i prefer pi

Exactly a year ago (give or take an hour or two) I met the lovely Laura Cherry for the first time at Sapporo Teriyaki in Redmond.  Okay, technically, we met in front of her building on the Microsoft campus to carpool over to dinner, but it sounds (slightly) more romantic to say that we met at a cute little teriyaki joint in town.  I didn’t know that I wanted to marry her then, but I did think that she was awfully pretty.

How do you get your family-run business to last forteen centuries? From Business Week:

Kongo Gumi’s case suggests that it’s a good idea to operate in a stable industry. Few industries could be less flighty than Buddhist temple construction. The belief system has survived for thousands of years and has many millions of adherents. With this firm foundation, Kongo had survived some tumultuous times, notably the 19th century Meiji restoration when it lost government subsidies and began building commercial buildings for the first time. But temple construction had until recently been a reliable mainstay, contributing 80% of Kongo Gumi’s $67.6 million in 2004 revenues.

An interesting problem that I’ve never had. Via the Jackson Fish blog.

Finally, after sixteen months, when you ask me what I do at Microsoft, I can tell you that I work on Microsoft® Silverlight™ and not “codename double-yew pee-eff-ee” or “a web browser plug-in” or “a secret.”

 The community site is coming at the end of April, and I’ll have some samples posted here in the next few weeks.

Check out these beautiful examples of Iranian caligraphy & typography.  Laura and I went to the Bellevue Arts Museum’s exhibition of Islamic caligraphy by Mohamed Zakariya back in January, and I enjoyed it a lot.  It’s fascinating to survey so much writing in a language that I know so little of.

Ignite Seattle! is going to host a game of Cruel 2 B Kind (”a game of benevolent assassination”) at Cal Anderson Park on April 21st.  It looks like fun, so I think that I’ll probably head over there.  Anyone else interested?  The description from Ignite Seattle:

You can sign up for Cruel 2 B Kind on the Cruel Game website. You can sign up in a team or by yourself. You should read the rules. In the days before the game the “weapons” will be announced via email and SMS. We will be playing the Booty Variant — everyone brings a piece of Booty and surrenders it when they succumb to another player. Rules will be posted around the park so that people can play even thought they didn’t formally sign-up.
The Seattle Cruel 2 B Kind sign-in will begin at 1:30PM on 4/21, the game will begin at 2PM and the game will end around 3PM. We’ll find a bar to go to or just plop down for a picnic. The playing field will have the following boundaries:

North - Denny
South - Pike
East - 12th
West - Broadway

In an interesting coincidence, I discovered the game the same day that Brady Forrest blogged about Google’s launching of MyMaps, and the screenshot used to illustrate the article is the game’s playing field.

This post was called “Books for January”, but that didn’t work out, so it was updated to “Books for February”, and now we’re well past the Ides of March, so… “Recent Books” it is.

