**

Dear Blog, I’m an Ass

jules.maas — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Hey. Guess what’s awesome? Transferring your domain & web hosting services to one provider instead of two, which incidentally, cuts your monthly fee in HALF. Score!

And guess what make you look SUPER professional and knowledgeable?

Not backing up your effing website files because you checked your sites when you executed the transfer AND EVERYTHING WAS STILL THERE so you ASSUMED all the content was automatically going to make it over. While I will also say I was highly distracted by the fact that I felt as sick as a DOG yesterday, we all know what they say about assuming.

Due to my colossal dumbassery, I’ve lost most of my main website and all the images on this blog are gone, as is every single post written between February and June. Including one of my best posts ever: It’s Your Basic Nightmare. Yay me.

Please bear with me as I recover as much as I can. Which, I can already tell, is going to take extra long with all the breaks I’m going to need for banging my head against my desk.

3 Second Peek

jules.maas — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:01:00 +0000

GAH. Clearly, my brain needs new material to munch on…

Weekly Column Wrap-up: Sweaters & Sanity

jules.maas — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:05:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, I recount that one time Algie went back to the vet. After which he started lying around like he was going to die. We spent an entire day saying goodbye. And it turned out that all he had was a fricking fever.

Jules: “Al, it’s gorgeous today. You want to go outside?”

Algie: “Meh.”

Jules: “You want to play?”

Algie: “Meh.”

Jules: “You want to go to the vet?”

Algie: “…meh.” [click for full article]

Last week in the Covington/Maple Valley Reporter, Algie starts peeing. ON EVERYTHING. And I officially become the crazy cat lady who has written about her pet to the point of blurring the line to mommy-blog zone.

Algie: “Hey. Check out this laundry. In the laundry room. Waiting to be laundered.”

Jules: “Whatcha doing, kitty?”

Algie: “Something I’ve never done. In. My. Entire. Life. Hmm-hmm-hmmm…”

Jules: “KITTY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?” [click for full article]

Green Falls

jules.maas — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:07:00 +0000

Early in January, my friend Maiya and I started taking free photography classes at our local Kitz Camera shop, and I’ve been dying to try a time-delayed water shot ever since. The picture below is the only shot of about 35 that I was able to get in focus, and as a result I have a number of recommendations for anyone else who wants to give it a try:

call your local store to get their class schedule (almost every store holds these year-round)
if you’re shooting on a mountain that never thaws, congratulate yourself for thinking to grab your coat, but next time MAYBE ALSO BRING GLOVES
don’t walk around reminding yourself all morning NOT to forget your tripod, and then forget your tripod, DORK

North side, Mt. Rainier, WA

Foggy Paradise

jules.maas — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:10:00 +0000

I don’t know if it was because the Visitor’s Center was rebuilt in 2008, or because it was 100% sunny on our last trip. Standing in Paradise last week felt like we’d walked through the wardrobe and found ourselves transported to an alien, magical land. Like Amsterdam.

Paradise, Mt. Rainier, WA

Cookie Hunter

jules.maas — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:12:00 +0000

For Memorial Day, Trav took us on a long drive all the way around Mt. Rainier. It was cold. rainy, and foggy. And although this meant we couldn’t see the mountain itself, there was no shortage of breathtaking sights along the way. What’s around this bend? A waterfall! And this bend? Craggy black tunnels and a bridge! And this bend? Oh goodie, a ginormous cliff wall HANGING OMINOUSLY OVER THE ROAD. Stopping at the visitor’s center, we discovered it had been demolished and rebuilt since our first visit in 2006. We also spotted this little guy on our way out of the parking lot. As we idled by with our windows down and I scrambled to get one decent shot, he looked back at us, padded softly across two lanes of traffic, and peered up at us with eyes that seemed to say, “I CAN HAS SNAK?”

Paradise, Mt. Rainier, WA

Maple Valley Reporter: Sick and Tired

jules.maas — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:11:00 +0000

This week in the Covington/Maple Valley Reporter, I repurpose a story from this blog. Because I was sick. And it was late. And I kinda felt a lot like the cat in this one, so dude, I JUST WANTED TO GO TO BED:

Last year, our cat, Algie, became very, very ill. I had a job, and was very, very busy. This year, Al got sick again. I didn’t have a job. And it was all very, very messy. This is what happened:

Winter 2009

Algie: “I feel sick. I will lay here looking pathetic. Or bored. Or annoyed. Guess which.”

Jules: “What’s a matter, kitty?”

Algie: “Woe. Is me. Oh, the woe.”

Jules: “Hm. Maybe it’s something you ate. It sure smells like it.”

