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We're in CA this week for Jeremy and Erin's wedding on Saturday. After the five hour flight, during which Elaina's surprisingly slept for nearly half the time, we settled in and spent the day doing a walking tour of Pasadena. A funny thing occurred when I was flipping through a couple postcards Stephanie purchased; I realized there was a large mountain range looming over the city. I hadn't seen it because of haze, which cleared up later in the afternoon. Jeremy told me that's a typical June LA thing.

Started reading Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age on the flight out. Slashdot has a good good review.

Posted by chris at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This week I picked up my father-in-law's Apple IIe, mostly to take it off his hands but also because I wanted to play with some vintage hardware a bit. I know there are Apple emulators freely available, e.g. AppleWin, but it is just not the same as looking at the discolored cream case, dual 5.25 inch floppies, and tilt screen inside a monitor case sitting beside me.

It got me thinking about elementary school, the last time I used one of these machines. At that age, recess was a very big deal, and I can distinctly remember asking our fifth grade teacher if we could stay in from recess to play Oregon Trail. I just learned that the Oregon Trail franchise lives, and version 5 is on the market. Googling a bit, I came across this hillarious post that reminded me a lot of those wonder years.

I just downloaded a ROM of Oregon Trail, but I need to figure out a way of getting it onto a 5.25 floppy. The IIe has no network connection and I do not have a 5.25 floppy for one of my PCs, so I think I may be relegated to reviving my use on an emulator.

Posted by chris at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I upgraded my mail server installation of SpamAssassin (SA) to 3.0.4 last night. SA has to be one of the most community-service minded open source applications around. I had been running 2.6.3 previously and just hadn't found need to upgrade it for over a year, partially due to time and partially because with infrastructure like mail, if it ain't broke, I don't fix it.

I've been doing some personal tech support for a neighbor who just received a new Dell Inspiron laptop that I helped him spec out. It's actually been a humbling experience because, outside of family, I've been fairly removed from the "average user" for some time now. Basic Windows stuff like setting up file and printer shares, mapping drives, dealing with Office file compatibility issues and other little things have become concepts I take for granted. I also helped them set up a WPA-SPK encrypted wireless network, which in itself wasn't as impressive as the fact that they could have two separate computers on their broadband connection (Verizon) at the same time. I'm actually quite glad I can offer help on stuff I consider pretty mundane but they greatly appreciate. It's nice to be wanted.

Posted by chris at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A professor of mine who also serves as CIO of a major federal government agency once said that, beyond having the right academic pedigree and an extensive network of contacts within the industry with whom to bounce ideas, one of the most important pieces of career advice he could provide is to show up game ready day in and day out. He added that we all know people we work with who take on any project or task with vigor. They may not necessarily agree with every decision or direction in which their organization moves but, like a good player in any team sport, they know that the extraordinary energies of a few star players rarely can replace the momentum of an entire team of players each doing their own part as best they can.

Some people may look at this statement and think of the proverbial company man, the guy who does what he must to maintain job stability and not rock the boat, depending upon tenure and seniority to climb the corporate ladder. Many believe this notion is dead because of the rapid pace at which business must move today and the decreasing loyalty both between employer and employee and vice versa that has resulted.

I think, however, that the game ready attitude can apply in an entrepreneurial setting, too. The energy it takes to build a business when the path ahead is rocky and untrodden is different and requires something more than just showing up in good form, but showing up ready to play still has to be part of one's ethos in order to bring a business into its own.

Posted by chris at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)