Category From the Archive

Entries 13 Total Description

Is everything ready Sherman?

And Then..

Aug 23, ’21 10:00 PM

There are few things in life that are permanent. Death and taxes is the cliche. “The only thing permanent is change,” is the spicy koan bumper sticker. But tonight I had an experience of the permanent that made me laugh through clenched teeth. I seem to have a permanently dysfunctional relationship with this god damned website.

Recent news sent me digging through the Internet Archive images of this very website. I was looking for a particular picture of my friend Kenny, one he had sent me while he was fighting for the US Army in Afghanistan. Now that the war is over I wanted to remember and see. It felt like one million years had gone by since he was over there, a permanent past. But I couldn’t find the picture. Not on the Internet Archive, not on Google, not on my own computer. But I knew it existed here on this server. Someplace behind the curtain of the error message that’s been displayed for the past 4 years or more. I tried it anyway, tried the URL. I was met with the same black text on white background: Error Establishing a Database Connection. I hate this site.

The thing is, I barely know how to make websites. I’ve taught myself how to put them up but their maintenance is another story all together. When they break Google is my only recourse. Google and Ridlo. Tonight I tried Google. I found an article. I stepped through the troubleshooting checklist. I don’t think anything from the checklist worked for me, but in the meantime I did do a long overdue update of the server. Then noticed that I could login to phpmyadmin after all, and hey, that means mysql is working, and then.. refresh the page and it’s back.

Like finally forcing open a drawer that’s been stuck shut for years, here’s the website again. It’s back! What did I do to fix it? How can I be sure I won’t break it again. Boy it looks old! I love this site!

Comments Off on And Then..

Mike Collins Behind the Moon

Jul 22, ’16 12:30 PM

Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, and Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin at the Kennedy Space Center in July, 1969. Just a few days before that Saturn V rocket in the background took them to the moon.

Astronauts

Neil on the left was the first on the moon. He was the one who said, “one giant leap for Mankind.” Buzz, on the right was number two stomping around on the moon. Mike Collins, looking so cool and humble in the middle never walked on the moon. Never even landed on it. He was the one who ran the Command Module, the craft that orbited around the so called dark side of the moon as the mission on it’s surface took place. Then he went home, never to return.

I’ve always felt bad for Mike Collins. To get so close and not to walk or land or anything. I felt bad for him until I read this paragraph from his autobiography, which gives a good perspective on how he felt about his unique mission.

“Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much a part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two. I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the Earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon, I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.” – Michael Collins

Unrelated to the mission, the photograph reminds me that I need a haircut. I’ve got another style of 1969 haircut right now, less lunar mission, more Sonny Bono.

Comments (2)

Bureautory

Jun 28, ’16 1:17 PM

Now I live in Ljubljana, a city I’ve been a visitor to for a few years going. As a visitor I visit friends, drink some coffees, teach workshop on masks, talk about the workshop on masks, walk through night time streets guided by intuition alone. But now that I live here, I’m a lot less active.

Dore_02

What happened?

When I moved here in April I was ready to work. I had three months worth of visa waiver to rest on until I got a long term visa and could start working. Three months felt like more than enough time to get my long-term, it felt like an eternity. Unfortunately it was the purgatory kind of eternity.

You see, my application for a visa has been held up for two and a half months in the some ministry office waiting for who knows what kind of approval before they can pass it on to me and I’ll get to pass on to the next echelon of the process. It’s given me a lot of time to freak out about plan B, plan B. Because when you’re in visa approval purgatory there’s no chance of working. Not legally or even illegally. Who is going to take some one on who ends their pseudo-interview chat with, “it’s funny you should ask but no, my visa application is still in process.”

styx

So what are you going to do?

I’m not making any money yet, but I’ve got a few projects to keep me busy. Casey and Barbara, two good friends from Helikos will be here in a few weeks and we’ll get working on a show they want to make. It will have something to do with birds.

As I was setting this site back up I looked back through the archives a bit to check that all the photos are showing up OK. I came across two posts that caught my eye as references in one way or another to this nebulous idea kicking around in my head about a bird show.

The first one is this cool dude. I was in Chicago when I posted this but I don’t know how I found it.

The second I found when I was at Helikos and thinking more specifically about masks. That’s these animal illustrations on human faces by Charlotte Caron. Seeing them again I think they’re an excellent scale for the human face.

Comments Off on Bureautory

From the Archives: A New Place to Live

Aug 15, ’12 9:15 PM

On this day in 2004:

cuuuuuuuuute.
posted by matt at August 18, 2004 09:23 PM

Fantastic photos Kev. I especially like the movie. Just know though, that if you get too settled and don’t go to N. Z’ed I’ll have to move into your living room next August… Keep that in mind
posted by Sara at August 18, 2004 10:49 PM

well, as it is it isn’t very comfortable. there is no carpet, i pulled that up with my sister’s help yesterday. now there is just tile made of “a material that may contain asbestos.” I haven’t moved in yet, but as soon as the carpet comes…
posted by kevin at August 19, 2004 07:53 AM

kev, I can’t wait to come visit you in your new apartment. As long as it’s not a crazy bachelor pad full of beer and your delinquent friends. Except Matt, of course.
posted by sara at August 20, 2004 07:12 AM

Comments Off on From the Archives: A New Place to Live

Old New York

Sep 14, ’11 11:21 PM

McSorley’s Old Ale House is pictured on East 7th Street on October 7, 1942

The Daily Mail has published a nice set of Kodachrome slides taken on New York streets in the 1940s. Seeing and 88 year old McSorley’s is cool, but nothing beats the antique photos on Shorpy.

Quick searches there turn up hundreds of fabulous photos from Brooklyn and New York City.  But there are some western gems to be found as well, including one of my favorites, a photo of Wisdom, Montana that shows off an exemplary Kodachrome sky. (Click to make it BIG.)

Comments (7)