June, 2000 Archive

6/30/00

June is coming to a close. It was a busy month. So busy, in fact, that I scarcely realized the month had almost ended until just today. This sounds ridiculous coming from a guy who writes a daily column, but it is true.

The next column will be July 5, so if you are coming back on a daily basis, there won't be anything new until then. I'm taking the time off to write ahead a bit, reorganize the archive, launch a palm-ready site and do a bit of much needed updating of the site in general. I really need to write some more history and really should finish the commercial site. I'm taking a class in Front Page next Wednesday, so I should have some new tools to come back on the assault with.

The Gold Wing needs my attention this week as well. It died on me earlier in the week and I'm feeling somewhat without a limb without it. I really want to take a bike trip with my lovely wife this weekend and so I will be digging in with both hands and a few toes to get it fixed.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

6/29/00

So I finally managed to get some time to spend in the garage. I've been having a bit of trouble with the Gold Wing for a while and I was motivated last night to do something about it. I headed out to the shop and dug in. 2 hours later I was ready to survey and sample my handiwork. I wheeled the monster out of the garage, started it up and took it for a spin. The air was cool, the fix just seemed to put the problem in a different rev range--not a bad thing--and it was a nice ride.

Until, that is, I got about 5 blocks from home.

I stopped for a stoplight on Lowry and the bike promptly stalled stone dead. There were no lights, no turn signals, no nothings. Damn. I fiddled with the fuses for a bit and realized I was probably barking up the wrong tree. Nuts. I threw a leg over and coasted it down a hill and then pushed the heavy beastie another 3 blocks. This left me at the bottom of a two block hill that separated me from my garage. I've not had to push this bike very often, but I've done it enough to know I'd rather stick pureed jalapeno peppers up my nose than push this bike up a hill. It's just too big and too heavy.

I walked the rest of the way home and dusted off Freetruck. This is exactly why I keep this wretched pile of rusting metal around. I don't want to have to call my pals up at 9:30 at night to have them bail my bike off a curb. I filled 3 of its 4 tires with air, started it up (it started immediately after sitting for 2 months), chucked the ramp in the back and drove the 2 blocks to rescue the Wing.

Optimally, I prefer to have someone else helping me out with this operation. This usually assures that I don't kill myself or the bike doesn't fall on me or whatever. Since I really didn't want to try to shag someone up at that hour, I just did it myself. The wing weighs easily over 500 pounds and another reason I keep Freetruck around is its low bed height. Add to this the fact that the gate is rusty and rather flexable, and you get a very gradual and easy push right into the back of the truck. This is exactly what happened. I think I really surprised the two police officers who were giving a guy a speeding ticket around the corner. Since it was only 2 blocks home I just put the bike on the sidestand and drove off with it--slowly.

Unloading the pig is always a challange. When you try to back the thing onto the ramp, the ramp always wants to slide away. After fiddling with it for a few minutes it rolled down the ramp just like that. How nice. I shut the thing in the garage, and I expect I'll have some time this weekend to figure out what's wrong.

As for next week, I'll be taking Monday and Tuesday off to have some fun and do some rearranging to the site. I'm not promising anything, but I think I'll work up a .prc file for palms of the archived Diversions, perhaps work on COMDIV a bit, throw some magazines out on Ebay for sale and maybe do some other surprise stuff.

6/28/00

My wife and I went on a riverboat ride on the Mississippi last night. We rode the Harriet Bishop up from Harriet Island across the river from downtown St. Paul to an area just past Fort Snelling and then back again. What fun. It was a dinner cruise and the food was decent--a notch above Old Country Buffet--but the views were excellent.

My stepmom and aunt were along as well as it was their business womens' group that sponsored the trip. The boat had live entertainment in the form of a bass player and banjo player. They played "riverboat tunes" and were pretty good. The boat went under the high bridge, past the new and old high bridge power plants, past the swing bridge (#15) and past the Watergate Marina and Fort Snelling. The scenery was beautiful. Its really nice to see people out using the park system. It seems as if there's tons of bike trails and walking trails along the route as well as quite a few parks. One thing that sticks out in my mind is just below Fort Snelling, there's chunk of shore line with a park bench on it. There doesn't seem to be any trails leading to it, it's just there. Pretty neat.

