Party Alert: IMMINENT!

Now I am back (thanks to Amtrak and Tri-Met) and this thing is totally on.

Merry Christmess!

Christmas with my family is always an experiment in barely controlled chaos, what with four generations, the oldest of which can't hear anything and the youngest of which you can't hear anything over. There are a thousand possible pitfalls, gifts that may be triumphant or disastrous, offenses that may be unintentionally given, and treasured objects that may be destroyed when you put 4 children, 9 adults, and a dog together into a small space with a tree and a giant pile of presents and a CD of Christmas carols sung by a German boys' choir.

Yet somehow, with everybody pulling together (and with Mom, as usual, doing more than her share), it all worked gloriously. It always does, more or less, but this year was one of the better ones. We have spent a lot of time congratulating ourselves on this today, rehashing all the highlights and awkward moments while snacking on delicious food. And we have played games, taken naps, watched various things on various screens, and hugged each other.

And now we have used it all up, every last bit. There is no Christmas left.

Party Alert: Elevated.

[Written the 23rd in Portland but, due to Blogger balkiness, posted the 25th from Eugene]

Due to the Unusual Quantities of Solid Precipitation around these parts, I have been increasingly uneasy about the trip south to Familytown, originally scheduled for December 24. It's only a two-hour trip, and I'm told the latter half of it has no snow at all, but the first half -- especially the getting-out-of-Snowyville part -- well, I wasn't sure how that was going to work. It was just going to have to all melt today, was all.

It doesn't look like that's going to happen. No, my Christmas Miracle has taken another form, the form of a gleaming white snow-beast with high strength and agility stats, and also some magical powers. Yes, the Mighty Thor is taking me back to my hometown for Christmas, which is even better than hitching a ride in Santa's sleigh! No, really, look:

ADVANTAGES OF RIDING WITH THOR
- enclosed cab
- heater
- upholstered seats
- nice stereo system
- two hours of conversation with two good friends
- direct route, no stopping at every house along the way
- arrive early in the day instead of in the middle of the night

ADVANTAGES OF RIDING WITH SANTA
- reindeer-powered flight
- bragging rights
- ...

See? Really, the only down side to this is that I don't know exactly how I'm getting back to Portland. At this point it looks like I'll be able to hitch a ride back north with somebody else, and bus/train possibilities are also an option, at least until they sell out. But if this "snow" madness continues, well, who knows.

So the real reason for this post is to alert you, well in advance, that there is a faint possibility I may have to reschedule the party on Sunday. I really think I'll make it back in time, but if by chance I don't, you might not think to check my blog in the (possibly minimal) amount of time that I'd be able to give notice. So keep it on your calendar, but stay tuned for further updates.

Okay, This is a Tricky One.

What has two thumbs and...

...has another snow day off from work tomorrow?

...finished getting the living room ready for party guests today?

...turned the chairs toward the front window for more convenient watching of passers-by on skis, snowshoes, snowmobiles and snowboards?

...is looking forward to the end of the cold snap and the return to regularly scheduled rain, especially if that happens in time to get to Mom and Dad's for Christmas?

You got it. This girl.

Tracking.

To the pedestrian wearing large boots who, while passing northward on my street, paused late this afternoon to leave me a message, I offer the following reply: (o_O)

Of Winter Weather and Penguins.

You know how people from places with Real WinterTM tsk-tsk about how just the slightest amount of snowy/icy weather sets Portlandia on her bronze arse because she doesn't have the road-clearing equipment in place to deal with it?

I suspect she's doing it on purpose. Because sometimes it's not an entirely bad thing to have everything just -stop- for a day or two.

Sunday I broke out the heavy-duty winter gear (which, incidentally, was mostly also my watch gear on the Chieftain) and took the bus downtown and back. The wind was face-bitey cold. I growled at it as I waited and waited and waited for the delayed buses.

Monday I got the morning off, and then when nobody showed up to use the library and the furnace went all feeble, I also took half the afternoon off.

Tuesday was a full workday for me, but today was a false-alarm snow day. Storm warnings gave me the day off, but the weather warmed up this afternoon and melted a lot of this week's snowfall.

Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty spoiled. It's been one of those pajamas-all-day days, I have food in my fridge and a fully operational furnace (with insulated ducts!), most of my gift shopping is done, and there's plenty indoors to amuse me. Unpacking boxes of stuff from storage serves the triple purposes of entertainment, practicality, and reminding me of how thoroughly all my needs are met. Now I am sitting by my mouse-proofed heater vent, listening to StG Sean's Best Songs of 2008 on the Eee and drinking belly-warming ginger tea.

I wanted to follow up on that post where I said I hadn't used the Linux command line yet. Well, I have now. I'm a little deeper into the OS at this point, though not much; I've run up against some problems, and figured out how to fix most of them. So I can give you a more detailed review.

Linux, even Ubuntu Linux, is still not for everybody. If you're not interested in rolling up your sleeves and figuring some things out for yourself, your experience with it right now would be that it's kinda like having a PC, but without the nice software. You'd be keenly aware of the disadvantages, but completely oblivious to the advantages.

Someday in the not-too-distant future, Linux will be for everybody. Right now, however, it is very much for me. There are a number of things about it that still don't work the way I want them to, but when I muster up the discontent to fix something, by golly it gets fixed, and I learn a ton in the process. Finding answers in the uncharted maze of internet message boards, for someone in my ignorant state, requires dogged determination and internet-searching savvy. But the truth is out there. I find a kind of fierce joy in the hunt, and deep satisfaction when I've succeeded.

This is not much of a sales pitch for most of my readers, I know. Most people would rather interact with their operating system in much the same way I prefer to interact with my car: most of the time it works just fine, and on the rare occasion that it doesn't, I take it to some nice guys who know all about it and they make it work again. It's just that my early experience with computers was analogous to the kid who grows up tinkering with cars.

For me, the huge advantage of an open-source operating system running open-source software is that this car is continually being reinvented in better and better ways, by people who do it just because they love to invent and fix things. It's collaborative, not controlled by a commercial interest, so it's more chaotic but also richer. And while you may be on your own for the labor, the parts are free.

I still haven't explained the appeal very well. Maybe that's because it's bedtime now, or maybe it's because it's less about practicality and more about attitude, which is harder to translate into rational arguments. I recently saw a spoof of the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" commercials with a perky female "I'm-a-Linux" added to the original duo. I won't link to it here because she didn't present any kind of compelling argument for Linux, objectively or subjectively (she was actually pretty annoying). If I were filming this kind of spoof, the Mac/PC guys would be joined by a big ol' emperor penguin, which would waddle up and just stand next to them and make penguiny noises, and they would look confused and slightly alarmed.

Any Excuse Will Do.

I know, I know. It's not news anymore that I'm back in Portland to stay. But it's not such old news that we can't use it as an excuse for Fun Times. Therefore:

This is your invitation to the Lindsey's-Back-In-Town Party!

When: Sunday, December 28, 1:30 to 9:00 p.m. Come when you like, leave when you're ready.
Where: My house. If you don't know where my house is, e-mail me. If you don't know what my e-mail is, leave a comment with yours.

SEE how barren my place is without the Chainsaw Famile (who recently moved into a house of their very own) !
MARVEL at the amazing midget computer !
MINGLE with other cool friends of mine !
GIVE me a deadline for getting my stuff out of cardboard boxes !

Here are some (optional) things you can bring to enhance the party fun:
- Tasty food or beverages to share.
- Your friends and relatives.
- A board or card game you've been wanting to play (sorry, no Risk).
- Unwanted women's clothing of any size. There will be a swap pile, and leftovers will be passed on to women in need.

Don't RSVP, just show up. See you there here!

Information = Love.

I haven't yet made the effort to locate a Linux driver for my scanner. So no comics tonight. However, I did discover some things on the internet that are currently blowing my mind, and I thought you might want to know about them:

1. Google Reader's shared items function. Are you using Google Reader? If so, did you know about this, how you can annotate blog posts you find worth passing on and make them available for friends to view? Because I have recently discovered that this is incredibly cool, and I'm surprised that only 4 of my friends have seen fit to share what they're reading with me.

2. Kiva.org, which works like this: you make a small loan (as little as $25) to a struggling third-world entrepreneur. S/he uses it to invest in, say, pigs for a farm, or supplies for a store, and then pays it back to you within a specified period. Then you can choose to either take your money back, or loan it to somebody else. The system is really well thought out and has a great track record. I don't know many people who can spare $25 right now, but when you have enough to share, here is a way to do it that is both worthwhile and fun.

3. Esau Mwamwaya's reinvention of the Vampire Weekend song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", which I found here, and which might be the most purely joyful thing I experienced this whole craptastic week. The song is not for sale anywhere, so download it quickly before it goes away!

News Flash!

The Third of December is the last Third of 2008!

New Computer, New OS.

So I bought the tiny computer, and I installed Ubuntu Eee on it.

