Every time I see something like that, I keep wondering how it would go if this wasn't politics but baseball. I can imagine an exchange during the American League Championship Series going something like this:

JOE BUCK:Welcome back to the ALCS on Fox. Top of the ninth now, last chance for the Yankees to get to the World Series, but they're down 12 runs to a Tampa Bay Rays team just three outs from a date with the Dodgers. Al Reyes is on the mound looking to get those outs. He'll be facing Alex Rodriguez, then Abreu, then Matsui.

TIM MCCARVER: You know, Joe, for the good of the American League, I think the Rays should concede this game.

JOE: Concede Game 7 of the ALCS when you're up 15-3? Why would anyone do that?

TIM: Look, the Yankees are a better matchup for the Dodgers. They have the history, they have the experience here.

JOE: Reyes deals 1-0 to ARod for a strike at the knees. Tim, this Rays team absolutely came out of nowhere and ran off that 11 game winning streak.

TIM: But that was back in July. What did they do during August and September? They didn't win a single game in September.

JOE: Reyes throws a curveball high, 2-1. They went 14-13 in September, Tim. I wouldn't call that winning a single game.

TIM: But they did it against teams that aren't in the playoffs -- the Orioles, the Blue Jays, the Tigers....

JOE: Since when is that relevant? I'll give you that the Yankees went 20-6 (as Reyes steps off the rubber) but that only allowed them to close in on the wild card. Then they swept that final series against the Red Sox....

TIM: Who are a much stronger team representing core fans of the American League! Hard working fans, white fans...

JOE: ARod slaps Reyes' 2-1 offering into left field for a base hit, and that will bring up... did you say white people?

TIM: Look, all I'm saying is that the last time we were in this situation was when the Yankees and Dodgers played in 1981, and we all remember what happened to Reagan that year...

JOE: He was shot?

TIM: You and the Red Sox-dominated media are so anti-Yankee! This Rays team can't hit in the clutch!

JOE: They've hit over .400 with runners in scoring position in this series. I'd say that's clutch.

TIM: And what do they have to go against the Dodgers? The Yankees are a seasoned team against the National League and their lack of a DH.

JOE: Now Abreu chops the first pitch to Longoria, and his only play is to throw across to Pena at first, so one out and ARod moves up to second. Tim, the Rays had a winning record this year in NL parks.

TIM: Doesn't that just prove they're not ready? This is a young team that lacks the veteran leadership of the Yankees. Players that have been in the playoffs. Players that are ready from Game 1.

JOE: This is a young Rays team, but they've hit well all year and their pitching has been something else down the stretch, Tim. And they came into the playoffs, surprisingly, with more wins than any other team in baseball.

TIM: Perhaps, but since August 15 what team has the best record in baseball? The Yankees, of course.

JOE: 162 games in a season, Tim, as Matusi pops it up to center as Upton comes in and squeezes it, two down, and now the fans here in Tropicana Stadium are making themselves known. A franchise that's long been the laughingstock of major league baseball is one out away from playing in the World Series.

TIM: These fans are kidding themselves.

JOE: Now Girardi calls back Cano and sends out Giambi to bat left and try to save the threadbare Yankees' hopes. I'm just going to ignore you, Tim, because you've lost it.

TIM: These fans only believe in the Rays because it's a fairy tale! Oh, the Rays will save us all! When will they get real and wake up to reality?

JOE: Fastball outside corner for a strike.

TIM: The Yankees scored more runs this year than the Rays.

JOE: You're counting rained out games, Tim. Curveball a little low as the fans groan, 1-1.

TIM: And let's think about it. This team used to be the Devil Rays. Bunch of satanists who are just hiding the truth. What else are they hiding? I bet some of them are on 'roids. I just know it.

JOE: BIG swing and a miss by Giambi at a nasty curveball, 1-2. Why Girardi is running out Giambi in this case is questionable, since he's had only two hits in the playoffs. In tomorrow's New York papers will the writers be going on about how poorly the Yankees have been managed all year?

TIM: Have I talked about Carl Crawford's childhood pastor?

