The last time I saw my father was at my graduation ceremonies from Carnegie Mellon in May of 2003. Six weeks later he died of cardiac arrest at his home. In August I moved from Pittsburgh to my new job in the San Francisco Bay area.

Last July, a year after he died, I opened up my 'life savings' jar that I hadn't looked inside since living in Pittsburgh.

click to enlarge

Inside, written on a one dollar bill, was his final message to me: "If you keep this $ you'll have $ for a lifetime. -- If you spend it you are fucked."

I miss you dad. Happy Father's Day.

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In honor of MIT's time traveler convention I need to recount the following memory:

When I was 14 I wrote a Word document to my future self to go back and time and deposit $500 into my savings account at a date a few days beyond the day I wrote the doc. I wrote my bank information and the account number and I remember telling my future self that it was very important to deposit this money without saying why, and thinking to my child self that I could get so much cool stuff with $500.

After the 'drop-date' came and went without a miraculous deposit I deleted the file so that I could still believe in time travel. Without a note, it's small wonder the funds never arrived. It's funny to think that my memory of the letter probably has a much longer half-life than the file would have, sitting on its 400K floppy.

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Today's meme, began by Matt Haughey, is the Memorymap. An emergent collaboration between Google Maps and Flickr, people are taking satellite snapshots of their hometowns and annotating spots with memories from their past.

Brilliant.

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They say that our sense of smell has the strongest ability to evoke long-distant memories, but sound can't be far behind.

Today's trash pick-up day and as I'm sitting here in my home-office the ultrasonic squeal of the garbage truck's brakes takes me back to waiting for the school bus, lost in a book, when the sharp bright sound of the bus's overtaxed brakes is the first cue that it's time to dog-ear the page, get up from my Indian-style repose atop my backpack on the sidewalk, and climb aboard for the hour's ride to the fourth grade.

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Rachel and I had a great time this weekend playing house. After finishing up some coding for her parents and wishing her mom a happy birthday (Hi Ellen!), we took our soon-to-expire 20% off coupon for Bed Bath & Beyond and put it to good use. We bought a new duvet cover for the bed, a bunch of new towels and an amazing bathmat for the bath, and for the beyond we finally bit the bullet and got our KitchenAid Artisan mixer:

On Sunday we quickly put the new mixer to good use making tollhouse cookies. While they were baking we used the assets purchased from Fry's (which we closed out on Saturday after leaving BB&B) and wired up speakers in the kitchen, living room, and game room.

A little later Cy and Athena came over to not-watch the big game and we played video games and socialized for the remainder of the day.

Definitely a good weekend, though the fastest one in recent months, probably because we were both catching up on sleep. At any rate, I love having the new mixer in our house. I grew up licking the stirrer of mom's KitchenAid (which was actually handed down to her from my grandma Frieda) and I think ever since I left home I've had this unacted-upon desire to have one of these beasties of my own. The kitchen somehow feels a lot more complete now.

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You know you're doing some serious web surfing when you stumble across predictions of the social implications of a 'world net' written by researchers in 1983.

Scroll down to the highlighted 'Fear and Loathing' message in the digest. While I believe most of their concerns proved unfounded, it's great to think that the concerns we have about the net and the world today might be similarly sidestepped to introduce new concerns (like net addiction and cyberstalking) that we hadn't considered before.

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From seat 24-A I can just see the exhaust port under the wing of this Airbus A321. The sun has just set over the world and the thousands of miles of desolate brown heartland are now overlaid with a slowly brightening spidery lattice of towns, emerging in the accelerated dusk.

I'm on my way to Pittsburgh, where I'll stay through Saturday recruiting for Google. This will be the first time I've been back to Pittsburgh since I drove to San Francisco right after graduating in August of last year.

This trip resonates nostalgic in so many ways. Though it's only been a little over a year since I left CMU, virtually nobody I know is still there. I'm getting here a day before most of the rest of the Google bunch and so, like when I arrived in Pittsburgh two years ago, it's just me and the campus. Having built so many relationships with people during my time there, it seems eerie to think about walking among the buildings washed clean of any relationship I have with them. Rob and Kerry's offices are occupied by strangers now and the masters labs, still teeming with eager students who are probably bitching about their GOMS assignment in HCI Methods class, would only welcome me as a stranger, the ratty sofa and desk will refuse to acknowledge our all-nighters, but I'll visit anyhow.

A large city has just passed below. Given that we're about 40 minutes from touchdown, I'm guessing that it's either Cincinnati or Columbus. In about an hour it'll be 10pm local time and I'll be outside waiting for the 28X bus to take me to the Holiday Inn, across the street from the Cathedral of Learning; the same hotel that Marissa and Nate utilized when I interviewed with them a year and a half ago. It'll be at least 11pm by the time I'm checked in, and I'll probably walk in to Oakland to grab some half-priced dinner at Fuel and Fuddle amidst youth-heavy Pitt students.

In the morning I'll have a fair portion of the morning to myself and I'll start off with a walk down to Craig Street for some Kiva-han chai, then I'll see about getting wireless access for my laptop on campus and doing a little work and probably some more writing.

There's nobody in the center seat and the guy on the aisle has faxes and contracts spread out all over the place. God I have to pee...

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Shopping for a home fax machine, I just realized that I forgot that fax machines used to all use rolls of thermal paper, until now I see that none do.

I guess I can throw out that box of thermal paper rolls I have in the garage...

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Mountain View's Computer History Museum has a wonderful collection of computer lore, including a small game room of some of the earliest coin-op video games.

If you're thinking about donating your 'precious antique computer' to them though, be aware that there are many devices they will no longer accept as donations.

Considering how often museums receive donations of dubious authenticity, I wonder if I should bother donating something of my own:

(click to enlarge)

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After such divine inspiration, I couldn't help but come up with a few of my own sequels to one-hit wonders:

I get to third base with myself

Love Plus Two

Fuck Happy, Time to Worry Again

Pump Up the Bitrate

Me So Pregnant (me hate you long time)

(we partied) Like Y2K was actually a threat

176 lines about 88 women

Actually somethings don't count (hanging chad remix)

How to be a Billionaire (dotcom remix)

Awkward Love Rhombus

Girls just want some quiet and three Advil

Facing that you need too much love (Step 1 of 12)

Cruel Fall/Cruel Winter Medly

Oh that's who that girl is (Nevermind mix)

After Rosh Hashanah, I find that my feet harbor less guilt and have regained a modicum of rhythm

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Positive reenforcement has been proved successful time and time again. Expressing joy at another person's kindness, gratitude at their thoughtfulness, or mirth at their jests, it all feeds back into the mix to produce more of the same. Somewhere along the way, quite non-deliberately, I took this principle and internalized it, and now I wonder if I'm alone.

I love to create. I like to make beautiful things, useful things, things that other people enjoy. It's probably a good thing that I'm an interaction designer, because when I put something out there I get far more satisfaction from seeing the impact it has on others than I feel from the simple creation of the work. On the basic level, public reaction is the loopback in my positive reenforcement feedback loop. I make good things, and people like them, making me want to make more good things. But the desire to make good things isn't enough.

Some time long ago, possibly in high school, maybe a lot earlier, I got in the habit of giving my subconscious positive reenforcement. In grade school I was always a procrastinator (who am I kidding? I'm at work at 10pm writing a post when I should be finishing the presentation I'm staying late to finish) and when it came to writing papers, I'd often spend the first 13 days of a two week assignment with the subject in the back of my head, taking up spare cycles in the shower or on the bus. Come 10pm the day before the paper's due I'd crack open the word processor (or piece of paper) and empty the tank that had slowly been filling in my head.

Thanks to spellcheckers, I often didn't even have to read my paper before turning it in the next morning.

It usually worked out okay. Somehow while distilling in my think-tank the thoughts polymerized into strands that came out well without doubling back or making logical knots. Sometimes it was disastrous. By the time I was a senior in high school I'd determined that anything I write had a 2/3rds chance of being terrific and a 1/3rd chance of being absolutely awful.

