Before going to bed each night, I have to check with Catherine, who is usually already asleep, as to where the car is parked. This information determines what time we need to wake up and, you see, it is my responsibility to set the alarm. The logic of me as 'alarm setter' eludes me since I'm usually not the one who has to get up at any particular hour. But I don't make the rules, I just follow them. I've come to accept that there are just certain arbitrary responsibilities that fall on my shoulders. Taking out the trash. Preparing salads. Changing light bulbs. Super-gluing broken plates back together. And setting the alarm.

If we are in a 7:00 am tow-away spot, then I need to set the alarm for 6:45, at the latest. But I usually don't know where we're parked because, well, I'm not the one who parked the car. This is another reason why me setting the alarm doesn't always make sense to me. But like I said, I don't make the rules . ..

If I've forgotten to ascertain the location of the car before C goes to sleep, then I face the daunting task of nudging her awake and asking her. This is no simple assignment. C tends to speak in cryptic phrases when awakened at 2 am, and you need the savvy of an FBI interrogator to discern meaning. Last night is a good example.

"Baby."

Movement from Catherine, ostensibly a sign of consciousness.

"Baby, where did you park."

Her head dropped back on the pillow. I was losing her.

"Baby!"

More movement. "Hmm?"

"Where did you park?"

A kind of groan sounded from deep in her being. She was fighting consciousness, tooth and nail.

"Park. Where did you park?" Repetition helps break 'em down.

She seemed to see a glimmer through the fog of her sleep and she responded: "In the garage."

The garage. I waited for a correction, but there was none. The garage would be a perfectly fine answer, and one I'd be eager to accept . . .

if we had a garage.

"Baby, we don't have a garage."

"Hmm?"

"Where did you park?"

Again, there was searching. Another noisy search for the right answer. Then came the response: "Garage."

OK. This was proving to be more challenging than usual. She was being particularly stubborn. Or was there some mysterious garage I hadn't known about all this time? I decided I should maybe phrase the question differently.

"Did you find a good spot when you came home." I asked.

This approach was a little more fruitful. She seemed to have an easier time finding the words.

"Yes," she said. Yes is a word that is easy to find through sleep. As is the next word: "Good."

Yes and good. I took these words at face value. I went on faith that even though she seemed to think we had a garage, she understood the general intent of my question: were we safe from being towed? Besides, a quick look out the window showed that the car was not parked in the most dangerous towing area. I set the alarm for 7:30, which turned out to be the right decision.

This morning, I told C about her strange response.

"I think I was trying to say outside."

Oh outside! Of course. I made a mental note: garage = outside. Equally unhelpful in terms of determining an actual location, but at least we're closer to something that makes sense. In the future, I think sticking to yes/no questions is probably the best approach.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Cath 

I've been extra techie-minded lately. Basking (or floundering) in my nerdishness, depending on how you view it. One of the fun (or frustrating) things about being a Web developer, again depending on your view, is that there are always new tools, new ideas, new ways of doing things coming out. And sometimes it isn't so much that these things are 'new' as it is that people are applying older ideas in new and interesting ways. Voilá Web 2.0! Sometimes they make you stop what you're doing and say, 'Hey, I need to check this out.'

Now, this isn't a tech blog, and I'm pretty much a techie-imposter anyway, so I definitely won't try to make it one, but I thought I'd highlight a couple of neat things I've been playing with lately.

1) There has been quite a stir in the developer community about the upcoming release of the IE7 Web browser and the effect it's going to have on existing page designs, particularly ones that are CSS-heavy. I've been wanting to download the beta to experiment, but since doing so would replace the existing version of IE on my machine (in typical MS loveliness), preventing me from being able to test in IE 6, I have refrained. Until the other day when I remembered I had an old laptop under the bed, not doing anything. Polly. The laptop's name is Polly, and it used to be Catherine's. So I booted her up (Polly, that is, not Catherine) and (after resetting the system clock) she still worked, though she's got a fan in her that's loud as hell. Anyway, I downloaded the IE7 beta onto her and have been playing around. Honestly, it's not as kinky as it sounds.

