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Thursday, October 31, 2002
Why I log
And why I blog as well
note this was also posted to my Ecademy blog
Why I log - nope not going to talk first about keeping an online "blog" such as this (or my primary blog) - but why I have windows open on my desktop monitoring my server logs all day long.
First, it gives me a realtime sense of who is accessing/viewing my website (and since I monitor mail who is/trying to send mail to my firm). This is nice, as in the case of a few days ago I noticed someone from the nytimes.com domain looking at my website, and then a day later the same computer looking at the site again. Sure enough, a few minutes later a reporter called me to ask some questions following up from an article she had been pointed that I had writen over a year ago and shared with another group.
Second, I have configured my web server(s) - all Apache, to generate a "referrer" log. Periodically I will look at the end of this log file to see where people are arriving at my website from. Just today I noticed that late last night someone had searched on "unix consulting" on Google - the "cool" factor being that we had turned up as the 61st hit in that search - not too shabby.
Now in this last case it did not directly lead to a sale - i.e. I did not get a call from this individual to prepare a quote for unix consulting services - but it is a nice proof that our site is in Google and moving into respectible territory for some key keywords. I think it may help that "unix consulting" is also in our keywords meta data for each page of the site.
So it is for moments such as this that I monitor the key logs on my web server. An additional advantage is that I am generating a copy of these logs on a system other than my server - allowing me to see evidence of hacking attempts as they happen (and in a manner that even a very sophisticated "hacker" would find very difficult to avoid). For the most part this means these days that see the occasional "melissa" virus failing as it attacks my Linux server, and increasingly I see the evidence of strange spammer bots attempting to send email. I have seen more cases of mail sent to a random set of names in the past few weeks than I had for years. Must be some new twist to some spam software tool now on the market.
So why do I blog
To have a place to chat about things and thoughts like the above - not quite at the level of a formal article I might write and try to sell somewhere, that type of notes, observations, and thoughts seem very well suited to this medium. (Now I just have to keep each log in synch...)
10/31/2002 06:24:00 PM
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Article on "Why network" by Thomas Power"
Ecademy - Guru Comment Octover 2002 - Why I Network
Very good article by Thomas Power on why he networks. He calculates that for every 1000 people in his network he will earn 100,000 pounds, since his goal is 1M, he figures he needs 10,000 people in his network (and he is approaching that).
Lots of good suggestions that I should follow myself - especially about holding lots of meetings with lots of people. I should probably start a practice of doing that here in Chicago and build up my network of contacts, referrals, and opportunities.
10/31/2002 11:55:00 AM
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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Moving up Google's lists...
Google Search: "unix consulting"
JigZaw appears as the 62nd (at the moment) result in a search for the phrase "unix consulting".
Referrer logs are a very cool, and valuable thing - show you the darnedest things sometimes. This is pretty cool though!
10/30/2002 07:59:00 PM
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A article on the art of being a part of the "Living Web"
Well written and interesting, thanks Jed for the link
A List Apart: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web
What's interesting about this article from my perspective is the many directions it is encompassing for web journals - it talks about both corporate and personal journals as being part of the same process, which is an interesting idea (though the point about "Sex" is perhaps a bit out of place for most corporate web journals)
10/30/2002 06:51:00 PM
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Ecademy article
Ecademy - The E-Business Network
The author of this, in Australia, recently IMed to ask my opinion, questions, suggestions, interest and thoughts. Definitely something interesting in there - who knows where it might lead, could be a cool project.
[edited 1.20.2005 to add missing title]
10/30/2002 04:50:00 PM
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
A bad bad bad day
This is going to be a bit cryptic - contact me privately for more info.
Simple description - one phone call can possibly ruin your year - and I got that type of call - now I have to wait for the other shoe to drop (probably in the mail later this week).
For friends, nothing personal involved, nothing health related, nothing about a friend or family member - just part of what comes with owning your own business I'm affraid.
