Category - Musings and Observations
2011: The Year in Review
Sat Dec 31, 2011 20:28 (UTC -8)
It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without my annual Year in Review! And of all the years I’ve been through (which isn’t really a lot, but bear with me), 2011 was definitely the biggest one yet. This Year in Review will be especially useful because in the past twelve months, I’ve presented many important happenings out of chronological order and/or much later than they actually happened.
In the days leading up to 2011, I had arrived in Russia to see Kate, first spending a few very busy days in Saint Petersburg before actually visiting her. Once we were together, she showed me around her hometown, and then, more relevant to this discussion, 2011 happened.
As you can see, I haven’t written much during the latter half of this year. I haven’t done very much during that time either. In 2012, I resolve to do more interesting things and to write more. We’ll see how that goes.
Happy New Year!
Disunity
Sun Dec 11, 2011 21:04 (UTC -8)
I’ve been using Ubuntu as my operating system for a while (almost five years now). A new version is released twice a year, and each version is generally better than the last, although there have been some hiccups along the way. The latest version, released last month, comes with a new(ish) interface, and the old one isn’t included by default.
The new interface, known as Unity, has made a lot of users upset, and a great deal of digital ink has been spilled over its flaws. I don’t mean to jump into the mostly one-sided flame wars, but hey, it looks like that’s what I’m doing. But I just want to peacefully opine, for anyone interested now or in the future, in my own little space (here).
So, here’s basically why the change was made in the first place. The software that powers Ubuntu’s interface is called GNOME, and the current version (2.x) was getting pretty old. By default, it looks mostly like traditional Windows, except that that the panel on the bottom of the screen is just for open programs and the panel on there’s a panel on top for the time and everything else. (Here’s a screenshot of my desktop from a few years ago.) The GNOME developers recently decided to overhaul everything and call it GNOME 3. The new GNOME looks more like Mac OS X, with a single panel along the top of the screen and a section for program icons on the side.
Meanwhile, the Ubuntu people decided to come up with their own interface for GNOME, called Unity, which happens to look and behave a lot like standard GNOME 3. I’m sure they have their reasons for duplicating the GNOME developers’ work, but I don’t know what those reasons are. I do know, or can guess, that Ubuntu wants to attract new users by making things simpler (or, from the perspective of the power user, dumbing things down) and by making them more visible on tiny mobile devices. So there’s that.
I’ve been using Unity for about a month, and I have to say that it’s so-so. It’s pretty flashy, even for little old me with an unsupported graphics card, but it’s still rough around the edges. There’s some inconsistency with the way some applications behave: the top bar is supposed to show the menu (file, edit, etc., whatever it’s called) when the cursor is over it and the window title when it’s not, but not all applications support that behavior. And some programs (such as LibreOffice Calc) sometimes don’t show up in the collection of icons (which I believe is called the launcher, which is confusing because previously a launcher was a shortcut).
One big mark against Unity is that it’s hard to customize. I know they tried to make it simple for new users, but I had to download a separate program (gnome-tweak-tool) just to be able to change simple things like the default font size (which is enormous—this is for you, mobile users!). That’s inexcusable. (In fact, the default whole theme is hideous, so I went through some trial and error to pick out a theme that I liked.) And while I found the default font (creatively titled Ubuntu) to be pretty ugly, the thin version (Ubuntu Light) is sexy as hell, if a bit hard to read at first. I recommend it.
Overall, I don’t think Unity is great yet, but it has potential. I really wish Ubuntu hadn’t come up with its own competitor to GNOME 3, but such is the world of free software: if you don’t like something (even if it’s for some silly reason), you can do it your way.
Next time, I’ll be talking about things that aren’t boring. Stay tuned!
Are you an introvert? I am, but fortunately, I don’t get asked a lot of ignorant questions about it. In case you do, it might be good to provide some snappy answers. Example: “Why are you always so serious?” “Always? Have you been stalking me?” On second thought, maybe it’s better to sit down and try to have a productive conversation about introversion, so just take these for whatever entertainment value they may provide.
