Author Archives: brad

We were on the way to Jen’s parents’ house for lunch today, as is our Sunday custom, when we were suddenly rear-ended by a Kia. We pulled off the road and soon realized that the driver behind us, the one who hit us, wasn’t at fault. Rather, it was the Ford behind him, who slammed into him so hard that his license plate number can be read backwards on the front of her car.

We were idling when we were hit. The light was red, so we had stopped. The Kia behind us was back a healthy distance from us as well. Then out of nowhere – BAM!

For the record, no one was injured. Grace, Jen and I are fine. The driver of the Kia and his passenger are fine, although the poor guy was driving his sister’s car for the first time. The woman who hit the Kia was fine, but visibly shaken up, understandably. Jen and I offered to drive her home since she seemed so upset, but she felt she could make it. Her car was leaking antifreeze, but she didn’t have far to go, maybe a mile, so we all figured she’d be OK.

While we waited for the Kia driver’s sister to arrive, we chatted rather amicably. It was definitely the kindest collision I’ve ever had to the pleasure to be involved in. The driver of the Kia, who looked about 18 or 19 and was as polite as could be (“Sir” and “Ma’am”), told me he had just gotten back from overseas; he was a Marine. I asked if he was in Iraq, which he was. He was on leave and waiting for his next assignment. I shook his hand and told him that I appreciate everything that the armed forces do for us. I was glad to have that opportunity, and I think he appreciated it. He told us that he was borrowing his sister’s car, since he had sold his before going into the service, to go to church and then take his friend home afterward. Turns out he goes to church right down the road from our house, and knows the drummer on the church’s worship team, who was with us at the retreat we went to in January. Small world.

The Kia ended up with some damage to the front and back, but not as extensive as the damage to the Ford, which will probably be quite expensive to fix. My wagon has a couple scratches on the rear bumper, which seems to be looser than it ought, but nothing major otherwise. I happened to have a digital camera with me (leave it to me to bring a digital camera and forget my cell phone) so I took some pictures of the damage.

As the Kia driver’s sister pulled into the parking lot, he looked at us and said, “I need your help. Please tell my sister this wasn’t my fault. She didn’t trust me driving her car, but you guys all know this wasn’t my fault.” We vouched for him.

Grace mentioned several times later today that she really didn’t like getting hit by that car. Jen and I could only agree.

Echo is a new blogging API/format being kicked around. Read more here. Blogger’s behind it, the Trotts are behind it (the Movable Type people), and even Dave Winer is (grudgingly) behind it, so long as personality issues can remain separate.

Version 1.2 beta 3 for Mac OS X is in my testers’ hands. Now for Classic and Windows. Version 1.2 has some big stuff in it. You could probably figure out one new feature by realizing that I’ve switched to MovableType. 🙂

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

(I’m almost sorry I posted it. Almost.)

You know what freaks me out? When I empty the trash on my Mac, and the free space on my drive goes down.

Guess I better quit throwing stuff away so I don’t fill up my drive.

Tried iChat AV video conferencing today. It was very smooth. There was a bit of a lag, but nothing intolerable. David and I just plugged a digital video camera into the FireWire port and we were up and running, video chatting with Joe (who is actually not competing with Mike for the most neglected weblog award). Very cool.

What we didn’t know, however, since it was the first time we tried the new camera, was that the camera was in “demo mode.” A few minutes into the chat, we were sepia-toned. Then black and white. Then negative. Then… well, you get the idea.

The surprising part was quickly the whole experience degenerated. Within ten minutes, we were holding up action figures and other objects to the camera, just to see what it would look like. Robbie the Robot attacked Joe for quite some time. But Joe wasn’t worried; he had Boba Fett to defend him.

Click here for the full story, or at least our small part in it. You just never know where a career in educational technology will take you.

For example, I’ve been on more roofs since starting my current job than in all the prior years together.

And leave a nice comment for David, since he’ll be away most of the week at NECC. At least, that’s what he says.

Looks like Blogger is finally reaching the end of the Great Dano Transition of 2003. Hopefully, it will all be over by tomorrow. Then It’s time to put the finishing touches on Frequency 1.2.

In light of Apple’s recent announcement of the PowerMac G5, I thought it might be fun to repost a link to John Dvorak’s March 18, 2003, editorial entitled “Apple Switch“, in which he doesn’t just predict, but flat out declares that “Apple Computer Corp. will switch to Intel processors within the next 12 to 18 months.”

Drawing conclusions about Dvorak’s intelligence is an exercise left to the reader.

From Hello! Magazine, regarding Keanu Reeves: The 38-year-old decided to hand over the money to the unsung heroes of the sci-fi blockbusters – the costume and special effects teams. So how much money did Neo give away? Well, seems he earned seventy million pounds (I’m too lazy to do the conversion) from the Matrix movies and has given away fifty million. He was quoted as saying, “Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries.”

That’s really refreshing. Of course, it’s much easier to say things like that when you have millions and millions. Even so, I think it’s a wonderful gesture.