Santa Cruz tour

Yesterday, a few of us took a trip out to Santa Cruz — the Santa Cruz Food Tour (”food” was removed from the title as some were being misled as to the point of the tour — apparently not everyone likes to eat every waking minute of their livf  :P). One of the guys that went on the trip grew up near Santa Cruz and was able to show us around the town, and more importantly, was able to take us to some great restaurants. As soon as we we got into the city we made our way to Taqueria Vallarta, where I had one of biggest, best burritos of my life. To give you an idea of how big the burritos were, the guy that took us there, Dave, actually set his down vertically between bites. After we stuffed our faces there, we made it out to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Because of Labor Day weekend it was understandably crowded, but fun nonetheless — played some mini-golf (*cough* I won by 10 strokes), rode the “Great Dipper” roller-coaster, and did some people-watching.

The next stop was downtown Santa Cruz. We walked around and went into some stores. We passed a man playing a guitar and singing, “I’m gonna get a burrito, ain’t gonna sell crack, no.” He stood in stark contrast to the shoeless family in straw hats singing folk songs on the corner. Perhaps the funniest sight was that of a man and a dog on his bike; he had the dog sitting on a slanted platform above his back wheel — it was hanging on for dear life. After exhausting the downtown area, we made our way over to Capitola, a small, somewhat ‘artsy’ town next to Santa Cruz. Went out on the pier there, got some drinks and listened to the band play. As we were walking off the pier we saw a seagull get caught in a fisherman’s hanging hook. I almost cried. He kept tugging on it which only made me angrier; he finally cut the line. We capped off the “tour” with a great seafood dinner at Carpo’s in Soquel.

I guess I should also mention that we went up to UCSC to check out the “campus.” I put campus in quotes because I’m not sure one can consider it a real campus. The university is sprawled out all over the mountain there — it’s kind of like you are driving up to a ski lodge or something. It was incredibly beautiful, but I’m not sure I would enjoy the treks required between buildings. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so there is really nothing to show from the trip, save this funny pic of Dave that I took on my phone at one of the mini-golf holes (I obviously have to use that for his picture-ID on my phone  :P). Even if I had taken pictures I would have been unable to share them.

Apple army

Out of the 87 students in my section of the first-year law class, only five have Apples. While that number is low, the more surprising statistic is that out of the five people in my “study group,” three of them have Macs — a pretty amazing percentage if you think about it. I think I’ve convinced a fellow classmate that he needs needs a PowerBook, so it might soon be 6/87 for the class. Below is a small picture that I took today; it just so happened that four of the Apple people sat in a square. Keep in mind that the picture was taken with my Sony Ericsson T616 (the review is still coming, I swear).

A curious e-mail

While I’ve received numerous link-exchange requests (from people who are looking to increase their Google rankings), I’ve yet to get one quite like the one I received yesterday morning:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I recently visited your website (http://www.justinblanton.com/links.php) and noticed you have a link pointing to driverguide.com.

Since I have a similar kind of website mabey you could also link this one.

The URL of my driver resource site is http://www.driverfiles.net

Kindest regards,

Johan Struijk
DriverFiles.net

It’s quite obvious that the owner of driverfiles.net (notice the lack of the link here and in the paste above  :P) is running some sort of automated sniffer to seek out sites that link to DriverGuide so that he may e-mail the owners of said sites and request that they add a link to his DriverFiles site. While devilish, I can’t say that this isn’t a good idea — it’s certainly going to get the guy more hits to his site. I might make a few suggestions though — try to make the spam look a little more personal. For example:

• Replace “Sir/Madam” with “Justin”
• Change the From address to a real name (not info@)
• Don’t say you visited my website and then point to my links page as if that is my website
• Next time, use the contact form or send to my actual address (again, not info@)

I promise you Johan, if you follow these simple steps, your spam will be much more effective and your life much more meaningful. Keep up the good work.

