Dear Readers - I'm sorry
August 31, 2000 in
Dear Readers -
I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently, you see, I've been secluded. My training requires it. What? megnut's going to the Olympics? No no no, it's The Fair. This weekend. And my goal: for an entire day, to consume only food on sticks. No one does food on sticks like Minnesota.
I've been practicing up in my apartment these past few days. I started small, with toothpicks and little pieces of fruit. Once my hand developed the requisite strength, I moved on to tofu on longer sticks. Soon it was Grape Nuts on toothpicks in the morning, vegetables on wooden skewers in the evening. My grip is indomitable; my stamina, tested; my stomach, ready to digest any stray wooden sliver that should slip down my throat.
Thank you for your patience and support during my absence. A day such as this should not be undertaken lightly, and knowing that your thoughts are with me during this challenging time will help me persevere. I shall think of you all, as I recall the words of my old rowing coach, "Pain is temporary. Pride is forever." Food on sticks, here I come!
Yours always,
-megnut
ps. I may even post a picture or two upon my return.
pps. May your long weekend be filled with food on sticks as well.
megnut recommends (an ongoing series):
August 31, 2000 in
megnut recommends (an ongoing series): Don't sneeze while brushing your teeth or toothpaste will go flying everywhere.
megnut may be experiencing a
August 30, 2000 in
megnut may be experiencing a temporary error condition; please retry your request later.
After the most stressful week
August 26, 2000 in
After the most stressful week I've ever had in my whole work career, I was looking forward to relaxing all weekend and recovering my sanity, but I fear I may go off the deep end instead. See there's this INSANE woman who keeps calling me. She has called, oh, eight times perhaps? looking for Mark. She's left voicemails with messages saying, "I'm not sure if this is the right number, but if it is, could Mark call me back?" Of course, there is no Mark at my house. So no one returns her call. So she calls again. I've spoken to her, I've told her, "This is the wrong number." In fact, the second-to-last-time, I said, "I don't understand why you keep calling. I told you there's no Mark here. Why do you keep calling me? Why?" I really wanted to know, because I don't get it.
Aren't we all a little embarrassed when we get a wrong number? Don't you just apologize and hang up? Then wait a few minutes, dial real carefully, watching every number, and hope it goes through? And when it doesn't, and it goes again to the place you didn't expect, don't you give up? You realize that somehow, you've gotten the wrong number, and there's nothing more you can do about it. Unless you're this crazy woman.
me: "Why do you keep calling?"
her: "I just thought that, well, maybe somehow, if I dialed the digits a different way, I'd get him. But I guess I just dialed the same number again."
me: "Yes, you did. And he's not here. And he'll never be here, because I don't know who he is!"
I thought that statement ended it sometime last week. This afternoon, this weekend afternoon as I was relaxing in my apartment, just basking in the nothingness, in the freedom to eat microwave popcorn for lunch, my phone rang.
me: "Hello?"
her: "Hi, is Mark there?"
Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
All quiet on the megnut
August 24, 2000 in
All quiet on the megnut front.
When I was little, I
August 23, 2000 in
When I was little, I wanted to be writer when I grew up. I realized today, while walking to work, that I am. I just don't get paid for it.
I spent six summers at
August 23, 2000 in
I spent six summers at an all-girls camp in Vermont. Whenever it was somebody's birthday, we had this little routine we'd go through in the dinning room.
One table would clink their glasses and say, "Today is somebody's birthday!"
"Whose birthday?" the rest of the room would respond.
"Blogger's Birthday!" the table would scream.
"How old is it?" we'd yell back.
"1 year old!!" they'd say.
"Let's sing to it!"
And we would.
Blogger application, Blogger application,
Here's to you we sing!
We all hope that years to come,
may never sorrow bring.
Nothing mar your happiness,
may your skies be blue,
may each birthday,
be a mirth-day,
Blogger here's to you!
