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I grow weary of this place.

August 23, 2011 By 2 Comments

By “this place” I mean, this site, this blog, this design, this whole… well… place.

I think I’m going to tear it down and start over again. It’s looked and behaved this way for over a year now, and that’s fairly ancient in blog years. Lately (the last couple of weeks) I’ve been playing more and more with responsive design in various unnamed subdirectories and subdomains, specifically with responsive WordPress themes and I think it might be time to “eat my own dogfood” as it were.

I know it’s gotten old because I just haven’t had the desire to blog about anything, or post anything, perfectly content to tinker away under the hood playing with CSS and PHP and not willing to pull the trigger on getting up off my ass and actually doing any of the heavy lifting on something that has commitment and personal accountability. You know, the whole public face of this place.

So okay. A deal’s a deal. If I’m gonna do something, I’m not gonna half ass it. Like they say, “go big or go home”. So let’s take the next week or two and really tear this place up, shall we?

Filed Under: Development & Design, Personal Tagged With: , ,

So what is it about Neal Adams, anyway?

July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I was a Batman fan before I could read. Growing up in the early 70s, my exposure to Batman was courtesy of the famous Batman television show. Sock! Pow! Bam! “Holy Campy TV Show, Batman!” I was under the age of ten, I wasn’t reading yet, and my early experience with comics was learning to read (“so the fluffy clouds mean they’re thinking… and the plain round balloons mean they’re talking!”) via Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes. Pretty harmless stuff.

Then something happened.

It happened around 1977. I was ten years old and I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. It was the oversized collection of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ Ra’s Al Ghul stories. Originally published in 1971, the series completely redefined a Batman who was suffering from camp and overexposure, returning him to his “Dark Knight” roots and electrifying the comics industry with a combination of O’Neil’s dark, compelling stories and Adams’ dynamic, almost hyper-realism. All this had occurred about six years earlier, but it was all new to me. I was about six years or so behind that curve, but my childhood love of comics was started by the very same series of events. Up to that point, I thought Batman was funny. He fought silly villains named, “The Mad Hatter”, “Egghead”, “King Tut” and “The Riddler”. He had a hyperactive sidekick who only seemed capable of annoying you to death with his endless stream of “Holy Catchphrases”. He certainly wasn’t someone to take seriously… like Superman… or Flash.

But here he was, on the cover of that book looking like he could easily kick the ass of every character in the DC Universe, and he was suffering… and waitaminute… is that Robin? Dead? And who’s that evil sonofabitch behind him with the claws, looking like he’s actually happy that Robin’s dead? Now, I’m only ten years old, but I couldn’t help but notice there’s a very exotic woman there looking pretty damn sexy off to the side. What’s she got to do with all this? It’s a dollar, it’s a giant comic book. Well, I just HAVE to have this.

So I got my hands on it and sat down and proceeded to learn about Talia, Ra’s, the Lazarus Pit. I was mesmerized. This wasn’t the Batman I knew. This was… I dunno, a real Batman. This wasn’t a guy with impossible powers travelling at Super Speed, or an alien from Krypton. This was the world’s greatest detective, and he was detecting. He knew martial arts and was a master of disguise. He was a scientist and an escape artist, and he was armed with the most awesome set of gadgets money could buy.

Once this switch was turned on, it would never again be turned off, and I would never again look at “comics” or “superheroes” the same way again. This was the bar. Neal and Denny had raised it to precisely this point.

It also exposed me to “creators” for the first time ever. I mean, I had to learn, “who were these guys?” and “Why was this comic so radically different from everything else I had read before?” and the answer of course was storytelling and art. So naturally, I had to find out, “who wrote this?” and “who drew those amazing images of Batman and Robin?” I began looking for more of Neal Adams’ work, and more stories written by Denny O’Neil. The next, most obvious discovery was the work the pair did outside of “The Demon” series of stories involving Ra’s. The work on Batman and Detective with Two-Face, the Joker, and the reinvention of the gothic Dark Knight Detective. That led to his work on Brave and Bold, and eventually I came across the ground-breaking work the two did on Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Admittedly, those books were a little too advanced for a ten year old, but I still “got it”. These weren’t your typical superhero books. This wasn’t Spider-Man cracking jokes and shooting webs at a Lizard Man, or a guy who could stretch his arms around Dr. Doom. This was… well… “real”.

