August 1, 2001

On March 26, I was rhapsodizing about the possibilities of taking some art classes, for the first time in ten years. On March 29, I was laid off from my job, and art classes were no longer my most pressing concern. Four months later, I'm back in the swing of things, and am pleased to discover that registration for the fall session at The Art League begins in just a few days. The only remaining question: drawing or photography or stained glass? [1:45 pm in found links/girl meets web]

August 2, 2001

I told him, I said: "Scott, never say never." But did he listen? Noooo. He knows better now. [9:33 am in found links]

Oh, I'm so beat. I spent the last six days in techie training. ColdFusion, actually, which is sort of random, as I didn't see that as my next career step until it happened. I've been playing with ColdFusion for a couple of years, but mostly on my own time and nothing huge to be sure. I'd been hoping to be, finally, a *professional* PHP geek, and it came within a hair of happening, but that's another story for another day. ColdFusion wasn't what I had planned on but in any event it's better than ASP: where I work, there are a couple of great big content management/site generation systems that are currently done in ASP, that we will switch over to CF soon. It's not PHP, but it's not me helping further the goal of Microsoft Internet Domination either and that's a good thing. It'll be fun to rebuild these apps, I think, but I'm likely to be half-useless today: six days of sitting in a classroom and being enriched mean that I'm having to resurface back to the real world slowly & carefully, to not break anything while switching my brain from passive absorption mode to proactive perkiness. [11:45 am in tech/biz/girl meets web]

php.weblogs.com (respect!) points to a CNET review of the new ColdFusion 5.0 and to a thorough compare/contrast between CF and PHP---although this last is old, for PHP3 vs. CF4 if I'm not mistaken, and slightly out of date. For example, the comparison says ColdFusion's "cfscript" doesn't support user-defined functions, and while cfscript still looks fairly primitive, UDFs are now supported, so that would seem to be a significant step up. [12:56 pm in tech/biz/found links]

Don helpfully shared with me a Language Comparison Reference that offers a table showing basic syntax in several categories (strings, dates, math, arrays, file system, and loops) for several languages (PHP, Delphi, Perl, VBSCript/ASP, JavaScript, Java, and C). Handy for when your brain is stuck in one language and you need to be coding in another. Maybe I'll write up a ColdFusion column and send it to the guy who runs this page; the worst he can do is laugh at me, and it's not like that's never happened before. [2:53 pm in tech/biz/found links]

I have received a small bit of email on the topic of which art class I should take. Stained glass seems to be the odds-on favorite, and photography is making a decent showing, while drawing has received no votes at all. I don't understand! ---I suppose I forgot to mention, before, that I am leaning toward drawing, because I used to have a small talent for it. I'm a little nervous, actually, about trying to get back after so many years into something that, when I was young, I imagined I'd spend my life doing. So there seems to be a certain logic in dipping my toes into the shallow end before deciding if I want to cannonball. The sting of a belly-flop fades slowly. [9:26 pm in girl meets web]

August 4, 2001

The Post carries today a column entitled "Mr. Mayor, DMV Fails Inspection". Dear god, ain't it the truth. It took me three trips to the inspection station to get my car done when I moved here last winter: one to find that the website's evening hours were incorrect and the station was closed, another to pass all the tests but fail the "safety" inspection because I didn't have a front license plate holder, and one last time to finally get passed, which took something like three hours in that vile line. On the other hand, the DMV lets you pay parking tickets through a very smart little online system, and that saved me sixty-eight cents in postage last week. [3:29 pm in found links]

August 6, 2001

It has been an amazing and beautiful year. [9:46 am in girl meets web]

Chinese region 'must conduct 20,000 abortions'. News that is no less terrifying for being three months old. [10:01 am in found links/political]

Amazon sent me an email today reminding me that "Your birthday is right around the corner--September 5, to be exact." That's so nice of them. I might have forgotten otherwise. [11:13 am in girl meets web]

From the Too Much Free Time department comes Who Would You Kill, allowing you to vote for the most killable character on any of nearly 100 television shows past and present. Surprises include: that Jackie is only in third place for "That 70s Show", that Agent Scully is in second for The X-Files (but the character list here is old, if Agent Reyes was on there she'd be in first place three times), and that the Enterprise is beating Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov on Star Trek---or maybe that's not so surprising, if killing the Enterprise means killing everyone on it. [2:34 pm in found links]