I used to brag that I never knew which it would be until it came back with a grade. In truth that probably has more to do with my frequent skipping of the proofreading process than any auto-aphasia relating to my own writing. I'd never add that part though. I preferred the mystery.

But I digress.

Inevitably, the paper would come back with a grade on it. As Miss Griffith walked around the classroom, handing back papers, I honestly had no idea what I'd find on mine; the subjectivity of grading prose multiplied by my own inability to judge my own work. The uncertainty always came to a sudden clarity when the paper made its way to my desk. (Ever notice how some teachers place the paper face down on your desk, forcing you to execute the revelatory act yourself, like pulling off a band-aid, or possibly a scab?) Either way, seconds later I would know whether I'd written something good or bad. The marks of red completed the greater, outer feedback loop.

This moment is when my own inner feedback loop begins. If I got a bad grade, I'd file the paper away in my backpack, never to be read again. If I got an A I'd re(?)read the paper carefully from beginning to end. I'd read it with pride, and that warmth would drift down to my subconscious, telling it that this is what good writing looks like.

The funny part is that I didn't have the intention of making my own writing better, only to read what I sound like when I'm doing it right.

Nowadays, now that I realize the net benefit, I do it more than ever. When someone gives a particularly laudatory comment on this site, I'll frequently re-read what I wrote, often re-reading the same piece several times. It's like watching a well-worn videotape, looking for clues you missed the first five times. Sometimes I find alliterations and nuggents of metaphor that were so buried in the stream of prose that I don't even know they were there until the fifth time I panned for the gold within.

It's not just papers anymore. I'll relive conversations, re-examine designs, sites, even code. I try to view each with the fresh eyes of he who provided the praise. I wipe my own mental slate clean and pour the sand down slowly and metered to experience not only the resulting work, but the formative process of taking the work in.

I don't know what my bad writing looks like, but as time goes on I seem to have less and less of it, because I understand much better where I find my successes. This might be true in the broader context of life as well. I don't dwell in the past, and when I do, I find it filled with nostalgia, and only very rarely pain.

It may be that I'm doomed to repeat past mistakes, but I don't think so. Tromping through the forest of life we all build trails, and if we backtrack to relive the more enjoyable ones, we can set forth in the future using these well-trod paths as guides, without the need to set warning markers on the rough paths traversed but once, all illusory allusions to Robert Frost aside.

Perhaps it's a form of egotism, or maybe selective memory, but I like to think of it as taking good care in raising my own homunculus.

As a parting thought, I wonder now how far this rabbit hole goes. Does my inner creative self encompass a homunculus of its own? The spark of creativity? Is it a tiny flame that is constantly fed, or one like I, who feeds on his own successes and starves on his failures? Food for thought, as it were.

I wonder if I'll ever read this.

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An MSNBC story today gives the author's thoughts on how Episode III should bridge the gap between I and II and the original trilogy. At the end of the article, the reporter asks how you would write the story, and save the series.

Here's my take:

Padme, realizing that the legislative battle against the Imperial senate is futile, turns toward more desperate measures to save her planet. Working with Darth Maul to position her world as a founding member of the new Empire, she turns Anakin toward his more powerful dark side, showing him that his true nature lies in fury, evidenced by the retributitive bloodbath he enacted after the killing of his mother.

Secretly gathering influences of her own throughout the Imperium, she masterminds the overthrow of the Imperial order.

Halfway through the movie it comes out that she has an extremely high, though inactive, latent midichlorean count herself, and deliberately sought out Annie more than a decade ago, in order to produce a child more powerful in the Force than any ever seen before him.

Kenobi, who discovers this duplicity as Amadala is birthing the twins are born, kills Amadala (in self defense, of course) and steals away the twins.

Anakin never knew Amadala was carrying twins, and so attempts to hunt down Kenobi on Corusant. To hide Leia's existence, Kenobi looks up his friends, the royal family of Alderaan, who are on the capitol planet for a State function, and convinces them to hide Leia and raise her as their own child.

Kenobi then flees and takes Luke with him to Tattoine, where he knows Vader's deep-rooted turmoil around the death of his mother will prevent him from sensing Luke's presence across the light years.

Despite the best efforts of the Jedi council, including a space battle where the Jedi Masters attempt to defeat a swarm of Clone-piloted Tie Fighters from their own hand-crafted ships (each reflecting that Master's character and physiology) they are eventually forced to sacrifice themselves to destroy a Jedi superweapon weilded by Duku, Vader, and Sidious. The resulting devastation leaves all dead except for Vader, Yoda, and Sidious.

Vader is so seriously wounded that Sidious has Vader's suit and helmet crafted to sustain him.

As Vader and Sidious continue their takeover of the Empire, Yoda retreats to Degobah, awaiting the eventual weakening of the new Empire, or the emergence of a new Jedi force.

Montage: Anakin/Vader at Padme/Amadala's grave, where he loses the last vestage of his humanity and his tears turn to a stone demeanor we are all familiar with.

Yoda, cleaning his old home and peering in (with Jedi sight) on Leia, now on her new home of Alderaan, presented to her people as an adoptive princess, and then on a newborn Luke, cared for by his aunt and uncle, who were presented with Luke by an intermediary, as Obi Wan looks on from afar.

R2 tweets at Obi Wan, who gazes into the Tatooine sunset and says "No, my little friend. It is just the beginning..."

Roll credits.

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(first in a series)

It was more than ten years ago that I spent a summer studying drama in London. A program(me) in acting, directing, and playwriting, it brought about 25 college freshmen and sophomores together, half from the UK and half from America, though only one other from so far away as I was.

In the early days of the course we spent a good amount of time learning about the differences between the Brits and us Yanks. Easy differences like power voltages, the difference between cookies, crackers, and biscuits. Surprising differences like what it takes to get a bank account in London versus New York, and what that relationship means to you.

Each morning us Yanks would emerge from our dorms at the London School of Economics, vacant for all the budding economists were on holiday, and walk, rain or shine, to Euston Station, get our morning biscuits and march down into the tube for our two-part runs to the theatre in Sloane Square.

Emerging from the station it was a quick right, a few doors down, then another right, down the alley to the back door of the theatre, in the door, up the steps, past the offices, around to another black-clad stairwell, then up one more set of winding, narrowing stairs with a rise-over-run fit to remind us again that we weren't on western shores anymore.

There, on the same attic studio where the Rocky Horror Show was first performed, we would learn about theatre and about humanity: what makes us different, what makes us the same, and how the delta between people is drama.

More than ten years ago, and still the memories flood back, like vignettes of mirror-world humanity.

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It gets so quiet around here this time of year... Traffic goes down by more than 50%, and comments down by even more, as the regulars are all off doing their vacationy and familylike things.

Mostly I think everyone just gets quiet... I'm looking forward to next week when things pick up, Macworld Expo starts, and a whole new year opens up before us, like a long sunny valley revealed when the fog burns off the new years peak.

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I wonder if anything should be read into the fact that the #6 book on Amazon's purchase circles page for Apple Computer is Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life?

I read and liked Po's earlier book, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, a fictional account of silicon valley culture, along the lines of Microserfs, though not quite as compelling (20Mil has a wider lens, while MS focused more on the person inside).

Certainly, it's a weird time for the silicon valley. Now that things have started settling down after the bubble and the burst, I think a lot of people are wondering what's next. There are companies that, while not gone, have lost their luster, and the idealism of their surviving employees might have been rubbed away at the same time.

Google's moving campuses down the block. A bunch of us moved in a couple weeks ago. We've moved in to one of the buildings in SGI's corporate headquarters, as they slowly move into smaller, less expensive digs. Right now we share the space. We share the lunchroom, the parking lot, but we're walking in different worlds. The attaboy slogans of idealism in the cafe, plastered with the SGI logo, ring hollow; a cautionary tale of how little the distance is between mission statements and jingoism. On the wall of the cafe, an LED sign blithely reminds SGIers that nominations for a certain internal achievement award are 'due by 4/17'. No year is specified.

