GuiriGeek

at the closing of the year

2009-12-31T21:23:00.002+01:00

Here in Western Europe, there are only about two hours left in the decade, unless you're pedantic enough to insist that the decade actually starts on January 1st, 2011. Although I'm exactly the kind of nerd who would normally point out this kind of thing, in this case I think that watching the digits roll over is the real point. If you're the kind of person who celebrates your odometer rolling over to 100,001 miles, feel free to come back and read this post in 12 months' time.

Even more than usual, the last New Year's Eve of the '00s is cause for retrospection, and I can't help but think back 10 years ago to when the calendar digits rolled over to 2000. I spent New Year's Eve 1999 with my first wife, not realizing that it would be the last one we'd spend together. We had just moved into our new house a few months earlier, a 1,900-square foot house within a couple of blocks of the beach in Half Moon Bay, California. I was working at Excite@Home, where the stock price had fallen in recent months, turning what had been my $4 million net worth into something considerably lower. Still, we held out hope that the decline was just a temporary slip, and not the dot-com bubble bursting as some hushed hallway conversations speculated. We celebrated with two black cats and no kids, and had no intention of trying for children anytime soon, either because neither of us felt mature enough, or because deep down we felt the cracks in the foundation of our marriage. Overall, it was an exciting and scary time, and I was torn between feeling like I had accomplished so much and being afraid that there was so much more I was missing. With the new millennium starting (hush) it seemed everything was on the cusp on big changes, and so was I. I just didn't know how, or when, or where.

Ten years later, I'm sitting in the 700 square foot apartment that I share with Amy and Sofia in Barcelona, 6000 miles from Half Moon Bay. Tonight, as with last year, I'm staying home to watch over Sofia and her nagging cold, while Amy is serving the revelers in her restaurant with her mom and brother. Both black cats are gone now, but Amy's cat is still here, curled up under one elbow as I write. My job, while in many ways similar to what I did in Silicon Valley, is with a company of 15 people instead of 3000, and involves working to improve the lives of people with visual disabilities. A net worth of seven digits (or six for that matter, and five may even be pushing it) seems like a distant memory now, and in almost every measurable way my life has changed since then. Some of these changes have been bad, others have been difficult but ultimately for the best, and others have been obvious improvements. Not all of them have been voluntary (even the impetus to move to Spain was born out of a chance encounter with U.S. immigration in Vancouver) but looking back now, it was clear that 10 years ago I was ready to make big changes, even if they required a few leaps of faith.

In the intervening ten years, I've gotten divorced, gotten remarried, had a baby girl, traveled much of the world, from Hawaii to Egypt to Japan and a couple of dozen countries in between, lost 40 pounds, regained 20 of them, and found more than a few gray hairs and lines on my face. I've relearned one language and made my first steps in another, and I've seen both my native culture and my adoptive one from an outsider's point of view. I've learned that nostalgia is a mixed blessing; that forgiveness is sometimes hard to find, especially for yourself; that small chance happenings can change the course of your life; and that the most important things often happen when you least expect them. None of which is to say that I've gained great wisdom, though, since above all I've learned that many of the things you think you know at 30 no longer hold true when you're 40, and I'm not naive enough to think that the process stops there.

Tonight my daughter kissed me goodnight as I was putting her to bed, and I whispered "Happy New Year, sweetie," to her as I tucked her in, already asleep. Sometime after 1 am my wife will come home and we'll wish each other the same before getting ready for the short flight to Athens tomorrow morning. It may not be the biggest blowout party imaginable, but as ways to mark the milestone go, it's not bad, either.

Hello, World!

2009-07-30T02:41:00.005+02:00

or, "How Twitter, Facebook, and parenthood killed my blog."

I've been meaning to get back to posting here for a long while now, but the combination of daily commitments and the lazy appeal of two-line updates on Facebook and Twitter have made procrastinating far too easy. Eventually, though, you realize that there's only so much you can say of any significance in 140 characters, not to mention the deleterious effects it can have on your ability to compose a coherent sentence. So, if for no other reason than to remind myself how to write in complete English words, here I am again.

While I was thinking about what the point of this blog should be, I fed the URL into a site called Wordle, which creates an artistically-arranged summary of the most common words in any web page or text. The results are pretty telling, which is to say that they tell me that I do way too much navel-gazing, and spend far too much time thinking about the past. To try and combat that, I think my goal for the blog (if it has one) will be to look more to the future than the past, and to maybe be just a little less emo.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Dashboard Confessional tracks to listen to. Not that they can compare to The Cure...wow, I really miss The Cure.

should auld inboxes be forgot

2008-12-31T21:25:00.005+01:00

Over the past few days I've been going through old email backups and uploading them to Gmail. Some of the backups go all the way back to 1995, and since I'm an incurable email pack rat, the total number of messages is now somewhere north of 20,000. It started off as an attempt to clean up the various ZIP files and backup folders I had lying around, but as I've slowly reconstructed my email history of the past 13 years, I've come to a surprising realization.

When I think back over the years since 1995, I don't imagine them as a continuous progression from one year to the next, or even as chapters within the same story, but as completely separate books. Just as with books, a few characters may carry over from one to the next, but in general each book is self-contained and clearly separated from the next. I suppose that some degree of this is normal, since things like switching jobs and moving tend to mark off different periods in everyone's life, but in my case I think it's even more pronounced. For example, I find it hard to connect the memories I have of, say, working at First Floor in late 1997 and working at @Home in mid-1998, almost as if they were memories from separate lives.

Paradoxically, I think I'm also much more susceptible to bouts of nostalgia than most people, to the point of what the Portuguese call saudade, a sort of melancholic longing for something that's gone, or maybe never was. This might actually be because of my tendency to treat the past as a closed and locked book, something completely inaccessible and mysterious.

Now that I've got a single narrative of the past decade-plus in one place and have been spending some time browsing through it, it's easier to see the overall arc of the story, and to realize that despite all of the changes, and for better or for worse, I'm essentially the same person as that wide-eyed and earnest 27-year old back in the mid-90's. It hasn't all been easy reading; a lot of it is painful to revisit, some of it is embarrassing, and a fair amount is just plain boring. But together it makes up a priceless snapshot of years of my life that I might otherwise have forgotten. Not bad for a free email service.

Of course, all this nostalgia is amplified by the fact that it's New Year's Eve, which always puts me in a reflective sort of mood. This year is a bit different from most, since I'm sitting at home alone except for a sleeping baby and a head cold to keep me company. As Sofia's first new year and my 40th, it's not exactly spectacular. Still, I suppose there are worse ways to end a year than with a little quiet reflection and some Sudafed.

Finally, although I don't normally make a habit of posting videos or music, it is New Year's Eve, and there's one song that I always associate with that feeling of nostalgia with a touch of melancholy that comes along with the end of the year, at least for me. (Yes, I am a child of the 80's...so sue me.)

Happy new year, everyone.

yo A, what up?

2008-09-18T12:06:00.004+02:00

On a tip from my Twine feed, I tried out a site that promises to create a custom virtual personality, so that you can chat with famous dead people, or recreate yourself as a virtual avatar. Thinking that I might be able to let the virtual me deal with emails and chat meetings while I lounge on the beach in Ibiza, I signed up and filled out some basic information. Once I was logged in, the first thing I decided to try was a chat with a virtual Abraham Lincoln. In eager anticipation of sage advice from the Great Emancipator on all of our 21st century problems, I summoned up all my gravitas and said hello:

Greg Gladman: hello, Mr Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln: hey, what's up.

I think it needs some work.

the journey of 1000 miles

2008-09-18T11:47:00.003+02:00

As I'm writing this, my parents are waking up and getting ready to go to the airport, and in just over six hours, they'll be leaving Columbus for JFK and then on to Barcelona to meet their new granddaughter for the first time. This might not seem like a big deal for seasoned travelers, but for my mom and dad, it's a huge undertaking. My mom has only left the country once -- to come to Spain for our wedding -- and my dad didn't have a passport until we cajoled him into getting one for this trip. I imagine they must be more than a little anxious right now (as my mom said, "we want to be there, we just don't want to go there"). The fact that they've been without power for almost a week because of the remnants of Hurricane Ike probably isn't helping, either.

So, Mom and Dad, if you see this before you go: relax, take a deep breath, and before you know it you'll be touching down in Barcelona, where we have electricity, running water, and happy little 3-month old girls.

Have you seen me?

2008-09-02T23:13:00.003+02:00

Like it or not, everyone has a limit, some point past which body and mind conspire to say, "no more." For me, that point was sometime around Saturday, August 23rd, when at least four weeks of sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion finally caught up with me in the form of a nasty cold that I'm still trying to shake off over a week later.

In the two weeks leading up to then, I had been walking the streets of Amsterdam, averaging 20km (12 miles) per day according to the GPS tracker I bought, carrying a 10 kg (22 pound) camera bag with me every step of the way. By night I would take the train back to Den Haag, where our friends Karen and Joost graciously let us stay with them, and stayed up as long as I could to edit photos for a deadline which was already receding in the rear-view mirror. In between, I would try to steal a few minutes with Amy and Sofia so that they would remember who I am. My diet consisted of anything you could eat while walking, mostly hot dogs, Diet Coke, and snack cakes (including my new best friend, roze koeken). In retrospect, the surprising thing isn't that I got sick in the end, it's that I wasn't found floating in a canal, dead from junk-food poisoning. Oh, and did I mention the unseasonable and unphotogenic pouring rain?

