archive: bryce.weblogs.com

New Beginnings

September 29, 2001 was a very special day. I woke up to the warm glow of the early morning sun and a clear blue sky over the maple trees in our back yard. It was going to be good day.

I joined Mom & Dad for breakfast at one our classic places, a true "hole in the wall" that we've been going to my entire life. The food was good, the conversation enjoyable. No mention of what the day held in store: my moving across town.

When we came home, we were greeted by a message none of expected to hear for another three weeks yet: my sister had given birth this morning! Wow. In moments like these, you do what is right and that was drop everything, pick up some flowers and rush to the hospital. I've never known quite what to expect a moment like this one and was pleased it was all so beautiful, so wonderful, so natural. I thought of Joy, whom I had met at Lancaster, and her the excitement she had had showing me pictures of her brother's baby. I suddenly understood.

Come afternoon, I resumed my plans and moved my furniture into Matt's house. We had dinner, played a round of disc golf in Newberg and then headed to a little coffee shop we have long been fond of near there. They had a live band there last night and the place was packed.

Coming home, one thing led to another and we slowly began to rearrange the entire house, install some blinds in my window and a thousand other things which all really began to make this "home."

The Soothing Quality of Art

[ 4.14 pm ]FT.com: "In the past week, the world has witnessed a geopolitical realignment potentially comparable to that of 1945 at the end of the second world war or the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989." These are historic times.

[ 2.17 pm ] I escaped to the Portland Art Museum today on my lunch hour -- and what an incredible delight. The museum has waived its admission charges this week in an attempt to give people a place to go, to escape, reflect and be refreshed in the aftermath of September 11. It's the right thing to do and it's being well-received. I believe art should be accessible to all. I'd like to see us move to a model employed in some cities of having free admission one day a week. Experiencing art shouldn't be saved just for special occasions.

I hadn't been in a year or so and they have built an entire new wing. I saw a lot of the permanent collection that has never been exhibited before. The highlight was coming up the stairs and seeing Monet's Waterlilies in all its blue green splendor. Wow. I sat down in front of it for a long while.

The Pacific Northwest Collection, Native American Collection and the current exhibition downstairs by Claes Oldenburg in the Graphics Arts Center were all quite impressive. If you haven't been in a while, definitely make a visit. It's free through this Saturday. And worthy of a trip anytime.

The hammock is the quintessential device for relaxation

[ 10.42 am ] If the continual doom and gloom of dot com failures is getting you down, perhaps this piece from the Seattle BizJournal will cheer you up. A little company called Hammocks.com has doubled sales in the last year -- and it's profitable. No wonder: it sells hammocks, "the quintessential device for relaxation," according to founder David Fairley.

[ 10.15 am ] Seattle BizJournal: Amazon continues to expand its reach in e-commerce, announcing a partnership with Expedia to offer travel services. This builds on existing relationships with Target, Circuit City, Borders Books & Music, AOL and Toys 'R' Us.

[ 8.40 am ] Seattle P-I: "Since Sept. 11, we've entered on a new and uncertain time in American history. What kind of job have the national media done in preparing us for it? Lousy, in many respects."

[ 8.24 am ] A friend writes this morning:

"If you've had enough of the tragedy from the last
few weeks, I understand, but if you're interested
in a good photo gallery of various nations paying
respects to the USA, this is a pretty impressive
collection."

http://thankyou.fast-networks.net/

Indeed it is. Thanks, Emilie.

Our Privacy is Under Attack

[ 10.44 am ] NY Times: "Conceivably federal agents under the proposed law could very easily -- and without making a showing of probable cause -- get a list of 'everyone you send e-mail to, when you sent it, who replied to you, how long the messages were, whether they had attachments, as well as where you went online.'" Troubling? Then read up on the Combating Terrorism Act of 2001 (Section 832), an amendment to an appropriations bill that was passed by the Senate on September 13th without hearings and with little floor debate. Our privacy is under attack.

