May 21, 2004

Going To The Chapel. There's a big huge tent on our front lawn; it's surrounded in mesh and fabric, and it lights up at night. There's a pile of Andy Nelson's Barbecue in our fridge for the rehearsal dinner. I have seven hours of dance music on the iPod for our enjoyment, from gypsy swing to Motown dance classics. We've hidden a trashbag full of cicada carcasses as far from the house as it will get, and hosed off the back porch three times in the last three days. (They keep coming back.) The cooler on the back porch is filled with cold beer. Jen's bridal gown is hanging in her room with the door closed, and I have a crisp tuxedo waiting in mine (with some of the funkiest rubber/patent-leather shoes I've ever worn.)

The stage has been set, and when the rehearsal party has been fed, responsibility for everything will pass quietly out of our hands and into that of a higher power. Pray to whomever you like that there's no driving thunderstorms like the one we had this morning; no sudden infestation of cicadas into the—knock, knock—otherwise clean tent out front (and give thanks that the tent guy convinced us that the backyard was a bad idea); no last-minute disaster that we've lain awake at night and not forseen.

Most importantly, pray that I don't step on my beautiful bride's neatly pedicured toes with my big rubber patent-leather paddle feet during our first dance (which as been changed to Louis Armstrong's A Kiss To Build A Dream On). | link

May 19, 2004 - One Year Engagement Anniversary

Southern Charm. A year ago this evening, I took the most beautiful woman in the world to dinner on a warm spring night in Georgia. We had wonderful food, sipping cocktails together, and the rest of the world faded from view. Walking home through the historic district, we passed through misty, tree-lined squares, holding hands and laughing quietly to ourselves. Crossing through Madison Square, I took advantage of the magical night and asked her to marry me. Luckily, she said yes.

Insta-Storm-Tracker-Central. Last night the NBC weather dork claimed it would be 88° and sunny; this morning the National Weather Service claims it will be 81° with a chance of showers. I should have known not to trust the local jerks, who predicted last night that today would be hot and sunny, not cold and rainy.

To Film Or Not To Film. Jen are getting married on Saturday, and then flying far, far away to Rome to decompress from what has been one of the most stressful months of our lives. We decided to go to one of the cradles of human civilization so that we could A. remember just why it was that we decided to marry each other, B. escape the local authorities after killing one or several of our relatives, and C. to take lots of pictures. We have one good digital camera, but the other one is pretty lousy and therefore not worth taking with us. Jen has a very nice Nikon SLR, I have my trusty Minolta X-700, and we sat on the couch last night wondering if we should go buy a pile of T-Max and take one of the SLR's with us. The complicating factor is the arrival of a freelance check in our mailbox today, which means I could spend some time hunting down and buying her a good midlevel digital camera... time I don't have at this point. (In a perfect world, we'd get something like this and start investing in lenses, but...)

Update: We're taking Jen's SLR with us and investigating the option of ditching our return flight in Paris to stay an extra day or three. Stay tuned.

Update Update: flying coach one-way from Paris to Baltimore, with all the connecting flights included, is prohibitively expensive ($1,200+/ea) and nullifies out any extra cash we have—and that's not including any kind of lodging. Anybody have any ideas out there? | link

May 18, 2004

Barely Awake Dept. You may be wondering if this is one of those boring posts where I complain about being tired. The answer would be no, my snarky friend; this is where I complain about being really fucking tired. Three weeks of getting up at 7:15 to freelance for two hours, getting in to work and crunching through the world's most over-complicated game, and returning to the house to pit my scrawny back against a long list of physical labor (why, oh why did I think I could get both the dining room and living room painted in one day? Stupid Dugan) until the beginning of Late Night has got your humble host fighting to keep his eyes open. There are many reasons I'm pushing this hard, one of which is the promise of a Big Fat Check waiting on our return from Italy to help pay for the trip (Memo to self: upon return, transfer balance on credit card with ridiculously high interest rate to competing card with 6-month intro rate.)

We got the seating list made up last night, which was one of those tasks we were avoiding like VD; I think we were able to wrestle all 58 people onto 6 tables without leaving anybody stranded. For a while it looked like there was one table that was going to be a large dead space (I took the opportunity to draw a skull and crossbones above it on Jen's diagram) but we broke it up to where each table should be evened out and everyone should have a good time.