Thanksgiving Day
Sun Dec 04, 2011 23:29 (UTC -8)
So, I might as well tell you about what I did for Thanksgiving. I didn’t think I did very much, but I guess there’s more to mention than I thought.
It was my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Lots of people travel on and around Thanksgiving, and I didn’t want to be caught up in all that stuff when I’d just be visiting them in a month for Christmas. So I stayed here instead.
All of my friends either went away to their families or had their families visit them. I entertained the thought of volunteering at a soup kitchen or something like that, but I didn’t really try too hard to find out about it. I’d also heard that they would turn people away due to a surplus of volunteers. (It sounds like nonsense now that I think about it, but whatever…)
I slept in. I caught the Macy’s parade (tape-delayed, I guess), and I had been watching it for a few minutes when some singer missed his cue to start lip-syncing his own song. That’s when the TV went off. Not long after, I video-chatted with my family.
Once it was getting to be around dinner time, I went to the famous 5 Point Cafe for dinner. I was pretty sure that they had a “Thanksgiving dinner” on their regular menu, but they actually didn’t. They were in Thanksgiving mode there, though. It was pretty crowded, so I sat at pretty much the only seat I could find, which was at the far end of the counter on the restaurant side. On the wall next to me, where the daily specials are usually listed, was written each employee’s name and what he or she was thankful for.
For Thanksgiving, they were serving actual Thanksgiving dinners (i.e., for more than one person), but there was no way I was going to buy or eat that much food. I ended up getting the chicken fried steak, which I had never had there before. I could only eat half of it (they say they have the biggest chicken fried steak in Seattle, and I believe them), so I saved the rest and ordered a slice of pumpkin pie. I kind of like pumpkin pie, and we’re not a pumpkin pie family for whatever reason, so I figured I might as well.
After that, I went to the Cinerama down the street and saw The Muppets. Even though it’s common for movies to be released on Thanksgiving, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to the movies on Thanksgiving, so I didn’t know how crowded it would be. It wasn’t very (although the theater is huge). The movie itself was great fun, and I’d recommend it to everybody.
That’s about all I did on Thanksgiving. The next day, I didn’t have the day off, so like most of my co-workers who didn’t take the day off, I worked from home. That went pretty well except that I had just changed my password and my laptop decided not to accept either my old password or my new password after I had locked it. I actually went to work with my laptop to see if I could log in there, and I could, so I went back home immediately and continued working.
Interesting/creepy: every Beatles song played at the same time. (Via waxy.org)
The right tool for the job
Sun Nov 13, 2011 12:00 (UTC -8)
I like to be prepared. If I happen to need a screwdriver, a bottle opener, or a tiny pair of scissors, it’s good to know that I have a tool on hand that can do the job. That’s why I asked my parents for a Swiss Army knife for Christmas a few years ago. It’s been on my keychain pretty much ever since, and it’s served me well.
But my trusty Victorinox is a bit awkward to use. Even though I’ve had it for years, I’m still clumsy pulling out the blades or trying to use the scissors. It’s because I’m a left-hander using a tool designed for right-handed people.
I usually don’t like make a big deal out of the fact that I’m left-handed, but it’s frustrating to live in a world where everything is designed to be used easily by right-handed people. My everyday inconveniences are invisible to them. They don’t have to use the “wrong” hand to press buttons on the microwave or open double doors (why not have them both unlocked?). They find the arrangement of buttons on the remote control to be completely intuitive, and they can adjust their watch like it’s nothing. It’s almost as if I’m in (literally) a mirror universe where everything is inexplicably off.
So, what makes a Swiss Army knife left-handed? Well, right-handed Swiss Army knives are designed to be used easily by right-handers, so on a left-handed one, everything opens out the opposite way. (Exercise: Hold a Swiss Army knife in your left hand. With your right hand, pull out the [larger] blade. It is now pointing toward you.) If it includes scissors or a corkscrew, those are reversed as well. (Right-handers turn clockwise, lefties turn counter-clockwise.) Here’s a video that explains more.
