I took 1,500 pictures at the Long Beach Bulldog Beauty Contest today. It was such a cool scene, with hundreds of ugly/beautiful dogs and about a thousand people — big guys with long-shorts and tattoos, white-haired grannies with sweaters that matched their dogs, leather-clad dudes whose dogs had spiked collars, arty couples, tanned stylish ladies, 20-something girls that cooed at every puppy, little kids that looked the big-headed dogs eye-to-eye, people in wheelchairs, who rested their hands on stout companions — everybody smiling, feeling connected by their snorty lovable friends. Lots of tightly-curled tails wagging. I was on assignment for Seal Beach Daily, where I’ve posted a slideshow of photos. It was a wonderful, gentle, exhausting day.

Much to my surprise, I got a great reaction to my entry in the Superbowl Chili Cookoff we had at work on Friday. I entered in the Salsa category (the others being Chili, obviously, and Guacamole) with a Yemenite recipe called schoog* that my Mom used to make — Yemeni Jews brought it to Israel, where it’s quite popular with falafel. I tied with another entrant in the popular vote; she won the judges’ vote (the organizer quipped that they went for the American salsa. Heh.) But people kept saying good things about it, and several asked me for the recipe, so here it is:

* pronunciation: the ch in schoog is a voiceless velar fricative or, informally, a hard ch, like in loch, Bach or Channukah. In other words, it sounds like ‘K’ ;-)

Seal Beach Daily is off to a wonderful start. The mailboxes runneth over with goodness, good wishes, good contacts, good news. And I have to admit, although it is a lot of work, I am having a good time. And the SBD has hit a nerve in Seal Beach. Readers e-mail that they want this site, with this approach, and that makes me want to be part of creating it for them. I can’t help it; at some level, isn’t it every journalist’s dream to have a little hometown operation?

And sometimes nice buzz happens: An interview with Donna at LAist features SBD and a big Kateco photo. (The one above.)

Buzz update: More mentions. LA Times LA Now Blog. Michelle Vranizan Rafter’s always smart WordCount.

In the meantime, some things to be thankful for: Smart friends full of ideas; great and talented partners, smooth working relationships, and a business lithe enough to turn on a dime; a genius husband of 23 years who supports you in all you do. Happy launch day to all!

Today, we rolled out the cool new literary event search features at CaliforniaAuthors. Users can now search — right from the pages of our site — for events listed in the big-and-growing BookTour event database. CSS/php master Val did a really beautiful job with the coding and I am proud and happy with the implementation. Click here to read a nice message about our partnership from BookTour.com’s Kevin Smokler. Click here to give our new search a try!

On another front, Val’s back seized up yesterday, giving his spine a disturbing “S” shape and essentially immobilizing him. So we spent the morning visiting Claudio, getting x-rays, etc. Val is icing tonight for more of the same tomorrow. So this evening we’re having comfort food: this deeply good and supremely easy mushroom soup from famously cranky TV chef Anthony Bourdain. We made ours with shiitakes.

But sometimes paintings just happen. Ajax on the Kitchen Floor (24 X 48 inches).

Think you have a tough job? Join the military. Here is my new desktop, made from a photo of a jet engine at the March Reserve Air Force Base, Airfest 2088. The Airfest is a type-o-rama of warnings and designations. This one seemed like just what I needed during the last days of the CaliforniaAuthors relaunch. Val and I have prepared a nifty Flickr picture gallery of these desktop images, suitable for use in your high-pressure job situation.

Visit the Flickr gallery, and if you see an image you’d like for your desktop, click the “all sizes” button above the image and download it to your computer. These images are available under a Creative Commons License, so download and enjoy!

The newly re-designed CaliforniaAuthors.com is up and running. I always say — in terms of design and building — there are no small websites, but this one really doesn’t qualify as small; in fact, it’s big, with its 70+ author essays and excerpts, its many pages of directory-style resources, and its more than 1800 posts going back to 2002. It was a hell of a lot of work: Donna made the content fresh, Val made it all go, I designed it and did the thousand things to make the crufty old site fit into its shiny new suit. It’s nice to see it out there. It is especially nice to see it done.

We’re celebrating the re-launch with another cool book giveaway: Harry, Revised, the brand new novel by top LA litblogger, Mark Sarvas. Learn more about the book here. Then go over to californiaauthors and enter the drawing by sending us your e-mail address via the contact form, with the words Harry, Revised in the subject line. Enjoy! [Check out Mark's great blog, The Elegant Variation, here.]

In other California book news, the official pub date for Donna’s book, Great Escapes: Southern California was May 5. On that day, the LAist gave it this sweet preview. Kevin Roderick also talked about the book on KCRW and at the renowned LA Observed. Learn more at Donna’s SoCal So Cool blog. Congratulations, Donna!

On the M&M visit front, boxes of beef arrived at my door today. Grass-fed, aged steak from the Hearst Ranch in central California. A gift from Michelle! Let the feast menu-making begin!

]]> http://thenitenote.com/2008/04/18/know-when-to-fold-em/feed/ 2