Singing to the Air

Broccoli blossoms

2012-03-07T10:39:00.001-06:00

Broccoli blossoms, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

The broccoli side shoots got away from us a little bit this week and are starting to bloom. We have a big bag in the fridge as it is, and I think the flowers are pretty.

This Is My Home on Vimeo

2012-02-21T19:16:00.000-06:00

This Is My Home from Mark on Vimeo.

Okra in the garden - the gift that keeps on giving

2011-10-20T11:44:00.001-05:00

Okra in the garden - the gift that keeps on giving, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

-------
kim hubbeling {rhymes with bubbling}
graphic design + production
email :: kim@rhymeswithbubbling.com
cell :: 210 724 7304
skype :: rhymeswithbubbling

Infused vodka

2011-10-16T19:19:00.001-05:00

Infused vodka, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Playing with infusing vodka. Ginger on the left, ginger with lemon on the right. They've been steeping for 10 days.

We cracked them open and made a couple of cocktails tonight (just vodka, simple syrup and sparkling water). The drinks were too subtle, so we put the jars back in the pantry for a bit longer.

Might just need to use more ginger and lemon peel (here, a quarter cup of ginger per pint, plus the peel from half a lemon), or maybe chop the ginger finer.

Happy shrubs

2011-10-15T14:06:00.001-05:00

Happy shrubs, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Responding to the good long rain we got last weekend.

My new favorite vegetable is a weed.

2011-09-30T15:42:00.001-05:00

Purslane salad dressed with meyer lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, onion, tomato, and goat cheese.

This fleshy succulent "weed" is currently thriving in our yard. It loves the hot weather. When we first noticed it a few years ago, Daniel figured out that it's called purslane, and while classified as a weed here (though there are now ornamental hybrid varieties available – we brought some home from the nursery yesterday), is a very nutritious and tasty green that's been consumed in other countries for thousands of years. It's super high in vitamin C and Omega-3 fatty acids.

We think it's kind of a pretty groundcover, so we've been letting it grow wild in the garden. But we hadn't really delved into eating it other than nibbling until I saw someone selling it at the farmer's market a few weeks back.

I've made 5 good-sized salads from it this week, and have only just made a dent. There's still a ton more in the yard. Chances are you have some in yours, too. It tastes like a mild watercress and has a delicious crunch – give it a try.

Incredible first person POV Tsunami footage

2011-09-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

This context from Flixxy.com:

Yu Muroga was doing his job making deliveries when the 11 March 2011 earthquake hit in Japan. Unaware, like many people in the area, of how far inland the Tsunami would travel, he continued to drive and do his job. The HD camera mounted on his dashboard captured not only the earthquake, but also the moment he and several other drivers were suddenly engulfed in the Tsunami. He escaped from the vehicle seconds before it was crushed by other debris and sunk underwater. His car and the camera have only recently been recovered by the police. The camera was heavily damaged but a video expert was able to retrieve this footage.

Kittens in Bowls

2011-09-10T00:38:00.000-05:00

Because why the hell not?

Check the phonetic rendition of O-bla-Di O-Bla-Da in the background.

Child's Own Studio

2011-09-08T16:54:00.000-05:00

Love this concept - custom plush softies from your child's art – Child's Own Studio.

I think I need a real-life Bunnee.

Bunnee from Found Magazine is much-loved in our house. We've printed him on multiple colors and have him framed as a triptych. Though we don't love Bunnee apparently as much as this guy.

Thanks, Jimmie at Whippleworld for the link.

Surreal Long Exposure Photographs

2011-09-06T12:00:00.001-05:00

via Design Milk, who writes:

"Beautiful long exposure shots by AppuruPai created from the New Transit Yurikamome, an automated guideway train that connects Odaiba to the mainland, passing through the Rainbow Bridge."

Morning run on the river by the Pearl Brewery

2011-09-04T09:58:00.001-05:00

Morning run on the river by the Pearl Brewery, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Woke up to find a gorgeous breezy day -- too early for fall in South Texas, but at least a short reprieve from the crushing heat.

Here's to the crazy ones

2011-09-01T11:44:00.001-05:00

In another lifetime, I worked for several years for an Apple Specialist in Honolulu (Specialists are a special tier of Apple authorized Mac dealers and repair centers), first helping out with their website, later doing sales, later still running the front office and doing onsite and in-house training, and later still helping in the service department ordering parts and dispatching technicians, plus designing their newspaper ads and marketing materials (when working for a small business, everyone wears a lot of hats).

I began working there midway through the Think Different campaign in the late 90s, so that campaign has always been near and dear to me, both because of it's brilliance and because it invokes a time in my life that I remember fondly. When I started there, Steve Jobs had been back at Apple for a year or two, but hadn't turned things around for them yet. Because I was so entrenched in Apple culture at the time, I clearly remember the sharp left turn Apple made, from a company that made powerful and elegant but boring looking beige boxes with cryptic model numbers (e.g., the PowerMac 8600/300, which which despite its dull name was the bomb) to stunningly different and appealing products like the first bondi blue iMacs, which were truly groundbreaking at the time. We're all so used to Apple now that I think we forget where they came from.

So I particularly loved AdWeek's recent tribute to Steve Jobs. They write:

"Crazy Ones," the iconic Apple commercial by TBWA\Chiat\Day from the "Think different" campaign of the late 1990s, was always, in a way, about Steve Jobs. Voiced by Richard Dreyfuss, it celebrated "the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently" and would therefore change the world. The images showed everyone from John Lennon to Gandhi, but the inference was that Apple's visionary leader was one these remarkable souls. Now, with Jobs resigning as CEO of Apple, we've added him to the end of "Crazy Ones"—a place he rightfully earned, even if he would never come right out and say so.

Blueberry pie

2011-09-01T10:45:00.001-05:00

Blueberry pie, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Had a bit of a structural blowout, but should still be tasty. I use Bittman's recipe from How To Cook Everything. I sub frozen blueberries for convenience (so per his suggestion, upped the thickener - tapioca - by a third). While I do make pretty good pie crust, I tend to use refrigerated store bought dough which I keep in the freezer, because then I can throw a pie together in 20 mins with ingredients on hand.

Hatch chiles!

2011-08-30T20:45:00.002-05:00

Hatch chiles!, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Roasted (thanks to Central Market), then cleaned, peeled, stemmed, seeded and chopped (thanks to me). Ready to vacuum seal and freeze in 2-cup batches, which is how much I use for a pot of green chile pork stew – somewhat of a staple in our house.

I went a little nuts this year and got 4 good sized bags of roasted chiles (a mix of mild and hot), something like 11 pounds. For scale, that's a 6-quart mixing bowl. So probably enough for 8 or more batches of stew. I have my green chile stew recipe so streamlined now that if I have the chiles ready to go, I can throw everything together in about 15 minutes.

Recipe to come.

Ms. Bridges Goes to Washington - Studio 360

2011-08-30T16:41:00.006-05:00

Found this Studio 360 piece to be both powerful and fascinating - the civil rights era has been top of mind for me because I'm reading The Help right now:

Last month, President Obama installed Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With" in a hallway just outside the Oval Office.

The iconic painting shows Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African American girl, being escorted by US Marshals to school during the 1960 integration of the New Orleans school system. Bridges wears a crisp white dress with socks and sneakers — she looks unfazed even as a tomato splatters on the graffiti-pocked wall behind her. Now, the first black president of the United States must pass the same racial epithet en route to work each day.

Read more and listen to the radio piece at Studio 360 - Ms. Bridges Goes to Washington

Crowdsourced logo for @1stwebdesigner? I say no. I support the #AntiSpec campaign.

2011-08-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

(Some background from the AntiSpec site: "Working on spec is when a single designer or agency design for free in the hope of winning a project." Also covers crowdsourcing/design contests where a small amount of money and/or "lots of exposure" is dangled as a prize. For more thoughts on AntiSpec here, check my blog post about the Huffington Post Twitter logo contest).

The next chapter in the AntiSpec campaign looks like it may be interesting if for no other reason than there are going to be a lot of p/o'd identity designers when they read how easy this guy thinks their job is. I look forward to their creative responses to this:

"I contacted Dainis Graveris yesterday, the founder of 1stWebDesigner, to give him the opportunity to pull the competition in order to avoid a public AntiSpec campaign. Dainis explained that he is against spec work for web design but suggested that it’s ok for logo design because there isn’t as much time involved."

Their "well, it's just a logo. How long can it take?" attitude is not going to endear them to the design community. I somewhat suspect they couldn't care less about what the design community thinks, and will take the free publicity, good or bad. So I'm thinking this might be fun to watch.

“To the West-Coasters making fun of our [East coast] earthquake reactions...”

2011-08-24T09:25:00.002-05:00

Never have been in an earthquake, but having been through some pretty silly South Texas "snow days," this made me laugh.

TEDxSanAntonio

2011-08-23T18:24:00.030-05:00

TEDxSanAntonio now accepting attendee applications for 2011, SA's 2nd TEDx event.

What is TEDx? From their site:

“In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx.

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxSanAntonio, where x=independently organized TED event. At our TEDxSanAntonio event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.”

D and I are long-time fans of the TED conferences and have watched countless TED Talks over the years. Last year's TEDx event here—the first in SA—didn't hit my radar, but I heard great things about it afterward from a college professor friend who attended. Planning to attend this year, if I get in. You should, too.

TEDx San Antonio Attendee Application

Greek Yogurt Sales Rise In U.S. Dairy Aisles : NPR

2011-08-23T16:19:00.005-05:00

Greek Yogurt Sales Rise In U.S. Dairy Aisles : NPR

I switched to greek yogurt a few months ago from nonfat plain "regular" yogurt. I find regular sweetened yogurt to be too sweet, so I long ago gravitated to plain—which I sometimes doctor, or sometimes eat as is—and then made the switch to Greek because if the higher protein content.

I've been noticing more and more "mainstream" brands coming out with their own Greek yogurt lines, and figured this was in response to a trend, but the numbers in this article surprised me—a whole lot of people are switching to Greek yogurt.

For me, a big bowl of yogurt for breakfast every morning—with a dollop of homemade peach butter and a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed—is really tasty. (The flax seeds took a little getting used to, but now when I run out, I miss the texture). Once I switched to Greek (or mostly Greek—I do add a little bit of plain nonfat so it's not quite so thick), I found that this breakfast would keep me full for hours. As a bonus, I've been losing weight without really trying.

I've been carrying a few extra pounds the last handful of years (OK, let's just say it—20 extra pounds). And while I'm not "dieting," I am trying to be aware of what I put in my mouth. And while the weight loss (18 pounds so far) is certainly not only due to switching from regular to Greek yogurt, I'm sure it's helping.

Yogurt is one of the reason I can't get on board with diets like the 4-Hour Body slow-carb movement, which says dairy is a no-no. And no fruit! We've been eating fruit for, what, a gazillion years? I have a number of friends on this diet who are having success. But personally, I'd never be able to stick with something like that long-term, so for me, I don't see the point.

Everybody (and every body) is different, but Greek yogurt has been working for me.

That being said, I had Daniel—who loves yogurt—try a spoonful; he said he'd rather eat sour cream.

Friends? Or cease-fire?

2011-08-23T10:15:00.006-05:00

Friends? Or cease-fire?, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Our 8-year old big black cat is I think starting to get used to the 1-year-old kitten who has been making his life a living hell.

For the first 2 months after the little one moved himself in, our old cat stomped around the house muttering under his breath. We were the feline equivalent of dead to him - if we tried to pet him, we'd get a passive aggressive slump and an annoyed sounding growl, then he'd storm off in a huff.

He eventually forgave us, but still growled and swatted annoyedly at the little one and generally tried to avoid him. Which was a challenge since the little one likes to follow him everywhere.

Over the last month or so, we've started to find them hanging out together more, and while they still play-fight a lot, it's more playful and less aggressive. And I haven't seen the old cat growl at the kitten in weeks.

A Window Between Worlds - Art as a Healing Tool

2011-08-23T08:13:00.002-05:00

AWBW - Art As A Healing Tool from Audrey Salzburg on Vimeo.