Practical bookmarklets

I meant to write about these a few weeks ago, but forgot. Jon Hicks has put together a few very useful bookmarklets. These are incredibly practical and can be modified to handle most any kind of word “look-up” (e.g., instead of dictionary.com or thesaurus.com, which he provides, you could just as easily create one for Google, Amazon, etc). On top of the highlight-word(s)-then-press-button interface, he has also created one for links — if you are on a particular webpage and want to send the link to a friend, you simply hit the links bookmarklet (that you’ve dragged to your toolbar) and it opens up your default mail client with the subject set to the title of the webpage and the link included in the body. Good stuff. I had actually planned to do the dictionary.com thing on my own, but he beat me to it. While he made these for Safari, I’ve found that they also work in Mozilla/Mac — I haven’t tested them beyond that.

First week of law school

What a week. Not only has this first week of law school been more difficult than I thought it would be, but I’m also trying to deal with this at the same time. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday (read: not waking up until at least 9AM :P).

I must admit that law school is quite different from what I envisioned, at least insofar as how the material is taught. I have six courses:

• Torts (two semesters)
• Criminal (one semester)
• Pleading and Civil Procedure (two semesters)
• Property (two semesters)
• Contracts (two semesters)
• Research and Writing (three semesters)

All of the classes, except Research and Writing, are similarly laid out. The basic idea is that before each class you are to read a number of cases that have gone up on appeal. You usually “brief” each case — an outline to help you remember the important points of the case — and then discuss it in class. Needless to say, there is a lot of reading, writing, and analyzing. The first week has been quite demanding; it’s only going to get worse. Free time is literally a thing of the past.

I’ve made some really great friends this first week. We are going to get to know each other rather quickly as we are always in the library together.

All of my classes are in one building, and as luck would have it, the entire building is WiFi’d. It’s really nice. While I do have some gripes about their authentication scheme, it’s works well for the most part. The law library is also WiFi’d, though the signal in the room that we usually “rent” is extremely weak.

I’m having a slight issue with the PowerBook. Given that I’m constantly carrying it around in my bag with other books, the keys are starting to leave imprints (and oil from my fingers) on the screen. While I knew some people were experiencing this problem (the screen actually being scratched in some cases), I hadn’t come across it yet. I have no option other than to place something between the screen and the keyboard each time I close it. I’m going to use a piece of paper for the time being, but if that proves insufficent, I’ll probably order the Acme iCover or JR Hill’s screen protector.

Speaking of PowerBooks, not too many people in my class have them. One of my friends has an iBook and I’ve seen one other PowerBook (the 12″). I found it odd that there were so few Apple machines, but given that we are required to have a Windows machine for exams, it’s understandable (kind of).

Mom, you live through me

As some of you are very well aware, this past week has been the hardest of my life. It just became impossible — she passed away this morning. I’m not sure when I’m going to post again.

And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow

From Paul Simon’s Graceland — one of our favorite songs.

Let me go

The kind and concerned folks over at NetIdentity (formerly MailBank) are about to get on my last nerve. I’ve had justin@blanton.com through them for almost six years now. Yes, I bought justinblanton.com four years ago and have been forwarding everything there from day one, but I just didn’t want to give up the other address, especially to someone else with the same name. Silly, I know. Anyways, the company e-mailed me about 10 times before the account was set to expire to let me know that I should renew. Now, it’s been three full weeks since I let the account die and they’re still sending me e-mails about how it will soon expire; each one a little more urgent than the last — “Renew now! Don’t let someone else take your name.” They’ve sent an e-mail every three days since the account expired. I’m curious to see how long they’ll keep this up. I can still login to the account and my status is still “active.” What really gets me is that when they were MailBank I distinctly remember paying them $50 for a lifetime account — I guess they meant the lifetime of the name — who knows. No matter, I just don’t care anymore. That’s right, all you other Justin Blantons out there are free to take the address, but it looks like you’ll have to convince NetIdentity to release it first.

