News: December 2000

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December 31, 2000

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After a weather/air traffic-delayed Alaska Air flight, we partied it up in Salem with Matt, Ginger, Dennis, Joe, Carol, Josh, and Beth as we rang in the new year. Despite a bit of tiredness on our part, we had a wonderful time. I can't think of a better way to greet the start of the new year.

Best wishes to everyone in 2001.

December 30, 2000—Los Altos, California
Party at the Lillys' with much of the extended Lilly family assembled for the proceedings. Food, games, conversation, NFL playoff football, NBA basketball, etc. Who could ask for more?

I can't yet explain why, but this has been one of the more enjoyable Christmas seasons in recent memory. Perhaps my grandma's death put things in the proper perspective. Or maybe it was helping feed the poor at St. Edwards on Christmas that accomplished that same end. It could have been that we celebrated two Christmases for the price of one—one with my family on the 25th, and one with Erin's on the 26th. Certainly I also liked seeing so many friends over the break. It could be a combination of all those things.

But for whatever reason, this has been a Christmas season better than most, and to those of you who have played a part—no matter how small—thank you. I am deeply appreciative.

December 29, 2000—Los Altos, California
We met with Shan and Heather this evening at their home in Santa Clara. They were good enough to meet us after they'd spent hours on the road driving back from San Luis Obispo. We got the chance to see some of the house improvements they're making and came away quite impressed. The bathroom they decorated, in particular, offered a shining example of their talent, and I can't wait to see what results their future efforts yield.

December 28, 2000—Los Altos, California
Erin and I drove to Pleasanton to see our friends Debi and Maurice. Debi, a college professor from North Carolina, taught at St. Francis with Erin a few years ago, and they've been great friends ever since. Debi's developed a Spanish for Law Enforcement course for North Carolina (an amazing and very impressive course IMHO) and her own web site, DrLemon.net, has links to a wide variety of Spanish language education sites. If you're even remotely interested in learning Spanish, do yourself a favor and check it out.

December 27, 2000—Los Altos, California
Liz, Erin and I visited Christine and Jared at GlobeTrotter Software and had the chance not only to see Christine's office but also Jared's Day Care Room. All concerned thought it was totally cool that the distance from office to day care was something like 20 yards, allowing Christine quick and easy child access. Jared was in full "look what I can do" mode, and delighted in impressing the attentive visitors. When lunch finally rolled around, we left Jared to his play toys and headed out for a meal at a local Mexican restaurant.

For dinner, Erin and I ventured to Cupertino to visit our friend Jennie. We stayed up late swapping stories and going through pictures. This was not all that unexpected. Hehe.

Weather has been clear, warm in the sun during the days, and cold in the evenings. It's an enjoyable change from Oregon, though I'll be hoping for snow when we return.

December 26, 2000—Los Altos, California
We caught an early morning Southwest Airlines flight from Portland to San Jose, a successful jaunt despite the 3:45 AM wake up time. Many thanks to Dad for dropping us off at the airport.

Upon arrival we were whisked into Christmas Part 2 where we celebrated all over again, this time with Bernard, Liz, Mark, Christine, Jared, Joe and Helen. It was a wonderful gathering marred only slightly by me slicing my pinkie whist using a bagel slicer. (And I thought those things were supposed to protect my fingers!) Nonetheless, an excellent time!

In the afternoon, Bernard, Mark and I took Bernard's Model A out for a spin around town. The car has been restored, and despite the complexity of actually driving the thing (something which both Mark and I took turns doing—in an empty parking lot), it's a really fun vehicle to toot around in.

After yet another delicious meal, we bid adieu to Joe, Helen, Mark, Christine and Jared and settled in for the DVDs of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 (thank you, Bret!). Both movies are Rated G and great fun for kids and adults. Highly recommended.

[As a side note, we hooked Trinity's DVD up to the Lilly's VCR and routed the audio/video signals into the TV. Although the DVDs played well, we experienced some color shifting—a problem which we did not experience at home, making me think it might not be a Trinity issue. We did encounter a slight pause in the middle of the movies when the DVD changed layers, but that's normal. (Each DVD is encoded on 2 layers. When the laser reading the information switches layers, there's a pause when it reorients itself.)]

December 25, 2000—Christmas
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

After enjoying a fabulous afternoon meal, a Blazer victory over the much-despised Lakers, and a game of Beyond Balderdash with Mom, Dad, and Bret, Erin and I returned home this evening to prepare for "Christmas Part 2: The Bay Area Saga." In short, we'll be visiting family and friends in California over the course of the next week.

