Posts in the General Category

I decided to wait until day 2 of 2002 to post.  Mostly because I have a weird thing for numeric patterns, even ones that don’t make a lot of sense.  Every time my RSA SecurID widget gives me a token that features some sort of repetition or matched pairs, I get an obscure glow of pleasure.

Okay, so I’m strange.

The holidays came and went, and we’re all still here for now.  I scored high on the Swag Meter at Christmas, but I’d gladly give it all away for something completely outside my power to either give or receive.  Anyone know where I can purchase the remainder of a full life and have it gift-wrapped for a loved one?

• Wednesday, 2 January 2002 was published on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2002.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

New to the site: Eric’s Presentations, which attempts to provide in an organized fashion slides and support files from various talk I give.  Newly added to the repository: my slideshows from Web Design World 2001.  The CSS files used in the “user stylesheet” presentation are still being polished and so aren’t available yet, but the core of every ones of them is in the slideshow.  Enjoy!

One point of some small note: the design for the “Presentations” page uses an h2 and a table, but the h2 is not inside the table.  Yet more visual sleight-of-hand… although I’m not sure it quite qualifies for css/edge, I was strangely proud of it nonetheless.

• Wednesday, 5 December 2001 was published on Wednesday, December 5th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

Not much has been going on of late, at least not much that’s worth writing about here.  I mean, I had fun going to a Cleveland Barons hockey game with a friend, but is an account of Eric watching hockey interesting?  Not likely.  (Though Mark and I did have fun playing “What’s That Music On The PA?”)

In the near future, though—that’s something else again.  I’ll be teaching another CSS class for the HWG/IWA.  This one will run a little longer than six weeks because Thanksgiving is right in the middle of the class.  The last session went rather well, I thought, and the next session ought to be even better now that I have a chance to tweak the material and avoid some missteps.  Also because I’ll have a teaching assistant for the first time.  Woohoo!  Now I can foist a portion of the grading on somebody else!

• Saturday, 20 October 2001 was published on Saturday, October 20th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the CSS and General categories.
• There have been no replies.

I was going to fill everyone in on events for July, which was not bereft of them.  Unfortunately, my right arms hurts so much (for no apparent reason) that I can barely type, so the update will have to wait.  In the meantime, please enjoy a comical musing on the joy that is upgrading to Windows XP, as well as a perfect example of how automated banner-ad routines can get you into big, big trouble.

• Friday, 3 August 2001 was published on Friday, August 3rd, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

After a long and tortuous battle, the Amazon.com package containing The Emperor’s New Groove and the official Iron Chef book arrived on our doorstep.  It took so long because Amazon’s system thought our credit card had been denied when, in fact, the issuing bank had approved the transaction.  After a week of trying, I still haven’t gotten an explanation of what went wrong, or even a guess at what might have gone wrong.  All I get from them is “the card was denied” when I know it wasn’t; I got the transaction’s approval code from Chase myself, and in about ten  minutes, including hold time.  Don’t even get me started on the length of time it took Amazon to straighten out the situation.  As usual, the folks at Penny Arcade summed it up quite nicely, albeit ever so slightly obscenely.  (Hey, it’s the Web, what do you expect?)  As a result of all this, I’m pretty much abandoning Amazon for the forseeable future.

• Wednesday, 23 May 2001 was published on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

Beware the Ides of May!  Beware!

Today did not go at all well.  I had to argue with two major corporations, did a good deal of legwork with two more just to find out if the previous two were smoking crack or not (apparently they were), didn’t receive confirmation of certain actions, and consequently didn’t get some very important stuff done by the end of the business day.  There’s always tomorrow, I suppose, but time’s a-wastin’ and deadlines are beginning to loom.  Add to all of that a failure of will, and it was definitely not a good day.  At all.

On the other hand, I thought there was at least one very interesting potential development in the online realm today.  Slashdot picked up the story, of course, and I realized that Slashdotters were in serious trouble.  The Playstation 2 becomes an access point for what’s been called the lowest-common-denomintor crowd, and in the Slashdot community the X-Box might as well have “Serial Baby Killer” written across its face.  No Slashdotter worth his street cred will be able to admit to owning either console.  So how are they going to play cool games next year?

• Tuesday, 15 May 2001 was published on Tuesday, May 15th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General and Tech categories.
• There have been no replies.

I was going to post stupid stuff about how I don’t hear from some of my friends and colleagues these days, and then I changed the plan to whining about my life and how confusing it’s been recently, but when it gets right down to it none of this is worthy of complaint.  I’m just sliding through a moderate emotional trough and really should avoid posting until I’ve recovered.  In fact, this post was probably a bad idea, but too late now.  (You’re reading it, after all.)

As for recent events, our friends Jeff and Erin got married over the past weekend.  As all brides and grooms must be (according to federal law), Erin was absolutely beautiful and Jeff looked mildly panic-stricken.  The “rehearsal dinner” was held at our house on Friday night, and it seems a good time was had by all.  We saw some of Kat’s classmates for the first time since graduation, so there was a great deal to talk about.  Jeff broke out the mandolin and serenaded the crowd with such gems as Chinese People Don’t Eat Sushi and other original compositions.  Jeff’s mother was also kind enough to translate the Chinese writing on our many wall hangings and tell us the story behind some of them; thanks to her, we’re now sure that our artwork does not say things like “Simple Sketch I Overcharged Stupid American Tourists To Draw.”  We’d always wondered…

• Tuesday, 24 April 2001 was published on Tuesday, April 24th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

We had more out-of-town friends staying at the Manor Meyer over the weekend, so I was sort of forced into a socializing/relaxation mode, which felt pretty alien.  No articles were written, no book material was cranked out, there was no class to check on, and no project deadlines were looming.  Weird.  I still checked e-mail, of course, but even on that front it was a slow weekend.  I was actually considering doing something productive like raking the yard, but then a cold rain started falling and I decided to goof off some more.  (Like I need an excuse as obvious as inclement weather when it comes to avoiding yard work.)

• Monday, 16 April 2001 was published on Monday, April 16th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.