Looking for work in Europe?

I always enjoy perusing the Economist's job advertisements. Here's my favorite, ever (click the photo for a clearer image):

Marines per Gallon

Sign in our neighborhood:

no fireplace? no problem

One of my favorite Madison landmarks

The Badger Liquor neon sign on State St.

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism - New York Times

Mother Fools, my favorite Madison coffee house, serves exclusively vegan food (for drink, they offer cow's milk, but soy milk is no extra charge). Their cupcakes look insanely great, but it's Jennie Capellaro's soups and the East Side Ovens cookies that I really love. Susan sipped a cup of their dill dahl on her way to class this very evening, but the tortilla soup is our favorite ("are you sure there's no cheese in there?")!

All that is to say: here's an article for you about vegan punk bakers; I am amazed that they don't live in Madison.

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism - New York Times

Back to the big city

Now that my company headquarters is in Chicago, I've had to make a couple of trips there for meetings. The HQ is on LaSalle St., in the heart of the old financial district, across from the City Hall (with its green roof) and a few blocks from the Sears Tower.

It's about 150 miles from Madison to Chicago, but during rush hour is a 3-1/2 hour drive. The only positive thing I can say about that is that it serves as a reminder of the traffic I left behind in DC! I do not miss the regular honking of car horns.

The people, too, are different. I have been so spoiled by this wonderful, smaller city, with its friendly people who greet strangers, hold doors, and give thanks when others do the same. Simple things can make life so much more pleasant.

My next trip is tomorrow; I have to make a presentation at the company meeting (eek!). Two presentations, actually; a short one before the entire company (150 people) on Monday and long (30 minute) one for just my division (90 people) on Tuesday. Public speaking is not my thing, and I've had very little time to prepare... I'm going to have to imagine Tim Gunn over my shoulder... "make it work!" Send positive vibes my way, won't you?

Winter has arrived...

Originally uploaded by sfrikken.

Susan and I walked down to Lake Monona with Indy dog on this cold, snowy afternoon.

Harmony, Neighbors, and Football

Harmony Bar

We're going to the Harmony Bar tonight to see Spin Cycle , an improv comedy troupe that an acquaintance of ours is in. We love the Harmony... fantastic food (four cheese pizza featuring bleu cheese is phenomenal, as are the walnut burgers), and a really friendly diverse group of people on both sides of the bar. Here's a good recent review with more detail, and some pictures of one of the most interesting, comfortable, friendly places in our neighborhood.

Neighbors

Speaking of the neighborhood... our next-door neighbors, who have lived in their home for longer than I have lived, are putting their house on the market. I keep telling myself what a good thing it is that this is such a big deal to me... after all, neighbors came and went in the DC area and it never really mattered much, because they didn't generally interact anyway...

Favre update

Surely you've heard the latest... the local news reported that Brett Favre has allowed his golf club membership to lapse, prompting speculation that he is planning to retire and leave the area. No, seriously, that was reported on the news.

NFL Playoffs

Very awesome that New Orleans won yesterday's playoff game, although I was kind of rooting for the Eagles because I'd love for Jeff Garcia to be "Super-Bowl-winning QB Jeff Garcia" if he ever comes out. Still, a Redskins fan will never complain about an Eagles loss... and the Cowboys went out so fabulously painfully last week that it makes the Redskins' futility a bit more bearable.

I was also glad to see the Colts beat the Ravens - any opportunity to force humility on Brian Billick is welcome.

Who do you want to see at the SuperBowl (Susan's answer here)?

Lake Monona, winter

Originally uploaded by sfrikken.

Susan was out taking pictures in the first snow since October (!). Love this one of a foggy, snowy backdrop of lake behind the sharp image of the tree... she notes the "line of waterfowl, in the curve of the lake."

Capitol Peek

Capitol Peek
Originally uploaded by sfrikken.

Susan took this one! "Looking SW onto the Capitol Building from the US Bank Building on the Capitol Square."

Christmas, extended

Susan and I both received Amazon.com gift certificates from the family for Christmas, so we decided it would be fun to exchange them and buy each other gifts so we could still have surprises! I got my package yesterday, full of neat stuff.

I am thrilled to finally have the book Inspirability: 40 Top Designers Speak Out About What Inspires, which I believe I first drooled over at the Nat'l Building Museum. I admit, I was drawn in by the furry green hardcover, but the glossy, graphically fascinating interior pages also serve their subject well.

I also got Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises; Pieta Brown's latest CD, "In the Cool"; David Bowie's "Best of Bowie" DVD (can't wait to see the old videos again -- what is it about that guy?!); Stephen King's "Insomnia" (I was never able to keep up with SK, so Susan is helping me negotiate the better releases); and, most altruistically of all, "Blue Velvet" on DVD (I only had it on Laserdisc before... are you old enough to remember those?).

already?

In a post about my new job a few weeks ago, I said I expected that my new company would "like most IT startups, either fail or be bought out by a larger company." Well, sure enough... I've been in limbo for a couple of weeks until it was official and I could tell people, but we did indeed get acquired. (Scottie: call me!)

