Chris Glass

Monster of Northside ShipIt

November 23, 2021November 25, 2021

We’ve got a new place in Northside that fills a much needed gap: a local ship and print shop. I needed to mail some tiny CDs to my friend Jeb and they made it easy.

They’ve got packing and shipping supplies with gift bags and wrapping, cards, paper supplies, some Apple computer peripherals and more. In addition to FedEx, DHL and USPS and services, they also do passport photos and a bunch of printing and copying. More details on their Northside ShipIt website.

Extra bonus? Monster the pup is very eager to greet you at the counter or try to escape whenever the door opens.

Jousting

November 22, 2021November 24, 2021

Jousting, circa 1982
Crayon, marker and pencil on paper

Tucked in a stack of folders in an otherwise empty filing cabinet was this drawing I made, oh, probably around ten to twelve years of age during my knights phase. (Which would then turn into a sailing ships phase.)

I clearly had reference materials for the knights on horseback but left all sense of skill aside when tackling the audience in the background.

Not a disorder

November 21, 2021November 23, 2021

I take issue with labeling something as Obsessive-compulsive disorder when it is clearly about applying order to a thing.

Shredding away

November 20, 2021November 22, 2021

Shredded boxes of finances from the mid-2000s and a large stack of cashed checks from the last 6 years or so.

Fiery fir

November 19, 2021November 22, 2021

Walked among the tall trees on my lunch break.

Unbootable

November 18, 2021November 22, 2021

The photo below was an actual image from the day. I managed to bork an old laptop by reformatting the wrong partition or something.

I prefer the snapshot of rocks and leaves above, which I saw the day before.

Revisionist history of absolutely no consequence.

A photo of a laptop LCD screen with a gray folder with a question mark — The dreaded flashing question mark folder of a Apple laptop

Hard drives

November 17, 2021November 19, 2021

I’ve consolidated every external hard drive I can find into a box, attempting to make sure all the right cables and power cords are present. I hooked one up and got sucked into the rabbit hole of a particular snapshot in time, much like the old iPhone from last week.

Future goal: Make sure all data lives on current backup — a 5 terabyte hard drive that is approaching capacity. Then figure out what to do with these old drives… Cursory searches often involve hammers. There’s got to be a better way.

Tasted like it was supposed to

November 16, 2021November 18, 2021

This box of Jell-O pudding expired on November 20, 2020.

I went to a website that lists out how long food really lasts and it declared this box done. (I’d link to the site, but it’s super densely gross with ads and pop-ups and that’s how most of the web feels these days, but I digress.)

I made the pudding, took two bites and regretted wasting the milk. I don’t think the mix was spoiled, it tasted like it was supposed to.

Come winter, I might try again from scratch with this recipe, on a website surrounded by ads of all sorts.

Distraction log

November 15, 2021November 18, 2021

I caught the following tweet when I had just finished some item of business and wandered away from the work parts of my screen. It resonated. Could a simple sheet of paper help me capture ideas that float by and keep me focused?

Judging from the last few days of doing so? I believe the answer is yes. It’s kind of awesome.

A nice dollop of skeuomorphism

November 14, 2021November 23, 2021

I tap the seat warmer button in the car for the first time this season and marvel at the trees doing errands.

In the evening I dig out a laptop from 2012 and find that it works great despite 4 gigs of RAM. Spent some time researching the best ways to let it go while making software updates and ultimately wiping the drive.

An old phone emerges from a drawer of cords. It also works as good as the day it was last discharged — a time capsule of conversations, photographs, a particular set of apps and a nice dollop of skeuomorphism. I decide this digital scrapbook is worth keeping for a while.