Blog Master G

It warmed up to the high 70s yesterday and is supposed to be there again today with some thunderstorms here and there. But such is the nature of weather in the Northeast. Regardless, I love how green it’s been getting lately and that it’s starting to feel so warm. I even wore shorts yesterday and am wearing them again today.

Pretty amazing that in the span of less than four months, the temperature here can swing nearly 100 degrees. It’s just about time to take off all 16 storm windows and put the summer screens back on.

There are four giant spruce trees and one skinny one with only a couple branches that line the property of our back yard. The one closest to our house has thick branches that come down to just above our roof, and others have dipped pretty close to the yard. I got an estimate yesterday to have the branches trimmed up (about 12 to 14 feet) and the skinny tree removed. The work would go a long way in improving the look of our property (and probably our curb appeal) and, more importantly, would give us quite a bit of more direct light, which we’re currently lacking. (The trees face south.) The other very practical reason for trimming the branches, which has year-round benefits, is so the sun can dry moisture left on the roof and siding after snow and rain. We want to prevent water damage in the walls and from rotting away the wood siding, as has already happened in one instance near our chimney. The estimate wasn’t all that bad, but I’m torn about whether we should go for it, simply because we have such a busy summer ahead of us and have to be careful about our spending.

All the yellow pollen I’ve been seeing around finally hit me this morning while walking the dogs. I had a good sneezing fit. Luckily, my allergies are pretty good overall here in Saratoga and don’t give me too much trouble.

Two years ago today I wrote a Go Game recap. We won arm wrestling and chugging contests. Oh what fun it was!

The ephemeral city / San Francisco has lost its middle class, become a ‘theme park for restaurants,’ and is the playground of the nomadic rich and restless leeches living off them:

San Francisco today represents the ultimate expression of a new kind of urban area — the ephemeral city. This urban form, dominated by the nomadic rich, the restless young and those living off them, has emerged across the advanced industrial world, but perhaps nowhere more clearly and arguably nowhere more successfully than in the city by the bay.

…

San Francisco is not alone in building an ephemeral economy. Montreal, Berlin, Boston and Portland, Ore., all display signs of constructing an urbanity based on hipness, art and culture. Like San Francisco, these cities attract large numbers of young, educated people with their notable street life, entertainments and nice architecture.

Less reasonable are the attempts of other, less favored cities — places like Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Manchester, Vt., and Oklahoma City , even Aarhus in Denmark — to peg their futures on becoming hip cultural centers. Some, adopting popular development guru Richard Florida’s notions that having lots of gays is key to making your city successful, have decided that they, too, need to get more gay.

Friday afternoon brought the breaking in of The Draft Shaft II at the Olde Bryan Inn, where Justin and I had lunch. That night we hit the Principesa Elena club for Italian dinner and drinks. We stopped in at the new apartment of some friends who live right by the club before heading to Justin’s place to meet up with Seth and Niki for a night of debauchery (rum drinks, Bailey’s, Pope’s, and reminiscing with old photos). We topped off nearly eight hours of partying with margaritas at Seth and Niki’s place.

We slept in a bit Saturday before going into overdrive: We raked, mowed for the first time of the season, cleaned the house, hung new shower curtains, and bought a backup propane tank for the grill in preparation for Karen and Joti’s arrival from Brooklyn. We grilled chicken and sang karaoke into the night.

Sunday we headed to Kinderhook for the day to spend Mother’s Day with my in-laws. We dined at the Chinese buffet in Hudson, played the accordian, and went to the movies.

Kingdom of Heaven was a let-down. It was just like every other medieval (Braveheart), Roman (Gladiator), or Tolkien (Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings) epic battle movie ever made, but not nearly as good. Despite its problems, it was refreshing to see both Christians and Muslims portrayed as equals. Given the world climate today, I’m glad the film didn’t fall victim to demonizing the Muslim army. When the movie ended with some on-screen facts about how problems in Jerusalem persist today, one person in the theater clapped. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t a very good movie and Middle East violence is nothing to clap for.