If it sounds like I'm complaining, though, I'm really not. It's true that I would probably have enjoyed the job more if I weren't already exhausted from crunch time at my day job, or if I wasn't sleep-deprived from having a new baby, or if I were 21 years old and indefatigable again. But it's still an opportunity to do something I love and get paid for it, which doesn't come along all that often.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 9,200 photos of canal boats to edit.

Hello, Sofia!

2008-06-02T17:49:00.004+02:00

Sofia Gladman Artal made her way into the world just after midnight on Friday, May 30th. Mother and baby are both doing well, while Daddy is desperately trying to figure out how to edit hundreds of baby photos while changing diapers, burping the new baby, and going home twice a day to feed and medicate the cat. I have managed to get a few uploaded to Facebook, though, and you can take a look at them there.

In the end, Sofia arrived as a cesarean, since she was already more than a week overdue and there were some signs that waiting any longer might be dangerous, according to the non-stress tests and fetal monitors. We had gone to the doctor for the second checkup of the day, when he looked at the monitor printout and said "we're going to the hospital." After a couple more hours of more detailed monitoring, it became clear that although the contractions were progressing, she wasn't showing any signs of engaging, so a cesarean was the only reasonable option. An hour's worth of prep later and we were in the delivering room, where they handed her to us, apparently safe and sound. The only problem so far seems to be that she has her schedule reversed, so she tries to sleep all day and stay up all night, making for some seriously sleep-deprived parents. Over the next few days we should be able to change that, though, and everything else seems to be going well. With any luck she'll make the trip home sometime tomorrow afternoon, and a whole new adventure will begin.

21st Century Digital Girl, or How Things Were Different Back in My Day, Part 17

2008-05-02T13:50:00.004+02:00

Now that we're officially across the border and into May, there are only three weeks or so left before Sofia's scheduled arrival. If this were the 1800's, there's a good chance that everyone who would be interested in getting the news about her birth would be within walking distance of each other, but with friends and family spread across the globe, communication gets a little complicated.

To get around this problem, I'm planning on sending updates (as often as I can) via Twitter. If you haven't used it before, Twitter is a "microblogging" tool that lets you send short updates -- less than 140 characters -- about what you're doing at any given moment. The best part is that it allows you to send and receive updates via the website, instant messenger, or your mobile phone, which means I may be able to send the occasional update between contractions.

If you're interested, you can follow the updates on my Twitter page, or you can sign up for an account to get updates automatically sent to you (it's free, and I haven't gotten any spam from them yet). You can also download any number of programs for the PC which will sit on your desktop and tell you when there are updates...I especially like twhirl.

Finally, for what it's worth, I'm already using Twitter on a semi-regular basis for everyday things, so if you care to find out what I had for lunch or what interesting website I found today, feel free to "follow" me there. If you have your own account, let me know and I'll follow yours, too.

gloomy thoughts on a bright spring day

2008-04-20T00:22:00.003+02:00

Today was a beautiful spring day in Barcelona, the kind of day that just begs to be enjoyed while sitting outside having lunch at a nice little cafe. I didn't, though -- not because there aren't any nice little cafes nearby, but because I have roughly 58€ to last through the end of the month. Not since university have I had to give such careful consideration to paying for basic staples, and it's a depressing situation when you're 40 years old. Add in the fact that there's a baby on the way next month, and it becomes a terrifying prospect, one that keeps me up at night staring at the ceiling.

The problem lies partly in the amount of money we've had to spend in the last couple of months to get ready for Sofía, but the real root cause is a combination of low Spanish salaries and the rapidly rising cost of living. Although the the situation in Spain hasn't yet reached the level of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, there's an increasing amount of talk about people not making their mortgage payments and defaulting on loans. If our own mortgage goes up again next year by the amount that it did last year, chances are we'll need to start looking for a cheaper place -- again, not exactly the ideal situation with a newborn baby.

In short, something has to change. All things considered, I like living in Spain, and I think it's a good place to raise a family, but unless the salaries reach some sort of parity with the cost of living, we're going to have to make some tough decisions before long.

4am ramblings of an insomniac

2008-04-12T04:08:00.005+02:00

There's a moment at the end of the film Blade Runner where Rutger Hauer's character, having reached the end of his preprogrammed lifespan, talks about the things that he's seen in his four short years, then makes a poignant comment on life and death:

"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

And then he does. The entire movie is a parable about what it means to be human and the nature of memories, but for me it's that one line, and the pathos behind it, that sticks with me. No matter how much you see and do in a lifetime, there is always a huge part of it which goes with you when you die, lost forever to the rest of the world.

Sometimes I think that keeping a blog or a journal could be a way to keep those experiences alive; after all, with the almost unlimited lifespan of information on the web now, anything you publish has a good chance of outliving you, whether you'd like it to or not. The problem is that a lifetime isn't made up of big noteworthy experiences or even minor blogworthy ones, but small little moments that are hard to put into words, and harder still to appreciate vicariously.

Here's an example, one which was running through my mind tonight for reasons unknown as I lay awake in bed. Back in the early 1990's, I took a business trip to North Andover, MA, to the headquarters of the company I was working for at the time. It was one of my first real business trips, and for that matter, one of my first real trips anywhere. The idea was to spend the week meeting and working with colleagues that I normally only talked to via email, but my evenings were pretty much my own.

One night, I stopped into a music store to browse the discount cassette bin, and picked up an album by a woman named Kate Bush called Hounds of Love. I have to admit that I'm not the biggest Kate Bush fan, since some of her earlier songs are reminiscent of a small animal screeching on helium, but when I put the tape in and drove around that night, there was something there that captured the feeling and froze it into my memory. I still remember the synchronicity of pulling over beside the road and listening to the lyrics to Hello Earth:

I get out of my car, step into the night
And look up at the sky.
And there's something bright, travelling fast.
Look at it go...

To the average person, including anyone who reads my account of it, this might sound meaningless at best, and laughable at worst. But to this day, when I hear the song, I'm right back alongside the car on a northern Massachusetts road, looking up at the stars through spent rainclouds. It's not something I can put down into words, and I can't explain why that small moment has stuck with me. It could be the fact that I was a young kid in his early 20's traveling alone for one of the first times; it could be knowing, in retrospect, that I had spent a couple of hours earlier chatting leisurely with the man my then-wife was having an affair with, although I didn't know that at the time; or it could be that I have a natural propensity to imagine that song lyrics somehow apply to me. Whatever the reason, there's a strong connection with that moment in my memory, one which I don't think I could explain without somehow recounting everything else that was going through my head at the time. Maybe there are writers who are capable of doing just that, but I'm not one of them.

Like a lot of things on my mind lately, this all comes about, at least in part, by thinking about the fact that I'll be a father very soon, and that someday my daughter might be curious about what kind of person I was before she came along. I know that my Mom and Dad must have had experiences before I was born that still stick with them, and I would love to be able to read what they would have written about them back in 1967. On the other hand, maybe it's best not to let her know I'm too human, at least until she's old enough not to use it against me as proof of my own fallibility. Why, back in my day, we didn't have time to go driving around willy-nilly, listening to songs about Emily Brontë novels and rainmaking machines.

At least someday she'll know what I did when I was up late with insomnia: namely, writing long, rambling posts quoting Rutger Hauer movies and Kate Bush albums.

I left my heart

2008-03-26T02:10:00.003+01:00

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in the First Class Lounge (thanks, United Mileage Plus!) at San Francisco International, waiting for the 7:21pm flight to London, and then back to Barcelona. From here, I can look out and see the sun setting on the same hills that I first saw back in the summer of 1991, when I was a wide-eyed kid from Ohio just realizing how big the world actually was. I think that everyone, if they're lucky, finds a place that they connect with, instantly and on a deep level, and that they carry with them in some sense no matter where they go. I had that feeling not five miles from here almost 17 years ago, and I think that this will always be one of my favorite places on earth.

The main reason for coming here last week was to officially celebrate my 40th birthday, which means that I've now postponed that milestone as long as I can. I was lucky enough to have friends from different periods of the last ten-plus years all together in one place, and while there are people that I wish could have been there but weren't, it means a lot to me to have friends who have stuck with me over the ups and downs of the past decade or two. Thanks, guys...and let's do it again in 2018.

have you seen me?

2008-03-10T17:05:00.001+01:00

a moment of sunlit calm
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman

If it seems like I've dropped off the face of the earth over the past few weeks, it's because I have, more or less. The accompanying text for this photo explains why, at least in part.

There's light at the end of the tunnel, though. More blog posts soon, I promise.

A quick baby update

2008-01-16T15:23:00.000+01:00

I know, with the arrival of little Sofía later this year, some of you may be worried that this will turn into yet another baby blog ("She weighs 10 kilos! She ate her first avocado!"), while others may consider than an improvement over what passes for content now.

For the moment, though, just a quick update for those who want those details: we had our high-res ultrasound this morning, which is typically done around 20 weeks to check for birth defects and the overall health of the baby. Everything looks fine; she has 10 fingers and 10 toes, all of which are in the right place, no signs of cleft palate, spina bifida, or any other kind of abnormalities as far as they can tell. In fact, she checks out so normal that I'm beginning to suspect she won't look anything at all like her father.

Seeing tests like this (and the others we did earlier in the pregnancy) gives me a deeper respect for people like my parents who gave birth back in the days when you just hoped for the best, and didn't know what to expect until the doctor handed you a baby boy or girl. I think we'll have enough to deal with at the end of May that a little extra peace of mind will be a welcome thing.

