Last night I broke down and put plastic up over the opening on the stairwell skylight. I’ve used plastic before, most notably in the sieve-like windows in my bedroom at 1709 Bolton St., so I know it works pretty well. I installed it, hung the plants from the curtain rods in the front room, and within five minutes it was stretched taut towards the skylight. When I was up there working on it, I could feel the difference in cold air inside the well, so I figure I’ve just closed off a major chimney vent in the house. This is problematic though; I’m wondering what i can do to insulate the well to keep it warm/cold in the summer/winter. Perhaps a plexi panel cut to fit the opening?
I got all the photos, portfolio, the beta backup, and the web tools moved off the USB drive last night; the applications/installers are rearranged between their respective states, and the fonts minus the font CD are still intact. I have to strip the Mac-centric stuff off the Beta backup and burn it to disk as the final copy; what I really need to do is to find some way to archive all my data so that it’s not redundant/lost/overwritten and then keep one copy of each ‘live’. How to do this is still a mystery. I think it will involve buying a low-cost Mac FireWire CD burner sometime towards the end of the year.
Still to do:
1. Compare the final Beta backup to other copies, de-Mac and then burn to CD. Remove from SLANN.
2. Compile serial numbers for all Mac software, consolidate, and store with programs on the USB drive.
3. Compile all PC software and S/N’s, consolidate, and store on a new CD.
4. Figure out some way of storing current backups and archiving old data. Clean up the CD shelf.
The USB Drive will be used for Mac backup duty for things like fonts, programs, and a working System Folder copy.
Slann will hold all the archived client data, pictures, and other ‘working’ files. SLANN will also recieve all personal email and be the ‘sweep’, i.e. clean email off the server.
The PowerBook will hold all current client data, working files, and simply ‘read’ email.
I also need to redesign the billdugan site and update links. Yikes.
I’m thinking the /funny /flashmovie and /application directories will come down altogether.
/basement
/bathroom
/house
/kittens
/posters and
/vistas will all go inside a new directory, maybe titled ‘projects’.
/contact
/design
/downloads
/illustration
/images
/log
/resume and
/scout will remain their own directories. /training will probably live inside /design.
Yesterday I realized that I’m going to need to buy RAM for the Powerbook in order to do anything—there’s just not enough on there to run two programs at once. I still haven’t been able to get all the crap moved around yet, but I’m hoping tonight I can organize stuff.
I’m meeting JT tonight about a design job he emailed me with yesterday; I got back with K. about her job this morning, and I’m going to call K. to schedule a talk with him at lunch today. Things are rolling. Plus I got an email from Brad yesterday checking in, so I can get back with him finally.
I was reading today that Dooce got fired from her job yesterday because of what she wrote online about two weeks ago; it completely sucks for her, but she doesn’t sound too bummed out about it. Methinks she was looking to make a move anyway, but since I don’t even know her (just what she writes about online) this is all speculation.
They are making a movie about one of the most gripping books I’ve read in a long time: We Were Soldiers Once, And Young. In my mind, Hal Moore (author and commander on the ground in Oct. ’65) should be the President of the United States. Or, at least, Secretary of Defense. This book also bears on a recent post about Rick Rescorla, who figured prominently in the book, and who was featured in a recent New Yorker bio that kept me up until 2am. Anyway, I hope the movie is good.
I ordered the RAM for the Powerbook today. $99 with shipping for a 256MB chip. I figure, fuck it- if I’m going all out, I’m going all out. No compromising with this machine. No crashing like the 8500 did. And with three freelance jobs in the door, I can’t fool around with 64MB. I need to have a working, breathing machine.
A little “Nights on Broadway” by the Bee Gees today, mixed with some Zeppelin, Commodores, and Three Dog Night today.
Installed Palm Desktop 3.6 and got it to sync up with the handheld, and I remember why I love the Mac version of the desktop software so much more. It took a while to figure out, but I got it working again, and I’m happy now. Soon they’re coming out with 4.0, and we’ll see how good it is, and if it’s worth using at all.