There’s a small square vent on the east side of the house facing the back yard. If you’re a human, you have to remove four screws before you can go into the crawl space under the kitchen. But if you’re small enough, you don’t need to remove the screws. Just slip through the cracks. Travel the length of the kitchen west where the crawl space meets the wall dividing the kitchen and the office. This is the point where the crawl space ends and the original, full basement begins. If you’re small enough, take a turn to go straight up and you’ll soon find some pipes. Follow those pipes back to the east and you’ll see a bunch of cleaning supplies. Until yesterday there even used to be a nice, comfy bed of sponges and cleaning rags where you could relax. Then, when the lights go off and it’s quiet enough, you can find the opening next to the dishwasher that leads into the kitchen and a world of goodies. Travel a few feet to the stove, back behind it, and you can even find a way onto the counter where the people keep all the crumbs.

Snap!

It wasn’t long after setting the first mouse trap under the sink last night — before we had discovered the route the mice had been taking and plugged it up with steel wool (first step before we can patch the big opening leading from crawl space into under-sink area) — before we caught the first one. Apparently it’s called a mouse trap for a reason. It doesn’t actually kill the mouse right away. We ran from the living room to investigate and found a mouse, back snapped and trapped, trying to crawl away — inside the trap. “Is this normal?!” we wondered. It looked a bit like this. We weren’t sure what to do, so we got all Mafia style and headed to the garage where we keep the shovels.

At first, we wanted to see if the mouse could survive, so I released it from the trap. Pathetically, it tried to crawl away using only its front legs.

Then, with two swift blows from the shovel, I put the mouse out of its misery. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but our choices were limited.

There’s got to be a more effective mouse trap out there that’s more swift with the kill. We hear there’s one with eight entrances that’s effective at immediately snapping the mouse’s neck on entrance. That’s next on the list.

The problem with the catch-and-release kind of trap is that the mice will just find their way back into the house eventually. Like Joe said, we’ve got to “Go nuclear NOW.”

I enjoy logging into Gmail each morning to discover new features being rolled out. Today it’s one of the suggestions I remember making a long time ago: Always display images from <sender>.

After the last mouse snuck into our house a couple weeks ago, we thought it was cute — a one-time thing. (Previously, we had battled a mouse problem in the pantry.) Since then, it’s become more of a problem.

We looked the other way when I was down in the basement about a week ago going through a tub of dog stuff and found that another mouse had been nesting in the bottom of it; we emptied the tub and let the mouse free. Apparently the two mice we’ve freed have taken our kindness for granted, told their friends, or both.

Yesterday we found mouse droppings in the kitchen. This morning we found some scattered about our stove and even inside the broiler — our 1948 Chambers B Model has a top-loading broiler (its big flame is always fun at parties) — since we made some garlic bread in it last night.

That was the final straw.

These animal-loving, big-hearted, mouse-freeing, liberal vegetarians have had enough. Tonight we buy and set traps. No mouse messes with our eating and food preparation areas. We’re serious about our food.

It’s on.

Blast rattles British consulate in US

Saratogian / SPAC board quits:

In a stunning move, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s entire board resigned on Tuesday, moments after naming a seven-member transitional board charged with charting a new course for the troubled arts organization.

This is a great move for SPAC and for arts in the Capital Region. I think the resignation of all 22 board members does go a long way in restoring public trust in SPAC, but it falls short of answering this question: Even with a new board in place, why should I donate money to SPAC when my donation to the non-profit will just contribute toward ousted chair Herb Chesbrough’s $100,000 annual life salary?

Meanwhile in Saratoga, all homeowners yesterday received notice that our tax-assessed property values are going up 8% from the previous year. At least they aren’t just picking on us.

This is gross.

Finally, congrats to my cousin Joanie, who’s now a member of the U.S. Snowboarding Team!

Two years ago today: SF Founder’s Day Picnic.

Experts: Young People’s Debt Skyrocketing:

A recent survey of MetLife clients and employers found that 40 percent of workers ages 21 to 30 had not begun to save for retirement — and many young adults have little clue how to even begin doing so.

…

One example of the financial pinch: Student loan balances for the average college graduate were $18,900 in 2002, more than double the amount a decade earlier, even when adjusted for inflation, according to researchers at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy group. Their analysis of the most recent Federal Reserve data available also found that average credit card debt for adults age 24 to 34 was $4,088 in 2001, an increase of 55 percent since 1992.

I believe that student loan debt is good debt and not necessarily a measure of the problem — I myself still carry a balance — but perhaps it does reflect a trend of increased overall debt. Credit card is the bad kind.