One more link

2008-01-01T22:03:00.000+01:00

For those of you who visit this blog regularly (you know who you are, all five of you), there's now one more link you should know about. I've decided to try to maintain a daily photoblog, with the goal of forcing myself to see everyday things in new (and hopefully photogenic) ways. This means that while some of the shots will have some degree of effort put into them (like this shot of Amy at the start of her 19th week of pregnancy), but there'll probably be a fair share of shots of things around the house, the office, or places in between. If nothing else, though, I can guarantee that it'll be updated more often than this blog.

Chestnuts are roasting

2007-12-22T00:06:00.000+01:00

Between work deadlines, business trips, and sick cats, I haven't really been able to get into the Christmas spirit this year.

Then I saw this.

Warning: contains 1980's humor. If you were born before 1960 or after 1980, or spent your teenage years outside of North America, chances are this won't seem nearly as funny to you.

"Silent Foolish Night." Heh.

Last days of Evil

2007-12-10T14:56:00.000+01:00

Our cat Evil (a.k.a. "Evil Ralph", "That Cat", or "Chat") has been with me for the past ten years. He arrived at my doorstep one day in California with Ralphie, peering around the corner like her evil twin (thus the name) as she did his bidding and came to the door begging for food. Despite his name, though, he's actually a very affectionate and sociable cat, whose evil side only manifests itself through loud, persistent meowing in the middle of the night.

A little over a year ago, we came home to find that one of his teeth had fallen out. We took him to the vet, who found an infection and a benign tumor in the upper part of his mouth, which had pushed the tooth out. He prescribed antibiotics for the infection, but told us that there was nothing to do about the tumor; in was inoperable because of the location, and would either stay the same size or grow slowly over time.

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago it became obvious that it had grown, when Evil's eyes started watering and he ate less and less each day. We went back to the vet, who confirmed that it was now blocking off part of his nasal passages and causing him too much pain to eat. There were only two options: put him to sleep, or try a regimen of wet food and analgesic injections. The latter would probably give him a week or so without much pain, but only for a short time. It was a tough choice, but since Evil was still being affectionate and sociable for much of the time, we decided to try the injections.

He started eating more almost immediately, and even managed to gain back a little of the considerable weight he had lost. He seemed less uncomfortable at first, but still has occasional moments when he jumps and bats at his face with his paws. At this point, it looks likely that this will be the last week, since we don't want him to suffer unnecessarily.

It's funny: over the years, I can honestly say that Evil and I have had a love-hate relationship, antagonizing each other and making up again in turns. But despite the occasional frustration, he's been with me longer than most of the people I know, through upheavals, life changes, and intercontinental moves. I don't know if any of this is what he expected when he showed up at my door a decade ago, but I'm glad we've had a few extra days to say a proper goodbye.

I went back to Ohio

2007-12-01T23:35:00.000+01:00

Back in Barcelona again, after a three-day trip to celebrate Thanksgiving in Ohio with my parents and my sister's family. It's a long flight (18 hours in each direction, with layovers) for such a short visit, but I'm glad we made it, since we don't get too many chances to all be together in the same place at the same time. I finally got to meet my niece Mary Catherine, and my two nephews are growing up fast. I found myself thinking about Sofia, and wondering when she'll get to meet her American cousins for the first time.

Each time I go back to Ohio (which, admittedly, is only every year or two) I'm surprised at how much things have changed. My old elementary school has been torn down and replaced with another, the high school has been expanded almost past the point of recognition, and new roads and shopping centers are springing up where once there were only fields and forests. I know it's inevitable, but part of me looks back on happy memories in these places and wants to keep everything just as it was, frozen in time like an idyllic scene in a snow globe.

It's also a reminder of how much people have changed over time; seeing cousins with fully-grown kids of their own; neighbors and relatives my own age with gray creeping into their temples and beards, and even finding out that one of my high school classmates is a grandmother at age 39. I had a long list of people that I would have liked to visit and catch up with, but with such a tight schedule, I guess I'll have to try again next time.

One thing I did manage to bring back is a nasty cold; the worst of it is over now, but my lungs are still trying to hork their way out of my body every couple of minutes. One thing you have to love about the US is the almost overwhelming array of options for self-medication. Cough? Fever and headache? Runny nose with accompanying erectile dysfunction? There's a product made specifically for you. Good thing we packed an empty suitcase or two.

Big news

2007-11-22T22:24:00.000+01:00

...sometimes comes in small packages. In this case, one of the biggest things ever to happen to me is, at this moment, just over 7 centimeters long and 13 weeks old, but is going to change my life forever.

Or, put simply, we're pregnant! (Note that I use "we" in this case in the most general sense, even though my contribution for the next six months consists mostly of satisfying late-night food cravings and not doing anything to provoke my baby's mama unnecessarily.)

After trying for over a year and a half, we found out a few weeks ago that all of the charting, planning, and testing had finally paid off. In fact, we had finally decided to book an appointment with a fertility clinic, and we found out the good news just two hours before our first appointment. The doctor joked that these are the fastest results they've ever seen.

Actually, as it turns out, the baby was conceived the day after one friend's wedding, and we got the positive test results the morning of another one. The moral of the story is: if you're having trouble conceiving, try arranging marriages for some of your single friends.

After doing a screening for any genetic problems, the results came back completely clean, and as an added bonus, we know for sure that it's a girl. We're planning on naming her Sofia, after Amy's grandmother and great-grandmother. Luckily it's also a name that is pronounced the same in English and in Spanish; since my own name doesn't fall into that category (I regularly get Catalan speakers referring to me as "el Grec", or "the Greek"), I want to make sure that my daughter doesn't have the same problem.

The due date is set for May 24th, although if our friends with babies are any indication, the actual date will be somewhere between May 15th and Christmas. This means I won't quite have managed to be a dad before I turn 40, but I won't have missed by much. On the bright side, having 40 years' difference with your child gives so much more weight to the saying, "why, back when I was your age..."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go stock the freezer with an emergency pint of Häagen-Dazs...

morbid and provincial humor

2007-11-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

Although Halloween has started to catch on bit by bit here in Spain over the past few years, it's still not widely celebrated. In a country deeply entrenched in its own traditions, a holiday involving dressing up as a hooker witch or a zombie pirate takes a while to catch on. Go figure.

Still, every year there seem to be more signs that it's catching on, with the occasional jack-o'-lantern or costume in the stores. Not surprisingly, it seems especially popular with young kids. Yesterday evening in the street, for example, I passed one little boy with his father, talking excitedly about Halloween and costumes and candy.

His father's response? "Escolta, tot això és dels americans." (Listen, all that stuff is for the Americans.") Fair enough; I mean, it's a logical conclusion, given that Halloween started with the Celts and was carried on by the Romans. To my ears, though, it has the same ring as an American dad telling his son, "Cinco de Mayo? We're not celebrating that. That's for the Mexicans." I guess multiculturalism just isn't everyone's thing.

To be fair, though, there already is a holiday on this week's calendar: Todos los Santos (All Saints' Day), when people visit the graves of deceased relatives. Maybe Halloween is just a little too gaudy and irreverent to be celebrated before such a solemn day. Then again, one of the typical treats eaten on Todos los Santos is called "huesos de santo", or "saint's bones": tubes of marzipan shaped like bones with a sweetened egg yolk cream for the marrow. So, just to summarize: cannibalism? Good. Dressing like movie characters? Bad.

Finally, to wrap up a post about death and national character, a joke, told to me by a Catalan, involving Catalans and death. Catalans have a reputation as the Scots of Spain, being notoriously careful with money and opposed to anything going wasted:

Un vell català entra en l'oficina del periòdic, amb una mirada molt trista. El dependent li diu "bon dia senyor, en què puc ajudar-lo?"

"La meva esposa acaba de morir," diu el vell, "i volgués publicar un avís."

"Per descomptat, senyor. Em pugui dir que text Vè. voldria posar?"

"Montse ha mort," contesta l'home vell.

El depenent mira a l'home i li diu, amb molta condolença, "perdona, Senyor, però es cobra per línia, amb un mínim de dos. Si hi ha qualsevol cosa que vostè volgués afegir, hi ha espai de sobres."

El vell Català pensa durant un minut llarg, i de cop i volta li ocorre.

"Montse ha mort. És ven Fiat Punto"

---------------------------------

An old Catalan man walks into a newspaper office, wearing a sad expression. The clerk says to him, "Good morning sir, may I help you?"

"My wife has just died," he says, "and I'd like to publish an announcement."

"Certainly, sir. And what would you like the announcement to say?"

"Montse has died," replies the old man.

The clerk looks at the man and says, with much sympathy, "You know sir, the price of the announcement is the same for up to two lines of text. If there's anything else you'd like to say, you have room to spare."

The old man thinks for a long minute, and then it comes to him.

"Montse has died. Fiat Punto for sale."

Technolust

2007-10-30T13:25:00.000+01:00

I've had my trusty Canon EOS 10D for four years now, and it's traveled with me from Japan to Norway (along with a host of other countries which don't flaunt international whaling treaties). By 2007 standards, it has all the power of a Ford Model T with the sleek styling of...well, a Model T. Still, I've grown fond of it, much the same way a parent feels fondness for even the most aesthetically challenged baby, and managed to convince myself that it wasn't the size of the sensor, it was what you did with it that counted.

