Ramblings


December 26, 1999

Hello everyone. In case you didn't know it, today is Boxing Day in Canada, and I guess that means in England, Australia, the Falkland Islands, wherever, as well. I never understood what the significance of Boxing Day was. Just thought it meant that was the day you were supposed to throw out all the boxes your Christmas presents came in. Then Pam goes and tells me today that Boxing Day was when everyone went around from house to house and put money into a box for the servants--I guess because most people were too cheap to tip the servants in the first place during the rest of the year. In America, of course, we've carried on that tradition by tipping the mailman, doorman, newspaper boy--anyone who can hold his hand out. Personally, I prefer the pay-as-you-go plan. If my building maintenance guy hauls a 500-pound refrigerator up to my apartment on his back then I'll give him a few bucks. That way you get good service year round, not just during the holidays. Oh well, I threw my boxes out today anyway.

We had a nice Christmas, albeit a quiet one. First time in many years that we didn't have someone else here with us--or go to someone else's place. Just the three of us. Pam and I went to early Christmas Eve service and then came home and ate a light supper before diving into the presents under the tree. By the way, we have a great tree this year, probably the prettiest one ever. We've been buying them for 18 years from this guy named Bob who sells them on Third Ave. off his truck. This was a multi-colored light year. We have three complete sets of lights for the tree. One white, one blue and one multi-colored. I prefer the multi-colored, so every third year we have multi-colored lights.

As it turns out, I did not go to Seattle a couple of weeks ago. That trouble with my ear turned out to be an infection and the doctor said no way should I fly. I wound up taking two rounds of antibiotics (for 20 days) because the first does didn't do the job.

I've put a couple of new things up on the web site. There are two new "photo essays"—which I really enjoyed doing because you get to both write and play with pictures at the same time. The first is a summary of my fishing trips in the Adirondacks with my friend Allan. It's a sort of collage of pictures from the past five trips. It's in the Photo Gallery and is called Adirondack Fishing. The second one is all about our goddaughter, Colette, and her recent summer in New York. It's called Colette In New York. I hope you enjoy them.

Thanks, Jane and Allan, for signing my guestbook a second time. You're allowed to do that, you know. I've now made it easier to sign the guestbook, view the guestbook, e-mail me, move on to the next page, etc., by putting those links on most of the pages. Still got a little work to do in that area, though.

That's it for now. Hope you all have a great New Year's Eve. Do be careful.
 

November 28, 1999

Yes, I know, it's been almost a month since I've updated Ramblings. I seem to be getting caught up in process. This is a very easy thing for me to do. It's much more fun, if not rewarding, to fiddle around with how the site looks, instead of with what it says. But this distraction has given me an idea for another chapter. The more I look around me the more I see people being caught up in process. It's a fascinating phenomena that I would like to examine in more depth.

My focus on process started this month when I bought a book called The Non-Designer's Web Book. It's a great book, by the way, if you're building a web site and, like me, you don't really know what you're doing. I quickly learned some basic things about how a page should look. Things like use some color, indent your margins and--my most unforgivable sin, apparently--never use the default gray background of your web authoring tool. That's the sure sign of an amateur. Well excuuuze me!

So for the past couple of weeks I've been real busy working on rectifying these sins of omission. Hopefully by now you've noticed that that default gray is gone. And that reminds me, I've still got to send that guy my five dollars for his shareware background artwork that you're now reading this on. My next step will be to buy some real web authoring software like Adobe PageMill. I almost bought it this weekend but decided I wouldn't get any new software until I had written at least one more chapter. That's my promise to myself in order to keep me from getting too caught up in process.

But even though I didn't post anything new on the site, at least Pam did. She's added some more recipes to Pam's Corner. And I must say this--these are great! Check them out.

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We certainly did. As a quick update, I will be going to Seattle in a week for my company's annual convention. I'm also trying to fight off an ear ache, which I hope will be gone by then. Will try to see the doctor tomorrow. Darcy and Pam are fine. Darcy's "carbuncle" has completely healed now.
 

October 31, 1999

Trick or treat! I've made a few updates to the site. The most significant is the addition of another chapter called "Gone Fishin'." I actually started working on this piece about ten years ago and then set it aside. It's about fishing with my grandfather when I was a kid. The funny thing is, when I originally drafted it I wasn't fishing anymore. But I've made a major fishing trip at least once every year now for the past six years. So I took a new look the piece today and incorporated some thoughts on modern day fishing. It still needs a little work because I kind of put it together in a hurry. I'd much appreciate any suggestions to make it better. "Gone Fishin' " is definitely different from the the first two chapters. It's not really a "rock" in the traditional sense. Rather, it's one of those things that just needed to be expressedówhich I nevertheless consider a rock. If you gotta get it out, it's a rock.

I took the Message Board off the homepage. It wasn't like thousands of people were exchanging thoughts about the rocks in their shoes. Also, I found it to be very awkward. There was no way to thread messages by subject. I asked Geocities about that and they acknowledged it was a problem, but apparently there are no plans to change the design of the thing.

