The Long and Winding Road

A lot of people have been asking how much I’m making from my web sites. A vague answer is: enough to order a new pimped-out MacBook Pro.

My goal all along has been to earn enough to order a new computer. Not exactly reaching for the stars, I know, but a fella’s gotta start somewhere. My initial goal was to be able to do this by October 2007. But when Apple announced upgrades to their laptops on October 24th of this year, I realized that I could afford to buy one now. I placed an order that afternoon. (But not without some deliberation: should I go with the 7200rpm/100gb drive, the 5400rpm/160gb drive, or the 4200rpm/200gb drive? The choices we geeks face…)

I was eager to get my new machine. Because I was taking the second week of November off to write, I figured that would be a great time to break in my new computer. When I placed my order, I frowned at the estimated delivery date: November 7th, the Thursday of my week off. “Ah well,” I thought, “there’s plenty of time to get writing done early in the week, and then time to play with the new computer at the end of the week.”

During my vacation, I checked the order status several times every day, hoping that the computer would shipped early. It never did. In fact, it hadn’t shipped by November 7th, the day it was supposed to reach me, and then suddenly the ship date changed to November 12th! This made me sad, but it gave me an opportunity to alter my order. In the two weeks since placing it, I’d realized that I actually wanted a large hard drive, not a fast one, so I called Apple and made a small adjustment. No problem, right? Wrong.

By changing this one aspect of my order, the ship date was pushed out further still! The new ship date was November 22nd, the day before Thanksgiving.

Again I waited, hoping the machine might ship early. It didn’t. But it did ship from Shanghai on Wednesday morning. “Hot damn,” I thought. “It might reach me by Friday.” I watched the tracking reports as the computer flew to Anchorage, Alaska, then boarded a plane for Indianapolis. “It’s really going to do it,” I thought. “It’s really going to reach me by Friday.” When I went to sleep on Thanksgiving night, the computer was still in Indianapolis, but I had great confidence it would reach me the next day.

On Friday, I sat cold and alone in the Custom Box Service offices. (This is the deadest day of the year for us. Nobody calls. Nobody comes in to work. It’s just a ghost town.) The FedEx web site still promised delivery by noon. The FedEx telephone system said the same thing. But according to the tracking report, the computer was still in Indianapolis. “Maybe the tracking report is wrong,” I thought, but deep inside I knew the tracking reports are never wrong.

I waited in the office until one before I called FedEx again and paged through to an operator. “I’m sorry, sir,” she told me. “Your package has been delayed in Indianapolis.” I sighed and drove home.

For a time over the weekend, I actually forgot about the endless wait. (Forgot, that is, until Paul J. cruelly reminded me.)

I had a dentist appointment early this morning. FedEx usually comes to the shop late morning or early-afternoon. I expected to come back and still have to wait for the computer to arrive. But just as I was walking out the door, the FedEx truck pulled into the drive. Such torture! I signed for the package, opened it, looked at the shiny metal case, but then had to leave to get a filling. O cruel fate!

Eventually, of course, I was able to use my new computer. In fact, I’m typing this entry on it now. It’s quick and responsive. The screen is ginormous (1680×1050 &dmash; just imagine what this is going to be like when coupled with my 24″ cinema display). I love the new features in OS X.4 (I had never bothered to upgrade my other Macs).

I wish I had more time to play with the new computer right now, but I don’t. I have a lot of writing to do. But make no doubt: play with this beast, I shall!

I’m just happy that it’s finally here.

I ordered my MacBook Pro on the afternoon of October 24th. It finally reached me on the morning of November 27th. That’s a l-o-n-g wait.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

The extended holiday weekend gave me an opportunity to catch up with old friends.

On Wednesday, Andrew and Joann joined us for dinner. In August, they hosted us for a couple of nights during our trip to San Francisco; we were happy to return the hospitality. We decided to fix them a swell new dish: beef tenderloin stuffed with pine nuts and monterey jack cheese. Unfortunately, the dish was swell only in theory.

That’s right — we committed an entertainment faux pas by attempting to impress company with a meal we’d never tried before. We could have served Caprial’s beef tenderloin with pepper and port sauce, a dish we’ve made many times, a dish that we can nail, a dish that never fails to impress. But we got cocky and went for something new. The results were disastrous. Though we followed directions, the meat was bland and undercooked. I thought the balsamic vinegar clashed terribly with the other ingredients. It was a mess. We should have surrendered and ordered pizza, but we stuck it out, finishing the steaks. Andrew and Joann get gold stars for that.

