Earlier today I was browsing last month’s server logs and noticed something remarkable: 11,465 hits from Googlebot in August. I was flattered, but how could this be? I didn’t even get a PageRank till about a week ago, so what was the lovely Googlebot doing all that time? Anyway I started to think about it and in terms of sheer quantity of pages, this site is massive. It is entirely possible that those hits could have been just a standard site crawl. Just running the numbers in my head, there are about 9500 pages under the Photolog (~3050 images, 3 pages each, albums), a couple of hundred JazzQuotes, a couple of pages under Toys, and then all of the actual blog content, and you could easily have over ten thousand pages on this site. Of course I never think of it that way because it’s all dynamic. Wait till I start putting the site stats up, it’s very interesting. Whew!

We filmed the first episode of PalmTalk today! It was different in some ways from what I was expecting, espescially in terms of how things flowed, but I was very impressed with some of the things they were able to do technologically with the cameras and effects. The guest, Lorraine Young, was really charismatic and had a great product to demo. All in all, I would say it was, well, a first episode. Ever seen any of the early episodes of Friends? There are definitely some things that are going to change before next week, and things are only going to change for the better, so I’m excited. I’m also curious to see how the whole thing turns out after all of the post-editing stuff they do. Anyway, I’ll see on Tuesday. The main dowside is I think I left my laptop AC adapter there, or at least I hope I did, because I can’t find it. Right now my laptop is hibernating until I get it back.

After the taping I had a very nice dinner with Sarah at one of my favorite chinese restruants, Ming’s on Montrose. After that I headed down to Kaveh Kanes, a great coffee shop downtown on Prarie with free WiFi internet access. Tonight was the monthly meeting (first Friday of the month) for people who listen to the radio show Technology Bytes, which is on Wednesday nights. I’ve heard it several times before and it’s a fun show to listen to. The people who were there were very interesting and we talked for a very long time from topics ranging from Apache 2 to Amiga to Minix to BeOS. I must admit that I was there partly by accident–I thought it was a HWUG meeting. I really enjoyed it though and afterwards I ended up going to House of Pies around 1 to continue the discussion with two unix/freebsd sysadmins I met there. It’s strange how much you can find you have in common with someone in such a short period of time. Also it was nice to meet the people who actually do the show, and you can tell they’re really technically competent and nice to talk to. Oh, and got another ‘tech support’ consulting job today, fixing a paper jam! What will I do next?

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
—Benjamin Franklin

Well I am delighted to say that, thanks to some lobbying from my mother and the graciousness of Annette at Best Buy, I have been issued a replacement for my broken P71. Now this is by no means a testament to their superior service; if this camera ever breaks I’m sending it to Sony, not Best Buy. Their replacement plans can be very useful, but I’m not going to waste my money again on a so-called service plan. All in all though I’m just incredibly grateful to have my camera back. I can’t wait to start taking pictures again! 🙂

I’ve had what could be called a trying day, in a sense of the word, and it was not made better by my episode with Best Buy’s service, or lack thereof. I was very excited when at dinner my mother told me that a package had come in the mail today. I haven’t ordered anything lately so my mind raced to try and think what could have come in the mail. A sample for the PUG? Some books from Amazon? My camera back from the dead??? The return address had actually come off the box, but as soon as I opened it and dug through the peanuts I was delighted to see my camera. The slip of paper said they had reconnected two of the circuit boards, cleaned it, and tested it. Wonderful! Right?

The trouble started when I tried to turn it on. The problem before was that every time it tried to use the lens, the camera would just turn off. It would turn on in setup mode, or play mode, but as soon as you turn it to take a picture of any kind it would just turn off. I assume this meant there was some sort of bad connection with the lens mechanism, and whenever it tried to send power there it would short out. I was baffled: how could they send it back with the exact same problem it had before? What happened to this testing they talked about?

So I decided to go back to the store, because maybe there had been a mistake and this was how I should get my replacement, since they couldn’t/didn’t fix it. Nope. The store couldn’t have been less helpful. I eventually talked to a lower level manager, Marcus, who actually informed me to get a replacement they would have to send it to the service center four times! I’m on time number two right now, so taking the time the whole thing has taken so far, it could be well over a month before I can start taking pictures again with the digital. I can’t comprehend how them mailing me a broken unit back and me sending it back four times as a prerequisite to getting a replacement evolved as part of their bueracracy. It just boggles the mind. This has seriously tainted my view of Best Buy’s service and I will think very seriously before making any sort of significant purchase from them again, and I encourage others to do the same.