JOE: Please don't, as Reyes delivers a ball and ARod scampers for third. They'll rule that indifference, but considering this game has been over since Pena's grand slam in the first, you could rule this entire game as indifference.

TIM: Look, the truth is that the Yankees outdrew the Devil Rays in attendance, and that's all that matters.

JOE: STRIKE THREE CALLED AS GIAMBI WATCHES IT GO BY, AND THE TAMPA BAY RAYS, THE WORST TEAM IN BASEBALL IN 2007, ARE ON THEIR WAY TO THEIR FIRST EVER WORLD SERIES IN 2008!

TIM: I don't think so. Clearly, the Yankees won today, and they'll be in Los Angeles on October 22 ready to deliver the World Series to the American League.

JOE: Stuff a sock in it, Tim.

TIM: LOS ANGELES! LOS ANGELES!

The other day, though, I realized that in my years of running from architecture, I somehow ran right into it. Only, I'm not designing buildings; I architect websites.

The other day I was having a discussion about some part of the website I'd been working on, and I was arguing that users had an expectation for how that section of the site should function and we need to make sure that it's intuitive in its form. The person I was talking to said, "Yeah, like in architecture. Form and function something...."

"Form follows function," I said, quoting Sullivan and FL Wright by heart.

My days are spent as much on design as they are on development, but most everything comes down to high-level discussions about what's required and how it should be put together. And those are the skills of an architect. In a sense, I am my father's son. We just designed completely different things.

And to really nail it home, I ordered an information architecture book from Amazon this week. Heh.

Last night at her cheese unveiling party, Carolyn complained that I didn't blog to this site enough.

"But all I'd ever post about is Annabel, and people who aren't family don't want to read about my kid."

"Well, remember when I interviewed Defective Yeti? He said his most popular posts are about The Squirrelly."

So. I offer you the following conversation with Ms. AB, aged 3, re: Leap Day.

ME: Tomorrow is Leap Day.
AB: Leap Day?
ME: What do you do on Leap Day?
AB: HOP! LIKE A BUNNY!
ME: Really.
AB: And you wear BUNNY RABBIT EARS on your head!

PS: If I say I don't know anything about movies and will suck at your party game, I'm just being kind and don't want to crush you in an embarrassing fashion in front of the other guests.

The Christmas letter is now live. Does it look like last year's? Yep. I was just too busy to do more to the template than change the pictures and colors. And besides, it's a pretty solid template.

If you can't tell, Christmas snuck up on us this year for a variety of reasons. The cards go out tomorrow, Christmas Eve.

But here's something I'll say that's not in the letter: I'm glad 2007 is almost over. It wasn't the worst year of my life (that still belongs to 1994, with 1988 running right behind), but it was close to annus horribilis. Frustration on every level, in nearly every sphere of my life. A brutal depression I'm not even sure I'm completely out of. My computer broke. My camera was stolen. I've been in vocational limbo all year. I'm at a new highwater mark for weight. Oh, and the Mariners are absolutely incompetent.

OTOH, I still have Susan, I still have Annabel, I still have a job, and we got a bigger place this year. I've been in demand for interviews and discussion panels. Susan is out of her helljob. Even with the weird and random complaints from daycare, Annabel has been marching on.

Still, I'm happy this year is over. Knowing how it's gone we'll probably spend New Year's Eve sleeping in the Nashville airport, but at least it'll be over a week from Tuesday.

2008 probably means more change. But I want to make them. I need to make them. The status can't quo anymore. And this blog will be a big part of it. The "big" part might mean "big silences" or "I'm just going to tear the whole damn thing down," but something will happen here. Keep the home RSS readers burning.

So happy Christmas. I hope you have fun. My 14 loyal readers. And those Mariner bums.

Anyway, see you in the new year sometime.

The tomatoes have been a lesson in the problems of a Seattle summer -- you just don't know if it's going to be one of those sunny and high 80s seasons or a rainy and 50-60s "did it get cancelled and I just didn't read about it?" sort of summers.

But they are turning red, finally. (The ones that are supposed to be green when ripe are becoming ripe, too.) Now the race is on to get as many ripe before it turns cooler (right around my birthday) and the rainy season starts (this year, it's probably "any day now.")