After dinner, I preached the glory of the Wii. We had fun with Wii Sports, but when it came time to play something else, I realized I don’t have any other good multiplayer games yet. We tried to play the Monkeyball party games, but it was an exercise in frustration. None of them made any sense. And I hadn’t unlocked enough of the Rayman multiplayer games for it to be any fun. My top priority for this machine is to get another fun multiplayer game so that my evangelism can carry more weight.

My weekend food endeavors weren’t all bad. I made some yummy mashed potatoes for family Thanksgiving on Thursday. On Saturday, I surprised myself by mixing up a batch of damn good bean soup. It was easy! Here’s what I did:

J.D.’s Impromptu Bean Soup
Soak 2-1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill 13-bean blend for six hours. Rinse. Add 2 quarts water. Bring to boil over high heat. While waiting for the boil, add the other ingredients as they become ready: 3 tablespoons Bob’s Red Mill Bean Soup Seasoning, 1 teaspoon hickory smoke salt, 1 yellow onion (diced), 3-5 cloves garlic (minced), 1 can tomato sauce, and about 1 pound of the pork product of your choice. (I used ham because we had some in the freezer. Bacon works. Fresh ham works.) Cook for about two hours, until beans are done to your liking. Remove from heat. For best flavor, store overnight in fridge.

It’s good stuff, I tell you — good stuff!

Yesterday we met up with Nicole Lindroos and her husband, Chris Pramas, for brunch at Wild Abandon in southeast Portland. Paul and Amy Jo joined us. I love to go out for breakfast. It’s a treat I don’t get very often because it’s Kris’ least favorite meal. It was an adjustment for me to order a breakfast with limited sugar. Normally I’d devour a huge stack of pancakes and then slather them in syrup. Yesterday I ordered a ham-and-cheese omelet with fried potatoes. The only real sugar came from ketchup and from a small blueberry scone. Still, the meal was good.

I should join Paul and Amy Jo for breakfast more often.

Tales of the Chicken, part six

Rumor has it many of you like the ongoing Tales of the Chicken. I aim to please.

The shop kittens are baffling sometimes.

On most mornings they rush inside when we open the door, jump onto the chair next to the fax machine, and begin to “self-serve” from the open bag of cat food. They continue to graze from the bag throughout the day.

Some mornings, though — including today — they bypass the bag of cat food and trot to the kitchen, hop onto the table, and rummage through the cafeteria supplies. What are they searching for? Cheetos. I have no idea why they like Cheetos so much, but these pigs eat more than the rest of our employees combined.

Today when I came into the office, I could hear them rummaging in the chips. When I went to the kitchen, they had ripped open two bags and were munching away. Cheeto fiends.

(In the afternoon, Max was sprawled on my desk sleeping. Nick had a bag of Cheetos. He snapped Max awake by laying a Cheeto on his paws.)

Meanwhile, another stray cat has appeared. It has long tortoise-shell fur and already has the kittens cowed. When Max or Duke gets too close, the new cat takes him down in a flurry of fur. She moves like lightning, wrestles the kitten for a second or two, then bolts away. The kittens are in a state of shock. Thus far in their young lives, they’ve only encountered benevolence.

The chicken, however, is nonplused, and the new cat ignores it. Yesterday the dumb bird was by the back door begging for food, so I took a cup of cat food out for it. Duke followed us. The new cat was already waiting. When I poured the food into the bowl, the new cat chowed hungrily. The chicken joined her. I tried to put Duke down so he could eat, but he was frightened — not of the chicken, but of the new cat.

Actually, he was probably just craving Cheetos.

Nintendo Wii: First Impressions

I’ve been a PC gamer for nearly thirty years. (I started as a young boy on an Apple II.) Recently I’ve grown away from gaming (except for World of Warcraft). I owned a Nintendo Gamecube for a while, but traded it on craigslist for a digital camera. But ever since I first heard reports about the Nintendo Wii last May, I’ve coveted one. I saved some money explicitly to purchase a system on the day it was released.

Last Saturday, after our college reunion, I drove to the Oregon City Fred Meyer to buy a Wii at midnight. I didn’t get one. I was 77th in line and the store only had 75 units. So I got out of bed on Sunday morning at 4:30 to stand in line at the Oak Grove Fred Meyer. This time I was 9th — I got one.

