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Monday, March 31, 2003

 
5:40 PM: [#] [0]

the teeth are so very close to being okay, but not quite yet: i still can't eat tortilla chips. :( but i can't reproduce the pain at all unless i'm eating, which is difficult to fix in the dentist's chair. now michael will never go to the dentist. :(

 
1:21 PM: [#] [0]

your attention, please: michael called my home phone at 11:07 a.m. to announce the arrival of nenya, his new 17" powerbook. send cigars! chocolate ones.

unfortunately, i was at chicago and therefore unavailable to experience his little bundle of joy. and now i am off to the dentist again. the best part about everyone at work having the day off is that nobody sends you work email. :) and this is spring break for everyone else, too, so hopefully the whole week will be light.

Sunday, March 30, 2003

 
2:14 PM: [#] [0]

today is another warm, lazy day. i'm reading out on the patio, listening to a tape rob made for me. tonight i'll have dinner w/ terrilynn & brian. i don't mind lazing the day away since i have tomorrow off, too. whoo! that's the day to go see chicago. not everybody has cesar chavez day off, but the csu does. :)

Saturday, March 29, 2003

 
6:29 PM: [#] [0]

i was hoping the new airport update would fix that random "incorrect username or password" issue when i dial in, and the "only one thing at a time or i will give you an error message" issue. alas, neither of these things are true. instead, it just looks like i get a few extra ugly buttons in the admin utility which distance me from the info i actually want to see. harumph.

the best part about enabling spellchecking in tcsh is discovering odd unix utilities i've never heard of:

[nefarious:~] gretchin% the connecting

OK? toe connecting? yes
toe: can't open terminfo directory connecting
[nefarious:~] gretchin% man toe

toe(1M)                       toe(1M)

NAME
toe - table of (terminfo) entries

SYNOPSIS
toe [-v[n]] [-huUV] file...

DESCRIPTION
With no options, toe lists all available terminal types by
primary name with descriptions. File arguments specify
the directories to be scanned; if no such arguments are
given, your default terminfo directory is scanned. If you
also specify the -h option, a directory header will be
issued as each directory is entered.

etc, etc. see how cool that was? :)

 
2:25 PM: [#] [0]

$1500 back in taxes! and my last pieces dropped off to the gallery. i've been hanging out with the cats upstairs who are about as active as amelia is. but who can blame them? it's a sunny, sleepy day. the santa ana winds make all the trees undulate like they're underwater plants.

things i ought to do today: figure out the ephemera display, practice roman caps, do artist's way tasks. i think i'll go see chicago tomorrow morning as my artist's date.

Friday, March 28, 2003

 
9:18 PM: [#] [0]

geck. i went looking for css templates to start working on my portfolio and i must admit to being underwhelmed. i'm not at all inspired. nothing says, "gretchin." or even, "gretch." it's all the same stuff or too weird to be useful.

when i did good graphic design, it was specifically for print, and no matter how many text label gifs one uses, it's not, repeat, not the same! print design is about making conscious choices about space and texture. the web has too many variables for that, as well as an added navigation dimension, and for whatever reason, i haven't been able to translate my print skills to the web as successfully. it kind of hurts to admit that. you know, i didn't even used to be able to write unless i knew how it was going to look. i don't know how or when i became a content-first person.

i'd appreciate a pep talk here. i'm feeling obsolete. any links to good portfolios would also be appreciated.

 
7:39 PM: [#] [0]

okay, okay. my teeth still aren't right. it's still a little uncomfortable (though not painful) to eat; one of my front teeth is catching a bit. you use your teeth so much differently when you chew. there's just no way to replicate it until you've got food in your mouth. *sighs*

is this repeated "adjusting" common? or did i get a bad dentist? i've had fillings before and i never had to go through this process. is it because i waited so long?

 
4:05 PM: [#] [0]

by this point next week, i will have submitted my resignation letter. relief, excitement, fear.

