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March 31, 2005
Signs from Above.
As my lovely wife wrote yesterday, it looks like things are beginning to bloom for us here in Maryland. The tulip tree is about two or three days away from exploding, the crocuses are blooming in neat lines along our flowerbeds, and the daffodils sprinkled around the house are waking slowly.
Day two with the new mattress is going well; I'm not sure about Jen but my back has felt better, my neck doesn't hurt anymore, and I slept with three cats stapling me to the bed. Putting the futon frame underneath didn't make any noticable difference to me, but it might have helped Jen somewhat.
I talked to the project manager for the drainage project this morning, and among other things, he told me this process has taken the better part of twenty years to get going, and that it's too late to tack an extra 40 feet of piping onto the end of the line. So that means we're most likely going to suffer more drainage issues in the future; my guess is that the folks out behind us are going to have a swamp for a backyard (as their back lawn comprises the majority of the low land.) Swell.
Meanwhile, Jen got an unsolicited email this morning from some woman who suggests that a personal relationship with Christ will make her life better. While most of the Jesus-thumping letters I've seen have been of the ranting, poorly written variety, this one is at least spellchecked. I'm going to weigh in over here on unsolicited religious emails, especially the ones that are six paragraphs long and signed by "Sister Mitzi":
Sister Mitzi
I don't really care
I didn't ask you to proselytize
about J.C.
I'm happy for you
and you're tight with God
I don't need you
to get all Fallwell on me today
okay?
You're born again
what's your fucking deal
if I want to talk to Christ
I'll do it myself, alright?
Jesus is just alright with me, and I'm pretty sure he's OK with my wife too. I'm happy that the carpenter made a difference in your life, but don't try to bulldoze your beliefs on her or anybody else. If she wants to find God, she'll do it herself—if there's one person in this world who has a healthier respect for and understanding of religion than my wife, I've yet to meet them.
(special thanks to Night Ranger, for allowing me to bastardize a truly horrendous song.)
Addendum: I suppose I should clarify a little here. I'm not anti-God, or anti-religion. Actually, I'm the opposite: I respect the right of any citizen of this country to practice whatever religion they choose, just like I don't care if somebody wants to marry a water buffalo—their beliefs are their own. What I resent is the overbearing way some folks push their God on other people. What I mistrust are the motives of large groups of people who believe their way is the only way. On the other side of the coin, we have a good friend who recently asked us to come visit his church and hear him play one Sunday. There was no subtext, no ulterior motive, and no proselytizing. The sermon was down-to-earth, the people were friendly, and the door was left open.
This, in my mind, is the correct (and polite) way to approach someone else's faith. Especially in these times, when "faith" is such a loaded word. Thanks for giving me some hope, Dave.
Posted on March 31, 2005 10:50 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)
March 30, 2005
Untitled Projects.
Upon looking closer at my hosting package, and doing some followup name searches for an as yet unnamed project, I realized that I could have purchased the domain "ofhammers.com", and then pointed my address to http://bag.ofhammers.com.
Sigh.
But in hindsight, that would have been a pain in the ass to describe the link to somebody—not as bad as del.icio.us, but almost.
"So, it's h-t-t-p colon forward-slash forward-slash bag dot ofhammers—that's one word—dot com."
"what about the double-u double-u double-u?"
"no, bag dot ofhammers dot com."
"don't you need the W-W-W? Everybody else has that in their address."
"no, it's just bag dot ofhammers dot com."
"I think you need the W-W-W, dude. That's not gonna work."
You get my drift. (I've had that conversation several times. I also had a conversation with the know-it-all bizdev douche at the dot com I worked for who grilled me on why our company name didn't resolve without the W-W-W. I finally had to tell him to complain to IT, and resisted the urge to punch him in the face.)
In other news, I busted out the ink and brushes for another hush-hush project last night and made about fifteen illustrations in an hour, and it felt damn good. There's something liberating and free about brush and ink; even though the illustration market is already flooded with it, I'm considering doing some more.
Tonight I think I'm going to sit on the couch next to my wife in the same room as our crackledy mattress and sketch some more for the untitled project, and then maybe clean up the rest of this here site; specifically, the archive section currently blows up all to hell. I'm also fighting the urge to redesign the entire damned thing. When I first started, blue was liberating and different from my old site, but now I'm over it, I think.
