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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Josh's LiveJournal:
| Monday, February 8th, 2010 | |
| 8:11 pm | snOMG On Thursday March 11, 1993, I was listening to the weather forecasts and was really excited about the 4-8 inches they were forecasting for Philly. On Friday, they upped the forecast to 8-12", and then on Saturday, exactly a foot of snow fell. It was called the Storm of the Century primarily because of what it did over a large area of the country, though a foot of snow in March is highly unusual for Philly. I was 12 years old and it was the best time of my life. I played in the front yard, I took multiple measurements with a yardstick, I played with the dog across the streets, I saved newspapers, I photographed everything (including the newspapers), and I couldn't imagine being happier. I also couldn't imagine any more than a foot of snow. Schools were closed through Tuesday; some through Wednesday. Now I think, "Just a foot?" About 3 years later, January 1996, Philly got 30 inches of snow. I'd since moved to a neighborhood where I had more friends, and we played a lot. 30 inches, still a record for the city, was an unbelievable amount. My school was closed through Wednesday after the Monday snow. We opened on Thursday, but then closed on Friday for another storm. Before this winter, Philly's largest "#2 storm" (as in, the biggest storm that wasn't the biggest of the season) was about 13 inches. We'd only hit double-digit inches on multiple storms in a winter three times, and only did it 3 times in a winter once. In December, we had the second-biggest snow in Philly history: 23 inches. That place in the record books lasted a couple hours shy of 7 weeks; this Saturday we had another storm that broke 28 inches. So we broke the "#2 storm" record by about 9 inches. There's another storm coming tomorrow. The forecasts are for a foot. Only a foot! I can't believe I feel that way. It might be the first time we get a 3rd 12-inch storm in a season, though, and if it does we'll break 1996's record for snowiest winter. Schools were closed today, but will be open tomorrow. The same thing happened in December. And really, it would be absurd for schools to be closed tomorrow, day #4, and it was almost a little silly for them to be closed today. Philly's gotten so much better in 17 years. I had work today, but am optimistic I might finally get my first snow day in years tomorrow. Rittenhouse Square on Saturday was amazing. It felt like a summer day, except for all of the heavy coats and the snow on the ground. The park was packed with people. There was music on boomboxes. There were Frisbees. There was volleyball. There were tons of kids running around. The fountain was (technically) filled with water. It was amazingly cheerful, and I had a blast just walking through it. And walking around everywhere. A few hours earlier, when there was only (!) a foot or snow on the ground and it was snowing about 2 inches an hour, no one was driving on the streets at all. Walnut Street, the major thoroughfare I live on, had a car go by maybe every 2-3 minutes. This was quite convenient for me and all the other pedestrians who weren't going to bother trudging down the unshoveled sidewalks; the street was much more convenient. My friend compared it to a Yom Kippur walk down a major street in Jerusalem, when traffic is disallowed and everyone is walking in the streets. It was incredibly surreal. Meteorologically the two storms were quite similar. All of the forecasts before each started with about 6 inches (what I would've considered a significant Philly snowfall before this winter), and kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing. My coworker predicted 14 inches from this storm when everyone was staying under a foot; I joked and said double his guess; 28. I was right on the money. As was Phillyweather.net, eventually. Following the weather is so much fun when I can follow an amateur forecaster who lives nearby, loves snow, knows his stuff, and loves to communicate about it. I read Tom's blog posts when they come out, and chat with him on Twitter. It makes the Snow experience (or the #snowmageddon or #snowpocalypse or #snOMG, if you will) that much more fun. I can't wait for this next storm: Finally a substantial daytime non-Shabbat storm. I'll try to get some good pictures! And I'll cheer when it breaks 9" and we set a new record! I won't forget this winter for a long, long time. |
| Friday, February 5th, 2010 | |
| 4:17 pm | This has been bugging me for awhile... Poll #1521840 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26 What's the opposite of "FTW"?