The next iteration of the music list is live, although iTunes on my Pismo was hiccuping to the point where I had to trash the prefs file and rebuild the whole thing. All is better now. Thanks for all your suggestions! Also, thanks to Rob for the first music struck off the list on the right. The Shins are excellent, and it's great to have some Smithereens again.

Random Fun Links. This is brilliant: Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush. | A size-based aggregator for Google news. | link

May 17, 2004

Recap. As you might have guessed about the weekend before our wedding, we ran around like idiots trying to get as much done as possible. Saturday was a blur of Lockard women, paint, lobster bisque, and cigar smoke. While the hedges were being weeded and trimmed out front, I was able to get 3/4 of the living room and half of the dining room painted—20 years of cigarettes and general dust gave way to bright white. At 7 my best man Rob stopped over to pick me up for an evening out with the boys. We had a fantastic dinner at Louisiana in Fell's Point, then stopped across the street for drinks and cigars, courtesy of Brizzi, and then capped it off with more drinks on Rob's roof deck.

Sunday morning I woke with a pounding hangover—the problem with excellent vodka is that you don't know just how much you've had until you're flagged and falling off the barstool. We had 11am reservations for brunch at Little Havana with a bunch of people, so I scraped the carpet off my tongue and poured my carcass into the car. I'll have you know that I was OK until the first bloody mary hit my stomach, and then I realized that hair of the dog was a Very Bad Thing. It was the fried plantains that flipped the switch, but after quietly vacating my stomach I felt much better. The rest of the day was punctuated by frequent glasses of cool water.

Wedding Tunes. I posted a new page with the expanded and updated wedding tune playlist; again, I've set it up with comments so you can suggest a song.

Tortoise Update: The ATF fluid is helping, but it looks like I'm going to need to disregard the "DO NOT ADD BEYOND THIS LINE" warning and add some more. She shifted and stopped fine, but the final 1/2 mile of lights and turns brought out some unwelcome lurching. | link

May 14, 2004

Duh. My car, as you've been reading here, has been sick for quite a while now. Over the last four years, it's been through several bouts of fever, four separate tires, two alignments, countless oil changes, and one "Mass Air Sensor". Reliable for the first few years, it's been getting wonky lately, where any attempt to take a curve at speeds higher than 20mph knocks out the transmission, and I spend the next five minutes in the slow lane, racing the engine, unable to get into second gear. Coming to a complete stop requires a steady, gentle foot on the brake, as sudden jolts send the whole car into lurching epileptic fits while the linkage throws itself into and out of neutral (which really turns heads at the bus stop, let me tell you.) Truth be told, I've sort of been expecting the car to disintegrate in the parking lot like the Bluesmobile for the last couple of months.

Now, most of you car-driving folks out there are thinking something along the lines of check the tranmission fluid, you bonehead.

Right. Well, you see, I've never really had an automatic transmission until ths car—my first car was a standard (the blue 280z my dad bought for $75, which sounds a lot cooler than it actually was); the second (a 1973 VW camper bus, sadly a victim of an accident where both my legs and those of the girl I was with were almost removed by the front bumper of the other car); the car previous to this was a CRX, and before that a Mazda pickup—both standards.

(A brief aside: Sometime I'll post a list, to the best of my recollection, of all the various cars I drove before I got out of High School. My dad owned a reposession agency, and through the magic of other people's bad credit, the Dugan family went through a mind-boggling succession of vehicles. Renie and I once sat and came up with a list that got into the twenties.)

I guess what I'm trying to convince you about here is that I'm not lazy or stupid, but that it didn't occur to me to check the stupid ATF level until this afternoon. Hunting around the engine compartment, I found the dipstick, tucked back between the engine and firewall, and realized it was almost bone dry. I haven't been on the road yet to see what difference 3/4 qt. of fluid will have, but I'll let you know. | link

May 13, 2004

rhodedendron, front yard (pray that they will still be in bloom on the 22nd), 5.13.04

On Burglary. I got out of the Tortoise yesterday and was not more than a step from the driver's door when I heard the Judge calling to me from across his yard. He came over to fill me in on the excitement; apparently between his call to 911 and our neighbor's, the suspect was caught, taken to the lockup, and later confessed to B&E. Hopefully his buddies in the getaway car (who were not apprehended) will get the word out that Frederick Road is not an easy mark.

