Thanks given

Buy well
Now that we've all given thanks (yes this is a delayed post-Thanksgiving post) for the nice people in our lives and the option of overeating, we can get down to the business of buying stuff. Let the restoration of consumer confidence begin with you. You must need something or at least have an undeniable want. How is the economy to grow unless everyone finds a need for more stuff than they needed last year? Come on people. My mutual funds are lagging. Get with the program. If you're out of ideas, just send me some money (I have a PayPal account) and I'll go buy some socks or gum or something. Let's get the frenzy back.

I left my [shopping] cart in San Francisco

A right wing view of downtown SF

To give thanks this year we flew Allegiant Airlines direct from Bellingham to Oakland for Thanksgiving in San Francisco. Yes, Allegiant -- the bargain airline that serves little Bellingham because it's an easy way to get at the many more Canadians that live near here (in Canada) than Bellinghamsters. And because Canadians have Thanksgiving in October (before Halloween -- it's crazy), it was fairly easy to get seats.

Good burritos at Chino's

First order of business in SF: reunite with a good SF burrito (where taquerias melt the cheese in the tortilla-steamer). With that business settled (at Chino's on Balboa) we jumped into three and half days of visiting, eating (some more), walking up and down hills, and playing some Scrabble. We also had some odd jobs to take care of such as foraging for lost tennis balls at JP Murphy playground (to take home for our dog) and venturing downtown for a taste of black-Friday madness (our children made us do it).

Ella, Kristin, & Ivy try on pants
at Nike Town, SF.

Kristin and I did manage to sneak in a date -- a morning coffee at a newish Jewish cafe near Jeanne's house (where we were staying) in the Inner Sunset District. At the Old Jerusalem Cafe we joined one other customer (an aspiring author/compulsive notebook scribbler) and an eager barrista. Eager barrista insisted we order his specialty -- an americano with some steamed milk. Maybe it was because he'd never seen us before that he explained the potential of this beverage to please as if he himself had invented heated liquid.

Candles a bit droopy at the Old
Jerusalem Cafe (which has new
hours, by the way).

But it was no time to deny anyone their pride. It was still Thanksgiving weekend. But, the coffee was only okay. My nugget of wisdom for the barrista: Just because you have a big mug doesn't mean you should fill it. I've always tended towards smaller cup sizes myself.

Thanks taking
The return to Bellingham started off smoothly enough. An easy drive across the Bay Bridge, light bags filled with little more than three pairs of underwear and a bunch of weather-worn tennis balls. When we got to the Allegiant Airlines counter we were met by the baggage nazi -- sizing frame in one hand, roll of hot pink approval-tape in the other. No fitty, no tapey, you checky, you pay. Ella, Ivy, and Jack's bags all just made it. Kristin and I, who have the same exact bag, were one inch too tall. We'd been caught in Allegiant's post-thanksgiving extra revenue net -- with many other dumbfounded and now-bitter passengers. There's more to this story but, if you want the more complete rant you can read a google-docs copy of my letter to Allegiant. But, for this blog, I'll let this lesson live on as...

Travel tip No. 2

Sorry... too big. $35
(times two) on the
credit card. Next.

To continue with Sporadigram's Travel Tip series, today's tip is simply that  while Allegiant Airlines seems to be a perfectly functional and potentially cheap way to get to and leave from Bellingham, you need to know and accept ahead of time that it's a total game. And with all games, you win some and you loose some. If you're expecting traditional customer service, you're just gonna get hurt.

And, as an update, I did get an immediate reply (by e-mail) to the letter I mailed to tell me that my letter had been received and that it would be answered within 60 days.  Will I get my money back? Will sanity be restored to an industry that's lost its way? Will I feel whole again? Stay tuned.



The new "-genic"

         Is that a play button or am I about to get my teeth
         cleaned?

So maybe it's not enough to write a letter. Maybe what it takes these days is a video. The contemporary visual signal of having something to say is the video freeze-frame with the play-button arrow superimposed on the soon-to-be-talking head. And, setting up that image probably requires some attention to detail to make it "videogenic" -- at least a little more attention than was paid to a recent link that Senator Patty Murray's office e-mailed recently. The play-button looks more like a form of censorship or a hastily added beak.  Oh well. Just another real issue for our legislators to worry about and need money to perfect.