View Answers For the lose For the loss For the block I am quite happy with the world I have no idea and I hate your stupid net-speak Happy snowpocalypse v. 2.0, everyone! Enjoy your French toast and don't get buried! |
| Thursday, February 4th, 2010 | |
| 5:02 pm | Too many links, not enough time http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/phi/StormTot http://snowpocalypsedc.com/ http://christwire.org/2010/01/what-ever Why is DC so much cooler than my city? Have you ever seen George Lucas In Love, a short fictional film about the original writing of Star Wars? And I still think this was the most important article written in the last 10 years. And my favorite forecaster says 12-18" in Philly. |
| Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | |
| 11:33 am | dream last night I was standing a couple blocks west of my apartment watching a strange scene unfolding: A very, very large ship was pulling away from the banks of the Schuylkill river (which was much, much larger in my dream than in real life). At the top of the ship was an elephant. At the top of a building on the banks, at roughly the same height, was a camel. (Or maybe a giraffe.) They were staring longingly at each other. Suddenly the elephant jumped. Or maybe it was jostled overboard; I couldn't tell. I photograped what was going on; I was the only one who saw it. The elephant flew into the air a bit, and then gradually floated down to the river as if it had a parachute. But it hit the river with a splash much stronger and more severe than if it hadn't had a parachute. It could have been 100 elephants, the way the water splashed out. Nearby parking lots were flooded; cars were underwater. (I was fine, because the way the city is structured, I was up on a bridge dozens of feet above the water level.) News crews were called in; this quickly became a major issue in part because of the flooding but in part because this was apparently a very important elephant. No one actually knew what happened for sure, though they were able to deduce that the elephant had apparently fallen due to the fact that it was missing and due to the flooding. I was planning to send some of my photos to the news people. I kept looking at the river because I thought I saw the elephant surface, but it didn't. (Elephants probably don't float, I thought.) I started to watch the flood quickly recede, about 10 minutes after the incident happened, and then got bored and walked away. It's probably a good thing that I don't remember my dreams more often. (Dream most likely inspired by a recent emergency plane landing that was not into a river, The Way Things Work, and my current long-distance relationship. Maybe.) |
| Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 | |
| 1:36 pm | |
| Monday, January 25th, 2010 | |
| 11:02 am | update! Hi, LJ! Last Tuesday I turned 29! All day I got birthday wishes over email, Facebook, twitter, phone, text, and in person. It was really awesome. I ended up not wanting to do tons for my birthday. I went to lunch with some coworkers, including my birthday buddy. After work, I just invited some people to dessert. It was frustrating when Naked Chocolate closed at 9 even though their website said 11. So people came at 8:30, we stayed for 45 minutes, and then we went to another place to chill for another half hour. That's all. Next year is a bigger birthday, and I'll plan something bigger. I didn't do much the rest of the week that I can remember. Shabbat was nice. Friday night, potluck at BZBI, with the usual crowd and the usual shenanigans. Plus MP's boyfriend, who she's finally introducing us to, and who might be an interesting business contact for me. And plus ML's sister R, who graduated from my high school a year and a half ago. We had plenty of interesting stories to exchange. Saturday morning was Tikvah and then lunch at Ilana's, all of which has become pleasantly routine by now. After lunch, I just slept away the rest of Shabbat. Saturday night I went to a party. The Jewish grad network had a dessert party in someone's apartment, and I decided to check it out. Especially since the apartment was about half a block from mine. I went, and