the home front

Sun - August 7, 2005

Toro Nagashi: annual Hiroshima memorial at Green Lake

We brought our niece, Emiri (pictured below, wearing a pink shirt) who's visiting from Japan this month, to Green Lake last night for this summer's annual memorial Toro Nagashi (floating lantern) Festival.

There were a lot of amateur photographers there, myself included, here are a few samples of the snapshots I took as the sun was setting over Green Lake. It's a lovely event, I'd like to go again next year.
spa
spac

more info about this Japanese Tradition of floating lanterns

Info about Seattle's Toro Nagashi Festival

An interesting article about the events leading up to August 6th, "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb: Sixty years after Hiroshima, we now have the secret intercepts that shaped his decision. " by Richard B. Frank, a historian of World War II, and the author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. I found this article few nights before attending the Toro Nagashi Festival, and found it compelling reading.

A Hiroshima Archive maintained by Lewis & Clark College , Portland Oregon, U.S.A.

Posted at 04:41 PM

Tue - July 5, 2005

"Boom city is the motherland of fireworks"

Our friends and neighbors Hubbard and Karen & kids joined us for a holiday celebration and BBQ pork later in the afternoon.

"Boom City is the Motherland..." is a direct quote from a coffee-stand girl in Marysville, Washington when giving us directions to the Tulalip Indian Reservation to buy Fireworks.

Boom City is located an hour north of Seattle on the Tualip Indian reservation. It covers an area about the size of a city block and hosts 178 firework stands. Cherry bombs, rockets, artillery, m-80s and more are available ...Boom City is a carnival of pyrotechnics.

Posted at 01:16 AM

Mon - July 4, 2005

Annual 4th of July smoked pork butt

Yes, it's that time of year again. Smoking began at eleven thirty Pacific Daylight time. The wood chips are in the bowl.
The pork shoulder roast isn't visible because it's inside the smoker, and we don't want to disturb it.

In the saucepan on the left is the marinade. Ingredients include:
cider vinegar, molasses, chopped onion, and strong coffee.
Pictured on the right are the seasoned, pre-smoked chicken wings.

Smoking will continue until 4:00 p.m....stay tuned...

Posted at 01:05 PM

Sun - April 10, 2005

garota de ipanema

This item in CNN's Newsmaker...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The family of the late legendary Brazilian bossa nova guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim has filed a breach of contract and royalties lawsuit alleging that the rights to many of his famous songs have been wrongly assigned to those who translated them into English....

The lawsuit alleges that worldwide copyrights to many of Jobim's compositions were fraudulently assigned after his death to the man who translated the original Portuguese lyrics into English. It said Universal Studios and its publishing groups had never owned the copyright to the songs and no right to allocate the rights to anyone else. The family wants the copyrights back, along with unspecified damages.

(read the full article here)

...got me thinking about Girl from Ipanema, a song I listen to almost daily, since I succumbed to the fad and finally got iPod-ized. Even before my listening habits went portable, I enjoyed this song regularly, finding pleasure in it each time I hear it. I've marveled at the easy perfection of this classic song, the most enduring emblem of the golden age of Bossa Nova, it's a masterpiece. It's arguably the most beautiful pop song ever recorded.

Also, because the "Girl" is a real person. There's an interesting mix of fact, fiction, and mythology surrounding the composition of this song. I've had a half-remembered version of this story in my head for a long time. This weekend, I looked it up. If you've ever wondered about the origins of this song, here's the scoop:

▪ Story

▪ The legend

▪ The truth

▪ Lyrics in Portuguese by Vinícius de Moraes

▪ Literal translation into English

▪ Lyrics in English by Norman Gimbel

▪ More

The song?

Listen to The Girl from Ipanema, courtesy of El web de la Tuna

The location? In 1962, it was called Bar Veloso

It's now called "BAR GAROTA DE IPANEMA"

The girl? Yep. She's real.

From Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, by Ruy Castro

"As for the famous girl, Jobim and Vinícius did in fact see her pass by as they sat in the Veloso bar, during the winter of 1962— not just once, but several times, and not always on her way to the beach but also on her way to school, to the dressmaker, and even to the dentist. Mostly because Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, better known as Helô, who was eighteen years of age, five feet, eight inches tall, with green eyes and long, flowing black hair, lived in Rua Montenegro and was already the object of much admiration among patrons of the Veloso, where she would frequently stop to buy cigarettes for her mother—and leave to a cacophony of wolf-whistles."

This is her:

And this is her today:

She even has her own web page.

most of the info

Courtesy of Sprezzatura.net

Posted at 02:49 PM

Tue - November 23, 2004

rather not say

I never thought about this until this week, but maybe it's true...

...a friend noticed that as I get older, he thinks I look increasingly like Dan Rather. What do you think?

Posted at 02:24 PM

Wed - November 10, 2004

Northern lights make local appearance

While the aurora borealis (northern lights) aren't a stranger to the skies over Seattle, a brilliant eight-hour display as occurred on Sunday night/Monday morning isn't usual. That night, people in North America as far south as Oklahoma and the Carolinas saw the aurora as a result of a major geomagnetic storm. While that storm has diminished, there is still a chance to see the northern lights tonight in the northern tier of the lower 48 states, as well as in Canada and Alaska.

The Seattle Times has a slideshow of aurora pictures taken on Nov. 7 from around the US here. More pictures are here at spaceweather.com.

Thanks to PacificViews.org

note to self: I should have looked outside...instead of being inside, playing video games.

