Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

It’s the day after my surgery and here I am touch typing so you can pretty safely assume I am alive and still in possession of both hands.

That is a good thing. However I would still say it has been a below average week.

1. On Monday night I pushed some Zappos code changes that caused enormous trouble… the site was down and/or behaving badly for about 2 1/2 hours. Hundreds of customers got error pages or erratic behavior. Because I was leaving Tuesday it was left for my good team to do the cleanup.

2. Upon arrival in San Francisco I foolishly left my backpack in the backseat of Sophie’s car while dining. The window was smashed upon our return and my bag was gone. The limited edition Zappos bag contained: my new 17″ PowerBook G4, my new electric shaver, some of my favorite clothes, my retainer, my checkbook, season two DVD’s for Millennium, the Cryptionomicon book, a Serenity comic and BBC Blue Ocean DVD set borrowed from a friend, my keys, and a pair of nice headphones. It also included a handful of business cards so at least i may have accomplished some networking.

3. Though no harm was done, the surgery didn’t go as planned. There was the plate and 9 screws… but after getting out six they couldn’t get out the last three. Apparently the bone had grown too hard around them and they stripped the heads trying to back them out. Somewhere in my mind I’m wondering why a $15K set of screws has allen heads instead of torx, but that’s not for me to judge. Anyways, the options at that point included prying and drilling out the screws, but Dr. Prieto felt it was too risky as it might re-break the bone, so they closed up and left the plate in. Though I’m disappointed that the plate and screws will be in there permanently, I do trust his judgment on the risk of having forced things. They did get to clean up the scar, though we won’t know how much of an improvement it is for months. And I do have the six screws that came out. They’re nice and shiny.

So time to move on. The arm is what it is. Hopefully there will be no complications later in life. I’ll probably buy an intel MacBook Pro to replace my stolen 17″. I’ve got a good todo list for Zappos to get things back on track.

Oh, I do plan to write up a sort of journal/story of my whole arm experience from beginning to end with pictures. Not that a lot of people will encounter anything similar, but I remember appreciating what little info I found when I poked around online after my injury. So I’ll add my experience to the mix. Sophie took some great pictures of me pre-surgery so I’ll remember what the scar looked like the first time. Hopefully something I’ll have up in the next couple months.

My work day after a night of non-sleep went pretty well; I actually didn’t feel particularly awful. But man, I sure fell asleep fast and easy when I got back to the hotel.

So why have I been up since 5AM? Because the Zappos primary DB went down! Whee! That hasn’t happened in a very long time. But at around 1AM PDT the filesystem got corrupt — duplicate inodes. Damn you ReiserFS! So I assisted our excellent sysadmin Kris as best I could while he wrangled things back into order. Props to Richard for answering the call, and Eric for identifying the source of the problem.

In all fairness to ReiserFS, it’s never done this before and we’ve been hammering on it for years now. Everyone is entitled to a little mistake every few billion transactions I suppose.

Alright, see if I can get another hour of sleep…

Yes, it’s been too long since I posted. It’s also been too long since I slept.

I’m in Kentucky, and though the bed is comfy, the air is fresh, and the gun show is in town, I just can’t get my sorry ass to sleep. I’m darn tired and I’ve been in bed for about 5 hours now. This often happens to me in Kentucky. Why? Damn alarm is going off in a few more hours and then I’ve got a full day. Just thought I’d whine.

Whine, whine, whine.

I’ve had a couple things I wanted to post about recently, but haven’t found the time to flesh them out. I really should do a couple more posts before I FACE DEATH next week in San Fran. Well, I face death all the time, I suppose. Why does it feel vaguely more threataning when going in for surgery? I’ve probably been at greater statistical risk in the past week without even realizing. Like when I came to Kentucky during a gun show.

Well, my three year life as a cyborg is over. On April 13th I will be going in for surgery to have the stainless steel plate and 9 titanium screws removed from my arm. I chose the 13th because I like to live dangerously. I chose April because I like to live foolishly. I chose the steel plate in my arm because it bugs me.

So unlike the Las Vegas doctor, the doctor in San Francisco who put the plate in was more than happy to take it out. Aside from the slight risk that I’ll die or lose my arm, he said it’s a safe procedure.

Florida was cool. For my mom’s birthday we hit Ruth’s Chris steakhouse and then saw a Tango at the local performing arts center. Based on my observation it’s true what they say: it takes two.

