Craig Stutzman: Give Him The Batman Mask!

Chalk one up for the good guys. The Tulsa World web site is reporting a news story titled, "Shopper stops robber in Batman mask."

Late night. Food Pyramid grocery store. According to the police report, a Mr. Tony Leroy Cleveland walks in wearing a Batman Mask and a red bandanna over his face. Waving a gun around he corrals all of the shoppers and employees to one area of the store and starts demanding money.

One of the customers tries to duck behind a counter and Mr. Cleveland fires at him, missing by inches. Then it appeared that the gun jammed.

The Tulsa World story reported it like this:

The gun then jammed, and Stutzman tackled Cleveland, police said. Store surveillance video shows Stutzman single-handedly fighting to keep a hold on him.

"It took me a few seconds to register that we might have an opportunity here," Stutzman said. "From there, it just happened. It started in the store and ended outside. Everything else was a tumble, a blur."

The struggle continued outside the store until police arrived, even after Stutzman was hit in the head and face with the gun.

Stutzman said Friday evening that he didn't do anything extraordinary: "You know, it just happened," he said. "There's no real big thing about it."

But if you watch this video, you see just how big a deal it really is. He is single handedly taking this guy down. There's one or two other people who try to help a little bit, but this is basically a one man show.

Here's a link to the video:


I think this guy deserves to keep the robber's Batman Mask as a trophy. And maybe he'll start using it more often!

Early Riser

For as long as I can remember, I have always been an early riser. I remember in second grade I was so into cartoons that I would wake up early on a Saturday morning, so early that the station was till broadcasting its test pattern, just so I could be there as soon as the cartoons started. I remember in college, I'd set my alarm clock for 5:45am and almost every day I'd wake up _before_ the alarm went off. And even today, I tend to get up early even on the weekends. Most weekend morning's I get up around 5:30 or 6:00 and work on radio station stuff or blog stuff and then get some of my household chores done.

But what I have discovered recently, is that just being "up" in the morning doesn't necessarily mean that I am "awake" in the morning.

Case in point, a few weeks ago I was going through my usual weekend routine. One of the radio station chores I have is to select a new set of songs to play on the internet station and upload them. I select 150 songs using the Secret Calvin Algorithm to creat just the right mix of music. and then I have to upload them to the station servers. Problem is that the Time Warner connection I have at home is hamstrung with a slow upload rate and it can take as long as 2 1/2 hours to upload all the songs. However, I recently noticed that the internet speeds at my favorite coffee shop, the Open Eye, are significantly higher and what takes over 2 hours from home can take as little as 45 minutes from the Open Eye.

So one recent Saturday morning, I got the brilliant idea that I'd get all my chores done and select the weekly music set and then go up to the Open Eye to drink a cup of coffee and upload my songs. So I showed up right at 8am when they opened.

On this particular morning, a tall thin waifish woman was working the counter. I'd seen her a thousand times before. She's got that alternative look to her. gothy thrift store clothes, wild hair in various esoteric colors, piercings, and that emo-look. I'd always thought of her as a fairly friendly sort but never really talked to her.

Anyway, I ordered my small black half-caff just like always which she gave me. I took it to the end of the coffee bar and proceeded to doctor it up with Splenda and cream.

As I was doing this, I was dimly aware of a voice asking me something. But it wasn't until I heard it the second time that I thought to pick my head up and note that the barista chica had come down to the end of the bar with me and she asked me again, "So how are you?"

I struggled.

"Everything's good. There's plenty of Splenda and cream."

Bless her heart. She gave me a third chance.

"No I mean, how are YOU?"

Ah! neurons finally started firing. I'd seen this before. What was it? I know I know this. Oh yeah! Social Interaction! I read about this someplace. I can handle it. I know I can!

I knew that the question required not only an affirmative response on my part but required a coresponding query in return regarding the other person. Must be personal, but not too personal. Hmmmmm.

It seemed that the one thing I could tell for sure that we had in common was that we were both up early in the morning and that there didn't appear to be anyone else at The Open Eye this early. I seized on this.

"I'm doing good. Must be tough for you to get up so early on a slow Saturday morning." Not exactly phrased as a question, but it did invite a response I think.

She gave me a sly smile and said "Oh, it will pick up soon enough. It just depends when, but it will pick up."

Success! "Well, good luck!" I said and headed off to my table. Lame but polite at least.

It was at this point that I dawned on me that even though I'd been "up" since about 5:30, I might not have necessarily been "awake." Funny thing, I wrote 4 CD revews that morning before going to the coffee shop!

Getting Creative Work Done

From youtube, a video of Ira Glass, from This American Life, on getting creative work done. Very inspiring for anyone doing any kind of work that's remotely creative.

Key message: If you want to create a thing, you already love it and you have good taste and high expectations. When you are starting out, there is a gap, possibly abig gap, between what you can produce and what your standards are. Can't let yourself be discouraged by that. Must be willing to admit to yourself that the gap is there. Face the music. Best way to close the gap is to produce a large volume of completed work. On a schedule. Put yourself on a schedule. Or better yet commit yourself to a schedule for others to recieve your work, even if it's not paid work.