Want to share with you this video from a nonprofit I recently came across. A Window Between Worlds uses hands-on art as a tool to help battered women and children put words to their feelings and work through those feelings toward a better future.

Art therapy is certainly a term I've heard and a concept I thought I understood, but I don't think I've seen it in action the way it's shown in this video, or quite realized how powerful a tool it can be. I found this video to be very moving - seeing how closed down and wary the participants are at the beginning of the workshop, and how they're able to open up by the end. The kids in particular look visibly more relaxed and comfortable in their own skin at the end, when they're assembling their tiles to make the mosaic.

This quote from the workshop sums it up for me: "No matter how bad or ugly our past was, our future doesn't have to be that way." This very simple concept may not be obvious to victims of abuse; perhaps an experience like this workshop will help them realize that what's been done to them does not define them.

I was introduced to this nonprofit by {rhymes with bubbling} clients W. Vito Montone and Kim Castle who are currently running a fundraising campaign. If you'd like to contribute, visit their campaign page here.

Play Me a Song When I'm Gone

2011-08-22T16:20:00.009-05:00

Finally figured out how to extract the audio from the Ustream video of Miss Maggie's birthday bash (Ustream's site is a little buggy and several people -- including Brad, whose tune I borrowed -- were never able to get it to play).

So here's the song I sang for my friend and sistah on her birthday this year. I think she would have dug it.

Play Me a Song When I'm Gone performed by Kim Mackenzie (words and music ©Brad Svoboda)

Song written by my dear Texas friend Brad. Being backed up by dear Hawaii friends Sean (guitar, backing vocals), Bailey (keyboard) and James (drums) - Sean and I had a chance to rehearse, but Bailey and James's had never heard the tune before. I was just trying to get through it without breaking down. Somehow, it all came together, and I'm proud of how it came out.

The quality is pretty iffy (built-in laptop mic), but I'm glad to have this recording. I'd like to do a studio recording, with these same players and pretty much this same impromptu arrangement.

Quirky / creative engagement photo shoot

2011-08-20T10:21:00.006-05:00

Amanda Rynda Photography

Someone (lifted the pics, cropped out the watermarks, posted it without attribution and) stitched the whole shoot together vertically. (Despite the lameness of stolen/unattributed content, posting it anyway, because it's fun to see it as a sequence, and the photographer is now aware it happened -- she is now attributed via the comments, with links to her site).

Amanda says: [Ben, the groom] wanted to make sure his manliness wasn't lost in an engagement session. Juliana styled it, I staged, shot & edited it. It was a super fulfilling & creative day for me thanks to Juliana & Ben and their unique view on love.

Thanks to my good friend Lynne of Lynne Allan Photography for the link.

Blogger weirdness...

2011-08-19T15:34:00.001-05:00

Two posts not appearing in blog, though they've been published. - Blogger Help

Grrr. A couple of posts, including one I spent a fair amount of time on, are not showing up on the blog (though they're in the sidebar, and you can get to them via direct links). Most annoying.

Tweeted the above link to Blogger hoping someone there will help, because I don't think the issue is on my end. Wonder if that will work. Though I'm now in line with all of these annoyed people with different problems.

Airswimmers. Want. Way more charming than a balloon should be.

2011-08-19T04:30:00.002-05:00

Got seranos?

2011-08-18T13:22:00.002-05:00

Got seranos?, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Despite the heat, our serano plant is super duper happy. We've already got a freezer full. Who wants some? Come on over.

Pickup for the new violin arrived!

2011-08-18T13:18:00.002-05:00

Pickup for the new violin arrived!, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Whiskey Shivers - Gimme All Your Lovin'

2011-08-18T12:41:00.001-05:00

Via Reddit, this music video from the Whiskey Shivers out out Austin. Wacky concept. Great music. Deliciously creepy (throughout, but check the last shot especially). I can't stop watching it.

$20 says this goes viral. (Current view count is at 913.) Who wants to bet?

<p>&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;</p>

Free design for AOL's @HuffingtonPost? I say no. I support the AntiSpec campaign.

2011-08-16T09:53:00.010-05:00

Free design for AOL's @HuffingtonPost? I say no. I support the #AntiSpec campaign.

This battle cry went up through the Twitterverse in the design community. And it worked.

AntiSpec is a very recent site/campaign (weeks old?), aimed at bringing the design community together to respond to the problem of spec work. I caught wind of it and "added my face" / signed up for their mailing list.

(Some background from their: "Working on spec is when a single designer or agency design for free in the hope of winning a project." Also covers crowdsourcing/design contests where a small amount of money and/or "lots of exposure" is dangled as a prize.)

This Huffington Post thing hit the yesterday - basically a contest to design their Twitter logo. Anti-Spec rallied the troops. And 24-hours later, Huff pulled the contest, and didn't quite apologize but attempted to explain (read the Update at the bottom of this page for the play by play). It unfolded in a similarly dramatic way as the Gap logo fiasco last year, which for the design world, is going to go down in history like New Coke and Classic Coke. But this was an organized and targeted effort from a small army with social media weapons (a preestablished hashtag and message), and hence happened much more quickly.

Because the Gap log mess unfolded more organically, it was a lot more complicated and took "longer" (something like 8 days, instead of something like 1). With the Gap thing, the design community and much of the rest of the social media world instinctively gasped and said "WTF, Gap?" all at the same time -- Gap backpedaled in a bunch of silly ways before yanking the logo. Though this Huff thing had much the same feel in terms of a branding faux pas.

Huff's statement about "engaging the community" with their fun little project may well be what they had in mind. And they may be truly surprised and confused by the negative response to what they did. They may have thought they were doing nothing wrong (though with their reputation with regard to paying or not paying their bloggers...) But you gotta wonder what the heck they thought was going to happen.

A much better way to "engage the community" would be to have your established branding / logo in place, then having a contest to create a fun / special / temp version of the logo to use for a short time for a holiday or some other notable reason (a la what's done internally with the Google Doodle. Or even Reddit, whose primary alien logo changes frequently in response to the news of the day). No one jumps down Google's throat when they occasionally have contests for kids to submit their own Google Doodles. Instead, they get all kinds of warm fuzzy social media love because people are charmed by it. That's because they're saying - "Here's our brand. Have fun with it." Not "Please define our brand for us."

It was interesting, both watching this unfold and being one of the voices.

Today's design soundtrack

2011-08-15T16:35:00.007-05:00

Today's design inspiration

2011-08-15T16:27:00.003-05:00

Ventures - Another Smash!!!, originally uploaded by Benjamin D. Hammond.

Aloha, Maggie

2011-03-18T17:23:00.006-05:00

I lost my dear friend Maggie Chang last weekend after a year and a half of fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Maggie was one of the most full of life people I've ever known – spunky, funny, thoughtful, smart.

Trying to describe her is going to fall flat, but here are a couple of pics I found on her Flickr and Facebook that I think capture her awesomeness:

My all-time favorite pic of her – I was there the day it was taken at our favorite little beach on Diamond Head (Suicides). Maggie and Tunji had a copy in a frame at their house, so I've seen it often. I lucked into a scan of it on her Flickr account. Circa 1996-ish, at Diamond Head Beach in Hawaii. I met them both a little before this (maybe '95 or so? Shortly after they moved to Hawaii, anyway.)

Playing with El Destroyo at the Roots Rumble, Hong Kong, March 2009

Playing with El Destroyo in Hong Kong, May 2008

Promo shot, October 2009. Photo by Nora Tejada. Styled by Steph.

at the Macau Int'l Music & Arts Fest, August, 2010

Purple always makes me think of Maggie (purple, and pigs, and Hello Kitty). And while I was working in the yard today in this beautiful spring weather, it occurred to me that our Spanish lavender bloomed last weekend for the very first time.

So now every year, I'll think of Maggie when the Spanish lavender blooms.

I like that.

Critter Causes Fire

2011-03-01T22:21:00.006-06:00

Some excitement yesterday morning – woke at dawn to find 6 fire engines, plus police, ambulances, news crews, etc. parked on our little street. (There was even a fire response vehicle in our driveway.) The 3-plex across the street had a fire due to a possum in the attic chewing on wiring. Everyone got out safe, and the house supposedly only suffered $15k worth of damage, but there was an awful lot of water being sprayed up on the second floor.

Daniel made it onto the news.

Eight Days in New York (in two minutes or less)

2011-03-01T22:18:00.000-06:00

An assortment of dark and blurry shots from our snowpocalypse 2010 NYC trip, set to Medeski, Martin and Wood:

Ghetto crock-pot home sous vide setup

2011-02-20T20:22:00.002-06:00

Ghetto crock-pot home sous vide setup, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Been playing with budget sous vide the last few months. Here's our
setup:

One crockpot on "warm" setting
One instant read thermometer, immersed in the water bath to monitor
temp.

Found out pretty quick that our crockpot hovers around 140 degrees on
Warm, so in theory, we don't really need to use the thermometer
anymore. 140 is pretty ideal temp for cooking pork, as trichenosis is
killed at 137.

Our third pork tenderloin attempt had been in the water bath
unattended for about 8 hours. We'll take it out soon, sear it (sous
vide leaves meat with an unappetizing appearance - searing is crucial)
and it'll be ready to eat.

Since we don't have any control over temp (we're stuck with 140) we've
only played with pork tenderloins so far. Might try steak next, though
this temp is maybe a little high.

First Ever Aerial Footage of an Uncontacted Amazon Tribe

2011-02-16T16:02:00.003-06:00

Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage from Survival International.

via Laughing Squid

Goodbye to all that - Roger Ebert's Journal

2011-02-11T16:46:00.000-06:00

Goodbye to all that - Roger Ebert's Journal

As kids, we've all asked each other stupid questions like "if you could be blind or deaf, which would you choose?" I've always chosen blind over deaf – as a musician, this is a no-brainer.

I never gave any thought to what it might be like to lose the power of speech until it happened to Roger Ebert; his intimate sharing of the experience through his writings has made it real for me. And, well, it seems to suck a lot more than you could imagine. I'm wordy and social and love more than anything to make people laugh. How do you toss witty banter about if you have to stop the conversation so you can write down your witty reply? A quote from this post:

"When first coming to terms with the fact that I would never speak again, I filled my head with denial and coping strategies. I would use my computer voice, for example. And I do. But that is no way to participate in the flow of a conversation, and I realize so clearly now that conversations are all about the flow, the timing, the music. Now that IBM's Big Blue has beaten a grandmaster at chess and promises to win at Jeopardy, I have a challenge that will grind it to a halt: I challenge Big Blue to tell a joke in a voice that has the tone and the timing, the words and the music, just right."

I know nothing about the Boulder Conference on World Affairs that he's giving up. (OK, I now know a little something, from reading one of his previous blog posts). But clearly he loves it dearly, and he's walking away from it, more or less, because he can't keep up. And that's breaking his heart.

Mine, too.

In pictures: The shop that time forgot

2011-02-10T19:15:00.002-06:00

In pictures: The shop that time forgot (The Independent)

To: FESPA [and the rest of the legitimate business world], Subject: Mailing List Etiquette

2011-02-10T13:24:00.121-06:00

If you run a promotional email list, and you don't include a straightforward way to unsubscribe, there's a good chance you're just going to piss us off.

Love,

Your Target Audience

I'm on a quest lately to cut down on the amount of not-quite-junk email I receive -- i.e., lists I've signed up for that I no longer read, notifications from various social media sites that I'd rather not get any more, etc.

No idea how I got on this FESPA list (I had to look it up -- "FESPA is a federation of global screen and digital printing trade associations and organises the world's leading screen printing and digital imaging events.") Yes, I do graphics, but I'm not a printer, nor do I even buy much print. There's a slim chance I signed up for it at some point. Or someone sold them my name.

So whatever, I'm on their list. Who knows how I got there. Big deal, just unsubscribe.

The first email I got back in mid-January had an unsubscribe link at the bottom. But clicking on it returned a PHP database error (now it's just a 404). So I replied to the email to inform them of the database error and asked to please be removed.

The next email had no unsubscribe link at all. (The links in the footer take you, somewhat unhelpfully, to the main page of the email list service they use -- i.e., it's just an ad -- and to their web design company.) So I replied and ask again to be unsubscribed.