So, lots of hard work ahead of me this year (hopefully), and some seriously annoying and not so fun work and research as well.
10/29/2002 06:09:00 PM
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Yahoo moves to PHP
Here is a set of slides from a presenation by a Yahoo! engineer about their switch to using PHP for their development - Cool stuff - with some very nice benchmarks.
Making the Case for PHP at Yahoo!
10/29/2002 03:18:00 PM
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Searching the web, some observations
also posted to my blog on Ecademy
I have been searching online databases for over 15 years, since my high school library moved to an electronic card catalogue driven by the CS department's VAX.
In that time my skill at quickly getting to relevant search results has grown considerably. For Internet resources and services I started years ago with Archie and Veronica. With the advent of the web I moved to Yahoo!, Altavista, Lycos, and then Google (and played with various metasearch sites from time to time).
Currently I primarily use Google, and occasionally use modern meta search services such as Kartoo (in French though they have an English version - may be loading slowly at the moment).
Recently I noticed the following link in my company's referrer logs: Google Search on "why we use AI techniques" (note, search was done without the use of quotes)
My firm shows up at the 7th result in this search (pretty cool I think).
However, I then tried a search on the phrase "use AI techniques" - again, without the quotes in my search.
This time, my firm shows up as the 77th result.
Google was ignoring the "why", so my firm slipped 10 fold in the search results because of a simple "we".
If you search using the quotes on the phrase "we use AI techniques" my site does not show up at all.
The technical reason for this is that the page title of my site's page that contains the phrase "use AI techniques" is "JigZaw Inc, What We Do" - thus Google's algorithm ranks it highly on a search containing the phrase "We".
Note this is a very good example of why informative page titles are so crucial.
What also strikes me as intriguing about this simple example, is that it shows how important a "small" word (such as "we") can be in determining search results, and how differently the use/non-use of quotes (i.e. exact phrase matches) can be as well.
For both site maintainers/designers, as well as general users this bears paying close attention to - the very specific phrases that you use when searching can change dramatically the results that you get - and thus the percieved "ranking" of various sites.
For a long time my general advice to people when searching the web has been to be exact - search using the tense and tone of language that reflects what you are looking for (i.e. don't search on generic terms and phrases, start by searching on the exact message) - this points to why this is both powerful but also potentially deceptive - those small words and phrases by skew results considerably.
10/29/2002 12:26:00 PM
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Monday, October 28, 2002
Interesting new site (well new to me) that is a "meta" news site - they filter and comment on the news, including weblogs. They offer a daily email mailing - but I don't really need another one of those. But interesting site and concept nonetheless. Similar to the print publication "The Week".
C O R A N T E - Tech News. Filtered Daily.I
10/28/2002 03:22:00 PM
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Friday, October 25, 2002
A stealth blog ring
Hey Trey
Trey lists me in his blog ring - calls my blog "one of the more heartfelt ones" - cool I guess.
10/25/2002 04:31:00 PM
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Thursday, October 24, 2002
Press Release
My grandfather, the rocket scientist was named a "Pioneer of National Reconnaissance" - pretty cool.
He was also one of the earliest employees of Rand Corporation. Much of what he did while working for Aerospace Corporation he still cannot talk about - gotta love the way that this press release simply calls programs "Program A"; "Program B" etc - still somewhat secrettive all these years later.
10/24/2002 02:07:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Welcome to mediabistro: career and community for media professionals
Okay, a many post day. This is a REALLY cool site... could be adictive I suspect.
10/22/2002 07:38:00 PM
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My million-dollar idea
with all the standard disclaimers in effect...
Today, while pondering the future of technology (seriously - I'm writing at least one article on it) I had an idea. One that, if I found all the right partners, could be a very cool project, product, and business niche. It even is in somewhat keeping with many different current trends, could have real business (and personal) value, and appears at least on first though very technically doable.