• Watchmen (Alan Moore)
  • This is supposedly the greatest graphic novel of our time. Very clear influences on shows like Lost, with a vaguely–hinted-at overall story arch and a lot of psychological character development through flashbacks, one-off stories, parallel comics-within-a-comic, and seemingly irrelevant ephemeral material at the end of each installment. Good so far, mature themes, and I’d recommend reading an issue at a time with a day’s break in between.
  • Update: Slows down at a few points, and when that happens, take a break in between issues. Lots of little important details and nuances means that there’s actually a decent amount of “re-read” value. I ruined the climax a bit for myself by flipping to the back when I first got it. Some very visceral images toward the end.
  • Recommendation: Must-read for any fan of graphic novels.
• Under the Banner of Heaven (Jon Krakauer)
  • Subtitled “A History of Violent Faith”. You may know the author from Into the Wild, or Into Thin Air, who admits that he’s become “obsessed with extremes”. Equal parts journalism, documentary, history, and commentary on Mormon fundamentalism, from the inception of the religion to today, and how two of its adherents, Dan and Ron Lafferty received a revelation from God to “remove” their sister-in-law and baby niece in 1984. The history of violence in Mormonism is woven between the histories of the two brothers, their introduction to Mormon fundamentalism and polygamy, and the murders that they committed. The story told is frank and disturbing on many levels. I’m about three-quarters of the way through.
• Romans (F.F. Bruce)
  • Actually, I started reading this back in September of last year, but it’ll still be in my backpack for another few weeks. Very readable, well-organized, and it flows into discussion questions fairly well. I haven’t surveyed the height and breadth of everything that’s out there, but for a “reading” commentary (<300 pgs), this is the best one that I’ve found.
  • Recommendation: F.F. Bruce for $12? I’m so there.
• The Message of Romans (John Stott)
  • John Stott’s exposition on Romans (he’s insistent that it isn’t a commentary for some reason). It’s been an interesting experience to have read Bruce’s commentary first, because Stott references and comments on it fairly often. It’s roughly twice as long as Bruce’s book, and the added length gives him a lot more room to get technical and preach at you a bit (in a good way!). Also, this was written in ‘94, so there’s more discussion of semi-recent trends in hermeneutics (namely, E.P. Sanders, N.T. Wright, and the New Perspectives on Paul thread).
  • Recommendation: It’s a buck less than Bruce on Amazon right now, and either one would be good not-so-technical commentaries to have if you’re going to spend a bit of time in Romans.
• Romans: Encountering the Gospel’s Power (John Stott)
  • The subtitle is “20 studies with commentary for individuals or groups”, but almost all of the content is about life application, rather than studying for meaning, per se. The questions are a bit flat but good for covering and recapping basic tenets of the text.
  • Recommendation: I saw one at Half Price for $5 the other day, which seems about right. If you already have the commentary, don’t bother picking this one up, because there’s a study guide at the end with better questions.
• The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Weddings
  • Checked this out from the library along with a stack of other wedding planning books. Pretty amusing, but there’s not quite as much hilarity as some of the other books in the series.
• Kiplinger’s Guide to Investing Success: Making Money Today in Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, and Real Estate
  • I haven’t read any other books on investing, so this was a good primer. Very solid and practical, with a lot of advice about how to “get rich slowly”. The chapter on real estate was particularly helpful in outlining the difference between what you want in an investment property vs. what you want in your home. It’s up-to-date (published six months ago), so it has a lot of good information regarding recent tax changes and how they affect wise investment strategies.
• The Motley Fool’s Guide to Couples and Cash: How to Handle Money with Your Honey (Dayana Yochim)
  • I picked this up as a part of my campaign to educate myself about finances and investing and marriage, but it didn’t do me any good. It’s thin in size and even lighter on content. The author strives so hard to use inclusive language that she ends up calling your spouse/partner/roommate/significant other “hot lips” most of the time. In trying to be both a relationship book and a finance book, it does neither well. Interestingly, the reviews on Amazon are an even split between 1-star and 5-star ratings, so it must be working for someone.
  • Recommendation: I picked this one up from the library; it wasn’t worth the cost.

On two recent transactions, I actually made money by taking items away from the store (and I don’t mean by exercising a five-fingered discount either).

The first involved a pair of shoes that I bought from REI last June.  I needed new shoes, so I got a nice pair of Salomon trail runners which lasted me well throughout the running season.  They’re really nice because they don’t have traditional shoelaces to come untied or trip over — they’re held onto your feet by cinching up a kevlar strand and wrapping the excess up into the tongue of the shoe (it’s sort of hard to explain).  Anyway, the supposedly unbreakable kevlar binding broke earlier this year, and I didn’t really have a clue about how to replace it, so I took the shoes back to REI to see if they could fix them.  The guy at the counter said that they could repair them, but “You only bought them in June, so… I’ll just get you a new pair.”  Well, that was pretty sweet.  “Oh, and you haven’t used your dividend or members’ coupon yet, which is 20% off — would you like me to apply that now?”  I did. Bottom line?  I turned in my old shoes and got a brand new pair and $13.

The second is slightly more mundane.  I stopped in at the Kirkland Albertson’s on my way to community group this week to pick up some Oreos.  When I got to the Oreo section, I saw that the packages were two for $5, so I figured that I might as well get two because, hey, we like Oreos.  Attached was a coupon that advertised “Free eggs or produce, $2.50 or less!”  I wasn’t going to use the coupon because I’d have to carry the extra food around, and frankly, the idea of buying Oreos and broccoli at the same time was a little disconcerting, but the eggs were on the way to the checkstand, so I picked up a dozen.  I rang myself up, scanned the coupon, and discovered that it didn’t just make the eggs free, it took $2.50 off of your total order.  The eggs were only $1.85, so Albertson’s paid me $0.65 to cart away a dozen eggs.