My job appears to be safe -- I take nothing for granted, but there is very little overlap with the parent company (still small, 150 to our 50 people), so the biggest change should be that I'll have a new boss and we'll be headquartered in Chicago (2.5 hours away) instead of Madison. I have been to the new HQ once already for planning meetings, and will go again for the annual company meeting later this month, but hope not to have to venture to the big city too often!

So, 8 weeks into trying to learn my new environment, I am tasked with integrating a whole new set of services and people into it. I will be very busy for a while, but ultimately the organization and other resources the new company brings could make my job a bit easier. And I have far fewer concerns about the funding of the new company (which is, like the other, still a venture-capital-backed startup), because it has been extremely successful in its own niche of providing PCI services.

Oh, and they offer domestic partner benefits if Wisconsin's new constitutional amendment in defense of the sacred institution of marriage doesn't invalidate them...

iPod surgery

A little over a year ago I finally broke down and bought an iPod. I was holding out for lower prices, more storage, a sign that enhancements leveling off, and more assurance that music I bought online would be playable in the next decade.

I bought just before the video iPods came out and never looked back. I love my iPod. I love NPR podcasts (and others). I love being able to shuffle and not know which of the 6000 songs loaded so far will pop up. I love creating auto-playlists by genre or artist.

And then, I turned it on one day and got the frowny Mac. Charged it up... nope. Reset it... nope. Ugh. And it seems that out of warranty, Apple basically charges you the cost of a refurbished iPod (about $250) to repair anything beyond a battery. I am sure this is great for business, because many who can afford to do so must simply toss the old one in the landfill and upgrade. I hate supporting the wasteful model that is Apple's continuous upgrade business strategy. I started looking for alternatives.

I did lots of research trying to find anything comparable, and came up empty. The iTunes interface is still lacking obvious features (very little of my music can be described by a single genre; why in the world can't I create subfolders for organzation?), but it's still better than anything else I've seen. (Zune may fill the void, but that remains to be seen.)

So, having come to grips with my dependence on this device, I persevered... researched, decided it could be the battery, took a chance, and bought an repair kit here. Saw these instructions and got nervous, but proceeded.

The toolkit itself was useless. Susan ended up opening the damn thing with a butter knife. :-) Then things got interesting... pull the audio cable, move the hard drive and motherboard, take out 6 teeny tiny screws, untape stuff... aha! the battery! Replace, reassemble, think good thoughts, turn it on... YES! Success.

If you've made it this far, your reward is this: if you are going to own an iPod, extend your warranty. Do it. If it's too late, seriously consider mailing your device in to PDASmart or others for cheaper repairs than Apple. Or if you just want to upgrade, people will buy your old one on eBay and repair it, keeping it out of the landfill. But don't try to replace a battery yourself unless you are extremely comfortable working with electronics and in tiny spaces!

Do you have an iPod story to share? Is there another music player or other software or online music stores that you like? Share in the comments!

Growing pains, shrinking gains

A couple of months ago, the NY Times was singing Madison's praises as "the new Berkeley" , but yesterday's front-page story describes some of the less desirable aspects of Madison's growth, as "thousands of young professionals, retirees and former suburbanites have moved to glistening condominium buildings in the shadow of the state Capitol’s dome and only a few blocks from the University of Wisconsin’s main campus." The key issue is perceived to be concentration of population in the small downtown area, and its large population of bars. The state government is seeking to decrease the number of bars by changing licensing laws.

An article about downsizing of another sort was in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago. The city of Youngstown, Ohio is purposefully downsizing itself to match its current inhabitants, now half of the 170,000 people who lived there when the steel industry reigned. A creative approach, and I hope it works there and elsewhere. Short article is below:

December 10, 2006

THE 6th ANNUAL YEAR IN IDEAS; Creative Shrinkage

By BELINDA LANKS

For decades, depopulated Rust Belt cities have tried to grow their way back to prosperity. Youngstown, Ohio, has a new approach: shrinking its way into a new identity.

At its peak, Youngstown supported 170,000 residents. Now, with less than half that number living amid shuttered steel factories, the city and Youngstown State University are implementing a blueprint for a smaller town that retains the best features of the metropolis Youngstown used to be. Few communities of 80,000 boast a symphony orchestra, two respected art museums, a university, a generously laid-out downtown and an urban park larger than Central Park. ''Other cities that were never the center of steel production don't have these assets,'' says Jay Williams, the city's newly elected 35-year-old mayor, who advocated a downsized Youngstown when he ran for office.

Williams's strategy calls for razing derelict buildings, eventually cutting off the sewage and electric services to fully abandoned tracts of the city and transforming vacant lots into pocket parks. The city and county are now turning abandoned lots over to neighboring landowners and excusing back taxes on the land, provided that they act as stewards of the open spaces. The city has also placed a moratorium on the (often haphazard) construction of new dwellings financed by low-income-housing tax credits and encouraged the rehabilitation of existing homes. Instead of trying to recapture its industrial past, Youngstown hopes to capitalize on its high vacancy rates and underused public spaces; it could become a culturally rich bedroom community serving Cleveland and Pittsburgh, both of which are 70 miles away.

Youngstown's experiment has not gone unnoticed. Williams's office has already fielded calls from officials in a few of the many American metropolitan areas that have experienced steep population drop-offs. When cities hit rock bottom, it seems, planners can find new solutions for urban decay -- if they are willing to think small enough. BELINDA LANKS