Henry Rose

So I’ve got my lovely little 12″ powerbook G4 that I’ve adored since the day it fell into my hands two years ago. The machine has worked beautifully for me, even more so after I upped the memory from 256 to 768.

A few months ago I travelled to Utah to go skiing with the family. While I was goofing off on the internet in my hotel room my little powerbook froze up solid. After a couple weeks of hemming and hawing about it I gave in and re-installed the operating system, thus losing all the data I had on the computer.

This same thing happened to me two weeks ago when I was at my brother’s wedding in Connecticut. When I got back home i took it in to the friendly Mac Store here in Seattle. They told me the machine was out of warranty but that for $150 they could do a rushed diagnosis. Even though i knew it was not in fact out of warranty i told them to go ahead.

I called Apple and they were fairly decent about fixing the warranty issues, but said it would take a couple of days. It’s now been a week and when i checked online they’re little AJAX tool told me i was good to go. But then when i called the Mac Store back they said their system showed I still have no warranty. Bastards. And of course now their little AJAX tool is broken so i can’t even prove to myself that i did infact see proof that i’m good to go.

Two years ago i was commuting from my home in Fremont to the University of Washington where i was both going to school and working. I was living an urban dream, a short walk down the hill took me to a bus stop where i had my pick of busses that would get me where i wanted to go.

But then i got tired of waiting. I didn’t like planning my morning around that 8:06 bus which i would frequently miss by just a few seconds, throwing the rest of my day back by 10 or 15 minutes. I got tired of long walks home if i was out after the busses stopped running. And if i ever wanted to stray from my normal haunts, i’d have to find other bus routes.

The bus was dictating where i went and when i’d go there. Sure, i could drive … but parking is a nightmare, traffic is worse and those late night outings? Well let’s just say they wouldn’t have been as fun if i had to drive home.

So one weekend when i was taking care of the parents dogs i went out to the garage and grabbed dad’s old bike. I tried to take it for a spin but the gears just grinded and clicked and through off the chain. Not to be defeated i took the bike in to Recycled Cycles and had them fix it up.

I remember quite vividly walking down to the bike shop after work on the day my bike was to be finished. I’d ridden the bus in but was prepared to ride a bike home, a frightening 2 mile journey. I was honestly nervous, would i make it home? Would i have to stop and push the damn thing up the hill coming home?

Well i got on the bike and started what was, in retrospect, a slow and sweaty journey home. But it was glorious. I’d never travelled through the city with the wind in my hair like that. I could hear people conversations, i could see the urban wildlife and more than anything else i could do it on my own schedule.

I plodded back and fourth on that heavy old mountain bike for a few months (Route from Bikely. I learned some alternate routes and got comfortable moving around between fremont and the university, back and forth.

By summer i had gained the strength and confidence to wander off this path. I started riding father, for fun exercise and exercise.

One day my brother called and told me he was doing the STP and thought i should come along. While sure… i’d learned to move between my neighborhoods of choice, i wasn’t to sure i could move between the cities of the pacific northwest. But i rode and i rode and i trained and trained and when the time came i piloted that big heavy beast the 204 miles between here and Portland. And when i got off that bike it was glorious.

The next fall i sold my car. I rode my bike in the wind, rain and even the snow this winter. I found a group of nutjobs to ride with that took me all over the city.

Next time: Tips for you to Move by Bicycle.

So i started my first “career job” a couple weeks back as an independent web contractor. I’m currently working for LUX Media doing XHTML/CSS layouts and then connecting them to the the content management system we use (cmsms).

My biggest fear going into this was that my technical skills would not be up to snuff, but so far i’m doing just fine in that regard. I am very happy that i bought and read Andy Budd’s book CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

Thus far the only realy problem is that i haven’t gotten paid. But that’ just because i don’t know if they’re just going to hand me a check, or it’s going to come in the mail or what. I invoiced them and they acknowledged it. I’m going to have to learn more about taxes as an independent contractor. But for the meantime i just know i have to save some to give to the man at the end of the quarter.