Flying W Things

Still Life With Spreadsheet

Mike got himself one of those newfangled camera phones recently.

The other day he took this picture in one of our abundant meetings.

This photo captures the essence of almost every meeting I've been in for the last 10 years. Notebook, water, speakerphone, and an Excel printout - what else could you possibly need?

Why?

I was talking to Mike about something or another and he commented "you do like your privacy, don't you?"

This got me thinking. True, I do like my privacy. But at the same time, I enjoy writing this weblog, which is obviously in the public domain. I think most people that blog have some filtering in place - you can learn some things about me from this weblog but if that's your only reference you're getting an incomplete picture, and I think that's pretty typical.

Later Mister P and I were discussing the topic, and I asked the question "Why do I have a weblog, anyway?"

Mister P shot right to the heart of the matter, providing an answer that was insightful and dead-on:

"Because you like to hear yourself talk."

Damn. He nailed it.

Hops Update

As of April 12th, one of my hops plants has started to sprout:

W00+!

Life and Death. (and Death. And Death and Death.)

Last fall we got the kids a fish tank. At 2.5 gallons, it's just big enough for one fish apiece.

I don't know why Cam is so lucky, but in six months he has gone through four fish. Radio, Radio II, Radio III, and Smoky have all croaked, while Claire is still on Reddy II. (The original Radio and Reddy both succumbed to the heat one weekend last fall.)

I expect some turnover in the land of sub-two-dollar fish, but don't you think they should live longer than a month or two?

If you are curious about the name "Radio" for a fish, you're in good company. It was all Cam's idea. When I asked him how he came up with that name he told me that it was "because when the fish grows up he's going to be a radio operator!" Well, sure - how could I have missed that?

What The Hell Is That Supposed To Mean?

I had a very strange dream the other night.

Seems I was in business with these two other guys. We were trying to raise capital and one of our "angel" investors was The Devil.

That's right, ol' Scratch was putting some cash into our venture.

He was very red and fairly tall, smooth-skinned and muscular, with horns and yellow eyes. He was very personable and reasonable, and a good conversationalist. He presented us with a boilerplate contract that outlined the terms he was willing to invest on - surprisingly enough, it didn't include any transfer of the souls of the principals.

Here's the weird part - my two partners were tripping all over themselves trying to add clauses and such to provide more legal protection for The Devil, should the business go under. And I could not convince them that his motives were anything but pure.

Like I said, it was a weird dream.

But Is It Art?

I heard a piece this morning on NPR about Christo's latest project. Apparently he and his wife are going to put up 7,500 "gates" of saffron-colored vinyl in New York's Central Park next February. I found NPR's coverage pretty balanced, although I did chafe a bit at one interviewee's patronizing dismissal of the project's naysayers as "so 20th century." (If you're interested you can hear the NPR piece here.)

I don't get it. How is this art?

In a broad sense, I suppose it qualifies as "a product of human creativity." But I don't see how it enlightens, educates, or edifies anything other than the surnameless Christo.

Hopping Along

Last week I had an epiphany. We wanted some kind of vine to grow up the sides of our new canopy - something that would do okay in a container, grow relatively quickly, and would die back in the winter.

I suddenly realized that I utilize the fruits of such a plant every time I brew beer. Hops!

After convincing Katy I wasn't making this all up, I headed over to my semi-local brewing supply store to get some rhizomes. They had a good selection and I ended up with two types: Cascade and Kent-Golding. The Cascade hops are from the Yakima Valley in Washington and are used heavily by American craft brewers. The Kent-Golding hops are a little bit more old-school, as they are a traditional Old English hop dating to the late 1700s.

Here are the Cascade rhizomes: (Yes, apparently I paid good money for two sticks.)

I filled a couple terra cotta pots with soil and placed said sticks 1" below the surface. Here they are before I covered them up:

Apparently hops are vigorous growers once they get going. I have seen reports of six to twelve inches of new growth a day. If that happens I will get some more pictures - in the meantime here are the pots, freshly watered and labeled.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks there will be some visible progress.

Running Out of the Closet

At my last annual physical, I was instructed to exercise more. I tried to come up with an activity that required a minimum of specialized gear and that I could fit into my life without too much trouble and ended up doing something that surprised me.

I started running.

This winter we got a treadmill and I've gotten to the point that I never go outdoors to run any more. It's much more convenient (and distracting) to run in front of the television.

I had pretty much decided that I would never run outdoors again when a friend of mine from college sent me some info about this 5k/10k run.

Devo is playing at the finish line, so I signed up. It will be the first time I've run in a race since 8th grade, where my main acheivement in mile and two-mile races was not getting lapped. I guess I'm going to have to get some actual road work in before the end of the month.