- fire spinning goodness - Last night's spin jam was very cool. I skipped out on packing for my trip so that I could...
- enhanced movie watching - I'm starting a list of the best movie introduction scenes to watch: Super Troopers - intro was the funniest thing...
- a day for building - hot, sweaty, humid is the day's theme. I retried the pvc hammock stand and it worked beautifuly, almost. The almost...
- a beautiful mother-daughter moment - So, my mom is bored and about to be moving away. She comes over to hang out and I've got...
- home but not sleeping. - I took my contacts out and suddenly feel like I could stay up for several more hours. But, I should...
- Silver Spring, MD - Master Bedroom for Rent (available October 1st) $745 (all utilities included - phone, electric, gas, water and sewer) 1500 Ballard ...
- Friendster - Friendster web site. Friendster Network Grows in Popularity Fr ...
- August 12, 2003 - Old Bay SAGE meeting tonight. Reports are that the Blaster worm shut down the MVA today. Phil Gregory ...
- August 13, 2003 - Parkville Spin Jam and Picnic, 6pm to 11pm at 2636 Wentworth Road, Parkville MD. Call me if you get lost. ...
- Howard Dean - ". . . the great grassroots campaign of the modern era, built from mousepads, shoeleather and hope." --Howard Dean ...
- Moving Day - Yep, we're moving things around again. This time I've got some webspace putting each of my domains on their own pice of server.... when it's complete, we'll be ab le...
- Calebs 2nd Birthday - Sitting on the couch with Jared. Showing off Movable Type....
- Happy Anniversary! - Today is my one year anniversary at my employer. I was supposed to be a full-time, honest to goodness, working for benefits employee as of January 1st. It's still not...
- Howard County Fair - This evening Amy and I and Caleb ran out to the Howard County Fair. As we were about 5 minutes away it started to rain. We walked to the gate...
- Unwired - So I have succesfully initialized a wireless internet connection. I'm curently sitting on my porch typing this entry, as Caleb tosses shoes off the porch. I wish I had a...
- - looks like blessing are coming everyones way lately....cheryl had some and we got some great news today, looks like Dean may be a full time w/ benefits employee as of this upcoming Monday!!! We're still sitting in a no a/c...
- - Sorry for the confusion !!! My hubby was going about switching our servers and wanted me to be able to tell when it was done moving servers, so when that message was able to be read here I knew it...
- - If you see this. Your page has moved....
- Happy Birthday Caleb!!! My little - Happy Birthday Caleb!!! My little boy is officially 2!!!! Wohooo!!!!...
- Worked hard all morning on - Worked hard all morning on this cake for Caleb's 2nd birthday party. Luckily my girlfriend and I have started swapping kids once a week so we both get a day to clean run errands or whatever we want. So today...
- Here's a little something for your stocking, kids - HP and Gateway are both "furloughing" workers over the holidays without pay. Ho, ho, ho
- The other kind of Radio - I'm going on Baltimore's Marc Steiner Show (on WYPR) tomorrow to talk about consumer gadgets. This ought to be entertaining; I haven't talked about consumer electronics since the last time I wrote for the Baltimore Sun (how long ago was that? Hint: it was about a 3Com consumer Internet appliance)... Anyway, if you're in earshot, and want to hear me listen to how great I sound on radio (heh), tune in. It should be streamed live by WYPR and by the Baltimore Sun website as well.
- Rationalization - IBM is acquiring Rational Software. I guess if you can't make good tools, you buy them. Okay, that's a little catty, I admit; Visual Age doesn't suck *that* bad, and adding Rational's tools will help a lot with IBM's target market--institutionalized, methodology-driven, architectural software development.
