Mile Zero

June 28, 2010

I woke up this morning to hear that Robert Byrd had died, and that I needed to fix the timeline we had made of his life. As I logged into the VPN, the screen went oddly pink and blue, like Doom's old Hall of Mirrors effect if you cheated your way out of a valid sector. Then it went black, and then it refused to boot to anything but an external monitor in Psychedelic Snow VGA Mode. The video card, it would seem, is fried. Luckily, I'm just barely within the three-year extended service plan (good until August!), so Lenovo is sending a box and will fix it for no extra cost. But I'll be without hardware for probably three to five days.

I've been on a vaguely weekly schedule here for a while now, so I figure going quite for another week won't shock anyone too much. I had planned, starting today or tomorrow, to write my one-year look back at b-boying, but it looks like that will have to wait. I'll also have to hold off on playing through more of Planescape: Torment, which is too bad since it was just starting to get pretty good, and I'm looking forward to rambling a little on its relationship with death and meta-gaming when I get a chance. And finally, I hope I've gotten the database bugs straightened out on NPR's client now, because it'll be a lot harder to debug and fix them on my lunch hour at work. Still, it's not all bad: forced breaks like this are no doubt good for my tendonitis, and maybe it'll give me some extra incentive to drill footwork for Crafty Bastards if the heat lets up. Here's to a productive week, and a speedy return of my soon-to-be-repaired Thinkpad.

December 28, 2009

Happy holidays! Between festivities and the blizzard, it's been almost two weeks since I wrote here, but posting has been slow for several months anyway. The main reason is that I've been increasingly busy at CQ as the new Multimedia Team Leader since the end of November. As such, I'm responsible for directing the team's choice of technology, projects, and long-term strategy. It's a nice step forward for me professionally, but it eats up a lot of time and mindshare that might have normally gone into blogging.

I don't believe, as many journalism-watchers do, that print is dead. On the contrary, I think it's possible to argue that print retains an audience capable of supporting newspapers, just not at the same elevated level of profit that was once routine for the industry. But as someone who self-identifies as a "new media" journalist, my primary focus is the organizational transition toward a print-online hybrid journalism, with the eventual goal of moving entirely online as print inevitably becomes untenable. The Multimedia Team Leader is an opportunity for me to more directly play a role in that process, one that I'm sure will prove both frustrating and exciting in turn.

As for Mile Zero, rather than beating myself up over the frequency of updates, I'm going to a more relaxed schedule--slightly meatier posts once or twice a week, hopefully. I'm also going to try tweaking the subject matter a bit--I feel like it's gotten a bit review-ish lately, and that's not a place I really want to be. Anyway, pardon the digression, and thanks for reading. Here's to 2010!

December 2, 2009

Gone to San Francisco. Back next week.

April 6, 2009

Although I reserve the right to change plans at any time, both writing and commenting will probably be thin this week. I'm trying cut down on the amount of extra typing at the moment, as well as temporarily giving up use of the XBox and my musical equipment, since I've been feeling the twinges that herald the return of repetitive stress injury. As a writer, coder, bassist, and gamer, RSI is something that I've come to know fairly well. And after working with sufferers in a data-input center, I have no desire to aggravate my symptoms. I'd urge anyone here who suspects that they might be in a similar situation to be very, very careful: you only get one set of hands, after all.

Like I said, at the moment my recovery strategy consists of avoiding activities which aggravate my joints whenever possible. I also habitually use a trackball at work, which I find is slightly easier on my wrists, and I'm trying to take advantage of Vista's voice command app to do my computing at home. Feel free to suggest other helpful measures in the comments.

Update: Hands and wrists still hurting. Picked up an ergonomic mouse, made a doctor's appointment on Thursday, still trying to stay away from keyboards/basses/video games, but unable to avoid work at this time. Actually kind of enjoying the lack of blogging, although that won't last.

