Remembering my first time

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, asks "What was the first [celestial] object you ever saw through telescope" and in leaving a comment, I realized that it was pulling up some memories that strayed from the original question. So, what the heck. Here are a series of my "firsts".

I am pretty sure my very first was the moon, but what I remember more is the telescope. It was a WWII-era US Navy 16x spyglass. Nearly 3 feet long, wrapped in black cord, heavy as all get out and no tripod. As a 98lb weakling, I could hold it up to the sky for only a minute at a time before I gave up and just pointed out constellations.

Beyond of the moon, my first look through a proper telescope was in a summer class on astronomy with Dave Olsen at Merced Community College. He set it all up so we could see the sun safely during a period of sunspot activity. He also offered community astronomy viewings where I saw saturn for the first time.

Despite wanting a telescope for myself, my parents always balked at the cost. By the time I had my own paper route, I had turned back toward the earth and computers. (Actually, it was because I wanted a computer that I got a paper route. I'm not just a geek, I am a nerd!)

Open Comment Season on John McCain site

While riding home from another excellent Online Community Roundtable, I read this tweet from penguinasana: "Someone left the john mccain store comments unmoderated: http://tinyurl.com/5p3b35".

Yup. Take one part political candidate, one part open review system, and two days of not moderating said commenting system and you get a repeat of the 1997 Amazon Family Circus reviews.

When I took these screen shots there were over 60 reviews along these lines:



Now Amazon eventually got the joke and cleared out the crude stuff, but left the satire up (to the tune of hundreds such reviews for several of the books to this day). I'm not sure what'll happen here. Yanking everything and killing the review system is not the message for a presidential candidate to make: "My staff is clueless in the ways of free association *and* they react by humorlessly clamping down."

Of course, there are ways to roll with this, clean it up and still keep the review system. Step one from the brand new Yahoo Design Pattern Library -- Ratings and Reviews:

"Set expectations regarding when the review will be published."

Which implies that reviews will be moderated. Not an unreasonable expectation.

UPDATE: I checked the morning after this post and they yanked all reviews and killed the reviewing system. My only comment is that you, dear reader, do not make similar mistakes because while McCain voters likely approve of this kind of authoritarian control, your customers or clients likely will not.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch

A quick post to update what I have been up to.

Getting laid off - In Sept 2007, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation announces they will close their operating websites SchwabLearning.org and SparkTop.org. New homes for both sites are found and transition work begins. I learned important lessons about coordination, strategy, resources. Considering the parent community ultimately fragmented between the official host, GreatSchools.net, and at least 3 other community spaces, I can say I also learned difficult lessons about working within overly structured organizations and sudden losses of decision-making.

Reinventing myself as a consultant - I been keeping an eye out for jobs in online community and there are a lot of them out there. Unfortunately, most of them are for managing communities under the direction of a product manager or VP. These are too limiting given my experience in handling all aspects of communities including control over UI and feature design and mining the data for information directly. I've had a few people express interest in hiring me and I have been offering contracts for more foundational help rather than accept permanent work in a limited role.

I've had good luck so far and will be doing some work for a couple of non-profits and a health-oriented for-profit. None of it is long-term, but it involves helping the organization get the most out of a community strategy and plan for features, staff or skill sets they will need.

Attending conferences - To keep myself connected and relevant, I've been attending online community round tables, meet-ups and conferences. I'm even getting a chance to lead small group sessions at some. I'll turn that into a separate post of both past and upcoming 2008 conferences.

Enjoying myself - I got a pretty sweet layoff package and I've been taking advantage of that to sleep in, clean my house (I have half of my back office reclaimed as an actual office - go me!), spend more time with friends, and a road trip through Arizona and New Mexico (with an important stop in Bakersfield, CA, pictured right). I've been listening to The Thomas Jefferson Hour via downloads, twittering, walking and reading in preparation for a presentation on early modern surgery for a group of historical romance writers. Somewhere in there, is also losing weight (35 lbs since last Nov), roasting coffee and playing games on the computer and Nintendo DS.

Woke up at 3AM for the second night in a row

I finally decided to just get up and caught a look at myself in the mirror. I felt like hell, but figured I may as well make fun of myself and have a laugh. Sure beats laying in bed grinding my teeth.

I've never had my own animated GIF. I figured it was about time.

Trauer um Soul-König James Brown

This is how I found out that James Brown has died. On the front page of the Münchner Merkur that I saw on the free newspaper stand in the airport. I'm actually broken up.

This is probably because I saw the news (without sound) and figured out that Gerald Ford died. That was expected, but honestly, I hadn't been paying attention to the health of James Brown. Literally, I didn't even know he was sick.

It is less that I really loved the music or the man, but more that my best friend from high school really loved him. Part of me being all teary is that I can't call him right away and go get blind drunk on Hennessy with him.

For the moment a shot of whiskey will have to suffice (and boy did that surprise the kid behind the bar - a beer *and* a whiskey. Sweet Gibralter, y'd think I asked for the blood of a virgin.