Posted at 11:49 AM

Sat - September 25, 2004

update

I resolved the issue of my web host being cyber-spooked on my end, by simply restoring the original entry page (the only one affected) so if you visit michaeldougan.com it's back to normal.

I still have a copy of the way it looked for a few hours this morning, before I fixed it.

I still haven't figured out if it was a genuine political statement, or an opportunistic fake. If anyone reading this has seen anything similar happen to other websites, or recognizes any of the non-English text that appears on the page, contact me, I'd be curious to know.

Posted at 07:25 PM

Wed - July 28, 2004

the Yokohama four

Blogging will be light for the next few weeks, we have family in town for an extended stay. Left to right is Papa, Mama, Emiri, our niece, and wife Chizuko, waiting for our table at Ray's Boathouse, a Seattle institution. More family members to come early next month (Emiri's mom and dad are still in Yokohama) and more pictures to come, too.

Posted at 12:41 AM

Mon - June 21, 2004

A chicken that drinks and smokes

Headless hen pictured in vertical roasting position. My first encounter with poultry that drinks, smokes, and still sits up straight.

Along with the Texas-style smoker that I've been enjoying for the last two summers, here's a new gadget; a vertical chicken roaster. A cylinder in the middle of the pan supports the chicken upright. Beer (or wine, or any liquid) is stored in the cylinder to keep the hen from drying out during the smoking process.

I prefer apple or alder, but this weekend I used hickory wood for the smoking. The bird is marinated and seasoned, then grilled and smoked for an hour and a half. The outer tray holds additional items to be roasted, I included red potatoes, carrots, onions, and mushrooms, covered with olive oil, salt, and pepper. (it's shown above, nude and not yet seasoned, and below, seasoned, smoked, with its legs ripped off and eaten) A few hours later, the hen emerged pleasantly drunk and thoroughly smoked. Basted with Carolina-style BBQ sauce, it tasted great.

Posted at 01:52 AM

Fri - April 30, 2004

the coolest invention on earth

My favorite appliance. Just installed it. Basking in cool air. Couldn't be happier.

Why would someone in Seattle need an air conditioner? In April?

When we built this studio/workshop a year ago, I quickly learned what its design flaw is. Small, extremely well-insulated, high cielings, small windows, filled with computer equipment and high-intensity lights, it's a virtual pizza oven. When it's 75 degrees outside, it's 95 degrees inside. Even when it cools down at night, outside, it stays hot inside. I had three fans going last summer, and still resisted getting an air-conditioner. This year, I didn't wait for summer. I got it three weeks ago. I parked the box next to my desk and waited for a hot day (it's 80 degrees today, warm by Seattle standards) then ripped the box open and installed it. As we used to say in Texas, boy howdy! Sure is cool in here.

Posted at 07:07 PM

Sun - April 4, 2004

Unlocking the mystery: His and Hers

This sounds like one of those bad observational comedy routines we heard a lot of in the '80s, but I couldn't help it:

Have you ever noticed the difference between men's key chains and women's key chains? One of these is my wife's key chain, one is mine.

Can you tell which is which?

Posted at 05:00 PM

Fri - March 12, 2004

wireless in seattle

Since going wireless and mobile at the same time, it's amazing how many free hotspots I've noticed in my neighborhood, they've been here but I didn't see them before. This is my first moblog upload, or mobile blog entry. The place I'm hanging out at the moment is Cafe Maree. It's a short walk from my house.

(a snapshot of the entrance of my new office)

Another few blocks from home is Zoka, a coffee joint that also serves free bandwidth with their java and baked goods. Though the photograph is small, Zoka is larger and better-known, in both the coffee world and the wireless community. Can't walk in the place without tripping over a laptop, and it's always packed with students using the place as a library.

(my other new office)

Yesterday I sat outside Zoka, and opened a connection instantly. I had several appear. That block is so hot, I saw six individual broadcasters show up in my list of available servers, at least two of them were free. One was from a bar across the street. The others appeared to be individuals who live in apartments nearby.

This is all new to me. Googling "Seattle" and "wireless", I learned that there's a local movement to make the airwaves free.

A clip from a recent issue of the Seattle Weekly :

The revolution may be wireless
Northwest networkers work toward a complete communications grid, minus the corporate interest.

"...techie sophisticates who are building their own free community wireless networks, networks which, coincidentally, share some open radio frequencies with hams.

These networkers string their tin-can network--sans string but including some real cans--from apartment to storefront to rooftop for no better reason than because they can and because it's cool. The fact that it's useful, helps the public good by expanding free access, lets them meet their neighbors ("Hi, I'm running a free network"), and might even put the screws to cell companies and telco giants..."

That's all for now...

Reporting from Cafe Maree where I have a giant coffee and a folder full of check stubs, I'm supposed to be working on my taxes...

Posted at 07:25 PM

Tue - January 6, 2004

the big snow

This doesn't happen very often. When it does happen, it usually turns to rain, and melts in a day or two, so if you blink, you'll miss it. Snow is rare enough, snow that accumulates multiple inches is rarer, last time was 1996! This is my truck, buried under snow, and a view from the window of my studio.

Posted at 12:56 PM

Wed - December 10, 2003

citizenship 101

My friend Michael Cozzi just became a U.S. citizen!

The official ceremony was less casual than I'd promised. I had told him all he had to do was raise his right hand, agree with whatever they said, and they'd hand him a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes, a diver's license, a box of assorted firearms, and a fresh-baked apple pie. Okay, I lied. Apparently, all they gave him was this piece of paper. Welcome Michael!