Jenn in her CIA whites.
Posted by Hello
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Palm Sunday
Last year, all the Brooklyn family that could make it came over for dinner. It was our first family event. I was married, had a house, two cats and a dog and suddenly I was hosting a holiday dinner. How the hell did this happen? Despite my misgivings, I managed a ham, pork roast and garlic roasted potatoes along with some appetizers. Dinner was a success and everyone had a good noisy time. People just stayed at our huge dining room table and ate and joked and laughed.
So one year ago I was in my kitchen with my sister by my side to guide and supervise me. We laughed, talked about food and just were together. It was great. It was moments like that that made me want to go to the FCI and somehow, eventually, work together. What a difference a year makes. This Palm Sunday she's gone and I'm sick with some sort of cold / sinus infection and cooking is something I tend to avoid these days. I guess its part self punishment and part pain avoidance. If I just make eggs I want to go to cooking school and all it takes is that bit of cooking to make me think of Jenn and her missed opportunities. She knew I wanted to go, but I know she also felt that the reality of the industry might be too much what with the low starting salary and tough hours. It takes a lot of sacrifice to be a chef. If you want to learn more about it, read Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America. There is one incident in the book I am indirectly involved in - back in 1996 there was one hella blizzard and the author describes trying to get to class from Poughkeepsie to Hyde Park. At the same time back then I was trying to make it from Hartsdale to Peekskill. A 20 min trip to 4hours that night. The author actually gets taken to task for not showing up to class in a blizzard that had already dumped around 4 feet of snow. That's the type of industry it is and that's the expectation. Jenn excelled there. She'd found her calling. That's more than I can say.
Anyway, this week is a week of healing and redemption and mercy and though my faith is hardly what it once was I find myself humbled and praying for her.
So one year ago I was in my kitchen with my sister by my side to guide and supervise me. We laughed, talked about food and just were together. It was great. It was moments like that that made me want to go to the FCI and somehow, eventually, work together. What a difference a year makes. This Palm Sunday she's gone and I'm sick with some sort of cold / sinus infection and cooking is something I tend to avoid these days. I guess its part self punishment and part pain avoidance. If I just make eggs I want to go to cooking school and all it takes is that bit of cooking to make me think of Jenn and her missed opportunities. She knew I wanted to go, but I know she also felt that the reality of the industry might be too much what with the low starting salary and tough hours. It takes a lot of sacrifice to be a chef. If you want to learn more about it, read Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America. There is one incident in the book I am indirectly involved in - back in 1996 there was one hella blizzard and the author describes trying to get to class from Poughkeepsie to Hyde Park. At the same time back then I was trying to make it from Hartsdale to Peekskill. A 20 min trip to 4hours that night. The author actually gets taken to task for not showing up to class in a blizzard that had already dumped around 4 feet of snow. That's the type of industry it is and that's the expectation. Jenn excelled there. She'd found her calling. That's more than I can say.
Anyway, this week is a week of healing and redemption and mercy and though my faith is hardly what it once was I find myself humbled and praying for her.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Strat and The Ultimate Fighter
I was at Sfumato's last night to play our first Strat series . We lost, 3 games to 4 but all things considered it was a good showing. Our team is crap and we have to manage each game like a World Series game in order to give ourselves a chance. If we even come close to contending, the season will be a brilliant success. More than the game though, I enjoy hanging out with Sfumato. Strat is merely an excuse to get together and BS and just put life on hold for few hours and concentrate on weighty issues like whether to bring in Bruce Chen or play Alex Sanchez in CF against a lefty or consider the merits of bunting with Matt Lawton.
After the series was over we BS'd about a few things for a while - a long while actually. Long enough to catch the midnite showing of the Ultimate Fighter on Spike.
I have two comments on the episode:
After the series was over we BS'd about a few things for a while - a long while actually. Long enough to catch the midnite showing of the Ultimate Fighter on Spike.
I have two comments on the episode:
- Sam needs to get whacked around. Granted, editing can make anyone look bad on camera, but even so.... Sam has to get a beat down. That fake smile fake good guy look of his grates on me.
- I'm still amazed how fast the tide can turn in one of these fights. Underdog Beard Guy came out throwing and opened a nice cut on Bald Crazy Guy but could not capitalize on it. If he had managed to go down in the center of the octogon or been able to throw some more strikes at that big cut, things might have turned out better for him. Instead he got taken down, put into side control and mounted in a hearbeat. Then the pummeling begins. It just goes to reinforce the scoring sytem in BJJ - the mount is a good place to be in a real fight.
Misery
I'm sick and I'm freaking miserable. My right eye and nostril are running like finely tuned high performance Italian engines. Just the right side though. The left eye and nostril live now in constant fear wondering when the germ gestapo is going to bang the door down. Trapped they sit there and quiver in fear.
