Recent Brushes with Fame (Kind of)

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Moose

Some nights it’s faster to walk home from the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station than it is to wait for the train, so that’s what I did Monday. As I walked by a slightly unkempt, middle-aged man limping with a cane near 3rd and Mass Ave NW, he very nearly jumped in surprise away from me. “You okay?” I asked, and he replied, “Sorry, you startled me, can’t be too careful at night in this part of DC.”

It turned out he was the feature photographer for Street Sense. We talked at length as we walked, about photography, homelessness, mathematics, philosophy, and life as a homeless black man getting back on his feet. He called himself Moose, and he’d had a rich history here in Washington. I’ll have to make sure to look out for his photos in the next paper.

Manno

Yesterday, I was trawling (not trolling) through Craigslist for a cheap DVD player, and found one being sold by a guy who turned out to be the [now-former] Assistant Director for Team Development, Nats Minor League Operations. Not anything huge, but still pretty cool to meet up with someone closely connected to our local baseball team — and buy his DVD player. Now I don’t need to shuttle my iBook between the computer desk and the TV table anymore.

Some Kid Stuff

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A few updates on children who in various ways are connected to this weblog:

  • The Delgados’ preemie weblog had a bit of a Blogger glitch, so “Pray for Alicia” has moved to Call Me Alicia. Alicia herself is doing well.
  • Margaret, who was born on my birthday, is two. TWO.
  • Now What Cat sent me this update on Pyro and Batista: “The latest is that Jessica Soho has already interviewed the boy and is going to be referred to the Kapuso Foundation. The wife of Batista is also a cancer survivor and she is arranging that her husband could meet Pyro.” More on Pyro here; things are not looking too good at the moment.

On the “1812 Overture” as Lengthy Instrumental Prelude to “Danny Boy”

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In my “Assorted Classical” iTunes playlist (a haphazardly arranged collection of single tracks and downloads which stand alone or can’t be bothered to join with their parent works), Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture immediately precedes The Celtic Tenors’ rendition of Danny Boy. The two pieces are performed in the same key, and start with almost the same three notes, such that, with just the right amount of audio crossfade, the 1812 Overture sounds like a grand, lengthy introduction to Danny Boy. It is quite a funny effect, especially when heard with cannons, which is really the only proper way to listen to 1812. I’m sure Danny Boy would benefit from some cannons as well.

FBCDC Fall Festival 2006

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Update: It was a great day and a fun festival, plus I scored some amazing 19th Century artifacts at the book sale (more on that soon). Photos of the festival here. The band is The Beanstalk Library.

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First Baptist DC Fall Festival This is where I’m going to be all day today. I’ve been on the planning committee for the past month or so, and it’ll be great to finally get to the event itself. In fact, I’m running late to pre-festival setup just to post this. For you!

So, if you’re in the neighborhood (Dupont Circle / 17th Street area), come on over. I hear word on the street that the new Dunkin’ on 17th will be there with free donuts and coffee. We’ll also have a local farm setting up a table to sell organic produce, the youth are doing a bake sale, and we’re hauling up a bunch of books from the basement to sell cheap. Live music, too. Oh, and a moon bounce for the kids (or “bouncy castle,” as they call it in England). And hay bales. Can’t have a fall festival without hay bales. (Would you believe we almost rented a sno-cone machine with the moon bounce? Fortunately cooler heads prevailed. Get it? Cooler? Haw haw!)

Um, so, yeah. 17th and O Streets NW, then. Festival runs 10am to 3pm. See you there.

Thirty

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Thirty.jpg Here is a mobile self-portrait of me on the Metro. I’m thirty years old today, and I celebrated this morning with a giant breakfast of sausages and eggs and hash browns and toast and coffee at the Billy Goat, followed by a trip to the DC DMV to get my ID renewed. I’ve cooked up a nice big pot of adobo, and tonight Amy and I are going to dine on it with some rice and broccoli and lemon-cilantro tomato (a suitable substitute in the absence of green mangoes and bagoong) while watching campy classic Star Trek episodes from my TOS DVD set. It’s cold now; a front passing through last night dropped temperatures from the 70s down to the 40s, with freeze warnings tonight, and snow up in Chicago and Buffalo. Perfect weather for adobo and arroz caldo and curling up in bed with a warm cat.

Gifts received so far: ESV Reformation Study Bible from Amy. Firefly and Ultimate Manilow from Martin. This list will be updated as further loot rolls in. If you have not given me a birthday present and wish to assuage your guilt at this grievous omission, press this button:

The Story So Far

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It felt good to be doing some editing again, I must say. This is a disjointed chronicle of my recent life, made with leftover video footage thrown together in iMovie. Music is Satie’s Gymnopédie, funny dancing guy is Tag, guy getting coffee is Woody, island is Verde Island in Dec 2004. Watch out for the “there’s always a bigger fish” moment. Aged film effect is mostly used just to hide jaggy video from my mobile phone’s video recorder.

Jopogo

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Jopogo At the start of this year, I went part-time with my current employer so as to get time to launch Jopogo, my independent web design and development venture. Concurrent with the lead-up to this decision, I bought a work desktop machine, signed up for a new web hosting account, read up on small business tax matters, registered a business name with the DCRA as a sole proprietor, and struck up a working partnership with Mike on my last trip to the Philippines.

As you can see from the links in the sidebar, I haven’t made a secret of it or anything, but I told myself I would get a few clients under my belt and settle into a steady income stream before I actually announced it here on HNBP. Suddenly, it’s ten months later, and here I am, with a few clients under my belt and managing to tread water income-wise. I’m not going to post an “X Things I Learned as a Newbie Entrepreneur” entry, as that’s been done by others, but I’ll say this: these last ten months have driven home just how important it is for an entrepreneur to be utterly fanatical about his business and the products or services he offers.

So yeah, here’s the official announcement. Jopogo is open for business, and has been for the last ten months. “We do web stuff.” I need a more original tagline.

Rained Out of RFK

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Steve and I (and our respective significant others) were at RFK last night to watch the Nats/Phillies game, but after a few hotdogs and an hour of waiting, we figured it would be called, and left before the rain got any harder. It wasn’t a wasted trip; I’d never been to RFK before, and I got a few nice photos.

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(The game did push through later, but I don’t think we could have waited till 11:30 pm anyway. Nats won.)