Thursday, March 27, 2003

 
10:39 PM: [#] [0]

the guild wants me to submit two more pieces for the anniversary show. argh. i'll probably do "tongue far from heart" (nfs) and "aliya's tree" ($495). i'd love to sell "aliya's tree," but i'd be hugely surprised if i did.

on the upside, i ate a whole baked potato tonight with toppings and two brownie bites. yay! something's still catching kind of weird, but it's not tear-inducing pain, so i'm going to sleep on it and see how it feels tomorrow, then call and set up a less urgent appointment to "adjust" some more.

 
4:55 PM: [#] [0]

nefarious is back up! i called pete to restart (thanks, pete!). nefarious hasn't had an unexpected crash since i had some bad fonts in the fonts folder, and there's no obvious error message in the console_log. the only recent change i've made to the system was downloading & installing the most recent security update. hmmmm. :/

 
4:18 PM: [#] [0]

pricing art sucks. the frame for "serendipity" is $145. the gallery will take 30% of the price. that means just to break even, i have to charge $200. if i want any money out of it, i have to charge more than $200. i'm going to charge $295. but that means i would price myself out of buying my piece.

did i mention pricing art sucks?

 
2:57 PM: [#] [0]

nefarious suddenly went down. :( i don't know why and am not going back in to see.

 
2:12 PM: [#] [0]

ah, that's better. i haven't tried eating yet, but i'm not able to generate the pain deliberately by biting anymore. now i've taken some advil, drunk a slim-fast, and am going to lie here in the cool darkness until i'm hungry again. then we'll see how well the "adjustments" worked. i have an sdfc board meeting tonight, so i'm hoping to be able to eat by then.

 
11:39 AM: [#] [0]

404: These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed
rob says he's "in love with whomever did this. :)".

 
10:47 AM: [#] [0]

michael says nenya has shipped! hooray! *does a little happy dance for him by proxy*

 
9:59 AM: [#] [0]

i finally got the february cell phone bill and ran across an amusing string of phone calls when i visited brian in newport beach:

Feb 05 08:20 PM Incoming (this is brian calling to ask where the heck i am)

Feb 05 08:26 PM 949-640-4000 (i called him after i turned around and found my way back to the freeway)

Feb 05 08:26 PM Incoming (we lost connection; he called back)

Feb 05 09:09 PM 949-640-4000 ("hey, you didn't tell me macarthur turned into talbot...!")

Feb 05 09:24 PM 949-640-4000 ("the moon just set. now i have no idea which way is west.")

Feb 05 09:32 PM 949-640-4000 ("wait! golden shores! i know where i am now!")

Feb 05 10:08 PM 949-640-4000 (as i was walking to brian's room i called to say i somehow gotten on the freeway to riverside. he bought it until i walked into the room. heh.)

sure, it's all funny now. :) i'd like to this this is the sort of analysis tufte would like. maybe i should actually try to trace the route on a map. hee.

 
9:31 AM: [#] [0]

ooh. i forgot performance evaluations are next month.

it turns out that garrett apparently had a big argument w/ teresa a few weeks ago about the merlot thing. this surprises me on a couple of levels: that garrett actually disagreed w/ teresa enough to argue w/ her, and that teresa ignored him. it does not, however, surprise me that because only garrett & teresa were privy to that conversation & its resolution, that i'm in the middle of rehashing it all again. as much as i love email, this is the problem with it: conversations keep occuring in little groups when they should be occuring in a big group. at least in a big group it would be clearer that only one person was actually pushing for it.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

 
5:00 PM: [#] [0]

hey, the poor beleaguered okidata printer works again. all the gimp2print cups stuff was there, but somehow i lost the printer entry and had to re-add that (had to look up the instructions). it's still having an issue w/ the tray getting jammed, but i set it to always look at the manual tray instead.

 
3:20 PM: [#] [0]

did you know i had $184 deductible interest on my student loan? neither did i. :)

i finally called the dentist: i'm going in tomorrow for an "adjustment." i would have gone today, but they weren't sure i'd get out in time for artist's way.

