'2000' Archives
![[Busy computing... for you!]](https://www.bolsinga.com/comp.gif "[Busy computing... for you!]")
It's been awhile, but lots has happened here. I'm moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in about 2 weeks. I got a job with Apple Computer. It should be great. I've always thought it'd be fun to work there, and I'll be able to live in San Francisco! The commute will be tough, but I think I'll enjoy the experience, living urban again in particular. I'll be working in the Apple Java Classes group.
I have tons to do before I move there! I wanted to update the website before I go on the trip. My bet would be that this website will be moving somewhere closer to my new home.
I'll be finishing up work at Metrowerks this week. It was a great place to work, and I worked with some really great smart people. I'm glad I worked there. But it's time to move on.
SXSW starts this week. I don't know if I'll make it to many shows. #
Well, its been a long time again. I got a great apartment in San Francisco.
Apple is a great place to work; I'm enjoying it. The commute on the train is a drag, but not that bad; I'm writing this on the train right now! I'm certain I've made the right move.
I sure don't miss the heat from Texas. It's always a nice 65 degrees or so here. My cat Chip doesn't seem to be digging it as much as me. He can't go outside like he used to. There's 3 doors or 3 floors between the house & the outside, and then there's no grass by our place. It's not his idea of fun. I actually feel guilty. #
San Francisco has been fun. There's a lot to do. The town is full of freaks. There's a lot to see. Lot's of people come and visit the city as well.
I had a crazy day the other day. We ran around Chinatown after drinking a Chinese liqueur called something like "Inca pei." Yow. That's some stuff.
Today I actually rode my bicycle to work. You can take it on the train. It's not so bad so far, but the train's barely made it out of San Francisco yet. I'm going to partake in something called "Critical Mass" today. As far as I can tell, this is where a good amount of bikers get together, ride around, and cause a nuisance for cars.
So I've gotten rid of the background color. I was tired of it. I also disabled the dates geek page for now. I'm going to be updating it with java applets and the like. There's been several other small tweaks to the website & the program that generates it. I should be getting DSL within the month. Soon I hope to be able to host this at home. Once I do that, my long term plan is to make the shows part of the site dynamic, instead of static. This means that it will generate the pages on the fly as they are requested. I'd also like to add a search function.
Lately all the Jim O'Rourke records have been doing me well. Throw in some George Jones, Royal Trux, & Yo La Tengo, and you have my playlist for the last few weeks.
One last thing. I've Carbonized this program with the latest CWPro6 beta tools. What does this mean, you ask? Well it means it will run fine under MacOSX. However, there's still some goofy stuff with CodeWarrior that makes it less than ideal. Soon I'm going to try to make this program with Apple's tools. #
So Critical Mass was fun. Lots of bicyclists getting together and causing a fun-loving nuisance. There was a guy who had a trailer on his bike. It had a couple car batteries hooked up to a stereo cranked to 11. He was playing all sorts of thematic songs for the occasion. I can't remember many of the songs right now. Jimi Hendrix's "Crosstown Traffic" was one of them. One woman had on a motorcycle helmet covered in red glitter. Attached to the helmet was a megaphone (also covered in glitter) that had a CB-like microphone. She also had rigged some sort of a guitar phaser to it. So she'd ride around saying things into the microphone that would echo forever. While going up a particularly steep hill she was yelling, "Downshift!" or "Almost there!" It was hilarious. Alert to the paranoid: a police helicopter was following the group all along.
The night that I'm writing this is one of the foggier nights I can remember here. Before the sun went down, the fog was coming into the city. It was strange because to the west, where the fog is thickest, it was as blue as the sky. Towards the north and east it was white. It was eery. Right now I can barely see downtown. I don't think I could if the buildings weren't lit up from inside. I can hear a foghorn from my house. Sure I may be a landlubber, but I'm certain it's a foghorn. It's coming from the bay, and I only hear it when it's foggy. It's not a diesel foghorn; it's electronic. It sounds just like when you blow across a beer bottle top but without any breathy sounds. Here's another neat tidbit about fog; it rolls. The other day I drove into work on I-280. That goes north-south thru the big hills on the spine of the peninsula. About 20 minutes south of San Francisco, the fog starts to roll over the hills from the ocean. It's a huge looming mass, and tendrils of it roll down the hill.
