Quiet Declarations

In contrast to my subpar Starbucks experience yesterday, today I visited two pretty decent coffeehouses in Kansas City.

-Lattéland.  This place is much better than its name suggests.  Their espresso isn’t fantastic, but it’s decent, and more importantly they’re clearly attempting to make thoughtful drinks (designs and everything).  Their seating area, wi-fi, and outlets are great for laptop work.  I visited their North Kansas City location, which is on top of a hill with a scenic view of the Kansas City skyline.  The only thing I would knock them for is not having ceramic cups.

-Broadway Café.  This is a great little shop in Westport (which appears to be Kansas City’s resurgent hipster neighborhood) with excellent espresso, a decent number of seats, and plenty of ambiance.  I personally disapprove of any coffeehouse not offering free wi-fi, but from the look of the place I suspect it’s an artistic decision.

I don’t have any good leads on coffeehouses in Kansas City, so I did some scouting via the online reviews.  Looks like for my next visit, I should try to hit up Westport Coffee House, Crave Cafe, Crossroads Coffeehouse, and The Roasterie.  If anyone reading this actually has firsthand knowledge of the KC coffee scene, do let me know.

Related: what kind of person rates their local Starbucks on Yelp?  It really clutters things up.  Are there really people whose decision to risk a visit to the nearest Starbucks hinges on the Yelp reviews?

Someone recently told me that I’m pretty much only worth reading when I’m ranting about or mocking something.  So, there are precisely five types of friends:

1. Ignorable.  In many ways, these are the closest friends.  You always want some friends with such a high mutual comfort level that you can watch TV together and not have to speak to each other with no love lost.  Sometimes it’s nice to be social without being social at all.  Downside: easy to get in a rut with these friends and forget about the others.

2. Available.  It’s also nice to have great friends that are highly likely to accept your invitations.  Sometimes they stay too long and require too much awkward conversation, but if you didn’t have them you would miss them in short order.  Downside: unlikely to be the gateway to a unique social network; you probably are their social network.

3. Sociable.  These can be some of the best friends to hang out with, and probably there for you when you need them, but their time always seems to be in high demand — perhaps they have many other friends who feel the same way about them?  Downside: if you get an invite to hang solo with them, it probably means they’re out of options.  Also most likely to arrive with three friends you’ve never met.

4. Unpersuadable.  Definitely also fun to hang out with, there when you need them, etc., but mostly available only at times of their choosing.  Hard to get them out on short notice.  In other words, much like #3, except their better option is usually their routine.  Downside: be prepared to tolerate excuses like tired after a long day at work, have to go to the grocery store — or, in the case of women, already put on pajamas. 

5. Affable.  The casual friend is an excellent subset of friend, provided you don’t assume it’s more than it is.  You can show up at random to each other’s events and be welcomed into the mix, but invites are rarely accepted and no-shows rarely come with a passable excuse — but you’re in the Acquaintance Zone, so why would they?  Downside: unless already out with a group you can join, they’re unlikely to be your no-plans-on-a-Saturday-night social crutch.

Okay, of course some friends are combinations of #1-5, but most people like lists and hate permutations.  The people who prefer to read about the 5! types of friends are likely not my friends.

I trust no actual friends were harmed in the writing of this post.

This morning I went to a Starbucks north of Kansas City and ordered a tall vanilla latte.  They gave me the drink, lid on, and I sat down to sip it while working on my laptop.  After about half the drink it occurred to me that something was a bit off, so I opened the lid to discover they forgot to put the espresso in the drink — I’d been drinking vanilla-flavored steamed milk the entire time.  Sigh.

Last night, I attended the last of nine sold-out concerts performed by Garth Brooks to generate money for Nashville’s flood relief efforts.  If the figures announced on stage were accurate, the concerts raised $5 million for flood relief and additionally generated $10-15 million for the hospitality industry.

