What a gas

In discussing promoted tweets, which are the SoMe iteration of display advertising, I have to say that sometimes I just wonder what large corporations and their expensive ad agencies were thinking.

Or smoking.

For example:

And now for a word...

There’s no escaping the promoted tweet these days, so on my way to blocking everyone who sticks one of their annoying ads into my timeline, I occasionally check to see what kind of responses they’re eliciting.

So when I saw this one asking people for “feedback”, I knew that the response probably wouldn’t be useful for concept validation:

And I have to say that it was pretty funny to me to see this promo:

Because the first thing I did was block the account.

Moving on

As long as we’re on the topic of obscenely-priced real estate, let’s step back momentarily to the Valley They Call Silicon.

When I gave notice last November to the property manager of the condo I’d been renting, she contacted the owner, who said that she was planning to continue to rent out the place. I thought it was a bit strange, as the owner had moved to Boston, and in the five years I’d been living there, prices in the condo complex had nearly doubled. You’d think she’d want to be shed of it.

(When I moved in in 2011, two bedroom units were going for around $400,000-$450,000; by 2016 they were fetching upwards of $800,000.)

Well, just for ducks, a couple of months ago I looked up the address and blow me if it hadn’t been sold after all. For $795,000. Which is kind of a steal for the area, given its proximity to Apple’s new headquarters. My landlady and her husband bought the condo in 2007 for $575,000 ($100,000 more than the previous purchase price in 2004), so they only made a couple hundred thousand on it.

I love the sales pitch in the listing:

“Stunning penthouse condo w/ soaring ceilings & lots of natural light! Remodeled kitchen w/ Staron Tempest counters, ample cabinets, stainless steel appliances including a wine fridge. Spacious living room w/ high ceiling, wood burning fireplace and glass doors to the sunny patio. Separate dining area w/ laminate flooring. Spacious master w/ high ceiling & large closet w/ mirrored doors. Huge master bath w/ shower over tub w/ glass door & dual sinks w/ spacious vanity. Second bedroom w/ plush carpeting & walk in closet. Upstairs loft perfect for home office or family room area w/ high ceiling. Second full bath with stall shower & glass door. Full size washer/dryer and laundry area. 2 detached single car garages w/ storage. Convenient location near shopping, commute locations & restaurants.”

I love the way a third-floor walk-up is described as a penthouse. The dining area isn’t so much “separate” as it is “on the path between the entryway and the door to the master bedroom”. And the walk-in closet in the second bedroom is the most useless thing I’ve ever seen. It’s “walk-in” in the sense that you can open the door and step in, but it’s a wedge-shaped space that makes hanging anything with any expectation of finding it again kind of a non-starter.

I understand why they have it there, and why they label it a closet: in order to call a space a “bedroom”, it has to have a window and a closet. But seriously…

Yes, there’s a wood-burning fireplace. But who’s going to schlep logs up to the third floor? On the five days in the year when it’s not a Spare the Air day in the Bay Area? (I did, however, make a lot of use of the marble fireplace surround to plan projects with yellow stickies, which I could see in perspective and move around as necessary.)

I also don’t understand the attraction of cathedral ceilings, expensive to heat and cool without being able to, you know, live in the area. They also make it impossible to change the batteries in the smoke detectors that legally have to be set at the highest point. (The property manager had to hire maintenance workers to do that, because the job requires an extension ladder, which necessitates two people. She wasn't happy about that, but when I signed the lease I told them I wasn't doing anything that required a ladder.) And the loft was more unlivable space, on account of it being utterly stifling in the summer, and affording no privacy from the main room. So—the appearance of value without the substance.

As for the “two detached single-car garages”, unless one of your cars is the size of a Mini, only one of them is usable for parking your vehicles due to the placement of the garages and the design of the turn space. (I used the second garage for storage.) And because you technically have the mandatory assigned parking spaces in those garages, you cannot use any of the visitor spots in the parking lot. (Parking violations are rigorously dealt with.) And there’s no street parking for a couple of blocks in either direction. So you’re stuffed.

It also lists “HOA Amenities: Community Pool, Sauna/Spa/Hot Tub”, although prospective buyers would find out pretty fast that there’s no sauna. But in addition to the mortgage they’re on the hook for HOA fees of $421/month.

On the plus side, the flat is indeed bright, and I miss that side-by-size refrigerator and the full-size dishwasher. (Although the new owners are probably realizing that the latter is a little temperamental in terms of when it wants to work.) I also miss having up-to-date wiring, with AFCIs in bathrooms and kitchen, and a circuit breaker box that’s not illegally blocked by a refrigerator that was obviously designed for people who don’t need access to food.

I note that the unit was staged for the sale, and I bet the guys hauling all those tables, chairs, beds and sofa up the two flights of stairs bitched with every step. And repeated it when they hauled it all back down.

I reckon the new owners have discovered the joys of traffic noises, and of living half a block from the fire station in one direction and El Camino Real in the other. And of the construction of a five-story Hampton Inn across the street. And the really crabby guy who lives just below them, and the guy on the ground floor who sits outside to smoke his cigars.