So that’s really it in a somewhat long-winded nutshell. I love superheroes, I love Batman, and I’ll never forget the first time I realized that Batman was real.

Filed Under: Comics, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

One of my greatest disappointments in life.

July 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I think if I had to look back on my life, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed that I never worked in a, “top-secret nerve center”. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to work every day in some sort of underground (I’m assuming they’re underground, since… you know, I’ve never BEEN inside a “top-secret nerve center”) place, humming with the activity of very, very important work, essential to… something. Right?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , ,

Some goals and some lessons.

June 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Okay look, I’ll admit it. I ate like an army when I was in Seattle. Fish, french fries, artisan cheeses, delicious local gastronomy. The restaurant at the Sheraton was “The Daily Grill”, a personal weakness of mine. They make the best meatloaf and chicken pot pie… and yes, one night I got in late and ordered a Daily Grill Hamburger delivered to the room after 10 o’clock. Not to mention I was like, two blocks from KuKuRuZa gourmet popcorn, and I got an almost crack-like addiction to dark chocolate caramel popcorn, as well as enjoying a delicious bag of swedish fish from the  Candy Store at Pike Place Market.

And I don’t regret a single bit of it.

I did realize, however, that I can’t take that type of diet lightly, and I certainly can’t sustain the combination of not riding/exercising (I was in pretty brutal shape from my accident days before) and eating like a roman soldier on leave. So I knew when I got home I was going to have to buckle down and get back to the discipline needed to get my weight back down to a manageable level. Doc says I need to be about 165-170, but we agreed that 170-175 was probably a more reasonable weight for me, and when I got home I was way off that… by um, about 25 pounds. I actually came back from Seattle the heaviest I’ve been in over two years. I was just north of 200 (201).

About the same time I came home from my trip, I read a blog post somewhere about the secret to achieving your goals, and one of the  tips was to “be specific”. Don’t say, “I’ve got to lose weight”, say, “I’ve got to lose X pounds by Y”. Make it realistic and specific. So, knowing I was going to Atlanta tomorrow for the “Event Apart” conference, and feeling very strongly that I didn’t want to go to Atlanta in bad shape, I used it as an opportunity to try and be as specific as I could. I went back and looked at my weight history (yes, I keep a weight history at FatSecret.com, as well as a diary of everything I’ve eaten over the last two years) and told myself, “okay, you’ve got about three weeks before you leave for Atlanta. You need to lose 20 pounds and be at least 180 before you go”. This would give me only about 5-7 pounds I’d need to lose when I get back before I’d be back down to my healthy weight. A lofty goal, but looking at my weight loss history, and knowing how much I’d ride and the discipline I’d need, it seemed a good goal to set.

Weighing myself this morning, and I’m 177.4 pounds. Not bad. Exceeded my goal by about 2 pounds.

So what were the lessons? Fairly straightforward, actually.

