I still have yet to get MacOS X to boot properly on my new system. If I never boot into 9, then X works like a charm. The minute I restart the machine into 9, however, I can’t boot into X, getting this blue screen of death after the system startup process completes. Apparently, something is going very wrong with the machine. Today, to get any real work done, you need to be able to boot into 9. The strange or funny thing is that the system is pretty much a stock system! Hmmm… perhaps I’ll just wait until 10.1 comes out in September.

On Wednesday evening, I worked until 3:30 am on Thursday morning debugging this problem. Four hours of remarkably restful sleep later, I was back on the computer. Mr. Sandman didn’t give me any special tips or tricks, and I continued to be stumped at the keyboard. I called up the Apple Support Line when I was at work, but they need the system’s serial number in order to help you.

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In the month of June, 2001, I flew across the country to Rhode Island, where I attended the wedding of Clara and Mike. Along the way, I met up and hung out with a number of my classmates from Stanford.

It’s certainly been a long time coming to write about this event after nearly three months. The events that have occurred since the trip have filled my mind such that it’s sometimes difficult to remember the feelings, emotions, and thoughts from the trip. Yet, when I look at the photos, somehow I’m instantly transported back to Rhode Island, the blue skies hovering above me with the light wind whipping my hair.

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Randy had arrived a few minutes earlier with some ice cream and cookie goodies that we were to eat later in the evening. I had prepared a steaming vat of Ma Po Tofu and pan fried scallops for dinner. Edna and Erik had already eaten, but so they didn’t eat anything more than a few bites of my famous dish. I’m going to have to post the recipe for my Ma Po Tofu so others can learn to cook my favorite dish!

It was fun going through the pictures and watching the video. I hadn’t gotten the chance to review the coverage from the wedding since I returned, so it was like reliving the event all over again! I printed one of the photos from the wedding reception line on my Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer. With my new computer, color matching and reproduction is a cinch with ColorSync. It was much more difficult with my PowerBook, since the LCD screen isn’t as good as my Studio Display. The resulting print was very, very nice on the heavyweight matte paper, so good that I think that I could have blown it up even further without sacrificing any quality.

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I loaded up my car with a bevy of camera and video equipment on Friday night before driving to Oakland to meet up for dinner and planning. I realized that I need to get a new bag to hold all of my stuff, as it all adds up to a very heavy and bulky set up!”

On Saturday, we spent a good portion of the day going through the storyboards and figuring out what types of shots we needed to take. Filmmaking is a lot more difficult than photography, I’m finding. For starters, there’s a lot more upfront planning you need to make before you go off and start filming. Photography’s a lot simpler to deal with, though it too often requires some planning: what lenses to bring, is there a flash required, batteries, etc. Like Arnold’s character in T:2 says, though, “The more contact I spend with filming, the more I learn.” Well… not exactly Arnold, but close enough.

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I was working on my computer late Thursday night when I received an instant message from Eric:

eric: oh my god.
adam: what?
eric: I have a charcoal mask on.
…
adam: I’ll put my mask on…

Apparently, Wendy put him up to the task of applying a charcoal masque to his face. Since I haven’t done that in a long, long time, I whipped out my own tube of deep cleansing masque and applied it to my face. This stuff is fun to put on and take off. When the masque dries, it tightens up your face so you can’t make expressions very well. Doing so will crack the masque, always a fun feeling!

The other day, I ordered an extra gigabyte of RAM for my computer. One gigabyte of RAM!?! For a little over a hundred dollars, you can get the equivalent memory of nearly 22,000 Apple ][ computers with the original 48KB of RAM! This is just a bit unfathomable for me… but it’s a reality today! Coupled with the 128MB module that came with the computer, I now have 1.12GB of SDRAM powering my Mac. Unreal.

All that RAM hasn’t helped MacOS X from booting however. Everything was working fine yesterday, but today, it won’t boot. It’s not the RAM, as I tried booting into X with the standard 128MB module. I tried reinstalling the system software to no avail too. Troubleshooting on the Mac used to be easier… yeah and back then 5MB of RAM was sufficient and 40MB of hard disk space was cavernous. My how times have changed…

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Supriya recently returned to the United States after spending a year abroad in Israel. I didn’t know all that much about the history behind the political and social conflict of that area, but Supriya did an admirable job explaining it to me. I wonder if there ever will be peace in the Middle East. There is so much anger, animosity, and distrust that has been built up over the years. It’s being ingrained into the minds of the children. It’s the children that need to forget the sins of their father to bring about a better tomorrow.