Here is the "elevator pitch" - "An iPod meets a Palm, but can boot a PC"
A little bit more, and then I must go and think about this further - connected to a PC this device would act as a portable, large, harddrive (bootable), the PC system and hardware would be fully functionall but the user could be running in their own personal environment, with their own software, and files. All this with probably biometric security on the device itself.
Disconnected the device could function as "just" an iPod like MP3 player, might also have cell phone capabilities, could have wireless access capabilities.
It could also function as a PDA - probably running a DIFFERENT OS than when in a "connected" mode - different in that the form and functionality set of a handheld is very different than when connected to a full desktop system (graphics capabilities, processing power, memory, and perhaps most importantly power.
The data on the device would be split - most on the hard drive, but some in memory as in a typical PDA (though care should be taken to provide for some automated backup to avoid power drainage resets and data loss.
The business value of such a system is that potentially at least it could allow for the long dreamt vision of "network" PCs to function - the key point being that rather than assume that netowk access is available to get all required systems from the network, and requiring that the local machine be specially configured (either hardwar or via a software such as terminal services) this model suggests that given a large, highly portable harddrive, capable of being connected by a fast and standard connection protocal (firewire, USB2 etc) just boot off that device, have an OS capable of getting the functionality of the local devices in a simple and automated manner, and then perhaps also connect to specific network resources - but in the same manner than typical desktop user does that - as needed.
This model also has the advantage of potentiallly allowing that even older machines be used in this new regime - as older machines would still usually have at least a USB connector - they might be more limited in speed than nerwer systems with faster data connections - but perhaps not by much.
There might be some BIOS issues with some older machines as well (perhaps a floppy boot disk could be carried is this is a common problem.
How is this for a cool scenario of the future - for a very minimal fee, you walk into a Kinkos ANYWHERE in the world, plug in this device, and in seconds are working with your files, using YOUR copy of specialized software, but can quickly print to Kinko's printers, use the PC at Kinko's for its graphics card, keybord and mouse, and perhaps try out some of the specialized software that Kinko's has installed on their system (and perhaps if you like it, buy a copy right then and there - but that is another discussion for another day).
For more, contact me privately - especially if you are an investor or partner interested in working on this or other ideas.
10/22/2002 07:19:00 PM
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DaveNet : The Micro Channel Architecture
Interesting - there are entire worlds out there that I am still not fully aware of... (i.e. this is the first article by Dave that I have read... but clearly he has been writing on the web since 1997 and is fairly well known (though I would argue that my friend Mary Anne's online journal is at least 3 or 4 years older... I remember when she created her first website.
Anyway interesting article and very apropos of the article that I have been working on.
10/22/2002 06:58:00 PM
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Monday, October 21, 2002
On the revamping of websites
or how do you ever get this right?
This afternoon we started the process of rewriting our corporate website. Our goal being to more clearly communicate all of what JigZaw does. For a first step we have changed the look and feel to be more easily read and printed. We also updated such sections as our Jobs pages and the like to but accurate and up-to-date.
Now comes the hard parts - how to describe and summarize all that we offer and do it in an action generating manner.
JigZaw is a software company. We are a consulting firm (with extensive ties to other partner consulting firms offering everything up to and including temporary CIO placements, overall technology strategy, very high level eCommerce experience, Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard consulting etc). We are a contract development shop offering skilled developers in most languages and platforms (with the ability to partner with firms to organize teams of nearly any size and of nearly any skill sets). Internally we have very deep web experience, very solid PHP developers, AI experts (myself), C/C++ developers, VB experts etc. We have Linux, Sun, Mac, and Windows experience.
The list goes on, basically we have very skilled staff on hand, and can add to that staff quickly based on project need.
Furthermore, we now have a backlog of already written software and software components which we would very much like to license and/or sell (including the possiblity of including the sourcecode). This software ranges from a collection of web/portal framework components (such as smart forms, innovative user interfaces, user login modules, user prefences system, portal framework and navigation system, a series of useful portlets) to a set of serious AI/Information Extraction systems and applications.