Posted on March 30, 2005 4:56 PM | link to this entry
Crackeldy.
When I was a kid, I had a friend in the third grade named Eric. We both liked to draw pictures of Smokey & the Bandit, the trucks from Convoy and the General Lee on tabloid-sized sheets of construction paper. (With the exception of the Dukes of Hazzard, we had never seen these other shows; I knew what they looked like from the 4"x5" HBO program guides my parents got in the mail.) One weekend Eric invited me over to his house to sleep over, and we spent our evening watching Bo and Luke outwit Roscoe over a huge bowl of popcorn and ice cream. When it came time to sleep, I found that Eric had bunk beds—a novelty for me—and that the mattresses had a peculiar crinkling sound to them. Every time I shifted the slightest bit, the mattress made a sound like somebody strangling a Hefty bag. Later I realized that they were plastic-covered, which was probably a smart idea for a boy of nine, but my mattress at home was soft, firm, and quiet. Eric snored, and his room smelled funny, and between the smell and the snoring and the crinkling, I was ready to go home the next day. We continued our artistic pursuits at school, but I didn't sleep over there again.
When we were at the IKEA the other day inquiring about a return policy on our mattress, the lady behind the counter informed us that there's no official try-out policy for mattresses, and lowered her voice to suggest that we leave the plastic on to prevent any "accidents." My first thought was to tell the woman that we don't piss the bed, but I realized later that she meant something else. Now that I think about it, I'm kind of offended by that.
Regardless, we tested it out last night. Once I got over the novelty of sleeping on the living room floor again, and settled in, it wasn't too bad. Besides Sage pacing the perimeter and complaining (he doesn't like plastic bags) and the crackling as I adjusted my position, I didn't sleep too badly—my main complaint is that our comforter is very heavy and it made me sweat. It's still too stiff for Jen, so we're going to try the futon frame underneath tonight to see if that will help the situation.
Posted on March 30, 2005 11:43 AM | link to this entry | Comments (1)
March 29, 2005
Rampant Consumerism.
The list of things I'd like to have, but have been putting off buying for an indeterminate amount of time:
A new pair of sunglasses. My old pair, which made it through about three years of heavy usage, finally bid farewell in the airport van on our way to the hotel in Rome. Arrivederci, il mio amore!
A new cellphone. You've heard me complain about this before, and I think this will be the first thing to get updated. Most likely this weekend...
A usable car radio. The unit in the Jeep has been doing well in the cold weather, but now that it's getting warmer, the important part of the NPR report I'm listening to fades into staticky oblivion. Crutchfield actually has a Blaupunkt CD deck with a removable face for something like $$130 right now.
A good high-capacity clothes dryer. Our little General Electric dates back to President Ford and uses more electricity than a Vegas storefront.
A new router for the house. The current model seems to be dropping in and out randomly; I'm still not sure if it's the router or the DSL modem, however.
However, I did finally pony up $40 to buy a replacement power supply for my Powerbook after the old one bit the dust. If I can't have a new laptop, I'll make do with Ol' Reliable, here. And while I'm at it:
NuPower G4 upgrade I'd love to be able to speed her up, and for $280, that ain't a bad deal.
In other news, the bed was delivered this afternoon, which means we have a few nights of testing ahead of us. Cross your fingers, people.
Posted on March 29, 2005 2:43 PM | link to this entry
March 28, 2005
$*&!!#*! Deadwood.
Yesterday Jen and I started moving furniture around in preparation for Major Change. We're having our new bed delivered on Tuesday, and we decided to prepare for it by emptying out the Cream room to make way for demolition (it's the only room on the second floor without new electrical runs.) This involved moving her dresser out to the atrium, the bed into the living room, the other furniture to empty corners of the house, and scaring the cats out of their wits. We also cleaned off the front porch, which had become a junkpile/dustbin since before Christmas—I found our marriage license on the deacon's bench under a pile of junk mail from December—and straightened up the rest of the house. I'm hoping we can get the electrical work in the bedroom done quickly (read: two or three weeks) so that she doesn't grow sick of the arrangement and attempt to kill me in my sleep on our new bed.