I snapped about 2 1/2 rolls of film on our journey so I expect I'll get to relive the adventure provided I exposed the film correctly. As we left the dock and again as we arrived, there were a few barn swallows flying around. Without doubt these are some of the most graceful and agile birds I ever get a chance to watch. Back in my school bus days, the terminal had a bunch of these birds flying in and out of the barns, chasing each other around the yard and making us all feel trapped by how free they looked. These swallows were having quite a bit of fun (if that is indeed what they have) and it was a joy supreme to watch them flying around the boat. The ride itself was very relaxing. The scenery scrolled by and we were very comfortable standing in the bow area after dinner. I could have gone back to sit down, but I wanted to get some shots of certain things. This is how I "enjoy" cruises like this.

The best news of all is that my wife didn't get motion sick while on the boat. This means we will get to do more of this kind of thing in the future. Watch for a review of this ride coming up in the "I've been there" part of the Minneapolis branch of the site.

6/26/00

It was a good weekend. It was nice to have a weekend that had some decent weather. I'm getting kind of tired of the rain thing.

We saw the movie "Chicken Run" Friday night. It was really good. If you've not seen the Wallace and Gromit shows on tape or on PBS or wherever they're being shown, go out and rent them. Then go see "Chicken Run." This movie takes great advantage of "Claymation"-style animation to make the charactors seem eerily real. The chickens have great facial expressions, real blink rates, and a host of other things that make this movie just amazingly entertaining. The movie is loosely based on "The Great Escape" and features diabollically mean (and stupid) humans, a terrifying machine, and a chicken run that looks more like a prision camp. The charactors are instantly lovable and nobody really gets hurt or killed. It earned its "G" rating and the movie really strives not only to be entertaining, but to be acceptable for all watchers. The second this thing is released to VCR, I'm buying a copy for my neice.

Saturday was spent lying low in the humidity and taking care of some stuff around the house. We went to the megamart around lunch time and were treated with the oddest sight: When we walked into the place, some blue-hair was pulling her absolutely pristine AMC Eagle station wagon out of a handicapped parking spot. My wife and I stopped and marvelled at the skill the driver exhibited in failing to turn gradually while backing, failling to back far enough out of the stall, and failure to turn the wheels hard enough to pull into traffic after shifting into drive. It was amazing. She pulled back, turned left and forward, pulled straight back again, and then and only then was she able to turn the car hard enough to the left to clear the parked car next to her and pull into the lane. She then sat at the stop sign facing the store for quite a while--probably waiting in vain for the traffic to clear enough so that she felt safe enough to turn left and leave the megaplex. We didn't stay for the rest of the show. We had shopping to do.

Once we had finished our shopping and were leaving the megaplex, what should we see but ANOTHER blue-hair in ANOTHER AMC Eagle station wagon exiting the SAME handicapped parking stall in the exact same manner. This AMC was in much less nice shape, and was missing a hubcap so I knew this wasn't the same woman. My wife wanted to believe it was the same person as they had another, older gentleman in the vehicle, but the woman didn't look the same and the car was nowhere near in as good a shape as the first one. We stayed for the parking dance again--not that we had much choice--she was blocking our way. Once the multi-turn was completed we went home. What did we learn today? We learned that older people drive 4 wheel drive station wagons poorly.

Sarah and I went out for a long motorcycle ride on the Wing on Saturday night. It was a relaxing drive. We went down Marshall St. NE to Nicollet Island, then went through downtown to see what the front of the new US Bancorp/ Piper Jaffray Tower looked like. James Lileks gave us a heads-up in his daily column to go and check this out. It looks pretty cool and very inviting. We then headed out Kenwood Parkway to the Chain of Lakes Parkway. We cruised Lake of the Isles which was pretty empty of people, Dean Parkway and the West Lake Calhoun Parkway which were crawling with people and traffic, Lake Harriet Parkway, which was also choked with people and then the Minnehaha Creek Parkway which was mostly deserted. The Creek is one of my favorite drives anywhere in Minneapolis. We followed the detour around the Highway 55 interchange and continued on to West River Parkway. This too was pretty empty. We were getting around sunset at this time and so we stopped to cross the newly opened Bridge #9 across the Mississippi between the East Bank of the University of Minnesota and the area just north of the West Bank. There are some stunning views to be had on that bridge. In the sunset, the Weisman Art Museum looked to be on fire, the skyline of downtown was mostly in view, one could see the Foshay, and one had an eagle's-eye view of the Lower St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam. The only drawback is that the IDS tower was partially obscured by the USBank tower.