- - Afew weeks ago, when I went to the Fortune Global Forum in DC, I heard Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill speak. And I thought,"Here's at least one thoughtful, sane, honest person in the Bush administration; maybe there's hope." Well, so much for that. It looks like there's a purge of the sensible going on at the White House. O'Neill and White House economic advisor Larry Lindsey both resigned today. O'Neill was unpopular for his "gaffes" -- that is, for being honest and saying what he really felt. He had made remarks about the problems with the IMF and World Bank, visited Africa (okay, so it was with Bono) and spoke rationally about the problems there. But being rational and honest is not, apparently, a good thing in Washington,
- low profile - So much to blog, so little time. Suffice it to say, I may get a chance to blog over vacation, but right now I'm swamped by actual revenue-generating tasks.
- The hearbreak of being registered "Independent" - The political season grows nigh here in Maryland, and I find myself facing that greatest of Baltimore political dillemas: Do I (a) suck it up and register as a Democrat, therefore allowing myself to vote in the Baltimore mayoral primaries the day before my birthday; or do I (b) remain registered as an Independent and preserve my alleged independence--and in the process render my vote moot in the selection of Baltimore's next mayor? Baltimore is a one-party town. If you don't vote in the Democratic primary for citywide offices, you miss 90% of the electoral process here. My wife, a Democrat by registration, gets to vote twice, essentially--for the candidate of her choice in the primary, and for his or her ascendancy to office in the general election. For me, it's like coloring with black and white Crayolas. There's I get a choice between a Democrat chosen by about 85% of the electorate and a Republican who ran unopposed in the primary. Write-ins don't count without an official certification of a write-in candidate. The anarchist in me says, "So what? The system is crap." Unfortunately, it's the system I'm stuck with, since the anarchist masses aren't exactly rising up to throw off the chains of Martin O'Malley's rule. (Besides, he wears t-shirts with the sleeves cut off when he plays with his Celtic rock band). I'm almost of a mind to support O'Malley, if I could get past his campaign slogan: "Better Isn't Good Enough." Huh? What the hell does that mean? There's the small issue of his kids not attending school in the city (I send my kids to Catholic school, but I'm not the freakin' mayor, you know). And there are other things about Martin that make me think this is all time in waiting for his run for the governorship/Senate/Presidency. But there I go, thinking about substance. Hell, if politics were about substance, we'd have someone else running just about every level of government in this country. I might even have to vote for Al Sharpton in that case....
- The House-hunt shuffle - Our house hunt continued on Monday night, as we looked at a few more houses in Bel Air. Nothing was a home run; that's okay, because we have a LOT of work to do before we can even think of putting our house on the market. Paula panicked a bit afterward thinking about all that, after having faced the hard-sell of the mortgage broker who did a pre-approval for us (which we had asked for just to make sure we could get a mortgage if we needed one). She felt like the press was on her. I was irritable to begin with on Monday, and her vibes made me even more so. And it didn't help that we only saw one house that remotely fit into our criteria. So, now we're just sort of waiting for the right listing to come to the surface. We've set the end of the school year again as our target move date, subject to change if the right house suddenly pops up and we have to scramble to get it. Of course, the big question is where interest rates will be by then, and what the state of the housing market will be.
- Alan Greenspan is okay by me -
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Alan Greenspan personally for his work in boosting the value of my equity in my home through his decimation of the stock and bond markets. Since real estate is the only sure thing left to invest in, and interest rates for mortgages are so low, people are taking money out of their tax shelters in droves to invest in anything that doesn't move. And that means that the selling price of houses in my neighborhood have gone up 100% over the past 7 years.
Of course, the price of any house we'd move into if we sold right now has also gone up. So the value of our equity in trading up to another home has, essentially, unchanged. If I had bought my house as an investment, and decided to cash out on it now, I'd be a very happy capitalist (especially with Dubya having cut capital gains taxes by 15%). However, as somebody who needs someplace to live, my gain is illusory.
Sure, I could stay where I am, refinance at a lower rate based on the artificially inflated value of my home, and take all that money down to Wal-Mart and buy me a really nice air rifle to plunk rats in the alley with. And then I'd be doing my part to pump up the economy, now wouldn't I? Converting equity into new debt, trading trading future opportunities for a quick buck and instant gratification--it's the American Way. That's why my ex-wife is working all that overtime at the title company, as her lawyer bosses skim their unfair share off the refi traffic. The banks and lawyers always seem to win, don't they?