Don’t let this happen to you. As I’ve often written about, our generation cannot count on Social Security to be there for us when we retire. Now is the time to plan for our future. If you don’t look out for your future self, who will?

Save, save, save!

It’s Day 6 of fighting this damn chest cold/cough that I can’t seem to shake — even after two back-to-back nights of Nyquil-induced, knock-me-on-my-ass, cough-suppressing sleep, including a full 12 hours of it Saturday night. Of course, drinking beer at Matt’s “it’s not a bachelor party” party Saturday probably didn’t help my immune system much.

Friday night Alex and Cati came to town and we hit Haweli — delicious as always — then surprised Cati with some birthday cake and Cava. Cati then proceeded to kick all our asses in Karaoke Revolution, despite her claim that she was as bad a singer as I am. I was just glad not to get booed off the stage in either of the two rounds. But even that wasn’t enough to keep me from getting last place.

Yesterday I capped off my weekend with lots of relaxation and TV — Tru Calling and Alias galore. I watched at least five episodes of Season 1, enough to finish it. Sarah was right: “It’s TV crack.” So much so that I returned to my source tonight and swapped Season 1 for Season 2. I’ve already watched two episodes of the second season and am still hungry for more. I wonder if this is how Affleck got hooked on Garner, too?

Most ignorant bumper sticker of all time — seen this weekend on (appropriately) a Porsche Cayenne — which pains me even to repeat it here:

“Support the Troops / Shoot a Reporter”

Oh the irony. What does the proud owner of this bumper sticker think our troops are fighting and dying for, if not the right of Iraqis to enjoy the same freedoms that begin with our First Amendment and the freedom of press? Would he rather America revert to the Saddam-led Iraq or current-day China or North Korea and their government-controlled presses and constrictions of free speech?

What must it be like to live in a world of such ignorance and stupidity, insulated behind the mind-warping metal of a $56,000, 14 MPG-getting, mass-oil-burning Porsche SUV? I hope never to know.

I first posted this awesome glamour shot of Stella, taken by Niki, back in December. I post it here again today as a proud dog dad. Stella, with this photo, won the Prettiest Pooch competition at Jen’s office yesterday following a screening of Best in Show. She won a $25 PetSmart gift certificate. You make us proud, Stella Brie.

For the record, fear not, Happy Dingo fans, we’re also very proud of him, too, and love him just the same, even if he didn’t win the contest.

Look how skinny he used to be!

If one thing can be learned from Bush’s attempt to dismantle social security, it is this: Get out of debt, save more, invest more. In other words, don’t count on the federal government to look out for you when you’re ready to retire. In his speech last night, Bush tried to put himself in the group of people who actually depend on Social Security to live (how ironic): “A generation of baby boomers is getting ready to retire. I happen to be one of them.” He may be a boomer, but he’s the last person who would ever need to draw Social Security benefits. Later, when a reporter asked if Dick Cheney would benefit less under the proposed system since he’s loaded, Bush got defensive: “Q — where a rich person, say, Dick Cheney, wouldn’t get much out of it?

“THE PRESIDENT: Now, wait a minute, don’t get personal here, Hutch. You’re on national TV; that’s a cheap shot.”

How’s it a “cheap shot” to talk about the facts? Maybe that was just hitting too close to home because Bush knows that — as with tax cuts — the mega-rich club (he, Cheney, his entire cabinet) will benefit the most from diverting Social Security dollars into the stock market from which he and his cronies reap hundreds of millions of dollars.

Unmasking Bush’s plan:

He talks about his “crisis,” his “private accounts” and his faith in Wall Street traders to make everything right. But he does not listen to the evidence that his approach will not work, and he does not respond to the expressions of concern from the American people.

I’m all for investing on a personal basis, but I’m suspicious of putting too much faith in the market. What’s good about Social Security is that it works. Sure, it may and will run out, which brings me back to my original point: Get out of debt and save your money. Even if you’re deep in debt, it’s important to save or invest just a little every month. And do it now. It’s never too late. It’s more important to get in the habit of investing and do so regularly than it is to invest a lot. There’s no such thing as not being able to afford to invest. If you work, you can invest. Even if it’s just $10, $25, or $100 per month. Cut back on something to save for your future.

Don’t count on federal money.

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