Left-handed Swiss Army knives are surprisingly hard to find. I contacted Victorinox and Wenger, the makers of authentic Swiss Army knives. The representative from Victorinox said that their tools “should be ambidextrous” (which you now know is baloney). Wenger said that they had tried making left-handed knives but that they had stopped due to low demand. So they did exist.
I called around to local outdoorsy and cutlery-type stores. None of them had any—at one place, the guy even asked if I was pulling his leg. (“How can a knife be left-handed?”) I scoured the Internet and found some for sale in online stores that sell left-handed things. They’re all made by Wenger, and they all have this dopey “left-handed” symbol on them (an international floating-head guy with a glowing left nub), perhaps to serve as a warning to the rest of the population. They’re also more expensive than their right-handed counterparts, but it looks like left-handed.com has the best selection (five models!) and the most reasonable prices.
So, after much searching and comparing, I’ve just bought this one, and it should be arriving… eventually. The site’s based in the UK, and the shipping was cheap.
The instruction booklet for Monopoly is like the Bible: everyone thinks they know what it says, but no one actually reads it. Monopoly can actually be fast-paced and interesting if you play by the rules.
Festivals
Sun Nov 06, 2011 22:56 (UTC -8)
I live near the Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle, the KeyArena, and numerous convention halls and other meeting areas. Every weekend, there’s some gathering or another going on in one or more of the buildings. A couple of weekends ago, I decided to check out two of them.
The first was called the Northwest Chocolate Festival. There were lots of booths by small, local candy companies. Some were offering free samples, and others had samples out that they were selling, but they didn’t want you to know that until you already had your heart set on eating some of them. ($2 for a piece of chocolate? Really?)
What I found more interesting were the booths and areas tangentially related to chocolate. One booth was staffed by an organization that was working to create some sort of clean-burning ovens in third-world countries. Another belonged to a local organization that teaches people how to do gardening and stuff in their backyard (or on their balcony—they don’t discriminate).
There was also the adult room. When I went in, someone was painting a woman’s body with what I guess was chocolate. There was also alcohol being served (I didn’t see if it was chocolate alcohol), and massages being offered (one at a time, unfortunately). Later, some person was telling an enraptured audience how to make use of food when flirting. I thought about getting a massage there at the seemingly reasonable rate of $1 per minute, but some old guy beat me to it. I still have never gotten a massage.
Next, I decided to go to CroatiaFest. My last name is Croatian, and I don’t really know a lot about my dad’s side of the family, even after going to Croatia and meeting some of my relatives. I don’t think I had even heard of Croatia until I found out some of my forebears came from there, and I doubt many other Americans have heard of it either. But given the history of the Balkans, that’s probably a good thing. Everyone knows about Kosovo, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Anyway, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was amazed. I had come across a massive gathering of Croatian-Americans in progress. The place was poppin’. There was a band playing what I assume were traditional Croatian tunes on traditional Croatian instruments. People were selling what I figured were Croatian groceries and were cooking what I surmised was Croatian food. I really don’t know anything about Croatia.
I became a bit emotional: these were my people. Sure, it’s a patriarchal notion and I’m mostly non-Croatian, but that’s just how I felt. And at the same time, I felt like adopted people probably do when, in adulthood, they finally meet their biological parents: that my curiosity was whetted but that I could never really fit in with this, one of my parent cultures. I could only go back to business as usual in the culture in which I was raised, in what’s normal.
I did eat some of the unreasonably expensive food, and I took a flier about Adriatic cruises (which seemed like a good idea until I looked at the prices). I would like to go back to Croatia, if only to say… well, I don’t know. I just want to go back and learn more.
Fun facts about the late Steve Jobs: He always drove a car without license plates, and he loved parking in handicapped spaces. Find out more!
