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Diplomacy

Russia announced that they may delay work on the nuclear power station they're building for Iran in Bushehr, in southern Iran. The Russians claim that Iran has been missing payments on the billion dollar project.

I don't buy it. Iran is flush with cash after last year's high oil prices, and the Bushehr station is probably one of the Iranian government's top priorities. I don't think the Iranians would let the payments slip on something like this. Are we to believe that Ahmadinejad somehow mislaid his checkbook?

I think what we're seeing is the first public hint of a new diplomatic initiative by the Americans. I'll bet you ten bucks the administration cut some kind of deal with Putin to slow work on the reactor temporarily. That will give Condi some breathing room to work out some kind of triangulation with all the regional players. I'm sure there's been a quid pro quo we won't find out about for another few weeks or months. But keep an eye on Bush's rhetoric against Putin- I predict his tone is going to be noticeably softer for a little while.

However transparent the American moves might be, this is a whole lot better than the unilateralist sabre-rattling that we've seen from Washington over the past two weeks.

Istanbul

Just launched the first batch of pics from traveling earlier this month, this batch from Istanbul.

I was right when I said beforehand that if I could somehow find a way to succeed in everything I had to do, I would look back on it all and say it had been the best of times. The whole thing was an amazing trip, even though I still feel like someone ran me over with their car.

More to come on this. Next stop, Dubai.

Slayer Rocks the House (of Representatives)

Heh - NYT mixed up their site and used a pic of rabid Slayer fans to illustrate a story about a House debate.

Kinda brings new meaning to the term "House whip."

Thanks for the link Deb!

Pine-scented bulgur misery

Auurgh, I'm not sure what they fed us for lunch in the cafeteria today but I think I'm gonna die. It was like this hash made of bulgur, or whatever that stuff is that's like a cross between rice and gravel or little rocks. There was some kind of spice in it that I couldn't identify at first- I was really amazingly hungry so I ate it faster than I shold have, and it wasn't until towards the end that I recognized the flavour... Christmas tree- the aftertaste was exactly as if they had ground up a Christmas tree and sprinkled it into the bulgur mass. Now all I can taste is pine-fresh seasonal goodness.

I wish I hadn't eaten it so quickly. I swear to fox I feel like I'm gonna die. This is no way to treat people.

Weird day

Was shuffling around like the walking dead all day. It's been out of control since I got back from Iceland. Big conference in San Diego in a few weeks and I'm completely overloaded - feels like this is the most exhausted I've ever been. Still filling two full-time positions at the company.

Anyway, they had some kind of meeting down in the cafe today with a bunch of external people, so we marketing hacks had to walk down the hall and use the HR team's coffee machine all day. In between marketing and HR is a hallway with a small cluster of offices, inhabited by a cabal of sociopathic programmers mostly from Ukraine and Moldova. (There are whole buildings elsewhere on the campus teeming with hundreds more sociopathic programmers from former Warsaw Pact countries, so I'm not sure why these guys ended up near Marketing. Maybe they were the outcasts of their own little subculture).

So as I'm walking towards the HR coffee machine this afternoon, I see two of these guys up ahead in the hallway. They're standing very close to each other kind of furtively with their heads bowed, appearing deep in conversation and thought. As I pass by I hear one of them say to the other in a low, monotone, Slavic-tinged mumble "...I want you to know... girlie's so groovy I want you to know... don't know about you..." and then I was past and through the door at the end of the hallway.

It was part of the lyrics to "Debaser," by the Pixies--one of my seriously all-time favorite, life-reinforcing songs ever. Great song but a very odd scene, one of those things that you have to ask yourself afterwards, did that really just happen or was I having some kind of hallucination?

Anyway, there's no point to any of this. But apropos of nothing, Cecilie turned me on to this fun Flash movie about the end of the world.

New Natasha Photos, Feb 2007

New photos on Natasha's page.

This batch taken in black and white, showing off Natasha's sense of whimsy and ability to catch the expressions of people at a moment of thought, or of connection.

This time a doggie photo too.

Iceland, and Anji Bee

Hey, that's pretty cool. I just got back from Iceland and saw I had a comment queued in my podcasts list from Anji Bee, audio diva of the Chillcast podcast.

My pleasure to link to you Anji, thanks for many pleasant Sunday afternoons grooving to your show!

So, Iceland--this morning was the only time free I was meant to have had. But then I got pulled into some more meetings from early morning till an hour before my plane took off. So, no Blue Lagoon, no spa, no hot rock massage. Alas. (Like I should complain).

One of the meetings was pretty cool though--with the management of one of the larger newspapers in Iceland. It's been a long time since I've been inside a newsroom, and I remembered fondly from when I once was a reporter and once had some credibility, before I became the thing that stands before you today.

Good to be back home. Feel like I'm going to sleep for a week now.

I have a metric ton of photos from the last week that I need to process. Some really good stuff in there, but it's going to take a while.