elkit in wonderland

Grease Is The Word Is The Word Is The Word, It's Got Groove, It's Got Meaning

Did I really say that my word for 2008 was not going to be "bacon"?

The Specialists (those fine gentlemen I work with) gave me a Christmas gift: a membership in the Bacon of the Month Club.

And It Burns, Burns, Burns

LA County Water dropping helicopter
dropping water on the Malibu wild fire 
  Originally uploaded by Laphoto1

Man oh man, I am glad that the Lick Fire last month got nowhere near San Jose. I am thinking of my friends farther south - Lin and Joel are perilously close to the fires in Southern California - and am hoping they're safe.

The Year Of The Cat

  My Overlord 
  Originally uploaded by elkit

Where I live, it's always the year of the cat. Ms. Willow owns me outright. I took this picture this morning, and sized it for the desktop of my MacBook Pro. Puts a smile on my face every time I look at it.

Everybody's Working For The Weekend

  All the colors of the farmers market 
  Originally uploaded by elkit

I've had a very productive weekend. I shopped the farmers market (this bowlful is less than a third of my bounty; most of the rest is in the fridge, and some already in my tummy). In the afternoon, I stopped at my favorite German butcher shop, Dittmers, where I usually go during the week. But they have a knife sharpening service once a month, and I'd finally remembered to mark the date on my calendar. Man oh man, my kitchen knives are SHARP now! I have been very very careful with my fingers, following Rule Number One: When operating a knife, do NOT take your eyes off it! I also bought a HUGE porkloin at Dittmer's and roasted it for dinner. Holly and Sean and I managed to eat about a third of it. Next week will be very porky. (You probably know that this is not a complaint.)

Today was a day for cleaning and doing laundry and gardening and prepping snacks for the workweek (I've made a habit of packing a lunch) ... and for reading the first half of the last Harry Potter book. I could finish it tonight, but I don't want to rush through it.

Give Love, And Keep Blood Between Brothers

My friend Silvia has had a rough month:

First, a pitbull attacks her granddaughter in the stroller. Silvia bodychecked him, the pit bull decided to bite down on Silvia's boyfriend's dog instead.

And last Friday, her daughter Sarah's ex-boyfriend (the aforementioned granddaughter's father) confronts Sarah, punches her in the face, breaks her jaw and knocks out several of her teeth. And then, to add insult to injury, they give her the runaround at Kaiser.

Silvia, I wish Sarah a swift and good recovery, and all of you an entireless bloodless and non-violent future.

Viva Las Vegas!

Silvia and I just booked a weekend trip to Vegas.

Vegas, baby!

We're going to see Spamalot. And we're staying at the oldest continuously operating gambling structure in the United States. See you in Vegas ...

Miles and Miles of Texas

"So, Elke, what was the highlight of your trip?" asks Barbara over Chinese barbecue lunch.

Gawd, there were so many ... no way can I just pick one. I counted off a few, and now that I've had more time to think about it, here's those, and a few more:

- when the plane took off in San Jose, I followed along above 87, the Alma exit, Willow Street ... and sure enough, there was my house! First time I've seen it from the air.

- getting off the plane at Austin Bergstrom Airport and being greeted by the Salt Lick and Amy's Ice Cream right out of the gate.

- Breakfast/lunch at Las Manitas on Congress Avenue. They have a homey feeling, and the bestest corn tortillas - white and gritty and almost crunchy.

- accidental sushi dinner at Maiko, when I was looking for Jeff and Mark, and wandered into the wrong place. I'd read that Betsy's Bar was right next to Hi/Lo. How I could confuse a sushi bar with Betsy's, I will never know, but it was a wonderful error to make. I had hamachi carpaccio and a "Texas surf'n'turf roll": sushi filled with shrimp and mango, and topped with kobe beef. (First time I've ever had Kobe beef.)

- staying with Jeff and Barbara and Ellen. Barbara said I was the best guest ever. (For the record: they are the best hosts.) I think we're just a happy match: they give me a key and let me loose, no muss, no fuss.

- Kathy Sierra's "Why are you here?" SxSWi opening remarks. (Here's the mp3.)

- Will Wright's one-million-miles-an-hour speech on storytelling. (Here are excerpts.)

- Alex Steffen's ideas for "greening your geek". I wish this was posted ... great presentation! Meanwhile, check out WorldChanging, where he's the editor.

- Thunderstorms! Glorious light and sound effects, and lots of rain.

- Beautiful sunny spring weather.