For the most part, the new IE is good. It has a lot of the same functionality as Firefox, which is a positive step forward, but it still lacks all the Firefox charm. It definitely seems to handle CSS more faithfully, which is good. I have found a few display problems in some of my pages, but they're probably the result of prior hacks I had used to get things to display properly in the old IE. I'll have to look into that a little more.

2) I've also been playing around with some stuff I found on script.aculo.us (link via Sixfoot6 - thanks!). The code is easy to implement, cross-browser compatible, and allows you to make some pretty neat usability tweaks, which have the added advantage of looking very cool. I don't have any examples to show yet, but after some initial playing around, I've already thought of a few ways I can put it to good use.

So there you have it: the exciting life and times of yours truly. One of these days, I will get back to telling stories and thinking about things other than Web development, but for now this stuff is kind of at the forefront of my brain.

Oh, one other thing: I had to cancel my trip for this year's men-only fishing trip because there's just too much going on right now and I got kind of behind after my trip to Texas. Do I feel less manly for backing out? Yes, dammit.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Work  Web_Design  Tech  IE7  CSS 

An interesting article about installing WinXP on a Mac Mini.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Mac  Tech 

The time has finally come. Catherine and I are looking for a house in Virginia. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, we will be making the move to suburbia. Oh God, we've finally fallen victim to the human nesting instinct. I'm not going to apologize. We've done our stint in the city and it was good. But we've lived in tiny apartments together for too long now - 8 years to be exact - and we're fed up. We're ready to embrace the charms of a slightly more rural existence. We used to look at a house in sheer terror. The lawn that needed (ack!) a lawn mower! And multiple stories and extra rooms that required (yuck!) new furniture! All this was outside our brain's ability to process in any sort of meaningful way. Just give us two rooms to fill in an historic building in downtown DC close to some bars and the Metro and we were happy.

But something inside us has changed. Maybe it's all the lead we've ingested over the last couple of years. Or the fact that, even though I've quit smoking, my lungs breath some of the worst air in the United States on a daily basis.

I now look at a lawn and reflect fondly upon the Sunday afternoons of my adolescence, mowing our corner lot in Houston (4-5 jumbo bags of grass per week in the summer) followed by a cool dip in our pool. These days, something like that might lead to cardiac arrest, so I'll have to ease in gradually. But I'm in awe of the idea of owning a lawn mower now. The lawn mower is one of the most sacred of contraptions if you're from Texas. Particularly the sit-down and ride 'em type. But I'll never have enough lawn for one of those. I'll probably go for some sort of self-propelled push mower. I hope they still make the Lawn Boy!

And multiple floors? Not such a big deal to me anymore. I'm particularly interested in having a basement. Oh yes. A basement sends chills of joy down my spine. Imagine the possibilities. It might make a fine office, for instance. Or, it would also be an ideal place to put a giant hot-tub filled with pudding.

Don't get me wrong. We still enjoy living in the city and taking advantage of what it has to offer. I think a part of me will even miss the noise. I actually have a soft spot in my heart now for sirens. (When I got home from Austin last week and heard that first familiar siren, it brought a tear to my eye.) But the time has come to move. It may not happen tomorrow, or next week, or even in the next six months. But know this much: the hunt is on.

And why Virginia and not Maryland? Easy: Virginia is prettier. And since you're forcing me to go there, it's just all around better. (I say this even though I was born in Maryland.) Virginia is home to the Blue Ridge, one of the prettiest mountain chains anywhere. And Virginia is for lovers, which is such a great 1969 slogan it virtually reeks of marijuana. And perhaps most importantly, they have an efficient DMV, something I have come to appreciate.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Family  House 

Holy crap! I had no idea you could click and drag tabs in Firefox. Try it. Love it. via Eric Meyer.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Tech 

Last night I went to a W&L alumni happy hour. I thought it might be a good warm-up for me, as my 10-year college reunion is coming up in May. It turns out that I was the oldest alumni at the happy hour. When confronted with that sort of reality, there's nothing more soothing than downing a pint of Big Hunt brew, which I did . . . twice . . . in rapid succession.

