25 Years…

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I realized that my blog and this domain (kataan.org) are 25 years old today! I started a project to move the older items from a text archive (downloaded from blogger, remember them?) into my WordPress database. I hadn’t realized that with blogger, I used it like Twitter as a microblog – there are some days where I posted multiple times a day, on different trains of thought.
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Driving then and now

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I went for a drive on my lunch hour today in my multi-airbag, ABS-equipped, V-6 sedan, and the song “Red Barchetta” came on the radio. It made me think of old convertibles.

I drove a Fiat 850 Spyder in high school – it had a wooden dashboard, chrome rear-view mirrors, that super UV-proof thick vinyl that convertibles had back then, and a distinctive exhaust note. With a 903cc engine, about 45 horsepower, and 1700 pounds wet, it didn’t exactly accelerate, but it was a hell of a lot of fun to drive.

I was part of a fraternity back then – drivers of MG Midgets, Austin-Healey Sprites, Fiat 124 Spyders, Alfa Spider Veloces and Triumph Spitfires would respond with a tip of a hat or a nod to another ragtop driver with the top down. For one small moment, nationalities didn’t matter – then it was back to jokes about British electrics, “Fix It Again, Tony”, or clueless Alfa drivers and mechanics.

I don’t know if I could drive one of those every day any more – times have changed, cars have gotten bigger, and I’ve gotten older – although I would love to have a 1975-76 Fiat 124 Spyder with 5-spoke campagnolo mags and a bigger weber carb, once I get a house with a usable garage, though. I always loved the exhaust note on the 124s, even though I liked the handling of the mid-engine X1/9 and 850s better.

Strapping Young Lad

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… Went to go see a killer band — Strapping Young Lad — last night at The Pound, a little metal club out in Dogpatch/Hunter’s Point/Bayview/whatever it’s called nowadays. I haven’t been to a clubin years…Lots of metal twenty-somethings, a mosh pit, a surprising amount of thirty-somethings, and lots of blonde hair.

It was an amazing loud powerful show. Devin was right on last night, the vocals were incredible, and the band was very tight. The crowd was very into it – it’s amazing looking out at the crowd and realizing that everyone is singing along to the songs.

I took 4 rolls of film with my Lomo, we’ll see how they came out.

I forgot my ID at home, and so I had to show my Costco card to get the tickets from Will Call – it was the only photo ID I had. When I told the
bouncer putting on drink bracelets that I didn’t have my ID, he leaned over in my ear and yelled over the music,”WHO PLAYED THE BEAVER?”
I yelled back, “JERRY MATHERS!” “NO 20 YEAR OLD WOULD KNOW THAT — HAVE A GREAT TIME!”

I got my drink ticket.

LOMO Smena-35 Manual

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I just scanned in the manual for my little Russian plastic piece-o-crap camera, the Lomo Smena-35. I’ve put the HTML-ized version of the manual up at http://www.kataan.org/smena/index.html . Gotta love the cold-war Soviet Union-era manual:

The Smena-35 camera is safe for health, life, and property of the consumer and environment as confirmed in declaration # 012/001 dated March 30, 1993 claiming compliance with State standards…

Systems Update

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We’re mopping up after what seems like one of the rainiest winters on record! It’s been sunny for a few days straight, so my leaky office roof can finally dry out, and work can continue on my employer’s heating system.
www.kataan.org is doing nicely; it’s hosting my mail, running this web site and providing network services for my internal network. Go, Red Hat!

Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062

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March 24, 1984

Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062

Dear Mr. Vernon,

We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. And what we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions, you see us as a brain, an athelte, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at seven o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed.

.plan files

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Remember .plan files? I found my old .plan:

Here it is again. Some clueless FOOL talking about the “Information Superhighway.”

They don’t know JACK about the net. It’s NOTHING like a Superhighway. That’s a BAD metaphor. Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the OTHER direction. Suppose the HIGHWAYS were like the NET. All right! Severe craziness.

A highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide. Most with potholes.
Privately operated bridges and overpasses.
No highway patrol.
A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles.
500 member VIGILANTE POSSES with nuclear weapons.
237 ON RAMPS at every intersection.
NO SIGNS. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00.
Other lanes would just SHOOT you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it.
Throwing DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which have been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits.
Some are 2.5 horsepower LAWNMOWER ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour.
Others burn NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120.
No license tags. World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead.
Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES.
Bumper mounted MACHINE GUNS.
Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks with ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch helicopter.
A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with HYDROCHLORIC ACID.
NO OFFRAMPS.

Now THAT’S the way to run an Interstate Highway system.