Author: Kevin Lawver

Web developer, Software Engineer @ Gusto, Co-founder @ TechSAV, husband, father, aspiring social capitalist and troublemaker.

I used to fancy myself an artist

I used to fancy myself an artist. I considered becoming a medical illustrator, and held this dream that I could become a fantastically popular (if not talented) comic book artist. I took an advanced figure drawing class my freshman year of college, and got an A. I thought that’s what I really wanted to do. I was sure of it.

What I’ve realized in my 8 years since that year is that I’m not ever going to be a medical illustrator, or a comic book artist in any other arena than my imagination. I still doodle all over my legal pad during meetings, and every once in a while I come up with something worth looking at again. I drew this fat kid in sledding clothes dreaming of snow during a meeting one day. It’s still magnet-attached to my filing cabinet at work.

Dreams die. The dreams of children and teenagers die slow deaths in the journey to adulthood. I don’t want to be an artist now, not really.

I write code. I write code all day long. I write stuff that does fabulous things like return search results in readable formats. I’ve written calendars, message boards, file libraries, databases full of useful information and lots of other widgets and tools. I never dreamed of being a code-writer when I was a child. I wanted to be a mad scientist at one point, and I guess this is close. I love taking things and turning them into products that no one could have imagined them turning into when they were conceived (like Tcl – did you know you can do amazingly Mad things with Tcl? Bet you didn’t).

It’s my dream to build cool stuff. I dream of building the perfect tool. Someone told me of an april fool’s joke they pulled. They worked in an office of lawyers. They were the computer support guy. All the lawyers bitched and moaned about the tools they had. So, on 4/1, this guy put a big red button on everyone’s screen that said “Your Job”. That’s what I want to build… the big red Your Job button. It’ll be in Tcl… just you wait.

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Categorized as Kevin

Please, go visit The Norm!

Please, go visit The Norm! It’s a comic strip, and it’s mmm-mmm-damn good. Think “Calvin grows up”… yeah, that’s a better description than I sent to the author.

Oh yeah, one other thing. I love e-mail. In the past, I was always squeamish about sending praise to the creators of sites that I like. Why? I don’t know. I think I’m repressed. Well, recently, I’ve decided to try to counter those fears and send e-mail to those people I find on the web who do their thing and do it well. The Norm’s creator, Michael Jantze is one of those, and he answered back! So, fear nothing! Send that e-mail! Tell the people who’re doing a good job, “Yeah, you rock, keep it up!” It’ll make their day, and make your’s too.

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Categorized as funny

Attack of the Clones???? Huh?

Attack of the Clones Huh? Ok, so, the name of Star Wars Episode 2 is going to be Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. It’s apparently about the Clone Wars mentioned way back in Star Wars (you know, the one that came out first). Why not just call it Star Wars: The Clone Wars? Other than repetetive, at least it doesn’t sound like a bad Ed Wood movie, starring Jesse Helms and Trent Lott as the intrepid CloneBusters. Lucas has gone soft in the head, I swear.

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Categorized as movies

Do you have a Mac?

Do you have a Mac? If you do, and you’re not sure what to do with it, why not try Yellow Dog Linux? Consider this a testimonial. I love YellowDog! I’ve used LinuxPPC and Mandrake on my poor old Powerbook, and YellowDog is bar far the easiest to set up and use. It’s based on RedHat 7 (so it’s reasonably up-to-date) is easy to update (thanks, yup!), fairly easy to configure, and runs like a champ. You can even dual and triple boot between it, OS 9 and, if you’re crazy, OS X. Does it GET any more fun than that? I thought not.

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Categorized as linux

Did you know there are

Did you know there are only 30 Million people who live in Canada? Heck, New York could kick the whole country’s ass if they felt like it (there are ~50 million New Yorkers, state that is). That shocked me. I always thought Canada was bigger than that.

It does make one wonder about the great number of Canadians in entertainment, though, doesn’t it? Just think of the list… it’s long! From Ed Grimley to Captain Kirk, our few (well, fewer than I thought) friends from the far North have infiltrated our media product, hawking their Canuck Wares. Be wary, America, be very very wary.

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Categorized as funny

I can’t believe I never

I can’t believe I never told you about Henryk Gorecki. His Symphony Number 3 is devastatingly haunting and beautiful. Once you hear it, you’ll probably remember hearing it before. It’s one of those pieces of music they use in movies (like Fearless and Wit) in the epiphany scene, when it all becomes clear.

My friend Sean introduced me to it in High School, and now I listen to it when I need to mellow out, or am feeling like there’s nowhere else to turn. Dawn Upshaw’s pained soprano, the strings in the background – it just makes life worth living again. Go get the version with Dawn Upshaw as the soloist. There are others out there, but none of them match the beauty of that one.

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Categorized as music

I aspire to be OpenBrackets

I aspire to be OpenBrackets (not female living in France, just that good a writer). In my little world of rapid-fire technical e-mails and instant messages, I’ve forgotten how to take my time and write well. I write quickly, with the sole purpose of getting whoever it is I’m answering to leave me alone (well, mostly – not you, sweetie). Here, I want to write differently. I want to take my time and write things that can be savored, or at least read with more interest than an e-mail that will be read and then discarded to the inbox dustbin.

I’m not there, and it will take a lot of practice to get there. I’m just starting to remember that I have a voice that comes out when I write. I’d forgotten all about it. Wish me luck…

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Categorized as blogging

This one’s for the grandparents:

This one’s for the grandparents: Something else to list in the con column of being allergic to hair-bearing animals – Max LOVES dogs. The kid isn’t even two, and he’s in love with them. I took him outside for a romp (I swear that’s what he does. He doesn’t walk, he romps) after dinner. In the space between our collection of townhouses and the next, there’s a large grassy hill that Max likes to play in. He’ll roll down it, or drop small rocks through the holes in the storm drain to listen to them hit the bottom. Once he hears the clink of the pebble on the bottom, he looks up with a smile on his face and waves his cute reverse “bye-bye” wave.

Oh, wait, we were talking about the dogs. Dog , a black lab, was in his fenced backyard in the next section of townhomes. Max saw him and went toddling over to take a peek. He would stare through the slats of the fence trying to get a better look. When the dog would bark, he’d jump back and giggle like he’d just made a new friend. When the owner came and took the dog inside, Max looked around the fence for the dog, kept waving his poor little bye-bye wave, and looking up at me, asking me to bring the dog back to play. When I couldn’t, he got, well, pissed.

After he calmed down and we were back to romping up and down the sidewalk came dog number 2, a pretty golden retriever that belongs to the couple one townhouse down from us. Max intercepted them on the way back from their walk and circled that poor dog mercilessly until Max got close enough for the dog to lick Max’s fingers. Max was in toddler heaven. He had way too much fun playing with, petting and just looking at that dog. It makes me feel bad that the kid probably won’t get one… so there.

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Categorized as Max