greymatters

Most folks reading this were at the wedding anyway, but that's part of what made it special. It was great to see so many dear friends in one place, some of them arriving from distant and cultureless locales. ert and aerynne threw a fab party and a ceremony heavy with meaning. I particularly liked how they integrated their community into all aspects of the wedding. Hurrah for all!

Photo credit "bob and sharon"

There's an article in some wedding industry magazine about how service providers can spot an "alternabride". This is an important ID to make, because alternabrides don't spend nearly as much money as their fairytale-struck sisters. The alternabride is "more interested in the success of the marriage than the success of the wedding." How dare she! Doesn't she realize she has an entire market segment to support?

( love is more than striking a pose )

Mazel tov, boys!

When knox and vic announced their engagement, the wedding felt infinitely far away. Suddenly, I'm having an extended breakfast with them in West Seattle, being warned to expect an unholy amount of Madonna at the ceremony. It comes with the territory, I suppose.

( I want my lawnchair back! )

My plan was to drive north and camp tonight, but we're far too wiped. We improvise a barbecue with heavy input from the garden and brave our hosts' kitten again. Will our hosts recover enough sleep hours to match their ambitious plans? Stay tuned....

The morning bike commute now takes place in a cloud of exhaled fog. Summer is more-or-less over and time has come to take stock. This year saw a major realignment of my usual activities, as the new kayak crowded out just about everything else. Is there some way to double the number of weekends in these three months? Covering Memorial Day through September 9:

	Kayaking	10 trips	Ringo the sea kayak saw a lot of action: Isles of Shoals, Martha's Vineyard, Boston Harbor (north), Lake Winnepesaukee, Spy Pond (twice), Boston Harbor (middle) Newport RI, Thatcher Island, and Boston Harbor (south). On the downside, the whitewater boat never got wet once!
	Biking	~750 miles	Mostly commuting, but a few medium-length trips. New bike not yet arrived.
	Camping	1	...and it's car camping too. May not count at all.
	Weddings	2	The nuptual phase of my social network is slowing down, with only two this summer, featuring croquet and cider donuts.
	Hiking	4	Relaxed, with only one 4k peak: Mt Pemigewasett, Mt Israel, Camel's Hump (VT4k), and Old Rag.
	Singing	1.5	Usually, I attend a few of the MasterWorks Chorale's summer sings, but merely bagged a single one this year. At least the Mozart Requiem is a good one to choose, if one must. I also made it out to Tanglewood to hear fanw and annacallahan sing Faust, but attribute a half-credit only since it was a rehearsal and not a full performance. (certainly not due to lack of quality!)
	Trips	3	Hawaii San Diego Washington
	Lobster	2	Have I really only consumed 2 lobsters this summer? This must be fixed, and fast.
	Sailing	5	It seemed like the good wind and my schedule never really meshed. I did grin my way through one perfect afternoon in a tiny Laser with 25kt gusts.
	Climbing	0	Lots of gym climbing, but I never got onto actual rock once this summer.
	Nothing	1	I had one weekend this summer where I sat on my fat ass and did nothing but wach movies. Probably a result of excessive-light sleep-deprivation-fueled inverse-SAD.

We're experiencing technical difficulties here at Wolftone Central. Updates will be sparse until the home computer is back on its feet.



I just wanted to give props to gearratios on his recent wedding. It was one of the best examples I have seen of combining the traditional (where appropriate) and the truly personal (where possible). There were too many thoughtful details to mention all of them, but I feel he deserves a lifetime achievement award of some sort for eschewing the usual inedible wedding cake for locally-produced cider donuts! (From my favorite orchard, no less.) Also, check out his blog for amazing photos of his hiking-bachelor-party.

In other news, remember how I was complaining loudly about the lack of an iPhone SDK way before all the cool kids were doing it? I'm still unhappy with Steve's disingenuous claim that AJAX means we don't need one. But rather than sit in the dark and bitch, I decided to start developing some of my most-needed apps as static JavaScript-driven web pages. First up: a fairly nifty cribbage scorekeeper. I think I like it more than using an old-fashioned pegboard.

Is there a place where I can post and version my source code? I'd rather not do it from my personal web server since it is traffic limited. Sourceforge.net is a bit heavyweight for what I'm trying to accomplish, plus I'd have to submit my code as documentation(!). I'm imagining that some iPhone app aggregation (and maybe even hosting) service will appear soon, but I don't see anything specific yet.