Our software we would like to market to two primary audiances. First, clients as a means of jumpstarting projects we do for them (i.e. rather than have us rewrite it, use our existing modules as the basis for work we do for them). Second, other software firms (and/or other development shops) either as code for their clients, or as components of solutions they are developing. Especially in the case of our AI/Information extraction technologies it is ideally suited for being a component of a large solution - one that is far cheaper to licence from us than to invest the many man years it would take to write and, and the skill level it would take to understand the underlying techniques and research (what we have today in working form is the result of nearly 2 years of research and many many years of development time and effort).
So, your comments and feedback as readers of this journal are much appreciated.
thanks!!!
10/21/2002 08:24:00 PM
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Morphism, 21 October 2002
Very cool entry by M'ris talking about beliefs and persuasion - I fall in the "God doesn't exist" camp of things, but I must say that her take on Christianity is far more palatable for me than most - i.e. emphasize the positives, don't make assumptions about who you are speaking to, and be able to express your beliefs in a positive manner.
10/21/2002 06:20:00 PM
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Friday, October 18, 2002
Ecademy - The E-Business Network - Shannon Clark
Well trying out a new networking website - looks good, strong European flavor, and some good points (and some bad ones). Looks useful but also a bit ocnfusing - lots of links drifting off to who knows where...
10/18/2002 12:58:00 PM
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Thursday, October 17, 2002
MEETUP
Cool site. I am of mixed minds about it, but it is an interesting concept.
10/17/2002 07:19:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002
On the writing of the future
or how I may be writing something rather long...
You hear it First. (to steal a tag line...)
I have decided to sit down and write up my thoughts, observations, predictions, and suggestions into what may turn out to be a rather long article. Not certain quite yet what I will do with this, where I will share it, or how I will use it. Nor am I certain yet what it will and will not cover, but in general I plan on touching on the following topics:
1. Software - present and future - and my observations, suggestions, and thoughts about how software both packaged and custom will be changing over both the short term (next 18mths) and long term.
2. Technology bussiness - building in part on my discussion and observations on Slashdot, I plan on discussing how I feel the landscape for technology businesses is changing, and how a technology startup might need to react to this.
3. To be a "Futurist" for a while and take a cue from my reading and personal observations about what the impact of the current youth generation will have on business in a few short years - and how this may be a very different impact that that of my generation. Also noting that this impact will be very different than the impact most likely expected by current business people.
4. Some thoughts and observations about starting businesses, networking, software development etc.
This list is not precise, I will likely scrap it in the final product for something entirely different. I plan on writing not an academic paper, but something that would be similar in language and tone to that published in a top notch business magazine (think a long article in Forbes or Business 2.0, i.e. serious but not academic). I plan on illustrating my point with many specific examples of both technology and companies - some good and some bad.
Prior to doing anything with it I plan on sharing it with a small network of friends and contacts - one question I will be asking of all of them is what they think I should do next with it.
I have found myself over the past few years often in the role of "analyst on call" for my friends and business contacts - I am often called or emailed with a question. Often about "how could I do ..." or "what do you think about XYZ?" I have been told that my analysis is usually of great interest - often hitting on the key points very quickly.
In fact, one business contact told me that my couple of page email which I had written very quickly as an initial reaction to a particular company and technology was exactly what they had just spent two months, and a team of people, to conclude.
Increasingly I want my business to be about helping people solve problems - I am very good at research, analysis, and thinking - my management abilities to organizing a team of people and get something accomplished are quite good, and my writing skills are not terrible (though someone recently on Slashdot did say they were "too slick").
So who knows where this will lead - if nothing else it will be an interesting article, hopefully of the type that I would, myself, want to read - and once written and made avaialble perhaps it will remind someone somewhere about me and my skills and lead to some paying work...