Then I made the mistake of going to the Sonimagfoto trade show in Barcelona a few weeks ago, and got my hands on a new Canon 40D. Imagine the sudden realization that not only have you pulled your Model T up next to an Aston Martin DB9, but the baby in the improbably-small back seat makes yours look like the lead in a children's production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's faster, smaller, has almost double the resolution, automatically cleans itself...and carries a price tag just over 1,000€. I went home that day feeling a little guilty for forsaking my trusty 10D, and even guiltier for wondering at the same time how much I could get for it on ebay. I resigned myself to waiting a long time to get a 40D of my very own.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to last Tuesday, when in the space of 24 hours I got email messages from two different travel guide publishers, looking for a Barcelona-based photographer to do some work for their guides. Without giving away the names, both of them are well-known publishers of travel books, covering most of world. Thanks to a fortuitous connection (hi Sal!) they had heard that I might be available and willing to do some freelance work. I hesitated a few seconds, so as not to seem too overeager, then emailed back to say that I would certainly be both willing and available.

I'm actually embarrassed to admit that it took me several minutes to realize that these two jobs could not only pay for the 40D, but they were also a great excuse to buy it in the first place. I mean, at the risk of beating the metaphor to death and then jumping up and down on the corpse, would you hire a delivery driver who showed up behind the wheel of a 1908 Tin Lizzie? Rationalization firmly in hand, I set out to look for prices.

At this point it seems like a happy ending, but there was a catch. When I rushed home to tell Amy about my airtight plan, she seemed less than overjoyed. After a few minutes' prodding, I found out that she had already constructed her own airtight plan, involving a brand new 40D and my 40th birthday. She argued that the coincidence of the model number and the age made for a perfect birthday surprise, now ruined; I argued that, as far as I knew, my 40th birthday was still several years away. I also pointed out that the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM also has a "40" in it, but I don't think it was much consolation.

In any case, the important fact in all of this is that very soon I may not only have a shiny new toy, but I'll be able to hold a book or two in my hand and say, "I shot this, I'm a professional photographer." Who knows, maybe I won't be pushing bits for the rest of my life after all.

You haven't lived

2007-10-26T22:53:00.000+02:00

...until you've gotten up at 2am to give a cat an enema.

It's been a long week.

Season of change

2007-10-04T12:51:00.000+02:00

Autumn has always been my favorite season. October in particular holds a lot of my best memories: hayrides and Halloween, crisp autumn days under bright blue skies, and the panoply of color as the leaves turn and tumble toward winter. Especially growing up in Ohio, autumn felt like a deep breath of cool air after the stifling heat of summer, a lull between the bustling activity of summer and the arrival of the holidays. It always seemed to me like a contemplative time, one that put me in a pensive mood, and still does, I suppose, even today.

It's also been, more often than not, a time of changes. Maybe that tradition sets in during the first years of school, when each autumn brings new classes and new friends. Whatever the reason, a disproportionate number of the big changes in my life have happened around this time of year, which just adds to the natural air of nostalgia. It's become a time for taking stock, looking back and thinking about the future. And, of course, a time for making overly-introspective blog posts.

Now that I'm living in Spain there aren't as many autumn leaves, and wiener roasts and pumpkin pies are hard to come by, but my own internal calendar still marks off each autumn. You can keep your spring flowers and winter wonderlands...October and I will always have our memories.

Inscrutable

2007-10-03T17:21:00.000+02:00

I'm finding myself smiling a lot more than usual today, for reasons unexplained.

I think it's making people nervous.

forced downtime

2007-10-02T16:38:00.000+02:00

Sitting at a cafe on Boulevard Sant Germain in Paris with five hours left to kill before my flight home. I guess I should thank Vueling and their lousy schedules for giving me a little bit of mandatory down time.

Fjording

2007-08-12T11:45:00.001+02:00

I'm off for two weeks in Norway, so I might not be posting any updates for a few days, at least not with my normal clocklike precision. I may or may not update Twitter from time to time, despite my ranting over the past two weeks about people who update Facebook while they're in the Peruvian jungle (I'm looking at you, Fiona and Tim).

Enabler

2007-08-10T11:33:00.000+02:00

The word "enabling" seems to be used most often in two contexts: technology and substance abuse. You can draw your own conclusions from this, but be warned that the rest of this post is pretty geeky, so feel free to let your eyes glaze over at any time.

I've been pretty anti-Twitter ever since it hit the big time shortly after SXSW. For the most part, I fail to see why anyone would want to be inundated with a never-ending stream of trivia about their acquaintances' daily routines. Imagine that you had a friend who called you every half hour to say things like, "just wanted you to know that I'm at home eating a chicken salad sandwich." Now imagine that you had 50 or 100 of those friends, texting and IMing you day and night with the most mundane details of their lives. Granted, maybe your friends have more important things to say, but as Scoble points out, the content tends toward the trivial, since it's hard to say anything too deep and meaningful in 140 characters.

For what it's worth, I have the same criticisms and doubts about Facebook, Plazes, etc. I know this places me dangerously close to falling into the "curmudgeon" category, but I also know the attention span of the average web user. Plus, as soon as advertisers realize the gold mine of personal information that's being published online, the lifestyle spam alone will drive lots of people away. If you post that you're waking up and need coffee, StarbucksGuy17 would really like to add you as a friend.

Having said this, I really do want to grok the appeal of the whole concept, so I keep signing up and playing with different sites. Yesterday I finally found a compelling use for it when I put together my own Twitter/Flickr mashup. The server app scans the RSS feed from the "recent comments" page on my Flickr photos every X minutes, and updates a special Twitter bot account that I created. Once that's working, I can follow updates to that bot, and get them on my phone or via IM.

The end result of this is that this morning, on the train between Barcelona and Terrassa, I got an SMS saying that someone had left a comment on one of my recent Flickr photos. I opened the web browser on the phone, and two minutes after the comment was left I was reading and replying. It may not seem like much, but for a Flickr junkie like me, it's pretty cool.

Maybe there is something to this Web 2.0 thing after all.

Next post: Horseless carriages - technological marvel or devilish witchcraft?

The joys of cheap plastic

2007-07-26T11:02:00.000+02:00

The mail carrier just delivered my new Holga, direct from Hong Kong by way of ebay. I love the fact that the customs declaration lists it as "toy camera".

Not with a bang

2007-07-24T12:27:00.000+02:00

Today's random recommendation: a nice piece from Greg Fallis at Utata. If you're not already visiting Utata regularly, why not?

Untitled, by a nameless yeast,
as seen on Utata.

Future photos

2007-07-21T22:34:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I flew back from Birmingham, England, where I'd been for three days at a conference for the blind. Generally I like air travel, even despite the increasingly ridiculous security theater, since it imposes a few hours of forced down time, with no internet, no phone, and no appointments to keep. At 35,000 feet, your only options are to read, sleep, watch a movie, listen to music, or stare out the window and think.

On each of the last few trips, I've suddenly had an idea for a photo (or, more often, the title of one) come to mind, and I've tried to quickly jot them down. I'm starting to put together a nice little list of ideas, which at some point I should try to shoot, once I stop taking flights long enough to do it.

By the same token, I'll occasionally glimpse a phrase somewhere and think to myself, "hmm, I wonder what kind of photo this would go with." This happened tonight as I was looking through the archives of Paul Madonna's excellent All Over Coffee. The particular piece was from July 1st:

I lost miles by slipping inches at a time.

I wanted to be Henry Miller,
Henry wanted to be Dostoyevsky.
and I remember wanting to be Dostoyevsky, too.

I had given up being Miller years before I read him,
so when I did,
he reminded me of someone that I missed.

Madonna's pieces are listed under the "comics" section, but in reality they have very little to do with comics. San Francisco is the protagonist, at least visually, but while the artwork is excellent, for me it's the emotional context of some of the pieces that attracts me most. I can't point to too many artists I'd like to count as influences, but if I could take photos the way that Paul combines words and drawings, I'd be happy.

Take a look at the archive...you may see something there that will end up as a photo someday.

Inherited misdeeds

2007-07-21T21:11:00.000+02:00

Once upon a time I had a best friend named John. We were high school freshmen when we met, and at first it was our common taste in music and similar sense of humor that formed the basis of our friendship. As it turned out, though, we both had a philosophical bent, and so we often had the kind of conversations that form a lasting bond. We were equally happy drinking at parties after heavy metal concerts and talking about the nature of human relationships, which by most people's standards is an uncommon combination.

For a while, in the latter years of high school, we drifted apart. The fundamental reason was the mutually obsessive relationship that my ex and I had at the time, which led us to exclude spending time with almost anyone else. John saw (rightly so, as it turned out) that this was unhealthy, and tried to warn me off of the path I was on, but I took the side of teenage love, and we barely spoke for a couple of years.

In college we reconnected, and although he soon moved off to far-off places like Idaho and Wisconsin, we kept in touch. To me, the mark of a truly great friendship is the ability to pick up again exactly where you left off, regardless of how much time has passed since you've last seen each other, and that was true in our case. Each time we got together, we would have thoughtful conversations, trading recommendations for books, music, and plans for the future. We both got married, and the four of us got along well together.

During difficult times, John was always a source of sage advice. He would lend an ear that was at once sympathetic and analytical, helping to push through into the heart of any problem. A few years into our marriage, my ex announced that she had fallen in love with a coworker, and admitted to having an affair with him. To this day I can remember sitting with John during one of his visits, talking until the wee hours of the morning about the whole situation, as he questioned both of us..."what do you really want, and what are you willing to give up?" It's no understatement to say that without him, our marriage might have ended much earlier than it did.

