July 30, 2005

Customer service at its best:

    To: jlc@mail.utexas.edu
    Subject: joann2 - Your CD Baby Order!
    From: CD Baby loves joann2 <orders@cdbaby.com>
    Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:56:45 -0700 (PDT)

    joann2 - 

    Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

    Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
    sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

    A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
    sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

    Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
    the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that
    money can buy.

    We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
    marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
    Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in
    our private CD Baby jet on this day, Saturday, July 30th.

    I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. 
    Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year".  We're all
    exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

    Thank you once again,

    Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
    the little CD store with the best new independent music
    phone: 1-800-448-6369  email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
    http://www.cdbaby.com

Wow. I feel awfully special after getting that message! Heh.

July 29, 2005 (Evening)

We went through one of the most spectacular thunderstorms I've ever experienced this afternoon. I was sitting at my desk at about 1:30, working away, when one of the loudest thunderclaps I've ever heard roared overhead. It was loud. I realized it was thunder and jerked my head around to look out the window. I normally keep my window blinds drawn to avoid having afternoon sunlight shining directly on my computer monitor. It had gotten quite dark outside which was a surprise to me since I'd been outside at noon and had noticed no sign of an impending storm. I cracked the blinds just in time to see the first bunch of large rain drops falling on the street below. I went out into the hall to see how others were reacting. Many people in the building thought that first thunderclap was the crash of a construction accident. People in the interior labs (rooms with no exterior walls) thought there'd been some sort of accident in an adjoining lab. It was a loud crash. Within two or three minutes the rain was just pouring down out of the sky. I can't remember the last time I witnessed such a thing. The wind was whipping the trees and rain around with an amazing ferocity. At one point I could barely see the building that's diagonally across the Speedway/26th Street intersection from us. It was cool.

On a completely unrelated note, I have to say, I'm really enjoying the bluehouse CDs. A lot. I've listened to them exclusively while driving around in my car since Saturday night when I bought the CDs at the show. At work on Monday, I set my iPod to play only their music. I'd guess I've heard those two CDs at least 10 times each since Saturday night. Last night, I started thinking about other acts I'd discovered over the last few years that I enjoyed as much. There are two: Kate Campbell and Aengus Finnan. I've been to shows by a ton of new artists (artists new to me, at any rate) over the past 4 or 5 years. And, purchased CDs by most of those artists. But, those three acts simply outshine the rest for me. I almost feel cheated that I've only just now discovered the bluehouse. I keep looking at their concert schedule. I keep seeing that Aug. 3rd gig at Poor David's in Dallas. I really want to go. But, I'm pretty sure that would elevate my status from enthusiastic fan to something along the lines of demented stalker. And, well, I just can't do that. I mean, we're really busy at work and it would be foolish to take time off to run up there. Of course, I could just take off a couple of hours on Wednesday, drive up to Dallas, take in the show, come back afterward, show up at the office on Thursday and not be much worse for wear than I usually am on any random Thursday. I could do it. But, I won't. I'll behave and act my age. Act responsibly. That's what I'll do. But, I won't be happy about it. However, I can listen to the music just as much as I want to, right? Last night, I made a playlist for my iPod that just contains songs by the bluehouse, Kate Campbell, and Aengus Finnan. Wow. What a great day it was at work. 'Loved listening to those three acts. 'Wish they were all based in Austin so I could see them all the time. Ah well...

July 29, 2005 (Noonish)