Got another one today, and at this point, I'm just annoyed by the whole thing. Sure, I could just delete them – they're only sending one every two weeks or so. Sure, I could add them to my spam filter. Sure, I could email their web design company for help (especially since, chances are they designed the HTML email in the first place). Or I could email the general contact email address I found by poking around on their website. But none of these things should be necessary.

Allowing mailing list recipients to unsubscribe (whether we signed up for the list in the first place or not) is to me what separates legitimate business promotion from spam. If are unable or choose not to include an unsubscribe link, you'd damn well better be checking the replies so you can deal with unsubscribe requests that way.

So, here you go. If I can't get off the list, then I'll let my blog readers (yes, all 3 of you) know how un-savvy FESPA's email marketing is. And how lame by association their sponsors now seem.

The below is just a screen shot of today's mailing (the actual HTML email was too wide and broke the blog layout). The footer links are live. For what it's worth, I dig the design.

From: FESPA [news@fespa.com]
Date: Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 7:48 AM
Subject: FESPA Americas – the Boost Your Company Needs for 2011

5-string violins

2011-02-09T22:55:00.003-06:00

Today's obsession: 5-string acoustic violins. A crude explanation is that it's a violin with an added low-C, which is the low string on a viola. So it's like a violin and viola combined.

Bottom line, I want one.

Once upon a time, I played electric violin in a string of really loud bands through lots of stomp boxes and a Fender Deluxe Reverb; my instrument then was an early model 5-string solid body Zeta (like this but the 5-string version).

And while I don't miss the nasal tone of the Zeta (or how freaking heavy it was, even being a cutaway with hardly any body to it at all, or how you needed an allen wrench for the top tuners), I find lately that I miss that low 5th string.

Fact, I'm not a millionaire. Decent violins of any type are expensive. (Mine, at the high-end of student, was $1500 20 years ago. Serious symphony players will this much or more just for their bow. A violin maker's site I was reading today had a little quip about how surprised you might be at how reasonably priced a professional level hand-crafted violin can be, and that his were $18,000. His implication being that $18,000 (which is $6,000 more than I paid for my truck) was reasonable. Maybe it is, but that's out of my price range...

A quick few hours research, and I determined that a decent 5-string will set me back at minimum $1,500 (this would be designed by respected luthier and not just a 5th string crammed onto a regular fiddle; while it would be made in China, there are great instruments coming out of some folks in China, and this would be with his oversight and QC). Here's the one I'm looking at:

Dahlia-5

(Despite the appearance of the photo, I don't think it actually glows. Though it would be cool if it did.)

I also found a hand-crafted model I'm interested in from a maker in Georgia for more like $4,000 - 5,000.

Made by Barry Dudley

$4-5k is a lot of money to someone like me, for whom music is not much more than an elaborate, time-consuming and expensive hobby. But still damn cheap for a good hand-crafted violin. I read some really good reviews. Some really good players use his 5-strings (notably for me, Tania Elizabeth from The Duhks). Emailed the guy with a few questions, and he sent a lengthy reply the same day. So thinking (sight unseen) that this is the one I want.

I do need a 2nd violin (I don't have a playable spare, just a crappy old pawn shop one that I dearly love but is the violin equivalent of a "beach guitar"). It makes sense that my current fiddle should become the spare, and I should step up to a nicer intrument. I'm wondering if I can combine these two goals, and get a better instrument, with the added bonus of gaining a 5th string.

Not sure, but thinking the $1500 made in China instrument would be perhaps comparable to what I play now. The $4000 hand-crafted would probably be a big step up. I'm going to see Tania Elizabeth play a show in Wimberley in April, so I'll be able to get a closer look at the Barry Dudley 5-string then.

So, just thinking aloud, so to speak. This is what I was obsessed with today.

The Coolest Locksmith Shop in New York City � Scouting NY

2011-02-09T14:33:00.001-06:00

We stumbled onto this amazing little building during our NY trip this winter. It's covered with a starry-night-esque mosaic made entirely out of keys.

I couldn't find much info about it online, just a few Flickr pics (apparently, the mural was only completed a few months before our trip). I've been meaning to blog about it myself, but my pictures aren't great as we were on walking food tour and I had to snap them on the fly. Fortunately, someone else has finally posted some photos and the backstory.

The Coolest Locksmith Shop in New York City - Scouting NY

Adobe Launches CS6 this Week

2011-02-09T11:26:00.003-06:00

Adobe Launches CS6 this Week — Ganger Design, Milwaukee, WI

8 months after CS5 came out, I'm still on CS4. Why? Because it works fine. Because I already own it. Because all my clients are still using it, too, so I haven't run into any problems with not being able to open their supplied files. I'd like a new car, too. But I don't need one.

This week, I'm talking to a new potential new client, who would require that I go to CS5. ~$600 to upgrade Design Premium, basically (as far as I'm concerned) so that I can avoid having to ask this client to save InDesign and Illustrator files down to CS4 for me. $600 for a glorified file converter.

This annoys me. I love new software as much as the next person. I love new features. But I don't need new software. I don't need new features. Maybe this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, railing against progress.

But I like to weigh the benefits against the cost. Some upgrades were clearly worth it. Given the kind of work I do, CS4 to CS5 is not a worthwhile upgrade for me — I'd prefer to just skip CS5 altogether and wait for CS6. I've looked at the new features, and CS5 will not save me $600 worth of time by making me a more efficient production artist (Chances are, I'll need to install more RAM, which will cost even more. My machine may still slow down. Then there will be the learning curve). Really, productivity is all I care about.

So, anyway, in trying to decide if I need to now go ahead and upgrade, even though I really don't want to, I Googled around a bit to see when CS6 is predicted to arrive (i.e., here we go again). Found this fun rant from someone of the same mindset.

Adobe Launches CS6 this Week — Ganger Design, Milwaukee, WI

I'll probably eventually cave. Then immediately thereafter, Adobe will surely announce the release of CS6.

Bike Accidents - The Bay Citizen

2011-02-09T01:03:00.001-06:00

Interactive map of 2 years of bicycle-related accidents, who was deemed to be at fault, and analysis as to how the accident might have been prevented. An alarming # of bike-at-fault (at a glance, maybe 40%?).

Bike Accidents - The Bay Citizen

Isaac Tayrien Pocket Show

2011-02-09T00:22:00.003-06:00

Slow-mo kitten

2011-02-09T00:14:00.003-06:00

Pre-freeze arugula harvest

2011-01-31T18:17:00.002-06:00

Pre-freeze arugula harvest, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Only put in two arugula plants this fall, and have been harvesting a
bit here and there, but the little buggers kind of got away from me
this month while I was busy with some long-term graphic projects.

San Antonio is predicting a good, hard freeze this week — at least
three days straight of well below freezing temps, which is unusual for
us. So I cut the plants back in preparation. We'll be having salad
with dinner for the next few days, I'm thinking... (Not that I mind.
Arugula rocks!) Garden fresh salad and nearly February.

This is my first year trying to grow some veggies (emphasis on the
"trying" — mostly been feeding the bugs and wildlife) but loving our
long growing season.

Buy this desk, because it is awesome. And your money will go to a good cause.

2011-01-29T14:46:00.013-06:00

I've been trying to come to terms with the fact that I have to get rid of this awesome desk. So far, my passive aggressive efforts to keep it have included posting a single "ambitiously" priced ad on Craigslist, hoping that either no one would call or that they'd give me so much money, I wouldn't care. This effort was successful in that, not surprisingly, I still have the desk.

But now I've stumbled onto a cause I want to support, and it occurred to me that this cause might be a way to find the awesome desk a good home. So I'm emotionally ready to let go.

You'll have to come to my house in Beacon Hill to view it, but when you buy this awesome desk, that money is going to help fund the release of Nicolette Good's upcoming EP.

If you don't know Nicolette Good, here she is.

I'm a fan of her music, and she's gearing up to release a new recording soon. If you tend to like rootsy stuff, I think you'll like her music, too. If you want to, you can click on the EP cover and go listen to some tracks. But then you should come back and buy this awesome desk.

Here are the details:

Desktop measures 66" wide by 32"deep.

Three drawers (one large drawer suitable for files, two smaller)

Two pull-out writing surfaces.

Solid wood construction with wood veneer

Brass-plated (I think) drawer pulls and "feet"

Woven reed privacy panel

Structurally seems very sound. Cosmetically, pretty darn good with some major exceptions:

• The desktop has a lot of surface flaws and some deep scratches, some damage to the wood veneer in one back corner, and discoloration in the finish in the area where your arms would rest.

• There are two tears in the woven privacy panel, which could be patched or repaired. However, because the tears are high up, they are not really visible if the desk is placed against a wall.

See the full Flickr set for detail shots of the damaged areas.

Thinking that $150 OBO is a good starting point for the suggested donation / "adoption fee." Emphasis on the OBO, because:

a) it's for a cause, so if it doesn't sell, this is pointless;

b) I need to get it off my porch (don't worry, it hasn't been out in the elements - I have a big ol' porch);

c) if someone in the SATX arts scene wanted to give it a good home, that would mean a lot to me. Like wanting your beloved dog to retire on a farm.

So drop me a line if you want to come see it. Don't worry – if you take it home, I won't insist on coming to visit it later. Probably.

Note to self / links for the day

2011-01-26T18:57:00.004-06:00

Check out this plugin. Looks like huge saver for cleaning up manuscripts / applying styles:

Automatication | Multi-Find/Change (CS4/5)

And this article (excerpt from a book that also looks useful) that has some info that is new to me:

Importing Word Into InDesign

Mac OS X: resetting/changing/restoring Silverlight preferences for Netflix full-screen viewing on second monitor

2011-01-25T17:32:00.027-06:00

If you arrived via a search engine and the post title means anything to you, I advise you to skip to the bottom for the step-by-step.

My excuse for a blog has yet again become neglected and at some point will morph into something else (in theory, something better designed, more professionally hosted and domain-named, and more focused than the currently slapped together "whatever shiny thing catches my eye" Blogspot mess.) But since realistically, this transformation won't happen soon, and I'm currently working to develop a good healthy writing habit for both personal and professional reasons, this seems like as good a place as any to do so.

If you're one of the three people who actually checks this blog (hi mom and dad! and David in New Mexico!), you probably know that I'm a Mac user, and that I am slightly more tech-savvy than the average Joe (Yes, I realize this is the wrong gender, but average Jane annoys me. What if I drop the 'e'? Slightly more tech-savvy than the average Jo. Better?).

I'm not any kind of guru. I don't know a thing about Windows, can't program in any language, and am woefully out of date with regard to online technologies. I'm using Blogger because I haven't had time to get my head around Wordpress. My web-coding roots pre-date WYSIWYG, but I stopped really learning anything web-related around 2001 when I got my first print production job and shifted focus. For anyone who knows web, I'm slightly more comfortable editing HTML in Split View in Dreamweaver than working in Design View, but only slightly — the way someone might be slightly more comfortable drowning in water as opposed to, say, drowning in rubbing alcohol.

So — I'm no technical genius by any stretch. What I do have is a pretty good grasp of how to troubleshoot, and pretty good skills at finding what I need online if I am stumped. If you ever go on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," I'd be a pretty good phone-a-friend. I'm the one my friends tend to call if they have a frustrating Mac problem that they can't solve themselves, both because they think I may know the answer off the top of my head, and because they know that as long as I have the time, I honestly enjoy trying to figure out the solution.

So here's a post about a Mac OS X technical problem that frustrated me for a bit, with directions on how to solve it. One of those "this should be so easy!" type things that's so hard for my problem-solving personality to let go of. The problem was so embarrassingly my own fault that I'm a little sheepish posting this. But in researching the solution today, I came across some recent forum posts from tech-savvy sounding people who found themselves in the same dumb boat I was in. So maybe someday this post will save someone else a few minutes of frustration.

If you're not here because you're trying to solve the same problem I had (i.e, you're my mom, my dad or David in New Mexico), and if you're also really, really bored, or possibly if you have insomnia or are a masochist, you can read the below long and overly detailed description of the problem / process. If you're on the Silverlight development team, you're also encouraged to keep reading, because damn, this was frustrating for a regular end user like me.

