This weekend Jen and I drove south to St. Mary’s County, Maryland, for a local tradition: The spring dinner, featuring stuffed ham and fried oysters. Not unlike many of the fireman’s dinners you may have been to, there are a lot of old men selling tickets outside the firehouse, and you enter a large hall (in my experience, they’ve moved the trucks out of the garage, but down in the County they have a whole meeting hall above) where one of the ladies’ auxilliary seats you. Usually there’s some folks at your table, and you make your introductions while they start passing you plates heaped with food. This year the ham was spicy and the oysters had been cooked perfectly, so they were crisp and delicious. Unfortunately, we were seated next to some older women who kept to themselves and hoarded the oysters.
I find this article sad, not because people are possibly strapping their children into incorrectly fastened car seats, but because estimates place a quarter of this country’s population reading at or below a fifth-grade level. I think if you read that poorly and you’re over the age of twenty, you shouldn’t be allowed to have children. How are you gonna help them with their homework when they’re in the sixth grade?
Google Fun. Apparently there was an AA baseball catcher named Bill Dugan (not to be confused with the athletically-named Jumping Joe Dugan), who played two years of ball starting in 1884. At this point, his stats on Google place him directly behind me and above another Bill Dugan who lives in Cali and who’s been making video games for a number of years now.
I am totally jamming on a new CD recommended by Pitchfork Media, by Rjd2, called Dead Ringer. Very, very good stuff—the reviewer caught my attention with this summary: “The Private Press may have given us what DJ Shadow needed to give us, but Rjd2 gave us what we wanted.”
Christmas was a very enjoyable one this year. Lots of goodies given and received; lots of good cheer and quiet family time as well. You’ll notice I had my laptop with me over the break, and I took some time to re-organize my navigation on the left there.
Strange Offerings From Amazon.com Dept.:
“Customers who wear clothes also shop for: Clean Underwear from Amazon’s Target Store.”
I ordered 16MB of RAM for the Laserwriter this morning. I think, if I remember correctly, that the resolution increses as you add memory to the machine- we’ll find out when it gets here. I also read with interest that Apple has discontinued making the 15″ flat-panel iMac as of last october, and reports claim that they will discontinue manufacturing the 17″ model this summer. Strange. I was hoping that I could afford one of these iMacs this year (along with a pony, a rocketship, and a retirement fund) so it will be interesting to see what happens next…?
In other consumer news, I’m now actively looking for a replacement for the Tortoise. The early front-runners, based on market research done through Consumer Reports, are the VW Jetta and the Subaru Forester. Right now, due to availability and price considerations, the VW is ahead by a nose. But the desire is leaning towards the Forester. Does anybody have good/bad stories about either? I’d love to hear them.
aurora, 12.28
After a long, hard drive north into the aftermath of a Christmas snowstorm, Jen and I settled in to a few days of warm gas fireplace and home cooking. We had a three-day engagement in St. Mary’s County at the beginning of the week, opening presents on The Day with her family, and then we drove north to New York for a three-day stay with my folks.
So Jen and I order a gift for her dad about two weeks ago via the internet. We go through the usual online ordering stuff, and after entering our info we get a cryptic email that says thank you, and here is your password for the site, and nothing more to date. Now, logically, if I ran a business, I would have some brains and make sure that my product went out before December 18th or so, in time to make it to the recipient for Christmas. Because
- If it is indeed a gift, it will be opened around other people, and the other people might be interested in the product as well.
- Most people have time off over the holiday, in which they can look at the product (and the one in question demands some research.) When people get a gift, usually they are excited about it. Their chances of using it directly after Christmas are very good. Hint hint.
- It’s very good business practice to explain your shipping and delivery proceedures to your clients. Before or during the ordering process.
- There’s a good chance the recipient may not be home if the product is delivered at the end of December.
We called today and found that the company in question waits until the end of the month to send out all their orders in one bulk mailing. With no notification on the site, this means we should have ordered by Thanksgiving if we wanted to have it under the tree for the holiday. Nice job, you jerks. Now we have to figure out how we’re going to wrap a big box of nothing.
