Recently in friends and neighbors

Last Sunday at one in the afternoon, a local Grand Rapids guy named Rob Bliss and a handful of friends started to dump paper airplanes off of downtown buildings. By the time they finished, one hundred thousand planes had descended on the nearly 20,000 people crowding the streets below. While the planes were raining down, loudspeakers blared a refrain from "Olsen Olsen," a song by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. Some of the people in the crowd hummed along; others played the tune on instruments that they had brought for the event.

The plane launch was part of Grand Rapids ArtPrize, an "open art contest" offering nearly half a million dollars in prizes to the most popular entrants as determined by public vote. Sara, the kids, and I have been loving ArtPrize, discussing what we like and don't like, what effect certain pieces have on us, and even how we should, or wish to, define art. The contest has provoked a lot of discussion among friends and neighbors, too. Some people seem almost offended by it, as if it demeans art in some way, while others are reveling in the "anything goes" nature of the competition.

There is a lot more I could say about both the paper-airplane stunt and ArtPrize in general, but I haven't fully formulated my thoughts about them, so I'm going to hold off for now. Instead, I'll leave you with a few pictures of downtown Grand Rapids last Sunday. Click on the thumbnails to get larger versions (without leaving the page).

Our dear friends are expecting a baby, and they think it's going to be a boy. When they were in town a couple weeks ago, we chatted a bit about possible names for the kid. And that made me wonder: What are some boy names that parents should avoid? Here are a few that I came up with after almost no reflection on the matter:

1. Adolf
2. Lucifer
3. Goliath
4. Genghis
5. Onan

Did I miss any obvious ones? Let me know in the comments. Who knows? If we get enough of a list going, it could be a real public service.

In other news, I finally updated the rickety old blog software that runs this site. It was a painstaking process, and I'm not sure it was completely successful, so if you run into any problems, please let me know. For now the site is using a barely modified canned theme for its design. It feels a bit too "corporate" for my taste, but I wanted to make sure things worked before I started trying to dress it up again.

In mid-October I received an email from a friend of mine, asking if I could fill in for him at the Future of Web Design conference in New York City. He was scheduled to lead a workshop on November 3 and give a presentation the next day, Election Day.

Of course, I jumped at the chance. And, of course, I panicked soon thereafter. The workshop (3 1/2 hours) and presentation (30 minutes) required a lot of preparation in a short amount of time. But somehow I managed, and the workshop went better than I could have hoped. The presentation didn't go quite as well, but that's okay. Without going into too much detail, I'll just say that it was a terrific learning experience (and if you're really interested, you can read all about it on my techie blog, Learning jQuery).

After Tuesday's conference, I was too exhausted to join the rest of the speakers and attendees at the "after-party," so I took a long walk back to my hotel, checked out early, and took the F train to Queens, where I stayed overnight with my dear friends Nicole and Julian and baby Dash and watched the election results come in. It was such a treat to be able to unwind with friends and share this amazing moment in our nation's history with them. It couldn't match spending that time with my family, but it was the next best thing.

Here are a few pictures I took during my brief visit. Click on them to see a larger version.

Two weeks ago my neighbor Kevin was kind enough to guide me through the process of converting a fairly sizable portion of my back yard into a garden. He even gave me all the plants out of his own yard. Such a generous fellow.

It has been such a joy to turn the patch of grass and weeds and dirt into a nicely crafted bed of shade-loving plants with a little pebble pathway running through it. We even installed a crazy cool misting system that waters the plants on a timer each morning.

As I was adding mulch to the beds today, it occurred to me that gardening is a lot like designing user interfaces for the web, only dirtier and more physically demanding.

After nearly fourteen years of operation, Four Friends Coffeehouse in downtown Grand Rapids opened its doors for the last time yesterday.

Day One

When Sara and I and our friends David and Melissa LaGrand opened Four Friends Coffeehouse in 1994, we had no idea it would last as long as it did. In fact, we weren't sure if we'd be able to sustain it for a year. I still remember the day we opened, November 1. The night before we were rushing around "the space," as we called it, tidying up the new supplies behind the counter, arranging the syrup bottles, checking and rechecking all the things we thought we needed. David's brother Paul had half a store's worth of ceiling tiles laid out on the floor, running a paint roller over them as fast as he could so that others could set them in place, still wet, in the frame above.

