Please watch this

Overall, I've fallen out of love with Oprah. She's at times a caricature of herself, and sometimes her show leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Today was not one of those days.

Here in Eugene, her daily show repeats at 8:00 p.m. Tonight there wasn't much else on, so I tuned in. The first segment was on a lovely young woman and her battle with cancer (which she is winning without chemo). This caught my attention, so I started watching. Very interesting.

Then they brought out Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon. He reprised part of his final lecture at C-M, which is an actual final lecture since he is dying of pancreatic cancer. I was moved to tears, and I don't cry that easily. They weren't maudlin, sad tears, but tears of admiration and...I don't know, maybe you could call it joy. His talk is moving and inspirational, and I urge you to watch at least this segment of Oprah's show. Click on the link about halfway down the page to start the video.

Evidently his full lecture is almost two hours, and is available here. I plan on watching this as well.

Seriously, watch this. You won't regret it.

Today's Second Favorite Video

A coworker was referring to giving someone the "beef and cheese" routine today, so I had to go look this up. It's awesome.

I'll be using the phrase Throne of Lies liberally as well.

I hate parades, but for this one I make an exception

Most parades are completely boring, in my book. There's the usual assortment of dignitaries in nice old cars, marching bands, maybe a few horses if you're lucky. I like the old cars (and the horses, of course) but most of it's just a little too Norman Rockwell for me, if you know what I mean.

That's where Eugene is, once again, delightfully different. Every September The Eugene Celebration comes along, and that's when the Eugene Celebration Parade takes place. It starts pretty early for a Saturday morning, 9:30, but it's worth dragging your butt out of bed.

This year we missed the first few minutes, but what we saw was great for the most part, and Michael took lots of photos. Here are a few of my favorites:

(NOTE: Blogger is being totally retarded and limiting the width of these photos, so that they're all the same. That's why half of them are cut off. I'm working on a fix.)



WWII Veteran in uniform with "Veterans for Peace"



Another guy with Veterans for Peace




Not totally sure what this was all about...



This woman could shake her money maker while walking down the street. Amazing!



Here's Susan's favorite, Jesus Guy.



They had all these over-ninety ladies in wheelchairs, and they were SO CUTE! So full of life.



Real horsepower.



Totally human-powered!



A year-round favorite of mine...



Originally built for Burning Man, it's always where the action is in Eugene. We know about half the people riding on top.



1967 Mustang. About the most perfect paint job I've ever seen. Talked to the owner for quite a while, he's a real character.



1941 Cadillac. I believe my dad owned one of these back in the day...



Here's some REAL grillz for you, Gracelet!



How about that.



THIS is the money shot. I took this one, and I'm quite proud of it. Chevy Bel Air, I believe it's a '57

The Neighborhood Mechanic Hall of Shame, Installment 1

This afternoon I just happened to glance over at the neighbors kitty-corner from our place. Now I knew all along they were a stellar group of Mensa types, but check out the creative technique they've developed for working on their pickemup truck (one of about five that hang around there all the time):




Ah, nothing like a Sunday afternoon in the 'hood.

It's not Walden, but it's mine!

It's been at least three years since a friend of ours gave us one of those preformed pond liner things that he wasn't going to use. It's been lying around supplying mosquito and slug habitat most of the time, since we couldn't see putting all that work into a rental property. But it's become clear over time that we won't be buying a house anytime soon. And if I'm not moving into a house, I'm not moving. We have the best landlords on the planet, I like the location (except for the neighbors, see prior entries for details), and it's cheap. So this year, I decided to put in the pond. I didn't get any totally "before" shots, but here's a couple of "in progress" shots. We put in a pump and small fountain setup a few days ago, and put in some plants today. I love it so far!

It's been longer than I thought

It's been so damned long since I wrote anything on here, I didn't even realize that Blogspot had gone to the Google Side.

I still don't have anything relevant to say right now, but I wanted to pimp this dude's blog

This guy is so good, I may not even try anymore.

Why I'm not doing more web design

When I went back to school six years ago, I really wanted to be a web designer. As it's turned out, I'm not doing it for a living, so I piddle around with my own site, and try to help others with theirs. But having been burned a couple of times, I'm feeling the urge to rant.

Let me tell you about my recent experience with web design. A few months ago a friend approached me to help her out with a pro-bono project for a woman she met last summer. This woman is a former peace activist in her late sixties, lives very simply on about $400/month (or so she says), and makes jewelry from recycled items. My friend designed a logo for her and agreed to to all the print work, could I do the web design. Sounds like a great and worthwhile cause, right?

Well, after we meet and I tell her I can have a minimal, bare-bones page up in a couple of weeks, she starts hounding me: When are you going to get the rest of the pages done? When will there be images up? I don't have a CD burner, will you come up to my house out in bum-f*ck Egypt and get the files? Can I call you at work every day and talk for 20 minutes? What's taking so long, all you have to do is post the images, why is it taking so long? It would be so much easier if you'd drive 30 miles to my house... You get the picture.

No, I wasn't cranking things out in record time, but A) I work full time in front of a computer all day, B) she said she was not in any hurry, and C) just because it's on a computer doesn't mean you just push a button. I was having to edit some really bad photos (which she kept complaining about, saying things were upside down or sideways. How the hell was I supposed to know?) and it takes time.

I cut her loose, and she was flabbergasted. She just does NOT understand, she's been SO grateful for all my help, what is the problem? And she is still calling my friend, asking her to print up business cards. On her employer's equipment. With no compensation, of course.

A few months later, another acquaintance approaches me about building a site for him. He's a very talented comic-book artist/author. Says he wants to pay me, doesn't have much now, I say no problem! when you get rich and famous I'll send you a bill.

He sends me a really well prepared layout of how he wants things to look. I build him a basic structure with a template, several pages, rollover buttons, spent god knows how many hours on it. Wait for feedback. It's fabulous, MARVELOUS, he could not be more pleased. OK, send me some images. Nothing happens. Time goes by.

Suddenly it's time to get busy. Gotta have something done this fall in time for a big show up in Portland. Where are you? Answer me! did you get the images I sent you? No, I didn't, could you resend them? No answer. I write again, hey, what's happening, images? Are you alive? No answer.

Finally last week I wrote a rather terse note asking if he was indeed still alive, as I'd like to clean up my hard drive and erase the files if they're not needed. Aha! an answer. No, sorry, I got someone else to do a much fancier site for me, sorry I didn't let you know.

So tell me, am I just having a string of bad luck here, or should I abandon all hope of doing favors for friends and keeping my sanity?