Yesterday I went on my second network consulting gig in a week (word must get around or something) in which I undid the evil wrought upon a design firm by a ‘professional’ consulting firm. I use the term professional in the loosest sense, because I don’t actually advertise my services, and the job the ‘professionals’ did was so abyssmal that I wonder how they stay in business. (Setting up two routers on the same network to provide DHCP addresses? Bad move. Assigning both routers the same IP address? Idiotic. I thought they taught the kids better at ITT tech.) Four hours later, I had the whole thing sorted out and left the studio running smoothly, for a fraction of the professional rate.
Not that I want to drive around in one of those stupid Volkswagens with a sticker on the side, but I could he happy doing Mac tech support as a side gig…
Smart Power Strip.
This is cool; it would be better if there was a surge protector/UPS integrated into the unit.
Holy Fucking Crap.
!!!!!!!!!!
This weekend, my wife and I made an escape to the Big City and took in some art at the National Gallery in DC. There’s a lot of stuff at the National we’ve both seen before, so some of their collection is (sadly) old hat; however, there were some exhibits that were fresh and exciting. In the West building, the Brown Sisters photography exhibit is a moving and incisive look at the history and relationships between four sisters over the course of 25 years. The Winslow Homer exhibit in the East building is a wonderful review of the artist’s career, through his early years as an illustrator to his final years in Maine. It was wonderful to see Breezing Up in person, but it was also wonderful to see something other than the default example of his work used in most art history books. Finally, the Small French paintings collection is a quiet treat.
Hugh Thompson, RIP.
Proof that one man with a conscience can make a difference.
iPhoto Crashing During Disc Burning? back up your existing library, then hold down the apple & option keys when you open up iPhoto to rebuild your library.
Because money is tighter than a drumhead right now, I’ve not been buying any new music lately. I decided to forego even the idea of buying new music and list my favorite MP3blogs over on the sidebar to the right, where you can enjoy the music they’re writing about as much as I do.
Musicblogs are kind of the equivalent of freshman year in college, when everybody you meet has new and exciting music you’ve never heard of, and you’re trading around cassettes and albums like crazy. I’ve found a lot of excellent music through them, and I hope to buy a bunch of albums from my list of favorites in 2006.
I spent the better part of six hours doing some computer consulting yesterday, for some folks who bought a new iMac and wanted to transfer all their stuff from the old machine. The process was lengthened by the fact that the old machine was running OS 9.2, and I had to remember where all the various crap used to live in the old OS (importing email from Outlook Express is a painful chore, like doing home dental surgery). The best part? I got to drag them from the horror of dial-up to the majesty of wireless broadband. When my client went to check his email on the old machine, and I heard the first shriek of the modem, I felt like I’d been transported back into 1998. The new iMacs are beautiful—the built-in camera on the bezel and the Front Row Media Center thingy is slick. (A remote for my iMac? Cool.)
His house is one block down from my old college apartment, so I walked up the street and tried to take some pictures of the place without looking like a pervert.
It’s changed considerably since I lived there (I called it “the Swamp”, and the backyard featured all kinds of broken TV’s, weird sculpture, and castoff art projects) but the front of the house still looks the same.
The current tenants have plastic over the leaded-glass front windows just as I did in 1992. The empty lot around the corner has been rehabilitated into “F Scott Fitzgerald Square”, with gaslamp-style lights, benches, and plantings. I’m going to dig through my archives and see if I can find a good picture of the place back in the day and compare it with yesterday’s photos.
Yesterday, I worked all day on a project that won’t actually pay us any money. I’m putting together a custom coloring book for our neighbors’ kids, starring two very unlikely characters: Bob the Builder and Batman. Each of the boys has his favorite, the younger loving all things construction, and the older all things Dark Knight. The original plan was to have the two doing something cool, like saving a city from destruction by fixing stuff, but it was kind of hard to get the action right without a super-power (Batman can’t really fly a bulldozer to the site of a dam leak like, say, Superman can, and if he could, it’s not the kind of thing that makes for a good coloring book page.)
So I settled on having Bob help Batman build a wing off the Batcave to house the new Batcopter. My plan was to have this done before Christmas, but the way the holiday went down there was no time to complete it. Yesterday I busted out the pencils and wore the tip of my right index finger to the bone to finish the book. I made the signatures and stapled them at Kinko’s this afternoon, and the project is put to bed.
Meanwhile, there’s a hellish health insurance bill to be paid, the car insurance is due, the mortgage is due, and my driver’s license is up for renewal. Did I forget anything? Oh, yeah—the invoices I sent out before Christmas still haven’t arrived.
In boring and (sadly) unphotogenic house update news, I’ve worked my way around the edge of the basement with hydraulic cement and Drylok; tomorrow (hopefully) I’ll bust out the sprayer and put a coat of fresh white Kilz over the gray, dingy cinderblock. Hopefully this will brighten the place up, seal out water, and rid us of those damned crickets that invade the basement every summer.
Jen and I have not been sleeping normally the past few nights. New Year’s Eve got our systems all out of whack, so we’ve been up late and sleeping later. The other night, we saw one of those stupid commercials for phone chat lines the other night and I’d swear Kate from Lost is the chick trying to get me to call hot singles in my area. Is this old news? Probably.
Finally, in the Let’s-Get-Fucked-Up-At-Christmas Department, Jen’s sister and her boyfriend were kind enough to bring some beers with them for the Unbirthday party; naturally, not all of them got consumed, so we have three Blue Moon Belgian Ales sitting in the fridge. I have to belatedly thank them both for bringing it, because every two or three years I have to remind myself why I don’t like it. Well, I don’t like any beer that tastes like celery. Dear Sirs: Your beer tastes like a week-old vegan shake. THAT’S NOT BEER. Also, does anyone have a decent sangria recipe? The one Jen had on hand talked about adding something like a whole pound of sugar; I added maybe one-fourth that amount and it still tasted like shit. She used to have a recipe for guacamole clipped from a Texas newspaper; it called for split peas and sour cream. As any normal human who likes Mexican food will tell you, PEAS DON’T BELONG IN GUACAMOLE. I could almost make a case for the sour cream, if you had to extend the mix in a jam, but that’s still pretty gnarly. She kept this recipe for posterity’s sake—quite obviously the author was insane.
So now we have two Blue Moons and a half-pitcher of sangria that melts the plaque from your teeth sitting in the fridge. If you want it, bring me some avacados and I’ll make you some real guacamole.