More email on the topic of art classes---some of it quite helpful. thc@cellblockv says: "a friend of mine does stained glass as a hobby. she's done some beautiful pieces. bear in mind that unless you'll do all of your work at a studio, the stuff is fairly toxic and it's pretty hot so you'll not want to do it in, say, your kitchen." maggie writes to warn that equipment can get expensive: "I would get a supply list for the stained glass class and see how much the stuff costs before I would commit to it. I'm not trying to scare you away from stained glass because it's great fun to do...I just thought you should be warned about it being an expensive little hobby." allura just says "make me something pretty." But she's going to have to stand in line---it seems that Don realized that if he had a girlfriend who could do stained glass, he could get custom transom panes for his little bungalow for no more than the cost of supplies. Then he realized that stained glass work means you get to saw glass and play with soldering irons, and suggested that we take the class together. So I guess that's what I'm---we're---doing. I'd sort of gotten all pumped up for drawing, but my long-fallow sketch pads aren't going anywhere. So. [8:55 pm in girl meets web]

August 7, 2001

The journal turns three years old today. Go me. [5:34 pm in girl meets web]

August 8, 2001

It seems that several residential broadband providers including AT&T and Verizon are filtering out port 80 on their networks to try to slow the spread of Code Red and its demon spawn, thereby cutting off the websites of any of their customers who may be running web servers from home---at least those who aren't handy enough to switch the http port, anyway. It wouldn't be surprising to see other providers following suit, and it wouldn't be surprising to see them decide to keep port 80 closed after the Code Red scare dies down, too. Bad news... lots of residential broadband providers don't condone or support any sort of public servers by their customers, since they eat much more outgoing bandwidth than most home users require---but for those of us whose idea of fun is a night spent building an Apache server while eating Chinese take-out, the distinction seems a stingy and curmudgeonly one at best. [4:01 pm in tech/biz/found links]

---I found that last link while trying to find information on how to figure out who's the upstream provider for my Earthlink DSL line, and am coming up empty-handed. The obvious answer is, of course, to call them and ask, but you'd only suggest that tactic if you'd never had to go through Earthlink's DSL "support" system yourself. Anyway, what with all the badness happening out there, I begin to fear for my connectivity in a big way: can anyone tell me if there's a way to come up with this information without spending an hour on hold with Eartlink? [4:16 pm in tech/biz]

Just this last thing, I swear---too funny not to share. It's EarthlinkSucks.net, and their tagline is "You'd be happier using Mindspring." Bwahahahah *snerk*. [4:33 pm in tech/biz/found links]

A link for all my friends who have questions they are too polite to ask, and also those friends who bother with politeness not at all (hi, Scott). From the April 2001 issue of Brill's Content, a very interesting article called "Looking for a Miracle": "United Press International's deep-pocketed new owner---the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's News World Communications---could also be its biggest obstacle to a comeback." [9:46 pm in found links/girl meets web]

August 9, 2001

Jeff's a daddy now. Congratulations, Jeff, and I hope you were caught up on your sleep :D [8:10 am in found links]

So there I was, hanging out on the sidewalk, smoking my lunch, minding my own damn business, which is apparently beyond some people's abilities. This scary troglodyte woman walks past me. She's holding her nose, and without even glancing in my direction, she drones snidely: "Cigarettes kill." I called after her a sarcastic "Thanks!" but what I *should* have said was "So does obesity." People, it's not your concern. Go away and leave me alone. [12:06 pm in girl meets web]

August 10, 2001

More bad news for Salon: 14 more layoffs, and no more free Table Talk. Not that I could ever stomach Web Crossing's forum software even when it was free, but that's not the point. I keep thinking about signing up for their Premium service just because it really would break my heart for Salon to go under... maybe I should hurry up and do that before it's too late to. [2:28 pm in tech/biz/found links]

August 11, 2001

Double whammy over at Blog of the Day: one editor picks me for the day's featured link, the other one declares me a jerk because I smoke. Win some, lose some. [1:52 pm in found links]