Speaking of my host, Geocities, they have made some changes to the way ads appear on the pages. Ads, you know, are the trade-off for getting free website space. But I wish they'd stop screwing around with things. If I'm going to have to have ads, I liked the little banners at the top of the pages. From it you were able to send me an e-mail or sign the guestbook. Now they have this thing called an Ad Square. It serves the same purpose, but the only problem is I can't see it on my Macintosh. I can see it on my PC at work, but not on any of the Macs I've tried. And I can't find any help on the Geocities File Manager page. It used to be you could e-mail a help-needed question, but apparently they've taken that away as well. It's very frustrating this stuff. IMHO, this internet technology should be a lot easier by now.

Pam says she will have something new in her "Corner" soon. I've also added another link on the "These Friends of Mine" page—Kris Perry's Fossil Ago-go website. Check it out!
 

October 3, 1999

It's movie time again. The No Parking signs have been posted on Lexington Ave. in front of our building for a couple of days now. In about an hour they will start clearing the street. Cameron Crowe (Jerry McQuire) is directing an (as of yet) untitled film set in the 1970s. They are going to be filming in front of the Gramercy Park Hotel and the street will be filled with old cars. For those of you who don't already know, we are undoubtedly the most filmed neighborhood in Manhattan. That's because it's an historic, pretty area and it's relatively quiet. I  would guess they shoot at least 20 films and commercials around here a year. When Godzilla was shooting they were here for three weeks and they shot mostly at night. You couldn't walk to the deli without tripping over cables.

I finished reading The Yearling this week. Great book, but sad. Why do so many great "children's" books have such sad endings? I vaguely remembered the movie, but had never read the book. I had recently read a biography of Maxwell Perkins, who was Margorie Rawlings' editor (as well as Hemingway's, Fitzgerald's and Wolfe's) and I wanted to read this book because Perkins had kept encouraging her to just write about what she knows and what she observed around her. I guess he had something on the ball because the book won the Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote a book called Cross Creek, which is about, in part, the writing of The Yearling. It's also a good movie and if you missed it I highly recommend renting it.

So Pam and I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday because we both needed something to read. While in the store I found fodder for another chapter of A Rock In My Shoe. I picked up a free catalogue for one of those quickie seminar companies. We have several of them here in New York, like The Learning Annex and The Seminar Center. They specialize in cheapie one-evening courses that promise to change your life instantly.  You know, courses like "Tapdance Your Way to Health and Happiness" and "Money Can Make You Rich." What caught my eye was a picture of Ivana Trump on the cover of the catalogue. She's offering a class in "Secrets of the Most Successful People." I'll swear, I can't make this stuff up! The blurb for her course is so funny it needs no comment. Enjoy:
 

Secrets of the World's Most Successful People: Reach Your Goals in the 21st Century

Ivana Trump is one of the most glamorous and successful women in the world. She has graced the World's Best Dressed List since 1989, served as president of the Plaza Hotel where she was honored as "Hotelier of the Year," and is the founder and CEO of House of Ivana. She is also the author of three acclaimed novels including The New York Times best seller, For Love Alone.  Spend a fascinating evening with Ivana as she reveals the priceless secrets of the most successful people in the world to help you make all of your dreams come true in the coming millennium.  Ivana will help you discover: *How to reach new goals to get you on your way to an exciting new life and career. *How to reinvent yourself for success in career and romance. Join Ivana as she shares the very same insights that have yielded her astonishing results and catapulted her to the very top!


Like I said, I can't make this stuff up.

A couple of updates about the site. Pam's Corner is now up and running. Check it out. Thanks to all of you who have signed the Guestbook. I really appreciate your encouragement. I've also added a bulletin board in case any of you want to "chat" about rocks in your shoes. We'll see if it takes off. So far, I'm just talking to myself in there.

I hear horns honking outside. I guess they're setting up now. Have a great week.
 

September 26, 1999

Hello everyone! Today is the official debut of A Rock In My Shoe. Later this evening I will be sending out an announcement via e-mail. If you've been previewing the site prior to this, I appreciate your being my guinea pig. There's still a lot of work to do, but at least now all the basics are in place.

It has been 20 days now since I started this project. It has been one hell of a crab dance. [For those of you not familiar with the term, a crab dance is when you take five steps forward and then four steps backwards.] Take the guestbook, for example. Just trying to get that thing to work took a week. Geocities supplies you with a guestbook, but you've got to get it downloaded and then incorporated into your website. Doesn't seem like it should be that difficult, but there are nuances that--as I mentioned in last week's ramblings--they just don't seem to explain. For example, I wanted people to be able to view my guestbook. That gets a little more complicated because there's no way (as far I can tell anyway) to view the guestbook from the guestbook link that I put at the top of the page. So you gotta put a separate link into the body of your page and that involves typing in some html code, and that involves learning about html, and that involves making lots of mistakes, and that involves getting very pissed off, and that involves getting a headache, and that involves having to stop what you're doing to go take some aspirin. Get the picture? And then my tired old Mac would keep crashing on me every time I would make a change in a link. Obviously there's an extension conflict or some such nonsense going on, but I'll be darned if I  could find it. So it was "make a change, crash, restart, make another change. Change, crash, restart." That's crab dancing for you.