The Chicago Sun-Times has some
August 22, 2000 in
The Chicago Sun-Times has some really nice things to say about Blogger today. [via Davenetics]
It looks like it might
August 22, 2000 in
It looks like it might rain at any moment, you can almost see the droplets forming in front of your eyes. It's the kind of day where you crack open your eye at the sound of the alarm and turn right back over, burying your head beneath your blankets for another ten minutes. It's a sad kind of day.
Last night, Deepleap announced they were shutting down, and I feel like I've lost a member of the start-up family to which I belong. I'd always viewed Deepleap as the sister company of Pyra. It seemed like we were in it together, our two teams, doing something different. Doing something we loved, because we wanted to change things. It was Us against Them. (Them, the evil dot-coms, the ones who were taking over San Francisco, destroying the homes of elderly nuns to build their offices, driving through parks and wetlands in SUVs crushing wildlife, making millions on non-viable businesses.) The 'Leapers knew what it was like to lay it all on the line for a dream; to visualize something so clearly, you can almost touch it, taste it, breathe it; and struggle to make it palpable to others.
They were our doppelgängers, our Texas Twins, they were the only other people I knew that were Doing It. Starting Something. Sure I know lots of people doing web stuff, but they're not founding companies. Deepleap was like us, was like me. They saw something that could exist and the strove to make it happen. This failure shakes my foundation, upheaves my long-held belief that intelligent, hard-working people with good ideas will succeed. Perhaps that belief still holds true for me on an individual basis, but as a collective, it no longer does. It's not enough to gather a smart and diligent team, armed with a fascinating concept. Perhaps I was naïve, but I honestly thought that it was. Goodbye Deepleap.
It's a sad kind of day.
The last sugar packet from
August 21, 2000 in
The last sugar packet from Hawaii. I wish I had more, but for some reason, I was being really picky about the design on the packets while I was there, and I only took home the ones I thought were good. Now I realize that probably all of them would seem good to me here, back at home. It's funny how that happens: in the moment your judgment clouds with the relativity of the things which surround you. I chose five sugar packets out of approximately ten, because those five seemed "better." Yet looking at the packets here, all ten of those in Hawaii were "better." And I experienced a similar thing when showing people some of my pictures. While in Hawaii, I didn't take many pictures, I just thought, "well, they won't be very interesting." In some way, even after a short time there, I'd become immune to the dramatic scenery. I think I even had the thought, "it's just the ocean" at one point. Yet as I look over the photos here, I want to smack myself for being so stupid. Why didn't I take more pictures?
Is there some message here? Something about the adaptability of human beings to adjust to surroundings? Or perhaps the importance of seeing new places to gain perspective? Or something simpler, like Take those pictures while you're there, because when you get back, you'll want them? Or maybe it's just that I was thoroughly in the moment while I was away, and my brain wasn't bothered by comparisons (Kauai vs. San Francisco: The Vista Showdown, The Five Benefits of Hawaiian Sugar Packets over their Mainland Counterparts, etc.). Perhaps it's because everything was just ideal the way it was, and my only thoughts were on snuggling and snorkling and sleeping and just being there.
What? What's that you say?
August 20, 2000 in
What? What's that you say? There's a new episode of 0sil8? Nah....there can't be, there hasn't been a new one in ages, like maybe almost a year even. I don't believe it. Oh. Wait a sec...lookee here, it's true!
Fog, fog, go away, come
August 19, 2000 in
Fog, fog, go away, come again some other day!
This morning a homeless
August 18, 2000 in
This morning a homeless person tried to charge me a toll to enter my office building. He stood above me on the stairs and stretched out his arms, not intending to let me pass until he'd extracted some change. He mumbled something about, "It's America," I guess the logic being in America one can erect arbitrary toll/panhandling stations wherever one chooses? Luckily I'd run into someone else who works in the building while parking my car, so we were walking in together. He just looked the man in the eye and walked right passed him, and I followed closely behind.
