Break Bread for Brad

Break Bread for Brad
Originally uploaded by jessajune

I'm not in Austin for SXSW Interactive this year. My budget and other commitments won't allow for it. I'm sorry to miss all the great people that I usually only see once a year, but my only real regret is that I am going to miss Break Bread for Brad.

I was in Spain when I got the news via Twitter that Brad had passed away. I think more than anything I can say, the best measure of Brad is the huge number of friends he has left behind. Many of them are gathering tonight in Austin, where instead of a party hosted by Brad, it is a party for Brad and for those who remember him fondly.

So many people have written wonderful eulogies for Brad. I will only say that he had a generous spirit, a quick mind, and a wicked wit. He will be much missed.

I wish I could be with you all tonight, to celebrate Brad. But know that I am lifting my Bradlands mug in solidarity.

I'll finish by sharing Brad's words from the back of the mug, which make me smile every time I read them, which is almost every day.

My favorite animal at the zoo is the lesser kudu. You have to admire an animal with a name like that, laboring as he must in the shadow of the greater kudu. It must be like having an older brother who excelled at sports and academics in school, to whom you have always been compared and found lacking.

A few months ago, I was visiting the zoo at lunch with a friend and discovered the area where the lesser kudu is ordinarily found was empty.

I hope he made a break for it. I hope he made his way out into the world, free of expectations, shedding labels, determined only to be the best damn kudu he could be.

-- Brad L. Graham, July 28, 2001

Longest Night

Happy Solstice
Originally uploaded by jessajune

Happy winter solstice. I am looking forward to the return of the light and all it symbolizes.

It's been a rough year for a lot of people. Here is hoping that the lengthening days will bring an increase of good fortune with them. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to spending some quiet time with my family before heading off to adventure overseas. Maybe by the time I come back, things will look different, lighter.

In other news, I love my new camera. It's still a point and shoot, fits in your pocket, low fuss machine, but it is a hundred times faster/smarter/better than my old one. I would never have gotten this photo with my last camera.

One of those days

Okay, y'all, it is one of those days.

Wake up, shower, dry hair. Review script for tonight's California Legacy performance. Get dressed, realize that I can't find my boots. Put on another pair of boots, realize they look wrong with slacks. Go to car to see if heeled boots are there. They aren't. Go back to house, put on pair of heeled oxfords, realize the comfy stripey socks I put on when my ankles were going to be covered clash horribly. Take off shoes, switch socks, put on shoes again. Gather up script, change of shirt, shawl. Get in car. Drive out of driveway. Realize have forgotten lunch. Pull back into driveway, scurry to house, look down and realize undergarments are visible under sweater. Go inside, take off sweater, put on tank top, put sweater back on. Almost forget soup, but remember before heading down driveway. Get back in car. Drive down through town, in left turn lane when look down and realize am missing my purse. Turn around, go back, get purse. Leave again.

Arrive at office, later than hoped. Walk to building, realize soup is still in car. Keep walking, go to desk, struggle a good 45 seconds to get laptop seated in docking station for booting. Go to kitchen, since coffee obviously needed; coffeepot empty. Sigh and walk back to car to retrieve lunch.

And that's as far as I've gotten today. But I am seriously worried how the rest of it will go, especially the driving to Monterey and performing part. Wish me luck?

Opal

Moody Blue
Originally uploaded by jessajune

My parents gave my sister and I each a piece of jewelry to celebrate finishing grad school. Alicia knew pretty much exactly what she wanted, and got hers almost right away. I waffled for a long time... it didn't take me long to decide I wanted an opal, but it took me forever to find a piece that spoke to me. This was made by Artisan Impact, who I found via Etsy (of course). Sometime when I am less caffeinated and excited I will try to take some better close-up shots so you can see the lovely detail. Today, I can only really operate on the level of excitement! blue! sparkle!

It all really happened. I have my degree, and I'll think of that every time I wear this lovely piece.

