Understandably, there has been a lot of sadness about Daniel in the last few days, especially on friends' blogs. Here's a little nugget that brings a smile to my face every time I think of it.
For years, Daniel wanted to find a house that was as grand and lovely as the house he grew up in, in Worcester. He went to many open houses, driving Graham crazy with the search. He got very excited one day to find a reasonably-priced place advertised as having "crown molding." He made an appointment and off he went. But the place was a little less grand than he'd been hoping for. He sniffed derisively at the realtor and said "You can't possibly be serious calling this 'crown molding.' Why, I'd barely accept your calling it 'tiara molding,' but it certainly doesn't merit the name, 'crown.'" Alas, the realtor was humor-impaired, and I don't think Daniel stayed long or dealt with her again.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
DEP, 1958 -- 2004
Today was the anniversary of Daniel's death. We lit candles for him last night and tonight. This weekend, we'll attend the unveiling of his grave stone at his family's "camp" in Maine. I'm feeling mostly quiet and thoughtful but wanted to note the passing of this important anniversary.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
lucky refugee
At our much delayed breakfast on Saturday morning, I happened to mention a dance buddy named D, and in the same breath mentioned that he lives in New Orleans. We both looked up and gasped and then immediately wondered how he was faring.
Sl0w-forward a few hours to the first contra dance of the season, also on Saturday. There, across the hall was D. I went up to see how he was doing and he said he was looking for a place to stay. I happily offered him a spare bed at our house and he came home with us.
The next day, we all went out to brunch, then to an exhibit that a friend helped curate, Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800. I figured a little hope and healing were in order. We met up with friends there, all went out for middle eastern food, and then home to fresh corn, salad, and bed. D took off the following morning for the next part of his adventure.
Next stop: a camp in Malibu Hills in California for two weeks.
His story was pretty simple and relatively happy. He had been planning to ride out the storm at home but friends called and convinced him to move in with them. So he spent a week in a trailer, I think, with two people, 12 dogs, a few other assorted pets. For the first few days, he stayed glued to the TV. Eventually, he was allowed to go home for a few hours and check on his place, which is fine. He threw out food, took the first plane out of town, and landed in Boston. Somehow, he found his way to the dance (not necessarily easy) and thought he'd quietly mention to a few folks that he was looking for a place to stay.
He is so lucky -- he has the inner and financial resources to have escaped, his house did not incur any damage, his mom, who lives nearby, is fine. He just needs to worry about when there will be enough resources (food, electricity, and so on) to make it reasonable to go home. And he needs to worry about his job. Apparently, he's employed at least through the end of the month, and on Monday, he was able to reach his boss' voice mail. I expect that he'll have a job at some point. This is not to say that there's been no trauma; I expect there has been at least some. Perhaps time at the camp will also offer some hope and healing.
Yow. Much gratitude is in order.
Sl0w-forward a few hours to the first contra dance of the season, also on Saturday. There, across the hall was D. I went up to see how he was doing and he said he was looking for a place to stay. I happily offered him a spare bed at our house and he came home with us.
The next day, we all went out to brunch, then to an exhibit that a friend helped curate, Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800. I figured a little hope and healing were in order. We met up with friends there, all went out for middle eastern food, and then home to fresh corn, salad, and bed. D took off the following morning for the next part of his adventure.
Next stop: a camp in Malibu Hills in California for two weeks.
His story was pretty simple and relatively happy. He had been planning to ride out the storm at home but friends called and convinced him to move in with them. So he spent a week in a trailer, I think, with two people, 12 dogs, a few other assorted pets. For the first few days, he stayed glued to the TV. Eventually, he was allowed to go home for a few hours and check on his place, which is fine. He threw out food, took the first plane out of town, and landed in Boston. Somehow, he found his way to the dance (not necessarily easy) and thought he'd quietly mention to a few folks that he was looking for a place to stay.
He is so lucky -- he has the inner and financial resources to have escaped, his house did not incur any damage, his mom, who lives nearby, is fine. He just needs to worry about when there will be enough resources (food, electricity, and so on) to make it reasonable to go home. And he needs to worry about his job. Apparently, he's employed at least through the end of the month, and on Monday, he was able to reach his boss' voice mail. I expect that he'll have a job at some point. This is not to say that there's been no trauma; I expect there has been at least some. Perhaps time at the camp will also offer some hope and healing.
