The obligatory anniversary.
Tuesday, May 14th, 1996
I started Positively Atlanta Georgia a year ago April, I think (I notice that the archives of old ramblings actually starts with May 1st, 1995, but reads as if there were an installment or two before that. (Also notice that in the May 1st version I was all excited about my new video camera, which, as constant readers know, is now Gone With The Wind. And to further digress, on Sunday morning we found out that the Margaret Mitchell house–the apartment building a dozen blocks from here she called ‘the dump’ where GWTW was written, was, in mid-restoration, again burned to the ground by arsonists. Remind me not to mess with real estate developers in this town.)
I think doing something like this web page stuff is fun only if it doesn’t become an obligation. But, as Sammy points out, I seem to think that life is only fun if it isn’t an obligation. This is probably something close to a Major Character Flaw. Similarly, it’s probably bad form to be working on one’s web page when a paying client is tapping their collective foot, waiting for fine television graphics delivered fresh via Federal Express, but again, that’s precisely what I’m doing.
Hey, wait, I can rationalize this. Maybe I’m just, uh, mustering energy for an afternoon of logo-flying. Yeah, that’s it. It takes a certain amount of stamina, and energy, and, um, well, maybe, creativity to do this stuff well&emdash;and I always said that I wanted to do this stuff well above all else.
I’d also like to do life ‘well,’ whatever that means. Much of what it means is getting up and accomplishing tasks, crossing them off a big scary list that sits on the kitchen table. I just wish the list didn’t contain things like ‘check pawn shops to see if stolen merchandise showed up’ or ‘call Delta again about lost/stolen bag from our New Orleans trip.’ It’s easy to develop an aversion to even looking at one’s to-do list when you know there’s a bunch of unpalatable stuff on it.
Sam’s right. Obligations.
Hey, if you’re not in Atlanta, or even if you are, the folks at the Cox media empire (that would be WSB television and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) have been nice enough to install a whole new raft of cameras on the web that give you a real-time look at our fair city, called Cams Across Atlanta. We’re kind of off to the right of the Carter Center cam and off to the left of the WSB-TV cam. We’ll have that live camera to our back yard hooked up to the web, uh, right, yeah, real soon now.
For the guys at NPR’s Car Talk, ‘our fair city’ is Cambridge, Mass. No matter, they’ve installed a web site that is the holy grail of WWW: both useful and hilarious. The useful part (clearly labeled ‘virtually useful data’) comes from a huge database of car recalls, crash test results, and service bulletins. I just selected ‘1985 Honda Accord’ from the menus and whammo, more data on my car than I would have believed, and yes, it’s free. Nice guys, these.
I’d like to report to you on the Ohio University Post reunion, a reassembly of folks from my college paper, but I wasn’t there. Obligations, you know. Nancy was there, though and said it was a modest good time.
And I wish I had more time to tell you about some of the other sites I’ve stumbled upon recently, like the Encyclopedia Brady, or Ed’s Ill Celebrity Server, or the page of yet another talented writer I went to college with, but I really’ve got to get back to work.
Obligations, you know.
I’m much obliged to you for making your way through this ramble. Enjoy your week(s).