Hoping to get some ideas to help out with my next PHP-MySQL fantasy project, I found a page that someone wrote up with pretty detailed ideas for a data model and a user interface for a data-driven online photo album app. Pretty smart stuff---will be good to have around if I ever find myself burdened with more spare time than I know what to do with. [3:32 pm in tech/biz/found links]

August 13, 2001

I love you all. I really do. I just wanted to say that. Now back to regularly scheduled surliness and cynicism. [10:05 am in girl meets web]

It's a good Monday when: a) Your sweetie brings you breakfast in bed. b) Your boss brings you a loaf of homemade bread made just for you. c) You get a compliment on your hair from a co-worker. d) You get a compliment on your figure from the lady behind the counter at the deli around the corner, who is amazed that your lunch more days than not consists of a Coke and an order of fries with extra ketchup and extra salt, yet you fail to resemble the Goodyear blimp. e) You get good email from admiring strangers who are overwhelmed with the sheer creative genius of your website. Well, maybe that last is overstating the case a bit... but, really, everyone's just so *nice* today. I'm enjoying it whle it lasts. * the downside is, I have just proven myself a liar where that surliness and cynicism thing is concerned. [1:13 pm in girl meets web]

President Bush takes a stand on stem cell research: "Any piece of legislation that undermines what I think is right will be vetoed." ... we don't need no steenkin Congress. [7:39 pm in political]

The headline says "AOL to Lay Off Up to 1,000." The writing on the wall says "Netscape is so screwed." [7:51 pm in tech/biz]

August 14, 2001

I know it's Microsoft and all, but still I'm having a hard time believing that you can't turn off viewing of HTML mail in Outlook 2000 (which, unfortunately, I must use at the office). I mean, so basically if I want to use the autoviewing pane I'm at the mercy of any spamming bastard who wants to send me a message with an image reference tagged with my email address as a query string---as happened to me today---so they know they've got a valid and active email address they can turn around and sell to every other spammer on the planet? feh. I hate spam almost as much as I hate Microsoft email software. [10:29 am in tech/biz]

In March, the world mourned upon hearing of the imminent demise of the famous coffee-pot cam at Cambridge University. On Saturday, it was sold for $4,767 on eBay. [3:39 pm in tech/biz/found links]

At the corner of Sentimentality and Inevitable Change stands the rubble of a place I used to dearly love, where I could always find people that I was glad to see, or meet new ones to make fast friends. Every once in a while I drive by the ruins and rubberneck, but each time the heap is smaller and sadder. Soon, a bloodless opaque glass business park will be erected in its place and filled with interchangeable marketers for interchangeable global corporations. And it will begin to feel as if it had been in that spot all along. As if it belonged. In time, when we fondly reminisce aloud about the people who used to gather at that corner to tell one another stories and to share pretty things they had made, back when the names of the streets were Inspiration and Possibility, people will just look at us as if we were mad. Or senile. ---is this what it feels like to become obsolete? I am far too young to feel such helpless longing for the good-old-days. [8:20 pm in found links]

August 16, 2001

Hack your Windows registry to make Internet Explorer play nicely---increase simultaneous server connections for faster page downloads, automatically clear the cache on exit, or turn off URL auto-complete. (If you crater your system trying to do any of the above, I'll deny any and all responsibility: "it depends on what the definition of 'linked' is...") [11:05 am in tech/biz/found links]

Joe Celko rocks my world. This bit of SQL he wrote saved me from having to more-or-less duplicate a table of 25,000 rows in order to get rid of just a few hundred accidental duplicate rows. And of course there's the fact that a book he wrote taught me SQL, back when there weren't any super-smart MySQL-specific books. I don't have very many geek idols, but Joe Celko is one. And who are you calling a fangirl, buster? [1:51 pm in tech/biz/found links]

Help Michael and Don rescue Fray Day DC. We need musicians and performers and helpers oh my! or else there will be no Fray Day DC. And that would be sad. [5:18 pm in girl meets web]

I would give anything to be a different person. [10:47 pm in girl meets web]

August 20, 2001

If you're trying to get a link out of me, there are worse ways to go than calling my website "the Madonna of the blogging scene". But you've got to be ever-so-careful with that sort of declaration, the kind that could be construed as either mad props or fighting words. Perhaps the only more dangerous comparison would be to Courtney Love... anyway, thanks Stuart. I think ;> ---if your website were a rock star, who would it be? [11:29 am in found links/girl meets web]

