|
Entries (most recent to oldest):
1 - 10 |
11 - 20 |
21 - 30 |
31 - 40 |
41 - 50 |
51 - 60 |
61 - 70 |
71 - 80 |
81 - 90 |
91 - 100 |
101 - 110 |
111 - 120 |
121 - 130 |
131 - 140 |
141 - 150 |
151 - 154
2002.01.09 @ 04:00 PM CST
(Wednesday, January 09th, 2002)
I'm sitting in a friend's kitchen writing while he is off to pick up his son
from school. I would be in his study, but while he was gone (and his wife
taking a nap), the refrigerator repairman came by. Such amusing things just
"randomly" happen I suppose. :-)
Since I last wrote, that same friend and I have been working with 802.11b wireless network access
points and antennas. He now has a ten foot mast with an omni-directional
antenna attached to the side of his house. The idea is to provide his
brother with broadband (cable or DSL) Internet access without running wires
over the two blocks separating their houses. The "entertaining" part so far
has been getting an access point at one house that is connected to the
Internet to connect to the access point at the other house while both are in
bridging mode. The Linksys
WAP11 is supposed to be able to do this. Apparently it will with other
WAP11s and with the access points of several competitors. It won't do this
bridging with Linksys' BEFW11S4,
which is a bit annoying. So the plans get changed a bit. :-)
2002.01.02 @ 06:26 AM CST
(Wednesday, January 02nd, 2002)
Via one of those web browsing sessions where you just keep following links
from one interesting topic to another, I've come across this
article on commerce and the Internet. I found the following section
particularly amusing.
| That's the thing about messages - the recipients can
do anything they want with them, not merely what you'd expect them to do. For
example, Raffi emailed me a couple of weeks ago with the wonderful idea of
identifying cataclysmic, 9-11-grade crises by monitoring the lagginess of
CNN's Web server, on the very sensible grounds that when bad stuff happens,
the whole world fires up its browser and points it at cnn.com, which gags and barfs when it is
confronted with a half-billion twitchy netizens trying to get the scoop on
the latest thrax scare. |
Two things: Go read the rest of the article. And speaking of September
11th; CNN's site that afternoon was radically simplified from its normal
state in a mostly successful attempt to better cope with the massive
traffic. The simplicity, lack of ads, and so forth reminded me of the "good
old days" of simpler ad-lacking pages with useful content.
2001.12.27 @ 11:48 AM CST
(Thursday, December 27th, 2001)
I'm currently in the car headed east on US Highway 90 from Marathon toward
Sanderson. My mom, aunt, and I have left Big Bend and are headed home by
way of Seminole Canyon State Park. Yay for laptops with working batteries.
:) Speaking of laptops, my mom did ask me if I had any games on the laptop,
and then remembered that it would be a Linux machine. Heh. Guess I'll have
to add a couple of games for next trip. Maybe I'll even get out the 540MB
drive this laptop came with and put Windows 9x on it... Stuff to worry
about later I suppose.
On our last couple of days in the park we hiked from the desert west of the
Chisos mountains back toward the Window. The Window being the pouroff for
the Chisos basin, and a place to which you can hike from the basin itself.
Due to the time of day that we started we weren't able to get all the way up
to it, but we could see it. It was nice to finally be able to see it from
the other perspective, though I like the Window trail from the basin too.
My mind usually remembers the really amazing Madrone
tree that lives just a bit off the trail. Hopefully I'll have a
link or two to information about the Madrone when I put this online, but
just in case; the Madrone is memorable for its reddish bark that peels off to
reveal smooth new bark underneath. It is, in my opinion, one of those more
rare trees that deserves to be more well known.
After that hike, and another to Ernst Tenaja on the east side of the park we
went to the hot springs. The hot springs are where Hot Springs, Texas used
to be. (A bit more Big Bend area history...) In about 1904 a man and his
wife purchased and moved to Hot Springs. He had been sick and heard that
they had healing properties and were for sale. While there he built a
house, raised a family, and added a hotel for guests and a building over the
hot springs, so they could be used more often. Parts of the house and hotel
still exist. Also, the foundation of the bath house remains. It is right
next to the Rio Grande and is still used by visitors to the park. My mom,
aunt, and I had been by the hot springs two years ago, but weren't aware
that people still got in. The two years since, we've remembered to take
bathing suits to Big Bend just for that.