Eventually, though, it did end. Maybe it was inevitable, once those first cracks began to show, causing us both to take a long look at who we were and what we wanted out of life. It was a tumultuous time, the culmination of a long series of missteps and bad judgment. For a time it seemed that everything would end amicably, but as is often the case, things changed, and bitterness took hold. It's a time that I look back on now with many regrets, but not the least of them is the fact that John and I ended up separating, too.

In divorce, the friends are sometimes divided up along with the belongings, and in this case, John's wife's sympathies were clearly in Stacey's direction. Whether John's were as well isn't entirely clear to me, but the damage had been done, the dynamic changed. I refused to go on a campaign to tell my side of the story, opting instead to stay in touch with the handful of friends who required no explanation.

Seven years have passed now, and I only have the vaguest idea of where John is today and what his life has brought him since then. Last night I spent a couple of hours searching the net, trying to tease some contact information out of the sea of people with the same name, with no luck.

This evening I read a line in a book by Neil Gaiman:

"If it's true that every seven years each cell in your body dies and is replaced, then I have truly inherited my life from a dead man, and the misdeeds of those times have been forgiven and are buried with his bones."

My seven years are almost past, and the man who committed those mistakes long ago is nearly gone. There are apologies I would make before he goes, but I think the time for them is probably long past, and they would fall on deaf ears. Still, it would be nice to think that the dying man's last act would be to reach out to a long-lost friend again, leaving a new friendship as his inheritance. I suppose there's always hope.

Soft places and cicadas

2007-07-14T21:19:00.000+02:00

"When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered... the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls... bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory"
-Marcel Proust "The Remembrance of Things Past"

A couple of blocks from home there's a park, a handful of grassy knolls lined with beech trees surrounded on three sides by tall buildings. There are dozens of parks like this scattered around the city, but this one has something unusual about it. Maybe it's the way that the buildings block the wind, or the specific types of trees and vegetation, but about half of the times that I've passed by it, there's a smell that's straight out of my childhood. One day it might be falling leaves and the autumn hayrides, and another it might be the fresh smell of summer grass. Since smells are so closely tied to memory (scientifically speaking, the olfactory cortex is linked to the hippocampus and amygdala, which are responsible for emotional and place memories) I always get a momentary flashback to younger days.

Today, as I was riding my bike home, I passed by the park and came across a new addition: the trees were full of cicadas, buzzing just like they did the last time I saw the 17-year locusts arrive in Ohio (which, as scary as it sounds, was not the last time they showed up). I'm beginning to think that this park has some kind of mysterious connection to rural Ohio, as improbable as it sounds. Is there a field somewhere in Muskingum County with the smells of the Mediterranean and the sound of the metro?

Still, you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, so I came home, packed a lunch and a blanket, and waited for Amy to come home from work for a picnic under the buzzing trees. It's not quite the same as actually going back to visit, but until transporters and time machines are cheap and reliable, it's the next best thing.

Mira'm

2007-07-13T21:53:00.000+02:00

I've been on TV a few times before, from the time that John Glenn took a liking to my "Alcatraz Swim Team" shirt at the Ohio State Fair, to those high school Quiz Team matches where I showed the world how little I know about art history.

A couple of months ago, though, I made my first Spanish-language appearance when a TV crew from the local station Canal Terrassa came to do a piece on Code Factory for a show called "Mira'ns". I've uploaded the video to YouTube, so take a look, as long as you promise not to mock my Spanish. My part starts at around 2'35"; it's easy to spot me since I'm the only one not speaking Catalan.

Of course, all of my best moments ended up on the cutting-room floor.

New glasses

2007-06-27T21:26:00.000+02:00

Okay, so maybe some things change from one day to the next...

Change, frogs, and hot water

2007-06-27T13:09:00.000+02:00

Have you ever had one of those moments were everything seems on the verge of changing, but then nothing does, and then it dawns on you how much things have been changing all along?

Two weeks ago, I had the prospect of two big potential job changes: one was an offer from another company in Barcelona, and the other was a company with offices in London and Tallinn that wanted to talk to me about a product manager position. The offer I had in hand was for a salary identical to what I'm making now, but as a full-time employee, which meant more stability and lower social security payments, but less flexibility to do other projects on the side. The other company is one that I'd really like to work for, but the position was more managerial and less technical than what I've done in the past, and I would be doing it remotely most of the time.

I've been working at my current job for almost four years now, and it's rapidly approaching the point of becoming my longest stay anywhere, something I never expected when I got hired as a recent immigrant with no idea what to expect of the Spanish job market. It's had its ups and downs, and at times it's seemed on the verge of consuming my life in a vortex of demanding customers and 80-hour work weeks, but it does have something that I swore I'd look for when I left Excite@Home, which is a sense of social purpose. The blind user community can be pretty hard to please, but at the end of the day I feel like I've done something useful for actual people (well, most days anyway).

So by the end of the week I had decided to turn down the offer for the Barcelona company, the other company had told me that they really needed someone on-site for the position, and I was more or less where I'd been at the beginning of the week.

Then last night I had dinner with my old boss Scott and his family, who are visiting Barcelona for a few days. Scott was my second and third boss, having worked for him at both FTP and Coronet back in the early 90's. One of my lasting memories of those days is playing with his four-year old son Alex, chasing him around our office with our huge arsenal of Nerf weapons. Alex is now 18 and leaves in a few weeks to start at NYU, and Scott and Lynn now have a 9-year old who is scary smart (as in developing her own crypto system and talking about string theory smart). I suddenly feel very old.

There's a overused analogy that talks about a frog in a pot of water: the frog sits in the pot, blissfully unaware as the water grows hotter and hotter, until the frog is boiled without ever noticing it. Although this sounds like a story invented to put a humane face on the growing sport of frog-boiling, it's a good analogy for the sudden realization of how much time has passed since those early days at my first job. Maybe it was just naiveté, the rush of excitement at moving to the Big City, or an innocence that I've since lost in many ways, but I still look back at those days as the happiest of all of my jobs. There must be something to it, though, because Scott said the same holds true for him. Before the dot-com days of foosball and free ice cream, we had something that was already special and irreproducible, a time that I'll always look back to with fond memories.

I think I might go buy some Nerf guns.

Have I mentioned I love Google?

2007-05-30T00:06:00.001+02:00

When I first moved away from California, there were times when I would feel homesick and wish that I could go back and visit certain places. Typically these wouldn't be the usual sites that you might expect; instead, one day I might get a sudden irresistible urge to visit, say, the Safeway where I used to shop every day, or to drive down an otherwise unremarkable stretch of El Camino Real, made special by its sheer inaccessibility.

Then came Amazon's A9 Maps, with its drive-by views of most of the major streets in the Bay Area. For a while, I could ease the homesickness by taking a virtual drive through downtown San Mateo or Redwood City, and it all felt a little less distant. For whatever reasons, though, Amazon took the service down a few months later.

That early homesickness is gone now (well, almost), but even so, I was excited today when Google announced a new and improved version of the same idea for Google Maps, which they dubbed Street View. It lets you pick any point along a major street and get a navigable 360-degree panorama; I can visit the office where I had my first job, for example, or get a 360-degree view from the Golden Gate Bridge. What really distinguishes it, though, is the extensive coverage they have already. I can even visit the Pacific Coast Highway a block from my old house, where even getting a cell phone signal could be tricky at times.

Microsoft has been testing the waters here too, with its Windows Live Street View, but from playing with both, I'd say Google has a strong lead at the moment. On behalf of homesick expats everywhere, I say "the more the merrier".

I'm a photographer!

2007-05-16T11:54:00.001+02:00

Thanks, Мир!
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

A few weeks ago I got an email from someone at Afisha MIR, a Russian travel magazine, wanting to know if they could use one of my Flickr photos for a piece on Barcelona. Today I got a copy of the magazine by courier, and it turns out that they actually used the shot as the cover photo for the article. I've had a couple of pictures used on websites and in a kids' public health magazine, but this is the first time I've had anything published in a newsstand magazine, so I'm pretty excited.

Of course, because it's a Creative Commons photo I don't get paid for it, so I can't technically call myself a professional photographer, but between this and my Moo cards arriving this week, it's starting to feel a little more like it.

Anyone out there who can read Russian?

Elsewhere, elsewhen

2007-05-11T14:13:00.000+02:00

A friend I used to work with told me that the most important thing he learned from studying Buddhism was the philosophy "be here now": being mindful of the moment without getting caught up in the past, the future, or being somewhere you're not.

If that's true, I would make a lousy Buddhist.

The last few days in particular I've felt more like Billy Pilgrim, bouncing back and forth in a strange kind of bored restlessness. Can you develop ADD at age 39?

Speaking of past and future, I found a cool online toy at the University of St. Andrews Perception Lab: the Face Transformer. From a single passport-style photo, it creates different versions of you, changing ages, ethnicity, and even rendering you in the style of different artists. If the "old" photo of me is any indication, I'd better use some of this restless energy to go to the pharmacy for some anti-wrinkle cream.

Road dust

2007-04-18T00:13:00.000+02:00

Over Easter week we went on a long-planned but never-taken European road trip. We flew to Milan, drove to Geneva, then back through the Swiss Alps and back into northern Italy. All told, we drove over 2000 kilometers in seven days, so while it wasn't exactly a relaxing vacation, we did pack a lot of sightseeing into a short time.