The biggest challenge has been the heirloom plant. It's had problems all year with stunted growth, bacterial cankers, and what's now looking like a blight. I've sheared off so many branches and stems it looks like a tree more than a bush. But, strangely, it's been the one actually producing, where the others are only now getting around to ripening their massive loads of green tomatoes.

I got a first harvest out of my last remaining basil plant and turned it into about a cup of pesto. And the plant is rapidly springing back, so if the warm weather holds together long enough I might be able to squeeze another cup out of it.

Otherwise, there's not a whole heck of a lot going on right now. My mother comes to town in the new place this week. For the first time in the 12 years I've lived in Seattle, she's staying with us and not in a hotel (and sleeping on my old bed). It's nice to have room. Too bad we can't afford to keep this much space.

While she's here, we're leaving Annabel with her and sneaking off to the peninsula for our tenth anniversary. Susan and I will have been together for ten years next month.

I'm up to 31 tomatoes on the vine. THIRTY-ONE. And despite the worries about plant stress and overwatering and everything else, I have THIRTY-ONE TOMATOES on the vine.

$100 in investment, 31 tomatoes. That's about $3 apiece. If you've seen tomato prices in Seattle, you'd know it's almost a bargain. Almost.

So, behold me not killing a plant. And here's the whole photoset as it stands.

Otherwise, I'd like to complain about work and my vocation, but I'm done that enough in the last few months, so I'll pipe down for now. Instead, here are some selected quotes from Annabel, The World's Most Precocious Three Year Old:

(on having her diaper changed) "Teacher Hattie, you're washing my ass!"
"Daddy, I don't have a big butt! I have a small butt!"
"I'm not a boy! I'm a GOY! Mommy's a GOY, Daddy is a boy!"
"I don't want to wear a dress! Dresses are hot! They're too small on me!"
"Annabel, do you want a cookie?" "I like cookies." "Is that a yes?" "I LIKE COOKIES!"

I swear, we don't use ass around the house, so we don't know where that came from. The girl is going to be a sailor-mouthed, jeans-wearing woman with a big brain, I can tell you that much.

After that, I dreamed of trying another garden, but I ran into two problems. One was that I didn't have time. The other was I am exceedingly lazy, and gardening isn't lazy man's work. (My willingness to let my lawn look like a shortgrass prairie underscores that.)

This year, though, we moved into this new three-story rental townhouse. With it came this third-floor deck about the size of a small bedroom. It has southern exposure, holds the heat well, and no slug in their right mind is going to climb three stories just to eat tender shoots.

Perfect for a container garden.

But container gardens, unfortunately, cost money.

I wanted to do tomatoes, which have huge root bulbs. They require, at minimum, 15 gallons of soil. $40 worth of nursery planters and $40 worth of soil later, I had a medium. The seedlings cost $10, including the $3.50 "Green Grape" heirloom I bought at Swansons. (I also bought two "Early Girl" starters and a hybrid cherry at Home Despot.) Throw in two packets of lettuce seeds (mesclun and Black Seed Simpson) and some herbs (parsley, sage, thyme, basil -- sorry, no rosemary) and I'm now down $100. Last weekend I needed tomato cages (thanks to the wind ripping one plant out), so that was another $30. And water is, well, a little expensive in these parts.

So far, though, I'm happy. The heirloom tomato is struggling for some reason (it's a little limp and not as green as the other three), and I way overseeded the lettuce in the tomato pots (I can't seem to thin them fast enough... salad anyone?). But the other tomato plants have grown a foot in the last month and are cage-ready, I'm going to be up to my ears in argula soon, and the herbs, despite some insect attacks on the basil, are thriving. Maybe I don't suck at this.

The other nice thing is that Annabel loves to water the plants. She's turning into a handy garden assistant, even if she's overwatering them a bit.

I won't know if this is working until the plants actually set fruit. Unfortunately, in the cool Northwest that means another two months. But it's nice to know I can get plants to grow, even if I'm down $130 in the quest for a tomato that doesn't taste like styrofoam. And if I do get tomatoes, there will be plenty to share with others.