  1. Weigh yourself. Often. I read this a lot, and it’s true. If you’re attuned to your weight, and you weigh yourself as often as possible – I started weighing myself every morning – you’re more apt to be aware of what you’re doing throughout the day. It’s just a psychological tool, but it’s a pretty powerful one. I noticed that when I don’t weigh myself frequently, I simply don’t make the connection between my diet, my exercise, and my weight.
  2. Keep a Food Diary. This one’s huge. I don’t really care what “diet” you’re on, whether it has a “name” or not, I don’t really care how much you exercise. I only know one thing. It’s a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. It’s no more complicated than that. Your body requires a certain number of calories to power it for 24 hours. If you consume more than that, your body converts and stores it. If you increase your physical activity and burn more calories than you take in… the opposite is true. I happen to burn a LOT of calories, and if I keep a dietary diary, if I keep track of everything I eat throughout the day, I just naturally consume fewer calories. This is very closely tied to portion control, but you’ll find that when you have to actually write down everything you eat, and the quantity, you just sort of naturally practice much tighter portion control. Also, I bet you’ll surprise yourself by how large your portions are.  Serving sizes really ARE serving sizes. They’re not just there as a “recommendation” or a “suggestion”. I really do only eat 4 oz of chicken when I eat chicken breast, and yes, I actually weigh it… or at least I did… until I learned what 4 oz. of chicken looked like and can now eyeball a single serving of chicken with remarkable accuracy.
  3. Don’t eat at night. Seriously. Don’t do it. I eat about every 3 hours. I eat roughly 300 to 400 calories at each meal. I eat at around 8, 11, 1, 4, 6, and 8:30-ish. I consume about 2000 calories or more a day, and that last snack at 8:30 is it. No more. I don’t snack at 10. I definitely don’t eat anything before I go to bed, and if I eat at 8:30, I won’t go to bed for at least 2-3 hours after that last meal. This has been huge. I always eat breakfast, and trust me, if you don’t eat anything after 8:30, you will too.
  4. Exercise. All of the above is well and good, but if you’re not increasing your metabolism with exercise, then you’re only doing half the work. I’m not talking about walking around the park, or taking a leisurely bike ride around the neighborhood. You need to get your heart pumping. Do whatever suits you… but do it.

So I did those sort of basic things. That was my discipline. I kept my eye on my weight, I kept a food diary, I wasn’t snacking late at night, and of course… bike, bike, bike. Made myself a nice, somewhat challenging, but realistic goal, and kept to it. Sure enough, it worked.

Now… my next goal is, “don’t gain any of the weight back while I’m in Atlanta…”

Fingers crossed for this one, I love soul food.

Filed Under: Nutrition and Food, Personal Tagged With: ,

The best part about being a dad.

June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I dunno. Some moments you just treasure more than others, you know? Sometimes during the course of the day, things happen that make you just pause and realize how great it is to just be, “that guy”.

Last night my daughter came into the room because she had a bad dream. All she wanted to do was climb into bed.

I didn’t have to lift a finger, I didn’t have to buy a Barbie, I didn’t have to cut chicken tenders, I didn’t have to kill a bug, or open a jar, or do anything except just be a dad.

So she got into bed, got herself situated under the covers and I fell back asleep with my arm over her.

Best. Night. Ever.

 

Filed Under: Fun and Frivolous, Personal Tagged With: , , ,

Holy crap. It’s been two weeks already?!?

June 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

Damn.

I’ve been so busy, I didn’t even realize I hadn’t written about *anything* for the last two weeks. I mean, I’ve got tons of stuff to write about, but it seems like I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to sit down and organize my thoughts.

Okay, so I’m gonna get back into the groove and write about stuff. There’s a lot to cover:

  • I went to “Web Directions Unplugged”. That was awesome. I saw so many things and took away so much from the conference that I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about mobile, about the future of mobile, and specifically about the agency’s place in developing mobile presences for clients.
  • Oh, and speaking of the Agency, I’ve been promoted to Vice President of Digital. I’m now overseeing all aspects of LHWH Advertising’s digital efforts, which is one of the reasons I’ve been so busy. I’ve been working a lot on proposals and coordinating a lot of the internal training we’re doing. That’s been really fun. Over the last three weeks I’ve given three different presentations on technology internally that have all been really well received. I love speaking, and it’s really rewarding to be speaking in front of a group that’s as receptive and energetic as the folks I work with.
  • I’m completely addicted to Dreamweaver CS5.5. I got my copy shortly before leaving for Seattle, and that, coupled with the things Greg Rewis showed off at Web Directions have got me so hot to create stuff with Dreamweaver, that I’m really itching to blog some more about the great stuff you can do with it. I mean, holy mackerel, the PhoneGap stuff alone is astonishing. Throw in jQuery Mobile, the HTML/CSS3 stuff… well… it’s just crazy the features they’ve rolled into this release. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to be developing web apps. This really is a great time to be a developer.
  • Seattle was spectacular. It was so great to be back “home” and the day I took to drive back up to Whidbey Island was one of the best days I’ve spent in recent memory. Oak Harbor is so much more different than when I left, but deep down, it’s still Oak Harbor and it still leaves me with the same feelings. I love that place and have a really deep attachment to it and the Pacific Northwest. I don’t think you ever really get that out of your system. One of the first things I wanna do is sit down and go through the hundreds of pictures I took and toss a handful of them up here to share. My friend Doug got me back on base, and it really was like stepping into a time capsule.
  • I’m healing up fine from my accident. I’ve been riding on the rollers for the past week and a half or so, and it’s doing a lot to get my legs back in shape. I’m still a little nervous about being out in traffic though. How weird is that? I wouldn’t have thought that I’d have had that reaction, but I’m surprisingly skittish about riding my bike on the street now. I’m sure I’ll get over it soon enough, but it’s strange how much more I prefer riding on rollers over being out on the roads right now.