While we were in Switzerland, we stopped at the Musée de l'Elysée, where a couple of my pictures were included (along with about 10,000 others) in an exhibit on popular photography.

I've started to upload a few of the photos from the trip to Flickr, and in the next week or so I'll get a travelogue put together on gladman.com. (Considering that I took 4.5GB of pictures during the week, I'm considering soliciting donations for extra hard disk space.)

I swear this is not a Stevie Wonder blog

2007-03-28T13:40:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, I posted about the fact that Stevie Wonder had sent us his Treo for a few days. Last week I had a much closer encounter when I went to the annual CSUN conference in LA. The conference is held every year, and focuses on all types of disabilities, including technology for the blind. Apparently Stevie goes every year, and is pretty well known by most of the show regulars.

I was working in the booth of one of our partners when someone came over and asked if I could help Stevie change some of the settings on the phone. After introducing myself (I called him Stevie, since "Mr. Wonder" just sounds strange), I took a look at his Treo, changed the audio settings, and gave it back to him, explaining what I'd done so that he could change it again later. Since he was surrounded by people clamoring for his attention, I'm not sure he caught the whole explanation, but the very large guy that was accompanying him seemed to. After talking to him for a few minutes, he moved on to another booth with his entourage in tow.

The whole trip was pretty work-intensive, but I did manage to take advantage of the fact that I was in California on Saturday to do some quick shopping and visit the beach in Santa Monica. I would have liked to stop over at my parents' place in Ohio or make a quick trip up to SF (maybe to help Eric celebrate his 40th birthday), but in the end I had to settle for a suitcase full of english muffins and some chicken mole from Guelaguetza. Maybe I can manage a more leisurely trip the next time Stevie buys a new phone.

Goodbye, Ralphie

2007-03-03T11:47:00.000+01:00

Ralphie was a stray cat who showed up one day in 1996 and stayed with me
over ten years and two continents. She came as part of a pair of black cats, but Ralphie was the one who walked up to the front door as if she already lived there and expected to be fed. The other cat, who by all appearances is probably her son (or brother), lurked around the corner like a shadow, earning him the name Evil Ralph. But Ralphie, always the mama, persisted until she got some food for both of them. And of course, once you've fed a stray cat, you've got a responsibility, and from that day on I had two new pets.

Ralphie was always fat, even as a stray...a big lightbulb-shaped cat with the tiniest meow. Even from the first day, her splayed legs and crackling joints made it hard to tell just how old she was, but she had air of a mother cat, keeping an eye on everyone and everything. Her first love was probably ham; she had a sixth sense that would bring her out of a deep sleep if a ham sandwich was being made anywhere in the vicinity. It was her love of ham (and almost any other food) which made managing her weight a problem, especially when living with two other cats, so on the vet's advice we decided that she should stay with Roser, my mother-in-law, as a type of "fat farm" for a few weeks.

Ralphie and Roser took to each other instantly, and Ralphie enjoyed having a place to herself with a live-in maid. Soon a few weeks turned into a few months, then a year. They fell into a routine, with Ralphie waking Roser up in the morning, greeting her when she came home, and watching TV together most nights. Over time, Ralphie did lose some weight, but just as importantly, she was healthy and content.

Then suddenly, over the last couple of weeks, she began to lose her appetite, eating only certain types of food. After a few days more, she would only eat dry food when mixed with canned wet food, until on Thursday she stopped eating altogether. Outwardly she seemed a little tired but otherwise fine, but Roser called the vet to arrange an emergency appointment for the following morning. Overnight she went downhill fast, and by yesterday afternoon she was listless, then semi-conscious, and by early evening she was nearly comatose. The vet took a blood sample and rushed it to the lab by taxi, leaving us with a few hours to wait for the results.

While we waited, I sat with Ralphie, looking for signs of improvement or the contrary and talking at length with the vet. Eventually the results came back, and looking at the analysis and her x-rays, it was clear that she had suffered acute kidney failure, and the prognosis was practically nonexistent. By a little after midnight she was just slightly awake, but it was clear she was in discomfort, and the choice was obvious. Finally, at 1:10 this morning, the vet gave her a large dose of anesthetic, and in a few seconds it was over, quickly and quietly.

Today Roser's house seems strangely empty, and we're all feeling the space where she used to be. As Amy put it, she was "everybody's mama", and she'll be missed. If you have pets of your own, remember to appreciate them while you can, and give them a little extra attention today in memory of Ralphie.

A little bit of ham might be nice.

All Photographers Now

2007-02-27T10:11:00.001+01:00

2007-02-17, 12.17PM

A few weeks ago I submitted some pictures to a museum exhibition in Lausanne, Switzerland called "We are all photographers now!". The idea was simple but clever: the museum had set up a video projector and a website to allow people to submit their photos to be displayed in the museum. The theme of the show was the effect that digital technology has had on photography, and based on the fact that 40,000 photos had been submitted by the time I uploaded mine, it looks like it's been a success.

Yesterday I got an email with snapshots of the five pictures I submitted on display in the museum, along with the dates and times of each one. Even though there are thousands of other pictures on display, it's still cool to see your photos on a museum wall.

Since we're planning on stopping in Lausanne in April as part of our Swiss-Italian road trip, there's a good chance I'll be able to see the exhibition in person. Maybe I'll submit a few more beforehand, on the very slight chance that they'll pop up while we're there.

Ich spreche kein Deutsch

2007-02-25T00:34:00.000+01:00

After a short (three-day) trip to Linz, Austria this week for an EU project meeting, I realized two things:

I really should have given those German classes a second try, despite that one ill-fated college class.
If it's possible, I now have even more respect for my friends who speak four or five different languages.

Still, with the help of a mobile phone travel dictionary and a little gesturing, I managed to find my way around and order some food (including a Linzer torte, considered the oldest-known cake in the world).

The European project is scheduled to last three years, so there's a good chance I'll be back in Austria now and then. Anyone have a recommendation for a good German study guide?

1000 ways to waste time

2007-02-12T23:04:00.000+01:00

If you can't find at least one entry in the Wikipedia List of unusual articles to make you laugh out loud, you're taking life way too seriously.

Beeperlepsy, 2007 style

2007-02-12T22:31:00.000+01:00

Today, along with what seemed like half of the European IT industry, I went to 3GSM, which is being held at the convention complex here in Barcelona. This is the biggest mobile tech event, and over 50,000 people are expected this year.

The funniest thing I saw all day wasn't the bagpiper wandering the show floor, or the azafatas (booth babes) dressed in nurses' outfits complete with miniskirts, or the Canadian mobile electronic billboard guys...it was the sight of 50,000 people reaching for their phones every time the "new message" beep played within earshot.

I'm going back tomorrow...I may set my phone to play Gran Vals at 30-second intervals, just for fun.

Vote Early, Vote Often

2007-01-24T01:03:00.000+01:00

I have a photo submitted as a candidate for issue #9 of JPG Magazine, under the "Street" category.
Take a look, and if you like it, throw a vote my way.

This concludes the Shameless Plug portion of this blog post...we now return you to the internet, already in progress.

Back in Barcelona

2007-01-14T20:06:00.001+01:00

La Mezquita
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Back home tonight after seven days of whirlwind visits around central and southern Spain. We visited Las Pedroñeras and Alarcón in Castilla-La Mancha, Granada, Córdoba, Sevilla, and València, averaging one World Heritage Site per day.

Along the way, I took over 1,000 pictures, so there are a lot more coming, once I get caught up with work and have time to start editing them...

Blasts from the past

2007-01-06T18:22:00.000+01:00

I've been scanning and uploading a few old hardcopy photos to Flickr. Most of them are early photo experiments, but I also found this one from a computer programming competition at OSU Newark from 1985 or 1986. (Mike Fulton is on the left, Dave Shively on the right, and the one in the middle with the strangely bushy eyebrows and 80's hair is me.)

I've got more to scan and post, but since I'm leaving tomorrow for a week in Sevilla, it'll be a few more days before I get around to them. Until then, I'll be trying to find out if it's possible to fill an 8GB memory card in only six days...

What are you doing New Year's Eve?

2007-01-01T03:28:00.001+01:00

What are you doing New Year's Eve?
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

This New Year's Eve, just like last year, I went to the restaurant and hung out in the kitchen with the family, taking pictures and eating the occasional dish. This one was one of my favorites:
pan-seared Galician diver scallop with an Iberian ham chip over a Jerusalem artichoke purée and a sweet onion reduction.

Oh, and the wine wasn't bad, either.

Virtual Tourist, Part 2

2006-12-31T03:34:00.001+01:00

Vortex
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Now that Christmas is over, I finally got around to part two of my virtual tourist project (for details on part one, see this post). This time the visit was to Casa Batlló, a Gaudi-designed building on Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona. For anyone remotely interested in design and architecture, this place is a visual feast. Everywhere you look there are curves taken straight from nature, and it's not quite like anything designed before or since.

All told, I ended up taking over 350 pictures (lucky I got that 8GB CF card for Christmas), and with luck I might get 20 or so decent shots, which I'll upload over the next few days. Check back with the Flickr set now and then to see what's new.

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-27T00:49:00.000+01:00

Just a few photos from Christmas in Barcelona. Merry Christmas to everyone (or happy holidays of your choice) and see you again in 2007.

A rare work-related item

2006-11-22T00:11:00.000+01:00

I generally don't post too much about work here, but I thought this was interesting. Last week Microsoft program manager Jeremy de Souza and his coworker Bonnie came to visit us and talk about accessible mobile technology. While they were there, Jeremy took a group photo of us (our only company photo, strangely enough), and blogged his visit.