We moved, said goodbye to the old rental house that had been home for nearly 8 years. But we didn't buy a place. The market has now long passed our affordability. So, we're stuck renting. The new place has twice the square footage, and Annabel has her own room finally. Still, what a mess this move has been. We have 30 boxes in the garage that need to be sorted through. We spent way too much at Ikea, though we finally have a real dining room table with actual leaves. I threw out 800 pounds of trash at the dump. How did we accumulate 800 pounds of trash, much less stuff?

Meanwhile, Susan's mother had a lung taken out. She has stage 3 lung cancer, even though she's a non-smoker. Her prognosis isn't great. All this happened while Susan's job went from terrible to awful. Luckily, she just got hired by a new organization and will be starting there later this month. She really wants to get down to Alabama as soon as she can, but with work it's a struggle. And with all the money flowing out into the move and the higher rent, she really can't take a week off without pay without seriously jeopardizing our finances.

Also, my camera got stolen. It was my fault -- I left it in plain view in my car, and the thieves smashed 'n' grabbed. Eventually, I'll get around to replacing it.

Annabel was sick for part of the month. Although that led to this exchange over the phone:

GRANDMA WILBANKS: How are you, Annabel?
ANNABEL: Grandma! I had messy diarrhea in my pants!
GRANDMA: Annabel! You can talk so well!

My work has been, well, Dunder-Mifflin-ian. Too much so. Only more drama than comedy. But there's finally someone to take over my admin roles. Now, I just have to train her. And I guess other parts of work have been OK, too. I'm starting to build a network in other parts of campus. There are some things blowing in the wind that suggest I might need to get close to some people on campus and hope that some of these possible changes happen. If they do and I position myself right, I will have something in the reins I've always wanted.

Our marriage has somehow survived all this stress, though there's a lot of tension there.

And... I guess that's it for right now. I'm still alive.

And as I retreat back into my shy, introverted cave after too many connections and too many alcoholic beverages this week, I feel this obligation to explain myself. My apology, I guess.

A few years ago, the "100 Things About Myself" thing was the meme sensation sweeping the nation. I thought about doing that, but then, you could get 100 things about me (and write it for me) with a Google search. (Heck, do it for me, please.) But I sense more than one person (my current guess: two) will be coming through here to try and remember who I am.

So, here's a short list.

I met the Shins on Sunday, briefly. I got them to autograph the grocery list. Really. I couldn't think what else to have them sign.

Annabel has been sick on and off the last week or so. Thus, I've been at home a lot.

I have a stalker. OK, he's not exactly a stalker, but he did track me down via a bunch of blogs, only to find that we both work for the same organization and are very similar. I met him in a public place this week, ever at the ready for his band of trained monkey ninja assassins to begin the assault. But it never came. I'm kinda disappointed -- I've been training all my life to fight the coming monkey ninja hordes.

While I was at home with Annabel, I answered the phone. And, you see, this is unusual, because 70% of the phone calls we get are from solicitors and survey groups. And this recruiter talked me into discussing another position with another organization. I was really averse to the idea (it would mean spending a certain number of months as a contract employee, which is a level of insecurity I'm not up for with my experience and my daughter) until he mentioned the salary numbers -- well above my current pay rates. I knew I was underpaid, but by that much? Wow. So, I'm going to talk to these people and see what they have to say. I still feel ambivalent about making the move right now, though, now that I'm up to four weeks of vacation and 100% matching in my retirement plan. And this potential job would be way... over there. Meaning my commute would be that much longer.

I'm entering my third week of trying to solve how to embed Flash video in a web page without having it crash on me. I've never had this sort of problem before. It reminds me of when I went to Boston a number of years ago, rented a car, and spent the next four days completely lost and frustrated. And I'm never lost (though I'm certainly frustrated, occasionally, that is, all the time). Geography is my strong suit. But Boston's street system lacks any sense of rhyme or reason. It lacks visual cues and landmarks. And with Flash video, it's the same problem -- I can't find the visual cues or the road map to help me understand how it all works. Flash is a very "black box" technology. It's hard to reverse-engineer it. So, with Flash video I feel like I'm driving past Old South Meeting House. Again. For the fourteenth time today.