I only played for a few hours yesterday, but that was enough for me to fall in love with the Wii. I think Kris even liked it. Here are the four games I own and my initial impression of each:

Wii Sports — This game is included with the system, and does a fine job of showcasing the revolutionary controllers. The sports themselves are crude representations, but it doesn’t matter because Wii Sports is all about the gameplay. Here’s how you serve a ball in Wii tennis: you flick the controller up to toss the ball, and then you swing the controller over your head like a tennis racket. You don’t press any buttons. To bowl, you perform a bowling motion. For boxing, you attach a secondary controller and you throw punches, just as in real life. It’s actually quite a workout.
Super Monkey Ball — This is primarily meant to be a “party game”. I only played it in single-player mode. Have you ever played one of those “marble in a maze” type games, where you have to tilt a board to get a marble or BB to travel through it? That’s what Super Monkey Ball is like, except you’re tilting your Wii controller to guide a monkey in a ball to collect bananas. This has potential.
Zelda — Zelda is an ongoing Nintendo franchise about a young man in a mystical kingdom who has many adventures. This game is getting rave reviews, and it intrigues me, but it’s a little overwhelming. It’s almost too freeform for me. I’m taking it in bite-size chunks, but I’m worried that it’s not going to be as fun as Zeldas of former years. (Plus, I can’t get the darned horse to jump over fences!)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance — The only true dud so far. Maybe I need to give it more of a chance. You’d think I’d be eager to control my favorite superheroes, but I have no idea what I’m doing to make Thor fight or the Human Torch shoot fire. My presence seems superfluous except to move the characters around the screen. They all fight (and win) without me. I’ve already posted to craigslist hoping to trade this game for something else.

So far, the Nintendo Wii is a lot of fun, especially Wii Sports. Here’s a system that doesn’t emphasize graphics or technology or shooting and killing. It emphasizes fun. The wireless controllers look like remote controls and contain built-in motion sensors. This opens up an entire new world for gameplay. I’m eager to see how other games take advantage of this unique control system.

Nintendo is marketing the Wii as a gaming system for people who don’t play games, and I think they’re onto something. Kris has never been much of a gamer, but she agreed to play a round of tennis with me yesterday. She beat me, and had fun doing it. Later she beat me at boxing (which kind of bruised my ego). Later still, she killed me at bowling — she scored 180 and I only scored 88. Yikes! (Tonight, just before I posted this entry, I beat her at baseball twice in a row, so I’m not completely inept.)

One final note is that playing a game on the Wii requires a lot more activity than playing a game on another system. For Wii Sports, you need a clear space in front of the television so that you have freedom to move around, to swing your controller. (I’m not sure we’re going to have enough room for four people to play doubles tennis.) A few rounds of boxing is actually enough to get my heart rate up. This might be the first videogame system that helps kids lose weight instead of gain it.

Old Historic Temple, Rising Grandly Through the Years

The best years of my life were spent at Willamette University. Don’t get me wrong — I love my life and, except for period bouts of anxiety, am quite content. But no memories compare to those of my college years.

Kris and I joined a small group of other Willamette alumni for a fifteen year reunion last night. Bernie and Kristi were there, looking dapper, as were other classmates we see less often: Ginger, Anne, Shelley, Martin Taylor, for example. And, especially, Paul (and his charming Stanford-educated wife, Tammy), and Aaron and Tiffany.

It was wonderful to catch up with these friends. It’s fascinating to hear what everyone is doing now, and to see how they both have and have not changed. For me the highlight of the evening was a long chat with Tiffany Tarrant. Tiffany was one of the residents of Matthews Hall when I was RA. She, Dan Rathert, and I took astronomy together. We loved it. We had a lot of fun. We even formed a short-lived astronomy club and published an issue or two of a newsletter. We called each other star names. Tiffany was Nunki; Dan was Ras-Al-Ague; I was Altair. I once wrote a mock love poem for Tiffany in which I declared, “You are my spiral galaxy.”

Good times.

I would have liked to have seen more former classmates last night, but I’m happy for the time we were able to spend with those who made it.

Firefox 2: Geek Heaven

I have died and gone to geek heaven.

I recently downloaded Firefox 2 for the Mac. I like the improved tab management. I hate the fact that the scroll bar is still broken.