Peach Fuzz

This past week I had an adventure, of a sort. OK. It was a very minor adventure. OK. Maybe not exactly an adventure. But I Tried Something New and approached it with some trepidation. I know that peach fuzz shouldn't cause anyone grief, but there ya go. This week I overcame my aversion to peach fuzz.

Ever since I was a little kid, I had it in my head that I don't like peaches. I cannot think back to a single bad experience with them. It was never attacked by peaches in my dreams. I never got sick from eating peaches. I was never punished by being forced to eat peaches.

Indeed, I remember eating peaches from a can when I was a little boy. I don't recall especially liking or disliking them. And yes, I know peaches from a can taste completely different than fresh peaches. I'm just saying that I haven't been able to think of a reason why I've had this mild aversion to them my whole life.

When I was in college I had the occasion to try peach cobbler a few times and fell in love with it. The fresher the peaches the better. Of course what's not to like? Carby-goodness, milk, cream, peaches, sugar. And it wasn't like the flavor of the peaches was hidden by all the other stuff. I actually liked the taste of the fresh peaches. And over the years I got to the point of seeking it out. About once a summer I'll buy some fresh peaches at a roadside stand and make some peach cobbler. It's one of the few things I'll suffer the time it takes to bake.

And yet. And yet. I never ever ate a fresh peach. It never occurred to me. Even when I was buying peaches at the roadside stand for a cobbler, it never occurred to me to eat a fresh one.

Well, I was hanging out with a couple of friends at our local "whole foods" coop a few days ago and somehow the conversation turned to fresh fruits and peaches and I admitted that I didn't like fresh peaches. You would have thought my friends had just discovered a second head sticking out of my neck.

Of course I back peddled. I admitted to liking cooked peaches in cobblers etc. And allowed as how maybe I should give fresh peaches a chance sometime. Immediately, one of my friends said he was going to go into the store and buy some fresh peaches for us to try.

Gulp. I can't say I felt like making a run for it. But I did feel this mild panic and my mind raced through options for diplomatically getting out of this sudden obligation to eat peaches with my friends. There weren't any good options.

There's something about facing your fears. or at lest in this case being forced to face the fear through good natured peer pressure to make it crystal clear. For the first time in my life I realized that it's not the taste of the peaches I don't like. It's the peach fuzz that seems kinda weird to me. The idea of biting through something fuzzy just seems, I dunno, not right some how.

One of my super hero skills is the ability to make a mountain out of a mole hill in my head. In the 5 minutes it took my friend to go buy some fresh peaches, the idea of biting through peach fuzz grew bigger and nastier in my head. I was getting all stoic about it in my head. Trying to compose myself so I would not make a fool of myself by gagging on peach fuzz or some other involuntary bodily reaction.

Given all that buildup, of course, the end of the story is anti-climactic. Yes. It was kinda weird feeling the peach fuzz on my lips and tongue. But it's paper thin and as soon as your teeth tear through it, you are rewarded by the deliciousness of peaches that are a perfect combination of fleshiness and sweetness. And I'll even go so far as to say that there is a brief moment after you take that initial bite but before you start shewing when there is a contrast in your mouth between the warm fuzziness of the peach fuzz and the cool fleshy sweetness of the peach which is absolutely amazing.

Today's Random Act of Kindness....

Today I was the lucky recipient of one of those "random acts of kindness" that really made a very stressful day a lot easier.

I'm in Boston for a set of customer meetings this week being held a very nice Mariott. They fly in a bunch of key customer representatives for 2 days of product roadmap discussions and technical presentations. I'd weaseled my way on to the agenda because I'm desperate for some feedback on a prototype proposal that I've been working on for months and months. I really needed to get some good feedback and direction on this so I was very stressed out about giving this presentation and the round table discussion after.

My presentation was not until late in the afternoon so I stayed in my room for most of the morning catching up on work e-mails etc. I'd put my "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door so that the housekeeping people would know that I had not left yet.

Anyway, around 10:30 I headed down to the meeting rooms. As I was walking down the hall, I saw an asian woman working on cleaning a room a few doors down from mine. She had her housekeeping cart in front of the door ad she was standing in the doorway getting towels off the cart. As I walked by she looked up at me and in a very thick asian accent said good morning. I sai d Good Morning back and mentioned off hand that 217 was ready to be cleaned. She nodded and smiled and I wasn't sure if she understood me or not. But it really didn't matter. I knew she would get to it eventually. I just felt like saying something more than Good Morning.

I went down to the meeting rooms and listened in on some of the other presentations for about an hour and then I realized I'd left my notebook power cord in the room. I probably coul have gotten by without it, but I decided to run back up to the room and get it.

When I got back the room, the housekeeping lady was working on my room and her cart was in front of the door etc just like it had been for the other room. I could see her in there working. So I moved her cart and slipped into the room. I said hello and that I was just stopping in to get my power cord. She smiled and profusely nodded and said Good mornign about hundred times and other minor phrases and I quickly got the impression that she had no idea what was going on and that she really didn't know English very well and only knew a few phrases to get her through the day. Anyway, I picked up the power cord and pointed to it in an exaggerated fashion so she could see what I was there for and then quickly left.

