Author: Bob Harrison

No, I’m not going to compare Neil Gaiman with J.R.R. Tolkien. I am, however, a fan of both authors. I first came across Gaiman, not from his illustrated work, but from his novel American Gods. I picked it up at Powell’s in Portland a couple of years ago and loved it. I’ve ended up reading more of his work, not all of it, but I certainly have enjoyed what I have read so far.
I mention Mr. Gaiman because I am a member of GoodReads.com, a site to explore reading with others. Mr. Gaiman is a member as well and the site reminds me off and on to check his blog.
Today I discovered that he has conspired with another favorite of mine, Gahan Wilson, the cartoonist, to create the following short film which you enjoy on the New Yorker website:
It Was a Dark and Silly Night: Gahan Wilson Meets Neil Gaiman
And what of Tolkien?
Well it seems I recently got sucked into watching the Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson. I’ve seen them all before, but this time they sparked my interest in reading the books again. It’s been quite some time since last I gave them a run.
This time I’m going to be reading them in ebook format on my iPhone, laptop, and…oops…not on my Kindle; it’s still lost. Sigh.
I’m looking forward to the read.
Aloha!

Today I was riding to work and I noticed a wee bit of give in the rear of my daily ride. It was time to give it a cleaning anyway, so after work I turned it over and discovered…two more broken spokes. This makes two axles and four or five spokes.

Okay, my rear wheel wasn’t quite that bad.
Given that I’ve had good service at The Bike Shop, just a few blocks from my house, off I went after the cleaning. As it turns out I could have spent about $50.00 and waited three days to have my rear wheel rebuilt, or I could spend about $50.00 for a low end model. Since my old wheel was also a low end job, this is a no brainer.
I really need a new bike.
I wish I could afford one.
I guess I could start selling stuff….but what?
Oy.
Aloha!

Clearly this is a choice spot. I'll level most of it and build hotels and condos, hire some folks to play "natives", put in gambling and nightclubs. Within a couple of years the novelty will wear off, tourism will fall off, the ecosystem will be destroyed and my companion will have left aghast at the damage I've done. Finally I'll have to keep the out of work hotel workers busy making clothing for big box stores in sweatshops until global warming raises the sea level high enough to submerge the place. Another victory for progress!

While killing a few minutes before I left for a luncheon I started listening to an NPR’s Talk of the Nation on my iPhone. The topic was, “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice.” It’s the title of an article recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Geoffrey K. Pullum.
It’s a smackdown of Stunk and White’s The Elements of Style that is both humorous and timely, given that April 16th is the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication.

All I can say is that had he been my English teacher oh so many years ago, I might, and only might mind you, have become a better writer. As it is, this is the best I can do. On the other hand, as the article that goes along with the NPR interview points out that Dorothy Parker had her own opinion. I’m fond of the second bit of advice she gives.

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.
Dorothy Parker

Aloha!

This post is mostly for my own benefit as, I must admit, are most of my posts. I’m pretty much the only one I know who looks at my site regularly. That’s okay with me though.
Let’s see…I know I’m on these.

1. Facebook – my high school friends and others
2. flickr – I know I should put more up
3. Google Shared Items – find out what I’m looking at
4. Plinky – I answer a question from time to time
5. Twitter – mostly I follow a few interesting folks and news sites; I’m statrixbob
6. Twitpic – if I really wanted to I could post a pic
7. Utterli – an interesting multimedia site
8. Now Public – a news site that once asked to use an image I made
9. FriendFeed – don’t use it much
10. goodreads – I’m guilty, I don’t keep this up to date, but I should

Are there more…yep, I have no doubt I belong to things I’ve completely forgotten about.
Aloha!

This weekend a number of good things happened…
The weather was really nice for a change. We’ve been suffering (okay…it’s Hawaii…I know that) with cold and grey weather recently; unseasonable weather. This weekend that turned around and we had nice blue skies, gentle winds, and no nasty rain showers. Nasty rain showers are defined as those which catch me on my bicycle or moped. Those that miss me are okay; we need the water.
Secondly my bronchitis finally cleared up. I’d actually started feeling better earlier in the week, but decided not to “push it” and tried to get as much rest as I could. It was a busy week, but in the end I think it all paid off.
All of that meant I could get back on my bike on Saturday and that I did. Yeah! I did notice a bit of stiffness after a layoff of just over week, but on the whole it was fine. I rode 12-15 miles, my usual weekend ride, but I didn’t add an evening ride on Saturday, something I usually do. I was still being careful. Sunday I rode again, another 15 miles or so, though I’ll admit I was slower than Saturday. It seems the layoff had affected more than I thought and I was stiffer for having the Saturday ride.
Still it’s great to be back on my bike and I’ll be riding all week weather permitting.
The rest of the time this last week I’ve been playing with Google Apps and trying to get all my email clients to play nice with Google’s IMAP. It is possible. It just takes a bit of elbow grease.
Aloha!

Nothing ruins an introduction like ripe clothing. Nope, for a good impression, I only wear stuff that doesn't require folks to stand upwind of me.

Clothesline fun

Living in Hawaii I really haven't had a call for fancy clothes in years. I just try to wear clean clothes. When I really want to impress, I wear a nice Aloha Shirt (not a touristy loud shirt) and long pants. That's it.

I’ve embarked on an experiment to use Google Apps in place of some of the tools that bluehost, my hosting company, allows. Don’t get me wrong, I like bluehost. I’m happy with the service, the tools, and most everything except, perhaps, the webmail system. To be honest I don’t even use the webmail that much. I pretty much use the Apple Mail app and IMAP to collect my mail. Still there are times…
I’ve got very limited needs. I wanted to incorporate Mail, Docs, Calendar, and Sites and I’ve only got a couple of users and they are all me. I may be incorporating this system on the system I manage that I’ve mentioned before, which is also hosted by bluehost, so I figured I’d better give it a try myself first.
A search of the help files for both Google Apps and bluehost didn’t quite explain everything to me. In fact I did end up somewhat confused, but in the end it turned out to rather more simple that I thought. I’ve got everything working and the only glitch, and it may not turn out to be one, is that I haven’t ported my old mail to my new mail system.
I’ve got to double check a few things first and I may try to write up a tutorial on how I did it as, contrary to most instructions I found on the web, I didn’t need to contact bluehost’s support center. I was able to make all the changes in cPanel.
And…in breaking news…I have been able to transfer my old mail from bluehost to my gmail account using gmail’s POP fetching utility. The trick, just in case I forget, is to avoid duplicating email names. That is, my old email was xxx(at)example.com. My new email is the same on gmail. However telling gmail to go get xxx(at)example.com failed for obvious reasons. Instead I told gmail to go get mail from transfer(at)example.com, but gave it all the other correct information. The other necessary trick is not to use mail.example.com but instead use the name of the bluehost box I’m on – boxXXX.bluehost.com.
Works like a charm.
Again, I’ll try to write this all up in a bit.
I’m off to play with all my new toys!
Aloha!

…this has also cut way down on the number people I've run over.

I have never owned a car relying instead on biking, walking, and public transportation. To be completely honest I should note that I don't own car because the expense of owning one outweighs the benefits for me. I simply don't need one. That may change one day. Still, from an environmental standpoint it has worked out okay.

I commute using my bicycle and when the weather is really bad I take the bus. I walk, but would much rather ride.

I do own a scooter/moped but don't actually ride it all that much; may once or twice a week. While it's not exactly green, it gets great gas mileage.

So I'm not really green except by happy accident.