December 15, 2008

Last week was busy--almost too busy. Here's what I was doing, since I obviously wasn't writing here:

• My portfolio site hadn't been updated since I joined CQ, a little more than a year ago, so I took the time this weekend to get it caught up. There are three main changes. First, I added a multimedia section (between "code" and "audio," which seemed appropriate) to contain a lot of the projects I've been doing for CQ. I haven't gotten them all in yet, but it's a start. Second, I changed the non-prose sections to use Blosxom flavors instead of static pages, so they can be changed dynamically. Finally, I played with the CSS so that it's a bit more attractive. The page still remains very simple, but it looks a bit more "designed" now, like I meant it to be that way instead of just being lazy.
• Today the Treasury will release its annual Financial Report of the US Government. It's expected that this report, just as in 2007, will predict that the government's national debt situation is unsustainable, and needs to be fixed. Working with our graphic staff and the editor of CQ Budget Tracker, I put together a multimedia package that complements the editor's story on the debt. You can browse the package here. It includes a video introduction to the package, a podcast explainer of the problem, a reprint of the current budget numbers in both text and graphic form, and a short sidebar on the history of the national debt. Although this took up most of Thursday and Friday, plus some editing on Saturday, I think it turned out very well.
• I also updated the numbers on the CQ vote studies, so that we now have final 2008 numbers for the House and Senate. Unfortunately, these are embargoed for the public until next week, but they're pretty wonky anyway, and practically speaking nothing has changed since the last set.
• Volunteer service has never been a strong point of mine, but I began adapting what I've learned at CQ and the Bank about multimedia presentation to some training materials for the non-profit where Belle works, and I'll be donating some time to them over the next few months. I think it'll be a fun shift in topic for me.
• I played the open mike at Stacy's coffee shop again with a friend. The open mike itself is going through a dry period, so I've been playing there all this month, doing my part to keep it alive. This Wednesday, I'll be there again, this time for the pretentious solo project. I consider open mikes to be really important places for forming musical community, as opposed to spectacles. Unfortunately, in January and February, I won't be able to make it. Hopefully it'll come through the holiday season still kicking.
• While Belle borrowed the Kindle, I got back to reading paper--I always have a backlog of books that aren't available electronically. This week, I've been working my way through The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, as recommended by China Mieville in the middle of his fine article on the Freedom Ship. The authors basically recast the Atlantic's history of piracy, insurrection, and rioting from 1600-1800 as a story of politically-aware class struggle, tracing a direct line of revolutionary thought from the movement for unfenced commons in England to the Caribbean pirates who fought the merchant classes to the Founding Fathers (who ultimately betrayed and diluted the democratic, egalitarian ideals that had inspired them). It's a fascinating book, if a bit dry.
• If it's not too cold, while waiting for the bus, I'm still trying to finish Final Fantasy Tactics A2, in the hope of being able to play Disgaea DS before the end of 2010. Like its predecessors, FFTA2 is not really so much about tactics, but more about grinding and picking the right party members. But even so, it's oddly captivating.
• And finally, I completed my holiday shopping. The highlight of this was buying a garden plant for a relative, only to realize a few days later that I had left it in the box and (more importantly) that you can't really wrap a living gift until the 25th. Needless to say, that one went out early.

August 30, 2008

This week until Friday I'm in St. Paul, helping CQ cover the Republican National Convention.

Whee.

August 13, 2007

Today and tomorrow, I'm going to be attending UX Week 2007 for a local trade publication. Feel free to take a look at the schedule and see if there's something you'd like me to check out while I'm here--I'm trying to record the sessions when possible so I can put together a report for one of the area radio stations. Suggestions for other places to file stories on UX Week would be appreciated.

April 27, 2007

The past week has been a little crazy. B-SPAN is really starting to hit its peak season, combined with the stress of training my replacements. We've got some sessions coming up on the effects of mass media and leadership that look promising, though.

Take Your Kid to Work Day took place yesterday, and I was drafted to teach kids about radio and sound production. I'm personally convinced that the main purpose of Take Your Kid to Work Day is to convince childless coworkers that their loins should remain unfruited.

The job search continues, as I just finished an interview with a local progressive think tank and have an upcoming interview with an offshoot of one of the national news organizations. Let's hope one of them works out, since rummaging through trash bins in search of sustenance and commentary doesn't appeal much to me.

In musical news, attempts to form a band via Craigslist have yielded little, besides an increasing frustration with over-optimistic college students who post five or six times a week in need of a front man. Watching them humiliate themselves online has reminded me that the most reliable way to actually find other musicians is to go out and play. Accordingly, I'm going to start hitting open mikes again.

April 20, 2007

Conferred thanks to Making Light.

March 14, 2007

I'm going to be gone for a week, working on the Improving Governance and Fighting Corruption conference site for WBI. I'll be back in the USA starting March 16th.

Plans while in Belgium include waffles, chocolate, finding out if European Nutella is really better than the American stuff, and tracking down the Noisettes' What's the Time Mr Wolf.

Hold my calls.

Future - Present - Past