Unnecessary Pipe Trench Excavation

Archive for the ‘journalism’ Category

So, since I recently became an economic statistic, I’ve been updating ye olde resume and clip file, in preparation for seeking gainful employment. While I have a current gig at GPS Maniac, I only get a chunk of the advertising revenue from that; I draw no monthly salary. So until such time as that happens, i.e, the advertising reps at sister pub and former employer GPS World sell some ads on the Maniac, I need to pay some bills and feed myself.

I was looking for some clips from my trip to China on behalf of E-News back in 2005 today when I came across the blog I kept as part of that project. I had thought that this was long gone. I have a PDF of the entire microsite that housed the blog, and my stories filed from China, among other things involved with this China trip project, but had thought Reed Business had taken down the blog long ago, along with the microsite. But the blog is still there, tucked into a dusty little corner of EDN (Electronic Design News, the pub that eventually absorbed what was left of Electronic News Online when Reed pulled the plug).

This was a relief, because I wasn’t looking forward to editing more than 1,000 pages in the PDF file I made from the microsite once upon a time and making it presentable. Anyway, you can read more about the China/Silicon Road project here, and read some of the stories and blog entries produced from my memorable month in the midst of this 5,000-year-old culture, if you are so inclined.

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Technorati Tags: China

No please don’t thank me, Mr. Breathed. Rather, let me thank you; you deserve it.

Thank you for the all the comics over the years … Bloom County, Outland, and Opus. It almost seems a shame to call them comics, as your humor, often drenched in political satire and social commentary, was consistently clever and amusing, and frequently bordered on brilliant – sometimes it even crossed that border into a land that few reach. At times your work was also touching, even poignant, and for that I think the term “art” can be applied, and deservedly so.

You came along at a critical time for me; I turned 12 at the end of 1980, the year that Bloom County debuted. I didn’t really get Bloom County then, but I kept reading; I was an avid comics reader. And as my adolescent mind began to … well, I hesitate to say mature; some might say my mind has yet to mature, and I would admittedly be hard pressed to disagree – let’s just say as I traveled headlong toward adulthood, somewhere along the line I began to get the strip. I even started to look forward to it. When I would read the funnies while eating cereal before school or stretched out on the living floor late on a Sunday morning, Bloom County was always the last strip I read; I always saved the best for last.

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Technorati Tags: Bloom County, Outland, Opus

Two completely unrelated things.

One: Welcome back, Big Red. Haven’t seen heard you in awhile.  Still not clear on the indoor voice concept, I see hear. Someday you’ll get the attention you need, I hope, for all our ears’ sakes. And as for your choice of Halloween garb, God, it literally killed me to keep my mouth shut. But I’m pretty sure I don’t want to ever register on your radar screen as anything more than background clutter.

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Two. *In best gravelly Charleton-Heston-Planet-of-the-Apes voice* Damn you Chicago Style Manual! Damn you all to Hell!

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Technorati Tags: Chicago Style Manual

Herein is the epic account of Jeffren, He who would be The Coder, whom the High Elves called Jeffrindel the Stubborn Headed, who took up keyboard to join with the Dreamweaver and do battle against the dread lich lord IEZilla. Upon the bloody field of Webinor, armed with only his copy of lowly Opera did he thusly accost the monster head on. What follows is a direct account, relayed to an elven scribe directly from Jeffren’s lips, as he lay on the field in the bloody aftermath of battle, his body broken, his keyboard dented, but his spirit unbowed, Opera still gleaming defiantly in his hands. …

I haven’t been blogging lately, as I’ve been preoccupied with a number of things, the future path of my employment not the least among them. But the number one preoccupation for me these days involves the update of this very Web site—not this blog, but the whole site in which it resides. I figure a freelance journalist needs to have a serious Web presence these days, and even though my freelance status may soon change, being a computer geek long before it was cool, I like tinkering with such things.

Well, I did until I embarked on the task of developing a three-column layout that utilizes tabbed navigation, XHTML and CSS. If those two terms mean nothing to you, stop reading now; all that is to follow will no doubt comprise a bunch of boring blah-de-blah blah for you. If you are familiar with what those terms mean, then perhaps you will sympathize with my lamentation.

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Technorati Tags: XHTML, CSS

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings.

–William Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar (Cassius discussing Caesar with Brutus, Act I, Scene II)

Sometimes I wonder. I think Fate mocks me. Yes me, personally, as a matter of purpose. And since I’m breaking rules and personifying Fate (I’m hardly the first; it’s not like there isn’t precedent), I’ll also capitalize it.

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Technorati Tags: Fate