The dastardly sickness started creeping up on Friday afternoon. By the evening it was looking to get a superior position and score some points before trying to sink in a wicked face flood hold. No sleep last night except for maybe 30 min here and 30 min there. Things really started to look great when my tissues were pink with blood around 3:45AM.
Oh yeah - this is great. Love it.
The dastardly sickness started creeping up on Friday afternoon. By the evening it was looking to get a superior position and score some points before trying to sink in a wicked face flood hold. No sleep last night except for maybe 30 min here and 30 min there. Things really started to look great when my tissues were pink with blood around 3:45AM.
Oh yeah - this is great. Love it.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Jedi Philosophy and CSS Image Replacement
About two hours ago I hung up on a friend. Just clicked end because I was pissed off and frustrated.
Did he bang my wife? Drink my liquor? Wreck my car? Steal my stereo? Tell me I was a amoral crazed libertine? Were we arguing over social security? The Iraq war?
Nope.
The crux of the debate centered around CSS image replacement techniques. Yeah -- "What the hell is that?" you might be thinking. Well its a geek thing and the argument we had / are having is about as divided as you can get. Like North Vs. South divided. It might seem stupid outside of IT, but you should just see how hostile things can get between say, an open source unix guy and well, anyone not using that platform. It gets ugly folks. Who knew, right?
We (my friend and I) just see things differently. There really is no right or wrong - its what works for you and what works for your clients. Still though, I get tired of having to defend shit. Every new technique that comes out on the web is not a hack. Not all old techniques are hacks either but time and progress does march on.
I guess my problem stems from the word hack - to me it has a derogatory connotation. I prefer the terms "method" or solution for my side of things. My buddy views image replacement techniques as a hack because he thinks they use the background property in CSS for a purpose other than which it was intended, namely to display an image which itself displays text or something like Britney Spears in a see through top or some such. A background, he thinks, should be just that, an abstract thing sitting behind the element like a color or a gradient pattern. If it has meaning of somesort, he wants it in an image tag. If its a spacer GIF, that's ok too. Moreover he sees it as hypocritical - because the same crowd, in general, that espouses this technique as capital G Good, and which he sees as a hack, decries the use of tables for anything other than a debit credit ledger or a phone list. See, tables were not meant to be layout elements, but people adapted them to it. Now people are using the background of elements to do funny things with image replacement and that's just crazy talk.
Me, I'm a bit of a tech crow. I like shiny sites. I like nice fonts and good design and clean crisp images and strong use of photography (within limits of the site objective, of course). To me the image replacement techniques are great. You get to have your cake and eat it too. In the end the site looks better, is accessible and indexable. Win Win Win. Moreover I like things modularized. I like the idea of markup that is ready to go anywhere and can be styled however it needs to be and still stay presentation free.
Still though, its a silly thing to be getting into a fight with a friend with. Of course, I really don't think he even thought we were having a fight. He wasn't. Me on the other hand...I was., I was just getting more and more pissed off and frustrated. Frustration leads to anger and anger leads to the Dark Side and bad dialogue that sounds like it was translated to German and back to English. Silly Silly.
Side bar -
Other 'hacks" (usage of something for other than what it was intended):
Ultimately, it seems man just does what he can with what he's got and we all do the best we can. What more can we ask of ourselves?
Did he bang my wife? Drink my liquor? Wreck my car? Steal my stereo? Tell me I was a amoral crazed libertine? Were we arguing over social security? The Iraq war?
Nope.
The crux of the debate centered around CSS image replacement techniques. Yeah -- "What the hell is that?" you might be thinking. Well its a geek thing and the argument we had / are having is about as divided as you can get. Like North Vs. South divided. It might seem stupid outside of IT, but you should just see how hostile things can get between say, an open source unix guy and well, anyone not using that platform. It gets ugly folks. Who knew, right?
We (my friend and I) just see things differently. There really is no right or wrong - its what works for you and what works for your clients. Still though, I get tired of having to defend shit. Every new technique that comes out on the web is not a hack. Not all old techniques are hacks either but time and progress does march on.
I guess my problem stems from the word hack - to me it has a derogatory connotation. I prefer the terms "method" or solution for my side of things. My buddy views image replacement techniques as a hack because he thinks they use the background property in CSS for a purpose other than which it was intended, namely to display an image which itself displays text or something like Britney Spears in a see through top or some such. A background, he thinks, should be just that, an abstract thing sitting behind the element like a color or a gradient pattern. If it has meaning of somesort, he wants it in an image tag. If its a spacer GIF, that's ok too. Moreover he sees it as hypocritical - because the same crowd, in general, that espouses this technique as capital G Good, and which he sees as a hack, decries the use of tables for anything other than a debit credit ledger or a phone list. See, tables were not meant to be layout elements, but people adapted them to it. Now people are using the background of elements to do funny things with image replacement and that's just crazy talk.