In the meantime, Google is fantastic. Our company party was last Friday and it was a lot of fun. Coincidentally, the party was at the Computer History Museum which, furthering irony, also happens to have been SGI's headquarters, before they moved in to the building I'm in right now.

It's nearly 9pm and Rachel'll be coming home from her show soon. I probably oughta finish up and get home. Tomorow morning I need to go to the DMV first-thing before heading in to the office. Turns out my drivers license extension expires tomorrow and I'll probably need a valid license to pick up my new car which, incidentally, will also hopefully happen tomorrow.

Hope y'all had a great weekend!

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After getting such positive feedback last year, and a reminder email today from a reader (as well as from my mom, one of the singers) I'm happy to remind folks that the Verdugo Hills Showtime Chorus will be delivering live telephone singing holiday cards this holiday season.

The deal is that for just $5-9 (local, long distance, or international), you can have a group of professional-quality chorus singers call whomever you wish and sing them holiday wishes. These are live (and very nice) people, who enjoy giving holiday wishes as much as your friends and family will enjoy getting them.

All of the holidaygrams will be sung on Saturday, December 13th, and they're happy to sing on the answering machine if your recipient isn't home. Actually, some recipients prefer that so they can listen again and again.

Happy Holidays!

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Okay, the Clif's Notes version of my last five days (take two).

Thursday I was signed up to go to a philanthropic luncheon and in the evening join up with Ammy and Karen to see War Daddy, the play that Rachel was stage managing at the Zeum.

Midday Wednesday I knew that things would get too busy so I bowed out of the luncheon and had to postpone going to the play until this weekend. It turned out it was a good thing that I cancelled because I ended up staying at work all day and all night on thursday, not coming home at all, and grabbing a quick 90 minutes of sleep in a coworker's office. First time pulling an all-nighter at Google, and hopefully not a frequent occurance.

Incidentally, we're moving offices this weekend, and cardboard boxes and stickers were passed around earlier in the week. Anyhow, I worked pretty much solid until 5pm when I found out that 'be packed by the time you leave for the weekend' actually meant 'be packed by 6 when the movers start moving' (my fault, didn't read the faq closely enough). So, by 6:15 my GoogleLife is in boxes and stickered, and I'm out the door.

I was supposed to go to Liz's birthday/housewarming party on Friday night, but running on only 90 minutes sleep in the previous 40 hours, I knew I wasn't fit to drive the 140 miles to Sacramento, especially when I knew I'd have to drive back that evening to be ready to go to the Big Game (Cal vs. Stanford) on Saturday morning. So I went home and tried to sleep for about an hour before waking up to answer the phone.

After that I didn't get back to bed until after midnight, my circadian rhythms in direct opposition to my serotonin levels, making everything feel a little distant. Friday Night Waltz was at the same time, and 100 miles closer, but I didn't even think of going. Home was my final destination for the night.

Saturday morning Karen and I made an easy journey to Stanford, thanks to Rachel dropping us off on the way to work. Good thing to, since this is the first Stanford Big Game in decades without CalTrain access, since they've shut the train down on weekends for the last year and a half and didn't change the schedule for the event. (This is stupid because the way most public transit agencies increase ridership is when they introduce new potential riders to the system when they do one-off events like games and concerts. If you only run on weekdays, then only those people who use your train for commuting find out about your train. Chicken, I'd like you to meet egg.) Anyhow, Palo Alto was a resultant mess that we got to glide through relatively unscathed.

The game was a lot of fun. Both teams played badly at first, but it was nice to come from behind and pound the other team. This was also the first time I'd actually gone to a Big Game as a bona-fide alumnus. Karen wrote up a bit more on the game and the aftermath.

Karen dropped me off at the Zeum at 7:27pm for a 7:30pm curtain and I'm so glad I made it on time, though I'm so sorry that my own planning ended up making Karen sick so that she couldn't go. The show didn't actually start for another 10 minutes or so, so I even got to catch my breath.

Watching theatre alone is such a different experience for me than watching in a group. Somehow experiencing art with others, I feel that I have to immediately encapsulate my feelings and opinions into communicable nuggets, like I'm writing an essay, or at least that I have to have formed an opinion by the time the curtain falls. Seeing a play on my own I feel freer to experience it, rather than judge it.

While experiencing the play I realized a few things about my own approach to creative endeavors. I don't like anything I make to go out into the world until it's perfect. I realized on Saturday that this isn't because I'm so much a perfectionist, as it is that the kinds of art I produce are ones that stay up for a while, where imperfections are more glaring, and where the work is such an intentional act that improvisation is almost impossible. The musician can change a riff on the fly, or a painter can be very free with their brush, knowing both that the randomness and carefree effect can boost the work, and that the act itself is quick. Inspiration does play a large role in web design, but improvisation is harder to pull off, since every effect on the page is time-consuming enough to be deliberate by nature, and the best that one can hope for is for carefree inspiration that they can hold on to while transforming it into code.

Even then, if you make tools that people will use thousands of times, utility has to take a front seat to free-expression, and while aesthetics are vital, possibly even more important than in the more ephemeral disciplines of the performing arts, they're there to indicate the piece's function, or to create an emotional space to frame the work in.

It's probably a good thing I don't go to plays alone very often.

But even so, all that said, this is one of the reasons I so enjoyed riding Amtrak to and from Yahoo, more than a year ago. Setting myself to start writing in Oakland and to have a finished piece by Santa Clara, I started to see writing as an impromptu performance art, instead of a crafted and re-crafted tailored work to be scrutinized. I don't expect anyone to read what I write twice, or to write about what I write.

Back to my weekend, I enjoyed the play. I was impressed by many of the youth actors, though I felt that the playwriting lacked significant differentiation in most of the characters' dialogue. I love the Zeum's theater. It's just intimate enough to saddle the line between a performance to the audience and a performance with the audience. And of course it was technically great. After all, it had a great stage manager. :-)

Today was a day of relative sloth. There were many small things that needed to be done around the house, and Rachel, angel that she is, got the day started for us with omelettes in bed! Add on my organizing and archiving files off my powerbook before installing OS X 10.3, catching up on a little TV, a little email, and a little websurfing, and suddenly it's after midnight and I'm wondering where the day went.

In the morning I'm heading over to the new office to unpack my boxes and set up the computer, find out whether the new office has a bathroom closer than my old cube's 79 paces. We're right next to the kitchen area, which means far too many snacks in far too close proximity. Virtually nothing will get accomplished Monday, what with everyone unpacking, learning the lay of things, and with so many of us making ready for early Thanksgivings.

Rachel and I are flying out tomorrow night for Los Angeles where we'll stay a night before flying to Kauai with the greater family for Thanksgiving in Hawaii. It'll be nice to get away.

For the past few weeks I've been feeling a little growing ennui, especially when I'm alone. I don't know if I'm experiencing it more now, or if I'm just noticing it more now, but as I sit at home when Rachel's off shopping, visiting Nym, or off running a show, I sometimes compare the mental me to the person I'd expect I'd be and I seem muted. I'm not looking for sympathy, but I feel that acknowledging this alteration is probably an important step in changing it, and so I put it here to pin this acknowledgement down.

So yeah, Tomorrow night is LA, then Kauai, then back to LA and back here on an unspecified flight.

Overall, life is very, very good. Trouble is, I can usually identify problems and fix them when things aren't going their best. Right now though, I feel like fixing the problem involves letting go of something I don't yet want to let go of, because I feel like if I loose my grip I'll forget what it was like to hold on to it.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense to newer readers, or even those who have been here for a while. Maybe it makes a lot of sense. I don't really know. I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have so much to be thankful for, and though I may have less now, I value it so much more.