(Yes, the stone is manufactured. No, I don't care. It is fiery and blue and large and perfect and I have wanted one ever since I was a little girl.)

Saratoga Cemetery Public Meeting

In case any of my readers are in the Saratoga area - there is a public meeting next Tuesday at Oak Street Elementry School to discuss the future plans for development and expansion of the Madronia Cemetery. I'd encourage, nay entreat, anyone in the service area for the cemetery to go, hear the plans, and give feedback. The cemetery serves the community, but the community needs to participate in the process to make that work.

Details about the meeting can be found the Madronia Cemetery website. (If you can't attend, they have posted a form for comments as well.)

Fishy... I mean, suspicious.

Two guys in what could have been a refrigerated truck just pulled all the way up my driveway. The passenger got out, came to chat me up, not very effectively, and tried sell me some meat or fish, entirely unsuccessfully.

Now, the logo on the shirt did match the logo on the truck, and did involve a steer head. And it's possible they were making a delivery in the neighborhood, as they claimed, and saw me alllll the way back at the end of the driveway, where I was raking, and decided I looked like someone who might buy meat out of a truck, and came expressly to make me a customer.

But it seems pretty fishy to me. And not the kind that comes out of the back of a truck. He was anxious to know if I was a worker or an "owner", and the driver never left the vehicle. It's possible they were casing the house.

I made sure to let him know I wasn't working, and therefore home all the time. And you can bet I'll be watching for that truck around the neighborhood.

China Camp Hike

Grass in the wind
Originally uploaded by jessajune

The Monday of Memorial Day weekend, we went hiking at China Camp. We drove all the way out to the remains of the fishing village at the end of the park, took a quick look, then set out on the trail to find a good picnic spot.

It was a perfectly gorgeous day, and the park is a nice one - only $3 to park all day, and they have picnic facilities for people who don't choose to find a likely spot at the top of a hill, like we did.



The only difficulty in our day was that we didn't really consult a trail map. We just picked a direction and walked in it. It turns out that if you take the trail along the back side of the park, it just runs along the border, and you'll walk 5 miles or so through lovely grass and wooded areas with no forks in the trail. And if you are too stubborn to turn around, like we were, you will walk around the entire China Camp park, because if you leave your car at one and and then walk to the other, you don't have much of a choice but to go back (though by a different route, to keep things interesting). And maybe you will be pretty tired before you are finished with the trek back. Possibly.



That said, it was a great day, and I would highly recommend it as a place to go to escape June Gloom in SF. Just check a trail map before you set out, ok? And don't forget your sunscreen.

Birthday and Knitting Update

It's been a busy week - I was off having a birthday! It was a lovely time, and I managed to stretch it out for a good long while, enjoying lots of good food, time with friends, and flowers.

In other news, I haven't talked much about my recent knitting. I've finished several things in the last month or so, but the most amusing by far is Kuba's bow tie. When I found the pattern for this on Ravelry, I KNEW my friend must have it. She dresses her cats in costumes anyway, so I relinquish any and all blame that might be associated with me for the making of such an object. I assure you, the look of death on his face at the moment was not directed at ME. (I was only the one holding the camera, as far as he knows.)

My cats are lucky that I value my unscratched skin enough that I shall not be following this up with another set of formalwear for them.

Just a Tease

What am I up to this afternoon? Just a little experiment. Which may or may not have anything to do with Murphy-Goode Winery. I've never used my camera to take video before. I think it works pretty well, except that I have NO battery life. Get it in one take, or else, I guess.

What I didn't realize at the time was that the Society Garlic plants I was sitting in DO start to smell like garlic after they've been crushed.



No, the video doesn't actually show anything. Yes, I am amused by it for some reason. That is all.

Springtime Lunch

It is a gorgeous day out there - sunny, warm, breezy. Everything is sprouting or blooming.