We then got a call from the godless heathens Cauzzis, who wished us a happy Zombie day, and asked if we could bring them some food. Never ones to let a good meal go to waste, we called
When we got back home, we spent about a half-hour attempting to stay awake until the Indian tryptophan took hold and knocked us out, but not before wandering aimlessly through the house trying to remember where we put everything.
Posted on March 28, 2005 12:15 PM | link to this entry
March 26, 2005
Stayin' Alive.
Friday night Jen and I were invited over to Todd and Heather's place to visit, but wound up waiting at home for the Accidental Tourist. I'm calling Jen's Dad the Accidental Tourist because we're never really sure if he's going to stop by when he says he might or not. Sometimes he travels out of town on business or up to Pennsyltucky and drives within a half-mile of our house, and doesn't stop in to say hello. Which is kind of perplexing, because there's really nothing we'd like more than to sit and have a glass of soda with the Captain and shoot the breeze. More often than not, though, he zooms past and on to his destination like Byrd racing to the Pole at some ungodly hour of the evening, and Jen calls the house repeatedly to check in. (He has a cellphone, which I'm told is older than Methuselah and about the size of a luxury sedan. It is never turned on, and would probably explode if it was.) Usually he'll have made it home at 4am and caught forty winks and then gotten up to go to work, and he makes this sound like it's an ordinary day at the office. The man, I'm convinced, is some kind of Navy-programmed sleep robot.
Anyway, he did actually stop by Friday night for a slice of pizza and a glass of water, and we caught up for an hour, and then he beat feet out of here, and we were left with the rest of an empty Friday evening to deal with. Which we filled with some PBR and the A&E Biography of the Bee Gees. Now before you go telling me that the Bee Gees weren't punk rock and all of that shit, consider:
They were the only band in history to have five #1 hits in the top 10 at one time.
They were one of the only acts to have #1 hits in four consecutive decades.
Barry produced something like 14 #1 hit songs.
Robin had teeth almost as bad as Shane McGowan. That's punk, motherfucker.
Before you think I've gone all Neil Diamond on you, I hated that song Barry did with Streisand too. But some of that mid-70's Bee Gees stuff is killer. This evening, Jen and I were discussing the soundtracks our lives, and there's a period of time in my life scored by both the Grease and Saturday Night Fever albums. (Particularly, the theme to Grease for me is driving in a brown Duster across New Jersey with my mother, sister, and the Greame kids, all of us singing along with Frankie Valli at the top of our lungs. It turns out Barry wrote and produced that song.) There were a lot of things I learned about the Brothers Gibb, and after the show finished, I had to throw down some mad props to the boys. (I forgot to pour out a little on the ground for Maurice, though. Rest in peace, my man.)
So it was pretty humorous to have heard about four Bee Gees songs while we were out today. (I think it was) "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" was playing in the local garden store, where we bought a gardenia to plant somewhere in the yard to remind us of Savannah. "Tragedy" came on in the warehouse section of IKEA, as we were trying to decide whether or not to buy the queen size mattress we saw there, which was suprisingly firm but forgiving. (It's being delivered on Tuesday. Cross your fingers for us.) "To Love Somebody" was playing while we ate dinner at Matthew's and tried to ignore the basketball spectators.
It was a good day, and we're hoping that the protective shield of the Bee Gee's falsetto harmonies will bring luck with the purchase of our new mattress.
Posted on March 26, 2005 11:36 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)
March 25, 2005
Box Model Smack.
After about five aborted tries, I finally got the image and caption on my home page to float correctly across all browsers and use the javascript correctly. It seemed that when I got it to work correctly in IE/Win, it would blow up any Mozilla/Safari-based browsers, and vice versa. This evening I applied some of my new learnin' to crack the code, as it were. Anybody looking at the site through Opera, Camino, et.al., and seeing something funky, please let me know.
This is a baby step in the direction of revamping this whole site into solid CSS, but a good start.
Posted on March 25, 2005 6:13 PM | link to this entry
The Sad Violin.