Anyhow, next week Rachel starts work on her next gig, a production of the Santaland Diaries, I have my company party, we might get to go to Dickens Fair, and then the next week I'll be getting my new car, and then it's only a few more weeks to Christmas.

And, as I've thought every Sunday night since I came back to the Bay Area three months ago, I know I'm lucky when I remember that tomorrow's Monday and I need to go to work, and it fills me with excitement.

I hope y'all had a good weekend.

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So as I wrote and was wondering about where my car was in the space-time continuum (or rather, the part of the ST continuum that's closest to me in time), it was indeed chugging across the Atlantic ocean. It's built. Complete. It's coming to America.

December 8th (+- a few days) is the day! It'll be so hard getting it on a Monday when I'll have to wait all week to just drive and drive. But then maybe I can take it to Plough.

Which brings me to Mutant, my beloved Honda Civic. I've got to sell her, much as I love her. Bobbi the dashboard hula dancer is optional, but I hope they both find a good home.

And the license plate. I still need to replace the front plate but then I need to decide whether to keep the plate with Mutant (because what's a mutant without a "GRR ARG"?) and get a new personalized plate for the Prius, because my Prius is red, and not as mutant-like or enemy-ish.

What plate might I get instead? Well, 'GRR ARG' was pretty obscure for the uninitiated, but it was at least parsable as a phrase. My leading frontrunner for personalized Prius plates is '10E100'.

Too geeky? Is too geeky better in this case?

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Now that the weather has dropped precipitously from 90 down to 50 in the last week, I'm nostalgic for Pittsburgh. I still follow the news there now and then. I'm vaguely pissed that Starbucks is moving to Craig Street, giving Kiva Han a run for its money, and I congratulate Michele, the CMU HCI program coordinator, on fulfilling her dream and moving to upstate New York to open a B&B!

I miss the leaves, wearing gloves, and walking through a leaf-strewn cemetery to the bus stop with my iPod in my pocket and feeling so very in-the-world.

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I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!

It's funny, but every Halloween I think a little bit about high school. My high school's colors were orange and brown, and we'd always have our homecoming game the weekend of Halloween and would have cheezy Halloween/school spirit floats.

Last night Rachel and I went to my second ever haunted house, the Pirates of Emerson. It was really rad, and totally blew away the one I went to when I was 8 years old. I think even Rachel was impressed, and she's a haunted house veteran. I can't wait 'till next year.

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Sam, I read your open memo at the Proteron site today, and it left me with questions.

I've been an avid Mac user since I got my 128K Mac in 1984. As a former helpline staffer at the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, writer for MacWEEK Magazine, marketing assistant for Dantz Development, and software developer for Casady & Greene, I completely understand the plight of "the little guy", but in this particular example I feel that your venom is unwarranted.

Your open memo is based on the claim, reiterated on the LiteSwitch X home page, that "LiteSwitch X was the original application switcher for the Mac OS". This is both 'disappointing' and 'dishonest'. The first application switcher for the Mac OS was "Switcher" written by Andy Hertzfeld (with special thanks given to John Markoff and Bud Tribble) while under the employ of Apple Computer in 1985. Apple pioneered the technology you're claiming they pilfered, and they did it when the Mac OS was barely one year old. Over the intervening 18 years countless "little guys," Proteron among them, have come out with application switchers building on Apple's foundation. Surprisingly, very few gave any credit to Andy, John, Bud or Apple for the original innovation.

While I agree that Sherlock likely crossed the line in replicating Watson functionality, I don't feel the same sympathy for Proteron. On the aforementioned LiteSwitchX page you scream in 48-point letters (using Apple's corporate font, no less), "Dear Apple: You forgot some important features" in OS X 10.2. Beneath this accusation you simultaneously berate Apple for remembering them in OS X 10.3. I'd suggest not using the 'gloat' and 'sympathy' cards at the same time. They tend to cancel each other out.

LiteSwitch X is a very elegant product, but it has clearly borrowed more core functionality from those applications that came before it than it adds to the table. As long as LiteSwitch doesn't violate patents and look-and-feel copyrights that's fine, but it's poor form to cry foul when someone does the same to you. If, on the other hand, you feel that Apple has impinged on your intellectual property rights then I would suggest pursuing legal action against them. Writing an 'open memo to Steve' that you know will go unanswered seems to me to be little more than a 'mouse who roared' ploy for attention.

I noticed that you've recently released LiteSwitch X 2.1 with support for Panther. I wish you the utmost success with it.

Comments? (27)

It's 12:02am and I'm downstairs in my townhouse, with my powerbook in my lap, thinking about a lot of things. To share...

Rachel and I went to dance class today and it was a lot of fun. It's a pleasure to be in any dance class Richard teaches, even (especially?) if I already know the dance. It's the only time I can really focus on technique and cure myself of bad habits on the dance floor.

We're working on costumes for the Halloween Gaskell's Masquerade Ball. We're not doing anything fantastically involved, but it should be cool if we can pull it off.

My mom's coming in to town this weekend. It's the first time in a long time that mom's come up just to see me, since I usually come down to LA more often. I'm looking forward to showing her my home. I'm so house-proud. I'm so proud that this is probably the first time I've ever actually used that term.

My dad's business is selling today. It stirs up a lot of emotion. The house is in escrow, and will close in a few weeks. Piece by piece it's coming undone. I know this feeling isn't fair, since we have the important things, the memories, the pictures, the writings, and a whole lot of stuff, but the exchange of things for cash has a dehumanizing effect even in the best of times. I'll get over it, but right now I'm still a little under it.

A handful of people at Google read my weblog, and I know a few did when I was being considered for employment, but I don't know if my coworkers know about my dad's death. It's not something that's come up in conversation, but one of my coworkers is going on vacation for two weeks with her husband and new baby to visit both sets of relatives back east. We were talking about families, and I just wanted to tell her to cherish these times, these visits, because you never know what might happen before you see them next. Playing it in my head, it all sounded so morbid. I didn't say anything.

Susie and I are both looking at getting Priuses ('Priae'?). I have a deposit down on one up here, but there's a 60-90-day wait list. They officially arrive in dealerships today, so I might be able to actually see one this weekend. I'm still looking at other options, like the Outback. I finally got another interim license until the DMV gets me my real one (another story) so I can test-drive.

Tomorrow's Friday Night Waltz. Rachel and I both need new dance shoes. I'd rather not break mine in at Gaskell's, as three hours of dancing in new shoes would kill my feet. I don't know how we'd find time to get shoes for tomorrow night.

I'm thrilled that iTunes for Windows has come out. I'm really interested in hearing the download stats for the Apple Music Store in the coming weeks and months. This is a great move for Apple, though I was surprised to read that Apple expects to do little more than break even on the music store. Instead, the whole thing is a vehicle to sell more iPods, where the real money is.

Work is fantastic, and that's enough said about that for right now.

I can't find my beard trimmer, so my goatee gets longer and longer, held in check only by a small pair of scissors in my bathroom.

The house is almost entirely unpacked, and looking good. I hosted a brunch last weekend and it felt so good to entertain. Bagels, lox, and friends. The perfect Sunday morning.

I have this weird irregular heartbeat thing about once a day. I need to get it looked at, as it's been going on for months. They'll hook me up with a portable EKG for a day or two, where I'll press a button and take notes whenever I feel anything odd. I can't really describe it other than to say my heart feels like it wants to yawn but it can't. I'm looking for a good doctor and I'll make an appointment next week.

Wednesday night Rachel and I went to a corporate night event at SF MOMA. We got to see the Chagall exhibit and a few other collections. Chagall's never blown my socks off, but they had a fascinating display of 19th century photography, a James Turell installation (if you've never seen any James Turell, find out where you can see some and do it. That stuff blows my socks off.), a gallery of the lifestyle of asian prostitutes, as well as a standing collection of mid-20th-century art including Magritte, Jasper Johns, Rothko, and Lichtenstein.