That sort of thing really bothers me, but perhaps not for the reason it should. I didn't feel much pity for the homeless man, I'm rather immune to that sort of thing these days, there are just so many homeless in the neighborhood where I work. No, what bothered me was how scared I felt. And how happy I was that I was walking in with Michael. What if I'd been alone? How would I have responded, confronted with a large man towering above me on the stairs, demanding money? For the next few days, I'm sure I'm going to be nervous as I approach the entrance to our building. I hate feeling unsafe at work.
Oops, looks like I forgot
August 17, 2000 in
Oops, looks like I forgot to post a sugar packet yesterday, which means that Hawaiian Sugar Packet Week will extend until Saturday. Yes, the fun continues here at megnut. So you know that I rarely write about news, and often I avoid commenting on things that other people are writing about on their sites, but I was thinking this morning, is that fair? Is that fair to you, my dear reader? I mean, perhaps you're wondering, "what does megnut think about the Russian sailors?" Today I present megnut's thoughts on current events (feel free to stop reading right now, I won't be offended):
Russian sailors trapped in sub: Oh God, I can't imagine a more horrible way to die, and I do hope they can be saved, but I fear it's too late.
Presidential election: Ick. There's a reason I rarely write about politics. Bush scares me to death. Gore bores me to death.
Experts' predictions that Concorde will never fly again: I hope this isn't true, I've always wanted to fly on the Concorde, it seems like the closest I'll ever get to flying in space (unless they pick me for that Mars mission, come on Mars mission!! <crosses fingers>).
Dave Eggers interview "everyone" is talking about: Food for thought. I'm still digesting.
Ok, enough of that silliness. See, aren't you better off when I don't share my thoughts on current events? I thought so.
Ever wonder what things are
August 16, 2000 in
Ever wonder what things are like (or were like) at Pyra HQ? Three QuickTime movies show Behind-the-Scenes at Pyra. Back in March, Beto was in town for FlashForward so he stopped by for some lunch, and he brought his camera along. I'd forgotten that he'd documented some stuff while he was here, now he's put it online. For those of you that don't speak Spanish, here's a rough translation of what he's written to accompany the three short films (to view each, click on the box with the arrow and QuickTime image):
Primer Encuentro (First Encounter): "The first thing I did with the Pyra folks was accompany them to lunch at Pier 40, a restaurant near their offices. From left to right, pb, Ev, Meg, Ev's hand."
Ingreso al cuartel general (Return to HQ): "Next, I decided to film the return to the labyrinth, which until a few short weeks ago, housed all Pyra's equipment (this was before Derek Powazek and Matt Haughey joined the company). And there, the famous brick walls."
Una nueva casa para los bitacoreros (A new home for the webloggers): "Coincidentally, this same day, the new Blogger IBM NetInfinity server arrived. The moment the server was inaugurated, and the reaction of those present, has been captured for posterity."
I think the third one is my favorite because he films Ev's desk, and zooms in on the boxes that were running everything at the point in time. It's a neat slice of start-up life. Of course, the second one is cool too, walking through the maze that is our office...they're all so good!
I'm really glad that Beto filmed this stuff. At the time, it seemed silly. In retrospect, it's wonderful to have this documented. It's hard to believe how much things have changed since that sunny afternoon in March: we're twice as big now, our servers are all collocated, we've received funding. It feels more like a "real" company these days, which is good. I can't imagine being where we are today without the help of Matt Haughey, Jack, and Derek. But seeing something in those films sparked a twinge of nostalgia in me, reminded me of the "old" days, when we'd stay at work so late that we'd turn all giggly, when Blogger ran on my and Ev's desktops, when implementing a new feature consisted of someone saying, "hey, it should do this!" then telling others not to open the file, bam, and it was done.