Laughing all the way to the credit union
Mon Oct 03, 2011 23:14 (UTC -7)
One big step of my college orientation that I didn’t originally mention was the bank tie-in. UF and Wachovia had a deal where Wachovia was the “official bank” of UF, with a branch and ATMs on campus, and together they pushed students at orientation to open accounts there. I went for it; I’d be living on campus, after all, and the checking was free. A few years later, Wachovia got gobbled up by Wells Fargo, leaving me with Wells Fargo checking and savings accounts.
By now, you’ve probably heard that Bank of America is planning on charging its customers $5 every month they make purchases with their debit cards. Wells Fargo is already implementing a similar fee against some of its customers, so it’s probably a matter of time before they roll it out to everyone. The news has provoked an exodus to credit unions, and I, too, figured it was time to make the switch.
Credit unions offer the same services as banks but with a few key differences. The goal of a bank is to make a profit for its shareholders at the expense of its customers; a credit union is a not-for-profit organization focused on helping its members, who are also its owners, so they tend to have lower fees and better interest rates. Credit unions have specific criteria for membership, usually things like living in a particular area and/or working for a particular company.
A typical credit union usually doesn’t have as many branches or ATMs as a huge bank, but most credit unions across the US offer services and free ATM access to each other’s members. And they’re insured by the NCUA, a federal agency that offers the same protection that the FDIC does for bank accounts, or by equivalent agencies at the state level.
These things I learned as I was doing my homework. Find a Credit Union was also a big help; it lists the closest credit unions to your address and the membership criteria for each. Of the eight credit unions that have branches within a mile of me, I’m eligible to join six of them, mostly by virtue of being a Washington resident. So, you see, the criteria for membership can be pretty broad.
I narrowed it down to a couple of credit unions I had heard a lot of great things about: First Tech and BECU. Their offerings were both pretty attractive, but I chose BECU since their interest rates are better for me and they’re based in the Seattle area—gotta help the local economy, right? Today, I went to the nearest BECU branch and deposited the minimum amount they require for membership: $5. In unceremoniously producing a $5 bill from my wallet, I declared my independence from thieving banks.
Well, sort of. Although I’m going to close my accounts with Wells Fargo, I have a credit card with Bank of America, and I like it. There’s no annual fee, and I get 1% cash back. So I’ll probably keep that until they screw me over personally or until I can get a better deal with my new credit union or somewhere else. (Actually, now that I look at it, BECU’s credit card seems pretty good, but I’d have to research some more.)
Moral: You should probably join a credit union if you haven’t already.
Irrelevant link: Snapshots from the set of Back to the Future.
Rude awakening
Tue Sep 20, 2011 23:12 (UTC -7)
And welcome back. Today on The World of Stuff, we’re talking about alarm clocks.
I’m a light sleeper. It often takes me a long time to get to sleep, and I wake up easily. When I was in high school, I didn’t need an alarm clock; my mom would wake me up. Usually, it was as simple as opening my door.
For college, I got a cool-looking alarm clock without worrying about how it might sound. It turned out to be loud. Over the course of four years, this started to get annoying. I would naturally wake up way before my alarm was due to go off, presumably because I subconsciously (and consciously) didn’t want to be scared awake. I also always had to peek at the clock to make sure I hadn’t overslept—the power could have gone out—but, of course, that was never actually the case. So I’d be left trying to get back to sleep, which was usually futile. That’s a bad way to start the day.
It probably sounds kind of dumb, but it was only last week that I finally got fed up with this and figured out how to keep it from happening. I remembered that when I was a kid, I had a clock radio. I rarely needed an alarm clock back then (as far as I can remember), but when I did, I woke up pretty pleasantly because the radio would come on instead of some horrific digital squawking. So, I went on Amazon, did some research, and bought a Sony ICF-C318 clock radio. I’ll review it here in case anyone is interested.
Pros:
- Battery backup. No need to wonder if the power went out!
- The time and date are set at the factory; I only had to adjust the time by a few minutes.
- Daylight Saving Time adjustments are made automatically (or manually if necessary).