He also mentioned that a local antiwar group is planning a commemoration of the Catonsville 9 protest of 1969 next Monday. Being a purple-hearted ex-Marine, and firmly in favor of the ongoing conflict, he's going to meet up with a bunch of his friends and go observe the proceedings. Tactfully, I did not mention my disapproval of the war.

Following Up. It seems that manufacturer's claims about the mileage of hybrid cars are a little inflated; that's pretty disappointing, because I was seriously considering a hybrid Civic for a while. Here's some info for pruning extra fonts if you're running OSX; Jen and I have a collection of about 1 gig of fonts, and keeping them organized is more than a little work. For anybody following along, here's the final shot in the series of house update photos for the blue room. And finally, I added a randomizer script for the home page of this site about a month ago; if you refresh your browser you'll get a series of four different shots (with more to be added later.) | link

May 12, 2004

Swell. Our neighbor's house was broken into this afternoon, while Jen had run out to do errands; apparently some undesirable folks were casing the neighborhood and figured that the house with the unkempt yard would be an easy mark. So I'm doing research on home security companies this evening, in preparation to spend yet more money that we don't have. All my house-owning, alarm-having peeps, let's hear it. Who do you like, who don't you like, and what's your experience been? (Pssst.. Need some fake ADT stickers? )

Song Of The Day. Mogwai, Hunted By A Freak. | link

May 11, 2004

Accountability. Listening to the Senate testimony on NPR this morning, I was chuckling to myself when one of the generals tried to explain the difference between the Gitmo bay detainees and the Iraqi detainees, and how the Geneva Convention applies to one group and not the other. (Habeas what?)

Desirability. Stopping for a burger in Ellicott City last night, we came upon a near-cherry Austin-Healey 3000 sitting in the parking lot, looking like it was doing 100mph sitting still. And me, without my camera.

Mobility. Given the state of my current automobile, here's a checklist of the things I'd like to have on my next vehicle, which will be showing up shortly after our return from Italy, with any luck.

• An engine that doesn't overheat at the drop of a hat (forcing the use of the defroster on high, in August—minus the Scout, the last three of my vehicles have shared this tiresome trait; it's getting old)
• A transmission that doesn't slip out of gear during turns at speeds higher than 30mph (going back to a standard would be just fine with me)
• 4 doors (gotta make room for our future KISS army)
• Some kind of cargo capacity beyond a cupholder
• Seats that don't promote scoliosis in adult humans
• A windshield that doesn't make my future bride sick to look through

Also desirable, but not mandatory:

• mileage above 25 highway
• 4-wheel drive
• A working radio/CD player
• A pickup bed of more than 6-foot length, but I'll take the 6

What I really want is a stripped down 6-cylinder fullsize pickup with a crewcab for under $15K, but that'll never happen, considering Detroit's need to throw a DVD player, Hemi, and leather heated asswarmers in every truck larger than a Matchbox. What I'll settle for is a used Tacoma crewcab with 60K miles and a 4-cylinder engine. Finding that truck locally will be the big problem. | link

May 10, 2004

Thanks For Nothing. You may have read over on my dear fiancee's blog about her mother reminding Jen that it's not too late to back out of this little wedding thing we're planning. While I'm thankful that she's so concerned for her daughter's well-being, I'm still trying to recall the reasons we decided against eloping. Jesus Fucking Christ. Maybe we can get on the plane to Italy tonight...?

Last night I copied some code from somebody else's site and added the Google search down there on the left, so if you're so inclined, you can plug in funny words and see if they show up on bill dugan dot com. (Much handier than leafing through months of log entries to look for that one link...)

Random Fun Links. For all those folks who are too scared to actually live in the city. (via the morning news) Fix your Pismo. (via slashdot) | link

May 9, 2004

Big shout-outs again to Dave, who helped Jen and I clean out the garage, driveway and basement of all the junk we've accumulated in the last three months, and haul it away in Clifford. She and I then planted a bunch of pretty flowers in the side bed by the driveway, which makes that side of the house look much better.

I haven't run the Scout in about four months, because I've not had the time or the heart to look at her sitting idle in the driveway. Needing to get the area cleared out, I shot a few squirts of starter fluid into the carb and she fired right up—choppy at first, and loud, but smoothing out after a minute. She shifted into first gear easily, and I pulled her out onto the street to a parking spot. As I came to a stop, I felt how familiar the leather of the steering wheel felt in my hands. I wanted to keep going...to peel the top off, get her out onto the open road, open it up to 60 and enjoy the sunshine with Jen.

