Z/Web

After my hike earlier in the week I was exhausted, but managed to put in nine holes of golf today. My cousin was in town from New York and he hadn’t golfed in years either. He still did much better than me, but then he was better before we got out of practice. I didn’t do that badly, hitting a handful of decent shots, though I was dreadfully inconsistent. I didn’t do enough to get into any kind of rhythm, so obviously I need more practice. It’s great weather now, so I need do that more often as it’s good exercise and a fun physical and mental challenge.

Today we had a welcome home party for my mom. She’s been in Togo for three months and this was a nice get-together of friends and family to hear her stories and see the pictures she took of her adventure. People came and went but I guess there were about twenty. We grilled beef, chicken, shrimp, and tons of veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and peppers), and I served it with brown rice with herbs. I made crepes for dessert. Filled with fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries, marionberries, and raspberries) and topped with Cool Whip they were yummy and not too bad in the nutrition department. It was a pretty good party!

This morning I took my mom to the airport. She’s flying to Togo, West Africa, for three months. She’ll be staying with a missionary friend and helping her. It’s been a ton of work getting everything she needed: passport and visa, innoculations, medicines for three months, setting up automatic bill paying for during her absense, packing, etc. She’s been working very hard. But today was culmination and she’s off. She hasn’t traveled internationally for years, and with her recent health issues, wasn’t sure if she’d be able to do so, but a short-term mission trip like this seemed an ideal way to try it.

Had a nice Christmas with Grandpa, my mother, Uncle Keith, and friends at the beach house. This was my first time away from the new house since I moved in and it was nice to get away, but I did find myself missing the place, which is a good sign. I couldn’t wait to get away from my old place!

Today’s my birthday but that is far at the back of my mind. Instead I am nervous as I go to Bank of America and begin talks about a mortgage loan. Since BofA has my business checking account and there’s a branch in McMinnville just up the road from my new place, it makes sense to go there for my loan. The first gal I talked with was really nice, but apparently manufactured homes are not something she can deal with, so she telephones another gal who handles those types of loans. After a few minutes going over the basic idea, she promises to call me that afternoon.

I waited on pins and needles all afternoon for her call, even left her a message. She finally called a couple hours late, having gotten tied up with a loan in a crisis. We went over my numbers and figured out which loan would work for me. Then she ran my credit report and called me back. There were some problems, but overall she felt the loan was doable. She put together a pre-approval letter which we sent to my uncle in Oregon so he could put together an offer.

I was on the phone for two hours until late tonight, giving the mortgage lady all my financial details. It was wild: every asset was computed, every liability figured out. I thought the next part of the process was she’d submit the loan to the bank but apparently that’s not how it works: she waits until we actually get an offer accepted on the house before she submits the loan, that way I don’t have to pay the $200 loan application fee unless I can actually get the house. That worries me a little because it could take time to get an offer accepted, and if there are any problems or delays with the loan process, the purchase time could extend out of my short window and I wouldn’t be able to do the move. I can’t have the move disrupting my business.

Nice show. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Very different crowd than the Macworld Expo, but that’s to be expected. This was less individual users and more corporate, enterprise-level stuff. Lots of server-level software and the hardware tended to be high-end (terabyte drives, CPU clusters, etc.). I was impressed at how much stuff for Linux is available, though it’s obvious the desktop has a long way to go. Also impressed at some of the big companies involved: IBM, HP, Novell, etc. It was good to see that despite the corporate influence, there was still an emphasis on open source and cross platform technologies. In many cases companies making stuff for Windows and Linux also support the Mac, which is excellent. Oh, and the vendors seemed eager to hand out their giveaways, unlike Macworld where they are hoarded and given out only to a select few (or all out by the last day of the show). Good show. I think I’ll go again next year and see how it’s developed.

Today’s my birthday. Happy birthday to me! Most of my family is out of town (the nerve) so we’ll be celebrating in the future (which is fine with me).

Dave and Diane had a Fourth of July party at their new house, right up the street from me up on the hill. Everyone was on their long deck and we got a great view of the city’s annual firework show. It was an impressive show — probably about 20 minutes long with a lot of neat fireworks. Made me wonder how they design those things to do the tricks they do.

Spent this week in San Francisco at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. It was an exciting show, partly because it was my first time at a WWDC, and being surrounded by thousands of really smart Mac programmers was an interesting experience, but this year was significant as Apple announced their new G5 Macs (shipping in August). The new Macs look awesome and appear to be a huge leap forward in performance, though Apple’s performance numbers include some questionable fudging that makes me question Steve Jobs’ “fastest personal computer in the world” mantra. Overall it appeared to be a good show, with everyone enthusiastic and confident about the future of the Mac platform.

This week was the big Expo, and I went every day to promote my magazine. I got to go to the Steve Jobs’ keynote address, which was amazing, as usual. Apple introduced a lot of new software and some new PowerBooks. Plus, everyone at the keynote got a free copy of Apple’s new Keynote presentation software (which is excellent). I had quite an adventure driving in San Francisco in the dark in the rain, including getting stuck on a steep hill. I think I’ll take cabs from now on. Overall, though, it was a good show and a good week.