As companies, even small ones grow, an amazing amount of structure and procedure becomes required. A team of three or four is a different beast than even a team of seven. Features are now projects, and not everyone works on everything anymore. And I've felt the growing pains, and still feel them. It's hard to remove oneself from areas where one's no longer needed, to adjust to new team members and different working styles. But we wouldn't be where we are today, on the verge of something great, without the growth, and I am beholden to every person on our team for all their contributions which have gotten us to this point. But part of me wonders if, somewhere along the way, some of the fun has been lost.
Finally after months and months
August 15, 2000 in
Finally after months and months of delay and worry, I've got my old megnut content into Blogger and on this site. Taking a look at it now, I wonder what the hell I was so concerned about. There's not a lot of it, and frankly, it's not that interesting. I've been wondering if I've changed my tone as time has passed, or if I've changed what I write about. My conclusion? Not really, megnut's always been full of gripes and "observations," since about day one. I just seem to write longer ones now. And I seem to write longer posts in general. Anyway, knock yourself out, it's all there beneath the archive heading on your right. Now I can get to work on gettting even older content back on line...no no no, I'm kidding, I wouldn't subject you to that.
More Hawaiian sugar packets,
August 15, 2000 in
More Hawaiian sugar packets, this is "Hawaiian Sugar Packet Week" at megnut. I like having themes, perhaps I'll do more of them. Dan says that sugar packets, back in the day when sugar was produced by local companies, used to have locally-related designs upon them. Sometimes even specific to a restaurant. That sounds familiar to me so maybe when I was younger that's the way it was? Do you have cool sugar packets where you live? If so, send me some. I'd like to start a sugar packet gallery, so include a description of where yours is from. I'll kick it off with the ones I've collected from Hawaii. Coming soon!
Aloha from San Francisco, or
August 14, 2000 in
Aloha from San Francisco, or I guess I should just revert to the old, "Hello!" I'm back. I'm not as rested as I thought I'd be and I'm not as tan as I thought I'd be, but I had an amazing time nonetheless. One of the (numerous) cool things about Kaua'i is that almost all of the sugar packets had funny Hawaiian-themed pictures on them. I collected several, but I thought you'd enjoy this guy shredding a monster wave the most. Other touristy places should have locale-themed pictures on sugar packets, Boston could have the Constitution and Old North Church, SF could do one with the Golden Gate bridge, etc. etc. Then as I traveled the world, I could collect sugar packets in every city.
Once we get all the pictures (there aren't a lot, I'm a lazy photographer) scanned in, I'll post them. In the meantime, let me tell you that the highlight of the trip (as Jason already mentioned, bastard! Stealing my thunder!) was swimming with Hawaiian sea turtles. This turtle was HUGE, as big as me, though it's hard to tell from the photo (hmmm...wait a sec, this might be one of the smaller turtles...well, it's still totally cool). At one point, there were five turtles hanging out at the reef with us. It was amazing. I want to go again and again! The low light of the trip was getting a flat tire, but it worked out ok, because our new car had a CD player. Woo hoo, so we spent the rest of the week cruising in style with tunes. There's more to tell about the vacation, but I'll save that narrative to garnish the pictures.
Thanks to mom for an excellent job with Momnut. For those of you who are interested in reading more, she's in the process of getting her own site up, and I'll share the link when it's ready to go.
Finding blackberries in one's backyard
August 13, 2000 in
Finding blackberries in one's backyard makes coming home seem not so bad.
Thinking about Meg's return from
August 11, 2000 in
Thinking about Meg's return from Hawaii tonight, a camp song from Aloha popped into my head as the perfect greeting for Megnut and parting for Momnut. With its Hawaiian theme, the song goes like this...aloha means hello to you, aloha means goodbye, it means until we meet again beneath the tropic sky. It carries me right back to glorious summers as a camp counselor in Vermont, summers so great that as soon as Meg was old enough, she followed as a camper and then counselor too. So aloha Meg and welcome back. Many thanks for letting me share your blog, and now it's aloha from Momnut.
What a perfect summer evening!
