dannyman.toldme.com

The other day I dropped by the sixth floor, and to get me out of her office, Kellie let me borrow three racks of white Christmas lights that had been returned from the building from a Christmas celebration. I promptly strung them up around my desk area on the ceiling, which combined with our normally dim lighting, created a particularly festive Winter Solstice affair.

For Christmas I got extra gifts to share. Twice over I got a picture book full of Beetles, one from Jeongie and a second from Aunt Linda. The second I gave to Ian today, who had earlier given me a catalog of Beetle stuff that I could use more than he, since I actually own a bug. Today ‘toly emailed me regarding plans for New Years, and between me, him and Juan we got in a conversation about how old Beetles, now called Sedans, are known to be on back-order in Mexico, where Beetles can be found serving as taxis, says Juan, and police cars, says ‘toly.

Anyways, I also got a nice uhmm … well I dunno what it’s made of, but it’s a pretty swank wintry coat that is unfortunately too small for me, so that’ll be up to adoption by some smaller friend of mine as well. Me and mom then went out to the Burlington Coat Factory and I got a nice big winter coat with pockets and whatnot.

Swank corduroy overshirts each from Jessy and Kevin. I feel bad coz I haven’t gotten Kevin, or for that matter, anybody not related to me, a Christmas present

Orson Scott Card from mom – Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide. Among the CS cabal downstate, Ender’s Game is canon. Got a few more books on top of that, and a goodly amount of other clothes, including socks and some underwear.

I’ve been reading a mystery I got for Christmas too, by an author named Kinky Friedman. It could be a good story, but he seems to be one of those people who just too much enjoys the sounds of his own voice, or in his case, the reading of his own prose. I’ve been guilty of this sometimes myself, but then I’ve never been published in a gaudy cover and given as a Christmas present. Still, I think dad will enjoy the story of a Jewish detective cowboy, and it reads quick, so I really can’t complain. The ennui beats most bad TV commercials.

Another present was from Santa Claus, or possibly Grandma in the guise of Santa Claus. It’s a stuffed animal … a monkey, and if you squeeze his paw he starts to vibrate and make noise. It’s arguably quite nasty, and it took me a while to figure out how such a bizarre critter could be sold in a kid’s toy store, as opposed to an adult novelty or toy store. This critter may well take up residence in the NOC, where we’ve had bad karma ever since Patrick in a fit of newbie arrogance sent the Ewok flying on an adventure out into the unknown. Since then, we’ve been plagued with disasters, as I’ve mentioned here, like prolonged authentication and pop outages.

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When I was a young lad, my momma would sometimes tell me a story, that once upon a time, some scientists took two groups of lab rats, and ran an experiment with them. This time, the scientists gave one group of rats a diet of breakfast cereal, and the other group the packaging that the breakfast cereal came in. She concluded the story with the result that the rats fed breakfast cereal packaging came out healthier than those who ate breakfast cereal.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for fiber.

Today I was treated for the second time in as many weeks to lunch by Patrick. He gave me the money because for some reason his Michigan native self isn’t fond of walking in the winter over to Sbarro’s. Free food for me, but today as I walked to S’Barros the story momma used to tell came back into my head as a metaphor for the day’s free lunch. Something about S’Barros pizza reminded me of cereal packaging, and I had to question myself as to whether the free “food” was worth it.

Not that free food is ever not worthwhile, but well, greasy “pizza” has only so much charm. Last week it had more charm, but then it was Christmas Eve, and I was broke and didn’t want to be at work anyway, so any free food from the boss sounded pretty appetizing.

Earlier this year I once went to Sbarro’s and forgot to pay. After agonizing some whether I had forgotten to pay or not, I eventually returned and asked them to ring me up for my misbegotten order. Shoplifting is one of those things that just really violates my moral code, though I’ve never particularly understood why. Probably because it has never seemed necessary in any reasonable way. Why should someone steal from a store when they should just as easily do without?

And yet I’ve encountered people who have no second thoughts about the five-fingered discount. Makes you wonder about morality, but then I’ve got work to do at the moment.

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So, last weekend, or was it the weekend before? Anyway, I was driving along and I realized once and for all that I really really needed brake work. I was turning a corner at one of those six-sided intersections and an SUV stopped suddenly in front of me for a pedestrian. Well, pump the brakes or not, can’t stop that suddenly. Dents in the hood, and a recessed headlamp.