Yow. Much gratitude is in order.
hateful technology
With all the news items about computer worms and viruses, I've been careful in recent years to maintain an active subscription to an anti-virus program, Norton Antivirus. A few days ago, my subscription expired, so I decided to upgrade to the latest version and to sign up for two more years.
I usually breeze through these processes; I figure they were designed for the general public, and I know a thing or two about computers. So it's usually not that hard.
9:30 am. Discovered that for some reason, my computer has not recorded a subscription number. I have a serial number, a product number, an activation number, and a few other numbers, but not the right number. I start the long procedure; the short procedure is only for people with a subscription number.
9:45 am. Finish answering questions, submit my credit card information, supersize the subscription (to two years), and start to download.
10:00 am. Lose the download, start again. Find the first download. Start running the program I've just acquired and realize that that was just the program that you run so that you can actually download the software. OK, so I wait for the download.
10:30 am. Finish running the installation program. Multiple reboots later, program is finally starting to download the files needed to run the anti-virus software. (Our wireless system does not come back right away after a reboot. It takes several shutdowns and restarts before we have true internet access. Of course, during this delicate installation procedure, it's essential to have internet access, so I've stopped and started the internet connection multiple times.)
10:45 am. See an error message, go to the web site (helpfully pointed to by the error message) and realize that this is a known problem. A very well-known problem. Start to follow the procedures to resolve the problem.
11:00 am. Robert senses my building frustrating and gently suggests that perhaps he could work on the problem.
11:30 am. I run out of the house to get an errand done by noon when the place I'm going closes. Run a second errand, then come back for breakfast.
12:45 pm. We've eaten, read the paper, washed the dishes. Robert is working on the problem.
1 pm. I go upstairs to check on things, start back-seat driving, and immediately retreat.
1:30 pm. I check back in. I complain that a web browser, Firefox, that I installed at the behest of my some customer support organization always takes over email. Robert is currently struggling with it because when he clicks a web link, Firefox pops to the front but can't show the content of the web page. So he copies the web link from Firefox to the browser that works, Internet Explorer. This is getting old. He decides to remove Firefox so that Internet Explorer can once again display web pages.
2:00 pm. With Firefox off the system, we still can't get IE to display pages automatically. So Robert installs Netscape. I'm back to square one with browsers, except that I'm now using a different unwanted browser.
3:00 pm. I come back to see how things are going. Robert has by now checked internet chat rooms and has found other frustrated computer users experiencing the same problem.
3:30 pm. I realize I should stop checking in because it just makes me cross. Robert has printed out pages of instructions.
5:30 pm. Robert comes downstairs looking slightly pale. It has occurred to him to look at system log files. He's also finished the set of "suggested fixes" and finally, on the last step, done what we could have easily done in the beginning -- remove the software, reinstall, and reboot. That was the whole solution.
I wonder what happens in households where the residents don't have a combined 50 years in the computer industry, where they don't have degrees in computer science, and where they even need help learning how to use the internet. At least I won't be dealing with this for another two years.
I usually breeze through these processes; I figure they were designed for the general public, and I know a thing or two about computers. So it's usually not that hard.
9:30 am. Discovered that for some reason, my computer has not recorded a subscription number. I have a serial number, a product number, an activation number, and a few other numbers, but not the right number. I start the long procedure; the short procedure is only for people with a subscription number.
9:45 am. Finish answering questions, submit my credit card information, supersize the subscription (to two years), and start to download.
10:00 am. Lose the download, start again. Find the first download. Start running the program I've just acquired and realize that that was just the program that you run so that you can actually download the software. OK, so I wait for the download.
10:30 am. Finish running the installation program. Multiple reboots later, program is finally starting to download the files needed to run the anti-virus software. (Our wireless system does not come back right away after a reboot. It takes several shutdowns and restarts before we have true internet access. Of course, during this delicate installation procedure, it's essential to have internet access, so I've stopped and started the internet connection multiple times.)
10:45 am. See an error message, go to the web site (helpfully pointed to by the error message) and realize that this is a known problem. A very well-known problem. Start to follow the procedures to resolve the problem.
11:00 am. Robert senses my building frustrating and gently suggests that perhaps he could work on the problem.
11:30 am. I run out of the house to get an errand done by noon when the place I'm going closes. Run a second errand, then come back for breakfast.
12:45 pm. We've eaten, read the paper, washed the dishes. Robert is working on the problem.
