I read in my hometown daily that an Eastern Kentucky native was among the thirty-two Rhodes Scholarship winners. Brian Finucane was also a DJ at WRFL 88.1, UK’s student-run radio station. I was delighted to see a fellow WRFL alum receive such a prestigious award. He is currently a student at Cornell in Ithaca, NY. He’ll soon be studying at the University of Oxford for two or three years. Through the magic of the internet and dialing “1-411″ on the telephone, I was able to track him down. He was cool enough to carve out some time for an email mini-interview. Thanks Brian! Continue reading…
December 11th, 2002
I just Googled myself. Admit it–you’ve indulged in this sort of ego glorification too. It’s kind of surreal to read your own quotes from several years back. On April 1st, 1999, I was mad that the University of Kentucky didn’t have a link to our beloved college radio station on the school’s homepage. “But it seems to me like the University would want to promote something like the radio station if they use the site as part of their recruiting strategy. I mean, here’s this great opportunity for students to learn about radio and it doesn’t even get mentioned.” What the hell was I taking about? And that wasn’t that long ago!
There was a time that I was not only employed, but had two jobs at once! In this 1995 article,
written by my then girlfriend Wendy, I brag about delivering pizzas and selling long distance for a sketchy company called Excel. “And because I decide my own hours, it doesn’t interfere with my classes.” Such the responsible entrepreneur. I think I spent about over $300 to “start my business” and made like 70 cents. I couldn’t even keep my folks from switching back to AT&T.
I know you’ve been losing sleep over my situation with the road crew across the street. Well, I’ve been losing sleep anyway. Those dudes are still out there. Beep-beep-beep with the truck in reverse, bang-bang-bang with the… not really sure what makes that noise. But they were out last night at 3:00AM. Seriously. This has gone too far. I peeked out the window and it was total Maximum Overdrive. Just these sinister, growling trucks–no drivers in site. Because if I did see one of the drivers, I would have, you know, gone out and said something.
This morning my alarm clock’s beep-beep-beep was drowned out by my friends across the street. Then the doorbell rang. “We’re here to roof your house.” “Must be a mistake, I wasn’t notified that there would be any roofing.” Soon they would be on the roof with the hammers. This feels like some Seinfeld episode. But the morning’s first email arrival offered an escape. Peggy from SXSW needed some volunteers. I pleaded for the chance. The rest of the day was spent with some of the SXSW film crew and away from West Elizabeth Street.
Shortly after returning home, the doorbell rang. “Is that your car parked against the curb? The weirdest thing just happened.” The lady walked me out to the Red Rascal (the ol’ trooper been getting me around since I was sixteen-years-old). Sarah leaned out the door and said, “Is this about the car Billy? Yeah, someone smashed in the window today at school,” and then walked back inside. The lady indicated that this was indeed not about the window smashing. Turns out, she was behind a white work van when suddenly it just swerved right into my parked car and then sped off. She followed it for a few blocks and made out “D35″ on the license plate. The van had clipped the front bumper which is now all bent and stuff. Oh and about the window… Basically the only thing stolen was two coats and a radio. Not the actual car radio. Just an old battery-powered job that didn’t work. If they would have just cleaned up some of the garbage on the floorboard it would have almost been worth it.
By the way, if you’ve ever wondered what your cat does while you’re at work… I’m guessing nothing unusual. Probably just sleeps a lot.
December 6th, 2002
Thanks to Brian N. for passing along this great exchange between Christopher Hitchens and Katha Pollitt. The subject matter surrounds Hitchens departure from The Nation, his disdain for neutralism and tolerance of tyranny, and his general disgust of some familiar luminaries.
Some highlights…
Hitchens: “I have been doing some work with the Iraqi and Kurdish resistance in the past few years, and these people have already experienced things that no scaremonger could have invented. All I’ll say is that I feel truer to my left self, in helping them, than I could if I was carrying a dumb placard, confusing ‘Iraq’ with ‘Saddam,’ in a parade organized by those who explicitly admire the latter, as well as Kim Jong Il and Slobodan Milosevic (and later sheepishly claiming that I’d joined the wrong picket line).”
Pollitt: “Even Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi dissident who strongly favors invasion, admitted in a recent interview in the Boston Globe that there is only a “5 percent chance” that the aftermath will be what you’d like to see: a democratic, peaceful Iraq that respects human rights, as opposed to a US military dictatorship, an Iraqi military junta, civil war or other very bad outcome. Makiya acknowledges, too, that in order for his scenario to have a chance of success, America would have to keep troops in Iraq for years and spend untold billions. How likely is it that our government will, or even can, make that kind of commitment?”
December 5th, 2002
Ziff Davis has obtained a peek at the current build of the Windows “Longhorn” OS. They conclude, “Based on our analysis, the next Windows desktop version should be riddled with XML, contain tighter integration with the web, and be even easier on the eyes. 
Alas, at this stage no extremely dramatic interface departures can be found. ” It will be interesting to see if this release will be mostly aesthetic improvements to the UI, or if Microsoft will make substantial usability-related upgrades. Overheard on Slashdot: “Damn, Microsoft continues to prove they can make their interface look sweeter than anybody else. My X11 window manager, even when tripped out with themes doesn’t look as smooth and as polished as that. Is it the anti-aliased fonts or what? It’s just sweet looking. MacOS X’s Aqua interface also is lacking IMHO compared to that. Maybe I will just wait for Longhorn and succumb like the other 95% of the population and just run Windows. It looks SO cool. OK, I’m done. I’ll go back into Linux advocate rant mode now. Microsoft sucks. 
”
Take a look at some screen shots…
December 4th, 2002
My former boss at Works, now he’s with IBM
What do you miss about the dot-com era?
The first thought which came to mind was the possibility that you could do anything ? any job you could talk yourself into ? as long as it brought value to the company. People were willing to take risks, especially on kids or folks who didn?t have tons of experience in the subject matter. All that mattered was intellect, optimism and energy. I got do a wide variety of tasks at the first company (Tivoli), including developer, technical instructor and manager, ultimately starting up their first web group. That was great for a guy with a degree in History.
The second thing I?ll miss is the opportunity to build teams the way I wanted to, with the people I wanted to hire. I got to build three teams in five years, and let me tell you, they were heavily populated with some bright, fun people who were glad to be there. I loved bringing on board people who needed to stretch their abilities to succeed, and watching them do just that time and again. Nowadays I work in an entrenched bureaucracy (IBM) with a whole lot of unmotivated, unhappy people. For the most part, my time during the “boom” was surrounded by groups of people who genuinely liked each other, liked spending tons of hours with each other, could rely upon each other, etc. I miss spending my days with my staffs at Works and Tivoli.
What are you glad is gone?
The endless hours of work. The phantom stock price calculations (I never took ANY job for pure money, I swear). The political chicanery of my last job at Works. But that?s about it. Mostly it was a fun, exciting time, and I was glad to be thought of as someone who had a part to play.
December 3rd, 2002
« Newer Posts
Earlier Posts »
