| 2-1-03
The space shuttle blew up again
today. Sue wakes up early and heard the news first as she
always does. She couldn't wait until someone got up so she
could share the grim story. It doesn't seem as shocking as
the first one back in '85. The Challenger disaster made us
all intimately aware of how dangerous the frontier of our
world can be. Yet explore we must, and there have always been
volunteers...people who wouldn't have it any other way. We
all benefit from their discoveries, but they pay the ultimate
price alone when things go wrong.
The TV people seemed at a loss for good
film footage. 17 years ago they had those unforgettable tapes
we all saw over and over. This time around with the shuttle
at 200,000 feet the footage won't sell nearly as many commercials.
I feel bad for the families of the brave men and women whose
lives were lost today. Sue also tells me that 17 people died
in an avalanche in Alberta.
As for me, I spent the day in PowerPoint
and Photoshop building a lesson plan for my Presentation Class.
I created a 10 slide tutorial on making an animated gif in
ImageReady. They have to make their own tutorial, and what
better way than for the teacher to demonstrate the process?
It turned out very nice. Now I can take tomorrow off...maybe
even have some fun.
1-28-03
Spent a few hours in a TV studio
yesterday. I had been asked to demonstrate Flash for an educational
TV station. I've never been in front of a video camera before.
Well, there was that time when I was speeding out in Yelm
and got a polite letter from the State Patrol...just kidding.
They had 3 huge cameras, a stage manager pointing my eyes
toward the current active camera, 2 camera operators, a director
behind a glass wall, headsets for everybody and more lights
on the ceiling than I could count.
Under the spotlights it was just me
and my little laptop hooked up to a video feed. I suppose
they will merge the footage of my tired old visage with the
mouse wandering around in Flash. I looked terrible on the
screen. Every hour of unpaid overtime I've put in over the
last few months was etched on my face in ugly wrinkles.
Sheesh. Maybe I'm being overly critical.
The producer/director said I did great after the first 5 minutes
of what will probably be edited down to around a half hour
program. As I commented to her afterwards, I love Flash, and
it probably showed on camera. She agreed readily and said
she thought it would turn out great. There were a couple times
when I got that WOW effect, and my face lit up in a smile.
I truly enjoy this field, despite earning half what I used
to make as a pressman.
My fingers are still sore from playing the
guitar yesterday. I've not picked up my Martin D-28 in 6 months.
I even had my harmonica brace on, banging away at a Neil Young
song; a two instrument, one man band. Sue locked herself in
the bedroom so she wouldn't have to listen. Lisa surprised
me. She found reasons to linger at the kitchen table where
I was playing, not quite tapping her foot, but tinkering with
a bowl of soup, and unobtrusively watching her crusty old
dad.
It helped that she and her friends
listen to oldies now and then, and she recognized "Stairway
to Heaven" and "Your Song" (Elton John). I
played all the time when the kids were little. They used to
run around the kitchen table screaming like baboons when I
got to the chorus in "Stairway to Heaven". I can
still see them cavorting around, doing furious air guitar
as I pounded through the chords: A minor, G and F. Handmade
music is a wonderful thing, I'm thinking I may pick it up
again. Besides, I need to get bifocals, and my optometrist's
husband is my old jamming buddy from high school. If I can
build up my finger picking calluses, I can get my eyes checked
and have a jam session the same night.
1-21-03
Enya sings her soft songs on
my stereo as I work here in the empty house. I am spending
a couple days in Flash, building pretty things and making
them move. I've decided to teach my class the ripple
effect . Not only do I enjoy the artistic possibilities
inherent in Flash, but I also like building the tutorials
that explain the process. I'm not sure why....I haven't put
a lot of serious thought into why I like teaching design.
Mom was a teacher, as are many people in my family. Perhaps
it's just that kind people enjoy sharing knowledge. I like
to think of myself as kind....my wife might argue that point,
and with reason. But that is more due to the bad economy and
my having to work too many hours at near poverty wages. It
does wear one down.
Still, at least I do get to make pretty
things for money, and it's (sort of) not swing shift. Swing
shift was the only reason I got out of printing. I got to
make pretty things in printing too, but I hated the hours.
Now I hate these hours...maybe I just dislike working in general.
I need to persuade Sue to get a good job making the big bucks
in a hospital somewhere so I can stay home and watch Oprah
everyday. Sell all my computer stuff and buy a big screen
TV and a satellite dish. That'd be living!