I don't often go to these alumni get-togethers. While I'm proud of my alma mater, there's only so much of it I can take. This is because I quickly become unsettled by how different I am from most people who went to my college and it leads to a sort of mini identity crisis. If you know me and you click on the link to the school above, you'll see what I mean. Catherine can't get over the fact that I went to school here. I'll just say in my defense that, despite the southern conservative backdrop, the professors at this school were actually quite liberal, which made it an overall great experience. But I can't say it wasn't difficult at times to be an unabashedly liberal, grunge-styled Gen X'r at a school whose student body was mostly conservative and nearly 90% greek (and for those of you who don't understand this term, I'm referring to the fact that sororities and fraternities dominated the social scene, not to nationality). This was something that led to a vast amount of angst and cigarette smoking in college among me and my small circle of friends. But now that I am older it just seems humorous. The majority of people who went to my college seem to be at home sporting suits and ties, or dresses that make them look twenty years older than they actually are. Their backgrounds tend to involve things like cotillions, country clubs, and private high-schools. But despite having very different backgrounds and tastes from my own, I have come to realize that most people I meet from my college are generally nice and open to conversation, even if it involves lively debate. And that's a good thing.

Anyway, I digress. Here's what I wanted to talk about: one thing I found myself paying attention to last night was the different way people introduced themselves. In general, most people I meet introduce themselves by their first name only. In fact, of all the people I met recently at SXSWi, this was the standard. But last night, I met a few people who used both their first and last names when introducing themselves. It occurred to me that this sort of introduction left an impression on me that was quite different than if they had only used their first names. Using both names seemed a little more assertive, somehow. Maybe even a little self-aggrandizing. I don't mean to paint this either positively or negatively, because I think the specific effect probably is different depending on the person giving and/or receiving the introduction. But whatever the effect, it definitely seems to call attention to itself. Has anybody else ever noticed this, or is it just me? Thoughts?

Going beyond introductions, it's interesting to note the effect of using a full name when referring to or addressing other people. When parents use first and last names to address a child, it usually means anger. It's meant to instill a certain degree of fear in the child and let them know they've done something stupid, wrong, or both. However, if one of your close friends does it, as in calling you on your cell and saying 'Hey Brad Smith. Where you at?' it would probably just be weird. There was a guy I knew in high school who used a person's first and last name whenever he addressed them in casual conversation. But he did it in such a way that it always seemed funny. It was his brand of humor, I guess. I've tried addressing people this way, but it doesn't really work for me. I prefer using nicknames.

Anyway, at my 10 year reunion, I'll know most of the people I'm likely to hang out with, so there won't be a need for much in the way of introductions. I'll mostly be 'catching up.' But when I do meet people, I'm going to try the first name, last name method on a few people and see how it fits.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Language  College  Chewing 

While I was in Austin, I hung out with my high-school friend, Chris, AKA Gene Defcon. It had been a while since I'd seen him - at least a year or two - so it was cool to catch up. I also met and hung out with some cool people (hey, Andy and Alex) from his record label, Retard Disco. Anyway, when you have a chance, take a listen to Yesses and Nose off of the newest Gene Defcon record, Throw up and Die. I've played it several times now. Very fun and catchy.

Oh, and I posted some SXSW pics.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Music  Friends 

Some good advice on Mac power cords. My sister-in-law had a power cord that was pretty bad off like this one, but luckily she had a handy uncle who fixed it before it caught on fire. (Thanks, Chat)

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Mac  Tech 

Lots of peace marching going on around here of late, it being the three-year mark of the Iraq War and all. Some amazing photos from DC photographer Matthew Bradley.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  DC 

Here are a few more tidbits from SXSW that I wanted to get out there while they were still fresh in my mind. Each of these topics could probably be their own blog post. Strike that. Each of these topics could be, and in some cases are, their own books. So I'm obviously not doing any of them justice here, but I still wanted to jot down a few impressions and point to some other places where the conversations continue. Also, there is some video footage of the conference up, for anybody who is interested.

