Inside The Perimeter

One, Two, Out
I was set to enjoy Over the Rhine at Eddie’s Attic last night. I purchased a ticket for the “9:00pm” show, which I didn’t realize meant that doors would open at 9:00pm and the show would start at 9:30pm. The reason I chose the late show was to avoid the hassle of trying to navigate traffic from my Perimeter-area office to Decatur in order to make it to the early show.

I should have followed my rule “When there are two shows always attend the first.”

I arrived in Decatur around 8:20pm and felt fortunate to find a free parking space near Twain’s. With not nearly enough time (so I thought) to eat and enjoy a beer somewhere other than Eddie’s Attic I decided to head straight to Eddie’s and relax before the show. When I arrived at Eddie’s I was surprised to see it rather crowded, in fact so crowded that I couldn’t find a table at which to sit and eat, or even a stool at the bar. I did manage to find a chair and decided that I’d do a little iPhone surfing until the doors opened for my show.

As I sat there people continued to stream into the building. Over time I realized that, even though I had a pre-purchased ticket, I should talk to the guy at the door. This was somewhat smart as I discovered (a bit late) that he was putting names on a list in order to organize entry into the music space; I landed at number sixteen.

As the 9:00pm hour drew closer we were informed that the first show started “15-20 minutes late” and that our show would be pushed back. More people arrive crowding the already crowded space.

Do you know that Eddie’s has one way in and one way out? Do you know that when you have a roomful of people trying to leave by navigating a roomful of people waiting to get in to the space they’re vacating that everything becomes a royal clusterfuck? You do now.

When the time finally arrived for my group to enter the music room the table purchasers were called to enter first (I suppose they are the First Class / Medallion Guests for Eddie’s) and then the Coach Class were called in the order they appeared on the list. Remember, I was number sixteen; this did not mean that I was the sixteenth person, it meant I was the sixteenth name. By the time I was allowed entrance there weren’t many great places left to sit, in fact I was further ticked off that Eddie’s sold their middle-counter stools as “tables” thus blocking my ability to take one of those seats. I took one of the remaining stools at the bar, was almost immediately crushed into the corner, and then proceeded to watch people come in and stand in front of me obscuring any view that I had of the stage.

I won’t go as far as to say that Eddie’s illegally oversold the show, but they certainly sold too many tickets to make the evening comfortable and enjoyable for all.

After two song’s worth of trying to crane to see the stage while also trying to avoid having food dropped on my as the staff weaved their way delivering food to other customers I relinquished my stool at the bar. With virtually no place left to stand, I decided that having a good time was a lost cause and that I’d leave. Two songs.

“When there are two shows always attend the first.”

ITP Flickr Pic
One of my (many) shots from Sunday’s autocross.

This is not one of the many shots that I consider to be a failure.

The Tax Woman Cometh
Another factor for my early departure last night was the fact that I have a 10:00am meeting with my tax preparer today. Another reason I chose the late show last night was because I knew that I wouldn’t be heading in to work early, and figured that I’d have all of my tax paperwork gathered and ready to go well before today. To say that I am both unprepared and extremely fearful that I’ll be writing big tax checks this year based on some financial moves I made last year is an understatement.

I shan’t whine about my financial situation. Knock on wood I’ve not missed a mortgage payment in the eleven years of living in my house, and I’ve enjoyed enough financial freedom to do things like take up photography as a hobby.

I will whine about the amount of taxes we are forced to pay (they will be going up in the future, mark my word) especially given the lack of services I feel I get for my tax dollar. I also whine about the fact that filing taxes is such a royal pain in the ass. Seriously, FairTax may seem like an oxymoron but it’s time for us to head in that direction. Of course I realize that the people who’d have to enact such a change would never benefit from this change, so it’ll never happen in my lifetime.

A Week With Safari May Be A Week Too Much
My frustrations with TextExpander not consistently working with the latest version of Firefox has led me to make an effort to break free from Firefox for the first time since I started using it years ago.

It seems counterintuitive that I’d throw away the browser based on another piece of software, doesn’t it? I mean, TextExpander is the problem child, why not replace it? Well, because I’ve paid for TextExpander, have become reliant on its functionality, and know of no replacement for its functionality on the Mac.

I’ve currently switched to Apple’s Safari browser. While nearly feature-compatible to Firefox it does have a couple of huge quirks features which may have my running in horror by as quickly as today.

Safari is a multi-tabbed browser, so when you click on a link it will open the page in a new tab, right? Nope, it opens a whole new window which is a royal pain in the ass when working on a 13″ laptop. In order to open a link in a new tab one must “command-click” (formerly known as “apple-click”). The likelihood that I’ll retrain myself to “command-click” instead of just clicking is very low.

Safari likes to ignore some user configuration. There are buttons in the toolbar that I reordered. To my surprise and dismay the next time I launched Safari my button ordering had be replaced by Safari’s default order.

Safari is also a bit of a resource hog. I use my browser a lot, often with many tabs. Even with 4GB installed in my machine I can’t afford to let my browser run roughshod over my memory.

Only time will tell if I’ll adopt Safari as my go-to browser. However as of right now my Magic 8-Ball answer would be “Not likely.”

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – Extremely nervous that I’ll be writing big tax checks this year. Oh well, water under the bridge…
Current Music – listening to the “Mac Geeks Gab” podcast
Website Of The Day – Dipity is a really interesting way to present world events using a pictorial timeline.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – situps, 20 (hey, it’s better than none)
Morning Weigh-In – hadn’t checked by the time this blog was written
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 8 (8)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 7
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]