Svetlana Khorkina swore she would win gold, and when, on August 19th, 2004 she was defeated by the American girl, Patterson, she ground her teeth into a forced smile and showed the world that she was a good sport, accepting the silver with a calm and grace that belied the rage boiling inside her.

( She deserved that gold medal. )

The results are in, and the winner, by a 10-to-1 margin, is North Carolina: First in Flight.

That's pretty much how I've always felt, too.

Poll #335651 Flying
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Choose one:

Today was my first day back at work after a ten-day vacation, the longest one I've had since I started working full-time in January 2002. I wasn't about to take a nice, long vacation and just rest, though. No, sir. I had plans, and I made a list of things I wanted to do in my Palm.

( Exciting vacation report follows, including such highlights as: seeing OLD FRIENDS, going to an EXOTIC FOREIGN CITY, engaging in ARTISTIC PURSUITS, and OTHER STUFF. )

Date:	2004-07-21 11:44
Subject:	Errata
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	Ani Difranco - Loom

Those of you who don't regularly read my blog may still want to grab the nifty Flash app I just threw together that you can use to display the current electoral vote predictions from electoral-vote.com on your own blog or website. If you're interested in politics at all, that is.

This Friday begins my longest vacation since I got a full-time job: ten straight days of relaxation and focusing on my own projects. We've got plans to visit family and travel to exotic, far-off locales. I will get a haircut, and look into getting my bass guitar fixed. I will play videogames with reckless abandon, and get lots of reading done.

Also, my current job is ending in September (whee, contract work) and I'm looking around for new programming jobs within an hour's commute of southern Rhode Island. Here is my résumé. If you have any hot tips, please email me. Thanks.

I just finished reading An Embarassment of Mangoes by Anne Vanderhoof, on the recommendation of my lovely wife. Now, I've never particularly liked riding in boats very much, but this book makes me want to not only take a sailing class, but buy my own boat and sail to the Carribbean. Highly recommended.

Date:	2004-07-13 15:38
Subject:	Valid XHTML 1.0
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

Want to make an entire <div> into a link and still have your XHTML 1.0 document validate? Try this:

okb

I just launched my new blog, ryan.freebern.org. It'll contain more "serious" writing than this livejournal, focused on culture, media, politics, and technology.

So, add it (ryanfreebernorg) if you like that stuff and are interested in my thoughts, or if you want to argue with me a lot, or even if you just want to say hi.

Date:	2004-07-09 20:44
Subject:	The way businesses *should* do things, part 2
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	Hyakugojyuuichi

You may recall my raving about Crazy Burger back in April. Well, tonight we had another great experience with a local business.

When mangofandango and I lived down on the southern coast of Rhode Island, we used to drive into Westerly regularly to walk around the village, have dinner, and visit the library. One of our favourite stops was "Candy Galore & More", a cute little candy store right on the main drag.

We don't get down to Westerly much these days, but tonight I had an insatiable craving for pizza from The Pizza Place, so we were going to head down. We wanted to stop by the candy store if possible, so I called ahead to find out if they would be open.

"How late are you open this evening?" I asked when the proprietor answered the phone.
"Oh, I was just going to close up," he said. "Are you coming here?"
"Yeah," I said. "It'll take us about an hour, though."
"That's okay. I'll probably stay open. If my sign's out front, it means I'm open."

Wow. So we drove down, and got there about an hour later, and, lo and behold, it was open. We stopped in and spent about ten bucks on candy. As we were leaving, the proprietor (a friendly older gentleman) insisted that we try his truffles (they were delicious), and showed us his immense selection (all gorgeous, all mouth-watering, all huge) and rhapsodised at length on the quality of the truffles.

Then we left, and he started closing up shop.

Now that's service.

Anyone who wants to meet me, mangofandango, and jeaniek to see Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Showcase Cinemas in Warwick at 1:20 today, just show up or give me a call or leave a comment.

Update: We saw it. What a powerful and moving film. I'd see it again in a heartbeat.

Date:	2004-06-18 10:02
Subject:	Rocky the Flying Squirrel
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

Last night, Sarah was looking out the window and called me over. She pointed out a grey squirrel that was on the third-floor balcony of the building across from us. It was exploring the various objects that were on the balcony.

Then we noticed one of the people who lives in one of the third-floor apartments starting to ascend the stairs. A few seconds later, the squirrel noticed him too, and started to panic. He looked at the stairs, but decided it was too risky to try and go past the man, so he went to the edge of the balcony and looked to the left, right, and then down. There was nowhere to go!

After a moment's hesitation, he took a GIANT FLYING LEAP off the balcony, spreadeagled his legs, and fell the twenty-plus feet down to the ground, landing with a thud. I was stunned. I pressed my face against the window screen so I could see him.

