At work today I was handed a $20 bill with [www.wheresgeorge.com](http://www.wheresgeorge.com) printed on the back. I love Where’s George but hadn’t been there or seen a marked bill in a while.
I logged on and entered the bill and was quite surprised when I saw the [results page](http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php?key=a749bf6f9a094bcbf295477b3408fa1e94c7ab93e2defa04).
I love coincidences like that!
fff|ggg|grab_bag/P1040126|The Desk|ggg|fff
Tonight when I got home from work, I did some really, REALLY exciting stuff. First, I finished ripping the last of our CD collection into iTunes. Then, I moved all of our physical CD collection up to the attic. After that, I sorted out the piles of bills, receipts, and mail that have been collecting on the computer desk. I shredded some stuff that needed to be shredded, filed some stuff that needed to be filed, and recycled some stuff that needed to be recycled. Then, I rearranged the items on the top of the computer desk. And finally, I took a photo of it all!
Hey Mr. Farnham, how’s that for spicing up my life? Oh yeah, you can’t beat the excitement.
I’m sure someone has made this observation before, but I’ve always been intrigued that three well-known personalities of the internet age share the same first and last initials, JZ:
***Jeremy Zawodny|http://jeremy.zawodny.com/***, a Yahoo! employee since December of 1999. He is currently a MySQL guru on Yahoo!’s platform engineering team.
***Jamie Zawinski|http://www.jwz.org/***, one of the most important contributors to Mozilla and Netscape, and currently proprietor of the ***DNA Lounge|http://www.dnalounge.com/*** in San Francisco.
***Jeffrey Zeldman|http://www.zeldman.com/***, web standards guru and web designer extraordinaire. Founded ***Happy Cog Studios|http://www.happycog.com/***. I received one of his books as a Christmas gift.
I wonder what connections these guys have, if any? I’ve only found ***one page|http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/05/20/defeatingIE5*** so far that has all three names on it. If the three JZ’s got together in one room, would the Internet implode? Perhaps they have been together in one room – anyone know? Am I missing any JZ’s? Will any of the JZ’s actually find this post? We shall see. 🙂
Well, we gave you the opportunity to ask us anything. We got some good questions, a few that really made us think, and now we’re ready to answer them!
1. “If Jimmy cracks corn and nobody cares, then why does he keep doing it?” -JSB
Becky & Peter: “I would like to think that Jimmy is so self confident in his choice of activity that it doesn’t bother him that no one else cares. He enjoys it and that’s enough for him.”
2. “What is so great about the song My Wild Irish Rose?” -MAL
Becky: “It’s the descant. That’s what makes it cool.”
3. “Have you ever eaten plum puffs?” – MAL
Becky: “Yes!” Peter: “What’s a plum puff?”
4. “How many similarities are there between the Sound of Music and Anne of Avonlea?” – MAL
Becky: “A lot – but you’ll have to come and watch them with me to find out!” Peter: “They’re both movies I most likely would not have watched had I not met Becky.”
5. “Why does Mr. Cleasby wear red pants? Why did Mr. Buddington wear a red jacket?” – MAL
Becky: “One day, in 1974, the suit was on sale at Brickman’s and each could only afford to buy half.”
6. “Do you think the world would be a better place if everyone ate your mother’s (or mother-in-law depending on who’s reading this) carrot cake?” – MAL
Becky: “Definitely!” Peter: “Sadly, I don’t think I’ve ever had it… but I would probably say yes!”
7. “What is the question to the ultimate answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything? (Hint: the answer is 42.)” – AB
Becky & Peter: “We will simply quote from the book itself:” “Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?” “I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
8. “Why is carpet so expensive?” – AB
Becky: “Perhaps because the carpet makers know that you’re not going to be buying it very often, so they need to make their money on that one-time sale.”
9. “Of all the places you’ve been, and all the places you’d like to visit, what is your favorite place in the world?” – AB
Peter & Becky: “It’s hard to say what our favorite place in the world would be. There are so many wonderful places that we’ve been, or would like to go to. Here is a selection of some of our favorites: Martha’s Vineyard… San Francisco… Oregon… Andalucia… places that we enjoy traveling to and feel comfortable in.