David had set a blistering pace for the construction and preparation of the coffeehouse, and we hit the ground running as soon as Sara and I pulled into the LaGrands' driveway with our Ryder truck from Seattle two months earlier. We designed the place, tore out the floor and walls, and rebuilt it in sixty days. We hired electricians and plumbers. We ordered plates and glasses, coffee machines and pump pots, kitchen appliances and supplies. We established relationships with food and beverage suppliers. We basically worked nonstop.

But we weren't the only ones working. Yvonne Daniels gave advice on design elements. Kelly Clark put up a lot of drywall. David's brother John built a long bench with three old oak doors for the back. Sara's Uncle Fred and Aunt Ginny and her brother Andrew helped us tear down the old and build up the new. Other friends and family such as Ray and Ann Kapteyn and Graham pitched in with both specialized construction skills and general labor. It was a huge undertaking that wouldn't have been possible without the small army that contributed to it.

We opened the doors that first day at 7:00 a.m. and waited and worried. One of our first customers was Don Levy, a healthcare provider for David's grandmother. Not a coffee fan, Don ordered a hot chocolate with whipped cream and proceeded to exclaim with unbridled enthusiasm to whoever peaked through the door that it was the "best hot chocolate I ever tasted!" Other friends and family trickled in throughout the day as well, but the place wasn't exactly buzzing with activity. Still quite early in the morning, I took a couple grilled panini out front and offered them, in a quiet, apologetic voice, to the handful of people who happened to be walking down what at the time was a "pedestrian mall" — a street closed to vehicle traffic.

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. But it was a good kind of exhaustion. We had managed to run a business for a full day without any catastrophes. I don't remember how much money we made that first day, but I'm sure it wasn't much. Still, the people who took a chance on us seemed to like what they bought, or at least they were too polite to mention it if they didn't.

We're In Business

During the first couple months, more and more people heard about us and stopped by to give us a try. Surprisingly, some of these first customers kept coming back, day after day, sometimes two or three times a day — and many of them never gave up the habit. Early customers such as Charlie, Terry, Bob, and Jim, along with others from nearby law offices and local businesses, were loyal to the very end, even though many other coffee places opened (and closed) downtown in the intervening years. When the first month's sales were enough to pay the rent, we knew we had a pretty good chance of making Four Friends a successful business.

One of our goals was to encourage and support local musicians and artists. We hung paintings and photographs on the walls and scheduled live music for Friday and Saturday nights. We even let a few people organize monthly poetry readings, but they never amounted to much and fizzled out pretty quickly. The music, however, was one of the bright spots of the coffeehouse for us as owners. We not only drew on local talent but also brought in some terrific independent artists from around the country, including Jason Harrod and Brian Funck, Bill Mallonee & Vigilantes of Love, and Over the Rhine.

Passing the Baton

The customers kept coming, we kept selling our stuff, and life was good. But we were also pretty stretched. David was working full time as a prosecutor. Two years into the business, I started teaching English at a nearby high school. Melissa and David had a second child. Sara was still working crazy hours at the coffeehouse. Life seemed to be getting a little too complicated. So, on January 1, 1999, we sold the coffeehouse to Suzi (Borgdorff) Bos, who did a great job of managing the business for the next six years, keeping the original vision alive while introducing her own elements.

During Suzi's tenure at Four Friends, David and Melissa started another successful venture, Wealthy Street Bakery, with their neighbors Jim and Barb McClurg while Sara and I supported them enthusiastically from the sidelines. Then, sometime in 2004, if I have my years straight, the four owners of Wealthy Street Bakery purchased Four Friends back from Suzi.

The End

To its last day, Four Friends was a popular destination for downtown business people, students, and other coffee lovers. Sadly, though, rising costs of food and beverages, along with increases in rent and changes in the terms of their lease, forced the proprietors to enter into a month-to-month deal. When the business next door, a fast-food franchise, approached the landlord about expanding their storefront, the landlord gave Four Friends a month to close up shop.