[ 9.30 am ] Seattle P-I:
On Starbucks, who charged a NY ambulance company $130 for water during the WTC attack: "The store's unwillingness to donate water -- when many other people in New York and elsewhere freely gave supplies and labor -- came at the very same time when its corporate parent was all too willing to do something else: pat itself publicly on the back." The ambulance company writes,
"I love Frappuccinos as much as anyone, but any company that would try to make a profit off of a crisis like this doesn't deserve the American public's hard-earned money."

[ 8.54 am ] On the Urban Growth Boundary in Portland
Portland BizJournals: "Lawyers for the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland (HBAMP) will be in Multnomah Circuit Court Sept. 24 to ask for an emergency hearing concerning Portland transportation system Tri-Met's removal of the organization's signs on city buses.

HBAMP's signs read "Have You Had Enough?--Traffic Congestion, High-Density Neighborhoods, Unaffordable Housing--Support a Responsible Expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary."

Tri-Met placed HBAMP's signs on a number of buses in August, deeming them an acceptable public service message.

Less than two weeks later Tri-Met officials changed their minds, and concluded that the advertisements' message violated its policies against political advertising and removed them." The fact these ads openly question the success of the UBG/Metro/Tri-Met approach to growth management couldn't possibly have anything to do with Tri-Met's decision to now ban them, now could it?

[ 8.42 am ]
Seattle BizJournal: "While Microsoft's top gamers work hard to position Xbox as a game player's dream, the video game machine with all the inner workings of a personal computer is widely seen as a Trojan horse in the living room. 'I want to have the software that sits next to your television and runs the applications you want to run on your television,' chief executive Steve Ballmer told Morgan Stanley analysts in January. 'And that's not going to be just recording shows.'" Consider yourself warned.

[ 8.31 am ] Yesterday's sun is gone, replaced with light rain and a general greyness this morning.

The page I received just now trying to sign up for an eNewsletter from the Seattle Times website:

[Tue Sep 25 08:30:54 2001] signup: HTML::Template->new() : Cannot open included file /raid/content/cgi-bin/register/html/register1.html : file not found. at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/HTML/Template.pm line 1500 [Tue Sep 25 08:30:54 2001] signup: HTML::Template::_init_template('HTML::Template=HASH(0xe5188)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/HTML/Template.pm line 1105 [Tue Sep 25 08:30:54 2001] signup: HTML::Template::_init('HTML::Template=HASH(0xe5188)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/HTML/Template.pm line 999 [Tue Sep 25 08:30:54 2001] signup: HTML::Template::new('HTML::Template', 'filename', '/raid/content/cgi-bin/register/html/register1.html', 'die_on_bad_params', 0) called at /raid/content/cgi-bin/register//database.pm line 1074 [Tue Sep 25 08:30:54 2001] signup: database::display_profile_page('HASH(0x20c14c)', 'HASH(0x2bd4b0)') called at /raid/content/cgi-bin/register/signup line 23

I know mistakes happen (heck, they slip through on my own sites from time to time), but on a major media site this is really ugly for the lay user to encounter. I can hear the mantra now: Test before moving to production.

The Text of the Presidential Address Last Week

[ 4.33 pm ]

For historical reference, I am adding a link to the full text of President Bush's address to both houses of Congress last Thursday night, 09/20/01, which is widely being viewed as a turning point not only in this situation but also in his young presidency. Some lines that will surely be referred to again and again:

"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity. They did not touch its source. America is successful because of the hard work, and creativity, and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September 11th, and they are our strengths today."

"Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us. Our nation -- this generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

[ 3.37 pm ]

Scripting.com: Dave Weiner highlights a column in The Guardian (UK) that commends the contributions of weblogs to coverage of the World Trade Center attacks.

Related: Nick Denton's blog has links to selected "warblogs". I didn't realize this until just now, but he is the founder of Moreover Technologies, the news aggregator. A service that I love, incidentally.

[ 2.58 pm ] All to often, visiting a web site for the first time is a frustrating experience as we must struggle to interpret its unique design conventions and quickly create a mental model of the information architecture of the site.

