The 7 train conductor, over the loudspeaker: “Step in, stand clear of the closing doors.”
The same 7 train conductor, to himself immediately afterward, loud enough for our car to hear: “Stop holding the doors! Jesus fucking Christ.”
Page 8 of 128
Cardboard boxes
Loose papers
Padded envelopes
Several hardcover books
A paper towel cylinder stolen from the recycling bin
A pre-chewed hardcover book cover stolen from the recycling bin
A bag of bagels off the kitchen counter (specifically, five bagels, and some of the bag)
TV remotes (two now, one so badly it doesn’t work anymore)
The protective cover off a limited edition Yoshi Wii remote
Some plastic toy Eli left on the ottoman
A bag full of new dinner plates
Two baseball caps
A box holding a dozen golf balls, and a couple of the balls
Treats he stole from a pocketbook after leaping on the game table (caught on video)
My prescription sunglasses
A variety of Legos, both boxed and loose
A dollar bill
And occasionally, very occasionally, a chew toy
I’m a couple of years behind the curve on this, but Ideapad (and all of netwert.com) is now running securely. I had a joyously simple SSL setup courtesy Pair Networks, my longtime web host: a couple of clicks, a sub-$10 annual fee, and instant-on https.
This is really a post about service more than security. Pair has run my various websites for as long as I can remember, and I’ve never seriously considered moving. Over the years, their services have broadened, their prices have actually dropped on occasion, and their customer service accessibility has never wavered. For all the posts I see on Twitter and elsewhere complaining about hosting services–whether it’s “seriously considering a new webhost; mine messed up [X] and I’ve had enough” or “AWS is amazing and then you get the bill”–I’ve never once gotten fed up with the folks at Pair.
I have a tendency to get loyal when I find something good, and why not? Variety is good but consistency deserves to be rewarded. Pair gets the little things right. And for that, you and I get a more secure blogging experience.
As an early web design and usability practitioner, I have a long held a strong principle against linkrot, and maintaining the past for future appreciation. This is not a universal tenet. Some of the world’s best websites have been lost to history, which is a shame. Great examples of website preservation do exist—look up a late-1990s topic on cnn.com, for example, and you’ll get the original layout, which is amazing. (And, of course, Space Jam.)
The difference between those sites and mine, of course, is that mine contains, well, a lot of mildly embarrassing stuff. I’m not the same person I was when I started blogging as a 25-year-old web designer. Still, I’ve never taken anything down; most of what’s gone missing is due to poor database management.
Occasionally, this makes for fun reading. Tonight, discussing a written school assignment with my 11-year-old son, I started digging around my archives to show him examples of how writing could be fun. And it was: in my archives are all kinds of expositions, from travelblogs of places he’s been with me to ridiculous stories of my experiences and my childhood. We both laughed a bunch while reading.
So, dear reader, while this site is not as busy as it used to be, rest assured that it’s not going anywhere, either. My archives will stay where they are, and the old page layouts will stick around, too (not least because they’re hard-coded). New posts will appear as they may, as they always have. And someday, probably fairly soon, my kids will discover the really cringe-worthy stuff in my archives, and I’ll have some explaining to do… but it will be worth it.
Now in its fourteenth year, because a 20-year-old blog deserves some traditions, however unexciting.
As ever, all the places I went in 2018 and spent the night. Repeat visits denoted with an asterisk. Interestingly, for the first time in many years, I don’t think we spent the night in either Livingston (with my parents) or New City (my wife’s).
New York *
Arlington, VA *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
Grapevine, TX
San Diego, CA *
Alexandria, VA
Williamstown, MA
Gloucester, MA *
Edgartown, MA *
Portland, OR *
Lake Buena Vista, FL *
Wheeling, IL
Orlando, FL *
Washington, DC *
Last month, the Ideapad turned 20. Twenty years is a long time to do anything, as many of my fellow early bloggers can attest. Those who have kept at it since the turn of the century have my appreciation, not only as like-minded fellows, but also for maintaining the independent spirit of the early web, where our dreams were self-made and limitless.
I have on my server a bookmarks list, saved out of some version Netscape or Internet Explorer, that is now fifteen years old (May 6, 2003, to be exact). It’s a nice flat HTML file so all the links in it are clickable. To celebrate two decades of blogging, I thought I’d republish the list as-is, click through to all the blogs I once had bookmarked, and report on them here. Let’s see how the independent web of 2003 has persisted to 2018! (Hint: it’s doing pretty darned well, all things considered.)