Me, I'm a bit of a tech crow. I like shiny sites. I like nice fonts and good design and clean crisp images and strong use of photography (within limits of the site objective, of course). To me the image replacement techniques are great. You get to have your cake and eat it too. In the end the site looks better, is accessible and indexable. Win Win Win. Moreover I like things modularized. I like the idea of markup that is ready to go anywhere and can be styled however it needs to be and still stay presentation free.
Still though, its a silly thing to be getting into a fight with a friend with. Of course, I really don't think he even thought we were having a fight. He wasn't. Me on the other hand...I was., I was just getting more and more pissed off and frustrated. Frustration leads to anger and anger leads to the Dark Side and bad dialogue that sounds like it was translated to German and back to English. Silly Silly.
Side bar -
Other 'hacks" (usage of something for other than what it was intended):
- The Wright Brothers Airflow Technique (man was not meant to fly -- but we do FALL really well)
- The Cousteau Drowning Negation Method (we do drown very well)
- The Commuter Lap Beverage Implementation (hey look a place for this 200 degree cup of coffee!)
- The Angry Wife Rolling Pin / Frying Pan Kinetic Solution (eh heh).
Ultimately, it seems man just does what he can with what he's got and we all do the best we can. What more can we ask of ourselves?
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
On the mat
3 keylocks and an armbar for submissions tonight. Granted the guy is newer than me and has been missing class lately too. He's strong though, and close to me in weight.
What the hell though. For now, I'll take it. Its when I start holding my own / submitting most of the other white belts that I'll be ready to test for Blue. Its not happening yet -- but barring another injury that time is right around the corner. I'm feeling my Wheaties.
What the hell though. For now, I'll take it. Its when I start holding my own / submitting most of the other white belts that I'll be ready to test for Blue. Its not happening yet -- but barring another injury that time is right around the corner. I'm feeling my Wheaties.
The Token Boarder
I took up snowboarding about 4 years ago after a long respite from winter sports. In my younger years as a pre-teen and teen I skied fairly often and with pretty decent finesse. Of course, having family on the ski patrol to teach me and follow down the mountain really helped. To me skiing was always a lot like skating but with just really long skates. But at some point I just lost interest and stopped. From about 20 or so to 33 there was no skiing and no snowboarding. So typical of me to stop something like that.
Anyhoo - fat and out of shape I just decided to give it a try. Plus I needed an outlet for the frustration of being jobless at the time - Texaco had let me go in November. The first day was brutal and I landed on my ass and face planted more times than I could count. Toward the end of that first day though I strung together a bit of a run here and there - managed to link a turn or two and, man, what a great feeling. I was hooked and immediately got the vibe of it. My enthusiasm for it intrigued my friend Paul and he was hooked soon too. I remember on our first day together at Hunter sitting in the lodge with him and talking about how much we missed by just staying on campus so much at Fordham. Sure it was great, but we were like -- man what a scene we missed!
I've gotten better since that first day and always board, for a while at least, with my uncle Tommy, the now retired ski patroler. He's really good and if I can keep up even a little on my slow ass board its a good thing.
This past weekend we were up in the Catskills visiting the three bears (Eileen, Tommy, Christine) at their weekend ski chalet in Hensonville. The idea was to drive up on Friday, hit the mountain on Saturday and then go to a beach party at some friend of The Bears and then either hit the mountain again on Sunday or just recuperate.
Well, we managed to make it up on Friday in the middle of a snowstorm that miraculously did not stick at all to the ground while we made our way up from Westchester. We hung out and chatted a little bit and watched Riley the bunny jump around a bit. Yeah, that's right - Riley the bunny. Christine wanted a pet, knew she'd get killed for a dog so she got a bunny instead. At first, Riley was Hunny Bunny but then Hunny's ballz dropped and voila - Riley. Don't ask me why. No idea.
Saturday morning comes and Tommy and I head out to the mountain, but not after a bit of confusion as to how we were getting there. Tommy thought we would take my car, I thought we would take their car, since Clarisa was going shopping with Christine and Eileen thought we were going to go with a friend of theirs, Spencer. After a bit of consternation it all works out and we hit the mountain and I get to board for the first time all year (thanks to the sprained foot back in December). No one is on the mountain and its fresh snow. Not powder really, but Eastern Powder and mostly undisturbed. We go right to the top and after a few runs I'm following Tommy and Spencer down some black diamond trails and even hit a trail on Hunter's west side. Did I bomb down, no. But at this point I'm not just turning my board into a big snowplow either. Eventually Tommy ditched me (the token boarder) so he could make some runs on his own at his own pace of 9.81 meters per second squared and spend some time with his large crew of Hunter friends. I make a few runs on my own, get a coffee at the Skytop cafe and head down to chill out on a deck chair because the sun has come out and my legs are asking for a break.
