There will be JE's (and pictures) to follow, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I have returned from the Tuscan hills intact. I am happy to be back in the US, something of a surprise in itself. I have some 450 images to sort through and a number of essays to write. I have exactly figured out how to organize the web content, but when I do, the location of all that will be announced here first.
Getting here.
It is just as I anticipated. I may just be able to become accustomed enough to being in Europe to seriously consider a permanent move here. I'm not sure exactly where I belong in the EU, but both France and Italy are now candidates. I have much more to learn, including a language or two, but I don't feel alien or uncomfortable here.
Ever wonder what not watching television will do for you? Actually, it's not TV itself I have eschewed. It is television advertising. Also, it's not some extreme ban. I still watch at friend's houses and at bars. I just don't watch at home. I subscribe to The Daily Show, South Park and The Colbert Report from iTMS. I watch the replay at C-SPAN when something happens newsy.
I have not posted much lately. If you exempt geeky posts about OS experimentation I've been on the quieter side since Day 1 of the Napa trip. Hmm.
All I can gel as a concept is that I've been sort of the opposite of "full of myself." I have been emptying myself. Silence is the soundtrack for emptying.
For the last 18 months we've been giving these IBM X40 Thinkpads to our clinical staff for field documentaion. We are phasing them out in favor of these IBM x60's, because well, when your software is based on
Newsflash: Plain vanilla Debian Linux (as opposed to *Ubuntu, Gentoo, Damn Small Linux and all the other Debian variants) is not ready for the desktop. Film at 11.
"Everyone's got one" Dept: I don't care.
Mitsuko (pronounced MEET-sko, the U is silent) is a work-friend of mine. I went to hear her sing at Sugar Bar on the upper west side tonight. I've always been very friendly to Mitsuko and I like her very much. She's stunningly gorgeous and one of the kindest, most optimistic and most cheerful people I've ever known. She also occupies an informally very powerful position in my company as the gatekeeper for
Ok, I wasn't happy with Kubuntu because I was not in the mood to learn a distro. I am a Debian-ite, and I know, I know, Kubuntu is really Debian, blah, blah, blah. Here are the ways in which I am terminally unique:
I intercepted a IBM ThinkPad T22 just before it went in the trash at work because of a corrupted EPROM (PXE-E05 error if anyone knows anything about that), a bad NIC (on-board, probably related to the EPROM problem) and a bad optical drive (removable, I know, but I'm not making these inventory decisions, I just dumpster-dive). I burned a Kubuntu 6.06 live-cd from the iso, temporarily swapped a CD-ROM from another machine, booted up the Kubuntu disk and ran the HD install util on the CD.
You know, just when I am getting an attitude about life, I am sent this photo. [NSFW]
Those are Vandy stickers there....
I am going to be in Italy during the first two weeks of September. I have need for a cell phone. I would like something like a pre-paid plan, particularly something using a SIM card I can slip into a Nokia 3390. Can any of you European Slashdotters give me what information you might have about such a project?
Also, on a side note, does anyone know anything about the train service between Zurich and Florence?
It took me quite a period of staring at the blank text editor window to begin this JE. Usually when I meet another Slashdotter I rely on humor as a framework for expressing my experience. My visit with Sam gave me plenty of material with which to work. There was a personal meat-space context around someone in our personal spheres trying to protect one of us from the other because of the "dangers of the internets." There was the overall "man-date" tenor of our encounters. There were belon
I am in the foothills of The Front Range. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, it's just as well. There's definitely a sub-group of feminine charm (probably a masculine one as well, I'm just mostly oblivious to it) in areas with mountains. I'd forgottem how much I appreciate it. It only takes a couple of days here to recapture my fond memories.
SamTheButcher and I are going to get together tomorrow and get really high.
July 19th was my birthday. Mid-forties. I just had one of the best meals I have ever had in my entire life. I dined at Redd (yes, it is spelled correctly, the Chef is Richard Reddington) in Yountville in Napa Valley. There's not much on the website (as an aside, I have learned over the last couple of days that web designers for Napa businesses are very fond of Flash).
NB:
They look really great that way.
"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." - Martin Mull
