flashback to willows...

i was reading over my old court reports, and i realized that i never wrote about my encounter with a sex offender... back when i was at the Valley Mirror, Tim told me to go take a picture of this guy, who apparently was coming out with a cookbook. it was supposed to be one of those humanity pieces (just like the cute picture of the baby at the swimming pool). well, this guy wasn't particularly cute... he did used to work for Willy Brown, the mayor of San Francisco. in any event, i went over to his motel, met him in his room, it was all a little seedy... i took the picture outside under a nice looking tree and went on my way.

a couple of issues later, Tim learned that this guy used to be a sex offender. he was so furious with the man for deceiving us. Tim was upset that we published his picture in the paper--that the guy used us for publicity--so he wrote an article about it. (i was definitely a little creeped out by the whole incident, but i thought that was that...)

well, i just read a great article about Tim in the San Francisco Chronicle (a front page article at that!) about how he's a dying breed of investigative journalists. they, of course, address the issue of his opposition and cited kafka's poisoning. turns out, Tim suspects it was the outed sex offender who killed him. the rat bastard. of course, no one has any proof, but i trust Tim's judgment.

i have but one thing to say: good luck, AV, you're going to need it!

"If they're really serious about journalism, they're going to have to learn how to write while drunk." -Lorelai Gilmore

coffee requests?

Sent on 8/18/06:

Hey everyone,

If you were at all wondering, you haven't been receiving any emails because
I haven't sent any. Unfortunately, my time here is coming to a close and
this will be my first and last email from the self-proclaimed coffee
capital of the world (Seattle, if you'd forgotten where I was). Yes, I've
been horrible with the updates--work has been keeping me busy 11 hours of
the day, and I'm not really sure what to write to sum up the past two
months.

Let's see... on my first day of work I was greeted by 10 people standing
around in their pajamas--pretty awesome, yeah? Our office is located above
some caterers (we get free food occasionally) and next door to an old
building where Death Cab for Cutie practices (I've never seen or heard them
though).

And now a word from our sponsors:
I work for The Coffee Equipment Company and we make a machine called the
Clover 1S. It's essentially a mix between a vacuum pot and a french press
and can make single serving cups of coffee in about a minute. Typically
when you walk into a shop and order a cup of brewed coffee, you get
whatever has been sitting in the carafe on a hot plate for the past 20
minutes. With the Clover you can get fresh coffee of your choice since
you're not dependent on what the cafe decided to brew a whole pot of.
Since 80% of coffee companies such as Starbucks get their revenue from the
home market, the Clover allows customers to try a variety of blends before
ordering bags full of their favorite roasts. You can have one too for only
$9,000!!!

Yeah, it's pricey, but the coffee snobs up here are willing to pay, and we
do make good coffee. I'm not a purist by nature, but I've been learning a
lot and could probably fake it if you asked me too :) The work I've been
doing is random engineering stuff--drawings in SolidWorks, redesigning
parts and fixtures. It's been a great experience especially to see a
startup company in action and right now trying to get UL and NSF
certified--wow, what a headache! Those are the guys responsible for the
warning labels on hair dryers such as "Do not use in sleep." If you're
interesting in reading a little more, I've updated my blog some:
courtreport.blogspot.com

But enough of my rambling, I'm writing to see if anyone has any coffee
requests. I could probably steal some bags of beans from work (we have
tons) or *gasp!* actually buy some! So far, I've got two requests from
Luther and Lehrburger--anyone else? Any special requests for roasts or
origins?

I know I owe a lot of you phone calls and or emails, and I'm working on it!

Hope everyone's doing well,
Courtney

P.S. For all you PRL enthusiasts, they've got an old-school some old school
equipment up here in a tiny machine shop. A really crummy drill press,
freakishly scary chop and table saw, as well as a mill and a lathe. Neither
have a variable speed crank--you have to open up the machine and change the
gears by hand! Of course, not only is "DRO no workey" but DRO no exist. My
co-worker tells me that if you can't use a mill without a DRO, you're a
wimp. Wow, are we spoiled at Stanford or what? At least we don't have one
of those pneumatic mills where you can push a button and the collet pops
out... In a rather odd way I'm missing the LaserCamm--I think that was my
best friend, lifesaver, and downfall in 203, and I'm really hoping that one
of you guys becomes a shop TA if only so you'll have access to the PRL any
time :)

it's only fitting...