Well, we've made it to Sanderson. Next town is Dryden.
I did notice a couple of things about which I'd like to comment. Big Bend
National Park itself was quite clean (i.e. not littered). I did see a few
things while hiking, a couple of cigarette butts and a beer can or two, which
disappointed me. It isn't difficult to carry out one's own trash, we did.
Also, the vegetation in the desert parts of the park looked quite a bit
better than that in the land surrounding the park. I can partly see this
coming from the fact that the park land is protected and partly from the
fact that the other land is someone's ranch. But I also know there are ways
to make a living off the land without ruining it. In my mind, it leads the
question, "Must we always do so much damage to the land where we live and
work?" We only have one Earth. On another tangent; seeing the remains of
people's homes and learning about how they lived, reminds me of how many
conveniences we have and take for granted.
Now back to some reading... :)
| Current music: |
Nickelback - Silver Side Up |
| Antonio Vivaldi - Six Concertos for Two Violins and Orchestra (DCC
Compact Classics) |
2001.12.24 @ 06:02 PM CST
(Monday, December 24th, 2001)
Yesterday after I wrote, we went hiking on a trail recommended by one of my
mom's co-workers. Feel free to ask me what it is called and where it is if
you know me in person and are going to Big Bend. It is not on the currently
available trail maps of the park, for some unknown reason. Maybe the Park
Service doesn't want to do maintenance on it since it isn't (wasn't?) one of
the more heavily traveled trails? Either way, it is quite nice. You end up
next to the edge of the Chisos with a little waterfall and the stream it
forms. There are rocks one can climb on and have a snack. The tops of the
trees are also quite nice in the afternoon sun.
After returning to the car from our hike we decided to take a little
vacation adventure and drive to Terlingua. We'd all heard that we should
visit and eat dinner. My mom and I had been through Study Butte, Terlingua,
and Lajitas in 1995 when we visited with my brother, dad, and exchange
sister from Japan, but we didn't stop to eat. So, we drove from the park,
to Telingua and eventually found the Starlight Theater. Upon finding it, we
remembered that this was indeed the place we'd been told to check out. Each
of us had two margaritas with dinner and found that the Starlight
individually makes one's desert while one eats one's dinner entrees; that is
if you are smart enough to read the menu and find this out. :) After our
very nice and entertaining meal, we returned to the park and fell asleep.
Today, we did one of the more popular trails in the Chisos Basin, The Lost
Mine trail. All three of us have done this one before and like to hike it
for the view one has available at the top. It starts from the high point in
the pass used to enter an leave the basin, and climbs about 1100 feet to the
top of one of the ridge lines. The hike is about five miles round trip and
is a good one to do, in my opinion. Just a side note, we saw about five
people on yesterday's hike and forty today.
2001.12.23 @ 01:15 PM CST
(Sunday, December 23rd, 2001)
As I start writing, we're driving from the Chisos basin to the Big Bend
National Park headquarters. My mom, my
aunt, and I arrived yesterday evening around 9 PM.
We left the ranch in Harper, Texas (near Kerrville) yesterday and took the
"fast" route out here; that is Interstate 10 westbound to Fort Stockton,
then southbound on US Highway 385, through Marathon to the park. Our normal
route is to leave the ranch, head through Kerrville, Leakey, and Camp Wood.
Then head toward Del Rio and take US Highway 90 west to Marathon, and then
go south to the park. We'll probably drive back that way this year, and
maybe even do some hiking in Seminole
Canyon State Park.
Driving into the park last night after dark was pretty spectacular. As is
normal for the desert, you can see lights for miles before you actually
reach them. Other than that, and the darkness the moonlight was nice. The
moon was about half full and with no city lights the stars were quite visible.
So far today the weather has been wonderful. It was jeans and a single long
sleeve shirt weather in the basin and should be a bit warmer in the desert.
