Free (sort of.)

My MasterCard is 100% paid off. (Breathes sigh of relief.) Now to pay off the San Francisco trip on Jen’s card…

I seem to have a burgeoning business doing some IT consulting—really, I’m just filling in for a friend—but it’s interesting to see how many people are in need of good Mac help. Last night I resurrected a dying drive from an iMac and got it ready to burn to DVD, which will make the clients very happy. They bought an Airport Express for use as a wireless base station—I wasn’t aware you could use it as a stand-alone base station; I thought it was just a remote extender for an existing wireless network. Stupid Bill!

Priorities.

Jen: They had better say they like this, those bastards.
Me: Perhaps you shouldn’t refer to your clients as “bastards”, baby.
Jen: …Well, they’re not clients, they’re friends, so I can call them bastards.

Wow. After something like five years of refusing to do any kind of print work in Quark, it’s frightening how many of the key commands I still remember.

I put up a very basic page early this morning attempting to outline some of the projects I have in mind for this endless money pit house of ours; it’s extremely incomplete and basic, but is a step above the seventeen dogeared, smeared slips of notepaper I have floating around my messenger bag, which don’t make any sense a week after I’ve measured, sketched, and noted on them.

Am I really this boring, or did you guys forget how to comment?

Priorities.

Jen: They had better say they like this, those bastards.
Me: Perhaps you shouldn’t refer to your clients as “bastards”, baby.
Jen: …Well, they’re not clients, they’re friends, so I can call them bastards.

Wow. After something like five years of refusing to do any kind of print work in Quark, it’s frightening how many of the key commands I still remember.

I put up a very basic page early this morning attempting to outline some of the projects I have in mind for this endless money pit house of ours; it’s extremely incomplete and basic, but is a step above the seventeen dogeared, smeared slips of notepaper I have floating around my messenger bag, which don’t make any sense a week after I’ve measured, sketched, and noted on them.

Am I really this boring, or did you guys forget how to comment?

More Changes.

I’m mucking about further with the HTML behind this page; it’s slowly crawling towards 100% XHTML compliance (don’t even bother trying to validate this page- it’ll explode.) bits and pieces here and there are getting rewritten, then rewritten again—the calendar over there on the left is a good example, and it’s still not done. Originally I had intended to build around a new redesign, but I’m going to stick with the layout I have for the time being and get it to where I want it to be.

Cash. My mother gave me a subscription to Vanity Fair a few Christmases ago, because she’d see me bogarting her copies when Jen and I were heading down on to the dock to swim. Truthfully, I was looking for reading material besides Better Homes, which I’d never read, and The New Yorker, which I already get, because I never bring reading material when I visit. I find the magazine a strange hybrid of fawning starlust and lurid true-crime stories of the Rich and Famous (seriously, how many people have been murdered suspiciously in the Hamptons? And do I really care? I’ll never vacation there, and sure wouldn’t consider it now, given the apparent homicide rate.) Still, between the profiles of über-rich asshole society figures and glossy Bruce Weber photos of young rich Hollywood stars, there’s the occasional nugget of goodness. This month, there’s a profile of the strange, fruitful collaboration between Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin, which is worth the price of the magazine—I was a latecomer to the music of the Man in Black, but have grown to enjoy his early work, which makes the last five albums of his career stand out in greater relief, and highlight the genius of the work they did together. I’d link you to the article, but Condé Nast has a dumbheaded anti-Web policy where they don’t post anything online that I can find.

Wax On, Wax Off. Today we have a fellow meeting us at the house; he’s going to give us an estimate for sanding and finishing the first floor and stairwell. We decided, because it’s mainly oak with a decorative inlay, that having a pro do the first floor was the best course of action—that, and the fact that it’ll be done in a weekend as opposed to a month. Hopefully the quote will be low, the timeframe will be soon, and the job will get done quickly.

Huh. International has gotten back into the business of building pickup trucks… sort of.

More Changes.

I’m mucking about further with the HTML behind this page; it’s slowly crawling towards 100% XHTML compliance (don’t even bother trying to validate this page- it’ll explode.) bits and pieces here and there are getting rewritten, then rewritten again—the calendar over there on the left is a good example, and it’s still not done. Originally I had intended to build around a new redesign, but I’m going to stick with the layout I have for the time being and get it to where I want it to be.

