Spring time news

So, I'm emerging from my lonely general exam cocoon, here's some news:

School

• I passed! Woo hoo, this means I'm now a Phd candidate instead of student. My committee was super fabulous and I ended up learning a great deal (go figure). Now...onto the dissertation!
  
• No rest though, lots of exciting school and work related things going on right now. I'm taking a really awesome studio class in Value Sensitive Design.
  
• I'm also TA'ing a class in Computer Science on Computing for the Developing World. The topic is fascinating and close to my area of interest and seeing the CSE from the inside is also quite a treat in terms of interdisciplinarity. The class is being simulcast at Microsoft and also at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan.
  

Work

• New projects, new clients, familiar challenges, some familiar faces.
  
• Prepping for a talk that we're given at UPA in Baltimore in June.
  

Local and personal

• This weekend is the famous Olympia procession of the species - I've never been but it's supposed to be super fun. According to the web site, "The intent of the Procession is to elevate the dignity of the human spirit by enhancing the cultural exchange that we have with each other and with the natural world..." - a tall order!
  
• The farmers market is open! Yay! We went a couple weeks back but there was hardly any produce - too early still, but rumors abound of asparagus - so we'll have to check it out again.
• We FINALLY got over our narrowband dilemma and put up the cash for satellite Internet. It's not the fastest connection in the world, but it beats the pants off of dial-up. The worst part is there is this punitive penalty for going over your 200MB daily download limit. If you do (or in my case when) the ISP slams on the breaks and slows your connection to a trickle. They call this their "fair use policy" - I call it BULLPUCKY. Although I can't believe I went almost a year without Internet at home.
  
• Also, trying to catch up with folks since I've been one of these the past couple of months:

At the caucus ...

So I had my first ever* tiny taste of American democracy this weekend, and it rocked. I think we should decide everything via caucus, that is only if the results end up exactly as I hope they will.

Our caucus experience almost ended before it started, when we accidentally went to the wrong precinct (can you be disenfranchised if you are so incompetent you can't locate the caucus site? - maybe). The West Olympia precinct at Jefferson Middle School was packed, there were Evergreen students bouncing up and down the halls, passing out Obama stickers and adding a sense of frenzy to the place. We were told that dems were in the gym and the GOP was meeting in the library. We peaked in the library on the way to the gym and saw 8 older, maler and whiter individuals milling about. Once in the packed gym, we tried to find out precinct and a really nice pony-tailed hippie sadly informed us that we were in the wrong place and he didn't even say "you idiots!" although maybe he thought it.

So we headed to our correct place, the Griffin Middle School on Steamboat Island where we found out that they don't combine the Ds and the Rs in the same place. The republicans were sequestered at the Grange, which makes me think that perhaps Scooby Doo was with them. The atmosphere at our rightful caucus was much more subdued that the the first place. The gym was really full and had four clusters of people, organized by neighborhood. The crowd here was considerably older, lots of white hairs. We definitely live in a diverse area, if not in terms of race certainly in terms of economics. It's a mix of upper-income folks who own newer waterfront homes, lower and middle income people who have lived our here for a long time since it was much more rural and also the select few who live and work on the small farms.

We found out neighborhood cluster labeled Oyster Bay and Jeremy signed in and we grabbed a seat next to our across the street neighbor. Like lots of other folks in Washington reported, our caucus was not exactly what would you call well organized. It was hard to hear, it looked like different procedures were being followed from group to group, and it was slightly chaotic at times. But, it was really great to meet our neighbors and hear from them. An older woman started by introduced herself as a quilter and held up a quilt (handy visual aid!) and said that she was for Obama because she felt that he could help bring together diverse and distinct groups in this country and build something great. Another woman spoke up saying that she felt that Hillary had more experience and was better suited to lead.

At first it wasn't clear how the group was trending since they were still busily counting the initial vote, I was thinking it would be mostly a Clinton group due to larger number of older women in the audience, but it was definitely clear that as folks spoke up that there were more Obama supporters. One woman stood up and said that she felt as a Clinton supporter, she was in the minority, but as a Native American she was used to being in the minority. She made the point that while both candidates were committed to issues important to the Native American community, she felt there was more evidence that Clinton was committed to her community and had already appointed Arlan Melendez, a Native Leader to her campaign.

