Thursday, January 31, 2008

Investments and Payoffs

I am pretty happy with my life right now. It is low-stress, high-happiness. I like our house and our lifestyle. I am enjoying being young, poor, and in love. Even my job is pretty fun and low-keyed. However, I am perfectly aware that said job doesn't make me enough money to live on. The only reason I've been able to subsist here in Iowa is because I've been getting steady web-work.

It is funny when people ask me how I know so much about computers. They all assume I went to school for computer science or at least graphic design. When I tell them I'm self-taught, they all smile knowingly and say, "Ah, one of those."

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, really. It's not like I can just open any program on a computer and figure out how to use it in five minutes. It's not like one day I just took the side off a case and started rooting around in there until I knew how it all functioned. The reason I know what I know is because I have a degree of curiosity, combined with the motivation to figure it out. My ability to build websites is the result of many, many, many, many hours of experimentation. I've rebuilt my own website from scratch more times than I can remember, simply to see if I can do something new and different.

Of course, now that I feel quite competent with html, there is flash to deal with. For a long time flash seemed impractical to me because it was accessible to so few people. Now it just annoys me because all those fancy transitions and sound and effects just seem... well... flashy. Sadly, some of my clients want flash, and I recognize that I should be able to give it to them.

But lately it comes down to a question of investment for me. Learning dreamweaver and photoshop happened because I wanted to learn. To decide to learn flash because I should seems so... mercenary. I know it will take many hours of many days over a many month period before I'm even remotely competent, and for years I will continue to develop my knowledge. What I can't quite seem to decide suddenly is if it's worth the time. I love computers, and the things you can do with them, but I also love turning them off and walking away from them. I strongly believe that computers, like TV, are the root of much evil in our modern world when they are over-used. On top of that, recent events have made me realize, again, that our own little slices of time are tenuous. Pouring all my lucid hours into a box that creates illusions seems a little trite in the face of the grand scheme of things.

But if I don't learn flash, I will soon be an outdated designer. And if toss in the towel on the web business, how do I buy groceries?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Faster, Quieter, Sleeker

So, I finally stopped gazing longingly at the various new computers available for sale these days (dismally and enviously comparing their specs with my desktop's) and bought one. I got a screaming, almost unbelievably good deal on it, and it arrived on my doorstep after I waited, heart in mouth, for a mere two days. I tore open the packaging, whisked the silver box upstairs and plugged the beauty in.

What I sometimes forget about the combination of me and a new computer is that it is an awful lot of work before we really understand each other.

I can admit I'm a little stuck in my ways on some things. Ever since Qualcomm let Eudora go open source and stopped supporting it, I have put some serious effort into finding a new email program so I can make a graceful, self-motivated change rather than undergoing something sudden and catastrophic such as a forced switch to an OS upon which Eudora will no longer run - but I simply cannot find a program to serve as an even adequate replacement. It seems Eudora is the only email client ever made for those us who occupy the murky area between programmer and icon-clicker. I know a fair amount about software and hardware and networks and operating systems, and like to go in and tinker with everything that allows tinkering. But I don't know the first thing about actually writing a program. This is why Eudora is so wonderful. It lets me get in there and mess around with it, but when I just feel like being lazy, it lets me do that, too.

Well, with my new computer came Vista, and although my initial plan was to wipe it and put XP on immediately, I was instantly seduced by some of the flashy new features. I thought, "Well, why not? I can try to change."

To make a long story short, a few hours later found me bleary-eyed, with a tic developing in my right eyebrow, frantically pawing through my software box for my XP install disk.

After a total annihilation of Vista via a thorough reformatting of the hard drive, my new computer is finally nearly functional again. There is one pesky driver I can't find (because I don't know what device it is that's not working) and my beloved Eudora works just like it has for the last ten years. Vista does not do well with Eudora. It won't recognize the program as an email client at all, and so it cannot be made the default mail client. It wasn't the Eudora problem, however, that drove me back to XP. It was a myriad of other finally exhausting incompatibilities I encountered... before I even got to my personal tinkering.

So, after a rejuvenating night's sleep, I sit here with my new computer, which is very fast, very sleek, and very quiet. But none of the software on it is new anymore. This morning I did some more research on more up to date email clients, but I think it might come down to the fact that I can't part with Eudora before I have to. I suppose one day I will give it up, kicking and screaming and pointing out all the ways in which it is just so much better than anything else. But until then I plan to bask in its perfection. Perhaps this merely proves one shouldn't shed off the partnership of a decade without an inescapably good reason.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Chachacha Changes

We've been getting some snow here, which has been melting slightly and then freezing in odd shapes underneath the latest dusting. We have managed a handful of excellent skis, but sometimes the roads are treacherous. The weather combined with the newly returned functionality of my trusty Jamis pushed me to a decision about the Fuji.