10/16/2002 06:07:00 PM
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Monday, October 14, 2002
Forbes.com Lists Forum
Okay, sometimes I think that Forbes is perhaps one of the coolest magazines out there. Here is a discussion board they created for this article - the cool part being that the editors are posting comments and feedback clearly showing that they are reading reader's suggestions (which are quite amusing, see in particular the last few posts...)
10/14/2002 04:10:00 PM
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Forbes.com: The Forbes Fictional Fifteen
Okay, a list of the 15 richest "fictional" characters - with a very good showing of fiction ala comic books. A few of these I'm not so sure about (but then I am not a TV junky), and there are perhaps, a few more recent movie and other fictional figures that should be shown, but not a bad list.
(No attempt was made to convert non-earth based fictional figures - but who's quibbling)
10/14/2002 03:42:00 PM
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The future generations?
of some comments overheard by teenagers out late in the big city over this weekend, and how these comments may bode well for our future
Or perhaps not, but they are interesting in many ways none-the-less.
At least for me, and so I'll write about them.
This Saturday night I was at one of my usual haunts, the 3rd Coast, a fantastic local cafe/winebar, where I spend and have spent far too much of my life. As I usually do, I was seated in the non-smoking section, this time on a couchlike bench that runs along the north wall, I was taking the table in the corner.
While I was happily eating my Cobb Salad and catching up on my reading, a group of four teenagers sat down next to me. I say teenagers because they talked about recent SAT tests, all seemed to still live at home, and talked about upcoming Physics tests and the like, but in other ways they did not seem much like teenagers that I remember myself being.
For one, they were out far later than I usually was (they arrived at the cafe around 12:30am), and they were talking about dinner, and work, and parties, and groups of friends who were going out to clubs - as a teenager I don't remember anyone going out to clubs (but perhaps I didn't hang out the with "cool crowd").
There were three woman and one man, with one of the woman and the man clearly being a couple (she later laid her head in his lap and napped for a while). The other two woman were dressed rather provacatively - but did also look young, but also not so young - that rather hard to tell age - I suspect that they were seniors so likely were 18 so I guess I shouldn't feel guilty about looking - but I do and don't - its odd.
Anyway, that's not the point, the point is some snippets of their conversation that occured seemingly completely naturally.
First, they talked about two friends of theirs, Amy and Erin, who were both females (I think), and who they described as not being as much fun to be around since they started dating - with the implication that two woman dating was perfectly normal. Which I do think is in keeping with the media of this generation - shows like "Undressed" on MTV depicted every combination of relationship as equal and interesting - but hearing it in person was pretty cool.
(I later realized that perhaps "Erin" was Aaron - a man, but I'm not sure)
In any case, they were also talking about a larger group of their friends who might be joining then, and later on in the evening they indeed did join them, taking a couple of tables in the center of the cafe. This larger table was planning on going to some Gay bars later that evening.
Perhaps this is an entirely urban phenomenon, and perhaps these teenagers are not typical examples of all American teenagers, but I suspect they are more typical than many would believe. They were more sexually aware than I recall being (just 11 short years ago), they were very open about people of different orientations, and they were a very diverse group - with many from various ethnic backgrounds.
But perhaps just as cool, they were also clearly very smart - though they complained about upcoming physics tests - it was the woman who were complaining. And they had a very involved discussion about their favorite Greek gods, with an involved discussion about Hestia the goddess of the hearth.
This along with other aspects of their conversations, their observations about work and interviewing, and their parents, and how they each had a cell phone, and used it to communicate with each other and their parents, all are signs for me of optimism for the future.
These were smart, interesting people, exploring their world, but seemingly well grounded and more "actuallized?" or something than I recall being at a similar age (though I should also remember that at the age they were all probably at, I was in my second year of college - so perhaps the comparisions are not too different).