'tis the season

With December now underway we found ourselves this week at the Port of Bellingam Holiday Festival.  Ella, Ivy, and the rest of the Whatcom Middle School 8th Grade Orchestra performed a festive Friday lunch-time concert for parents and many others who, for the most part, arrived in 20-passenger vans from assorted group-living facilities.

The Port's annual holiday festival is also host to a large gingerbread house contest. Ella, Ivy, and Talia entered and won the 4th-8th grade category (showing no mercy towards their 4th-7th grade peers) with the culmination of their effort, "Gnome Home." The victory was even more impressive because the competition included not one but two gingerbread yurts (because, after all, what's a mushroom house but a naturally occurring yurt for tiny gnomes?).

Gnome Home.

 The Shire: Why Hobbits never leave home.

In addition to  judged categories, the gingerbread house contest includes a People's Choice Award given at the end of the festival. While my one allotted vote went to Gnome Home, I was strangely drawn to another entry: The Shire. It just felt like home somehow and I was compelled to give it support.

Sporadigram censored!
It's true. I forgot to mention this last time. While I was attempting to write a little blog, hooked up to free wi-fi in the lobby of the Niagara Marriott, I was informed that my attempt to access Sporadigram had been "successfully" blocked by the services of Puresight.com because of inappropriate material. I have tried (inconclusively) to figure out what I've typed or pictured that the purifying filters of Puresight have caught and rejected but, in some way, it's kind of fun to think that someone (or at least some piece of software) classifies me as a danger to society.

Squash Jaws

Niagara Fall

Artist's statement: ...and the person
is supposed to be swimming.

As you know, I missed Halloween. No, I didn't forget about it--hardly. But instead of enjoying the parade of festivities at home, I arrived just before nightfall in the strange land of Niagara, Ontario, Can-a-da. But, before leaving Bellingham, I did manage to carve up a pumpkin, stick a candle in it, and leave it behind with explicit instructions. This year's theme turned out to be shark (in case that's not clear).

I'd been to Niagara a couple of times and had a vague recollection of what I was headed for: casinos, a strip of hotels serving casinos, and, the falls -- trying hard to appear wonderful and majestic across from the high-rise row of low-brow glitz. And then around the corner from the hotel were three blocks of haunted houses, wax museums, shooting galleries, and fast food places--some haunted as well.

What would Frankenstein do? Hold the pickle?

On Halloween, I'd arrived in Canada's 365-days-a-year spooky-ville which, because it was Halloween, was a ghost town. And it might have seemed emptier except every other hyperbolic storefront also had a blaring sound track of shrieky scary music or sensational deep voice narration promising deeply troubling experiences in exchange for your hard-earned Loonies. But despite it all, my meeting mates and I managed to find some good Italian food. (Indeed if you ever find yourself in Niagara, eat at Antica's. You won't be disappointed.)

Travel tip No. 1
I suppose, on the heels of "eat at Antica's," this could be travel tip number two. But as the first in a possible series of discoveries on the fly, I'll continue.

So, I'm packing my toiletry bag the night before the flight and realize that I don't have any of those under-6 oz. containers of either toothpaste or shaving cream. I did have an empty pill bottle and so I squeezed out a three-day supply of toothpaste into that. For shaving cream, (only had one pill bottle) I instead squirted my supply into a zip-lock sandwich bag (the size Homeland Security considers to be smaller than a bomb). Well, pulling these non-labeled portions out for the required unpacking of liquids and gels at airport security was evidently unsettling for the inspectors. And it's unsettling for me to realize that these folks are so easily assured by printed containers. But I digress. Toothpaste in a pill bottle got a brow-furrow and a moment of silence. Maybe it was rash cream? Shaving cream in a sandwich bag started a conversation. Since it was not much, I was allowed to keep both but I was informed that they really should be in labeled containers. So, always travel with a Sharpie so that you can scrawl "rash cream" on otherwise ambiguous containers. You're golden! And you're welcome.