I got through the day. Presentation went about as good as I could hope for. Some aspects of my prototype proposal did not go over well at all and I'm going to drop them. But most of the customers agreed with the core idea. So I think I have enough to go forward. My presentation was 90 minutes long and I was exhausted when I was done. All I wanted to do was got out of there and get back to my room. I hung out for a few minutes but as soon as was "polite" I got the hell out of there and went back to my room.

When I got back to my room, I noticed that on the night stand someone had written a note on the notepad. I knew that I hadn't written anything on it. So I went over to see what was written on it. What I saw made my day:



After stressing out for 90 minutes this was an incredibly nice surprise to have. Put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Two Minutes of Frogs

Been attending Balticon this weekend and listening to various panels and work shops on podcasting etc. So I had recording on the brain. When I got back to my hotel room last night, I couldn't help noticing the frogs outside the hotel and had to get a sample.

Ranting about Time-Warner and Information Flow

Well, long time readers will recall I had nothing but good things to say about Time-Warner last time I had to have someone out for a service call. The guy showed up, on time, early on a Saturday morning and he was professional and competent.

But THIS time the Time-Warner guy was supposed to show up sometime tonight between 5 and 8 and never did. So I called the service center, waited on hold for 20 minutes. And when I got through to a person, they contacted the technician and reported that he coldn't make it out tonight and that he had tried to call me several times.

Grrr.

The part about trying to call me may or may not be true, which leads me to my second gripe, which is that they index all of their accounts by phone number and they phone number they have for me is my phone number from 1987 when I moved to Cary. That was like 4 phone numbers ago and I have long since forgotten it. And EVERY TIME I ever have to call Time Waner I ask them to update the phone number and they always say that they have but it never actually gets changed, apparently because every time I call them for service the first question I always get is "What's the phone number associated with your account?" And I tell them the updated number and they always tell me its an invalid phone number.

So maybe the technician was trying to call my phone number in Cary from 1987 to get through to me because that's the one still on the acount.

But I doubt it.

The reason I doubt it is because for this latest work order, I went to the web site and filled in the work order on their online system. And there was very clearly a phone number field to fill in _for the work order_ whcih I filled in with my current mobile number. So I've done everything I could do to get the right information to them. I have learned over the years in my job this this is actually a very common problem in complex organizations that have lots of different IT systems. Often no one every quite knows which systems are trading information with which other systems and no one quite knows where the "authoritative source" for information is. So if two systems have differnet information about a customer (like a phone number), no one knows for sure which system has the right information. So yu can fairly ofen get these situations where updates to information are made in system A but periodically system B goes in and overwrite the information with the old information because it's set up to do that. So what really needs to happen is updates to the phone number need to be done in system B, which will then propagate the updated information to system A. Problem is, sometimes, the IT environment is so complex, chaotic, poorly documented, whatever that no one actually knows what the information flow looks like. This is how bad things hapen to your data.

So I dunno if it was a problem in the IT systems or a problem with the technician lying or whatever.

In any case I missed the chance to hang out with fritz tonight because of this and he does not come to town that often.

So the CSR on the phone tells me that she can reschedule me for tomorrow. But I can't be at the house tomorrow. I have to be in an all day meeting in RTP so I told her it would have to be after 5. She kinda acted like that was a problem for the technician, but at this point I have no sympathy.

Grrr. Arrrgh. Whine. Moan.

Right Equipment For The Job

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do a better job of keeping up with my house chores. I'm not a super messy person, but I could do better. The chore I hate the most, bar none, is sweeping the floors and vacuuming the carpets and mopping the floors.

People always act surprised when they hear that. Everyone says to me that the chore they hate the most is cleaning the bathrooms. And I agree that it's kinda disgusting but I can make myself do it on a regular basis. I could never explain why it's the floors that I hate so much

Until today. I figured it out today.

The problem is that I don't have the right equipment.

The first floor of my house is almost completely hardwood floor and it takes a long time to sweep it. Today, after I'd been sweeping for about 10 minutes my back started to hurt and I thought to myself how much I hate this chore and then it dawned on me. My back should not hurt. Merely sweeping the floors with a broom should not hurt my back. "What's going on here?" I thought to myself

I started paying more attention to my pain and trying to figure out why and then I ealized it's because my broom is way to short. It needs to be at least a foot longer, probably more like 2 feet longer. When I'm sweeping I have to bend over at an awkward angle in order for my hands to be at a low enough level to make a sweeping motion. After a while this awkward angle makes my back hurt.

The situation with the vacuum cleaner is not quite so bad, but it's a pain to vacuum the stairs with it because I have to lift it at an awkward ange and try to move it across each step while supporting its weight. Plus it's just a pain to move furniture around in order to vacuum under things.

So as of now I'm in the market for at least a new broom and possibly a new vacuum cleaner and maybe I'll be able to keep up with this chore.

Banana Bread

The past few months, I have had to force myself to be sociable. I'm definitely trending toward a cloistered hermit-like existence. Not that I'm becoming misanthropic, I just seem to have less and less energy for "fun" stuff anymore. Crazy thing is that when I muster up the energy and force myself to get out of the house I never regret it. Tonight was a perfect example.

I'm in Orlando, for a work conference in the Land of The Mouse. I'm staying at one of the Disney hotels which is very nice in That Disney Way. I had to work booth duty all day. Standing on my feet. trying to make eye contact with passers-by and lure them into seeing my demo. Exhausting. So as soon as I could I got the hell out of there. I didn't go to any of the happy hour mixers, etc. I took the shuttle back to my hotel. Ate a quick bite of dinner and retreated to the nice quietness of my room.