Again, best wishes to everyone for a wonderful holiday season! And to some of you, see you soon!

December 23, 2000
After another week that saw three days of work up in Portland, I'm definitely ready for the holidays. The upside, of course, is that SiteRev.com has never had a better month, and that means that Trinity will tricked out with all kinds of gadgets in pretty short order (or else I get walloped on the tax end).

In the last month the company's LAN (local area network) has added an AsanteTalk adapter to let Trinity (or any other computer on the LAN) print to the LaserJet printer. Trinity's also added a PCMIA SCSI card which lets the PowerBook connect to the Jaz drive and the scanner. It's a somewhat inelegant solution, but it's the best available since I didn't want to use up either of the two FireWire ports. Just today Trinity started using one of those ports for a QPS Que!Fire 12x 10x 32x CD-R/RW burner. That'll mean more permanent backups for starters, but also the ability to burn audio CDs, notably my own when the time comes.

I picked up my business cards from LazerQuick, and the results are what I'd call adequate. Knowing what I know now, I would do some things differently (and topping that list might be going to a different printer). On the whole, I still like the new logo (sorry, the company web site is still not updated), though the shadow effect came off a little bit lamer than I was told it would. Also, I should have used a stiffer card stock (again I made the mistake of following LaserQuick's recommendations). Cost savings was good, but this is definite case of "you get what you pay for."

These quibbles aside, the card is more than adequate for my needs. The press run was probably 100 cards more than the 1000 I ordered, so it'll take me at least a few years to burn through these guys even if I dump them in every raffle jar in town. All my friends should expect to receive at least two. Hehe.

December 17, 2000
Lots of work up in Portland for me over the last week, and it's a commute that I'm happy I don't have to make all that regularly. Once or twice isn't that bad, but stack a few days in a row together and it gets to be a real drag. I'm enjoying the client work, though, since it's enabled me to play with Adobe InDesign, program in Perl, and futz with several different types of Macs. It might sound like a weird idea of fun, but it's mine, and I'm holding to it.

Thanks to Dave, Matt, Dennis, and Joe for this weekend's LAN party. Plenty of QuakeWorld, Carmageddon, and, in a bit of a surprise, Links LS. Links is a golf game, but everybody seemed to take to it like ducks to water, so shame on me, I guess, for not introducing it sooner. I guess I figured that it would be too slow-paced after the high speed mayhem of QuakeWorld and Carmageddon.

I'd not received a phone call from Lazerquick for a full 10 days after it was promised, so today's visit regarding my long-overdue and really messed up business cards was every bit as eventful as one can imagine. Ultimately they pacified me with a promise that they would have the cards printed by Friday and would offer me a price break for all my headaches.

Given that they're about $45 per 1000 cards cheaper than Kinko's (not including my "we're sorry" price break), I agreed. Nonetheless, I'm uncertain that I'll ever return after this. Certainly I would not advise anyone to try Lazerquick as their first printing option. They're honest, well-intentioned people who, in my view, simply don't know their business very well.

Am I wrong to judge honesty and good intentions as insufficient for my purposes? Is it too high a standard to expect competence as well? My questions out of this experience tend less to Lazerquick and more toward vendors/clients/people in general. How much idiocy should one tolerate, after all? If it saves me a bunch of money, is some level of stupidity okay if everything works out in the end? Probably. But it seems at me that at some point a line is crossed and the biggest fool is the one who is putting up with morons.

I'd prefer not to be that fool, and here's hoping that in this printing fiasco, I'm not.

December 12, 2000
Erin got the best of all possible worlds today: A two-hour delay in the start of school. Since full snow days have to be made up at the end of the year, they're not nearly as beneficial as one might imagine. Regardless, the two hours today was helpful because getting up the little hill in front of our house was a little on the tricky side this morning.

The view down to the snow-covered park, both yesterday and today, was spectacular. Kids are sledding on a hill in the distance, running about throwing snowballs, building snowmen, and I just stand up here and think, "Our own children are going to love this place." It's like having a 7 acre patch of countryside in your backyard, and I really do find it just terrific. Add 6 inches of snow, and it gets even better.

I spent most of today over at Mom and Dad's going over some Adobe Photoshop 5.5 stuff with Mom for her class. She's got a real knack for it, and despite the complexity of the program, I'm really looking forward to seeing what she ultimately creates.

