Month: February 2006

Found this interesting article about the Ryugyong Hotel in the middle of Pyongyang, in North Korea. It’s apparently an ENORMOUS hotel (over 1000′ high), built in the middle of this city, and abandoned for 10 years. It was never completed, never occuped.
Further, the population won’t even refer to it. Ask someone where it is, they’ll claim to have never heard of it. But, as seen in the pictures, it’s impossible NOT to see it from just about anywhere in the city.
Fascinating stuff. Wikipedia has an article on it, pointing out that construction of the hotel was estimated to cost $750 million – almost 2% of the countries’ entire GDP. Unusual structures are always intriguing, and this one definately is unusual, not just for the politics and social issues surrounding it, but also because of the very design of the place.
I have to admit that building in concrete can be beautiful and organic. I spent many weekends exploring Fonthill, the home of Henry Mercer, who was active at the height of the Arts and Crafts design period, building not only his amazing home entirely of poured concrete, but also the Mercer Museum, a fascinating collection of antiques and artifacts, also in the poured / sculpted concrete style.

I often enjoy telling folks what I do for my day to day life. They frequently get that wide-eyed “Wow, that sounds perfect and awesome and my dream job”, and for the most part, I have to agree. It’s pretty nifty having a total commute of only 4 1/2 feet, and I can work most of my morning in… err… attire that probably wouldn’t pass as business casual.
However, this arrangement is not without it’s challenges. Challenge of the first part, I’m always home. That means I’m also first in line to get things done that need to be done at home, or can be done best by someone with a flexible schedule. I don’t really mind these things, since I can always flex things around so I’m working a little later, or doing some work at night, but it does make for chaotic scheduling.
Lets look at today’s life-example. This week has seen me ramping back up for deliverables to my current contract – this tends to involve some fairly intense coding and communication with a client that’s over 200 miles away and somewhat email and phone call averse. Layered on top of this we have the following challenges…

• Another client has just notified me they need their badges printed TODAY and overnighted BY TONIGHT. They have not confirmed badge design, layout, or other details.
• Zach is on vacation this week, so is home. Now, this is not as big a challenge as it was when he was, say, 4, but every erg of parental energy in me has to be applied not to give in to the “Zach, go play games on your computer, I’m busy” temptation. The digital babysitter is mighty compelling, but I shall resist. Thankfully, we have other families in Mosaic that are in similar straits, and arrangements for kid-hangings-out have already been made. Rockin.
• I’m still getting over this cold that laid me low over the weekend. I arose saviour-like after 3 days of death yesterday morning, and I didn’t even have to move a big honkin boulder. Alas, I missed something along the way, and my malaise hasn’t totally left me. Must’ve been skipping the whole nailing bit I guess.
• The band continues to limp forward toward a fairly busy March schedule, doing 2 gigs, one of which is a Biggie, playing the Mayoral Ball in Marlborough. I’m naturally worried about how well we’ll be prepared for it, and practice is tonight. Chalk off the evening for catching up on missing work, but practices must go on! (We’re hunting for a new lead singer, btw. Got a strong voice, like being on stage, and want to lead a blues band? Let us know!). We’re also playing the Cottage Street Pub in Franklin (see our gigs page if you’d like to see us. Poke me in email for details and disclaimers about the venue 🙂
• Very few offices include piles of laundry that also need to be put away *waves hands airily* at some point.

Pile all these together, and it sure doesn’t sound like a normal day at the office, but all in all I still wouldn’t give it up for a forced daily march to cubeland.
Coffee’s brewed, gonna go fix me a mugful and start planning the haulout of the badge printer.

Well, I resisted for as long as I could. Everyone’s out there playin it, no way was I gonna get myself drawn in like sheep toward long grass. No way, baybee. Nope, not… say, there’s a nice sudoku game for the palm… well… at least I should LEARN it, so I know what everyone’s talkin about.

Cuz, ya know, the first one’s free.

While Cat is hooked on websudoku, I’m pretty much caught in a very good version for the palm, uncreatively called ‘Sudoku’. It’s currently my “time for bed, one game, then sleep” game. In the past this slot has been filled by Bejeweled or TextTwist, but Sudoku is it now.

The version on the palm times how long it takes to solve the puzzle, but doesn’t rank it on difficulty, so it’s sort of a crap shoot how easy or hard a puzzle will be (they’re randomly generated), but my timing seems to average around 20 minutes for a puzzle. The longest I’ve taken was over an hour (UGH!), and the shortest time, I’m rather proud of, was 9 minutes. Since the palm saves records of all the ones completed, here’s my 9 minute one:

_ _ 2|_ _ _|_ _ 9
_ 9 _|_ 3 _|1 _ 7
5 1 _|6 _ _|8 _ _
-----+-----+-----
_ 3 _|_ 1 6|_ _ _
7 8 _|_ _ _|_ 5 6
_ _ _|4 5 _|_ 7 _
-----+-----+-----
_ _ 8|_ _ 4|_ 2 3
9 _ 4|_ 2 _|_ 1 _
2 _ _ |_ _ _|6 _ _

It’s not too painful an addiction. Sides. I can stop anytime I want. Really.

I generally don’t participate in online polls, intelligent ‘mixers’ that try to find out what sort of soda you like, or whatever. But music is such a big part of ‘who i am’, I think it’s interesting to share a little information.
I talk about Radioparadise all the time, as most of ya’ll know by now. I even interviewed the owner, Bill Goldsmith last year. The station not only has an outstanding music selection, but they have a great forum / commentary system that allows song ranking. You can also view your particular favorites (or most reviled tracks).
Today I took a look at my ‘best’ list – pieces I ranke a ’10’ that have come up in my, oh, 4 years or so of listening. I don’t rank something a ’10’ unless I really mean it, and in 4 years, thousands upon thousands of songs listened to, i’ve only set a ’10’ on a handful. Here’s that list:

10 – Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take Five
10 – Dave Brubeck Quartet – Blue Rondo a la Turk
10 – Beethoven – Symphony No.5 – Allegro Con Brio
10 – Claude Ginsburg and Julie King – Waiting For Snow
10 – Paddy Milner – Unsquare Dance
10 – Nickel Creek – Smoothie Song
10 – Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata
10 – James Horner – Sing, Sing, Sing
10 – Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

The ‘9’ list is far longer. If you’re curious, here’s the link to my profile. The profile listing also has links to the albums and tracks themselves, so you can see how others ranked the track, as well as find out where to get the album.
I think my 10 list is a great cross-section of “What I like!” – better than I’d probably be able to relate if someone asked me the question on the street.