I moved the smolt site a few months ago www.smolt.org.  With the move came more spam.  One lucky piece was this moring, a glorious email offering to increase my business and bumping up my page rank!  Or as they eloquently write:

The best way to promoter our lonely website on the Internet

The weekend festivites started early.  John and I took Friday off, woke up at the crack of 11, clean the house a bit then made our way to Shoreline to see NIN and Janes Addiction with some buddies.  Traffic wasn’t so awful and we had time for a a stop in East Palo Alto at a taqueria.  Best burrito I have ever had!   Grabbed some munchies and made it with time to spare.  The line went fast, the only bummers were one small group of people yelling about Jesus and how we were neglecting him by going to the concert.  Then getting to the entrance and told we could not bring blankets.  Seems the bands management frowned on towels and blankets.  Perhaps previous concerts have set them on fire and catapulted to the stage, who knows.  It was annoying and since I was wearing capris, was in for a very cool evening.

The concert was great, the drinks were flowing and everyone had a good time.  We were one of the last to leave but I was impressed by how the staff facilitated everyone getting the hell out of the place.  Saw a helicopter flying overhead with the search light on.  Found out later a cop had left his keys in the car and someone had stolen it.  

Saturday was Commencement and a challenge to work when so tired.  But totally worth it.  Everyone seemed so happy. Henry Rollins was the guest speaker.  Promptly went home afterwards and fell asleep.  Party on!

Sunday John and I went to the Lighthouse at Point Reyes.  It was cold but pretty crowded.  Found out later a coworker was there the same exact time.  It was interesting, windy and cold.  Did I mention windy? We survived the 30 stories of stairs, but it was so challenging, I forgot to take a picture.  As we drove back via San Rafael, we stopped for dinner at an Indian place on 4th street.  Imagine our surprise to see babs and Cj eating there as well!  They had come from the city and decided to stop for dinner there as well.   

Last Weekend was hot hot hot hot!

Rachel  got her well deserved diploma on Saturday from Mills College.  John and I drove down to watch her receive the sheepskin and afterwards a par-te at her house.  

I had never been to Mills before, after a slight map quest mishap we found the college.  The snafu was actually lucky, we ended up taking the back way to Mills, no crowds, easy parking and easy exiting.  Unlike poor Rachel who had to deal with really unpleasant driving  to get into the college.  

We sat with Jennifer and Jennifer (easy to remember the names!) and everyone was in good spirits. Mills is lovely and seemed so happy.   But man it was hot.  Program started at 9:45 and by 1 we had degreed peeps!   I wore the fabulous sun-hat, so  it was doable.  Rachel just looked so happy!  

Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think is one of my favs.  Its a quick read, makes total sense and gives you plenty of inspiration to  make your website better. 

Recently he gave a presentation at The Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference.  I wasn’t  there, but the slides were informative and pretty funny.

OKay so its been awhile since this blog has been updated.  Insert excuses of busy, tired etc.  But mostly because I was moving the blog over to a new server.  I have had a *nix box in my 2nd bedroom for 4+ years, John has pretty much taken over the room.  I close the door to *try* to ignore the gamer/movie decor and clutter.   Also with “hearing like a bat*” I could hear it chung away when trying to sleep.  And the machine was getting older.  

I thought about remote relo, but then a friend suggested for my very limited needs perhaps a VPS might work.  Checked it out, found one that is cheap, sharing with a buddy and has root access (some give a root-like access, rootish if you will but its not the same… liars).  So moved over all the data and started building it last week. Still not done, but got the blog back up.   

Also changed the DSL from fixed IP to a dynamic, but stayed with sonic.  Cheaper, faster, win win!

* I do have good hearing, and it really freaks John out who does not hear so well.