cos

This morning Jessie (as Rowan dubbed smokey mom cat) was curled up on the landing, her kittens sleeping in the carrier. When I came with fresh water, she hissed at the opening door and then realized, oh wait people are good, and came over for more petting - though she did let out another few random hisses. She might get along with one of our black fuzzballs inside the house :)

Watch as the kittens cautiously emerge, one by one, to play in the yard.

P.S. Ashley Maher & Balla Tounkara this evening at the Lily Pad in Inman Square. Great folky African music. Come!

The camera mzrowan lent/gave me can take videos, and now that I'm used to it I sometimes take videos of friends doing silly things, bits of performances, panoramic views, and so on. Sometimes I take a video in very low light. I can see that all the important details are still in there, but it's too dark to watch.

When I have a photo like that, I have a quick simple fix: in GraphicConverter (like Photoshop & GIMP), I use the Levels too to move the centerpoint somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 way towards dark, then I drastically reduce color saturation (-20 to -50). I get a photo that looks black & white or halfway to black & white, but you can clearly see everything.

I've been told that the cheapest piece of software that will let me do that with a video is Final Cut Express, for $300. I don't have that many videos, and I don't need most of Final Cut's features; $300 is serious overkill. But it would be nice to make a few of my low-light videos watchable. If you have video editing software that can do this, and would be willing to process a few .avi files from my camera that I can send you, let me know.

I've been looking for a way to fix these videos for months. I'm asking now because because I got a video of the pediatrician's speech at the MoveOn kids' health care rally in Cambridge this week, and the sound quality is pretty good, but it's too dark. I'd really like to post it, and contribute it to MoveOn, before the SCHIP veto override vote happens (possibly this month).

( here's the video )

Tuesday, September 25th is the preliminary municipal election in a lot of cities and towns in Massachusetts, including Boston and Somerville.

So, as usual, people started asking me what I think about the candidates. Here are the races I have a strong opinion on:

• Somerville Alderman at-large: Fred Berman
  I know him from Progressive Democrats of Somerville and was delighted when he said he was running. I've been on a number of campaigns with him, including Pat Jehlen, Carl Sciortino, and Denise Provost (all of whom have endorsed him). He's smart, he's really thought things through, and he'll be Rebekah's ally in opening up city government. Plus, I must admit I really want to see Jack Connolly dropped off the board of aldermen after the immigrant-baiting campaign he ran against Marty Martinez last year.


• Somerville Alderman, ward 6 (Davis Square): Rebekah Gewirtz
  Running for her second term, after doing a very good job on her first. But because she won a pretty narrow upset victory (against the aforementioned Connolly) in 2005, a couple of people see a chance to beat her. Rebekah is a whirlwind of activity, she does not give up, and she gets a lot done. I know her from PDS and the Howard Dean campaign.


• Somerville Mayor: I'd vote for Susan Bremer if I were voting in Somerville. I met her at a PDS meeting several months ago, and I think the closed clique that runs Somerville could use another jolt to open it up. Joe Curtatone is the incumbent, and he's not awful, though I do get the impression that he's more about putting on a good show than actually doing things.


• Boston City Council district 9 (Allston-Brighton): Tim Schofield!!!
  Just about the best combination of smart+articulate+personable+effective I've ever seen run for office in Massachusetts. I volunteered on his campaign for state rep in 2005, when he was brand new and totally unknown, and came in second in a field of 4 candidates, just 64 votes behind the winner (someone who was well known and had run for that same seat before). I'm going to be at Tim's office all day tomorrow, 6am - 9pm. Tim rocks. This time we'll get him elected!


• State Rep, East Boston: Gloribell Mota
  I first heard about her from my friend Lindsay. I've since heard about her from a few other people whose opinion on Massachusetts politics I respect, and I'm convinced, but I'll just point you at what Lindsay wrote:
  "This woman is, to be blunt, un-fucking-believable. She's the kind of candidate who reminds me why I love politics: a genuine progressive, a proven community activist, smart, charming, and most of all, remarkably articulate. To add to it, she's a young, Latina, single mother of 2, and she speaks clearly and persuasively about progressive values in both English and Spanish. Simply put, she would be a refreshing addition to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and I regret that I can't be more involved with her campaign.
  
  You can read more about her at her website. It only gets better, trust me. Basically, my point in posting this is that this election is winnable. East Boston has experienced one of the largest cultural shifts in the State's history. Largely populated by Italian immigrants 25 years ago, over 40% of the district's residents are now Latino. The seat Mota is running for has been held by Italians for over 75 years (not kidding). There has been some terrible leadership and some great leadership, but regardless, it's about time that the State Rep from East Boston more accurately represented his/her district.

Click on the candidates' web sites to learn more about them.