Note: this and the next few entries will be posted when I am back in Austin
as I'm not going to go through the hassle and expense of getting an Internet
connection out here. Besides, I'm on vacation. *grin*
Current music: Toni Price - Midnight Pumpkin
2001.12.15 @ 03:01 AM CST
(Saturday, December 15th, 2001)
A friend of mine hit a nerve with something she said earlier tonight. I
know she didn't mean to; it was merely an expression of her opinion brought
up by the movie we were watching. I can see a point of view that I think
she might have that would lead to such an opinion, so at one level I
understand, or I think I do.
I didn't even realize it was a big deal to me until I was home; and then I
realized how much of a big deal it is. We were watching Gia, a movie about a 1980's
fashion supermodel who got into the drug scene and contracted AIDS from
intravenous drug use with unclean needles. I know this gives away a lot of
plot; sorry. Toward the end of the movie when it is clear that this is what
happened to her, my friend mentioned that even today "they" aren't required
to disclose their condition (i.e. HIV status or diagnosis with AIDS). This
friend works in an elementary school (a bit of info so that you may also be
able to guess why she might have that opinion).
Having grown up as a gay man, and realizing about myself after the big scare
about GRID (later, much more correctly, called AIDS) I have a bit of a
different opinion. It stems from several things: the whole closet "thing,"
the assumption of heterosexuality, the fear of AIDS even with much more
known and much better information in the hands of the public; and the stigma
for those who are HIV+ or diagnosed with AIDS. It reminds me quite
painfully of the stigma for those who aren't straight. If I was working in
an elementary school or any school and was HIV+, preventing body fluid exchange
between myself and students (say when I accidentally cut myself, or fell down
when outside at the playground) would be constantly on my mind; as I expect
it is for anyone who is HIV+. Remember that. It isn't like they want to be
irresponsible and potentially endanger others. But they have a life too,
and deserve to live it unstigmatized. Check out And the Band Played On as a made
for TV movie or the book by Randy Shilts for more background.
You wonder why always openly gay me has this thought pattern? As much as I am
comfortable being out, there are still always some back-of-the-mind thoughts
wondering how people will react. How will I be treated? Fairly is all I
ask. Wondering what people will do differently because of who I fall in
love with. Knowing that being out may prevent people from hiring me for a
job that I otherwise might have gotten, even though I also know those are
not the places I would want to work.
I notice this enormous disconnect I have between my understanding of being
gay and the understanding others have. And I don't know how better to
explain it than being gay is about nothing more than love. THAT'S ALL THE
**FUCK** IT IS PEOPLE!! LOVE. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. The same thing everyone
else feels. The same thing everyone else wants to be "in." The same thing
everyone else wants from other human beings. WHY THE FUCK DOES IT FUCKING
MATTER IF TWO MEN FALL IN LOVE OR TWO WOMEN FALL IN LOVE?!?!?!?!?? It
is about the person or people you want to spend your life with.
YOU WANNA TELL ME?? Do you have the guts to try and tell me more lies?
To try to rationalize your way out of a hole you know you're stuck in. I
don't really care how you got there. It doesn't change the facts. (Yeah,
I'm a bit uncompromising on this one... Go figure...)
God damn, I'm pissed off about this inside, huh? I've had this internal
discussion with myself before and it is always the same. The same anger.
The same desire to fix it. Now. Even though I know it will take far
longer. Longer than my lifetime, I'm afraid. But that doesn't change the
desire to see things change.
To my friends if/when you read this: I'm not upset at you over this. You
had no way to know that such a comment would set off a diatribe of mine...
Apparently I didn't know either. :-)
I feel sad and angry and alone and yet not alone. I want to do something, yet
I think I may be too angry to be effective. Can I make a difference the way I
think I want to in Austin? Probably. I want someone to hold, and be held
by. I think that such a person would help make the world more bearable, and
other times think that I have to be OK with the world and myself before I can
really find that person.