My sister Renie sends our family links every once in a while from the newspaper that covered the Putnam County area where we used to live. One of the ongoing stories has been that of my high school music teacher, who's currently on trial for sexual molestation charges. The story is a sad one, and something that makes me feel conflicted for several reasons. Now, I should point out here that he never tried to touch my willy (girls were his target) and that he had a reputation when I met him for being inappropriate with students, but there was nothing that was proven—all was strictly hearsay.
I should back up and provide a little history here. When I was in sixth grade at a school in Conneticut, the music teacher asked any of us kids if we wanted to learn to play an instrument. This was during one of those excruciating sing-alongs where she would bang on the piano and we were all supposed to sing with her. I hated that class, and somewhere in my logical brain (which admittedly was't firing all that well until I was in my late twenties) I made the leap: If I take instrument lessons, I'll get out of this damned singing class. Besides, I was bored, and the idea of being different appealed to me. (This was before the regrettable incident where I wore camouflage pants into school one day and was forever tagged "G.I. Bill" by the Young Nazi Republicans In Training. But I digress.) Honestly, though, I think this was one of those rare moments where a higher power made me raise my hand, because I can't really explain why I volunteered. This decision would change much of my life after that point for the better, however.
We were given a choice of instrument: the French horn, viola, or the bass violin. Anybody who's played any of the three will tell you that they are love-hate relationships, for different reasons: the French horn is a big round honking thing, sort of like squeezing a duck to make it sing soprano, and only those with superior control, chops and practice can coax out a beautiful, melodious tone. The viola is (to me) kind of feminine and whiny. The bass violin, on the other hand, is relatively easy to play, but it's the size of your Uncle Ralph and about as difficult to move. And it sounded cool. For obvious reasons, I decided on the bass, and was quickly issued a half-size model to take take lessons with. (Later I found out the choices were determined by desperation: they had nobody to play those instruments in the band.) I was taught by a piano teacher at school and a guitar teacher in town, both of which involved shoehorning the bass violin into the front seat of my mother's green Gremlin (with me in the back seat, how embarassing) and carting it all over creation.
My first concert was at the elementary school with a group of about thirty kids, playing something I can't remember, and was relatively uneventful. But my music teacher knew the conductor of the local youth orchestra, and quickly put him in touch with my parents, and we all learned a valuable lesson: kids who play the bass violin are rare, as are the parents who support them. Soon I was second fiddle (literally) to a tall, beautiful dark-haired sophomore girl who I instantly crushed on, and who was a skilled musician. We played a mixture of medolies (theme from Cats, theme from Fame, theme from Chariots of Fire) and a few orchestral arrangements, one of which I still remember—Procession of the Nobles, from the opera Mlada, by Rimsky-Korsakoff. (That's a killer piece.)
Anyway, we moved out of Conneticut that spring, before I could tour Europe with the youth orchestra, (still bitter about that one) and into New York, where the school district placed as high a value on musical education as they did on football, because the teachers were all first-rate and so was the equipment. When I met the orchestra teacher at the high school, he was thrilled to find that I played bass, because he was classically trained on the instrument. He was a big guy with a Magnum P.I. moustache and bad cologne, and he took great pride in his students, typically sending five or six kids to the allstate orchestra every year. I was mistrustful at first, for reasons I can't explain, other than that his personality was full of things I didn't like—he was pushy, arrogant, and overbearing.
However, he was an excellent string teacher. He quickly sized up my playing technique (which at that time was mostly familiarity with the instrument and a vague ability to read music) and sadly informed me that I needed to be re-trained in posture. I had been taught by non-bassists, and so my stance resembled clinging to a lamppost in a flood instead of dancing the tango with a partner. The bow I had been using was French, and he switched me to German, which was better for my hand and lent a more intuitive feel for the instrument. (This process was not unlike Tiger Woods learning to swing a golf club a completely different way, and took a whole summer of retraining.) My music-reading abilities improved dramatically with the addition of complicated Bach, Beethtoven and Mozart orchestral suites he assigned for homework, and by the time school started, I was at least somewhat prepared for the fall season's concert practice.