I really have a great admiration now for people who can do this stuff easily. As I suggested (below) in an earlier rambling, it seems to me that this stuff is way more complicated than it needs to be. The internet has been popular with the general public now for at least five years. By now it seems it should be as simple to use as your VCR. OK, I take that back--your TV. But maybe I'm just stupid. I've always been a slow learner and a slow reader. I just don't grasp things quickly. It's rough being of mediocre intelligence. But it should make one hell of a funny chapter in the book, don't you think? How about, "The Heartbreak of Mediocrity"?

Speaking of the book, I did keep plowing along with Rock in between the frustrations involved with learning to build the website. The first chapter—Can't Get No Satisfaction—got to be about 11 pages. That's too long to read in one sitting (on a computer anyway) so I split it and made it two chapters. So now I have two chapters! I'm not wild about the title of the second chapter, but for now I'll call it Marching Orders. If you can come up with a better title, let me know via the guestbook or e-mail me directly. BTW, I will send out e-mails whenever a new chapter is completed and posted--but not for each postings to Ramblings.

I'm glad to have the first two chapters behind me, though because I'm really ready to get into some issues that don't involve customer satisfaction. But working on Satisfaction and Marching was fun. I really cracked myself up a couple of times. Pam was editing Marching Orders last night in the bedroom while I continued to work on the guestbook. She kept laughing out loud so much I had to stop and go see what was the matter. She thought some of it was pretty funny, so that's encouraging.  I sure hope you think it is too.
 

September 12, 1999

Not much to ramble on about today. Just want to give an update on how the site is coming along. This is one frustrating process, as I mentioned in last week's posting. I finally figured out why the link to These Friends of Mine wasn't working. I was trying to link it as "www.etc" instead of "http://www.etc." Well, the browser software people have gotten us so accustomed to not having to enter the "http://" anymore that I just assumed it was an anachronism that is no longer needed. Wrong. Buzz. Thank you for playing. OK, that's straightened out now so if you want to go back and look at my friend Allan's or my cousin Safia's web sites you can now access them.

I worked some more on trying to finish up Can't Get No Satisfaction this weekend, but it's still not ready to publish. I have it all figured out in my head though. I was cracking myself up this afternoon. But then of course I'm my own best audience. I could probably get it finished this week, except that I have to go to St. Louis for three days and won't be able to work on it. Maybe by next weekend.

I also tried to put a guestbook on the front page. That way you can sign it and post your own "rocks." But like the problem last week with the links to my friend's sites, I can't figure out how to get it to work. I will eventually, but for now don't bother to click on Sign the Guestbook.

Pam's Corner is not up yet either. She says she will put something on there soon, but her right arm has been bothering her and it's uncomfortable for her to type. Sorry, Maria, you'll just have to wait for the spinach lasagna recipe.

My sister says I cuss too much in my ramblings. Well I didn't think I was cussing (below), but golly sis, you know I cuss in real life. I figure if they can say it on Ally McBeal I can say it here, no? I will promise, however, to police myself.

But dammit, some people ARE idiots!
 

September 6, 1999

Well here it is Labor Day already and as with most three-day weekends in New York it is relatively quiet. That's why I love staying in the city on holidays. I never understood why people like to get into their cars and sit in traffic for three days or eat bad food at airport terminals. I just don't get it. But I'm glad that they do it. Because the city is wonderful on these weekends. There's little traffic, the stores aren't crowded and you can usually get a good seat at a restuarant. About the only downside is that the stupid banks run out of cash at their ATMs 'long about the end of the second day. But who expects anything from banks anyway?

Thanks for dropping in. What I'm trying to do here is create a venue for getting down onto paper (or into cyberspace) some of the thoughts that have been festering in my head for years. You probably recognize these kinds of thoughts. They're thoughts like why can't I get any satisfaction anywhere I go? Why are all those people such idiots? And, of course, the mother of all thoughtsówhat's this world coming too? As a famous person (can't remember who) once said, "It's not the mountain that wears you out, it's the tiny grain of sand in your shoe." Well these thoughts are the rocks in my shoes.

Take for example getting this website created. Friday night I went to Barnes & Noble and bought one of those Dummies books on the subject. The guy in the book says that I can be up and running in about two hours if I use one of the services like GeoCities or AOL. Two hours my ass. It was two full days. And that was just to get a test page up. So what's going on here? Well for one thing the authors of these books and the people who write the instructions for the web services make a lot of assumptions. They say you don't have to know anything, but they don't really mean it. You do have to know something and they assume that you do know it. God that pisses me off! Pretend that I was raised in the jungle and you're trying to teach me table manners. Don't say "First pick up your spoon." I don't know what a spoon is, you idiot! And don't be surprised when I pick it up like a club.

I know why they make those assumptions, but I'll get into that another time.

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