Joe Kissell » Bricolage http://joekissell.com Everything you need to know about Joe Kissell Mon, 14 May 2012 13:14:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 What I Did in 2011 http://joekissell.com/2011/12/31/what-i-did-in-2011/ http://joekissell.com/2011/12/31/what-i-did-in-2011/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:59:23 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/?p=2293

I don’t have many end-of-year customs, but every December 31, without fail, I indulge in at least a few hours of self-pity as I think about all my unmet goals from the previous year, all the unfinished projects I promised myself would be behind me, and the enormous backlog of work I have confronting me on January 2. Although I don’t make resolutions as such, every year I plan to manage my schedule better so this doesn’t happen again. But despite my best efforts, every year I seem to fall further behind. I reflect on the things that went wrong—all the unexpected illnesses, glitches, and interruptions that cost me days or weeks of work—and feel as though the last 12 months have surely been the least productive ever.

As a partial antidote to this useless and self-defeating frame of mind, I decided two years ago to look back carefully and figure out exactly what I did manage to accomplish that year. It turned out that What I Did in 2009 was a lot more than I’d thought, and that made me feel a bit better. So I did the same thing last year, and sure enough, What I Did in 2010 was, if not everything I’d hoped for, more than enough to make me feel like I was a responsible citizen, worker, husband, and father. So I’ve decided to institutionalize this exercise and make it an annual event—at least until that hypothetical point in the future when I’m so completely caught up and together that it wouldn’t occur to me to feel my efforts had been lacking. As if!

Here, then, is what I remember accomplishing in 2011:

I also spent quite a bit of time doing non-work-related stuff:

I even managed to keep my family fed, clothed, sheltered, and reasonably content—that’s probably the biggest feat of all!

I wouldn’t be so foolish as to make any proclamations about how much better 2012 is going to be. All I can say is, my hopes, plans, and goals remain as ambitious as always, and now I have yet another chance to make good on them. Here we go!

Happy New Year!

]]> http://joekissell.com/2011/12/31/what-i-did-in-2011/feed/ 5 The Dave and Sarah Effect http://joekissell.com/2011/08/25/the-dave-and-sarah-effect/ http://joekissell.com/2011/08/25/the-dave-and-sarah-effect/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:09:36 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/2011/08/25/the-dave-and-sarah-effect/

Morgen, Soren, and I recently moved to a new apartment here in Paris. We owe our success to Dave and Sarah—something we could also say about our last move, three years ago, except it was a different Dave and Sarah then. The story only gets weirder from there.

Moves are always traumatic, and even though I’ve been through the process enough times that I should have it down to a science, this particular move stands out as being the most tiring and involved ever. For a variety of reasons, I thought this latest move of less than two miles away from our old home was considerably more difficult than moving from San Francisco to Paris! But as painful as the moving process itself can be, one of the most stressful parts of any move is finding a new home. In this city where housing prices are high and competition is fierce, we had the additional disadvantages of being foreigners, not being fluent in French, and not having conventional jobs—all of which makes potential landlords wary of us.

We found our first Paris apartment online, before leaving the U.S. It was a perfectly nice place—furnished, spacious, and conveniently located—but expensive. After nearly a year we were feeling like we should be able to live more cheaply, and started looking around for a new place. We were hoping to have a fairly relaxed moving schedule, but then our landlord told us that he’d be selling the place as soon as our lease was up, so we were obligated to find a new apartment in a hurry.

Weeks went by, and we weren’t having much luck. Then our friends Dave and Sarah announced that they’d decided to move back to Canada. We had met Dave and Sarah at a Paris Expat Canadian Meetup event here, and within just a few months they’d become some of our closest friends in Paris. We were extremely sad to see them go, but when we realized their apartment would suddenly be vacant, we asked if just maybe they could put in a good word for us with their landlord and spare us further apartment-hunting agony. And that’s exactly what happened. Thanks to their glowing recommendation, we were offered the lease on their old place. Everything about the arrangement was fantastic—the apartment was smaller but in an even better location, and the rent was about 500 euros less per month than we’d been paying! And our new landlord, Alexis, was one of the nicest people we’d ever met. He didn’t make us jump through all the usual hoops to which Paris renters are often subject, and throughout our entire stay there we got along splendidly.

