My uncle is a Luddite

About a year ago I was in Boston for work and my uncle Vern drove down from New Hampshire to have dinner with me. I've always enjoyed my uncle Vern who reminds me a lot of my father. I guess in some ways he's the more senior version of my dad that never moved away from New England. As we were having dinner in the hotel restaurant I was explaining to Vern that I was in Boston working for the city on a project to move inspectors from using paper forms to mobile software on tablet PCs. These inspectors had just been forced to start using Outlook the month before and now were being wrangled into using arguably the most complex software, holding a tablet PC in your hand and navigating it with your stylus and using handwriting recognition has a pretty steep and dramatic learning curve. Naturally, the conversation landed on the inspectors aversion to this new technology and some of the anecdotes of how they dodged adoption.

Vern's eyes lit up during these bits and he immediately jumped in explaining his own personal philosophy of how technology only further separates us. As an assessor he could go online to research property prices and history, but he found it arguable better to drive down to the county offices in person or chat on the phone for a bit. He became such a regular that the county office workers even got to know his dog.

Sitting at the other side of the room was a group of about 5 people in which two of them were cranking out texts on their phones amid jokes and fork fulls of their meal. Vern explained how this was a perfect illustration of how technology was savaging that group's social interaction. I asked, wasn't technology actually enhancing and expanding it. Nicora and I often text throughout business trips and during the day, each allowing us to "be" with the people directly in front of us, while still connecting on all those common questions or exchanges of that familiar relationships consists of: "what are you doing?, how's your day?, Do you want to go to sushi tonight?"

Here's an article I just came across that seems to support the notion that technology provides for greater connection.

Do you think logging-in logs us out of human interaction?

50 years and two fresh starts

We celebrated my grandparents' Golden Anniversary last weekend. Some champagne, a jimmy-rigged wedding cake, little black dresses, and dancing to the oldies. Though I don't entirely believe it's been 50 years of wedded bliss, it's at least been 50 years of steadiness. Sure some bickering, definitely some family drama, but still, a lifetime worthy of looking up to. Josh and I will be the next in the family to reach that milestone and it's a challenge I welcome - my heart still beats true love for Josh and I can't wait to dance a whirl to David Gray in 2052. I obviously won't be a great grandma by then, or at least I certainly hope not, but hopefully there'll be some well-raised, content children to look up to our marriage as I look up to my grandparents'.

With 50 years behind them, my grandparents also get to celebrate two new engagements, two new additions to our fun family. Adria and Rob got engaged this summer and Jake just proposed to Lorressa yesterday. Congratulations to our family on it's summer of love!

Congratulations

Congrats Eli and Rina! A little bit ago an old friend of mine, Eli came back to home and got engaged at the top of Mt. Bachelor nonetheless. Eli have stayed in touch since sixth grade, which is pretty impressive since we haven't actually been in school together since after Jackson Middle School days of Barbershop with Mrs. Cash. It's a pretty great thing to look back on and see a genuine friendship going for that much time and across the different time zones we have been living in.

We're hitting my favorite part of fall and things seem pretty sweet with warm days, the Ducks rocking their first two opponents and my fantasy football league off the ground. Now if I could just figure out how to get the grass green again...

Powerpoint

My recent life in PowerPoint

• I'm a slacker and haven't blogged
  
• Last Saturday equaled 29. (sigh).
• I got mocked for not blogging
  
• Confession, I bought a Mac (and got the free iTouch and printer) it doesn't suck!
• A couple of buddies and I went camping for a weekend at Mt. Raineir and drank obscene amounts of beer and out did a football team in the campground for most obnoxious-up-late beer drinking tards.
  
• I returned to GoldyDale for a grand 10 year reunion celebration which was far too much fun
• I got mocked for not blogging.
  
• I drafted Rud Johnson as a RB on my fantasy football team
• Three weeks later he got dropped by the team
• I put together a module furniture desk and cussed at it for like an hour and dreamed of torturing the idiot engineer by forcing him to put it together.
• I was mocked for not blogging again
• Next Steps
• Questions?
  

August = Almost Over

Summer is slip sliding away. In a good way though. It's been nearly two months of back yard barbeques, rough housing with the dog in the late evening sunlight, tall boys of PBR, and endless watering of the withering front grass. I love summer, even as it fades. Part of the love is in the anticipation of a beautiful fall - the summer sun's work comes to full glory in the turning leaves of October - raking them from the lawn that we fretted over all summer and it all seems to come full circle. As we wear down August, and enter into September, my days on the porch will only lengthen, though the sun will grow more brief - I'll be holding on to summer and the simple moments it provides...but at the same time, i'll be yearning for fall and the wonder it provides.