The computer is indeed cute. Combined with the cutest of the new Gmail Themes (Tea House, awww), it is almost criminally adorable. Overall, I am quite pleased with it. It is both more powerful and more portable than the laptop it replaces. Its only flaw, as far as I'm concerned, is the increased eyestrain I get from trying to read smaller fonts on its screen. I suspect there are ways around this, but that will take a bit of research and experimentation. In the meantime, I'm quickly losing what little love I had remaining for tiny-fonted websites like Yahoo! Mail and Bloglines (and am already making the transition to Google Reader, though I'm not ready to invite all the clutter at my Yahoo account over to Happy Gmail Land).

Figuring out how to install Ubuntu was a challenge -- not because of any flaw in the software, but because nobody mentioned that the default Windows CD-burning software won't burn you a bootable disk. Hmm. Wonder why Microsoft left that feature out? Also, Windows booted so dang fast on the thing that I kept missing my microsecond of opportunity to get into the BIOS. So my weekend went kind of like this*:
*highly abridged

ME: F2! F2 F2 F2!
WINDOWS: Hello!
ME: Look, I'm trying to boot to an external drive here, do you mind?
[REBOOT]
ME: F2 F2 F2 F2 F...
WINDOWS: Hello!
ME: What am I doing wrong here?
WINDOWS: Where would you like to go today?
ME: Hush, you. Maybe I was using a faulty CD?
[BURN NEW CD AND REBOOT]
ME: F2 F2 F2!
WINDOWS: Hello!
ME: Augh! Maybe the new burner I got is not working. I'll try burning this on the old laptop. Good thing its keyboard is miraculously working again!
[BURN NEW CD AND REBOOT]
ME: F2 F2 F2!
WINDOWS: Hello!
ME: Borscht! Frarble! I sure won't miss you when you're gone, Windows. But you seem awfully reluctant to say goodbye. Could it be that you are secretly foiling my attempts to burn a bootable disk? I wouldn't put it past you.
[TO GOOGLE] How do I burn an ISO disk?
GOOGLE: Different software you need. Here, free it is.
ME: Ha! Now we're talking. Take that, Windows!
[BURN NEW CD AND REBOOT]
ME: F2 F2 F2 EFFITY TWOOOOO it's not working why isn't it working aaaOH MY GOSH IT'S WORKING!
UBUNTU: Hi! I'm your new best friend!
[ANGELS SING]

And we all lived happily ever after.

Some of you might think I must be super geeky to be using Linux now, but I confess I have yet to use the command line. I haven't needed to yet at all. The graphic interface is super intuitive, and also, really pretty. So far, it's been a lot easier to use than Windows -- and it lets me call the shots, instead of getting all Gates knows best on me.

Granted, I'm still in the early exploratory phase, but the only sign of geekiness I've really encountered so far is the screen savers. Sooo many screen savers. There is one for almost every flavor of geek. There are 3D models of engines and gears for the engineering geeks, molecular structures for the chemistry geeks, Matrix-themed screensavers and flying toasters for the retro-geek-culture geeks. Fractals for the math geeks. Chess-themed screensavers, Moebius strips, galaxies spinning outward, cells that divide and die. Mesmerizing patterns with names like "3D Hypertorus" and "StonerView." I am particularly enamored of the one with the fireworks with colors that glint off the ground and overcast sky as the camera flies around and through them. Remember those first fireworks screensavers, the ones made of monochrome ASCII characters? Yeah. That's why it's so great.

Agh agh agh.

My stove is fixed, but my laptop is broken. I mean, more broken; not only does it run hot and slow and have a broken hinge that makes it hard to keep the screen upright, but the keyboard has mostly stopped working.

If anyone still needed confirmation that I was not meant to be writing a novel this month, well, there you go. At least it waited until I was employed to break!

At this point the top contender for replacement* is the ASUS Eee PC, which is very small and lightweight, and also not very expensive. I am currently evaluating different models, of which there are approximately one billion? (That part is a little confusing.)

One of the most appealing things about the Eee is that there's a version of Ubuntu custom-designed for it. I've been meaning to make the switch from Windows to Linux for years, and now seems like as good a time as any. I've never actually used Linux, but the command-line interface is an old friend of mine, and if I have to change my OS, I'd much rather go open-source than Vista. Much much much rather.

Of course, this will mean a few dramatic changes in the way I compute: using an external DVD/CD drive, relying more heavily on an external hard drive for media storage, giving up some software I'm used to. I'm trying to determine all these changes ahead of time so there aren't any unpleasant surprises. The Eee isn't as powerful as standard-sized machines, so I won't be doing any video editing, for example, or multi-track audio editing, or playing newer games. But I wasn't doing any of those things anyway, so it's only the potential that I'd be missing. And if I really get an itch to do that kind of computing, I could assemble a desktop with a minimum of expense, rather than trying to get a laptop that will do everything.

So this is where I confess that the real purpose of this post is to tap into the collective knowledge of my friend circle(s). Do you, gentle reader, know anything about the Eee PC? Any reviews, caveats, prophecies of delight or doom? Know anybody who's got one? Have any ideas I haven't considered? Tell meee [Invader Zim voice]. I want to collect as much information as possible before committing to anything.

_____
*Naw, I'm not going to buy the next-generation XO. They're super cool, but the computing needs of a third-world child are substantially different from those of a first-world adult.

I Fail at Internet. Also: My House Hates Me!

I am having some trouble readjusting to the 40-hour work week. How do you people get anything done? Actually, I know how I got things done in my last 40-hour-a-week job. I stayed up too late, and I ate a lot of instant food (which wasn't necessarily meeting my nutritional needs). Now I am trying not to do those things anymore, and between that and the 40 hours, my internet output has dwindled to zeroes (without any ones).

This bothers me. A lot. Besides the several things I have recently promised (and then neglected) to share with you here, there have been several events this week I have felt a dire urgency to write about. Having the desire to write, and then not writing, is really bad for someone who fancies herself a writer-type. It's like being in the mood to get some exercise, but not doing anything about it: you miss opportunities and discourage good habit-forming, and your muscles atrophy.

Also! I have not caught up on your blogs, comics, and other creative internet-based output. Still. So please, bear with me while I struggle with realigning my priorities. Time management has always been the hobgoblin of my little mind, and...

Stop the presses: my stove just up'n died. Which reminds me that the third of the month is the official day for things to break in my house (I'm serious, it's uncanny). So the stove is several hours ahead of the game. This makes me angry enough to give up my posture of penitent self-blame in favor of a rabid conspiracy theory involving not only all the appliances in my household, but also the U.S. Gummint (which has given me a big fat homework assignment due Tuesday).

Maybe I'll make a comic about it tomorrow. Because the third of the month is also the day for making comics. In case you forgot.

Intermission.

Dear readers,

I ask your indulgence as I put the travel narrative on hold until Saturday.

Thank you for reading.

Lindsey

17 September: London.

It is impossible to close the door to the hostel room quietly; it's got one of those misbegotten spring-loaded things that prevents you from manually pushing it shut, but grabs it out of your hand at the last minute: CLANGK. The reading woman (the same one we tried so hard not to bother the day before) leaves her extremely bright reading light on most of the night. The girl sleeping in the bunk below me comes in late, tosses and turns and mumbles in her sleep, and packs up noisily to leave in the early a.m. She also has such strong body odor that, even three feet above her, I keep wondering if it's me.

Given all that, I sleep surprisingly well. We leave the hostel late in the morning and swing by a pastry shop for breakfast. I sample a hot cross bun, which is not at all hot but fairly tasty.

We wander around Notting Hill and the Portobello Market. It's pretty, and mostly pretty expensive. My favorite "shop" is an old man with a table full of antique clutter: old glass transparencies, miscellaneous keys. We don't buy much; the knowledge that we have to carry whatever we buy for the next ten days has blunted our acquisitive instincts.

The next step is to get back to the Underground. We've walked quite a distance already, so rather than backtrack, we get directions from the map posted at a nearby bus stop. After a while we check another bus stop map. Later we start asking people for directions. This is not immediately helpful. I privately wonder if we are close to the world record for longest series of navigational errors.

Our next destination, which we reach approximately two hundred years later, is the Tate Britain (the national museum of British art). Mitchey's friend JT works there, and he is delighted to see us. I'm puzzled; in my current state of surly fatigue, I certainly wouldn't be delighted to see me. JT treats us to lunch at the museum cafe and answers all our questions about his life since we last saw him in Iowa City. "I've traveled around the world and lived in half a dozen countries," he says, "but London is the most foreign place I've ever lived." Communication here involves subtleties and nuances and secret codes that he is only just beginning to glimpse, let alone comprehend. We nod sympathetically.

When we have eaten at leisure and talked at length, he asks, "What would you like to see?" I want to see stuff by the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood; he leads the way. The Pre-Raphs are colorful and dreamy, for the most part. I like them because they are art that tells stories, which is about half a step away from illustration, which is really my favorite kind of art. Mitchey's favorite of the Pre-Raphs is The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which exhibits a level of detail suggestive of utter barking madness. I have a soft spot for Burne-Jones, and am fascinated by the story JT tells about the giant, melodramatic "Death of Arthur" that occupies one wall. Apparently this sort of thing was looked on as quite gauche for some time; no British museum would take it. "And now it is considered to be representative of British culture," JT says, grinning.