*smack inside of elbow a few times* *examine rising vein* *smack some more* *fire up web browser* *type M-E-T-A-F-I-L-T-E-R-.-C-O-M-Enter* *hold breath* *cry* *repeat* [11:53 am in girl meets web]

Pong says he's been called the John Cougar Mellencamp of the web. If that isn't an honorific, I don't know what is. [4:27 pm in found links]

... yes, it's better now. thanks. [6:50 pm in girl meets web]

August 21, 2001

I know he's going to come over to chat with me before he makes up his mind to do it. "So, uh... you work for...?" A glance upward to the bronze lettering across the facade of our otherwise nondescript office building. I nod. "I'm Michelle. I work in IT." He nods too. Pauses. Looks at my scuffed boots, my black t-shirt, and asks, "Are you into the punk scene?" I laugh before I realize it: "No, I'm really more into the sitting-at-home scene." He takes this in. "So how's that scene going?" I tell him, "It has its ups and its downs, but it's going through a real resurgence lately." Around his cigarette, he answers, "Yeah, I see a lot of that." [2:09 pm in girl meets web]

August 23, 2001

"Daniel and Angela Michael of Highland, who are regular protesters at the clinic, admitted they took pictures of the woman as she was taken to the hospital's emergency room. Soon after, a copy of the woman's medical records, her photograph and an article written by Angela Michael about the case appeared on a Web site operated by Stephen Wetzel of Omaha, Neb." I guess it's hardly new news that militant anti-choicers are completely insensitive and incapable of respect for women as individuals, but really, this is a new low. [3:22 pm in found links/political]

... my favorite part was when they went into a commercial saying "After this, the conclusion of Connie Chung's interview with Congressman Condit, including what he thinks happened to Chandra Levy"---and then came back to the interview: "Congressman, what do you think happened to Chandra Levy?" "I don't know." Egads. Who's slipperier: Condit or ABC News? Tough call. [11:02 pm in political]

August 24, 2001

Bryan says of his whirlwind tour of the Orient, or some of it anyway: "In the end, I want to live always forever in all places. Therein lies secret rub of travel." --- he is so very very right. (Reference is here now, will presumably be here later.) [10:29 am in found links]

Did you ever wonder how the French spell "Dubya"? Wonder no more: it's "Deubbeulyou," if the headline of today's Canard enchainé can be believed. [11:01 am in political]

Via Andy, who is one of those funny people without a URL to call his own: Embattled Lawmaker Tight-lipped on Subject of Big Mac, Fries. "The server, LaDondra Nelson, said her frustrating encounter with the conservative Democrat began when she asked Mr. Condit if he would like to place his order. 'I've been married 34 years,' Mr. Condit replied. 'I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life.'" [2:56 pm in found links/political]

August 25, 2001

"If you see a smash coming and can't keep out of the way---don't break. Because if you do, nothing will ever put you back together again. I've taken a big one and I know. Nothing. Ever." ---Martin Amis, Other People [7:02 pm in dead trees]

August 26, 2001

Brian asked, "If I offered to sleep with you, would you link me on your website?" I told him that a kiss would be quite enough. [12:15 pm in girl meets web]

Sources for Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Data. Likely to be useful in my ongoing quest to create a UTC offset field in the users table of this ColdFusion-Linux application I find myself working on: can't get away with sticking to US time zones, unfortunately. Who knew there were so many places with UTC or GMT offsets incremented in other than full hours, or that don't observe daylight savings time? And isn't DST a pretty useless concept anyway? If we could just get rid of it, UTC offsets would remain constant (if you overlook political adjustments), and developers all over the world would rejoice. ---also, this has nothing really to do with my time zone troubles, but is pretty cool: a map of the earth showing enhanced satellite images or realtime cloud cover, with or without day/night demarcation, etc etc---sweet, and even sweeter when you read the Details info and see that this was originally written for Mosaic 2.4 and Netscape 1.0. [4:24 pm in tech/biz/found links]