Do you know anyone who lives in Somerville, east Boston, or Allston-Brighton? Pass it on.

On June 14th, 2007, the Massachusetts Legislature gathered in a constitutional convention for the final vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. If the amendment received 50 votes out of 200 legislators (25%), it would go on to the 2008 Massachusetts ballot - drawing the entire religious right into Massachusetts for the nastiest political battle they could devise.

After two and a half years of hard-fought primary & special elections, we'd turned the legislature around from nearly 60% in favor of banning gay marriage, down to just over 25%, and in those last few days nobody knew whether we'd turned those last few votes. Outside the state house, a throng of bright-faced pro-equality demonstrators with brightly colored signs greeted legislators on their way in. Across the street, a quiet group of anti-gay demonstrators, all holding the same green signs, faced us, and a line of TV trucks stretched down Beacon Street as far as I could see.


Later, in the gallery, MassEquality led us in song as the constutional convention gathered. They'd split the gallery for amendment supporters on the right and equality supporters on the left; the right side had seats open while the left overflowed, and equality supporters filled the balconies on both sides. They called the vote right away, and legislators' names one by one. We were listening closely for the names of legislators whose votes we weren't sure of ... which way did they go? An unexpected Nay! A Yea we'd hoped wouldn't be there.

Moments of elation and dissappointment as we tallied the pluses and minuses in our heads - but all the votes were in long before they finished the roll call, and they flashed the numbers up on the screen.


The amendment got 45 votes.
It was dead dead dead!
I whispered "we won" to the people sitting next to me, about 2 seconds before the room collectively realized it and erupted, and the cheering and jumping didn't even fade a bit for many minutes.

People gathered again on the grand staircase, and then in front of the State House where the morning demonstrations had been, for speeches and thank-yous. Some more songs led by MassEquality as we waited for the legislators to come out: Sal DiMasi, Ed Augustus, Ellen Story, Liz Malia, Carl Sciortino, Jamie Eldridge, Byron Rushing, Denise Provost, Rachel Kaprelian, Mike Festa... partway through, Deval Patrick worked his way through the crowd and gave a short yet perfect speech.

... so, I finally got my photos from that day cropped, resized, and posted. See the rest.

I got into the bay area Monday evening just in time for the Alameda Ceili. Tonight I'll be staying at rightkindofme's (south bay), and tomorrow switching over to dr_memory & missionista's in the Mission for the next couple of days. Plans remaining for here:

• Wednesday evening: Berkeley contra dance w/missionista - wanna come join us there?
• Thursday evening: something with redfierma - whoah, she's in SF! :) Includes possible dinner with friends, comment if you're free and I may reply with details for joining us.
• Friday: I don't know. Maybe drive north, maybe something here.

Next up, Portland and Seattle. I'll drive north on either Friday or Saturday, and in Portland probably spend most of my time at keturn and tornadogrrrl's. Hoping to catch dollbunny while there.

• Monday eve, Aug 20: Narnia
• Tuesday eve, Aug 21: Jason Webley at Fremont Abbey Arts Ctr in Seattle w/amare - wanna join us?
• Wed, Aug 22: uncertain, hopefully some time with yix in the afternoon.

Then it's time to head back east.

• August 2-5: Chicago for YearlyKos,
  seeing admiralkatt, japlady, subjunctus


• Aug ?6/7?ish: Madison, staying w/eirias


• Aug ?8-11: Colorado, staying w/mollybzz, hopefully seeing redfierma and 477150n and others


• Aug 12+: vague & tentative plan: SF/Bay Area, then Portland/Seattle, then back via I-90 (Dakotas, Minnesota, Chicago) ... maybe Kentucky?


• return to Boston in the early or mid 20s of August

Are you along my route? Wanna see me? Leave a comment, send email, or call.

I'll be spending some days working, when staying with people who have Internet. The more days I can work while away, the longer I can stay out wandering :)

"Bush Names Wolfowitz President of al-Qaeda"

I've been reading about the bee demise for a few months, and it's been worrying, but abstract.

Yesterday, I went with dreams_of_wings and aatish2 to Heritage Gardens (formerly Heritage Plantation of Sandwich) to see the rhododendrons and azaleas at peak bloom - though it seems peak is coming a bit late this year and will likely be this weekend or early next week. We got there at 3:40pm and left at 5:10pm, so we spent about an hour and a half walking around. It was a warm sunny day, and beautiful.

I saw one bee.

It's been a few years since I last went, but I've gone there during peak bloom at least three times before, possibly more. One of my clearest recurring memories of those visits has been the buzzing of the bees near the entrance.

[ photos from yesterday - I'll upload more soon ]

Impromptu lunch on the common with awhyzip was fun!