So what’s been going on? Well, after my last posting, I was so energized I spent the rest of that weekend doing a bunch of stuff I’ve been putting off forever. Namely, getting the downstairs of my place all set up. I still had boxes and stuff laying around from last fall that I just couldn’t muster up the energy to go through. Well, I’m happy to say I got through all of that and now I’m living in a Better Homes & Garden spread.

Well, for the downstairs anyways. Upstairs is still a mess. I’ll get to that after my next inspiring adventure.

I’ve been playing Darwinia recently. Just completed it tonight, actually. Very cool little game, methinks. It’s actually quite simple and small by today’s standards, but it captured my imagination for the duration. Good retro music and graphics, and a neat storyline and mood. I don’t have the time to devote to most of the fancy games out there today… here’s hoping for more cool little games like this. One note though: the “demo” is actually a chapter that takes place after the game storyline itself, so I kind of think it would be better to play that last.

Off on a three-point trip starting tomorrow: Kentucky for work, Tampa for my mom’s birthday, and San Fran for taxes and a visit to the doctor who put the plate in my arm. I want to talk to him about taking it out. I spoke to a doctor here in Vegas, a bone & joint specialist, and he flatly contradicted everything my original doctor had told me about getting it removed. I don’t know what to make of that, but I”m going to talk to the original guy before making any decisions.

Um… that’s it! I usually seem to be enjoying my single life. Managing to pick up my guitar and noodle around again recently. Here’s to more of that.

Yeah, that’s right. Dig it. Tonight was power-packed with coolness.

So after work I went to dinner at Lucille’s BBQ with Andy and Karen. After dining on some fine southern cooking (I had the pork chops… mmm mmm good), we headed over to First Friday in downtown Vegas. Note: downtown Vegas is not the strip. Anyways, First Friday is exactly the kind thing I thought didn’t exist in Vegas. It’s sort of a monthly art fair that takes place in and around a decent little gallery on Charleston St.

We got there a little after 8PM, grabbed a couple beers (which they sell in the street) and checked out a band that was playing Pink Floyd’s “Time”. It was pretty cold out, so after a quick bit we decided to duck into the main gallery. It had a pretty wide selection of modern art, ranging from abstract to realistic, and moody to whimsical. There’s two floors, and the whole thing has the layout of a maze. I’m also convinced it’s slightly larger on the inside than the outside, kinda like Dr Who’s phone booth thing. Anyways, there was lots to see. Several of the rooms were rented out by particular local artists who get to decorate the room however they choose — so the art sort of bleeds off the canvas and onto the walls, floors, and ceilings in spots. I really enjoyed that.

Next we hit a crazy antique store. Just loaded up with weird shit from the past century. I think the weirdest thing was a trio of caskets that were completely trimmed in pastel colored floral velvet. I’m not talking just about the interior here, I’m saying the whole outside of the casket was covered in velvet. And one of them was small, like for a child. They also had bowling trophies for random people, mannequins, odd furniture, old police badges, and and endless supply of kitsch. At some point we also came across several bottles of embalming fluid. The bottles had marketing copy on them with bits like “helps drain blood faster and more completely while conditioning cells!” We ended up coming to the conclusion that the store itself was a converted mortuary, and that when they bought the building, they just added the left-behind goodies to their antique collection. That would explain the weird caskets … those certainly would have been the ones that never sold.

Then we walked a little into the fair proper, which took place on these semi-commercial, semi-residential streets. I’ve actually never seen anything quite like it: aside from the normal tents and whatnot, there were people’s homes just open to the public with art on the walls. You walk into their house and look at stuff… but oops, don’t go into their kitchen. You can go in the back yard, though, where they’ve got various antiques and stuff laid out. Just a neat kind of personal public culture vibe. There were a few musicians around, and a couple of breakdance gangs battling it out on a big sheet of linoleum. I almost jumped into the fray, but Karen & Andy held me back — they didn’t want me to embarrass the other dancers with my mad skillz.

We ran into John Fanok, of Just a Little Girl fame… and also a fellow Zappos person. In addition to his prints, he created an incredibly cool miniature golf hole in the “Just a LIttle Girl” motif. The thing is pretty large — it would barely fit in your average living room. And it looks cool, featuring a partially destroyed city, which you shoot pink golf balls through. It’s got neat tunnels and ball traps and stuff like any good miniature golf course should. I guess it’s part of a local art project where a each artists makes a hole, and then they combine them into a full course at some point.