From the presentation given by Daniel Gilbert, How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times: "Expected happiness = odds of gain x value of gain." Gilbert went on to suggest that most of the time we do not meet our 'expected happiness' due to errors in calculating either the odds or value. For instance, the odds can seem multiplied by how memorable something is. We all remember standing in the 'wrong line' at the grocery store, which heightens our perceived odds of it happening again. It was a good presentation. I'm not sure we ever got to the 'do the right thing at all possible times' secret (which I think was intentional), but we definitely got closer to understanding the fallacies in reason that make us think that such a feat is possible. I think I may get his book when it comes out in soft cover. In case you're interested, LukeW gives a more detailed synopsis of the talk on his site.

In the Saturday keynote, Jason Fried from 37signals had some great comments about how 'less is more' when working on a new idea or project. In reaction to the age-old problem of 'not having enough time' one thing he suggested was that less time can actually work in your favor. Basically, he reasoned that people are going to waste time anyway, so why not 'procrastinate creatively.' I love this idea, and it touches upon something I had posted about once before. Some other jewels from Fried's talk: If you have too much money, you're going to build stuff you don't need into your product. Less money can be a good thing. It will help to simplify your product. Most importantly . . . CHARGE for your product! People will pay for things they find valuable.

Charles MacInerney gave an interesting talk on Increasing Creativity at Work. The discussion began with some rather abstract concepts of states of mind: beta, alpha, and theta. Beta is this crazy place where I unfortunately spend most of my time. It is a place where the world seems to be menacing and chaotic. Alpha, now this is the goal - it's where things are more calm and relaxed. Theta is good too, but it's kind of this dream-like state where it's hard to actually get anything accomplished. Still, this is the state of mind where big break-throughs occur, so it's good to be here at least part of the time. A pretty good run-down of the different states of mind can be found here. MacInerney also talked about mind mapping, which I'd actually like to read up on more. Anyway, the whole thing made me want to take yoga classes. I think it might do me some good. Might help me reach the alpha and theta brain states more often.

There was a really interesting discussion on 'Tagging 2.0.' Christian Crumlish has some great notes on the talk here. And Prentiss Riddle summarizes the anti-tagging stance he took for the panel here. The cool thing about this panel, in my opinion, was it seemed more like a philosophy class than a tech panel. A lot of open-ended questions concerning language and meaning in relation to the Web. There was a lingering question of whether or not tagging, as a system of organizing information, really worked. Before the discussion, I was a bit skeptical about the use of tags. And I also happened to agree with Prentiss on the points he raised against tagging, specifically in regard to their practical use and their interoperability with each other. However, despite all that, I do think tags show promise in helping to organize information online. They help give meaning to an object, based on aspects of identity, culture, community, and shared vocabulary. The meaning of the object is not just a 'definition' of the object itself. It is also the identity of the person who linked to the object, the vocabulary used to identify the object, and the culture and community in which the object is identified. As an example, my tagging a photo can mean something different than when that same photo is tagged using the same vocabulary by another person. These relationships in meaning were referred to as the "folksonomy triad" by one of the speakers, Thomas Vander Wal. Interesting stuff.

Finally, while I did not attend the panel, Chat, who I met at the conference said the microformats talk was really good. I intend to read up on microformats some more.

So that's about the extent of my brain-dump from SXSW. I could go on. For instance, there was a good panel on CSS trouble-shooting. But if I talk about this conference any more, I'm surely going to bore you. I'm already beginning to bore myself. Re-telling this stuff isn't the same as listening to it first-hand.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Yoga  Tags  sxsw  Brain 

Since last Friday, my days have been 18-hours of non-stop Austin craziness. I've slept little, spent my days in panel discussions and my nights with new and old friends. I've been wanting to write about the conference as it was going on, and many people around me were doing just that. But I'm one of those people who needs to have a little time to absorb and reflect before I can piece together anything that makes any sense. One of the reasons I will never be an 'A-List blogger,' I suppose, is that I lack the ability to live life and blog about life at the same time. I need a little distance between the two. I need time to sort out meaning.