I took the PowerBook (currently called ‘Black Beauty’) home and began to move stuff around; between the CDs I have burned, the USB hard drive crammed with data left over from Cidera and Supon, and the UAM volume on SLANN with a hurried dump from the USB drive through Dave C’s PowerBook, there’s a ton of crap I forgot all about. Unfortunately I forgot the power cable to the USB drive (it was $200 and this was before powered USB drives) so I couldn’t move the bulk of the info around where I needed to, but I got the UAM volume cleaned up on SLANN and took some more useless data off him to clear the room. I need to take the timne to de/reinstall some of the larger program files onto the larger D: drive, but that’s in the future.
I have 9.2.2 installed on her now, and just installed iTunes- it’s nice to have MP3’s in my headphones again. 9.2 blew up DAVE though, so I have to either re-install or figure out what broke.
I have taken delivery of a used FireWire PowerBook, S/N #QT0140BSHKE, with a DVD Player, 12gig drive, 64MB of RAM, and 14.1″ screen. It is glorious. I opened the box and found the yo-yo and power cord, then opened the bubble wrap to find an absolutely pristine unit, with no scratches on the case or screen, no dead pixels, and all the components working (so far.) There is a fresh install of OS9 and 10+ gigs of free space on the drive.
Jen and I drove up into Hunt Valley in Sunday to look at a part-time job at a nursery, and while the job prospect did not work out, the area is beautiful. I was very impressed and excited to be up there- I could very easily see myself buying a house up there-one of the older ones, surrounded by about 3 acres of field, to be sure. Jen and I will be heading back up there to check it out in the near future.
Here’s the rundown on the plan for this evening:
VST USB Drive
Photos –> NT Box
Portfolio work –> NT Box
Web Tools –> NT Box/Laptop
Beta backup –> NT box –> to CD
Laptop/Renie’s G3
All Application Installers –> VST Drive
All Updaters/Utilities –> VST Drive
All Serial Numbers –> into one simpletext file –> VST Drive
All Font files –> back up to VST Drive
This morning I woke up feeling pretty blue. Last night I was pretty well down, and found it easy to fall asleep; it was very hard to get up this morning. I was not looking forward to coming in to work and staring at 3D MAX again and feeling completely behind in the technology. I have a huge learning curve in front of me, and I’m not looking forward to tackling it, but it’s something I have to do.
I went down to One World Cafe for coffee this morning and felt the air as I got out of the car; it was warm and salty, and the breeze was soothing on my face. It’s getting to the end of February and it can’t be spring soon enough.
On a happier note, I have two potential freelance gigs coming in, and I’m going to beat the bushes for some more. Let us pray…
So I’m thinking about my truck, and it just hits me how good a purchase she was. For the kingly sum of $2800, I bought a (then) 20-year-old truck with cash, trusting it would get me home to Baltimore from Lancaster, PA (it did), pass Maryland inspection (it did), and run reliably for the untold future (it has). I went out yesterday to start her up after sitting miserably under a cover for the past three weeks in the shivering cold, and when I sat in the seat, her smell hit me-old vinyl, rubber, motor oil, and dirt-and it was perfume. I pumped the gas once, turned the ignition, and cranked her for about three beats. “Come on, baby,” I asked quietly. Another turn of the key (no gas), about two grinds, and she fired to life, rumbling choppily. I smiled and patted her dashboard, sat the action figure of Chewbacca up in front of the wheel, and straightened her up while the idle evened out. Few things are as reliable, bring me more simple joy, bring me to the edge of depression quicker, or remind me of my humanity as well as the Scout. I miss her, and it can’t be spring soon enough.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
OK, so I did it. It was totally crazy, absolutely insane, and uncalled for, but I did it. I am the high bidder for a 400Mhz PowerBook with a 12 gig drive, firewire, DVD, 64MB of RAM, and the cool black case. I paid a total of $834 with shipping (UPS Ground). Technically I don’t have the money for this, but my thinking is like this: I need a Mac for the house and I need one for work. I wanted another PowerBook. I have 128MB of spare RAM sitting in my toybox for this machine. This machine has everything the new iBooks have plus DVD and a larger screen, and it’s at least $400 cheaper than an iBook outfitted roughly the same. And it’s a fantastic deal. Now I am hoping that it arrives clean and undamaged.
