Archive for August, 2006

Too old to die young

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

Tom Lehrer once introduced a song by saying that it was a sobering thought to realize that, when Mozart was his age, he had been dead for two years. Given that I turn 53 today, I think it’s obvious that I’m too old to die young.

Actually, it surprises me how little I feel like the old man I once expected to be by this age (I can remember when I thought mid-twenties was old). Bad eyes, knees, and hip, certainly, but I have surprisingly few general aches and pains to worry about.

And there are benefits to getting older. For one thing, I find that there are more women whom I find attractive these days. That’s partly because there are more women who are younger than me now, and partly because I’m no longer quite as shallow as I used to be.

My ambition for the rest of my life? To acquire sufficient money that I can have a large mansion with swimming pool, so that I can be the fat old guy with the garish trunks and terrycloth robe lounging poolside with a tall drink, with several attractive bikini-clad young women kissing my bald spot as they go by.

Update: The day could have started out better – as I opened the back gate to get to my car, I was stung on the web between my right thumb and forefinger. It seems that paper wasps have taken up residence in the gatepost. At least the rest of the day has been going better.

Busy, busy, busy

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

I had a good time at the Blogger Bash on Friday. Talked with some people I’d met before, and with some I hadn’t.

Watched the beauteous Rae browbeat the beauteous Stacy into posing for flex pictures.

Witnessed Jeff interviewing several attendees about the future of blogging, and watched as he was accosted by someone who didn’t want to even be in the background of a shot. I wonder if he was hiding from someone?

Saturday, I had friends come in from out-of-state. Spent time with them, ending with breakfast Monday morning. Then, just as I was getting ready to go to work, my daughter called me – she’d been involved in a fender-bender, and her seat belt hadn’t restrained her. After we got her car towed, I took her to her doctor, who sent us to the emergency room.

Mild concussion and whiplash only, for which I’m thankful. I don’t like that it took all day to get the final diagnosis, though.

So many books, so little time

Friday, August 25th, 2006

I just found out that the Denver Public Library book sale is this weekend, and I’ve got guests coming in tomorrow, which will probably preclude my attendance. Maybe they’ll want to join me there Sunday afternoon.

Then again, it’s not like I have room for all of my current books, anyway. Speaking of books, Readerware is an application I’m coming to like. You use a barcode scanner to get the ISBN or LOC catalog number, then it looks up all of the book’s information online (including cover scans, if they’re available). It supports multiple databases, so besides a database of the books I own, I’ve started one for books I’ve checked out from the library, so I can keep track of them.

I bought the bundle so I could get a free barcode scanner, but most of my books predate bar coding. For many of them, the sites the app uses (Amazon, etc.) don’t have any information, so I’m still ending up adding all the information manually. Overall, it’s still a big timesaver, though, and I didn’t have to design a database from scratch, either.

I’m doing the same thing with my DVDs with the A/V catalog program, but I haven’t used the audio catalog program with my CDs yet – I moved them into boxes in the garage after ripping them into iTunes. That’ll come later.

For my daughter

Friday, August 25th, 2006

There is a Pirate Supply store in San Francisco. It’s apparently associated with Superhero Supplies in Brooklyn (the store website doesn’t have much, but you can see pictures of the store here).

Originally found via Ace.

Hello world!

Thursday, August 24th, 2006

I’m finally up and running on the new site. I’ll try to make fairly regular posts, but don’t expect anything long and involved for the next few days (or weeks, perhaps) – I’m on the critical path and behind schedule on a major project at work, so I’ll need to spend most of my time on that, rather than on the blog.

I just didn’t want to have the “generic advertising links page” up any longer.