Would we like to see one of JT's favorite exhibits? We would. JT is a fan of J.M.W. Turner, an extraordinarily prolific painter and printmaker whose work proves to be well worth our inspection. JT tells us about the process of making engravings from watercolors. There is an interactive area where you can try to copy one of his drawings by hand. I try the simplest one. It's a lot less simple than I thought it was when I started.

Meanwhile, JT is talking to Mitchey about the toxicity and decomposition rates of various pigments. JT is interning in the Department of Conservation Science, where he devises and tests ways to preserve great works of art. He is currently testing a sealed frame designed to protect art from further decay.

Now JT wants to take us to the Print Room. Oh, we say, to see thee prints? No, says JT, there are no prints in the Print Room. There are originals in the Print Room. You can hold them in your hands.

Really?

As we wash our hands, JT introduces us to Lucy, who works in the Print Room. Lucy is vivacious, quick-witted, and as eager to bestow large amounts of knowledge on us as JT. Lucy gets out a box of original Turner watercolors. We hold them by their protective mats and ooh and ahh over the richness of detail and color. After the Turners, JT recommends we look at something by William Blake. The Blakes are mostly illustrations for Dante's Inferno; they are dark and flaming and tortured, and they are right there on the table, the very same lines and colors laid down by Crazy Blake himself, with not even a pane of glass between us.

One more, says JT. How about Beatrix Potter? And this is better than the Pre-Raphs: Lucy brings us illustrations. She brings out a box of original art from The Tailor of Gloucester. The watercolors are barely bigger than the books we are used to seeing them in. Otherwise, they don't look all that similar. Oh, the teeny tiny brushstrokes on the mouse whiskers! Oh, the colors of the fine clothes! There are some pages from the book stored in the box with the watercolors, and they're appallingly dim and blurry next to the originals. Why hasn't anyone re-scanned and republished these books? Everyone would want to upgrade!

The part of this account I am not doing justice to is the sheer amount of time JT and Lucy spend just talking and talking. They are extremely entertaining, so Mitchey and I don't mind. We are learning about how great works of art are transported between museums, about book preservations and how most materials marketed as "archival" are a joke. By the time we finish admiring the Potters, they've agreed that the next thing they need to show us is the death mask of ol' Turner. It used to be on display, but some museum official was creeped out by it, so now it lives in storage.

We follow Lucy behind the Prints Desk into a back room. She pulls out a wooden box and removes from it a whole head in shiny white plaster, toothless, sunken-eyed. It is so incredibly morbid that we have to say irreverent things about it out of sheer discomfort. Still, we're thrilled: nobody else gets to see this.

JT and Lucy continue to talk and talk, revealing gaping holes in museum security, making dark allusions to museum politics, and I am seriously dying on my feet but I don't want to end this adventure. Finally JT tells Lucy, We'd better get going. To us he says, I'll have to show you out, because at this point you are locked into the Tate. And we say, Cooool.

JT has to go back to his lab to get his bicycle, so we get to see the oven and the freezer and a few of the trays of test tubes he uses for his research. He invites us to join his wife and him for dinner, but warns that it may be difficult to get back from his part of town after the Underground quits running. We decline, reluctantly; we're supposed to meet our host for dinner tonight.

Our host is delayed. There have been computer problems at work (he's a history professor at what we would call a high school), and tons of important data have been lost. He was supposed to get off work early today; instead, he spent hours and hours of his own time trying to reconstruct what was lost. We go back to Earl's Court, retrieve our stuff and a pub supper, and head for our host's place; by this time, he is finally home.

The Canuck is gone, so it's just the three of us here tonight. Our host apologizes for being unable to show us around. He seems eager to talk to us, and I start to feel like maybe that whole thing the other night wasn't personal after all. We ply him with questions about English culture and the things we saw today. As a history professor, he is well prepared for our interrogation. He tells us he is currently teaching a course on the American Civil Rights movement, about which he knows a heck of a lot more than we do. Apparently all the major players we learned about in school were just figureheads, while the real work went on in the background. Huh. I wonder if the same thing isn't true about pretty much all of American history.

16 September: London.

It's noon. I am lying on my back staring at my watch, trying to comprehend where and when I am, when the Canuck taps at the living room door (he slept on our host's bedroom floor last night). "Come in," I hiss, so as not to bother Mitchey, who is still inert. "I just woke up."

"Me too," he mouths.

"I'm awake," mumbles Mitchey. We are awake, it is noon, we are in England. We had plans to do a bit of sightseeing with the Canuck today, but he has some prep to do for his presentation tomorrow, and we have a hostel to locate. So, given the hour, we agree to part ways. Our host offered to let us leave some of our stuff at his place, so we cram overnight essentials into Mitchey's pack and head for the station.

Mitchey secures us two beds in a hostel via pay phone. Then we find a cafe which serves a decent Traditional English Breakfast. Have I mentioned what a brilliant meal this is? The other amazing thing is tea served English style. It is the nectar of the gods. What does America think it's doing, playing around with bags of Lipton in tepid water? Bah!

The hostel is in Earl's Court, a lot closer to London than where we've been staying. We check in and secure the pack in a locker. I like the hostel; it has a good vibe, looks clean, and the lady at the counter is patient with our one million questions. Our room has six beds; a woman is lying in one of them, reading. We whisper so as not to bother her.

Now it's time to See London, quickly, before we run out of daylight. We've been told that Bus #11 will take us past most of the major sights of downtown London. We take a bus to a very confusing bus depot, where the 11 is supposed to stop. There's a man in a kiosk who appears to be there for the purpose of assisting people. Mitchey approaches him and starts to ask a question, but before she can finish, another man pops up in the booth and says, "I'd like roast beef on rye. And a diet drink."

"Wha...?" says Mitchey.

The man points to her shirt. It's hot pink and has a dinosaur on it. The dinosaur is saying MAKE ME A SAND WICH. Ohhh, right. He and his co-worker proceed to dizzy us with hilarious banter for the next four minutes, while simultaneously answering all our directional questions. There is a lag between the moment they say something and the moment we comprehend their obscure, heavily accented wit, so we must come across as fairly dense. This only makes the whole thing more entertaining for everyone involved. We'd probably stand there being confused by them all day if it weren't for other people wandering up with questions of their own.

So we get on the 11, and we get off at Westminster, which has closed for the day. We take pictures. I take pictures of people taking pictures. It's late enough in the day that mine mostly come out dim and blurry. I want Mitchey to see the stuff she wants to see, but I'm pretty apathetic about The Sights, about photographing things that are photographed thousands of times a day. I follow her over a bridge, which is scenic and probably famous, and from which we have a nice view of the London Eye, Big Ben, and some really pretty stone lions. I realize I'm apathetic because I didn't research any of this beforehand, so I don't know what I'm looking at or why it's important. This is probably terrible, because I know that everything here is important and historic and laden with weighty meaning. But right now, I'm really just along for the ride. Been here, done this.

Mitchey wants to see Trafalgar Square. The first time she mentioned it, she called it Traffle-gar, and I thought it was so cute I almost didn't correct her. It's pretty dark by the time we get there, so we take underlit pictures of fountains and statuary. Mitchey's camera is better at this than mine, fortunately. Kids are climbing on the big lions at the base of the monument; we want to do this too, but we're daunted by their sleek shiny sides. It's just an awful long way to fall.

Neither of us really know what this whole Trafalgar thing is all about, to be honest. Having consulted her guidebook, Mitchey informs me that's Lord Nelson at the top of the giant column. Oh, I say, I've heard of him. What did he do? Mitchey asks. I wrack my brains. I guess he won the battle of Trafalgar, I finally reply. Mostly what I know is that Russell Crowe spoke of him reverently in "Master and Commander." Note to self: skim a few Wikipedia articles when I get home.

We go back to Earl's Court, get dinner at a little Indian place and drinks at a pub that closes just as we're emptying our glasses. I'm glad we're staying at Earl's Court; it has all the resources we need within a few blocks, and it feels good to be self-sufficient tonight.

15 September: Manchester to London.

It' s my birthday. I'm really confused about when it started being my birthday, because I'm on an airplane. The airplane arrives in Manchester at 8am. Mitchey and I know we're in England because, first thing off the plane, we find ourselves in a queue.

It's only the queue where they check your passport and ask you questions about what you're doing there. You may argue that the same thing would happen if we were flying into the US. But no, if we were in the US, we'd be standing in a line.

I am always paranoid about this part, when they ask you point-blank why you're here and where you're going, but they don't lock us up for further interrogation, just say "Cheers" and wave us on. We get ourselves some pounds sterling and go looking for a way into town. There's an airport bus to the bus stop, and then it takes us a long time to figure out which bus to take, and how to get on it, to get to the town center where our third bus will be. Fortunately, we have planned our schedule to allow for this. We elicit help from a couple of police officers who are loitering around the bus terminal. One of them stares at the departures screen for a while, then grabs an employee who has walked past us several times, blind to our confused and helpless expressions. Information is exchanged, and we finally get on the bus to the town center.

