Album of the day is Abductions & Reconstructions, by the Thievery Corporation.

I’m reading about WorldCom and wondering what all that means- more book-cooking and backdoor deals with a huge company. I sure hope the SEC is granted some kind of power so they can create and finally enforce some strong bookkeeping laws to put an end to this kind of stuff. NPR did a great piece a few weeks back on the Enron mess and how they were able to get away with a lot of what they did.

On other telecom fronts, apparently Cingular is buying ATT Wireless, my cell carrier, so I don’t know what kind of disruption in service I’m going to suffer through here, but it should make life interesting.

By the way, you know you’re getting older when your car radio is permanently tuned to the local NPR affiliate. I haven’t listened to song-oriented radio in months. But at least I don’t have to sit through the country’s worst local news telecasts for the information of the day.

One of the programmers here wrote an email to the staff:

Exception 14

… buffer overrun error occurred when attempting to
… write soda to device fridge:
… your soda may be warm.

I need to keep an eye on this series of articles on O’Reillynet about Mac OSX and ColdFusion MX.

Date posted: June 26, 2002 | Filed under history, humor | Leave a Comment »

Attempting to remain excited about my future career prospects today. I woke up this morning tired, and wandered around my house in a fog. Coffee cleared the cobwebs and I focused on the tasks at hand, but I couldn’t shake a sense of boredom and stagnation. I’m not getting a damn thing from my current job, and that has me very depressed right now.

I am getting a lot of freelance stuff in the pipeline, though, and if I can maintain my current pace I’ll be in good shape at the end of this summer. Right now I’m trying not to overload myself with too much stuff, but there’s two big projects which are very exciting that i want to tackle for different reasons. Kind of makes me wish this was last summer and not this summer- I would be able to segue smoothly into lucrative, exciting freelance work at a time when I was not working at all.

It’s interesting to read the log from last year and see where I was at this time- on the 11th of May last year, I was laid off. on the 22nd of May, I was talking about getting my website redesigned and running again, as well as illustration work going again. it’s bizarre in a way to see the difference a year makes.

Date posted: May 21, 2002 | Filed under art/design, history | Leave a Comment »

I found a few links that I had lost from the December log. Here’s the definitive G-Force/Gatchaman fan site, and a link to Rhino home video, where you can buy the first 8 episodes on DVD.
Here’s a link to a site dedicated to the 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT and the Mad Max movies.

Tomorrow I go out with Jason to take Dan to his bachelor dinner at the Prime Rib; that should be interesting. Jason got a bunch of old ex-System Source employees together for a surprise dinner at Akbar in town last Saturday- that was very interesting and fun and bittersweet all at the same time. I was just thinking about Mike H. last week, and there he is across the table from me. The good thing was that Jason and Shelly showed up as well as Joy on our end of the table, so we had good conversation. That with the lunch I had with Melissa last week just makes my heart heavy sometimes; I miss those guys terribly, and that time period (work-wise, at least). Plus the fact that Greycube is for all purposes ending and I’m kind of blue about all that. I’d like to get some kind of organization together to do some other off-site freelance work.

I found this site today: Steinbergerworld. There’s a list of a lot of fantastic info about these instruments, and considering I have an XP2, I have some reading to do tonight. I also found an Ebay auction with a black XP2 currently at about $400.

Date posted: February 6, 2002 | Filed under bass, friends, history, links | Leave a Comment »

Remember Pearl Harbor. Don’t see the movie, which I’m told sucked; read this book by Gordon W. Prange. From what I understand, nobody that produced the movie did; maybe you’ll learn something.

Some little jerk walked past the Scout this morning and sprayed a red line down the side with spray-paint. I hate this city so much. I can’t wait to move out of it.

An interesting quote from Richard Parsons, the (now) CEO of AOL Time Warner:

Q. Do you think the Web can remain free?

A. No. No, I don’t think so. Not if it’s to achieve or realize its ultimate destiny as the global interactive marketplace that it can be.

Go to hell, Richard. And take TIME magazine and all your spamming AOL subscribers with you. Do you understand anything about the Web? The best part about it is that it’s free, you ignorant fool. The best thing about it is that I don’t need to pay narrow-minded greedheads like you to publish whatever I think or feel; I own this site and you don’t. Mouthbreather. Keep the ‘interactive marketplace’ on your pretty AOL sites and leave my web alone.

2:46 PM – </vent mode off> OK, I’m feeling better. Life is good. Please process the above vitriol through the “had a crappy morning” filter. Running was good, and I had a good time with Jeff and Dwight.

Date posted: December 7, 2001 | Filed under geek, history | Leave a Comment »

Remember Pearl Harbor. Don’t see the movie, which I’m told sucked; read this book by Gordon W. Prange. From what I understand, nobody that produced the movie did; maybe you’ll learn something.

Some little jerk walked past the Scout this morning and sprayed a red line down the side with spray-paint. I hate this city so much. I can’t wait to move out of it.

An interesting quote from Richard Parsons, the (now) CEO of AOL Time Warner:

Q. Do you think the Web can remain free?
A. No. No, I don’t think so. Not if it’s to achieve or realize its ultimate destiny as the global interactive marketplace that it can be.