One of today's projects was a wonderful composition called "Gone Fishing" which featured a beautiful background of a snowcapped mountain with lake, a devil-may-care fisherman/hiker, and a house engulfed in flames on the far side of the lake. I thought it was a hysterical commentary on the mindset and the priorities of the avid fisherman as well as a really good Photoshop composition. I'll see if Mom will give me permission to post it in the Digital Art Gallery, and everyone can see what I mean.

I spent a couple hours updating grades for Erin this evening, but that should do it for my contributions to her year 2000 academic endeavors. You can't believe the difference a year makes. Not only have I had a lot less to help out on, but her stress level is so much lower than it's ever been at this time of year that it's remarkable. I'm sure that's a product of more experience and one less class—maybe the latter, despite the financial hit, was the disguised blessing we'd hoped. From this vantage point, I would say so.

At any rate, three more days, and she's on Christmas break. Hurray!

December 11, 2000
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. It's about 1:30 PM and we've accumulated about 2 inches here in the mid-Willamette Valley with no signs of a let up. Salem-Keizer schools closed after lunch, so I expect Erin home soon.

Maybe we'll go walking a winter wonderland.

December 10, 2000
Pretty much a lazy Sunday for me. I napped most of the day after Erin and I got back late from Portland. Erin's cousin (first cousin once removed for you genealogy buffs) Martha-Ann through her annual Christmas bash and it was stellar, just like the last time we were there a few years ago. Although we didn't know anyone at the party, we had a good time chatting with a number of Martha-Ann's friends and it was great to finally meet her husband Warren. (Since we were in France, we missed their wedding this last summer.) We're hopeful that we can arrange a time to see Martha-Ann and Warren again, under slightly less populated (and therefore chaotic) circumstances over Erin's Spring Break. Great Xmas party, though.

I finally finished the Adobe Classroom in a Book for Photoshop 5. What a fantastic overview of an incredibly complex program. The Adobe books are expensive at around $45, but if you've got the perseverance, they can be a great way to learn.

I'm going to move on to my Advanced Photoshop Classroom in a Book next. If history is any guide, I should finish it about 2005. Hehe.

December 9, 2000
I went for my long-delayed police ride along last night with Officer J.K. "Jimmy" Krauger, and despite the chilly weather making for a rather slow shift, the calls we did respond on were plenty interesting. You can read the story in Let's Be Careful Out There, my opinion piece on the subject.

I'm looking forward to doing it again in another few months.

I've started fiddling again with Adobe LiveMotion, another in my ever-expanding array of web design tools. Hope to have a few neat things online (like my revised SiteRev.com site) online soon.

December 7, 2000
I find myself grieving for my grandmother in the open and quiet moments of the day. It's an odd sensation, grief, like some kind of soul-stirring emptiness that refuses to respond to the brain's command to stop. It seems sometimes like all one can do is absorb a little of it then find a distraction so that time can soften the pain until a little more can be dealt with. If you've experienced grief you know what I mean; if not, I dare say you can only guess. It's not an experience that I believe is possible to live vicariously.

I have experienced overwhelming and debilitating grief, and this is not that. I know intellectually that these are feelings less about my grandmother's death and more about my loss of her in my life, and there is a large part of me that wishes—as strange as it sounds—that my emotions would be less self-centered.

I know that grief will subside with time. But I ache when I think that I won't see her at future family holiday gatherings, or that Erin and I will never take her out to dinner again. I remember watching Blazer games with her and playing cribbage, and I hurt inside.

I'm not doing poorly, mind you. This is just what my experience of grief is, and it is, in my estimation, a normal response. I just miss my grandmother.

It's been a few months now since I suffered a left knee sprain, and, recovery more or less completed, I've hopped back on the treadmill. Van Halen's 1984 my ever-present companion, me, Eddie and the boys have been rockin' while I pound out the miles. I'm nowhere near where I have been in terms of endurance, but just exercising regularly again feels great.

Complete recovery for my knee remains an elusive goal. Full extension of my leg either running or walking is painful, but it's a whole lot better than it has been, and I'm not seeing any swelling or post-exercise pain. The road to recovery is a good road to be on.

I wanted to mention, since I didn't have the time for a posting on the subject last week, that it's been 10 years (as of December 1) since Erin and I started going out. I wonder if she knew what she was getting into when she said, "Yes." (Hehe.)

Bret, Erin and I watched The Hunt for Red October in St. Mary's lounge at UP, then Bret—aware of my secret agenda—excused himself. Erin and I headed over the piano rooms, I played a sincere-yet-sappy little song I wrote for her, and upon its completion basically said, "How 'bout you and me, babe?"