The route winds through picturesque residential neighborhoods, tidy little streets and brick row houses and big old trees. I sort of thought Manchester would be grubbier, but I'm not sorry. The bus drops us in the general vicinity of our next connection, and we go in search of food.

The pub we settle on is shiny-new, spacious, and mostly empty. We're confused about how the ordering works here, and we sit in our window booth for quite a while before Mitchey goes up to the counter. That, it turns out, is how ordering works here: you go to the counter. At least we don't need to leave a tip when we order that way. We know this because we just looked it up in Mitchey's travel book.

I order a Traditional English Breakfast. I'd hate to eat it first thing on waking up, but it is pretty much the best lunch ever: fried egg, sausage, "bacon" (prepared like a slice of ham in the US), mushrooms, baked beans, toast, and a grilled or stewed toe-mah-toe. So basically what you have here is some protein with protein and a side of protein. And a couple of really happy Americans.

We kill the rest of the time waiting for the bus by people-watching. We observe that a neo-'80s look is the fashion here right now; that various kinds of dressy boots are the footwear of choice for women; that English people of African descent dress and behave nothing at all like African-Americans. Mitchey thinks we kind of blend in here because we're white (most of her overseas travel has been in Asia). I think we stand out because a) she's wearing a very colorful outfit, and people here all wear neutrals with maybe one color if they're feeling adventurous, and b) I'm wearing hiking boots, and no one else here is wearing any kind of outdoor adventure-type shoes. Also, we have bulky backpacks and fresh-off-the-plane expressions.

Our bus driver to London is in a foul mood. He storms out of the bus and opens the luggage compartments, yelling something we don't understand in an accent we don't recognize. People stand around looking confused. Some of them put their luggage into the compartments. He yells some more, takes them back out and shakes his head. One guy who sounds like he's from India mutters, "Well what the **** am I supposed to do then?" The driver overhears this and gets in a shouting match with the guy. Nobody is happy about it. Two guys behind me are muttering about racism.

Finally the driver gets over himself and lets us all board. The bus is full and quiet. I prop my head against my inflatable neck pillow and sleep most of the way to London. I know you're not supposed to do that, take naps while jetlagged, but I'm just too darn tired to care.

I'll never be a huge fan of London, but I find on this second visit that I don't hate it anymore. Perhaps that's because my luggage doesn't get rifled through, nor my camera stolen, nor am I locked out of a hotel room with no one to let me in. Perhaps it's because I'm not there with a group of college students from Oklahoma. Still, this city stresses me out. It's full of people who are in a hurry to get to someplace they don't look at all happy about reaching.

Mitch and I agree that our wisest course for this first day would be to just find our way to our host's neighborhood, so we can meet him there when he gets off work. He lives a good distance southwest of London. We take the underground and the train to his station, then call him, and after a little while he pops up smiling. He smiles a lot. At first we think he's really happy to see us. While that may well be the case, we realize later that it's his reflexive response to everything.

Our host's home is a tiny one-bedroom flat, which we will share with a fourth person that night, a Canuck who's in town for a conference in French Literature. He arrives shortly after we do. We three travelers are very hungry, but our host is recovering from a bout of food poisoning. He tells us where to find restaurants and we leave him in peace.

It's my birthday, so I get to pick. Unfortunately, the options we're aware of are all in a shopping center. We were hoping for a quaint little pub or something, but the closest analogue seems to be... Tony Roma's? Oh, no no no. I pick sushi.

The sushi wasn't bad, I insist as we leave the restaurant; bad sushi is sushi that leaves you spending quality time with a toilet. It just wasn't good sushi. Nor was it cheap sushi. But hey, it's okay. We're in London, and we have a place to stay and a couple of new friends, sort of, maybe.

The Canuck is a cutie; we're both a little crestfallen when he mentions his girlfriend. (Not like anything would happen; it just, you know, removes a variable from the equation, so that you can't pretend you don't know what the answer is anymore.) When pressed, he tells us about the presentation he is making for the conference, which I think has something to do with narrators who refuse to narrate, or who say things by not saying them. He is extremely polite and a little tense. We like him, but we don't really click with him. At the time I think it's culture clash (we're doing it all wrong, we're too American); looking back later, it seems to me it has more to do with travel fatigue than anything.

Our host is happy to sit and talk with us when we return. He has hosted over 200 people in the past three years. I press him for stories about terrible guests. His best one involves a huge Icelander who sat around watching TV all day, and was grumpy because the host didn't have time to show him around the city. The host loaned him keys to the house and flat, which the Icelander put in the wrong lock and broke off, so that the main entry door to the house couldn't be opened at all. Then he banged on the window of the neighboring flat (in the same house). The neighbor lady opened it, and he tried to climb through. He got stuck. The fire department was called to extricate him. In the UK, you pay out of pocket for a visit from the fire department, so after that and the locksmith, this guy was quite a costly guest.

Then he went home and wrote a bad review for his host on the Couchsurfing site.

Mitchey and I are trying really really hard to be good guests. We are in kind of a spot, though. We had planned to stay somewhere else tomorrow night, then come back and stay with this host again. But our in-between host got confused and gave our spot away to someone else. We ask our present host if we can stay the following night as well. He won't answer directly. This obviously means "no," even though he's smiling for all he's worth. Okay, we say, we'll find ourselves a hostel, no problem, don't worry about it.

Later, we overhear him invite the Canuck to stay tomorrow night. We spend the rest of the evening trying to convince ourselves not to take it personally, while wondering what we did wrong. To be fair: three guests are obviously more stressful than one, and we have no right to expect more than the original hosting arrangement. But. It's all just very weird and uncomfortable. Or is it we who are weird and uncomfortable? We're probably making too big a deal out of this. Or aren't we? Are we? Aren't we?

We can't get to sleep. We toss and turn on the sofa cushions laid out on the floor, and they slide out from under us. The night drags on and on, but at some point I find myself blinking at my watch in a sunlit room, and it's not my birthday anymore, not anywhere in the world.

New Start in the Old Place.

I am back in Portland now, as of yesterday. It feels good. The amazingly gorgeous weather that has followed me all the way from Maui to Chicago to the UK to Nashville continues to dog my steps. (I'm bracing myself for the backlash.)

So I've decided not to write a novel this November. I have a lot of catching up to do in pretty much every area of my life, including unpacking half my possessions from cardboard boxes, including starting a new job, including hanging out with you, if you live in Portland. Including books I want to read, events I want to attend, local places I want to visit, projects I want to resume. NaNoWriMo requires you to put your normal life on hold for a month, and I've had mine on hold for the past four. Right now, I just want to work out what the new normal is.

Chris Baty sent me an e-mail letting me know I'm letting down the entire human race, especially him, by not participating. I hate to disappoint the guy... but since I have pretty much sat on the past three completed manuscripts, I suspect my non-participation will dismay no one else except those who are participating in NaNo. To you, my friends, I apologize, and salute you.

I am currently in the process of writing up a day-by-day account of my trip to the UK, which I will publish here, starting tomorrow. Fair warning: if you're reading my blog on LJ, these posts will clutter up your friends page with giant blocks of text.

This week I also plan to begin catching up on blink twice (I'm still taking photos every single day, just not posting them), and also my regular ol' photo collection which resides on a popular photo hosting site. (If you don't know about the latter, e-mail me for the link; I'm still leery of putting it here.) It's kind of a big project. Heh. I do not miss the old days of being stingy with film at all.

Oh yeah, and comics, of course!

Nudge, Nudge.

I hope you don't think that just because I'm away having adventures, I forgot what tomorrow is.

I hope you don't think that just because I missed a month, I'm out of the game.

I hope you don't think that I'm going to let you off the hook.

Tomorrow, some things will happen to you, or maybe you will make some things happen. You need to record those things in words and images. You really do.

At least three of them.

And I will, too.

Five Items and Two Lists.

Item the First.
I have returned from the UK. It was beyond awesome, and difficult to leave. I took several hundred pictures and a lot of notes, both of which I intend to share after some editing. I am now hanging out in Chicago and enjoying myself a good deal.

Item the Second.
I also took a lot of pictures at the Feast of the Hunters' Moon last weekend, which will also be shared in due time. I was expecting a sort of Renaissance Fair with pioneers and injuns, but it was about 78 times cooler than that. It is more authentic than SCA events and more relaxed than Civil War reenactments. I am really jealous that we don't have anything quite like it in the Pacific Northwest, because I would be So Into It.

Item the Third.
After the weekend, I got to witness two of my favorite sailors getting married to each other, and that was also extremely wonderful.

Item the Fourth.
So, remember that interview I kept mentioning? Today I found out that I got the job. As of October 21st, I'll be the Instruction and Electronic Services Librarian for Warner Pacific College. It's a position I was eyeing with envy way back when I was working for Cascade, and it is probably the only one that could have even motivated me to apply for a long-term library job at this point, so it's very gratifying to have actually landed it.