What do you love about the summer?

Halfsies

I ran a half marathon today. It was good, easier than expected, and...(I swear I'm not whining)...anticlimactic. I haven't "raced" in eleven years, so I don't know what I was expecting to feel when I crossed the finish line, but what I felt wasn't it. Don't get me wrong, i'm proud of myself, I feel good about the fact that I went from zero on the workout scale to a 13.1 miler in 3 months. Perhaps it's my competitive side...i just didn't get the exhiliration that used to come with my high school races. But then, I used to win. So today, I got the, yeah you can finish a half, but 2,000 people can beat you feeling. It might be the blues, but i'll stick with labeling it the anticlimatic blahs.

one must stay sober: not always, but most of the time

so it was off to wine country on Saturday. in keeping with our plan to not have a plan we started out at Bella Vida, moved on to Maresh and then found our selves at Torii Mor's impressive event. We followed this with a quick stop at Wunderlea for their inaugural opening. We had a disgustingly good time tasting wine, gorging ourselves on cheese and crackers. As all things must, this eventually decomposed into a debate on neo liberalism and the ravenous forces of capitalism. Don't worry, no friendships were damaged and any discomfort was assuaged with a raucous bout of four square in the parking lot. Given the chance to stumble your way through the Willamette

valley with your wildly intelligent, Midwestern mobile-software-developing, folklore loving four square driven friends, I strongly encourage you to take the chance and go with it.

Now I am become Joshua, Destroyer of Cell Phones

I don't necessarily consider myself clumsy; however,
Nokia 6021: dropped into a bowl of salty milk tea the same week I bought it.
Moto Razr 1: dropped and pierced (yes the metal casing was actually pierced) by a headphone jack.
Moto Razr 2: dropped some more, so many times the screen would simply go black at times or refuse to charge.
Blackberry Pearl 1: dropped on the ground in HD lumber yard and crushed under my truck tire. When the security guy found it on the ground he simply chucked it in the trash.
Blackberry Pearl 2: Fate to be determined...

Two years and five cell phones later it's become pretty evident I have a penchant for destroying mobile devices. Consider the countdown until Blackberry Pearl 2 bites the dust started...

Are you good at breaking anything?

Overcompensation

We had another busy weekend which means great things for the aesthetics of our home, but terrible things for the psyche of our dog. Ms. Olive was relegated to the five feet of front yard that her leash allowed her and she was none too happy.

Today, out of guilt for having neglected her for essentially the last month, I decided to give her full reign of the house while we were at work (and yes, you may read this as me taking full responsibility - Josh was decidedly against the idea).

Her first time out of the kennel, almost like a child's first day of kindergarten! Only, if Ollie had been my child at her first day of kindergarten, I would have gotten nasty calls from the teacher about her behavior...the kindergarten equivalent of which would have been destruction of the teacher's desk. The equivalent in the dog and home scenario? Ollie ate our couch.

Now, please, somebody share a story equal in horror to make me feel better about this sad situation.

RIP pretty brown couch.

the 9-5, then the 5-9

So we've been working like crazy on our upstairs, hence the lack of a social life for the last five weeks!! But this weekend, after a mad rush to the finish, we FINISHED! well, except for the trim, the closet organizer, window coverings, and the doors! But those are just minor details, the big news is that we're sleeping in the new bedroom and have an extra room to spare. A spare bedroom, now that's big! Now I just need to get my great grandma's vanity from my ex brother in law...

To view the start to finish, because I'm sure you're all so interested in what we've been up to the past month! http://picasaweb.google.com/jsuttong/AtticConversion

Special props to our family and friends who helped so much, Uncle Ron, Chris, and Brandon. And to Jeremiah Johnson, Drywaller extrordanaire, and the Home Depot quick carpet install team!

So...now we need some guests! Zack and Suzanne are first, who's second???

Measles? Guttate Psoriasis? Hives?

Nope, just a bad reaction to the amoxicillin I was taking for my strep throat!!! Americans really have the disgusted stare down. I was at Portland Fit Saturday morning waiting for my awesome running buddy to show up and people were definitely giving me the freak looks. Now I'm taking not one, not two, but three drugs to control my reaction to the first drug. You have to love modern medicine!

Our first trip to Bend was...