...that in my last week in Seattle I finally spotted DCAB! Sorry, that's Death Cab for Cutie--we're not allowed to use acronyms at work so that we don't get "too corporate." Unfortunately, that's a ban on ALL acronyms not just office lingo, so I suppose I'm not quite out of the habit yet...

In any event, as our office is next door to DCAB's rehearsal space, I expected to see them a lot sooner than when I finally did. Actually, I might have, but I don't know what they look like... In fact, when I saw them running across the street pushing some large crates, I thought it was a couple of guys stealing our stuff! That was until my co-workers shout out, "Hey, there goes DCAB!" (This was, of course in the days before the acronym ban, henceforth referred to as Pre-AB or PAB.) Of course, I don't think my co-workers know what DCAB looks like because they started arguing over whether that was actually DCAB or their roadies. We finally decided that since DCAB is a "poor band," they do their own moving.

We've been putting up some job postings for various positions. Our latest take on listing goes something along the lines of this: "Do you like wearing ties? Do you like sharing profits? Do you like using acronyms? Then maybe this isn't the company for you!"

as i've done it again...

...and am waiting for my salad to thaw while watching the horrible acting yet amazing dancing of Havana Nights, I would like to enlighten you all. Don't drink the hot water out of the tap. Izaak took apart a hot water boiler to look at the heating elements, and they were completely covered in nasty, disgusting, black crud. Apparently it's common knowledge that hot water has significantly more minerals (and other stuff) in it, but I had no idea! So there's a lesson learned... nuff said--salad's done.

how to steal $8,000...

CoEqCo has been robbed. In a manner of speaking... We were trying to ship a unit to Utah through Expediters. Apparently while our machine was sitting at Custom Crating, some guys from Central Freight came by and said, "We're here to deliver a coffee machine." And amazingly, some lady signed off on their blank weigh bill. So Central Freight now claims that Expediters authorized the shipment and are charging us $250 more and who knows the condition of our unit. It's taken almost 2 weeks and it still hasn't gotten there. For all we know it never will.

Central Freight has 11 complaints lodged against them this year so far. Yeah, it's in great hands...

This follows after getting screwed over by Eclipse, our laser cutters in Redwood City. We sent them our sintered mesh filters, but they had to outsource it because their laser cutter was down. Unfortunately the place they outsourced our sintered filtered sheets to essentially burned up $10,000, and it takes 6-8 weeks to go through the sintering process. Great... Supposedly they can expedite the process so it only takes 2 weeks, but they're the only place in the US that sinters. They get a lot of government work, so really they don't need our business. I guess we'll just wait and see...

i can't wait to come home. i can't wait to be back with people i know and love. i can't wait to not get heckled while walking down the street. i can't wait to not have those uncomfortable bus rides. i can't wait to play basketball again. i can't wait to be able to sing at the top of my lungs without worry about disturbing the neighbors. and yet, i'm still going to miss it all.


-with eight seconds left in overtime

it has been decided...

...by my co-workers that when I get married, it will be on a beach with a half black tie/half speedo dress code. This way, when I want my formal pictures, I can crop the photos from the waist up, but when I want to see the beach side to my wedding, I'll crop it from the waist down. Clever, huh? Oh yes, food is potluck and guests are required to bring something with potato (to feed more people, of course!) They, naturally, have invited themselves to my wedding, which is starting to sound more and more like something my sister would plan (McDonald's french fries, anyone?)

Well, I think this is just perfect to start planning my wedding right now. After all, everyone knows the groom is just fungible, right?

blame texas

I mean, really, isn't that when this whole problem started? For Klutz's State Quarters book I had to research the question, "If Texas were a pancake, how long would it take the state to eat itself?" And that's when I made pancakes. From a box. And my family came down with food poisoning.

Since then I've set toasters on fire, mixed up fahrenheit and centigrade, frozen milk (much to my roommate's chagrin) and avocados, and now I'm making cookies on a stove. I have no oven. It's a "bold manuever" as my co-worker says, but I have a feeling "this can only end in tears!"

happy early birthday, ringee!!!

i just gave myself a haircut today... man, i gotta get out more...