- When you turn off the alarm, it will automatically come on at the same time the next day. (My old alarm clock wasn’t like that; you always had to remember to set the alarm before going to bed. With this one, you only need to disable the alarm on Friday morning and re-enable it on Sunday night (or whenever.)
- When you do enable the alarm, the alarm time is shown briefly on the display. (With my old clock, I can’t remember how many times I had to double-check this. I can be pretty paranoid.)
- Controls are intuitive, and the whole thing seems well-built.
There are a few cons:
- It won’t show the day of the week. I will miss that about my old clock (again, paranoia: “It’s not Saturday, right?”)
- The display is dim, even at its brightest setting. Not a problem in the dark, but during the day, it’s hard to read.
Overall, I like it, and I believe I made a good choice. Now that I have soft classical music to wake me up and no fear of power outages, I really have no reason to wake up before it’s necessary. So when I do, I try my hardest to keep my eyes closed and go back to sleep. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to sleep a little more soundly.
Generate hipster-flavored dummy text: Hipster Ipsum.
Fantasy holidays
Sat Sep 17, 2011 17:44 (UTC -7)
Recently, I asked readers to redesign US currency and got an overwhelming response. Now I pose the question: What to do about our holidays?
I’ve been thinking about this because today is Constitution Day (actually, according to Wikipedia, it falls on the weekday closest to September 17, so it was yesterday). Nobody really gives a rip about Constitution Day, which is a shame because maybe if they did, they would give a rip about the Constitution. It’s transitive!
For reference, here’s the list of federal holidays, i.e., the ones that pertain to federal employees. Schools and state offices follow state holidays, which are based on these but may have some differences, and your work may not give a rip about most of them at all. (What is it with people not giving a rip?? They are acting as if they have but one rip to give.)
- January 1: New Year’s Day
- Third Monday in January: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
- January 20th every four years: Inauguration Day
- Third Monday in February: Washington’s Birthday (“Presidents’ Day”)
- Last Monday in May: Memorial Day
- July 4: Independence Day
- First Monday in September: Labor Day
- Second Monday in October: Columbus Day
- November 11: Veterans Day
- Fourth Thursday in November: Thanksgiving Day
- December 25: Christmas
For starters, I guess I would keep Inauguration Day in, if we’re going by the strict definition that federal holidays are only for federal employees. I would crack down on calling Washington’s Birthday “Presidents’ Day” because, according to my crazy logic, celebrating one branch of government over the others is not good (Supreme Court Day, anyone? I didn’t think so), but celebrating one dude over all the others is okay. I might have to mull this over a little further.
Having been exposed to Russian culture, I’ve noticed that they celebrate some international holidays that are ignored in the United States. One is International Women’s Day, March 8. I would make Women’s Day a national holiday until women and men are treated equally, whenever that may be. In Russia and many other countries, labor is celebrated on May 1. I would move Labor Day to that date and call it, I don’t know, May Day. (Congress designated May 1 as “Loyalty Day” in 1958. What a coincidence…)
The gay rights movement needs a holiday, so I would make Harvey Milk Day (May 22) a national holiday. That puts it close to Memorial Day, which doesn’t seem to be when it is for any particular reason, so I would move it to where Columbus Day is now. Everyone knows Columbus Day is racist. We should be ashamed of the fact that we’re here. (Joking, sort of…) So, Memorial Day would be in October, and heck, I’d combine Veterans Day with it too.
So, after acknowledging Constitution Day on September 17, that brings us to November. Election Day (the Tuesday after the first Monday in November) is not a holiday, and this needs to be fixed so people can actually make it to the polls. I would also move it to the middle of the week (the first Wednesday of November; election season is too long) to discourage people from using it to take a long weekend and not vote. And while I’m at it, I’d move Thanksgiving to the last Friday of November, shortening the Christmas season (which is also too long).
And then, Christmas. Supposedly, Christmas is a federal holiday for the sake of convenience since the majority of people wouldn’t show up for work anyway. Okay. Just as the date of Christmas was chosen so that it would supersede various pre-Christian winter festivals, I’d declare Science Day to be December 25. Oh yeah, and I’d also throw in Earth Day, April 22.
