Former Work

In front of Ford Field (the large covered structure on the right) is a brick building. That buidling is in Brewery Park - the former location of Stroh's Brewery, where my maternal grandfather worked many years ago. If you care to learn more about Detroit's brewery history, tours are offered.

Raw

The way i remember the story, on the way home from the beach, my father spotted some fishermen in a small boat, hauling a shark onto shore. He stopped the car, walked over to them, and, not speaking the language, bargained with them for the shark's jaws.

I doubt that's a 100% accurate rendition.



We've had those jaws in our family ever since that time in Somalia, some 30 years ago, and they remind me of the rawness of overseas living. I now have them at home, and i now also carry a permanent reminder of that rawness.



This weekend also marks the end of my Stats class. I took 80 minutes (out of 240 allowed) to get an 89% on the final exam. I think i finished the class with a low A.

I set out with two criteria for this class: watch none of the dvd lectures (it's an online class - all lectures are provided on a set of 6 dvds), and no use of the special features of the fancy calculator that was marked as a requirement for each homework, quiz and test. I even managed to go the first couple weeks without using any calculator, after which i grew tired of long division (not to mention square roots) and started using perl for nothing more complex than sqrt().

Now that i'm done with the class, i plan on watching the dvd lectures; maybe the material will start to make sense.



Taking closeups of one's own arm (these 3 are full frame) is a little tedious and best not done in a hurry; pardon the imperfections.

Changes

While many folks attended graduation on the Diag, a few blocks away the old Ann Arbor YMCA was being demolished. I watched it for hours. The right side of the building was hanging precariously over the road just prior to this photo. Despite this danger, the hoseman sprayed on.

Shame

I used to write VRML, one character at a time, but that was many years ago. Now, it seems state of the art for 3d product display has turned to pre-rendering 100's of images and displaying them via flash. Unfortunately, not all webapps act kindly when simultaneously serving 100's of small images.

I wish i could render our scenes in VRML - i really do - especially considering the lack of complexity of the scenes in question. But i'm also willing to attempt the "new style", and towards that end i've created this moveable view of a recognizer (only tested in Firefox 2/Mac and IE7/win). It's a Proof-of-Concept consisting of 3 files: the html, the css, the image. Here's a scaled-down view of the entire image i'm using:


That image is composed of 612 rendered views of a povray file that i made a couple years back, in anticipation of a compsec shirt i never printed. The PoC concept is rather simple - reposition the one large image based on what button the user clicks. With a little bit of work, it can translate to clicking and dragging the image, working better around the poles, and maintaining consistent speed.

I'd like to deliver my PoC in Flash, as that's what the original target was set for, but i'm not really sure how to begin creating a flash file - that magick is beyond my current capabilities. For now, i'm happliy disgraced by my PoC. Oh, whatever happened to the wonderful world that VRML promised?

Where do the children play?

Monday, 4am. 6 more hours of work and i've done my 40 hours for the week. But as before, i'll put in at least 40 more over the next 5 days. What is this? I can do 70 hours of work in 3 days, but ask me to read a textbook chapter for a class and i'll have it done in a month, maybe.

When we were much younger, my brother and i used to play a game with small soldiers and a marble. Each set up a series of soldiers, then rolled the marble to knock down the other's army; killing was so easy. Why can't i remember any other games we played together?

I've been thinking through my vacation plans for next month. The problems i had in June keep coming back: i'll lose so much money, going on vacation, is it worth it? Time enough to relax in the grave, to paraphrase the Great One.

But for now it's put-up-or-shut-up time: 4:30am, and still that one script to write. You know the one: once written, it'll either cost them a few million bucks, or go unnoticed by all but 2 or 3 people. Irregardless, it needs to be written, and instead i'm busy blogging.


In final, completely unrelated news, i've nominated a friend for sysadmin of the year in what is sure to be their most rambling, incoherent entry.

The Past

And now for a step back in time.

I Say Go

I say hello, and how are you, just as i learned on my last vacation. The standard brief babbling, then she says, "we are so blessed, this life, it's a blessing, and so often we don't even realise it."

I assume she's a religious fanatic - who quips such nonsense when selling coffee? A nervous twittering in my mind, we end in some simplistic comments, "hopefully you'll still feel that way at the end of the day."

Religious fanatics - a quarter block away, they sometimes gather to yell at us all, saving our souls by screaming of the glory of their god, but only when the weather's nice; on those -20 days, as i cycle by that corner on my way to work, they're not to be seen, back in their caves? What is the standard hibernation period of a righteous freak?