August 29, 2001

The Worldwide Holiday & Festival Site is nominally a site that tries to compile calendars of all the world's holidays and festivals, for the aid of the hapless international traveller. But I like it because it includes daylight savings time information for various countries---for example, Brazil, which observes "summer time" in all but the northernmost part of the country. Add this site to the list of sites crucial to the thankless task of figuring out which of the world's time zones observe DST. [1:26 pm in tech/biz/found links]

First Amendment protection of free speech only goes so far. You can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre---and you can't be caught "provoking speech on a truck," either. Not unless you want a visit from the Secret Service. [8:45 pm in found links/political]

August 30, 2001

well we all shine on---like the moon and the stars and the sun [11:01 pm in girl meets web]

dBforums.com rocks my world. In the last day and a half, they've come up for me in Google searches for the answers to two hairy questions (about why SQL Server is so ornery when it comes to numeric data-types and non-significant zeroes, and about the relative advisability of joining three tables in one select statement), and both times the information I found was spot-on. and it's written in PHP... bonus. [11:23 pm in tech/biz/found links]

September 1, 2001

I'm consuming more media these days than I formerly have. Overheard last night while Spice World (!) played muted on a teevee in the background: "Oh, you bought that? Did you listen to any of the MP3s first?" "Oh, yeah. Saw the video too." Music purchases from last week: Massive Attack's Mezzazine, which right now lives in my computer; Delerium's Karma, the third copy I've owned (they keep walking away!), which right now lives in my car; and Brian Eno's Music for Airports, finally, breaking down and doing it after we re-saw the Traffic on DVD. The DVD itself was sort of a disappointment, actually (lots of text-based 'extras') but the movie was as good as the first time around: it'll be a favorite for a long while I think. We also watched the first disc of the original Traffik miniseries, the decade-old British export on which the movie was based, and the similarities between the movies were fairly amazing, but still the contrast and comparison of the original Euro-Asian setting vs. Traffic's America-centric viewpoint was really interesting. Coke runners here, poppy growers there. But of course it all really comes down to the same, doesn't it. [2:59 pm in girl meets web]

[jcn] your birthday on the 5th?
[Sapphireblue] indeed. go me
[jcn] well. not like you really did anything for that. it just sort of happened. you can't take credit for your birthday!
[Sapphireblue] well, sure I can. the only one I wasn't responsible for was the first one. the *ordinal* first, mind you. all the others I can chalk up to the fact that I am slightly more intelligent than the avg. Darwin Awards nominee ;)
[jcn] oh, well, good point i suppose. well go you then!
[Sapphireblue] Sapphireblue flexes... Sapphireblue ripples [6:22 pm in girl meets web]

September 2, 2001

Dear God: I have, I think, been both consistent and resolute on the topic of my disbelief in You. However, I am not unwilling to soften my position, and I believe that we could come to a mutually agreeable arrangement, if only You could see to it that more days look exactly like this one did. 78 degrees and 40% humidity could well turn out to be the true opiate of the masses. Eagerly anticipating Your quick response, [signed] Michelle. [6:51 pm in girl meets web]

September 3, 2001

My holiday weekend has mostly been about working, and nursing a very achey tummy. It is very sad to be me. [7:28 pm in girl meets web]

Meg did much thinking and much posting last week on the topic of issues facing women technology workers. Lots of interesting ideas and links, and it doesn't look like she's done yet either. [11:25 pm in girl meets web]

September 4, 2001

Alas, it is as I had feared: Garrison Keillor's "Mr. Blue" column at Salon is no more. I guess I can't hold it against him if he's recovering from heart surgery, but I'll miss the column just the same. And I think this counts as more bad news for Salon. [1:16 am in found links]

September 5, 2001

Grep for Linguists. A useful overview and cheat sheet for those of us who understand exactly how powerful regular expressions are, but can't be bothered to commit any of it to memory. [12:39 pm in tech/biz/found links]

September 6, 2001

... but the *best* birthday present he gave me was getting to watch him relaunch his site last night, while hanging out at my place. So what if he hogged the computer and his brand new moni---I mean, my brand new monitor all night? Ratbastard is back, and that's the important thing. I missed it while it was gone. [2:42 pm in found links/girl meets web]

September 8, 2001

Going to do a blitzkrieg-roadtrip to see my dad tonight. I'm taking him one of the photos Michael took of me last September; it's either a late birthday present or a late Father's Day present, I forget. Also will try to find someplace not-too-gnarly for us to eat, in a little town I've never seen (Pop's there on business, so he's no help). Do wish me luck. [4:56 pm in girl meets web]

