7 April 1998: Perls of Wisdom

Tuesday, 7 April 1998:

Perls of Wisdom

Okay, I think I'm figuring out this computer-death thing. More and more I am convinced that Netscape is the culprit.

My newest trick is a piece of advice several people have given me: I put Netscape's cache in a RAM disk. And now I find that Netscape gets stuck when I try to access some Web pages. It just reads a bunch of them, and then sits there. So I wonder if it's trying to do something "bad" which the RAM disk somehow prevents it from doing by its nature.

If so, I'm not sure where to go from here. I could try to download a new copy of Netscape, or I could go back to Netscape 3. Or, I could bite the bullet and go to Internet Explorer (gack). I'll probably do the first and see if it works. If not, well, I'll go for the second.

Of course, if I have further problems with my disk (yes, I did have to reformat it last night), then I'll know it wasn't Netscape after all...

I am pretty sleep-deprived this week, which makes me something of a zombie at work. Fortunately, my projects this week are fairly interesting - new stuff which gives me that little thrill of discovering things I hadn't known before. I'm still quite time-pressured, but trying not to worry about it too much. I'm already resigned to the prospect that I might need to spend some time in the office the week of the 18-19.

On the other hand, I have plans to see the Brewers play the Giants on the 19th, which will prevent me from working all weekend. The Giants are just about the only National League team I'm interested in seeing - primarily because I'd like to see Barry Bonds. Yes, I'm a Bonds fan. He doesn't get good press, and he surely has an ego, but I think he carries himself pretty well for someone who is, in my mind, the best position player of his generation. Some projections say that he'll finish his career as one of the ten best players in history, and the second-best left fielder (behind Ted Williams).

It'll be nice to see him in his prime.

I'm making good progress on the baseball stats stuff, although my goal of finishing it all tonight has not happened. I will stay up late tomorrow night to finish it, if necessary, because I don't want to be working on it Thursday. Fortunately, I don't need to get it 100% working this week; I can finish the other 30% of it next week. Which means I could work on it on my day off next Monday (I'm pretty much committed to taking next Monday off; I think I need and deserve it!).

We had some state elections today. I play gadfly at work by sending out mail to the company each election day, and I keep information on the races, candidates, and voting places in my office for people to see. I'm always happy to provide opinions, too, but in my e-mail I stay strictly non-partisan. I even try not to paint voting as an obligation, since I have gotten mail reminding me that people have the right not to vote.

But I voted. We had some state and county judgeships open, but only one person running for each. I had no preference, so I voted for them. I figure it's better to register my vote than to abstain from a race which is a foregone conclusion. Keeps the politicians a tad more honest, maybe. It certainly doesn't hurt.

We had the country supervisory board elections, and I voted for the incumbent there. I'm not overly fond of either of them, but the challenger seemed like a "fiscal conservative" of the type I usually vote against. Especially since he seems not too excited about the light rail proposals being bandied about. And we had three school board elections, and I voted for the relative liberals in each seat. The school board is a real pain in the ass no matter who's on it (I'm very pro-teacher's union, and they're, well, not), but having liberals on the board I think makes the curriculum and other aspects of the schools a little better, I think. Happily, the liberals have been in nominal control of the board for years, and have a chance to really clean up this time.

I also went to the public library to get out a book on tape to listen to when I drive up to Minicon this weekend. I got Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, which will last me longer than the round-trip drive. My friend Karen took some classes from McCourt in high school, and she loved this book. So I figure it's a good choice; McCourt reads it himself.

I'm thinking of driving along the Mississippi River on the trip up there. I've wanted to take the scenic route for a while, and I think I can spare the time. If I get there at 5 pm rather than 3 pm I don't think it will make a lot of difference. I just hope the weather's okay.

Well, time for bed. I want to get a little rested up if I'm going to be writing perl code into the night tomorrow!

Michael Rawdon (Contact)