And yes, I did actually have Stevie Wonder's Treo in my hands a few weeks ago.

Rotting beached whales

2006-11-15T17:04:00.000+01:00

From today's SiliconValley.com:

From 101, you can see the old Excite@Home buildings in Redwood City, connected by a pedestrian bridge. Built for the company, the site has stood empty, rotting like a beached whale until last year when Stanford University Hospital bought it (they plan to get rid of the two playground slides that take you from the second to first floors).

Just another symbol of an era of bloated parties, bloated expectations and bloated layoff notices?

Or maybe the buildings are just like those roadside crosses, saying simply -- something died here. Learn from our mistake. Don't crash into this tree again.

As sad as it is that such a big part of my own recent history is still "rotting like a beached whale," it's nice to know that it'll eventually be used for a good purpose. Personally, I think they should leave the slides; what better way for a doctor to get to a patient's room, stat?

Code Monkey very simple man

2006-10-17T23:10:00.000+02:00

I've had some songs by Jonathan Coulton in my playlist for a while, but even after 100 plays "Code Monkey" is still a wonderfully funny, geeky song.
Jonathan is a singer-songwriter who not only collaborates with John Hodgman and Popular Science, but also has his own "Thing a Week" project, where he writes a song on a different topic every week. A lot of these songs have been made into fan videos, such as "Over There" or "Flickr.mov"...check them out.

Speaking of photos..

2006-10-10T13:06:00.000+02:00

Stone Rising
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Last week I got an email from a couple from Washington, D.C. who had come to Barcelona and had their camera gear stolen within 30 minutes of arriving. They bought a disposable camera to take snapshots during the rest of their trip, but were really disappointed over being in a city like Barcelona without a proper camera. They very kindly asked if they could print out a few of my Flickr shots as a reminder of the places they'd seen; in turn, I offered to visit a couple of the places they'd missed photographing to take some shots for them. As I explained to them, sometimes living in a photogenic place can make you forget how many good shots there are around you as you go about your daily routine, and it's good to have the occasional motivation to get out and shoot.

Long story short, last Saturday I went out to the Sagrada Familia and spent a few hours getting some typical tourist pictures, while at the same time trying to find a few less-photographed angles, which isn't an easy task with one of the world's most-photographed buildings. The full set is online at Flickr now, so you can judge for yourself whether I managed it or not.

Four years on

2006-10-10T12:18:00.000+02:00

October 9th and I have a history.

Over the past few years I've come to associate the date with big life changes and important events. For example, on October 9th, 2002 I got the final word that my California house had officially sold, just hours before heading to the airport to board a plane for Barcelona. I arrived the next day at just about the time that I'm writing this, making this the official four-year mark of my move to Spain.

A lot can change over the course of four years. A lot of the changes between then and now have been expected: buying an apartment, the restaurant taking off, the occasional vacation. At the same time, a lot of things that I expected to change have remained the same. The fact that I'm still working at the same job almost four years later, nearly making it a record, is a big surprise. The fact that we haven't gotten around to having a baby yet isn't really a surprise, but four years ago I would have given it better-than-even odds. And for some inexplicable reason, I haven't vaulted to fame and fortune as a world-famous travel photographer. Sometimes lack of change is as hard to predict as change itself.

So far, the biggest event to mark this year's anniversary is the installation of our kitchen door frame after six months of waiting, going on behind me as I type. As October changes go, it's pretty minor; I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. In either case, the day is still young.

Mock my taste in music

2006-09-04T17:54:00.000+02:00

It's entirely possible that I'm the last person to hear about last.fm, a "social music site" which tracks your most recently-played songs and gives you recommendations for both songs and users who share your tastes. It's not a new idea by any means (anyone remember Firefly?) but it seems to be well done, integrates with both iTunes and WMP, and the list of artists seems pretty impressive so far.

I've included a list of the last ten songs I've listened to at the bottom right of this page, or you can go directly to my profile page. I can't guarantee that I'll keep using it, but it's a fun little toy to play with.

Back from Canada

2006-08-28T01:01:00.000+02:00

Lazy cottage day
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Back in Barcelona again after two weeks in Toronto and cottage country...

We went to celebrate Jordi's 40th birthday and visit a few friends in and around Toronto, and spent three days at the cottage with our friends Kirstyn and Jose and their three-year old, Chloe. We kept to a pretty strict schedule for most of the trip (including three very nice dinners which Jordi very generously invited us to), but it was also nice to have a couple of days of much-needed down time to just relax and disconnect.

Dalí could have used a ruler, too.

2006-06-27T12:59:00.000+02:00

Mario's Bike
Originally uploaded by André Rabelo.

Just in case you start to put too much stock into what internet art critics and photo experts say...someone came up with the brilliant idea of posting one of Henri Cartier-Bresson's most famous photos to the "DeleteMe!" group on Flickr, where people vote whether a picture is worth saving or not. The comments are priceless: "put the camera on a tripod [..] without that, the image will never fly."

Proof that you shouldn't worry too much about popular opinion, especially when it comes from internet "experts". Maybe if Henri had redone the shot as a 5-exposure HDR...

How to recreate Silicon Valley

2006-06-14T22:46:00.000+02:00

From a link on bcnbits's blog, an interesting article by Paul Graham on what it takes to recreate the environment that makes Silicon Valley successful.

Basically, his premise is that you need the right combination of rich people and nerds, and that one of the two alone isn't enough. Miami, for example, has lots of money but no nerds, while Pittsburgh has lots of nerds but no investors. There are other criteria too, such as having a world-class university nearby, an interesting city center (I assume here he's referring to San Francisco, not Santa Clara) and a young and dynamic population, but these mostly serve as draws for the rich and/or the nerds.

Reading this from the perspective of Barcelona, I think that most of the criteria exist here too: certainly there is money around, there's a thriving and creative youth culture, and city centers don't get much more interesting than the Barri Gòtic. What the local universities lack in stature (I don't think anyone will argue that UB or Pompeu Fabra are in the same league as Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT) they make up for in quantity.

If there's an advantage that Silicon Valley has and which Catalunya lacks, it could be a much wider cultural diversity; when almost everyone is an immigrant, they come predisposed to change and aren't overly tied to the traditional ways of doing things. Still, looking at the history of Catalunya over the past 25 years, it's hard to argue that change isn't an integral part of the cultural landscape.

Almost all of modern-day Silicon Valley originated with "the traitorous eight" that defected from Shockley Semiconductor to form Fairchild (and later, Intel and Kleiner Perkins). Anyone know seven traitorous nerds or rich people out there in Barcelona?

Reflected Barcelona

2006-06-11T00:31:00.000+02:00

Took a short walk around the Barri Gòtic today, taking some photos and soaking up some sunshine. I put a few of the photos up on Flickr; you can see them by starting here.

Who's Afraid of Thomas Wolfe?

2006-06-10T12:18:00.000+02:00

Last week I read that my old house in California, which I bought in 1999 for $515,000 and sold in 2002 for $675,000, sold again this February for a ridiculous $965,000. I guess the saying is true: even if you did want to go home again, who could afford it?

Weekend in Santiago

2006-06-07T01:42:00.000+02:00

Big finale
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

This weekend we took a two-day trip to Santiago de Compostela...we got lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) and had sunny and warm weather all weekend. Visiting Galicia reminds you just how diverse Spain really is; it's the most Celtic area of Spain, and you can find bagpipers playing in the archways of the 11th-century cathedral. We stayed in the parador (the Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos), which was founded in 1492. According to the hotel's own brochure, this makes it the oldest hotel still in operation in the world.

More pictures in the Flickr set, and more to come on gladman.com too, as soon as the Japan pictures are done...

truer words

2006-05-28T00:14:00.000+02:00

From a well-timed post on Wil Wheaton's blog:

Some days, you just have to accept that you're not destined to do the things you want to do. You just have to say, "I did my best, but it's just not going to happen."

Amen, brother.

Barça, Barça, Barça!

2006-05-18T12:36:00.000+02:00

More photos in this Flickr set.

Last night Barcelona won the European championship for the first time since 1992, and the city went wild. As soon as the game was a foregone conclusion, I jumped into a cab and headed to the restaurant to meet Amy, Jordi, and Roser. The cab driver was visibly nervous as people began to pour out into the street, first behind us and then all around us; it was almost like surfing a wave of ecstatic people. He told me that as soon as he dropped me off at the restaurant, he was headed straight out of the city to wait out the pandemonium.
The restaurant was nearly empty, and all of the clients were out-of-towners who seemed baffled by all of the excitement. As soon as the last table paid and left, we headed out into the street and joined in the river of people walking down toward Plaça Catalunya and the Ramblas. The din was incredible; anyone who had anything to make noise was using it: car horns, motos, and air horns. The rest just shouted at the top of their lungs. As we headed down toward the Ramblas, the crowd got thicker and more excited, until we got to Plaça Catalunya and couldn't go any further. People there were lighting flares, waving giant banners, and climbing street lights and newspaper kiosks. A few guys started to take off their clothes and moon the crowd, but most people just chanted Barça cheers, toasted each other, and waved their flags like mad.
By the time we threaded our way back out of the crowd, nearly all of the taxis had left the city center, so we ended up walking the 45 minutes or so back home. With each block, the crowd got thinner and less rowdy, until finally only the occasional banner-waving moto riders were zipping by. Back in Les Corts things were pretty calm, but given that the victory parade route passes right by our street to Camp Nou, tonight could be a different story.