September 9, 2001

and so last night we were driving through Orange, Virginia and all of a sudden there were tiny parachuted men falling out of the seven-o-clock sunset sky and as we drove on they fell closer and closer to earth and the trees cleared and we saw we were driving past a tiny country airfield and I might have sped up a bit as we spied one flipping and swooping dangerously near the ground but it turned out he knew exactly what he was doing and it never occurred to either of us to go for the camera, it was so cool you just had to just watch. [3:25 pm in found links/girl meets web]

September 10, 2001

You know what, it's just too complicated anymore. I'm on the wagon. We'll see how long it lasts. [2:09 pm in girl meets web]

!!! [4:08 pm in found links]

September 11, 2001

I work at a news agency about a block and a half from the White House. I got out of my car a few minutes ago just as the radio news was beginning to report what they say are possibly fires and evacuations at the White House and at the Pentagon. There were crowds of people coming out of Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and I've been hearing fire truck sirens outside for about ten minutes now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling scared right now. And I'm trying not to think about the people on that plane, if indeed there was a hijacking... sigh. A black mood inside my head. Probably inside of a lot of heads. [9:52 am in girl meets web/political]

The entire area here around the White House has been locked down. I can't leave; I can't even go outside. I tried it, and there's yellow tape across the intersections I can see, and uniformed men with guns walking around telling people to stay indoors. No one seems to have any idea how long this will last. [11:10 am in girl meets web/political]

I'm okay. I haven't tried to leave the office again yet, but I'm okay. Things seem calm here but maybe that's just because I haven't tried to go out again. The area's still locked down to at least vehicular traffic, and I guess I'll be without my car for a while---it felt important to get to work fast this morning, so I took the car instead of the Metro, and the parking garage it's in is within the closed-off perimeter. But if that's the worst thing I can complain about right now I am doing fine. [3:17 pm in girl meets web/political]

will be working at home tomorrow. also, tonight, but that's okay; i feel more or less safe and snug here at home. Something that caught my eye: UPI [for whom i work as a 'code goddess', according to my new business cards] reports that "One passenger on board the American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles was identified as Daniel C. Lewin, 31, co-founder of Akamai Technologies." His corporate bio is here. [11:32 pm in found links/girl meets web/political]

September 12, 2001

Late last night I went up on the roof to see what I could see. If you didn't know what had happened, everything would have looked just fine. But it felt pretty eerie to me. There were no airplane lights visible over the suburban Virginia skyline in the distance, and there are always planes over National Airport. The Washington Monument and the Capitol building to the south were still brilliantly illuminated, but the National Cathedral, which stands a mile west of me and on an ordinary night looms floodlit above trees and houses, was dark except for a few red warning lights like those on radio towers. And my street, a major thoroughfare through the northwestern part of the District, was quieter than I've ever heard it. I stayed up there for about ten minutes, and then started to feel conspicuous, and went back inside. [10:17 am in girl meets web/political]

...a very small prediction: the pesky yet resilient flag-burning amendment is going to make a comeback like none you've ever seen, sometime during this congressional session. [2:28 pm in girl meets web/political]

It came out earlier this afternoon that the White House was targeted for a terrorist attack. If that attack had happened, it would have been me and my coworkers staggering through clouds of airborne debris. Or worse. The biggest horror I have been feeling since I first heard that a plane had flown into the side of one of the World Trade towers is in thinking of what it must have been like to be on that plane. Any of those planes. Now it turns out that one of those people may have saved my life or that of someone I care about. I'll never know, of course. And I never knew any of the people on any of those airplanes, but I think too that I'll never forget them. [5:43 pm in girl meets web/political]

DC's ABC affiate is reporting that as part of the security tightening that will be happening as a result of the last two days' events, one change may be to eliminate e-tickets and instead require paper tickets of all air passengers. Ugh. [6:16 pm in girl meets web/political]

September 13, 2001

jcn has photos he took from his roof of the World Trade center burning. It looks like he's a decent distance from that immediate area, because many of the photos show a wide view of the skyline. Comparing the photos before the collapse with photos taken afterwards really provide a gut-wrenching sense of what a huge gap there will be in the silhouette of the city, where the twin towers used to stand. [11:55 am in found links/political]