Truly awesome! And we only spent night! Ollie had a fantastic time in the snow - mostly because I forgot my ski pants so i was stuck in the parking lot with her while everyone else hit the slopes! but it was ok, i got some fantastic pictures of her being a snow dog :) we rented darling bungalows from lavabelles (if you haven't stayed in one of their historic homes or bungalows, check them out! great accomodations, good prices, dog friendly, free passes to mcmenamins, fantastic locations!... http://www.lavabelles.com/), had thai food, then martinis, then mcmenamins beer, then mcmenamins wine back at the bungalows. Chuck and Outhai are fabulous travel buddies! Sunday morning we relaxed over our huge beer samplers at Cascades Lakes Brewery then hit the waterfront for a walk with Ollie. The drive back, Josh let me snooze and that finished out a perfect, though short, weekend with good friends!

Check our all our good times and a great video of Ollie at http://picasaweb.google.com/jsuttong/Bend

What should we do next time we have a night to spend in Bend???

Divorced

I'm going to try something new. Well, maybe it's actually old; but over the next few posts I'm going to send out, hopefully, slightly interesting sections from my journal while in Mongolia.

August 17th, 2004
A few days ago I acquired the courage to ask my mother about my father. It might seem odd that this was a mystery but all i knew was this; when I walked into her home for the first time she pulled down a small 5 x 6 family portrait from the wall that was a not so obvious cut-out glued on top another picture of the mountain in our town. She then proceeded to give the names and family titles of everyone in the photo. The inventory went, two younger brothers, one older brother, a sister, mom and a dude with a bad mustache as "dad." That photo and title was the only evidence for my entire stay that my siblings weren't brought by the stork.
So when I decided to ask my mom, it's probably no surprise, I acquired this courage post a bottle of wine we sporadically shared with her older sister. I would also like to mention that this Mongolian wine was much more like wine flavored vodka. Nonetheless while my mom was walking her sister home I practiced on my 19 year old sister, who had just begun to cook dinner. (realize, these questions and discussion points are at about the maximum my early stage Mongolian can support) When I asked where was Dad and why he was gone I got the typical "driver in the capital" answer and a s shrug of the shoulders. followed by a half swallowed, "I don't know" She then explained that she was away at school. After that I asked her what she thought (a question I had just learned to ask and sporadically had the capacity to comprehend the answer to) She simply said "bad." Of course at this time she realized it was the perfect moment to ask If I found his picture beautiful or not. I did my best to ride the fence by returning the question, to which she replied "ugly."
Once my mother returned we had completed our deeply bonding conversation. I began by asking where Dad was and then the follow-up question that could leave no doubt what I intended to know "why did he go?" The answer that came was not one I truly expected. Upon reflection I feel a bit foolish for being so ignorant. After hesitating for a moment she turned her head as if the window would supply the answer and then release a soft "midgui (I don't know)" amidst eyes bulging with tears. So soft was her answer I almost missed it. As tears began to trickle across her cheeks I immediately began to feel a flood of regret at having brought back unknown painful memories. After flipping through the dictionary for what felt like an eternity my mom pointed out the work "divorced." It was then that I felt deflated by my inadequate language skills. In an attempt to share with the situation I told her my parents in America were also divorced. At this she wept and I felt even more supremely helpless. She told me that it was especially hard for my youngest brother because he was the only one home when her husband left four years ago.
I placed my seemingly large pale hand on her soft worn fingers and told her I was sorry for asking and apologized again. To this she looked back at me and told me it was ok and that " I must know." She added that at first life was very hard but that now life was better. She said the first two years were sad and difficult to live, but she has her children. It was at this moment that I became aware that there would be no answer why. Irreconcilable differences wouldn't be written on a piece of paper anywhere. From my own experience as the son of divorced parents there was no clean single answer why the relationship didn't sustain itself. SO how foolish I had been to search for some word she could point to in the dictionary that might make me nod my head and say yes, now I understand.

Nartai

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow"
- Helen Keller

According to your favorite local forecaster, this weekend may have just been a teaser, but it was a GREAT one! Sun sun sun sun sun, I love you sun! I picked up two or three new freckles. I had to purchase sunglasses as necessity, not out of vanity. We got cute little ski-burns up on the mountain. I used my porch for activities other than wiping mud from my shoes. I cracked the window on the car AND I turned the seater heater down to 4, instead of winter's permanent 5 setting. And don't people just look happier under a little UVA and UVB instead of H2O?

I had Raffi in my head all day -
anybody remember his sunny song?
"Oh mister sun, sun, mister golden sun,
please shine down on me!"

How did YOU spend your sunshine?

Decision By Numbers

When I was recently explaining to someone that I had a tough choice to make they said "hey this is what you need to do, take your two options, write them at the top of a piece of paper, one on each side and then write the benefits of each underneath, assign a number value to them and then presto, all you have to do is total up each option and... DECISION MADE.