God, I miss my truck. | link

May 7, 2004

Information Wants To Be Free? After reading rumors that Apple is getting pressure from the music labels to increase per-song rates on the iTMS to $1.25 and albums to $16.99 (Let me just take a minute to wave both of my middle fingers directly at the music industry), I found a link to this site, which made me start thinking about the ethics behind file-sharing and buying legit copies of music. Until now, my M.O. has been to share stuff or buy used CD's, because everybody knows artists make only pennies on each record sold, and make their money touring. Ergo, screw the music labels.

I read the related story about this guy in the Washington City Paper and started thinking, however, about the artists on the old blues and coutry labels he collects. There are a ton of stories about poorly-educated musicians getting screwed out of their royalties by the labels back in those days (...hell, it still happens to this day), and the reality was that most of their income, at least from music, was from playing live. Is this sounding familiar?

This guy is selling CD's of the music he's collected for $15/ea, which is remarkably affordable, as well as admirable from an afficionado's standpoint—you can buy a digital recording of an obscure bluegrass song of which there is only one physical pressing left. And that's pretty cool. What I thought was this: Is that stuff in public domain, or is it illegal for him to sell these recordings? Is there any surviving relative (son or daughter) who should, by rights, get the proceeds from these sales? Should he offer them that money?

As a neophyte collector of old blues and jazz, I intend to browse the catalog and purchase some stuff in the future. But I'll be thinking about those musicians—and what was due to them—when I'm enjoying the music.

(Update: Prices on the iTMS are staying the same.) | link

May 6, 2004

Score. Our IT guy handed me a disc today and asked me if I could read it on my Mac. It's a 12-year-old CD of sound effects from the Hanna Barbera archives, recorded in some proprietary format by a company that evolved into the folks that make ProTools. Anyway, the discs are filled with sounds any 18-45 year old kid would recognize, from Fred Flintsone's feet making the car go to Muttley's teeth chomping Dick Dastardly's ass. Good fun for customizing alert sounds.

Oh, P.S. "That's the way girls like Lynndie are raised."

Heh. Here's an article about something on our minds... The heck with it. We're going to have a big fondue pot and let people pick their own hors d'oeuvres. (free registration may be required)

Well, That Helped. So Bush got on Arab TV yesterday and yammered on about how "...the people in the Middle East must understand that this was horrible." No shit! He didn't apologize for a goddamn thing, though, which is a fantastic lesson to teach our kids, country, and neighbors on this planet.

I spent about two hours working on some freelance last night while Jen was sleeping, and I have to say that I am extremely happy with our new office. This morning I got up early, made coffee, and sat down to another hour or so of edits. The sun was rising through the atrium windows over my desk, and the cats quietly paced around my feet; for the first time since we moved in the new house, I felt like things are coming together the way we want them to. | link

May 5, 2004

Enter The Matrix. Last night, I started the process of centralizing the house network; after running miles of cable from the bedrooms down through the walls, I wanted to actually get some of the computers in the office on a network. So I started by splicing into a power circuit that apparently contains both doorbells, an outlet in the basement, the kitchen stove, and the hallway light in my neighbor's house. After putting an outlet in next to the panel, I ran a new phone line to it and put connectors on the office lines. This morning I got up early to install the DSL modem and router, then ran a network line back to the dining room for the Airport base station. Thankfully, everything works.

A few thoughts about the latest good news from Iraq:

• America is doomed. We are a country of ignorant, bullying sheep.
• If Bush is re-elected this year, it will be proof that he has sold his soul to the Devil. Jen and I have decided that we will leave the country and move someplace that isn't doomed, and raise our kids to be intelligent. (No, I'm not kidding.)
• I shudder to think of what will happen to the next American POW taken in that country.
• What kind of animal does this? And what kind of moron lets somebody take their picture while doing this? (Don't give me that "They're under a lot of stress" shit. This is wrong. Plain and simple.)
• Seymour Hersh wrote a fantastic article in the latest New Yorker about this—the latest in a series of fantastic reporting about the war. (For a great article about the previous Gulf War, check this out.)
• Bush is going on Arab TV today to talk about this whole thing. Like that's going to help anything.
• Nobody in America cares about any of this. They're all too freaked out about the last episode of "Friends".