1 pm. I go upstairs to check on things, start back-seat driving, and immediately retreat.
1:30 pm. I check back in. I complain that a web browser, Firefox, that I installed at the behest of my some customer support organization always takes over email. Robert is currently struggling with it because when he clicks a web link, Firefox pops to the front but can't show the content of the web page. So he copies the web link from Firefox to the browser that works, Internet Explorer. This is getting old. He decides to remove Firefox so that Internet Explorer can once again display web pages.
2:00 pm. With Firefox off the system, we still can't get IE to display pages automatically. So Robert installs Netscape. I'm back to square one with browsers, except that I'm now using a different unwanted browser.
3:00 pm. I come back to see how things are going. Robert has by now checked internet chat rooms and has found other frustrated computer users experiencing the same problem.
3:30 pm. I realize I should stop checking in because it just makes me cross. Robert has printed out pages of instructions.
5:30 pm. Robert comes downstairs looking slightly pale. It has occurred to him to look at system log files. He's also finished the set of "suggested fixes" and finally, on the last step, done what we could have easily done in the beginning -- remove the software, reinstall, and reboot. That was the whole solution.
I wonder what happens in households where the residents don't have a combined 50 years in the computer industry, where they don't have degrees in computer science, and where they even need help learning how to use the internet. At least I won't be dealing with this for another two years.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
staying toasty
As part of preparing for the coming winter, I called a wood person at the tail end of August for a delivery. I met the person when he helped work on the addition to our house. I'm glad I called (and that he called back) because I have a tendancy to put these things off. Then September 1 or 15 rolls around and no one has wood to sell or it gets expensive. But if you call too early, you're in the back yard stacking when it's too beastly hot to move and the mosquitos and other biters are feasting.
My timing was also good because even though gas prices had gone up a lot when I called, Katrina had not yet hit. Apparently, there's now price-gouging in the wood lot as the price of oil and gas soar post-storm.
John (the wood man) has a pickup truck that he says holds half a cord, so we'll get three deliveries in all. The first two came last night. It's beautiful wood -- quite dry -- and I think his truck holds a very generous half cord. Our neighbor pitched in, so now we have the first two thirds stacked already, with the last bit to come this evening. And our neighbor ordered some too. John will also bring some kindling by from his day job -- kiln-dried ends of 2x4s and 2x6s.
The thing is that we have electric heat, which I've never minded, but I never feel like the house gets warm into its bones. The wood stove takes care of that, and it's fun to watch the cat curl up first right next to the fire, then move half way across the living room, then back again. Given the speed at which fall is coming (it was 45 degrees last night), I think we'll be nice and toasty this winter.
My timing was also good because even though gas prices had gone up a lot when I called, Katrina had not yet hit. Apparently, there's now price-gouging in the wood lot as the price of oil and gas soar post-storm.
John (the wood man) has a pickup truck that he says holds half a cord, so we'll get three deliveries in all. The first two came last night. It's beautiful wood -- quite dry -- and I think his truck holds a very generous half cord. Our neighbor pitched in, so now we have the first two thirds stacked already, with the last bit to come this evening. And our neighbor ordered some too. John will also bring some kindling by from his day job -- kiln-dried ends of 2x4s and 2x6s.
The thing is that we have electric heat, which I've never minded, but I never feel like the house gets warm into its bones. The wood stove takes care of that, and it's fun to watch the cat curl up first right next to the fire, then move half way across the living room, then back again. Given the speed at which fall is coming (it was 45 degrees last night), I think we'll be nice and toasty this winter.
Monday, September 05, 2005
postcards from daniel
The first anniversary of Daniel's death is coming up in a few weeks, and lately, there have been many reminders of him, which have felt as if they were sent by him.
A few weeks ago in the Berkshires, we heard a newish (21st century) piece commissioned and played by a trio. The piece was For Daniel, by Joan Tower, written in memory of Ms. Tower's nephew, who died after a long illness which involved breathing difficulties. The piece was filled with love and rage, and for a new piece on first hearing, was surprisingly accessible (which means I didn't squirm in my seat from pain induced by listening).
We recently had dinner with a friend who dated Daniel near the end of his life. A few words were spoken in DEP's memory.
On Saturday, we saw a play where one of the main characters was costumed much as Daniel dressed. At the opening of the second act, the actor's straw boater was lying on the stage -- just what Daniel would have worn, especially on such a fine night.