So here's a toast to James Brown and here's a toast to Dirk, my friend. I missed meeting up with him in my hometown over Thanksgiving and coupled with a month away from familiar things and friend to shoot the shit with, I miss him.
(Oh, and the Munich Airport has free wireless that's better than my dorms' anyday.)

Christmas Memories

Not mine, mind you. But here's a gallery of children who are scared of Santa.


Praise be to Respectful Insolance for posting this originally. It was a lot funnier than the series of "I insist on saying Merry Christmas and I don't care who is offended" emails from folks I know who are one of the following: a non-practicing Christian, a non-practising Bhuddist and an Atheist.

Favorite words

Based on a post over at History Hoydens which turned into a post here, someone mentioned their favorite word was now "imperforate". danah boyd named her blog after her favorite word, "apophenia".

You would think that my favorite word would be "phoom" which does not exist in a regular dictionary, but is well-defined in the Urban Dictionary. But it's not my favorite.

My favorite word is "contraindicate". I was introduce to this term by a former housemate, Chris, who was an English major with a Latin minor when we both worked at Logitech's Tech Support. We used it when a first tier support person would be on the verge of recommending a customer reinstall windows because their mouse wouldn't work. "That would be contraindicated." we would say which would confuse them just enough to actually hear a different approach. It was also a nice way for us to say, "that's really stupid" without being lectured to by our managers.

I need to start using it. It's very handy in situations that start off with someone saying, "Hey guys, check this out...." I can stand there with my gin and tonic in hand and say, "Attempting to catch an arrow after drinking a case of PBR would be contraindicated."

After reading "The Life and Works of Guilhelmus Fabricius Hildanus (1560–1634)" Parts one and two, I have a new word to add to my list of favorites: "exarticulate". Not the definition involving one-jointed insect legs, but the one meaning to remove at the joint.

Many people balk at the thought of an amputation without anesthesia, but I know that surgeons of the 16th/17thC worked hard to reduce the pain involved mainly by applying enough pressure to stop blood and pinch nerve (providing some local anesthetic effect) and working as quickly as they could. However, the idea of a 16thC surgeon taking the time to separate the connecting tissue around the bones in the wrist or a knee is new to me. To have that procedure summed up in one word is even better: ex-ar-tic-u-late.

Sadly, the Oxford English Dictionary shows it being written first in 1658 so I can't use it prior to that. But I still can't wait to teach this some seventh graders the next time I present in a middle school.

Corpse Cake

Recently inspired by the Thorax Cake made by the cunningly creative and talented Barbara Jo at theyrecoming.com, a friend of mine insisted she wanted one for her upcoming birthday (themed as a wake for her passing youth). It's weird, disgusting and just too much fun so I agreed to make some kind of corpse cake. Just one problem.

I've never baked a cake in my life.

It's not as though I've never baked, but living off of Jiffy Mix Muffins in college doesn't quite cut it as experience. And I have never made frostings, glazes or worked with chocolate.

First, I gathered my resources for inspiration. I was worried that if I couldn't pull off delicious from-scratch cakes, I could at least work on accuracy and hope people would be either so put off by the organs or so drunk by the time the cake was cut, no one would care.


Not your usual cookbooks

About two weeks before the party, I baked a series of cakes. I needed the practice and I needed to make sure my oven would heat properly and evenly. It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with colors. This worked out great even though I used boxed cake mixes. After baking for a day and shaping the organs, I placed them in a tray to get a feel for how it would all come together.


A heartless display

I was really happy with the way it looked and now I could think hard about trying to get the tastes right. The list of cake flavors changed as I thought about them, but ultimately, this was the plan.

Heart - chocolate with seedless raspberry jam filling
Lungs - dyed white cake with pureed and rinsed blueberries swirled with plain white cake
Stomach - orange cake with lime custard filling
Liver - whiskey soaked "pound" cake (dyed a pale post-mortum orange)
Intestines - red velvet cake with lemon filling for the upper intestine and chocolate pudding for the lower intestine.
Ribs and Sternum - dark chocolate with white chocolate coating. I have to thank Barbara Jo for pointing out the troubles she had with solid white chocolate ribs/

Originally, I was going to make additional shoulder, abdominal and hip muscles and place a layer of marzipan skin over the whole thing, but this idea kept getting pushed aside as my energy and patience got sucked up in dealing with the ribs.

My friend, Holly, helped out with the shaping of the ribs. I bought 25 pounds of modelers clay and she suggested casting the whole front as one piece. At this point, I should point out that other than a horribly misshapen ashtray in 5th grade and an odd looking frog in 9th grade, I have never sculpted before. So, Holly sculpted the sternum and ribs and later I covered it in plastic wrap and cast the ribs in dark chocolate. I failed to take pictures of this process because I was hoping it would turn out perfect and all we needed were photos of the finished ribs.