 
1:36 PM: [#] [0]

i'm having a weird deja vu: i can hear the neighbor sweeping the sidewalk in front of her door, the cat is on the couch next to me, i'm reading something from garrett about tulip.

 
12:31 PM: [#] [0]

now i have a solid date: chuck sent an email that says he'll return april 3. *changes date on resignation letter* well, you know, i might as well just make it friday, april 4. then it will be exactly 6 weeks before i leave. *changes date on letter again*

of course, that info comes in response to a series of letters about tulip and i am baffled by his sudden involvement. he hasn't responded to any other tulip issues. he hasn't responded to any email about anything, actually. why this one?

teresa & i are having a huge difference in opinion about requiring a tulip session about off-site and publisher materials. she feels it's a "strategic" move, while i think it waters down the curriculum if nobody actually wants to use it.

translation: thanks for playing; please drive through. i feel completely alien to these people. of course, why am i all upset about something i won't be participating in? just to keep them on their toes, i guess. moo-ha-ha-ha!

 
8:12 AM: [#] [0]

i don't feel well. i'm staying home and eating soft foods. artist's way tonight!

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

 
6:35 PM: [#] [0]

oh, no, no. not star-spangled ice cream....

 
4:45 PM: [#] [0]

so they put my tax return "on hold" until they can figure out the prius deduction. i have to go back saturday. which actually turns out okay, because i need to contact my student loan people and ask why they didn't send me a 1098e so i could get a deduction on my interest.

most of my numbness is gone, but my teeth aren't going together well yet. i stopped by cupid's and if i chew wrong (not even hard), it hurts. :( the cinnamon ice cream was fine until i got to the cone, and i had to almost gum the chili cheese fries.

 
2:43 PM: [#] [0]

four teeth filled. mouth slowly un-numbing. one of the teeth feels like it's shaped differently now. next dentist appointment april 18, though the oral surgeon consultation will occur earlier than that. taxes next.

at work: large discussion about the tulip announcement (wasn't there a big rush to be -done- with that two weeks ago?) which i'm not there to contribute to, but these decisions have to be made in haste and without forewarning, so they're decided now. until they aren't again. the discussion involves requiring instructors who apply to tulip to contribute to merlot.

Monday, March 24, 2003

 
8:57 PM: [#] [0]

tomorrow: a trip to the dentist and time for taxes!

 
7:26 PM: [#] [0]

shirley asked me to do the demonstration table at the exhibit again. i've done it twice now and i have the ephemera display to deal with, so i politely declined (if i had wanted to do it again, i would have volunteered to begin with). naomi, a very nice person who shirley roped into demoing just wrote: "Okay. So why won't you sit with me and do demonstrations at the exhibit? Burned out? Am I going to have to make a fool of myself alone?" *sighs* guilt is a terrible thing.

Sunday, March 23, 2003

 
8:49 PM: [#] [0]

gack. i lost the names of 20 members who still needed invitations to the sdfc 25th annual exhibit. baaaaaad membership chair. bad. :(

 
10:44 AM: [#] [0]

geck! i thought i was taping a buffy re-run and i ended up with "a very special presentation of dawson's creek: the first episode." how did that happen?

Saturday, March 22, 2003

 
7:22 PM: [#] [0]

what a lovely few days i've been having. i'm almost afraid to say that. :)

the labyrinth walk was really wonderful. i got to a state which was like the point between sleeping and waking, blind and aware all at once. afterwards i drove deeper into the poway darkness to look at stars and was surprised by a smoking streak of a shooting star burning through the big dipper.

today the orientation went well, and then i took the calligraphy piece to be framed at the grand galleria. then i stopped by terrilynn's to talk for a bit in her garden and came away with a milk jug full of flowers (now looking cheerful in my bedroom) and a very mild sunburn. i drove home through elfin forest and took a little side trip on questhaven, which construction has diverted onto san elijo. but until it reaches san elijo, it's a charming twistycurvyhillyhiddenlonely road which is dirt for a while. it becomes san elijo at the top of a hill, and as i turned onto it i was dazzled by a large expanse of far-off ocean and the silence of balloons rising in the distance.