Sara and I took the kids to Four Friends Coffeehouse yesterday morning for one last latte. Suzi and her family were there, too, as was Amelia Gritter, a former manager who also made the place her own. We reminisced about some of the funnier moments, a few scary encounters, and a whole lot of good times. I sure am going to miss that place. And I have a feeling that I'm not the only one

It's my birthday today. I'm 40 years old. And I feel surprisingly young. When I got home from work this evening, Sara presented me with the best birthday present I've ever received — a stack of emails from friends in response to one that she had written to them. Here is what Sara wrote:

Karl turns FORTY next week and I was wondering if you might help me celebrate him, if you'll pardon the expression. If you have time, would you mind emailing me a few kind words that I could share with him on the 20th? I was thinking you might share your earliest memory of him, or your fondest memory, or maybe just one of the things you like most about him. I myself can think of several! :)

Thanks all. I really appreciate it.

In case you missed the smoking-gun evidence, I have the coolest wife in the world.

So, Sara read a few of the email responses to me before dinner, and I'm about to read a few more. I'm trying to savor them, even though it feels a bit like reading about some vaguely familiar person whose name I can't quite remember (my difficulty with accepting praise is something my therapist insists I overcome).

My deepest and most heartfelt thanks go out to all my kind, sweet, loving friends and family members who responded to Sara's request. The many wonderful people in my life are perhaps the most tangible evidence of God's presence in my life. Thank you all for blessing my life with your love and friendship.

Sara's book club gets together once a month to talk about everything except the book they had decided to read. This year they decided to include the rest of their families for a camping trip up in Manistee, MIchigan.

Most of us arrived early Friday evening and planned to stay until Sunday, but when the rain started coming down Saturday afternoon, we all decided to pack it up early after a quick dinner and head home for the comfort of warm, dry beds.

Here are a few pictures of the 26-hour, multi-family camping trip of 2007...

Steve grilled some mean burgers for us on Friday night:

It was a delicious meal:

Afterwards, we all headed down to the beach to watch the sunset:

Some of the kids got a little wet:

But Steve was the only one brave enough to go all the way in:

The next morning we had breakfast:

And we warmed up at the fire:

In the afternoon, some of us played wiffle ball:

Some of the time:

The time was too short, but it was great while it lasted.

Here we go again with the proud father routine. I can't help being fascinated by the art that my kids create. It's such a clear indicator of their development that I look in awe as their little drawings and paintings and sculptures become more mature and sophisticated as they get older. Somewhere along the way, they'll probably stop creating visual art, just as 99 percent of current adults have done. But for now I'll revel in these manifestations of their imaginations.

Lucia was particularly proud of this circle drawing when she completed it a few months ago:

Benjamin named this next drawing The Heart Machine, "because it's a machine that makes hearts."

This one is more of an abstract piece, but I like the detail. Ben sometimes gets absorbed in the minutiae of his projects.

My friend's 8-year-old son Earl drew this picture of George W. Bush. In case you can't read the caption, it says, "See the Lier lier pants on fier Bush."

Art like this deserves a wide audience, don't you think?

When my former student (and current friend) Nicole Tieri sent out an email message a few days ago describing her concerns about a new documentary airing next month, I thought that her thoughts deserved wider circulation. Here is what she had to say:

Greetings!
To those I see daily and to those who have forgotten what my voice sounds like, I offer up the same hearty hello. I hope this missive finds you happy and in good health. Despite the occasional case of indigestion and the loathsome moles I've recently had removed, life is pretty darn good.

I write, then, out of concern (though I am not so sure that's the best word) for THIN, the documentary set to air on Nov. 14th on HBO. In my inability to stay away from such titles, I have been immersing myself in the details of the production. Documentarian Laura Greenfield, author of one of my favorite books of pictures entitled Girl Culture, was granted unprecedented access to film for 10 weeks at the Florida chapter of Renfrew Center for Anorexia and Bulimia. Following the gritty day-to-day life that is an inpatient E.D. program, she captures every bone, every weight, every breakdown of the patients. I know, I really do know, that this film has the ability to slash through the glamorous portrayal of eating disorders often spilling from the pages of magazines. I know that a boy, girl, man, or woman struggling with the disorders could be inspired to get well outside of the walls of treatment, even if it is simply to avoid the inpatient experience (indeed, I shuddered at the memory and the humiliation of peeing into a cc "hat" under the watchful eye of a nurse practitioner, of supervised showers, of the self-loathing and tears accompanying so many meals, and the hell of the all-too-early wake-up calls for daily weights and vitals—not to mention the bitter tirade your mind subjected you to if that scale inched its way even an ounce upward).