After ooohing and aaahing for a while, we finished on the bridge and then rode West River Parkway to the Warehouse District, the rest of the Parkway, and then eventually hit the freeway for a little speed. We got off on 53rd Ave N and meandered down the city streets to Victory Memorial drive and then back to Lowry Ave N. The only close call we had on our little tour happened about 5 blocks from home when some idiot who wasn't watching took a left turn directly in front of us. He was heading west on Lowry and we were going east. Fortunately for us, this fellow was such a crappy driver that he had signalled his intentions (without actually bothering to use his turn signals) by crossing over the center line about a half-block before his eventual left. I grabbed a handful of brake and we missed him by a more or less comfortable distance. Enough distance that I was able to give him a toot on the horn to wake him up after he had ceased to be a threat. Dope.

6/22/00

Rain. More rain. It's raining again. This sucks for me doubly because not only does it cause the grass to grow and causes me to have to cut it, it also causes me to drive my car into work. I work in downtown Minneapolis. In the past 2 years, I've seen the rate for daily parking go from ~$7.00 to $8.50/day. If I wanted to park next to the building where I work, I would have to pony up $12.00. Yes, I know that just about everywhere else in this country the rates are higher, but come on! I love to ride my motorcycle downtown because not only is a great way to prepare for the day's work, it saves me money as well. It costs $4.00 to park my bike a block from where I work. Last year the rate went up from $3.00/day and I'm still bitter about that, but I guess I'll live. I love riding in and saving money. Big yay.

All this leads me to the conclusion I've come to recently: I'm going to have to go get a moped. It's legal as far as I can tell to park a moped in a bike rack downtown. That would mean free parking. Free. Not having to pay anything. This is good. I don't relish the fact I would be riding a vehicle with a maximum top speed of ~30 MPH on city streets where people routinely drive 45, but I'm a big guy and if they can't see me, then they need to stop driving. Mopeds also get obscene gas mileage. I think the express gets about 50 or better. Most mopeds are also 2 stroke motors. Make smoke? Yes, thanks...

I have a 4 mile commute one way to work. Yes, I could ride my bicycle, but then I would have to ride it home when I was tired at the end of the day. I'm not up for that particular challenge presently. It's also uphill pretty much all the way to my house from downtown. Sure, there's a few places that go down, but for the most part, the whole route is a long hill. The thought of having to do some hard physical work immediately after working 8 hours makes me very wary. Very wary.

Mopeds also have that buzzy bee sound. Imagine riding your weed whacker or your chainsaw to work. Sound fun? You bet. All this and smelly clothes brought to you by the wonders of refined petrochemicals. Does anyone out there want to trade for a moped?

6/22/00

Well, I did it. I succombed to the prevailing toungue wagging and watched "Survivor" on CBS last night. I thoroughly expected the show to suck. I don't like shows like "The Real World" and such because these people aren't acting for the most part. These are real people, inducing real psychological trauma on each other. I see enough of that at work and in my neighborhood. Stop, please. I figure that CBS, MTV and the other networks will end up paying out vast work comp claims for injuries real or imagined that happened on these shows.

I think everyone in both "tribes" are right to be self-absorbed, because they are walking on eggshells. If they screw up, they're gone. The "contests" these people are made to participate in seem to me to be mostly pointless and the winners are decided on arbitrarily. Forget fairness, forget teamwork--let's create some hostility! This is what the viewing audience likes about these shows. They get to participate in conflict, without having to experience the discomfort of actually having the conflict. The resolution is quick, the justice permanent. It's over in an hour and it's on to some other channel. The voyeurism that this show capitalizes on is rampant in our society. People seem to want to know what other people are thinking, who's plotting against them, what people really think. Once again, I fear for the future of some of these participants. Getting to know someone as well as the audience gets to know the castaways just can not be good.

I thought the show was entertaining, and it had a reassuring structure to it. The whole program was spelled out several times in the pre-show fun and by the narrators during the show. I was never lost. It also really helped that whenever someone was "saying" something, their names flashed over the screen. This helped me a great deal to get to associate the names with the faces. This isn't to say I could come up with anyone's name presently--a full 12 hours later. Whatever.

As for the castaways themselves, the younger men all seemed to be the omniman/actionguy creation of the last 5 years. Except for the coconut phone guy, I had difficulty telling them apart. The African American fellow stood out for me because he seems to be a successful version of what every kid in my neighborhood wants to be: Famous, confident, and getting paid to play basketball. The motivational trainer guy is probably the smartest person on the whole island and seems to have found his niche displaying the big brain and how to use it. Good for you, buddy, but remember that people hate people who are smarter than they are. As for the women on the island, I really think the woman who was voted off the island last night was pretty strung out mentally by the whole thing. The relief on her face when she got the boot was easily read. There was regret, and betrayal and all the other stuff people are watching the show for, but I think it was a foregone conclusion that she was a goner. The other women on the island are trying hard to be strong like the guys, but none of them are succeeding at it particularly well. Look for the one that is having an affair with coconut phone boy to be voted out next.