Funny thing about a place like this is that even though my room is very quiet I know that there are people out there laughing and having fun and visiting with each other. As I sat in my quiet room I was nonetheless acutely aware that I'm not out there doing the same and I told myself that I should.

Around 10:00 I resolved to go out and talk to someone. So I walked around the resort for a while. But couldn't force myself to go to one of the bars or any of the other usual socializing places. Just couldn't do it. I decided to head back to my room. I happened to be walking by a convenience store here at the resort and decided to duck in and buy a hideously over-priced Diet Coke. In a Disney resort everything is neatly stacked and safely packaged and clearly tagged with its insane price. So when I got to the check out counter the plate of banana bread stuck out like a sore thumb.

The register was staffed by a middle aged woman. She had a Disney name tag on just like every cast member. I'm not going to mention her name in order to protect her. But I will mention that her name tag also said that she was from a country in South America. Just in front of her register was a dinner plate. Not a nice resort-theme-consistent basket or crate like everything else in the store. It was a plain old dinner plate, the kind you might find in a middle aged woman's kitchen. On the plate were slices of an obviously home-made bread of some sort. Due to the non-homogeneity of the slices and wild variance in slice widths, you could tell right away that this did not come from any bread making factory and was not sliced by an automated bread machine. Likewise, each slice was erratically wrapped in some sort of clear plastic food wrap. No price tags on them. The bread was just so far out of character with the rest of the store that I knew immediately that it was home made by the woman running the register.

My curiosity piqued by this unexpected display of humanity, I asked her what kind of bread it was, and she told me in a thick Hispanic accent that it was banana bread. There was something in the tone of her voice that added a bit of postscript to the words that implied it was a banana bread recipe that had been in her family for a very long time. All of a sudden, I felt like chatting. So I asked her what all was in it and what kind of nuts it had etc etc. I deliberately did NOT ask her if she made it. By this point I'd developed a theory that she'd brought this banana bread in from home and was trying to make a few extra bucks on the side. Then I asked her how much, and she told me $3.00. And she asked me if I'd like a piece. I told her I better not but that it looked delicious. So she rang up my two diet cokes and my two granny smith apples and I paid her.

She grabbed a paper sack and put my Diet Coke and Apples in it and then smooth as day, without any sneakiness or any discernible worry, she picked up a slice of the Banana Bread and put it in my bag. She said, "Please, have a bread. It's OK." I thanked her and told her it was very kind.

When I got back to my room I dove into the banana bread, granny smith apples and diets be damned. I don't even like banana bread very much, but that slice tasted really good.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

I am at a hotel in Kansas City, MO, at the Robert Heinlein Centennial convention with some friends. I was up in my room heading down to the sports bar for some dinner. I get on the elevator and there's another guy in the elevator with me. Kinda had a Mediterranean look to him shorts and and a Hawaiian shirt on, beer on his breath. Obviously someone on vacation. Looked more like the kinda guy you find at a swinging singles resort deep in the Carri bean. He asks me what floor I want and I tell him I'm going to the "Mezzanine" level. He punches that button as well as the Lobby button for himself. All very mundane.

About halfway down, the elevator stops and opens up. In walks this kid. Swimsuit, T-shirt with some sort of cartoon show on the front. He struck me as being a very active kid. He'd obviously spent a lot of time in the sun because he had a deep tan and sun-bleached blond hair. So Swinger guy asks the kid what floor he wants. The kid, for some reason, puts his back to the back wall of the elevator and in a loud voice tells him the Mezzanine level. Swinger guy punches the button and then the kids says in a very loud voice, "Before you say anything else, I am 12 years old!" Uh OK. Not sure where this is coming from. Sanger guy and I exchange glances like, "huh?"

Elevator door closes. Kid feels the need to elaborate. Again, in a voice about three times as loud as it needs to be, he says, "I'm 12 years old and can take care of myself. I am just going to the pool which is on the other side of Mezzanine level. I don't need any help!"

Swinger guy and I both proceed to crack up. Apparently the kid took umbrage at someone else punching the elevator button for him, like he needed help or something. Swinger guy and I looked at each other again, this time with barely contained amusement. Swinger guy, trying not to laugh out loud, says, "OK". I had to turn my face away from the kid so he wouldn't see me smiling and laughing under my breath.

We stopped at the Mezzanine level. Let the Twelve Year Old Kid get off first. As I followed him off the elevator the thing that struck me the most about this little Incident, is that both Swinger Guy and I had a natural inclination not to let the kid see us laughing at him. We obliged him. We tried to take his assertiveness seriously even though it was pretty damn funny.

Wire Fraud

Forget the hype around the iPhone for a second. All those wireless features and net surfing and music playing and picture taking features are all very nice. But let's get back to basics for a minute.

I'd really like a phone that I could reliably recharge. Yes, that's not a feature that's going to make it into the TV commercials, but it's a feature that will greatly reduce my angst with a phone, and a bunch of other gadgets for that matter.