I keep watching the sky, waiting to see a fat commercial jet climbing, or even just a hovering contrail fading into indistinction, signalling that things are just a little closer to back-to-normal again. Maybe then I could get some work done. I began Tuesday morning expecting to spend the helping my company's editorial staff to get started using a new content management and publishing system that we IT geeks have been working on for months now, but our writers ended up having far more pressing things on their minds. So instead of doing systems deployment, I'm here at my desk, still reading every story that comes over the wire, still making sure our websites are staying current, still doggie-paddling in the seas of information and speculation around what happened on Tuesday. For over 54 hours now my thoughts have rarely strayed from the plane attacks, and I can't tell how much of that is related to my job and how much of it is sheer, pure horror at the staggering violence and loss of life. I don't *feel* upset---on Tuesday morning I stood in the newsroom upstairs from my own office unable to stop the tears from coming as I watched the second tower collapse live on three different television stations, and I felt so unhinged and shocked and scared---now it's just constant static in my head. If reception were clear I imagine the images would be of terrified plane hostages and of people leaping from burning skyscrapers... but it's not. Just static, is all, and in this fashion I muddle through... it feels like sleepwalking, except the nightmare doesn't go away when you wake. [3:32 pm in girl meets web]

... and now the streets around Lafayette Park (across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House) are blocked off with sawhorses and yellow tape and police officers again. I don't know what's going on; I got nowhere when I tried to ask. People are still on the streets though. There are sirens wailing nearby, and a few black SUVs like you see when the Presidential motorcade rolls by, but that's not what it is; not nearly enough cars or motorcycle policemen for that. Maybe a bomb threat at the White House? They've apparently been cropping up all over, all day... but I don't see the crowds of evacuated workers I'd expect to see if that were the case. I don't know. Wait and see I guess. [4:03 pm in girl meets web/political]

I guess there's nothing to be concerned about. The immediate area around the White House has been blocked to traffic for one to two blocks all the way around. No cars are moving on the streets but people still are so I think there is no immediate fear, as there was during Tuesday's lockdown. But---it was being reported earlier today that the White House had opened again for tours, and I know when I came into work this morning, all the usual streets were open, if well-policed---so what changed? If they weren't sure things were safe they should have left the area secured, none of this on-again, off-again business scaring the crap out of everyone who works in the area. [6:14 pm in girl meets web/political]

imood's "current mood of the internet" apparently reports the mood which the highest number of users have recently reported. it says "tired" more or less always, as far as I have ever been able to tell. but check it out today: "The Internet currently feels shocked"---289 users. other moods: "sad", 217; "devastated", 131; "numb", 102; "patriotic", 92; "scared", 74; "angry", 67. "tired" stands at just 65. [8:24 pm in found links]

September 15, 2001

Salon, still kicking god bless it, has a heartfelt piece by an American originally from Afghanistan, that gives words to much of the fear I'm feeling now: "We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.... That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this." [5:36 pm in found links/political]

September 16, 2001

Someone from the U.S. Census has been calling me once a month (the week of the 19th) for a couple of months now, for some sort of national employment survey, I don't know. Usually they call and ask if I've had job changes and how many hours I worked this week and I tell 'em: no, lots. Today the phone rang and it was a lady with the census. She started by asking if I've had a job change. I say no. She asks how many hours I worked last week. I have to think about it for a while... In the end we chat for about half an hour (including a one-time-only detailed foray into my internet usage where she asks questions and I say: yes, yes, yes). We talk about the "national crisis" and how cool Dice.com is and about how her husband is a Kinko's Computer Services refugee too... when the conversation is finished, she wishes me health and happiness and I tell her to take care of herself and I hang up feeling somehow gladdened and hopeful. It doesn't make very much sense but very little does right now; it feels appropriate to be grateful for any human goodwill at all. [2:14 pm in girl meets web]

September 17, 2001

Scott was here visiting briefly as he wraps up his whirlwind road trip tour, and I got a supercool photo of him lurking dangerously in the howling bowels of our nation's capital. [11:32 pm in girl meets web]