So yeah. Tons of stuff, all worthy of being blogged about… Like I said, I’ve got a lot to say, I just need to slow down long enough to say it.

Filed Under: Meta, Personal Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

“Why didn’t he release it earlier?”

April 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

Because he’s American, you fucking yutz. That’s why. He didn’t NEED to release it. You completely gloss over the fact that he not only releases the birth certificate, but simultaneously outs you for being the shallow racist that you are, by correctly stating that the non-issue was actually distracting people from the real problems the country faces.

But of course, rather than speak to the problems in America, or how we can begin to fix them, it’s much easier to tilt at windmills and preen for drooling idiots glued to Fox News who cling to some hope that the smart black man in the White House isn’t really who he says he is.

You should be ashamed.

UPDATE: Here’s a great one. Donald Trump, China basher extraordinaire, has a clothing line, called naturally, “The Donald J. Trump Signature Collection”. Of course, it’s manufactured in China. Because when you’re a racist idiot, might as well go all in, right?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With:

Cisco are a bunch of idiots.

April 13, 2011 By 2 Comments

So they’re sunsetting the Flip? I really hope someone buys Flip from Cisco and keeps the brand alive. I mean, I totally understand the thought process, because it does seem like cellphones have added features that make the Flip redundant, but I think they’re dead wrong.

1. Sometimes I don’t want to take my cellphone with me. Shooting video of a family outing, or an event is completely different from spontaneously using a camera phone to capture a moment. Case in point, would I have taken my phone into church to film my daughter’s baptism? Hell no (clever way to work in “hell” don’t you think?). I took a Flip, however, and it was easy and convenient to pass around to relatives. “Here, just push the red button and point it”.

2. Do you think I remotely have enough room on my cellphone to capture all the video I want? Again, hell no. I’ve got a nice little 8GB iPhone, and a Droid2 with 8GB of memory. How much of that do you think is taken up by apps, books, media, music? A lot, that’s how much. I actually LIKE having a dedicated camera that I can take with me on an outing or a family trip and use JUST for shooting video.

3. Why on earth would I use up my cell phone’s battery shooting video? Seriously, the thing barely lasts long enough with normal use, now I’m walking around all day shooting video with it?

There are probably a lot more uses that I’m overlooking, but the point remains. A small, convenient, dedicated video camera is a must-have. If Cisco ultimately decides to shutter Flip, and someone else doesn’t buy them, I’m either hunting for Flips on clearance on Amazon, or buying another brand when the Flip I currently have ultimately dies. Cisco really are a bunch of idiots.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , , , ,

My smart cover is stupid.

April 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

Anyone else having problems with this piece of shit?

I noticed over the last couple of weeks that it’s begun to slip a little. By that I mean, sometimes when I put it into my computer bag the cover slips a little and I hear the little “click” of it either waking up, or going to sleep, depending of course, which click it was. Sometimes it’ll click to wake up, then I’ll hear it in the bag clicking again… randomly.

I think I’m going to go get some kind of complete cover for it. Getting an iPad the day of release kinda limited me on the options I had in terms of covers, and when I say “limited” I mean, “the only fucking cover available was the smart cover”. So now that iPad2′s have been around for a month or two, maybe I can locate a nice, complete cover for the whole tablet.

