Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have signed up to ask people to fill out pledge cards for Yes on 3, to keep the state law that protects transgender people from discrimination. The organizers provided the postcards, a couple of stickers, and a script.

The problem with the script is that there's a space we're supposed to fill with "your own personal story" of why we want people to vote "yes," and I'm not sure what to say. "It's a basic civil rights issue" is a reason, but I think they're looking for something more personal. So I'm probably going to be saying something like "I care about this because I have trans friends, and I want them to be safe" (which is also true, and relevant—though most of those friends don't live in Massachusetts) or "to be able to rent an apartment" or "to have access to medical care."

(I know that some of my trans friends subscribe to my journal: suggestions on something better/else to say would be welcome.)

This is mostly a request for advice:

We need more dining room chairs, and don't know where to shop around here. "Here" is Arlington, MA, and close is good, but if you know a good place in Boston or rather than Arlington or Cambridge, please mention it. We don't drive, so the options are to go someplace reachable on the T that will delivers, order online (always an option), or possibly get a ride from someone whose vehicle will hold a couple of chairs.

We might be buying one or two chairs, or a set of four to six, or even a dining room set complete with table. (We have two chairs that we like, but two isn't enough.) I'm fine with used furniture if it's in good condition, if you have an extra chair or two you'd like to sell, or if your favorite charity shop has chairs and we can sort out transportation.

(cattitude is going to take care of looking online.)

I started my computer up this morning, and the Mac built-in email client told me that my mailbox index had been damaged, please close and restart to rebuild it. It's now estimating another 58 minutes for this process.

The thing is, this is the second time it's done this, and the first was only a couple of months ago. I just hope it rebuilds a little more smoothly this time.

A few weeks ago, in a more general discussion, someone recommended the MailMate app. Has anyone here used that? Or have other suggestions for a mail app for MacOSX?

I want to be able to download messages from my ISP and gmail, while leaving copies on the servers for a little while (so I can keep an eye on things if I'm traveling—the message I downloaded on Tuesday in Seattle might be something I want to see from someone else's machine on Friday) and sort things into different mailboxes and folders, both automatically by matching attributes and by hand. And probably several other things.

Basically, I want Eudora back.

ETA: It seems to have rebuilt smoothly this time, but even smooth recovery takes 90 minutes.

Can someone recommend a good Cantonese restaurant in the Boston Chinatown?

I have to avoid most spicy food (things spiced with peppers; ginger and garlic are my friends), and Adrian avoids pork and shellfish, so dim sum isn't a good choice. Neither of us is vegetarian, but we are both happy to eat vegetarian food.

Thanks.

Because it can't hurt to ask:

I'm flying from Seattle to Montreal next week, via Vancouver (YVR). I have about a two-hour connection, and am wondering what my chances are having time to buy lunch on the ground. The Vancouver airport website seems to say that I may have to go through airport security again (having already done it in Seattle), as well as Canadian customs and immigration, which seems a bit odd and potentially time-consuming. It's also not clear, if I check a bag in Seattle, how far I will have to schlep it in Vancouver before giving it back to Air Canada to transport the rest of the way.

I'm not too worried, because it sounds as though Air Canada will be happy to sell me a sandwich and serve me something caffeinated, so I won't starve or get extra-grumpy, but while airport fast food isn't great, it's probably better than what I'd be able to buy on board. (Going through customs and immigration is a constraint on the "just bring lunch from home" approach, though it will do no harm to see if they'll let me bring some pecans or cashews into the country.)

I just used the building's fitness center for the first time, and I think I need a real gym.

It's a good set-up for a lot of people: a variety of cardio machines, some fairly standard resistance machines, and some dumbbells. ( cut for your protection )

There's an LA Fitness branch near here, I think; does anyone reading this have experience with that chain? Or other recommendations for a gym in downtown Bellevue?

cattitude and I recently bought a laser pointer as a cat toy (after talking about doing this for a couple of years). julian_tiger thinks it's an excellent toy, and will even chase the light right before it's time for him to be fed. (That close to dinnertime, he tends to ignore offers of other play, such as a dangled piece of string.)

The control on the pointer we have is a single button: hold it down to shine the light. This becomes uncomfortable fairly quickly. So I'm looking for a similar pointer (small, low wattage, and probably red) that has an on/off button, so I can play with the cat without having to exert constant pressure with my thumb. Can anyone recommend a model/supplier? I looked around online for reviews, and found a few sites that would tell me about things like how long the battery lasted and how wide the aperture is (some of these were for higher-powered lasers, which I really don't need) rather than discussing the controls.

This is a straightforward one, I hope:

One of my previous employers has moved office since I worked for them. Am I correct that I should change the entry on my resume to give their current address, since the point is to enable someone looking at my resume to reach them?

There don't seem to be a lot of good trains from Schenectady to New York City on Sundays, though there are reasonable-for-us trains from New York to Schenectady on Saturdays. There aren't many Schenectady-New York trains on Sunday at all, and I can't call the Adirondack "good," in a context where I'm not going to or from Montreal and won't get to look at Lake Champlain.

Opinions and experience on getting to New York via either the Lake Shore Limited or the Maple Leaf trains would be welcome.

(The Amtrak website claims that I could take the Lake Shore Limited from Schenectady to New York via Albany-Rensselaer, but when we asked about trains from Albany to New York, that train didn't come up. I can think of several possible explanations, ranging from "they just won't sell you a ticket from Albany" to "the web page is messed up." (The PDF schedule for that train is confusing.) On closer examination, it appears that the NY-bound train stops in Albany only to discharge passengers, and the one from New York stops only to receive them.)

We've already considered leaving from Albany (which has more trains to New York City), but it's not practical.

In the last few days, my iPod Touch has started giving the error message "charging is not supported on this device" when I plug it in to my Mac. When I google, what I find is that (a) a lot of other people have been puzzled by this message in the last few years and (b) it's what the device is supposed to say when attached to a FireWire port.

I am not using a FireWire port. I am plugging the iPod Touch either directly into the Mac, or via a USB hub, with the USB charging cable that came with the device. This is how I've been charging it, successfully, for the last couple of months.

The current situation is that the iPod will charge happily when plugged into cattitude's Linux/Windows box. It also syncs to my Mac as it should. And after a couple of days of giving me that message every time I plugged it into my Mac (though sync'ing when I told it to via the iTunes desktop), it now alternates between charging and displaying the exclamation-point-in-yellow-triangle symbol and the error message.

Cattitude has suggested that this may be a result of having, a couple of weeks ago, used the charger that came with his iPad (which plugs into the wall) to charge the iPod and that, if so, letting the battery run down a bit may help. So I am leaving it unplugged for the instant, and will see about running the battery down a bit.

However, I am puzzled. The Apple Website goes no further than "this will happen if you try using FireWire," and nothing else has told me even that much. Thoughts? Similar experiences? Chocolate?