flower, 3.29
We took a detour on our way to Ellicott City yesterday afternoon, and took a whole slew of pictures. More to come tomorrow.
Some interesting stuff online today; Mike Lee has a roundup of the IA conference on his site, which contains some good notes taken by he and his wife. Lots to think about there. I like the notes taken from the keynote—Stewart Brand sounds like an architect I’d like to hire, had I a few million dollars and a burning need to erect a building. (Perhaps MICA could learn a thing or two about this.) I agree with his point about architects designing and then going away, and I especially agree with his “signature building” point—The world is full of “statements” that do not adapt and must be torn down fifty years after their completion.
I also like the story of the Cape Cod builder documenting the house in pictures before the wall is closed. I’ve been doing much the same with my house, mainly to show the next owners what was done, but also to show them how far it’s come since I moved in. (And, admittedly, to remember where in the heck I put that joist/stud/wire/duct.)
Things That Make Me Laugh, 3.28:
- “Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys.” The Simpsons will assimilate you.
- My cats running for the hills whenever I open, handle, or move aluminum foil.
- “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity”.
4. Rico Suave. (The Gerardo version, not the Pavarotti version.)
I cleaned out the Home Depot last night; I left about ten broke-down bricks laying on the pallet and was able to get the entire original pad covered over again, minus about…ten bricks or so. Now for some concrete and a sunny weekend, and we’re in business.
keyboard, 3.25
This camera is the shiznit. I bought a camera bag for it last night, but will most likely have to hunt for a bigger one, as the camera and all its fittings don’t quite fit in this one.
Jen and I are entering a pair of logos in the DC Art Director’s Club competition; I think we have a very good chance of winning something. We’re still waiting with bated breath to see what the Oakleaf work looks like (when we get the whole package, I’ll post it for you to see) but the logo itself is ready to be judged.
I think I may take an hour or two tonight and redesign the Scout page, as it still accounts for 30-40% of the visitors to this site. (yeah, how’s that for irony? You love my truck more than my boring ramblings or crappy drawings. Where’s the love, man? Where’s the love?!?)
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I wrote a potential client back and provided my address, then went to check the Design section and realized the JavaScript for the Case Studies section was broken. A quick two-minute fix, but who knows how long it’s been busted?
The Home Depot in Glen Burnie has used brick in stock, so I’m stopping by tonight with the Scout to pick up a load. Whoopee!
Additionally, I did update the Scout page last night, for the first time in four years. Good grief! I have a bunch of other stuff I’d like to post there, including the lineset ticket and an updated list of links from the past four years. Hard to believe it’s been almost five years I’ve owned it.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
My camera arrived this morning—from Buy.com. Some modern tracking and ordering system, guys. If you didn’t make people pay $10 to talk to a live customer support rep after they have paid for merchandise, this shit wouldn’t happen. I cancelled the order last Friday after they couldn’t tell me when it would ship. So now I have to figure out what to do with two cameras.
Then the real camera arrived, and it’s very, very sweet. I’m currently charging the battery, but it looks and feels fantastic. The Ikelite housing came in this morning, and it fits the camera like a glove. All the function buttons are useable, the case is solid and sturdy, and it feels good to hold. I can’t wait to try this out.
Did you know that you can take a firearm, nunchuks, or a billy club on a plane as checked baggage, but you can’t take a flare gun or a ‘gun lighter’ under any circumstances?
I read on Slashdot that Adobe has announced their platform of choice for Photoshop is Windows. I understand that the sheer economics of PC sales demand software makers to bow to the prevailing champ, but I doubt this will affect the quality or performance of their next products. I just hope they optimize Photoshop 8 for OSX a bit better—it runs like a sloth on my PowerBook.
Saturday marked the third birthday of this log, from its humble beginnings as a text-based, manually updated .HTML file to, well, a text-based, manually updated .HTML file. A lot has happened since then—I fell in love, got laid off, found a job, and met lots of new people. It’s been an interesting experiment, and I’ve had a lot of fun. Stick around and we’ll find out what happens this year.
Interesting. I read in an article on Salon this afternoon that out of the 535 elected representatives in Congress, there’s only one who has a son or daughter fighting in this war. There’s something wrong there.
Jen and I took a trip up to the Home Depot yesterday and loaded ten 80 lb. bags of pre-mix cement in the Scout. We got about 70% of the hole in the backyard filled, and returned for the other four bags to finish off the job. It turned out to be the perfect amount, and this morning our initials are inscribed in the hard-set surface. This week I’m going to begin loading in the ‘used’ brick up at the Lowe’s and bringing it home a bit at a time (we almost had to stop short for a blinkerless merge ahead of us with 800 lbs. of concrete on the back springs, and the Scout didn’t like that) so that we can take next weekend and begin replacing the floor.
D’oh. I forgot to pull about 30 shots off Jen’s camera today—I took a series of boxcar pictures down by the Harbor Tunnel while they sat idle on the rails. Many of them were tagged pretty heavily and the juxtaposition of the colorful paint vs. the faded lettering and rusted walls was very visual. I took them in sequence so that I can stitch them together later or view them singly, but they do me no good in her camera without the adapter card. Dangit.
I need to devour these pages this week and brush up on some old knowledge.
This guy changed his name, before shipping out, to Optimus Prime, of Transformers fame. While I am a quiet fan of this noble band of robot warriors, this is taking things a bit too far. Betcha he gets beat up a lot. (via dominey)
Well, Buy.com loses. I cancelled my order after getting fed up with the “one to two business days” run-around, and found 17th Street Photo in NYC. Let’s hope I get better service from them. I’ll report in on my findings when I get the camera.
I got this from Jen this morning, under the heading I have a totally sick sense of humor: “All Wal-Mart and K-Mart stores in Iraq will be closing on or before March 17th. After that, they will all become Targets.”
Winner, Worst Customer Support/Runner-Up, Poorly Designed Website: NikonUSA. Go to their site and attempt to find the support section. Or, try to find an informational page on a camera not created in Flash. Flash should be banished to designers’ websites, K10K, and humorous 2-minute cartoon videos, not commercial product pages. Get that through your thick, vacant skulls, you marketing hacks.
Meanwhile, Nikon does not have the manual available as a PDF on their site, and the printed version is backordered for up to three weeks. Thanks.
Runner-Up, Worst Customer Support: Buy.com, for only responding to inquiries via email and charging $9.95 to talk to a warm body. I’m about ( ) this close to cancelling the order. On the positive side, I got the memory I ordered this afternoon.
On other fronts, I visited Mike Lee’s site and noticed he’s jetting out to Portland to attend an information architecture summit. I got to thinking, and did a little research, and I’m looking at a few different associations around the country wondering if joining would be a worthwhile investment. I definitely have some required reading to catch up on—a good idea for my upcoming plane rides.
All that led me to Chris Crawford’s excellent (and weighty) repository of game development (and other) writing. There’s lots to read and digest in here, and I’m looking forward to diving in.
There is a hilarious wrap-up of the year’s past business blunders here. I snorfled my coffee through my nose this morning as I read it. (That was before I took a shower, kind readers.)
I’m also glad to hear that in this age of Code-Orange Alerts and Heightened Awareness, they didn’t send the S.W.A.T. Team in to blow this guy’s head off. Memo to Dwight: Find another crop, my friend.
On Extended Repeat: Doves’ Lost Souls. God this is a brilliant album. I keep playing “Rise” over and over again like a mental patient.
10:59 PM: Get Your War On. Say what you will, believe what you wish, but they started lobbing cruise missiles at Iraq.