I kinda wish I had my old, original iPad back… Maybe Ray will trade me…

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , ,

The Fourth of July and Douglas Dimberg, Parts one and two.

March 31, 2011 By 1 Comment

I originally posted this on my first blog. In fact, it was THE reason I started blogging. I had an experience in my life that I never forgot, and I always thought, “you know, if I die, I’d really like to at least get that thought down on paper… or something”. So I started blog over on blogger and tried to put it into words. I wasn’t very good at it initially, and it sort of psychologically and creatively exhausted me and I wound up splitting it into two posts that were spread out over a couple of weeks.

I just got an email that the domain name for my old blog was expiring, and I finally decided that I was going to go ahead and delete the account and shut it down.

But I really didn’t want to lose this one post (well, two posts actually). So I’m going to just re-publish them here as one long post… for posterity. At least until I delete THIS one…

So without further ado…

The fourth of July and Douglas Dimberg

It’s officially the fourth of July and this is what I remember:

It was November 30th, 1988 (by the way, as a side note, I had to go look that up in my cruise book. Sad isn’t it?). I had worked about eighteen hours that day. I was an Aviation Ordnanceman on the USS Nimitz and was working “CAG Arm-Dearm” and was on Cat 3. This meant I was working the third catapult all day, which meant cats and traps, or as they’re commonly known, takeoffs and landings. Those days are rough because you have to be up well before the first takeoff, and stay until the last trap of the day, which is usually just before midnight. So getting up around six, and working until midnight was pretty much the standard “Cat 3 day”.

So there I was, just getting off work, and looking forward to catching up on a little rest. I was finished, showered, dressed for bed, and ready to call it a night when I heard it,

“GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS. PROCEED UP AND FORWARD ON THE STARBOARD SIDE, DOWN AND AFT ON THE PORT SIDE…GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS”

Without missing a beat, off came the sleepwear, on went the greens, redshirt, and boots, and out the hatch I went. My berthing at the time was on the level just beneath the arresting gear aft, pretty much under the 4 wire. I was above the hanger bay and below the flight deck. When I woke up every morning to go to work, I normally would proceed out of my berthing area, thru a hatch leading to the catwalk outside. This would place me along the edge of the flight deck, on the port side, where the landing safety officer would normally stand. I’d hop up the ladder, up on deck, and I could cut straight across the flight deck to work. Honestly, since it was after flight quarters, and there was nothing landing or taking off, it would be fine to head out to my shop in this manner, even at night under general quarters.

So off I go, getting ready to head up the catwalk to the flight deck when “Tucker”, another AO, came down from precisely where I was going. “Can’t go that way,” he said. “Why not?”, I asked. “Because it’s all on fire”.

It took a couple of seconds for that to sink in.

End of Part One.

