December, 2003: 46 posts.

Church.
Breakfast.
Swap meet.
Christmas gifts.
Turkey cooking.
Lose main pair of pants on drive to laundry.
Laundry.
Second degree twisted ankle.
Pain.
Turkey and squash dinner
Scrooged. Cleanup.
Bedtime.

The swelling has gone down, but it hurts still. Ow.

Today: work; bus pass; new pants; leftover turkey; HEALING.

One of my favorite internet errors is to get an email where the recipients were, instead of BCC’d, merely CC’d. In this way, one can extract out the domains to see what kinds of websites the folks on the same mailing list have. By the looks of it, this is an interesting San Diego List! Here it is: www.2by2.net www.3maw.usmc.mil www.abac.com www.adelphia.net www.ainsburg.com www.allenbarron.com www.alltel.net www.aol.com www.appleone.com www.att.net www.awionline.net www.barnes3centcopies.com www.bateman.net www.bechtel.com www.bigfoot.com www.bisson.us www.boursorama.com www.ccdc.com www.ccdsd.org www.cgey.com www.chapman.edu www.chsd.org www.ckcdglobal.com www.clarusenergy.com www.co.san-diego.ca.us www.coi-world.com www.compuserve.com www.copleypress.com www.course.com www.cox.net www.cs.com www.csc.com www.cts.com www.dashields.com www.ddc-web.com www.delmarglobal.com www.designsolutions.tv www.dielectric.spx.com www.dor.ca.gov www.driveu.com www.dstec.com www.earthlink.net www.ecrmc.org www.edd.ca.gov www.email.com www.engineer.com www.ericsson.com www.excite.com www.fctcpac.navy.mil www.ftscpac.navy.mil www.gageteeple.com www.gat.com www.gen-probe.com www.genica.com www.gisws.com www.halliburton.com www.hansenusa.com www.home.com www.homebuyeragents.com www.homedepot.com www.hotmail.com www.household.com www.hp.com www.imbrettjackson.com www.impactengine.com www.infinet-is.com www.ixpres.com www.jud.ca.gov www.juno.com www.klondikemarketing.com www.kp.org www.kyocera-wireless.com www.kyocera.com www.l-3com.com www.lionmail.com www.lmco.com www.maxim.com www.mcmillinrealty.com www.memcg.com www.mfr.usmc.mil www.missionfcu.org www.monster.com www.morrisandbrown.com www.msn.com www.navair.navy.mil www.navy.mil www.navyads.sdcoxmail.com www.ncr.com www.netscape.net www.netthere.net www.netzero.com www.nimitz.navy.mil www.nmcsd.med www.nordstrom.com www.metrocall.com www.oldendorf.navy.mil www.one80.biz www.onebox.com www.orincon.com www.orlandoward.com www.pacbell.net www.palm.com www.pec.com www.pendleton.usmc.mil www.peoplepc.com www.power-find.com www.prepaidlegal.com www.prpllc.com www.pulselink.net www.rayaintegration.com www.reddoor.biz www.rehabwest.com www.roving.com www.saic.com www.salientnetworks.com www.san.rr.com www.sandi.net www.sandiego.gov www.sandiegometro.com www.sannet.gov www.sbcglobal.net www.sciti.com www.scrippsclinic.com www.sdcaa.com www.sdcb.org www.sdccd.cc.ca.us www.sdccd.net www.sdchcc.com www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us www.sdcounty.ca.gov www.sdreader.com www.sdsheriff.org www.sdvideoanddesign.com www.simasd.navy.mil www.simincsd.com www.softaire.net www.southlandtechnology.com www.spawar.navy.mil www.stcnet.com www.stevensassoc.com www.stichler.com www.swc.cc.ca.us www.syndham.com www.talksmartwireless.com www.tei4cal.com www.telesis.org www.themarlinalliance.com www.thermogammametrics.com www.tijuanaestuary.com www.titan.com www.tlcstaffing.com www.tns.net www.tolchin.net www.tpsoft.com www.trw.com www.tycoint.com www.ucsd.edu www.uniontrib.com www.unisys.com www.usa.net www.utm.net www.va.gov www.verizon.com www.verizon.net www.vincent-enterprises.com www.virtuallyblack.com www.vue.com www.vvsd.net www.websidestory.com www.wopikamarketing.com www.workforce.org www.worldnetatt.net www.worldtravel.com www.yahoo.com www.yahoogroups.com

Yesterday everyone assumed my injury was racquetball related. It would make a better story for sure.