immediately remembered why I don't go to events like that. Totally not my scene. I'm so uninterested in large crowds of people socializing unless I know a critical mass of them. As it was, I knew about 5 of 30 people there, and basically just talked to them for an hour, while eating chocolate, until I went home. A few people came up to me and introduced themselves, which I gather is normal behavior at this sort of event, but it makes me uncomfortable. (I feel bad about this, on behalf of all the people who have no choice but to meet people this way, such as people who are new to the city. But, oh well. They can meet the extroverts first.) Yesterday I went to Ikea with my mom. I bought myself a Billy Bookcase and some random kitchen stuff. I lost my umbrella at some point along the way, which really upset me because I hadn't lost an umbrella in about 10 years, until losing two in a few months. I usually buy nicer, more expensive umbrellas because I don't lose them, but I might have to rethink that strategy. I went home, built the bookcase, and put lots of stuff on it. I feel like I have so much more space now! I definitely needed at least 2 or 3 more shelves, and now I have 6. Today, it's torrentially raining. And I don't have an umbrella. It's also about 60 degrees out. I decided that the best strategy for getting to work was to wear a t-shirt and my (new and waterproof) winter coat. Also, since there's no way to keep the below-the-waist area dry even with an umbrella, I decided to change pants once I got to work, and wear my hiking/snow boots. Unfortunately I only have one clean pair of proper pants. So I wore sweatpants to work! Something I've always dreamed of! (Even though I ran straight to the bathroom and changed as soon as I got here.) Happy Monday, LJ! |
| Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 | |
| 6:12 pm | life, huh? My mom got a job offer today, and she's pretty sure she's going to accept it. It sounds like it'll be a step up from her current job in every way, except a step down in salary. The step down in salary is doable, and the step up in everything else is great. The mom of one of my mom's oldest friends died today. She lived in New York. Her daughter, my mom's friend, lives in Israel, and recently visited her mom knowing it would be the last time she'd see her. Today, through the magic of Facebook, I reconnected with my babysitter from 20 years ago. (And, of course, we know people in common. Oh, Philly. Oh, Jews.) Today is my first birthday I ever remember when I'm not going to get a call from my paternal grandmother wishing me a happy birthday, and that's how all my future birthdays will go too. And I'm 29 today. What a crazy thing life is, huh? I should stop crying at work. (N.B. Before commenting, know that I'm going to make this post public once my mom accepts the job.) |
| Monday, January 18th, 2010 | |
| 3:19 pm | |
| Thursday, January 14th, 2010 | |
| 4:20 pm | I never expected my coworker to see *that*... OK, help settle a ridiculously overanalyzed debate at work. Assume you wish to enter a restroom you know to be a single-person restroom not restricted to any particular gender. The door is closed and you can't easily ascertain whether the light's on, and therefore whether someone's in it, or whether the door was just accidentally closed. Assuming the following additional information, do do you test the handle to see if it's locked (and open the door if it's not), or do you knock first (and then test the handle if you don't hear an answer)? Poll #1511654 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38 If the bathroom is in a very public place, such as in a theater or concert venue? If the bathroom is a port-a-potty at a festival, and it has an indicator showing that it's occupied, but you suspect the indicator may be broken? If the bathroom is in someone's home (perhaps with a small party going on, such that you don't know if anyone's in there)? If the bathroom is in a workplace of a couple dozen employees, all of whom you know? Same workplace, but you know that there are people who feel surprisingly strongly about both sides of the issue, that their choice is correct?