The yuppy gets out, scrapes my paint off his spare tire, and offers that my bumper is awfully low. I was a little out of it, otherwise I might have offered to him that his vehicle is far larger than he needs to be driving about. I have felt terrible since because my Beetle is a classic, beautiful car that I am falling every day deeper in love with. At the price I got it, it is like a gift, an honor that has been bestowed upon me, and an honor I need to live up to. The car is older than me, and I’ve already neglected it.

Well, found a mechanic who is rather cool, after asking around on the ‘net. Nick’s Auto Repair over on Ashland by Irving Park. His is a one-man operation – a ramshackle-looking garage with a small lot out front packed chock full of old cars. This is the sort of mechanic I need – a geek who’s in it for the love of the job. Well, I got the car back today, I think he has a rough time getting parts. Brakes work. I asked him if he could hit the shocks as well, and asked him about body work. He said he could get the headlamp back into shape, and repaint the car, which would be cheaper than trying to find the right color mixture. The car already has these subtle variations in shade from different touch-ups that have been done on it. One factor is that it uses a different sort of paint or somesuch, because of its age and Germanness perhaps, which just goes to complicate matters, meaning it makes things slower and/or more expensive.

We’re starting to talk some money here – but like I said, I got the car on the cheap, and pouring money into this one to “restore” it is I think, a lot more fun than if I were to buy a new one. Money’s a bit tight lately though, but I’ve got plenty of cash waiting around in savings. I’m actually pretty glad I’ve been saving so well, even if it means the spending fund gets rather cramped.

I call the shop tomorrow coz he’s got to order a new brake light switch – that’s right – new brakes, but no brake lights. No parking brake either, though I think I’d like to find what part it is he needs and get that fixed up on general principle. The no brake lights was discovered by a guy next door to Nick. A Beetle admirer. I’ve met a few Beetle buffs now driving my little buggy around.

Great car – and it’s not the people. Driving stick, once you get the hang of it, just feels good. You know what the car is doing, you’re more aware, more in control, more competent. It’s the difference between watching Windows boot, and watching FreeBSD scroll it’s boot output past, as it describes which devices it’s probing and whatnot.

Augh, shut up now!

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This last weekend just passed I went out to dinner with Sean and we caught “Ronin” which I didn’t particularly want to see, but that was actually pretty cool right up until the very moment Hollywood woke up and reclaimed the movie’s soul during a car chase scene that lasted way too long. After that, the movie didn’t quite make sense to me, and was acting pretty silly, imho. Well, Sean liked it, and I think the MST3k version should be quite stellar.

Practiced driving in dark rainy weather. More parallel parking, where a neighboring car was, in Sean’s words, “kissed by a Beetle”. I’m getting used to the ordeal, and growing to love driving my car, even though I’m still no stallion with the stickshift.

Saturday I slept a lot, washed the car with my hands, a sponge, a bucket of water, and some special secret sauce I picked up at Pep Boys, and after another evening nap Mark called and I drove down by his girlfriend’s place and we headed down to the south side for my first Rave.

Had a minor accident with a parked car as I too eagerly smashed the brakes down for a stop sign I noticed only late. Swerved out of control, making scary noises and a soft crunch. The other guy had a little paint on a part of his car which was in the process of body work anyway, and I’ve got a minor dent. Well, it didn’t seem like the sort of damage that anyone would care enough about to worry over compensation even if they did notice, so we continued on our way. I now pump the brakes for a sudden stop, and use “calm and controlled” as my good-karma mantra for drivin’ the Beetle – it’s calm and controlled that one needs as a motto to get off the clutch and into first gear anyway, neh?

Now picture a bunch of baggy-pants wearin’ house-music listenin’ hoodlum-lookin’ kids going into a smoky room to dance all night long, and possibly do some recreational drugs. That’s a Rave, as far as I can tell, and apart from the poor ventilation at this one, which let the smoke irritate the heck outta my eyes, the dancing is pretty fun, even if I’m not an all-night kinda guy.

The drug use didn’t seem too heavy to me … they were there but they weren’t particularly in my way. I smelled pot only once, and encountered far more pixie sticks and gratuitous candy-sharing more than anything. The peeps are pretty friendly, and the ones who rode in my car were polite enough to ask if smoking was verboten. I met Mark’s friends, members of the Brilliantly Mad crew, and got along quite handsomely with a nice gal named Misty.