Fast forward three years. After Soren was born, we’d started feeling increasingly cramped in our two-room apartment—and as he became more mobile, our discomfort grew. We started talking about moving again, but given the number of other tasks on our plates, we’d decided that we wouldn’t start looking in earnest until the fall. Then, around the end of April, Alexis called to say he was going to be selling the apartment (hmmm—where had I heard that before?), so we’d have to be out by the beginning of August. Once again, we quickly shifted our priorities to make apartment hunting number one.

We searched and searched, but even after a month we had no solid leads. There were very few apartments that were both spacious enough and inexpensive enough for our needs, and every time we thought we found one, something bizarre happened to take it out of the running. Several times we tried to make appointments to see apartments advertised by rental agencies, only to be told after weeks of back-and-forth discussions that, for inexplicable reasons, the landlord couldn’t make arrangements with the current tenants to schedule a viewing. One lead was especially promising—an offer to take over the lease of a long-time tenant and also buy a bunch of appliances and furnishings for a song. But the old tenant kept changing the date for our viewing, and when we finally saw the apartment, weeks after it had first been planned, she informed us that another couple had just submitted their dossier and would therefore be given first choice. Grrrr!

As our desperation increased, we decided to spam pretty much everyone we know in Paris just to see if they knew of any apartments that might work for us. Almost immediately we got an email from a friend of ours named Dave. We had met this Dave and his wife Sarah at—you guessed it—the Canadian Meetup, a few months after our old friends Dave and Sarah had left town. Not only were both couples Canadian, but both of the Daves work in computers, and both of the Sarahs have given birth within the last six months. What are the chances? Well, Dave #2 said that his boss, Christophe, had an apartment for rent that might be just what we’re looking for, and he’d be happy to make the introduction. He did, and although it required several weeks, a few meetings, and some negotiations, we eventually signed the lease on that apartment. Like our last one, it’s much more affordable than what we could have found on the open market, and once again, the personal connection meant that it was much easier to convince the landlord of our worthiness as tenants than if we had been complete strangers.

So: two consecutive apartments in Paris came to us (three years apart) thanks to Canadian couples named Dave and Sarah, after the owners of the previous apartments decided to sell. I’m simply agog at the sheer improbability of all this, and in fact I’ve left out half a dozen other odd little coincidences that reinforce the curiosity. If I were the sort of person who believed in cosmic signs, I’d have to say this is a mighty striking one, although I couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be a sign of. I find it noteworthy, though, that my life frequently exhibits patterns like this—at a certain distance, from a certain angle, I can see these forms that are as symmetrical, elegant, and puzzling as crop circles. I don’t know what they mean, but they sure are pretty to look at.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2011/08/25/the-dave-and-sarah-effect/feed/ 3 The Nisus Temporal Vortex http://joekissell.com/2011/07/09/the-nisus-temporal-vortex/ http://joekissell.com/2011/07/09/the-nisus-temporal-vortex/#comments Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:59:12 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/?p=2223

A curious confluence of events has occurred.

Recently, I wrote a review of Nisus Writer Pro 2.0 for TidBITS in which I made the point that this new version finally restores much of what the Nisus Writer of the mid-1990s lost during the transition to Mac OS X. And, I said that being able to do real work in this outstanding application feels like coming home again after years of wandering in the wilderness. I also mentioned, in a different context, that “I remained in Nisus’s gravitational pull” for a long time. But as it turns out, it’s more than that. I appear to be caught in a full-on Nisus temporal vortex.

Last night I downloaded a copy of Marathon for iPad. Mac gamers with a nostalgic streak remember Marathon as being a great, early first-person shooter. I remember it as being the game that all the guys at Nisus would play on the company’s network after hours. I was never much of a gamer, but I played Marathon (rather poorly) for the social interaction, which conveniently required no actual human contact. When I think of Marathon, I think of my years working at Nisus. That it should come out at just the time I’m able to start using Nisus Writer again felt mildly significant.

But then things got more interesting. Today, Morgen, Soren, and I had lunch with Rev. Heng Sure, a Buddhist monk I met while I was working at Nisus. (He happened to be in Paris for a special event and invited us to stop by for a visit.) The story is this. Back in 1996, I was planning a trip to Berkeley to give a talk at the Berkeley Mac User Group (BMUG) about Nisus Writer, since I’d just written a book about it (The Nisus Way). A fax arrived at Nisus with my name on it, from this mysterious fellow in Berkeley named Heng Sure. He explained that he was a Buddhist monk, that he’d enjoyed reading my book on Nisus Writer, that he’d heard I was going to be in Berkeley, and that he was hoping I might be persuaded to stop by the monastery for a cup of tea so he could meet me and get my autograph. The fax included his email address, so I decided to email him back to say sure, I’d be happy to.