I think that the horror movie rules will definately apply here. You're dead if you have sex, you're a goner if you go off alone, and if you're different in any way, seeya.

6/21/00

I stopped at the gas pumps last night to fill my wife's car up. Man, did gas prices jump. I put $23.00 of regular unleaded in the Calais' tank. Yow, that's a lot of money. Still, it's still much cheaper than Canada or any country you'd care to name in Europe. I'm still not very happy about it. Normally, a fill-up of the Calais took somewhere between $11.00 and $15.00. Not good, this.

In other news, Handspring is having its IPO(Inital Public Offering(of stock)) this week. I, for one, am sad that I didn't have the cash to invest in one of the companies I really think will be influential in my life in the coming years. It looks as if they're doing fairly well. For those of you out there who don't know, I have a Handspring Visor Deluxe brand PDA. I really dig it, and my wife has just purchased one as well. She digs hers, too. Look for a column here in the near future written by her about her experience with her Visor. We both wish Handspring all the luck they could use in their IPO.

I came home last night and played fetchit with the dog. He really loves to run around the yard, chasing after the ball. It's so cool that something so simple can amuse him for at least a half-hour if not more. We definately need to get him out more. Make that a double for me, as well. 6 months ago, I was a couch potato. As a general "Get off the couch!" program, we cancelled cable TV, got the dog, and started doing stuff like taking walks. What do you know. I feel better and have more energy. This isn't saying it's solved all my problems, but at least I seem to have more energy to keep working on them longer.

I don't have much else to say, today. Seeya tomorrow.

6/20/00

Boy, was I tired yesterday. I don't even think I had a good reason to be as exhausted as I was. I think I may be returning to my old ways...

In the olden days, when the first digit of my age was a 2, I lived life like I was fighting with it. I woke up early to do an inner-city school bus route, went to classes at the University, drove some more bus and then went home. I did my studying and whatever else I needed to do, then I went out to night clubs to hear music or to cafes to drink coffee. I then returned home to get my absolute necessary 5 hours of sleep. On the weekends I would sleep in and then help somebody move or work on my cars or bikes or do whatever was preoccupying my brain that week. I spent money like it was water, but I had a really good time. I seemed to work harder on the weekends than I did during the week. I never stopped moving and doing stuff.

I'm not like that anymore. I'm old. Not geezer old, but not Superman young, either. I'm older.

I don't live life like I have something to prove, I take great joy in the time I have to spend with my wife, and I really enjoy having a dog around. I get more excersize these days. I've even cut back on the 12oz. curl. I'm even starting to enjoy things I really thought I'd never find pleasure in. I really dig that my back yard fatigues the green receptors in my eyeballs. I don't have really lush grass, but I have some tree thingies, an enormous old oak tree, lots of flowers and a shrub or two. Sitting out back or up on the balcony, I can feel my blood pressure lowering.

As a youth, I had an opinion that there were two kinds of people: Be-ers and Do-ers. Be-ers could sit around and just hang out and do nothing for long periods of time. They were partial to the music of the Grateful Dead. They were mellow. They were introspective and deep. Do-ers could didn't like to sit still, were happy getting things done, were always preoccupied, were always up for doing something, were rather hyper, and liked music with a "beat faster than their heart rate." That was an actual quote from me when I was younger which certainly tips my cards and gives a clue as to which one I thought I was. I really didn't understand how people could just sit. When I just sat, I felt compelled to do something. My wife still marvels at the way I can watch TV, read a magazine, pet the dog and talk to her all at the same time. No, I don't do any of these things particularly well when I'm doing them all together, but I'm comfortable with that level of distraction.

I'm still comfortable with that level of being occupied, but now and then I need to fall back a bit. Too much stuff going on around me now can get on my nerves. I find myself getting fatigued by too much stuff much more quickly than I used to. It was a good thing for me to quit having anything to do with driving a school bus, and because of this, my life has improved. However, I miss the absolutely jacked-in feeling I had when I was driving a bus full of unfamiliar kids on an unfamiliar route on the freeway. I guess if I did that for too much longer with a diminishing threshhold for noise, that job would have become even more of the living hell it usually was, but there was a time when in that chaotic situation, I felt perfectly calm and at ease. Weird, huh?