But what simply has me in ecstasy is this: my Mac just crashed hard while connecting to my lovely 23″ Apple Cinema Display. (This is an issue that I need to look into.) “Crap,” I thought. “I’ve just lost all my work. All my open weblog entries. All my open browser pages.”

I had five open Firefox windows, each with at least a dozen open pages. That’s a lot of stuff to lose track of.

But when I restarted the computer and relaunched my browser, Firefox asked me if I wanted to restore my previous session! Holy cats! I’ve been wanting something like this for ages! And sure enough: the browser has re-opened every single page I’d been using before the crash.

This is like a geek dream come true.

Now if only there were a similar feature for BBEdit, my text editor. I weep to think how much writing just evaporated into the electric ether. (I had a nice entry going about the birds/squirrels in the yard that is now lost.)

Icicle

Days like this — grey, cold, still — sap the warmth from my body. My mind is warm today, active and alive, but my body heat has begun to dissipate. My toes go cold first. I can feel them now, small blocks of ice, and their chill has begun to spread upward, past the soles of my feet, toward my ankels. Meanwhile, my fingers are also cold. My hands are cooling. The tip of my nose is cold. The rest of me is not exactly warm, but not cold yet, either.

In a few minutes, I will drive home. I’ll turn the heat on in the car. I’ll shiver for a few minutes while the air turns warm. But even once I reach Oregon City, when the car has become actually hot, I will not be warm.

No — when I get home, I will grab a book (Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale), climb into the tub, and luxuriate in the warmth. On days like this, I need close, all-encompassing heat, and the tub is the best way to get that. (Though I have discovered that the electric blanket offers another alternative.)

If only chantico were an option. But I’m off sugar right now, so my two remaining bags of the stuff remain in the freezer, untouched.

Power Nap

It used to be, long ago, that I needed a good, sound nap when I got home from work. I was drowsy all day. I would nod off at my desk. Driving was dangerous. In retrospect it’s clear that my sleep problems were due to several factors:

I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I was going to bed at midnight and getting up at 5:30.
I wasn’t getting quality sleep. My sleep apnea was preventing me from reaching the restful REM stage.
I wasn’t getting enough exercise.
I was eating poorly. My sugar-laden diet encouraged crashes.

I still get tired during the day, but it’s not nearly as bad as it once was.

Recently, Matt mentioned in passing that he sometimes used “iPod naps”. “What are those?” I asked. He explained that Merlin had recently raved about iPod naps, directed meditations (for lack of a better word) that you can carry around on your iPod.

I still didn’t understand.

Later, I did some research. It turns out that Merlin is fascinated by ultradian rhythms, and has been using a piece of software called pzizz to generate iPod naps. From the pzizz web site:

pzizz is a remarkable invention that combines several different proven techniques to help keep you feeling energized throughout the day. It combines Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques along with especially composed music, sound effects and a binaural beat to induce a wonderfully relaxed state, similar to that of the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep.

Whilst in this deeply relaxed state, pzizz is able to deliver billions of different combinations of suggestions through the structured language patterns and the sounds. These encourage the subconscious not only to relax but also to focus and energize both the body and the mind.

Every time you press “play” or choose to “export” some naps, the software will mix a new soundtrack for you so that you never hear exactly the same thing twice!

I still didn’t understand. I downloaded the two sample naps and loaded them on my iPod. Now I understand.

Each “nap” contains typical New Age music in the background. In the foreground, a man with a soothing voice talks you though the napping process. He asks you to relax, to close your eyes, to just drift away. I know that he continues to talk after I fall asleep, but I’m not sure what he’s saying. At the end of the nap, he starts asking you to wake up. And it works! When he says to begin waking up, I begin waking up!

For the past week, whenever I’m tired I’ve listened to the “energizer nap”. Placebo effect or reality, I wake after fifteen minutes feeling refreshed. It’s eerie.

I know this probably sounds crazy. And maybe it is. But I like this idea so much that I intend to purchase pzizz so that I can create my own custom naps.

Update on the Shop Cats (and Chicken)

The Custom Box chicken is getting bolder and bolder. Today as I was unloading the stuff from Costco, the chicken marched up to the back door and demanded to be fed. Since the cat have learned to self-feed from the bag, we’re not good at making sure food gets set out for the bird. This makes the bird unhappy.