September 18, 2001

Today I stumbled across a web-based archive of messages for a Linux ColdFusion mailing list, and felt less alone in the world... so much of ColdFusion's development community seems very Microsoft-oriented. [2:07 pm in tech/biz/found links]

September 19, 2001

MetaFilter reports that FedEx and Sears have both pulled advertising from ABC's "Politically Incorrect" as a response to the host, Bill Maher, taking issue with the characterization of last week's hijackers as cowardly and suggesting that perhaps the U.S. military has been cowardly for fighting its battles from a position of faraway safety. I wrote a letter to both companies to express my disagreement of their actions. If you like, feel free to swipe my letter and send your own copy of it to FedEx and to Sears as well. Links to feedback forms for both companies are in the MetaFilter thread I linked above. [4:04 pm in found links/political]

Brought to you by the nice folks at O'Reilly: Top Ten ColdFusion Programming Tips. [5:26 pm in tech/biz/found links]

September 21, 2001

DC's ABC affiliate, WJLA, has also taken "Politically Incorrect" off the air. "Just for a couple of days," is what they said when I called to complain about it. If you too have the urge to call, the number is (202) 364-7777. While you're at it, a letter to ABC Corporate at netaudr@abc.com isn't a bad idea; the transcript from last night's show (you can view it at the show's website) reveals that Bill Maher is afraid that his show may be cancelled altogether. Jesus, people, this is America---where people are free to have opinions different from yours---remember? [3:49 pm in political]

September 24, 2001

So Footloose was on UPN yesterday afternoon. Would you believe I watched it? The whole thing? Escapism at any cost. But it was good for me, I think. It's hard to concentrate wholly on fretting about World War III when you've got Kevin Bacon in a skinny tie dancing to synthesizer music. [10:36 am in girl meets web]

Double seasonal anachronism: today I saw a cement mixer truck on whose spinning barrel was emblazoned the legend "Catch the Spirit! Christmas in April." Needless to say, this left me a bit nonplussed. [4:49 pm in girl meets web]

September 25, 2001

At work yesterday, we finally soft-launched the new web-based publishing system we were originally supposed to go live with on Sept. 11, and it works like a charm. Also yesterday, a birthday box with three new CDs and a new book arrived from Amazon; I am indulging in listening to my new music from work because none of my officemates are to be seen today. Chalk up two points for the universal forces of good, which have not, contrary to appearances, taken an early retirement and relocated to a remote Caribbean island in order to drink umbrella drinks and forget about the world's woes. [3:19 pm in girl meets web]

September 27, 2001

I have no idea what it actually says, but this Dutch weblog is absolutely gorgeous. [8:47 am in found links]

September 28, 2001

Internationalanswer.org has all the latest information on tomorrow's "Rally Against Racism and War" in downtown D.C. The original meeting place was to be Lafayette Park, across from the White House, but apparently there is all-of-a-sudden a new law against anti-war protests there. In spite of some misgivings I have about the rally (mainly centered around 1. misgivings about the anti-globalist camp in general, whose planned WTO protests have turned into this rally, and 2. a strong suspicion that, given the current political climate, people are going to take well-founded concern about the government's plans for retaliation to instead mean turn-the-other-cheek pacifism, or even better, "anti-Americanism"), I'm going. I would very much like to believe that the Bush administration can recognize the danger and the moral wrong in bombing Afghani innocents to bits for the sake of an impressive show of military force, but since I can't be sure that's the case, going to this rally is a good way to express my concerns. President Bush may not wish to be bothered by protesters outside the windows of the White House, but if enough people show up, he'll hear us no matter where we are. [4:32 pm in girl meets web/political]

September 29, 2001

So I stayed up til three-thirty last night making a sign ("Kill No More Innocents") for today's rally... and then I woke up with a nasty tummyache that wasn't gone fast enough to get me to the rally. Piss. Perhaps I can try again tomorrow, though: there's an event at 11 a.m. at Meridian Hill Park, which is a *lovely* place to go even when there is no reason at all to do so), being organized by the Washington Peace Center. [5:06 pm in political]

September 30, 2001

Remember IPOs? PayPal does. [5:24 pm in tech/biz]

I will be having rid of my last pair of wisdom teeth in the morning. I'll be pleased to see them gone, but the getting's going to suck. [8:38 pm in girl meets web]