I think I'm feeling a wellspring of that nervous energy again. I'm not sure why, but it makes me feel much better the following day to stay up later than usual. Go figure.

6/19/00

There's a large cemetary near my house. I've explored it a couple of times. It's a good neighbor. It looks nice from the road, the inhabitants don't make much noise, and it's a very peaceful place to go to think. I'd never gone there with my wife, but being we were both in a mood to do something different, and the subject of SPAM came up as we were passing the gate, we turned in.

I lost my dad late last October. It was a very hard time for me and it still brings me much sadness. Being Father's Day yesterday, I figured I'd end up thinking about him quite a lot. I did. I got a couple of calls asking me how I was doing and that was really nice. I guess the whole Father's Day thing sort of put me in a mind to go see the cemetary.

This cemetary we drove into is pretty old, and there's a Veteran's hill. I was rather shocked to see that many vets died in the SPAM war. This was, of course, before I was able to see the . between SP and AM. SP.AM war. The Spanish-American War. Wherein Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill, we sort of double crossed a revolutionary in the Phillipines and ended up with possession of that group of islands, and we all remembered the Maine. BOOM!

Anyway, there are a lot of gravestones up there that say SP.AM War on it. Most of the death dates are from the 1930s. This could have been when these Vets died or something else. It was neat to see that we have an "Artificer" and a member of the "Balloon Corps" up there. There are also two fellows up there with the last name of "HOLTON." Close on the spelling, but not exactly the same.

We wandered around for a bit and then left. On the way home we had a deep and kinda sad conversation about our final dispensations. When we got home, we hugged the dog, and I went outside to start a "Recreational" fire. We then had a couple of cool drinks and then retired for the evening.

I sure do miss you, dad.

6/17/00

When my wife moved in to this house with me, we had just done an amazing amount of work on the house while living in her old apartment. An awful lot changed--our whole life, really--and we're STILL dealing with the junk.

We both had fully functioning autonomous households before we got married. When we tied the knot, we had to consolidate these two houses. Two sets of furniture, two stereos, two sets of cookware, pretty much two sets of everything. She and I deferred the final decision on the dispensation of these items until about a year ago. We realized that we were kinda swamped by our stuff. My wife called it being "tyrannized by our own stuff" and she wasn't far off. We started getting rid of stuff. We called it "De-junking" and the first victims of this program was my old roomate's stuff that was still in storage. No, there wasn't anything valuable--unless you consider a musty old futon in the basement valuable. As an aside--futon: An uncomfortable couch that turns into an uncomfortable bed.

To return to the subject, we filled various recepticles with stuff and disposed of them properly. We ordered an extra trash bin from the city, we hauled a bunch of stuff to the dump, we made weekly trips to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and the Disabled American Veterans' stores to donate piles of old clothes, household goods and appliances that we just didn't need anymore. We've done this with some enthusiasm now for about the last year. Do we have more space? Some. Not a lot, though. Much less than one would expect. It's like the trash multiplies. You open a trash bag, empty it out and it just seems to fill up again.

There have been victories to report. We have much more space in the basement, although cold storage is still pretty much packed to the rafters. We're able to go to the freezer in the basement without the hip-twisting that we needed to do to get there in the past. Our final goal is to have storage for truly needed things in the basement, and a lack of clutter on the main floors of the house. What's going to have to change to meet this goal is we're going to have to re-think our approach to record keeping. Even though the shredder functions nearly non-stop thanks to our letter carrier and the generous offers of various semi-ethical money-lending institutions, we have been reducing the sheer number of boxes of junk in the office. We're going to have to keep shredding, and making value judgements on what to keep and what to throw out. We're also going to have to re-think our approach to laundry. It's obvious after a few years of marriage that neither of us is ever going to be able to haul clean laundry out of the basement and put it away up stairs. Neither my wife nor myself are wired for this type of task.

Speaking of wired, I picked up my first copy of WIRED magazine in about two years. Man, it's changed a bunch. I think there's more ads, and less of the neat little columns like the WIRED/TIRED list, but the writing is still pretty good and the stories are really interesting. It's good to know that CONDE/NASTy hasn't wrecked a good thing.

6/16/00

After I finished messing about with my computer last night, I had a terrible bout of insomnia. It seemed as if the whole house was creaking, the dog was licking, and my skin was crawling to the most annoying creshendo I've experienced in a long while. I probably didn't get to sleep until something past 1AM. To those insomniacs out there who are already belittling me for being a wimp, let me assure you I generally don't experience insomnia and so this was truly out of the realm of the usual.

Boy, did it suck.

After doing the bed mosh for what seemed like, um...ETERNITY...I went down stairs and flipped on the idiot box. Yep, broadcast TV still sucks, even at this late hour. I had forgotten my glasses upstairs, but the channel I ended up watching didn't come in very well so I just let it annoy me. I figured if I really got into the program--not likely, mind you--I just might stay up all night. Watching without glasses became intolerable very quickly. I let the dog out, and sat outside with him for a while.

North Minneapolis has a bad reputation as being a rotten place to live, but the joke is on the rest of the city. It's quiet up here--at least on weeknights. I could hear I-94 12 blocks distant, I could hear the wind rustling through the trees, and thanks to those trees, I might well have been out in the country. There are certain places in the back yard where every one else is screened out and I'm left with the liberty to imagine I'm somewhere I'm not. This is a good thing.

Up in North, we don't have airport noise. Where we are, there is the occaisonal train rumbling or horn, the horn from the river tow boats clearing the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam (yes, we can hear their toot at about 4 miles distant) and the very infrequent steam venting from the power plant on the river over in Northeast. Yes, we have boom cars and gun shots, but the gun shots are infrequent these days and if you're not breaking the law, you're not likely to experience this particular sound at close range. The boom cars have become ubiquitous--you can find them everywhere in town and in every suburb.

Speaking of boom cars, is everyone ready to foot the bill for these idiots' medical problems when they discover their toys made them deaf? I have a good idea: I'm going to take my crapbox car, chuck $5K worth of amps and subwoofers in to it, and then ride around my neighborhood while the screws on my trunk lid slowly loosen from the rattling. Yep, that sounds like an intelligent thing to do. I'm going to get right on that.

Are guys that have caused themselves to become deaf sexy?

6/15/00

It was a long day at work. There are big doings afoot and I expected to get run through with menial labor tasks. Surprise! We had enough people and I got a ton of stuff done in my own little domain. It was a good day. This is not to say it was a good day for the company. Let's just say that things are not working out as we planned.

I came home tonight on the motorcycle in the rain. It's not unusual to get caught in the rain here. I'm usually obsessive about the weather reports so that I don't have to ride in a downpour, but even I get cought out once in a while. It had been a while, as well. I reaquainted myself with the old motorcycle disk brakes in the rain performance hit--apply brakes and break out in a cold sweat when nothing happens--and made it home safely. I really didn't even get all that wet.

Upon my arrival at home, I trudged through the overgrown lawn that I absolutely MUST cut as soon as humanly possible, and up to the door. I was greeted by my good dog who had only dragged one dish out of the kitchen to lick clean. Good dog. I took him outside and he proceeded to not do anything. He didn't do anything for 15 minutes. This is pretty unlike him, but if he was trying to get my goat by getting me wet, I was already wet and it didn't bother me a bit. So there.

I spent the balance of the evening installing Windows 2000 on Frankenputer. I'll be darned if it didn't install without any problems. I've installed Windows 98 on this machine 5 times and each time I have problems that probably stem from my aged BIOS, the differing PCI standards, and the fact that I consider Win98 to be as stable as one of those board and log gizmos. Win2K installed without a hitch. I'm just so impressed. Office 2000 installed cleanly and quickly as well. I was able to get my Visor to HotSync without any problems and my new ISA modem (yes, new ISA modem), installed without even referring to the driver disc. I'm just so blown away.

Well, it's getting really late and I still have to post this stuff to my server, so I'd better close.

I've been getting back into playing softball lately. My buddy who plays all kinds of sports, knows I like to play and he's kind enough to call me up when they need an extra player. I used to be pretty good, but now I'm just fat and slow. I get lots of respect, though. When I'm up to the plate, it's kinda fun to watch the other team's outfielders move backwards. Presently, I'm an OK hitter, so I might get a hold of one, but normally I just hit it hard enough to go out of the infield and drop in front of the outfielders. Life is good.

We got stomped last night under cover of rain, and I was only up to the plate twice. I was 2 for 2, both singles. The first one is getting to be a signature hit. A short fly ball that lands just between backrushing infielders and onrushing outfielders. The second hit was a seeing-eye single between short and second. I pulled my hamstring getting out of the batter's box on that one. I hobbled down to first base and worked it for a while and it seemed like it would be OK. It isn't. This is why I had to stop playing in the first place. I try too hard and then I hurt myself. I'm very competitive and I don't take into account that my body isn't the thing it was when I was 21. I'll still be playing next week, but I may ask for a "courtesy runner," a "C" league thing where someone else gets to run for a gimp. I'm good with that.

As for the stomping, one of our team members noted that we gave them about 10 years per person, and that they had some very athletic women on the team. Our women can hit and play, their women players could play in the next level up.

My wife received her Visor in the mail yesterday. She's really excited about it. I've been playing with mine for a month now and she (the idea person on our little binary unit) has already given me 100 new uses I had never even considered. She couldn't wait to get it. Handspring used to have supply problems, but with their optional express delivery, I've gotten both the ones I've ordered before the email confirmation that it was sent got to me. It took 2 business days to get it, after ordering it on Saturday. Good job, folks!

There is one snag in this Visor Enabled household: The dog hates the things. Perhaps it's the little click they make when you successfully tap/select on the screen, or perhaps it's radiating some noise that only he can hear, or perhaps it's just that he doesn't want us paying attention to our strange little plastic boxes instead of paying attention to him--I don't know. What I do know is that I've heard of these things getting chewed up by pets, so we'll be storing these up and out of reach of my big brown buddy Brutus.

Yesterday, I saw clenched fists of rage, and it made me mad.

I'm a dog owner. You can see my good buddy Brutus by clicking that link. He's a good dog and I'm a "responsable" pet owner. This means I take my dog for walks, I don't leave him in the yard to bark and annoy the neighbors, and I pick up his poop when he makes a deposit. Obviously somewhere along the line I grew horns, cloven hooves and a pointy tail.

Minneapolis is considering installing a few off-leash dog parks. The process to do this is long and ardorous. The process started 3 years ago when the proposal was brought to some city agency, and is now in the "planning" phase. The city officials are trying to figure out where to put them. Since I live in North Minneapolis, I thought I'd toddle down to the community response meeting in Webber Park to check out where they are planning to site these parks. I figured there would be some resistance to dog parks, and I figured I could be a "responsable dog owner" and advocate for a place in my somewhat blighted neighborhood that I would actually use. It was an event that I will certainly never forget.

The meeting started with the moderator explaining that we needed to be calm (!) and respect the opinions of others. In retrospect, she must have been the veteran of many of these meetings and it was largely due to her efforts that this didn't become a WWF pay-per-view spectacle. Next we had a presentation from MROMP about what a dog park was, why people want them, how they would be run and what the rules were at them. The second presenter was from the city and he was the landscape architect in charge of evaluating these sites for usability. He introduced the three sites in question. The third fellow was an Animal Control Officer from the city explaining the legal and administrative end of licensing, enforcement and rules. The meeting was then opened up to the audience for quesitons and comments.

For a moment it looked as if all hell was going to break loose. The first two commenters were so incindiary that the moderator was forced to hand out number cards so that we could all take our turn. The first two people were very concerned that they didn't hear about this meeting. From what it sounds like to me, the city and MROMP did just about everything they could do to publicize these meetings save going door to door. The people who didn't hear about these meetings just aren't interesting in hearing about anything. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) was the second most popular complaint. Yes, a couple of the sites were very close to residential houses, and I don't think those sites should be considered. The NIMBYs were concerned about a rise in automobile traffic, foot traffic, dog poop on the boulevards and on lawns, and lawless owners. I think the NIMBYs were accidently educated at this meeting. I think an off-leash dog park in the vicinity of a house would raise its value, not lower it. There were some older issues that came up like the city redirecting money that was going to be used to extend Victory Memorial Drive to 53rd Ave N to build a drainage pond instead and some other slights imagined and not.

These issues were to be expected. However, I was not ready for the ad homonem attacks by some of our older neighbors. The clenched fists of rage belonged to the aged in that room. They were opposed to ANY change positive or negative. One idiot in a pseudo sailor hat literally shook with rage while he blurted his assertion that there was no such thing as a responsible pet owner. I could take it no longer and interrupted him with a loud "Excuse ME!" This short circuited his impotent rage but the whole room erupted. This is when I figured out that the rage in this room had very little to do with off-leash dog parks and almost everything to do with a fear of change.