and i forgot what a good album tears for fears' elemental was.

the only sadness is that i wanted a chicago dog & chili cheese fries, but cupid's was closed. oh, well. :)

Friday, March 21, 2003

 
6:06 PM: [#] [0]

i have to come in early tomorrow (yes, a saturday) for an orientation i don't know much about. i'm not sure it will go well. fortunately, i'm learning to stop stressing over things that don't, in the long run, matter much. then i'll meet w/ terrilynn's brian to see if we can frame that woven calligraphy piece in plexi.

i'm off to the labyrinth walk now. happy spring equinox!

 
4:20 PM: [#] [0]

our external internet access was down for a few hours, and i knew exactly when it had been fixed because the first off-campus email i received was a piece of spam. *rolls eyes* fortunately, it was followed relatively quickly by something from brian. :)

 
1:05 PM: [#] [0]

something ate all the leaves off my peas! grrrrrrrr! i was really looking forward to those. i should probably just replant in hopes of seeing anything by the time i leave.

in other news, i wrote my letter of resignation last night. it's dated april 2. i feel pretty good about it, but no, you & the search engines can't read it until after teresa does.

Thursday, March 20, 2003

 
4:53 PM: [#] [0]

okay, so i've finally made appointments for the oral surgeon consultation & taxes. i also talked to the apartment people: beginning in april, i'll be in a month-to-month agreement for $1055/month. yikes. but since june will be prorated, it was cheaper to do that than to get a 6-month lease and break it (guess i have to come up with a firm date to move now).

.mac is now offering online learning modules to members. i could do that! think they need another instructional developer? in portland? :)

 
11:56 AM: [#] [0]

i can't explain it: i've written more poems in 2 weeks than i've written in 2 years. i don't need a chorus of "gee, gretchin, that's great!" but i did feel compelled to acknowledge it before it went away.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

 
5:22 PM: [#] [0]

off to artist's way. yay!

 
4:28 PM: [#] [0]

oh my gosh! i just saw gary means, who is apparently working for development now! how exciting & unexpected!
michael asks, "who's gary means?" and after i'm finished gasping with indignation, i'll remind him that gary means was the humanities dean at usc who brought me here to csusm.

 
2:24 PM: [#] [0]

lots of interesting nefarious referer log entries today:

* a search for "+"index of" +patriotic +".avi"" immediately gets you the portland cow parade pictures jason took last year. bwah ha ha!

* quite posssibly the best nefarious referer ever: "what is nefarious?" from ask jeeves links directly to the nefarious cam! moohahahaha!

* and apparently asking jeeves about "People With Strawberry Blonde Hair" gets you the hair and now site.

* an arabic google search for journal women dress pic also lands you at the hair and now site. hmmmmmm......

 
2:15 PM: [#] [0]

dan wishes us to try out the surreal compliment generator. in addition, he has some funny commentary about the ready.gov non-verbal warnings.

 
1:52 PM: [#] [0]

jeff is the new union president for our campus! *waits for applause to die down* chuck is vice president and candie is the unit 9 (iits) rep. we're overly represented, i think, but hey, i can't complain. :)

i still have a headache from yesterday: it goes from underneath my left cheekbone to the edge of my shoulder. it's so distressing that i'm actually attempting to use advil to quell it, which is an unusual response.

the cats people left this morning at 5 a.m. this means, among other things, i've been keeping the blog for about a year. happy birthday, blog!

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

 
4:02 PM: [#] [0]

how cute!

To: Gretchin Lair
From: Gretchin Lair
Subject: Amelie? Not worth the trouble! (from an amelie)

"gretchin@csusm.edu" has forwarded you this craigslist.org posting.

no, of course i didn't send myself that. but who did, damnit? :) and i didn't know audrey was in another movie:

HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT
"Having charmed America as the innocent in 'Amelie,' Audrey Tatou returns in this brilliant debut from director Laetitia Colombani, about a young woman whose romantic obsession turns the life of a married cardiologist into a living hell. It's an intricate, witty film, with a core indignation under its cool Continental surface."
update: alex claims responsibility for forwarding the amelie message.

