A birthday party for CurtG

Though today is properly Curt's birthday, a respectable crowd showed up down in Columbia City at Kate's restaurant last night to celebrate the occasion.

the birthday boy


wild boar for dinner

the birthday boy plays with fire

Travis has a pensive moment

Bill & Donna Van Buren, Mary Beth

Igor & Lianne

IgorK was toast!

Dessert!

Thanking the chef

Feeding the ducks

There is a creek -and many ducks - behind the building at the day job. Today Ian and I went out at lunch time to feed the ducks....

lest we forget

Curt emailed me a photo from Greenlake today suggesting I drop by there - so I did. A 'Northwest Arlington' was staged to remind us of the war that still goes on and the many dead because of it.



This is only about 1/3 of the memorial - it snaked around that bend and down the eastern side of the lake.

Isabel's Mat Mitzvah

Jax's daughter Isabel had her Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, and Saturday night they had the party....

Curt actually bought a tie for the occasion:


and here he is being coy with Sophie:

Eve (the little sister) kept stealing the show

and though this is hopelessly blurry, I still like this moment of SteveB letting Sophie touch the mirror ball.

dancing and mayhem, with Isabel raised up above the party goers:

finding my balance

The new gig continues to be a challenge, though slowly I am coming to terms with the absurd while trying not to acclimate to it.

Recently, we made a slight adjustment to the lights for the show - and I began to see some new possibilities. On Thursday, I brought my camera and during the pre-show rehearsal made a few images. The new lighting is harsher in some respects, but also provides something I see possibilities for - now I just need to figure out how to work with it.

37 degrees

It was thirty-seven degrees when I stepped out at 6:45am. Thankfully, there was no ice on my windshield. When will I get to put away my winter coat?

At the job-from-hell, one of the things I have been tasked to do is bring some order and organization to the processes of the group. As I prepare to develop the flow charts of the different jobs, I have prototyped the foundation of the project plan we'll be using. And as I am fond of using post-it's for this sort of thing, my first prototype is a very large sheet of paper and post-it notes!

This afternoon, a fellow who works in the customer support team came into our office and was thrilled with the chart. He said it helped him see what was coming down soon for his group. Ian and Leif both find it useful - though it will require some tweaking before it fully and accurately represents the situation.


Polenta is becoming a regular favorite now. Dinner tonight was supposed to include fresh pear and strawberries for desert, but my hoped-for dinner companion had other obligations and I somehow never got around to dessert.

baked polenta with steamed kale & red onion topped with gomasio

Week four in the mines

The headphones are necessary for working all day long in such close proximity...

The manager was fired last week. A veritable 'firing range'!

Taxes done, I can now return to focusing on my show again....

a TTA logo

Collective decisions are never easy.
And here is the new TTA logo design.

And here is how it has been employed:

Airport update

SteveB has updated his Airport Excercise video:

Judiciary Chairman Conyers Publishes Report Documenting Bush Abuses

For Immediate Release April 02, 2009

Contact: Jonathan Godfrey Lillian German

(Washington, DC) - Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) announced the publication of the final version of the Democratic Committee staff report on systematic abuses of presidential power during the Bush administration. The report, titled "Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush," contains 50 separate recommendations designed to correct the imbalanced separation of power that characterized the George W. Bush presidency. Chief among Conyers’ recommendations include continued congressional investigations like those the Judiciary Committee has pursued concerning Karl Rove’s interactions with the Justice Department, a blue ribbon commission similar to the panel proposed in Chairman Conyers’ H.R. 104, and independent criminal probes to be conducted by federal prosecutors.

Lots more here: http://judiciary.house.gov/news/090402.html

Just to give you an idea of what it covers, here's excerpts from the Table of Contents:

Section 1 – Politicization of the Department of Justice . . 41
I. Politicization of the Prosecution Function. . . .. . . 43
A. Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys and other Department Personnel ... 43
B. Selective Prosecution. ...50
II. Politicization of the Civil Rights Division. . . . . . . . . . . 55
~~~

Politicization of the Prosecution Function. . . .. . . . 66
Politicization of the Civil Rights Division and Voting Rights Enforcement . .. 72
Section 2 – Assault on Individual Liberty: Detention, Enhanced Interrogation, Ghosting and Black Sites, Extraordinary Rendition, Warrantless Domestic Surveillance, and National Security and Exigent Letters. .. 75
I. Detention . . . . . .77

~~~

November 2001 Decision to Try Detainees, Including U.S. Citizens, in
Military Commissions . . . . . . . 78
December 2001 Decision to Hold Detainees at Guantanamo . . . . . . . . 81
The Administration’s Public Defense of Its Guantanamo Policies . . . . 82
B. The Bush Administration’s Detention Policies in the Courts . . . . . . . . 85
The President’s Power to Detain an American Citizen Captured in Afghanistan Without Judicial Review (Hamdi). . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The President’s Power to Establish Military Commissions to Determine
Validity of Detention (Hamdan) . . . . .. 89
The President’s Power to Order Detention of Persons Without Access to
Federal Courts – Rasul and Boumediene . . . . . . . 91
The President’s Power to Order the Military Detention of an American
Citizen Seized by Civilian Authorities in the United States (Padilla) . . . . . 93
The President’s Power to Order Military Detention of Lawfully Admitted
Alien Seized by Civilian Authorities in the United States (al-Marri). . 107

~~~

December 2001 to February 2002 – Determinations That the Protections of the Geneva Conventions, Including Common Article III, Do Not Apply to Guantanamo Detainees . . . .. . . . . 114
The August 1, 2002 Torture Memorandum. . . . . . 116
August 1, 2002 – Waterboarding Approved for CIA Use . . . . . . . . . . 118
October 2002 to March 2003 – Development of Techniques for Use at Guantanamo. . .. 119
John Yoo’s March 14, 2003 Torture Memorandum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Use of Harsh Interrogation at Guantanamo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

