dad

So it took me 33+ years, but I have finally started golfing. I am a complete and total idiot for not listening to the dozens of friends that have been trying to convince me to play for the last ten years. It is amazing fun and paralyzingly addictive. I played for the first time in January of this year at my friend Kelly’s 40th birthday party on the Balboa Golf Course in Encino, CA. At the end of January my dad had some business in Vegas and he flew me there for the day to play the Las Vegas Golf Club. I’ve played about 10 or 15 rounds since then and am hooked.

In early June dad had another business trip on my coast and we played a municipal course in Chula Vista, CA, where my grandfather lives. Dad gave me a set of his old clubs while I was there and I bought a slick Nike bag to hold ‘em. The next day we played with Guy Denniston, the president of American West Worldwide Express, at Tijeras Creek in Rancho Santa Margarita. A few days later dad was here in LA and we played the Malibu Country Club with Kelly and Eric Clarke, the president of Four Truckers (photo).

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So … I’ve been loathe to mention this here, but I guess I should.

My dad had a heart attack last weekend.

He’s fine now - thank God - but, man, what a flucking scare, y’know?

Apparently his days of eating potato chips are gone, but he’s had angioplasty (70% blockage in one artery and 90% in another) and some titanium stents installed so technically now he’s a bionic dad.

I gotta tell ya: It really, really freaked me out. For a day or so I was scared out of my mind. I am so inconceivably happy that he is okay.

Feel free to drop him a line. I mailed him “Salt” to read while he’s recuperating, but I know he digs getting email.

(Note: If you click the link to send him an email, the message will have “NOSPAM” in the middle of his address. You’ll have to take that out before you hit send. That’s just there so that web-spidering robots won’t find his email address and add him to spam lists.)

Here’s another one of my dad’s photographs. He’s been kayaking all over New England for the last year or so. He’s got a thing set up so he can have his camera on the end of the kayak while he’s … er … kayaking. (Y’know, there really aren’t any synonyms for kayaking.) I just think it’s a cool shot.

I am testing the Upload File feature in MovableType 1.3 right now. This is one of my dad’s photographs. It’s a geranium in bloom. I thought I specified that it should be in a different directory when I uploaded it. Either I did it incorrectly or there is a bug in MT1.3. I’ll have to try again …

My dad is a gifted photographer. He takes some of the most amazing photos I’ve ever seen. He recently acquired a digital camera and has been having a ball with it, I know. He has had several of his prints sell at art houses scattered across Rhode Island; they’re really that good.

For a while - when his printer and scanner were both working - he was making notecards from his photos and they sold well, too. We’ve been trying to find a way for him to sell some of his stuff on-line, and PrintOnClick might work. Apparently they will allow you to host images on your own site and include a link so readers can buy 8×10s (or any size you specify) of the digital file from their site. It seems like a pretty good concept, and I know there is some hassle involved in actually getting digital photos into a format (i.e. a physical, paper print) that a grandmother can hold and frame. I’m going to look into their terms and conditions, but everything appears to be quite legitimate.

I have dozens of his photos on my hard drive(s), and I know he has - literally - hundreds of them on CDs and floppies and filed and stored away at his home in Portsmouth, RI. I’m also thinking about making a blog for him to post his favorites. MovableType is certainly simple enough that I could teach him how to upload the files and write captions or something.

Happy 50^th Birthday, Dad!

There’s been a redesign at Swallowing Tacks. Elise is a great read, so if you don’t visit her regularly, now is the perfect time to start. Check out her awesome collection of Desktop Images while you’re there. My three favorites? Cocktail Hour, Fresh Hell, and Aloha

Right now I’m using this beautiful photo as my desktop. It’s a flower barrel on the edge of the lake at Uncle Richie’s house in Maine. (462k)

Today is my dad’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Dad!

It’s always a surprise when a family member sends me eMail. If there’s a link in the eMail it’s an even bigger surprise. If there’s a link to a web site that’s actually worth a visit, it gets blogged. Check out the Nerd Wide Web Bizarre Site of the Week!

Once upon a time … many, many years ago … my dad and I went somewhere. I don’t remember where. It’s not important. When was it? I don’t remember that either. I think I was a teenager, but I might have been in my twenties. That’s not important either. We were in Rhode Island. I remember that much. Or maybe Massachusetts. We stopped for gas. It was $.89/gallon. She’s Waiting by Eric Clapton was on the radio. It’s a great song. At the end it sort of trails off and fades into whistling. My dad was pumping gas and when he got back into the car we were both whistling.

We didn’t talk, just kept whistling until the end of the song, both of us slapping the dashboard in time to the music. It was a moment, y’know? It was cool. The next song was Invisible Touch by Genesis and we both knew all the words to that one, too. We sang the whole thing together, just grooving through traffic. Neither one of us said anything about it, and when the song was finished and a commercial started, we resumed talking about whatever it was we had been talking.

Now, x number of years later, whenever I hear one of those songs, I think about that day.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. Hope you like your new Red Sox hat. Here are my two my favorite photos of my dad: Porter Square, Boston, 1998 and At Home, 1975.

Dad wanted everyone to know that he managed an 11 out of 12 on the Densa Quiz. link below

I scanned an awesome photo of one of my all-time best friends this morning. I cropped it to half-size because it was *huge* on my screen and I’m running 1024 x 768. Someone please tell me if it looks good. I saved it at 50% compression to keep the size down, but I’m not so hip when it comes to graphics, etc. so I’m interested in feedback. I have about a ka-billion photos around the desk here, plus my dad’s always shooting something (with the camera!), and of course the WebCam Go! I bought is supposed to be able to act as a stand-alone digital camera (although I haven’t gotten that to work yet) …