I love my friends, but on the occasion that I'm the only one in the group not
with his or her significant other, I notice. I like all of them, those I
knew originally, their significant others; I don't even think of them as
so-and-so and so-and-so's significant other. They're always just who they
are. I think they are very lucky and have wonderful relationships. The
situation is different (better?) when another single member (or two) of the
circle of friends is around, but I still go home to bed alone.
I have an ex-boyfriend who is more than willing to do the physical end of
things, but I'm not as attracted to him as he is to me, so I'm not as
into it. And I don't really want the emotional relationship with him, other
than friendship. I have another ex-boyfriend (who is also a friend) with
whom the situation is sometimes the opposite. I'm the one interested and
he's not. And at other times I've gotten over him. He's harder for me,
since he is the first I dated and fell in love with.
Anyway... I've taken about an hour to get this all down. I've thought about
writing it several times, but haven't been motivated enough before (and
wasn't keeping things in journal form). I think I should go sleep now. And
ponder on things tomorrow when I have more energy. :-)
2001.12.13 @ 04:20 AM CST
(Thursday, December 13th, 2001)
I should be sleeping, but I'm here writing and working instead... *sigh* :)
About a week ago I was lucky enough to get to see the under construction
house of a friend of my dad's. He bought a lot on the west side of Austin
which sits in the arch of a ridge line. Through the middle of his property
he has a wet weather creek. Because of the topography of the land, it isn't
easy to find flat pieces on which to situate a house, and if one were to
make flat spaces, one would ruin the beauty of the site. His very cool
solution is to have a house made up of separate pavilions. (Can you hear
the influence of the architect I have as a father? *grin*) When completed
he'll have a garage/studio pavilion, a kitchen/living pavilion, a bedroom
pavilion, and a guest pavilion, as well as landscaping all over the
place. It should be pretty amazing when done.
Today I got some really good news. A friend's mom had been diagnosed with
breast cancer about a month ago. Yesterday she had a mastectomy and a lymph
system test. The good news is that the lymph system test came back clean;
no cancer in the lymph system. *hugs* to her and her family.
I've re-found a couple of people's LiveJournals recently and been
entertained, amused, and made to think by their comments. Here's
one that amused me from this LiveJournal.
It immediately reminded me of the very cute guy I sat near in my CS307 class
at UT. He'd make amusing comments
during class regarding the professor's topic of the day, or my choice of
computing platform, or the content of that day's excerpt from comp.risks.
Toward the end of the year I did get to actually know him outside of class,
and then the following semester he and I shared a Japanese class. Funny how
small a world it is. Anyway, all that rambling, just to say that I agree...
CS is more fun if you appreciate the men. ;-)
Speaking of men... Since I last talked to the boy from the sub shop I've
resisted any (small) urge I've had to call him. I may finally be ready to
let it drop. If he calls sometime, then cool. If not, no big deal. It
would have been fun to get to know him better. I do still wonder though...
Is he just busy? Is he wanting me to take total lead and suggest a date?
Hmm... I hadn't really considered the latter... Maybe I'll wait a big
longer and give him a call... After January 1? Stuff to ponder...
Ohh.....that work I mentioned. I'm finishing up some testing I've been
doing on the hardware that will replace the primary server at TxIS. If you've seen the computers page, you know that none of my
machines are particularly recent hardware. They are fast enough for nearly
everything I have them do. Nevertheless, I have been spoiled by how fast
this also-not-so-new machine does things. It is a dual 733MHz Pentium III
2U rackmount server with 1GB of RAM and 4 18GB Ultra160 SCSI hard drives
connected to a hardware RAID controller. (Well, I was going to link to a
specifications page, but it appears Dell has redone their support site again
and removed the HTML only spec. pages they had. I really don't want to link
to a PDF.... Jeez. *sigh*) So as soon as the RAID array is done, I
can install Debian on it again so it
can go to the office and transition can begin.