So, the problem — like many people who work from home or otherwise have the freedom to do so, I like to play something from Netflix Watch Instant on a second monitor while I work at my desk. (This is once Netflix finally was able to offer streaming content on the Mac. And once I was able to get it to work, which is a whole 'nother story involving, of all things, font management software. Yes. Font management software and internet video. Go figure.)

A long-standing frustration for me and many others had been the inability of Microsoft Silverlight — which handles Netflix's streaming content — to display video full screen on a 2nd monitor while you go about your business on your primary monitor, i.e., watch one screen but work in another. Once upon a time, if you put it in full-screen mode, it would exit back out of that mode as soon as you'd clicked anywhere other than screen displaying the video. (Once that particular window becomes "unfocused," which is a term I learned today.)

So, big deal – my video wasn't as big as it could be. It was only schlocky TV I wasn't really paying attention to anyway. And there were workarounds, but they annoyed me and weren't as elegant as the built-in full-screen mode, which would have been perfect if I could just lock it in. I searched around online, discovered it was a known issue (i.e., it's not a "bug" but a "security feature"), figured Microsoft would fix it someday because people clearly wanted it, then forgot about it.

Sometime in the last year, Silverlight released an update, which apparently included a new "feature" they dubbed pinning mode. (The link goes to a 7 minute video you don't want to watch unless you're a developer, in which case this is old news to you, and you're silently mocking me while you read this.)

I'm learning these fancy names like "pinning" and "unfocused" only today. At the time, all I knew was that after running this update, when I clicked to enter full-screen mode, I suddenly had a window pop up that said "Do you want to allow this web site to stay in full-screen mode?"

Hot damn! I clicked a checkbox to "Remember my answer" so it wouldn't nag me about it again, and clicked "Hell yeah!" (OK, actually, I just clicked, "Yes." But had there been a "Hell yeah!" button, I would have clicked it with gusto) and the thing just worked.

So — several happy months of productive home-office second monitor full-screen Netflix viewing go by. Until some subsequent Silverlight update or Firefox reinstall caused this same prompt to pop back up.

No problemo — I've seen this screen before. I know just what to do. Clickity click on "Remember my answer." Then click, "No."

No? No. Aw, crud, not no. Undo? No undo. Fix it in preferences? Who knows where the Silveright prefs are (OK, people clearly know, but I didn't). Restart browser and hope for prompt? Long shot, but no dice. Restart computer? Always a good idea, but not going to fix this clear user error. Reinstall Silverlight and/or Firefox? I know this won't work, but try it anyway. Shake fist at sky and beg for Silverlight to please, for the love of all that is holy, ask me just one more time how I truly feel about full-screen mode so I can this time click "Yes"? Surprisingly little effect.

Now, I could blame Microsoft for putting the "No" button in the bottom right of the dialog box, which is counter-intuitive on a Mac (an Apple dialog would have "OK" in this spot and would have had it similarly highlighted.) But that opens the door to various opinions about UI theory which are way over my head, or worse yet, a Mac v PC argument. Ultimately, the dialog box gave me clear instructions that I did not read; I clicked the wrong thing, then took the added bonus step of making my wrong answer permanent. I made a really dumb mistake. Which should be easily solved by bringing up the Silverlight preferences and changing my final answer.

This proved to be less intuitive than I thought. Ultimately, I didn't spend all that much time on it — a few minutes on the above basic troubleshooting, a few more minutes fumbling around trying to find the Silverlight settings, then spent a few minutes searching for various fruitless terms like "netflix watch instant restore dual monitor full screen silverlight preferences OS X blah blah blah," which mostly found dated forum posts by people bitching about this feature not existing. So I shrugged and said "Oh, well, whatever. Back to my real work" and backburnered it until I had time to figure it out today.

I eventually found that on a Mac, the Silverlight preferences are launched by an app inside the Silverlight plugin package. (EDIT: I later stumbled onto an easier way to lauch the prefs. With a Netflix video onscreen, right-click on the video and you get a contextual menu to launch the Silverlight prefs). This isn't a location that a normal person will stumble onto, because an extra step is required to view package contents and you'd also have to know that they sometimes hide things like this inside packages to think to look there in the first place (I knew this and still forgot to look there). You don't really need to know any of this. What you need to know is that the Silverlight installer sticks an alias in your Applications folder that will launch the preferences app. Hooray!

A side note: while the little hidden-in-the-plugin preferences app is suitably named "Silverlight Preferences," the alias that launches it is inexplicably named "Microsoft Silverlight." This makes no sense to me, as my grossly oversimplified understanding is that a plugin isn't something the user decides to launch, but that it's a tool/add-on for another program to call on when needed. If your browser needs Silverlight, your browser knows where to find it and launches it when it needs to, or prompts you to install it if missing. I point this out simply because if Microsoft had chosen to name this alias "Silverlight Preferences," normal people might actually stumble onto it and be able to tell what it does. I should have noticed it/found it/tried launching it to see what it did, but I overlooked it.

In the end, a simple net search for something like: "Silverlight Mac preferences" would probably have brought me to the answer sooner, but it took a while to come to that conclusion, and even that search comes up with a lot of irrelevant results. I stumbled onto the step-by-step in this completely unrelated Mac-vs-PC discussion (thanks Alice!).

I'm using Firefox in Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard. But your preferred browser should in theory be irrelevant. Mac OS version also won't matter, I suspect but haven't confirmed. I have no idea how to reset the Silverlight prefs in Windows but the internet probably does.

So — I'll stop rambling now. Here's what you need to do:

• go to your Applications folder, find the Microsoft Silverlight alias and launch it. Click on the tab that says Permissions and you should see something like this:

• You may see more items depending on your usage – apparently, Netflix is the only site that has saved any permissions preferences for me. You also may see more than one entry for Netflix — after goofing around with this for a while, I have now two Netflix entries, one that is for www.netflix.com:80 and one for movies.netflix.com:80. If you have both, repeat the following steps for any Netflix items on the list.

• So you see the Allow and Deny button? You'd think then you could just click/on highlight the Netflix line and click Allow, but this doesn't work. I guess there are additional permissions preferences that could be managed, and we have to first tell Silverlight which thing we want to allow.

• So click the little arrow next to the Netflix URL to expand down till you see something like this.

• There's that magic word, "unfocused." Where it says "Deny," it needs to say "Allow." To do this, you'll need to click on the text that says "Full-Screen: stay full screen when unfocused," then click Allow.

• You can now close this preference window and should be good to go – I didn't even need to restart my browser. Heck. Go crazy! Toggle back and forth at will!

So there you go — the next time Silverlight asks you a question and you accidentally and somewhat permanently click the wrong answer, you'll know how to change it in a more effective manner than shaking your fist at the sky.

Chicken Pot Pie

2010-12-13T22:03:00.002-06:00

Chicken Pot Pie, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

It's been in the 30s overnight lately, perfect recipe for chicken pot pie. Finally got my recipe tweaks worked out – find it here.

Adventures in Eating in Hue, Vietnam

2010-05-04T21:25:00.026-05:00

Well, this is a little anticlimactic, since we've been back from our Vietnam trip for, oh, about five months now. But I was going through my camera after last week's New Orleans trip and came across a bunch of photos that hadn't seen the light of day. Thought I'd knock a few posts out over the next couple of days.

Hue, the formal imperial capital, was our favorite part of trip -- the city (while still bustling) has a more relaxed vibe and pace, and despite having a significant number of cultural attractions, manages to maintain its own identity as a city apart from just being a tourist destination.

My favorite part about Hue was how easy it was to get off the beaten tourist path -- we did this a couple times, once on a long walk, once on a long cyclo ride (we'd already seen the sights, so we told the drivers to just take us wherever they felt like), and another when we rented bikes. I've already posted some of the pics and stories but here's some more:

Here, we're sitting down to what turned out to be our most adventurous meal of the trip at a tiny little open air "cafe" way off the beaten tourist path on a quiet, shady residential street that we stumbled upon one day during a long walk.

Ta da! A cafe. Tiny child-sized red plastic chairs to sit on. Tiny child-sized blue plastic tables to eat at. There were no other customer's eating (it was past lunch time), let alone any other westerners. (We'd been walking so long, we'd not seen any other tourists for some time, somewhat of a relief.)

Since we were hungry and tired from walking, and since we'd been wanting to have a more authentic, local eating experience, this seemed like the ideal opportunity. So we sat down and pantomimed eating motions, and the proprietress nodded and ran over to her little "kitchen area" and got to work.

The kitchen was basically a charcoal brazier keeping a stockpot hot, a table to prep on, and an umbrella to keep the sun at bay.

Pretty soon, the food arrived.

I think it was Bun Bo Hue, which we discovered later is a dish Hue is known for. Fat rice noodles in a spicy broth with hard-boiled quail eggs, dark shiny blood sausage and thin slices of pale, dense, Vietnamese sausage floating in it. The bowl of quail eggs and fresh-made shrimp chips were for us to snack on while we waited for the soup.

You may have noticed the beer upper left hand corner of the photo -- soon after we sat down, an older man, maybe a friend or relative of the woman cooking, ran over and pantomimed to ask us if we wanted beers (bia is one of the few words we picked up on the trip). We nodded yes, so he then ran across the street to a little shop and a few minutes later, ran back with two beers. He opened them, and then -- somewhat to our dismay though he clearly meant well -- he proceeded to use his fairly grimy and long-nailed hand to carefully wipe the mouths of the bottles "clean" before proudly setting them down in front of us. Then he settled back in his chair to watch the show (i.e., us eating).

Daniel and I looked at each other for a moment, then we both kind of shrugged and laughed and we drank up. We had been lucky so far in terms of food poisoning -- we'd been vaccinated against anything dangerous, and had medication back at the hotel room for garden variety food poisoning. All part of the experience. But fortunately, we both felt fine afterward.

The soup was really good, though I will admit I wasn't a huge fan blood sausage, something I'd managed to avoid trying until that point. I didn't love the texture, but it actually doesn't taste like much of anything. Somehow that was worse -- it left my mind free to think about what I was eating. :)

The whole meal, including both beers (after a quiet discussion between the cook and the beer guy) came to something like 70,000 dong, about US$3.50. No doubt more than they'd charge a local (hence the discussion), but loads cheaper than we'd been paying for comparable servings in the tourist districts.

2010 Woodzie Portapotty Fund

2010-03-27T11:16:00.003-05:00

We've got 2 weeks to raise the portapotty money, ya'll. Gonna get just 2 this year, unless we beat the goal.

Vietnamese home cooking -- attempt #1

2010-01-03T21:57:00.009-06:00

Armed with recipes from our cooking class, and a couple of new Vietnamese cookbooks, we made Pho and Vietnamese spring rolls (cha gio or nem ran, depending on whether you're in the South or the North) for dinner tonight. Both came out very good, though ultimately much more expensive than getting the same things in a restaurant (the Pho especially -- just the bones to make the broth cost $13. I got 6 servings out of it, but still...).

Spring roll filling - doesn't look all that appetizing, but it was tasty. Ground pork, chopped shrimp, flaked crab, plus grated carrot, onions (green and white), chinese black fungus, bean thread noodles and fish sauce.

Making the rolls:

Ready to fry:

Finished rolls and dipping sauce:

Very tasty, though they didn't brown very well -- I think the secret is using sugar in the water you soften the dried wrappers with. We'll try more sugar next time. Not sure how I'd make these for a crowd, as we could only fry two at a time, due to them wanting to stick together. Maybe fry a bunch, keep them warm in the oven, then a quick dip in the hot oil again to crisp them back up?

Pho fixings:

You don't cook Pho so much as assemble it. Here it is ready to eat:

Radio Shack in Ho Chi Minh City

2009-12-12T20:50:00.010-06:00

So we're back, and mostly rested (though I'm still fighting the cold I brought back as a souvenir), and while still not completely unpacked (my luggage somehow exploded -- seriously, it's all over the house), I'm finally beginning to go through photos from the trip. I have a lot new photos, videos, etc. that I plan to eventually post, but in cleaning up previously-blogged photos on my Flickr account, I came across this pic I had posted from our first full day in the country, and I decided that it really needs some context.