- going to the Ducati party at Hi/Lo and Betsy's Bar, and getting to see Jeff's friend Mark, and meeting his Ducati posse. (Mark is the VP at Mototek, Austin's Ducati dealership.) One of many reasons I like Jeff so much, and why I like Austin so much, is how friendly people are. Californians are not bad, but Austinites are great. I made several new friends on this trip, and I am already looking forward to see them again.

- drinking margaritas with Todd and Carol and Craig, toasting to recent management changes that we are all very happy about.

- a long lunch with my Apple pardner in crime and counterpart Bryant, who reigned over French as I presided over German. Now he's king of the world, expanding out in the outer boroughs of the universe.

- Oreo's ice cream topped with strawberries at Amy's.

- grocery-shopping at Whole Foods headquarters. It is HUUUUUUGE. And they have everything. And then some.

- Finding a 5 CD Jacques Brel box set at Waterloo Records.

- Riding to San Antonio with Jeff to drop off his daughter Ellen at his parents', listening to Tim Curry clearly enjoying his narration of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and driving back in the pouringest rain I have seen this year.

- the Liberty Bar. Lo and behold. (Yes, it really is that crooked and tilted.)

- seeing a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse for the very first time, falling in love at first sight with their concept and execution of serving food and drink, and playing the funkiest clips in between movies.

- shopping and hanging out at Tesoros, the store that has such great folk art.

- Carne Guisada and a margarita at Güero's. (Güero, I gather, means "Blondie".)

- leisurely strolling around the brand new mall, The Domain, at Braker Lane right of the Mopac, checking out the new Apple Store, where I had the most high-tech shopping experience ever. There are no registers. The sales people all carry credit readers, and you just walk up to someone with your merchandise in hand, and they ring you up. So I just HAD TO buy something. I perused the iPod cases, and picked out the pretty Japanese Kimono case. Verified that it would fit my 80GB iPod, and forked over my credit card. It didn't occur to me until afterwards that I didn't even have to sign anything. "Would you like your receipt emailed to you?" asked the sales lady. I nodded yes and gave her my email address, and when I got home, there it was ... no paper involved at all. How nifty is that?

I Just Wanna Be Your Dawg

PeeWee, aka Bat Boy
Originally uploaded by elkit.

Here's a bit of Friday dingo blogging, for arse poetica.

This is PeeWee. He's not really a dingo - well, actually, I don't really know for sure. He's a mutt, very curious, alert, and friendly. I think he may be part Mexican free-tail bat. ;-)

You Try To Be A Lady, But You're Walking Like a Sour Kraut (11, 12/52)

Bumped into Roxanne at SXSW yesterday - or rather, she stopped to say hi as I was hanging out with Tim and Sarah and Liz - and I proudly relayed that I had read 44 books last year, and was going for 52 books again this year.

I got this idea from her - she listed her read books at the end of 2005, so I went for it in 2006, and even though I fell a tad short of my goal, I think I made more headway than I would have if I hadn't tracked it at all. And I am absolutely going for it again this year. And I should tell about two more books I have read:

"Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need" was recommended by Lisa. Blake Snyder, the writer, is actually here at SXSW, but I have a schedule conflict, and since I am not a screenwriter, I am going to skip it. So why am I reading a book on screenwriting if I am not a screenwriter? Two reasons: I will probably participate in "Scriptfrenzy", NaNoWriMo's screenwriting event in June. And, like I said, Lisa recommended it. She said it helped her structure and improve the first draft of her last novel, The Overworld. I got several good things out of Save the Cat, because it's really about storytelling. And whether you tell the story in a novel, a joke, or a screenplay, is really secondary.

A friend of mine works for a German company, and they gave her "The Xenophobe's Guide to the Germans" to help her understand her new coworkers. It's full of common stereotypes - and you know what? They're all true! I reocgnized myself in almost everything, and kept cracking up, reading the sections about Germans on the beach, Germans being self-righteous, Germans educating and lecturing others, pointing out where they themselves are right, and rubbing in how others are wrong. There's a whole series of these Xenophobe's guides, and I will probably buy a few more. Great and very entertaining tool for anybody who deals with other-cultured people regularly.

Next up ... the three paperbacks that the BookPeople sold me.

Meet de Boys on da Battlefront

Just three bloggers at tonight's meeting - moi, Silvia and Jon. The last couple of meetings have been rather lightly attended, and I think I'm going to scale back to one monthly meeting again.

That's not to say we didn't have a good time tonight - au contraire, it was nice being just the three of us, all in the same conversation. (How's that for a novel concept?) We talked about movies, books and reading, music, and about having children and expecting a grandchild (a topic which Jon and I know nothing about).