And to top it all off, I just had a perfect spring lunch. Salsa-cooked chicken in corn tortillas topped with peppery wild arugula, followed by a Toracco/Tarocco blood orange so juicy I ate it over the sink.

I usually say autumn is my favorite season, but today I am loving spring.

Mundane Hallucinations

One day, not long ago, I was tidying the kitchen area (calling the area where I cook in this cottage a "kitchen" is generous to the extreme), and I encountered a box grater, of the sort usually used for shredding cheese. "Odd!" I thought to myself, "I did not think I had one of these anymore, and have been grating my cheese on a tiny micro-plane! This may come in handy later."

Today, I would like to grate some cheese. Can I find this mystical box grater? Of course not. Did I imagine having it in the first place? Possibly. Did I spend 15 minutes looking for it anyway? Yes.

In other, more productive news, I am one row away from finishing my first cowl - I am hoping to get it blocking and take some photographs today. Then I have to come up with another project to take with me to jury duty for the next couple of weeks.

Reflections on SXSW Interactive 2009

I took, no exaggeration, 44 pages of notes from the panels at SXSW Interactive conference in Austin this year. This was in large part due to the high quality and relevance of the sessions I was able to attend. This was one of the best SXSWi for me so far, from a panel perspective. From a social perspective, it's hard for a conference that has grown so much to have the same ease and opportunity for making personal connections as it once did; especially for those like me who are more comfortable in a small group than in a massive crowd. But the opportunities are still there if you made the effort to look for them.

It is the energy I was able to catch from the conference this year that was the very best thing about it. A lot of people there were struggling with the same issues I am - to wit, how to stay motivated and proactive when the economic and regulatory climates seem so dire. However, I came away refreshed, hopeful, invigorated. I have some new projects in the planning stages, some of which you'll see evidence of here on the blog very soon.

Highlights of the conference included several panels dealing with audience management and crowd sourcing, a full day of panels surrounding issues of copyright and fair use, and two extremely helpful panels about changing jobs in the current economy. Overall, I thought the panels were well selected and scheduled; in the past there have been several time slots where I wanted to be in four places at once and others where I was interested in nothing; this year there was only one session slot in which I found myself free, and I used it to visit the trade show floor.

In addition, I saw a number of great folks I usually only see once a year in Austin, and as usual, met some great new people who turn out to live practically in my backyard. SXSW Interactive 2009 was a great conference for me, and I feel lucky to have been able to attend.

And if anyone has insomnia or a vast amount of time on their hands, I'd be happy to share my panel notes. Just shoot me an email.

Jessajune.com

I've launched the redesign of the long-neglected JessaJune.com this morning. Enjoy!

Happy to be American

Yesterday was a great day - the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. Better still, for the first time in some while, the President is someone for whom I actually voted.

I've never watched an Inauguration before. I remember staying up late, glued to the screen of the Student Union tv in 1992, waiting for the final voting tally to come in and confirm the election of soon-to-be President Clinton. But even though I surely had at least some time that January 20th to watch the Inauguration proceedings, the thought didn't occurr to me that it was important to do so.

This time, I wanted to see it happen. I wanted to see Barack Obama sworn in. Maybe I needed that confirmation that it was real.

We had a little party at our house, where we munched bagels in front of the television, and toasted with mimosas the departure of the Bush clan in the official helicopter. It feels like a new era. I hope that we can harness these positive feelings into positive action. I feel, for a change, like it might be possible.

Happy 2009

A bit after the fact, but this is what we did on new year's day: hike to the top of Twin Peaks!

After that I promptly got sick, and am still sniffling, 9 days later. But otherwise it was a great way to kick off the year.

I'm showing off Eddie's new thermos. Taking tea was a great idea - it was cold and dry. The caffeine was welcome, too.

Snow?

So I didn't go to the library as scheduled this morning because there was supposed to be snow on highway 17 and snow showers in the morning in Santa Cruz, and we people from California just don't rock like that. I rescheduled for tomorrow, when it is supposed to be a low of 34 (rather than 29). If you've ever driven on highway 17, you know that the nastiness of the road is only surpassed by the idiocy of the people who drive it, and I really didn't want to add ice to that equation.