I have observed many times before that there is a difference between children of the city, as these teens were, and children of the suburbs. City teens are more independant than their suburban counterparts, and perhaps it is the comfort of being able to go out but still walk home, combined with the safety and ease of city busses and Els, but teens I have met who grow up in cities seem in general more responsible than their suburban counterparts.
Clearly these teens were trusted by their parents to stay out later than I was as a teen (my curfew was midnight I think most of the time, though I rarely tested it) - but they were also comfortable being in contact with their parents, in one case calling her father to tell him their plans and coordinate being picked up - but with no sense of discomfort or concern in the course of that conversation - just a sense of normality and calm about it all.
But it was the greek discussion that I thought was so cool.
10/14/2002 02:59:00 PM
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Friday, October 11, 2002
Nerve.com Screening Room
"much like you were in the sack Freshman year" - as a quote amusing, but also I think, a bit disheartening for some people such as myself...
What do I mean by this? Well, though the reviewer does hint that people talked more about sex than actually had any, he still implies that most people in the end did. For those of us who did not - another not-so-fun reminder...
And it makes me worried still - will I ever be good at something I have so little practice at?
But still - sounds like a fun, but very dumb, movie... and a reminder of just how stupid American censorship of TV is... such a film would be much improved, I suspect, were the cameras (and scriptwriters) not compelled to limit themselves to fit basic cable.
Personally I do suspect that our culture's avoidance and celebration of certain topics at the very same time is not a very healthy thing.
10/11/2002 05:06:00 PM
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Thursday, October 10, 2002
on the oddness of moods
or how I can't seem to read people, not even myself
Well. Lets try to summarize. On one level - a really great, amazing, potentially shatteringly so week. Some really good news in my business, some really inspiring and interesting business networking, good feedback and input about my writing on places like Slashdot (where my user id is ShannonClark - one sign of how long I have been active there, my id is #18497, current new members of Slashdot are in the high 600,000's, and I was a reader of Slashdot for months before actually creating a user id).
But on another level a very mixed week. Lots of events, networking and social, and some decidedly mixed signals for me at both.
One amusing first, I squashed a rumor that I had been married last weekend. Very amusing, not sure how this was started, but definitely a first for me (asked to me by a member of the local Chicago high tech media - guess my profile around town is rising a bit).
I will confess that it is a rumor that enjoyed, but one also that made me a bit jealous of my rumored self. I am far from getting married and a large part of me really does regret this - the rational part of me realizes that I probably should have a few serious relationships - with all the good (and bad, and indifferent) that is involved with those before even considering marriage. Too, I know that my having lived as a single male for so many years means that I should probably undergo a many year long process of learning to live with another person (especially a woman) before even considering marriage, etc. etc.
But, still, the not so rational part of me really does want to get married someday. Not that I am ready for this now either, but I do very much want to be father, and someday a grandfather - and I want to be young enough to enjoy both. I also would want to follow in my own parent's footsteps of having some years at least of marriage before having any kids - all of which means that marriage really shouldn't be all that far off for me...
Perhaps it is a sign that I am starting to be an adult (about time you might say).
This week I was semi-stood up, I had plans to meet a woman at one event, and then go to another with her - she did not show up at the first (meaning that while I was there I could not really enjoy it as I was constantly waiting at the entrance looking for her - not mingling and not enjoying myself much at all - had I known she was not going to attend, I would have mingled with the many extremely attractive woman in attendance). She was at the second, arriving there just slightly before when I did - however there, though she and I talked and did get to spend some time together, she spent much of the evening talking with a French man who was seated next to her - intimidating, not sure if I can compete at all with a French architect (speaks better French than I do - her second and native language, English being her third - or fourth language depending on how you count dialects; he was also perhaps more attractive and physically fit, and probably more experienced than I in picking up a beautiful woman).
