(Theres a YouTube video here that you may not be able to see at work…but it’s worth checking out at home)

I’ve owned Keane’s album Hopes and Fears for over two years now but never really listened to it until Malai at work had me listen to “Everybody’s Changing” a week ago and I fell in love with this album again. Then last night just after 2 am as I lay in bed, I couldn’t get the melody for this song outta my head. Then the meaning of the lyrics hit me and I’ve been listening to it all day as you can tell by my last.fm page or have me as a Yahoo! IM contact. The song has particular meaning to something in my life right now and it also reminds me of a long lost friend (unconnected to the lyrics).

Keane has a difficult style to characterize. I’d call it Piano Brit Pop but that doesn’t do it justice. One of the things you instantly notice is the contrast between the melodies and lyrics. The music is generally upbeat with ascending melodies but the lyrics are often dark. This blend enhances both. Kinda like HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. They don’t play with any guitars. That’s right, no guitars. A piano, bass, drum kit and one of the best voices in music. If you like this song, check out their first U.S. release Hopes and Fears. Highly recommended.

Tunes to start with on the album:
1) Somewhere Only We Know (Gray’s Anatomy fans will recognize this one instantly)
2) Everybody’s Changing
3) Your Eyes Open

I’m jealous of Tom’s voice. I would kill to be able to sing. I can write lyrics (you’ll never see them here!) to almost any tune and have a good sense for arrangement but lack the necessary talent to express it.

Either way, this will not be the last time I listen to this song…

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and realized that my project is ending in less than two weeks and I haven’t done squat to look for another job. That thought led to another and then I wondered if I want to stay in Seattle. I get calls and/or e-mails from recruiters all the time with job opportunities in cool sounding places and sometimes I wonder if I should move. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Seattle but I’ve already been here six years and I’m feeling pretty restless. To give you an idea of how restless, I actually entertained the idea of moving back to Columbus for an engineering job that pays six figures plus per diem (that goes pretty far in Ohio) before realizing it was pretty much in the same building I used to work in at Qwest. That was ok and all, but I’d get bored there in six months. And I’m pretty sure all of my friends have married and moved on.

So that leaves Colorado, Northern California and Alaska. There are lots of opportunities in Southern Cal, and Arizona (what’s up with that!?) but I’d get sick of the constantly warm and sunny climate after a single week so the pay would have to be astronomical (READ: $250k +) for me to even think about it. And that ain’t gonna happen. The Denver/Boulder market has just imploded since my days at Level 3 so that’s pretty unlikely. Northern Cal is so outrageously expensive that I actually turned something down that paid $68 an hour + per diem! Alaska sounds really cool until I think about all the air travel I’d have to endure to get anywhere else. I’ve sworn I’d not take a traveling job after the Level 3 gig.

So maybe I’ll stay in Seattle. The climate is perfect when it’s not summer and the job market is pretty good for my skillset. Why am I always so afraid to stay in one place?

Frances Kemp booked an aisle seat on a recent British Airways (BA) flight because she had a bad leg that required extra space. Her 76-year-old husband Michael occupied the middle seat. A nine-year-old girl took the window position.

When a stewardess asked Frances to switch seats with her husband, she declined. The stewardess explained that the seating arrangement breached the airline’s child-welfare regulations and moved the child.

Michael is a retired journalist with no criminal record; he made no contact physical or verbal with the girl; no complaint or request to move was received; the child’s mother was elsewhere on the plane. The girl’s welfare was deemed to be in peril solely because Michael was male.

BA has openly joined the ranks of airlines such as Air New Zealand and Qantas that view all men as a danger to children. It is difficult to know how many other airliners share this policy as it is rarely announced and can be enforced invisibly when seats are booked.

Indeed, BA itself has been quietly instituting the policy since at least 2001 when another ’seat rearrangement’ drew attention. In answering a complaint from the humiliated man, BA explained, “We introduced the policy . . . in response to customers asking us to make sure their children are not seated next to men. We were responding to a fear of sexual assaults.”

Source Article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,231238,00.html

This reminds me of a personal experience I had during my first quarter at Ohio State University. Late during that quarter, my guidance counselor required me to select my intended major for the upcoming year (I enrolled in Summer to get a head start) and I had written down elementary education. A few days later, I received a note requesting that I skip math class and proceed directly to her office where I was told that men had no business in elementary education and that she would not sponsor that major. I tried to ask why but she wouldn’t discuss it and told me to return to class. I thought about fighting it but decided it was not worth the fight and I filled out a new form with “Business Administration” as my declared major.

Heh. Good thing though as I’ve made 6 times what I would have made if I had ended up teaching elementary ed. How soon though until more companies adopt this policy? To me, this is just like the airlines banning all liquids because of a supposed terror plot involving liquids. Will my son (supposing I have one) be able to work with females or attend school with girls he doesn’t know?

The popular photo sharing site Flickr, released 3 new features today which I think are pretty cool.

1) Guest Pass- I never post private pictures on Flickr (nude photos of me would likely bring down the ‘net with traffic so it’s not worth the risk) but if I did, and wanted a non-Flickr member to view them without the hassle of registering for a Flickr account, I could give them a Guest Pass.

2) m.flickr.com- Now I can finally replace my lame TextAmerica page with a new and improved mobile Flickr page. Yay! (Now I really have to get that new phone I’ve had my eye on…)

3) Camera Finder- This is the coolest new feature and frankly, I’m blown away that they hadn’t done this before. You can search for the most popular camera models, settings and an assload of other options. Awesome information and awesome presentation.

The conspirators win again. In the 18 months I worked in Downtown Seattle, there were half a dozen thunderstorms. On the Eastside. And now that I am in Redmond, there was this today:

We got a few rumbles but nothing like my former coworkers saw down on the waterfront. I long for Ohio’s fall storm season…

(Image via Eclecticism and Komo 4 News)