10. “If you could go back to one moment or one day in time and do it all over again, when would it be? If you could go forward?” – AB
Peter & Becky: “This is probably a cheap answer, but we can’t think of anything that we’d want to do over again. We don’t know anything about the future, so we can’t think of any moments we’d want to go forward to.” Peter: “Except maybe for the moment when warp drive is invented. That would be cool. I’d like to meet Zefrem Cochrane, or whoever actually invents it.”
11. “How many electronic gadgets do you own? How many pencils? Do you still have any crayons lying around? Have you ever used a typewriter? How long ago?” – AB
Electronic Gadgets: 7: Apple PowerBook, Apple iPod, Palm V, Handspring Visor Edge, 2x Sanyo cell phones, Panasonic digital camera. Pencils: 12. Crayons: Becky: “Yes, I have a box of 92 colors!” Typewriter: Becky: “Yes – around 2001-2002 at bank jobs” Peter: “Yes – in the late 80’s before we had a computer, I used a typewriter for writing school reports.”
12. “What is your one favorite pastime?” – AB
Becky: “Crafting in general.” Peter: “Computers in general.”
13. “What if the “Hokey Pokey” is really what it’s all about?” – JSB
Becky & Peter: “Hooray! If the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about, then we’ve got it easy! Heck, an integral part of the song is the INSTRUCTIONS for doing the Hokey Pokey. So you wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again.”
14. “If you were able to move to any country in the world, which one would you choose? Once there, would you live in a city? The country? Suburbia? Would you want a house? Apartment? Would you try to find equivalents of your current jobs in your new location or would you try something new?” – JSB
Peter and Becky: “As with many questions, there are many places we might choose… but one example might be Switzerland. (P: I’ve never been there, so I’m taking Becky’s word that it’s as nice as she says.) We would probably like to live in a small town, but not too far from a city. Definitely in a house. Becky would like to find a position as an English-language tour guide, sort of doing what she’s doing now… only in Switzerland. Peter might take the tourist opportunities and start some kind of photography business.”
15: “What is the most powerful evidence of God in your life?” – AB
Peter and Becky: “The fact that we’re able to be content with life, in a world that is filled with discontent.”
Thanks for all of the questions… we hope that you find our answers interesting, or at least amusing. Feel free to add more questions to ***the original post|http://prwdot.org/archives/002592.html***, and we might answer them periodically!
No, really. Ask us anything. Simply leave a comment on this post, with as many questions as you would like to ask us. If you think of another question later, feel free to add another comment. You can address your questions to just one of us, or both of us together. You can ask questions specifically about us, or any topic you’d like us to talk about. You can even ask us to take photos of things, kind of like ***Nikkiana did in her recent photo meme|http://www.everytomorrow.org/archives/2005/06/07/photo-meme-pt-2/***. We will most likely leave this post up for a while, and then write up another post with the answers.* That is, assuming there are any questions.
Remember, there are no stupid questions… but our answers? That’s another story.
* We’ll attempt to answer your questions as well as we’re able, but we can’t guarantee that every question will be answered.
It has happened to lots of people: your favorite local band goes big time and suddently EVERYONE loves them (but you loved them first!) or you buy a pair of shoes that are totally unique and then some star wears them and EVERYONE now has a pair… When something we love, for its uniquness or for its utility, beomes popular in the mainstream we tend to get jealous or resentful.
I have a similar story. ***Nalgene|http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/*** water bottles have been around since the 70’s and have been very popular with the hiking/camping/backpacking crowd. They are extremely durable, fairly lightweight, have a loop to hang them from your bag and are all around great.