I know I haven’t been getting enough sleep when the Radiohead songs start to make sense. I just got back from taking Rene his laptop, a Compaq Armada 7800. I had the darndest time getting XP to load up on thereand spent most of last night (this morning?) having to reinstall things. But other than those diffilculties it’s really a nice machine, though somewhat old, but I’ve done a lot to make it good for college. Rene has a very early flight though, and to get it to him I had to be at his house (far North side) at 5:30 AM. The traffic wasn’t bad, but now that I’m home I don’t think I can go back to sleep since this is when I would be getting up anyway. I haven’t gotten to the best part yet though: when I got there the computer wouldn’t turn on! It didn’t respond to any of the buttons at all. Rene packed it and hopefully something will jiggle back into place on the flight to Boston, where he’ll be attending Berklee College of Music.

Everyone leaving so far has been hard, but I think this is the hardest, both because he is leaving so late and because we’ve really grown up together, at least in high school. He’s definitely one of the nicest, friendliest, and most sincerely religious people I know, and Rene will be dearly missed while he’s away. Not to mention the incredible BBQ I’ll be missing ;).

Good food, nice night with friends, a little past midnight, windows down, 95 miles per hour on Main/90, Beautiful Day on the stereo. Life is good.

Well I just had my first college class, and now I have one hour of downtime before the next, and I’m pleasantly suprised to find an open wireless connection in the building I’m waiting in. Actually I just found a page that lists all the locations that wireless is supposively available, although where I am right now isn’t even listed, so there may be more hidden goodies like this throughout the campus. More updates later!

Overall it was a pretty good night—ate good food, saw old friends, played frisbee in Hermann Park, and saw Simone (which was not a highlight of the night). However the tough part came during the last part of the night, when Joe, Rene, and I went to see the movie. We took two cars instead of one or three, because I had driven to the park with Joe and Rene met us there, and to not leave a car at in the park we decided to take both cars. The problem came when we got to the Edward’s Cinema on Weslayan and neither Rene nor I wanted to pay the $2 for parking, because we’re both a little low on cash at the moment. So we drove around the theatre, and all the spaces were taken on all sides, so I had the brilliant idea to park behind the strip mall across the street from the theatre. There were only a few cars there, probably belonging to workers at the restruants and such, but I didn’ see any signs and we were only going to be in there a few hours anyway. Rene was nervous about parking there but I assured him that there wouldn’t be any trouble, and that if he was towed I would pay for it.

He was. There’s nothing quite as frightening as walking out and seeing absolutely nothing where your car used to be. Rene was a little hysterical, but we managed to think through the situation logically. Luckily Joe was there with his car and we drove around till we found the “No Parking” sign that seemed to have alluded us earlier, and we called the number, was redirected, and found out that the car was at a lot at 45 and Ennis (not a good neighborhood) and could be picked up for a small fe. So we all went back to Joe’s house to get my car, and I went to the hardest part of the night—getting the money from my parents. Thankfully my Mom was very understanding and in a short while I was back to pick up Rene and head to the place. One hundred and twenty dollars later Rene was back in his brother’s truck and I began the long drive home, utterly exhausted from the events of the night. Picking the car up was pretty easy, and nothing compared to the long car rides home and back when my mind went over every detail of the night thus far and thought of a thousand things that could have gone differently and prevented the whole thing. $2 would have saved $120, and I think the moral of the story has been burned pretty well into my head. Don’t declare liability for any risky ventures :). Oh, and parking where it’s legal wouldn’t hurt either.

Sleep finally came but I had bad nightmare about my cat. First thing when I woke up I checked her, and she was purring contently on a pillow. Strange how dreams can sometimes be so real and make you worry about tangible things as a result of an intangible and imaginary experience.

