O Holy Night
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Adeste Fidelis
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Christmas in Hollis
The First Noel
Merry Christmas, Baby.
And The Little Drummer Boy, if and only if you’re Bowie and Crosby.
Fake Radio is putting on It’s A Wonderful Life this Friday night (7 Dec 2017) at the Acme . If you’ve never seen a performance, they’re a loose troup of comedians rooted in improv and voice acting who perform Golden Age radio dramas live. In my experience they bring the right amount of respect for the source material and gleeful snark to their renditions to make the evenings fun while keeping true to the material. They’re good fun. Come out and see them if you get a chance.
While there are many things I love about e-books, there are things to learn as well, I was surprised to find that this was primarily an annotated book of photographs of Mexican american teams and players. I was hoping for more of a history of the area’s game, a la Fastptich.Once I understood what I had, I was quite pleased with it. It’s a very well-curated set of images.
On the last Sunday of August I was standing next to the grave of Chief Sealth on Bainbridge Island in Washington. I hadn’t intended to visit the place, but serendipity is like that. A storm had blown through the day before, and a the pines were still whispering about it. Brenda and I were getting ready to head to a pair of friends’ wedding. We were alone at this nexus of history and possibility, commemoration and commencement. I stood for a while, looking out at the Sound, listening to the wind. I finally pulled out my phone, dialed a number, and left a message. “This is Ted Faber. I accept the offer…”
With those words I severed my longstanding employment at ISI. USC/ISI has employed me for longer than I lived in the town I was born in, and longer than any other job I’ve held. The decision was a difficult one, but a combination of my earlier decisions and changes to ISI and the research climate in general combined to convince me that is time to do something new.
I’m happy to discuss the details of that decision with people, but the issues were primarily of autonomy and funding. ISI has always given the most support and autonomy to people who can fund their own research – you eat what you kill. I have always been more comfortable turning research ideas into prototypes than in evangelizing new areas of work. That led to me putting myself in a bad position to evangelize when necessary, and support for the roles I chose was on the wane. The specific set of forces that caused that are a bit arcane.
I continue to have great respect for ISI as an institution and especially for the people I was privileged to work with there. They do top-notch work there from the researchers and students who are blazing new research trails to the project assistants who support that work. I still have many friends there and hope to for years to come. It saddens me that I cannot continue there, even as I’m excited about my next adventure.
My last day will be 2 October 2015 almost exactly the last day of my 20th year at USC/ISI. The synchronicity of that also appeals to me.
I’ve chosen to make a fresh start at The Aerospace Corporation. It sits at an interesting space in the national research infrastructure and employs many people I respect and enjoy working with. The goals and projects of the place are familiar, but the focus different enough that it all looks new. The place is familiar yet fresh and the work both new and comfortable. I’m looking forward to setting out on a new journey with my old bones.
If you only have my ISI contact information I’m easy to find on social media, should you want to stay in touch. Don’t hesitate to friend or follow me. Come take a journey with me.
Phil Lapsley’s Exploding The Phone captures the phone phreaking culture with both solid journalism and with the sort of enthusiasm that brings a story to life. I have long known that phreaking was a foundation for the modern hacking and open source communities, but the scene never came alive for me. Reading Exploding The Phone was like finding my parents’ high school year book for the first time and realizing that they went through the same things I did. It was enlightening and warming.
The first few chapters are a little repetitive for my taste. Lapsley follows several seminal phreakers introduction to the phone system, and those paths are different only in detail. As a result, the chapters are somewhat repetitive. I think that Lapsley is trying to give these fellows their due and to introduce the cast for the rest of the chapters, but I would have been happier with one detailed chapter and somehow getting just the differences.
Once the narrative begins to talk about the social scene that phreakers developed around conferencing and connecting to one another inside the phone network, the scene becomes recognizable as a forerunner of modern social networks. That’s the point at which it becomes rich enough to go from academic to exciting for me.
In addition to the social networking of the phreakers, Lapsley brings the stories of the phone company employees and law enforcement officers who collided with them. These folks shared the phreaker mentality and skill set to different extents, just as such folks do today. It makes the scene more full and believable.
Overall this is a great view of an legitimately exciting time that is the basis for much modern technology. Jobs and Wozniak figure prominently, and the path from phreaks to hackers is remarkably clear.
Strongly recommended.
There’s really only one place I’ve lived that I cannot imagine moving back to – Poughkeepsie, NY. I spent a year there one summer working for IBM and left every weekend. I just never warmed up to it, and I was very much looking forward to leaving. On my last day I was driving home from work to put the city permanently in my rearview mirror, when my car skidded across the centerline on wet pavement and was totaled. I always thought it was a little unfair for Poughkeepsie to kick me once more when I was down, and apparently the year 2014 also wanted to get one last lick in.