2001.11.29 @ 02:22 AM CST
(Thursday, November 29th, 2001)
It's amusing... I'll be sitting somewhere, idly thinking and my brain will
come up with a solution to some problem (usually computer related) that I
have on my list of things to do/solve. This past weekend while I was in
Houston, it was the problem of how to store my web bookmarks and generate
web pages from that data set; and just now it was how to work around the
fact that Southwestern Bell's PPPoE server isn't always working correctly so
that my friend's Linux firewall machine won't just get stuck while trying to
get an IP address. I suppose this kind of thing happens for most people,
but it isn't something I hear discussed.
On another note, I called that boy that I hadn't been hearing from. This
was after stopping by his particular sub shop on my way to do some work for
Pinky's. This time I didn't get voicemail, I got him instead. :) We
talked for 20 to 35 minutes before he needed to return his mom's phone call.
And he said that he'd likely be talking to me again soon. So, I have some
renewed hope there....even if I can't stop thinking about my cousin-in-law
too.
Well, I really should get some sleep. That way I can see how icy it is here
in Austin tomorrow morning. :)
2001.11.24 @ 10:17 PM CST
(Saturday, November 24th, 2001)
As I sit here with family in Houston (or near Houston, in reality), the
Notre Dame and Stanford football game is on TV. I'm only vaguely following
it as I have all the football that has been on all weekend. :-) I have, as
usual, done computer work for family and have a bit more to do tomorrow
before my dad and I return to Austin.
I have had a good time while here. I've been able to be more openly gay
than I felt comfortable enough to be before. In the past I've not actually
expressed things out loud; it has just been quietly known that I'm gay.
I like this change, which may have only been in my comfort level.
There is one thing I've not been able to get out of my mind. I'm also not
sure how much I can say. As I sit here, I'm constantly going back and forth
over it. Both the event and the question of "what can I say?" Though I'm
not sure that writing about it will satisfy me. I really have questions to
ask before I think I can get anywhere.
Hmm... I'll write things down, and since I'm on the laptop at the moment, I
may revise/cut things before this entry actually goes online.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. In attendance was
myself, my dad, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and my
aunt's brother, his wife, and two sons. (All of my cousins, dad's and mom's
side, are female.) We were also joined by one of my cousin's boyfriends and
the other's former roommate and one of her friends. I hadn't met my
"cousins-in-law" before, and I was struck by how friendly they are and how
much we had to talk about. Yes, we did more than the required small-talk.
:-) The older son has been out of high school a year or two and the other
is a senior in high school. I got the impression that I could quite easily
become friends with both of them, but most of my commentary will center on
the younger of the two.
To summarize, I've not been able to get him out of my mind since dinner, for
one reason or another. He and I seem to have some interests in common,
though having only met him once, I'm not sure how many. My impression is
that we have at least one major interest in common, and this is the one
about which I don't know how much I can say (or ask) here or in person.
From my perspective, he's incredibly cute (or beautiful, I can't decide
which adjective I like better). He's intelligent, witty, and funny. My dad
even noticed that he appears to be left-handed, which doesn't mean anything,
but is interesting to those others of us who are. I'm thinking I'll have to
ask my aunt (also his) to describe him, since I'm curious; though I don't
know yet exactly how to go about this without revealing too much. At the
same time I hope to not have totally confused any readers I may have, or to
have given too many details. We'll see...
2001.11.20 @ 06:20 AM CST
(Tuesday, November 20th, 2001)
Well, I didn't get as much written as I'd wanted to last Thursday. A friend
called and then power came back on. :) And as usual there are new things
on my mind.
I think I'll do older stuff first... It has now been two months and a week
or so since September 11th. I'm sure most people are either tired of
hearing about it, or ready to vehemently disagree with me over my opinion.
That's fine. Disagreement and discussion are good things. But please do
take this as my opinion, nothing more. :)
Summarized, I think we as citizens of the United States should consider why
someone might go to the extreme of flying airplanes into three buildings in
this country. (pause for you to consider...) If one looks at US
foreign policy over the past 50+ years one can see that we've done some good
things. We have reached out to help other countries, even those with whom
we have previously been enemies. We have also been imperialistic. If there
was a resource for which we could rationalize a need, we found a way to get
it. Sometimes those were perfectly OK with other people, sometimes they
were just OK with the government of a country, and other time they weren't OK
with anyone but us and/or our existing allies. This behavior understandably
pissed some people off. There were times when things worked out OK or
slightly better than they had been. Other times we were dealing with
"wackos." All those qualifications aside, I think we should think more
carefully about our actions overseas.