My companions in the bass section were two supremely talented juniors who both resembled David Lee Roth in both wardrobe and hairstyle. After playing alongside them, being tortured for a full year as the "new guy" and learning technique from them both, we slowly became friends. As I continued through high school, I took private lessons from this teacher as I moved up the line until I was first chair my senior year. Along the way, I was encouraged to try out for the Allstate orchestra (an alternate my sophomore year, second to last chair my junior year), and performed onstage at Carnegie Hall—in checkerboard Vans—with the rest of the orchestra. It was during this time that I met some of my best friends (who I've been abominable about keeping in touch with) and found a way to make it through High School alive and in good mental health.
My senior year with him was strained, as my focus had moved away from music and into art; I was the lead set builder for the drama club, in the marching band (the girls in the drama/band universe were far more interesting than orchestra girls anyway) and involved in other time-consuming activities as well as holding down a job, so my practice time suffered. The situation came to a head when I was abruptly informed that I had two weeks to practice for Allstate tryouts, which was scheduled for the same weekend as the opening night of the school play. As I was way in over my head on that project, sleeping six hours a night, failing math, and not willing to ditch my existing commitments, I told him I couldn't do Allstate. He was furious, insisting I could do both, and couldn't understand my position. I remember at one point he mentioned that he always sent bass players to Allstate and that this would be the first year he hadn't, and then it really became clear to me what the story was.
We both said some things we shouldn't have, I was threatened with losing first chair, and things got frosty. (Well, things got frosty that time I helped fill his office to the ceiling with packing peanuts, but that's a different story.) Over time, we both backed off a bit, made some half-hearted apologies, and I played first chair for my final concert. I don't remember ever having said goodbye to the man, or thanking him for teaching me what he did, but I respect that part of him and what he did for me.
Hearing about his current condition, the charges against him, and some of the details of the case has been hard for those reasons, and because I don't remember him as an old man in a wheelchair with MS—he was a big swarthy Polish dude who water-skiied and drove a black Supra with personalized plates, kind of a middle-aged high school guido who got a decent job. I can't say that I didn't have my suspicions about his proclivities, but I didn't think it made its way down to four and five year olds. I do wonder who testified against him, and marvel at how difficult that must have been. For all his faults, he had a cadre of devoted families centered around his music program who put all their kids through the orchestra, knowing that he was a good teacher. My only hope is that he didn't betray their trust as well.
So I don't know how to feel about that situation, really. I'm sorry for the children he (allegedly) molested; I'm sorry for anybody he may have diddled with as a teacher, and I'm sorry for him. I also remember him as a caring and talented man who had the best interests of his students at heart, for all that matters.
Posted on March 25, 2005 12:29 PM | link to this entry
March 24, 2005
Sink 2
I'm testing out another Flickr post format. I've been reading a ton of CSS information in preparation for a new freelance project, and I'm trying to nail this one problem down. I have a bunch of great ideas from just one day's reading.
Posted on March 24, 2005 11:21 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)
Storm Und Drain
Yesterday it rained in Baltimore. Not a gentle spring shower kind of rain, and not the usual "this is how it rains in Prague when I'm depressed" gray March rain. This was sideways rain, where the windows on all four corners of the house are getting hit simultaneously and the cats are running to find high ground before the water rises above the litter box. Jen and I peered out the kitchen window at the swollen river winding its way through our backyard down to the bog behind the greenhouse. The bog that I wrote about earlier quickly turned into a lake behind our neighbor's house, flooding the lower 1/5 of his property.
To my suprise, I got a call from my councilman (actually one of his aides) yesterday, and he was kind enough to answer all my questions to the best of his ability. The construction behind us is for new storm drains, and it's supposed to pull all the water off the low spots behind our houses. Whether this will work or not, I can't say, because in my non-engineer's opinion, they're ending the drains a yard and a half short. Supposedly the engineer in charge is going to call me and talk me through it all; I hope they reconsider the plan so that we don't have to dodge mosquitoes all summer long.
Posted on March 24, 2005 12:11 PM | link to this entry
Sink and Duck
I added four pictures of the doctor's office bathroom this morning, in an attempt to resume picture taking regularly. I'm going to try the picture-a-day thing again and see if I can stir some creativity.