We're also trying to decide what to do about housing. We need a new place by spring. Buying in this market, though, is scary. Everything is overpriced, but the prices keep rising anyway.

And a memo to the Texas relatives -- I'll be at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference March 9-14 in Austin. So, hey, let's get together sometime in there. That goes for you, Chris -- I'm leaving the 15th, so should I come over to Houston for the night?

'Tis all. I'm sure I'll post something in another month or so. See you then. And if you're in Austin, say hello.

This is the post in which you leave your comments and salutations of the year. So, comment away.

Happy/Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Hogmanay/New Year to everyone.

Christmas letters: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005

So, after about a month of shopping, I ended up going with asmallorange, a little hosting company in the Southeast that came highly recommended. PHP5 support, .htaccess permissions, shell access, and Rails already installed. I'm paying more ($20/month vs. $13/month), but I get a lot more (5x the storage, 6x the bandwidth, and a lot more control).

Right now I'm in the process of getting the new host space set up. Eventually, I will get the switch thrown and I'll be running over there.

There will be a LOT of changes. Annabel's blog will likely be taken down and rebuilt. The PTBNL blog (which is still up) will be canned completely. The home page will feature a lot more content and will pull in some RSS feeds of Susan's blogs and some other things.

But the big decision is the one I haven't made yet: Movable Type or Wordpress?

I've been using Movable Type for 3 1/2 years. Over time, though, I haven't been completely happy with it. I've lived with the quirks. I thought about switching to a number of different options, but I ended up with a really cheap license (back when you had to pay for them for multiple blogs and users) , so I've stuck with it.

Now, though... I feel like it's time for a fresh start. But a fresh start either means I'm doing a clean install of MT, or I'm moving to Wordpress.

Moving to Wordpress would mean a lot of changes. RSS feeds would have to be changed in everyone's readers (all three of you who use them). The archive links would all be dead (since Wordpress doesn't handle archives the way Movable Type does). In essence, everything about this blog would be in for wholesale change.

So I have a question for all three of my readers who are bloggers (and still read this) -- Why do you like Movable Type? Why do you like Wordpress? (And if Tara is still reading this, why do you like/hate Textpattern?) Have you moved between the two? Was it worth all the broken links?

Changes are happening. Hopefully, they'll be done by Christmas. I just hope it's true and not the First World War sort of "done by Christmas."

It's morning again in America. Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. With interest rates and inflation down, more people are buying new homes, and our new families can have confidence in the future. America today is prouder and stronger and better. Now, why would we want to return this corrupt Republican leadership to Congress?

George W. Bush — Leadership that ain't working.

I'm happy. After these last 10 years of the GOP sitting on their fat keisters in the House shoveling my tax money into their Bridges to Nowhere, the DeLay-Hastert-Abramhoff corruption machine has been drop-kicked out of power. After these years of a Senate only willing to rubber-stamp the President's wishes instead of doing the power-checking they're supposed to do, they are about to find themselves either evenly split or handed over to the Democrats. Donald Rumsfeld, possibly our worst Defense or War Secretary ever, has been sent packing. The GOP is talking about conciliation and compromise. And Pelosi's not an idiot -- she knows how to work the deals and horse-trade like a Speaker of the House is supposed to do, instead of, you know, just being a sockpuppet for a corrupt representative from Sugar Land.

There won't be impeachments. There won't be any blood. It will just be an agreement on how to get Iraq moving, get the budget deficits under control, and working on keeping this country moving. Terrorism will be defended against in a sensible manner, instead of by invading a country with few quantifiable terror ties and an inactive WMD program.

So, now we look at the two great possibilities for our nation -- either we move beyond the failed leadership and towards the great political change awaiting us after 2008 that may just lead America to its Silver Age, or we'll all be dead from the illegal immigrant Al-Queda cut-and-running terrorists destroying us with their soda-bottle nuclear weapons and socialized medicine.

It's morning in America. And it's a rising sun. Unless it's a mushroom cloud.