Running Late

Been running busy these last few days.  Started a new project, which involves travel, etc.  Always fun. Of course, when you're getting things started, the last thing you think about is writing a blog entry.

Lots of odd things floating about in the back of my mind, and I'm debating what & when to write.

But, right now, it's late, and I'm tired.  Time to get some sleep, then come back it all tomorrow.

Turnabout

Just seemed the thing to do this morning...

This is going to be one of those days where I have far too much to do, and nothing will get done...

Wiling away

Another night of having big plans for writing, but not much coming of it...

It's been both a good day and a bad day.  A bad day as I haven't really felt up to speed (though I thankfully felt better than the night before), and a good day as a new project has come up.  I'll thus be back to work soon.  It will be great to see where that leads.

All of this has left in that sort of zen-space I occasionally fall into, the sort of "what-does-it-all-mean"-lite feeling.  I never really come up with answers during these little mental drift-offs.  But, then, I'm not putting much effort into coming up with anything anyway...

So, I'm ending my evening, having watched every "DVD Extra" feature on the "Two-Disk Special Edition" of Quantum of Solace.  (There's deep philosophy for you.)  Stack of Montegrappa pens beside me, obviously unused.  The nice, black Rhodia pad, unopened...

And a sudden mad desire to fly to Bregenz, and watch opera by the lake.  (Though not Tosca, please...)

I REALLY think it's time to go to bed....

Neil Armstrong

I completely forgot to put up a note on the passing of Neil Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) yesterday.  A very true American hero, and great loss to the nation, and the world.

Today, it seems we almost want to forget the heroic achievements of the Space Race.  But, for all the Cold War trappings, the Moon Landings do constitute one of the highest achievements of humanity.  Something we should strive for again.  Something that humanity, as a whole, should strive for.

Wouldn't that be a fitting tribute to Neil Armstrong's legacy?

Stress and Relief

It's been one of those days/nights.

A lot of traveling during the day has kept me from doing much online.  Then, this evening, the Internet service went down.  I am always amazed at how addicted we have become to this online world.

I was going to try to do something vaguely intelligent here tonight, but I'd simply drained.  I just spent the last hour or so fighting with one of my two remaining Windows systems.  I keep a fairly well-known internet security package running on that system, and it decided to crash prompted after doing an upgrade.  Therein followed entirely too much time wasted trying to troubleshoot on the system.  After that, entirely too much time wasted on trying to access the company's website, followed by not being able to find anything even vaguely like a decent trouble shooting system on the site...

I finally ended up deleting the entire cursed thing from the system, which then lead to me having to re-download it from the website, which lead to login problems, etc. etc.  Ad Nauseum, Ad Infinitum.

After much creative language usage, and threats to study the aerodynamics of a Toshiba laptop, the program is reinstalled.  I will say no more.

This is why I don't use Windows for anything important anymore.

The sad thing, about the only thing I use this system for anymore is to fiddle an Amiga emulator package I got not long ago.  I never got to play with the Amiga system back in the day, so I thought I'd give it a try now.  Of course, the emulator package seems to be mainly oriented towards games, though it does come with some cool stuff.  Including a copy of the very intriguing AmiKit package, which includes some nifty programs.  I find in most interesting to be browsing the web from inside a virtual computer system.

Right now I've got the emulator running various demos from its demoscene collection.  Some amazing stuff, considering most of these things were programmed a couple decades back.  Fascinating to watch, even relaxing at time...

How strange, though.  The machine itself is so stressful, yet the machine existing virtually within the machine is so...  opposite...

Old Tech

I suppose the name says it all.  And any old MacHead will immediately recognize the model, the Powerbook G3 "FireWire", AKA the "Pismo."  One of the great old warhorses of the powerbook line.
It was reading about the Pismo that actually pushed me over the edge into "accumulating" these old machines.

My Pismo, running OS X Tiger, with iTunes up to play a CD this evening.

I'd originally intended to pull out my G3 Wallstreet and fiddle with it, but for one reason or another, the Pismo ended up out and charging up.  I haven't used it in ages, and that's a shame.

This was my second Mac, and the first I ever really opened up and did work on.  That's why this model is so well loved.  Just flip the keyboard clips, and you're into the guts of the machine.  No playing with screws or such.  Amazingly, I didn't dry the poor thing while just installing memory.  This was the first system I installed Classic on, where I learned to "bless" system folders...  Funny thing:  I spend more time with the Classic emulator running on this system. than anything else.  I should've just set it up to dual-boot, but I've never had a problem.

Writer Tamara Keel, in an article on the website Low End Mac described the G3 Wallstreet (ancestor of the Pismo) as looking "...businesslike, still modern in appearance, maybe even faintly menacing. The person using a computer that looks like this is obviously writing another New York Times bestseller, leveraging a corporate buyout, or hacking into a Russian aerospace company's mainframes in a Hollywood thriller."  The Pismo shares that same aura.  The jet-black, curvy case (leaner and sleeker than the Wallstreet) does make it seem like you should be breaking into that Russian aerospace company real soon now... 

I've got U2 playing right.  "Last Night on Earth."  Kind of fitting for this "faintly menacing" old friend of mine.

Now, time to go write that New York Times bestseller.........

Playing with Toys

I guess it's something we hold onto from childhood.  Some of us, anyway.

There are just times when I like playing with some toys.  Especially when I'm sort of down.  Maybe it's a distraction.  Maybe it's just raw materialism.  I don't know.  But I find it relaxing.

I collect fountain pens.  It's a more widespread hobby than most people realize.  Like all hobbies, it has it's ups and downs.  There are times when I walk away from it for varying periods.  I always seem to come back, though.

The nice thing about collecting pens is that they're usable.  In fact, I can use them every day in my line of work, where I'm often taking notes all day while researching titles.  It's a kind of little known fact that fountain pens are more comfortable to write with than your average ballpoints and rollerballs.  Granted, there is a learning curve to using them.  You don't hold them like a ballpoint, and you don't write as fast with them.  It slows you down, which (yes) is a good thing.

Three vintage pens.  (Top to Bottom) A Waterman Taperite, a Wahl-Eversharp Doric, and a Parker "Striped" Duofold.  The latter is a family pen, given me by a late uncle.

I collect both vintage and modern pens.  Vintage pens are, on the whole, usually cheaper to get and easier to fix up and maintain.  While some modern pens are excellent practical writers, others are meant more to be pocket jewelry than anything else.  (The Visconti Romanica pen I showed not long ago is about as far in that direction as I usually go.)  Vintage pens were, for the most part, meant to be practical, day-to-day writers.  After all, they were the writing tool of choice "back in the day."

A 1920s "red hard rubber" Wahl pen set, with it's distinctive "Greek Key" machined-turned engraving.

Vintage or modern, I enjoy writing with my pens.  I'm not a particular grand writer, and my handwriting is atrocious, but there is something about picking up and pen and putting it to paper...

However, much as I like the zen-calmness of my pens, I do also have to occasionally give some play time to my electronic toys.  I mentioned last time that I collect old Mac laptops.  And, like my pens, I take to both old and new.

A MacBook Pro, three Powerbooks, and a real book...

However, I definitely tend to lean on the side of vintage here.  I like my Apples, but I'll be the first to say that collecting new models is a wee bit rich for my blood.  Vintage can be both affordable (all my older Powerbooks came to me from eBay), and cool to use.  Believe me, firing up a G3 Pismo in the local coffee shop can still get you some looks.  (I once had a cable repair guy go rapturous when he saw my old Powerbook 3400c.  "I've never actually seen one before..!")

Start up MacWrite or NisusWriter under the old Classic Mac OS...  There's just something different about it...

But that's for another entry...