View Answers Knock (same answer as before) Knock (I changed my mind) Test the knob (same answer as before) Test the knob (I changed my mind) |
| Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 | |
| 3:33 pm | Multimedia message My Bag of Crap came! "Fact or Crap" page-a-day calendar, two "Arouzer" stress balls shaped like Viagra, 2 nice mechanical pencils, an XM radio case, and a Captain Kirk figurine.  |
| Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 | |
| 9:33 am | egalitarianism and minyan organizing So as I've mentioned here a few times, I and some friends run a minyan (Jewish prayer group) that we've started. It meets once a month on Saturday mornings. We're fully participatory and egalitarian, which can be more complicated than you might think. One of my roles with this minyan is to assign service leaders. (They chant a portion of the service in Hebrew, parts by themselves and parts along with the rest of the community, while standing up in the middle of everyone.) The way we divide things up, there are 3 service leaders every time we meet: two for prominent parts of the service and one for a less-prominent part (because it's the first part, before lots of people have arrived, and because it's both shorter and less important than the other two). This coming month, for our 6th meeting, I might have two men lead the two prominent parts for the first time. In my mind, this is OK. To me, having an egalitarian and participatory service means the following things when it comes to picking service leaders: (1) Ideally, pick service leaders without regard to or paying attention at all to gender (which in a 50/50 community would mean that two men lead these two parts of the service about 25% of the time), with the caveats that: (2) More prominent meetings of the minyan should specifically divide up the gender of the leaders (for example, it was really important to me that one man and one woman lead these two services at our very first meeting; and for another example, Hadar divides up the 4 prominent Yom Kippur services such that men (actually one man) lead two and women (often one woman) lead two), and (3) Long term, the organizers should make sure that the gender balance of the actual service leaders matches the gender balance of the capable service leaders in the community (for us, about 50/50), and (4) Long term, the organizers should make sure that the gender balance of the capable service leaders matches the gender balance of the community as a whole (for us, about 60/40 or 65/35 with women in the majority), and So I don't think our next meeting falls under (2), since we're somewhat established at this point and there's nothing remarkable about Shabbat 11 days from now such that more or different people would attend services than usual or that this meeting of ours would somehow be held up as a standard (more so than our other meetings). And we've definitely been succeeding at (3) so far. (It's important to check in about that, I think, because feminists like me can still be subject to accidental and subtle discrimination, slightly preferring men for leading or whatever.) We're not quite successful at (4) yet, because that's a slower fix that can take years to effect, because I personally don't have enough in the way of teaching skills to make that happen on my own, and because I don't know that there are many non-service-leaders in the community who want to learn. Therefore, I don't think I can yet do (1), just ignore for the most part who I pick gender-wise. We're not quite there yet. But I think I'm close enough to that ideal that I can occasionally have two men leading. I just have to make sure that I only let it happen about 25% of the time. My primary guiding principle in organizing this minyan, by the way, has been that details matter. That it's important to think about these little things, and that the fruit of that effort will be in the results, even if the minyan participants don't directly recognize the thought that went into these aspects of the planning. They'll recognize it anyway, in the form of a well-organized service that will hopefully continue leading toward a vibrant community. Thoughts welcome. (And further reading is available.) |
| Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 | |
| 6:16 pm | 2009 in review ( 2009 in review ) I know a bunch of you had a rough year, but for me, it turns out I was mostly right about 2009. I'm not going to root for an even better 2010 for myself, because I'm still all about the blessings of low expectations. But here's to a good year, for me and for all of you. |
| 12:27 am | Computer update Spent an hour waiting at the UPS place for them to stop being jerks and give me the second of the two packages I ordered containing my new computer. Spent over two hours building the computer. Mini-ITX is small and hard to work with. I couldn't get my CD drive to fit, so I currently don't have a computer with a CD drive. Couldn't get the computer to boot. Not sure if that's because of something it doesn't like about my primary hard drive, or because it can only boot from SATA. My primary hard drive is IDE, with an IDE-to-SATA converter plugged into it. Though I also threw it into an enclosure and tried to use it over USB. Both times the BIOS recognized it and seemed to be happy enough to try booting from it, but both times it threw an error. (And I'm sure the drive is fine; I can read it fine on another computer via the enclosure.) Maybe the error means I have a bad motherboard? Man, I really don't want to do this all over again. EDIT: In researching the problem, I have found the strangest page on the internet. Also, we seem to be booting now. For some definition of "booting"; at least we're past the bios. |