Most times, the line between help and imperialistic action is quite a fine
one. I'm not trying to say that it is easy to find, or that I'm necessarily
able to find it (correctly or otherwise); just that I think we should
consider it more carefully.
In one case, I think we (and many others in the world) royally pissed
people off with the creation of the Jewish state after World War II. I
think in general it was a good idea, but that we didn't handle the
creation very well. In effect, we said that this land you have lived on now
belongs to these other people. We've done this before. Why do we have
Reservations for Native Americans? On what kind of land to they exist? Are
they near the native lands for the displaced Native Americans? I hope you
see my point. I know that there comes a time when it is too late to revert
to "the way it was." I'm not suggesting we do so. I think it is too late
in both cases. I also don't mean to slight anyone here. I have great
respect for what people of the Jewish faith have been through. The same for
people of the Islamic faith and for the Native Americans. I don't know that
I can fully understand as I've not really been there. I am a member of a
largely unprotected minority, but that doesn't mean I know. The only way I
know of to approximate knowing is to talk to those who have been there and
hear their experiences. It still isn't the same.
My primary point in all this is that I don't think war is the path we should
follow. I'm not exactly sure what path I think we should follow. I know in
the aftermath of all this, we as citizens of the United States will lose
some civil liberties. One of my early thoughts on the 11th, after "oh fuck,"
was "there go more civil liberties."
The above links point to articles from several different sources. I don't
necessarily agree with everything said, but I think they are good to discuss
and/or have some good dialog to consider. I have heard in recent news
reports that some good things are happening in relation to our military
action in Afghanistan. It seems that the path we've taken so far may not be
as bad as it could have been. I'm glad about this, though I wish we hadn't
gone this way. Sometimes I wonder if it is too late to not use military
force in this issue due to our history? At the same time I hope there is a
point at which things can and will change. Maybe I'm finally able to
verbalize some semblance of what I think we should do. We could open a
dialog with the world about everyone's foreign policy. Find out what all
countries affected by a particular action think and feel. This may not
change the eventual actions taken, but at least we'd have dialog happening.
Before I go on, a few more links to read through (not all of which I've
read):
Well, this is getting long... Hopefully someone is still with me. :) And
yes, the music list is long because I worked through quite a bit of my
playlist.
I found out yesterday that a long time family friend passed away. (He'd
been fighting leukemia.) Long time
as in all of my life. Both before and after I was born my parents
(more my mother) were involved in the Austin Parent Child Association
(APCA). It amazes me how well I remember the acronym and its meaning.
The purpose of the APCA, as best I can remember it from my childhood and
later discussions with my parents, was to promote two things: the involvement
of both parents in the childbirth process and specifically the presence of
the father in the delivery room, as well as the availability of information
about natural childbirth (including lamaze classes).
At the time (1977) the situation regarding both here in Austin, Texas wasn't
where some thought it should be.
Through this organization my parents met another couple with whom they
became good friends. Throughout my childhood and that of my brother my
parents exchanged child care duties with these friends instead of employing
day care services. As a result I've known them since I was quite young, and
effectively grown up with their children (the first two of which are quite
close to myself and my brother in age). I wish I remember their father
better, and I have begun to through talking about him and my childhood with
my mom. To his family and other friends: my condolences and support. *hug*
| Current music: |
They Might Be Giants - Why Does the Sun Shine? |
| Simon and Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence (live) |
| Staind - music from both "Break the Cycle" and "Dysfunction" |
| Goo Goo Dolls - Iris |
Entries (most recent to oldest):
1 - 10 |
11 - 20 |
21 - 30 |
31 - 40 |
41 - 50 |
51 - 60 |
61 - 70 |
71 - 80 |
81 - 90 |
91 - 100 |
101 - 110 |
111 - 120 |
121 - 130 |
131 - 140 |
141 - 150 |
151 - 154
|