Dave Mancuso dot Com

Just a note–I’ll be traveling all day tomorrow, returning home after midnight, and then going off camping the next morning for the weekend. I’ll fill in some posts when I get back. Have a great Independence Day weekend!

I walked several miles around the downtown area last night to find a good meal, but ended up at McCormick and Schmick’s again. The appetizer was seared ahi with spicy seasonings, which means that it was sushi without the rice, seared on the outside but raw in the middle. It was awesome.

The entree was tilapia crusted with Cajun seasonings (yep, I was in the mood for spicy food last night). Again, awesome. The asparagus side vegetable was very tasty, just as on my Saturday night visit.

After dinner on the way uptown, I saw a long limo made out of a Hummer. Wow.

Then I checked out a reception that 3COM put up in the Westin hotel. Nice party–good people. And I won a 3COM network jack, the NJ90 four port wallplate switch!

After that I went to check out the Animatrix–they had a private screening for NECC attendees. We saw three of the Animatrix animated shorts and then had a question and answer session with the Animatrix producer (and head of AOL/Time/Warner Animation), Ken Duer. AOL/Time-Warner gave us all gift bags with The Matrix:Reloaded Soundtrack too. The animated video shorts were good–nothing I’d ever let my kids see, but good. Anyone who thinks cartoons are for kids should watch these, but be aware that some of them are quite violent.

I spent the day yesterday being annoyed that there weren’t more of me to see all the sessions I wanted to attend.

I did get to talk to Jamie McKenzie a bit after his two presentations–that was cool. He was a superintendent in Pennsylvania until he got fed up and walked out one day. He lives out here in Washington state now and has made an incredible name for himself in educational technology. I particularly liked one exchange during his presentation:

Audience Guy (with an obvious axe to grind): “What do you think about getting more corporations to give schools their three year old computers? Should we push for that as a nation?”

McKenzie: “Well, it’s a terrible idea. These corporations foisting these old computers on schools–the repair and upkeep alone costs more than it’s worth. Kids need new technology, not old junk.”

Audience Guy (taken aback and now angry): “Well, how much power do you need, anyway? What would you need for just writing letters?”

McKenzie: “An Alphasmart. Buy an Alphasmart. That’d be a heck of a lot better than dumping an old junker on the class that can’t be supported. But hey, let’s have a drink later and talk about it! We obviously have diffeent opinions, but we can always knock it back and forth later.”

Amen. One of the toughest things in my job is finding gentle ways to tell people that something won’t work. My strategy is to not say no, but to give people a “different yes.” McKenzie liked that tactic a lot. It works well for me so far.

He also told us (several times) that we must ask for wild salmon in restaurants to get Pacific Northwest salmon. Otherwise you get farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

I went to a reception last night with N2H2, the BESS people. They had a nice get-together at Gameworks in Seattle. We got food, a couple of drink tickets, and an unlimited play card for all the games. I talked to them for a while. They’re very proud of the fact that they keep their database as open as possible while locking down what they have to. I run into BESS blockage all the time, but I understand the fence they balance on.

Sadly, my unlimited play card is probably wasted on me. I spent most of my time in the “classic” section, which is a small room with games like Pac-Man, Frogger, Missile Command, etc. I tried some of the other games, but I was just really bad at them. Oh well.

Frank Miller’s Batman:The Dark Knight in the ’80s had an older Batman–Bruce Wayne had stopped for ten years, but was compelled to take up the mantle again. This Batman was different. He didn’t have the time for niceties anymore–life was too short. His methods were more direct, less subtle–some said more abrasive. He was even more controversial than before, because he couldn’t afford to take the smooth route anymore–things were too important and time was too precious. Still a hero, but reality altered his methods of operation.

I kinda think that’s a bit like Dave Winer since his heart op last year. It’s none of my business really, but he seems like he doesn’t have the time to spend being “noble” while BOGU, as he puts it. It seems like life’s just too short not to tell it like it is. That’s not a bad thing, but it does seem to make him more of a lightning rod for attacks, which is sad.