But my hesitation regarding this film is thinly veiled (pun not intended), and I am worried. Worried that those in recovery might view this film, see the images and—as was my first response—feel like a big fat failure for the life we have carved out for ourselves as skin covers bone and health tips the scales in its favor. While many of us do not desire to return to the half life we were once living (or barely living), this documentary reminds me that I still find skeletally thin appealing, still find the fuzzy cocoon of illness appealing to me in a whacked-out way. Also, I feel like this will serve as a gross inspirational film for those in the depths of the disorder; seeing a bonier and sicker version of yourself makes you want to get that sick, that far gone. I am quite a few years removed from this phase of my disorder, yet admittedly I began wanting to lose a few pounds. I'm able to acknowledge this and cope without spiraling into a relapse, but some sufferers are not, especially those whose recovery is chronicled in the film (I would have smashed the camera on more than one occasion if I had been filmed during the weight-gain phase of my recovery!). I wonder then, does the potential of helping some outweigh the risk of sacrificing others?

Thanks for indulging me. Want to see for yourself? Check out the video clips on the right side of the screen on this page.

Best,
Nicole

From what I can tell, it's common practice among bloggers to apologize when their entries get less frequent. But an apology seems a little presumptuous to me. Do people really feel dejected or neglected when the blogging gets thin? Doubtful. So, excuse me while I skip the remorse and instead mention a couple things that have been occupying the time that I otherwise would have spent writing here.

In the last few months a few friends have enlisted me to work on their websites. One of those friends is David LaGrand, an attorney, bakery owner, landlord, real estate broker, and karate instructor who also happens to be running for Michigan State Senate. Maybe he was getting bored or something. Anyway, since he is one of my dearest friends and one of the smartest and most ethical people I know, I offered to help him out with his website, davidlagrand.com.

David's brother Paul (owner of Solidus Design) got the site running on his server with a few pages and a photo gallery, as well as a color scheme and logo. Then I tweaked the design some, added a generic contact form and an events calendar, and wrote a simple script to toggle translated pages between the English and Spanish versions.

It's been a lot of fun to work on these little side projects, because they allow me to be creative and experiment with new (for me) ideas that I might then be able to apply to projects at my work. For example, I just added a cutesy feature to David's homepage that lets visitors add their names to the growing list of people who are endorsing David's candidacy. The cool thing about it is that I was able to apply what I learned in the DOM Scripting book that I've been reading.

Oh, I am using all of the willpower I have to refrain from launching into a techie explanation of the JavaScript, PHP, and PostgreSQL that I used to generate the list, hide and show the form, and change the appearance of certain elemetns based on user input, but I know that my readership consists of mostly family and friends who couldn't care less about such topics, so I will end this entry by encouraging everyone to visit the David LaGrand for Michigan State Senate web site and click the link in the right column that says "Add your name!" to see my work in action while at the same time endorsing David, because he deserves your support.

Yesterday the neighbor boy two doors down turned 5, so his parents threw him a little birthday party—just a small, low-key gathering of friends and family to wish him well.

Ha! Really it was a total blowout, a superhero extravaganza. I must say that the things a few of us neighbors agreed to do for this party would be much too embarrassing for me to mention, if I had any shame left at all. But I don't, so here's a picture of three middle-aged Super Neighbors flying down the makeshift zip line across the backyard.

The kids were awed. The babies were terrified. The adults were doubled over with laughter. So it goes.

The premiere episode of The Cut is airing tonight at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. It's a "Project Runway" type of show—not that I've ever seen "Project Runway," but that's what I've read. Tommy Hilfiger puts 16 fashion designer wannabes through their paces to decide who will get a gig working for the master.

I plan to watch the show, not because I'm a fan of fashion design or Tommy Hilfiger or reality shows or CBS or any of the network's affiliate stations, but because a friend of mine, Brian Funck, is the show's editor.

Previously one half of the 1990s music duo Harrod & Funck, Brian has been in Los Angeles for the past several years, working in the cutting room for a number of documentaries and reality shows, among other projects. "The Cut," I'm pretty sure, is his first major-network gig.

