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A Thanksgiving Tale from the Wild Wild East
We careened through streets, shrouded in darkness, packed into a grubby ersatz-Fiat 128, a Soviet-era knockoff. I was compressed, folded, and spindled into the back seat, a human shock absorber, a Dell Optiplex cradled in my arms. With only me between the PC’s steel case and the car’s steel struts, I felt every bump and grind of the ancient city’s streets. I was the car’s only functioning shock absorber. Noticing that it was past midnight, I thought: “Hey, it’s Thanksgiving.”
As we zoomed around yet another roundabout, my friend Tamás shouted over the engine noise: “This is ‘Hero’s Square. You can see the statues of the seven Magyar chieftains who led the Hungarians into the Carpathian basin. You remember, Saint Stephen — he’s there. See.” He gestured with his right hand, his ubiquitous cigarette smoldering in the other. He was a hell of a driver, Tamás. One hand always on the wheel, another manhandling the stick shift, ratcheting through the gears, clutch be damned; another Bogarting a constant cigarette, and another hand to spare, artfully used to point out landmarks and other points of interest along the way. 
I struggled to see out of the side window, smudged and clouded with urban fallout and the night’s reflections. I could see shadows, light and dark, vague objects lit by the cold calculating stare of mercury lights. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’ll have to come back here sometime during the day.” “Yes,” said Tamás. It’s a beautiful city.” With those words, he lit another cigarette and whipped the car to the right, sliding me away from the window. Like a square, steel security blanket, I cradled the PC. We dove down, down into the dark, diving driving deep into the Budapest night. I was glad he knew where he was going, or at least he seemed to know. I wasn’t going to question. If this worked, it would be he who had saved the day; saved the week, saved my ass — assuming it, and I, survived the ride.
Continue reading Night of the Budapest Bunny
I’m quite fond of my Kindle. Sure, the design’s a little bonkers; and it’s a wee bit awkward. That aside, it is easy to read, easy to use, and mine happens to be loaded with books I want to read.
Moreover, it’s taken a great weight off my shoulders. I like to read when I’m travelling. As a result, I tend to carry lots of lots of books along for the ride. For unfathomable reasons, one book is not enough. I must have at least two or three, sometimes more. Consequently, I end up schlepping somewhere around three-point-two million pounds of books to the far corners of the world.
It’s a proven fact that books get heavier the longer they remain in your luggage. It’s something to do with gravity, airplanes, hotel food, relativity, dirty socks, quantum mechanics, and the amount of missing dark matter in the universe. Perhaps, too, the TSA is involved. I can’t quite explain it.
Nevertheless, somehow — depending on the number of books you’re carrying and the length of your trip — they get heavier. It’s one of the true mysteries of the universe, right in my briefcase.
For me, the Kindle has solved this problem. I’ve cut my beastly book burdens down to one pound. I do still, however, manage to clutter up my briefcase with lots of other stuff, but the book weight has definitely diminished. Sadly though, the addition of my Kindle contributed to what I call “the YAB epidemic” (Yet Another Brick). The Kindle added one more power brick to my ever-expanding multiplicity of power bricks; another brick for the wall. Continue reading Power Tactics
I blame Santa. It was he that started me down this road.
It was he that surprised me with a shiny new Nikon D200 a few years back. Smart, he was, as it happily mated with all my old Nikon lenses, lenses that were pretty much gathering dust in my closet. He eased me in to the dark world of digital photography. And, at first I was happy, wandering the night streets of Brussels, amazed at the versatility and just down-right fun of modern digital photography. But soon, I wanted more — more lenses, fancy carrying cases, tripods, books, and filters; batteries and bling.
The birthday fairy — an enabler working in cahoots with Santa — served only to fan my addiction. She delivered an amazing piece of glass; a Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR zoom lens. Oh my. With this combo, I’m almost superfluous in the process. You want a lens, this is the one. One lens to rule them all, One lens to find them, One lens to bring them all and in the darkness bind them…
Between the camera and the glass, I need only twirl a few dials and pretend like I know the difference between aperture and exposure, mutter a few incantations about depth of field, and… voila! I have pictures, pretty pictures. I was caught, before I knew it. I’m now carting Nikky the Nikon, everywhere, buying her presents and shiny bling. And, her latest bling is a marvelous thing — automatic geo-tagging. Continue reading No matter where you go, there you are…
Connectivity is dangerous. The fricative sounds of German wafting through the open windows of today’s hotel room reminded me of that fact, reminded me of a misadventure long past, a memory from a time when connectivity took a modem and a phone line. Sometimes it took the diligent and careful application of alligator clips. Hotel phones were, and still are, nothing but trouble.
That time, in that past hotel, things went south. I had tried to look innocent. I failed. “Monsieur!” said the hotel’s night manager as he pounded loudly on my door. “Monsieur, he repeated as I opened the door, “is there is a problem with your telephone, Mein Herr?”
The switch from French to German seemed ominous. Moreover, he looked ominous. He looked like he had spent his formative years on a diet of steroids and fondue, while bench pressing Tony Soprano. “Whoops,” I thought, “this can’t be good.” Articulate and ever ready with smooth repartee, I replied with a set of universally understood monosyllables. “Uh, err, ah, umm,” I said.
Gathering my wits about me, I continued: “Uh… nope, err… Nein. Ich bin… err.” At that I had exhausted what I remembered of my high-school German. All I could think of was “Ich bin ein Berliner.” That wouldn’t work. Wrong country, wrong era; moreover (urban legends about jelly donuts aside) I am no John Kennedy. Giving up, I continued in English, once again adopting my best Midwestern silly grin, “Can I have a late check-out?” I said. Continue reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses
It’s a long, uphill slog from the BART station on Market Street to San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral at the tip-top of Nob Hill. I was winded and red-faced when I reached the top and slipped into the nave looking for a seat. The place was packed, but I managed to plop into an empty space, on the far left, two pews back from the crossing, a fantastic seat. (There are always single slots in a world that travels in couples.) This particular evening, even the transepts — the left and right arms of a cruciform cathedral — were filled to the brim. People were spilling out into the aisles, only to be swept back every few minutes by fire-marshal fearing staff.
