A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking through the airport, I saw this woman walking towards me, holding a green hula hoop in her hand. She came up to me and asked me if I had a little girl, looking at the hoop in her hand, I said no. She told me she wanted to give the hoop to someone and not throw it away. I told her she could take it on the plane with her and while that is the case, it was a bit cost prohibitive either to take it on the plane or to ship it. I felt quite bad, she told me that her friend had decorated it and gifted it to her. She was headed home to Australia and was sad about having to throw it away. Having attachments to such things myself, I knew exactly how she felt and offered to give it to my cousin Nik-nik (nick name). I assured her that it was going to a great person and a good home and I had promised to send her photos of Nik-nik with the hoop. I gave her a hug and got her email address.
Today I delivered the hula hoop and Nik-nik did indeed like it and got those pictures to send to email to the lady. It turned out to be a fun day. We went out shopping for a bit, checked out some clothes, went to Ulta, got some Starbucks and headed back to her place. While at Ulta, Nik-nik offered to straigthen my hair to see how it would look and I took her up on the offer, so we got right to it when we got back. It's funny, I used to fix her hair when she was a kid and now she was working on my hair. She did a really detailed job and my hair is straight as straight can be. While she was at it, she continued with some make up. It was a fun make over and so unlike me - I looked like I was ready for a night on the town. The straight hair takes a little getting used to but it looks good. Nik was so happy with herself, she said I looked so much younger - like a 21 year old - really funny that girl. Hehe, 21 years old - ha! But it was fun...
All in all it was a really nice afternoon.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
September 21 column by Jon Carroll
Tried to link right to the column but that didn't work, so here it is.
By Jon Carroll
We live in a left-click universe. We see the bedroom, we click on the bedroom icon in our brain, we walk into the bedroom. We see the on-ramp to San Francisco, we click on the on-ramp icon in our brain, and we drive onto the freeway. We see our sweeties looking pensive and devastating, and we click on the sweetie icon in our brain, and we advance toward our sweeties with purpose in our eyes.
Sometimes the system crashes, and we advance toward someone else's sweetie, but then we get the dialogue box from our real sweeties: "End relationship now? Yes. No." and we come to our senses -- or we don't, and we get the "fatal error" message, with the red X and the "clunk" sound, and then we are living in apartments with plastic furniture and vermin in the walls.
Our brains work the way our computers work because we made the computers. If the interfaces were at least marginally intuitive, they'd be worthless. Our brains do not crash as often as our computers do; on the other hand, our brains cannot retrieve the primary exports of Albania in .033 seconds.
Sometimes the two worlds overlap. Back in the '90s, I had a tiny problem with the game Myst and its successor, Riven. I played it to the exclusion of my duties as a human idea. I would start playing it at noon and look up 15 minutes later and it was dark outside. Total eclipse? No, addictive behavior. I wasn't much on the fast twitch games, but Myst waited until your brain figured out the puzzle. It did not taunt you. I like that in a game.
When I re-entered the real world from the Myst world, I noticed that my forefinger would still twitch. I'd see a manhole cover. "I wonder what's under that manhole cover," I would think, and my finger would jerk spasmodically. "Let's go in the building!" Twitch twitch, no, walk walk. Right. Real world.
I have often wondered whether the basic rules of computer repair might be usefully applied to human beings. The first rule is: Turn it off and turn it back on again; whatever is wrong will probably no longer be wrong. Going to sleep is sort of like turning your brain off, and it does work wonders. The problem may not go away, but the solution is likely to appear.
The second rule of computer repair is: Jiggle some wires around. I wonder if that could be a good new method of brain surgery. Don't cut anything or graft anything; just jiggle stuff around, close the patient up and see what happens. It's not very scientific, but computers are large machines that would appear to require scientific analysis, and yet "jiggle some wires around" is sometimes all it takes.
The third rule of computer repair is: Never ask why. If something good happens, accept that it has happened and move on. Not a bad rule for life either. "Deserving" doesn't come into it; who knows whether your computer deserved to be fixed. Who knows whether you deserve that new job. Say "thank you" and move on. Courtesy always helps -- although not with computers.
So we live in a left-click universe, and what we need is a right-click button. We could figure this whole thing out if we had a right-click button. Say you are at the on-ramp to the freeway, and you can see the traffic jam already starting. Right click on the on-ramp and select "Create shortcut." Already you want to live in the right-click universe.