But still—it was a great place to live for me, and I hope it is for them, too.

Property values

One of the things I liked about walking around the Valley They Call Silicon was monitoring real estate prices. You’d see a For Sale sign go up, note the million-dollar price tag, and then the next day (or, generally at most, the next couple of days) you’d see the triumphant SOLD placard.

Almost always the purchase price would be more than the asking price.

Almost never did you see the dreaded “Price Reduced” addition. That inevitably denoted a complete pesthole like this one.

Well, I was walking around the town of Vienna (Virginia) at the weekend and came across this rather sad sign:

Almost as though owner-agent Terry Douglas just couldn’t bear to put that notification that all her high hopes have been dashed.

Here’s the domicile in question, a palais de pretension (yes, I made that up that franglais expression) if ever I’ve seen one:

It turns out that, after four months on the market, Terry has lowered the price (“huge reduction”, according to the online listing) by $30,000. To $1,569,000.

Yeah, okay, it’s 6000 square feet. With hardwood floors. And really astonishingly ugly cabinetry in the 4.5 bathrooms and the kitchen.

But what I find interesting that the listing shows it as having been built in 2015, and the last sale of the property was 1 July 2014, at $620,000.

Which means that the last sale was of the house that formerly occupied the property, which was then demolished to make way for this ludicrous monstrosity. And, in fact, one of the online listings shows the previous structure, with a surprisingly frank description:

It’s definitely unprepossessing, but I’m not sure that the new house is all that much of an improvement. And apparently househunters agree with me.

Gratitude Monday: Corridors of power

By a stroke of great good fortune, last week I was able to walk a couple of miles through the corridors of the Pentagon, guided by someone who’s worked there for 20 years. For a military historian and an American, it was a very interesting experience. Prior to this, I’ve only seen it as I drove past.

It was one of those summer afternoons when both temperature and humidity are in the 80s; quintessential DC, so I arrived at the visitors entrance somewhat non compos. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that security would include stepping through a metal detector and having your bags scanned. Because it did, in spades.

(I was okay with showing the photo ID, but not wild about having to key in my SSN. Two separate times. I don’t know what foreign nationals have to do.)

Seriously, you peel down to the layer of clothes that keep you decent in public; everything else goes through this very sensitive scanner. I warned them that my bag contains a Swiss Army Knife, but since the blade is under the 2½” maximum, it was okay. Watch went in the bin, and my pedometer after one of the guards spotted it before I stepped through the metal detector; I forget I’m wearing it.

What was interesting was that the security person hand-searched the bag because there were two metal items she couldn’t identify, a silver pin and a metal-backed mirror.

As you can see, the items in question are small. But the security staff are thorough.

There are no pix of my visit because no photographs are allowed. Which is fine, although I really, really wanted to shoot one of the spokes that cut through the five rings because of the repeating pattern, almost cloister-like. But rules is rules, and it was just amazing being there at all.

Here are a couple of highlights of my visit: there’s a memorial chapel at the exact spot where Flight 11 struck the side of the building on September 11^th 2001. There is blast-proof glass that allows you to look out onto the memorial garden, a list of names of the victims and a memorial book.

The courtyard at the center of the Pentagon is about the size of a small city park, with lawn, picnic tables and trees, including very mature hollies and magnolias. In the relatively small enclosed space, with the heat and humidity and the magnolias beginning their seasonal bloom, the scent of the flowers just about filled the air. It was the strongest I’ve ever experienced, in all my years on the fringes of the South.

My friend took me up and down stairs, past the shrine of the Air Force Purple Water Fountain, a whole lot of agencies and directorates, displays dedicated to conflicts and commanders in our nation’s history, a wall of quilts, and a whole lot of other things. I put a good couple of miles on my pedometer that afternoon, and we didn’t cover but a part of the place.

Here’s something else I noticed: in addition to the scores of uniformed personnel and be-suited civilians, there were also many, many people carrying out the tasks that support whatever activities take place in that largest office building in the world. Maintenance staff, cleaners, folks transporting supplies and equipment, baristas, security personnel at the visitors’ entrance. I thought about the kind of clearance process they’d have to go through to get those jobs, and I wondered if the people who plan and direct combat operations around the world notice them, or think about how they smooth the way for their world-changing work.

Today I’m grateful I had the opportunity to see this amazing place at work. And I’m grateful to the people who suit up every day (whether it’s dungarees or dress blues) to go to work there.

And whenever I encounter the scent of magnolias, I’m going to think of this nexus of military might. That’s America for you.

Dog days of summer

A friend and I have a thing going back and forth on Facebook—kind of the corgi channel. Not sure how it started, but it’s predicated on the idea that no matter how far down in the dumps you are, videos of corgis will lighten your spirits.

This compilation isn’t all corgis, but it begins and ends with them, so close enough.

Besides—all the dogs are comedians in this.

A patch on history

Looky, looky what I found just a couple of blocks from where I live:

It’s a micro-park honoring Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer programming. It’s basically a patch of lawn and trees in front of RiverHouse apartments, which is apparently where Hopper lived late in life.

