Journal

So hey Bruce. Long time no see. Hope everything's okay. If you update tommorow night, you won't need to change your first page since it says the journal was updated last on Monday. :)

Yeah, everything’s okay. No, I didn’t forget about the journal last week. I just didn’t have anything to say. At least not anything interesting. If I don’t find my life interesting, how can I expect to bore you with it?

Besides, I’m really a kinda quiet guy, although I guess you’d never know it just by reading here.

I did start on an entry Friday night after the bar, it goes:

Saturday March 21, 1998 3:00AM

So you’re probably wondering, "What is she doing home updating her site? I thought she was going to Toronto this weekend!"

Well, yeah, that’s what I was going to do. But then common sense got the better of me. I’m making $400 a week less than I used to make, the VISA took a severe beating while I was out of work, and I promised to buy a computer system to my niece and nephew.

So, given that I could give the same money to a hotel, strippers and rentboys, or to VISA and my niece and nephew, well let’s just say I had an attack, okay?

It was a fun evening at Muther’s though. After today at work, and tonight at home, I needed to let loose.

You know, Muther’s is really pouring the profits back into the business. Most gay bars in town take the money and run. I walked in tonight, checked my coat, got a cocktail and headed over by the dance floor. Something seemed different. There’s now a full wall of mirrors on the dance floor, and they’ve redone the lights.

Now they just need me to rework the sound system!

Good heavens. I need sleep more than I need to update the site.

That’s really all that happened last week. I messed around with the PC a lot, read a lot, and just kinda hung out.

Looking back, I guess there were a couple of events of note. I got an interesting e-mail from Blair in St. Louis, MO. We discovered each other’s sites a few weeks back when we were "neighbors" on one of the webrings. By the way, they shuffle the order of the sites on the rings from time to time, so it’s always worth it to check ‘em out.

Anyway, Blair’s setting up a second site and was asking about the advantages and disadvantages to having your own domain name. And we discussed some of the pros and cons of FrontPage98. The next day, she sent me this:

Starting on the page today and really like your dedication. Would you have an objection to my using it on my page and the parental warning. This might be only temporary as the page changes and grows. We could just use it, or we could use it and give you the credit.

Hope you feel flattered! :)

Blair

Wow! You could’ve knocked me over with a feather! So I wrote back, (in part):

Flattered?  I'm blushing!

Sure.  You're welcome to use them both.  Hell, you can use the "Run Away" link if you like, (though somehow I think you may not.  It's just for grins anyway.  Disney links are so boring.)

I don't have a problem with it being credited or not, but a link would be nice.  Since we're on a couple of rings together, you may want to at least say "used by permission" so that other visitors don't get the wrong impression.  But that's your decision.

She and her friend, Sue from Atlanta, have been working right along on the new site. It’s called "Rainbow STEW" (for Serving The Entire World). Check it out! You know, even now that the novelty of my own site has worn off, it’s still a thrill to see my words on other peoples’ sites.

I’ve really not been keeping up with other members of the "Scribe Tribe" lately, so one night last week I was feeling kinda guilty about it and spent a couple of hours catching up. Larry in Savannah added a couple of book reviews to his site. They’re both books I own and have read. But I’ve found a couple that I liked better. I wrote to him discussing the books I preferred, and he wrote back, (in part):

You are in the wrong profession, you should be a book reviewer. Yes, do post this.

Okay. So now there’s a new section of the site. Book Reviews and Recommendations. When I get around to it, I’ll change the "Music" button on the image map at the left to read "Books & Music". For now, you can click there anyway and it takes you to the new Books & Music page.

Now if I’m going to go through the trouble of writing book reviews to promote some else’s work, there’s gonna be something in it for me. I’ve signed up as an associate site to Amazon.com, the largest bookseller on the internet. I get a small commission on each book sold from the links on my site. It’s a sliding scale, the bigger the discount they give you, the smaller the commission for me. And they discount up to 30%.

The first review I’ve posted comes from that e-mail to Larry. It’s about a relationship advice book I bought last summer. I don’t read just advice books. I read tons of novels and, of course, computer books too. As I get around to it, you’ll find reviews of these types of books as well.

See how this goes? After a while, you just recycle your e-mail, and presto! Instant journal entry!

No really, from time to time, I do have a life.

As you know, I’m a contract computer geek. As technology marches on, there’s less and less demand (in big companies anyway) for the desktop support that I specialize in. This is because of tighter integration across the LAN between the servers and the desktop PCs. It won’t be long before the only time a user will see a tech at their desk is to replace an old PC with a new one every two or three years. Everything else can be done by remote administration from the data center.

One of the reasons I started tinkering with a site is to get some experience towards a possible career change. I don’t know if it’ll be web design, but it would never happen if I didn’t have at least some experience.