I went to Colorado for work about a week and a half ago. It was cool because I rented a car and I got there a couple days early. I got to hang out with my great friend Kevin. He just got a computer and a cell phone, so he's being yanked into the cyber-present by the collar. He seems to dig it all though. He better email me when he reads this. Yes, it's a test!
So Apple just announced these new computers called the G4 Cube. It is simply the coolest looking computer ever. I feel like I'm 12 again since I have a "I must have that" feeling, stronger than I can remember for a long while. #
I take the train nearly every day to and from work. The San Francisco Giants' new ballpark is at the end of the line in SF. So lots of non-commuters take the train to the game. It makes the train crowded, and I swear none of them understand that the train is supposed to be a nice quiet place. It's not somewhere to yell at each other, play their radios out loud, and bring their obnoxious children. There's another funny train characteristic. There's a good number of women who carry around little paper shopping bags, the ones with the curved string-like handles, somewhat like a "Big Brown Bag," but small. They pack all sorts of stuff in them, as well as carry around a purse. They are always for fancy stores as well. It's funny.
There's a great street here in San Francisco called Clement. It has all sorts of neat Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese places. Little stores & shops. It seems a little better than Chinatown. Chinatown is a little more tourist oriented.
I went to San Diego for a wedding. I had never been there before. It was nice & warm. Almost too warm. I'm done with heat. I got to see a bunch of friends there from high school. One of the odder moments was when several were talking about what brands of disposable diapers they buy.
I just watched President Clinton's convention speech. There won't be any political commentary here today, but behind him on the podium were an iBook and at least two Apple Cinema Displays. What an advertisement!
There was a great article in the New York Times Magazine on 8/13. It was about how Tivo is going to change the world. It was really interesting. It doesn't matter when a TV show is on, nor what else is on at the same time. Therefore advertising on television will totally change, especially since it can be easily eliminated. However the article contrasts Tivo with interactive TV. I've never seen either in person, but Tivo simply seems like local interactive TV. It's interactive, but everything is local in the box on your TV. I still think interactive TV will be there, but why should everybody have a copy of Survivor in their house? It doesn't make sense, and the pipes will only get fatter. Tivo seems to be a good transitionary technology.
Damn. There was another good one in the same magazine a week later. It was about how Austin, TX is growing and needs public transportation. Yep.
Next weekend I'm off to Austin, TX for a long weekend of seeing good friends and sweating a lot. I'm been tracking the weather there, and it's usually over 100 degrees there every day. I won't need my jeans & light jacket, that's for sure.
Ah! There's another thing. While I'm writing this, it's just about a year since the Grand Canyon incident! It was a full moon in August last year, and that's where we're at while I write this.
This will most likely be the first calendar month in a long time that I haven't seen a show. #
So I just read "Catcher In The Rye" in its entirety on the plane back from Austin to San Francisco. I don't know the last time I read it. It's probably something like 15 years. I actually don't know if I really finished it back then. I used to love to read, but I hated being assigned something to read. And then I'd have to go back and tell people what I thought about it, and what it meant. First off I was shy, but secondly I didn't want to have to read a book. I enjoyed them just fine on my own time, thanks. It's nothing I have to be told to do. Anyway, that book's really interesting in relation to what I write here. I'm a damn picky person, with an extreme sense of right & wrong & black & white. I told a friend recently that I was conservative, but I think he understood it in the left/right, conservative/liberal political sense. How I meant it is that I really like the way that things were, and I don't like people to mess them up. Buildings, parks, remixed music, and cars for example. And the funny thing is that these things I enjoy were most likely created by people or systems I abhor. There was lots of cheap foreign labor to create the buildings I love in Chicago. The cars are quite overbearing gas guzzlers that facilitate, well, cities like Texas cities, the worst offender of non-people-friendly crimes I've seen.
Anyway, I just finished it, went to the bathroom, and walked back to start writing and/or coding. And on the plane I see these two notebooks. They both have prominently displayed such inane and empty business speak that I can't even remember it now, three minutes later. Ugh.
So I just got back from Texas after Labor Day weekend. I was simply too hot. It was 112 degrees the day I left. When I lived in Texas, I lived in an older house. It had a window air conditioning unit. It could fairly cool off the bedroom, but struggle while doing it. There was no way it could cool the house. So, strangely enough, I'd hardly ever turn on my A/C. If I did, it would strain to barely cool the house, and I felt guilty for the waste. So I'd open all the windows, turn on a fan, take off my shirt, and sweat. A lot. I don't know if I was insane then, or if I've become weak. As I fly back right now, the pilot told us that it was 74 in San Francisco. That's a 50 degree difference for the non math whiz readers. If SF was 50 degrees colder than it is, it'd be 14 degrees!
