A long time ago at my first Silicon Valley job, I noticed a teeny tiny Soma cube on a co-worker’s desk. He had constructed it out of business cards. Having noticed my appreciation for this little crafty inspiration, he gifted it to me when he left the company. Since that time I’ve accumulated 8 boxes of business cards. I keep them thinking I’ll turn them into a craft project one day. In the meantime they’re slowly becoming notecards and bookmarks as I haven’t had a fantastic idea. There’s plenty of business card origami plans on the web (I’m not going to make an exhaustive list here). Ned Batchelder posted cube instructions, which can be the building blocks for larger projects. Here’s a flickr set of business card origami (no instructions) which includes a Soma cube. And there’s Core 77’s Business Card Hacks design challenge which triggered my remembrances for this post.

It’s been 15 years since Kurt Cobain died. “He was more than a rock star. He was Seattle’s rock star.” 15 years ago I got seriously mad at an opinion piece by a writer (I can’t find a free link to it) who had no idea who Cobain was, thought he was just another fast-living rock star and believed all the kids in mourning were worshipping the druggie lifestyle. I wrote a letter to the editor begging to differ which the San Jose Merc published. And today with the magic of the Internet I can find letters written by other people who felt the same way.

I’ve played a lot of chamber music in my lifetime, but I have to admit I usually don’t go out of my way to attend performances. Like the masses, I get attracted to the the large scale, full emotional experiences and forget to seek out the beauty in the simpler quartets, trios, quintets. Seattle’s Simple Measures chamber music group is on a mission to reacquaint and introduce people to this classical repertory with interactive performances in informal settings. They play in coffee shops, community centers, and in street cars. The audience, sitting up close and clustered around the musicians, can ask questions and give feedback. It’s the brainchild of cellist Rajan Krishnaswami who is, in essence, bringing chamber music back into the intimate settings it was created for.

Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu is the first Asian-American to manage a major league baseball team. His paternal grandparents, residents of Hood River, Oregon suffered through internment along with 100,000 other Japanese Americans during World War II. They never discussed that time with Wakamatsu until he pressed his grandmother, now 91, about it two years ago. Don’s father was born in the Tule Lake internment camp in California and it was his father’s receipt of a reparations check that clued Don in to the unspoken family history. Two of the walls in his grandparents’ house are built with lumber from their internment camp’s barracks. Wakamatsu’s parents (his mother is of Irish descent) plan to escort the senior Wakamatsu couple to see their grandson’s first home game at Safeco field on April 14th.

Doug Woods, a very clever paramedic in Missouri, has put together CPR training with the concept of Guitar Hero. This mash-up (yes, that was meant to be funny) allows CPR students to see in real-time on a computer screen the effectiveness of their compressions on the mannequin. The depth and frequency of the compressions are measured and colored bars appear on the screen to give instant feedback for adjustments. Woods hopes that the interactive mannequin system, paired with an online presentation and test that he developed will allow for shorter, cheaper CPR training, leading to more people being certified.

Fans of the Pet Shop Boys’ may enjoy their 10-minute medley at the Brit Awards. Costumes (hats and sunglasses of course), many dancers, and big video of their heads. And if you’ve got 4 more minutes to kill, there’s also footage of their rehearsal where you can see the barebones of the set and background video projection.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (a Wellesley alum just like our current Secretary of State) is putting 200 of her (in)famous brooches on display. The Museum of Arts & Design in New York will open “Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection” in September. Albright carefully selected the pins she wore to suit the diplomatic occasion, and she wasn’t afraid to let them express her strong opinions. The Iraqi press called her a serpent in 1994 and when she met the Iraqi Foreign Minister soon after, she wore a snake pin. Albright has written a book to go along with the exhibit and is looking forward to the opportunity to buy more pins while her collection is out on exhibit.

Deborah Sarnoff and Robert Gotkin are big fans of modernist architect Robert Venturi. So when they found out one of his houses, a beach cottage in Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore, was to be demolished, they bought it and moved it to Glen Cove, on the North Shore of Long Island. So the house took a trip on a barge, witnessed by Venturi and other curious onlookers and fans, resulting in not your usual N.Y. Times slideshow. It arrived safely 20 hours later to settle in next to Sarnoff and Gotkin’s existing Venturi house.

Weyerhaeuser, one of the largest lumber producers, maintains a garden of tiny trees. Their Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection of 60 bonsai trees has been open to the public for 20 years. But to cut costs, the company is closing down public access to the collection, saving them a full-time and a part-time position. The bonsai curator will remain to take care of the trees and there is hope the garden can open again when the economy turns around. Weyerhaeuser’s business has dropped dramatically with the reduced demand for building materials. They’ve been closing down plants and distribution centers around the country to reel in costs. Here are photos of their bonsai from the Puget Sound Bonsai Association.

Raw food for pets? The idea is starting to grow alongside the slow food movement. I still remember from Beverly Cleary’s “Henry Huggins” book the phrase “a pound of horsemeat for Ribsy please.” This article does mention that before the 1970s pets got scraps from the butchers. Now we don’t kill horses for meat or go to the butcher.