From Mike’s site, I found this company, Xplane, which does some beautiful graphics work. And I love the site as well. This is what good Illustrator work should look like.
backyard, 12.01
The Thanksgiving feasting is over; the fridge is stuffed with Tupperware and bursting at the seams. All was successful with the meal, and the Meeting Of The Two Families went off without a hitch, thankfully. Everybody had a great time together and we dined in Little Italy. (Rather fitting, given the motif, eh?)
We were also lent the first season of the Sopranos on DVD the day before Thanksgiving, and spent a good portion of the holiday loosening our belts and travelling to North Jersey to peek in on the lives of Tony and his family. I realize I’m about four years behind the curve here, but I have to say this is a fantastic show. Jen and I are totally hooked.
I finally got a sheet of UV glass cut for three gifts my house presented me when I began demolishing the basement: a collection of Tijuana bibles fell from the ceiling over the old bathroom as I tore the tongue and groove down. (Additionally, I was presented with a series of letters to Santa and a series of longshoreman’s pay stubs over the old kitchen sink, a very old and used tampon in the bathroom, and an envelope containing $50 in bills circa 1969 up front in the old closet.) In doing some research on the eight-pagers, I found a link to a book on the subject as well as some other sites. It’s nice to have them framed, finally.
fell's point illustration, 11.21
So Jen and I went south to St. Mary’s County this weekend to do the pre-emptive Thanksgiving with her folks; for an area with as many possible photo ops as this, you would have thought I could get off my duff and take a few. I didn’t, however. We did come home with two pounds of stuffed ham, though. We shall see what the Irish Yankees think of the local delicacy.
So I’ve been digging on the rawk the past couple of work days; I read somewhere about the Donnas and about the Sahara Hotnights, and I’ve found some good tunes by both of them- Take it Off and A Perfect Mess, respectively.
When Worlds Collide Dept.: Jen and I are preparing for the Meeting Of The Two Families this weekend. We are playing that delicate game of figuring out what to tell one family about the other so that the shock will not be that great. On one hand, from a social observation angle, it would be interesting to just throw them all in a room and sit behind the glass, waiting to see who starts throwing their poo first. But from a different angle, the Please Let Them Get Along voice is not so gently telling us to make a few choice preparatory statements and set it up right. So we are debating the various talking points and their impact on the participants. Has anybody out there got some good stories they’d like to share?
In keeping with the recent 10-20 posts, I enabled the web hyperlinking feature of my account, so you can see where my car is.
Currently, the Taurus is in the shop for various ailments; among other things, the idle is either racing or DOA with about a second of reaction time in the middle. The coolant system is on its fourth hemorrhage now, after a new radiator, set of hoses, thermostat and gallons of antifreeze. The Saturn is acting up as well—Jen called via cellphone this morning to have me on standby for a search and rescue mission. Today I started the Scout and had it three quarters of the way down Fleet Street when it decided to stall. Luckily I had some forward momentum and was able to point it towards the corner of the curb, but horsing a ton and a half of iron to the side of the road when the power steering pump has shut down is a bit like trying to make a left turn in a commuter train- it just ain’t happening. Once I had her warmed up to 100% she was fine, but it seems that none of the vehicles in the Dugan-Lockard Collective like this rainy weather one bit.
OK, this is kind of cool, and brought to you by the Mormons. The 1880 US Census data is now online; you can research ancestors based on a number of different criteria such as birth and death records, country and state, and their relatives. I looked up my namesake, William Dugan the First, and found a number of different records matching the criteria. I have to check with the Third and find out where and when the First was born, and perhaps I can provide some data to the family. (via megnut)
From Wired.com: Still Rabble-Rousing, a story about Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the 1970’s.
There is a significant interest, after a meeting yesterday, in moving the 3-D development at work away from Discreet’s 3Dsmax to Alias/Wavefront’s Maya. As a recent learner of 3Dsmax, I have to say that I was impressed with Maya and excited to use the software. As a longtime Mac user and supporter, I definitely have to vote in favor of Maya, because there’s an OSX version that looks good. Keep your fingers crossed.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
So I went out this morning and bought this book and this book for to learn 3DS Max. I’ll have a review of each as I go, but for now, out of a total of seven books at Border’s, I think I got the two that will help me the most. And hopefully the company will reimburse me.