This was not an example of “a city coming together” or whatever — this was the familiar intersection of charity, opportunity, and enterprise.  And I’m happy to report that in addition to feeling good about the money that went to flood relief, I got to see one hell of a show.

I went and got engaged, so I figured it was time to change my Facebook relationship status for the first time since creating my account back in 2004 or something.  In an earlier version of Facebook you could adjust your settings to prioritize certain kinds of profile changes, such as setting relationship status changes to max to get all the gossip as quickly as possible.  In a more-recent-but-still-earlier version of Facebook you would at least see the most recent changes on top.  But for some reason the current version of Facebook prioritizes wall posts and notes above profile changes, even when the profile changes are more recent.  Check out where my engagement fell on my Facebook page:

I’ve heard that the view differs depending on which user is viewing the page, but if so, I understand that even less.

Anyway, I’m engaged.  Go me.

I’ve decided that I either don’t understand, or am too self-conscious to accept, social media.

I have a Facebook account.  I use it to stalk acquaintances I don’t feel like seeing in person, and to say happy birthday to my friends.  I also have a Twitter account.  I also use it to stalk acquaintances I don’t feel like seeing in person, provided they don’t annoy me by tweeting more than a few times a day.  On both, I am very much a consumer rather than a producer of content.

I do blog from time to time.  I don’t blog to get attention — tried that, didn’t work.  I don’t blog to advance my career — tried that, didn’t work.  And I don’t blog according to a set routine, as is quite obvious to any of my readers.  I blog inconsistently, when I have something to say, because that’s the only way I can enjoy it rather than treating it as a chore.

I recently installed a service that turns what I blog into a tweet and a Facebook status update.  I will probably get rid of this feature, because all it’s done is make me self-conscious about how many characters are in the title and first sentence of my posts.  When I make a mistake, I have to correct the mistake in three places.  And most importantly, I feel that my blog is my territory and property to improve or destroy as I please, but once the content is pushed to Facebook or Twitter I feel like I’m on community property.  (Yes, they’re volunteering to follow me, but you get the point.)

I used to think social media was just for narcissists.  Then I thought it was for narcissists and clever self-marketers.  Now I think it’s for narcissists, clever self-marketers, and people who simply have no filter.  Unfortunately, it turns out that’s 200 million people.  I might stay on the bandwagon, we’ll see.  But I’m not sure it’s ever going to feel comfortable to me.

My house has a room opening up — check out the listing here if interested.

It’s worth noting that I’m probably moving out in the next two months, in case your reservation is living with me.

In my job, I have the opportunity to pursue a wide variety of interests, so you would think by now I would have at least somewhat nailed down what my career interests are.  In fact, I still have no idea, but at least I think I’ve identified the problem: what I most enjoy is being very good at many things.  Actually, it’s more accurate to say that what I really most enjoy is knowing that others know I am very good at many things.

The problem is I’ve discovered that I have diminishing marginal utility of said enjoyment.  Once people figure out I’m really good at something they start piling on more of it, so I want to go try something different and give myself another opportunity to reap the emotional benefits of impressing people if I succeed.  In addition, versatility improves the likelihood that I’ll be allowed to cherry-pick a variety of different projects I enjoy.  After all, I’d rather keep my coworkers guessing about what my comparative advantage actually is, so I don’t become “the data guy” or “the email guy” or some other niche role.

But I would be more useful to the world if I just really enjoyed one specific thing (provided that I am also good at it), so is my insatiable quest for versatility some sort of Ricardian paradox?  And if so, is vanity at said paradox’s root?

Just a heads up that for the next week I’ll be blogging lightly, if at all, as I will be on vacation.  I’ll resume what I suppose could be called a standard semi-daily format next week.

Something I purchased without help became the most popular item of its kind after I bought it!

Trust me, there will not be a repeat performance.