Key:
Still publishing!—has posted in the past 12 months
Maybe still publishing—live with posts, but none in 2018
In amber—not active, but defending the web from linkrot
N.B. Many of the links here are still active but don’t point to the pages they did back then. Caveat clicker.
Blogroll
- 37signals’ Signal vs. Noise Still publishing!
- Anil Dash Still publishing!
- Nick Denton
- Boing Boing … Wonderful Things Still publishing!
- kottke.org Still publishing!
- WebWord.com
- megnut In amber
- Noise Between Stations Maybe still publishing!
- The Morning News Still publishing!
- sippey.com Maybe still publishing
- Mighty Girl Still publishing!
- whatever, whenever
- nothing, and lots of it Still publishing!
- Textism
- Andre Torrez Still publishing!
- b-may
- Ftrain_ Main Ftrain Maybe still publishing
- defective yeti
- Witold Riedel NYC Still publishing! (over here)
- bazima chronicles
- hello, kitten.
- DS.ORG
- Izzle! Izzle pfaff! In amber
- MrBarrett.com
- Mastication is normal
- petit hiboux .. the owl in winter. In amber
- peterme.com Still publishing!
- Choire Sicha
- East West Magazine
Not Updated Daily
- Cardhouse Still publishing!
- 50 cups of coffee _ strange brew _ never the same girl twice
- metascene– There ain’t no Sanity Clause
- stating the obvious In amber
- maybe i still am!
- Acts of Volition Still publishing!
- jeans and a t-shirt In amber
- What Do I Know
- SHARPEWORLD
- Waxy.org Still publishing!
Meta
- Take a penny, leave a penny. Still–er, never mind
- memepool.com
- FARK.com Still active!
- Blogroots
- blogdex – the weblog diffusion index
- Daypop Top 40 Links
- What’s Happening In amber
- Metafilter _ Community Weblog Still active!
More blogs
- ToT Days of Self-Contemplation and Soul Searching
- ODonnellWeb Still publishing (an email)
- evanrose
- _usr_bin_girl _ ( just a digital girl ) _ blurbs from the web
- somebodydial911
- Backup Brain
- Scripting News Still publishing!
- dangerousmeta! Made it to April 2018
- 365 Days Project
- shellen.com Still publishing!
- caterina.net Still publishing!
- Q Daily News
- Living Can Kill You – saila.com In amber
- Jerry Kindall
- David Galbraith’s weblog
- Nedward von Suckahs In amber
- sylloge
- muxway
- eatonweb blog_ vomiting up the web
- The War Against Silence In amber
- what is a tigerbunny
- Wrap Me Up in It
- misc., etc.
Internet, Design, UI blogs
- SAP Design Guild In amber
- bBlog_ Business intelligence _ XPLANE
- Boxes and Arrows
- In My Experience… Home In amber
- evolt.org
- XPLANE _ xblog (The visual thinking weblog.)
- Joel on Software Still publishing!
- ia- news for information architects
- holovaty.com Still publishing!
- dive into mark
- Daring Fireball Still publishing!
The biggest thing I can say about XOXO, having attended this weekend for the first time since 2013, is that I feel pretty much exactly how I felt the last time around, and I wish I had made it to all the ones in between.
Very few events of any scale manage to be open, accepting, encouraging, inspiring, surprising, energizing and downright fun. Despite lots of comments about how big the conference has gotten—two thousand attendees this year—I felt the same warmth and community (albeit with a bigger challenge to find old friends in the throng) as I had previously.
While I had to miss the last day, I soaked up a wide array of XOXO’s programming, including all of the conference’s first day, most of Art + Code and Story, and a good amount of the tabletop and arcade rooms. I was nearly overwhelmed with the amount of creativity and inspiration that surrounded me. The talks I saw brought tears to my eyes, both happy and sad, on more than one occasion. Like last time, the net result is like experiencing a sea swell on a boat: I’ve been pulled up to unexpected heights, and I’m wide-eyed as I see where it will take me.
And while I was thrilled to spend my time with familiar faces, the natural new connections make this event special. An XOXO attendee can successfully strike up a conversation with pretty much anyone wearing a badge. So when I’m there, that’s exactly what I try to do. Grab a meal with six people I’d just met? Turn people you admire into the people you know? Say hello to every person who sits down next to me, transforming unfamiliar faces into friendly ones? Yes, yes and yes.