As I enter my 38^th hour awake, I’m starting to wonder, academically, how much longer this will last. It might be a useful tidbit of information starting college on Monday. I think I’m just nervous about everything that’s been happening. We had to postpone the production meeting today because the producer is down with a cold or virus of some sort. College is starting in just a few days, and Iଁm not sure if I’m ready physically, emotionally, intellectually.

I rearranged all the furniture in my room, which was almost like the puzzle where you have the squares with the different numbers and you can only move one at a time. Anyway I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out, as I now have true surround sound, dual monitors set up, and a *real* space to study that doesn’t require me moving other stuff out of the way. Also I have a much better practice area now, the next step is practicing more.

One of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time is Sing A Song of Song by Kenny Garrett which is available on the CD Songbook. Although I had heard it before, I was really introduced to it through Rex Gregory’s wonderful senior recital where I thought it was one of the best songs. The recital made me reexamine the song on Songbook and I was really moved by the performance. Kenny Garrett has more vitality and life in his playing then twenty of the other players with record deals and such.

After a wonderfully pleasant drive, I am now back at home sweet home. I still miss my camera . . .

I’m proud to say I have made my comic art debut in one of Josh’s wonderful comics. Bling Bling — also making an appearence is the lovely Sarah in the first frame.

Wired has an interesting article that discusses a new move to stop spam not through technical means but through using existing copyright laws. Neat!

I post this from the comfort of my sister’s beautiful house in Austin, Texas. Actually it’s in Pflugerville, which I think I spelled right, which is north of Austin just a bit. I made pretty good time coming from Houston as there wasn’t much traffic to speak of. Actually a large portion of the highway was freshly tarred over; it was at that perfect point, where it was fresh enough to be baby-smooth but had been there long enough to not get black all over your car. At some points I felt like I was in the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer adopts a highway and decides to make it less lanes so the lanes are bigger. Sometimes I felt like I had two lanes all to myself because the road was ride enough for 3 lanes and shoulders, and there was just one stripe down the middle, nothing else. Very luxurious.

The first thing I did in Austin (Pflugerville) was promptly lock my keys in the trunk of my car while I was taking things out. Luckily I had gotten my computer and other heat-sensitive things out of there, but it still had all my clothes and things. And the keys to my car. Now with most cars this wouldn’t be a big deal, especially since all the doors were open, just the trunk was locked. Most cars have a nice trunk latch by the driver’s seat; my car is not most cars. The matter was complicated even further by the fact that instead of the back seats lifting to reveal the inside of the trunk, they showed a sheet of solid metal, no holes. So I proceeded to call AAA and let them know of my situation, because they have been incredibly helpful in past pickles I have gotten myself into. The very polite lady informed me that the best they could do, considering the year of my car and such, was tow me to the nearest dealer where they would ask me a ton of questions, which would be a huge hassle, and lookup the code so they could make another key for the car. So it was going to amount to a huge hassle, and cost—neither which I’m looking for right now. My sister’s friends went out and banged on the car some more, trying to find a way to get into the trunk. Charleen in a stroke of genius decided to call the service number etched in to my glove compartment. Like a cool URI, the number still worked (after almost two decades) and she was put in touch with a certified Mercedes locksmith. Long story short (too late!), he was able to wedge open a whole and grope for the keys in the darkness of the trunk, eventually finding them and preventing any permanent damage to my car, all for a reasonable price. What scares me is those two car keys are the only two I know of in the world. I’m making copies tomorrow.

There are 269 contacts in my Sony Clié right now, I want that down as far as possible. How low can I go? By the way, filming for the show starts this Thursday!

Time for a little reverse chronological order: Just got in from another late night; saw the midnight showing of The Neverending Story at the River Oaks theatre. It was quite different from how I remembered it as a child, with many parts being unintentionally funny from bad acting and/or effects. Still the thesis of the movie, a child being part of a fantasy book, has always captivated my interest, and did so tonight. Saw the movie with Emily, Emily 2, Sarah, one of Emily’s friends, Joe, and Rene.

Earlier today I attempted a one thousand piece puzzle with Emily and Bridget, but I’ve decided that I’m just no good at that. Puzzles are harder than they look! The edge was pretty easy, but the interior was pretty hard, at least for me. Oh well, the food/music/company was good. Also had some Oreo ice cream and Dolce and Freddo with the same people, and it was my first time there. Honestly I didn’t see what made it any better than any other ice cream Iଁve had, and it seemed a little overpriced. Maybe some of their other flavors are better.