The hors devours were very yummy, but the high point of the evening was the band. They were playing good seductive lounge-y music and had a fantastic female vocalist. "Whatever Lola Wants" and the like. Bass, Guitar, Drums, lead vocals, and an exquisite Theramin player.

Theramins are so cool. I've heard them before, but usually in the context of B-movies. I'd never seen one being played, let alone so expertly played. The man could make the Theramin sound like a pedal-steel guitar, a jaw harp, or a flock of birds. Within I was playing my own 'air theramin' and I know I just have to give one a try. Turns out that at about $350, they're not as expensive as I'd thought. Even cooler, I discovered a MIDI-compatable Theramin player, which seems almost impossible, because everything about the Theramin is analog, and totally nonconducive to traditional composition.

I've been thinking more about ambient displays, looking at possibly hardware for the house, and had the realization that many ambient displays exist as the causal interface between the trajector and the landmark, that is to say, the display doesn't just convey information, its very implementation is in some way tightly related to the resulting reaction triggered by the display. When you think about it this way, any step in a causal chain could be seen as a display, and the 'interesting' displays are those that are either naturally ubiquitous, or otherwise ignorable or conditional. I don't expect this to make sense yet, but hopefully it will soon.

Fury's been getting a lot of google hits today because google thinks a post I wrote two years ago explains why The West Wing wasn't shown as expected Wednesday night. The real answer is that NBC shelved the episode for two weeks so it wouldn't compete with the Baseball playoffs or world series. West Wing will be back on October 29th.

That's it for now. I still need to get down to coding the site, and I have half a mind to do a drastic redesign, beyond the Fury 4.0 designs I was passing around a few months ago. At the very least, there will be a complete rewrite under the hood.

That ought to be some good fodder for comments. I'll talk to y'all tomorrow!

Comments? (10)

Before there were any dotcom stories I used to ride the bus to junior high school every day. Attending a magnet school, I and most of my classmates were bussed in from outside the school's area.

One of my best friends in junior high, and pretty much my only local friend, was Josh. Josh lived a few blocks away from me and together we explored the depths of geekdom. He taught me how to use two 10-sided dice (err, 2D10) to simulate a hundred-sided die and I'd challenge him to read tiny passages from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and time me to see if I could find the passage within 60 seconds. We both camped out in the computer lab (ahem, back of the math classroom (with a teacher I didn't discover until three years later was a post-op transsexual (not that there's anything wrong with that))) every lunch, playing Sands of Egypt and Hunt the Wumpus on donated CoCos, a Kaypro II, and an Osborne.

We weren't alone. We were part of a cadre of geeks. Erik, Vincent, and a few others. One thing that set Josh and I apart was our innate competitiveness. We'd always try to one-up the other. I'd let him play with my Colecovision, and a month later he's show me his Intellivision. We both took the SAT in 9th grade.

Nevertheless, there were differences between us. I had a self-deprecating bent, and Josh didn't ever let up. I would admit to vulnerabilities or insecurities as a part of who I am, the step backwards that can lead to steps forward in relationships. I still do this even now, though only with a few friends who I know are either ultra-supportive (Karen, Rachel) or who will be critical (Ammy, Ali), and I expose that side of me to one friend or another, depending on whether I need a confidence boost or a reality check.

Back then I didn't know myself very well, and I certainly didn't understand other people as well as I do now. Back then I based my sense of self-worth on the respect of those around me. What thirteen-year-old doesn't? At any rate, in the ninth grade Josh and my relationship changed. Maybe it was that I wasn't confident enough in my geekiness, or just that I didn't feel right sequestered away in the 'computer lab' or that I started dating that year, but the rest of the group tightened up, and as they endured the perpetual social ridicule of the non-geeks, they turned that antipathy towards me, the sub-geek.

This shift turned out to have significant consequences in my life. The next year when we all went to high school I left the magnet program to go to a high school with a very strong all-around AP program, but not a hyperfocus on one area, as is typical of the high school magnet programs. Josh and that group went to a math and science magnet. Though he still lived closer to me than any of my friends in high school, we had virtually no communication. We'd see each other rarely at competitive events like Academic Decathlon, where we each represented our schools, but we really didn't do anything more than measure each other up.

Ironically, when it came time to go to college, I intended to leave the computer arena and focus on liberal arts but, through twists of fate to be chronicled in a later post, I ended up going to Berkeley, sealing my fate firmly in the forthcoming dotcom bubble. Josh went to Reed, studying math.

Years passed, school gave way to work and back to school and back to work and back to school. One day about three or four years ago, as I do at least a few times each year, I googled friends from my former lives to see what they're up to. I was surprised to note that Josh had finished his degree and come to Berkeley to get his PhD in math. At that time I was in the 'school' sweep of the pendulum and shared a campus with him, but I never looked him up. It might have been because, with only one current friend I'd made before meeting Josh, I'd completely moved on in my life, or it might have been because I knew that we'd instantly fall into that 'sass that hoopy frood' cooler-than-thou modality, and not only would it be sad to instantly devolve ten years, but I'd probably lose, not having even finished my bachelor's degree. Another year later I noticed he got engaged at Lake Tahoe and later got married.

Josh, like Denise, Carina, John, Steve, Jeff, Dahlia, Dana, Rhett, Ethan, Nellie, and so many other faded friends, only entered my mind in the abstract, thinking about how lives are like branches, winding, sheltering, separating and diverging from common origins.

So I was taken by surprise when I got a call from my mom a few days ago, asking if I knew that Josh was working at Google.

Way.

I went to the intranet and looked him up, and there he was. It turns out he finished his PhD in May and started at Google a few weeks before I did. Different building.

The first impulse involved dropping by his cube to say hi, flashing back to the scene in Hitchhikers when Ford and Arthur are sucked on to the Heart of Gold and Ford walks in to the bridge, intent on outcooling Zaphod. To follow that storyline though, his cubemate would probably end up being Maggie or someone similarly astronomically improbable, and the whole phenomenon is better left unobserved.

My second thought was that he mush have known that I was working here. In my six weeks here I've sent out a few company-wide emails, and was introduced at an all-hands meeting. Then again, he might have said hi and I might have just not recognized him. How's that for playing it cool?

I decide to loop in my cubemate and tell her the story. She asks if I can show her a picture of him. "I've met him! He was asking about you!" She goes on to tell me that he told her he talked to me but doesn't think I recognized him, and that now he'd have to plan some elaborate situation to surprise me with his presence...

I should probably just drop by next time I'm in his building. I'll just be sure not to ask him how he did on his GREs.

Comments? (17)

(From the category of 'turning stuff into other stuff')

Unpacking, I've come across a lot of stuff of questionable necessity. I like having business cards from my jobs at Dantz, USWeb/CKS, Yahoo, and my personal businesses, but how many do I really need? On one hand, a business card from a failed dotcom might be the best evidence of actual employment and job title, so I want to keep a handful, but do I really need 500?

Still, throwing them out seems wrong too...

Then the CardCube page comes across my desk. Following the instructions might not help me get rid of my cards, but at least I can have some fun with them. :-)

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On the 'coping' front, every now and then I come across an emotion I'm really not sure how to internalize. I spent nearly two weeks working with Mom and Susie on Dad's house last month, and I got updates every few days from Mom on how things were progressing. Repairing tiles, repainting, fixing a latch, getting an appraisal.

Susie and I both carefully thought it through, and decided that neither of us would be living in the house in any reasonable timeframe and, as fond as I am of the house, I'm in the Bay Area for good as far as I can see, and Sherman Oaks home prices are peaking, especially with rising interest rates. It's the right thing to do.

Even though I've been a part of the process at every step; even though I went through the house to say goodbyes when Ammy and I came to Los Angeles a week ago on the last stop of our road trip, I got a profound pang when I looked up the listing for my Dad's house online today.

While walking though it, empty and repainted, amidst real estate agents scoping it out, I was okay. Somehow I was still protecting it, watching over and cradling my dad's home as I can't watch over him anymore. Seeing it as an anonymous listing on the internet, distilled to a 320x240 picture and a handful of database fields, I just feel like I'm leaving a memory and a spirit naked and unprotected amidst strangers.