The Rave finished a bit early by everyone elses’ standards around 0400h. I was longing for my sleep schedule, but chauffeured three new acquaintances, including Misty, down to the Belmont Harbor, where the Ravers like to go afterwards to party ’til dawn. After a short and reflective wander onto the cold pre-dawn lakefront, I arrived back at my car to find two of my passengers had managed to snuggle into sleep in my backseat. Well, I’m not about to kick anyone out, and didn’t have to be anywhere, so I snuggled up and napped in my trunk, which I imagine was quite a neat picture.

My front-seat companion, Jason, had pontificated about the Rave philosophy and seemed postulate that it was some modern incarnation of the beat generation and 1960s hippies. He didn’t quite sell me, but I was concerned with steering down Lake Shore Drive and appreciating the finer points of shifting a fully-laden car. Religion, as I see it, isn’t something I care to argue at such a time, especially with a relative stranger.

Around sunrise, only Misty was left sprawled across my backseat. She offered me money for a ride home, saying she was dreaming of her own bed. ’twas on my way, so I took off and dropped her at her place for free – the offer was kind but unnecessary. I think it’ll be nice to see her again. I dunno that I wanna get too much into the Ravin’ thing though. I’m not an all-night kinda guy. A good party though picks up the spirits, and I like to let loose and dance.

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Last Thursday Sean drove me out to Naperville. It was a long, epic voyage through strange country and confusing roads with similar names. Anyway, I bought him dinner because our destination was the garage of a guy named Jeff who’s moving out of town, and wanted to sell off his 1972 Super Beetle.

Now, originally, the low price had us fishing for a catch … but the car looks good, for a hunk of metal older than Sean or myself, and it putters down the road quite ably too. Sean’s assistance was required not only for his more expansive knowledge of cars, but also for his crucial ability to drive stick.

It’s a lovely blue volksy, and we couldn’t find anything against it. Sean fell immediately in love, and I warmed to it in my own skeptical way, wary of these newfangled automobile things. (I’m the one who has cheerfully subjected myself to public transportation since the opportunity presented itself in High School.) Said Sean, “I’ll be very upset with you if you don’t buy this car.”

So, Friday evening I met Jeff at his studio downtown, and he drove me home in my new car. A long stop at the bank and I swapped $1350 for a title and a key to 800 pounds of automobile history, not to mention family tradition.

Mom drove the car to work this morning, her minivan being borrowed by Uncle John. Mom is now out at the library with my new vehicle. A white Beetle was her first car, a good “learner’s car” as she describes it, for it’s simple design and maintenance and cheerful disposition on life.

Dad still drives the blue 1974 bus with the one red door that it was repaired with after the time in Texas when I woke up at two in the morning and was soon walking out the windshield of a bus that had fallen on its side after the driver, who is now Dad’s wife, handled a patch of gravel poorly. The next seventy-two hours I spent managing a group of younger kids from one Greyhound bus to the next, bound for Chicago with a touch of diarrhea thrown in for good measure. ’twas actually more fun than it sounds, though I’m not eager to repeat the experience.

Well, I hope I can make something worthwhile of it. It seems more compelling to work with than the van, whose sheer size, complexity, and creeping rust really intimidate an automotive newbie like myself. The Beetle, on the other hand, is small, less complex, and frankly, more fun. If it were a computer it’d be an Amiga – a neat, mass-produced, economical gadget with good performance for its economy and a lot of people into tinkering with them and keeping them going strong long past their parent company has passed them on.

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Before We Start

This bit is written on 31 October, 1998 as a followup coz I’ve been receiving some weird email lately. A quick mini-FAQ:

Why do you hate homosexuals? God preaches love.

I don’t hate homosexuals. I like homosexuals. I definitely prefer homosexuals to bigots. I’m sorry if it is not clear to you that I’m poking a bit of fun at godhatesfags.com.

You god-damned faggot, why don’t you turn to Christ and stop preaching your false testament you Satan!

First of all, I’m heterosexual. Second of all, Christianity aint my style, so don’t hold your breath. As for preaching … I deliver only opinions, and haven’t damned anyone to Hell. As for my identity, my Driver’s License says “DANIEL JOSEPH HOWARD” on it, though many call me dannyman. Please seek psychiatric counseling.

Thank you for reading this brief mini-FAQ. If you have any degree of intellectual competence, you are welcome to read on and even send me email if you like.