Cash. My mother gave me a subscription to Vanity Fair a few Christmases ago, because she’d see me bogarting her copies when Jen and I were heading down on to the dock to swim. Truthfully, I was looking for reading material besides Better Homes, which I’d never read, and The New Yorker, which I already get, because I never bring reading material when I visit. I find the magazine a strange hybrid of fawning starlust and lurid true-crime stories of the Rich and Famous (seriously, how many people have been murdered suspiciously in the Hamptons? And do I really care? I’ll never vacation there, and sure wouldn’t consider it now, given the apparent homicide rate.) Still, between the profiles of über-rich asshole society figures and glossy Bruce Weber photos of young rich Hollywood stars, there’s the occasional nugget of goodness. This month, there’s a profile of the strange, fruitful collaboration between Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin, which is worth the price of the magazine—I was a latecomer to the music of the Man in Black, but have grown to enjoy his early work, which makes the last five albums of his career stand out in greater relief, and highlight the genius of the work they did together. I’d link you to the article, but Condé Nast has a dumbheaded anti-Web policy where they don’t post anything online that I can find.

Wax On, Wax Off. Today we have a fellow meeting us at the house; he’s going to give us an estimate for sanding and finishing the first floor and stairwell. We decided, because it’s mainly oak with a decorative inlay, that having a pro do the first floor was the best course of action—that, and the fact that it’ll be done in a weekend as opposed to a month. Hopefully the quote will be low, the timeframe will be soon, and the job will get done quickly.

Huh. International has gotten back into the business of building pickup trucks… sort of.

Have You Seen My Monkey?

I made a monkey for Jen yesterday—more specifically, I made a monkey for Jen’s friend Jean-Paul and his wife Sharon, who are having a baby very, very soon. This is but one of the ideas she’s working on for an announcement, and I liked it so much I thought I might share it with you here. Because monkeys are cool, and monkeys with bows in their hair are that much cooler.

The weekend’s activities were productive, in direct opposition to last weekend. Saturday I did some onsite consulting for a friend of a friend, rebuilding an eMac and getting it ready for a migration. Sunday I got the rest of the front windows scraped and primed, then worked my way around the side to the doctor’s office and atrium windows. Sunday evening I put a bunch of hours in on the other consulting gig I’m working on, while watching the Star Wars special (AKA a 2-hour infomercial: Buy the DVD!) that was on cable last night.

Praying Mantis.

This brutha was about as long as my hand. Photogenic, too. He just sat there and watched me take his picture, not scared of anything. What a badass.

Have You Seen My Monkey?

I made a monkey for Jen yesterday—more specifically, I made a monkey for Jen’s friend Jean-Paul and his wife Sharon, who are having a baby very, very soon. This is but one of the ideas she’s working on for an announcement, and I liked it so much I thought I might share it with you here. Because monkeys are cool, and monkeys with bows in their hair are that much cooler.

The weekend’s activities were productive, in direct opposition to last weekend. Saturday I did some onsite consulting for a friend of a friend, rebuilding an eMac and getting it ready for a migration. Sunday I got the rest of the front windows scraped and primed, then worked my way around the side to the doctor’s office and atrium windows. Sunday evening I put a bunch of hours in on the other consulting gig I’m working on, while watching the Star Wars special (AKA a 2-hour infomercial: Buy the DVD!) that was on cable last night.

Praying Mantis.

praying mantis on the porch light, 9.11.04

This brutha was about as long as my hand. Photogenic, too. He just sat there and watched me take his picture, not scared of anything. What a badass.

Ticket, Please.

Plans have been made for a trip to San Francisco to see my two best friends from college tie the knot. Oh, lordy, this is gonna be crazy. (the link works now.)

Album Of the Day. The Killers, Hot Fuss. This album gets better the more I hear it.

The sun is bright and warm outside, and the sky is a deep blue. The last vestiges of Hurricane Whatever blew off last night, bringing cool, dry air with it. I intend to make the most of the weekend by slapping a coat of paint on whatever is in front of me. Look out, cats.