And last week, I received a phone call from Daniel's sister, inviting us to the unveiling of Daniel's tomb stone. Last year, when I was not invited to his burial, I felt such pain, but perhaps a little relief too. The burial happened on a rainy day, the day before Robert's and my wedding, and the logistics would have been difficult. (I still would have gone had I been invited.) So with the closing of the first circle of seasons, I'm honored to be asked to attend this part of the ceremony.
Daniel is very much with us these days. We will not forget.
A few weeks ago in the Berkshires, we heard a newish (21st century) piece commissioned and played by a trio. The piece was For Daniel, by Joan Tower, written in memory of Ms. Tower's nephew, who died after a long illness which involved breathing difficulties. The piece was filled with love and rage, and for a new piece on first hearing, was surprisingly accessible (which means I didn't squirm in my seat from pain induced by listening).
We recently had dinner with a friend who dated Daniel near the end of his life. A few words were spoken in DEP's memory.
On Saturday, we saw a play where one of the main characters was costumed much as Daniel dressed. At the opening of the second act, the actor's straw boater was lying on the stage -- just what Daniel would have worn, especially on such a fine night.
And last week, I received a phone call from Daniel's sister, inviting us to the unveiling of Daniel's tomb stone. Last year, when I was not invited to his burial, I felt such pain, but perhaps a little relief too. The burial happened on a rainy day, the day before Robert's and my wedding, and the logistics would have been difficult. (I still would have gone had I been invited.) So with the closing of the first circle of seasons, I'm honored to be asked to attend this part of the ceremony.
Daniel is very much with us these days. We will not forget.
Friday, August 26, 2005
fall is coming, work is interesting.
Ah, gorgeous days, cool and cold nights. In the Berkshires last weekend, I noticed the leaves were starting to change, but it might not be obvious to the casual observer or to those in denial about the end of summer. Last night, when I got up to -er- facilitate, I noticed that my feet were cold, and that was after several hours of snuggling under the down comforter and wool blanket with a cat wrapped around my head. Air's crisp, we're all more comfortable, and I'm back down to one shower a day.
I've been at my job for nearly a year now, a year of this part-time experiment. I'm working on my third boss, and have gone from being a department of less than one to being part of a department of two (spread across three people), with two contractors and a possible new hire in the next few months. It's been a fun ride so far.
Right now, I'm working on infrastructure, in an area that's interested me for years -- information architecture. My former boss encouraged me to go to conferences and learn as much as I could, and now I'm trying to put all that knowledge to use. (A special hiya to KAH.)
My current project goes something like this. Right now, we have developed all sorts of deliverables (in lots of different formats, I might add) -- user manuals, online help, white papers, training materials, and so on. You can imagine that our directory structures are organized by each deliverable, with subdirectories and files underneath. You might also imagine that if we're writing about the same subject over and over again, there might be a fair amount of overlap. Right now, because of different formats and organization, there's no way to reuse the overlapping material.
Well, wouldn't it be cool if we took all the little subjects we talk about and put them into one common directory structure so that when we want to include information about that subject into another deliverable, we could either plagiarize or at least have a darned good starting point?
That's the point of my project -- to figure out how to organize all our topics so that people can find the information in the directory soup.
I started out on my own, and immediately ran into problems -- do you organize by the people doing the work? By area of the product? By subject? There are so many interconnections -- of course there's no one obvious solution.
But there is an obvious path to the solution -- ask other people to help. I wrote down about 100 subjects that we document, each one on its own little card. And I've been asking people to sort them into groups and subgroups. The results have been interesting and are almost all in. I'm hoping to have some preliminary recommendations next week.
At the same time, I've taken a subject (called "locales") and found all extended discussions of it in all our documentation -- about 25 pages worth. I've done an analysis of the types of information, and am now trying to write a set of draft topics related to this one subject. For example, I found nine places where we define "locale". That's a lot of overlap. Of course, some of the descriptions aren't very accurate or are obsolete. I've written a draft of the definitive definition for locales, suitable for inclusion in all nine of these places. Once our structure is in place, when the central definition changes, the text in each deliverable will be automatically updated, too. Next, I'll be working on "how to create a locale," and then "deleting" and "modifying." Pretty straightforward stuff, but an incredibly complicated web to unravel.
Imagine doing that for all 100 or so subjects. The good news is that I've figured out a way to move over to this centralized system in an evolutionary way. This strategy will allow us to continue to write new documentation even as we're switching over to our new centralized system -- we won't have to stop all work, convert, and then resume work.
I of course worry about the responsibility -- once the new structure is in place, it will be hard to change, though not impossible. So it's important to get it right, or "good enough," as we like to say, the first time. I dream about sorting cards, though not obsessively. And in waking life, after each person goes through the card set, I shuffle the cards to get them ready for the next person, and now my colleagues accuse me of playing card games.
This is interesting work, though, and I never dreamed I'd get to work on this kind of project at this company. I'm crossing my fingers that all these good ideas end up in a workable implementation.
P.S. After posting this, I checked work email to find a note sent to the entire company saying that an employee's email is down; to reach him, call his mobile phone, and he'll send email to all employees when he is once again reachable via email. At a larger company, this type of message would be (select one) inappropriate, annoying, worthy of sending a reply asking for more caution when using the email system. At this company, the message is useful to at least half the employees, maybe more. I love working in a small company.
I've been at my job for nearly a year now, a year of this part-time experiment. I'm working on my third boss, and have gone from being a department of less than one to being part of a department of two (spread across three people), with two contractors and a possible new hire in the next few months. It's been a fun ride so far.
Right now, I'm working on infrastructure, in an area that's interested me for years -- information architecture. My former boss encouraged me to go to conferences and learn as much as I could, and now I'm trying to put all that knowledge to use. (A special hiya to KAH.)
My current project goes something like this. Right now, we have developed all sorts of deliverables (in lots of different formats, I might add) -- user manuals, online help, white papers, training materials, and so on. You can imagine that our directory structures are organized by each deliverable, with subdirectories and files underneath. You might also imagine that if we're writing about the same subject over and over again, there might be a fair amount of overlap. Right now, because of different formats and organization, there's no way to reuse the overlapping material.
Well, wouldn't it be cool if we took all the little subjects we talk about and put them into one common directory structure so that when we want to include information about that subject into another deliverable, we could either plagiarize or at least have a darned good starting point?
That's the point of my project -- to figure out how to organize all our topics so that people can find the information in the directory soup.
I started out on my own, and immediately ran into problems -- do you organize by the people doing the work? By area of the product? By subject? There are so many interconnections -- of course there's no one obvious solution.
But there is an obvious path to the solution -- ask other people to help. I wrote down about 100 subjects that we document, each one on its own little card. And I've been asking people to sort them into groups and subgroups. The results have been interesting and are almost all in. I'm hoping to have some preliminary recommendations next week.
At the same time, I've taken a subject (called "locales") and found all extended discussions of it in all our documentation -- about 25 pages worth. I've done an analysis of the types of information, and am now trying to write a set of draft topics related to this one subject. For example, I found nine places where we define "locale". That's a lot of overlap. Of course, some of the descriptions aren't very accurate or are obsolete. I've written a draft of the definitive definition for locales, suitable for inclusion in all nine of these places. Once our structure is in place, when the central definition changes, the text in each deliverable will be automatically updated, too. Next, I'll be working on "how to create a locale," and then "deleting" and "modifying." Pretty straightforward stuff, but an incredibly complicated web to unravel.
Imagine doing that for all 100 or so subjects. The good news is that I've figured out a way to move over to this centralized system in an evolutionary way. This strategy will allow us to continue to write new documentation even as we're switching over to our new centralized system -- we won't have to stop all work, convert, and then resume work.
I of course worry about the responsibility -- once the new structure is in place, it will be hard to change, though not impossible. So it's important to get it right, or "good enough," as we like to say, the first time. I dream about sorting cards, though not obsessively. And in waking life, after each person goes through the card set, I shuffle the cards to get them ready for the next person, and now my colleagues accuse me of playing card games.
This is interesting work, though, and I never dreamed I'd get to work on this kind of project at this company. I'm crossing my fingers that all these good ideas end up in a workable implementation.
P.S. After posting this, I checked work email to find a note sent to the entire company saying that an employee's email is down; to reach him, call his mobile phone, and he'll send email to all employees when he is once again reachable via email. At a larger company, this type of message would be (select one) inappropriate, annoying, worthy of sending a reply asking for more caution when using the email system. At this company, the message is useful to at least half the employees, maybe more. I love working in a small company.
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