So anyway, my current contract is at Citibank Student Loan Corporation. One day last week at our daily staff meeting, they were going over the server upgrades planned for this past weekend. One of the upgrades was for the Internet/intranet server. Mention was made that shortly after the upgrade all the webmasters (there’s 26 of them, one or two per department) would need to get upgraded to FrontPage98. Naturally, yours truly volunteered for the job.

Well, over the weekend when they upgraded the server software from Microsoft Internet Information Server 2.0 (IIS) to IIS 4.0, they discovered that no one could update their webs because they’d never upgraded the webmasters from Front Page 1.1 Beta. Because a lot of the webs are updated daily, this made for a real emergency this morning.

That was fine with me, because the only other thing on my plate today was helping to inventory the dozens of old PCs they’re getting ready to donate to charity. That job would have kept me in the windowless basement data center all day. And today it was sunny. We don’t get much of that around here.

Now I don’t know if it was the sun, or that I was too well rested, or just that this career stuff’s been on my mind. But I made sure each of the webmasters knew I’ve got experience with FrontPage98 in case they need any help. Then I gave them my URL. So I’ve effectively outed myself to every department in the building. Oh well, sexual orientation is listed in Citicorp’s non-discrimination policy, and there are lots of openly gay people there already, so it’s (I hope) no big thing. It’ll be interesting though to see how many hits I get from citicorp.com!

So I’m on a roll with this thing. On the way home tonight, the cell phone rings, (my land-line call-forwards to it automatically if I’m not home.) It’s a recruiter from another contract house. The place he used to work for was sold. (I’m unclear as to whether he’s with the new owners or is working for someone else.) He said he was just checking in to see what was up. I explained what I was doing lately, and that the Citibank contract ends on June 30^th.

He says, "Great. Send me your updated resume." Now I’m on the cell phone, in five o’clock traffic on the expressway. I can’t just write down his address and phone number. So I said, "Well my resume’s online." He says "Cool." I told him, "Go to www.brucew.com, click on About Me, then click on Resume. While you’re there, click on an e-mail link and send me your new address and phone number." So now I’m outing myself to prospective employers. Just another day in the 90s.

Here’s a little anecdote to close today’s entry. I live in a pretty neat section of town. Most of the houses are from the late 19^th and early part of this century. And back then this was THE place to live if you were a rich industrialist. Most of the old mansions have been converted into apartments now, but there’s still a certain grace and dignity about the place.

About four blocks down from my apartment, is The George Eastman House. You know, like in Eastman Kodak? Interestingly, there’s a lot of speculation that he was gay. He never married, and he wasn’t known to run around with women, (or men either for that matter.) But it could be that he was just really busy. It’s a lot of work building a multi-billion dollar multi-national company.

Anyway, these days, it’s home to The International Museum of Photography & Film. It's part of the reason they called this The Museum District, until the city renamed it The Neighborhood of the Arts. Dahling.

Earlier after I finished the book review page, I went out to Park Ave Deli to pick up something to eat. Well, they’re having some sort of "do" at the Eastman House tonight, no doubt something associated with The Academy Awards.

There’s limos, mounted policemen, East Avenue is reduced to two lanes by hundreds of highway flares, and they’ve got one of those humongous kajillion-watt searchlights parked in front of the place right in the middle of East Avenue.

So I drive by in my rusty old Dodge gawking, like, "Cool, look at that huge searchlight. NO! DON’T LOOK asshole! It’s nighttime, you’re driving, and it’ll BURN YOUR EYES OUT!"

If someone had told me during last Saturday’s snowstorm, that just seven days later I’d be sitting here with all the windows open wearing nothing but gym shorts, I’ve have called for the guys who dress you in those lovely jackets with the arms that tie together in the back!

The weather this week has been positively insane. I see I made only passing mention of it in Monday’s entry, but that’s when it started. Sunny, high in the 40s. Each day this week has been better than the day before. Who’da thought that all the restaurants on Park Ave would have the tables out on the sidewalk in March? Hell, I even slept with all the windows wide open last night!

It’s incongruous! The trees haven’t begun to think of even budding yet. The forsythias either. Yet the only snow left is the big piles outlining the parking lots at the malls. Although at work, the crocuses exploded from the ground and bloomed between starting time and lunchtime on Wednesday. Lawns are still all lumpy tufts between the winter’s bald patches, the geese haven’t yet even begun their trek northward. None of the things that signal spring have happened yet, (except for the crocuses). We don’t get weather like this until the end of May! It’s gotta be some kind of record.

Last night there was no way I was going to spend it inside. I ran quickly through the (short) list of people I could call. Everyone was either working or away on vacation. (Right now at 76°, it’s warmer here that it is in Tampa, Orlando or Ft. Ladeedah! Wrong week to go away!) Anyway, I saw Vince-the-ex was on AOL when I got home and checked mail, so I IMd him. We met at Hogan’s Hideaway for dinner at seven.