So I'll leave meaning for later, as I'm still traveling in Texas and won't be home for another couple of days. For now, let me stick to the facts:

First, I met a lot of great people, and had some great conversations. You all know who you are - I will be in touch soon! Also, I caught up with old friends from high school, Alan and Chris, which was great. I had lunch with Holly, who helped me design my work logo. And I met up with friends Bill and Joanie for drinks and burgers at Casino El Camino. Though I didn't get much time to see him because of our strange schedules, I spent nights at my brother-in-law's place. Thanks again, JP! Other noteworthy items include going to the Red Bull party, having two-for-one veggie burgers at Huts, and observing an authentic game of dominos between some old men at the Elk's lodge, where the EFF/Creative Commons party was held. (Pictures to follow).

Second, the panel discussions, for the most part, were really good. There were some that kind of fell short, but mostly they were stimulating and well put together. Here are the ones I attended. I put an asterisks next to the ones I most enjoyed.

• Better Blogging Brainstorming*
• How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times*
• Increase Creativity at Work*
• Designing for Global and Local Social Play
• How (and Why) to podCast an Event
• DIY Now More Than Ever
• Blogging While Black Revisited*
• CSS Problem Solving*
• Web Standards and SEO: Searching for Common Ground, Part 2*
• WTF: WaSP Task Force Panel: Getting the Job Done Right
• Design Eye for the List Guy*
• Behind the Scenes: Developing OS X and Longhorn
• Commons-Based Business Models
• Consumer is the Producer: DIY Media*
• Bruce Sterling Presentation: The State of the World*

Now I'm in Dallas. Last night I had dinner with my mom and sister. Today, I'm having lunch and an afternoon work meeting with James. And tonight, I'm having dinner with my dad and bro. I'm hoping to see other Dallas buds either tonight or tomorrow, but need to get in touch with them and sort that out! As for sleep, there will be plenty of time to do that back in DC.

Oh, I almost forgot one of the best parts of the conference: Sunday, after her keynote with Jason Kottke, I met Heather B. Armstrong, of Dooce! So friggin' cool! I asked her a question about writing and told her I thought her blog was helping to shape a new literary medium (which I believe), and then snapped this photo of me with her and her husband, Jon. They were both really nice and I enjoyed meeting them.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  sxsw 

If this is true, then at the rate Catherine does Sudoku, she should be about 500 per cent cleverer than me.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  News 

Here comes the sun . . . did it ever leave? I feel cheated. Only one lousy snow and it lasted all of a couple of a days. And I was out of town!

link to this | comments (0) | File:  DC  Ho_Hum 

This story is amazing. Poor kitty. via Mat

link to this | comments (2) | File:  News 

Wow. This just amazes me. HBA (Dooce) announces a meet-up in Austin during SXSW, and she gets 141 comments in the first day. Behold the religion of Dooce and bow before it's glory. All kidding aside, more power to her.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Blog 

The last couple of weeks have been kind of crazy. I'm trying to reach a stopping point on a fairly large project for a client and it's got me feeling a bit distracted. At the same time, SXSWi is sneaking up on me and I'm starting to realize that I've got to get things in order for that. I'm really excited about heading to Austin for SXSWi this year. I think part of the appeal is I no longer live in Texas, so traveling there seems like more of a 'get-a-way.' And on top of the conference, I get to hang out with friends and family that I haven't seen in a while. Nice.

So in addition to a wealth of interesting panels, there are lots of evening social events that go on during SXSWi where various and sundry Web geeks and technorati drink way too much, hob-nob, and generally try to out-cool one another. I used to be somewhat shy about this sort of thing, but this year I plan to partake whole-heartedly in this ritual. Though I doubt I'll be able to out-cool anybody (unless it's suddenly become cool to spend your Friday nights watching Battlestar Galactica). Anyway, take a look at my Upcoming.org schedule. Chock-full of social goodness, right? When I went to SXSWi in 2003, I found some of this socializing to be a little clique-y and difficult to penetrate. But SXSWi was, in general, a lot smaller then, which I think sort of fostered this insular feel. Apparently, the attendance has grown to several times what it was in 2003, so I'm expecting a slightly different vibe.

