Carded!

The most amazing place has been found. A repository to satiate your imagination. What is this mysterious place? The Seattle Public Library. Times have changed. This is NOT the library from childhood. Oh, no. It is modern, efficient and inspiring.

Libraries for All
Seattle voters in 1998 approved the largest library bond issue then ever submitted in the United States. The landmark "Libraries for All" bond measure, which proposed a $196.4 million makeover of the Library system, garnered an unprecedented 69 percent approval rate at the polls. The massive measure will double the square footage in Seattle's 22 libraries, including the building of new branches, plus also produce a new $169.2 million Central Library (including $10 million for the Temporary Central Library) to replace its worn-out 1960 predecessor.

In 2004, the central library downtown opened. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, this sculpture for public access provides a gathering place for those seeking knowledge.

Of course I'm partial to my neighborhood library in Ballard (the most amazing neighborhood ever!) Also complete with a modern design, it is within walking distance saving me time, money and lowering my carbon footprint.

RIP Seattle P-I

The final daily version of the beloved Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1863-2009) prints today. The publication will continue online with a severely reduced staff of 20 persons -- down from 165.

The disappearance of newspapers raises many questions. What next? If news becomes an online only source, what aspects of tradition will slip away? What will become of it's replacement? Reducing a staff at the rate the Seattle P-I did can only limit the amount of information presented. What gets cut and who decides?

Seattle is an amazingly culturally rich community. The P-I served as only one source for information. The intelligent, critical reader uses many sources to form an opinion. With papers disappearing one by one, could be we suffocating ourselves from independent thought? Not likely, but the paradigm is certainly shifting and the future unknown.

Getting Stoned with Rosetta

So today marks an very important day. I am learning German. Rosetta Stone offers their course on CD-ROM at a price most nomads, like myself, can't afford. However, they do offer an online subscription for the same materials at half the cost! Naturally, I bought it.

The Rosetta experience uses full immersion -- visual and contextual clues leading to mastery. The premise, they suggest, is the same as when we learned our first language. I'm so drawn into the language that the slow pace at which it moves doesn't seem to affect me.

My goal: Six-months from today I desire enough fluency to spend some quality time in the town I love so much: Salzburg, Austria. And, of course, to throw back a few beers.

Mmmm....beer. Let's bookmark this thought until we can make a proper toast at that awesome beer place in Fremont.

The Nerve

Trekking across the country on an airplane can be filled with, well, a lot of crap. So, it was on this earlier evening's journey that I suddenly was inspired to write about nerves. How people get on our nerves and why is it it rarely seems that someone's behavior soothes our nerves. And then somewhere along my path of many travels, I started hearing good folk retort "You're getting on my last nerve."

The Last Nerve. What is that? The final one. What happens next with no more nerves to get on?

It could just be the last nerve is merely the other end of the thread one might be hanging on.

Are the last nerve and wits end somehow interrelated? Those phrases sometimes appear interchangeable. Maybe one arrives at the wits end before the last nerve. Kind of like a warning prior to the trigger being pulled.

Or, perhaps, it's me annoyed at someone's distinguishing bodily function because I only slept 3 hours last night. I don't care to listen to a man's obnoxious cough or the flight attendant's inaccurate and rather laborious announcement of how we are about to land in Chicago. We are headed to Dallas.

Happy New Year!

Ok, so it's been nearly a year. Let's call it an extended hiatus and toast to the return of reading.

text now, talk ever?

As we near the big Vday, loved ones will share their status quo of commitment through trinkets, baubles and chocolate. But it is through communication that a successful relationship can thrive. Being single for about 8 months and having my fair share of dates, I have come to the realization that our technological advances are destroying our ability to develop and have quality human relationships.

No place is more evident of this problem than text messaging.


1. Texting is a skill. If you're not good at it, you might send the wrong message e.g., "Hi Andrew. GO"
2. Texting leads to confusion. Just like email, the impersonal method is void of voice tone, body language and immediacy. For example, someone can send you a text message, and depending on when you read it AND the mood you happen to be in at the time, you can completely misinterpret the original meaning.
3. Texting is avoidance. Why text someone when it would actually take a shorter amount of time to speak the phrase you were texting.
4. Texting is the beginning of the end for written communication. In an effort to be pithy, the written language has succumed to alternative means:
u for you. . . ur for your. . .4 for for. . .2mara for tomorrow. . .you get the idea.
5. Texting kills. Those who text while driving are idiots. Unfortunately car accidents often involve more than the driver.

I call for moratorium on text messaging in an effort to save what is natural: to be humans and for the opportunity to fully engage in meaningful communication rather than avoiding it through a series of messages.

Coke: Sniff it, Drink it. You will have it!

Happy New Year! And nothing says that better than a fizzy, syrupy Coca-Cola. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Coca-Cola museum to better acquaint myself with the tradition that is Coca-Cola. WOW! I would just like to say that they are quite proud of their product.

This world-renowned product was introduced in Atlanta, GA back in 1886. Creator John Pemberton claimed that this beverage could cure among other things, impotence. Based on my tour, I am convinced they really do believe they were the first version of Viagra or Cialis.

As my journey through the museum progresses, this becomes imminently clear as my visual senses are over-stimulated with coca-cola bottles. They are EVERYWHERE! All different shapes and sizes covered in different colored labels and of course filled with coke. Not one single can of coke to be found. Nothing but bottles.

But of course this experience comes later in the journey. The first experience is quite entertaining from a marketing and sociological perspective. After passing security, everyone is ushered into a short film. (This seems to be a growing trend – the Civil Rights Museum and the Clinton Library both begin this way.) Although the Civil Rights Museum and the Clinton Library show films to provide the viewer with some background, the Coca-Cola Museum invented the background. A cartoon in the style of Pixar was shown. Clever. What came next baffled me at the moment, but writing this here I finally get it: sex sells. The pixar-like animation had a young girl (not attractive as far as cartoons are concerned) twirling a baton in a VERY short skirt. In addition, she was sucking on a lollipop. (Why not go all the way? Have her suck down a nice bottle of cold coke.) Right, this is a family affair and they can’t be too obvious! Lollipops are innocent. Ha! Now to make matters more intense (better or worse – your perspective) she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. I kept asking myself, “Isn’t this a cartoon? Aren’t there children here?”

Suddenly, the room filled with a sweet, almost saccharine scent. Being the marketer that I am, I asked the strangers around me if they noticed it. They responded no. I asked them are they now thirsty? They responded yes, but not without the look of surprise and awe. Yes folks, Coca-Cola is on to clever research and marketing—something has had to keep them around for over 100 years. Certain smells make you thirsty. Didn’t know you could be manipulated like that did you? Something to ponder . . . .

So we leave the short film CRAVING a beverage. No water fountain in sight, museum attendees are left to wander until they find their way to the Tasting Room. Here they boast on how you can taste the different cokes of the world. Not so my discerning friends. Different orange, grape and lime flavored sodas, maybe, but no true cokes. For those reading who’ve tasted coke outside the US, you know what I mean. My favorite flavor of Coca-Cola comes from France. Well, it’s really Coca-Light (the diet equivalent). But, it’s not equal. Coke Zero is probably closer in taste, but still not quite there. Coca-Light is AMAZING in terms of having a non-caloric carbonated sweet brown fizzy beverage to guzzle. Could I get my fix? Nope. All I had to chose from were things we Americans will never hear about or see again, oh and of course, all the coca-cola products provided by your local vending machine. However, they do provide you with a parting gift: Your very own tiny glass bottle. I just wish I could have had more than just two sips before I was ushered into the gift shop to make my purchase of the 20-ouncer.