For the sake of completeness:
- January 1: New Year’s Day
- Third Monday in January: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
- January 20th every four years: Inauguration Day
- Third Monday in February: Washington’s Birthday (not Presidents’ Day!)
- March 8: Women’s Day
- April 22: Earth Day
- May 1: May Day
- May 22: Harvey Milk Day
- July 4: Independence Day
- September 17: Constitution Day
- Second Monday in October: Veterans’/Memorial Day
- First Wednesday in November: Election Day
- Last Friday in November: Thanksgiving Day
- December 25: Science Day or something like that
So that’s my ideal calendar of holidays, and I bet it reveals a lot about me. I’m looking forward to what you have to say.
If you’ve ever gotten mad at a stranger online, watch this cartoon, which should remind you that the people on the other side of your computer are real and have feelings just like you. This would probably be especially good to show to kids who are using the Internet for the first time. (Via waxy.org)
An American’s lament
Sun Sep 11, 2011 00:08 (UTC -7)
I’ve been thinking about this day more than usual lately. Instead of sleeping, I’ve been trying to make sense of it all. Where are we going?
On September 11, 2001, I was 12 years old. The time between the end of the Cold War and the start of whatever this is—that was my childhood. My worldview had been shaped by the relative stability of the ’90s. As the September 11 attacks unfolded, I was just old enough to realize that the world would never be the same.
I don’t know anyone who was injured or killed that day, but it affected me just like it affected everybody. Once in a while, out of the blue, I remember all the things that happened that day, and I lose track of whatever else I was thinking about. I become quiet. And then I consider that today’s 12-year-olds must think the world is normal. That’s the really scary part.
Sure, things always change, but almost every turn America has taken in the last ten years has been for the worse. I don’t think that the attacks of September 11 are to blame for everything, but their repercussions have echoed through every aspect of our lives, serving as a leitmotif for the beginning of the end of America’s glory days. Seriously, what’s looking up for us now?
One of the big issues we’ve grappled with (or not) is the choice between freedom and safety. Presented with this false dichotomy, I’ve always stated a preference for the former. Right now, I’m not so sure. It’s easy to say that I don’t mind if a terrorist hijacks the plane I’m on, that I’ll be forever honored as a martyr for the cause of freedom. (When was the last time you saw an obituary that said, “This guy was a total asshole”?) But then I think about my future, and I think about the future without me in it. I’ll never have another life to live. Suddenly, the original question sounds very different.
But it is a false dichotomy… I guess. Surely people in other countries, where things like subtlety and nuances are appreciated, recognize a trade-off. There’s always going to be terrorism in some form or another, whether you do anything about it or not, and whether you call it that or not. When you obsess over terrorism to the point that it consumes you, that’s really when it works. The goal of the terrorist is to inspire terror. In that sense, the terrorists have been winning. Maybe the key is not to let them get to you, as horrific as their acts may have been.
I need go back only a few weeks for a possible example of what to do. The Prime Minister of Norway said that his country would respond to Anders Breivik’s terrorist attacks with “more democracy”: “It’s absolutely possible to have an open, democratic, inclusive society, and at the same time have security measures and not be naïve.” In doing so, they’d likely be getting at the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms. Plus, no domestic spying or rape flashbacks at the airport. Here in the US, however, millions of flag-waving dum-dums would be out for blood. And they were.
So, why don’t I move to Canada or something? It feels like a cop-out that wouldn’t solve the problem, though I’m not sure if anything else would work at all. I feel helpless. No matter what I say or do, America will keep going down the tubes. Huge corporations will keep bribing our representatives and writing laws on their behalf. The rich will keep getting richer while the poor lose more and grow in number. No president or ex-president is ever going to go on trial. The TSA will continue to use naked body scanners at airports. There will still be a TSA.
If this is how the politically apathetic feel, then for the first time, I totally get them. But as for me, I don’t know what to do. Stick to my ideals? I guess, but what does it matter?