-danny
31 October, 1998

God Hates Fags

Aren’t they cute? I like that if young ladies are to spread a message of unwarranted hatred, that they should smile for the camera.

According to godhatesfags.com, gay people average twenty to 106 partners per year, whereas us heterosexuals average a mere eight in a lifetime. It also says gay people are far better educated than the average American, and make more money.

I dunno, but it seems that the universe treats them rather well, as far as godhatesfags.com can report.

Jeff reports that his only irritation is that only guys hit on him, and never women. I’d say this is a problem more so for women than a problem with gay guys.

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So, for dinner Uncle flew out to Popeyes on his bike. To quote him, “If you buy, I’ll fly.” It wasn’t until he explained just how he’d “fly” that I actually understood, but I had no problem whipping out a $10 bill for dinner. Had some nice beer and a Dad’s Root Beer too.

Speaking of Dads drinking Root Beer, Dad was in town the other day. He was just about to head out to the Rainbow Festival, but I got to meet with him. You can tell you’re getting old when you walk over to the nearby bar with your dad to share some beers and a couple games of pool. Luckily he shoots as bad as I do. It’s nice to know that things might run in the family at a
convenient time.

For the Fourth of July we went out to eat at Gullivers, and were visited mid-meal by a scraggly-looking cockroach. Uncle showed this to the waitress and when we were getting ready to settle our bill we found that the meal was on the house. Turns out the restaurant is very concerned with the problem and thought it had had it licked … now, I hadn’t particularly enjoyed my cheeseburger, but seeing how concerned the place was on another front, I was really reassured. Gullivers is this cool restaurant that serves Mexican, Italian and American food – Deep Dish pizza included … anyways the interesting thing with Gullivers is the interior is covered with weird antiques. I hypothesized to myself that the decor only makes pest control all the more tricky … as much as they may have already spent on the “problem” then a free dinner for us was probably a bargain.

I wish them well fighting the almighty cockroach.

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Ahhh, so you may have noticed that I haven’t written much here lately eh? Been busy … the biggest pain in the ass at EnterAct has been the whole moving thing, compounded with disorganization over administrative priorities and getting equipment together.

But the moving is done now. Got my own folding table, machine, window view, chair, and phone. Whee! We’ve got our own admin room where we all very much enjoyed ourselves today.

And I’ve got a negotiated salary, and health benefits and all, and my perks all sorted out – given the salary I’m now working at, and the likelihood that it will still go up considerably, there is very much reason to believe I shant be returning to school anytime soon.

I’ll need to order that ISDN line soon.

The Admin team is a cool group – Kevin is something of our fearless leader and a master of FreeBSD, Blake knows telco stuff and has what could most politely be described as an intriguingly strong personality, Eric speaks French, and will be working full-time this summer, and part-time when school starts back up, and just yesterday, we acquired Paul – a friend of Blake who apparently knows FreeBSD well enough, but I don’t know much else about him. He’s taking a vacation in Florida this weekend.

I’ve been working, for lack of anything more being demanded on me, of the interesting puzzle of rewriting some of the tools used by the techs to do user stuff like add users and change user names – the stuff we’re currently running stands a considerable bit of improvement.

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Wed May 20 10:22:55 CDT 1998

I’m an admin guy – woohoo! finally getting paid money for doing the sort of thing I’ve been doing experimentally for at least the past two years – running systems. I was thinking the other day that we’re kinda like train crews in the old days – a chosen few who get to do the job of keeping these complicated machines that many people are depending on running, and running well, without crashing. Of course, much of the drama is lost in that our machines don’t barrel down iron rails or even weigh several tons, and nobody dies if we slip up, we just risk losing a lot of business by pissing off people who can’t do their email. Not that we’re gonna slip up in any big way of course.

No train though can route millions of email messages for tens of thousands of customers a day. Of course, I’m not actually certain how many customers we do have, but that’s not so much my concern.

I didn’t work for EnterAct at all last year, but records show I answered 73 support messages. Neat huh? I felt I had to make up for sasquatch’s free CoLo somehow ….

