This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Going back to Cali

Posted by ehren

The flight was uneventful, and surprisingly productive. It measured the first large block of time in many weeks during which I both intended to work ardently, and did so. The newer laptop battery lasted for the entire 6 hour flight, excluding when it was turned off and stowed for takeoff and landing. For that purpose, I bought "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer (the one about the creepy world of Mormon Fundamentalism...very engaging, but poorly edited and of dubious objectivity) and read it on BART and CalTrain to Palo Alto.

Since Santos had the key to the door lock, and I couldn't find the keys to remove the bicycles from the rear door so I could open the gate (my preferred method of keyless entry), getting into the bus was a challenge. The rear door (bicycles and all) wouldn't open all the way since the bus was too close to the garage, so I heaved my bags through the opening, then I climbed in through the driver's window. I then surveyed my home, found everything to be in order, saw that Miro had kept busy with the CB, shower, and a few other projects.

After unpacking, sorting, moving things around, and sweeping a little (the plant given to me at Chez Sarah Sarah (and Kevn and John) in Boston managed to unpot itself during the flight and make a mess), I caught a ride up to the BBQ with Pat, Santos' as-yet-unmet flatmate who works for a software company but does not write software (marketing and strategy). We entered a Pictionary game midstream, and eventually helped our team ("The Side Of The Room That Knows Dave" vs. "The Side Of The Room More Closely Affiliated With The Apartment Downstairs") to victory. I tried to think of the most difficult pictionary word possible. I think "Abstract", "Quandary", or "Zeitgeist" would do it.

I uploaded new pictures. The only ones of note visually describe how the bus looks like it's about to eat Santos' house. See how close it is to the awning over the laundry room door. Also observe how no space (epsilon) exists between the neighboring fence and the other side of the bus. I've been trying to get on a kick where I take more (and better) pictures of people, but since my Camera (a nearly indestructable Canon S50) had some kind of "I live for our forbidden USB love alone" deathpact with my laptop, the camera also entered a state of brokenness soon after I got back to Boston. It seemed like some particle of sand was wedging the lens-extender doodad. I was all ready to take the bastard apart with a set of teeny screwdrivers when it miraculously started working again. Of course, the lens is still unbelievably dirty.

Anyhow, that's a paragraph about why there are no pictures of my trip to Boston/NYC, except a few of Paul on his couch where he's apparently trying to see into the future by placing his cellphone over his eyes. And also a glimpse at the ridiculous automotive situation at Cruft Laboratories.

Being out east again for 3 weeks was an absolute joy. Jake and I did plenty of work while I was in NYC...Perhaps not as much as planned, or fewer hours, but thanks to his linux skills my laptop is working again, and we have a set of handy scripts that will allow me to work unfettered from nonstatic IPs over the next four months as we complete our project. I stayed at Cruftlabs a few nights, Frogstar a few nights, a couple at ADP (who's the webmaster these days, guys? most recent pictures from 1998?), and a smattering of other lovely apartments in the Boston area. When you live in a town for 6 years, it's not hard to find temporary lodging.

Almost every evening was spent in some kind of social debauch. I caught a great Bad Art Ensemble show at the Plough, went to the Cambridgeport Saloon, Miracle of Science, sundry parties, etc etc. Anyway, it was a real good time.

I did my taxes, researched Biodiesel / Veggie Oil conversions, picked up some new business, went to Sunny's 3 times, saw the Ralph Lauren auto collection, lost then found my wallet, and lost then found my cell phone charger.

By the way, I registered a domain name for this travelogue. Is it, you ask, a little presumptuous to think that we require our very own domain? Well, isn't it presumptuous to have a website dedicated to this in the first place?

Also, depending on when you're reading this, I will either be in the process of redoing the way that inline picture thumbnails are integrated into the posts, or I will have given up, or I will have finished. Expect lots of horriffic looking PHP/Mysql errors for the remainder of Sunday afternoon. Nothing like debugging on a live site! It also means that the image links in the few posts where I've used the old feature will be broken until I get in there and redo them.