Suppose you are somewhere you should not be, and you hear a step on the stairs, and you desperately want to be somewhere else. In the left-click universe, your only choice would be to hide in the closet and pray. In the right-click universe, you could "Open link to new window." Then you jump out the new window! Genius!
Or suppose you said something you should not have said. Right click, hit "rewind" and try it again from the top. On the other hand, if you really like what's happening, right click, select "loop" and you can do it forever. If you're not happy with your home, right click, select "quality" and click on "a lot better."
Or suppose you are out in nature, and you have walked to the top of the hill and gazed over the fabulous expanse of landscape, the fields golden in the setting sun, the sky overflowing with purple and red, and you wonder if anything could be more perfect, and you wish you could see this same view forever. Right click, select "set as wallpaper," and voila!
********************************************************
This is your brain. This is your brain
on a cord connected to
a doohickey
that can,
to be frank, perform miracles.
There shall in that time be rumors of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia-work base, that has an attachment. At that time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.
Page E - 6 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/21/DDG6PKEABO1.DTL
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
By Jon Carroll
We live in a left-click universe. We see the bedroom, we click on the bedroom icon in our brain, we walk into the bedroom. We see the on-ramp to San Francisco, we click on the on-ramp icon in our brain, and we drive onto the freeway. We see our sweeties looking pensive and devastating, and we click on the sweetie icon in our brain, and we advance toward our sweeties with purpose in our eyes.
Sometimes the system crashes, and we advance toward someone else's sweetie, but then we get the dialogue box from our real sweeties: "End relationship now? Yes. No." and we come to our senses -- or we don't, and we get the "fatal error" message, with the red X and the "clunk" sound, and then we are living in apartments with plastic furniture and vermin in the walls.
Our brains work the way our computers work because we made the computers. If the interfaces were at least marginally intuitive, they'd be worthless. Our brains do not crash as often as our computers do; on the other hand, our brains cannot retrieve the primary exports of Albania in .033 seconds.
Sometimes the two worlds overlap. Back in the '90s, I had a tiny problem with the game Myst and its successor, Riven. I played it to the exclusion of my duties as a human idea. I would start playing it at noon and look up 15 minutes later and it was dark outside. Total eclipse? No, addictive behavior. I wasn't much on the fast twitch games, but Myst waited until your brain figured out the puzzle. It did not taunt you. I like that in a game.
When I re-entered the real world from the Myst world, I noticed that my forefinger would still twitch. I'd see a manhole cover. "I wonder what's under that manhole cover," I would think, and my finger would jerk spasmodically. "Let's go in the building!" Twitch twitch, no, walk walk. Right. Real world.
I have often wondered whether the basic rules of computer repair might be usefully applied to human beings. The first rule is: Turn it off and turn it back on again; whatever is wrong will probably no longer be wrong. Going to sleep is sort of like turning your brain off, and it does work wonders. The problem may not go away, but the solution is likely to appear.
The second rule of computer repair is: Jiggle some wires around. I wonder if that could be a good new method of brain surgery. Don't cut anything or graft anything; just jiggle stuff around, close the patient up and see what happens. It's not very scientific, but computers are large machines that would appear to require scientific analysis, and yet "jiggle some wires around" is sometimes all it takes.
The third rule of computer repair is: Never ask why. If something good happens, accept that it has happened and move on. Not a bad rule for life either. "Deserving" doesn't come into it; who knows whether your computer deserved to be fixed. Who knows whether you deserve that new job. Say "thank you" and move on. Courtesy always helps -- although not with computers.
So we live in a left-click universe, and what we need is a right-click button. We could figure this whole thing out if we had a right-click button. Say you are at the on-ramp to the freeway, and you can see the traffic jam already starting. Right click on the on-ramp and select "Create shortcut." Already you want to live in the right-click universe.
Suppose you are somewhere you should not be, and you hear a step on the stairs, and you desperately want to be somewhere else. In the left-click universe, your only choice would be to hide in the closet and pray. In the right-click universe, you could "Open link to new window." Then you jump out the new window! Genius!
Or suppose you said something you should not have said. Right click, hit "rewind" and try it again from the top. On the other hand, if you really like what's happening, right click, select "loop" and you can do it forever. If you're not happy with your home, right click, select "quality" and click on "a lot better."