Exit the cafe, past the corner, on to the park on the way to work. It always is quite a day through the park, never know what birds i'll see, how many snakes, or snails, count the rabbits, perhaps a fox, some deer, sparkling white snow, deep puddles of rain, singing ice, sometimes a challenging rain. It is quite nice, yes, perhaps even a blessing, just to go to work.

I'm reminded of my father's words, the first time he visited MI after he started working in Iraq (in 1994): "it is so peaceful here." I wonder, perhaps she knows a little more, perhaps she simply meant it as an expression of truth.

20 years ago today-

It's the kind of event that makes you use the stairs instead of the elevator for the rest of your life, not to mention look for the strongest structural point in every building you enter, keep a couple weeks' supply of food and water at home, never travel without an emergency kit, and always have a Plan along with multiple contingencies.

And of course it was yet another event teaching me to trust nothing, not even the earth under my feet.

It was also one of those times where my reaction wasn't correct: i remember sitting in my chair in the classroom, feeling the violent shaking, and enjoying it like what a rollercoaster should be. It was quite fun, and while my instructor and classmates - all with terrified looks on their faces - rushed outside, i followed procedure and ducked under the desk. Mr O'Leary glared at me and yelled "get out!" So much for those drills we practiced; everyone else's training failed them.

My reactions weren't quite on par the rest of the day either. Kids crying, scared wondering what was happening. I remember the wonder, but it didn't seem scary. Figured i was supposed to feel scared, they wanted me to, they expected me to, so i went along with the crowd. Yes, let's pray. Yes, let's speculate. Yes, let's fear what the world looks like outside the school perimeter. Took me quite a few years to learn to ignore what others thought. Hell, people die all the time, and quite often as direct or indirect results of my actions. If i don't care about that, why am i going to care about an event i have no control over?

Rivers of Sweat

Haven't stopped sweating since i got home 5 hours ago. I haven't lived with A/C for about 4 years now, so it's not that big a deal. Besides, when it gets real bad, i resort to my abuelito's technique. He used to live in the Chicago ghetto, also sans A/C, and when it was very hot out, he would take a stack of t-shirts and put them in the freezer. Every 10-15 minutes he would take one out, put it on, and put the one he was wearing back in the freezer. If you're used to A/C then you probably won't find it so refreshing, but if you're not then it's quite a treat.

It was so nice and hot out on the ride home that i stopped at various points along the river just to take it easy and enjoy the sun. Looking at the birds and the fish and the turtles, i wondered that thought again: how long until they evolve to mimic trash - until the fish have the coke logo patterned on their bellies, the turtle's shell looks like a budweiser can, and the crane's eyes are shaped like bottlecaps? And once they have evolved to that point, if i take a photo of the budweiser-turtle, and print that photo for money, will i get sued by budweiser for copyright violation?

Shake 'N' Bake

It was nineteen years ago today; i still expect the ground to shake every time i enter a math class.

Something you call love, but confess...

Many years ago, after my pair of steel toe Corcoran Field Boot II had become so worn as to be unwearable, i tried to buy a new pair. Looked in catalogs, no luck. Looked online, no luck. Called the company, no luck. Called various retailers - please! check you stock again! - no luck. They had the boots, but not in steel toe. The company confirmed that they stopped making them in steel toe.

Enter Rick Barter, a person i know only through online e-mails - through posts to the OpenBSD misc@ mailing list - and who sends mail through Kentucky.
Happens to be looking at my website, at this page, which has some zany personal notes on boots.
Happens to note the boot links on that page are broken.
Happens to e-mail me a note about that.
Happens to be that i pay attention.

Happens to be that while i'm looking up the new links for those products, i find that those field boots again come i steel toe.

My favourite boot is now on its way to me.


It's more than a fascination, it's more than a novel expression, it's more than a wannabe desire, it's definitely more than a fashion statement. It's a story; it's my story, complete with all the melodrama that entails.

I spent the first few years of my life in Somalia. Yeah, that Somalia. My mother was pretty green at the time; Peru was one thing, but for a young white US country girl, Somalia was just otherworldly. And though it's a testament to her stength that she eventually adjusted so well, at the time there were many things that she took very seriously, like always wearing at least slippers outside, always cleaning your hands, always watching what you eat, etc, etc.

Back to that slippers bit. When i was 25 i couldn't remember my feet ever touching grass. But i could remember wearing boots at the beach. I also realised a certain paranoia of land mines that i gained in El Salvador. I also started to really realise that i was living in the U.S.A., and everything that meant (e.g. - hey! if you walk through any random forest, you do not risk stepping on mines!). And i started to realise that i wore boots all the time - during winter and summer, to weddings, while biking, running, etc - i always had my feet covered, just like my momma taught me so long ago.