August 10, 2000 in
What a perfect summer evening! Walking home through Boston's North End , we stop for fried calamari so good you wonder why you ever bother to order it anywhere else. Up the street, the road is blocked off in preparation for the weekend feast of the Madonna Della Cava Society, and the Cannoli Girls booth (we fill it fresh for you) is already up. We take a left and walk past Old North Church into the park at the bottom of the hill. The night-lit bocce courts are full for this men's only, and apparently Italian men's only, sport. We stop to watch some very skilled ball handling, where calm and quiet finesse contrast with the more volatile scenes we sometimes encounter in the North End. After watching a bit, we continue along the path at the water's edge, and then turn right across the bridge towards the Bunker Hill Monument and home. Sometime when Meg and Mike come to visit I hope we can share an evening like this with them.
Where will I hang out
August 09, 2000 in
Where will I hang out when I retire? (A closer decision point for me than for some others.) On my early morning walk to get something like my favorite California coffee, I noticed both benches in front of the post office were full of older men, while the bank bench had only a single elderly gentleman. Yet later in the day when I walk to the grocery store, the post office benches are always full of women and the bank bench is empty. It seems that the bank bench location, at the opposite end of the plaza, does not have the same cachet as the post office benches. Is it like high school all over again? Are there certain times and specific places where the cool old folks go? I wonder if it will be as hard to join the right group as it was in high school.
Today I spent the day
August 08, 2000 in
Today I spent the day working on the GUI for an EP B2B POC. Why can't I figure out how to say that in normal language? I hate acronyms.
Oh I had such grand
August 07, 2000 in
Oh I had such grand plans this morning after getting back to the 'real' world, but as happens so often, the real world got in the way. Now it's late and I'm frustrated by computer eccentricities so maybe what I need is to act on my recent roadsign epiphany.
Flipping through a magazine, I came upon a slightly altered roadsign reading 'DO NOT PASS JOY' in an Audi ad. Later that day, the illustration for a Metropolitan Home article on the
Tate Modern showed a closeup of a street sign related to the construction work, 'CHANGED PRIORITIES AHEAD'. And the culmination on the following day was seeing a sign/graffiti combination of 'STOP WORKING'. Should I buy the Audi? Should I plan for my sabbatical in London rather than Paris? And should I stay there when it ends? Just imagining the possibilities will probably be enough to get me back to my computer with renewed spirit tomorrow morning.
What I really like about
August 06, 2000 in
What I really like about a family weekend on Nantucket is spending time cooking. We work in the narrow kitchen, talking over the low counter to others sitting at the dining room table, where there's always another hand ready to help chop. It's not work for me, but an essential part of getting the family together.
Well if I'd seen this
August 05, 2000 in
Well if I'd seen this photo before Meg posted it, I might have asked her to keep looking for a photo of me. But it certainly does have a 'momnut' quality to it, doesn't it?
Excuse the technical difficulties. Here's
August 04, 2000 in
Excuse the technical difficulties. Here's what I meant to say...
Just like Meg, I started the day with a trip to an island, on the ferry to Nantucket . Seeing all the families with young children on the boat left me reminiscing about our first trips there. It's so different these days being able to read quietly on the boat or even nap, without the constant question answering and entertaining necessary for travel with kids on a 2-hour boat ride. Going to such an old favorite family place, I miss having those kids along.
Well I'm off to Hawaii
August 03, 2000 in
Well I'm off to Hawaii for the week, and I leave you all in the competent hands of my mom, Judy. Welcome to Momnut, enjoy your stay!
My "" key is broke
August 03, 2000 in
My "" key is broke o my keyboard ad I ca't type without it. Crap.
