Mt. Molelog

5 By 5

Never one to avoid peer pressure, here’s my “5 by 5”.

5 Things You Feel Right Now

• A headache
• The sweet tang of just-eaten Hot Tamales
• Existential Dread
• That I don’t give a rat’s ass about whoever it is missing in Aruba
• Claws digging into my back

Last 5 Things you Bought

• A month’s worth of hosting from johncompanies
• Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shephers and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly
• Joan Baez’s The First 10 Years
• The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
• The Violent Femmes’ BBC Live (not yet released)

5 Objects of Lust

• Aneli
• Monica Bellucci
• Luxe aka Kimberly
• Sara Rue
• Drew Barrymore

5 Things in Your Pocket or Purse

• Keys: house, garage, car door, car ignition, Albertson’s discount tag
• Wallet: leather 3-fold, about 20 years old. It’s needed replacing for at least the past 10 years, but I’ve never found another one that feels right
• Change: about $4 worth
• Pager (Not sure that’s the exact model, but it looks the same.)
• No tea

5 Things You Collect

• Books
• Email
• Smut
• CDs
• Dust

I have a nasty completist streak: if I have, say, 2 or 3 CDs by a group or books by an author, I feel pretty compelled to have everything. So I end up with 70 Depeche Mode CDs or 22 of the 23 Gardner Dozois SF annuals (and, haven’t gotten that close, the $350 required to get Volume 1 is starting to sound reasonable).

5 True Statements You Can Make That Most People Can’t

• It is obvious to me that the title of this section should actually be “5 Statements Which, When You Make Them, Are True But Which, If Most Other People Made, Would Not Be.” and that the actual title doesn’t mean the same thing at all.
• I am the one typing this particular sentence.
• I am the one who typed the sentence above.
• Three different people have offered me money if I’d let them shave my head.
• I understand the name of Pan version 0.14.0.94 (“Jubal’s Hollow. Are you?”)

2005-06-25 17:40:22 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

The Bought & Paid For Oklahoma Capitol Dome

While I was growing up, the Oklahoma state Capitol building didn’t have a dome. This isn’t actually unique like I was taught — some other states have domeless capitols as well. Oklahoma’s was the only domeless one that had been intended to have a dome.

There were periodic calls that Something Must Be Done, but every time someone came up with something better to do with the money like, y’know, make the public schools a little less abysmal.

Until 2000, when Governor Frank Keating decided that it really needed to happen. Over the next few years, something on the order of $21 million was spent to build & install a dome; 75% of the funding came from private sources; I don’t know whether it came in on budget or not, and whether the private funding kicked in the full 75% or not.

What I do know is that, with the dome, the Capitol looks both boringly generic and top-heavy, and I don’t like it.

What I found out tonight, while looking at at these pictures, is that the ‘private funding’ sources got something concrete in return: their company names inscribed in the dome itself.

I’m not sure whether that says “these politicians for sale” or “these politicians already sold; go find your own”. Either way, it rubs me the wrong way.

The new photos are by KellyK.

2005-05-31 22:17:46 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Jim Thorpe Office Building

Jim Thorpe was the greatest athelete in the world. Having been born in what would become Oklahoma, he has a state office building named after him (he also has a town in Pennsylvania named after him; he never lived there, never even visited there, but it’s named after him anyway).

Among the other things housed in the Jim Thorpe Building is the Office of Personnel Management, where I worked during my college hiatus.

Unisys PCs, Banyan Vines and token-ring, ahoy!

Originally uploaded by KellyK.

2005-05-31 19:25:59 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Alice Harn Park

This art deco monument is from Alice Harn Park, across the street from the house I grew up in from age 8 on.

Several times, we found evidence of people living in the park, right behind that monument in the little grove of trees. Once, we found a knife there; my memory says it had blood on it, but that may be a youthful memory exaggeration.

I’ve never known who Alice Harn was.

Originally uploaded by BaronBrian.

2005-05-30 22:39:11 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Found Sex Toy?

This weekend I went back to Portland to go to a not-a-birthday-party and pick up the last of my computer equipment from my old house. Saturday night, I stayed in the Beaverton Budget Inn. Sunday morning, lying in bed, I happened to notice something hanging on the bedroom door doorknob, where it couldn't be seen unless you were either in bed or closed the door for some odd reason.

I am now in possession of a 3M ^® Littman ^® Classic II S.E. Stethoscope. Mine (well, "mine") is maroon, not black, but I can't find a picture that quite matches.

It has a patented tunable disaphragm on one side that augments the traditional bell function of the other!

2003-10-06 14:02:00 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Moved to Seattle

Well, I'm pretty officially moved to Seattle now. I'm currently in temporary housing, a furnished apartment in a building in Belltown (whatever that means). Hopefully within 45 days I'll have bought a permanent place and will be moved into it, and then will never move again, ever.

Most of my stuff is in boxes in storage, somewhere. I can't believe how cut off I already feel from my books, after just 2 days without them. The things that aren't in storage fall into a few categories: things I told the movers not to take, things the movers couldn't take, and things the movers just didn't take.

Things I told the movers not to take, and brought with me today:

• my wearable clothes
• my toiletries (as interpreted by the movers, that includes the books in the bathrooms)
• one Tivo, its remote, and the cables necessary to hook it up (possibly excluding its power cable -- hopefully that's still in the car somewhere)
• various important papers
• my notebook
• the laptop computer
• one telephone
• my digital camera, some memory cards, and batteries
• a fan
• the cats, cat carriers, cat dishes, and cat food
• probably a few other things

Things I told the movers not to take and meant to bring with me today but ran out of space for in my small small car:

• my main desktop commercial
• the various assorted drinks (mostly soft, also some Mike's Hard Lemonaid) from my fridge

Things the movers just didn't take, some of which I brought and some of which I didn't:

• trash
• my sandals
• my chess set
• the other telephone

things the movers couldn't take, some of which I brought and some of which I didn't:

• anything that claimed to be 'explosive', including various cleaning supplies and compressed air
• matches
• litterboxes

2003-09-20 23:57:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Depression/shyness and me

Depression / shyness / hermitness / social anxiety disorder sucks sometimes.