Go to hell, Richard. And take TIME magazine and all your spamming AOL subscribers with you. Do you understand anything about the Web? The best part about it is that it’s free, you ignorant fool. The best thing about it is that I don’t need to pay narrow-minded greedheads like you to publish whatever I think or feel; I own this site and you don’t. Mouthbreather. Keep the ‘interactive marketplace’ on your pretty AOL sites and leave my web alone.

2:46 PM – </vent mode off> OK, I’m feeling better. Life is good. Please process the above vitriol through the “had a crappy morning” filter. Running was good, and I had a good time with Jeff and Dwight.

Date posted: December 7, 2001 | Filed under history, politics | Leave a Comment »

Whew. Back from CT and a trip back into time- the first time I’ve been back up to the old Dugan high-school era homestead in about 3 years- that was a trip through time. Some random thoughts about the journey:

  • Mahopac has not changed.
  • The area in a 60-mile radius around New York City is still the Land of Classic Rock. I heard “Hysteria” by Def Leppard twice in 2 days on the radio. Basically the choices for radio up there are one of three: classic rock, sports talk, or latin dance music.
  • County Adjustment Bureau is still as ugly as it was when I went to college, times two. We drove up and peeked in the driveway: there are lots of tractor trailers parked in there, but I took it as a good omen that a Scout 80 was parked over in the driveway.
  • Ridgefield is still as rich as I remember it.
  • The leaves driving back through New Jersey on Sunday were absolutely incredible.
  

Today I’m going to hit the Home Depot and order the carpeting I’ve been waiting for for 2 months. They’re having a special, with installation, where the padding is free. I took measurements last night and got all the relevant info I need. I also need to get the stain today and begin on the woodwork; once I get my paycheck I’m also going to pick up the wood for the stairs and get those installed. Luckily the side shelves, which were cupped slightly after I installed them, sanded down smooth and look clean. So after the underside caps are stained, I’ll install them and finish off the side walls. I also am going to measure the junction box at the store, cut down a piece of sanded plywood, and mount it on the wall in the closet. Then we can start the wiring

Salon is no longer listing its main news stories for free- they’re putting them under the Premium service, so if you want to see good reporting by them, you have to shell out $30 or so. Now, I’ve been reading Salon for about the past four years. I love the magazine and have always supported it, talked it up, and browsed/read it daily. But in this economy, when I have to rationalize and justify a $15 bottle of wine, $20 worth of paint, or full gas tank in the Scout, I don’t have $30 to offer. Too bad. I suppose I’ll be looking at them a lot less now.

I read today that the guitarist from Limp Bizkit is leaving the band. While I wipe away a tear from my eye, I sit and meditate on this thought: What makes Fred Durst so important that his views on the tragedy in NYC are quoted in the paper? How did he and the pretty-boy guy from the Goo Goo Dolls get so famous and talented that they were allowed into the recording studio to do a cover of ‘Wish You Were Here‘ in memoriam? Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a cool idea (and a great song) but, man, was that bad. Those two dudes can’t sing.

Perhaps the guitarist just go so damn sick of Fred’s whiny voice that he couldn’t stay in the band? That’s my personal opinion.

Date posted: October 15, 2001 | Filed under history, house | Leave a Comment »

I picked up a copy of Wired magazine from work, dated July 20, 2000, and read it on the train ride home yesterday. What an incredible pile of shit the industry was selling us last year. On one hand, the amount of hubris, excitement, and technology was contagious and overwhelming. But on the other, you had to be an idiot not to see it was all going to implode.

I worked for a dot-com startup, chasing the dreams of big bucks myself, and it didn’t work out. I let my stock options lapse last Wednesday- 1,667 of them, at the ridiculous strike price of $1.25/share. I too figured I’d be able to get in, cash out, and get out before it all fell apart.

On one hand, my trying this on the East coast was bad, because it meant that everything blew up earlier than it did on the West coast. But on the other hand, I’m not living in a city awash in out-of-work web designers, millionaire developers, facing a rent based on the 1999 real-estate market. I am commuting to DC every day, which takes a 3-hour bite out of my day, but I was able to get a gig with a healthy, world-class design firm right before the layoffs started.

So this article made me wonder how we all could have believed it would last for so long- when our company was funded by venture capital for two years, when they were buying us laptops like they were parting gifts on the Newlywed Game, throwing parties at the beginning of each month, buying real estate, butstill trying to figure out exactly what it was we offered.

When they hired on the new VP of marketing, and he told me I needed to put up a brand-new website in 1 month with no content and no idea of how to market the company, I knew we were in trouble. This was in May. By September I knew my days were numbered, and I smelled blood in the water. This VP had just forced out our immediate boss, and was consolidating his power inside our building. I had to hire an outside firm to design the website, and they did a great job with nothing, but I was pissed off, bored, and amazed that a company with as much VC money as we did still couldn’t seem to figure out how to market our ‘service’. The Marketing gurus (and they hired a bunch of these) kept talking about switching our ‘play’ from ‘B-to-C to B-to-B’ and ‘Going after the Enterprise markets’.

I suppose there’s about 10,000 other folks in San Francisco who could write the end to this story, but I’m glad I was able to work there, live it for myself, make good money, and get out before they canned everyone.

Date posted: March 27, 2001 | Filed under art/design, history | Leave a Comment »