While drop bars have a great many beautiful uses in this world, they are not necessarily ideal for cycling over obstacles and through traffic. Also, my white vintage brake levers while very cool, are not always what you might call highly functional. Besides, it seems a waste of potential variation to have three bikes (Titus, Jamis, Fuji) with the same kind of handlebar. And so, after much deliberation, I placed an order, waited for a few days, and then thanked the UPS guy for the cardboard box he delivered.

At the beginning, the Fuji looked like this:

A nice looking bike to be sure and as "John Lennon" from my nonfiction class last semester put it, "Very French."

After a little while with some allen wrenches, grease, a hacksaw, pliers, crescent wrenches, wire cutters, more grease, glue, and a lot of help from Brian, it came out looking like this:

Let me tell you, the change is wonderful. My old drop-bars were narrow even for their ilk, and I find myself pleasantly astounded by my sudden increase in stability and agility. In fact, it is slightly difficult to comprehend while riding about town that I am on the same bike. Last week I rode through all manner of hazardous road conditions with nary a wobble.



The other change I'm going through is rather a more subtle one. It is a change of habit and thought, rather than something easily expressed in the physical universe. My change amounts to this - I have long considered my Jamis to be a dark green bike. For all the years I rode it around Flagstaff it was, to my eye and mind, a dark, dusky, green. However, when it was stolen and Brian and I went online to research more thoroughly in hopes of finding photos to give to the police, we discovered no Jamis Aurora ever made was painted green.

This came as a shock. When I did, in fact, get my beloved bike back in the end, I turned upon it a critical eye. Maybe it was blue. I stared and stared, but could come to no decision on the matter.

Now with tan bar-tape and a brown brooks saddle, the palette has changed to present a different feel. And I must concede it looks pretty blue when the sun hits it.


Further research today turned up some photographic evidence that wasn't available last summer. With my bike now undeniably proven to be a 1997 model thanks to QuickBike, I have to make the mental change from green, to what they call "cobalt blue." The going will be hard in some places, with frequent lapses caused by four years hard habit. But hopefully, I will persevere in the end, and me and my Aurora can come out the end of this transition period better friends for the deeper understanding.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Back to the Bikes

One not so good thing about going home is the fact that town is not easily accessed from my parent's house by any method other than car. For this reason (and one or two others), it was nice to return to Iowa City.

A very exciting upshot of my birthday was a new set of bar-end shifters for my Jamis. However, as my mechanic was very busy between the time of my acquiring said shifters and our departure for Tucson, they had so far remained in their box. Today, however, we found ourselves with time.

The installation went remarkably smoothly and I found myself suddenly playing with some little levers that once more transformed my poor abused Jamis (it never really recovered its already damaged shifting abilities after its kidnapping) into a fully functional multi-geared bicycle once again. I also have to say that the 10-speed Dura-Ace shifters I bought operate with a great deal more finesse than I expected. With the new componentry complimented by some fresh, comfortable, and visually-pleasing handlebar tape, I can't wait to get the old Jamis on the road again.

Home

Although I spent the last chunk of time in Tucson, I didn't do a very good job taking photos. In fact, I didn't take a single one until the sun started to go down on my last day there and I realized, as I'd be leaving before dark in the morning, I'd not have another chance.

So, as I headed out to give the horses their evening meal, I took my camera with and took a few photos that I thought highlighted the visit.

***

The glory of my parent's house is the variety of things that can be done from the back doorway. On this particular visit, I borrowed my sister's Titus and discovered that the root of all my cycling-knee problems seems to rest in full suspension. I believe I shall be in the market for a new frame soon.


***


The previously mentioned greenness stemmed from the painting of the horse corral. Although we put in rather nice pipe fencing a long time ago, in the great tradition of people of my blood-line we somehow never got past priming the pipes. Thus, for the last few years, anything (clothes, horses, dogs) coming into contact with the pipes would turn a shade of rusty red. My sister and Brian and I finally decided to remedy the situation. Now the pipe is green. So were we, and the dogs, and the horses for a while. Luckily, in my case anyway, the paint has mostly washed off.


Jak completed his punk look by carefully rubbing the center section of his mane until the hair turned the same color as the paint, too.


***

I spent some time getting to know Rojo. Suffice it to say, a gaited horse is a whole new set of variables to learn...


Ruby hasn't changed.


Tanzi has (sort of) grown up. She is still very small, but very cool.


Anyway, it was nice to go home. We played many hours of badminton, spent New Years in Sierra Vista playing Piggie Wanna Signal until midnight with a group of people mostly aged mid-twenties to early thirties. I saw my cousin's first real guitar gig, fell asleep in front of a fire, and participated in many other glorious activities that only seem to happen at home.