O'Reilly's Open Source Convention is happening this week, close to me, and Rael was kind enough to arrange a comped pass for me ... and despite meaning to and wanting to, I haven't managed to actually make it down there yet. The primary excuse is a broken sleep schedule, which is certainly true enough (9:30pm, time to wake up!), but it's also at least partially a symptom of the real underlying causes.

mskmsl has expressed interest in going with tomorrow, so maybe that'll help. Or maybe I'll just have to get more creative in excuse-finding (my car's a mess. a pit, really. there's no room for her feet in the passenger side. how's that for an excuse?).

On the plus sides, I'm admitting I have a problem, and that's Step One, right? And I think I'm getting better at the talking on the phone thing. And I made it to my art class last night.

Update: Mary-Suzanne continues to insist that her last initial has changed just because her last name changed. Updated above.

2003-07-09 21:27:00 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

BoogieMan pic

ms "nude gymnastics" kl (who's a recent convert to the Blosxom Brigade) posted a picture of Boogie, Ripper's identical littermate.

Ripper's more interested in the mouse pointer than the picture, though.

2003-06-10 01:19:00 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Personal::Cats::Ripper

David Chess

Those of you I know in real life (which includes some kinds of knowing-online, us being the kinds of people we are) have probably already been told repeatedly "you should read David Chess". I'm not sure if you've followed up on that, though, and according to my logs there are actually several dozen people I don't know reading this on a regular basis, not to mention a couple thousand a day looking for bittorrent porn or Catherine Zeta-Jones pregnant & topless or whatnot.

So -- read David Chess

Tonight's writing is a good example of why. It's real, it's touching, it's smart.

Long-time readers of this log will recall our theory about how the world is run by pretty high-school girls (pretty in the "right there behind their eyes" sort of sense)

I'm glad to have the chance here to establish my spiritual bona fides, despite my tendency (which I have no intention of repudiating here) to blame many of the ills of the world on people's belief in various Imaginary Friends in the Sky (IFITS).

...

The Quaker IFITS is one that I can heartily subscribe to; entirely (or sufficiently) compatible with my own imaginary friend. The Goddess Ariadne and the God of the Quakers would have no quarrel, and each would gladly accept the other as an avatar or an alias. These Quakers, anyway.

This is the good kind of IFITS, the kind that you can't talk about for awhile, and then in the same breath say "and so because Ralphie here is a heretic, we'll be burning him at the stake next Wednesday".

So there I was standing on a dock on a lake in Vermont, stark naked with five stark naked Quakers (well, one of them was wearing a hat, and I didn't actually check to make sure they were all Quakers, but you get the idea), and it was amazingly wonderful, both because it validated that bit of my own self-image that says I'd be perfectly comfortable in such a situation (since I was) and because of the general sense of warmth and fellow-feeling associated with the other fuzzy pink blobs on the dock there (stark naked means no glasses, too, after all).

(I will freely admit to finding the two female fuzzy pink blobs even lovelier than the three male ones; no sense pretending to be any more abstract than I am.)

2003-05-26 20:50:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

Reasons Unemployment Sucks, a continuing series

O'Reilly's Open Source Convention 2003 will be in downtown portland, a mere 15 minutes from my house, but i'm having trouble convincing myself I can afford to go.

2003-05-03 11:43:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal

I'm Free I'm Free I'm...Unemployed

As of about half an hour ago, I'm officially Available for Other Opportunities.

This has been a long ride, and although the likely end has been obvious for years now, I'm still finding it hard to believe it's really over for me.

I joined the company in July '98; it was a startup just starting its upwards climb, after several months of funding-less slogging by the founders. I was either employee #7 or #11 depending on how you counted.

The founders are long since gone, the last one leaving the board of directors about 3 years ago. By then, we had about 120 people -- about 100 employees, about 20 contractors.

July of 2000 2001, the layoffs started. 1/3 cut, then another 1/3, then a truly big one, with a couple small ones interspersed. Last August there was an unusual business transaction that involved 5 people leaving -- not a layoff, and it was good for both sides, but it left us that much smaller (and I could have been one of the five, and maybe should have chosen to be, but didn't want to make the required move). After that, there was just one person here who had been here longer than I, our CEO.

His contract expired the end of February and wasn't renewed, and suddenly I was the last person still here from that era. By this point, we were back down to 14 people, 6 of them contractors.

Early this month, one of our major customers informed us they wouldn't be renewing their contract, and the Board decided that meant more cutbacks -- and given the plan for the rest of the company, I was one of the right choices. So here we are. As of this morning, it's a five person company, expected to be shut down entirely over the next 4 months or so.

The only thing I'm bitter about is that, if the board were willing to let us keep trying, I really think we could still make it. One of our revenue streams is picking up faster than was expected, and we'd break even for the year -- and ... stuff I can talk about even less. But it looked damn promising.

If anybody's looking for a talented semi-obsessive Linux C Perl programmer in the Portland area, let me know. I've got great references, and if I believe in the work I'll pour my heart and soul into it as long as it's got a chance, as you can see.

2003-04-15 11:36:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Personal