...

I need a home of my own. The townhouse I'm moving in to next week reminds me of Dad in a way I can't describe, and a few ways I can. Something about the walls reminds me of the condo he had over 20 years ago in San Francisco, and the flowerpots and drip watering system that I asked the landlord to leve in reminds me of when Dad, Susie and I would go to Grandma's in the Spring and set up tomato plants and drip systems on the terraced steps alongside the house, and when we did the same in my Uncle's backyard years later, bringing forth tiny pumpkinds and zuccini into the world.

I want to make things grow. I want to nurture. I'm really looking forward to unpacking a few of my 'Dad boxes' so I can wear some of my memories externally. My insides are getting a little too crowded, and I need to breathe.

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On the morning of my birthday, July 4th, my dad stayed up late writing me a letter. The letter touched me very deeply, and when I called him later that morning we shared a wonderful conversation, confiding how proud we each were with each other.

I told him how I bought two iSight cameras, one for each of us, so that despite being at opposite ends of the country we'd be able to see each other and talk like we were in the same room. He told me that he'd ordered a slew of multicolor-led Google pens, a few shirts, and baseball caps, in honor of my starting there next month.

We talked about our writings, about visiting me when I get my apartment in Mountain View, and about using both his and my frequent flier miles to get Rachel and me plane tickets to visit Los Angeles in the next couple weekends.

After the call, I went to a BBQ at a friend's new house, followed by tremendous fireworks in downtown Pittsburgh. My Dad went to a party at my uncle's house in Malibu, where he had a great day with family and friends, staying late and driving a friend home late that evening before returning to his own home.

Some time early in the following morning, July 5th, 2003, he suffered a severe heart attack and passed away at his home.

At the memorial service the following Friday, Susie and I were the last people to speak after my mom, grandfather, cousins Steve, Craig, and Jill, and Dad's brother, my Uncle Alan. After the service, a handful of people asked if I could send them the text of the eulogy I gave:

"The last time I spoke to David was last Friday, on my birthday. Earlier in the day he wrote me a letter, and gave me a gift more important than he could possibly have known. I'd like to read it to you:

To My Son Kevin on his 30th Birthday

It's 5 a.m. on your 30th Birthday and I'm still pondering what present to honor you with. My first present, very carefully selected with your mother's help, was your birth name – Kevin David Fox. Kevin because I wanted to do my best to provide you with a first name kids wouldn't be able to tease you about-- like they did to Dana Steven Fox who had to abandon Dana and retreat into Steven/Steve to escape. And because I wanted you to have a name that was substantial and more than ordinary, but not too unusual.

I'm not nearly as clear about why I held out for David. My deep sense is I somehow wanted you to know I would always do my best to be there with you and for you through all the scary and difficult times whenever and wherever they might envelope you.

Your plunge into sharing your "true voice" experiences on the verge of your 30th Birthday has inspired be to jump in after you. Here's a true voice poem I wrote five years ago.

Ordinary Terror

This morning I went to my appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to pick-up my personalized license plates. I didn't know why they were important to me.

While I waited for my name to be called, I was jarred by the appearance of scores of people without appointments waiting in dreary lines. They were on the short side and didn't stand out in any way. They were nothing more than ordinary, living out unremarkable lives.

Down deep I'm terrified of being ordinary. They seemed content.

The first time I felt the horror of ordinary gushing through my body came when I was seven. I was asleep in the basement room of our two-story up-side-down house when the cold water pipe hugging the ceiling above my bed burst at 3:00 a.m. I was frightened and confused. I screamed for mom and dad while I slapped at the light switch until the nightstand lamp snapped on.

The plumber arrived about an hour later. He was old and grizzly with knarled calloused hands, but he liked me. While he wrenched off the old lead pipes and wrenched on their shinny copper replacements, I asked him what it was like to be a plumber for a lifetime.

I was shocked by his answer. He said it was difficult for the first few years until he learned how to fix each different plumbing problem. But after that, he said it had been easy for the next 30 years because he just kept doing what he already knew how to do.

Right then I vowed never to be a plumber! To be doomed to a lifetime of fixing the same pipe problems over and over until I died with my knarled, calloused hands clutching my favorite wrench. How awful – how ordinary. He didn't seem to mind.

I'm walking toward my car with the desperate hope the personalized plates my hands are wrapped around will some how, some way shield me from the terror of ordinary, and open my pipeline to salvation.

David Fox     March, 1998

I feel much different today. If I write a new true voice poem the title that appeals to me is "Ordinary Joy." Further bulletins will follow in celebration of your 30th birth year.

I just grabbed "14,000 things to be happy about." off my bookshelf and opened it at random to pages 100-101: "...the intimacy of humor...flashlights that work...a bowl of tiny mandarin oranges...a breeze tiptoeing into the room, afraid to intrude...Timbuktu...opening stuck windows...steak fries...the splendor of fall...deep-set windowsills...electric morning coffee-maker...every seventh wave being a big one...the pleasure of water...V-formation of migrating geese...." And there are 13,984 more in Barbara Kipfer's book.

How many more known and yet to be known are there in my "book? or you book?" Could be bazillion, or even kabillion more! (I've been wanting to use bazillion and kabillion somehow somewhere for months, and now I have Ta Dah! (I've also been wanting to use Ta Dah!). This is such fun!

And thank you for adding a bunch from your book: "having the canola...the extra mile...following a dream...Winter's blankets of snow...cacophonous cicada...thundershowers before sunset...lush green grass...surreptitiously placing Easter eggs....the midnight moon...picnicking on the grass...following foot-deep footholes in the snow...fireflies flicking on and off, talking to each other...paper cut-outs...sneaking into IKEA...the last day of classes...snowscaped graveyards...dancing with abandon... ...all nighters...pockets...tandem skydiving...keyboards...cloverleaf intersections... kettle drums ...Mardi Gras beads...a kitten sleeping in your lap having mouse-chasing dreams........" and so many many more. What I am happiest about right now is you on your 30th Birthday – TAH DAH!!!!

Love, hugs and so much more,

Dad

Dad derived his greatest happiness from finding joy, and bringing that joy to those around him.

He loved the immediate pleasure of teaching people something new, whether it was cribbage or kite-flying, computing or how to cook the perfect quesadilla.

He passionately shared the photographs he took at every opportunity, pulling out his powerbook in any free moment to give a personal tour of China, the Galapagos, or just a day at the beach. He loved sharing the beauty he saw in the world and in everyone he met.

Most importantly, Dad found his deepest satisfaction in helping people realize and pursue their own dreams. When he and I chose the name for his company 12 years ago, David wanted to keep it as open-ended as possible, reflecting his mission of helping people achieve their own goals -- in this instance, occupational goals -- hence the name "Professional Advancement Success Systems" or "PASS."

To David, the meaning of life is in the journey.

Dad never expected anyone to follow in his footsteps, but he hoped that they would walk in the same direction -- following their ambitions and dreams, and helping others to do the same.

My dad was the most supportive person I've ever known and, even after his passing, he's still supporting us, as we -- each and every one of us -- has been bettered by the impact he's had on our lives.

The finest memorial we can give to David is to keep on walking in his life's direction, to keep finding the joy and the beauty in life every day, and doubling that joy by selflessly sharing it with everyone we touch in our own lives.

Thanks for reading. As I've mentioned before, I have a lot more to say, and I'll be putting together a site of some of his writings, photos, and memories. I'll be talking about it here as it progresses. If you're just visiting Fury and aren't a regular reader, email me and I'll drop you a return email when there's more about David.

Comments? (15)

Sorry for the dearth of posts. Dad's memorial service was today, and we've all just been incredibly busy. I have so much to tell, to share, but I've been running on only a couple hours sleep a night for a while...