But where was I...oh yes, Alan Greenspan. Fighter of deflation, stimulator of growth. What a guy. Keep those rates low, Alan, so I can afford the big honking mortgage I'll undoubtedly have to take out to afford the modest upgrade in housing that I hope to acquire in the next few months. Love ya, baby. - House of Horrors - I left the office early today to look at a house in Bel Air, Maryland. The listing calls it a single-family house with 6 bedrooms and 5 baths, a professional office, and 4,600 square feet of floor space. Hey, I thought-- an office, an in-law suite for my mother-in-law, lots of space for a growing family...if it needed a little bit of work, no big deal! Well, it turned out to be a big deal. We arrived a little early, and had ample opportunity to look at the house's exterior and grounds. While the neighborhood was on the cusp of being okay, there were some immediate concerns: the gutters were literally falling off the roof, and the shingles were encrusted in moss. The lot of the house was large, but half of it was covered in gravel by a half-assed parking lot for the tenants of its now vacant apartments. Yes, apartments. The "house" has actually been carved up into 5 apartments, in such a way that there's not a single intact floor except for the attic. The agent arrived, and we went in to check the internal damage. There we met the owner of the house, who is on dialysis treatments and handicapped. He is trying to get out of the house to move to an assisted living center. Bottom line: He's broke, so the house is being offered as-is. The tenants left a mess, and the house , which has 17 rooms (half of which need to be completely gutted), needs TONS of work. It would take at least a year's worth of work to make the place inhabitable. To say the least, the listing for the house was a bit deceptive. Paula was, as she put it, "skeeved out" by the place. Maybe it was the rodent droppings the size of Tic-Tacs on the third floor. Maybe it was that each of the apartments seemed to be grafted out of spare parts from the La Plata tornado--one bedroom had a freestanding shower in it, while a ripped-out bathtub blocked a closet. No effort had been made to clean the place up at all. It was all very sad. The real estate agent who showed us the house seemed to be tryingreally hard to balance his own revulsion with the property and his desire to put the best possible spin on it. He's the third agent brought in to sell this monkey's paw of a house. If anybody has about $350,000, and wants to totally rehab a 1920's house in Bel Air with acres of floorspace into something inhabitable, check this house out--it's a bargain, and the owner will cut you such a deal. But don't expect to be able to move in until the EPA has checked it out. After a quick retail therapy trip for Paula to de-skeeve her (and pick up some pants for me and Kevin). we went to see a realtor in Bel Air to start our search anew. At least the trip got us looking, and helped us narrow down what we're looking for and where. Now, we've got some professional help.
- House Hunting (Green Acres Redux) - I'm looking at a house in Bel Air on Wednesday. This comes on the heels of some backpedaling by my ex on the relocation out of state that we had discussed (see "Green Acres"), and some inspired Plan-B surfing by my wife. As a result, our relocation may be closer (both geographically and temporally) than we had originally been shooting for.
- Peaking Grades. - I managed my best semester of my college career...and it's my last. GPA this term: 3.75 I couldn't pull all...
- Quarantine SARS. - President Bush added SARS to a list of quarantinable diseases, and now, US health officials say they're prepared to quarantine....
- Speaking of Flash... - I like Flash ads. I don't like Flash website design. And now I'm telling you why. Many flash designs are...
- Flashy Student. - This FLASH movie cracked me up. Worshipper of Janet Reno?...
- Under-reported news... - I've been visiting the News Insider a little more frequently recently. It claims to have no agenda, but I just...
- Graduation - Today, after a year, a semester, and a week of blood, sweat, and tears, we donned our funny-looking gowns and hats, exchanged hugs and handshakes,...
- Break - I need a break. See you in a couple of weeks. (Background upgrades to code and blog in progress. Access to parts of the site...
- Finished. - Last day of class yesterday. Celebrated with a pint of Guinness and a pizza with classmates, then came home and collapsed into bed, close to...