The sidewalk in front of Hogan’s is only about six or seven feet wide, so you can really see, and be seen. Park Ave itself is narrow and winding. I don’t think it’s possible to reach the speed limit of 25. So the boys were driving by real slow, windows down, stereos up. Boys walking down the sidewalk, squeezing past the tables, Rollerbladers in the street. The conversation was mostly "Ooo, did you see that one!" and "Honey, here comes another!"

I knew Muther’s was going to be hot later. It was. And I was hoping the patio would be open. It was. Only half of it, the rest is covered with construction debris from yet more remodeling. This week, they leveled the floors and put in new carpeting. Not that you could see it, there were so many people there.

I thought only bears hibernate in the winter. Apparently, so do twinks! I’ve never seen so many new faces in one night there. And there were a lot of guys my age too. Where to start?!?!? The main bar area was jammed, the dance floor packed, you could hardly move around the pool table, and the patio was so crowded it was hard to find room to lift your cocktail for a drink!

I met Willie-my-fuck-buddy on the way in from the parking lot, Vince-the-ex was just leaving, he doesn’t like it when it’s too crowded. Ran into a couple other friends, and some new faces that could definitely be husband material.

So I found myself just grinning from ear to ear leaning against the wall in the bottleneck between the bar, the pool table and where the coat check used to be. Still the best spot in the club to hang out when you’re cruising. There were so many cute guys there, alone. I got to thinking, "If everyone is so intimidated by these wonders of creation, how do they ever get laid?"

Then I spotted him. The rough-and-ready look that always knocks me out. Long blond hair, gorgeous angular face with the precisely correct amount of (blond) stubble, about 5’-7", tight compact muscular body, leather jacket over a white tank top, parachute jogging pants and Reeboks. I just about came in my pants right then and there!

So I’m watching him move through the crowd. Everyone’s noticing, no-one’s talking to him, only about him. After a while, both his beer and my cocktail needed refilling, so I pulled up next to him at the bar. He turns to me and says, "Hi, my name’s Shawn. Do you live around here?" I managed to get out something like, "Uh, well, yeah. Walking distance. Um, my name’s, uh … Bruce." (Always so suave and debonair!) We shook hands. He noticed junior was waving hello from inside my 505s.

Well what else have I fucked up lately? Friday night, I just don’t know what happened with Johnny. He’d accepted my invite home after the bar. A few minutes later, we’re dancing and then he takes off, running out of the bar like there was a fire or something. I have no clue why. We were dancing for chrissakes! Was it was something I did or said, does he have some problem? Who knows. Frankly I don’t care any more. Based on that, I’ve written him off completely.

That’s why I said fuck it and took home Shawn instead. Just a trick, no future there, but he did take my mind off things for a while! I’m still sore. Gotta remember to keep those hamstrings stretched! J

I didn’t go out at all last night. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I stayed home and read. Hell, my stereo’s better than the sound at Muther’s anyway, and there’s no possibility of anyone running away from me when I’m home alone. Although I’m sure just the thought of me alone dancing naked in the apartment is enough to drive anyone off!

The thunderstorms they called for yesterday never materialized. I love thunderstorms! I was so disappointed. Decent weather though again today, and tomorrow to according to The Weather Channel. When the weather returns to normal again later this week, it’s gonna be a real downer. And expect snow on April 6^th. That’s Vince’s birthday, and in all the years we were together, only twice it didn’t snow on his birthday.

I spent the day running analysis reports on the site. If you think it would be neat to see some of the reports, let me know, and if there’s enough interest, I’ll add ‘em to the site. One of the really cool things I discovered was how many hits are coming from Europe, particularly from the former Soviet block countries.

Anyway, based on some of the more pedestrian things I found, I’ve dropped a couple of pages that people keep visiting but I haven’t completed yet. For instance, there’s a lot of interest in the Biography page, but sorry, I find it just too painful to write, so I’ve dumped it for now. I’ll be trying some changes to a couple of the other pages soon. So, it was time to break out the documentation for FrontPage.

To date, for everything I’ve done on the site I haven’t needed the manual. Good thing too. The manual that comes with the program is just chock-full of really useful stuff, like how to make text bold and how to add a hyperlink. Waste of trees if you ask me.

A week or two ago after I broke my local copy of the site when I reinstalled Windows NT, I went out and bought the "Using Microsoft FrontPage 98 Special Edition" book and CD-ROM set published by QUE. Expect a full review of the book once I get through all 914 pages. I spent the afternoon leafing through it.

They cover the basics better than Microsoft’s manual, and they really get into the meaty stuff. It covers a lot of stuff that I don’t have a need for in this site, but if I ever do want to do things like define the site as an Internet Explorer "channel", or connect to SQL databases, it’s all in there.

It’s given me a few more ideas on what to do here for fun, so as I get around to it, I’ll be throwing a few more things in. I don’t have a schedule, you’ll just have to wait and see.