He stood up, brushed his front paws off, and walked away as if nothing had happened. It was the coolest thing ever. I wished we had grabbed Sarah's digital camera and taken a video of it. What an awesome squirrel.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Did you know that DVD-R video discs burned on a Lite-On LDW-851S DVD burner won't play on a Panasonic RV-32 DVD player? They'll play in pretty much any other DVD player, even other Panasonic models. DVD+R video discs will play in the RV-32. Just not DVD-Rs.

I'll give you all one guess as to the type of DVDs, DVD burner model, and DVD player model we own.

I laugh, but I'm crying inside.

Date:	2004-05-25 14:26
Subject:	I be illin'
Security:	Public
Mood:	sick

Yesterday, I felt some fluid in my inner ear. That's never a good sign. Today, I have stuffed sinuses and ears, a sore throat, and a fever. I've been completely exhausted all day, so I'm staying home and lying around, not accomplishing much.

I had a dream last night about a dystopian near-future in which the government decided that rather than spend all that money on universal health care, they'd just kill off anyone who got sick. (It would help deal with the pesky overpopulation problem, too.) I found out that amaltheagray was sent to one of the furnaces, and so I managed to break in and rescue her before she was killed. Then we went to the library and looked at books, and had a grand old time. Today I think I have a little crush on her.

Our new DVD/CD burner arrived last night, and I successfully burned a CD at 40x using command-line tools (and let me tell you, that's quite significantly faster than our old 4x burner!). Unfortunately, the slick-and-sexy k3b refuses to recognise it as a recording device. (Here there be geekiness.) It shows up as /dev/sg2, a generic SCSI device, and doesn't get mapped to a block device the way my Neuros and my digital camera do. k3b only recognises block devices, unfortunately. I can't find a way to force /dev/sg2 to get mapped to, say, one of the /dev/scd* entries, and the k3b user mailing list isn't being much help yet. I hope this gets solved, but in the mean time I can use other apps to do my burning.

Now I am going to lie down and read and drink hot tea.

Edit: Turns out I didn't have SCSI CDROM support compiled into my kernel. Adding it as a module solved the problem. Now to figure out why k3b burns audio tracks that supposedly start at -10:00...

Today, mangofandango graduated, summa cum laude, from the University of Rhode Island. She is now the proud holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications. Her family, two sets of her aunts and uncles, and my family all made the trip down to attend the ceremony and celebrate. The weather was gorgeous all day, and the ceremony was interesting and fun. I have a bunch of photos that I will put up in the next few days.

Congratulations to my sweetie! :)

She starts work on her Master's degree in the Fall. No rest for the weary!

Date:	2004-05-22 11:14
Subject:	Dissent and criticism are not treason
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed
Music:	Andre 3000 - Hey Ya

Please read this post and participate. I'm sick of being called unpatriotic because I don't follow the President blindly.

Date:	2004-05-20 11:48
Subject:	Grr.
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed

Dear Cory Doctorow,
Please stop posting links to every single Worth1000 photoshop contest that catches your eye. If I want to see Worth1000 photoshop contests, I can visit Worth1000.

Love,
Ryan

Date:	2004-05-17 10:36
Subject:	Happiness
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

I wish I could be in Boston today.

Congratulations to all the happy couples!

Date:	2004-04-30 09:45
Subject:	Grr!
Security:	Public
Mood:	outraged
Music:	Amon Tobin - Four Ton Mantis

I normally don't just re-post URLs, but in light of recent events in my life, this story just pisses me off.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has stripped information on a range of women's issues from government Web sites, apparently in pursuit of a political agenda, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Date:	2004-04-29 20:47
Subject:	Solidarity, sister!
Security:	Public
Mood:	optimistic

On Sunday, April 25th, 2004, I marched on Washington, D.C. to demand more governmental respect for women worldwide. It was exhausting and painful and one of the best things I have ever done. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Our trip has been covered in detail elsewhere, so I'll let you browse our photos there (if you haven't already) and then return to read what I have to say.

( You're back? Okay, great. )

Date:	2004-04-24 18:11
Subject:	Marching
Security:	Public
Mood:	excited

Tonight through early Monday morning I will be away. mangofandango and I are going to Washington, D.C. for the March for Women's Lives, where we will attempt to meet allypopsicle and jeaniek. We are all set for many hours on a bus and more hours gallivanting around D.C.

We will take many photos and tell you all about the trip and the event when we return. Until then, be good, and send positive thoughts towards our nation's capital. Maybe we can show Somebody Important that, hey, there are a lot of us who want things to change for the better.

Ta-ta.

Date:	2004-04-19 21:34
Subject:	Yay!
Security:	Public
Mood:	jubilant
Music:	Hossam Ramzy - Kholkhal Taheyya

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday dear Ryaaaaaaaan!

Happy birthday to me!