Jen and I went down into DC last night to see her brother Rob, and we had some very tasty Mongolian buffet (you throw a bunch of ingredients in a bowl, and a surly Oriental man adds sauce-type ingredients, then stir-fries it on a gigantic drum in the middle of the room). After eating we found an Irish pub and had some beers until it was time to leave town. Catching the final train out of Chinatown, we made it home to bed by 1am. Jen was glad to see her brother and I had a really good time. I miss DC and the cosmopolitan feeling I get there- Baltimore just doesn’t have the same vibe.
My shout out to Other World Computing, a firm specializing in Mac sales; I sent in an order for some gear yesterday and got an email back asking to confirm my ship-to address, considering I’m having it delivered at work. So i called Visa and had them update my record there. Hopefully my stuff will show up on time next week. But I was happy they took the time to check that out. That’s good customer service.
Friday Humor Dept.:This is a funny little satire of 2001, a Space Odyssey, and very well done. Plus it’s in Legos. Rock on.
Lake, NY state 9.1
Well, after another beautiful vacation stay at my parents’ place on the lake, a small disaster befell us on our trip home. The Tortoise decided that it was upset at me for neglecting to fill the oil and coolant, and the thermostat blew up on us. Luckily we were only 30 minutes away from my parents’ place, so we were able to get it towed back to a good garage and be on the porch sipping vodka tonics four hours after the first sign of steam. Yesterday, after a morning of freelance work and worry over getting Jen to Rochester, we found out that it was only the thermostat and a hose, and I had not in fact fried a piston. $173.88 lighter, we packed it up for the second time in two days and made our way homeward to a house of worried, hungry cats.
I’ll probably write some about the trip in a day or two, but for right now I’ll just mention one of the first things that I think of: Crossing the street in front of my parents’ house to try to take a picture of the stained glass window at the church in bare feet, at 10pm, realizing that there were no cars in either direction on Main Street, and that the Big Dipper was huge, clear and hanging over the village.
Thinking about catastrope this weekend got me jump-started today into ordering the drive and enclosure that I was thinking about; after some figuring I felt this was the best bet. (I was considering making an old 8500 a server, but decided not to support any more legacy equipment.) It will be good to have a definite backup solution in place.
hidden driveway, laurel md., 8.18
I read a bunch of stuff on Fray.com today, and really enjoyed some of the stories. I’m thinking about a few story ideas and possibly submitting something with some illustrations. Also, this weekend, A List Apart posted a great article on writing for the Web, which has some points that I need to take to heart. (for those of you who are asleep, my apologies.)
Jen’s sister broke into her apartment last week. Jen called me from her house, livid and raging, unable to make sense of her feelings. She told me the story and I got more and more upset, because I knew that not only was she mad with her sister, but that she felt completely unsafe in her apartment. Her sister left that day with a halfhearted apology, and called back from her car later, completely unable to grasp why Jen was so upset with her. I got off the phone with Jen so that she could talk with her. At the time, I was driving (badly, all over the road) and I felt my pulse strong in my arms and body. My face was flushed in the rear-view mirror.
Coming down off the anger, I felt completely powerless to help, total anger at her selfish, stupid sister, and frustrated with the whole situation. We have been struggling mightily this year to make the ‘She’ and ‘Me’ into ‘Us’, and this incident illustrates the problems with our current housing situation.
John brought the server in to the rack at his office, so my connection suddenly got a lot faster. It’s wonderful again. Appletalk over IP is a beautiful thing. This past month has been a blur of freelance work, some outdoor work, and wierdness at the office. Definitely an interesting August.
I got an email from Jen, and she wanted to add this to my comments above: “…I had no trouble making sense of my feelings. I knew what I felt, I just felt guilty for responding the way I did at the time. The fact that we are sisters really greyed the lines for me.”