Though in the end the evening was very enjoyable, and I did talk with her at length, and also with a number of other very interesting people (most of whom were attractive woman my age - not bad practice...) I was also the only American in the group where I was seated - which was a somewhat unusual experience, though it says much about my friends and my lifestyle that it was not all that unusual for me.
In fact, I often consider myself as only semi-American. In many ways I am very American - my entrepreneurship, my mostly self-education in my field of choice, heck my family's religious background is very American in many ways (Jewish and Catholic - though no parts of my family share the Protestant thread that is so strong in America).
On the other hand, I am also very atypical for an American. I speak a second language (French) and have studied a third (German). I grew up without a television. My family still has fewer TVs than family members (one per household actually vs. the American average of over 4 tvs per home). I have never owned an American car. I barely drink (though this might also make me atypical for most of the world). I have studied world history extensively and am very aware of the world outside of America. I do not identify myself by TV shows, Musical genres, or sports teams. Not to say I don't enjoy such things, but they are not core to my self-identity.
High School was not the best time of my life - hopefully that is yet to come.
Anyway, enough my rambling for one day.
10/10/2002 06:31:00 PM
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Wednesday, October 09, 2002
memes.net - software hall of fame
A post I made years ago... amazing how what you write on the web sticks around for a while...
10/09/2002 12:26:00 PM
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Monday, October 07, 2002
IT Trends In and Out of Downturn
My post on this subject - nice to see that others find it interesting, amusing to see that some anonymous coward thought that my writing was the work of a bot... not quite sure how to take this...
10/07/2002 01:59:00 PM
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Friday, October 04, 2002
I really should know better...
or how some things in my life just keep repeating
It seems, almost without fail, when I buy tickets for something in advance, that life intercedes to prevent me from taking advantage.
At the moment, it appears that my date for Saturday is off - which really sucks. She may have to help a friend of her's move - what's most annoying about this, is not that she is helping a friend (I do believe her) - I would hope that a woman I am attracted to is the type to help her friends when they need help - but that clearly she did not hold our plans for tomorrow in much import - she does want to do something some other time - (she ended with "next time") so that is not a bad sign, but it is perhaps, a sign that she may not be treating these dates as "dates" as I had hoped she would be...
Or perhaps I am just reading too much (or too little?) into this all.
I offered to help her and her friend with the move (suggesting that perhaps we could finish in time for the movie...) even if we missed the movie, I mostly want to spend time with her - the movie really is very secondary.
But I do have the tickets for the film in my wallet - absolute worse case I'll go to the theater on Saturday (assuming that our date is really off) and look for someone who needs a ticket - preferably a cute single movie loving straight woman... but I might just sell both tickets to a couple and walk away (or go to a friend's booksigning up in Evanston) - who knows, perhaps it will work out for the best - but I guess it also says something that a large part of me doesn't really want that to happen - I really do want to spend time with her - she really does hold my interest.
Somehow though very typical of my life - and consistent with my not having ever really had a second date with someone (okay, one ex-girlfriend is the exception, but our first "date" didn't happen until after we had spent a night together - but not quite as that sounds... very complicated)
Okay, perhaps not so complicated - my one serious ex-girlfriend and I, while we did lots of "frolicking" as some might say, we never did have intercourse - so while we did sleep together before our first "date" as such, we didn't do all that that phrase might usually imply.
But other than with her, I have never had a real second date with someone - I've had plenty of female friends with whom I have done activities that would seem to look like "dates" but it was always pretty clear that we were doing them as friends - this is the first time actually that I have had a series of interactions with someone, had one real "date" and continued in a manner that I hope at least makes it clear that I would like it to be more than just a friendship...
However, having never succeeded at that in the past - I wonder if I just naturally send off signals to woman that I am "friend" not "lover" material?