Looking through my files, I found that 13-year-old me, writing a year after the attacks, got here first:
Sadly, I feel that the terrorist attacks will be America’s ultimate downfall. It showed us that we are not, as we seem to be, an invincible nation, and that we can’t handle what we dish out to many other countries. I’m really not sure how we should respond to this situation. I guess we should just let it be. Maybe America needs to learn its lesson and stop Americanizing the world.
I wasn’t a philosophy major. These opinions are just what I happen to have been thinking about over the past few days and are not particularly well thought out. I fully expect some or all of you to rip me to shreds.
The West Coast: the best coast?
Wed Aug 31, 2011 18:28 (UTC -7)
Four months ago, I lived in Florida and had never been to the West Coast. Now, I live in Seattle.
I’d lived in Florida my whole life—only 22 years, but still. One thing I’ve noticed is that when looking at a map of the United States, my eyes instinctively drift to the lower-right-hand corner. Now, when I watch the news forecast on TV, they show this corner of the country that, by itself, looks pretty alien to me. It’ll take me a while to get used to that.
Less off-putting but still noticeable are the little things that set the West Coast apart from the world I as I know it.
First of all, mayonnaise. I’d always seen on the label of Hellman’s mayonnaise that Hellman’s is known as Best Foods west of the Rockies, but dang if it isn’t weird to see this “Best Foods” mayo on the shelf where Hellman’s ought to be. And one thing I didn’t know before I got here that Arnold bread is called Oroweat. Yes, making sandwiches is a different experience here on the West Coast.
The media is also different out here. Growing up at the very edge of the Miami media market, I watched CBS 4, NBC 6, and Local 10, and I listened to Majic 102.7. Here, I watch KOMO, KING, and KIRO, and I listen to KEXP. I guess call signs that start with “K” lend themselves to catchier names. Decide for yourself: the Miami stations I mentioned are WFOR, WTVJ, WPLG, and WMXJ. (Okay, I don’t actually listen to KEXP very much.)
I can tackle any of the Indian place names in Florida: Okeechobee, Loxahatchee, and… well, there aren’t many others. Here, there are some crazy names that I’m having more trouble with: Snohomish, Sammamish, Duwamish, Suquamish, Issaquah, Snoqualmie, Puyallup (prononuced “Pyuallup”), Sequim (pronounced “Squim”??). Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
It’s weird to see mountains everywhere. I still can’t get used to that. People hike a lot, and apparently they go skiing in the winter (or even in the summer, if it snows enough in the winter). Oh, and according to the news, people are always falling off cliffs and getting lost in the woods and stuff like that. No such things happen in Florida.
The Northwest is more sparsely populated than the Southeast. As a consequence (I think), people’s world is a little larger here. People don’t think much of going to California, even though going a similar distance up the East Coast would be a pretty big deal (to me). And a lot of the time on the news, they’ll talk about things going on in Oregon. That would be like if I were watching the news in Miami and they covered news in Orlando or Atlanta. It just doesn’t happen. They were like foreign countries to me when I was growing up.
Things are different here, but it’s not necessarily bad. For example, at least here in Seattle, Tim’s Cascade potato chips are widely available. They seem to be a local thing, and they are delicious. I’ve already sent a few bags to my family, and they agree!
Speaking of my family, I’m taking an extra-long Labor Day weekend—my first vacation as a working man—to visit them in Florida. I’m leaving tomorrow, and I probably won’t be posting while I’m there, but you can always follow me on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.
So, is the West Coast really the best coast? I don’t know; I was just trolling so you would read this. But you’re welcome to discuss the matter and offer your opinions here. I’d also be interested in hearing from people who grew up in the West Coast and then moved east (if any such people exist).
Here are a few anecdotes about kids growing up with today’s technology: Born Digital. It’s kind of frightening to think that small children mistake pieces of paper for iPads, but I’m sure adults had the same concerns about the first kids to grow up in front of the TV.