Because I have to admit, I'm a gadget guy. I like my electronic toys. Mobile phones, digital cameras, Palm Pilots, digital recorders, video cameras. I love to play with them. But the Achilles heel on all of them is the battery. They all have batteries that have to be recharged far too often. This means carrying around with you lots of chargers and wires.

In the past week, I've had no less than three batteries go bad on me. It started with my cell phone. I have a portable charger at my desk at home and my normal routine is to plug it into the charger as soon as I get home. In theory, it can go a few days without needed a recharge, but I like to keep it charged up whenever I can, just in case. So I was surprised to see the battery was dangerously low the other day and I discovered that when I hooked it up to the charger, I no longer got the friendly "optimized charging" message. I fiddled with it and fiddled with it. Occasionally I'd get the connector at just the right angle that it would start charging again but I couldn't put it down without it losing the connection. For whatever reason, the plastic connector had just worn out.

Same thing with my iPod. One day my iPod simply would not turn on. I was freaked out thinking that I had broken it somehow the the thought of being without my iPod and being able to listen to the many podcasts I subscribe too was a downright frightening thought. But after I managed to get my panic under control I figured that it might be the battery. Sure enough, when I hooked it up to the portable charger, nothing. Fortunately, I had a back up el cheapo charger that I'd bought on a business trip when I accidentally left the charger at home. But the main charger was downright busted. The problem this time seemed more on the wall plug side than the iPod connection side. And it pisses me off. I had to spend $30 on this charger at the Apple store when the third gen iPods came out because I only had USB connectors and the out of the box charger didn't support USB. $30 bucks. Down the drain. For no good reason.

The third and final straw came from my portable XM radio, which lives in my car so I can listen to decent music as I commute to work. One day it simply would not turn on. Because this was the third incident in a week, I quickly got savvy to what was going on. The plastic portable charger simply could not keep a decent connection so when I thought I was recharging the radio I actually wasn't.

If you walk into a retail store like the Apple Store or Best Buy you'll pay $20 or $30 for these chargers, which is highway robbery as far as I'm concerned, given that the materials for these probably costs less than a dollar and they are assembled by very cheap labor. Fortunately, on eBay you can find portable chargers for just about everything. And while they advertise them for being just 2 or 3 dollars, by the time you add in all the shipping charges and other fees, you'll end up spending at least ten buck.

The reason I bring this up is that it's not impossible to design a wire connector that works reliably with constant use. I cite as exhibit one, the humble RJE45 connector, also known as the Ethernet connector. When you insert an Ethernet connector into an Ethernet port, it *snaps* into place and you get a reassuring little tactile feedback that lets you know that it is securely connected like it should be. It doesn't come out unless you take deliberate action to take it out. I've never once plugged in an Ethernet connector, gotten that little feedback click and then subsequently had problems with the connection. Not once.

Why can't we have gadget rechargers that work as reliably?

Carrboro's Mural Scandal

Carrboro, NC is a tiny little town on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, and while I'm technically a resident of Chapel Hill, I find that all my hanging-out time is spent in Carrboro. Carrboro is known for it's live-and-let-live attitude, community spirit, and good karma all around. But this past week we've been embroiled in a mini-drama that shows all the signs of a good soap opera.

The controversy has to do with a mural that was pained on the side of the Jade Palace Chinese restaurant in 2002. The location is in the heart of Carrboro, next to the community center, and across the street from the Weaver Street Market, the local food coop. The original mural was built as a community building exercise and fund raiser for a Club Nova, a halfway house for mentally challenged adults.

Here's a picture of the mural, shortly after it's completion which I took from the carrboro.com web site.

Shortly after the mural was completed, the city alderman deemed the mural in violation of the Town ordinances which prohibited painting business names on walls of buildings. As you can see from this picture, there are several businesses logos and names on the wall. This put the aldermen in a sticky situation because they had routinely cited other businesses for similar violations and so they risked looking like inconsistent enforcers of the law. On the other hand, the mural was wildly popular and had broad community support because, well, it had been intended as a community building project all along.

Eventually, a compromised was reached. Carrboro's "poet laureate" was commissioned to write a poem about the community spirit and it's verses were strategically painted on the mural to cover up the offending logos. So it seemed that everyone was happy.

So last Tuesday, Carrboro citizens were shocked to discover that their beloved mural had been completely painted over in a nice post-office lime green and interestingly enough, no one seems to be able to find the person responsible for it.

This much is known. A man driving a rented Suburu (you can rent a Subarus?) went to the local homeless shelter and hired a bunch of guys for day labor. This is a very common occurrence in the area. The man then proceeded to a local store to buy paint and supplies for the project and then set the homeless men up to paint over the wall.

Francis Chan, owner of the Jade Palace discovered the work crew just as they were finishing up and began asking the work crew who had authorized the covering up of the mural. The man who'd hired them had left to get rid of the supplies. As the story goes, the man had come back to the scene but turned around and left when he saw Mr. Chan talking to the work crew.

The identity of this man, so far, has not been determined. But there is some suspicion and anecdotes to indicate that perhaps it was a certain Mr. Larry Hayes was involved. Mr. Hayes was reported to have borrowed a ladder for the work crew earlier in the day from a local business owner. Mr. Hayes had a confrontation with the city alderman a few year back about a painted sign on a building advertising his Broad Street Cafe. Eventually, after facing fines and citations, he painted over his sign. So perhaps there was motive on Mr Hayes part, but it's unclear what his role was in the recent mural cover up was. Police have not yet been able to identify the driver of the Suburu.