So, the night before this picture was taken, we'd arrived in Vietnam. It's something like 1 am. We've managed to successfully get through immigration (which was kind of creepy -- the officials who scrutinized our documents didn't say a word or crack a smile, only made eye contact to compare our faces to our passport photos); we've found our driver at the airport (yeah, he was holding a sign with our names on it, but the International Arrivals in Saigon was a complete madhouse of people waiting to greet their friends and loved ones, plus scores of taxi drivers accosting everyone who walked out, saying "Where are you going? Where are you going? Need taxi? Taxi?" -- it took us a while to find him in the crowd); we've survived our first car ride in Saigon traffic (albeit at midnight, the streets were a lot quieter, but this was our introduction to the Vietnamese "rules of the road" -- something you can read about, but you have to experience firsthand to really understand. There are rules, but let's just say they're subtle... Those lane markers? They're really just suggestions). We've made it to the sweet little mini hotel we're staying in (which required our first Saigon street crossing, with the help of the driver), stepped out into the backpackers district for a quick bite at a late-night pho place, and are ready to settle in for a good night sleep after our long trip so we can start the next day fresh...

We were prepared (we thought) for the electrical situation, having checked in advance which devices we brought would switch voltage automatically, which we'd need to switch manually, etc. We've brought adapters (which we ultimately ended up not ever needing -- all of the hotels we stayed in had outlets that took both US and european plugs). We've researched and we've planned and we're ready.

But we've also been on and off of airplanes for 24 hours. We're discombobulated, and really, really tired. Needless to say, our heads were pretty muddled, and planning and preparation went completely out the window when it came time for us to plug the first device in. And of course, the first thing we plugged in was Daniel's CPAP machine.

You don't really need to know what CPAP is to understand the story, but basically, it's a breathing machine for people with sleep apnea. What you do need to know is that without it, Daniel can sleep, but not very well, and not very restfully. A few days without it, and he's pretty much exhausted, and has to take more or less involuntary naps to get through the day. You need to know that in it's bag, with it's accessories, it's maybe the bulk and weight of a 12-pack of beer. You need to know that we've already carried it on three different airplanes. That it's been scrutinized by security in two different countries. But that dragging it around, while a hassle, is necessary. Of course, it's also the one device we've brought that requires that you switch the voltage manually.

I'm sure you can predict what happened next -- in our muddled states of mind, we forgot to switch the voltage. Daniel plugged it in, we saw sparks, and it stopped working. At first we were sure we'd killed it. Though, off course, they've designed it with fuses to protect it from idiots like us. And although the lighting in the hotel room was really bad (we found that to be universal in the hotels we stayed in -- really terrible lighting -- either too dim, or horrifically surface-of-the-sun bright, and no reading lights), it looked like one of the fuses had blown.

So now, the biggest, heaviest, most expensive and most important thing we'd lugged thousands of miles -- and would continue to have to lug around for the rest of the trip, whether it was in working condition or not -- was now as useless as a cinder block... Not a big deal at home, just stop into Radio Shack for new fuses, but we weren't really sure where to go or what to do in Vietam. Kind of silly in retrospect, because of course they have devices with fuses there, too, but at the time, we were really worried that he'd be stuck without the thing for the rest of the trip. So he slept the first night without it, and we thought maybe the hotel receptionist would be able to help us sort it out the next day.

Take a look at this photo again:

Yeah, it's kind of blurry, but does it look like a Radio Shack or the electrical aisle of a Home Depot to you? Might not, but that's more or less what it was. When we first got into the country, we'd be hard-pressed to look at a store front and be able to tell what they might be selling, but this one was more or less an electrical supply store -- light switches, electrical outlets, conduit, wire, plus some small appliances, fans, etc. Within just a few minutes of mentioning to Chris that we'd blown a fuse, he had us in this store, walking distance from our hotel -- they dug through several boxes of fuses until they found what we needed. We bought a replacement and a couple extras for something like 15¢.

Can't stress how great it was to have Chris and Yan easing us into the country.

View from the stage at the Pearl Farmer's Market

2009-12-12T11:52:00.004-06:00

Chilly and damp, but still a great turnout!

Still in tourist mode...

2009-12-06T11:09:00.003-06:00

Home and rested, but the cupboards are beyond bare, so out for breakfast at the Guenther House.

No pho to be found on the menu, so we had to settle for waffles and biscuits with country gravy.

Adios/Aloha Vietnam

2009-12-04T10:21:00.002-06:00

After multiple delays at the airport in Hanoi...

2009-12-03T05:48:00.002-06:00

...they've finally begun boarding our flight to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon.

Good thing, as the baby was getting cranky.

Posted via email from fiddlechick's posterous

Hanoi -- Some downtime before we head back home

2009-12-02T23:19:00.007-06:00

Today is our last afternoon in Hanoi -- flying back down to Saigon, getting in during the evening. Then we have just a little over 24 hours before we get ourselves back to the airport to start the trip home -- a midnight flight out of Saigon, 27 hours of flying and layovers, and back in San Antonio Saturday early afternoon local time.

I have a lot of stuff still to post, but at this point, thinking it will happen when we get home, as selecting and uploading photos from the camera burns a lot of time. Daniel's resting up (both of us kind of hit a wall after 2 weeks of travelling -- last night was my night to crash and burn, he's feeling it this morning), so I thought I'd take the time to let you know you can look forward to reading about/seeing pictures of:

Water puppet theater in Hanoi: we saw this show a few days ago, and really enjoyed it. There is a municipal theater in town that has a permanent Water Puppet Theater performance troupe -- there may even be more than one cast/band, because the theater company also tours and does festivals. Extremely popular with the tourists, but I think there were also some locals there. Literally 5 one-hour shows a night, one after the other -- they were shooing us out the door as the next group was filing in. The tickets are cheap - we were 7th row in the roughly 400-500 seat theater, and it cost us just around $3.50 each, plus a $1 to bring the camera in. Although the way the theater was set up (not a steep enough angle), I don't know that anyone could really see all that well -- higher/cheaper seats may have been better.

Visually, it was quite stunning, though I personally think the music is really what made it. I shot some short clips of the band which I'll post later. The clips will, I think, give you an idea of what exceptionally-played traditional Vietnamese music sounds like -- they were all clearly masters of their instruments, and it was a huge treat to hear them.

I didn't have a very good view of the stage, and I don't know enough about photography to get a decent photo in that setting, so I gave up taking photos pretty quickly into the show -- I figured with 5 shows a night, someone else with a better camera and a better view has nice photos and videos online somewhere that I can share -- a quick search of Flickr has proved me right. Here's a teaser, someone else's HDR photo of the stage and set -- when I get back, I'll find some other photos that do the show justice and post some more information:

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Halong bay cruise: as you saw, posted a couple of crummy pics off the iPhone -- I'll spend some time doing a post about the cruise, which was a lot of fun and quite luxurious (by far the nicest room we've stayed in so far), though they packed in several days worth of shore activities into 24 hours, so even our relaxing cruise felt harried at times.

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Bia Hoy: Bia is the Vietnamese spelling/pronounciation for, well, beer. Bia Hoy is the term for fresh beer -- kegs of draft beer with no preservatives, meant to be served and drunk within a day of being brewed. Bia Hoy is drunk in the Vietnamese equivalent of a Texas ice house -- corner open air bars -- most have some kind of bar food. There's quite an after-work happy hour type scene at these places, because this beer is very cheap, and very light and meant to be drunk in large quantities. We'd read about these places in the guidebook (having seen them all over town in the part of Hanoi we're staying), and yesterday afternoon, we found one to hang out it, hoping to have some beers and maybe a light lunch. After a few beers, we thought we'd see what would happen if we bought a round for another table. More on Bia Hoy later, as I have a lot of photos and video clips to go along with the story, which turned out to be one of the highest points of the trip.

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Money / cost of living: Since I'm in a writing mood, a little bit more info on the money and cost of living.

Ho Chi Minh is pictured on all the front of the bills. The backs have various famous scenes and sites -- some pagodas, one engraving of an off shore oil rig, etc.

The small bills (up to 5000 dong) were printed in the late 80s and early 90s according to the dates on the bills we have in hand, and are paper money. The bigger bills (10,000 and above) are some kind of plastic, with translucent areas for counterfeit protection and lots of other counterfeit protections as well (watermarks, holograms of the denomination, etc). Not sure when they were printed -- no dates that I could find. I haven had time to research much what's going on with the exchange rate here, but clearly they have some massive inflation, since they have recent bills (the 10,000 dong plastic bills) which at this point are worth just over 50 cents US.

Cash in the form of $US is widely accepted here, even preferred, as the exchange rate changes such that a dollar today may be worth only 17,000 VND, but may be worth 19,000 VND tomorrow. Most cash transactions we made, they asked if we had USD, and took dong if that was all we had (we brought some cash, but ran out of US dollars halfway through the trip and have been pulling Dong out of ATMs), but made it clear they'd rather have $US.

To give you an idea of the cost of living, a bottled local beer has generally been running us 10-20,000 dong depending on the city we're in and the type of place, and whether it's a tourist or local place (roughly 60 cents to a 1.20). Premium local beers maybe 25,000 dong. The 1000, 2000, 5000 dong bills haven't been good for much beyond street food stalls (some great pastries from a bakery in a local section of Hanoi were 3000 dong for 2), and I gather pay toilets, though we haven't tried one of those yet. Rents and property costs, I gather, are high relative to other expenses -- not cheap like the food and beer are. You may notice that most of the buildings are very skinny and very tall -- property costs being what they are, it makes more sense to build small and build tall.

Food prices generally aren't posted, except in sit-down restaurants that have a printed menu, and in general, I imagine we're paying more for the same thing than locals do -- we bought 2 banana fritters in the street last night and were asked to pay 15,000 dong (still less than a dollar, but I'm thinking the 3000 dong price the pastry shop charged us is probably more in line with what it should have been). But it didn't seem worth haggling over since we didn't really know what a fair price is. They have to make money as they can, might as well make some extra from the tourists -- if they price they quote is not ridiculous, we generally just pay. We've had other situations -- eating noodles at a sidewalk cafe where the food and beer just comes, and at the end of the meal, the amount of money they wanted was very cheap (2 big bowls of noodles with some meat and sausage, some hard boiled quail (?) eggs, a couple of beers, plus a couple other things that just showed up on the table, all for 70,000, maybe $3.50.)

Some things, we are haggling, if we have enough experience with how much it should actually cost, but it seems poor form to haggle for food we've already eaten, or food they've already brought. A couple people have quoted us prices so ridiculous we've just walked away (or at least tried to walk away -- cheap sunglasses for Daniel that would be $8 at Target at home, a street vendor wanted $10). We really did try to walk away in disgust, but the sunglass man followed us up the street for more than a block, wanting us to haggle. In the end, we paid about $5 for them -- Daniel did need sunglasses, but at that point, we were mostly paying to make him go away.

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Daniel's rested, so a last jaunt out in Hanoi. Probably one more short post from Saigon before we are back to travelling again.

Halong Bay cruise

2009-12-01T22:50:00.002-06:00

Couple of quick phone pics from the cruise -- Halong Bay turned out to be more breathtakingly beautiful than I imagined it woul be, even shrouded by fog as it was during our short cruise (just under 24 hours on the boat).

Better pics from the camera to come later...

Waiting to board the cruise ship

2009-12-01T22:34:00.003-06:00

Last chance for WiFi for a while. Here's Brad's promised (though blurry) Vietnamese Dong pics. Bills ranging from 500,000 down to 2000. Exchange rate is around 18,000 to the dollar.