Posted on March 24, 2005 12:01 PM | link to this entry
March 23, 2005
What I'm Doing
Todd already wrote about this today, but I figure with the combined power of two mighty weblogs, we'll googlebomb this mutha. A publication cheerfully titled National Defense wrote an article about the game we're developing. There's even a little picture there! Of course, the game UI looks completely different now, but no matter. We're famous!
Posted on March 23, 2005 5:37 PM | link to this entry
March 22, 2005
BelAir hood
There are four classic cars for sale across the street from our office. This BelAir is easily the most photogenic of the four (a pea-green late 70's Olds, a red '63 Corvette, and a red '68 Camaro) and in remarkable shape. They're all for sale, by the way!
Posted on March 22, 2005 5:56 PM | link to this entry
Garages of the Holy
Is it wrong that every time I hear The Ocean by Zeppelin, I want to buy a drum kit, set it up in the garage, and rock out with Bonzo?
I'd have to say that the second half of Runes, most of Ritual De Lo Habitual, Siamese Dream and all of Songs For The Deaf have the same primal skin-bashing impression on me.
Posted on March 22, 2005 4:17 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)
Odds and Ends
I can tell spring is coming because my sleep rhythms are speeding up again. Two months ago I was glued to the bed at 9:15, finding it impossible to make 10 hours of sleep last the whole day, but now I'm slipping back into the 7-hour cycle again. I think that this could also be due to the fact that our house has been unbearably drafty this winter. Even after refurbishing half the storm windows last summer, our house is a sieve. Part of the problem is that two of the radiators that should be in the main ground floor rooms are out heating the front porch, which we don't use in the winter, so we sit on our couch (in front of the fireplace we can't use because it could kill us) and shiver under blankets. This morning I woke up at 7:30 and it actually felt alright for the first time.
This Slate article is good reading. I'd like for it to be known that if I'm in a persistent vegetative state, that my wife has the full right to pull the tube and let me go naturally. Isn't the Republican party the party that used to stand for smaller government and State's rights? I was glad to hear the federal judge's ruling this morning. And I'm going to quit putting off having a living will drawn up.
In geek news, it looks like our third Powerbook power adapter is toasted; This forum claims it's ultrasound-welded, meaning I couldn't get it apart to fix it and then put it back together if I tried. To the Internet!
And in house news, we got a baseline quote on a new kitchen install from a friend this morning. While it's cheaper than the MSRP, I'm still a little in shock and wondering where we're going to get the money to do all the things we really need to have done before babies arrive.
Posted on March 22, 2005 10:36 AM | link to this entry
March 21, 2005
Flickr
Having seen the results on Todd's site and elsewhere on the web, I decided to give Flickr a try. I'm impressed so far with its ease of use and flexibility. I also like the idea of hosting most of my photos offsite from here on out, as bandwith will become an issue at some point.
One thing I'm gonna have to do is compress my photos down from 4MP to something more reasonable to conserve space, so expect the ones I've posted so far to get a lot smaller.
Oh, and they were bought by Yahoo this morning. No word on what this means yet.
Posted on March 21, 2005 11:21 PM | link to this entry
Daffodils
I'm testing a Flickr layout template with some flower pictures from last spring. I'm liking the service very much so far. Now I just need to start taking pictures again...
Posted on March 21, 2005 11:10 PM | link to this entry
Happiness Is.
Two freelance checks in two days. The VISA bill will be paid off and we have seed money for one of two major house issues: a new big-people-bed or 2/3 of the first floor sanded. Jen and I are going to sit down and decide what needs to happen first.
Does anybody have first-hand experience with a Sleep Number bed? We'd like to hear some anecdotal evidence to justify $1,500 for a mattress.
Posted on March 21, 2005 9:01 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)
Springtime
I pulled lunch out of the oven on Sunday and went looking for Jen around the house. Realizing she had gone outside, I found her in the garden, trimming back some of the dead brush around last year's perennials. She's been surrounding herself with gardening books since she got a new library card, and my family sent her home from Christmas with the entire horticulture section of Barnes & Noble. Lately I can feel her gardening neurons firing like firecrackers, and I think she's been waiting to get outside in the dirt since the end of January. Our beds look a lot less barren than they did in February, because we now have crocuses sprouting like crabgrass, backed up by daffodils and some early scattered tulips. We have grand plans for our yard this year, but as always, the money situation means we have to be clever about our planting and landscaping. Jen somehow made $34.72 successfully spread out over the entire yard last year in time for the wedding, and I think she's got similar excellent plans for this year. Hopefully that also involves my renting a jackhammer for a warm afternoon and pulling the concrete sidewalk along the west side of the house. (Thanks, Shelly, for the beautiful lavender, by the way.)
