March 2001 Archives

So I finally took the plunge. Last night after work I picked up a Powerbook G4. So far, I'm in love. This is what I've been looking for in a laptop all these years. First off, the hardware. It's titanium, which is just too cool. The laptop has a very clean, sleek look to it. The keyboard is fairly comfortable, I do like the feel of the keyboard. I'm still getting used to the single mouse button, but I think I'll be able to cope.

Now, as far as OS X goes. This is the other thing I've been looking for all these years. Something that gives me unix running on a laptop with a really slick interface. And that's what I've got here. I've always liked the feel of MacOS (though I really haven't used it since college), but I've always felt constrained by the lack of a kind of command-line interface. And now it doesn't only have one, it has one that is unix! So far I've built the apps I usually use with no problem.

The other bonus thing I realized is that this can now become my new development platform. I can have apache+php with mysql running on this box so that I can work offline on any web projects I have. The one thing I don't have yet is the wireless card for the Powerbook, but I'm hoping I can find it pretty soon.

Hmm, there seems to be something about me posting here and rain. Once again it is pouring out here in New England. A nice messy mixture of snow and rain.

I'm going to be picking up a mac powerbook G4 today. I'm taking the plunge into the mac world. I'm actually fairly excited about this. The laptop looks quite nice and it has been getting pretty good reviews. So look for some reports on how it all goes.

There was an interesting thing on NPR yesterday to do with people keeping journals. And one interesting thing about it was that they didn't seem to mention things like this at all. And it really does seem like the next big way for people to do journals. Even though many of the people who use things like Blogger do tend to just post their entries for everyone to read.

Can I just say that on days like this I really hate rain. It took me almost two hours to get into work today. I've never seen so much flooding before anyplace I lived. Actually, years ago when I lived in San Diego it was probably almost as bad one year, but I didn't have a car then so I didn't realize it. I was just amazed at the number of places where the road was just blocked completely and I had to turn back. Even looking outside now, the usually full parking lot is only barely half full. I keep wondering what happened to all the people. Did they get washed away? Or were they smart and just stayed home.

On another note, today is turning out to be quite a good work day. I'm finally feeling like I'm accomplishing things this week. There's just so much going on that my head has been spinning.

My parents were in town yesterday for some flower show in Boston. I slipped out of work a couple of minutes early to meet them for dinner at Jasper White's Summer Shack. It was a pretty interesting place. They serve primarily seafood. Lots of different kinds of fish, raw bar stuff, etc. I had a grilled lobster that was quite tastey (though much too expensive IMHO). It looked like a good place to go with a number of people, but I think for what you got it was a little pricey.

As of early evening yesterday it is Spring. Except it still doesn't quite feel that way yet. It needs to get just a little bit warmer. I so can't wait till I can wear shorts every day.

Lately I've been enjoying this online comic called MegaTokyo. I seem to be a little bit slow discovering this, since a number of friends of mine have found it long ago, but I'm still digging it.

Oh! And I lost my damn ATM/debit card again. I can be the most absent minded person at times. Though this time I reported it to the bank before anyone ran up a few hundred dollars in charges.

It finally feels like winter will be over soon. It was about 49 degrees out today and just beautiful. I sat outside for 10 minutes and just enjoyed the fact that I *could* be out there for 10 minutes in just a sweatshirt. While I like winter a lot, I do have to say that spring is probably my favorite season. It just feels like everything is coming alive again. I am also happy because it is easier for me to get out and about when the weather is warmer. The cold weather just makes my lungs go crazy.

I finally did some record shopping this last weekend. I don't think I'd been in weeks and definitely needed the fix. I think it must be some kind of DJ thing.

Ahh, I love cars. I brought my car in for a tune up today, since it hadn't had one since I moved to Boston (about 3 years ago). They called back saying it was in pretty good condition. BUT, I needed a new left front axle (ouch). I just got off the phone with them and their parts supplier brought them the wrong axle so it may not be ready today. On the positive side though. I really like this garage, they have been really great to me. It's the Good News Garage in Cambridge, MA, home of the Car Talk guys. (Yes, they do actually work there as far as I can tell).

The weather is finally warming up here in MA. Which is quite a nice change. It's just about 50 degrees out currently.

Healthwise there are no big changes, though I have been coughing a lot more lately. I've been trying to figure out if it is related to my prednisone dose going down or not. I'm really hoping it isn't because I like that I'm down to only 10mg/day.

Well my site was down for a day or so there due to a switch at work dying. Cisco is due to bring by a new supervisor module today which should fix that.

I added some new pictures of my wonderfully cute nephew to my site. You can see the latest pictures here. Hopefully I'll get to update pictures of him much more often in the future. I'm also hoping to get to see him sometime this year.

The snow here has finally started to melt a little bit. Parking is getting much easier finally. Hopefully spring will be around the corner.

I also made my first sales today on half.com. For folks who are looking to get rid of old books, CDs, Movies, etc it is amazing. You just list what you are selling and what you are selling it for and they basicly take care of the rest. I'm using it to get rid of some DVDs that I just don't ever see myself watching again. I'll give an update on that once I see how these sales went through.

I just got in from seeing 'Get Over It'. A new teen flick that just came out today. It has Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, and the guy who is in Roswell but whose name I can't remember. I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for teen flicks. I just can't help myself. I'll give this one a B+. The only gripe I had was the cost of the movie. I hadn't been out to a movie in a while and $8.50 is just insane.

The weather is looking fairly crappy outside, so I think it will be yet another weekend inside procrastinating on working on a new mixtape and watching movies.

So now that I've found this blogger.com site I have decided that I want to start keeping even more logs. For instance. I'd been keeping a somewhat handdone log of things to do with my lungs. The problem is that it is a pain in the ass to keep updating it by hand. So soon I will probably put a blog there also.

So once again, New England is getting hit by snow. We're supposed to get another 5 or so inches tonight. I am very not looking forward to it. With my current state of health getting dug out is a big deal. Tuesday it took me about two hours. I'd sit in the car and rest, get out, brush off some more snow, get back in the car, and repeat until done.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what is going on with my health. I have something called Interstatial Pulmonary Fibrosis. It basicly means that there is some kind of scarring in my lungs. This means they don't process oxygen too well. In fact, they suck at it. Imagine walking up a flight of stairs and being winded, not because you are out of shape, but because you just can't get enough oxygen. And that is just a single flight of stairs. I'm currently on various medications for it, but the only real cure is a lung transplant. Which really isn't a cure. I'm just trading medical conditions to one that is a little bit more managable. There's a bunch more on this on my lung page, and soon I'll be starting up a blog there also for issues with that.

Well, I've finally started one of these weblog things. This first post is just a kind of introduction.

If you are here you most probably know me in some way shape or form. Either I sent you here to grab a mix session of mine or you just wanted to find out more about me. For those of you who don't know me, feel free to explore the rest of my site. I feel a change coming on, so the design of it will probably be changing sometime in the near future. Enjoy the pictures of my nephew, my friends, and the music I've got on the site. And come back to keep updated on how things are going.

peace
gregory