Hanoi street scenes

2009-11-30T05:23:00.005-06:00

Some random pics from our 2nd day in Hanoi:

Hoan Kiem lake (near our hotel):

Saw these stencils all over town and have been speculating over what they might be. We showed a photo to the receptionist at the hotel and she said they are... (wait for it...) advertisements for a mortgage refinancing company. Bill posting is, I believe, not allowed, so these would be guerrilla advertisements, and harder to remove than handbills (which we also saw -- took us a while to realize they were advertising the same thing -- I think it's the initials of a company, and then their phone number):

The streets in old town are named for what the vendors historically have sold. Sometimes the name matches what they are still selling, sometimes not so much anymore. This is counterfeit street -- we think it would historically would sell the fake money and dollar bills that buddhists leave on altars as gifts for their ancestors -- these shops probably still sell that kind of thing, because we've seen it everywhere on altars. However right now, the whole street is full of these (I think) wedding decorations:

And Christmas decorations:

Blacksmith street -- all things metal, welded, soldered, forged, etc. We did see a blacksmith working on the sidewalk, but didn't get a shot of it. Hard to see in the pic, but these are metal birdcages (a lot of people keep songbirds here, maybe the way we would keep houseplants), metal hat racks (many businesses have hat racks for umbrellas and motorbike helmets), metal garment fixtures, etc:

I don't remember what street we were on when we came across these kewpie dolls...

Or this music store -- most of the stuff in the front was for tourists, but they had some playable guitars in the back, and I saw some decent violin cases stashed up above in storage:

High-end wedding dress shop in the French quarter:

Rollercoaster in Lenin Park:

After being turned away from a popular French bistro whose kitchen had already closed, we had our best meal yet this afternoon at a hospitality/food/beverage training school for disadvantaged kids called Hoa Sua School. A very quiet, peaceful courtyard in a beautiful French colonial building (quiet is rare here... exactly what we were hoping to find after 2 days of walking through traffic and crowded sidewalks). Great food, reasonably priced -- and really great service (though they're learning, so occasionally a supervisor would step in to help, or take over and demonstrate). Daniel had Vietnamese, I ate French. The servers were darling. We had a lot of fun here -- plan to have dinner here again before we leave:

Tried the local Vietnamese (Dalat) wine for the first time -- we had actually tried a glass in Hoi An earlier, but it had been open too long and had turned to vinegar, so it wasn't really a fair try. We ordered a bottle here, and it was actually quite good - light-bodied and very drinkable (I'm not a big wine connoisseur, but I enjoyed it, and Daniel said it was good):

Duck l'orange:

Our server on the left. After the meal, we tried to let her know what a good job she had done (her English was quite adequate for taking our order and meeting our needs, but beyond that, she had a hard time understanding us, so it took a few minutes to get the point across). She seemed to think she didn't do a very good job (she said no, she is "very bad" -- maybe because she needed help opening the wine, tried to clear our dessert plate a little too early). But in the end, I think we made it clear that we'd had a great meal.

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Anti-smoking poster outside of the World Health Organization office:

Evening tai chi warmups:

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Last post for a couple of days as we'll be in Halong Bay.

Hue street scenes

2009-11-30T05:20:00.008-06:00

Backtracking a few days, here are some pics from our 2nd day in Hue -- rented bicycles, braved the traffic (not so bad like Saigon or Hanoi, but still a little alarming, especially on wobbly rented bicycles) and crossed the river to get out of the tourist areas. Explored and found a lake in the citadel area in a residential neighborhood that was definitely off the tourist track. Also took an hour or so cyclo ride in some of the less touristy areas of Hue.

Ate lunch here -- it was packed with locals when we sat down. We were some of the last to leave. Here, it's all cleaned up (there had been napkins all over the floor, which apparently is a sign of a good place).

Spotted this along the way -- a full PA system being hauled on a cyclo:

Didn't have to go too far to get out of the tourist areas -- the Citadel side of the Perfume River is a lot quieter, once you get away from the Imperial Enclosure. We rode around for a couple of hours and saw few westerners:

Quiet lake we found while exploring bicycling. I'm guessing the platform had a temple or pagoda on it once upon a time:

After bicycling for a while (which was somewhat relaxing, but also somewhat nervewracking -- in order to get across the river to the quiet areas, we had to wade through some pretty heavy motorbike traffic), we decided to take a short cyclo ride -- a lot of the drivers speak enough English that they can act as a tour guide, and though we'd already seen enough of the official "sights," we thought it would be cool to have them take us around for a half hour or so anyway, again maybe a little off the beaten path. It's a nice, relaxing way to be in the traffic and be able to take it all in, without having to negotiate the traffic like we did on the bicycles...

I had met my cyclo driver earlier in the day -- he had been following me from shop to shop trying to talk me into hiring him for a cyclo ride (I was something like a block from the hotel, so wasn't interested at the time). But I ended up talking to him for a bit. When he asked where I was from, and I said "U.S.", he gave a big thumbs up and said, "Obama! I like Obama!" Said he's seen Obama and his daughters on TV, and he seems like a good family man. Won me over, so when we decided to take a ride later that day, we looked around for him until we found him again. He grabbed a friend to drive Daniel around. Here's just a couple of pics. We had a really interesting time riding with them and talking to them, since it gave us a chance to ask "What's that sign say?" "What's that big building over there?" I have some other pics and videos I'll post later.

Communist billboard:

Kids we came across during a short stop on the cyclo ride, on the other side of the river. A lot of the kids we met when we got off the tourist track were really friendly and eager to talk to us, wanting to use their little bit of English (generally just "Hello! Hello!"):

Fresh-made incense drying, here more or less in someone's backyard:

Here, incense drying in front of a Buddhist temple. We peeked inside -- the monks were playing football/soccer in the enclosed yard:

Daniel's cyclo driver in the striped shirt -- we're crossing the river back on our way back to the busy side at the end of our ride:

Hanoi -- views from hotel

2009-11-29T21:37:00.004-06:00

We are settled in our hotel in Hanoi -- like we did in Hoi An (the place with the nice balcony and peaceful central courtyard), we're staying in a little bit upmarket place here. In Saigon and Hue, we were in backpackers' hotels, on the high end of budget at around $15-20/night for a very basic though modern room -- ac/hot water/wifi when it worked, TV with cable, free hot breakfast. Basic, but also scrupulously clean with very attentive service. Here, nicer linens, bigger room, an elevator instead of walkup. Still only $38/night for the "city view" side of the tall skinny building.

We popped up to the top (7th) floor to check out the views ended up preferring the city view side because we have we're at treetop level and have a wonderful tree outside our balcony, and the street life is more fun to look at than rooftops. Besides that the lake view side turned out to be just as loud, and on the lower floors, we would have barely been able to see the lake anyway...

Construction/demolition/rebuilding/remodelling seems to be a constant ongoing process in every city we've visited.

Lake side

Hue, Vietnam -- Citadel and Imperial Enclosure

2009-11-29T19:26:00.026-06:00

We are settled in Hanoi, in the old town district. Very busy here as well -- the city is much less populous than Saigon, but it doesn't feel like the pace is any slower, and if anything, the driving seems to be less forgiving and more aggressive. But we have yet to leave the old town area, which is, from what we hear, an especially busy place -- spent several hours last night exploring the twisting streets.

Today, we're going to get motorbike taxis and hopefully find a quieter area of the city to explore -- near the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and Ho Chi Minh museum. Tonight, we have tickets to see the Water Puppet theater (water puppetry is a traditional folk-art -- now being staged in a large municipal theater with something like five shows a night). John, hoping after we see the show that I may, after tonight, be able to answer the "what does traditional music sound like?" question. Tomorrow morning, we go to Halong bay for a one-night cruise on a replica of a Chinese junk.

In the meantime, here are some photos from our previous stop, Hue -- walking tour of the Citadel and Imperial Enclosure. The citadel makes up a large part of the city itself -- a lot of the population lives within the outer citadel moat and walls. Within the citadel is the imperial enclosure, quite a large area itself, once housing about 150 structures both ceremonial and "everyday" palaces for the emperor, the royal extended family, other lower royalty, etc. It was a city within the city of the citadel, itself within the city of Hue.

The imperial enclosure is now a historic site in varying phases of restoration, much of it having been been destroyed by not just the war with the US but by several major natural disasters/monsoons. We walked around just the enclosure for several hours and really barely made a dent -- we'd walk through fully restored palaces, then find ourselves among complete ruins, then stumble onto workmen and craftsmen working on a restoration project.

Here are some highlights -- unfortunately, I ate up my camera battery goofing around on the train, and forgot to charge it, so only had my phone to shoot while in the Citadel:

Outer moat and outer wall of the citadel.

Main entrance to the imperial enclosure (there were gates on all 4 sides. This was the one the emperor used, which fed straight into his ceremonial palace, then into his own, deeper enclosure called the Forbidden Purple City. This gate has a structure on top that the emperor would use when he wanted to address those outside of the citadel walls.

Mortar or maybe cannonball damage to outer wall -- there was a deep hole in the middle about the size of a big grapefruit.

One of the secondary gates to the enclosure.

The mosaic tile work was beautiful, made up of different colored shards of broken ceramic pottery.

Inside the imperial enclosure -- emperor would walk through this gate to get to his ceremonial palace. Everyone else had to walk on different bridges on either side.

These are fiberglass repros:

Emperor's ceremonial palace -- used for formal ceremonies and to address the lower royalty. We went inside, but no photos were allowed:

These tombstone looking things (guidebook called them Stellae) marked the rows that the various royalty would stand in, based on rank, when being addressed by the emperor from the ceremonial palace:

One of the lesser royalty:

Some rebuilding/restoration work being done on another structure (seems to be in the finishing stages):

A different structure, at an earlier phase of restoration/rebuilding:

Carving the ceiling beams:

Staining the wood carving:

Tired after all the walking, we took motorbike taxis back to the hotel.

Hoi An to Hue via rail

2009-11-27T22:41:00.024-06:00

Our concept of travelling light was pretty much blown out of the water after just a few days in Hoi An. You can get custom clothes and shoes made probably pretty much anywhere in the country, but Hoi An has really made it the thing to do while you're in town -- it's very easy to get caught up in the low prices and many options. Those of you who know us well will know that Daniel and I are not ones to shop like crazy, but besides the stuff we got for ourselves, we decided to go ahead and get the gift shopping mostly out of the way in Hoi An. Here's what we left with (in addition to our original luggage -- and full disclosure, this isn't even really all of it). Right before we left, once we were done with the last minute shopping, we stepped out and bought big rolling duffel so we'd have something to carry it all in for the rest of the trip...

After the car we had hired in advance accidentally took us to the airport first, we found the train station to be a little overwhelming -- the airports are very English-speaking friendly, but rail is how the locals travel, and nothing was in English that I could see. Plus we now had more than we could really carry ourselves (at least for any distance), so I was a little worried about how we would get everything onto the train and stowed away.

Fortunately, kind of like airport curbside service, they have guys with carts ready to "help" -- I guess if you look lost like we did, they don't even ask, because as the taxi driver was unloading our stuff from the trunk, a curbside guy just came up and started loading the stuff on to his cart, wheeled us into the station and parked us in the back, probably not coincidentally, by two of the few other westerners in the station. He looked at our tickets to see where we were going, motioned to indicate that we could keep the cart, and then left. We still weren't sure exactly what was going on... Do we get ourselves to the train? What do we do with the cart afterward? How would we know which train was ours?

We spent a nice hour or so chatting with the Irish couple who have been travelling since February -- they couldn't really tell us what was going to happen with our stuff and the cart, either -- the only other leg they had travelled by train, the train was already in the station when they arrived and they walked right on and settled themselves in.

Eventually, a train pulled in, and I guess it was ours, because the cart man showed up and wheeled us into line with the other passengers, and then headed up the walkway at a fast clip towards the far end of the train, motioning all the while for us to follow.

OK, so now we realize he's going to help us all the way -- I was glad, because we had no idea what was going on. He got us to the right car, and started unloading our stuff from the cart. We figure, OK, he's helped us, he's taking his cart back, now would be when we would tip/pay him, so Daniel got out some money out (having no idea how much is appropriate). The cart man waved it off, which was really surprising at the time, but we thought maybe he works for the rail company and it's his job.

Fought our way onto the train, found our seats (it was very full, and everyone, like us, had too much stuff -- some were sleeping on the floor, probably having bought a seat instead of a berth, because it's cheaper -- the guy behind us had a TV in a box on his lap). Though crowded as it was, people were surprisingly nice -- I had trouble finding our seats (the numbers weren't going in a logical order that I could discern), and so I showed our tickets to a random local, and they pointed us in the right direction. And once we got to our seats, the man sitting behind us moved some of his stuff to another overhead rack so we'd have room for the largest of our bags. In the end, we had some above, some on hooks, some at our feet, some on our laps, some under our seats...just like everyone else.