1-19-03
Spent a long time in notepad
today. I usually avoid notepad, preferring the soft armchair
feel of Dreamweaver. I was forced into notepad by Dreamweaver's
iron hand control over the template function. I have a client
using one of my custom made templates for a website. I sold
them on the idea by stating that they could edit and upload
their own content, and that Dreamweaver's template function
would keep them from breaking anything serious.
Everything went fine until the client
tried to "save as" and create a new page. By opening
the template page in an older version of Dreamweaver and ignoring
the "site" dialog box, they were able to get editable
access to the supposedly non-editable code. I think Murphy's
law applies here. By the time I arrived on the scene, the
code was in la la land, the template was totally destroyed,
the server was down and it was due to be launched immediately.
I was able re-write the page...in
notepad, find a back door into the server and launch it...at
9 PM. Getting the template back in useable condition took
a full day. I kept thinking I could salvage it, but Dreamweaver
is very particular about templates. Once one is corrupted,
forget it. I eventually stripped all the "instance"
tags out, saved the html page as a new template and re-created
the editable areas, then created a new html page from the
template with intact, working editable areas.
To prevent a reoccurrence, I've typed
out explicit directions which may...I repeat...may allow the
client to successfully launch a page. It should work. It could
work, but a lot depends on my client's ability to follow directions,
and my ability to give them clearly.
On a brighter note, my presentation students
shocked the heck out of me. They gave some gorgeous presentations
Friday. I think I've got a high percentage of over achievers.
I love classes like this. We are going to do some very fine
work indeed. I've started a new drawing out in the garage.
I've switched to a different crystal wine glass this time.
I dropped the marble, kept the sheet and added my lead duck,
which I've only painted once before. It'll be nice to get
a new drawing going.
1-13-03
My workaholic nature is biting
me in the rear. Between teaching and freelancing, my weekends
have disappeared. I've said yes to any project that appeared
to pay, with the result that I work 24/7. I am trapped in
a cage of my own making. We've been having a lot of problems
with the network at school, which is making some of my projects
3 times as hard. While I am settling in to my 4 classes this
quarter, I only get one day off a week.  True,
two of my days are only half days, but by the time I drive
in here, teach, answer questions from assorted students and
staff, talk to my contacts in administration about the ongoing
freelance work, it's a full day.
Since I was here today, and all my
emails had been emailed, all my students taught, I figured
I could settle in to prepare for Wednesdays Flash class. When
I opened the program, and started pressing buttons, my attention
span lasted 15 minutes before I found myself dozing off at
the keyboard.
1-9-03
Taught a class in Dreamweaver
tonight. I've used the software every day for the last 3 years,
sometimes as much as 12 hours a day, other days only an hour
or two. Still, I probably use Dreamweaver more than most people
use Word.
I'd forgotten the magic of that first
moment when you see your web site on the internet. As my students
finished the last step, and saw their words appear on their
web pages, I heard the laughter and quiet appreciation in
their voices. It was thumbs up and grins all around.
I can remember putting my first page
up in early 1997. There is something fun about seeing your
work on the internet. Writing html is very much like writing
a pretty Word document without Word. Imagine if Word had never
been invented. What if there was a fancy programming language
that would make a story in text and pictures appear on screen
as pretty, or prettier than Word can do it....but Word didn't
exist. That's html at it's best.
I tried to de-mystify the Internet
tonight for my beginning Dreamweaver students. While high
end html is not an easy learn, low tech web pages can still
be put on the internet by total beginners, as long as they
follow some simple steps carefully and use a quality program
like Dreamweaver.
What will be interesting is when they
realize that they can put simple pages up without much difficulty,
but getting the high end look takes much time and study. A
few will have the perseverance and curiosity to plow ahead.
Pushing buttons randomly in Dreamweaver will cause code chaos.
I have to teach them just a few simple tags: the p, h1, h2,
b, i, and li tags. And then they may need to learn a little
about tables, although Dreamweaver does tables better than
we can.
1-7-03
The new quarter started last
week and I've been buried in lesson plans. Three of my classes
are subjects I've taught before, which eases the lesson plan
crunch. The fourth class is a new subject for me as far as
teaching, however, I know the software well, and understand
the concepts. I'm excited about teaching intermediate Flash
again. Flash is one of my favorite programs. Make stuff pretty,
then make it move. It doesn't get much better than that on
a computer.
Went for a bike ride on Sunday with
Sue. I had to work right through the weekend on my lesson
plans. The bike ride was about my only break...I'm not counting
showing Clint how to change the oil and headlight in the car,
since that seems like work. She was in a great mood on the
ride, which was surprising considering how grumpy I'd been
all weekend, snapping at everybody whenever they needed my
help. I can imagine my daughter on the phone to her friends,
"Oh sure, like, Dad's home, but he's at his desk in
the office, which, like, happens to be next to the couch in
the living room and he's soooo bitchy! He won't even let us,
like, turn on the TV".
Things could be much worse, I could
still be on unemployment, or working swing in a print shop,
hating life and seeing the family on the weekends when I woke
up at noon. Mom always says look on the bright side. I do
get to make pretty things with software, and have even done
quite a bit of drawing lately. Helping the students who want
to learn can be rewarding, although I'm still searching for
a way to get through to the ones with baggage.
I heard a funny quote via a friend
of mine: RL, at school. He attributed it to Steven Seagall
who said: " Instead of getting married, I'm just going
to find a woman I can't stand, and give her a house..."
1-1-03
Skied at Crystal yesterday with
Sue, Lisa, Mark H and his son. It was our first trip up there
in 18 years. The fact that Clint is 17 years old is mere coincidence.
Contributing factors in our absence from the star of Washington's
ski areas are the astronomical rise of left tickets while
my income made an astronomical drop. Up until I changed careers
3 years ago we used to ski at Snoqualmie once or twice a year,
sometimes more. Snoqualmie's lift tickets have caught up with
Crystals: $42 versus $44, so there was no point in avoiding
Crystal anymore.
I'd forgotten how much fun downhill skiing
is. There is something mindlessly pleasing about cruising
down the slopes with nothing on your mind but the grace in
your body and the beauty of the day. It was Lisa's first day
on Downhill skis. She has Cross Country skied since she was
3 but had never tried downhill skiing with real downhill gear.
She's ridden the lifts a dozen times, but always on cross
country skis. This year Sue splurged on a used pair of downhill
skis and boots for Lisa at a ski swap in Olympia. Lisa took
to it quickly, carving careful stem christies down the beginner
slopes.
I telemarked for a few runs until
my knees gave out then switched to my downhill skis. They
are a pair of 24 year old Hexcels, state of the art in their
day, mounted with 1981 Ramer bindings (now called Randonee
bindings) and notable for the fact that the heel can be either
locked down or free to lift, for climbing with skins. Despite
the novelty of my skis, it's my ski pole baskets that attract
attention wherever I go.
If you've ever seen 80 year old ski
poles hanging above someone's fireplace, you've seen my baskets.
The ones above your friends fireplace are made of bamboo and
leather. Sue actually skied with a pair of those poles for
6 years until they broke and retired to the attic somewhere.
I always envied her those poles for the huge powder baskets.
Those baskets were made before the days of groomed slopes.
On a good day at Paradise, Mt. Rainier, even those monstrous
baskets would sink 6 inches into the bottomless powder.
When they broke on a trip to Mt. Bachelor
in our vintage pre-children days, Sue wanted something to
replace them. I looked around and couldn't find anything even
close. After a lot of thought I decided to make them from
scratch, patterned after the ice ax baskets that used to be
made by Sherpa, the famous snowshoe company. They look similar
to the old bamboo and leather ones, except that I don't use
any bamboo or leather. I use a hand bent metal loop for the
7 inch ring and a 3 inch aluminum plate for the inner disk
that mounts onto the pole. In between I have a donut shaped
piece of neoprene which is laced to the ring and the disk
with neoprene lacing...think snowshoes.
I got so much attention skiing with these
that I put them on the market for a few years back in the
early eighties. After selling about 6 pairs at $50 apiece,
I decided there wasn't enough profit in them to justify my
time. Now, I just make them for us as they wear out. A pair
of my baskets lasts about 10 years in heavy use. I'm proud
of them, despite the constant stream of comments they cause
when I ride the lifts.
Here are a few comments and questions, with my usual response:
- Wow, look at those baskets! Why are they so big?
- I dunno, they used to be normal sized, but I skied
in the rain one day and they swelled up
- What are those things on the end of your poles?
- Radar disks, there's a wire that runs up to my goggles
where I have a heads up display. Lets me see in a whiteout
- Dude, those things should be in a museum, what are you
skiing with them for?
- Actually I made them for backcountry skiing, they just
look like the antique kind
- Why do they spin like that?
- I dunno, why does the sun come up in the morning
- I want a pair of those, where can I get them?
- you can't, I made these myself, and they are too expensive
to sell
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