesting experience. At the southern end, the road is 10 or 12 lanes wide, with turn lanes in either direction, and four pedestrian overpasses linking the sidewalks on each corner. MGM, New York New York, and the Tropicana are the main indications to visitors that they have arrived. Head north and you reach the Bellagio, Caesars, Ballys, and other mainstays of the Vegas strip. But head further south than this the traffic thins out almost immediately past the Luxor, and Mandalay Bay, with McCarran airport on your left and the freeway veering off toward Los Angeles on your right. The road remains wide until you reach South Point casino and resort a couple of miles down the road, and beyond this a most amazing thing happens. The road immediately narrows to two lanes, one in either direction, devoid of lights, roads, signs, or people. Less than 6 miles from the strip, and it is like traveling back in time, when the strip was just highway 604, and Las Vegas was something entirely other than it is today. Turn around, and you see how the strip was imposed on the landscape. Underneath it all is the same desert soil, devoid of life - an illusion dropped onto the earth, placed in a vacant space in the middle of nowhere. People come here to escape their own reality, and their own life, to a place where there was none, and the illusion of something else was put in its place. Want the illusion of love? It's for sale. Want the illusion of happiness? It's in the form of a jackpot and a promise. Want life? Nothing feels more alive than the drunken energy of the masses pulsating up and down the strip. I'm sure in a few years, this corner of the valley will become developed as well, and this nothingness will fade into memory like the rest of the emptiness that used to occupy southwest Nevada, and the last thing in this valley that is perhaps authentic and real will be replaced with a different kind of emptiness. There is something about the starkness of that road, on the edge of the illusion that is Las Vegas, that reaches into the emptiness of the desert, reminding everyone who sees it that this place is merely a waystation between the past and the future. To get stuck here would be forever in transit, neither existing where you were, or getting to where you are going.

Man, poker will mess with your head, I tell you.

Drought

Prada pants

Old school

Summer '07

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Seattle&daddr=Las+Vegas+to%3AWestlake+Village,+CA+to%3AGrand+Canyon,+AZ+to%3ALas+Vegas,+NV+to%3AWashington,+D.C.+to%3ASeattle,+WA&mrcr=5&sll=40.86056,-99.680805&sspn=30.481921,81.738281&ie=UTF8&ll=40.913513,-99.667969&spn=30.452754,81.738281&z=4&om=1

Vegetables

Bok choi, asparagus, lettuce, strawberries, spinach, cherries.

habeas

Going to protest

www.juneaction.org

Good reason to visit E.J. and Merce in D.C. Gotta make it back for Conchords.

www.dirtycarart.com

Fave

History

Rei monkeys

Made in taiwan