Then the cart man came back -- apparently, helping us means not just leading us to the car, but making sure that we're in our seats and settled. And now he's ready for us to tip him.

Tipping is not generally expected here but is appreciated (though, apparently, in certain situations like this, it is not just expected but required). Daniel tried to give him 10,000 Dong, but he says, no, it's 30,000 Dong. This is not very much money, less than $2US, but it's a rather large tip compared to what we would tip a taxi or cyclo driver, especially since the train tickets were only $6US. However, since he really did help us and we really had no idea what the hell we were doing, it seemed fair and reasonable. I'm not sure what he would have done if we didn't have the cash on us.

This stretch of the Vietnam rail system is purported to be very beautiful, which is one of the reasons we decided to take the train (the bus route is more inland). We met some travelers from Oregon who seem to be travel-by-rail junkies, and they say it has a worldwide reputation. The weather was pretty overcast, though, and we were on the wrong side of the train to really be able to see the ocean views. But it was still very pretty (completely not evidenced by this photo -- I would have gotten up and taken a better picture, but I had a lap full of luggage). Even the locals were standing in the aisles so they could look out the window and see better.

Our side of the train had lovely, though foggy, rural and mountain scenes like this.

We went through some tunnels.

Then it started to rain in earnest, and we were left with not much to do but play with the camera.

And practice taking pictures of ourselves.

3 hours later, we pulled into the station in Hue, the novelty having worn off a little, but fortunately there were no delays and the train arrived in Hue more or less on time (as I said, the guidebook says this leg is anywhere from 2.5 to 6 hours -- we saw some really big boulders near the tracks that had clearly rolled down the mountainside -- one of those on the tracks would push it beyond the 6 hour point, I'm sure).

We are taking advantage of the slower pace in Hue to take it easy and see the sights at our own speed. Ate some real street food in a residential/non-tourist area of town, and last night, had a very nice meal and a bottle of wine at a Vietnamese/French restaurant. This morning, resting and catching up on blogging, then probably some more walking around. Tomorrow morning, we leave via air for a 4 night stretch in Hanoi, with a 1 night cruise of Halong Bay in the middle.

Buying Custom Boots in Hoi An, Vietnam

2009-11-27T22:40:00.013-06:00

Hoi an to Hue

2009-11-26T18:11:00.020-06:00

We are now in Hue -- the former imperial city. Arrived yesterday afternoon, after what turned out to be a fairly uneventful train ride (once we got ourselves to the train station and got ourselves onto the train.) The guidebook said the trip from Hoi An to Hue could be anywhere from 2.5 hours to 6 hours -- ours was about 3, thank goodness -- 6 would be more eventful than I think I'd be up for. The trains seem to be not used so widely by travellers (generally more adventurous backpackers who want to save money, or more seasoned international travellers who see the train as a way to see the country from a different perspective). In the train station in Danang, there were only a few other westerners waiting for the train -- one was a young couple from Ireland who've been travelling South American and Southeast Asia since February (!).

Getting from Hoi An to Hue on the soft seat train (meaning the seats have some padding, and the cars are air conditioned) was only about $6 each. Hiring a private car for the same trip is possible for about $60, but the road follows a more inland route, and we had heard the views from the train (the train tracks hug the coast) are spectacular. Plus, we wanted to take the train at least once during the trip, to see what it was like, and I'm glad we did, because it was a memorable experience -- we briefly considered taking an overnight train for one of the longer legs, but in the end, decided for the "3 hour tour" from Hoi An to Hue. The weather did not cooperate completely (though to be fair, we've been so lucky with the weather so far... very comfortable temperatures -- not too hot or too cold -- and only a little rain, really just sprinkles); the spectacular views were pretty socked in by fog, but it was still a beautiful trip. More on the train later, as I have some photos I'd like to post to go along with the stories.

I can tell already that Hue is going to be different from Hoi An. The guidebook even makes a point of saying that while Hue also has a lot of tourism, it's dedicated to preserving the way of life of the city. Both Hoi An and Hue have amazing histories and a lot of cultural things to see, but the culture and everyday life in Hoi An have become eclipsed almost completely by tourism, at least on the surface, which was a little jarring at first -- the vendors in the markets are extremely agressive in Hoi An, which wore on us. At one point, I was accosted by a girl who wanted me to come to her stall and have my eyebrows and legs "threaded" -- a traditional Asian form of hair removal, like waxing -- basically two pieces of thread twisted are rubbed over the hairy body part, and the thread grabs and pulls out the hair -- kind of like if you have a rubber band on your wrist and it grabs your arm hair and pulls it out. She came up to us while we were at a stall buying some chopsticks and trinkets, and before we completely realized what was going on, she had her thread out and was doing one of my eyebrows right there in the street. We managed to get her to stop before I was too uneven (because it was clear she was only going to do one for free...), but then she started rubbing one of my legs and told me I was too hairy, and needed to come to her stall (OK, so I'm travelling and not shaving every day...). Eventually we got her to give up and go find another victim. I might have been imagining it, but I think the vendor we were buying the chopsticks from subtly motioned me to zip up my purse (my camera was showing on top) while the street urchin eyebrow girl was attacking me. Most of the vendors and shops we dealt with seemed to be quite honest -- they just wanted us to come in and buy stuff and were persistant and vocal about it. Eyebrow girl was not the norm.

In Hoi An, everyday life was going on, but it's like it was behind a screen. Really, not at all unlike the riverwalk versus the rest of San Antonio, or Waikiki versus the rest of Oahu. It took us a few days before we started to notice things like that in the late evenings, the shopkeeper's kids would show up in their pajamas, maybe brought by an older sibling, maybe walking by themselves, to hang out with mom and dad for the last few hours that the shops were open. We started using various alleys and side streets to get around (the main streets dump you directly into the markets), and saw further glimpses of people going about their lives, despite the fact that many of their lives revolve around catering to the large number of visitors. Not to say that I did not care for Hoi An, because I did. It just took me a few days to see through the show that's being put on for the tourists, and see the real Hoi An.

Hue doesn't seem to be like that -- in Hoi An, with the exception of the times we ventured into the food market and were buying from produce stalls or eating noodles at a market stall, almost everyone we talked to spoke English, most quite well, others maybe just enough to talk to us about what they were selling, convert currency, etc. I'm realizing now that the wide prevalence of English speaking was due to the tourism, from the large number of visitors from Australia, NZ and Europe. In Hue, while our hotel and driver spoke English, the servers we've met up with at restaurants and bars we've gone to so far didn't speak any English at all -- we've gotten by with pointing. Some of the cyclo drivers have been a little agressive (cyclo - kind of like a pedicab, but you ride in the front), but otherwise, we've been able to walk by shops without the constant yelling of "Come, you look my shop!" that was commonplace in Hoi An.

So, today, we start exploring Hue. We have 2 full days here before moving on to Hanoi (by plane). More photos to come of the train trip later. Below are some photos of Hoi An -- again, a beautiful town once you get past the commercialization:

Silk lantern shop by night:

And by day (lanterns being made):

Hoi An generally floods annually during monsoon season, and is humid in between -- a lot of the buildings are covered with moss like this one.

Banana fritters are my new favorite food:

Beer delivery, Vietnam style -- Tiger is from Singapore and seems to be available nationwide. Bia Saigon is also available nationwide. LaRue, our favorite local Vietnamese beer so far, is from Hoi An and not widely available in the rest of the country. The brewery is 130+ years old:

Exploring the market:

Cao Lau are the regional noodles. We ate at one of these stalls in the market:

Actually, this one:

Some views of the market from the river:

Some locals riding a ferry across the river. Vietnamese women are very conscious of getting too much sun (pale skin is more desirable); notice the long sleeves, hats, and face masks (worn more for filtering motorbike exhaust):

Our hotel was on a relative quiet part of the street. Here are some typical historic Hoi An buildings, near where were stayed:

Here's the alley we started using to skirt the market and get back to our hotel. Love the decrepit/mossy stucco and bricks.

Red Bridge Cooking School, Hoi An, Vietnam

2009-11-25T04:56:00.020-06:00

There are lots of opportunities to take Vietnamese cooking classes in Hoi An -- many of the restaurants and cafes will allow you to choose items from the menu, and pay only the price of the menu item plus a small upcharge (just a few bucks) for a demonstration on how the items are prepared before you have your meal.

There are also full-blown cooking classes available through several restaurants -- half day, full day, for amateurs or professionals. We took a half-day cooking class at the Red Bridge Cooking School.

The class included a guided walking tour of the local produce/meat/fish market, a 30-minute boat ride up the river to the restaurant -- which offered nice views of the historic buildings from the waterfront -- an herb garden tour with explanations of the uses for different greens and herbs, then 2 hours of demonstration and hands-on cooking -- the chef would demo a dish, then we'd all get to a station for a chance to make it ourselves (most of the prep work having already been done, with several assistants walking around and guiding, i.e., saying gently "No, not like that, you're doing it wrong."). Then we'd eat what we had just made before going on to the next dish.

The pace was very fast, because there were a number of dishes covered (we even learned how to make Vietnamese rice paper from scratch), and there were some small disasters, but everything we made was still tasty, if not necessarily pretty, and we both feel like we got a lot out of the class. I've cooked some Vietnamese food before from cookbooks, and I'm familiar with a lot of the ingredients from living in Hawaii, but nothing like getting tips and tricks from a chef...

The half-day class was just $22 each. There were, of course, several opportunities "presented" to us, to buy ingredients, cooking utensils, etc, but it was pretty low pressure. I appreciated that the markets are benefiting from travelers learning how to cook the local food -- the guide made small (probably token) purchases at any stand we stopped in to talk to, and I'm sure a large number of the students (including Daniel and myself) ventured back into the market afterward to look at ingredients, buy spices and cooking utensils, etc.

Market tour. Due to the noise in the busy market (and we were there after noon, a slower period) it was almost impossible to hear what she was saying unless you were right next to her, but a lot of what was covered in the market was repeated later in the day.

Herb garden tour.

The chef was a lot of fun. Very good at what he does, and he knows it. Walked in with a swagger and an attitude wearing Beatle boots and a motorcycle jacket -- I think I said aloud something like, "Holy cow, Elvis is teaching our class." Spoke very good English with an Australian accent and had a fun sense of humor.

A students was called up at random to assist each demo -- actually, he'd direct, and the lucky victim would do the work. Daniel was one of the lucky ones, making the Hoi An Pancake (kind of an omelet with sprouts and greens, but the batter is rice based instead of egg based). Daniel looked like he knew what he was doing up there -- I was glad it wasn't me. On my camera, I have video of a pretty spectucularly lucky spatula-less pancake flip Daniel managed to land in a tiny little 6" crepe pan -- I'll post it later.

Class - besides us, mostly travellers from Australia and New Zealand, a pair of girls from Bavaria, and three others from the US.

Stations being set up for Eggplant in Clay Pot

Eggplant in Clay pot, with Vietnamese food decoration. We made the same dish, and were given a chance to "do our best" with the food decoration. Food decoration was only briefly demoed, as it takes a lot of knife skill and experience. The rose in the pot of stew was made by peeling a tomato into a single long strip, then somehow rolling it into a rose. (I say somehow because we failed miserably at this part and I have no idea how to do it); the fan next to the pot is a sliced cucumber, with alternating slices folded inward.

Below is the chef's creation. Ours turned out to be, well, not so pretty... Our roses looked like someone had already chewed them up and spit them into the bowl, and our cucumber fans had all the spines broken off.

I am so far behind on blogging... We leave for Hue tomorrow, and there is still more I want to post from Hoi An, including getting leather boots custom made (ordered at 10am, ready by 6pm!), plus a lot of pictures of the river and the historic buildings in town.

We also have learned that this "sleepy" town has a pretty spectacular rush hour -- at 5 o'clock, the tiny streets become quickly clogged with motorbikes and bicycles as shifts change in shops (not Saigon traffic levels, but still a lot); I've got a fun little post about that.

Lastly, today, I rode my first motorbike taxi -- pretty tame -- about 3 blocks (running to the ATM and back to get cash to pay for the boots), and thankfully, not during the rush hour. Daniel's is still yet to come.