OK, I'm now adding to this nearly 2 months later. I've now have DSL at home. Usually I have seen the web at work, and if I do any fun surfing, I feel really guilty. Now the story is completely different! Due to lots of time surfing the web for fun the first weekend, I found a site in Chicago that lists tons of shows since 1996 or so. Too bad I left in late 1996, but I already got one date cleaned up. Then I looked up 33 Degrees' web site, and they have all their in-stores logged. So I fixed another unknown! Let's hear it for idle time on the web! Damn it's great. I've found so much stuff I didn't know was on the web. I'm listening to old radio shows, seeing The Flaming Lips videos, and finding show dates. I'm in heaven.
Oh, I'm also now doing this on a PowerMac G4 Cube, the coolest computer ever! It's quiet, it sounds great, and I got one of the LCD displays.
Since I've written last, the MacOSX Public Beta has come out. There's actually a little bit of me in that release, and I'm proud of it. I use MacOSX every day at work, and it's stable. The reviews of the release have been positive overall, which is a great feeling.
Notes: The Chinese liqueur is called "Ng Ka Py". I'm still not sure if a vote for Nader is good or bad. This Internet thing via DSL is cool, especially for goofing off. Watching DVDs on an LCD rocks. I'm fairly certain this site is completely HTML 3.2 compliant. I turn 30 in 2 days. #
I've been able to find some more unknowns. The Internet oracle knows all! I wish StarCourse archived their shows on the web. It would fix a fair amount of the unknowns.
Here's something funny. I hardly read the email account that belongs to the account where this site is hosted. After many months, I read it and I find this in my mailbox.
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 21:44:56 -0500 From: lmjackson <lmjackson bignet.net> To: <bolsinga io.com> Subject: Thanks for the Motorola Pics HI, I had to do a Marketing Final on Motorola and I needed some pictures for my research. So thanks alot. <Starlight1124 yahoo.com>
I have helped someone's marketing research. How cool it is to be helping the youths of America.
The weekend before the presidential elections, I got a call from President Bill Clinton. I also got a call from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. I've never had these pre-recorded messages around election time before. This is my 4th presidential election, so I have some experience. Maybe it's a California thing? I'm now tired of the elections. It is a morass.
Last night I think I heard my first car chase. I horrible scraping sound sped up Fell St. followed by something like 20 cop cars. I watched the lights and waited to hear what would happen. Nothing did. Then awhile later, the same sound comes racing down Oak St. followed by even more cops! It was crazy. I never saw the result.
I bought this cool DSL router. I have all my computers on the net all at once, with only one access IP from PacBell. I hope to get a home network really set up, with cvs, ftp, & http going. My friend Benjamin borrowed my ThinkPad and set up RedHat 7.0 on it, so I have Linux all ready as well. #
The Christmas shopping rush is upon me. The crush of people near Union Square is astounding. I'm going to be in Chicago for the holidays. They've had lots of snow lately, and I hear that O'Hare has cancelled flights. I hope it's better by the time my flight's ready to land.
I've put some new Flaming Lips pictures on my site. It's my first use of HTML frames. I think I like it.
A couple of weeks ago some friends and I were running around SOMA looking at the dead dot com offices. How long is it until SOMA is a ghost town? Perhaps then I could afford to own.
So I got off the CalTrain from work the other day at 22nd Street, like I usually do. This stop is near Potrero Hill, and is located under I-280. It is an odd area, a few blocks from the industrial area next to the bay. There's lots of people who live here in old RVs, campers, & motorhomes. I don't get it, but there's lots of them. They move around all the time. You'll see one for a few days, and then it's there's a new one. They are generally in great disrepair, and the area just kind of smells. It's really odd. So I get off the train last week, and one of the campers is on fire. Another commuter has already called the fire department. The camper is already on its way into history, however. It was making loud cracking noises, and soon was a ball of fire, emitting a huge cloud of black smoke. I could see someone wrapped in a blanket nearby, acting rather angry, so I assumed that he was the resident, and everyone was OK, but angry. The next day there was a camper carcass on the road. I think it stayed there nearly all week. This city can be strange. #