Pedal Powered Networking Update: Technical Information For The Jhai PC And Communications System

More:
Pedal Power: Look Ma No Wires
Jhai PC – A Computer for Most of the World
JHAI Foundation: The Remote IT Village Project

Now that’s a really interesting use of technology.

A link from my friend Steve K: THE PROPHET – Kahlil Gibran — for future reference.

I like this:

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the slough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men: For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

I get a lot of questions about this, it’s been added to the FAQ.

So because of my RT Resume I get calls occasionally from people googling for Respiratory Therapist Resumes. It turns out RT work is hot and heavy right now. In the past month I’ve gotten at least 2 calls or emails a week for per diem, part-time, full time, pulmonary function testing, floor care, ICU, etc. The thing is, the work pays much less than my web development skills. I’d be tempted, but apparently the society values health care less than it values websites.

I must say, I’m conflicted about not taking RT work more seriously. I do maintain my California license though.

I may yet return to the work in some form.

Perhaps I’ll start a web based RT employment agency. I certainly have the Google PageRank for it.

Several weeks ago Leah, I, and some friends went to Ray at Night in North Park. One of the more interesting art galleries is actually part gallery, part bookstore, and part barber shop: R. Spot Barber and Books. They had some really great art. It had kind of a city vibe to it – very New York – very black. Really awesome. Worth a visit, for sure.

For the New Header for the blog. This should last me till the end of the year.

Janece of janece.com has paintings for sale. You know, Leah has some older works around, which she would be willing to sell. I may not have a shopping cart for her, but I’d be willing to agent some of her work.

East Bay Express — Down in Front Brother, Who Art Thou? — A black man with an acoustic guitar is rare. But a guy like Stew is rarest.

Aside from being a good leader as we mourned 911, I think very little of President Bush. But the contemplation of a return to the moon is something I can unreservedly get behind.

Though I’m really beginning to think Dean has a shot to be the next President. The re-election of the President is not a fait accompli.

My first and only cease and desist letter was some time back. When I got this GTM had been defunct for some time. Never mind that I had had a verbal agreement with my supervisor at GTM for permission to show the logo as part of my portfolio online.

They gave me “fine” business days to remove the page. I think they meant “five” Heh. Crazy lawyers!

Here’s the text of the letter:

Global Telecom Media
December 9, 1997
Joseph A. Crawford
3375 Manning Ave. #14
Los Angeles, CA 90064

A search of VOAA through YAHOO turns up the site //home.earthlink.net/~artlung/logos5.html, apparently your site. An examination of of that site turns up work done for our company (to wit; a VOAA logo and artwork for GTM.NET.) This work is the property of Global Telecom Media and is not to be reproduced without our permission. Please remove it immediately. If it is not removed within fine(sic) business days of this letter being posted, we will have no alternative but to turn this matter over to counsel.

Cordially,
James A. Lee

cc. P. Campbell, Esq.
GTM023.DOC
9713 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 218
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 273-7760
(310)273-8860

• My sister sent me the link for videos from The Darkness. She said: “Watch the video for I Believe in a Thing Called Love. It’s amazing.”. I have. She’s right. Unashamed 70’s Power Pop. Reminds me of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody merged with the Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic.
• A plugin for PGP for Mail.app: GPGMail
• I’m alarmed to find out that the open eye racquetball goggles I want so much do not work: Open (Lensless) Eye guards Fail Testing; Racquetball Eye Injuries
• United States Marine, Artist
• The amazing history of Frank Zappa and Louie Louie
• The story of the Frank Zappa statue in Vilnius. And, The statue itself.
• Elizabeth Shin tragedy: comment by Philip Greenspun
• What is this about SCO and SAMBA source code?

(Blogger was down when I wrote this part): A light rain is falling here. It should be a lovely day.

…

Leah and I went to a more solemn Catholic Mass this evening. Fulfilling. This has been a mellow weekend. My ankle is feeling better, too. Though we went to the store to buy an ankle brace and when we got home the box was empty. Oops. That makes me feel dumb.

It was a good day. I trust it will be a good week too.

He growls.

He growls off into the kitchen, at unseen and unheard forces. Bolt upright, and growling quietly.

“We have our very own guard kitty,” says Leah.