Finally today I picked up my books from the college bookstore. The most interesting of them is the ‘textbook’ for Psychology, which is actually a $114 password to an online site where the text is located and you can turn in assignments and such. It sounds interesting, if expensive, and I’m looking forward to that class even more now. The other books look pretty much like all the other textbooks I’ve had all my life, but I hope the classes won’t be like that.

I also picked up the audition music for the big band, a decision which in some ways has been bothering me the past few days. Since the beginning of the summer I have been debating how/if I should continue in music, whether should I even stay with the saxophone or go to piano, or just compose full-time, or nothing at all. Well my thoughts really started to come together after Joel Fulgham, a wonderful Houston jazz drummer, said to me, “Sometimes I meet people that are grumpy and they don’t know why. They used play but for whatever reason—day gig, parents, whatever—they stopped. They’re grumpy because there’s a whole in their life where the music used to be. And it’ll bug you till you don’t know what to do with yourself if you don’t stay true to your heart.” I love playing the saxophone; I love jazz; I love improvisation and the moments of instant composition without a safety net and harmony in music and life that music in general and jazz in particular provide in my life. I can’t turn my back on that.

Although I got a bit of a late start, this day has turned into a pretty long one. It started at Josh’s house with Rachel, Rebecca, and Jessica. Though the purpose of the gathering was actually to watch LOTR on DVD, we actually ended up just fooling around for a while before actually getting to the movie. Pillow fights and interesting observations made the movie more fun than I had remembered it, and it didn’t seem so long at all. After a quick trip home to pick up a Winslow ligature for Rene, we all met up at 59 Diner on, well, 59. Rene and I both got huge meals, and thankfully I wasn’t hungry the rest of the night.

After that we broke up and I went with Rene to my new favorite coffee house, Kaveh Kanes, which has free high speed wireless 802.11b internet access, set up by the wireless guru Barrett. Invitations went out online for Rene’s big going away BBQ, and afterwards we just talked for a while. In a while we were joined by Rene’s friend from church Momo, which is a nickname for something, but I don’t recall what. Then Alex and Melissa came by after the drum and bass DJ they were hoping to see decided not to play the club that night. Finally Joe, who I haven’t seen since he went to the Berklee summer camp about six weeks ago, came in and we had almost a full sax section :).

Eventually closing time came for Kaveh Kanes and we decided to head to House of Pies for a late-night snack and more conversation. The chocolate cream pie I had was fantanstic, and it was a ton of fun just hanging out with everyone. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Joe, and Rene is leaving relatively soon so every minute with him is great. Tonight was different from all the others this week because instead of almost everyone getting ready to leave town, it was just one person.

I dropped Rene and Joe off, and from the tone of my mother’s voice decided not to stay with Joe and start a cartoon marathon. Long rides late at night make me really appreciate the stereo in my car. Once home I finished up some database work I’m doing for a local private high school, and sat down to write this entry. Normally these words would have been written by my camera in the colors and motion of the pictures I take constantly. There are currently 1.4 gigabytes of photos online that describe my summer better than any narrative could; now there is a gap, a missing piece. I’m sure many will find this prosaic entry somewhat mundane, but right now it’s my only way of coping. There should be a twelve-step program for picture addicts!

Tonight was the last night I’ll get to spend for a while with many of my friends who are going to college immeniently. Some of the people I’ve been close to for more than four years now, others I didn’t really get the chance to know until school got out, sadly. The (long) night was very fun, ranging from coffee to dinner to frisbee to dessert and more food. I’m sure that I’ll be in a bit of trouble for getting in at 5 AM, but spending this last night with everyone was worth it. I’m going to miss Rene, Anna, Rachel, Julie, Rebecca, Bridget, Emily, Carolyn, Rex, and many other people going out of town I can’t even think of right now. Our class has always had a very strong identity, and I hope that I can keep in good touch with all these people. Update: Photos online

I feel safer as a musician now that the RIAA is going after evil entities like the Librarian of Congress.