The DMV

We all know that going to the DMV is about as fun as watching paint dry, but it has to be done. Previous experience told me that I’d probably have to wait a little when I got there. That previous experience was from DMVs in Florida, not California, where I liken the experience to waiting in line at Disney on opening day of a new ride. I’m dead serious. I went in yesterday, waited 10 minutes before I could actually talk to someone, and was then given #G306 — they were on #G94. After striking up conversation with the lady sitting next to me, she informed me that I would need more than one form of identification to move my drivers license over from Florida (i.e., my perfectly valid, current, non-expired drivers license was not enough to prove my identity); they wanted either an original birth certificate or a passport. I don’t have the birth certificate here and my passport is expired — it will have to do. I headed home and then went back down there today, passport in hand. I got there 30 minutes after it opened (which didn’t mean that everyone and their brother didn’t do the same thing; in fact, it took 10 minutes to park) and received #G116. I was money. I strolled around the building, not unlike a high school gym with rows and rows and rows of seats circling the center area where all the DMV people stood, guarded by their plastic, chest-high fort, and after circling twice, finally found a seat. It would only be a few minutes before my number was called. “Number G43, window 21 please.” Hrm, I’m far back in the line, but not nearly as far back as yesterday. I can stick this out. 45 minutes go by. No new G (non-appointment) numbers have been called yet. At this rate, four new Disney rides will have been unveiled by the time I get out of here. I left and decided to try out the online appointment-maker thing on their website. It’s down. I give up.

Busy busy busy

Well, I just got Internet setup at my new place in California. Let me apologize right away for what is sure to be a sporadic post. There’s a lot of ground to cover.

The move was relatively painless (save the emotional part of it obviously). Most everything went as planned. The flight from Dallas to California (Orlando-Dallas-San Jose) felt like it was never going to end — my anticipation/anxiety had taken over. I got into California around noon on Saturday and have spent the last couple of days running around the valley looking for essential things (bed, desk, chairs, food, women, etc.).

The weather has been absolutely incredible. I have to start getting used to the fact that just because it’s a little windy outside doesn’t mean that a thunderstorm is approaching. Apparently, it doesn’t rain much, if at all, here in the valley during the summer. This is in stark contrast to Florida, where it rains every single day in the summer, and often more than once.

I find myself constantly licking my lips and looking for something to drink. It’s pretty dry out here.

While on the subject of the valley, let me discuss the traffic situation. There is a stoplight every eighth of a mile. I’m being completely serious. It absolutely amazes me how many stoplights they can fit into a given area. I thought there were laws that limited things like that. I just don’t get it. Driving around here is simply an exercise in downshifting and braking. It’s absurd.

Speaking of traffic, let’s talk about cars for a minute. I’ve been here for less than three days and have already seen four, brand-new, convertible Ferraris. It’s completely insane. It really is a waste to have such a nice car only to be held back by the damn stoplights; they probably never get out of second gear in the valley. I guess they take them out to the Pacific Coast Highway, or any one of the other perfect driving strips I’m yet to discover, and let ‘em loose. Around here Ferraris are like BMWs and BMWs are like Hondas. There’s so much money I can’t see straight — I can’t imagine what it must have been like during the whole dot-com boom.

Stevens Creek Boulevard, one of the main roads in the valley and about a half-mile from my place, has to be the car dealership capital of the world. Not only does it have all of your usual suspects (Lexus, Honda, Acura, Mazda, etc.), but it also has Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and two Hummer dealerships that are no more than 300 feet from each other.

