I signed up for a year’s membership at the Lifebridge Health Club in Pikesville this morning. It’s a big, spacious gym with lots of windows and a ton of different machines, a basketball court and a pool. I’ve been wanting to do some cardio for a long time to get my ticker back in shape, and because Jen already belongs, we’re getting a little bit of a break on the membership. The gym is positioned in an older section of town, next to some retirement communities, so I am barraged in the locker room with as much wrinkly bare old man-bottom as I can try to avoid. It’s kind of amazing how free and out there the 55-80-year-old set is with their bodies. I’m the guy with three towels and a pair of boxers scuttling back to my locker, while Abe over here next to me has his junk hanging out all over the bench as he carefully tweezes his nosehair. Clearly, I have a lot to get accustomed to. I also need to invest in some flip-flops for the first time in 20 years to avoid the toe fungus.
(By the way, was I one of the only ones who never had to shower after gym period in high school, or was that pretty much over and done with for everyone else too? No wonder high school was such a dry period for me.)
In other news, Penn the Terror is sick with some kind of bottom-problem. He’s a shadow of his former self, down from 15 lbs. to a sickly 11 in the space of two months. Just when we’d gotten him calmed down, groomed correctly and used to being with him for 8-12 hours per day, he started being antisocial and avoiding his food, which is about as normal for him as time standing still or the sun blinking off. Usually, when pouring food into his bowl, he gets his head in between the food container and the bowl and nudges it out of the way while the food is still falling, so that I’m pouring the food on his head as he’s beginning to horse it down. I used to think it was a little rude until I considered Homer Simpson’s dream of donuts falling from the sky like rain, and then it made sense in a hedonistic food-fetish sort of way. These days, he eats a few bites and then returns to his chair in the other room to sleep.
The doc doesn’t know what it could be, but she says there might be a mass of some kind in his intestines. He’s had bloodwork done and a trio of X-rays, which all came back inconclusive, so we have an ultrasound scheduled for next Tuesday. In the meantime, he gets his choice of canned food so that he’ll keep his weight up. Keep your fingers crossed for the little punk.
The Dot-Com Archive claims to be a collection of stories and memories from the Web 1.0 boom and bust. I’d like to actually read some of the stories, but I can’t do it yet. (via)
This is the best news I’ve heard in a long time. I realize there are still votes to be counted, and here in Maryland the Governor’s race is up in the air, but it’s looking better and better as the morning progresses. Let us all hope that the Senate swings Democratic as well as the House, and that some sanity is restored to the political process here in America.
Update: Oh, it’s going so much better than I’d hoped. Governor hairpiece just conceded, Democrats won Montana, and now Rumsfeld is resigning? Bust out the party hats and the whisky—it’s time to celebrate.
I found a website that graphs the voltage in legacy flash units and makes recommendations for usage in newer DSLRs. (Older flash units use higher voltages in the trigger circuit.) I have a Vivitar 550FD, given to me by my father for my Minolta SLR, and I’d love to be able to use it with my digital cameras.
We saw this on the wall of the elementary school where we voted this afternoon. The kid looks stoned, doesn’t he? Or, better yet, it looks like he’s flashing the emo gang sign.
Here’s a handy guide for setting up Parallels on OS X from Lifehacker.
Our friend Dave hipped me to this technique: HDR photography, which is the process of taking multiple bracketed photos of the same subject and combining the data from all to produce a highly detailed, contrasted image.
Well, things are definitely moving along here at Idiot Central. Today is voting day, which means there’s been a steady stream of people walking down the street in front of the house to and from the elementary school. We’re going after lunch to stand in line and (hopefully) make our voices heard; I’ll be happy when I’ve ceased getting calls from Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton exhorting me to vote one way or the other, and the piles of direct mail switch back over to Christmas catalogs.
I’m looking at email a little differently this morning, as well. I got my hosting switched over to a new service, one which lacks in helpful configuration what it makes up for in sheer number of services at a rock-bottom price. I’m not going to recommend it just yet (although it would be in my financial best interest to do so) until I’ve wrung it out somewhat, but all looks to be working correctly so far. Now, I have to read up on migrating two years of Eudora archives over to Mail.app. You’ll also notice that some of my portfolio site is down—I have yet to upload the rest of my files.
Thirdly, I made a purchase yesterday that may put off the new laptop for a little while. More on that later…
The Directory of Illustration is a huge phonebook-sized tome that ships each year to art directors, ad buyers, and designers. A number of years ago, I started getting calls from a rep there trying to get me to sign up. I knew it would be expensive, and it is—several thousand dollars, with the payment coming due either at Christmastime, tax time, or Easter. As part of my plan to get back into illustration I was thinking about joining the Directory next year, but I just got a call from a rep who told me they now have a payment plan spread out over nine months, which makes the whole thing more affordable and convenient. She’s going to call back on Wednesday to tell me more about it, and I think I may do it.
Which means I have to get back on the horse and get some more sample work done in a hurry.
That’s 1/2″ of drywall up there, with one coat of mud on the seams. As of this writing, there’s a second coat drying.