I am writing this from a hospital bed waiting for surgery to repair my third broken hip this year. Unlike my earlier mishaps, this was pretty much a slip and fall. I was lifting my leg off the bike before I put it in the garage, but it was at a dead stop.
It’s another broken femur, on the right side this time. I’m hoping for another speedy recovery. Watch this space for more details as the morphine wanes!
It’s Thanksgiving today, and I’m a very thankful fellow this year. The image above is from the ride I took this morning. It’s the first time I’ve been able to ride all the way down to the little beach where it was taken in quite some time, and I’m thankful and happy for that.
I’ve also had the kind of year that makes one take a look at life and consider what’s good and what’s bad. I turned out to be pretty lucky. I love where I live, and I like what I do for a living. I’ve found some ways to spend my time that make me even happier, and maybe help some others, too.
But most importantly, I have a set of friends and acquaintances who are kind, considerate, and engaged with humanity. Being laid up twice this year certainly helped me see that, but I’m working to notice it even when things are going well. If you’re reading this, you’re one of those friends. Today I am thankful for you. And I’m trying to be so every day.
I’m still working to balance my love of the bicycle with my love of not being in the hospital or on crutches. I was officially allowed off the crutches and back to the active life on 15 September, and I’m trying to take advantage of it without overdoing it. That can be hard, but, on the other hand I take a lot of joy in being able to just carry things from room to room.
I have picked up and begun riding the Surly Long Haul Trucker. It’s easily the most I’ve ever spent for a bike, and worth every penny. Just jumping up on it to ride makes me happy, and it seems to be a rock solid platform for getting around. I’m still making tweaks to it – the rack goes on today – but so far it’s been everything I wanted.
I have gotten back to swimming, and that has been humbling. I’m barely swimming a third of the distance I’d like to be doing, and forget about performance. But there are bright spots. I’m beginning to see improvements. And I’m certainly tired and certainly sore in all the right places. I think this will be a good plan in the long term. Frankly the humbling parts of it are just as important as the physical improvements. I feel like I grow as a person when I do things that are difficult for me. Swimming is definitely an opportunity there.
For no good reason, I had a professional barber shop that fronts a speakeasy shave my beard. It was an expensive evening of personal grooming, but an great experience I’ll remember a long while. Jim and Sabrina Geldmacher shared the experience and pronounced the cocktails at the speakeasy excellent. If you like fine grooming or fine drinks – or both simultaneously – take a trip to Blind Barber.
Finally, the support and love of all the folks out there still amazes me. Thanks all!
Today Brenda was kind enough to drive me out to meet the folks at Topanga Creek Bicycles and have my interview and fitting.
It all looks pretty good. The shop was great with friendly and knowledgeable people who were both laid back and professional. They collected a fair amount of info about what I was expecting out of the bike and my health and history. I’m not sure what they’d do if I was determined to buy the wrong bike, but I think we were pretty much in agreement about what I want and what the Long Haul Trucker will do. They took a bunch of measurements and they’re off to build a bike for me.
The place had a very relaxed vibe. They had just baked banana bread and offered us some of that and some coffee, introduced us to the dog, and got all that sort of stuff out of the way before getting to the measurements. The guys we talked to were able to answer the couple questions I had in ways that made sense, and I’m feeling very confident about the purchase.
I’m expecting to get the bike in about 2 weeks, and be on my feet for it, so more to come.
Since I started my soul searching, I’ve made a few decisions and started making progress toward making those plans real. Here’s a brief update.
I’m pretty sure my next bike will be a Surly Long Haul Trucker. Most of my biking friends agree that it will do what I think it will do, and that it’s a good, well made machine. I’ve definitely noticed that everyone I’ve met who owns one loves the bike. I’m looking forward to having one. I’ve talked to the folks at Topanga Creek Bicycles and set up a time to get sized and get the bike set up for me. Topanga Creek comes recommended by a friend, and I’m impressed by any store that requires an interview before purchase.
I’m also getting set to get back in the water via the Culver Plunge. I’ve read up on their policies and etiquette and that all sounds fine to me. I’ve got a new suit and goggles, and I’m ready to show up as soon as my doctor says I’m good to go.
Speaking of my doctor, I had an appointment earlier this week, and the current timeline is to be off crutches in mid-September. That’s almost a month sooner than I thought, primarily because I counted months instead of weeks and used the high end of the estimate. This is a more accurate assessment, and I’m delighted by it. Moving the date up has given me a nice prod to get these other plans moving a little faster.
That’s the state of my plans today.