This is a beautiful site; I need to look it over when I have time.
10:32 PM Well, I got a bunch of things done today that I was looking forward to accomplishing. Firstly, the concrete lip in my backyard (a holdover from the days when there was a corrugated steel garage there) is gone; there was about a three-inch ledge which conveniently tripped you as you took the garbage out. It’s now gone, which is step two for beginning work back there. The reason I got it done today is that the back alley is a warzone and the guys working on it will remove the concrete free, which is a big consideration around here (Baltimore City recycling does not accept concrete or brick.)
I’m exhausted, though. I borrowed a 12-lb maul from the contractors and swung that for about 2 hours- that’ll put some muscles on you. I think I’m just drained more than sore. It’s kind of a shocker to get older- I’m not springing back like I was at 25, and no amount of couch time has motivated me to get moving again.
Before the hard labor, though, I got the patch up on the ceiling above the couch and cleaned it up; with a good sanding and coat of paint, there will be no trace of the old ugly track lighting. And there’s drywall around the other ares that have been bugging me as well; we’ll sand them and clean it all up maybe tomorrow night.
Seen today on a car driving up to work: a bumper sticker reading, “I was born OK the first time.” Ha-ha. This article is pretty funny about Miss Cleo. Call me now for your free readin’.
I missed the second PowerBook auction yesterday, but there’s one for a newer 400mhz Pismo ending tomorrow at about 3pm. I’m going to try for this one to see if I can win it, and I think I might go as high as about $650 or so. There’s also an iMac going for about $170 right now that ends at 3; it’s a first-generation, but it could be decent. I think I’m going to go as high as $250 and we’ll see if we win that one.
We had the Greycube meeting the other night and talked out what we’re doing/where stuff is right now; it looks like we might have a payout of $1-2K apiece, which would be fantastic at this time. If I could put that into the bank and then save on top of it, I would be a lot more comfortable right now instead of worrying so much about money. It’s been tough to save money the past two months after a run of spending cash since the Cidera days; wanting toys or stuff for the house and not being able to afford it has been difficult, but tolerable. I’m actually, while thinking about it right now, veering towards buying that iMac outright off eBay for $200 or so just to have an inexpensive Mac to use, and deal with buying an iBook later on.
| Stuff to take care of | Price | Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
| Paint for living room Brake work for the Scout Buying the Scout Shelves for living room |
$50-60 $500+ $3000 $120 |
end of february Early March April/May March? Possible Birthday present? |
They announced the China game last night, and they got a bunch of previews up online at GameSpot; it’s pretty cool to see my interface up in a bunch of screenshots on a site somewhere. I’m pretty psyched to see all this.
Today I’m listening to Hooverphonic on CD (after waiting 3 months to burn them.) I put in NIN and the first Weezer album yesterday and enjoyed the hell out of them.
And there’s another G3 PowerBook on sale at eBay that I’m going to bid on tomorrow morning. 300/7.6GB/192MB…
I’d like to buy a laptop now, and it would be a great thing to have, but it didn’t work out last week. I should have set eBay to proxy up to $450 or so on that laptop, but I didn’t, and in the final 3 minutes or so some guy outbid me and then somebody outbid him. I figure a real nice new 12.1″ iBook would be good; I’d keep it simple with the CD-ROM and drop the extra money into 256MB or RAM and a 20 gig hard drive. Later on, I’d either buy a CD-burner or some other peripheral, but right now I’m good with this setup.
I found this site via pop culture junk mail. Also, scrubbles.net.
From there, I found this site, which had this link, which makes it one of my new favorite sites.