But I was all up and showered and everything, so I went out to run my errands. This turned out to be far more difficult than expected. The stamp machine at the Saratoga post office is now no longer in service. If you want to get stamps, they recommend going to Campbell or Los Gatos, according to the sign. I thought about standing in the line to get stamps, but that was clearly going to take ages, and I had other things to do. I decided I could run my other errands in Los Gatos, most likely, so I went there. After finally finding the post office (I started at the wrong end of Santa Cruz Ave, it seems), I park a billion miles away, trudge through the rain - pity I didn't bring my jacket - and get to the post office. It does, in fact, have two postage vending machines. Neither of them have seasonal stamps in them. I look at the line - every bit as long in as the one in Saratoga. I decide the green ink I've used to address the envelopes is festivity enough, and buy some liberty bell stamps. Not exactly "silver bells" but slightly more seasonal than the flag, right? And dump my mail into the slot. I've just missed the 10am mail time. Oh well.

Now I am ravenous, so I go in to Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Co. to grab a mediocre bagel and some coffee, only to find there is nowhere to sit. I stand at the condiment counter for a while until an older gentleman takes pity on me and invites me to share his table. I review my internship notes as I don't have any other reading material, the newspapers all being read by other customers.

Then I go to run my other errand, and since it's Christmas related I won't say that much about it, other than the fact that there was a sample out of the item I wanted, but none of the right boxes behind it. After trying 20 minutes to get the attention of a sales person, I left. The thought of driving out to find another store was too mch for me, so I gave up and came home.

I was feeling pretty disgruntled by now. But then, as I was driving up the street, I saw this:
I know, it's a bit glare-y and blurry, but that, in the center hill there, is snow. In Saratoga. Snow! By afternoon it will most likely be gone - it's warmed up quite a bit in the last 2 hours. But this is only the second snow in our area IN MY LIFE, and I cannot help but be happy about it. Merry Christmas!

Confusion

The headache can't be that bad if you went into the bathroom for aspirin and then forgot why you were there.

Or maybe I'm just completely befuddled because I just TURNED IN MY LAST PAPER EVER.

That's right - there is not a single thing left for me to do. I have just finished grad school.

Thanksgiving

I am sitting here, blessed with wireless internet and a fire in the fireplace, sitting with my folks. Everyone's reading, except the cats*, who are lounging about and looking like they wish we'd do something more interesting. It is peaceful.

Part of me says I'm mostly thankful this year is over. But honestly, a lot of good things happened. I'll be turning in my last assignment of grad school next week. (Assuming all is well - I haven't received an official letter from the school yet, but as far as I know everything is in order for me to graduate.) My sister got married to a nice guy who she loves, and did her own graduating. I spent some quality time getting to know my neighbors, and they turned out to be great people.

I'm thankful to have my family and friends, my Bucket, my pets, my health. Occasionally my sanity. I have hope that next year will be better - for me, for my family, for our country.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.


* Note that these are my Mom's cats, who are much less rambunctious than mine. If they were here, my cats would be crawling on everyone and wreaking havoc. Instead, they are sulking in the catbed while lying on top of one another, wishing I was there to entertain them. At least, I suspect that's how they're spending the evening.

Modern Compensations

I'm enjoying my almost-freedom by having a knitting/Jane Austen orgy. It has had two pleasant side effects: 1) this scarf is almost a foot long now, and 2) I'm feeling a sudden thankfulness.

To wit - thank goodness I can decide what I want to do with my own life and earn my own living without waiting on any man's pleasure and/or relying on my relatives not to be idiots. Huzzah for the modern era!

November Stress

Between the elections today and my project for school plus the usual suspect triggers... I have been smitten with a migraine. But my ballot is safely cast. So that's good.

Now I'm going to bed.