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Fri Apr 17 23:34:18 CDT 1998

# Just to be sure anything mailed TO me aint filtered elsewhere ... 
# (after deleting duplicates)
:0 c: .msgids.lock
* ^Message-Id: *\/[^ ].*
| formail -D 16384 .msgids

:0 e:
* ^TO(dannyman|djhoward)
$DEFAULT

That’s what I spent my evening hashing about. That’s a procmail recipe which I wrote because often when someone responds to a mailing list that I’m on, I get two copies of the message – one sent to me, and one sent to the list. That recipe will send the first copy of a message that I receive to my INBOX if it is appropriately addressed. Subsequent copies will not be placed in my INBOX, the net effect being that if someone responds to me and a list I’m on, then that email will go once to my INBOX, and subsequently to the list folder. This keeps my INBOX slightly less cluttered – which with 207 messages sitting in it is a bit crowded, and will help in keeping context in a message thread on a mailing list.

Personally, I think it’s a very very cool thing.

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OSLO, Norway (AP) — After terrorizing a small Norwegian town for weeks, a buck deer went too far: he stole a chain saw from Olav Haereid’s front yard.

The large stag had knocked over garbage cans at a child care center, threatened cars and had begun to frighten residents of Aardalstangen, the Aardal og Laerdal Avis newspaper reported Wednesday. The town is 220 miles north of Oslo, the capital.

Last weekend, the renegade herbivore spotted a chain saw in Haereid’s yard, picked up the saw with its antlers and ran off with it.

The saw was so heavy that the deer only managed to carry it a few yards, but the theft was enough for local officials to impose the ultimate penalty. The buck was shot.

“Sad, but we had no choice. People were becoming frightened of the big animal,” forester Vidar Moen told the newspaper.

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To the editor:

I have a simple question that I would like anyone who is pro-Chief to answer. Who are we as Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, etc…. to say whether or not the Chief is a racist mascot/symbol in the eyes of Native Americans? Did any of us grow up on their reservation? Did any of us grow up in their culture? Did any of us grow up in their traditions? Did any of us grow up in their footsteps? If you answered no to any of these questions, then I ask again, who are we as black, whites, Latinos, Asians, etc…., to say whether or not the Chief is a racist mascot/symbol in the eyes of Native Americans?

Jules Murray, Jr.
sophomore in LAS
Daily Illini letters,
3 April, 1998

Interestingly enough, it is the anti-Chief folks who use the word racist, so aside from Charlene Teters and all the other Native Americans who take offense at the Chief, Chief protesters might ask themselves the same question. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the catchily short slogan “racist mascot” and think of the Chief more as being ignorantly offensive … is black face racist, or just dumb? Same thing. The intent of the Chief is arguably quite honorable – Chief isn’t setting out to denigrate Native Americans, it simply does because it’s really just a bad idea.

Fri Apr 3 21:08:14 CST 1998

So this weekend is our family celebrating Easter a week early. Some family members are going to be out of town, and Jessy moving to Texas, so … well, this weekend it is. I hope I don’t have damned head-winds driving back and forth this time. they really mess up my fuel efficiency.

Last night I had insomnia. Linda emailed me around 0300h saying she had pink-eye … we considered driving over to Carle but it seemed impractical .. mainly it was too irritating for her to get to sleep, poor girl, and her voice was getting hoarse. I considered if I couldn’t get to sleep I’d give her a call and we could hang out and watch a movie, maybe fall asleep … conveniently though, I fell asleep by myself. I hope Linda fared well.

At 1700h we had a labsitters meeting. Don explained that there were certain problems rearing their heads, and what he wanted done about them. Me and Toly ate together at Cantina afterwards, a specialty restaurant run through the dorms which is cheaper than Murphy’s where we first considered going. You just have to stand in line a long while, which reminded Toly of Russia. It’s nice to talk to Toly coz we have plenty of things we disagree upon even though we basically agree on everything … it’s kind of like we’re of like mind, only with different semantic conclusions. He tends toward being Libertarian, where I’m just a good, old-fashioned Liberal kinda guy, who sympathizes with Libertarianism, even if I strongly disagree with a lot of it. I love to exchange views with the opposition.

Maureen just dropped by the lab, and I was talking to her for awhile. She just got back from working in a soup kitchen, and she said she was talking to this guy who smelled of beer, and so she wanted to shower. It was nice to talk to her … I think for both of us. This all hints at some larger stuff I’ve been working out in my mind, that doesn’t/won’t quite make it here into the journal.

Thinking too much. I told her I’d be down here working on computer stuff if she wanted to step out later. She said she planned to study – three exams next week!

Still, perhaps I could call her later, maybe invite her out to the Etc. for a little while.

Okay, clearing my thoughts. Time to take a break!

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