Three days before the party, it was time to get the ribs out of the mold. I had all kinds of ideas ranging from flipping the mold over and pulling the clay away to magically lifting the ribs out. In the end, I decided to dig the clay out from under the ribs. This quickly went all wrong. Every time my hand went in to dig into the clay, it push about 25, then 20, then 15 pounds of clay against the ribs. By the end of the process, all but three ribs had snapped from the sternum.


How am I going to get this back together?

It was more than I could think about. I stuck it all in the freezer and worried about setting up the kitchen for what was about to happen. At this point, I have thank Tonda who made the Lime and Lemon custards, Jessica who shopped for the food colors and powdered meringue and Amie who lent me her Kitchen Aid and lots of cake pans. I popped up an extra table in the kitchen and started baking the cakes. While the cakes cooled, I went to work on the ribs.

I'll make this fairly short. Just imagine a some cursing, a little whining and many heavy sighs. I trimmed extra chocolate off each of the ribs using clay sculpting tools and did a quick test to see if the white chocolate would destroy the ribs. It didn't, but I found that once I got the white chocolate melted, it didn't need to stay at 200 degrees to still be workable. This prevented the dark chocolate from melting too much as I applied the white chocolate. To keep the rib cage supported during the rebuilding, I used some soda cans and aluminum foil. I was able to dip the broken ends of the ribs and literally glue them to the sternum. This took several hours of working with the chocolate for 10 minutes then putting it back in the freezer for 10 minutes.


Great! But can I get them off the foil without losing them?

In between dealing with the ribs, I succeeded in making a royal icing for the whiskey-soaked liver. The liver was baked with about a 1/2C of whiskey. I didn't realize that would make the cake collapse, but having it be very dense was okay. For the soaking, I wrapped the cake in a clean cloth and dribbled a little whiskey over it. Then the whole thing was wrapped in plastic wrap. I added a little more whiskey each day. When it came time to frost the liver, it had turned into a brick. A whiskey soaked, pale orange brick. It was perfect.


That's one pickled liver! (Pre-cirrhosis glaze)

The lungs came out so good, it seemed a shame to cover them in frosting, so attempted to make a simple sugar glaze. Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was doing and made a messy not-so-simple syrup. Despite the problems, it turned out alright. A friend who is a former EMT said, "the lungs are actually disturbing because they are glistening." Yay!

While I wanted to shape the cakes, Holly has experience at frosting so she came over and made the buttercreme frosting. Holly is an actual Artist so she turned the pink stomach into this horrifically distended organ and rolls of cake into the most amazing intestines. Then she frosted the heart and piped some veins on it. I know if I had attempted it, it would be all crumbled and possibly destroyed.

For the display, we used a 13" x 17" artists butcher tray. First the stomach went in, then the heart, Then the liver and the lungs. Then Holly worked some magic on the intestines. While I was working on the ribs. By this point, I was obsessing on the ribs, but prepared to just snap them all and shove them into some cake.


What was the cause of death? Smoker's lung? Cirrhosis of the liver? Enlarged heart?

Amazingly enough, the ribs didn't break at all as we got them off the mold and onto the cake. They were hanging a bit off the sides, but I had baked an extra red sponge cake for random meaty bits and so I simply stuffed it under and around the bottom layer.

The cake went back into the refrigerator and we got dressed. On the way over to the party, only one rib crack cracked and I ignored it. I had made up some simple syrup using corn syrup, red food dye and molasses and gave it an extra drizzle once we got to the party.


Cake delivered. Happy Birthday. Now it's time to soak my liver in whiskey.

Unfortunately, nobody got ill looking at the cake, but there were a couple of wrinkled noses. The most important part was that the Birthday Girl loved it. At one point she said, "The heart is black--like mine!" The liver, the lungs and the heart turned out the best in my opinion, but someone made off with portions of the ribs so I guess that was popular too.


It definitely looks more cake-like. I'm not sure if it looks more appetizing.

That's it. I'm done with this whole cake business. Well, until my birthday. I want a whole leg I can amputate....

The Corporate Goddesses of 580 California Street

Corporate Goddesses,
originally uploaded by Scott M.

I love these statues. They are at the top of 580 California Street and were made by Muriel Castanis. She described them as "corporate goddesses" in a 1999 San Francisco Chronicle piece on window washers. These empty figures seem to be a theme of hers.

The building itself was designed by the Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie architecture firm. They have a brief description of the project with images of the whole building.

Update (Oct 2008): Since I first posted this Muriel Castanis died. Her Obituary is in the Nov 2006 New York Times and the LA Times did a story on the statues in Jan 2007.

Update (May 2009): I was contacted by someone in New York who has a 4 foot hanging ghost sculpture by Muriel Castanis for sale. If you are interested, contact me (my email is at the right) and I will pass your interest on.

Late night Flickr Experiment

,
originally uploaded by Scott M.

It's been a long time since I have posted, but I am determined to feel no guilt. Tonight I finally had a chance to get up to the Mormon Temple off Hwy13 in the East Bay. It has been raining off and on for two weeks and I tried twice already.

Well, the third time, it poured on the way up to the place, but stopped by the time I got there. I'm pretty happy with some of my shots (all on Flickr).