Or suppose you are out in nature, and you have walked to the top of the hill and gazed over the fabulous expanse of landscape, the fields golden in the setting sun, the sky overflowing with purple and red, and you wonder if anything could be more perfect, and you wish you could see this same view forever. Right click, select "set as wallpaper," and voila!
********************************************************
This is your brain. This is your brain
on a cord connected to
a doohickey
that can,
to be frank, perform miracles.
There shall in that time be rumors of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia-work base, that has an attachment. At that time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.
Page E - 6 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/21/DDG6PKEABO1.DTL
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
My first original illustration
I've been taking a class in Adobe Illustrator - mostly so that I can adjust graphics files when necessary at work. The class while not difficult has been challenging mostly because I've been using AutoCAD for 12 years and it's been confusing because I am so used to the commands in CAD and tend to want to use those commands instead. Also some things in Illustrator are not intuitive (nothing in CAD is intuitive but I've used it for 12 years and you do catch on after a while).
Adobe Illustrator is a far superior product for illustrations and CAD is for drafting and it does that well. It surprises me that the things that work so well in CAD haven't found their way into Illustrator.
So far all the illustrations I have worked on are either exercises out of the text book or projects created by the instructor. The other day, H, my manager, asked if I would make a logo for his remote control plane club. He had a concept in mind which included a jet and their club name. Course, I had to ask what kind of jet and he says a high performance jet (need to remind him that I don't have his background in jets.....) Anyhows, I created a silhouette of a blue angels ( http://www.blueangels.navy.mil/index.htm) plane (f-18), which looked pretty cool, but he comes back with F-35. What's the difference between a f-18 and a f-35 profile silhouette - not much to the untrained eye. So I drew the top view based on some illustrations found online. Took a while to get it done and give it the right shadows to create the curves and give it dimension but it did look pretty good. I'm not far along enough with my knowledge to tweak certain details but at the scale being used, what was done looked pretty good - at least he thought so.
Important lesson about doing these things, it's all about what the client wants. I thought the silhouette had a sexier look but it's all about the details on the plans for these guys - so top view of the f-35 it is.
I am going to keep this as a work in progress, I plan to keep tweaking it as I learn more.
So glad I don't illustrate for a living, with all my OCD, I'd never get a project done.
V.
Adobe Illustrator is a far superior product for illustrations and CAD is for drafting and it does that well. It surprises me that the things that work so well in CAD haven't found their way into Illustrator.
So far all the illustrations I have worked on are either exercises out of the text book or projects created by the instructor. The other day, H, my manager, asked if I would make a logo for his remote control plane club. He had a concept in mind which included a jet and their club name. Course, I had to ask what kind of jet and he says a high performance jet (need to remind him that I don't have his background in jets.....) Anyhows, I created a silhouette of a blue angels ( http://www.blueangels.navy.mil/index.htm) plane (f-18), which looked pretty cool, but he comes back with F-35. What's the difference between a f-18 and a f-35 profile silhouette - not much to the untrained eye. So I drew the top view based on some illustrations found online. Took a while to get it done and give it the right shadows to create the curves and give it dimension but it did look pretty good. I'm not far along enough with my knowledge to tweak certain details but at the scale being used, what was done looked pretty good - at least he thought so.
Important lesson about doing these things, it's all about what the client wants. I thought the silhouette had a sexier look but it's all about the details on the plans for these guys - so top view of the f-35 it is.
I am going to keep this as a work in progress, I plan to keep tweaking it as I learn more.
So glad I don't illustrate for a living, with all my OCD, I'd never get a project done.
V.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
In the fog
It seems a bit silly but I've been wanting to do this for some time now and have been hung up on what to call my blog.
Somehow "In the fog" seems right in so many ways. Sometimes a state of mind, mostly the weather here (by the most beautiful city in the world). And so very coincidentally also what the weather was like in the town I lived in before I moved here.
I lived and went to school there for 3 years. On my first day there, I remember standing at the front of the building, looking out the gate to the hill beyond and the fog and mist rolling in. It's a boarding school, and so often when I am reading the HP books, I am reminded of my time there. I found a picture of the school online. It looks much smaller than I remember.
That's enough of a walk down memory lane.
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