San Anselmo, Maggie’s house ::Almost Birthday Party::

HB2U coming up Monday 4/7, will be 59. Whoah! Today Celina’s tribe and Layla came for a party. Midmorning I found Adrienne laying out a jazzy table setting with chili-peppers-on-black party tablecloth. The colorful streamers, the baloons (falsely printed Happy RETIREDMENT!), party hats and a birthday tiara for me.

The little kids made the chocolate cake: Rhiannon mixed, and Dameon iced. I got all presents with a food theme: a kitchy gadget that’s a spatula, a tongs, a whisk, but wait there’s more. Apron, wooden salad tongs, a book of captioned animal pix from Layla, and a gift cert for snazzy lunch come monday with Adrienne.

Joe and Celina doing some sort of therapy, made some conversations odd-sounding. Jessica very proud: Picture on the front page Marin newspaper sport section, tagging an opponent at homebase, and she’s OUT! I enjoyed their visit. We had fun today.

This seems like a good spot to start my weblog.

It will cover the world within ten years. Why? It is, as they say, the killer ap. Why?

Discourse and logic is not ever proof, only a audio-visual aid so you can see it for yourself, as we do. So I’m skipping the logic, for now, to appeal to your own experience.

Remember when surfing the internet was new? When was that?

Such a very short time ago! And you remember how interesting it was to go from link to link? Just looking for stuff to see?

And yet we don’t do that these days with the same sense of wonder. And when we do go searching, it’s focussed on a subject. Some of the findings are blah, some ugly, some commercial, some artsy, some off the subject, some incomprehensible. We find a few leads, and then we’re done.

And a site searched for, once found, how often do you return? And do you return every day?

Not usually. Which are the exceptions, the one you return daily or frequently? Mine are Slashdot, Tappistry.Org (daily), and BBC Science (now and then). What’s common to these? Mutability. They’re different each time visited. Wouldn’t go back if they were always the same. That’s why I never visit Microsoft; always piracy, never anything different.

But the experience of reading a weblog — no, make that the experience of reading some weblogs is different. Because of the eternal mutability, and because of the linkset commonly found. Because you discover one guy’s weblog (gal’s weblog) where you like the style or the content, and you click their links, and you find new sites, often interesting ones. Not always, but often enough to keep you clicking.

Because we’re not following a path by subject; we’re following a path of simpatico people and common interests. Today I found myself reading bio-engineering of viruses and aromatherapy. Not my thing. But it was made interesting by the interest of the human who was writing it. Transformation occurs.

Not a chain of subject, but a chain of people.

Suddenly, we are describing human nature, and we are describing the idea of what interests us interests our friends. And what interests your friends often interests you.

Mutability, and the linkage. That’s why weblogs are here to stay. And I haven’t got into writing a weblog yet.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

A human will find it easy to believe what the human would like to believe.

That’s it.

In others, when presenting an idea, if you want it accepted, then express it in a way that they would like it to be true. “Now this snake oil may not make you look like Robert Redford, but it will help to bring out the handsome devil you really are inside.”

In yourself, always be chary of thinking you’ve got it right, just because you’d like it to be that way. And if you’d really, really like it to be that way, check your facts twice!

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

January 1975. I lived in a studio apartment above 3rd Avenue in San Francisco, just north of Golden Gate Park. There I started a little bookeeping business, and charged $8 per hour, big money. I called it ‘Simple Simon Bookeeping.’

It was a nice little occupation, although annoying in that people tended to call me either ‘Simon’ or ‘Simple’.

It came about in an odd way …

I had decided to become a “freelance” bookkeeper. A library book (1937) from the San Francisco library made it seem clear enough. But how to proceed?

One night about 1 am, sanding mahogany shelving I’d made for my studio apartment on Third Avenue, I was listening to the radio. The radio DJ was talking about recipes.

I called in my Texas Chili recipe, and speaking later with him told him my plan. I don’t remember why. Maybe he asked me.

It turns out, he’s got a friend named Alan, an accountant, and he suggested I go see Alan for guidance. I made an appointment, and explained my plan. My plan was to:

1) Find a client;
2) Get the records from the client;
3) Bring the records to Alan’s office;
4) Pay Alan to show me how to do the books.

Alan said he liked the plan. So that’s what I did.

I put up one handwritten poster in the stairwell at City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. What a dumb place! How ignorant to think that one poster would work!

Then, the next week, Phil Groves called me. He’d seen my poster at City Lights Bookstore. He was starting an ice-cream shop. Could I do their books?

We met at the college cafeteria, because I wanted someplace upscale. Alan had given me a list of what records to ask for, and I’d asked Phil to bring all those things.

Phil asked, “Can you do this? Can you do that?”

I nodded, “No problem. No problem.”

Phil asked, “How much?”

“Eight dollars an hour.”

He agreed.

He gave me all the records.

I went to Alan’s office. Alan showed me how to keep the books. It was simpler than the 1937 library book made out.

Then I was in the bookkeeping business.

So Simple.

That’s me.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

A human can comprehend approximately two numbers.

That’s it.

Don’t ever offer a bunch of numbers to a human at the same time. Try to offer only two numbers at any one time. Feel like a wild, risk-taking kind of guy? OK, offer three numbers at a time. Beyond that? A waste of time.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

You wouldn’t know, of course, but Adrienne is very allergic to poison oak. And we live in San Anselmo, in what’s called the Valley of the Oaks. Ignorant me, I didn’t know that poison oak is related to oak trees, found around oak trees, maybe is some kind of evil-spirited oak tree, I dunno. Duh!

It appears that one of her dogs got into poison oak, and then applied liberal doses to her body. It was painful just to look at, and she was clearly itching out of her skin for about a week. But now …

It seems much improved, thank you very much.

We hired a fellow to cut it all out of the back yard. Costly. Haven’t seen him since. Hope he’s OK.

We’re moving. I’ve had it with this place. Poison oak … it’s for the birds. Strickly from hunger. Adios I say. Bring on those tall pines for us city slickers. Coming right up!

Searching a method permitting BlogBoys users to edit their AboutMe, I was hunting a php programmer. A Nucleus forum visitor pointed me toward a free script to do the job, and once downloaded and installed, it’s great and it’s terrible.

It’s great because I can copy the script anywhere into html space, then browse there, and presto I can see inside most any folder on the server. In any folder world-writable, I can copy files, make links to files, delete files, edit files. Neat.

It’s terrible because, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Getting into a previously ‘secured’ folder and stealing the credit-card number proved way easy. If I can’t throttle this boy into acting with some restraint, he’s outta here!