Sometimes writing resembles the proverbial love affair: an idea catches one’s attention, and then it’s all one can think about, which leads to a series of heart flutters while one ponders a first attempt at flirtation. And then oh, the emotions are mutual, excitement builds, intimacies achieved, which leads to a swell of reality. Things are not as they were first envisioned. Characters have weaknesses which they drip around the room like melted wax. If one’s stores of patience are thin, the relationship ends almost before it really began.
Everyone has an unfinished novel. Read More…
First it was lettuce in place of any food I’d made with aromatics like garlic, onion, or ginger. Then there was Susanne’s sudden yearning for glass after glass of ice-cold milk. Not milkshakes. Not vanilla ice cream. Milk. And she’s not a milk drinker by any means. This is a woman who leaves behind whatever didn’t get soaked up by the bowl of cereal, who eschewed the stuff from cows to the stuff from soybeans. I shudder at the very idea of drinking a glass of soy milk unless it’s over-laced with chocolate.
A joke made its way around the interwebs a couple of weeks ago:
One of my favorite statistics about Washington, DC, is the number of lawyers working in the city: 50,000. That’s one lawyer for every 10 residents. Do these people directly benefit those residents? No, not really. Perhaps some of them do, or must, just by the laws of chance and probability. But certainly, many of those J.D.-carrying folks are members of an elite squad known as the lobbyists. They represent everyone from chemical producers to apple farmers to county-level employees. They’re not concerned about the people in the city so much they are getting into the city. And that is exactly where the residents made their stand. 
Let’s take a closer look at this. The goal of the terrorist is to change the operations, lifestyles, and structures of a society through fear and the use and threat of violence. The IRA hoped to “secure the independence” of Ireland by getting the populace to reject England’s rule and later, to take back Northern Ireland. Blowing up buses and assassinating royalty did change life in Great Britain, 
Once upon a time, I worked as an evaluator of information systems, which apparently nobody thinks are important in Walla Walla, but which trust me, they sorely need. The usable Web sites are few and far between around here, even for well funded organizations and businesses. But I digress. I bring up information design when talking about online presence because both of them, for me at least, start with the same set of questions.
Few places in Walla Walla acquire large numbers of people. I should clarify that. Few places in Walla Walla acquire large numbers of people on a frequent basis. There’s the annual rodeo each Labor Day Weekend, and fans drive in from all around for that, but that’s certainly not what I would call frequent. The weekly sale on Tuesdays at the Bi-Mart, on the other hand, are frequent, but not packed with crowds. I know, I’ve been there, okay? Of course some of the churches have the biggest parking lots in the city, so I presume that they draw in a lot of bodies, or perhaps they overestimate their appeal. Having not gone to Sunday services since moving here, I couldn’t say which is closer to reality. 
Trans/plant/portation 