Algie: “Hiss” [click for full article]

Last week, I hit job-search bottom and wrote a ranty email directed at pseudo-postings everywhere:

Dear Prospective Employer,

I would like to apply for this position because I actually have the exact skills you’re looking for. You should be aware that I obliterate every goal and every target anyone has ever given me, and I carry extra bottle rockets in my pockets for days when you’ve gotten used to my awesomeness or when the break room runs out of coffee. However, I’m not going to… [click for full article]

Two weeks ago, I went to a Networking event. Where I met tons of people just like me. And not one employer interested in hiring a web/print designer. Yeah. Super productive. AWESOME:

I discussed my frustration at the online application process with a man named Ben, and how I WISHED someone would invent a network like facebook, but for jobs…“You know, 85 percent of jobs really are filled by personal referral. But the hiring manager can’t just fill it that way – so they post the position, get a thousand applications, and then ignore all but the few they already knew they wanted.” [click for full article]

Pixels & Print, 2009

jules.maas — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:15:50 +0000

While not new to anyone following me on facebook, I thought I’d take a break from the heaviness of yesterday’s post to introduce my new visitors to some of my favorite design works from last year:

Maas Publications, LLC is on facebook! Become a fan

Blog Rule #5: You’re An Idiot*

jules.maas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:18:38 +0000

Here’s a new life lesson: If you happen to be getting ready for your first IVF cycle and have a blog, do not post anything about it unless it works. Especially if it’s anywhere within 100 feet of Christmas. I know you will be hopeful and scared and wanting to include everyone, but don’t. JUST DON’T. Because you will get a LOT of lovely, amazing people very, very excited.

These people will leave you wonderful comments. They will send you encouraging emails. They will mail you handwritten Christmas cards speaking hopefully of baby presents next year.

Which you will open the same day as the statement from the clinic that details the fact that you spent every last benefit dime on a procedure that did. not. work. And you will stand there looking at your Christmas card table envisioning setting the whole thing on fire, thinking, ‘what the hell do I say now?’.

Instead of figuring that out, anytime soon, you will go to a party the next day and get very, very drunk. You will be very, very hungover at your husband’s hockey game when one of the wives announces she’s pregnant. You will get up and move to the other fucking side of the arena in order not to murder anyone. You will go to your own going-away party and drink some more. You may start a kick-line in the middle of the city attorney’s living room and spill wine all over her wood floor. You will get up the next morning and start drinking as much damn coffee as you’ve ever wanted In. Your. Life. After which your neighbor will shoot the shit with your husband while he puts up lights, and casually mention that they are pregnant, too. Again. For the third time. OH, THE WOE.

You will be angry. You will be sad. Then you will be numb. Every time you try to write a post, you will be too tired, too worked up and entirely too unreasonable to make any sense at all. But if anything else, you will be 100% sure that saying any of this would only make those wonderful people feel bad. During Christmas.

So you will say nothing.

*Dear readers, just in case it’s not clear: I love you, love you, love you. I’m not calling YOU an idiot. I’m calling ME an idiot. Via the timeless wit of the Wedding Crashers.

Speaking Out

jules.maas — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:46:59 +0000

When, exactly, is it the right time to stand up for your principles? I mean YOUR principles. I mean MY principles. When is that time? I ask because it seems to me the general tendency is to keep our heads down and our mouths shut. It makes sense: we all have to survive.

But we only get so many obvious ‘moments of truth’ that present us with the option to live up to the person we want to be and the person that’s less scary to be. More often, we just get ‘moments’ we make do with. Principles, like facts, are stubborn things. And sometimes, they won’t let you go.

Last week, I saw the most outrageous abuse of power I’ve ever witnessed personally unfold before my eyes. The only question was whether to say anything about it. According to my ex-coworkers & friends, the answer was no.

But as my eBay Peeps might tell you, I have a really hard time shutting up when The Powers That Be lose their sense of ethics/freedom/common decency and start fucking with people. (For instance: NOT shutting up, in fact, making a HELL of a lot of noise and getting a few others to do the same – when eBay Corporate mandated CSRs could no longer use their ‘ethnic sounding’ aliases. Discrimination, anyone? The matter died shortly thereafter.)

In this case, the Newcastle City Council was fucking with my friend AND a community I loved. So I wrote this. And now I’m a columnist.

Related Articles & Sources

BREAKING NEWS — City Council fires city manager, cuts more than $1 million from budget (Newcastle News)

City Council fires city manager, hires former community development director

Public Works director, parks commissioner resign

Newcastle City Council fires city manager, cuts more than $1 million from budget (Issaquah Press)

Department of Licensing
Trade Name: RTW Associates
Robert Todd Wyman

Public Disclosure Commission Contributions Report – advanced search
(select candidate/commission: Dulcich, John D; election year 2009)

John D. Dulcich Campaign Contributors

Donner Brian, $1000
RTW Associates, $500
Stephen McCarthy, $500
Seattle Business Insurance, $500
Rich Crispo, $25 (candidate, now on council)
Lisa Jensen, $520/website services (council member)