It's a...

...BOY! And he's hung like a 5 year old...

Swept Away

At first, the way of your love
seemed easy,

I thought I'd reach
your union
with speed.

After taking a few steps,
I found
the way
is an ocean.

When I stepped in,
a wave swept me away.

Awhad al-Din Kirmani

OMG! I caused 9/11!

My bad.

OK, suppose we take for granted D'Souza's logic: We liberals are the source of the cultural animus to which the jihadis are violently opposed.

Doesn't that, by the same logic, place right-wingers like D'Souza and the whole range of conservative ideologues on the side of Al Qaeda?

Isn't he essentially saying that the terrorists are right to have this animus?

Isn't his solution -- suppressing liberalism -- essentially a capitulation to the anti-democratic "Islamofascism" everyone else on the right has been steadily denouncing?

Good question.

Ciudad del Lago

Ericka over at The Outer Limits has been blogging about my adopted neighborhood for awhile now. I'm just now starting to appreciate what Lake City offers, at least in the way of food. My faves so far:

Minoo Bakery
Toyoda Sushi (I feel bad about spreading the word about this one, but what the hey).
Mad Pizza (Better than Romio's IMO)
Thai One On

BiziBee Floral (not food, but Justin and Heather are awesome)

Fortunately, Lake City has most everything covered, except maybe home improvement, so I don't have to drive or walk very far to get what I need. And while Fred Meyer is owned by an evil out of state corporation (ask Brice about their employee perks), it's hella convenient and affordable.

Possible Wedding Announcement

Original photo from James Tran

Stay on task, Blanquera

As word gets out about Ray Ray, it's like the advice floodgates have opened; pop those folates like candy, doulas vs. midwives vs. regular doctors, daycare centers, etc. The one nugget that I'm holding on to goes like this (via SK): I want to be a better parent than mine were for me, by just a little bit; having gotten me this far, they must have done something right, but improve on maybe one aspect. What that means in practice I don't know yet, but it's a start.

Had a little scare today, I think everything's ok though. More later.

The Baby Name Thread

OK, obviously this is going to be all I talk about for quite awhile, so bear with me...We've been calling this embryo "Ray Ray" for lack of a better name. It's not too early to start brainstorming so here's a few that we thought of:

Mindy
Aguinaldo "Augie"
Reynaldo (combines our middle names)
Fredelle (this is what happens when you let a committee decide)
Emilio
Richie
Siobhan
LaRonda
Kiko
Maritess

and so it goes...

'Nuff Said

"So it says that you have to wait 2 or 3 minutes to get a result."

"How about now?"

"What does it say?"

"Oh."

A Bun in the Oven

Ardel's started preggo blogging, so if you're interested in the musings of a first-timer, then have a look. Caveat: she's really hormonal. Heh. I'll add my own thoughts both here and over there...

How's your summer been?

Me, it's been busy, but pales in comparison to what this fall, winter and spring holds in store...

Flickr Inspector

Here's a site that will display public data about your flickr photo stream. Enter your user name and it will generate a summary that lists things like number of photos per day, all your tags, your groups etc. Just enter your (or anyone else's) username and see what comes up. The statistics aren't that useful to me, but there are a couple features I found interesting: first is the flickr score, which has absolutely no meaning outside of the site (mine's 1272 by the way), but now I'm wondering how I can increase it. Maybe it's the suppressed gamer inside.

The feature I found especially useful is the set of links to search engines where you can find out who is linking to your photos: blogs, websites etc. Nothing that a visit to Google or Technorati won't accomplish but it's nice to have it all there, automatically. I browsed around and found a few blogs, Yahoo! travel, and 43 Places, among others, that have used my pics. It's a good way to keep track of your photos, to make sure no one's using them in a way you don't want them to. Only catch is that it searches by user name, so if they don't provide an attribution the search engine won't find it, right? Or is there a way to do that?

An email from Ensign Media

Got this this morning:

:: Using your photo in our film


Dear Mr. Jala:

I am writing to let you know that I am interested in using
one of your photos posted on Flickr.com for an upcoming
project titled A DVD Advent Calendar. According to the web
site, you participate in Creative Commons and offer an
attribution license.

Could you please verify that this is still correct and also
provide the exact wording for how you would like to be
credited in our work? The photo we are interested in is of
King Wenceslas' statue in Bohemia.

Thank you for contributing to the Flickr.com website and
for sharing your creative talents with artists worldwide.
We are a small family based company and could not do what
we do without photographers such as you who make their
works available through programs such as Flickr.com.
Again, thank you.

Sincerely,

Tom Dallis
Ensign Media

(My reply:)

Mr. Dallis:

Thank you for contacting me. You may use the King Wenceslas photo for your project. Please provide the following credit: "King Wenceslas photo courtesy of Fred Jala."

Please let me know how I can order a copy of the completed DVD. Good luck with your project!

Fred Jala

Open Letter to the US Media

From Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, via Atrios:

1. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S. (75 percent of us) were born and raised here, including many of us who have roots here that predate the arrival of the pilgrims.

2. "Immigrant" is not synonymous with "Latino" and the media should stop pretending they mean the same thing.

3. The CNN analyst who said today "Keep in mind, Latino voters are LEGAL immigrants, not illegal immigrants" should be FIRED for sloppy thinking. MOST LATINOS ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS AT ALL, PINCHE CABRON.