Indeed, this year I'm planning to break down any weird social barriers through a steady intake of tequila. I figure the words will begin to flow right around shot number four or five. After that, I'll have a thin window of opportunity to meet as many people as possible before I begin spewing gibberish about the fine art of mixing different dry cereals to form the perfect hybrid brand. As soon as that happens, I'll have to get the hell away from any public place or I'll eventually be referred to as 'that tall sweaty guy dancing in his underwear at the Iron Cactus.' Unfortunately, they don't give awards for that.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  sxsw  Tech 

It seems like I've been posting a lot lately about the idea of communication without words. Of course, it's always a strange subject to write about because you actually have to use words to do it. Which means there's no effective way to do it. (Which also means I should probably not even try.) It would be so much better if I could just say, it's like this, where this were some sort of magical image or sound that could somehow convey the whole thought. Musicians do this (or try to, at least) all the time. If you've ever listened to a conversation between a bunch of musicians, you know it can be pretty entertaining in its own way. Just pick up a DVD sometime like the making of Let it Be or I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which is the documentary about the making of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Or listen to an interview with just about any rock, blues, or jazz musician. They're speaking English, for the most part, but it's layered with some other dialect, some other mode of speaking. Okay, okay, maybe some of it is drug-induced. But I think mostly it's a result of what happens when people try to talk about music.

Basically, words only take you so far. While there is the practical, almost mathematical rationality of music - the actual notes, key signatures, tempo, style - the elements that can be described with a concrete, structured language, there is, at the same time, the irrational, emotional side of music, for which there is no real language, but which usually takes the form of bursts of laughter, anger, or incomplete sentences and thoughts that don't make much sense at face value. . . 'it's like this, only not, you know?'

So yeah, musicians talking about (and playing) music is a strange communion. Probably part of the reason people think musicians are half-baked all the time is because they don't really think in words. They think in sounds. And emotions. So when you get a bunch of musicians together talking and playing, it's often abstract like a drug trip, even when no drugs are involved. It can also be a bit volatile, concluding in either exhilaration or animosity. But there's nothing better than having those exchanges, especially when you're all on the same page musically. And you don't know if you're going to be until you try. I've heard many musicians compare it to sex, which is usually uncomfortable to acknowledge, but is probably pretty accurate.

Anyway, all this is sort of a lead in to this: I've been taking jazz piano lessons from a musician named Robert. They are going really well and part of the reason is that we speak the same language. Robert comes from a 'stride' background. Fats Waller, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson: the kind of stuff I love. We spend a good part of each session talking about their different styles and what can be taken away from their playing. We talk about theory. I've had a lot of theory in the past, but the cool thing with Robert is he actually shows me ways to apply it. He likes pointing out the mathematical rationality of music, but he also acknowledges that at some point all that goes out the window and you just do it. He's taught me several new styles and techniques that I'm sure are going to improve my playing over time. My fingers are picking up a new vocabulary, new expressions, new ways to say things. The strange and 'disruptive' part about this whole process is that my fingers are simultaneously having to 'unlearn' their native tongue, the street slang and bad habits they've picked up over the years. Yeah, my left hand feels kind of like Eliza Doolittle.

So I've entered this strange new territory where my mind is telling my fingers to do new things, but my fingers haven't reached the point where they can do those things easily. At the same time, my fingers no longer seem to want to do the old things they were doing before. They've become self-conscious. Hesitant. Unsure. As a result, I find myself hardly being able to play anything at all, either the old way or the new way, which is kind of annoying. And unsettling. This is going to be a long process, but I'm making a progress each week and I'm just anxious to see where things wind up in a year or two.

So there it is, another long post about music. Or language. Or both. I'm sorry for subjecting you all to these. But I just need to get this stuff off my chest, however inadequately. I realize that writing about language of any kind (music, art, or literature - writing about writing) is pretty dry, decidedly un-sexy stuff. Maybe that's why linguists don't get much play. I mean Mr. Safire is smart and witty and all, but would you want to sleep with him? Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, not a 'linguist,' and, the answer there? Um, in a heartbeat.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Music  Language  Chewing