 
2:09 PM: [#] [0]

And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

 
11:54 AM: [#] [0]

asp concatenation is kicking my ass. i can't finish a freaking sql update statement but i don't see anything obviously wrong:

If not IsEmpty(Request.Form("Update")) then
conn.execute "update OLCDB_SuppressCRN_t
set SuppressCRNText = " & "'" & Request.Form("SuppressCRNText") & "'" & "
where SuppressCRNValue = " & Request.Form("SuppressCRNValue")
End If

i'm resisting all urges to compare it to php, which uses a lot less quote marks.

 
9:51 AM: [#] [0]

the world needs more shakespearean software reviews. :)

 
9:40 AM: [#] [0]

lynn has a new haircut: she says she wanted "gretchin hair," so she got it cut short and curly. i didn't know anyone wanted my hair! :D

Monday, March 17, 2003

 
7:24 PM: [#] [0]

oh, no! i just found an entry in my logs for "french boycott products list". *grits teeth*

 
6:42 PM: [#] [0]

i just got rid of a whole bunch of stuff in my cubicle. it feels so very empty....

 
5:23 PM: [#] [0]

macedition's codebitch is as obsessive about logs as i am. :)

macromedia's initial all-flash redesign made me quite angry, but i notice they've made some changes and i am hugely impressed with their beta progress report; i think all sites should write them when they redesign (i am less impressed at the actual report itself, which seems a little lacking in what they changed and why).

but more importantly, why don't i ever hear about events like the "rock, scissors, paper" competion until it's too late? :)

 
11:30 AM: [#] [0]

i've been using safari's pop-up blocker for so long that i was actually surprised when i went to a tripod site in i.e. this morning and was confronted by three of them.

 
10:38 AM: [#] [0]

good time at dan's yesterday, and i even got a chance to meet stacy. i did leave tess' powercord there (doh!). it's really not that far (45 minutes-1 hour) and i wonder why we haven't seen each other before this.

and yes, i did forget today was st. patrick's day. pinch me!

Sunday, March 16, 2003

 
6:09 PM: [#] [0]

i'm at dan's! or rather, tess is at dan's, and i'm blogging on her. and the transfer of the 800k disks is going splendidly, thank you! but we haven't even begun to talk about the phenomenal salsa, the mouth-watering lamb, or the death-defying poundcake. *drools*

 
10:25 AM: [#] [0]

still raining. i'm driving to see dan this afternoon despite an invitation from terrilynn to partake in homemade soup and a "scrumptious" 3-layer carrot cake with coconut cream filling. i guess i can't complain: dan says he's making lamb & poundcake (i'm bring veggies & strawberries).

Saturday, March 15, 2003

 
7:41 PM: [#] [0]

it rained, rained, rained, rained. after some initial grumbling at the beginning of the class, the roman caps class settled into 17 yummy ductii (is that plural for ductus?). the next class is april 5. but i so need better paper!

oh, joy, oh rapture! trader joe's finally stocks some decent ginger beer: bundaburg!

 
12:42 AM: [#] [0]

tess suddenly lost the ability to speak to this poor okidata printer. all the cups drivers appear to be inaccessible. ergh. i hate troubleshooting. especially under a time crunch when the other choice is to write out all 76 member addresses by hand and cut them out into strips, which is what i ended up doing.

did i mention the laundry fairy came? yay! the dryer fairy was a little flaky, though.

tomorrow (today, i guess): roman caps w/ teri martin! ee! lettering workshops are so much easier to prepare for: just paper, pen, ink, t-square, and an ames lettering guide. but it's so eeeeaaaarly and so far awaaaaay...