Well, today was my birthday, so I had to endure a birthday dinner with friends and family. Just kidding — I had a great time and ate too much. I chose Hungry Hunter restaurant, which has my favorite meal, steak and fries with whiskey peppercorn sauce. The sauce wasn’t peppery enough and the fries were wimpy thin fries, not thick steak fries, but it was still delcious. The family was in good humor, teasing me about reaching the halfway point in my life (I’m 35), but I told them the average lifespan is always increasing and “halfway” is in the forties now and will be 50 by the time I’m forty-nine. It’s all irrelevant to me: I still have trouble thinking of myself as an adult, let alone a middle-aged man. Hopefully the “you’re only as old as you feel” phrase is true, for I feel like my life has scarcely started.

I went to a wonderful dinner in Santa Clara last night to honor the San Jose Earthquakes for their great season. Almost all the Earthquakes players were there, and I got my picture taken with Landon Donovan. In fact, I got lots of pictures of all the players, so I put up a series of them on my website here. Check out the highlights!

This was the Christmas special at Peoples Church in Fresno, Calif. (My parents attend Peoples.) It was pretty good, though a bit long at two hours. An original production, it told the story through song and drama of a musicical instrument maker in Scotland. The old man was ready to retire and close his shop; from one corner of the stage he reflects back on his life, from childhood where he first discovered music, through courtship and marriage, childbirth, the death of his wife, his son’s marriage and successes, etc. The cast was huge, with hundreds of choir members (children and teen groups as well as adults) participating in various numbers as well as most roles being portrayed by multiple actors (at various ages in life). Lots of costume changes. Some of the drama was weak (obviously not by professional actors); in places the story really dragged. The music was the highlight, but unfortunately not all the songs really gelled with the story; they felt rather tacked on. A few I really liked, but a couple had lackluster arrangements (“The Little Drummer Boy” was particularly woeful). Overall, interesting and extremely ambitious. I liked the main theme of a hard-working man leaving a legacy to his friends, family, and town (in the story the son, who originally was leaving home, decides to move back after seeing the influence his father had on the townspeople). The production was impressive: a huge set cleverly manipulated to serve multiple purposes, smoke and snow machines, and even a floating angel descending on wires from the ceiling! I found out later the troup was doing three performances a day for four days (2:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.) — that’s crazy! I salute them.

This evening I went to Lighthouse Venture Forum’s premiere event at Peachwoods restaurant, with special speaker Guy Kawaksaki (former Apple Fellow, CEO of garage.com, and author of Rules for Revolutionaries, The Macintosh Way, and other classic books). The place was filled with nearly 200 people, many of them CEOs of local companies such as Aladdin Systems, Thuridion, Tartan Technologies, and many others; I recognized a number of SVP’s printing customers. Guy’s presentation was amazing. He has such a flare for speaking, so relaxed and comfortable and witty he makes you feel the same. Nearly every sentence out of his mouth was a clever phrase, designed for you to remember (such as “Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant” — his way of saving absorb information and spread it around, not just in your own company, but in your entire industry). He actually gave several presentations (each about 15 minutes), and he had a question-and-answer follow-up. Full of excellent tips on entrepreneurship, business development, and securing venture capital funding, he had the crowd laughing at his great stories and hilarious examples of business stupidity (including making fun of both Microsoft and Apple, calling “Apple Marketing” an oxymoron, and saying, “If Apple had licensed the Mac OS in 1987 the desktop market would be 95% Mac and 5% Linux.”). Guy managed to offend most of the audience in one way or another, making Santa Cruz, women, men, guys with goatees who drive German cars and wear Armani, and other groups the butt of his jokes. It was hilarious, considering the CEO of Thuridion, founding member of the conference, drives a German car and has a goatee! (Even better was Guy’s attack on Herman Miller chairs: he declared that if a start-up buys Aeron chairs they are guaranteed to fail. In fact, he’s banned them at garage.com. I was at the Thuridion table, where the CEO was turning purple: everyone at Thuridion has an Aeron chair!) Note that Guy handled all this very well — when he realized the event’s sponsor had Aeron chairs he tried to use a different chair in his example, but finally gave up and picked on Herman Miller anyway. It was all in fun, but made a serious point about not wasting money just for the impression money creates. If you ever get the chance to hear Guy speak, take it. You’ll remember it for the rest of your life!

Had to go to jury duty today. Out of 90 people set to be selected for a trial, I was the last one picked… number 86. Fortunately, the lawyers ran out of premptory exemptions just as I got there, so the two alternates were chosen and I and a few others were sent home. Missed it by that much. Crazy process. I find it hard to believe that anyone convicted is actually innocent (I can easily believe that people not convicted could be guilty).

Well, today was my birthday. My thirty-second. Unbelievable. I don’t know where they all went. I certainly don’t feel that old. I told my uncle that since the first ten or twelve years of life are basically non-sentient they don’t count, so really I’m twenty-two. That strikes me as more accurate. Of course I still feel like I should have done something with those twenty-two years. But then, half of those were in school, and what can one accomplish in school? So really I’ve had little more than a decade of independence — and I feel I’ve gained a few things during those years though I haven’t done many of the things I wanted to do. On the one hand I read stories about famous writers (like Oscar Wilde) who died young yet accomplished so much in the few years they had, and on the other I hear about people (like Colonel Sanders) who didn’t start their famous careers until their sixties! So there’s hope at either end of life, I suppose. I’ve decided to not worry about it. My writing career will take off when it is time and not before.