It’s nice to think that I might be walking paths that she did back in the day; a little connection with a kick-ass, brilliant woman, right here in the neighborhood.

At a grocery store near you

When I came out of Wegmans the other morning I noticed that another shopper was apparently disabled in places not immediately visible, except in their wake.

Because who, at 0820 on a Saturday morning, cannot be arsed to push their empty shopping cart 15 unobstructed yards to the cart return shelter?

Seriously—what sort of Leona Helmsley-delusional lout do you have to be to decide that only the peons need to get their carts out of the parking spaces? Are you expecting your mom to toddle behind you tidying up and putting your toys in the basket? 

Grow the hell up.

Of course they poop!

In case you’re thinking that the research and issues reported in the venerable Science magazine are too hifalutin for the average reader, I direct your attention to a story that was published in the 23 March 2016 issue.

If the title, “Why watching comb jellies poop has stunned evolutionary biologists” doesn’t get you, what about the opening sentence: “No buts about it, the butthole is one of the finest innovations in the past 540 million years of animal evolution”?

Well, if that doesn’t draw you in to the article, I just don’t know what will.

I love that there’s apparently a comb jelly(fish)—formal name ctenophore—and that they call it Ctenopolooza. I’m betting these evolutionary biologists really know how to party.

And I love it that videos of the ctenophores engaging in acts of ingestion and egestion were received like a Tarantino film at Cannes.

Well, the excitement doesn’t end there. If you scroll down, the first couple of dozen comments are all asking the big question: how can you write about a revolutionary video of comb jellies pooping without including the, you know, video?

(Yeah, the comments end up going to hell when some troll gets into the act and someone else feeds it. They go on for a couple of dissertations, but once you see Frankensteinsmonster, you can stop reading.)

In case you're curious about the video, too, I've looked. William Browne, of the University of Miami is clearly keeping it close to his vest, and it's nowhere to be seen. He may be working on a distribution deal.

But wait, there’s more. Because in the 3 June issue of Science, a letter was published from Sidney L. Tamm, PhD, of the Boston University Marine Biological Laboratory, under the title, “No surprise that comb jellies poop”. Tamm, one of the Ctenopolooza organizers, assures us, “It is now recognized that ctenophores expel waste from both ends.”

Well, there you go.

Listen—in a presidential election year, I’m going to take my enlightenment wherever I can find it.

Gratitude Monday: On the beach

From terrorism in Tel Aviv to Orlando, it’s been an utter nightmare of a week. But On Saturday, between coverage of all this insanity, I listened to NPR’s Scott Simon interview Mortimer Caplin, who’s approaching his 100^th birthday. 

At age 27, Caplin was a US Navy beachmaster at Omaha Beach on D-Day. That means that he was one of the first to land, and—working amid body parts and the horribly wounded—he established and maintained communications with the naval armada and he directed the logistics on the beach. Listen to him talking about his responsibilities in that happy, matter-of-fact way. No braggadocio, no self promotion, just, “Yep, that’s what I had to do; that’s what I did.”

It’s a critical role for amphibious landings, the one that’s meant to bring order out of chaos, ensuring both thousands of men and tons of matériel got to where they could do the most good. And Omaha was the most chaotic of the five Allied landing beaches. It was the most challenging physically (beneath cliffs), and almost no troops came ashore at their designated targets. The consequences were brutal; there was one point when General Omar Bradley considered whether to withdraw the troops from Omaha because the cost was too high.

It’s hard for me to imagine a 27-year-old with that kind of responsibility under those circumstances. Partly because for the past ten years I’ve been working with a lot of 20-somethings whom I wouldn’t trust with anything more critical than managing code release. And partly because the image of a beachmaster has imprinted on my mind as that of Kenneth More playing Colin Maud, from the film of The Longest Day.

(The beachmaster sequence starts at 1:13 in this clip, following the bit with Peter Lawford as Lord Lovat landing with No. 4 Commando.)

(The Darryl F. Zanuck production yucks it up in this sequence. And it erroneously plants Maud at Sword Beach, instead of Juno, both British targets. But at the time of the invasion he was 41, and More did display the kind of gravitas that you’d expect in someone with that responsibility. The dog and the walking stick are well within the envelope of British military eccentricity. As is Lord Lovat’s piper. The schtick with Sean Connery—not so much.)

But Caplin wasn’t the youngest beachmaster in the US fleet. His comrade at another Omaha sector, Joe Vaghi, was 23. Vaghi, also a metro-DC resident, died in 2012 at age 92. Both returned from the carnage of D-Day and beyond. Vaghi was an architect; Caplin served as Commissioner of the IRS under JFK, and has been a supporter of the arts hereabouts for decades.

I refer you again to the NPR interview; listen to Caplin’s voice and consider how, before he was 30, his actions contributed to the life you lead today. I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and I’m extremely grateful to him. Not only because of his courage back then, but because he reminded me that, in this world of unspeakable viciousness, there were those who worked steadfastly in the worst of conditions in the hopes of building something better, something bigger than the next iOS app.

Let’s hope there are others like him now.