Most of the debate hinged on the themes of change vs. experience. There were a couple of, um, interesting points. One woman claimed she was for Hillary because Hillary is pro-animal rights and Obama is against them - although luckily she didn't go as far as to say that Obama was wearing a suit of puppies. . One man claimed that he was anti-hillary because of the way she handled her husband's infidelities while in the white house. It was not the best rhetorical point or linked to any other fact besides his personal feelings about the situation. But the fact that he was standing behind his (i presume to be) wife and rubbing her shoulders while he made his point creeped me out.

Jeremy was his brilliant self and rebutted the experience argument for Hillary by saying her explanation of why she voted for war (that she thought bush would only use it as a threat and not for actually using force) was either naive or just politically calculating.

So it all ended up that most folks didn't change their mind and stuck with who they came to support, although a couple people where uncommitted and did make a vote after the speeches. Our little neighborhood dished out 4 Obama delegates and 2 Hillary delegates. The group next to us had a super impassioned Gravel supporter which would have been a nice addition, although evidently he wasn't able to sway anyone.

So I didn't say anything, just listened. But it was a really great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I got to meet a bunch more neighbors, we met the local plumber who seems like a great guy, chatted about the never-ending rain and were told that it really is necessary to take a vacation between November and March and that's how most people maintain their sanity through the dark wet winter.

We went out later with jenn and colby and everyone was talking non-stop about the caucus. It felt like the political conversations went beyond the precincts and people's excitement for this election is palpable.

* I'm a resident alien so can't vote, but can participate in the talking and listening aspect of a caucus.

The 2-day deck

As a wedding present, Jeremy's dad offered to build us a deck. We had a deck but it was super small and a deck more suited for a downtown condo rather than our country home.

This is Deck 1.0:

And a long shot, so you can see the scale:


So after two long hard days of work, Jeremy and Colby helped Jeremy's dad build us a deck that is approximately 800% bigger (give or take several hundred percents).

Here it is at the end of day one when it was all framed and Sassy was acting as foreman:


And at the end of day two, pretty much done:

Plus the long shot:


We still need to finish some additional details like steps on both sides. But we've already put chairs back there and when it was done last night we sat out, surveying the view while shivering and sipping on a celebratory beer.

Oly Events: Dahr Jamail

The other night while paging through the hundreds of bad cable channels we get and don't get, we stumbled upon Democracy Now where Dahr Jamail was talking about his new book: Beyond the Green Zone. Turns out he'll be stopping in Olympia on his book tour at an event called Beyond Occupation.

If you interested in going, let me know.

It might just be a tempo thing

I'm adjusting to my narrowband lifestyle here in Olympia. I've noticed that the speed of my Internet connection might also be on parallel to the pace of my new life: that is, a little slower. Now some things in Olympia are slow and some are not.

Slow: Most kinds of service, but particularly coffee. so, i must say that the coffee is great. we have local shops and roasters: cafe vita, batdorf and bronson, and mud bay coffee. And you would be hard pressed to find a more delicious, lovely crafted cup of coffee. But it took me a while to get used to the time it takes. But it's not just the devotion to the craft, it's that everyone knows each other, has a story to tell and everyone takes the time to catch up.

Fast: Parking tickets downtown, boy are they speedy. there's a nice guy in shorts wandering around ticketing cars. it's free for the first 90 minutes, but it seems like at exactly 91 minutes he appears, like a nymph and there it is, another ticket.

In terms of Internet, not being "always on" is actually a great thing for me. It's making me be more intentional, more deliberate with me online time. I'm trying to find that balance between having my face stuck in a computer and the new possibilities of my neighborhood to explore.

The things you miss the most

Over the past couple of weeks, I spent quite a bit of time considering what I would miss the most about Seattle. You see, not so long ago J and I decided that Olympia would be our next home. So we spent lots of months researching neighborhoods and sniffing houses. Sniffing because we were looking at older homes downtown and Oly being the soggy town it is and Jeremy's allergies being what they are, we were sniffing for mold. And boy did we find it. So after casting our net further afield we found an amazing little house, nestled the woods, on a street by the sound.

So, the last two weeks were sort of the internal monologue of what will I miss about Seattle. Of all the things I listed, my dear friends, the hustle of the town, favorite restaurants, coffee shops, bars, etc. I had no idea I'd miss the Internet.

Our new house is in some sort of broadband dead zone. All the big companies claim that they don't provide service way out there on the bay, although our new neighbors claim this is a lie. But until we get to the bottom of this, or pay for the infrastructure ourselves, we are living like its the late 90s, that's right a modem! How old school.