War, computers, basketball, mango lassi. Not in that order.

Along with the ancient cherry tree stirring to life, I was about to post a semi-lengthy piece on my good karma and how it resulted in all of the computers for my office arriving yesterday at once. But something came up...as you'll see.

Around lunch yesterday, I noticed that someone had lost their visa card in the hallway of the building I work in, and gave it to the security guard, noting the name of the person. When I got upstairs I did a quick web search and tracked down the lady's home phone number. Calling it, I got her husband, who informed me of her work phone number. I called that and left a message. An hour later, she called to say thanks.

Upon my return upstairs, in the midst of a lengthy meeting, all of the computers I'd ordered just a few days earlier came in, to my surprise. It was quite exciting, especially since I hadn't even had enough time to begin setting up some of the other things we'd recently purchased. Near the end of the day, as I was assembling the tape drive into the new server, I noticed that it was missing a key component. To my dismay, this particular component meant that I couldn't work on the server at all, which was going to be the first thing that I did. Plus, it was a fairly pricey part (normally around $500-800) which meant I'd look foolish in front of my boss when I asked to get it.

The day ended well, nonetheless, and today I discovered that my particular server actually could use a much cheaper part (a zero-channel raid controller, if you care!) instead. Combined with my boss's acceptance, things started looking up again. Yet another reason why karma is krazy.

Well, it's official: Spring is here. Last week a few roses and daffodils managed to emerge in the dredwerkzian garden. Yesterday, the offical memo was sent out as the ancient, gnarled cherry tree next to the house burst into bloom. Considering that the 'werkz itself has been around since the late nineteenth century, it's possible that the tree is over a hundred years old. Certainly, it looks battered enough. Some of the branches never receive enough sun, so the tree itself has been slowly gravitating towards the street, occasionally poking passers-by in the eye.

With the nice weather, and (so far) absence of bugs, this week has been perfect, weather-wise. Despite the rain that just began to fall, the regular blue skies and bright sun seem to be lifting everyone's spirits around town. With a war on and the economy in shambles, it's nice to have something to smile about.

First off, check out this cartoon by oliphant: Sorry to image snatch, but I'm in a hurry this morning and can't be bothered. It's from the always cool ucomics website.

Next, to a subject I've been mulling over for several days: the bricks. In the district, the presence of brick sidewalks indicates urban renewal, higher priced houses and gentrification. For over a year, the city has been replacing outdated concrete sidewalks with brick ones, finally restoring city sidewalks to their past glory. The district, unlike any city I know of, uses solid granite curbs. It's odd to walk through fairly sketchy neighborhoods and see fancy curbs throughout. But paired with concrete sidewalks, the curbs don't look so special. Now with the addition of bricks, the sidewalks become far nicer than most cities.

What's intriguing is the way in which the bricks enter a neighborhood. They typically start around circles and proceed through residential areas like some sort of virus or organic creature. The old dredwerkz, located at 10th & O St, is finally getting its bricks put in this week. 10th and O are both starting to look increasingly like the pricier neighborhoods East of 14th St. 11th St. is still not too nice, but then again, it hasn't received any bricks yet. So the cycle is a self-inflating one: nicer neighborhoods receive bricks, which pumps up real estate prices, which spreads over to not-so-nice neighborhoods, which encourages people to make them nicer, which results in more brick sidewalks. Ironically, despite the economy still being in shambles (the war effect is concealing the fact that all the numbers from Wall St. have been dismal of late) the district is still on a construction binge. Street after street displays signs of empty office space for lease downtown, yet more office buildings are going up. On the residential side, at least, demand keeps going up, yet there are still plenty of neighborhoods East of 12th St. or North of U St. that are blighted by abandoned lots, ruined houses or shady corner liquor stores. The trick, as always, is to buy into a neighborhood that is currently not very nice. That way you get a low price, and are assured of catching the bubble a few years from now, assuming the economy bounces back. And the bubble, even after the rest of the economy contracts, still appears to be growing. All thanks to those bricks.

Today's Courtland Milloy column is an instant timeless classic. Go read the entire article, from beginning to end. Too often, people take the easy way out and simply roll over, despite the fact that they should hold onto their rights. In this post September 11th world, a steady erosion of rights can often culminate in ludicrous statements being made like the ones from Justic Scalia where he implied that the Constitution set a bare minimum for rights and that we enjoy far beyond what the framers guaranteed us. Riiiight. I'd love to see Scalia badgered for visiting the Jefferson memorial.