- Trains and Hearts - Rail. (Flash, 12MB)...
- On the Brink - Can't blog. Slaving away on thesis. Final critique tomorrow, then I have a Flash piece in the afternoon, and a paper due Thursday. Get back...
- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU - Thanks so much to the Illusionaire who dilligently un-bent my CSS issues and template problems... or at least the biggest...
- Judge not... - I was chatting on AIM with a friend and we got into a disagreement about how slutty and promiscuous many...
- Repaired - (sigh) My host's SQL server took a crap the other day and broke my database... its fixed now, so the...
- Happy Happy Happy - Some reasons to be happy: 1) I'm on vacation this week. 2) I'm FINALLY in a place where I can...
- Remodeling - I'm in the process of remodeling the site. Please pardon the dust. Expected: a new layout, and perhaps a style-sheet...
- Air and Space: X-1 - Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC. The Bell X-1 was the first plane to fly faster than the speed...
- Air Nation - Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC. The Breitling Orbiter 3 is the capsule used in the first hot air...
- The Dean Dilemma - Newsweek does a nice job this week of summarizing the Howard Dean dilemma for Democrats choosing a presidential nominee. [Skeptics...
- Airstream Nation - Mom and Dad's land yacht....
- Photo Friday: Curves - This week's Photo Friday challenge is "curves". I'm going with this shot taken at Baltimore's Inner Harbor....
- Interview Meme - Interview meme. These are the rules:
1. Leave a comment in this post saying you wanna be interviewed. 2. I'll give you your questions in the same thread. 3.
Don't talk about Figh..You post the questions in your own Blog/LJ/Whatever along with the answers and this message. 4. People reply to your post asking to be interviewed. You give them questions of your own. 5. Rinse and repeat until... - Review: Juvenile felis catus - Review: Juvenile felis catus. This is a fascinating review of the latest technology in home entertainment.
- Mmmmmmmmmm........ - I'll take two please!!!!
- POINTLESS! - Entries: 207. This is 208. This is 208 for this format, which has only been up since February. I hate to think about how many posts I have in the Blogger archives. Maybe I need to shut up more.
- Site of the Day - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Perfume Oils -- specializing in Gothic scents.
Check this out....
CZERNOBOG Created in honor of the Slavic Black God of the Dead. A nighttime god of grief, evil, chaos and woe, he is paralleled by his twin brother Bylebog, god of light, joy, order, and good fortune. A combination of three musks, with splashes of dark myrrh, vetiver...
- Disposable Art - It's that time of year again. The Burning Man community's buzz is increasing steadily towards a loud clamour with people...
- I'm Not Dead! - Hah, man have I totally neglected my blog. No entry for three and a half months. Lots have changed since...
- Linux in the Studio? - I recently read an article on desktoplinux.com where the author extolled virtues of using Linux in a professional recording studio....
- Whither Sound Diver for OS X? - There's a wonderful piece of commercial software out there called Sound Diver, which is made by Germany-based and Apple-owned eMagic...
- Shock and Awe - The Russian View - Whilst surfing around (ha! does anyone still use that term?) today, I came across a Russian news site which has...
- So Stuff. - So now Mike Has a new site i'm hosting it right now, but so what? i built it, i host it! =P no, seriously, he's getting his own domain as soon as Daniel sets it up. (hint) Chow....
- - Here is where you can see my old site, and all my past stuff. ok? seriously. And Here is where you see one of the funniest Flash-Comics around. :) And Here is another good comic. and stuff. and bye....
- please pray... - ... for my best friend Michael Right now. he's going through a rough time with a friend trying to commit suicide. i can't really say anything more. just pray....
- stuffnstuff. - so here we are. all decked out in MT. ah, the sweet smell of victory. well, today i played baseball for two hours, "wiffle-ball" for an hour, mowed for zero hours, and am using the computer indefinitely. brb....
- Weeee're Back! - Now, More than ever! hi, i'm using Movable Type! isn't that cool?...
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