Over steamed salmon and snow peas, we talked about the more pleasant aspects of her year in Israel. I spoke about my desire to travel around the world for a year, providing her a country by country itinerary. One of the great things about having sold my software is that I’ve made great contacts with folks around the world. The world is certainly a smaller place when you have customers in over 22 countries. If I do take a year off to travel, I’ll be sure to contact a number of people with whom I’ve stayed in contact over the years. Assuming they still remember me, it’ll be great to meet the people behind the emails!

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I’m sitting here watching the handyman work on my window blinds at my place. It’s 7:11 am right now. I woke up up 6:00 am this morning, a time far too early to be fully conscious. Fortunately, I didn’t deprive myself of too much sleep, as I went to bed shortly after 10:00 pm last night.

So, what should I write about? How about Sunday’s events? It’s a little belated, but better late than never, I figure. On Sunday morning, I walked out onto the balcony and saw a curious sight on the overhang, a hive! I’m not much of an expert on bees or wasps, but I do know a hive when I see one. There were dozens upon dozens of these bees, wasps, or jellowjackets swarming around the honeycombed structure that they built. Absolutely amazing and definitely something to be left alone. Hopefully, they aren’t Africanized Honey Bees!

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They don’t play double features in movie theaters these days, certainly not anywhere in the Bay Area that I know of. The fun began on Friday night after I got back from Vienna’s performance in Saratoga. I wanted to spend the morning and afternoon cleaning my house, so I got an early start by washing my clothes Friday night. I went to sleep around 2:00 am Saturday morning and got up at 8:30 am. Je devrais avoir faire la grasse matinee! Mais, c’etait le week-end, et j’avais beaucoup de choses a faire. I cleaned the entire place, including the kitchen, bathroom, closet, and living room.

I threw out about 5-6 garbage bags of junk and trash. Among the discarded were things like my wallet from high school and college and various computer accessory boxes. I asked myself the question, “In 10 years time, would you be sad if you didn’t have this item?” when holding an article up for sentencing. If I said yes, it stayed, but if I said no, it went right into the garbage bag!

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“You going to see Vienna tonight?” is a frequent question that I’ve been asking to my friends lately. I’ve been introducing more and more people to Vienna’s music, be it at work or at the various events that I attend. The reception has been pretty positive, and I hope that they are translating to more and more sales of her CD and attendance at her performances at coffee shops around the Bay Area.

There are a lot of musicians around the country trying to make it in the industry. Who or what determines who succeeds and who doesn’t? Obviously musical talent plays a large part in being successful, but success also depends on passion, networking, exposure, and presentation. Assuming you have the talent, I feel that passion is the most important component, however. As I was talking to Jeremy the other night, passion for what you do is what drives a lot of our mutual friends to dizzying heights of success in their chosen fields. “If you don’t love what you’re doing, get out… now!” is a phrase I’m fond of saying. When I watch Vienna perform or read about the wins that Nicole is collecting on the racing circuit, I wonder if I’m maximizing my potential or if I’ve found my passion, my second wind. So many things to do, so little time…

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I was supposed to get together with Jeremy last week, but he had to cancel at the last second when his parents dropped by unexpectedly in town. We rescheduled to Wednesday evening, decided to meet at the Los Portales Mexican Restaurant in Mountain View. Los Portales is one of my favorite restaurants to eat in the area. It’s good food, great chips and salsa, and has a nice, homey atmosphere.

Jeremy and I had a lengthy discussion about maximizing one’s potential in life. Would we rather like a comfortable life, a safe life, or would we rather go 100% into achieving and realizing a particular goal? The two of us are similar in that we both have varied interests in which we’re both good at. Jeremy’s more musically inclined than I am and is an accomplished pianist and conductor. I, on the other hand, have leanings towards the visual arts. What does it take for someone to say, “This is all fine and good, but right now I want to concentrate on one sole thing to the exclusion of everything else.” We both have mutual friends who are at the top of their chosen fields, and it’s clear to see that these people are all passionate about what they are doing.

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