She whispered it, lest he growl at her.

M-THEORY MUSIC does a nice job with their online newsletter. I don’t think it’s on the web, but it’s a nice personal flavorful bunch of nuggets of opinion, new music, and local flavor. Kudos to them.

And if you’re in San Diego, you should check ’em out.

Remind me to listen to this NPR piece about Talking Heads when I get the chance.

Lots to say. Much stuff happening. Wait for the weekend for more info. Here’s a word I didn’t know much about before I started reading Quicksilver: papist.

No really, more this weekend. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to burst with links and news, and this is one of those times. But not right now.

I played my first racquetball in 2 weeks since I sprained my ankle. My ankle still hurts. The game was more like chess — with limited mobility, shot selection and placement is more critical. It makes me wonder if wearing really heavy shoes would be an interesting discipline while training. It was good to play, even if I did not do as well as usual.

Afterwards I bought an elaborate lace-up brace at Sports Chalet in Point Loma. I think keeping off it, and stabilizing it can only be good for the ankle.

Leah’s kids are here, though her youngest is ill. I am presently tired and lying in bed due to racquetball and because I happened to stay up till 4am or so working on some freelance. Yesterday’s timing of events and responsibilities was not optimal. I stayed a bit late at work, no problem.

But my Grandma asked me about getting one of my cousins’ varisty football games to show up on her computer. The archived games were available, but there was no video. Well, her Windows 98 machine had an older version of Windows Media Player (these were .asx files), so I advised her to upgrade WMP to version 9.

This of course produced only confusion on her part, and asked me if I could do it.

Under the circumstances, I decided sure, I can totally do this!

The downfall, of course, is that my Grandparents are on dial-up. So the 14 megabyte install took an hour and change to download.

Actually, it was cool to just chat with my Grandma for an hour about the holiday season, about helping her buy a gift for my Uncle (a computer guy), I showed her the photos of Bas on Leah’s site, she talked about having lots of cats when she was a girl. We talked a very little bit about Church. Last Sunday Leah and I went to St. Joseph’s Cathedral downtown, and I can’t think of any reason for me to have gone there with anyone other than her. So it was like a little oasis of a conversation in a hectic day. I feel lucky to have some Grandparents who are still around. She talks about how embarassed she is about having not such good control of her right arm. Twenty years ago she had a terrible stroke, which she has survived with grit and determination. But it changed her life utterly — she had been vibrant and active, and losing her right side catastrophically meant she could no longer drive, write, type, walk the way she once could.

I have a hard time seeing how I could do much better than she has considering she lost so much mobility and dexterity. She’s a marvel of energy and mental strength. Sometimes I even see myself in her. Or should I say, sometimes I see aspects of her when I look at myself.

So now I’m listening to Virgin Radio UK on iTunes. They played The Rolling Stones’ Undercover of the Night, a song I like. Ty brought me hot cocoa. Today we’re taking it easy. Chilling out in this 1892 house. Playing games, blogging, having cocoa, and soon I’ll be napping.

I like today. It could be a morass of stress, especially considering it’s the holiday season — presents to buy, lines to be in, and all of that — but today is good.

Aljazeera.Net – Saddam Hussein captured has the best coverage at the moment of giving the full story. CNN (on TV) had President Bush giving a speech, but little in full details of how he was captured, and the context of same.

I watched Three Kings, one of my favorite movies, with Leah’s two older boys last night. I suppose this is the endpoint for one of its’ plot points, Saddam himself.

So the question is, what changes for the Iraqi people?

• I gave blood today.
• next time I give blood I’ll drink more beforehand.
• I’m still loving Quicksilver.
• I have purchased some Christmas gifts.
• I have more to purchase.
• Going to Mass tonight.
• Going shopping tonight.
• I’m wearing an ankle brace.
• The weekend was great — Leah and I had her kids.
• The cat is slowly recovering from the traffic levels.
• Reflective heaters ROCK!
• I prefer too hot to too cold.
• I like the game Go.
• itsyourturn.com is nifty.
• My iBook is a useful, versatile tool.
• I reorganized some books last night and found some mouse droppings. Old ones. The cat found them before I cleaned them up. I hope Bas understands to associate that smell with “KILL!”
• I enjoy french toast.
• The Ukes of Hazzard are charmingly funny and silly.
• Leah makes tasty french toast.
• Old Christmas Content on ArtLung.com: Merry Christmas in other languages.
• Target during Christmastime is busy.
• Possible plans for New Year’s include a trip to Utah.
• More as it happens.

