Blog Master G

It’s been one week to the day since I taught my first class. I’ve been meaning to write about it here, but kept forgetting to do so until now. In any case, I’ve added this about the class to my archives page. You see, Enoch teaches HTML classes for UC Berkeley Extension. He’s currently in the middle of an HTML II session and wanted to have a guest lecturer. So he asked me. Despite my lack of teaching experience (outside company presentations, management experience, informal computer tutorings, and camp counselor past), I happily agreed.

The day of the class, I was a nervous wreck. I put together a little guide to help me focus. The guide walks through the steps of creating a complex table. It ended up being a really cool experience, even though I was apparently teaching too fast. Once I got that feedback from the students, though, I stopped to walk around and offer guidance on an individual basis (Enoch and his TA also helped with that; how cool is it that Enoch has a TA?).

I like to teach. I don’t think of myself as much of an expert on anything, but I do like to share what knowledge I have.

Anna Quindlen has an excellent commentary in the April 21, 2003 issue of Newsweek: The Sounds of Silence. Whether you support the war in Iraq or not, I challenge you to provide a valid argument that justifies some of the disgusting behavior we’ve recently witnessed.

Americans are afraid to speak out against the war (save few courageous individuals like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore). This has got to stop. Our country’s foundation is built upon free speech and the right to criticize our leaders. Yet the Bush administration has succeeded in taking a country that was united (and even had the support of a world that sympathized with us) by the horror of 9/11 and divided us. And anyone who speaks out is chastized for being un-American or not supporting the troops. Our Constitutional rights are being put on the line in the name of this unending and ambiguous “War on Terror” that was put into full effect following the perfect excuse that 9/11 provided the Bush administration to charge ahead with its Project for the New American Century, which preaches some pretty scary rhetoric.

Quindlen puts it far more eloquently:

A lesson in American history: each time the United States becomes imperial, it betrays the very keystone upon which its greatness rests.
…
If, in the shadow of the unilateralist power niche the United States will occupy in the foreseeable future, its citizens are pressured by their government, their communities and their neighbors to speak with one cautious voice, we will have saved Iraq and damned ourselves. In a democratic society, the only treason is silence.

Another excellent and moving commentary is Tim Robbins’ April 15, 2003 speech to the National Press Club. Here are a couple snippets from it:

While the journalists’ outrage at the cancellation of our appearance in Cooperstown is not about my views, it is about my right to express these views. I am extremely grateful that there are those of you out there still with a fierce belief in constitutionally guaranteed rights. We need you, the press, now more than ever. This is a crucial moment for all of us.
…
In the 19 months since 9-11, we have seen our democracy compromised by fear and hatred. Basic inalienable rights, due process, the sanctity of the home have been quickly compromised in a climate of fear. A unified American public has grown bitterly divided, and a world population that had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue state.

So speak out. Do not be afraid. Do not be intimidated. Damn the silence.

Way back when I realized that a Google search for Vassar alum brought up the San Francisco Bay Area Vassar Club (of which I was once president/chair) as the number one search result. I also realized that the link on my home page was pointing to said site. So as a little experiment, I changed that link on my home page (Vassar alum) to point to my about page — to see how much influence my site was having on those results.

As it turns out, my influence was quite a bit. Guess which site now comes up as the number one result for a search of Vassar alum? Pretty cool. And funny. (SFBA Vassar Club has dropped toward the bottom of the first page of results.)

Jen and I have been talking about possibly getting Tivo. But maybe now we won’t have to, thanks to the beauty of open-source (free) software: Freevo. My home computer primarily runs Windows 2000, but I also have an instance of Red Hat Linux installed on it, so I can easily toggle between the two thanks to the BootMagic feature of PartitionMagic.

[via OnFocus]

Yet another reason to be jealous of anyone who works there: Google Daily Menus.

The bodies of a woman and a male fetus were discovered separately yesterday at the dog walkers’ hot spot Point Isabel in Richmond:

Bodies of fetus, woman found in bay / Cops investigating vanishing of Modesto woman called to site

There’s no evidence yet of a connection to Laci Peterson, who’s been missing since December, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

All I’ve got to say is that I’m glad Jen and I didn’t take the dogs to Point Isabel yesterday, as we often do.

And speaking of stomach-churning imagery, last night I was watching a show on the Discovery Health Channel called About Face: The Wonders of Facial Surgery. Few things can really disturb me or make me squirm. This show is one of them. I remember Ben and Jess having told me about this show. Yet no words can adequately describe the sensation of seeing a girl’s face literally draped back over her exposed skull while a surgeon pokes around in her eye sockets.

I hope you weren’t eating while reading that.

Something tells me that Ask Jeeves and Teoma are indexing the Web today. My logs have been swamped with huge spider crawls like the below all day long:

65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:22:06 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000109.php HTTP/1.0” 200 10890 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:22:43 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000302.php HTTP/1.0” 200 8765 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:23:19 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000119.php HTTP/1.0” 200 9303 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:23:58 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000290.php HTTP/1.0” 200 7958 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:24:38 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000110.php HTTP/1.0” 200 9911 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:25:14 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000115.php HTTP/1.0” 200 8072 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:25:50 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000014.php HTTP/1.0” 200 11672 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:26:26 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000108.php HTTP/1.0” 200 8113 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:27:06 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000303.php HTTP/1.0” 200 7843 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:27:43 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000288.php HTTP/1.0” 200 8158 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:28:21 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000111.php HTTP/1.0” 200 10061 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:28:57 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000118.php HTTP/1.0” 200 7897 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”
65.214.36.113 – – [14/Apr/2003:19:29:33 -0400] “GET /life/archives/000291.php HTTP/1.0” 200 8673 “-” “Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma)”

Friday night James came to town for the opening night of our weekend debauchery. Jen and I had been planning simply to do laundry. How wrong we were. Once James was on his way, we decided to stop by our local Andronico’s to buy some food for the weekend. There, we ran into some fellow Vassar alums (Agatha, Jessica, and Dennis). We didn’t know any of them too well, but Agatha and I worked on the Misc. together, and Jessica and I had an English class together way back when. They recognized me first, then they were immediately familiar to me. Small world. Cool to see fellow alums in the hood.

Back at the ranch with Jen and Enoch, I tapped the Grolsch 5-liter mini-keg to start the night off right. Ben and Jess came to join in the fun, and James eventually showed up. We hung out at the pad, drinking and chatting most of the night. We watched Bill Maher. The ladies played some cards. Shortly after busting out the ceremonial Manischewitz concord grape and new-to-us blackberry wine, James, Enoch, and I took the latter on the road and headed to to Milano’s for a midnight pizza. James and Milano himself chatted it up for a while. We had nearly kicked our bottle of blackberry by the time we returned home. The festivities continued until 4am that night. Party on.

Saturday we slept in until close to noon before waking up to ready ourselves for the 1st Annual Potrero Hill Chili Cookoff. After getting stuck and super-frustrated in the rainy day traffic around the Metreon (I fought the urge to jump out of my car), we eventually made it to the shindig. We hung out there for a couple hours and I caught up with some old friends and Headlight coworkers. We then packed it in and headed to de casa of Ben and Jess, where we sipped some wine and played some Vice City for a few hours.

Saturday night we headed back to the Inner Sunset hood and walked to Ebisu to put our names in for sushi (R. Rodriguez for 6). Jen and I discovered last weekend when Dan was in town that the place right across the street, Hotei, is under the same ownership and management as Ebisu, which, of course, means all the same great sushi at all the same prices for a better ambience with less of a wait. So we put in our name and would eventually eat there. As the waiting began, James, Ben, Enoch, and I snuck off to Yancy’s around the corner on Irving St. where we pounded a round of Guiness and Bass. The look on Enoch’s face was classic as he turned around with 3/4 of his Guiness remaining to find James, Ben, and me standing with our pint glasses empty mere seconds after ordering the round. The bartendress poked fun at us and some other older guys at the bar when she caught us all staring wide-eyed at Bring It On, the movie about high school cheerleaders that’s better than you might expect, on the bar TV.

We headed back to Hotei, where Jen and Jess stood in wait and tried not to get too mad at their respective men (Ben and I were lucky). So Ben and I took them back to Yancy’s for another round of drinks and Ms. Pac-Man while James and Enoch held down our place in line.

The sushi was delicious. We had a lot of fun.

We finished off the night by watching last week’s episode of Six Feet Under to get psyched for tonight’s episode.

Today has been a fittingly lazy day. Jen is off at her new book club in the Haight with Ben, and Enoch (who’s been staying with us for a couple weeks due to roommate complications) and I are kickin’ it at home with the pups. I got my email inbox down to about 15 messages and tweaked the back-end of my site’s home page to make it even more dynamic and flexible (rather than all the content on the page existing in one database record, the teaser or block for each section of my site now exists in a separate record and is assigned an ordinal — so that I can easily play around with the order (sort by date added, ordinal, title, etc.) without futzing around with the HTML content itself). Cool stuff, I think. The only disappointing part about today is that this super-fun weekend will soon come to an end and it’s back to work tomorrow.

(View all weekend photos)

How do you go from a record U.S. budget surplus ($236.4 billion in 2000) to a record deficit ($304.0 billion in 2003) in just 3 years? Have the Supreme Court put Bush in the White House.

[via bit.ch]

My Dad worked for the late Assemblyman John Williamson of Bakersfield in 1976. Williamson wrote the Williamson Act, which protects California farmland from suburban sprawl and shopping mall hell. On Friday the Chronicle wrote an editorial (Preserve farmland) arguing against Gov. Davis’ “proposal to eliminate the funds the state pays to counties under the act.” Shame on you, Gray. My Dad was consulted by a Chronicle editor for the research. Go, Dad.