This means I'll be able to walk to work from my house. It also means a lot of other things, one of which is not being available for as much travel and crazy jobs and boat adventures, which is sad, but another of which is being present for a lot of wonderful Portland events that I've been missing out on, which is happy. For example, it probably means I'll be doing NaNoWriMo this November.

Item the Fifth.
I learned a lot from living out of a backpack for almost two weeks in the UK. I made some lists about packing, and I am putting them here mostly for my own reference, but perhaps also for your amusement.

Things I Wish I'd Brought:
- A more comfortable pack. Mine was plenty large and plenty sturdy, but the straps weren't padded enough for carrying it around all day, and my shoulders let me know about it. For some reason this bothered me a lot more than it did when I carried the same pack across Europe in '95.
- Chamois travel towel. I brought a thin, lightweight towel, but as we were staying in a different place almost every night, there were just too many times that towel got packed away wet. Near the end of my trip I invested in a synthetic chamois towel; it's tiny, effective, and wrings out nearly dry. Genius.
- Plastic shower shoes (flip-flops). I left them behind because I thought both flip-flops and Tevas would be overkill. But I don't dare use public (i.e. hostel) showers barefoot, because I pick up foot diseases way too easily. As a result, my Tevas were so funky by the time I got back to Chicago that, in my exhausted post-flight state, I convinced myself that putting them in the dryer would be a good idea. It wasn't. I am really missing those Tevas.
- One more t-shirt. I thought I'd buy thrift store clothes once we got there, but their thrift stores were really uninspiring. Lots of American labels, prices weren't great, and also the UK is going through this big 80s-retro phase right now. Ugh. So I spent more time than I wanted to in laundrettes (UK laundromats), when an extra shirt or two wouldn't have taken up all that much room in my pack.
- Google Maps printouts of all the towns we were going to. Easier to hand one of those to a local and ask them to point out your destination, rather than try to remember a rambling list of directions followed by the fateful phrase: "You can't miss it." Whenever we heard that, we knew we were doomed.
- Contact info for a couple of hostels in all of the cities/towns we went to, in case our host didn't work out. We had this for some places but not others. Once we were really glad we had it. Another time we really wished we had.
- Travel sized toiletries. A full sized toothbrush is just an awkward thing to have in a backpack. So is a half-empty full sized tube of toothpaste. Two tiny tubes would have been better.
- Melatonin pills. My travel buddy shared hers with me a couple of times, and it seemed to help with the jetlag, though it may be that I just like a good placebo now and then.

Things I'm Really Glad I Brought:
- A compression-type bag. Not the kind with the buckles and straps, but one that you can force all the air out of. I'm used to having less and less space in my luggage as laundry day approaches; with this thing, I actually had more.
- Inflatable neck pillow. I may never travel without one again.
- A book of short stories. Great for distracting myself from my immediate surroundings without getting lost in an extended narrative.
- Alarm clock. We didn't set it the first night in London, and we woke at noon sharp.
- Mom's iPod Shuffle. With its several limitations came the significant advantage of taking up basically no space at all. Thanks, Mom!
- Extra earplugs. Easy to lose, hard to sleep in strange places without.
- Extraordinarily compatible travel buddy. Have to admit I got really lucky there.

A Letter from Busyland.

Thank you to all of you who sent me screenshots of your feedreaders. I used several of those today in my presentation. They were the most effective and interesting part of it. I apologize to Mac users for assuming that screenshots were just one of those things all Mac people know about. But, really, come on, a little frolicking is never a bad idea.

The presentation was for an interview. The former wasn't really great, but I think the latter went all right anyway. However I am not too sure of anything right now because my brain is sort of cooked.

So, interview, check. Heating duct insulation, check, and boy am I glad to have that nightmare behind me. Now that I don't have to make myself crawl under the house anymore, I can come out and admit to myself that it was really, really horrible. Disgusting, and excruciating, and full of health hazards. The fact that I actually finished the job is evidence of my incredible stubbornness, if anybody needed that. (My parents didn't.)

The third task (aren't there always three?) remains unfinished: packing for the London/Chicago trip. So I am officially behind schedule now, because I had hoped to be in Eugene hanging out with the fam by this time. But, as I said before, my brain has already decided to call it a day. (Good thing brains aren't a requirement for blogging!) So I think the best I can do tonight is to find most of the stuff on my packing list and throw it on the floor in a big pile, and then throw myself on the bed in a little pile.

It has been really good to be back in Portland again for a little while, even though I spent way too much of that time rolling around in cobwebs and mouse poo. I am extremely grateful that staying with my renters, the Chainsaws, has not actually been at all awkward. "It should be, but it isn't," I told them, to which Mr. Chainsaw responded, "We'll have to work on that." See what I mean? So accommodating.

Aggregators in Action!

An odd request: If you use a feedreader other than Bloglines (for example, Google Reader, or whatever else the kids are using these days), could you send me a screenshot of your aggregator doing its thing? Please make sure the active content is family-friendly and, er, preferably not my blog. The resulting image will be used for educational purposes, and you will remain anonymous unless you wish credit to be given.

How to take a screenshot (Windows):
1. Push the Print Scrn button. (On my laptop keyboard, you have to hold down Shift to activate it.)
2. Open Windows Paint.
3. Paste (Ctrl-V).
4. Save the file.

How to take a screenshot (Mac):*
1. Think happy thoughts.
2. Frolic.
3. Lick the screen.
4. Isn't life grand?
*All Mac users were born knowing how to take screenshots.

How to take a screenshot (handheld):
1. I have no idea, but if you do, that would be awesome. (Come to think of it, a photo would work, too.)

This request expires the morning of Wednesday, September 10th. Mahalo!

Argust is Over, and On to September.

It's the first of September! Soon to be followed by the Third! (Hooray for airport comics!)

Today may or may not have been my last day of work, depending on whether or not we get a charter tomorrow. There are a few hours left, but... we probably won't. As last days of work go, this one (if it was indeed the last) was pretty nice. We had three passengers (you can see two of them on this page, yes, I'm serious) who were very mellow and pleasant to have on board. And they all caught some fish. Yay! And then they didn't want the fish, so I didn't have to clean them. Double yay! ...because the ride home was bumpy, and I am always a little skittish about using a sharp knife on a cutting board that keeps jumping around.

Also, Cousin K in his great mercy decided to forego the long-standing tradition of shoving harbor employees into the harbor on their last day of work. Good call, Cousin K.

Mitchey and I have been planning and planning for our UK trip. Our current itinerary looks something like this:
9/15-17 London (perhaps you've heard of it?)
9/18-19 Portsmouth (home of the HMS Victory)
9/20-21 Cardiff (capital of Wales)
9/22-24 Machynlleth (at the edge of Snowdonia National Park)
9/25-26 Manchester (where the relevant airport is)

We plan to stay in homes rather than hostels, which will allow us to connect with locals instead of just the backpacking subculture. We're setting most of that up through an international hospitality network called Couchsurfing, which seems almost too good to be true. (You didn't think we'd stay in hotels, did you? Pfff! That would be way too normal for us.)

In the meantime, my brief upcoming stay in Portland just got further congested by the addition of an all-day job interview. I am not going to say any more about that until I have something definite to tell you (but that doesn't mean you can't speculate).

In the Future, Everything's Smaller.

I have been obsessed with an idea for half the summer.

Back in July, hhw mentioned that Jay Shafer, the designer of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, was passing through Oregon with his own tiny house. I clicked on the link and was mesmerized. I really wanted to see it! But the best I could do from Hawaii was to talk ah and colorfulveggies into going to see it for me. To their credit, they not only went, but documented the visit and even purchased books on my behalf (thank you so much!).

The initial appeal is obvious: It's sooo cute! And it's super efficient! And it goes places! I like to go places. I sought out and consumed as much information as I could about these houses. I looked at other tiny lodgings, too, and found that Tumbleweeds were my favorite by far. I was delighted and inspired by the story of tiny house dweller Dee Williams (video, article), even though her lifestyle is a little more stripped-down than I would want. But as much fun as this research was, I expected the charm of the daydream to fade after a week or two.

It didn't. I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it. What would living in a tiny house be like? How would it make my life better? What would I have to give up? Where would I want to park it? And: If I decide I'm serious about this, how could I make it happen?

That last question is the most vexing one. I lack both the funds to purchase a tiny house outright, and the skills to build one myself. I mean really, I am not even good with a hammer. I have a major asset in the form of a house, but I believe it would be unwise to sell it -- it's an unbelievably great investment, and the market is terrible right now anyway. Then again, I put an awful lot of money into it for the amount of time I've spent there in the past couple of years. And I'm not tired of traveling yet, oh no.

So... I haven't made any decisions. But I have mulled it over to the point where I'm pretty sure that, if I could find a way to acquire a Tumbleweed without selling my "big" house, I would. My reasons include:
- save money on cost of living
- save time/effort on housekeeping
- simplify and streamline my lifestyle
- be nicer to the planet
- can leave it empty for months at a time at no real loss
- can pick it up and move to other interesting places (and back again)
- can live in community with others, yet maintain personal space
- can move on-site to assist parents if they get all feeble on me someday
- still have room for guests, if guests aren't claustrophobic

It's just an idea. But that's where everything always starts. So don't say I didn't warn you.