Here's a picture of the wall as it currently is.

This ugly incident raises some interesting variations on the tragedy of the commons problem. It has sparked a fierce debate in Carrboro over who owns the right to decide what should be painted in it's place. Ranging anywhere from embracing the wall as an outlet for graffiti artists to another community based project. No one, it seems, seems to think that Mr. Chan has any say over what gets painted on his restaurant's wall.

And finally, can a blank wall be considered graffiti? Can the absence or removal of something be substituted for the thing itself? If not, how can the perpetrator, once found, be charged?

I tell ya, this is the most exciting scandal to hit Carrboro in years. Stay tuned.......

updated: corrected "buy pain" to "buy paint" :-)

Cafe Prueckel

I've been in Vienna, Austria for the past two days attending the European Computer Audit and Control and Security Conference. I'm doing a presentation on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and generally soaking up knowledge about how auditors think. Mildly creepy.
Alas, due to work deadlines and conference schedules. I have barely had the chance to poke my head out the hotel doors so far. Until tonight.

Tonight I managed to do my first Austrian thing. I ventured out of the hotel and wandered a couple of blocks til I found a Viennese coffeehouse called the Cafe Prueckel. I wish I had the words to describe it. It was built in 1909 and had very high ceilings, maybe 15 feet high and you could tell that at one time it had been very elegant but now it was kinda run down and beat up. It had 1950's era furniture, thread bare couches and formica tables. Weird. It was full of folks visiting and reading the newspaper and surfing the net from their notebook PCs. etc. There was a woman playing a piano. Like most such places, there were piles of freebie zines and newspapers to read. None of it in English alas. There was also a table full of lobby cards for various events coming to the area. Again. Nothing in English. There was modern art on the walls, which I can only characterize as pseudo-abstract-edgy-impressionist.

Unlike most coffee houses in the US, This one had waitstaff. And they were dressed in formal attire, which was kind of bizarre considering the slightly downscale feel of the place. Seeing the waiters running around, I figured that you had to wait to be seated. So I hung around the front door. After a few minutes it became obvious that no one was going to seat me so I stopped a waiter to ask what the drill is. I apologized for only speaking English and I asked him could I sit down anywhere and he said sure. So I picked out the a spot, near the piano, which turned out to not be the best spot for people-watching. But it was OK. The waiter brought me a menu, which alas, had nary a word of English on it. So I asked the waiter if I could have a cappuccino and he said of course. Then I asked him about dessert. Well, this pushed him past his command of English, so he motioned for me to follow him to the dessert case. I scanned through a bunch of stuff, but the one that caught my eye was sachertorte. I'd read in my tourist guide book that it was a famous dessert in Vienna from back in the day. So I ordered that. How to describe it. The closest I can say is that it reminded me of German chocolate cake infused with a strong apricot flavor. Yum!

So I went back to my table and listened to the woman playing jazz standards that I couldn't quite name. I snuck peeks at the other folks in the place when I could. Very good vibe. It was a Meeting Place. Definitely a hangout where friends met and visited. It's one of those places where the people make it worthwhile. The slightly dingy beat up decor, the crazy art, the bizarre music were all just backdrops for the real reason for being there, which was the other people.

I wished that I'd had my camera so I could take pictures. I wished that I'd had my recorder so I could sample the ambiance and the music. I wished that I'd had my notebook PC so I could write down my thoughts right then and there. But I had none of these things. So I just sat and took it all in.

I remember thinking to myself, "this is authentic, this is the real deal." as if somehow my hangouts back home aren't the real deal and aren't authentic. But that's not true. Some are and some aren't. And I kinda got an inkling about what separates the authentic places from the not-so-real. I figured it out based on my interaction with the waiter. Despite his very limited English and my non-existent German, he managed to make me feel at home. He took his time helping me order. He went above and beyond the call of duty helping me pick out a dessert. And more importantly. He did not rush me to finish and get the hell out. I could have sat there all night and it wouldn't have bothered him a bit I don't think. He never once offered to brig me my bill. Nor did he keep checking on me every 5 minutes to see if I needed/wanted something more. In the US I would have called it bad service. And yet in this case, it didn't feel like bad service at all. Maybe it was because he was always somewhere nearby. It's not like he disappeared into the kitchen for long stretches of time. I eventually noticed that people had to ask him to bring the check. So that's what I did too. The thing that made the place seem so authentic. The defining characteristic for it seems to be that you feel welcome to stay as log as you like.

When I think back to all the coffee places I hang out at back home, the stay-as-long-as-you-like criteria does seem to do a pretty good job of sorting out the good places from the bad. You might think this criteria would cleanly separate the independent places from the corporate chain places. But that's not 100% the case. I can think of two coffee places in Chapel Hill alone that are proudly independent but are too cramped or otherwise uncomfortable to actually visit with friends. Likewise. I know of at least one Starbucks which is staffed with the friendliest wage slaves I have ever seen. They practically insist on getting your life story before you order your drink.