~~~

Destruction of CIA Waterboarding Videotapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
B. Committee Action . . . . . . 133
Effectiveness of Enhanced Interrogation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Potential Criminal Liability for Destruction of Videotapes. . . . . . . . . 135
OLC Opinions Concerning Enhanced Interrogation and Potential Legal Liability Thereto. . 136

~~~

IV. Warrantless Surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . 152
A. The Genesis of the Bush Administration’s Warrantless Surveillance
Program. . . . . 152
B. Internal Disagreements as to the Program’s Legality; Disclosure of the
Program by The New York Times in December 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C. Bush Administration’s Public Statements Concerning Warrantless
Surveillance . . .. 160
D. Concerns About Legality and Effectiveness of the President’s Warrantless
Surveillance . . . 162
E. Additional Scrutiny and Legislative Activity in the 110th Congress . . 167
V. National Security Letters (NSLs) and Exigent Letters. . 172
A. The Increased use of NSLs Subsequent to 9/11 and the Enactment of the
PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT Reauthorization Act . . . . 172
B. March 2007 Justice Department Inspector General Report and
Subsequent Committee Hearings. . . . . . 173
C. March 2008 Justice Department IG “Assessment of Corrective Action”
Report and Subsequent Committee Hearings . . . 177

and lots lots more....

Hartstene Island

Just back from a weekend at Harstene Island at the southern end of Puget Sound. A couple that I know has built a house on the island and had invited several people to join them for the weekend. I got to stay in the 'crow's nest' - a comfortable alcove at the top of the square column you see here on one side of the house.



This side of the house faces the water...

and here's a view of the water...

at the water's edge looking west toward the Olympics....
(a close up of the Olympics...)
and to the east...

a lighting experiment

As the TTA team prepares to move into the Great Hall next season (upstairs from where we currently perform) there are several technical issues to resolve. One of these is how to light the team. There is no infrastructure in the space for lights so we must bring in ourselves whatever we need and it must be cleared out when we leave each night. And we are not allowed to use any nails or screws to attache anything to the walls/celing of the facility. These photos record the early rough protoyping we did Thursday after the show.

Sunday, the sun makes an appearance after a week of wet cold weather

During yesterday's TTA rehearsal, I noticed a portrait of sorts in the assembled possessions of one C. Golden:



While making lunch, the sunlight streamed in the kitchen window and illuminated the red pepper that was about to become a part of lunch.

and here's lunch (baked polenta & salad)

hmmm

Just checked my webstatistics for this weblog and have noticed some recent mysterious hits from a geographic location where none of my friends or family live. I have left this weblog 'public' - but hidden from web searches to make it easy for my friends/family. And I would prefer to continue to do so

I am concened that during my first days at the new job, when I briefly accessed this weblog interface, that information was skimmed from the wireless network at the office. This concern is strong enough that I will no longer mention the job here.

However, if any of you have been traveling in the last week, give me a heads up!

sigh

These are the tulips purchased last weekend with an intention to make new images. Nothing came of several attempts on Sunday, and since then they have languished in the sink of my utility room. So sad.


On the job front: I think my boss is next in line for termination....

a report from the mines

my workspace: note the absence of a place to hang a coat. note the absence of drawers.
I requested a desklamp because the corner is dark and reading is difficult - and I have been informed that the office has already exceeded its monthly allowance for office supplies.

The first week on the job has been packed with revelations such as learning that Mr. B, the effective head of the company, eavesdrops on ALL company email. Audaciously, he even pops up to contribute to an electronic exchange that he has been spying on.

On Friday, four people were let go - apparently for no just cause. There were postings on Craigslist for replacements, so this wasn't a layoff. None of the individuals had been counseled for poor performance.

The undercurrent is one of fear. Conversations were whispered throughout the office because there is a visitor from the Asian office who is considered a spy for Mr. B.

~~~

The day the Google cameras rolled down Fremont Ave they caught the Tuning the Air A-frame and banner placed outside FAAC.

First day on the job

You know that old saying; 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything?'

Here's Ian mugging while we wait for a video conference with Chinese colleagues who never showed up.


And here's the newest (and perhaps last) version of the banner.

a rainy Saturday

On Thursday, the banner that Curt hangs outside Fremont Abbey every Thursday was damaged. This is the second time in about four weeks that we have found the banner ripped. (Curt suspects vandalism.) I thought about the options (repair, change the orientation, etc) and decided to propose that we use a genuine canvas banner. So I'm working on a draft for a 4'x4' design. (since this will be printed at Kinko's, there is no need to limit ourselves to the 2' width of my printer.)

This is the first (and very rough) draft:



(later) A couple of better drafts: