'2001' Archives
![[Busy computing... for you!]](https://www.bolsinga.com/comp.gif "[Busy computing... for you!]")
OK. I haven't updated this in a long while. It's listed in chronological order, from oldest to newest.
I went home to freezing Chicago for the Christmas holidays. There was about 2 feet of snow and it wasn't ever more than 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The side streets in Chicago weren't plowed. This has caused mayoral failures in the past. I guess the city had asked that people move their cars so they could plow, but this caused an uproar. Where were people going to move their cars to? The mayor denied responsibility for the request. So there are buried cars and places where people had shoveled out their cars. Some will then put chairs, closet doors, crates, and other crap in the spaces so that others don't take the spot they've shoveled out. This gets some people's goat, being that the streets are public. It's just funny when you don't live there.
I've been able to work at home a few times since I last updated this site. It's pretty nice. I can sleep a little longer, and I get to see how nice it can be in the city. My apartment gets tons of sun, and I usually only get to appreciate it on weekends.
I've registered bolsinga.com. Right now it simply points to my personal site, but I intend for it to be my family's site. I got personalized email addresses for my family for Christmas. It's so cyber, and we'll be millionaires within the year!
Once at Critical Mass, there were these bumper stickers that say "I'm Changing The Climate! Ask me how." The website is pretty funny. The rules say to only put them onto SUVs that are big, and obviously used as status symbols, and not for work. You can print up your own from the site.
On New Years Eve there was a shooting on Fell St., about a block from my house. I was up on the roof at the time, and I heard really loud & deep firecrackers. I was very certain they weren't firecrackers, however. So I went down to Fell to see what was up. For those out-of-towners, Fell St. is really busy, as it is right at the end of the expressway. One car had shot at another around 10 times, putting lots of holes into the target car and some parked cars. They sped off, and as far as I know, they weren't found. The target car had 2 people in it, but only one was around. The passenger, who may or may not have been hit, wasn't at the scene anymore. The police shut down this road for awhile, while they searched for bullet shells. It was quite surreal.
My Uncle Butch passed away in January. He was my great uncle, and he lived on the same block on Division in Chicago for about 75 years. He was as interesting as can be, and I'll really miss hearing the stories he had to tell.
It had been so long since I updated this, that I had a note saying that MacOS X will ship March 24. Well it's months later now! It's been interesting. More copies of it have already shipped than any software I've worked on, and then a little bit ago Apple announced it was finally shipping it installed on all new Macintoshes. I like it. Buy a Mac; get some software I've contributed to in a small way. Cool! Apple created online banner advertisements for parts I worked on.
I've stopped smoking. I feel pretty darn confident that I won't be starting again either. The whole change has really changed me. I've been running & biking pretty often. I ran in a race. I've ridden my bike over the Golden Gate Bridge a couple times, and I've taken a ferry back to San Francisco. It's awesome.
I've also received plenty of unsolicited emails about the site in 2001. I'm going to put together a few of them on a page, and they'll be stripped to protect the innocent.
I was walking down the street near my house one Sunday morning after getting the Sunday paper. I was wearing a MacOS X t-shirt. At an intersection this large Mercedes stops, and I cross the street in front of it. A guy pulls himself out of the back window, leans out, and waves to me saying "MacOSX rocks!" Do you think that would happen wearing a Windows 2000 Professional t-shirt?
So in a shoe gazing mood, I searched for "bolsinga" on google.com, as I do every now and then. Check out what I found. This just is strange. Does this make me an authority? Does this make me like Roger Ebert? What does this mean?
Technical Notes: The program that creates this has now been fully ported to MacOS X. It's a Mach-O binary. It's always just been a no user interface program. It simply reads specially formatted text files with all the information, and then it spits out the resulting html files. Now it works as a full fledged MacOS X terminal program. I built it with the new CodeWarrior 7 Early Access. I can't go to the default MacOS X developer tools yet, because I use lots of wacky C++ features, and the version of gcc and the C++ library currently shipped on MacOS X don't support that yet. As soon as they do, I'll port the program over to Project Builder on MacOS X. #
I didn't put it into the last update, but my old college roommate, Jeff Wagner, had moved out here to the Bay Area about the same time I did. I found out while talking to my friend Kevin in Denver on the phone. He told me, "Oh, Jeff moved to Oakland." He said it like Oakland was far from San Francisco or something. Jeff just moved to San Francisco.
Not too much else going on. I've been busy with work again, and I hope to get out of town for a bit soon. #
So I forgot to mention last time that I went to go see a Giants game at Pac Bell Park. I saw Barry Bonds hit 2 homers. For one of these he tied Mickey Mantle's career home runs statistic.
I saw David Byrne do a PowerPoint presentation for his new book. He read from it, and displayed pictures and pictures with diagrams with it. He was using PowerPoint on a PowerBook.
Wow. So it's been just about 2 years to the month since I went to the Grand Canyon with my family. The other day I was reading the paper online, and I read that a family of 3 perished in the Grand Canyon due to a flash flood.
As I was writing this, I realize it's been 5 years since I've left Chicago. This is making me feel pretty weird. I didn't even live in Chicago on my own for that long. I believe I think of many things in comparison to Chicago, and I really haven't had a whole lot of my adult experiences there. #
My life since the last update has been nothing but a college nostalgia trip. I saw a show that really reminded me of the music from college. I was not one but 2 sets of old friends from college. One of them was pregnant, so that was quite a trip. Then I went to go see an Illini game at Berkeley. The only difference from the past for me was that the Illini whomped California.
My brother came to San Francisco to visit. It was a good time. He's going to Korea in about a month to teach English. It was good to hang out since I won't be able to see him for a long time. The cool thing is that once he's there, I can go and visit him in Korea.
Soon the next version of MacOSX, 10.1, will be coming out. Since I'm in the know, I can safely tell you it is better than its predecessor.
This week I'm going to New York City to visit friends, and the week after that I have a friend visiting from Austin. The week after that I go to Chicago to see my brother off to Korea.
Hey! It's about 3 years that I've been maintaining this website, and putting up this wonderful information you are reading now. You're welcome. #
I didn't go to New York City last week. I found all my friends there to be as OK as circumstances allow. My heart really goes out to everyone.
My feelings about this change nearly hourly. I won't waste everyone's time; I'm certain many others are experiencing the same conflicting emotions. I'm searching for some way that I can reconcile and justify my feelings, even while they are changing. #
My friend Matt from Austin visited last weekend. We did lots. I saw another Barry Bonds homer (number 64). We saw the Alcatraz hospital. We didn't see San Francisco from Marin county. We saw a great rock show by The Clean, who neither of us knew of beforehand. We saw a quaint French film, and a druggy Austin film.
I'm going to Chicago tomorrow to see my brother off to Korea. He should be there by the middle of October or so. I'm looking forward to going to Chicago; I haven't been back there since January. I'm also going to try to go to the Apple Store in Woodfield while I'm home.
MacOSX 10.1 has now shipped, and it looks great. It's also fast.
Take a look at the numbers now. I'm almost to 500 shows and 1000 sets. And these numbers only reflect the ones I had taken the time to write down. Pretty incredible. #
Hey, check it out. I've seen 500 shows and 1001 sets!
Marc, Tanya, & Rob visited from Austin last weekend. We ran around town to museums, bars, sushi restaurants, cliffs, beaches, & mountains. Everyone who visits me has a great time. At least that's what I like to tell myself.
My brother has made it to Korea. I got a phone call & an email from him. So far it only sounds like he's been drinking. I'll have to visit him soon.
I just saw a lame-o WindowsXP commercial, advertising digital video editing. It's been possible to do this on a Mac, off the darn shelf, for about 2 years on Mac. Please!
By the time I update this again, I'll be 31. #
I'm now past my golden birthday. I understand this is when you turn your age on a day of the month, i.e. I turned 31 on the 31st. Since only 5 months out of the year have 31 days, this is statistically rare among the population. I am just so unique! I'm also a prime again. I learned from my brother, via my mom, that ages are counted from 1 in Korea. So there I'd be 32 now. Isn't it a little funny how something perceived to be constant, can be arbitrary? Math; it's absolutely arbitrary.
So I'm walking downstairs this morning, and I happen across the building manager and the really cute woman who lives on the first floor. They're talking about ants in the apartment building. I get some ants up on the top floor, but apparently they are getting thick blankets of ants in their places. While she's describing how bad it is, she says, "I like to take baths with honey, and the next morning the tub is covered with ants." Then the building manager says, "It's no wonder you're so sweet."
I'm making up my New York City trip this upcoming weekend, just after another Superchunk show. #
I went to New York City last weekend. I had such a great time. I had fun, and I had quite an experience. I got off the plane on a Thursday night and my friend said we're going to a birthday party. We got on a train, and we were catching up. Dennis had flowers with him for his gift. I asked who's birthday was it? He was coy for a bit and soon told me it was Pxxxxx Pxxxx! This is really funny because I have this somewhat mock obsession with her. Back in Austin whenever we were going to rent a movie, and couldn't decide, I'd want a Pxxxxx Pxxxx video. It got to be a joke. Anyway so we go to her birthday party. It was at a piano bar where lots of gay guys were singing show tunes. Dennis said he had seen her birthday announcement on Entertainment Tonight that evening as well! She gave a friendly hello and kiss to Dennis, and I wished her happy birthday. I didn't get a kiss. Anyway I was star struck. I'm not sure why I've hid her name.
The next day Dennis had to work and I was on crazy 3 hours off California time. So I woke up when Dennis left for work and called Matt in Austin to tell him about Pxxxxx Pxxxx. It was a good laugh. Then I feel back asleep. When I got up I took Dennis' suggestion and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. The bridge ends almost on top of Ground Zero. While walking over, I knew that I would have been able to see the towers, but I had no image burned on my brain to understand exactly what was missing. I had no scale, nothing to compare to to completely measure for myself what had changed. Then I got to the northeast area, near an old church. The first thing I noticed was the smell, just like it has been described. This is about 2 months after the fact. You can see a burnt out crushed building from there. There's still smoke rising. There's quite a few people there checking out the memorials. There were fences obscuring most of the view. I'll admit that it felt a little wrong to be there, but in the end I feel that it really helped me understand what had occurred first hand. I walked all around the site. I think I really got a personal sense of what happened. The area is completely dense surrounding it, and then there is a large gaping empty area where the towers were. This is how I think I was able to understand the size of the loss.
So while I was walking around feeling sad and mad and scared, every now and then I'd look up and see an absolutely gorgeous woman. They seem to be everywhere in this city. Boy, I would forget what was at hand for a few moments and just think about who I had just seen. It can really bring you back to earth and forget your troubles. It almost makes me wonder what happens to a culture where the women are covered up all the time. But that starts to tread into areas I'm not qualified to discuss. I'm reading this over and it may sound like I'm objectifying, but I don't think so. A good looking woman is just very good to see, a positive point in the day. And I just heard of a scientific study in the journal Neuron, that says it's true. It's hardwired, not learned, just like food.
On Saturday we went to the top of the Empire State Building. It's an outdoor observation deck, which just seems really strange to me. I was really freaked out because of the heights. But it sure was beautiful. It's full of wonderful Art Deco oddities and the views are great. There were a lot of people on the south side looking towards were the towers were. It was somewhat interesting to think about what the Empire State Building was thinking now that it's the tallest in town. I think it would be glad about it, but it wouldn't have wanted it to happen this way.
After this we stopped by a gallery that was full of the average New Yorker's photos of September 11. The line was long, and we didn't bother trying to go in. They had a screen in the store front window that was showing a slide show of photos. The most emotionally devastating was a video run at something like twice normal speed. It started once both were burning, and ended when they had fallen. When they fell, it was so fast, it would hit you really hard. I think I saw it about twice when I was standing there, and there were gasps each time.
That evening my friend Cindy had her 30th birthday party. I was able to meet her new fiance, and there were a bunch of former Champaign folks there as well. It was fun and weird all at once.
I had such a great time there, that I was prepared to tell everyone about how they should get themselves to New York and have a good time. It felt to me that people there were still down, but were definitely on the way back up. I was really sad to hear the next day about the airplane that crashed in Queens. I hope that this doesn't put everyone out too much. #
This is just a quick update. All the images have been moved to an alternate server. This will reduce the load. #
I've added a bunch of new picture links on the main page. I have pictures from New York City and Austin. I also scanned in two pictures that are taken from my apartment in San Francisco. My mom found the link to the Duelin' Firemen. This was a project I worked on in the evenings shortly after I got a different job out of college. I even lived in my childhood bedroom when I worked there! I also compiled some unsolicited email that's pretty funny as well. I hope to get a page up on the site soon for "Mike Teacher" as soon as he gets some stuff together. My brother is teaching English in South Korea, and this is what the kids call him. I'm also going to Chicago for the holidays today, which will be great. #