I’ll tell you now, I was mighty glad to see cushions on the pews. My ecumenical sorties into various churches and cathedrals don’t include memories of cushions. I admit it, when I walked up the aisle, I briefly succumbed to a moment of irrational fear; a fear of ass-numbing angst combined with childhood memories of church-induced narcolepsy. More so, I’m usually not one for choral groups, nor cathedrals for that matter – unless, of course, they have flying buttresses (the cathedrals, not the choral groups.)
I am quite fond of flying buttresses. I think I just like saying the words “flying buttress” — it has such a nice ring to it. Unfortunately, they’re not something that comes up often in casual conversation. It’s a shame. Someday, I’ll get to work it into a conversation. “Nice flying buttress you’ve got there,” I’ll say. “I dig the arches, man.” Continue reading The Harmonic Resonance of Grace
I think I was eight when I read my first “real” book — of course, that’s not counting comics, Willy Waddle, or books designed to be chewed. The book was Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, a proper book; a marvelous story for a boy who spent his days poking at squiggly-wiggly things in the tide pools of Cadboro Bay. I’m sure I still have it somewhere.
I love books — the look and feel, even the smell. They’re almost perfect: relatively portable, random-access, and — treated properly — they’ll last a hell of a long time. If you get tired of them, you can give them away, sell them on eBay, take them to a used-book store, or burn them for kindling, al la Fahrenheit 451… They look grand on bookshelves. They’re almost perfect. The do have a few draw backs:
- Books (and paper) are heavy — especially those damn 4-inch thick computer books.
- Books are not very portable — small quantities are fine, but if you try to take ten or so on vacation with you, it’s a literal drag. Despite their catchy name, Few “Pocket Books” will actually fit in a pocket — or if they do, you look kind of stupid.
- Paper takes up a lot of space — especially those damn user guides, administrator guides, and installation manuals I print and bind in 3-ring notebooks.
- Printed materials tend to “expire” — Today’s newspaper is worth about a dollar, yesterday’s is suitable for wrapping fish. (Of course, tomorrow’s newspaper, if you had it today, would be worth a fortune.)
- Repurposing is difficult — Transmutation costs are outrageous, either lead to gold, or paper to digital. Screw OCR, it’s not good enough, ever.
- Paper is expensive — There a “tree-cost” and an environmental cost. The manufacture and bleaching of paper is horrendous. Stand downwind of a pulp mill and breath deep. You’ll know what I mean.
- The print publishing process is arcane — the economies discourage risk and tend to favor existing authors and large publishers, to the determent of the small publisher or aspiring writers.
In late 2007, Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle. I’m not sure he’ll be remembered in the same breath as Herr Hoffmann Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (whew). At least his name is shorter. The Kindle is, nevertheless, revolutionary. Continue reading Digital Pulp Fiction
Her name was Jane. We met, quite unexpectedly, at Zaventem Airport in Brussels. At the Avis counter. It was such a random thing, but when I saw her I knew — no hesitation — whatever the cost, I just knew. Some things are just meant to be. With Jane, it was meant to be. Jane. I can still hear her voice.
We travelled together, she and I, bisecting France; from Brussels to Aix-en-Provence and back again. In hindsight, I couldn’t of done it without her. How I ever planned to survive, travelling those weeks without her is beyond me. I’d have been lost without her, lost. Continue reading My Secret Summer Romance
I was recently asked to dream up all the ways these new fangled information and communications technologies can save us from the carbon-based perils of flying. Flying dumps tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Not good, that. Technology, of course, that’s the answer, or so they say (who ever they are).
The litany goes something like this: “With video conferencing, broadband, and Second Life, well, we can all safely stay ensconced in our own virtual-reality-sensory-deprivation-tanks and just digitally dance the salsa at the next NTEN gathering.” In fact, I recall a posting on some blog, or some listserv, just before the last NTEN conference. It took NTEN to task for being so “20th century” as to hold a conference people actually attended. I grumbled at the time, muttering to myself that people that think technology is a replacement for face-to-face meetings and conferences are missing the point, and forgetting that tech is never a replacement. Continue reading The next best thing to being there…
It was perfect, the perfect cup of coffee. I’m not even that fond of coffee, but for that moment, it was eight ounces of heaven in a cup.
Not only was it heaven, it was the last thing I expected. I was not in a terrific mood; unhappy with the world in general, little sleep, and having just come off more than 10-hours of various forms of transportation. Worse, some of my best laid plans — half the reason for the trip — had come a cropper; the last thing I wanted to hear was “your room is not yet ready, terribly sorry.”
Then and there, I was convinced that nothing could improve my disposition. I was wrong. Perhaps sensing my despair and not wanting the lobby littered with corpses, the hotel clerk quietly suggested that, just perhaps, I might want a coffee, all the while ushering me, ever so gently, into the dining room. He was smooth. I was in the dining room and seated even before I noticed.
“No, don’t worry about your bags,” he said, motioning the waiter over to the table. “We’ll take them up to your room. Just relax.” Continue reading Café au Lait
Just a couple of updates to my original Blackberry Modem Mash:
After a few experiments on a few different machines, it does appear that you need both the Blackberry Device Manager and the Blackberry Desktop, and they both have to be running.
In a field test (I was in a hotel), it took [...]
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