And if you think you might be interested in renting out about 100 square feet of your yard for any period of time, let me know!

Better Than a Day at the Office.

Bottom-fishing here works like this:

1. Position the boat juuust right.
2. Drop the lines (to depths of 180 feet or more).
3. Allow the current and/or wind to move the boat over the fish (visible on the depth-finder).
4. Wait for nibbles.
5. Reel-reel-reel the lines back up again.
6. GOTO: 1.

Today was about as nice as it gets out there. The waters were calm, and we got a couple peaceful hours in before the wind found us. The fish were biting slow but steady, maybe averaging one catch per drop (six passengers fishing). And they were nice and big. The state record for the blue line snapper (my old friend the taape) is about two pounds, and most of these were at least 3/4 of that. And there were several sizeable soldierfish, and a big pink goatfish, and a sizeable triggerfish (sorry, boot-boot).

The triggerfish is always a good thing to catch, because you can say "This is the guy who was stealing your bait" and show off the trick with the trigger. The trigger is a stout dorsal spine which the fish can lock into place; right behind it, there is a second spine which unlocks it. So the fish can lock itself into a hole in the rocks, and no other fish can pull it out. The trick is to show the passenger you can lower the first spine without letting him/her see you touch the second spine, and then ask them to push down the first one. Nobody can.

The passengers were decent, too, and that always helps. Sometimes you get people who are rude without meaning to be, and sometimes you get people who are rude on purpose. Sometimes you get guys who think that because they've fished for other fish in other places, they already know how to catch these fish in this place. (The real fishermen know that techniques are different for different fish and different waters.) Most people are pretty nice, like these were. They also followed directions well, and they seemed to enjoy themselves, which is really all you can ask for.

So, you know, not a bad way to spend an August day.

A Birthday and a Tournament.

Today is Alfhild's birthday. In celebration of this event, I am finally getting around to posting the comics she e-mailed me, and I thought I'd share them with you here. They indicate (accurately) that she leads an Eventful Life.

July #1 & #2
July #3

August #1 & #2
She outsourced her third August comic to her cousin Hans. I sincerely hope it's fictional.

* * *

Last weekend was the Lanai Rendezvous fishing tournament. This is an annual event that draws sport fishermen from around the islands. My cousins compete every year, and place frequently, as did their father before them.

We set out before dawn on Friday, trolling lines out, heading on past Lahaina, past the farthest point I'd ever been on any charter. That first day was 12 hours of motoring, amazing scenery, amazingly smooth water... which still amounted to a bit of bouncing around.

We hooked a marlin that morning, our first this summer. I got to reel up the line while Cousin K sweated it, taking in and taking in whenever the fish gave him the opportunity. (That's legal in this tournament.)

Cousin M and Cousin K gaffed and clubbed the fish. When they smacked it in the head, its dark sides turned iridescent, instantly. The two of them hoisted it onto the swim step (a low platform behind the stern of the boat) and lashed it there. I stared at it for a long time. It had a strong smell that was nothing like what people mean when they describe something as "fishy-smelling." It smelled wild and salty and clean.

We went on, north and then west, around the east end of Molokai, looking for fish or indications of fish: birds or things floating on the water. Any sizeable piece of trash in those waters, say a broken styrofoam cooler, attracts microscopic sea life, which attracts larger sea life which, ultimately, attracts very large predators. We caught one more fish, an aku (skipjack tuna), that day.

The northeast shore of Molokai is steep and green. There is a tiny island there, a jagged rocky tooth sticking high out of the water, topped with a grove of a kind of palm tree found nowhere else in the world. There is a house perched high on a cliff that can only be reached by boat. There is a village called Kalaupapa, in a national park, which is inhabited by about 25 patients with Hansen's disease (leprosy), and about 25 park caretakers. Kalaupapa is accessible by air, by sea, or by steep mountain foot trails. It is off limits to anyone who is not a federal employee unless you have an invitation from a resident.

Could we use the mooring ball in the tiny harbor at Kalaupapa? With the gift of our one aku, and the proper name-dropping (sometimes I think my cousins are only two degrees of separation from anyone in the state), we could. It's not everywhere you can trade a fish for a parking space.

We didn't set foot on shore, but camped on the boat: Cousin M, Cousin K, Cousin K's girlfriend, and me. I lay on the afterdeck across from the marlin, which had been zipped into an insulative fish bag with a lot of ice. It was quiet on shore, but the wind and water and boat conspired to make little slappy and clunky noises all night. Half-aware of my surroundings, I dozed until I heard a splash and loud breathing next to the boat. We all jumped up to see what was going on: Had someone fallen overboard? Did we have a visitor from the shore? No, it was an inquisitive young monk seal: a rare sight.

Zooming away from shore as the sun came up, we continued west around Molokai, with a detour by the appealingly named O Buoy. The buoy has the same effect as a piece of floating trash: it attracts things, and other things that like to eat them. The waters around the buoy were rougher, but we caught several more aku and a couple of ahi (yellowfin tuna) there. Farther on, we caught a small mahi mahi. Now we had four out of the five fish recognized in the tournament, and we crossed our fingers for a clean sweep: all we needed was an ono (wahoo).

But time was short. We had to get the fish in and weighed by 5:00, and the ono felt no such pressure to take our lures. So we swung out around the west side of Lanai and pulled into Manele Bay, already crowded with other contestants, vessels rafted together, fishermen calling to one another. For many of them this is an annual reunion. Here we were met by Cousin M's girlfriend and by my Auntie, and by Cousin K's girlfriend's folks. After weighing the marlin (191 pounds, and not smelling so good anymore), K and M were lost in the crowd, greeting old friends and comparing stories. I walked down the road to the beach, where I scrubbed my crusty self under the cool trickle of a beach shower. Even with low pressure and limited privacy, it was one of those transformative showers, where you feel like a completely different person afterward. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

Later there was a dinner, and awards. Our marlin, which I had been assured was not really that big for a marlin, turned out to be big enough to win second place. "The evening is just beginning," a stranger with a few beers in him told me, and I nodded politely. Then I picked my way back across the obstacle course of boats, unrolled my sleeping bag on the deck, inserted earplugs, and closed my eyes while the party shifted into high gear around me: fireworks, voices talking and shouting, competing stereos, bright lights, footsteps back and forth across the boat. In the morning we would get up and take the last leg of the journey home, but now, floating on the din, I set my consciousness adrift and was at peace.

Here It Is, It Is a Post.

oh man why did I say I was gonna post every day for... whatever, WHATEVER

Today was a day I thought I would have a lot of free time and it did not work out that way at all, and now it is late and I am tired. So instead of a long post telling you about the fishing tournament last weekend, I will give you my itinier... itineri... schedule for the next couple months:

- On September 3 I fly back into Eugene. That is really soon! 12 days to be exact.
- Then I will drive back to Portland for maybe almost a week. During that time, I plan to finish insulating my heating ducts while infringing on my renters' privacy. I am sorry that I will probably not have time to hang out with hardly any of you, Portland friends.
- Then I will drive back to Eugene (my parents are really good car-sitters, plus it's an excuse to see them) and fly from there to Chicago!
- Then I will fly from Chicago to England with my friend Mitch!
- We will be in England for almost two weeks, during which time we will see London, Portsmouth, Wales, and a lot of buses. Then we will fly back to Chicago.
- Then I think we will go to the Feast of the Hunters' Moon in Indiana. I have a friend who blacksmiths there every year.
- Then my friend who blacksmiths will marry my friend who left Starbucks for the sea.
- Then I will go to Nashville and spend a week with Nashvillainous types (the Bombadil family).
- Then I will go back to Chicago and hang out with Mitch and some other old friends.
- Then I will come back to Portland via Eugene. It will probably be the middle of October by that time.
- And then... I don't know. I might look for work in Portland, or I might try to get work picking cranberries near Gray's Harbor. *shrug* Right now I'm just happy to have this much planned out.

Hawaiian Chieftain vs. Marjorie Ann.

HC: 65' square tops'l ketch (steel hull)
MA: 25' cabin cruiser (fiberglass hull)

HC: 8-17 crew, up to 42 passengers
MA: 2 crew, up to 6 passengers

HC: primary activity = sailing
MA: primary activity = fishing

HC: 3 hour trips
MA: 4 hour trips

HC: usually wishing for more wind
MA: usually wishing for less wind

HC: reveille at 7 or 8
MA: alarm clock at 5

HC: commute a few steps
MA: 1/2 hour commute

HC: shower every 1-3 days
MA: shower 1-3 times a day

HC: sleep in small bed in large compartment with other crew, on the boat
MA: sleep in large bed in spacious private room, off the boat

HC: heads are fixed, peeing over the side is discouraged (in daylight)
MA: head is removable, peeing over the side is encouraged

HC: very particular ways of doing things just so
MA: entirely different ways of doing things just so

HC: the one right way to do things changes with different officers
MA: the one right way to do things changes with different officers

HC: whistling on the boat is bad luck
MA: bananas on the boat are bad luck

HC: get paid less to work more hours than any other job I've had
MA: get paid more to work fewer hours than any other job I've had

Resolution.