I remember being tempted to say, "It's okay if you don't want to"—a polite, face-saver of a line—and then feeling immediately conflicted because it was decidedly not okay with me for her to say no. I still find that confused momentary internal clash between chivalry and honest emotion to be amusing.

Another fun part came later that night, after she'd said yes. See, Erin was already committed to going to a formal dance with another poor sap, who probably thought there were romantic possibilities. The guy even called me up at one point to get Erin's phone number before the date. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd just squashed any chance of evening romance.

Sorry, buddy, but I'd do it again.

December 5, 2000
I've concluded that I've made a huge mistake in choosing the local LazerQuick to print my company's business cards. I probably should have known when I had to re-send the Adobe Illustrator logo file because they couldn't figure out how to "unStuff" a file. They are not what one would term "Mac-centric."

Once they had the file, I did a lot of hand-holding because I wasn't convinced that they were fully competent. I walked them through every aspect of what I wanted, the downside being that I couldn't very well tell them how to run the presses since I don't know how to do that myself. I spent over an hour and a half trying to make sure they got it right. Perhaps I should have given up and gone elsewhere somewhere during this process. Hindsight is 20/20.

LazerQuick uses a 2-up format (two business cards per sheet) for printing instead of the 10-up I designed on, so they had to get into Illustrator and muck with things. This was consternation-causing, to be sure. Nonetheless, I told them I didn't care as long as the result was what I wanted. I was assured that I would get what I wanted. "We'll have them for you Wednesday," I was told. This was all a week ago Monday.

Warning bells started to ring when I came in last Friday, and the woman there looked at my order form, cast glances around the store, and asked aimlessly, "Anybody know why these aren't printed yet?" It was not a confidence-building moment, but as I wasn't in any particular rush to have the cards, I opted not to worry about it. This could have been a mistake.

LazerQuick called today and I was about to walk over to pick up the cards when Erin returned from school. So we both went over to see the results. The good news is that the text information looks great and that the corner bleed design I added is super (if I do say so myself). The bad news—and you knew there'd be some, didn't you?—is that the cards were cut small to a non-standard business card size (chopping off part of the S in SiteRev.com in the process).

Now, dear reader, I pride myself on being difficult to flabbergast, but trust me, this did it. Given all my concerns about the design and color coming out perfectly, it never dawned on me that someone would be stupid enough to cut business cards to a non-standard size, especially when such chopping lops off part of the logo.

Business card problems are pretty common, the owner told me, and, apparently unaware of the irony, pointed out that their own business cards list their address as northeast instead of the correct southeast and give the wrong phone number for their fax line to boot. I didn't have the courage to ask him how customers were supposed to take confidence in a print shop when their own marketing materials are wrong.

So I'm back to waiting for my business cards to be printed then cut, this time hopefully to the correct dimensions. The only question I have left is just how much responsibility I bear for others' idiocy. I fear it's more than I'd like to assign.

I've added AsanteTalk, a box which allows LocalTalk devices like my HP LaserJet 4mp to play nice over an ethernet network. I am very happy to report that the box has worked flawlessly, which means that I can now print from both Trinity and Zeke as needed. Additionally, I was able to get Trinity to pull up my cable modem connect over the 10-baseT hub, so the SiteRev.com LAN (local area network) is in the finest form it's ever been in.

There's very little point or, I suspect, interest, in reading last year's ill-fated 1999 edition of our Christmas letter. We were so overloaded that we never got around to putting it out. But for those of you who want to read it, here's the online-optimized PDF file. Have Acrobat Reader or the Acrobat Reader web browser plug-in ready, and knock yourself out. (Warning, though, this is 327k download. If you're on a slow connection, it could take a minute or two.)

For what it's worth, I'm writing up this year's Christmas letter and hope to have it in the mail by next week. If not, I suppose you'll see another PDF file online next year. Hehe.

December 4, 2000
It's been a busy past few days with more trips to Portland for client work, putting up Christmas lights, raking some of the endless flow of leaves, doing other yard work, and just generally enjoying the winter weather.

I've spent a lot of time recently on SiteRev.com matters, a trend I expect to continue in the short-term as I gear things up for the new year. For example, I'm hoping to churn out a revision to the web site by end of week.

Erin and I have recently firmed up holiday travel plans. We'll be in the Bay Area December 26-31, with hopes of spending some quality time with many family and friends.

I've added the 256 MB RAM chip to Trinity and turned off Virtual Memory. Better performance on all tasks and not a single crash in three days of heavy use. Things that make you go "hmm...."

Latest update on December 31, 2000
Feedback: [email protected]