Annoyingly this has also really put me in a very poor mood - all my plans for this weekend seem to be ending (tonight I had planned on going out with a group of friends to celebrate one friend's birthday - but instead she wants to spend the evening at home writing - which I can't say is a bad thing - and is probably what I should spend the evening doing myself)
I do wish I could break out of this pattern in my life however - I can sense that were I in a relationship while not everything would be perfect (at least not forever) that a whole about my life would be better - and that I would be much more motivated to do lots of things - there is only so much and so long that you can go through life living mostly alone - I think I hit my limit about four+ years ago.
10/04/2002 02:57:00 PM
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Thursday, October 03, 2002
The sequence of events
or if you were watching this on film, it would probably be a comedy...
This weekend, I, hopefully, have a second date. Not something I'm real familar with, so I'm a bit uncertain about it all.
The plan is to see a film that is part of the Chicago International Film Festival , probably Saturday afternoon, and then go out for dinner, most likely to a really good little French/Mediterrean cafe and creperie that I know.
So, a real date I would say - just the two of us, and planned in advance (and yes, I'll be paying for the tickets and dinner...)
It sounds silly, but when we are together, as we were last night as I walked with her to the El after we were both at the same event, we both seem a bit uncertain what to do - or at least I know that I am, and I think that she is as well.
My past does not help me here - I've had basically one really serious relationship - which started in a very rapid manner (second or third time we even met turned into an all night event with a mutual friend forcing the issue on us - and then thankfully leaving the room to let us explore the fact that we both liked the other...) - after that we clearly had crossed the line seperating a "friendship" from a "relationship" and so we held hands, kissed at random times etc - and looked deeply into each other's eyes (which I miss now that I think about it)
My other relationships - such as they were - were either one-sided (I fell for someone, who either fell for someone else and/or told me that they saw/see me as "just a friend" - or in one case "as a brother") so no real help there. And the few others that I have been involved in were either very short (yes a one night stand in one case) - or long distance - which ended quickly and badly.
So I guess what I am saying is I'm not real sure what to do or say. Or even how to tell if she is interested in me as I am in her.
I suspect that neither of us has a lot of experience - which, when combined with the fact that she is from a different culture, makes all this much more complicated - probably more complicated than it needs to be.
So, at the moment, I plan on talking with her on the phone either tonight or tomorrow night, and then seeing her on Saturday - and I hope that sometime in there, perhaps over dinner, we can talk about relationships past and present and see where things go from there...
She is definitely someone I am very interested in - she is very smart (engineering degree), a bit exotic (speaks three languages, not an American), shares similar interests with me in terms of some of what she likes to read (types of mysteries, philosophy etc - albeit she mostly reads in French), and even though she is from a very different culture - she shares the experience with me of skipping a grade - this is not a minor thing - it means that we share the experience of being different from our classmates, being younger and perhaps a bit socially behind.
Oh, and did I mention, she is (at least to my eyes), amazingly beautiful with eyes that I can drown in, and a smile that lights up the room?
Okay, I'm falling for her I admit it - we'll see what happens on Saturday.
10/03/2002 12:57:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 01, 2002
A question
Or something I'm wondering about at the moment...
I've been writing this journal now for a few months, it is enjoyable and helpful to me - but other than a couple of friends who have mentioned to me in passing that they noticed something on my journal, I do not really have a sense of how many people - or who - have found me and are reading about my life.
Not that I have done much to announce the existance of this site - other than a couple of links (and a few friends who link to me) - and I guess I am not sure why it matters - but I am interested to know who is reading my journal.
So, if you care to - please post a comment to this post, or you can email me privately - I'm curious who you are, how you found my journal, whether my rambling prose is interesting (or just rambling).
thanks!
10/01/2002 05:28:00 PM
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Salon.com Books | A beacon of sanity
Hopefully I've linked to the second page of this article, though the first is also interesting. What I really like is the final two paragraphs - which more clearly than nearly anything that I have read recently sum up my own world view - not just non-religious, but to quite a degree strongly anti-religious. Good to have company in my views.
10/01/2002 11:59:00 AM
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