Last night, Dave sent me a link to a copy of Satie's Gymnopedie No.3, performed on guitar by John Williams. Again, it's beautiful and soothing—classical chillout music. I recommended an album to him called Selenography, by a band called Rachel's. It's sort of contemporary chillout classical, with drums, piano, guitar, and cello. I have yet to find the physical CD anywhere, and so will have to break down and order it online when we return from Italy. (Rubbing elbows with greatness dept.: I went to school with one of the members of the band.) Anyway, thanks, Dave! | link

May 4, 2004

I've Heard This Before. Folks with an iTunes account, go pick this up: Gymnopedie for Piano #1, by Erik Satie. You've heard the melody from somewhere; Satie was an eccentric French classical composer, and the advertising weasels have used this composition to sell cars or dog food or something like that. From an excellent BBC program on the history of chillout music. (second link is Real format—sorry via boingboing)

Last night I finally got around to hanging the sad-looking lightbulb fixture in the office that Jen was so tired of bonking her head on. $7 and some new hardware later, I pulled out the old 40's mounting hardware and replaced the box, hanger and threaded nipple; some new connectors over the old wiring and it was all set. Too bad I can't get the white in the cable cover to come back. Flush with success, I thought I might try to splice into a line to put a plug next to the main panel (for plugging in a router, DSL modem, et. al.) but was stymied by the rat's nest that is my basement wiring. | link

May 3, 2004

The Update. We got a lot of stuff done this weekend; among other things, the front porch is half-cleaned off (the waiting room side) and the boxes are arranged neatly on a new wire shelf on the high side of the basement. There are actual pieces of furniture in the bedrooms, even if we're not using some of them; countless boxes full of foo-foo design books have been emptied and discarded, the living room has opened up with the deletion of my bed, and there are things hanging on the walls. This is progress, people.

Sunday we met with the musicians to find that we really didn't want to use them (apparently the Wedding March doesn't work so well on guitar, and we really didn't want a singer), so Jen engaged the services of an organist. We are now finally registered at Target, for those folks who would like to buy us a gift (cash donations accepted as well) and I think you'll find we tried not to break your bank—Dyson vacuum cleaner aside. (Hey, we can dream, right?) Instead of the usual plates-and-silverware list most people have, we went practical: that hose reel may not fit on the gift table, but it'll come in handy when we have to wash out the tent the day after the party. There's also a gag in there for the folks who appreciate such things.

We also managed to get the lawn mowed (a brief aside, if you will: I will admit to you in print, here and now, that I enjoy mowing my lawn. While my father attempts to perform CPR on himself with two bare wires from the lamp next to his computer desk, I'll also admit that I was the worst child ever to deal with when it came to mowing lawns. Perhaps it was that our lawn mower was older and heavier than I was; perhaps it was the fact that we had five acres of lawn to mow, and that it was littered with ankle-breaking chunks of bedrock; perhaps it was just more important to me to watch that episode of Battle Of The Planets than spend six hours in the blazing heat of August pushing a government-surplus boat anchor through the weeds. In contrast, the lawn at the Lockardugan estate is a 45 minute exercise in immediate satisfaction.) and added two bags of soil to the side flowerbed. About 8pm, we called it a day, grilled some dogs, opened a cheap bottle of red wine, and fell asleep on the couch.

Freelance. From today's Craigslist:

Freelance work a few hours a week.
Consultant position using your own equipment, setting your own schedule.

Yeah, right, that sounds like my kinda gig.

You should have and or be: Honest and reliable
Proficient in Photoshop and 3DSmax
Moderate webdesign skills
Moderate understanding of MS office

Check, check, check, check.

Have a PC with DSL or cable connection and software
Be easy to reach by phone and or email
Have a flexible schedule
Be within 25 miles to Baltimore MD
optional: reliable transportation and ability to meet on location on rare occasions. The work can be done remotely but the ability to meet is beneficial.

OK, this is sounding more like me all the time.

We cannot respond to all inquiries/submissions, if the position has not been filled and you seem well suited for the position you will hear from us within 5 business days.

...Then I'm thinking you really shouldn't post to Craigslist.

Compensation: $8.50/hour

??!?!?? I made more than that 15 years ago bussing tables in High School. Get bent, you jackoff.

May 2, 2004 - 20 days to go

first cicada sighting of the year, 5.1.04

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