Is over. I may take it again sometime soon. I did well, and got good workouts. My ankle still hurts but has improved. Work is fine. Preparations continue apace for Christmastime. Found some older mouse droppings the other night. Bas smelled them, and with luck is primed to take action should he find the creators of said droppings. Though we’ve had no signs of mice for a while.

Still very busy now. I look forward to peace and quiet of vacation/holidaytime.

Respiratory therapy – Wikipedia. Supposedly I know about this field.

See: lab.artlung.com.

So Saddam was caught the other day. Today, Mathowie and Anildash point to the first person account of the Saddam Raid.

But was Saddam awfully haggard in those photos? And was that spider hole: a of base of operations or more like a prison cell?

Looks like it was actually the Kurds that caught Saddam – note the sources are in the Arab world, Australia, UK, India. I don’t see any US sources there.

They say the first casualty of war is the truth.

So will we see the US domestic media tell this story?

Voom. So busy. Ankle feeling better. Christmas tree up. Crafts done. Stocking made for my Aunt for someone else. Freelance project going well. Lord of the Rings seen. Chocolate covered cherries made by Leah. Leah put up links to her articles on her blog. Some old decorations will be taken to Goodwill. Gifts purchased. Many Christmas cards mailed. Enjoying Fairytale of New York and A Charlie Brown Christmas music.

I am content, though a bit more stressed than usual. Supposedly, this is typical during the hoidays. Being aware of it is a nice change. To know my own limits is a wonderful thing.

I want to kiss you! vs. I kiss you! (see what Mahir did with his fame at: ikissyou.org). More on the ESPN broadcast at oliverwillis.com. The reporter, Suzy Kolber, handled the incident perfectly I think. I think this is not sexual harassment of any kind, but I think people will be loathe to put Joe Namath on the air without a breathalyzer test.

I’m stressed out. Working on it.

1. 2001 header
2. Saying “Merry Christmas” in many languages
3. Is there a Santa? (from an engineering standpoint)

• He’s Not In It For The Money: Frank Zappa’s Big Band Brother Ed Palermo
• QRIO: Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun To Be With!
• Zinni, Vietnam veteran, Bush supporter in 2000, against the conflict in Iraq
• Judge: I saw police commit felonies: A judge who said he witnessed some of the anti-free trade protests complains in open court about how police handled the demonstrations.
• Net Smartass Extraordinaire gives us: Shock and Awe: Merry Christmas from the White House!
• Mission creep for Patriot Act
• From Leah: Tolerance.org: MISOGYNY IN MUSIC: Have Videos Gone Wild?
• Hilarious Audio from NPR: NPR : Humorist and NPR commentator David Sedaris — a Santaland Diary thing. Very very very funny.
• My Quixtar URLs Page was updated.
• I like this Doug Welch column, which can be summed up as Think.
• NFL Click for Cans
• jwz points to Eyesore of the Month by James Howard Kunstler — wow! bitter, smart, witty!
• HTTP made easy
• What Does LVX Mean?
• Great quote: “No man was more comprehensively doomed than him whose chief source of gratification was making favorable impressions on some particular woman.” — Quicksilver p. 389
• Slugging — I did not believe in this — but my sister who lives in DC says: My friend slugs to work every day. She lives with her dad way out in Potomac Mills, slugs to the Pentagon, takes the metro there and is work in about a half an hour to forty minutes. Otherwise it would take her up to an hour to two hours (on a bad day) to get to work. Evidently, there are unspoken rules, for example, no talking, driver controls the radio, driver must pick up two people (to make it safe), and you don’t make future arrangements to meet up. It’s a great way to commute because all parties involved benefit and there’s no commitment. Driver gets to take the HOV lane and everybody gets to work faster. Erica was saying that they did a piece on NPR and she heard that it was started by military folks who lived out in the burbs when the HOV lane was created. Or, so I’ve heard.

It’s 11:24 on 11/23. Here comes Christmas!

Onward.

That’s all I have to say, really. Peace and Love to you.

Scientific American: Unmaking Memories: Interview with James McGaugh — this is really interesting.

On the agenda today: getting out of bed, breakfast, laundry, and a birthday party.

We don’t do that after nine o’clock. The grill is closed, dude.

Cats love printers.