The fourth of July and Douglas Dimberg Part Two

So there it was. The flight deck was on fire.
Later, we’d learn that an A-7 Corsair II had shot its M61 Vulcan rounds into a KA-6D tanker that was full of fuel. The rounds were high explosive rounds that were packed with White Phosphorus that ignites on contact with Oxygen. They were depleted Uranium shells, so you figure out how that was supposed to work. High Explosive round with an armor penetrating casing. It’s created to go INTO something (a tank), and set the INSIDES of it (the tank) on FIRE. Imagine how that works on a tanker aircraft that’s full of fuel. The tanker was parked near the bow, between Catapults 1 and 2 in an area known as “the street” with the A-7 parked directly next to it facing its side, over cat 2.
I know, I know, you’re saying to yourself, “how on earth can guns fire on the ground? Aren’t there steps to ensure that nothing like that happens?”. Oh how right you are. That’s why the people who were responsible for this were made to pay. Leavenworth, from what I understand.
It’s very simple. Weapon systems won’t work on the ground.
It’s easy. There’s an actual switch in the landing gear called “the weight off wheels” switch. When the plane is on the ground, the weight compresses the landing gear and the switch is active. Weight is ON the wheels, and the weapons systems are not “allowed” to arm. Missles can’t fire, Guns can’t shoot. In order to “fool” the airplane, sometimes you have to use a “weight off wheels” actuator. It’s just a wedge that you wedge into the weight on wheels switch to actuate it and make the plane think the landing gear is up. Of course, before you do this, you’re supposed to go thru a lengthy checklist that include disconnecting any plugs or wires that might lead to the accidental firing of a weapon.
Not so in this case. Gun is connected. Weight is OFF the wheels, and some poor sucker in the pilot seat of the A-7 pulls the trigger, thinking nothing is going to happen. The whole team was neglegent and people paid with their lives.
What happens is in the second he pulls the trigger, he blows rounds into a KA-6D tanker not 15 yards away igniting the fuel inside and engulfing the whole immediate area in flames. Several people are killed instantly including Douglas Dimberg, who was on his way to an EA-6B Prowler to work on it. Doug and I had gone to boot camp in Orlando together in May/June of 1985. Upon completion of boot camp, he went off to his “A-School” and I went off to mine. I eventually made my way to the VA-165 Boomers stationed on NAS Whidbey Island where we ran into each other months later. We’d occasionally pass each other on base, or, as we were deployed, we’d see each other in the chow line, on the flight deck, FOD walkdown, etc.
So that’s what I’m faced with as I make my way to the flight deck. It’s probably been on fire now for about four or five minutes as I head up there on the starboard side, forward of the island. I’m an Aviation Ordnanceman, so starboard side of the island is the weapons farm, where literally all of the weapons are staged for loading onto aircraft on the flight deck. There are enough people already worrying about the weapons staged there and that was their job, and I wasn’t about to get in the way. Instead, I’m grabbed and led across the flight deck, behind the fire, to the port side. There I run into my best friend Mike, who’s on a team and slowly advancing toward the fire. My team grabs a hose and maneuvers to the left of Mike, coming at the fire now from almost the top/bow direction. So I’m on a hose advancing, and Mike’s on a hose advancing.
I don’t really remember when the AFFF kicked in, but I do remember fighting the fire, helping move aircraft, and walking around in the early morning hours in several inches of foam, so I know the system kicked on at some point. I remember watching the sun come up and getting the first chance to see the devastation on the forward flight deck. Our KA-6D was a complete loss. Over the side it went, but not before our squadron spent the better part of the day stripping out every useful component in her. I remember the kind of stunned silence of walking around up there. People going about their jobs with a focus and determination that cut thru the tragedy of the day. I don’t really remember a time to reflect on the accident, or think about what had happened until much later. It just seemed like there was so much to do.
I have pretty vivid memories of fighting the fire with Mike. Later, I think Mike and I would acknowledge the moments, and maybe talk about how crazy it was there for a couple of hours, but I don’t think we ever sat down and really talked about it. At one point during the fire, I remember thinking that we were getting cut off from the rest of the ship because the fuel spilling out of the tanker was on fire and it was literally spreading liquid fire across the deck as it spilled, and the combination of the ship turning and the fuel spilling was making it extremely difficult to see how we weren’t going to wind up completely cut off on the bow with no place to go but over the side. I remember thinking, “if I go over, there’s no way they’ll ever find me, what a shitty way to go, I wish I could tell my mom goodbye…” and that was about it. The rest of the time seems like a blur of getting what needed to be done, done.
I can close my eyes sometimes and make myself see Dimberg. I don’t remember exactly what he looked like, and that’s a shame. I wish I could. I can see a sort of rough outline of him, like he’s not exactly in focus, and in that outline, I can see him smiling. I don’t even want to forget that out in the ocean, far away from military bases, and “action”, and “hot zones” a man named Doug Dimberg gave his life for his country. He died doing his job. He had friends and they remember him. The flight deck of an Aircraft Carrier is a dangerous place, and occasionally people die up there. Right now, while you’re reading this, there are young men and women who are working on one of those very same flight decks, doing those very same jobs, and who deserve our respect and admiration.
Here’s hoping every single one of them makes it home in one piece.
Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , ,
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