Friday, March 14, 2003

 
4:10 PM: [#] [0]

i'm supposed to pre-line some good paper (probably arches text wove, which means i also have to pre-cut some good paper, too) before the workshop tomorrow. yeah. right.

 
3:36 PM: [#] [0]

today was a wee bit more productive than yesterday. dental cleaning #2 only lasted an hour instead of two. next comes the fillings on one side, then the fillings on the other, then the wisdom teeth. mmm.

but before that, i did some credit card shuffling: i did a balance transfer on my highest interest card to my lowest-interest card (and got a 3.9% rate on it until it's paid off). which means this payment on the capital one card will be the last one, and then it will be paid off! :D then i knocked down the primary interest rate on the lowest interest card even a bit further. i had intended on looking at refinancing trixie today, too, but i have to do some membership stuff before the meeting tonight.

but before -that-, i paid bills, and so i need to run down to postal annex and send them off, along with a big pile o' packages to an assortment of people: brian, for instance, is getting my copy of "how to get ideas", which he expressed a passing interest in and since i'm getting rid of books & cds & such, if you want something, you should tell me. ;)

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

 
8:01 PM: [#] [0]

one of my todo items before i leave is to make sure that access to the elements i've added to the sdfc membership database are enabled (mostly just queries, really). and without even getting that far, i've managed to break the commands which print the labels and membership directory on both my test copy and the formerly working copy. i don't know enough about microsoft access to fix it, and all access tells me is "there was an error executing the command." well, duh!

 
7:02 PM: [#] [0]

i'm just now getting messages which were sent this afternoon. how weird.

 
11:07 AM: [#] [0]

finally! pirates are mainstream, michael! :D

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

 
9:48 PM: [#] [0]

i've spent all this time (>3 hours!) trying to figure out how to get cut and/or paste to rearrange columns in a pipe and i just should have used awk! arrrggghhh! screw cut! i will use awk forever! i love awk!

now i think it's time i go home.

 
5:53 PM: [#] [0]

jeff was vastly amused at the idea that he could send me a link with absolutely no explanation and i would read it (alex gave him this idea). so he then sent me 4 links in a row: the history of the phone losers of america, the wheat foods council grains nutrition information center, the gary coleman web-athon, and the scorched earth party. and he thinks i'm weird!

 
3:56 PM: [#] [0]

i just got out of an asp training session w/ jay. i am now very glad i spent a month banging my head against php over winter break because it made asp so much easier to understand. and jay says they're considering moving to php (god forbid they should tell anyone it was a thing that might happen. gah). see? i should have set it up already and said, "hey. i already have a working copy. let's use it." damn. the good news is i actually understand how they're handling the oracle connections, now, so i could make my php stuff based on a database which already exists, which sure would make my life easier. :)
update: actually, i think i'll need to find and install an adodb connection client to connect to oracle, which is one of the reasons i went with mysql to begin with.

 
12:53 PM: [#] [0]

i just realized i'll have about a month without internet or computer access between leaving csusm & moving to portland. what will i do? *sweats* and i also realized i should start moving oft-requested pieces of nefarious.web to burdell now so that i can leave "moved permanently" redirects on nefarious until it goes away.

Monday, March 10, 2003

 
7:41 PM: [#] [0]

okay, so i thought i was done writing about work, but three ideas garrett has shot down during my time here suddenly became good ideas today. arrrgggghh! it's always about whether or not he approves. why do i care? because tulip is one of the few things i'm really proud of. *grump*

 
10:38 AM: [#] [0]

so much happens behind the scenes here, at the house of someone else. teresa spoke to kristin about being a tulip mentor at the friday night thing; kristin accepted. unfortunately, we usually only have two mentors and the "team" has already secured two mentors. then garrett spoke to chuck about pressing tulip developments forward during the move: chuck agreed to let garrett lead while he was gone. *sighs*

 
9:04 AM: [#] [0]

chuck moved yesterday but specifically didn't invite any of his "female friends." wtf?!