| Monday, December 28th, 2009 | |
| 12:12 pm | new computer! My motherboard died on me again this morning, and instead of attempting to keep finding new motherboards to support the increasingly-outdated other components I have, I decided to just upgrade. So I just bought myself a new computer! It'll be here in a couple days, and it's cute and little! I got a case and a motherboard with video and a processor and some RAM and some adapters to hook up my existing HD and CD drive. Whee! I'm almost excited enough to forget about the money it costs! |
| Friday, December 25th, 2009 | |
| 1:06 am | BOC! I think I finally got my first ever Bag of Crap. Thanks, Woot! Merry Christmas! |
| Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 | |
| 9:58 pm | confession I'm usually pretty good at acknowledging someone's obvious superiority to me in a given field. But 1% of me still can't completely let go of the idea that I could've been Nate Silver, and the only reason I'm not is because he thought of the idea for that site first and works harder than I do. This despite the fact that I only ever took one prob/stat class ever and it's by far my weakest area of math. |
| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 | |
| 11:47 pm | 20 songs I'm frustrated by all of these "best of the decade" lists that are coming out, after only 89.5% or so of the decade has passed. But then I suddenly got the urge to write a list of my favorite songs of the past 10 years. So there you go. These are the songs that came out since the end of 1999 that I liked enough to want to listen to them on repeat over and over when I first heard them, and then again months or years later. There are 20 only because that's how many there are, not because it's a round number or anything. Except that I'm omitting a bunch of covers of pre-1999 songs and, just for the sake of variety, a bunch of songs by The Decemberists: 20. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine 19. The Decemberists - California One / Youth and Beauty Brigade 18. Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams - Sullivan Lane 17. Josh Ritter - Girl In The War 16. Cold War Kids - Robbers 15. The Hold Steady - Massive Nights 14. The Decemberists - The Island 13. The Hold Steady - Southtown Girls 12. The Decemberists - Sons and Daughters 11. Reel Big Fish - Turn The Radio Off 10. The Decemberists - Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All) 9. Cold War Kids - Hair Down 8. Mates of State - The Re-Arranger 7. Erin McKeown - Aspera 6. Live - Run To The Water 5. The Felice Brothers - Radio Song 4. Beth Orton - Conceived 3. Damien Rice - Cannonball 2. The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations 1. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3 |
| Monday, December 21st, 2009 | |
| 11:23 pm | Go Giants! OK, this is weird, but for 3 straight years I'm now rooting for the New York Football Giants. If the Giants win all of their remaining games (finish the blowout tonight, beat the Panthers next week, and somehow win in Minnesota week 17), then: * The Eagles can clinch the 2-seed by winning their last two games, and * If Dallas also loses next week, to the Redskins (Go Skins!!!), then the Eagles automatically clinch the division regardless of what they do the rest of the season. Even the week 17 game against the Cowboys won't matter. Go big blue! Or whatever you Giants fans call yourselves! (And go Redskins next week too! Bounce back!) |
| 8:40 pm | Winter concerts Oh, hey, I never did my quarterly concert post, did I? Happy solstice! Wednesday December 30: Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams @ World Cafe Live Wednesday January 13: Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker @ World Cafe Live Saturday February 20: The Guthrie Family @ McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ Wednesday March 17: Natalie MacMaster @ Zellerbach Theatre Saturday April 17: Tempest and Burning Bridget Cleary @ Phoenixville, PA Well, damn, that's a rather short list, full of unfortunate timing. The only thing I'm particularly excited about is Natalie MacMaster, who might be too expensive for me. But I might potentially go to any of the non-struck-out ones, and I'd love company. Anyone in? |
| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 | |
| 9:26 pm | ugh I keep wanting to update, but either there's no time, or there's something else. * I'm sick now. A cold, I think. Though I'm never certain because I'm so hypochondriac. Pink-eye? A feverless flu? Black death? * We got almost two feet of snow yesterday. Second biggest snowfall in Philly history. It's fun, though I haven't really been out to play in it (see previous bullet point). I took some pictures, though. Played with my new Eye-Fi card, which was fun. * My high school reunion was a week ago yesterday. Still want to write about it. * The Eagles are in the playoffs!!! My fantasy team lost in the playoffs! Given that the former was practically a foregone conclusion and the latter was up in the air, I'm net bummed about football today. Which is weird. * I've been spending inordinate amounts of my free time learning about MythTV and choosing which hardware I'm going to buy when I buy and build my own DVR. Will probably actually do it sometime between late January and mid-spring. * My Christmas plans are finally finalized, I think. They're complicated. That's about it, I think. |
17 (65.4%)