Month: January 2002

Met this morning with my Little Brother (not my little brother, but my Little Brother). I shouldn’t use his real name, so we’ll call him, um, Bocephus. He’s a good kid, albeit a highly unorganized one who failed half his classes last semester. We’re still feeling each other out, but he’s starting to trust me a bit. If I can just get him to stop falling asleep in class and start paying attention when he needs to, he’ll turn out okay.
Also just got handed my Olympic credential for next month. I suppose it’s finally hitting me that in two weeks I’ll be in Salt Lake City; alas, it’s borderline astounding how much work I have to do between now and then.
Having lunch with a colleague today has gotten me thinking about buying a house. I don’t know why.

Vacant corporate aphorisms of the day: There’s no traffic jam when you’re going the extra mile. We need a check-up from the neck up.

David Gardner has quite a scoop: his new book profiles Hitler’s descendents, the branch of the family tree descended from William Patrick Hitler, Adolf’s nephew, who moved to the United States and settled in Long Island under a different name. Other people have gotten close to their story — most particularly Timothy Ryback, who had a great, great piece in The New Yorker in summer 2000 about his hunt for the Hitlers — but Gardner appears to have had in depth interviews with at least a couple of them.

I was chagrined today to learn that one of my very first web sites, from the summer of 1995, still looks exactly as it did back then. It wasn’t a particularly attractive site at the time, so you can imagine how old-skool it looks now. Please forgive me for my design sins. (One thing that has changed is the backend; at the time, most of the meat of the site was still on gopher.)

The Mazie card count is up to 28, with only four days left to go. It makes her so happy to get these cards; she calls me like clockwork every day around 3:00, right after the mailman passes, to give me the update. (She was particularly excited about one from Japan today.)
One odd thing: the Mazie Project page doesn’t make any reference to my gender, and I suppose loving your grandmother is construed by some to be a female characteristic. As a result, she’s now gotten three cards saying something to the effect of “I saw your granddaughter’s web page…”
I’m surprising her by taking a day off this weekend and driving down to see her for her birthday on Saturday. The only potential problem: I normally leave Dallas after work when I drive home, which means I get to Rayne around one in the morning. That’s fine when she’s expecting me, but I hope I don’t give her a heart attack by walking in at that hour.

I just can’t get enough of The Strokes today. I work in constant fear of suddenly seeing a dozen stares in my direction and realizing I’ve been playing air rhythm guitar and yelling out “Why won’t you wear my new trenchcoat?”

A man who has never, ever had sex, I can assure you. (via Gary)

For Katie: For the Somalis, a Manhunt Movie to Muse Over.

Say you’re the president’s press secretary, and you’re getting too many tough questions on Enron — what do you do? Easy: use the Goyal Foil.

SXSW attendees: I think I’m planning on booking a room at the Wellesley Inn in Austin sometime in the next few days. (More info here.) The price quoted is $83/night, which seems to be about as cheap as it comes in the vaguely-near-the-convention-center world, and the price is the same whether it’s a single, double, triple, or quad. So I’m looking for 1-3 roomies. Any takers?