The Los Angeles Times printed an extended obituary in today's paper. We went to the newsstands this evening and they were sold out. If anyone has a copy of this, my family would greatly cherish getting a hold of it. If you have one, please do contact me. We're really appreciate it.

The URL for the online copy, sans picture, is here. (sorrry, LA Times free registration required)

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Thank you Liz. Today I've been thinking about the time so long ago when we sat overlooking Lake Tahoe, and you shared your loss with me.

Comments? (5)

My uncle, a long-time writer and storyteller, has lately been writing phenomenal accounts of his life and emailing them to the family. Inspired by his courage to speak in his 'true voice' without concern of tempering accounts for his audience, I want to share a few items from my private journal.

My good friend and former lover, Caroline, passed away in a car accident four years ago, about six months before I started keeping a weblog. After coming back from the memorial service, I wrote a eulogy in my physical journal. Re-reading it tonight for the first time in years, its so relevant to my life now that I want to put it down here, both because it's a part of me, and because maybe it will strike a chord with someone else.

Sunday, March 28, 1999

Caroline K. O'Brien was killed in a car accident on Wednesday.

In the short time that I knew her, caroline taught me so much about the human condition, and how wonderful life could be. Only now, with her passing, am I beginning to realize the true scope of her gift.

Caroline was fearless. she would never hesitate to make the dangerous choice, and she had the self-reliance to drive forward where most would balk at fear of failure or fear of reprisal. What makes her truly beautiful is that this rare drive was joined by an equally rare love of those around her. She realized the true nature of happiness and strove to bring it out in others.

She was very smart, but she never held it against you. In love, Caroline followed the middle path: Never fear love; embrace it. Don't let it blind you, but let it fill you and those around you with joy.

I learned so much about love and life from Caroline. I've spent far more time over the last two years absorbing that knowledge into my own life than the time I was gifted with her presence.

Ben and I spent several hours talking on the road yesterday to and from the service. Talking with him helped me remember many of the lessons I forgot over time.

We all have a responsibility to embrace life. It's vital to steer clear of the empty side every day, however comfortable it may be. the life best lived is one filled with chances, experiences, glowing successes and poignant defeats. It's the self-reliance that allows a person to take a thousand chances a day, to be warmed by the successes and learn from the failures.

Nice is different than good, and both are essential. Live for yourself by living for others.

Consuetude should never be confused with contentment, and when routine and habit drive our actions we all die a little.

Life is a series of relations and intersections, and we grow wiser, stronger, and hopefully happier with every one.

Beware the feedback loop. Love and happiness can't survive in a sealed environment. If love is to lead your life, then it must always be fed with new experiences, risks, successes and failures brought to the table by both parties. Most importantly, never lose hold of the qualities that inspired love once love is achieved, because love is not a gateway or a finish line. It's a constant achievement to be won each day.

Do great things and small. Never be afraid of the extra mile. You'll find looking back that the outcome is always worth more than the opportunity cost, whether it's driving two hours to see a friend for dinner or leaving a job to follow a dream.

Thank you Caroline for all your teachings. I pray that I can live up to them in my own life every day, and inspire others as you inspire me.

I love you,
Kevin

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So it's only two days until I turn 30, but nature's present came early. I walked outside tonight at about 9:30 to go see a free showing of Goldmember in the park. Stepping off my porch, I stopped in my tracks. Between one warm evening and the next, the fireflies had come out in force.

From my first visit to Pittsburgh over a year ago, I was clear on the concept that I wasn't in California anymore: Bright sunny 80-degree days are no guarantee against a quick thundershower before sunset. When I came here to live last August, I learned about the cacophonous cicada and their 22 year cycle. Fall introduced me to the colors of which Pennsylvanian nature is capable, followed unusually quickly by Winter's blankets of snow, applied again and again. With the Spring came the rain, lush green grass right outside my window, and an ocean of dandelions. Approaching the end of the full circle, I thought that I knew all of Gaia's gifts to Pittsburg, but stumbling upon thousands of glowstick-green fireflies softly lighting and fading while weaving in front of, behind, and around tombstones in the twilight struck me dumb in a way I suddenly realized I had feared I was becoming incapable of as I enter my fourth decade.

I've often used the cemetery as my emotional soundstage over the last year, whether surreptitiously placing easter eggs on the statues with Rachel, picnicking on the grass, following foot-deep foot-holes in the snow on the way to the bus or striding hom, weaving through the headstones beneath the midnight moon with 'Rest in Peace' blaring in my iPod's earbuds. This felt totally different though. Tonight the graveyard was alive.

...

It was exactly 20 years ago today that I had last seen the faerie. A half a world away, in a vineyard an hour north of Florence, I was just two days away from my 10th birthday, travelling through Europe with my mom and sister. The fireflies were everywhere around the trees and the vines, flicking on and off, talking to each other, and speaking to me as well. It was a magical night outdoors, eating a fine dinner, feeling the Summer warmth, and walking a path under a waterfall reputed to take a decade off the ambler's age (a completely different prospect to someone not quite ten yet).

As we waited for the tour busses to take us back to reality, I urgently found a jar and caught a few of the fireflies. I was so proud. Mom told me that I could keep them if I wanted to, but I should know that they'd die within a day, and they would never glow again. I let them go just before I climbed the steps onto the motor coach. Mom smiled.

...

The faerie have changed in the intervening decades, but then so have I. In 1983 I was spastic with youth, and the fireflies reflected this with their fast binary blinks. Somewhere on their abdomen they were flittering their shutters open and closed, sending precise signals through the dusk.

Nature, digitized.

Today's gift was so different that at first I didn't even recognize it. A sine-wave of brightness in the corner of my eye, another floating above my car. I literally rubbed my eyes to clear these errant embers floating senselessly. After one travelled right in front of me, I realized what they were, so different from what I expected. Focusing out beyond the grass and to the headstones beyond I could see hundreds of them, brightening, peaking, and dimming to invisibility, seemingly constant lights drifting between this dimension and another. Seeing headstones literally lit by their passing glow, I thought to myself, 'Buffy can't touch this.'

Reality, smoothed.

I had to share, so I called Rachel to tell her that she was right and the fireflies had indeed come. "Of course, silly!" 'Will they stay? or is it a one-night deal?' "They'll be around all month! It's what they do."

Feeling the magic lift me, I got in my car and drove to the movie, seeing only one or two fireflies the whole way. Apparently the dead get first dibs. Well, them and their neighbors.

Tomorrow I'll see how well the video camera can handle this unique low-light setting. For tonight, I'm cherishing my first birthday present.

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I have a certain fondness for keyboards. Starting when I learned to touch-type on a fully manual typewriter in the 7th grade, I've migrated to all kinds of keyboards, with different looks and feels, strokes and weights.

I've always found both my writing style and general computing attitude to be greatly affected by the keyboard I'm using. In this regard (and only this regard) I secretly identify with Greg Kinnear's typewriter-afficianado character in You've Got Mail.

I've probably owned more than a dozen keyboards since I learned to type, from the clickitty IBM PC keyboards to the membrane keyboard of the Odyssey II, to the tiny keyboard of my Duo 210 to the Stowaway folding keyboard for my Palm V to my Sidekick's thumb 'keyboard', just to name a few. Okay, make that two dozen.

Atop the highest pedestal in this tactile pantheon sits my Apple Extended Keyboard II, which I got in 1989, along with my Mac SE/30. I called it a 'deck,' massive yet graceful, seeming more suited to the bridge of the Enterprise (1701-D) than on a simple 1980s desktop ("Hello computer!"). (Here's a great photo of Apple keyboards and mice through the ages. The AEK II is the big one on the top left.)

The keys had a soft stroke, and bespoke quiet power when pressed. Even stroking my hand across the full sweep of the 105 keys (I remember that there were 105 keys) gave more a sense of art than doing the same over the 88 keys of a grand piano.

Truly a thing of beauty.

