Monthly Archives: September 2006

And Now

Posted on by

Sometimes it’s more difficult to start a post than it is to write the rest of it.  Why is it that we have so much with starting things and ending things?  Once we’re into it, we can just glide along, but the wrappers on either side, man they’re tough.

When last we visited these hallowed electrons, I was in Providence, it was morning, and we were leading into a camping trip in Maine.  Well, the trip to Maine was excellent.  I really had a great time, wandering around, building campfires, taking the kayak out, and having some really excellent conversations with people.  I kind of wish I’d been able to bring Freya with me, as since it’s an island, she would have been able to run freely without worrying about her getting into TOO much trouble.  All told, there were eight of us: Kate, Andrew, Casey, Claire, Erica, Kelly, Mary, and myself.  Damn good times.

When we got back from Maine, Erica and I broke up.  This was my decision, and for my own needs and reasons.  It’s something I’d been giving a LOT of thought about, and decided it wouldn’t make sense to drag it out further, and that it would be best to do it in person.  It’s not because of anything either of us did wrong, and whoever she dates next is going to be a damned lucky fellow, because she’s fabulous.  It was just time to end it — I need to be single for a while, to re-center myself and get into a place that works for me.  I always kind of felt like it was new-agey bullshit when I heard reasons like that, but it’s not, and I’m not sure I can explain why to those who haven’t already gone through it.  I’m working on salvaging friends out of it, including Erica.  I came to really care about the people down there, and value them as friends, so I sincerely hope this doesn’t cause any rifts or distancing (or at the very least, none that are insurmountable).

On Saturday, I went to my former roommates’ (Kate and Andy) wedding, which was an absolute blast.  I took gobs of photos (which I still need to burn to DVD, dangit), and the bride and groom looked fantastic.  The theme of the wedding was 1920s-30s, and so there were plenty of people dressed out in vintage suits that really made the whole event feel classic.  There were pleasant conversations happening all around the space, and I think everyone was really charged to have a great time.  The wedding was at 5, but festivities carried on well into the night, with the band leaving around 11, and people continuing to hang out after that.  I took off shortly after the band left, and dropped my brother off in Montpelier before heading south to the Upper Valley.  I didn’t get home until around 1-1:30, at which point I was bushed and went straight to sleep.  Sunday, I woke up and went back north to Montpelier, to help my brother pack and move his things out of the house, since he’s taken that position down in DC.  (In case you were wondering why I drove back down rather than simply crash on a couch, I forgot to bring a change of clothes and didn’t want to pack and lug boxes in a dry clean only suit.)

Since then, most of my days have been occupied with getting my affairs in order for disappearing for a while to Squam and Peterborough; paying bills, picking up sundry items, digging items I want to bring out of packed boxes, et cetera.  Other than that, I’ve been spending time with my parents and hanging out with friends, and in general trying to keep things low key.  I’m really looking forward to this time alone (that said, if you want to visit for a day or two, as long as you want it low key, I’m willing to share the space).  It feels really good to have a set direction and plan with all this: WRITE!  Build some inertia with my writing, and if things start looking positive in that general direction (writing is a fairly broad category), run with it.  If that doesn’t work out (knock wood), I already have plans on what to try next, most of which involve getting a crap job and studying my ass off in one of several subjects.  It just feels good to have a direction with all this.

I’ll wrap things up with a quick note that I am selling a plethora of technological gadgetry.  I’m selling off both monitors (19″ and 22″, prices negotiable), a spare graphics card (X700), my vaio desktop (PCV-770, upgraded), aaaand my PowerMac G5 tower.  I’m reluctant to let that last one go, but the sad reality is that I would be better served for my purposes in reducing my overall office footprint as much as I can, and I can get equivalent power out of a fully specced 24″ iMac (which I can afford if I sell all the things I listed).  I also decided this evening to additionally sell my Palm Tungsten T (yes, the original Tungsten), with cradle, for $75.  If you’re interested, let me know.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Posted on by

It’s fairly rare that I write a post in the morning, mostly because I’m generally fairly nocturnal, and as such don’t do much of anything in the morning. That said, I’m down in Providence at the moment, and didn’t really feel like sleeping anymore, for whatever reason. So rather than wake anyone up, I crept out of the bed, showered, and am sitting in the kitchen on my computer, killing time until others wake up or arrive. The flaw, of course, is that the others are nocturnal too, and it could well be hours before they’re awake.