Quick lunch time entry:
Remember the big hail storm back in March? 'Turns out that the damage to my complex has been tallied up by insurance adjusters and it comes to somewhere in the range of $1.3M. That is a bunch of damage, doncha think? The management company got the worst of the damage repaired (or, at the least, patched) very quickly. But, the other stuff is taking some time. We've got a contractor planted on site to supervise the job. I was headed to work a couple of days ago and found a pick-up truck blocking my way. I wondered what was going on but could still get out of my garage so decided not to take time to investigate. As I was about to pull out, a workman showed up in front of my car. He wanted to discuss something with me. So, I obliged. 'Turns out my A/C units have been put on the list for repair. I did not post pictures of the damage to my units ('not sure I even took any). It looked to me that most of the damage was cosmetic. They look bad, and the little metal slats are definitely banged up. But, the units still work so I didn't think much of it. However, since they are damaged and are covered by the insurance claim, I'm getting new units. The guy who stopped me said they'd like to schedule the work for today. Ummm...well...I'm not sure I can get the time off at such short notice. No problem, he assures me. They don't need me to be there. They just need me to leave the A/C on so that when they hook things up, they can verify that the new units work. I have two units. One for the upstairs floor and one for downstairs. When it started getting hot a few months ago, I switched the units from heat to A/C. Or so I thought. This morning, as I left for work, I remembered to turn the temp down to 77 so they'd be sure to come on. I did the upstairs unit first. When, I got to the downstairs unit, I was stunned to see it set at 68. What? No way. My heart sunk as I realized I'd have to replace the inside parts of the system as well. That cost would not be covered by the insurance settlement. Then, I noticed it was still set for heat. It was still on the winter setting. And, I'd never noticed. Even with the 100+ temperatures we experienced a couple of weeks ago. Amazing. It appears that the upstairs unit was cooling the whole place all on its own. I doubt things would have worked as well if I'd only adjusted the downstairs unit, eh? 'Looking forward to those new units when I get home this evening.

July 26, 2005

Every Monday we get an informational email message sent out by some anonymous central campus entity listing campus events taking place during the week. One of the things they list are the scheduled performances at the Cactus Cafe. In last week's missive, the listing for Saturday night caught my attention: Susan Gibson (who wrote the first Dixie Chicks hit "Wide Open Spaces") and an Australian trio called the Bulehouse. That "Bulehouse" thing really piqued my interest. I was curious. Was that some odd Australian piece of slang? I had to find out so I fired up my handy web browser, pointed it to google and did a search for ye olde bulehouse. A couple of things popped up but, clearly, I was on the wrong track.

Google helpfully suggested that maybe I meant bluehouse. And, what's the first thing that comes up? A link to a trio from Australia (www.bluehouse.net). So, I check out their online tour schedule and, sure enough, they're scheduled to play at the Cactus on Saturday. I fired up iTunes and did a search. Their most recent CD was listed. I listened to the samples and liked what I heard. So, the whole "Bulehouse" thing was just a typo. Too funny. But, it got me interested and I looked the group up. I might've skipped the whole thing if I hadn't wondered what the word "bulehouse" meant. And, they were opening for Susan Gibson, so it would be hard to go wrong, right? I asked Diane if she'd like to go and she thought it sounded like fun. So, we went to the Cactus. And, wow! What fun. Those three gals are great. 'Turns out they were doing a house concert the next evening so we went to that, too!

If you have a chance to see them, go see them! And, if you can't see them, buy their CDs: these days (the new one, with the yellow cover; it's mostly acoustic stuff) and big (the older one, with the white cover; this one's more "lush"...as they described it...then the other, with additional musicians accompanying the gals). Both are very good CDs. But, I have to say, seeing them in person cannot be beat. They put on a very good show. They're very talented singers and musicians. And, they're funny as hell, to boot.

Susan Gibson was very good, too. But, we knew she would be. The bluehouse was just a complete surprise. Go see 'em.

July 21, 2005

In April of last year, I posted some photos of the flock of flamingos that lives outside the Pots & Plants nursery on Loop 360:

The flock had been joined by a rather large bunch of Easter eggs. A couple of days ago, I saw a report on the news regarding a new project going on out there. 'Seems they've got a flock of yellow flamingos out to celebrate Lance and the Tour. I remembered to drive out there this evening after work. Here's how things look today:

Fun, eh? I like the flamingo riding the bike. Oh, yeah. One more thing: go, Lance!

July 20, 2005

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed (registration undoubtedly require; use bugmenot.com if you don't want to bother with the registration process), Max Boot writes:

Although its defense budget, estimated to be as much as $90 billion, remains a fraction of the United States', it is enough to make China the world's third-biggest weapons buyer (behind Russia) and the biggest in Asia.

That's the third sentence in the op-ed. I have no idea where Max Boot went with his op-ed 'cause that sentence just stumped me. So...Russia is no longer a part of Asia? I realize it's been a very long time since I took a geography class. But, things haven't changed that much have they? Is Russia now it's own continent? Or, has it become a part of Europe?

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joanna@joanna.org
URL: http://www.joanna.org/archive/Jul2005.html
Last updated: July 30, 2005

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