Okay, back to the point, and the present day. For the last six months I've been living off my powerbook, using its decent keyboard while away from my desk, and jacking in to the orphaned keyboard and mouse that came with my now stilled G4 Quicksilver desktop. A decent combination. Well, as the avid reader knows, I sold my desktop machine last week, and the buyer opted for the keyboard and mouse as well. No problem. I'd just buy another.

For the last two weeks, since pulling the keyboard for the eBay photos, I've been using my backup Happy Hacking Keyboard, a tool which, while admirable for its efficiency, compactness, and lack of a caps-lock key, is ultimately cramped and uninspiring. Pair that with a Wacom as my primary pointing device on a desk so cluttered to not have room for it, and my writing was quite literally cramped.

With my eBay money firmly in my paypal account, I've been doing a little spending. I intended to replace my keyboard with another just like it, but it turns out they don't sell the black keyboard separately, only the white model. I wasn't sure how I felt about this inversion, but I went ahead and bought it anyhow, and I don't know how much is in my head and how much in the keys, but it feels more like that vaunted Extended Keyboard II than any board I've had the pleasure of keystroking since. (108 keys. Tee-hee!)

Suddenly writing is a pleasure again. Heck, I've already written 590 words on a new keyboard (on a new keyboard)!

This is a preface to say that, like the new owner of a Strat, I'm learning my instrument, finding our shared voice, but so far she truly sounds sweet.

If you think I'm a freak now, just wait until my new mouse and speakers arrive. Hey, at least it's not an iGesture Pad. God those things look cool.

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Top 750 High Schools, based on average number of AP courses per student and such, and excluding schools who select more than half their students via merit (grades, tests, etc.).

The scary thing is just how many of these high schools were right around me: North Hollywood High, Van Nuys, Taft, Westlake, Marshall (yay Mom and Dad (alumni)), L.A.C.E.S., S.O.C.E.S., Venice, and a bunch of others. There is a Grant in California on the list, but it says it's in 'Valley Green', a city not even yahoo Maps knows about. Is this my Grant, in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley? Do I get validation?

My sister and my oldest friend each work at schools on the list, which seems highly skewed towards California, probably because they push AP tests harder there. Heck, I took seven... One of them for a subject I never even studied in school (US Government).

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You know, I have about 30 DVDs, and I rarely go through them and sit down to watch one. I guess with a few exceptions, most don't have replayability for me...

Most of them I'll want to see again maybe every two years or so, even (sometimes especially) the movies I really, really love. Tonight I pulled off the shelf one of my top ten, that gets more interesting each time I watch it.

Pump Up the Volume should be watched by everyone who's ever kept a weblog, or wondered why we do. It predates the web by a good long way, but the message is powerful, and more than anything else I've read or seen, gives a convincing why to self-publishing on the web. I won't try to explain here.

If you haven't seen it, go rent it. If you have seen it, but it was a while ago, watch it again. You might get as much of a retrospective kick out of it as I did when I watched Tron after 10 years and the onset of an internet revolution, only to find it more relevant (and relevatory) than ever.

Does anyone else have a movie that they watched a decade later and got something completely different out of it? Is this the place where you can finally admit how much more sense The Big Chill makes now that you're older?

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So as most of you probably gathered by the oh-so-subtle hints, I've been offered a position at Google as a UI designer, and I happily accepted on the spot. While I would otherwise be in Seattle right now, interviewing at Amazon, I'm now snug in Pittsburgh, planning out the last 10 weeks of school, and the three weeks between the end of classes and my August 25th start date.

Talking to my dad on the phone, I realized the truth of the matter when I told him matter-of-factly "I couldn't think of a job I'd rather have right now." Seriously. Anywhere. Too cool.

This will be the fifth time I've moved from the academic world to the 'real world' but this time it feels very different. When I took leaves of absence from Berkeley, I always knew that I'd go back 'some day' and finish my bachelors degree, and I did. When I started at Yahoo I (and they) knew that I had deferred my CMU admission by a year, and would likely be leaving to pursue my masters degree when that year came to pass.

This is different, though. For a lifetime I've known what the next change was, and when. I've been aware of the limited time of the status quo, like I've been driving through a winding pass, where each change in direction was mirrored by a change in circumstance. School, work, school, work.

Today, though, I can see the last turn up ahead, and I know that around that bend lies a straight ribbon of highway, as far as the eye can see. I've never gone to work somewhere without knowing that it was a short-term (less than 3 years) gig. The idea of starting someplace with the anticipation (in both forms) of staying there for the long haul is novel to me, as it is to so many people who started their careers in the tech industry, where 2 years makes you 'old guard'.

The parallel of the open road metaphor and my long drive back in August hasn't been lost on me. I know there's a word for when you map a metaphor to a real-life experience to strengthen it, but I can't remember what it is. Druids call that kind of thing 'imitative magic', but I just think of it as the journey home, for good.

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Tomorrow I'm going through graduation ceremonies, celebrating the completion of my masters degree in Human-Computer Interaction. Nevermind that I and all my year-mates (augh, vocabulary sublimated from Valdemar books) don't actually finish our work at CMU until August; there's only one ceremony a year, for the whole school, so it's now or nunca.

This is kind of a trend. All my scholastic life I've looked forward to 'graduation'. It has such a cathartic ring to it. Yet I'm not sure that I've ever experienced 'graduation' in the true sense.

My first graduation, from elementary school, was called a 'matriculation', a big word I wasn't willing to internalize when I had already pegged the ceremony as being a 'graduation'. In Junior High School, graduating from Portola Magnet, we also were 'matriculating', but at least we got honest-to-god diplomas certifying our achievement, and we got them on stage, in front of our families.

High school, the most well recognized of all levels of 'graduation' was, I believe, actually referred to as a 'graduation', [oops. As I recall this morning, it was called a 'culmination'. No graduation there either!] but the actual ceremony of the principal calling each (of 655) graduate's name, shaking their hand, and handing them a scroll tied with a ribbon was slightly dampened by the growing pile of gumballs and other paraphernalia at Principal King's feet, as some of the less mature students wished to leave their final (only too literal) mark on the school (or the hand of the head of that institution) which they were departing. The other downer was that the scroll we received wasn't, in fact, our diploma, but instructions informing us that we needed to return our caps and gowns to the basketball gym, in exchange for our diplomas-held-hostage.

Berkeley graduations were fun. Here we had elevated from the terms 'matriculation' and 'graduation'. This was 'Commencement': the simultaneous completion and onset of our lives, representing initiation in the truest senses. Mind you, mine was premature. I still had one language requirement to fulfill, a requirement which not only did not need to be filled in Berkeley's hallowed halls, but one which we were encouraged to complete at community college, to free up space and professors for pursuits more novel and advanced than rote memorization. But I digress.

Like High School, each participant in the Berkeley ceremonies receives a small, tightly tied scroll. This time the scroll attests that the bearer participated in the commencement ceremonies for the department in question. It doesn't say they earned a degree, but it does affirm that they sat in a chair, and had their name read aloud.

The funny part is that they'll let anyone with a cap and gown in to the various Berkeley commencements. Indeed, several students were supposed to repeat, considering that there are roughly 20 ceremonies for different departments, in addition to special ceremonies for students of color, re-entry students, and other groups unaffiliated by field of study. I have friends who participated in as many as 10 ceremonies, writing their name down on 10 cards, sitting in 10 seas of graduates, and having their names read by 9 unphased professors or directors (okay, 0, but the 10th should have been unphased, considering that one of the ceremonies was the one they were expected to attend), before offering their hands to be shook on stage, and proceeding down to the inevitable champagne and strawberry reception following the ceremony.

Still, it feels really good, and it's easy to suspend my disbelief into convincing myself that this is what it's all about, on loan for one more semester; Christmas early.

In about 10 hours I'm going through my final Commencement ceremony. This time I get to wear the plaid and gold hood of a master, and I have family from nearly 3,000 miles away to cheer me on. This time really does feel like a commencement, a tipping point, a point of inflection on the integral of my life. While actual com