Today, the bed arrived, the digital cable/cable Internet was setup, and all my boxes from back home (I shipped seven big ones through UPS) were delivered. Just to let everyone know, Comcast knows nothing about Mac OS X. You wouldn’t believe the lengths I went to just to “register” the cable modem (after which I knew I would simply be able to connect it to my wireless router and never have to deal with their alternative-OS-hating tech-support again). To make a long story short, the lady that came out to install the modem (*cough* plug into the wall) and digital cable knew absolutely nothing about OS X and told me that the install CD was for Windows only (I later realized that the CD actually contained some OS X software). So, she told me that I had to call customer service to get instructions on how to register the modem without Windows. The first lady I got knew nothing. She told me that there is a way to register the modem without the CD, but that it would require me to change my proxy settings so that we could do some stuff over the web. Not a problem. Oh wait, slight problem, she doesn’t know what those settings need to be, which kind of makes sense when you think about it, I mean, after all, she’s tech-support. Ridiculous. After trying a billion things with her, she tells me that she doesn’t know what to do and is going to pass me up to “more advanced” support. She also tells me that this wouldn’t be immediate, but rather I would be called within 24 hours by a “technician.” This didn’t sit well with me and so I set off to fix the problem on my own, armed with the IP of the server that I was supposed to get to through the proxy that they couldn’t tell me the address of. Needless to say, I figured out a way around all the hoopla in about 20 minutes and even called tech-support to offer some tips that they might want to give to future OS X customers. Tips that would actually help them get on the network, unlike tech-support, who think that Windows is the only operating system out there (I know, I know, Windows really isn’t an OS, but for the sake of argument…   :P). There’s actually quite a bit more to the story but I recall saying “to make a long story short” somewhere up there.  :)

I got a new desk yesterday. I had my eye on it for quite some time, but unfortunately it was sold out when I got to Crate and Barrel. They had three at this store when I called a couple of weeks ago, but of course they sold their last two the morning of the day that I went to buy it. After calling all the C&B stores in the Bay Area and finding out that they were sold out everywhere, I decided to head back to the store nearest me and order it. The lady went to the back of the store to look and see how long it would take to arrive from the warehouse. She came back and said she actually had one in stock. It had arrived earlier that day (probably someone else’s, but we both ignored the possibility).

It’s a great desk and looks awesome with the PowerBook. The one problem I have with it is that because the top is tempered glass, and my mouse is optical, I’m going to have to buy a mousepad — I haven’t used a mousepad in five+ years and have grown rather fond of not having to have it on the desk.

As a lot of you know from my e-mail about the number change, I recently got a new mobile phone; no surprise there. I plan to put up a short review of the Sony Ericsson T616 later in the week after I’ve had a chance to play with it some more. So far I have no complaints. I’ve been waiting for this for a while (bottom of page).

Well, it’s been a ridiculously busy few days and I can’t wait to take a shower and sleep in a bed. I’ve had to take baths the past couple of days because my apartment complex kept forgetting to bring me a damn shower rod. Also, I’ve been sleeping on the floor (without pillows) the past couple of nights because I didn’t have a bed. Tonight’s going to be great — hot shower + new pillowtop bed. Good night.

Coast to coast

In about four hours I’ll be leaving Florida and heading to California. I’ve been here since I was nine years old — I’m 23. I had planned to wax emotional about how the last two weeks have been so incredibly tough for me, but at the risk of becoming way too caught up in it, I digress. I’ll simply say that I have, without a doubt, the single greatest/strongest network of friends that anyone could ask for; you’ll be sorely missed. Words fail me.

Hurry up already

I’m really starting to get annoyed by the fact that Six Apart has still not incorporated photo album functionality into Movable Type. They’ve been talking about it forever and were (are?) supposed to release a Pro version of MT this summer, which will include album support, but this waiting is making me nuts. Yes, I realize that they are extremely busy with TypePad (which includes photo album capability by the way), the expanded company, the new office, and a million other things, but dammit, I want my integrated photo album! They’ve said that they are going to charge for the Pro version, and frankly, I couldn’t care less. In all seriousness, they could delay photo album support for the next five years and I’d probably still say that their CMS is the best available.

I keep putting off using other photo systems because I really want to use MT’s. I’ve used Gallery quite a bit in the past and have written my own rudimentary PHP photo handler, but I’d like this to be seamless with MT before I dive into it again. I know that Gallery can be “integrated” into MT, but it requires a fair amount of work (including 11 new templates) and I know that as soon as I got done setting that up MT would announce the Pro version.  :\

I’ve also toyed with the idea of using the photo album available through my .Mac account, but it allows no customization, save the templates you can choose from, and would therefore greatly throw off the feel of the site, not to mention take you outside of my domain.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is this: MT, produce album support soon or I’m, I’ll, ah crap, I won’t do anything, but shit guys, I need this feature!  :)