So I was excited when I had a pleasant experience on not one but two sites consecutively just now.
Two discoveries today merit mention:

A Corporate Site
The Equity Office Properties Trust (EOP) website has a clever feature that is an excellent example of using technology smartly. The bottom nav.bar has links to the expected major content areas (Careers, Investor Relations, etc.). It also has one called My Building Info, which dynamically pops up a little form for getting information about your office. Try it out. It's kinda nifty. Unobtrusive, yet instantly available.

A Government Site
Government sites so often lack any sort of consistency of presentation, which is why I was so impressed by the City of Seattle's website.
They have a policy mandating a consistent web interface for all city services and it is one instance where the heavy hand of centralization makes sense. Navigation becomes predictable and the site looks official. I was surprised to see they even post a public summary of their site stats. There is also an interesting little piece about the history of their domain name and the philosophic debate between consistent but non-friendly URLs like www.ci.seattle.wa.us versus cityofseattle.net versus seattle.gov.

Of Outstanding Journalism during the Darkest Hour

[ 3.03 pm ] Of Outstanding Journalism during the Darkest Hour

EditorAndPublisher.com: New York Newspapers Performed Admirably
As World Crashed Around Them -- "The four dailies in New York overcame utter chaos, personal tragedy, and in some cases bodily injury to produce outstanding editions that did what newspapers do best: inform and serve the public. Here are their stories." Read this account from the industry's trade journal for proof that there are still genuine journalists left in the world. We salute you.

Also of note: Front Pages From the Day After -- Poynter.org Features Nearly 400 Newspapers

[ 1.19 pm ] A quick read of today's headlines yields two of note:

(1)
Yahoo News hacked, story changed suggests a further blow to the credibility of online information and raises the difficult question of how do you know what you are reading -- online or offline -- has not been altered?

(2) Microsoft .Net, Hailstorm: Change of Course:
Microsoft to Expand Passport, Asks AOL to Help
and
MS: You don't trust us? OK, we'll open Passport, Hailstorm (ZDNet AnchorDesk) Of course, the question remains: would you trust Microsoft or any loose "federation of trust" with your personal information?"

Images of Portland, OR Support for NYC & DC Citizens

[ 11.29 pm ] It all started yesterday with a quick mention on Kink fm's Morning Show about a rally at Pioneer Square at noon. I was already in the car enroute to work when I heard of the event to show support for citizens of New York and Washington D.C. I immediately headed back home to get my camera and picked up two rolls of fresh film. I didn't know what to expect, but I knew if history was in the making I didn't want to miss it. Fast forward 36 hours.

I just posted 32 images from yesterday's public rally of support for the citizens of New York City and D.C., held at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon. For those of you who do not live in Portland or were not able to break away at 12:30pm on your lunch hour, please take a look. And for those of us in attendance, rekindle the emotions. (Notice: These images are © copyright 2001 by BP. All Rights Reserved. You may link to them, but you may not download them without my express permission) In a desire to get these images out to as many people as possible as soon as possible, I have published them on Yahoo! Photos. Only low res versions are posted, but high res scans exist if you would like a digital print (up to 8"x12"). Conventional prints are also available up to 16"x20". Please contact me if you want to order one. Two nifty Y! Photo features I encourage you to use: (1) Slideshow -- maximize your browser, set the time to slow/med/fast depending on your connection, and watch a photo essay that chronicles the events 12:30pm - 1:05pm Tuesday, September 18, 2001 in Pioneer Square, Portland, Oregon, USA. (2) Y! Greetings -- Share your support with loved ones in NYC and DC and across the country by sending eCards featuring any of my 36 images for free. (To send an eCard, just select your favorite image and select the Greeting link on the top of the next page.) Thank you for the opportunity to share this special experience with you. If you are touched by any of the imagery, please communicate that. Share this photo essay with your co-workers. Email your friends. Connect. And I'd love to hear from all of you, too! But now I must get some rest. Goodnight.