Sunday, March 09, 2003

 
6:27 PM: [#] [0]

previously unnoticed safari behavior: the address input can act like a "Go to Folder..." command. go on. type a full path in your address bar and see what happens. but still: why would they do that? what does it mean? is it a security risk? embedding a full path into an html file does open even hidden directories.

 
6:04 PM: [#] [0]

i've been all wishlist-y today. i don't know why.

 
2:54 PM: [#] [0]

interesting nefarious referer #25656: the name protect crawler is kind of an icky concept. i wonder who subscribes to it.
update 03.15: i excluded the bot in my robots.txt file today.

Friday, March 07, 2003

 
6:17 PM: [#] [0]

eeeeeeee! brian's here! brian's here! g'night, ladies & gents!

 
3:50 PM: [#] [0]

cornell university is about to meter internet usage. really.
teresa says she'd like to charge per song.

 
2:25 PM: [#] [0]

why does host144.inflow.hire.com keep looking at my .pdf & .doc resumes? it's happened 11 times in the last week. someone better hire me or knock it off. :)

speaking of referers, an odd circular reference: my referer log found bayley's boxes referer log which found nefarious' bookmarks file because it links to bayley's boxes. does anyone else find the "Last 20 Email Referrers" and "Last 20 Hard Drive Referrers" a little disturbing?

 
1:55 PM: [#] [0]

this is just one reason i'm so glad i'm leaving: "Quite frankly, I think working with you has been a disapointment [sic] from the start. Is there anyone else I can work with who has a better handle on teaching?" this from a guy who is only available during a crisis and refuses to come to any training sessions, even the ones where we paid him. i'm still a little ragged about it, but i learned my lesson from therese baker and simply passed him to someone else. garrett accepted and said, "Oh, Gretchin; what a terrible thing to say! Don't listen to him." and i hate it when he says the right thing because i still don't trust him not to turn around to the instructor and agree with him.

in other campus news, apparently the csu itac group is submitting an rfp for a learning management system for the whole of the csu. teresa won't take my bet that they'll choose blackboard. they'll probably know by the end of june. personally, it would be a good excuse to dabble w/ blackboard; too bad i won't be here. :)

 
1:26 PM: [#] [0]

dan pointed me to the internet book list, which will hopefully someday be comparable to imdb for movies or ubl for music.

 
11:47 AM: [#] [0]

i just created two search agents for jobs at apple. i had to create two because for some reason, it sees "portland" and "portland-pioneer place" as two separate entities. (san diego is listed as "san diego" and "san diego-fashion valley"; does that mean portland is soon slated for an apple store? :) anyway, it's a nice system.

Thursday, March 06, 2003

 
6:48 PM: [#] [0]

i'm looking for a way to read & copy from 800k mac floppies. can anyone help? pleeeeeaaaaasssseeee?
if i'm lucky, dan's beige g3 will do the trick.

 
5:53 PM: [#] [0]

i take it back. scp still doesn't like anything with an echo statement, though other ssh calls are okay. damn.

 
5:17 PM: [#] [0]

interesting nefarious referer #80: someone from apple was looking for edward gorey clipart, and my bookmarks page shows up first on that search, which is too bad considering i don't actually have any. but i am happy to note that the mysterious apple employee was using safari. :)

 
2:50 PM: [#] [0]

oh, yay! dave hyatt says safari will manage tooltips better than it does now.

 
1:11 PM: [#] [0]

so i know this is probably something you learn in home ec 101, but i just discovered that if you immediately soak something with blood in cold water for a couple of hours, all the blood goes away! it's like magic! this would have spared me several articles of clothing over the last year. duh.

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

 
6:00 PM: [#] [0]

michael sent me some info about iomega istorage, which sounds like something i might go for ($18/gb/month! do you know what that amount of space would cost you on .mac?). plus, it supports ftp & sftp, which hardly anything does anymore (yes, it would be cooler if it were also webdav enabled). but even more interesting was something it calls whalemail, which addresses a pet peeve i have about receiving attachments via email.

