Monthly Archives: May 2002

I realized something frightening today as I was talking to my friend and co-worker, Mike. Everything that comes out of my mouth has made it through the filter. Everything I say has made the cut, so to speak. I told Mike, “You ought to hear the stuff that I keep to myself if you think I say stupid things. This is stuff that the filter doesn’t catch.”

Mike replied, “I’ve turned off filtering because it used too many CPU cycles.”

I always thought we were just getting raw sockets from Mike. Now I know.

Well, Gracie is three years old as of Saturday. I can’t believe it. She’s so big now. I can’t remember when it happened, but all of a sudden she went from being a baby to being a little kid. And the stuff she says and comes up with these days. I can’t believe how fast time is going with her around.

Her new swing set was a big hit, which is good because it’s too big to return and it was quite an investment. My father-in-law and I put landscape timbers around it and filled the area with playground mulch so she can have a soft landing when she inevitably falls off of the swing, slide, or deck.

We weren’t sure how her party was going to go. On her first birthday and her second birthday, it rained, so I wound up grilling in the rain while everybody crowded into our slightly-too-small-for-that-sort-of-thing home. This year, we made it. It rained just before the party, but it stopped as everyone was arriving. Fortunately, we have enough mature trees that the backyard didn’t even get wet while it rained.

Got a new fridge for the office at Lowe’s last night. Everybody seems pretty happy with it. That’s good. It was time for a new fridge anyway.

From one of my favorite sites, Crazy Apple Rumors Site: Fatal Flaw In New iBooks. “I put it down on my desk and immediately noticed something was wrong,” Gregory said. “The hinge mechanism should be away from me, on the other side of the laptop. Instead, I opened it up and the lid was facing me. It’s useless to me like this. I can’t believe they let this ship.” For some reason, the stupid, absurd stuff they write just makes me laugh out loud. I guess because they sound so much like all the real whiners in the Mac community.

Mergers we don’t want to see, from UserFriendly. I laughed out loud at this.

I think I killed the fridge. I was defrosting it, and the screwdriver I was chipping at the ice with slipped, and then . . . there was a horrible hissing sound. I’m sorry.

Hmmmm. BlogPoster appears to be working again. Not sure what was up. I can only assume it was something with Blogger, because I didn’t change anything on my end. Oh, well, at least it’s working now.

Tommorow I’m helping a friend (also my part-time employer) migrate her PowerBook G4 over to Mac OS X. She’s ready to make the jump. Of course, she’s been listening to me rant and rave about OS X since the release of 10.1. She owns a marketing and design firm, and she’s still deciding when to take her artists to OS X. Most of the tools are there now: Photoshop, Illustrator, and QuarkXPress. Oh, wait, Quark isn’t ready yet!!

Saw the first half of Office Space this week. Pretty funny movie so far. I’m watching the rest this weekend.

Just checking something.

Jen had her second surgery today and it went very well. She went in for the procedure at 1:05, and at 2:05, the doctor was out to tell me they were done. At 3:15, we were on the way home. The doctor found a little bit of scar tissue, but no more than he had expected, so she’s done for now. Hopefully this is the end of this chapter for us, which is a blessing. It’s been going on for two years now, and she hasn’t really felt well the whole time. Thanks to all of you for yours prayers and support. Now to get ready for Grace’s birthday party…

One year to the date after his untimely death, there is a documentary about Douglas Adams, one of my all time favorite authors. I had an opportunity to meet the late Mr. Adams at MacWorld New York in 1998, along with my friends Mike and Joe. He was autographing copies of the strategy for Starship Titanic, his latest video game release. We waited in line to meet him in person, but we weren’t really interested in the game, so we asked him to sign our original iMac posters (actually I think Joe did the actual asking). He looked at us rather strangely, but obliged. When I finally had the chance to tell him face to face how much his writing inspired me in my youth, all I could do was stand there like a blithering idiot, spouting off random syllables. Not words — syllables. It was humiliating. So at least one of my heroes died thinking that I’m a complete idiot.

Because of that experience, I don’t think I’ll ever try to meet Ray Davies, Joe Walsh, Paul Simon, Darren Clarke, Steve Jobs, Bruce Momjian, or any of the guys from Jars of Clay in person. Why risk it?

[By the way, Adams died on May 11, not May 12. I tried to post this last night but hit a few snags for some unknown reason.]

Mac OS X continues to rock. Current uptime on my Titanium: 10 days, sick 12 hours. Wow. I never had that with OS 9.

Dave added Google search to mammothconcepts.com this morning. I may add it to my template in the near future, but for now, if you need to search, feel free to use Dave’s page.

Steve Jobs: We are here to mourn the passing of Mac OS 9.

Mac OS 9 Resuscitated By Quick-Thinking Developers: It was kind of weird, but the OS’s whole life flashed before my eyes. I saw OS 6, MultiFinder, OpenDoc, Themes… I thought, ‘Good times. Good times.’

Vegan Couple Starved Toddler, Cops Say: Sixteen-month-old Ice Swinton weighed only 10 pounds, looked like a 2- or 3-month-old and was half the normal weight of a child her age when authorities discovered her close to death last November . . . The Swintons, who say they approach veganism as a religion, fed the child a diet of “ground nuts, fresh-squeezed fruit juices, herbal tea, beans, cod liver oil and flax seed oil,” a complaint said. This may very well be one of the saddest news stories I’ve ever read. This poor child has probably suffered damage that can never be repaired. These people need to be locked up and never allowed near their daughter again.