I don’t really have a lot to say, so I suppose this is a bit of a nothing post, but it seemed like the thing to do, and here I am. In relation to my previous post’s “secret project”, that would be that I’m now guest-blogging over at Applegeeks, writing for a new section they’ve added about Apple-related chatter. It’s not a pay gig, but it still feels really nice to be invited to do such a thing, and I definitely look forward to continuing. For now, I’m trying to do a new post each week discussing a different Mac developer as a regular thing, and probably posting other things on a more sporadic basis. Of course, I’m going to need to “write ahead” a bit to deal with the time I’m taking off to get some OTHER writing done, but that’s fine.

It’s interesting watching the change in light as the morning has progressed. The early morning light was delightful and refreshing, and then quickly became stronger, with sharply contrasted shadows on the buildings. The sky was mostly sunny with the occasional tuft of clouds, though in traditional weathergod mode, as my mood darkened, it clouded over. (I’m dealing with some bank stupidity involving an eaten ATM card at the moment, which my father is graciously helping facilitate while I’m away.) As I work to regain my composure and relax, it’s started to get sunny again.

I realize that the likelihood of my actually affecting the weather in a noticeable fashion is relatively small, but that is the nature of magic — it stems from belief, and from the conundrum that if you observe a connection between two things that plausibly shouldn’t have a connection, there is a possibility (however slight) that they are in fact actually connected somehow. The main difference between magic and science is that science covers the ones we’ve already managed to explain. And besides, it’s fun to think I’m altering the weather through my mood. It’s worth noting that the most mild and sunny winter on record for Seattle was the winter that my brother and I were both in Seattle and I was in generally good, mellow spirits.

Gah, I’d really like to go downstairs for a cup of coffee, but I wouldn’t be able to get back in the building without waking someone else up.

Connectivity

Posted on by

I’ve largely finished moving out of the house in Montpelier, with my belongings (and myself) moving down to my parents’ house for the time being. This really isn’t that bad, as I get along with my parents rather well, and we’re all aware that it will be temporary, which takes a lot of the stress off (though it still remains to be seen exactly how temporary). The one major flaw with living there is that they have no broadband, and even their dialup is noisy and slow. This is through no fault of their own: they’ve kept their hardware up to date and internal lines clear. It all comes down to the fact that the phone company isn’t willing to lay new cable, nor add a station to a pre-existing box to add DSL capability further out of town. Also, the cable company continues to give a song and dance about “maybe” running cable out there “soon” (which is what they’ve been saying for 20 years), so that’s out as an option. There is wireless broadband in the area, but there are a few hills in the way of the line-of-sight needed to get there. Cellular based broadband (EVDO and the like) MAY work, assuming that our somewhat sketchy reception at the house is enough and that the towers serving it are upgraded to handle it… awful big investment for something that may not work. Basically, the choices are either pay an exorbitant amount of me getting a T1 or partial T1 installed, move, or suck it up on the 56k dialup service that is consistently lucky to hit 28.8 (which is “high enough” according to the letter of the law that the phone company will do nothing about the line noise, since it’s not seriously affecting voice communication).

So, instead I’m sitting in my car, in Hanover, listening to my iPod on my car stereo, getting some writing done and downloading a few updates and apps I wanted/needed for some projects. Normally I would be sitting out in front of Collis, but it’s too cold and rainy. Otherwise, I’d be sitting inside the Hopkins Center and using the wireless there, but that’s closed up tight for Labor Day weekend (as is the interior of Collis). But hey, my car is pretty comfy, and it’s nice being able to listen to my own music.

Tomorrow, I pack up my bags and head south to Rhode Island, where Erica and her friends are gearing up for the new school year, and planning a big camping trip up in Maine, which I will be accompanying them on. (And yes, I do consider them my friends too, but I know them through Erica and they were her friends first, so…) It should be a good time rain or shine, and it will be nice to see them all again (many of whom I haven’t seen since the spring). One of my secret projects should be coming up tomorrow as well, so hopefully I’ll have time to post about that once it’s done.

Y’know, modular apps is kind of neat in that when you update an application, you just drop the new application into the directory and it replaces the old one. That said, I do kind of miss when an updater actually modified the pre-existing app. They were smaller. I’m most of the way through an 80mb download, and that is frankly a small package compared to some. it gets frustrating killing time waiting for things to download (hey, news to companies out there: not all of us have an OC3 pipe!). But then, when else would we write all our blog posts?