Why fear a happy place like a dog run? There's going to be nobody there except people who paid the fee, pick up after their dog, and happy dogs running around. The name "Bark Park" is misleading because dogs who are running around are not barking. They're running around. Paul Fussell mentions in his book Class that the lower social strata of our class system (the Proles) fear change and the uncertainty that it brings. The rageful in this meeting were certainly the "High Proles" that Fussell describes as being at the top of their social rung, wanting for nothing except for people to leave them alone while admiring their material possessions. That we (the city) had the nerve to drag them out to a meeting to try to change their surroundings without their consent, made them resentful, bitter and rageful. Nevermind the fact that maybe 1 or 2 of the 20 people at the meeting who were opposed to the parks lived close enough to the site to be directly affected by its operation.

The body language said it all, really. Folded arms, hands balled into tight fists, clenching jaws, overly tanned skin--it all said "don't you jerks dare to site this in my space!" Fortunately, what the pro-park people lacked in sheer numbers, it more than made up for in positivity (a fellow at the meeting even took his turn to ask people to open their minds and be positive), eloquence, and determination. I had the honor of being the first pro-park person to stand and speak. I told them that if they were wondering who would be using this park, here I am. I told them that I love my dog, that my dog needs excersize, and that I'm tired of driving to the far side of St. Paul to let my dog run around. I told them that good dog owners bring the techniques of good dog ownership back to their neighborhood and that serves to quiet the dogs down, reduce the number of "killer dogs" and serve as good role models for people who have no concept of how to raise, train and take care of their dogs.

This, of course, didn't stop the ad homonem sniping and one jogger jerk had audacity ask why the woman from MROMP bought such a large dog when she lived in the city. This guy was tired of jogging through North Mississippi regional park and being chased by dogs who were off leash. I understood his concern and frustration, but to imply that it was stupid of this woman to have a large dog in the city was a shitty thing to do. Sir, you should be ashamed of yourself for not holding your tongue. Women in the city have large dogs not only because they love large dogs, but for PROTECTION! Idiot. May I ask you why you choose to jog through North Mississippi regional park when you know there will be dogs there? Are you some kind of fool? Do you like being chased by dogs?

To close this up, one of the pro-park people said referring to the bridges under the freeway at North Regional Park, "Dogs didn't spray paint graffiti on those bridges..." and one of our friends said that North needed something like this to build community. It's true. When you're standing there, watching your dog run around, not only are you happy, but you're almost compelled to interact with the other dog owners. Dog parks are community builders. That's the bottom line and one of the best reasons to have one in our neighborhood.

It's my mom's birthday today. Yesterday we went to some feedbag buffet in the 'burbs to celebrate the fact that she's made it another year. This is longer than dad made it, and as sad as I am about that, I'm happy that mom's still around and in good shape.

Her fiancee (why does this still sound odd?) has recently scored a classic car. He just picked up a '57 Chevy 4 door coupe. It's one of those cars that someone who had been collecting cars for a while had in a barn for a number of years. The fellow Jim bought it from is getting on in years and is selling off his collection to pay off his wife's medical bills. The old fellow said to Jim that he would trade all the cars and tractors he had laying around the property just to see his wife healthy again. I wish him all the luck in the world.

I've started writing this daily (I hope) column for a number of reasons: I have seen the lack of content out on the web and it is not good. I want to practice writing on the fly. I'm inspired by another web writer (Lileks). I'd like to produce some content that could be downloaded daily through the AvantGo service to people's Palm devices. I'd like to put it on my resume. I think I have something to say. I want to say something. I want to feel that I didn't register my domain for no good reason. I want to use my brain for something other than problem solving.

So there it is. My raison d'etre. I think I'm going to have a hard time keeping all these columns straight, so I may go to a frame setup. I've not decided.

Yesterday was a productive day. My lovely wife and I went a house and handyman superstore and were mightly unimpressed with the people who frequented there. I have some fashion tips for those of you out there with lewd bumper stickers on your pickup trucks: Be sure whoever buys your clothes, buys them long enough in the back. Don't just look down your front when trying on a T-shirt--check the back too. I'm sure you're aware that if your shirt is too short in the front, your gut will show. You should know, however, that if it's too short in the back, your butt will show as well. This is not pleasant for other people. Please be considerate and either buy shirts that are longer, or tuck them in when they pull out. Nobody wants to see your ass for free. This is not a bonus for us. And for you ladies out there with hair pulled back tightly around your head: Your squalling children turn an already unpleasant shopping experience into something similar to a root canal procedure. Leave them at home.

I digress--but that's the point, right?

Anyway, my lovely wife and I did find a couple of suitable shelving units at a locally-based super retail chain store. They were wood and they go nicely with the unfinished pine theme in our house. I think shelving is hugely expensive, but I guess it takes money to cut down trees.

I'm getting a bit frazzled, so I'm outta here.