So now I'm torn. Do I go back or not? Will the repetition of going a second time ruin the experience? Will I feel bad for having wasted a night repeating something when I could have been exploring some other part of the city? Will I feel like too much of a tourist if I show up with camera and recorder and laptop? If I go back again and make a better choice of seating location, will I have the nerve to strike up a conversation with the intriguing woman reading something on her Mac Book? And will she know even a word of English?

Third Grade Itch

I had to go to a business conference in Monterey California last week. I'd been asked to speak at it months ago but had not thought too much about it until the last minute. There were only two things I knew about Monterey before going out there.

First, Monterey was the setting for the famous John Steinbeck novel from the 1940's called Cannery Row. The title comes from the fact that Monterey is located on the California coastline and had several huge fish processing plants there, notably sardine packing plants. There was a movie made out of it not too long ago, starring Nick Nolte as I recall.

It's been years and years since I read the book, but to tell the truth, I remember it being kind of a sad and depressing book. I wouldn't quite go so far as to say that all of the characters are losers, but I would say that they mostly lacked ambition. They were all resigned to a very meager place in life without much yearning to make better for themselves. And I dunno, not in a contented Zen sort of way, but in a sad dreary sort of way. So in my mind, being the location for Cannery Row is not exactly something I'd expect Monterey to be proud of. But I did note that the hotel I was staying at was located on a street called Cannery Row. So there was at least some acknowledgment of their place in literary history, humble though it may be.

The thing I didn't realize about Monterey is that it is something of a golf mecca. I'm not a golfer myself, but my Dad is and my brother-in-law is so I hear about golf things every now and then. I knew there was a semi-mystical place in golf called Pebble Beach. I knew that golfers spoke of it in reverent tones. But honestly I had no idea that it was in Monterey. And as it turns out, the major gold tournament, called U.S. PGA Tour's Pebble Beach National Pro-Am had just wrapped up the day before I arrived. Several friends and colleagues had asked me if I was going to do any golfing while I was there, which I at first thought was kind of a dumb question because they all knew that I do not play golf. But eventually there were enough of these passing references that I got a clue that Monterey is a big place for golf courses including the Pebble Beach course. On the flight out there a little old lady that I sat next to told me all about the many golf courses in the area. I was a bit sad and embarrassed to then tell her that I don't play after she'd so enthusiastically told me about all the good courses in the area.

So I got to the conference hotel and spent my first day doing conferency things. And that night, instead of doing the semi-obligatory group dinner outing thing, I decided to strike out on my own. Not so much because I wanted to get away from my colleagues, because as a rule, it was a great crowd. But I just wanted to explore the place on my own. I did not want to be pinned down in a restaurant for the next few hours. So I began to wander around the Cannery Row area of Monterey. There were statues of Steinbeck and banners honoring him so that people would remember why Monterey is famous for that. But I have to say the whole Cannery Row vibe was touristified quite a bit. Lots of trendy little shops and restaurant with Cannery Row themed names. There were several big warehouse looking buildings that looked like they might have been remnants of the old fish processing plants. But I don't think they were. I think they were constructed to sort of look like them. And honestly, think about it. Would anyone want to build a tourist attraction in a run down fish processing plant. What could you do with that? Possibly you could turn the old warehouse into a performance space. Or subdivide it into a mini-mall. But there's just not that much history in a fish processing plant that you'd want to preserve. Turn it into a museum? A tribute to an industry that went obsolete? It's a difficult problem for the local tourist board I'm sure. But they'd done the best they could. And despite my ragging on it for being touristified. it was a pleasant place to walk around and browse. They had several vantage points where you could look out over the bay.

It turns out that one of the most notable things about Monterey, after the Steinbeck association and the golf stuff I suppose, is the marine life. And in particular, the sea otters that live in the bay. One of the big attractions in the Cannery Row area is the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Various friends had told me that it was well worth the steep price to go to. So on my last day of being at the conference, I played hooky for a few hours to watch the marine life in the bay and go see the aquarium.

There aren't any beaches to speak of in Monterey Bay. It's mostly rocky at the water's edge. Plus it was in February, so it was more than a bit chilly. But as I said, the Cannery Row area and the hotels along that stretch had walkways overlooking the bay which made for easy bay watching.

So what was there to see. Well the first thing you noticed was the rocky shore line covered with various barnacles and and sea plants. The looked old and slimy messy. They looked like plants that were hanging on for dear live trying to get enough sun and nutrients to stay alive. And it made the whole shoreline look ancient and alien. The next thing you noticed are the birds. Uh, I could not begin to tell you what kind they were. Hey, you want to get educated, go check out a book from the library. The best I can say is that they looked like various types of gulls but with some distinct pigeon heritage in them because they ran around squabbling with each other and scouring the buildings and sidewalks for food just like pigeons. But mostly they congregated on rock outcroppings and squinted their eyes into the breeze and looked like they were cold. Not that any of them complained directly but I think their coldness contributed to general crankiness because they were constantly fussing and squawking at each other. You could also see various birds floating in the water out in the bay. Not sure if they were the same birds I saw on the rocks. I don't think they were. But they were far enough out that I could not get a good look at them. Anyway, they would sit in the water, very still, bobbing along with the waves like a dark grey rubber ducky and then out of the blue, for no apparent reason, one would dive down into the water. Looking for something to eat I suppose. When they came back up the remained just as still as they had been before. I have no idea if their dive had been successful or not. No visible eating was going on. So it had this effect of those duck games you see at the carnival where they float along and then sink under the water for a bit when you shoot them.