I just seem to get this impression from reading Scripting News over the last couple of years. I could certainly be wrong–my wife might tell you that being wrong is my strongest trait. 🙂

I had dinner Saturday night at McCormick & Schmick’s. Highly recommended, although it’s high teens to low twenties per entree. After that fine seafood, the dinner Sunday night at another restaurant was distinctively less tasty.

I saw The Matrix:Reloaded last night–I was prepared by my brother to pay close attention, so I got a lot out of it. It was awesome, but then I like character and metaphysics-driven movies more than anyone I know. I’d meant to see the movie Saturday night, but my brain made me finish the new Harry Potter book I’d started on the plane that morning. I’m still very much a slave to reading–877 pages in one day.

After the movie last night, I walked outside and looked up Pine Street to see police lights flashing. I walked up the street to find three police cars and a paddywagon, and three cars in a post-crash scenario. Why so many police? Apparently the woman who caused the crash was wildly driving and then got out of the car and tried to get away. When someone tried to take her keys from her, she started raving and trying to attack people. the police arrested her, “strapped her to a board” and took her away.

I love the city.

Tangent: when Brad, Mike, Joe, and I were in New York City a couple of years ago, we saw a fourth floor air conditioner fall out of its window and crash onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing hordes of passersby. We could have sworn someone was hit and seriously hurt (the crowd was that thick), but when the dust cleared, no one was lying there. The air conditioner actually bounced and tumbled into the gutter–it had that much ft/sec squared force.

In light of the last few years, President Bush has a very fine line to walk regarding America’s leadership in the world amid charges of empire-building. The Seattle Times had a good editorial this morning about this balancing act from a former official in the Reagan administration.

Want to stop a chunk of your telemarketer calls? Go to the donotcall.gov website to sign up. Well worth it.

This is a federal site. There’s a Pennsylvania equivalent that cut my sales calls to virtually nil, but I forget the web site at the moment.

(I’m trying to keep these travelogue items light to avoid weighing down the blog to unreadability–I don’t want to “Bill-ify” it, to name the first but not only person to notice the phenomenon)

I got to Dad’s place at midnight, and got up at six for my flight. To get the best fare, my trip out to Seattle went to Las Vegas for its connection–go figure. America West was good, but not serving us a meal on either flight was a ripoff (two beverage services does not compensate). I guess fare wars have killed meals for most airlines.

Almost six hours later, we landed in the Las Vegas airport. It was strange, seeing nothing for miles, and then houses and a city in the middle of nowhere. In the airport, they really did have slot machines in the terminal, something I’d joked about the day before. I belatedly realized that my friend Fran lived right in town somewhere, but my layover was only forty minutes, so I just silently toasted him with my Diet Coke…

As we flew out of Las Vegas to Seattle, I saw brown desert and mountains as far as the horizon, broken only by small threads of long white road far apart.

After my flight to Seattle, I moved down to baggage claim. On my way down the escalator it gave a great lurch and crash, and pitched us all forward as it stopped dead. It never started up again. Bad omen? I don’t believe in them, but it was pretty weird.

On the bus into the city, we saw the cruise ship Star Princess at dock. I’ve never seen a ship that big. It looked like a twelve story high rise building turned on its side and floated in the water.

More tomorrow…

We went to the Forum in Harrisburg to see Alyssa’s dance recital tonight. She was great and she had a great time. It was her first (she’s five), and I was definitely reminded of a certain sister of mine’s recital of, um, just a few years ago. 🙂

If you’ve never been to The Forum by the way, it’s a pretty cool place. It’s a large, round Greek building next to the State Capitol building. The ceiling is painted like the Sistine Chapel with all the constellations in their Greek forms, with lit five-pointed stars all over. I got to ask Drew “Where’s the crab? Where’s the bear?” and others. He loved it.

Unfortunately, the show was so long that I had to leave at intermission. Alyssa was finished dancing, but it would’ve been nice to see the whole thing–she stayed with Mommy and Drew for the rest of the show.

But I left for Philly and a plane to Seattle in the morning.