4. Immigrants to contemporary USA come from EVERYWHERE. There are, for instance, 100,000 Nigerians in Houston, and tens of thousands of ILLEGAL Irish in Boston. If this debate is truly about immigration, as opposed to racist portrayals of Latinos, please curb your coverage to be more responsible.

Immigration (and the anti-immigration backlash we're witnessing now) is a topic that strikes close to home for me, being one myself. While she's talking about Latinos specifically, I think this applies to all of us-if one small group can whip up a strawman opponent and create this environment of fear, backed by the government and media, what would stop them from going after anyone else who ticked them off? Homosexuals, liberals, alfalfa farmers, you're all on notice...

Dave Neiwert's blog documents and dissects the far right's nuttery much more eloquently than I ever could.

Landscape Architects Make Better Lovers

This caught my eye the other day, sista girl finds love from her "landscaper"...

A beautiful L.A. career woman, Kenya works as a senior manager at a prestigious accounting firm, and is on the verge of making partner. But she has yet to find her own partner and a fulfilling personal life. It's not that she's stopped looking; her (mental) checklist is at the ready. After another Valentine's Day spent working late, Kenya agrees to a blind date with Brian Kelly (Simon Baker), a sexy and free-spirited landscape architect who turns out to be not exactly what she'd pictured for herself. Then again, she does need the yard of her new house fixed up...

Ah, yes. Reminds me of that one project...Then there's also this Reese Witherspoon vehicle whose leading man plays a landscape architect. Have we become the stand-in for the "sensitive, artistic, yet approachable" guy? Hmm...describes me to a T.

Off the Market (Warning: Long)

The first thing people said to me after the divorce went along the lines of "Well, Freddy, here's your chance to enjoy some freedom. Have fun with it." The subtext of that varied, depending on who was delivering the advice. Some meant to sow some wild oats, others thought I should spend some time "finding myself." Frankly, I was a bit lost when it came to women; I kinda liked the idea of fucking indiscriminately around the city but the reality was that I gave off that "just got dumped" vibe for quite awhile. Needless to say, I didn't get any.

I dated some, pretty much from women I met online. I liked the idea of it, everyone was there for the same thing, we could skip a lot of the awkwardness and get to the gettin'. After a string of one-and-out dates, I came to realize that being online doesn't necessarily make things easier. If anything, you tend to meet the same person over and over; the computer "matches" you with people who supposedly are compatible based on a checklist and some weird algorithm. If you're a woman on these sites, it's a situation of having too much choice. You're inundated by messages from potential suitors; faced with such prosperity, you can afford to reject men out of hand for the most trivial of reasons, because there's 50 more of those where he came from. I speak from experience; as a bit of recon, I put up a fake ad as a woman to see what "Jane" would face, the strategy was to basically figure out patterns and tweak my approach to make myself stand out from the crowd. I was somewhat successful, got some good responses but again, nothing to show for the effort.

I realized "What the hell am I doing? I'm sitting in front of my computer when I could be out there actually meeting people." So I got myself a striped shirt and hit the bars with friends on a more regular basis. While I was able to meet people and make some new friends, I was still going home alone. I guess thirty-somethings in Seattle don't go out anymore.

Time to take a break from the dating scene. I moved out of Belltown and settled into South Lk. Union, stop obsessing about things and just let it happen. It was about that time when SB and I met BW, a general contractor. We got to talking about the construction business and exchanged cards. The next day, he emails us and asks if we wanted to volunteer for a group called ACE (Architects Contractors and Engineers), which mentors high schoolers who want to enter the field. I said "Sure, sounds fun."

It was at one of these ACE meetings I met AB, a structural engineer and fellow mentor. We hit it off pretty much right off the bat, I told her about my dreams to open up a series of lumpia carts around the city. She was on board, in particular as a guinea pig for product testing. I hesitated a little at first, thinking "Geez, another Pinay engineer. Do I want to go there again?" But I realized I was looking forward to the next meeting just a little more. All of a sudden AB and I were seeing one another outside of ACE. In groups at first, then just the two of us. At first, neither of us wanted to commit to anything, which was fine with me, though I didn't have anything else going on at the time. Both of us were recently out of long term relationships, and didn't want to rush into anything.

Some weeks later, we're now dating exclusively, meeting each other's friends/family and making plans to go to Mexico, you know, the usual. I guess it's true that you'll find something as soon as you stop looking. So now what? I think both of us are trying to figure out where we fit in each other's life. My biggest mistake in the past was to allow myself to be defined by the relationship, putting everything else aside. So now we're just enjoying the new romance and building a healthy relationship, not getting too far ahead of ourselves. But go ahead and take me off the "single" list. More later.

Vegas + Hooters = ?

Leaving tomorrow night for Vegas with DG, DT and JW. Looking forward to getting out of town and kickin' it with some buddies for a long weekend. We're staying at the Hooters Hotel (I think it used to be the San Remo, down by MGM). Insert joke here.

Here's some Valentine's Day ownage...

IMG_8217,
originally uploaded by Fred Jala.

Yes, that's a gorilla in a belly dancing costume. Some of you know, some don't: I've been seeing AB for a couple months now (more on that some other time); as Vday approached we talked about what we were going to do to celebrate. Eventually we decided that the theme was going to be "Cheesy," whatever that means. You can see what it meant to her.

Oh yeah, she got me but good. There's more pix on my flickr page.

Oh, if you're wondering, I got her a card with some cherubs on it and we went to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner.