Letters From Home

Last night I finally got around to watching the most recent episode of “American Chopper.” They made a bike for a company called McCuff. Now, most of the time OCC makes a bike for someone it’s either a company I never heard of, or a company that only minimally impinges on my consciousness.

McCuff, though, I am way ahead of the game!

I read an ad for their product in a motorcycle magazine when I was still working at the library, and when my daughter was still living in Irvine–so, that’s prior to June 2004. At that time, the company that made the McCuff had an address not far from where my daughter lived. So, besides the fact that it looked like a very practical product and ideal for a scooter riding klutz like me, it was kind of a home town deal. So I bought one.

What’s a McCuff? A little yellow donut shaped piece of rubber that keeps you from pouring gasoline all over your scooter or motorcycle when you fill the tank. That may not mean much to the average person, but believe me, I poured enough gas on the Vespa to make this the purchase of a lifetime.

If you want one, you can get it here.

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My 40th high school reunion is coming up in a few weeks (yes, I am that old). I’ve been trying to figure out what to pack, and it’s taking me a surprisingly long time to get my act together.

I know what I’ll wear to travel in, that’s not a problem. But there’s an informal get-together the day after I arrive (which needs its own outfit) and then the next evening is the more formal wingding (which needs a dressier outfit, as opposed to the casual clothing I’ll wear during the earlier part of the day). Then I have one day to just kick back with my friends and do whatever we think of doing, so that’s another outfit, and then I need travel clothing to go home.

So I figure probably two pairs of jeans, one pair of nice slacks, four t-shirts, two nice shirts, appropriate amounts of underwear and sleepwear and socks, at the very least. Should I take a sweater or wrap? Who knows. The weather there is vastly different from what it is here and even my friends don’t know the answer to that. And what kind of shoes? Probably my Crocs to fly in, and my huaraches for the rest of the time, but what about sneakers? Dunno.

And of course this will be my first trip as an insulin-using diabetic, and that adds on its own levels of complexity. I bought a case to hold the supplies and a Frio cooler pack for the insulin.

I bought a larger purse from the Travelsmith catalog, and dug up a leather eyeglass case from the Levengers catalog that I haven’t used in quite a while, to hold my sunglasses and my bifocals.

And then there’s the iPod for the trip, and maybe a paperback book or two (although I’ve got some really long audiobooks on the iPod as well) and assorted snacks because the airlines don’t feed people any more. And my CPAP machine in its bag has to go too.

I think I’m going to get more exercise schlepping my bags through the airport than I’ve gotten in three days at the gym.

But I’m still looking forward to it!

photo credit: wbskeet37

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I always like to try new things… well, most of the time. Right now, having fallen for the hype about ScribeFire, I’m trying to get it to post.

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Yeah, I know.  I haven’t written doodly-squat for weeks.  I’ve been trying to figure out travel arrangements to my mom’s
memorial, going to class, doing the usual rounds of errands…  you know, the same old litany of really good excuses. 

I’ve got a couple posts that I’m working on but they’re not ready for prime time yet.  So in the meantime, you can find a tangible link to one small accomplishment this week–a link to my items up for bids on eBay.  Woo hoo!  Click on the eBay link to your left and see what’s come out of infmom’s collection this time around.

photo credit: abernmf

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I’m experimenting with yet more changes for the format of my blogs. This is as good a place to try stuff out as any.

If you have a gravatar, it will now show up beside your posts. Mine is the logo I created for myself 40+ years ago to sign my artwork. It serves as the favicon for this site, too.

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I’m a command-line kinda computer user.  Always felt that the point-and-click interface was rather like taking a shower in a raincoat, and got in the way of efficiently getting work done.  I stuck with DOS up till very recent times, precisely because you could Get Things Done with it.   Alas, my favorite word processor (Word 5.0 for DOS) ended up with severe Y2K issues, and CompuServe went to a brain-dead system that wouldn’t allow for automated access any more.  So the best of the best DOS software wasn’t enough any more and I had to start using Windows.

Bleah.

It’s odd, then, that I didn’t take to Linux sooner than I did.  It has a wonderfully efficient command-line interface in addition to its GUI overlay, and the commands themselves are logical once you learn the language.   It’s my kinda stuff.  But Linux is the tenth operating system I’ve learned and I guess I thought my poor old brain would leak if I tried it.  So I didn’t experiment with it at all until very recently.

My daughter kindly gave me her HP Pavilion laptop when she got a newer one, and finally I got annoyed enough at Windows XP Home (on that computer–won’t sully another one with XP of any variety) that it dawned on me that it would be a good time to work with Linux a bit more.  We’d put Ubuntu on the server, and I’d fiddled with that a bit, so I installed that on the HP dual-booted with XP.

But it was slooooooooooooooooooow.  I don’t really know why, either, since the laptop is in no way underpowered.  And I wasn’t thrilled with the burnt-orange color scheme, either, to be honest.  So when I saw a mention of Xubuntu on the Lifehacker site, I decided to give that a try instead.

I like it, so far.  It seems to run faster, the blue color scheme is better (yeah, I know, I could have changed the other one but I didn’t) and the sheer joy of logical software with a whole universe of free apps is still very much apparent.  I could definitely get to like this stuff.

Unfortunately I can’t dump XP completely because there are some apps that won’t play nice with Windows 2000 (yes, I’m looking at YOU, Amazon music downloader) but I can assign XP to as small a partition as I think I can get away with, and have the laptop boot into Xubuntu.  Thus, I will learn more.  I will be the Queen of the Command Line once again!
photo credit: coxy

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I put the tag-cloud widget into my sidebar here to remind me that most of my tags are junk. That’s what happens when you’re slow to grasp the concept.

I found a good tag-editing plugin, and will be wending my way through the tag (thunder)cloud trying to remove junk, consolidate, and generally make the tags mean something. I’m working on this blog first to get the hang of it, and then I’ll tackle my other blog which needs a revision more. I hope by the time I get to it I’ve got the game plan figured out! (the IGNORANCE tag is the biggest not only because it’s the most used.)

photo credit: double-h

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There were a couple of things about this theme that I didn’t pay attention to when I installed it. However, I was smart enough to ask my eagle-eyed (and very web-savvy) daughter to take a look at it, and she spotted something that I had missed. Links came out way too close to the regular text color to be readily visible.

Fortunately, the theme’s creator has a very helpful web site, and after some experimentation with various colors I got the links to stand out better. And I changed some of the other colors to be more harmonious as well.

And then I noticed that I could use my own custom header graphic instead of the one the creator supplied, and that opened up a lot of possibilities. The current graphic is the result of much experimentation and color-fiddling, plus my daughter’s advice on the look of the background.

I kinda like it, but then again, after all that work with Photoshop Elements, one would hope so.

I may change the typewriter graphic to something else, eventually, but for now I think it fits.

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My book arrived yesterday. It is amazing.

I had never seen the photo of the supermodels on which the cover is based, so I did a Google image search and found it. You can see it here, among other places (copyrighted image by photographer Herb Ritts). Those poor things look so scrawny and apprehensive and freezing cold. Just compare that to the photo of the relaxed, confident, anything-but-cold women on the cover of the book.

I think my favorite photo inside is the one on page 91, which was inspired by Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase.” Nimoy’s photo (protected by copyright, so I can’t reproduce it here, but that’s all the more reason for you guys to go find the book) shows a group of beautiful women having fun.

In fact, all the photos show beautiful women having fun.

Anyone who has looked at standard-issue nude photos and who has come to the conclusion that a lot of women have pretty near exactly the same shape should look at this unique group of nudes. No two are alike, and that’s how it should be.

I’m so glad I watched the Colbert Report the night Leonard Nimoy talked about this book!

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I just saw Leonard Nimoy on the Colbert Report talking about his new book.  I am bound for Amazon to order a copy.

No matter what Colbert says, I don’t think Nimoy should have included nudie photos of himself as well.

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