The real attraction in Monterey Bay though is the sea otters. Cute and fuzzy. They are on all the tourist brochures. A species pressed into service for PR purposes. Well, it's better than dead sardines, right. Now when I was a kid, back in 3rd grade or so. I was fascinated by otters, both the fresh water kind and the sea water kind. I remember reading as many books as I could about otters and there were several young kid fiction books about them in our school library, which I'd read over and over. I think part of my fascination with was due to the fact that they were sleek, and sly, and clever, and quick. All of the things I wasn't. I was pudgy, had bad coordination, and slow. Of course I didn't think of it in those sorts of terms back then. In third grade you aren't so self- analytical. But all I knew was that I thought they were cool. Well, a few decades on, I'm still somewhat pudgy and not very good at the whole hand-eye coordination thing and I lumber around just as slowly as ever. So the fascination with otters is still there and I was really looking forward to seeing the otters in Monterey Bay.

It took a while The hotel staff assured me they were out there and that you could see them without binoculars on a daily basis. So the morning I played hooky from the conference I spent the better part of the morning looking out over the water hoping to see sea otters. There was lots of stuff out there. The aforementioned birds, the occasional fishing boat passing by, bits of rock outcroppings sticking up out of the water. All very nice and I took lots of pictures of them. But for the longest time the only other thing I saw out there in the bay were bits and pieces of logs, some sort of driftwood or debris floating around out there. After about an hour of this, I was starting to get bored and disappointed. And then as I was watching a particular log drift by on the current, it suddenly sprang to life, doubled over and dove under water. huh? That was no log, that had been an otter all along, I just never realized it. It was far enough out in the water that I could not see any details at all. Just a black lump of something floating in the water. But once I realized what I was looking for, I could see quite a few of them out there. I asked some of the folks nearby if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing and a kid told me that they float on their backs in the water while the break open muscles and eat them. That triggered a whole flood of third grade otter stories. I knew that. I used to know that anyway, back in the day. So I was pretty excited that I was actually seeing live otters even though they were way out in the bay and they looked like nothing more than floating logs.

Next stop was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. A fantastic facility and my friends recommendations were spot on. The jellyfish exhibit alone was worth the price of admission. I got some great pictures of the various jelly fish in the tanks. Truly bizarre alien life forms if there were ever any. They also had huge gazillion gallon tanks full of fish that normally live out in the deep waters, filled with plenty of sharks and tuna and sunfish and all kinds of fish. One think I learned about the deep water fish is that their size is actually a defense mechanism. The have to grow as big as possible as fast as possible to avoid being eaten by their predators.

Another of the aquarium highlights was the octopus. I'd seen an octopus once before, in a marine museum in Australia. And my experience with the octopus in the Monterey Bay Aquarium was the same as my previous experience. An octopus is just about the scariest animal you will ever have cause to encounter. You can just look at them and tell that a) they are very intelligent and b) they are sizing you up. Yes, it may be in a tank behind glass, but when you make eye contact with the thing, you can tell it's trying to figure out if it could take you down in a fight.

So the octopus is not the kind of creature you want on the front of the the tourist brochures. You want otters. Those warm blooded mammals that play around in the water and have those endearing whiskers. Well the Monterey Bay Aquarium folks aren't stupid. They know what people want to see. So they have a big sea otter exhibit with two otters there to entertain the crowds. And they didn't fail to please. Unlike so many animal exhibits where the animals basically sleep the whole time between feedings, the otters at the aquarium exhibit were reasonably lively. They were always doing something. Always investigating something. And there was a sign at the exhibit that said that the otters undergoing "training" sessions at least once a day with staff there at the aquarium. Not so much because they need to be trained to do anything, but just because it keeps them from being bored and lethargic. I can relate to that. I was able to get several pictures of the otters there at the aquarium. But somehow it didn't quite satisfy me. It didn't quite satisfy the urge to commune with otters the way I'd dream t in the third grade. Having them in a cage at the aquarium was nice but they weren't in the wild.

So earlier in the day they were too far away, at the aquarium they were too close and too caged in, despite the fact that they seemed good natured. After I left the aquarium I went back outside to the overlook area behind the aquarium and stood around with a bunch of school kids half heartedly looking out over the bay for more otters. Like before I was able to see the ones very far away. But I didn't even try to take pictures of them. In fact I didn't even turn the camera on because I'd taken way to many bump in the water pictures earlier in the day.

Well, you can see where this story is heading. Yep. I did in fact see another otter that morning. Probably less than 50 feet away in the bay. Swimming around a rock outcropping. He stuck his head and neck up out of the water just like they do on the front of all the tourist brochure and scanned those of us in the crowd at the lookout point. Apparently it judged that there was no food forthcoming from the crowd and it dove. I tried to watch for where it was going to come back up. I frantically turned on the camera to try to take a picture of it. But no such luck. None of us saw it again. But that quick glimpse, even without the picture satisfied that third grader itch inside me to see the otters I'd dream t about and forgotten about for so many decades. And I couldn't care less that I didn't get a picture out of it.