The waiting is the hardest part

2006-05-13T00:43:00.000+02:00

"So I'm waiting by a phone for the blessed ring
like a holy grail for a fisher king"
- "I've Been Waiting", Sixpence None The Richer

"I'm standing in my basement, making my arrangements
And waiting for the telphone to ring, to ring, to ring..."
- "Barely Out of Tuesday", Counting Crows

A hui hou, Kahiki

2006-05-11T03:16:00.000+02:00

When I was a kid growing up in Ohio, we would make a trip to the big city (i.e., Columbus) every few months. Once every few trips we would drive past a huge Polynesian restaurant called The Kahiki, complete with giant flaming tiki gods flanking the entrance. For a kid who thought of going to Columbus as a glimpse into an exciting metropolitan world, this was pretty much the most exotic thing you could imagine, and I always wondered what kind of mysteries lurked inside.

Today I found out (via a Boing Boing post) that the Kahiki is no more, having been demolished in 2000 to make room for a Walgreen's. Luckily someone documented the salvage operation for posterity just before the final demolition, but honestly, what kid is going to have his curiosity piqued by the mysterious goings-on inside a Walgreen's?

p.s.: FWIW, the Kahiki lives on (sort of) at the Kahiki website, where they offer recipies and information about their frozen foods, but no flaming tiki gods.

One down, two to go...

2006-05-06T23:20:00.000+02:00

Well, it only took a month, but I got the first part of the photos from our Japan trip online. The first set is from the three days we spent in Tokyo; next up will be the two days in Shuzenji and the four days in Kyoto. As always, though, work and other things are competing for time, so we'll see how soon the rest are done; if you're impatient, send me a note to spur me into action.

Looking back on the trip now, I think I'd spend more time in Tokyo, maybe even at the cost of a day in Kyoto or in the countryside. Tokyo is such an enormous city that just getting from place to place takes a long time, and I don't feel like we even scratched the surface in three days. (Not that we really expected to, of course.)

Who knows, maybe one day when the urge to pick up and move again gets strong enough I'll be spending a lot more time there. Better brush up on my japanese first, though...

If you're going...

2006-05-05T14:24:00.000+02:00

Open road
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Last weekend I took a quick three-day trip to San Francisco, for reasons I won't go into here. This means that within the space of three weeks I visited both sides of the Pacific, but never crossed it. It also means that I logged a total of 48 hours of flying time, so I've seen pretty much all of the bad in-flight movies that are out right now.

Despite being such a short trip, it was good to be back...I got to see a few good friends, visit some old haunts, stock up at Fry's, and fill a suitcase with cereal, peanut butter, and other things that are hard to find in Spain. There's nothing like a 19,000 km trip to the supermarket for some english muffins.

Tadaima

2006-04-21T08:09:00.000+02:00

Nanzenji Waterfall
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

Back home again now after ten days in Japan. Even after living in a foreign country and traveling to places where I'm clearly a foreigner (such as Egypt or Alabama), Japan was the clear winner so far for giving that "otherworldly" feeling. In many ways it's very similar to the US (24-hour convenience marts, everything moving at high speed, a heavily marketing-driven culture), but all of this is set against the backdrop of a very ancient society. It's a very jarring combination, and one that's hard to get a handle on, especially in such a short time.

At the moment it's still a bit of a blur, especially given the jet lag and looming work deadlines, but over the next few days I'll compose some coherent thoughts about the trip, along with some of the 6GB of photos, and post them here and at Flickr.

Notes from Spain: Photo of the Month

2006-04-01T00:24:00.000+02:00

Street Lamps, Plaça Real
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

It's been a busy few weeks, and this month looks to be even more eventful (more on that later). But I did manage to get out on a couple of Saturdays and take some photos around town, and one of them was selected for the Photo of the Month on the Notes from Spain forum.

By the way, if you're interested in Spain and haven't already visited Notes from Spain, check it out. There are regular podcasts on all kinds of subjects, from food to books to the 80-year old man who's been building a cathedral by himself over the past 40 years.

finally, Montserrat

2006-02-28T09:45:00.000+01:00

Montserrat sunset
Originally uploaded by Greg Gladman.

This weekend, after living in Barcelona for three-and-a-half years, I finally went to Montserrat for the first time. This is pretty much the equivalent of living in San Francisco for three years and never having gone to Alcatraz (which, come to think of it, I also did.)
I did some hiking and took a bunch of pictures, playing around with a new technique called HDR. You can see the photos from the day in the Flickr set.

Flickr: Weekend in Paris

2006-02-24T23:58:00.000+01:00

Les Ambassadeurs
Originally uploaded by ggladman.

Last weekend we took a short two-day trip to Paris, including two excellent meals, some quick sightseeing, and lunch with our friends Renaud and Tina. The photos from the trip are online in this Flickr set.

decorating the tree

2005-12-16T21:41:00.000+01:00

A photo set from last week's Christmas tree decorating.

doors and floors

2005-12-16T20:56:00.001+01:00

doors and floors
Originally uploaded by ggladman.

Door installation day comes at last! Having a bathroom door can feel like a luxury after going two months without one. Now to finish up with the painting, baseboards, furniture...
More photos in the apartment remodeling Flickr set.

back from holland

2005-12-09T01:17:00.000+01:00

a moment of sun
Originally uploaded by ggladman.

Back in Barcelona again, after spending the long holiday weekend in Holland with our friends Karen and Joost. We managed to dodge the rain long enough to do some sightseeing, shopping and eating. On Monday night Karen's parents invited us over for a "rijsttafel" (literally, "rice table"), which is an Indonesian dinner with dozens of different dishes, most served with rice, and which can take a couple of weeks to prepare.
There are a few pictures in the Flickr set, and the full travelogue will be up on gladman.com soon.

rainy day in holland

2005-12-05T11:39:00.000+01:00

End of American Dream? Why Americans are leaving their country

2005-12-03T14:11:00.000+01:00

This morning Expatica has an interesting article, entitled End of American Dream? Why Americans are leaving their country. It's mainly a call for reader opinions and anecdotes, but the idea of relocating to a different country as the "ultimate consumer choice" is an interesting one.

Bon Nadal amb palmeras

2005-12-02T23:27:00.000+01:00

Christmas lights at El Corte Ingles
Originally uploaded by ggladman.

It's that time of year again, when the shops in Barcelona go all-out to decorate for Christmas, including the traditional display with palm trees at El Corte Inglés.

From a Flickr set taken on a rainy night of Christmas shopping.

another view of the new flooring

2005-11-23T13:58:00.000+01:00

Flooring, anyone?

2005-11-23T13:57:00.000+01:00

The old floor meets the new one...

2005-11-23T13:53:00.000+01:00

The wood arrived today for the new floor...it won't be installed until next week, but at least it's in the same room now.

hooray for plumbing

2005-10-31T12:21:00.000+01:00

After literally weeks of not being able to use the kitchen in our new apartment because of a blocked drain on the terrace, and having various "experts" tell us that it was going to require thousands of euros worth of repairs, the cleaning service came this morning to do the annual pipe cleaning. After a few passes with a high-pressure hose, a torrent of foul black goo came up from the drain, and a few minutes later the water was draining normally again. In short, we can stop eating microwaved food on paper plates, and we managed to save a huge amount of money. Definitely a treat instead of a trick this Halloween.

photoblog - Avinguda Diagonal

2005-10-29T19:55:00.000+02:00

nighttime traffic along Avinguda Diagonal in Barcelona.

photoblog - Parc de la Ciutadella

2005-10-23T17:53:00.000+02:00

Amy rows around the lake in the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona.

photoblog - Fountains at Montjuïc

2005-10-22T22:39:00.000+02:00

A nighttime view of the fountains at Montjuíc, as seen from in front of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Click on the photo for more pictures from the same set.

toy nostalgia

2005-10-22T15:01:00.000+02:00

I know my dad will remember number 64 on this list (the Vertibird). It's surprising how many of these I actually had (whatever happened to Shrinky Dinks?)...I can only conclude that I must have been insufferable around Christmastime.

TV Cream's Top 100 Toys, via Slashdot.

the money pit

2005-10-22T13:20:00.000+02:00

Our new apartment came with a long to-do list of remodeling projects. The first on the priority list was the bathroom, which was a masterwork in pink porcelain and one of the world's smallest bathtubs.
Now it's nearly finished...we took out everything down to the bare cement walls, and redid it with white tiles and wenge furniture. All that's left now is the glass shower door, a medicine cabinet/mirror, and some miscellaneous accessories.

Click on the photo above to see more pictures from the new (and improved) bathroom.

Now if we can just finish the hardwood floors, interior doors, painting...

diving in

2005-10-22T12:48:00.000+02:00

I really did hold out as long as possible.
After all, the last thing I wanted was to be yet another one of the "me too" bloggers determined to post the inane details of their personal lives for all to scrutinize. ("Current mood: slightly miffed.") And it's not as if I have a particular political, social or technical agenda to push, or enough spare time to go head to head with the Boing Boings of the world.
But lately, I've been noticing all of the interesting things going on with social software/sites like Flickr, del.icio.us and now Flock, and this is as good a way as any to get my feet wet.
Of course, calling this an experiment exempts me from having to come up with a clear mission statement for the kind of content that will show up here, so if for whatever reason you're reading this, I hope you find something that interests you.