 
4:52 PM: [#] [0]

alex asks: "what's this? you're moving? when? where to? in with mike?" so many questions, so much answered through the blog. ;)

 
3:49 PM: [#] [0]

roger ebert, of all people, makes an interesting case against what he calls horizontal prayer in the u.s. while not denying other kinds of prayer & spirituality.

 
3:02 PM: [#] [0]

to "win kudos," don't you have to announce something first? apple, what's this about an online music service?

*horrified thought* what if they require a .mac account? noooooooo! otoh, there are interesting possibilities w/ itunes.

 
1:44 PM: [#] [0]

dental cleaning #1 is complete. it wasn't bad; they didn't even numb me. cleaning #2 is next week.

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

 
6:17 PM: [#] [0]

interesting nefarious referer #284: lunarwater is linking to summoner geeks. thanks for your vote of confidence, kelly riley, whoever you are! too bad you don't know i'm moving and nefarious will then be bereft of content.

 
5:49 PM: [#] [0]

google is so damned smart! now that they've built up a whole bevy of advertisers, they're now marketing those ads out to other advertiser-supplemented websites.

speaking of text ads, perversion tracker is trying an interesting form of them: $20 gets you one line at the end of a review to promote whatever you want. like, say, a custom screensaver.

 
5:20 PM: [#] [0]

ahhh! even though ssh doesn't like it when you include echo statements in the .[shell]rc, you can add a line to call something else that uses echo statements, which is what i finally ended up doing for my todo list. now when i ssh, i get my todo list, too, but at least it doesn't outright fail.

 
3:29 PM: [#] [0]

oh, so that's my problem. "[Someday] it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."
brian says, "somebody understands!"
rob says, "it's so on the nose for me it's up it."
update 05.13.03: amazon has some recommendations for introverts.

Monday, March 03, 2003

 
9:26 PM: [#] [0]

upstairs jennifer & i went out to dinner. she'll probably be moving in april.

 
10:48 AM: [#] [0]

there's nothing better than a refrigerator full of new food. :)

alex, who is trying harder to surprise me, wishes to promote better living through reckless experimentation. he asks, "(you read memepool, right?)" i keep meaning to. i've added it to my daily list.

Sunday, March 02, 2003

 
6:06 PM: [#] [0]

according to the "which empowered female vocal artist are you?" quiz, i am ani defranco:

"self-obsessed and self-possessed, you are a strong woman with a social conscience,
who centers her life around her art. you pour your life experience and passion
into your art, presenting ideas that resonate deep in the souls of others."

 
6:00 PM: [#] [0]

since i know i'll be getting rid of the old computer desk, which had a lot of style but which will disintegrate on this move, i threw away all the old software that had accumulated today. most of it was stuff that will only run in classic or not at all. it was tough to get rid of all that adobe software. too bad leeann doesn't work for adobe anymore.

Saturday, March 01, 2003

 
5:41 PM: [#] [0]

and i finally emailed all the members of my february postcard exhange.

 
3:32 PM: [#] [0]

hey, safari works with my mission federal credit union site now. yay!

i called my dad to tell him i was moving and to ask some of the questions i have. vickie asked if that meant she could call michael my significant other now and i was surprised there was ever a question about it. it's too bad they never saw me here, though i'm not really surprised. anyway, i have a wildly adequate plan b if i go to portland and can't find money any other way: my dad can get me a job as a carquest parts driver. hee. :)

so far today i've been figuring expenses: what will i pay off (working assets cc), what do i have left on the car ($17,350), how much can i sock away before i leave (not enough)? i hope i get money back on taxes this year. but trixie is really my biggest concern. gosh. who knew i'd feel this way about a car?

also, i'm looking for used bookstores & places to sell used cds, not so much to get any money, but just to reduce the amount of stuff i have to move. last night i thought i could probably sell the newton, but is there any other way to sell a newton other than through ebay?

oh, and i figured out how to use ^x^y history substitution today, which was a pain in the ass because search engines ignore special characters. :P hooray for man pages!