I am going to post every day for the next four days. That's [counting on fingers] five days in a row.

No, really. I'm gonna!

Three on the Third: Earlier Than July's!

I made some comics (and I even posted them before the 10th this time). See many more wonderful August 3rd comics at the Three on the Third Website, including (ohmygoodness) three brand-new talented artists!

Now that I've offloaded the Three on the Third info on another site, I should probably blog more about other things, like my life and stuff? Hmm.

Let me get back to you on that.

Three on the Third: BIG SUPER-SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Have you been wishing there was one site you could go to, one URL you could link to for all the info about Three on the Third, and all the links to all the comics since the beginning? And have you also wished you could see the comics as soon as they're online, instead of waiting for me to get around to posting links to them? Man, me too. Totally.

Well, guess what? POOF! Our wishes are granted!

Now there is an official Three on the Third site! You can add your own comic links as soon as they're ready, and see comics as soon as people post them! (Your existing comics are already linked there; let me know if that's a problem and I'll make them go away.) You can also help us improve the site, if you wanna, 'cause it's a wiki.

Guys, I'm excited. I think the site is pretty dang awesome. But I also think there is room to make it way more awesome. So please let us know what you think of the site (here or there, positive or negative)! And especially, tell us if you have any trouble posting your comic link on the 3rd. We want to make that as easy as possible.

Multitudinous thanks to Sanguinity, who did the heavy lifting in making this site a reality, and grateful pats on the back to those who gave us feedback in the early stages (you know who you are). Arigato also to Patchwork and Alissa for giving me permission to use their original artwork (above and on the wiki, respectively).

Oh, and if you've been waiting for the right month to participate in Three on the Third: THE TIME HAS COME.

BONUS MATERIAL: Here are three comics by Meep from June 3rd. She mailed them to me, and then I didn't get them until after July 3rd, and then I didn't post them UNTIL NOW. They are a paragon of simplicity and a clear demonstration of Murphy's Law at work!

MORE BONUS MATERIAL: Here is a diagram of a manual transmission, drawn for me by Cousin M. It is action-packed! (He is not dyslexic. He was trying to write the numbers upside down.) This might be the closest thing I get to comics out of him, so I thought I'd better post it. That's me in the driver's seat at the upper right. Maybe you had to be there?

Better Late Than Later.

It actually isn't the scanner that I'm having trouble with. It's the mouse that belongs to the computer with the scanner, which makes it really hard to do anything at all on it. And I didn't want to connect the scanner directly to my laptop, because then I would have yet another batch of clunky, annoying HP software on my hard drive (yicch).

But it turns out that you can't put attachments into your gmail using keystrokes alone. So then it took me another whole day to remember that I brought a thumb drive I could use to transfer files between the scanning computer and my laptop. Without a mouse, it was an exercise in patience. And tabbing. And then I got to edit the scans in MS Paint. But do you care about this? No, you do not care. You are all "Hurry up and get to the comics already!"

Fine. 1 2 3

The third one actually applies to several days following the Third as well. I am a bad example! Do not be like me.

I also updated the previous post to include patchwork and alissa's comics, in case you missed it.

Three on the Third: It Came!

I am not quite done with my comics but I can't wait to show you everyone else's! We had a lot of extra cool stuff happening this month that I can't keep to myself any longer.

Sanguinity warmed up with Two on the Second before drawing Three on the Third! Nice followthrough, Sang!

Recoveringmale fit four comics into one day, and also his comic blog is now sort of syndicated! Hooray Bu!

Upsidedown cat somehow managed to draw her comics while deep-cleaning and re-organizing her room. Clearly, she has superpowers.

Evannichols created an animated comic, and also a comic from Outer Space, and also one that outlines his entire day. It's sort of like a logbook comic!

Ashley made her comics all arty and summery at the same time. Ashley stop being so awesome it's not fairrr.

I also received some blurry cameraphone comics from Alfhild, but you can't really read them, and she promised me a better copy when she can get to a scanner. So I will post them later, and mine sooner. Okay?

EDIT: also! Patchwork and alissa did comics too! They just posted them a little bit later. (Alissa's website is not working right at this moment, much like the computer I'm trying to scan my comics with. Technology! Why must you toy with me so?)

Reminder:

THREE ON THE THIRD
(it's coming)

Boot-boot.

Today I went with Cousin K to see Uncle Lou. "Uncle" is a term of respect for older men in Hawaii, so while Cousin K is my real cousin, Uncle Lou is not my uncle. Uncle Lou is a retired fisherman, a laid-back, loquacious Portagee with a white mustache and a twinkly smile. He used to fish with Cousin K's dad, my real uncle. I first met him a week ago, when he gave me a bottle of aloe vera spray for the sunburns he predicted I would get. I have been vigilant with sunblock and hats, so my burns have been minimal, but the gesture and the ironic charm with which it was given ("There, now don't say no one in Hawaii ever gave you anything") won my heart.

Cousin K has come to look at a lure Uncle Lou is making for him, but also to talk story. They have got past the initial negotiations, and now they are talking about me.

Ask her what her favorite fish is, says Cousin K.

Uncle Lou looks at me, his smile skeptical: What's your favorite fish?

Taape! I grin.

Taape?!

You hear that? Cousin K beams.

The taape is a fish that no local fisherman respects; it is an introduced species that crowds the native fishes, and most locals think its flavor is substandard. It's a pretty fish, though, and easy to catch, and there are plenty of them, and tourists don't care. So my cousins have made the taape the primary target of their bottom fishing business. This means their overall impact on the local fish population is positive. Makes sense to me, but most locals think they're crazy.

Well, that's all I've caught so far, I shrug. That and one triggerfish.

Triggerfish? says Uncle Lou. Everyone will know you're a haole if you call it a triggerfish.

Yeah, they'd never know otherwise, I mumble. The color of my skin gets comments from every fisherman I meet; it's like having a tattoo on my forehead that says NOPE, NOT FROM AROUND HERE. But I don't tan well, and there's enough skin cancer in my family tree that it's not worth the risk just to get slightly less pale.

Not a triggerfish, Uncle Lou continues. Locals call it a humu, or duk-duk, or boot-boot.

Duk-duk I've heard, but boot-boot? says Cousin K.

You pull him up out of the water, what does he say? Uncle Lou asks me. What does he say?

I pause to picture a triggerfish freshly dragged up from the ocean floor, spitting out white goo and gasping audibly... Boot-boot! I answer.

You see? says Uncle Lou. He and Cousin K begin an anecdote-filled debate on which kinds of triggerfish are good to eat, and I inspect the latest batch of lures. They are sparkly and smooth, a variety of shapes and iridescent colors, so pretty that even I want to put them in my mouth. Uncle Lou is a master luremaker, but since he closed his shop downtown he only makes them for friends. His garage workshop is filled with the sweetly chemical smell of heated plastic.

The discussion of triggerfish ends with much skeptical head-shaking on both sides, and we walk back to the truck. Just wait, I'm gonna bring you some fillets, says Cousin K.

Bye Uncle Lou, I say, waving.

Don't catch anymore triggerfish, he calls after me. Catch boot-boot.

My Life Gets Awesomer.

You guys, I can't even bring myself to blog about the last few days because it would just sound like an extended bragging session.

I am so lucky, it's not even fair.

Three on the Third on the Eighth?

I didn't forget! I've just been a little busy. sorry everybody

Comics by me: 1 2 3

Comics by Alfhild: 1 2 3

Links to excellent comics by: evannichols, grrlpup, alissa, upsidedown cat, patchwork, recoveringmale
Tell me if I left anyone out.

The last week has been sort of epic. The tragic part of the epic is that I spent the better part of two days in the crawlspace, and, well... Alissa said I should scan my diagram to show you how much of the ductwork is now insulated. So here it is. The done parts are the scribbly parts.

It took me a very great mental effort to acknowledge that there was no way I was going to finish applying the insulation before leaving for the summer. I kept thinking it couldn't possibly take as long as it was taking. It's not like I was having so much fun I didn't notice the time passing. It could be that negotiating and re-negotiating every movement in such tight quarters multiplies the time involved. Or there could be some kind of weird time-warping field under my house (I wouldn't be surprised, this place is so wacky). Anyway I am not very happy about having this project waiting for me when I come back.

On the other hand, I did get the ducts completely mammal-proofed. There will be no more tiny whiskery visitors popping in through the vents. Gina it is totally safe to come over now. Also I got a constellation of bruises on my hip in the shape of a snowman-style smiley face! How's that for a souvenir.