Life in a broader sense doesn’t always work like XOXO works. Heck, we as people don’t work every day the way we function in this setting; I know I’m not always one to smile at strangers. Yet Andy and Andy continue to bring their universe to life, and I am again grateful for having been there.
Glaser’s Bake Shop closed on Sunday after 116 years in business.
My first apartment in New York was across the street from Glaser’s. I discovered them solely by proximity, as one does in Manhattan, particularly in the pre-smartphone days, where a person had to size up an establishment with his five senses.
The unassuming bakery with the aging storefront took a little effort to try, but once I did, I was hooked. Not only on their famous black and white cookies (I’m not even a big fan of the black and white cookie—only theirs) but of the bakery in general, from birthday cakes to the challah they’d bake only on Fridays, when there was sufficient demand.
Glaser’s closing was a retirement, well communicated in advance. I made the foolhardy decision to visit one last time on Saturday, spending [redacted] hours on line with my son to get one last order. It’s something I didn’t do when the Carnegie closed, and it was nice to say farewell. Not so my family’s two favorite restaurants in Greenwich Village, Cho Cho San and Charlie Mom, which both disappeared rather unceremoniously in the past few years, each after more than 20 years in business. We wish we’d been able to say farewell to them, too.
Glaser’s and the restaurants serve as a reminder, however melancholy, of the ever-changing landscape of the city. Yet they’re also an opportunity to celebrate their longevity and wonderfulness. And they provide us with momentum to revisit the things we love about New York.
My employer has an office in midtown Manhattan, three blocks from where I worked at the turn of the century. A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the Ernest Klein supermarket on Sixth Avenue might still be serving lunch, like it did when I worked up the block, fifteen years ago. So I stopped in. They’ve renovated a bit, but they made me the same exact sandwich, with the same exact honey mustard that I used to adore, but last tasted in 2003. A good number of the lunch spots on West 56th are unchanged, too, and I hope to visit them all in turn.
Things change. But not all things change, and not all at once. Savoring those that don’t is worth the effort.
I’m a radio guy. Always have been. I founded my high school’s radio station; I was an FCC-licensed DJ my first week of freshman year of college; I flip stations incessantly in the car before switching to streaming or recorded music.
I’m also primarily a rock guy, which has made for a somewhat depressing situation for awhile, as New York hasn’t had a proper rock radio station in six years, since 101.9 WRXP turned into WFAN’s FM simulcast. So I was elated to find out that 92.3—which was a rock station for many years during its Howard Stern era—flipped formats in November after being sold, and became an alternative-rock station.
But what’s been great about Alt 92.3 is *how* they’re doing alternative. Alt 92.3 is alternative but not just rock. They’re mixing it up, which is a delight: no one needs a succession of post-Nirvana grunge acts. Music has evolved past that. Instead, they touch on hip-hop, EDM and college-radio favorites.
Alt 92.3 is also not afraid to go pop. Would I consider Imagine Dragons to be alternative? Not specifically, but their music adds variety, and keeps the other listeners in my car happy. The station is playing Childish Gambino as I type this.
They mix in new and old, and it works. It’s not too old; NYC already has WCBS-FM for “oldies” (which tragically now includes music from my high school years) and Q104.3 for “classic rock” (which has ossified rather spectacularly). But their ’90s rock selections fit in great.
What do the Red Hot Chili Peppers and St. Vincent have in common? Not much, except they both make great music, and now they can both be found on the same radio station in New York. It reminds me of Los Angeles’ KROQ in its heyday—interesting, exciting, serendipitous, fun.
This is the kind of radio station I want. After years of relying almost exclusively on Sirius XM and iTunes for music, I’m tuning into 92.3 FM daily. I hope and pray that as Alt 92.3 matures they maintain this approach. Keep it up.
(Some of these thoughts are also on Twitter.)
Now in its thirteenth year, with nods to persistence and/or not knowing when to quit, depending.
Herewith, all the places I went in 2017 and spent the night. Repeat visits denoted with an asterisk. Lots of new and different visits to old places this year.
New York *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
London *
Palenville, NY
Saratoga Springs, NY *
Hanover, NH
Newton, MA
Edgartown, MA *
East Hampton, NY
Gloucester, MA *
Livingston, NJ *
Santa Monica, CA *
San Diego, CA *
Lake Buena Vista, FL *
Longboat Key, FL *
Las Vegas, NV *