I bought my 32 ounce, wide mouthed bottle in 1999 when I was preparing to backpack through ***The Three Sisters|http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/three_sisters.html*** in central Oregon. I discovered then what other hikers had known for decades…that this was a perfect camping water bottle. Definately worth the 5 bucks I paid for it and destined to be a fixture on my future camping trips. Upon returning to civilization (read: spring semester, 2000, Gordon College) I realized, in horror, that they had become an uber trendy way for college kids to carry water around campus! Imagine my shock. I still wanted to use it, but kept is somwhat out of sight, lest I appear to be riding the bandwagon.
Now, six years later, my bottle has seen better days… It still has the original “wolf” logo and ounce markings- but they are wearing away. The masking tape lable reading: LOWE is quickly disintegrating and I’ve had to replace the blue cap due to an unfortunate incident with the dishwasher. All in all, however, it has served me well over the years and has become a world traveler first to Bolivia and then to Russia. Who could ask for more from a water bottle.
This past weekend, my trusty Nalgene got an upgrade. I laid down $2.99 of my hard earned cash and purchased a ***splash guard|http://www.campmor.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=32128927&memberId=12500226***. This fantastic little piece of plastic slides right into the wide mouth of the bottle and keeps me from pouring half the contents right down the front of my shirt. The last few days, I have enjoyed nice dry drinking conditions, whether I’m at my desk, climbing the 5 stories of stairs in the office, or riding the commuter rail. I can only imagine how well it will work when we’re out hiking this summer.
Maybe now I’ll finally upgrade the masking tape to read: WOOD
fff|ppp|
Peter on the flight deck of the USS JFK
|ppp|fff
I had read yesterday in the Boston Globe that the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy would be [making a port of call in Boston](http://www.boston.com/ae/events/articles/2005/05/20/big_john_carries_on/), and that the Navy would be opening the ship up to for public tours. Since Becky and I are fascinated by any sort of big machine, we planned to go down to Boston today to see it. After waiting for almost two hours in line in the chilly air, and under overcast skies, we finally got to go on board the ship. The experience was terrific! There were all sorts of aircraft and other military vehicles on display, and we got to ride the giant elevators up and down from the hangar deck to the flight deck… really cool. We were quite impressed. You can see the full photo gallery [here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2005/uss_jfk/).
On an unrelated note: If you haven’t already, make sure you scroll backwards and read [Becky’s travelogue of our recent trip to Russia](http://prwdot.org/2005/05/19/there-and-back-again/). It’s got a very good summary of what we did over there, and should help explain some of the photos in [the gallery](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2005/russia/).
Thanks to His Holiness the Interim ***Pope Rob|http://samablog.robsama.com/***, I have been the recipient of ***two|http://samablog.robsama.com/?p=2295*** ***indulgences|http://samablog.robsama.com/?p=2294***, in the form of iTunes free music codes from Pepsi products. Rob is historically ***not a fan of DRM, or of giving out his credit card number to get free music|http://samablog.robsama.com/?p=2205***, and has been giving away the codes he has obtained for some time now. I’m all too happy to take advantage of his generosity, as I have absolutely no problem with Apple’s DRM scheme. I used one of the ‘indulgences’ to purchase the ***Somewhere Over The Rainbow / What A Wonderful World|http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=6920356&selectedItemId=6920352*** medley by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole… good stuff. Still trying to decide what to use the other one for.
Thanks, (Pope) Rob!
A recent trend on ***flickr|http://flickr.com/*** has been to use the annotation feature that I ***previously mentioned|http://prwdot.org/archives/002496.html*** to make notes on ***Google satellite maps|http://maps.google.com/*** of places that are memorable to you. These photos are tagged as ‘memorymap’, and Becky and I have contributed a ***few of our own|http://flickr.com/photos/peterwood/tags/memorymap/*** – for example, Becky annotated a satellite photo of Oak Bluffs, and I annotated a satellite photo of Mount Vernon (a bit grainy, though). Enjoy!
Dear Mom and Dad,
This letter is to inform you that this morning at 9:34 I was forced to open the last package of toliet paper that was given to us for Christmas. Please send more 🙂
Love,
Your Daughter
PS. The toothpaste, dishwasher detergent and canned ham are doing just fine!
PPS. I’m joking about you sending more. We’re on top of the situation!