We meet up and get a little nosh afterward and head over around 5pm for the beach party. Man, talk about a party crew. These people dance, drink and just "party" like the 70's never ended. So a fun time with them is always guaranteed. And since we've been hanging out with Tommy and Eileen more, we are starting to get to know their other friends and can actually mingle a bit now. Its really nice. It makes me hope that our crew can get it together like this someday. That would be nice too.
Anyhoo - fat and out of shape I just decided to give it a try. Plus I needed an outlet for the frustration of being jobless at the time - Texaco had let me go in November. The first day was brutal and I landed on my ass and face planted more times than I could count. Toward the end of that first day though I strung together a bit of a run here and there - managed to link a turn or two and, man, what a great feeling. I was hooked and immediately got the vibe of it. My enthusiasm for it intrigued my friend Paul and he was hooked soon too. I remember on our first day together at Hunter sitting in the lodge with him and talking about how much we missed by just staying on campus so much at Fordham. Sure it was great, but we were like -- man what a scene we missed!
I've gotten better since that first day and always board, for a while at least, with my uncle Tommy, the now retired ski patroler. He's really good and if I can keep up even a little on my slow ass board its a good thing.
This past weekend we were up in the Catskills visiting the three bears (Eileen, Tommy, Christine) at their weekend ski chalet in Hensonville. The idea was to drive up on Friday, hit the mountain on Saturday and then go to a beach party at some friend of The Bears and then either hit the mountain again on Sunday or just recuperate.
Well, we managed to make it up on Friday in the middle of a snowstorm that miraculously did not stick at all to the ground while we made our way up from Westchester. We hung out and chatted a little bit and watched Riley the bunny jump around a bit. Yeah, that's right - Riley the bunny. Christine wanted a pet, knew she'd get killed for a dog so she got a bunny instead. At first, Riley was Hunny Bunny but then Hunny's ballz dropped and voila - Riley. Don't ask me why. No idea.
Saturday morning comes and Tommy and I head out to the mountain, but not after a bit of confusion as to how we were getting there. Tommy thought we would take my car, I thought we would take their car, since Clarisa was going shopping with Christine and Eileen thought we were going to go with a friend of theirs, Spencer. After a bit of consternation it all works out and we hit the mountain and I get to board for the first time all year (thanks to the sprained foot back in December). No one is on the mountain and its fresh snow. Not powder really, but Eastern Powder and mostly undisturbed. We go right to the top and after a few runs I'm following Tommy and Spencer down some black diamond trails and even hit a trail on Hunter's west side. Did I bomb down, no. But at this point I'm not just turning my board into a big snowplow either. Eventually Tommy ditched me (the token boarder) so he could make some runs on his own at his own pace of 9.81 meters per second squared and spend some time with his large crew of Hunter friends. I make a few runs on my own, get a coffee at the Skytop cafe and head down to chill out on a deck chair because the sun has come out and my legs are asking for a break.
We meet up and get a little nosh afterward and head over around 5pm for the beach party. Man, talk about a party crew. These people dance, drink and just "party" like the 70's never ended. So a fun time with them is always guaranteed. And since we've been hanging out with Tommy and Eileen more, we are starting to get to know their other friends and can actually mingle a bit now. Its really nice. It makes me hope that our crew can get it together like this someday. That would be nice too.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Good Achey Feeling
While no camel clutches or figure 4 leg locks were applied, as one commenter hilariously suggested, I did manage to make it to 2 (count 'em) BJJ classes in a row. While there was no fanfare or big group hug -- I could tell the guys I know there were happy to see me and it was great to see the familiar faces of my BJJ boudreaus. The workouts were not too bad either, mainly because of the classes I chose to go to. Tuesday nights tend to be medium intensity and the Weds early class is about the same or a bit lower. Fortunately, on the first day I got to work out with Alan, a really big blue belt that put up a fight but let me work at the same time. Its cool when someone is willing to coach you a little bit rather than just crush you. Lets face it, at this point I need coaching.
I ache today, but its a good type of ache that comes from honest effort. Its the thank you your body gives you for actually using it. It could be worse. I could be a massive pile of quivering torn muscle, but I'm not. I guess the time I put in at Crunch helped. Also, in a way, the worst is over because I've overcome the inertia of not going to BJJ / exercising and replaced it with activities (my wife will swear to you they do) make me happy.
Plus, a part of me just loves to kick ass.
I ache today, but its a good type of ache that comes from honest effort. Its the thank you your body gives you for actually using it. It could be worse. I could be a massive pile of quivering torn muscle, but I'm not. I guess the time I put in at Crunch helped. Also, in a way, the worst is over because I've overcome the inertia of not going to BJJ / exercising and replaced it with activities (my wife will swear to you they do) make me happy.
Plus, a part of me just loves to kick ass.
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