Heavy development gets under my
August 03, 2000 in
Heavy development gets under my skin in the worst, and best, way. When I used to do a lot of database-driven coding, I'd find that my nights were filled with "web-based nightmares" (mathowie's term). I'd dream of these terribly long and complicated SQL statements, filled with JOINS and sub-queries, I'd wrangle huge record sets and endlessly loop through all the data, For, Next, Ubound, ad finitum. Lately though, it's all about parsing XML. Last night I dreamt of giant strings of XML, and I just kept concatenating and concatenating and everything I looked at got wrapped in tags and added to my giant string. I'd spot a chair, <chair>, a table, <table>, on and on and on. It was exhausting. Sign #327 that it's time for a vacation.
My system resources are maxed
August 03, 2000 in
My system resources are maxed out.
Dammit, I thought Blogger was
August 02, 2000 in
Dammit, I thought Blogger was the world's premier online popularity contest! [via numb.]
It's been fascinating to read
August 02, 2000 in
It's been fascinating to read everyone's responses to NewsBlogger, I'm really amazed at how many people are concerned that this is going to lead to wide-spread homogenization of the web. Well sure, if somebody just links to a news article, it will be as lame as when somebody links to any other URL without adding their voice. That's what makes any post interesting: the commentary about the thing the person's chosen to link to. Why is Davenetics great? I get a lot of the same headlines in my Inbox via email from Wired and the Standard, but it's Dave's commentary that adds value. It's why I read his newsletter every day. Same thing with Memo. Lonely links offer little value to me, but when someone wraps that link in personal commentary, and shares thoughts and experiences, it becomes a unique snippet of information that I can't get anyplace else.
Another response that gave me a chuckle was the belief that NewsBlogger is catering to the lazy, and encouraging laziness, within the web community. I'm always surprised by the assumption people make regarding energy expended. Time expended != value or quality. Are the links you dig up from disparate news sources inherently more valuable because you spent two hours locating them? Not if they're from CNN, BBC, or any other widely-available news source, and not if you don't add your commentary to them. Is your trip to the grocery store some how better if you walk there, rather than drive? I don't think so, it's what you create when you return home with the ingredients that matters. There are two parts to this process: getting the information and then doing something with it. There seems to be an assumption that gathering the information is valuable and a good use of time. Why not pour the energy into the other side of the equation? The side on which you add your unique voice to the link you've located?
And of course, one more thing to think about: NewsBlogger isn't for everyone. It's for people that like to write about news. You're not going to see a huge increase in news articles and commentary on megnut now that I'm using NewsBlogger because I don't usually publish that sort of stuff here. But I do use NewsBlogger to publish technology and business-related links to our intranet, and having a tool to do so saves me a lot of time. Am I lazier because of it? Hardly, now I have more time to develop and enhance the web apps I love to build.
After all the usual last-minute
August 01, 2000 in
After all the usual last-minute struggles and errors and freak-outs (well, me at least, I was having minor freak-outs), NewsBlogger is live! Now the site is cool and all, I love the design...and what you can do with it (publish news from Moreover to your Blogger-powered sites) is totally rad. But the thing that really gets my heart a-poundin' is how it's all done. Yup, XML baby, XML. All the headlines are pulled from Moreover's XML feeds, the search results are returned in XML as well, and all of NewsBlogger's interactions with Blogger are via Blogger's XML interface. We're going to release the details of the interface soon, in the meantime, enjoy NewsBlogger. And I recommend you do some XML development, it's so damn fun (well except for some pesky issues with the XMLDOM but that's another story).
I find it rather funny
August 01, 2000 in
I find it rather funny that Bush keeps telling this story about proposing to his wife, promising her she'll never have to make a campaign speech, because he thinks it assures voters that a "Bush presidency will not be a policy partnership." Yet, last night she gave the keynote speech at the Republican Convention. And you know what that assures me? That Bush is a liar.
Jason posted some rafting pictures
August 01, 2000 in
Jason posted some rafting pictures from our big trip a few weeks ago. And a two weeks ago, pb posted some as well. I, being lazy, like it when others post the pictures and I just link to them. megnut: we don't create the art, we just point to it.
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