Alright… as if all this wasn’t enough. As if the night couldn’t get any better: we zipped over to Fremont Street, where we had the famous deep fried Twinkies ™ and deep fried Oreos ™ that I’ve been hearing about since I first moved to this god forsaken town. Man… that was some intense nastiness. In a good way. Sort of. The Twinkies ™ were definitely better than the Oreos ™. They’re delicious if you don’t think too much about it, and you’re in the mood for something really low class. Which describes the Fremont Street Experience pretty well anyways. Quite a contrast from the art show we were at just 30 minutes earlier. This town really does have everything. Just not in the proportions you might like.

And now I’m home in bed, happily recording my little pleasures so I don’t forget them. Good night.

Wolfang Puck’s canned soup beats the hell out Campbell’s Select and Progresso.

He sleeps with both their wives at the same time. And they know about it and they still can’t do anything about it.

That’s how good he is.

So after peaking at a 102 temperature last night, I am notably better tonight, registering only 99. That’s more or less normal. And most importantly, I feel better. If I don’t pay too close attention, I’d say I feel all better. But then I still get a stabbing head pain each time I cough, which happens pretty often: whenever I breath the least bit too deeply. So I still feel terrible, but it’s all relative: this is a wonderful terrible compared to last night’s terrible.

Mulling over whether I should go to work tomorrow… there’s a board meeting and I’m supposed to talk. If I still feel like this then it might be better if I don’t. We’ll see what another night of sleep does for me, I suppose.

About the only task I had the capacity for today was installing Final Cut Studio on my laptop. I’m a big fan of using the cheapest, simplest tool for the job. But I tried editing my latest video project on iMovie, and it just wasn’t letting me do the stuff I wanted to do. So I decided it was time to upgrade to the big league. Hopefully now I can wrap up this “latest” video project. Heh. “Latest”. I shot the footage for it in 2002. Then I didn’t touch it until last month. That’s pretty late.

Oh: and I know what my next project is. But I can only do it if I hire the right talent. I’ve put in a request…

Wow, I haven’t been meaningfully sick in a long time. But yesterday I started up with a major headache, and now I’m just cowering in bed with a fever and just feeling like crap. My eyeballs feel like they have too much fluid in them. They might pop any second like waterballoons. Too delirious to do anything useful, too achy to sleep. Bah. And I’ve been taking good care of myself recently, too.

To pass the time this morning I read all about different painkillers on Wikipedia. I should probably try a few of those about now.

And this afternoon I watched Talk To Her, which I liked. Strangely my favorite bits were the art-within-the-story bits… the opening and closing ballet, and the silent movie. Overall an excellent bit of storytelling and filmmaking. I should probably watch it again sometime when I’m not delerious, though.

Canned chili for lunch. That’s all the energy I could muster. Bleh.

So I went to LA last weekend… drove out in my little Prius, which gets about 42MPG on a trip like that. First I visted my friend Eva, who lives downtown these days. We had some groovy tamales, hit the dollar store, and picked up some excellent fresh sliced mango from a street vendor. I’m not that familiar with LA, but MacArthur park seems quite nice. Then I met her boyfriend and we took turns making fun of her. She’s a good sport.

After that I went to hang with Sophie and her family for Hogan’s first birthday… which is a super-big deal in Korean culture. Like a wedding or something. People came from all over the country, and they rented a big hall and had it catered and all that. The little kid has to choose from a bunch of stuff… a piece of yarn, a pencil, paper money… and whichever thing they choose is their fortune; long life, intelligence, riches, respectively. There may have been some other stuff but I forget. Anyways, he chose the money. Good call. Take the money kid. Long life and intelligence are overrated. Nice party, though.

Saw Brokeback Mountain with Sophie… good stuff. Heath Ledger deserves something for that. Something other than getting beat up by homophobes. Maybe an Oscar or something. Then we hit Claim Jumper for old time’s sake.

Then I cruised on back to Vegas. It’s just a little over a three hour drive. Which goes fast when I’m chatting on the phone with my Dad the whole way!

A good weekend. This weekend I’m going to try to do some responsible stuff instead. We’ll see if that goes as well.