Since a reality show has no script, the editor becomes, in a sense, the writer of the program, crafting a story out of hours upon hours of raw footage. Or maybe the editor is more like a sculptor, chiseling away at the big block of video until the art (or entertainment) emerges from within.

In any case, it should be fun to see what my media-hopping friend has helped to create.

What a bookish Christmas I've had! I received so many wonderful new books for my birthday and Christmas that I worry about how I'll ever find the time to read them all. Here they are, in no particular order, all of them linked to further descriptions on amazon.com:

• The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears: From what I can tell, this is a historical murder mystery. Thanks, David and Melissa.
• Case Histories by Kate Atkinson: A mystery novel that I read about in a New York Times review. Thanks, Tracy.
• Found, edited/collected by Davy Rothbart: A heartbreaking, poignant, and hilarious collection of found letters, photos, and other personal objects. Thanks, Brian and Sara.
• The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, edited by Robert Mankoff: Every single cartoon ever published by the New Yorker from 1925 to 2004 in a very large book. Thanks, Nicole.
• The Double by Jose Saramago: I blogged about this one already. Can't wait to read it. Thanks, Tracy.
• The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason: Someone called this a Davinci Code for people who think, or something like that. Thanks, Sara.
• Don't Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff: The author is a super-famous linguist who is also a political progressive and an all-around smart guy. Thanks, Laura.

So what's in your queue? What are you reading now? What books that you've just read would you strongly recommend?

Our neighbors refuse to give up, even after seven of their signs have been stolen. I wrote about these Kerry supporters a couple weeks ago when all they had remaining on their yard was a single homemade sign decrying the thefts. Now they have five or six signs of various sizes, as well as a few flags and a "support our troops" poster in the front window.

Now that's dedication—bordering on fanaticism. But at least they're not resorting to violence, as one troubled youth did in Florida recently when he attacked his girlfriend with a screwdriver after she admitted she might vote for Kerry. [Read the full story]

A good friend of mine, Michael VanHouten, just informed me that his tiny, family-run company won the 2004 Apple Design Award in the Best QuickTime Content for Education category.

The company, Conflict Lab, creates multi-player negotation simulations for the educational market. Their first product is a strategy game of sorts: One group of players, the friends of Chris, try to help Chris extricate his sister Amy from the other group, The Elysians, an apocalyptic cult determined to keep Amy in the fold and advance their cause.

Congratulations to Michael and all the folks at Conflict Lab! For their prize, they'll receive a Power Mac "Dual 2Ghz" G5 computer and a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. Not too shabby.

I've just added a section to this site for Virginia Wieringa to showcase some of her artwork. The artist, also known as "Aunt Ginny," has used watercolor paints, charcoal, and oils to create gorgeous nature scenes and intimate still lifes. Now you can see some of her work by going to the Art by Virginia Wieringa pages.

Our dear friend Nicole, aka Scooter Girl, was among the top 60 or so singers on American Idol, but, alas, she didn't make it to the top 32. We were hoping that the judges might decide to bring her back for the "wild card" show, but it just wasn't in the cards.

Nicole Tieri, a friend and former student of mine, appeared on American Idol this month. She was among 8,000 or so people in New York City to audition for the show, and the judges—at least, Paula and Simon—thought she was good enough to go on to Hollywood for the next round. The show's producers seemed to like her, too. They made her the feature story for the New York audition episode, granting her nearly 10 minutes of air time. Dubbed "Scooter Girl" at the auditions, Nicole sang a song about her favorite mode of transportation, a song that she penned while waiting in line. She then segued nicely into a Celine Dion tune for the three judges, who had both praise andi nstruction for her.

It's been fascinating to watch the attention that the media lavished on her for a few days following the show. Entertainment Tonight did a follow-up report on "Scooter Girl's recent struggle with anorexia," getting some of the information right (her high school accomplishments) and making up other stuff for no apparent reason ("one of her closest friends").

People in the online message boards have been buzzing about her as well. They all seem to think they have her figured out, making emphatic pronouncements about her singing, her antics, her personality, her past. They don't have a clue, of course. But when has that ever stopped anyone?