Who else do I know who works near Downtown Crossing?

Yesterday I got an unexpected boost for a job well done last year.

You may recall that I spent half of last year as John Bonifaz's campaign blogger and internet person (that link is my LJ post where I link to some of my blog posts that I liked most). We got some good press for our online campaigning, in a campaign that was otherwise mostly ignored by the press. The Boston Phoenix had an article about blogging that said:

Only John Bonifaz, running against Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin in the Democratic primary, comes close to the real thing. According to campaign manager Juan Martinez, Bonifaz has "the only statewide campaign with a full-time blogger." And it shows. Bonifaz's campaign blog has all the proper accoutrements of the medium, [...]

In an article about campaign use of YouTube, they wrote "the real video savant this election year is John Bonifaz", and it got picked up in other papers far away. The only time we got a front page article in the Boston Globe was with a blog-driven story.

The campaign ended when incumbent Bill Galvin predictably won the Democratic primary last September.

Yesterday evening I went to this talk about Darfur * by a Wellesley professor who is also the UNDP's staff historian. After the talk, while some of us were milling around to chat with him, he asked me what I do, and when I mentioned that I worked on John Bonifaz's campaign last year he nodded in recognition. This is pretty close to how the conversation went from there:

me: Did you ever read the web site?
him: Yes
me: I was his blogger ...
him: You were good! His campaign used the Internet really well...
me: I was the Internet person, I posted the YouTube videos, ...
him: Wow. That was a good example of a campaign and issue I probably wouldn't have paid a lot of attention to, or given money to, if you hadn't used the Internet so well.

His wife apparently works at MIT on something related to "new media" and she had also been watching us for how a campaign can use the net well.

* ( Darfur... )

LSC is having Randall Munroe, the xkcd guy, give a talk on May 14th, 7pm in 10-250. I expect the largest off-MIT draw for an MIT talk since Neil Gaiman, and this will be in 10-250, with about half the capacity of Kresge (the Pandora guy filled 26-100 last October, which is just slightly larger than 10-250, though I'm pretty sure that was a mostly MIT crowd). $1 for MIT students, $2 for anyone else. Who's coming?

... and will coraline register a quirky new domain this time?

Are you dreaming right now? Or are you actually awake, reading my LJ post?

I've heard that the trick to having more lucid dreams is remembering to check, every once in a while, "am I dreaming?" It worked for me once - I thought about it, and realized that I was, and managed to avoid waking up for a while longer. But how often do you just randomly think to think about whether you're dreaming or not? My problem is getting into the habit. Usually, it only occurs to me when the topic of dreams comes up - ironically, not something that seems to come up often in my dreams.

...

I had recently spent a few days in Portland, OR, unfortunately a week too early to join yix for something, so we thought I might fly back there the following weekend. I suddenly realized that my plan meant flying tomorrow, Sunday - meaning I'd have to miss the concert on Sunday afternoon that I had just found out about the other day and had been inviting several friends to. I'd miss it, and they'd wonder where I was. Except... I hadn't actually bought the tickets, or made definite plans with yix yet. Oops! So I called her, and we decided it was too late and this wasn't going to work.

So I can go to the concert after all. It's early Sunday morning, the show is this afternoon... but Boston is too far from here (Portland) to get there today by bus, train, or car. I zip off to PDX airport to see if I can get a standby flight. The woman at the desk tells me to wait while she goes back to check, and I realize that I won't have time to go back to my friends' place to grab my clothes and things for the trip - if she finds a flight, I'm gonna have to get right on it, to get to Boston in time. No problem, I have clothes and stuff at my apartment in Boston, all I need is my key (I check, yup, got the key) so I can go there to resupply. Okay, I'm all set, I'll just take a quick trip with my one carryon bag, see the show, come back tomorrow.

If you're confused, you've spotted the glaring plot hole. Huh, I thought, howcome I'm in Portland? If I didn't fly back out here to see yix, shouldn't I be in Boston this morning? Didn't I fly back to Boston almost a week ago? When I woke up I thought I was in Portland, but can merely thinking I'm there cause me to be there? *ponder* No, I conclude, it can't. I shouldn't be here. This must be a dream. And yet... I look around... it's all so realistic.

*poof* I'm awake. No jolt or feeling of transition, I'm just lying peacefully in bed, eyes closed, but awake, thinking it over, realizing it was a dream, and I am in Boston. On reflection, it wasn't very real - it all just faded away instantly.

Some things I didn't think of:

• yix doesn't live in Portland anymore.
• It's been two weeks since I went to Portland.
• The concert is on Saturday.
• How could I get to PDX so quickly if I didn't have a car there?

If all my dreams had huge plot holes, perhaps I'd notice. How do you tell whether you're in a dream or in real life?