Hoi An, Vietnam -- B'Lan Silk, tailor shop

2009-11-25T02:42:00.007-06:00

Hoi An has a large number of tailors. There's quite a range of quality, but if you take the time to talk to other travellers, read reviews, and pick the shop carefully, you can walk out of here with a whole new wardrobe in just a few days. We came thinking we'd each get a few garments made, and toyed with the idea of having a suit made for Daniel. We ended up doing the suit, several shirts, 2 wool winter jackets for me, a skirt, a dress, etc -- turned around in 2 days (the suit and coats were actually ready overnight, just needed minor adjustments). For one of the dresses, we didn't even have a picture to go by -- just described more or less what we wanted. All turned out beautifully. Amazing... So needless to say, we'll be buying another suitcase to lug with us on the rest of the trip, but it was worth it.

B'Lan Silk

There are also cobblers here -- custom shoes made same day. We each got a pair of boots made, but haven't picked them up yet. Another post for that one...

This book is their bible - precise measurements go in the book, and small swatch of each fabric is stapled next to a description/drawing of the item.

I took a number of the photos on the blog with my iPhone -- it didn't get much attention in Saigon, but in Hoi An, people were fascinated by it. Here, 2 of the girls who work in the shop are playing with it and looking at our trip pictures from Saigon -- cell phones are very big here, and smart phones are much more expensive here than they are for us in the US (there's no phone-discount-with-contract kind of thing).

The shop is in a 200 year old house that's been in the shop owner's family for generations. Upstairs, they keep a number of family heirlooms and antiques -- shoppers are welcome to go upstairs and admire. In the below buddhist shrine, the 2 photos are the shop owner's grandparents.

Day 4: travelling - Saigon to Da Nang to Hoi An

2009-11-22T20:31:00.008-06:00

After an uneventful domestic flight on Vietnam Air and a 1-hour taxi ride from Da Nang, we are settled in stop 2, the sleepy town of Hoi An, a tourist destination on the Central coast (lots and lots of tourists... a completely different experience from Saigon).

We'll be here for the next 3 days, where we plan to have some clothes made at one of the innumerable tailors, and also take a half day Vietnamese cooking class.

Vietnamese wedding reception -- this was the only shot we managed to snap of the probably more than 20 receptions we passed on the short main drag in Da Nang. Imagine if every little Mexican restaurant on a one-mile stretch of Fredericksburg Road in San Antonio was having a Quincinera at the same time, and you kind of get the idea -- dresses and decorations of all different colors. (The first one we saw, the bride was wearing gold). The driver said yesterday was a "very lucky day" to have a wedding -- it was an unexpected treat to stumble onto.

Room balcony in Hoi An, looking down on the hotel's courtyard.

We were tired and had some delayed jet lag, so only spent an hour or so walking around the town.

Had a fabulous meal in a little hole in the wall called the Mermaid Cafe.

Some more photos from our day in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City

2009-11-22T20:30:00.015-06:00

Day 3: Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City

2009-11-21T14:53:00.006-06:00

We only had one full day in Saigon (though we do pass through again for a day at the end of the trip), and were so fortunate to be able to hook up with our new friends Chris and Yan for a day of whirlwind walking-tour sightseeing and bar hopping in/near the city center. Chris is Robyn's brother (a good friend of ours in San Antonio), and has lived and worked in Asia -- Vietnam and China, where he met Yan -- for a number of years. We're on a plane tomorrow to Hoi An, but once settled there, should have some downtime to post In more detail. Until then, a few photo highlights.

Posted via email from fiddlechick's posterous

Days 1-2: travelling -- San Antonio to Dallas to Tokyo to Vietnam

2009-11-20T12:05:00.003-06:00

24 or so hours after leaving, and we've made it to Vietnam without any delays or much drama, if you don't count the tense 45 minutes of our Dallas to Tokyo leg when the in-flight entertainment system fritzed out, and we thought we'd have to spend the 13.5 hour flight staring at the backs of airplane seats.

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I'll admit to mocking these rocking chairs when they first went in at the San Antonio airport, but this breezeway turned out to be a quiet and relaxing place to wait for our flight to board.

The sum total of our bags. Crammed full (well, mine is--Daniel showed more restraint in his packing), but we managed to avoid checking any luggage. We'll no doubt have to check one on the way home.

Something fun -- we didn't realize in advance, but the flight plan from Dallas to Tokyo actually took us quite far north -- an arc that went up through Canada and skirted the southern coast of Alaska, before curving back down to Asia. We had some stunning, clear views in Montana/Idaho, but most of Canada was cloudy, and Alaska looked like it was going to be completely socked in. But it cleared after we passed Anchorage, and we were treated to some snowy mountain views. I'm not normally a shoot a pic out the plane window type, but our first ever view of Alaska seemed worth the effort. This phone shot sucks, but here's Alaska from 35,000 feet, through contrails and an iced up window. See the glacier? No? Right there. See it now?

Narita airport in Tokyo was kind of a blur. The layover was short, and we had just enough time to jump through their security hoops and make it to our flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (another 6.5 hours from Tokyo). The airpot itself is a bit of a sensory overload, packed with high end shops (Gucci, Prada, Coach, Fendi...), reeking of perfume samples. But I did take a second to shoot a photo of this informative display of counterfeit merchandise, which warns that it's illegal to import knock-offs to Japan. I've seen fake handbags before, but never fake Levi's.

No pictures of Vietnam for now, as it was midnight our time by the time we got to the hotel.
We did venture out for an hour or so and found some pho and a couple of beers at an open air street corner cafe. Now, time to crash in what's going to feel like the most comfortable bed in the world, at our budget hotel in HCMC, Vietnam.

Artpace

2009-11-17T17:22:00.005-06:00

Artpace Article, originally uploaded by txfiddlechick.

Do you know Artpace? A nonprofit org in San Antonio, and the legacy of Linda Pace -- artist, collector and businesswoman -- their mission statement reads:

"Artpace San Antonio serves as a laboratory for the creation and advancement of international contemporary art. Artpace believes that art is a dynamic social force that inspires individuals and defines cultures. Our residencies, exhibitions, and education programs nurture the creative expression of emerging and established artists, while actively engaging youth and adult audiences."

I recently became a member, and they were kind enough to ask if they could do a member feature on me for the fall issue of their tri-annual member magazine. If you want to read all the glowing things I had to say about them (I meant every word), here's a larger view.

It's an inspirational place, and they do great things for the community and the contemporary art scene in general. If you're within spitting distance of San Antonio, you should check them out.

Duck Risotto

2009-11-15T14:18:00.010-06:00

One last pre-trip blog test. The makings of duck confit risotto with grape tomatoes, mushrooms, fresh basil, yellow squash and cream.

The finished product.

Upcoming trip to Vietnam

2009-11-12T11:48:00.027-06:00

Next week, Daniel and I are leaving for a long-planned trip to Vietnam -- we'll be traveling from Nov 19 through Dec 5. I've resurrected this abandoned blog as a place to document the trip, so friends and family who are interested can follow along. We'll post periodic updates, dependent on internet access availability.

Our general itinerary is that we are flying into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south and working our way northward to Hanoi, staying along the coast, then flying back down to HCMC for another day or two before we head back home.

A lot of people have asked us why we chose to visit Vietnam -- until recently, it wasn't a country that was on my radar in terms of a travel destination. My understanding is that it's been in the last 10 years or so that tourism has begun to take off there (they currently get something like 4m visitors per year, up from just 250,000 in 90s). For our trip, the seed was planted a few years ago when Daniel saw a friend's trip photographs (she is originally from Vietnam, and had gone back for a visit after many years in the US). Once we started researching the country, it seemed like it would be a fascinating and fairly accessible place to visit.

Here are the areas we plan to hit:

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) – country's largest city, a bustling urban business center

Traffic, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Mike Gadd

Statue of Ho Chi Minh - Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam
Originally uploaded by les.butcher

Hoi An - well-preserved ancient port town on the central coast

One Day in Hoi An #3
Originally uploaded by DanielKHC

Hoi An Tailors I
Originally uploaded by MC MasterChef

Hue - formerly the imperial capitol of the Nguyen Dynasty (from 1802 - 1945)

Imperial City, Hué, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Mike Gadd

Emperor Khai Dinh Tomb, Hue Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Oren E

Hanoi - capitol -- a modern city with a well-preserved Old Quarter and historic colonial architecture.

Hanoi at night
Originally uploaded by Greg Hayter

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by Andrew Hux

Halong Bay - known for, among other things, being jaw-droppingly beautiful

ha long bay - vietnam
Originally uploaded by chillntravel

So that's the trip in a nutshell. We'll be spending the next week packing, taking care of final details, and trying to avoid getting the flu... :)

Check back next week for an update. Feel free to comment.

Veteran's Day 2009

2009-11-11T13:53:00.004-06:00

Dad and Kim
Originally uploaded by txfiddlechick

I wanted to mark veteran's day and say thank you to my dad for his 24 years of military service by posting this photo that I've always loved. Taken by my mom while we were stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, around 1974.

Thanks, dad, for serving your country and letting us see the world.

I love you.

Beacon Hill (my 'hood in San Antonio) in the news...

2009-11-07T20:54:00.001-06:00

...for being awesome. (I keep telling people...)

Neighborhood is dotted with homes of historic merit.

The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines

2008-09-28T10:12:00.001-05:00

Shopping for a new stove online last night, I came across a high-end Whirlpool that listed a feature called "Sabbath Mode." Compelled to look that one up... Basically, it disables all the bells and whistles (and safety features!) of your high-end appliance and converts it into "the one your grandma bought after World War II." No digital readouts, lights, buzzers, sensors, alarms, etc. And most importantly to Orthodox jews, Sabbath Mode enables them to turn the oven on before the Sabbath starts on Friday at sundown, so that it will still be on and hot when they want to cook dinner Saturday (since 1994, stoves have had a built-in automatic cut off that turns them off after 12 hours).

This Wired article has the background info on the development of Sabbath Mode - I found it pretty fascinating:

Wired 12.11: The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines

I'm not a spiritual person, but I do wonder what's wrong with having cold-cut sandwiches on the Sabbath, or ordering in for pizza -- turning the oven on the night before just seems like cheating, besides being incredibly wasteful and somewhat dangerous. A comment on this blog summed it up pretty well, I thought:

"I have issues with the notion that God cares if you turn on the oven during the sabbath, and I seriously doubt God approves of the waste and pollution that goes along with leaving the oven running all sabbath long, and I would love to know how pressing a button is work but opening and closing a door is not..."

If nothing else, it seems kind of funny to pay more for a feature that makes your stove do less.

On Trinity Campus - Three Cups of Tea

2008-09-20T11:10:00.000-05:00

On Trinity Campus - Three Cups of Tea

THREE QUESTIONS WITH ... SHAWN MULLINS: 'Atlanta album' from songwriter 'born out of grief' | ajc.com

2008-09-19T10:46:00.000-05:00

THREE QUESTIONS WITH ... SHAWN MULLINS: 'Atlanta album' from songwriter 'born out of grief' | ajc.com

Banksy Cleans Up - Cave Painting

2008-09-16T09:42:00.003-05:00

Banksy Cleans Up - Cave Painting
Originally uploaded by greenwood100

ASCII Star Wars (the whole damn movie)

2003-02-24T01:49:00.000-06:00

towel.blinkenlights.nl (you'll need a terminal app)

I recommend making the popcorn first.

Why is he surprised?

2002-12-10T01:52:00.000-06:00

Pete Townsend is going deaf "My right ear, which encounters my own edgy guitar and the machinegun strokes of the drums, has suffered badly. I've no idea what I can do about this."

I feel for the guy, but did he really say "my own edgy guitar" and "machinegun strokes of the drums"? With a straight face?

Could the end be nigh?

2002-12-05T01:56:00.000-06:00

Sign of the Apocalypse:

When the small bears from the windy place take the flag, then ye shall know the end is nigh (i.e., when the Cubs win the Pennant).

– A. Whitney Brown from an 80s era SNL episode)

Bookcrossing

2002-12-03T01:58:00.000-06:00

Bookcrossing.com

A catch and release program for readers.