Meanwhile, a quick scouting trip down the back side of Beechwood Ave. revealed a major sewer installation along the property lines of our neighbors' houses to the end of Rolling Road. Our house sits on the high side of what used to be a creekbed, and the southeast corner of our property line is the beginning of the low spot which continues down the hill. It looks like the County is going to dig up and put in a 4" drainage system starting two houses down by the looks of the concrete junction boxes and corrugated piping stacked back there. We can only hope this will help dry out our corner of the property and remove the mosquito problem we suffer through in the summertime. Curious, though, is why they're not starting in our backyard and our neighbors', because he technically has a bog for a back lawn, and the area out behind our greenhouse gets pretty mucky after a good rain...
Our weekend was a very laid-back couple of days, involving some recovery time on Saturday, a scouting trip to Restoration Hardware, where we found a strong candidate for hallway lighting, viewings of Napoleon Dynamite (recommended) and Saw (skip it), and relaxation. Sunday I attempted to get some painting done after a grocery run, but quickly lost concentration and returned to my laptop to get the weblog running.
Overall, I'm very happy and impressed with MT so far. The novelty of using the web interface instead of booting into BBedit every time I want to post to the site hasn't worn off yet, and it's BEAUTIFUL to be able to edit one include file and have it propagate through the entire site. I'm happy.
And Linda, we are terribly sorry we missed your birthday.
Posted on March 21, 2005 10:56 AM | link to this entry | Comments (3)
March 20, 2005
You Say It's Your Birthday.
I don't usually make a big deal out of my birthday, which is kind of stupid, because I love birthdays. When I was a kid, I loved having all my friends over for the day, opening presents, and having fun (and let's face it, who doesn't like to be the center of the party?). Since I got out of college, I've kept the day sort of on the down-low, and with a few exceptions it's been a quiet occasion.
Because money is tight, I told Jen the perfect gift would be to hit our old haunt Peter's in Fell's Point for a quiet dinner together. Sometime in the middle of last week, she asked me if switching to the Helmand would be OK for a change of pace. Having always wanted to try Afghan food, I agreed immediately (it's on the long list of places-we-want-to-go but never do).
Imagine my surprise when we walked to the back of the restaurant and I recognized the profiles of our friends Matt and Emily sitting at the bar, and suddenly realized there were four other couples waiting to surprise me. What a great evening! We were seated at a large table in back and proceeded to eat, drink, and catch up with great friends over delicious exotic Afghan cuisine. For anyone who hasn't tried it, I recommend the Helmand and their waitstaff highly.
From there, we headed up Charles Street for a cocktail and conversation, and stayed out until midnight like grownup cosmopolitan adults, something we haven't done in months. I didn't know how much I needed to get out and be with friends until Jen made it happen, and it was the best gift she could have given me. Thanks, baby, and thanks, everybody! (and to the folks who couldn't make it—we'll see you soon.)
Posted on March 20, 2005 3:45 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)
The Idiot King is online.
After some SQL database wrassling, an initial install, unexplained 505 errors and subsequent re-install, I got Movable Type running on the new domain last night. All my templates are moved over, I've got the sideblog running (courtesy of MultiBlog by David Rayners), and it looks like the minor bugs are worked out. I still have to design and build the category and archive sections, hook up my empty Flickr account, and do some minor tweaking around the edges, but it's looking good.
The next step after all that is to update the old logsite and add links from here to there, and add MT-Blacklist so that I don't get comment spammed.
Overall, the install went easily and well. My only complaint was with my hosting provider's SQL setup and the MT install directions, which didn't really go into detail about exactly how to point to the database. I wasn't even sure I'd created one until I manually re-installed the executable files this morning.