I'm sure you've heard of this scenario, too, and honestly it feels a little like what a "life coach" might tell you to do. I can recall shortly after I learned this formula at a young age it became quickly apparent I could simply twist the numbers to alter the outcome, heck I even remember totaling up the numbers before and then simply realizing that's not what I wanted and doing the opposite.

So if it's not already obvious, I'll come out and say, I find this formulaic like system for making decisions lame and weak. It's akin to those secret stock pick formulas you can buy from infomercials, if it was ACTUALLY revolutionary and useful it would be THE WAY. I don't use it for two reasons, first it pretends, or rather I should say people use it to pretend

to be objective because they've applied arithmetic to their decision and somehow we think anything that has a number value associated with it is objective. Second, it supports the concept that every decision "should" or even can be objective.

Let me explain what I mean with an example, someone was recently talking to me about how they've seen this system used in an candidate selection process during interviewing. Let's say you interview a guy named Seamus who stinks. A saavy number decisioner might conduct their assessment assign their values and pretend to be objective ignoring the fact that secretly their entire assessment is shaded by their utter abhorrence of stinky people, while if you start with the idea that subjectivity and irrational biases play an active role in the decision process, whether or not you choose to recognize them, you can begin by identifying and evaluating them: "this guy reeks so bad I can barely breath, so I know it's going to be hard for me to accurately assess him" and move on, or at least be aware of every influencing factor on the process as well as making those around aware of it.

Making a decision isn't clean or neat. It's surely not a science so pretending to be able to plug your options into a formula and just come out with an answer is absurd. It's a complicated, messy, subjective and organic. We should definitely keep that in mind when we're looking for the "right" decision.

the blazers are en fuego

Two days this week that made me so happy to live in this city. Tuesday night was Ignite Portland (or en fuego as Adam kept referring to it). If you're not familiar with this it was described as ADD Toastmasters because it consists of a set of presentations in which presenters are only given 5 minutes to fly though a set of timed slides. If you missed it you can go to their site to catch videos, but they really don't do justice. my top three:

• Why Deutschland Loves David Hasselhoff - Mario Schulzke
  
• Where Does Imagination Go? - Chet Fiedler
  
• and How to be an Undercover Hooker - Jessica Bruder (this one
  was awesome because it was simultaneously absurd funny yet built from actual authentic Police education materials.
  

Wednesday the Blazers beat the Bulls. Rip City is rolling again because we're back to the trifecta of Blazers not sucking, the Blazers not going to jail, and the Blazers being an awesome and exciting team to watch. Being a Blazer fan I've seen some seriously rough times, and they just make this renaissance all that much better!

Cancun, here we come (with a little help from our friends?)

The Oregonian is holding its annual travel photo contest. The grand prize winner gets an all expense paid trip for two to Cancun. If you'll help us pick THE grand prize winning picture, we'll promise you a souveneir. Well, at least a postcard.

Let us know which picture you find the most compelling, the most amazing, the one that's sure to win. Or, if any are particularly underwhelming, please share that too, so we don't embarrass ourselves.

Pic 1: The Temple Door at Harhorin, Mongolia - (Chingiss Khan's ancient capital)

Pic #2: Blizzard at the Masoleum of Khoja AhmedYasawi, built 1389, in Turkistan, Kazakhstan

Pic #3: Ankor Wat, Cambodia

Pic #4: Mosque in Buyant Soum, Olgii Province, Mongolia

Pic #5: Frozen horse at -45 in Uvs, Mongolia

Pic #6: Bar in Mandalgovi Province, Mongolia

Want to enter your own? Check out contest details at http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/travel/120061771892190.xml&coll=7

Click on comment and tell us which one YOU would vote for if you had the power to send two Gardners, I mean people, to Cancun :)

Ruff, that's how I blog it

Honestly, dog blogging, or dlogging as some pups are referring to it these days, is in a sad state. Is it a result of the current administration? Possibly yet another fallout from the Bush's feline like tendencies?

If I read one more blog about the pleasure of gnawing through leashes, barktarding at your reflection in the window or summarily ripping stuffed animals and lying around their soft cottony entrails I'm going to pack up my doggy toys and hitch a ride to Canada.

Apart from being a pathetic excuse for Josh and Nicora to show my impressive photogenic qualities I want this dlog to really bring people back to the heart of the world from a dog's perspective.

Humans, take it from a dog, through a dlog - the heart of the world is in relishing the little things, the plain little things. Simplicity. One toy. One soft bed. One type of food and one drink. Two humans to give you a little love now and then. The softness of grass, and the squishiness of mud between the toes. Or claws. Whatever you happen to have.