In their spare time, some people do this thing called pleasure reading; I catch up on old work-related articles or links.  Today’s selections:

F.A. Harper’s Morals and the Welfare State (1952)

Randy Barnett’s Restitution: A New Paradigm of Criminal Justice (1977)

Murray Rothbard’s Four Strategies for Libertarian Change (1989) (PDF)

Vaclav Klaus’s Global Warming: Truth or Propaganda? (2007)

And, last but not least…

Dave Barry’s The Year in Review (2008)

Each year I blur the line between my work with the Institute for Humane Studies and my personal blogging just long enough to plug one of our signature offerings: our weeklong Summer Seminars, on a variety of topics and themes, for students and recent graduates interested in the foundations and applications of liberty.

At a friend’s suggestion, in summer 2003 I attended IHS’s Liberty & Current Issues seminar — which explores the role of liberty in the context of current policies and events — and in retrospect I can honestly say it changed the trajectory of my life.  The professors present material from the classical liberal perspective, which exposes many participants to new arguments and creates an environment welcoming of a wide diversity of views and opinions.  The schedule is designed to create plenty of opportunities for rich discussion between top faculty and students from all over the world.  These seminars are offered free of charge to participants — IHS covers housing, meals, and books, so your only costs are your travel and your time.

I should add that if you’re interested in the classical liberal perspective, IHS is an organization you really should get to know.  Since its inception in 1961 it has remained committed to two major objectives: bringing people together to explore the ideas of liberty, and offering professional assistance to those who want to make a career of it.  So I encourage you to consider our Summer Seminars because they are an awesome experience, but I also recommend them because they expose you to a network of faculty and peers who may turn out to be of significant professional value for you.

If you are an undergraduate, graduate student, or young professional, I encourage you to apply.  And if you aren’t interested, but you know someone else who might be, I hope you will to pass this information along to them.  If I can answer any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.

Between playing catchup from travel, getting slammed at work, and entertaining guests, I regret that I have neglected my blog.  Actually, I’ve neglected my blog, my email, the news, and all manner of errands and chores.  To those of you who emailed because you were afraid something happened to me, rest assured that I am alive, I am getting caught up, and many cynical updates are forthcoming.

In February the top search engine term for my blog was “Facebook Stalking” by a factor of six.  That’s just great.

Around Christmas I posted about my intention to slowly begin stocking a home bar, and after a couple of months I thought I’d provide a brief update.

In my beginner’s bar, I now possess the following equipment: Boston shaker (which was surprisingly hard to get at a reasonable price), Hawthorne strainer, jigger, mini angled measuring cup, muddler, corkscrew, cocktail book.  I’m still desperately missing 5-6 oz. martini glasses (I only have one) and more rocks and highball glasses.

Missing but don’t care that much yet: juicer, channel knife, paring knife, grater.  Pretty much anything that requires me to prepare fresh fruit or spices is not of concern to me at this juncture; I’m not yet at a stage where I have to worry about whether the garnish makes or breaks the drink.

Regarding spirits, I suppose it’s unsurprising that my home bar is in constant need of base liquor replenishment — particularly bourbon, gin, and cognac.  I finally am keeping healthy supplies of cointreau, grenadine, bitters, lemon and lime juice, and tonic and soda water.  I haven’t needed many other liqueurs because I still have a healthy stash of randomness from previous parties and experiments.  I do finally possess vermouth but I keep finding I have dry when I want sweet and then vice versa the next time, plus I need to get better about storing it properly.  Argh.

The two ingredients I don’t have that are just killing me in terms of my preferred drinks are orange bitters and maraschino liqueur.  I don’t even know where to find orange bitters.  I’ve reached the stage where I can measure and pour a decent drink if I have the recipe and all the ingredients, but because I don’t have a solid grounding in the fundamentals every drink I try to improvise I end up destroying.

All of this is to say that I’m getting there, but I’m not there yet.  And don’t worry — I’m still a beer connoisseur and I’m not giving up my first love, just expanding my horizons a bit.