PowerPoint vs. smartphone
So why buy a share in a tank of jet fuel to get to a meeting, you may ask. And at times during the "working group" I was attending, I wondered this, too. Like a lot of people, I don't like PowerPoint which, in its lowest and sadly frequent form results in a "presenter" redundantly reading what simultaneously appears on a screen that you can read yourself. And, on the audience side of the equation, you now have fifty people who, knowing they can google it later if it ever starts to sound interesting, have moved on to fingering their smartphones. Looking around the room it became clear at times that the modern meeting is an event where people go to "read slides" to people who are "reading phones." In between there are muffins and afterwards wine.

Hospitality vs. the world
We all know that we live in a time of austerity and increasing ecologic fragility (or at least 99 percent are feeling some of that). But, with much of the last decade's perspective based on an opulent imperative, it can be difficult, especially for over-invested institutions, to adjust coherently to the virtues of eating no more than you can grow. This literally hit me in the face in my hotel shower.

How dirty do they think I am?

It turns out two [shower] heads are better than one -- and even trade marked under the name Heavenly Shower. But is it too much? Apparently this has been a subject of debate up at corporate. So, with the posting of a laminated sign in the hotel shower, guests are essentially told, "We've given you the tools to ruin the world if that's what you require for comfort." I didn't ask for this -- this dilemma -- reach for Heaven, ruin earth. That's not hospitable -- to taunt me with passive agressive nonsense before I've even had a chance to brew my in-room fair-trade coffee into a post-consumer cup printed with soy ink. And why weren't there two drains? That's so like Heaven to deny Hell a second thought. But really, I'm confronting this guilt trip 300 yards from Niagara Falls -- a non-stop shower running at 64,000 cubic feet of water a second. Damn straight I went to Heaven. I've never been more thoroughly cleansed.

Castles smaller but grass greener on this side of Atlantic

Left - Soccer in Angers with the SCA club. Right - Soccer in Bellingham with the Whatcom Middle School team.

Soccer update: This fall, Jack played on both his middle school team and county league team. For the latter team, I earned an instant promotion to head coach only a few days after sending an affirming e-mail reply to my predecessor's request for assistant coaches. I'd figured I'd gotten out of the head-coaching business at the perfect time back when Jack was nine and he and his teammates were just beginning to surpass me in knowledge of and passion for the game. Well, I got through our eight week season. I'm proud of my record--I only missed one game. And if there's any pressure to coach again, my answer will be, "Look, I'd love to, but I've got a blog to write. You know how deadlines are."

Gymnastics update: No pictures until the first meets in January. The training season for level six has been rough and peppered with various fatigue injuries of ankles (Ivy) and toes (Ella). But all seem to be on the mend. Did you know you can buy leotards on eBay? I didn't either -- until I got e-mail today about some new financial obligations.

Face hair update

Wooly Willy in the house
(clown nose not optional
for some reason).

Last week, Kristin mentioned that I should grow a goatee. Hmmm. Nothin' like a random comment about grooming to get the insecurities flowing. Has this been a deficit all these years? Have the ravages of time rendered me in need of a new look? Such perspectives have been heartily refuted. It seems it was just a casual thought related to the fact that since there are whiskers, growing them out would seem fun. So, since I can, and also to cover my bases in case there's more to it, I'm almost a week into my new hair patch. I didn't go forward willy-nilly however. To get a better sense of my options and outcomes I downloaded a Wooly Willy app for my smartphone (If I'd only had this to work with with during the presentation on global freight logistics chain security!) The danger here is that I just don't have a solid bed of follicles in my "mustache zone." So, I'm really counting on my chin to come through with some oomph. But, if Wooly Willy can do it, I have faith that I can, too. And if I don't like it, I'll just stand up and let it all fall to the floor.

"Thanks for begging."
This has now happened to me three times in the last six weeks so it must be time to either stop being surprised or include it in a blog post. This is how it goes. I dutifully take my reusable bags to the grocery store and, at checkout, will usually just start putting stuff in as it comes off the scanner. As with previous occurrences, yesterday at Trader Joe's the checker says, "Thanks for begging" -- which I hear as I've written it here and so quickly try to remember things I've just said that could have been misinterpreted as a plea for free food or an inappropriate amount of help out to my vehicle. But then I remember that this is Washington State and many born-and-bred locals say "beg" for "bag." But being a California fugitive, I guess I should say I hear "beg" when people say "bag." Well, at least I don't need a beg for my melk.