So I scooped up a bowl of cat food and let the chicken lead me to her dish under the garden shed. Jeff put away the picnic table while I was on vacation, so I sat on a bench and waited while the chicken eyed me warily. She clucked her disapproval, but she eventually strutted over to have a snack. She wouldn’t let me pet her. She was also nervous of Duke, who had come out to see what I was doing.

Duke and Max have turned into a pair of fine animals. It’s been a long time since we had shop cats, and we’d forgotten how fun it is. These two are especially good.

Max has developed several passions:

He likes to eat, especially fresh from the bag.
He likes to play with bottle caps of any sort — they can amuse him for hours.
He likes to race. Jeff calls him the “grey cheetah”.

Duke, meanwhile, just wants to be loved. He likes nothing more than to curl up on somebody’s chest or lap. (In fact, he is currently sprawled on my lap, keeping me warm as I type this.) He’s also finally lost the annoying habit of constantly licking my fingers. Duke is Master of Doors: he knows how to push open any door that’s even partly open. (At home, Toto is even better — she can pull open any door that isn’t fully latched. She does it just for fun.)

I still worry that the cats will venture too close to the road, though I’ve never seen any sign of this. They do have a bad habit of hanging around in the gravel parking area, greeting everyone in the morning. (They follow us to the back door of the office, and as soon as we open it, they race inside to eat from the bag.)

I’d still bring both cats home in a second, if Kris would let me. I’d even bring home the chicken.

Wellness Coach

Get Rich Slowly has afforded me some unexpected opportunities. Among the most exciting of these is the chance to work with a “wellness coach”. Lauren Muney, who runs Physical Mind, contacted me after a recent GRS entry in which I lamented how fat I am (a subject with which foldedspace readers are all-too-familiar).

I’m a wellness and fitness coach. I’ll give you one month of coaching to get you back on your feet (no pun intended). I am doing this because I read your posts everyday and you’ve given me much to think about. You deserve a chance to work on yourself in return…(and to get away from the computer)

I was scared at first. What is a wellness coach? What does this mean to me? More to the point, Lauren’s offer forced me to make a decision. I had shared my complaints about my health with 10,000 strangers, and one of them had called me on it, had offered to help me make some life corrections. It’s one thing to complain about your situation; it’s another thing to actually act upon it.

Ultimately, I agreed to take Lauren’s help.

Last week she had me keep a daily journal of everything I ate. I didn’t consciously alter my eating habits just because somebody was watching from afar: I had KitKat bars for breakfast when it would have been the choice I’d normally make, I drank orange juice and vodka, I snacked incessantly. I documented it all.

After sending this food diary and a health assessment to Lauren, we arranged a time to chat on the phone. Yesterday morning we spent nearly 2-1/2 hours discussing my habits, proper fitness, and how to get me from here to there. Everything Lauren said meshes with the information I’ve read in nutrition books. She also had some insights into fitness that were new to me. And in a case of serendipity, she stressed the importance of mindfulness, the Buddhist concept of being aware of your thoughts and your actions. (I’ve read about mindfulness in several places this week as I’ve coped with my bout of worry.)

It was a long call, and though Lauren’s advice was good, her list of “action items” is intimidating. Here are the things I need to accomplish:

Exercise mindfulness (not only in eating, but in everyday life).
Clear out all the junk food and processed food from the kitchen. (Done.)
Shop for healthy foods to replace the junk.
Call the doctor and schedule a check-up.
Go to a running store and have an expert fit me to a pair of shoes.
Begin walking/running, but do so slowly. I’m going to have to learn about proper running gait if I’m going to do this.
End the sugar. This is the most important thing for me, and it’s going to be the most difficult. As most of you know, I’m hooked on the stuff. I may be a grouch for a while until I’ve coped with this adjustment.
Research indoor bike training.
Begin re-reading my nutrition book.
Reduce alcohol consumption. Special occasions only now.
Reduce computer time. This, too, will be tough. I have a compulsion to post twice a day at Get Rich Slowly, and as often as possible here. I need to break this compulsion.

The conversation with Lauren was energizing.

A few hours later, she sent an e-mail that re-iterated everything we’d talked about, and which outlined the above steps to improving my health. I was amazed to see that she’d taken great lengths to remove mental barriers to accomplishing certain tasks. For example, though she’s on the east coast and doesn’t know anything about Portland, she researched a running store and sent me the link. She sent me information on mindfulness. She provided a list of whole foods. I have no excuses.

There’s a lot of work to do here. It’s almost overwhelming. But the reward will be worth it.