[ 8.26 am ] From this morning's FT.com briefing: Sweden tops list of knowledge-based economies , according to a pioneering report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to be released this week. The USA, South Korea and Finland followed with the UK placing 13th.

UK Royal Mail to have competition

[ 2.36 pm ] On New Urbanism: "For the first time since the Great Depression in this country there is a rekindled interest in cities. Just as that's happening, here's this suburban alternative emerging (New Urbanism projects like Orenco Station in Hillsboro, OR). [People who might be convinced to move into a real inner-city neighborhood] are instead moving into these halfway houses for reformed suburbanites. There's a risk there."

-- Alex Krieger, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and noted critic of New Urbanism. (cited in The Oregonian, 02/13/2000)

[ 1.58 pm ] GlobeSt.com: "In an emergency meeting yesterday of the Real Estate Board of New York, developer Larry Silverstein confirms that the World Trade Center will be rebuilt, documents obtained by GlobeSt.com say."

He went on to say that, "If we don't rebuild it, we give in to the people who resort to destroying our way of life...We can get this done. To those who lost their lives and who almost lost their lives, this is our obligation...." There is that resiliant American spirit.

[ 9.44 am ] From this morning's FT.com briefing: UK Royal Mail to have competition for first time in 350 years.

The World Will Never Be the Same

[ 5.04 pm ] Check out a very articulate opinion piece from The Economist in next week's issue,
The day the world changed

A National Tragedy

[ 9.54 am ] Today a great tragedy is unfolding before our eyes and ears. Earlier this morning, two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and another plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon in Washington DC. Two more commercial flights have been hijacked and crashed, one near Pittsburgh and another in an unknown location. The twin towers in New York have collapsed and the casualties -- while no one is brave enough to articulate a number yet -- are significant. New York is on code delta alert, the entire country is on code charlie alert. The FAA has closed the entire US airspace and ordered all planes to land immediately. The things we were going to do today, September 11, 2001, have been put on hold. The financial markets are closed, San Francisco and LA are evacuated and our company is effectively closed. I drove in this morning and now all but one entrance to our building has been secured. It is time to wait and wonder as the worst tragedy since Pearl Harbor unfolds in real time.

Addendum: Minutes after posting this, the FBI would shut down our building as a precaution. Within an hour, I was -- like all of my co-workers -- driving home, listening earnestly to Peter Jennings trying to begin to make sense of the events of the day in real time. I remember the sidewalks in downtown were empty of life that day; traffic was light. It was as if the world had suddenly stopped.

The repetition of the images brought back memories of a day in 1986, when before the eyes of schoolchildren all across America, the space shuttle suddenly blew up seconds after launching with the first teacher aboard. I still remember clearly coming home that day and watching the image loop over and over on the news while my mom made macaroni and cheese for dinner. That was numbing then.

This is numbing now. The afternoon of Setember 11, Dad came home early and we went to pick peaches at a small family farm in the valley. It was sunny that afternoon and somehow the taste of fresh peaches in the field offered some comfort on a day when clearly nothing else made much sense. Dad and I wandered around the rows, searching for the last of the season's bounty. A few for the box, one for the mouth. A pause for conversation. Time for silent contemplation. It was, at the risk of sounding disengaged from the tragic events of the morning, a very nice way to spend a fall afternoon.

Coming back to the farmer, we paid and stayed to chat a while. His wife was a flight attendent for Alaska and was grounded in Anchorage. He kept fingering the cell phone that lay nearby, explaining that he was scared sick. We nodded.

Talk turned to New York, to the events of the day and then back to local scene. We expressed concern about the continued viability of farming as a family enterprise here. The farmer spoke of the close knit social fabric of the nearby town and how the world is "a changin'." We must have spent close to an hour just chatting, connecting not as city folk and country folk and not just as fellow Americans but as brothers in humanity. It certainly didn't make the tragedy go away, but I think it reminded all of us just how truly special and sacred life is.

I find myself remembering this moment more than I ever would have imagined because one month later a second tragedy struck, this time much more personal.

(addendum posted 05/07/2002)