Aussie Voicemail

Today at work, I was trying to figure out how to get my voicemail inbox to do a particular trick, and discovered that the system has an online interface. This is probably common, but it came as a total shock to me. My horizons were expanded to include a whole universe of voicemail configuration options I had never dreamed of. These include some possibly useful things such as having it email you upon receiving a voicemail to say who called and how long their message was.

However, the feature I immediately implemented was the ability to change the language of the prompts you hear on the phone while navigating the system. One of the options was "English (Australia)." Now, when I dial in to my mailbox, all the instructions are delivered by this pleasant Australian woman, and it's sort of like a very sedate Outback Steakhouse commercial. (Don't worry, the prompts that people hear when they call me still have an American accent.)

Cohousing

Here's an interesting NYT article on a prospective "cohousing" community in Brooklyn. A number of families and individuals are getting together to build an abandoned previously-planned condo development, but tweaking the space to put an emphasis on shared living spaces. The members agree to be engaged with their neighbors, and they even plan to share some meals. It's a pretty neat concept, and has been implemented successfully elsewhere, especially in Scandinavia. This particular one sounds especially cool because of the location and the fact that the site includes adaptive re-use of an abandoned church.

I thought the coolest part of the article was the description of how the group makes decisions, of which there are many as they work to make the community a reality. There's an elaborate consensus-building process that, at least ideally, yields careful decisions and involves those with dissenting opinions in a way that leaves them still feeling invested in the final decision. Seems like they've had good results so far, in any case. One of the best classes I took in grad school was on citizen involvement in policy decisions, and one thing apparent in the literature on that topic is that carefully structured discussion between average citizens on a given issue (even when there are conflicting interests and viewpoints) can go a long way toward working through solutions. The problem is implementing those policies, when only the small group was part of the give-and-take that helped them arrive at a well-rounded solution. In the case of a cohousing community, the size of the group is small enough that everyone in the entity can participate in the process and feel invested in the decisions that are made (it helps, of course, that they have all chosen to live there, and thus bring some similar values to the table).

Thanksgiving recap

I know you're waiting for the Thanksgiving post-game recap -- first, a bite of turkey, followed by complementary cranberry sauce...choosing salad for the third bite was an error, should have waited until further through the savory items...

Anyway, I had a great TG (as my mother refers to it in email communications) weekend. Nice to see the family, although Davin doesn't return from Colombia until just before Christmas. While there was a smaller-than-usual group at my parents' house this year, we had the customary large surplus of food, good for several subsequent days of meals revolving around refrigerator rummaging and the microwave.

I helped Dad out a bit with the deck he's building, as can be seen below. We were going to work a bit more before I left this morning, but were thwarted by sleet and big fat snowflakes.


Through a quirk of Amtrak pricing, I reserved a return trip on the spiffy Acela Express for only several bucks more than the regular train. It was spiffy, though not much faster, especially after we got stuck behind another train for the last part of the trip. Fortunately the luggage sniffing dogs I encountered on my way to CT weren't there, or they might have demanded to examine the left-over turkey and stuffing I had stowed in my carryon.

From the Fridge (an occasional feature)

Garden Recap

The weather here is a bit schizophrenic, but the garden season is definitely over. However, by bringing in most of the remaining green tomatoes from the garden a couple weeks ago, I've had a rerun of peak tomato season, with enough ripening on the windowsill to keep me thinking of ways to use them. There are still a dozen at varying states of ripeness, so I will likely have fresh tomatoes for a couple more weeks.


The big pot of vegetable soup that's in the fridge right now contains the last carrots and squash, as well as some tomatoes. (You'll have to trust me on this, because I was too lazy to take a picture, but the last carrot I pulled was immaculate! Tall, nicely proportioned, arrow straight...most of my others were gnarled.)

I'm not sure exactly how many veggies I harvested over the course of the season, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than 20 lbs each of both tomatoes and squash, along with not-inconsequential amounts of green beans, carrots and greens -- mostly tastier than what I could buy at the store. Considering that back when I planted in the spring, I calculated that I had spent just over $50 on gardening supplies, this is a good deal. It's also satisfying, as evidenced by my repeated postings. Also, the amount of time I dedicated to the garden was pathetically small. I spent a couple afternoons planting it, and then weeded it maybe twice; I used the hose to water it every couple days during the dry parts of the summer. If these are the results you get without really trying, imagine if I put in some actual effort! Matt and Risa kindly gave me a gardening book when they visited a few weeks ago, so hopefully next year I can have an even better harvest...

Election night

This quick video clip I shot on Tuesday night captures the scene a lot better than the photos:

In DC

Riding around the city with Eric this evening, on the way home from watching the returns at Aron's, there was lots of honking. But it was not because cars wanted us to get out of the way.

On U Street:


Next to the White House:

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> Les Savy Fav - The End
> TV on the Radio - DLZ [YouTube]
> The Thermals - St. Rosa and the Swallows
> Butthole Surfers - Thermador
> The Weakerthans - Sun in an Empty Room
> Weezer - Buddy Holly [YouTube]
> Magnetic Fields - Epitaph for My Heart

Estate sale promotion

I saw this while out on a bike ride yesterday evening:

I know it's Halloween, but putting happy skull balloons on your estate sale sign is still kinda weird.

Carving

Hope you had a sufficiently spooky Halloween. Here's my jack-o-lantern, which looks suspiciously like last year's:

I had folks over on Thursday for carving, but it was BYOP, and Catherine couldn't find a P, so she carved an acorn squash instead. Makes a nice black cat:

I also carved the giant zucchini that I had previously mentioned finding in the garden:

Seems like it could be one of Strongbad's friends, maybe Marzipan's sister.