Anyway the awesome part of the epic week was all the help I got from friends! While I was working in slo-mo under the house, Alfhild was zooming around packing my stuff into boxes and cleaning things and cooking amazing food and completing giant to-do lists like a sparkling whirlwind of AWESOME. Then sanguinity and grrlpup and alissa cleaned up my back yard! Sanguinity wielded Plumbane, Chainsaw of Legend, and lo the plum trees fell before her like mown corn. Grrlpup wasn't even supposed to help and then she totally did anyway, because she is An Unstoppable Force of Kindness. Alissa transformed herself into a Mecha Yardbot and worked furiously for I think about 8 hours, most of them without a break. She is not actually human you know. Then my yard debris and mousey old insulation were transported to the dump by none other than the Mighty Thor himself! (It took two trips. Thor may be mighty, but he is not omnipotent.)

So today there is some time for breathing and for saying goodbyes and for doing laundry. And tomorrow is going to be nonstop craziness while I try to get myself packed and cleaned up and cleared away without actually staying up all night (this is a little joke I have with myself). And then the next morning I fly to Maui! So this is the last blog post in Portland for a while.

Jroontime!

Hey, it's Jroon again! By now you might know that with a new month comes a reminder: the Third is nearly upon us. It's time to locate your favorite pen (or other medium) and prepare to draw three comics about whatever happens to you on Tuesday the Third. If you've been meaning to try this but just haven't got around to it, Jroon is a really good month for trying new things! I wouldn't have named my domain after it otherwise.

So I suppose you're wondering what happened when I went back under my house. (If not, just pretend you are for a sec.) I have now spent a total of at least 10 hours just sealing up the air intake ductwork with metal tape. That's where the mouse problem was, and it was pretty easy to see where they got in. I am very disappointed with whomever installed the original ducts. They went to all the trouble of providing a very spacious, convenient entry point for small mammals, and then forgot the cute little porch light, mailbox, and welcome mat.

The best part about this was that the intake ducts are all on the north side of the house, which is slightly downhill from the other side, and therefore I had a few more inches to maneuver. After finishing up most of the taping on Friday, I was lying there looking out at the driveway through the vent in the foundation and wondering if it would be such a terrible idea just to doze off for a sec, when the phone rang. The phone was on the other end of the crawlspace, so even as I was inching over toward it, I knew I wouldn't catch it in time. But when I finally got there, I found a voicemail notifying me that there was still lots of room on the 8-11pm fireworks sail.

I wasn't planning to go sailing Friday night; I was going to work until dark and then clean up and wearily fall into bed (and then go help out all day Saturday). But... but...! I'll spare you the inner debate; I went and watched the Rose Festival fireworks from the Lady Washington.

It was really, really weird to go directly from breathing through a dust mask in the cramped crawlspace to climbing the Lady's foremast over the Willamette at dusk. Likewise to go from spending hours alone in the dark to being surrounded by people who were ridiculously happy to see me. But the transition was as welcome as it was disorienting.

Even though (as the weekend was booked full with weekendy things) that means I won't actually get around to installing any new insulation until Monday. BOO TO THAT.

Katabasis.

Hey! Do you have any cardboard boxes you don't need? If so, and if you live in my part of the world, I would love to come and get them from you. I need them to pack up a lot of my stuff so I can make room for Mr. and Mrs. Chainsaw.

In other news, yesterday I crawled around under my house and removed all the fiberglass insulation on the heating ducts. And by "on the ducts" I mean mostly just sort of suggestively draped over the ducts, with occasional duct tape decorations for variety. (Remember, kids: duct tape is not effective for long-term heating duct use!)

I was sort of hoping there would be more room to maneuver under there, but no, it is really really tight, even for someone as small as I am. If I had the slightest smidgen of claustrophobia, I couldn't have done it. Even so, it was hard to think clearly when my dust mask fogged up my goggles and glasses; I had to manually override the instinct that said, "Oh, well, must be time to crawl back out now."

The thing that made it all much worse is knowing that I have to get back under there again in order to install the new insulation.

The thing that made it all much better was Scuppers, who helped with extracting and bagging the insulation, stood by for reassurance while I wormed my way under the joists, and dragged me out to enjoy the sunshine when the job was done. This is what we in the industry call a Really Good Friend.

So today is the day I buy supplies and talk to experts (fortunately one of the experts is also a Really Good Friend, and had Excellent Advice and also Discounts to share). It is also the day I groan about having bruises and sore muscles and a scratchy throat from fiberglass dust.

And tomorrow is the day I get back under the house and start taping things to other things. In the process, I hope to permanently seal up any mousey access points, so that my ducts will never again smell of rodent intruders. And that will be such a happy thing.

And as an added bonus, my high efficiency furnace will actually operate at high efficiency! Wooo! It's gonna be so great!

I can't wait until it's over.

Up in the Rig.

This evening (I love how late the sun goes down now!) I set out to rescue my dogwood tree from several years' growth of ivy. I worked my way up through the gnarled branches, tearing out vines as I went, and I thought about how it was trees that taught me how to climb, how to test a foot- or handhold and how to distribute my weight safely. All the instincts I brought to rocks and rigging came from that. And I thought about the cherry tree in my parents' back yard where I used to sit and pretend I was the captain of a pirate ship. Yes, I was the captain, but I still hung out aloft, because that was obviously the coolest place to be. Occasionally there'd be a little wind, just a little, and that made it easier to imagine I was a-rollin' on the main.

The dogwood is not nearly so sturdy, and required a lot more strategic maneuvering. It also kept trying to poke me in the eye. I couldn't decide if it was annoyed by my ruthless twig-breaking, or thought it was being helpful. I did have an awful lot of crud in my eyes (and nose, and hair, and clothing) by the time I was done. I found a bird's nest, as I'd feared, and found it was impossible to remove the ivy without destroying it, as I'd also feared. But it was unoccupied. Whew!

The difference between climbing a tree and going aloft on a tall ship, I decided, is that in a tree you feel safer than you are, and aloft you are safer than you feel. Then I hoisted myself up into the crown and decided I didn't feel all that safe anymore. Being a small person is often very useful; fifteen more pounds, and I would have broken one of those brittle upper branches. But I got the topmost parts of the ivy, and a rare view of a sunset that reminded me of Half Moon Bay.

SPEAKING OF TALL SHIPS... the Hawaiian Chieftain and Lady Washington are scheduled to arrive in Vancouver, WA on the 21st 22nd! They will be there until the 28th, and then in Portland until June 6. If you live here, and if you can swing it, I highly recommend signing up for a battle sail; that's the thing where the two ships sail around and fire cannons at each other, and yes, it is incredibly cool. Act fast, though, because they'll sell out soon. There will also be dockside tours almost every day (free, but remember to bring a little cash for a donation). More info here.

Yes, I'm excited. And no, this is not going to help my getting-lots-of-things-done schedule at all.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the original point of this post, which was to tell you that my departure date is Jroon 10th. Wooo! (and Eeep!)

Three on the Third: Semi-Monthly Update.

Do you kinda wish Three on the Third happened more often, just so you could read more comics drawn by friends and friends-of-friends? Well, I do. Lucky for me, not one, but two talented Three on the Third participants are embarking on more-than-once-a-month comic endeavors. recoveringmale has revived and re-invented The Mighty Bu, and is now updating twice a week, while upsidedown cat is going to do three journal comics every other day for two weeks! (I might be skeptical about this if she did not already have a track record of completing all kinds of incredibly ambitious projects.)

In other news, I am accumulating ideas for a 3 on the 3rd overview and FAQ. patchwork just asked exactly the kind of question I'm looking for:

Q: I was wondering, are the 3 on the 3rds supposed to always be about things that happened to you? Like, always journal comics? I know there aren't concrete 'rules' to it or anything, but I was just wondering if there are guidelines. It's still in the beginning phases too, so we're all sort of helping define what it's all about!

A: I'm gonna say that if you are not making comics about things that happened to you on the 3rd day of the month, then technically what you are doing is not Three on the Third.*

From the beginning, the intent of Three on the Third has been to tell tiny true stories. Journal comics encourage us to
a) hone our anecdotal delivery skills,
b) pay attention to the small interesting things that happen in our daily lives,
c) make interesting things happen so we'll have something to write about, and
d) record the mundane details of the present for a time when they will no longer be mundane, but remarkable. (Imagine if your grandfather had scribbled out some journal comics when he was your age! Even if they were lousy, they'd still be an absolutely amazing record of life in the past. Now imagine finding your own journal comics, 25 years from now: won't that be awesome?)

Having said that, I am not going to be your Non-Fiction Police Officer. So you throw something in there that didn't happen? Whoop-de-doo. And if you want to harness the momentum of our collective energy to create three totally fictional comics on the 3rd of the month, that is awesome, go for it! I will read and enjoy them, maybe even link to them. Honestly, though? I'd rather read comics about you.

Ultimately, like NaNoWriMo or Hourly Comics, Three on the Third is a self-monitoring project: you do what you want to do, share as much of it as you feel like, and decide for yourself if you're a winner. At some point I hope to set up a way (a "better than Blogger comments" way) for people to submit their own works every month, so that I'm not the gatekeeper.

But if you want a guideline, here it is: Three on the Third = journal comics = stuff that happened to you.

*Note that we've had some great examples of comics about things that should have happened. Of course, dreams, daydreams, wishful thinking, and the like still fall squarely under the category of Journal Comics.