I've branched off from boots since then, though they are still my mainstay footwear. I've walked barefoot through the arb, through downtown, even at home. I wear sandals and other Lesser Footwear.

But more importantly, i recognize boots as symbolic of a piece of me - an indicator of part of my history, of part of what's made me who i am, of what's given me my skills. To see my favourite boot back in my favourite form; i am reunited with a very, very old friend.

MCMOGATK

The calls to participate were like dreams, and in my sleep did i create my entries.
See if you can find them: 1996 1997

Did You-san (or is it Minowa-san?) know how exciting the possibility of participation was?

Years later, i am left wishing i had participated harder, as if that would have made a difference. I also wonder what this means: screen.

I had forgotten how much time i had put into that briefcase/city/torii. The billboards turn to face the viewer, the insides of the buildings have difference features, there's a car flying around (would have been more, and people too, but the moving buildings were already overworking my 1994-era computer), and it's a royal pain to try to navigate through. The influences are readily apparent - Blade Runner, Metropolis, etc.

And the meaning? If it ever existed, it's long since been lost in the mind of a young 21-year old.



p.s.: if you need a vrml viewer, Cortona seems to work ok in WinXP/IE.

Oceans

When i was younger i lived close to the Pacific Ocean, in areas where the ocean floor dropped off quickly and tides and currents were erratic and deadly. We went to the beach quite often, and i enjoyed playing in the sand and the surf (i owe my lack of fear of water to my mother, but that's another story). I had heard many tales of other people's children that had gotten pulled under by the tide and swept out to sea, never seen again, or of people who had hit their head on the reef and drowned, but never thought it would happen to me; perhaps it seemed the most ridiculous thing to die of in the places i was living.

One afternoon we were at the beach in El Salvador, i must have been around 11. I was walking by myself with my feet just in the water, when a large wave came and toppled me over, pulled me into the ocean, and pushed me down. I blacked out for a bit, and when i came to i was under water and my head hurt a lot. Luckily the current was pushing me upwards at that moment, i had only hit my head on the sand, and i wasn't out that long as i still had air in my lungs. I reached the surface and swam back towards the beach in a half-dazed, half-awake state. My head wasn't too badly bruised and no one found out about the incident. I remember it as the day i learned that the tide is your friend for only so long.

It took me a few more years to realise that also applied to people.

Return of the prodigal son, part II

Found my way to my old high school, the Amerian Overseas School of Rome. As the bus travelled down the old familiar road my heart started beating faster and harder, a strange sign of a strange nervousness. Spoke my way through the security guard and up to my old math class room, which is now a computer lab. A student pointed me to the math classroom on the other side of the hallway, and i spoke to my old math teach, Mrs. Fiochi, who didn't remember me but did say that my eyes, no, the look in my eyes, was very familiar and unique. She said the same thing 12 years ago, and couldn't say much more this time since class was starting.

Walked up the villa (my school consists of a number of modern school-type buildings and an old villa in the middle, housing offices in the first floors and classrooms in the upper floors, as well as a large soccer field on one side (contrary to runour, it wasn't sold off)) to my Italian classroom as i knew Mrs. Levine wouldn't mind me waling in on her class. Sure enough, she was giving her advanced French students a test on the last day, last period before the break, but she welcomed me in and talked with me at length. The students were very talkative during their test, at which Mrs. Levine would look up every now and then and say, "students, be quiet, this is Francisco, an old student, and i'm trying to talk with him. One day you too will return after ten years." You had to know her and her unique pedagogical techniques.

I was surprised that she remembered where we used to sit during class, and was most delightfully surprised to hear she remembered a unique stunt (hack?) pulled at our school: someone took salt and wrote the words "FUCK ED" (Ed Tatko being the principle at the time) in large letters in the field (salt kills plants, in this case killing the grass in the shape of the letters for a number of days, weeks after the stunt was pulled, and the words were quite beautifully visible from the top of the villa). Levine remembered our class b/c of that stunt, and related the tale to her class, though in her memory the letters were the size of the soccer field (a notion i almost scoffed at since writing letters that big would have required a little more skill than i give the possible culprits credit for). I hear that stunt was one of the main causes of his nervous breakdown, and he left the school after only 1.5 years.

Levine walked me down to the offices where i met some of the new staff, including the Spanish instructor (they now offer up to AP/IB Spanish), who happened to be friends with the mother of a high school friend of mine, Maudy Tuseth, who used to live in New York but moved back to Rome just over a year ago. Through Maudy's mother i got Maudy's number, quite a treat, of which i'll talk more later.