Barking at nothing, slashing through innocent stuffed animals - that is a subject for the idle minded. Come now, dogs of the world, let's dig a little deeper, ponder the truth, and share it with our fine two-legged friends.

If you spend your time on four legs or two or maybe even try and split your time equitably, hit that little comment link below and post a little something from your perspective. I especially want to hear any ideas from my pawed friends on how their e-life is going.

ruff!

Night Skiing Doesn't Suck

This week was pretty rockin. Saturday my buddy from college, Mike took Amtrak down from Seattle. We met up with Bob and chatted primary politics and the free market at World Cup, hit the ridiculous car show and then caught some local bands at The Doug Fir.

On Wednesday Brandon, Grace, Nicora and I went night skiing up at Skibowl. The first few times I ever went night skiing I wasn't a huge fan of it. It was cold, dark and seemed like a waste considering the snow kept getting icey and you were limited by what was illuminated. Maybe that had something to do with being at Meadows because since last season I can't get enough of it. On Wednesday we all met up at Brandon's around 4:30 and hit the road up the mountain. With just a short stop at Subway we are on the slopes by 6. The conditions were soft and powdery and we had the entire upper bowl to ourselves. With zero lift lines Brandon and I hit upper bowl from every different angle all night long. At around 9:30 we all packed back in the car for a short ride home with no traffic and were in bed by 11 that night. Oh and did I mention it's only 25 bucks?

And then to top it all off I got a call from our friends who are in Burkina Faso in Peace Corps.

Cubes, pods, grey boxes

Has anybody figured out the cubicle? It's such a shoddy semblance of privacy-I fail to see the point in the fuzzy grey 3/4 walls. Does management think if we're out of each other's sight our minds are more focused on spreadsheets and evaluations? I can hear the softest noise from my podmates...surely nobody's fooled? I don't mind sneezing, chewing, typing - in fact, I love the women I share this false sense of privacy with and all of their sounds. It's comforting each morning to hear that voice come through the temporary wall, wishing me good morning. It's nice to have five voices simultaneously chime "bless you" when I sneeze. I just wonder why the effort of walls that do nothing - I'd rather see my podmates' faces than grey fuzzy walls. I'd rather have deskmates than podmates.

Ignite

Have you heard of Ignite Portland? I just read thearticle about it on the cover of the Oregonian's Living section. This looks awesome and I'm in!

You get 5 minutes to present on a topic and make it interesting. Here are some of the topics copied from their agenda:

• Where Does Imagination Go? - Chet Fiedler
• That’s Entertainment: Politics as Theater in Campaign ‘08 - Jon Perr
• Open Source Rockets - Sarah Sharp
• Time for Portland to Take Its Place - Chris Logan
• Wouldn’t You Like To Be a Pepper (Expert) Too? - Kelly Guimont
• Beauty in Abandonment - Peat Bakke
• How to be an Undercover Hooker - Jessica Bruder

Check it out and let me know if you want to join in. http://www.igniteportland.com

shreddin'

I used to listen to Josh and Brandon talk about shredding, powder, runs, groomed trails, lifts…my eyes slightly glazed over because skiing and snowy mountain sides had no place in my reality. My winters involved reading and knitting, Beethoven and Mozart – activities of the house-wifely nature that kept me within the warm confines of whichever home we were in at the time. How many winter homes now, Josh? 7? So I don’t know quite what prompted me to fork over $70 one weekend in order to leave my warm hearth and learn the intricate workings of snow-board bindings, boot lacing, fogged-up, bug-eyed Fly Girl goggles, and…falling on my ass. Over and over did I fall. Did the next day find me nursing a bruised backside and sprained wrists with a cup of cocoa and a copy of US Weekly? Historical data of Nicora’s winter-time habits would have the betting man placing his chips on Hell Yes! But no, back up in the snow was I, forking over yet more money. Lacing, strapping, swaying in the frigid wind on the lift. Any amount of money and pain, anything to bring back the exhilarating rush of cold, pure, winter wonder on my face during the minutia of time between falls.

Hi

Is this an evolution from Myspace? Probably not. But we wanted to build our own blog. The couple that blogs together stays together right?

Anyways this is just something we wanted to put together, together of course, keeping in touch and possibly enjoying some great conversation with our friends, family and anyone else out there stumbling on this.

Rule #1 You do not talk about the Olive Gardner
Rule #2 You do not talk about the Olive Gardner

or maybe it's something more like think about this as a conversation you can have in which you don't have to be annoyed with being interrupted from someone who obviously isn't listening but just waiting for their turn to talk.