A day or two later I received this reply:

Subject:     surely this is a test
Sent:        8/22/96 8:37 PM
Received:    8/22/96 9:08 PM
From:        Rev. Heng Sure, paramita@sirius.com
To:          Joe Kissell, joe@nisus-soft.com

Joe,
Your message was tantalizing, with the by-line "your fax", then the 
body of the message completely blank. Being a monk of the Ch'an (Zen) 
school, I first assumed that you were making a statement about 
sunyata, the ultimate hollow core at the heart of all conditioned, 
component things. Then I reflected that not everybody is a Zen master, 
and perhaps you simply hit delete command-x instead of paste command-c? 
It was still blank. I figured it must be a test of my sincerity. Did I 
really want to attend your talk at BMUG?

That option left me still hungry to know your reaction to my message, 
which is where I remain, bemused, and unenlightened about your visit to 
Berkeley. So relying on your compassion, may I request a repeat of your 
message to my fax? If it turns up blank again, I will put my palms 
together, and contemplate the void at the heart of binary reality, as 
you so instruct. :->

Peace in the Dharma,

Heng Sure

I think that was the best email message I’ve ever received. I wrote back, we made the appropriate arrangements, and long story short, I’ve been pleased to count Heng Sure as a friend ever since. (I have more great stories about him, which I may share at some point in the future.)

Anyway, I hadn’t seen him since his last visit to Paris, almost four years ago. So it was great to catch up. During the course of our discussion he asked me if I’d heard about the album he put out in 2008. He said that besides selling it on iTunes and CD Baby, he was making the MP3 files available free to anyone who performed an act of kindness and wrote to tell him about it. That seemed like a nice idea, but when I went to the Web site, I had some problems. I wrote to tell him about them:

I went to your Web site (http://www.dharmaradio.org/paramita/) and 
tried to click both of the "Acts of Kindness" links. The one at the 
top of the page pointed to http://media.berkeleymonastery.org/paramita/ 
and that said "Server Error 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied." The one 
at the bottom of the page pointed to http://www.dharmatreasure.org/
paramita, which told me "Sorry, there's no such page." And, when I click 
the iTunes link on the "Purchase CD" page I get an error message from 
Apple! I just thought I should inform you about those so you can see 
about repairing the links...unless this is an exercise in contemplating 
emptiness, in which case, it's a novel approach that I quite 
appreciate :-). Meanwhile, I did a manual search for your album on iTunes 
and made a $9.99 donation. Downloading now!

I think that’s the appropriate way to complete the circle. Or more likely, it just keeps on spinning.

(By the way, there is a real, functioning iTunes link if you look hard enough.)

]]> http://joekissell.com/2011/07/09/the-nisus-temporal-vortex/feed/ 0 What I Did in 2010 http://joekissell.com/2011/01/01/what-i-did-in-2010/ http://joekissell.com/2011/01/01/what-i-did-in-2010/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 21:17:18 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/?p=1915

It’s now less than 24 hours into 2011, and I already feel hopelessly behind. My list of tasks that absolutely, positively, without any question or wiggle room whatsoever, had to be done by the end of 2010—and are in fact not yet done—is agonizingly long. So I’ll be spending the first part of 2011 catching up with all that stuff, putting me that much further behind on all the incredibly urgent things that have to happen this year. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but to be honest, I have a feeling that even “Polish off my 2010 list” is too ambitious a goal for 2011. That makes me feel kind of, you know, unhappy.

On December 31, 2009, I wrote up a little post here called What I Did in 2009. As I explained in that post, I did it as a sort of therapeutic exercise to help me overcome the disappointment of unfinished tasks and unrealized goals at the time, and the feeling that the year had been woefully underproductive. It worked so well I decided to do the same thing this year. Maybe I’ll make it an annual tradition.

So here we go—what I accomplished in 2010:

I also spent quite a bit of time doing non-work-related stuff:

That’s a long list—but then, in 2009 I did a similar number of things plus wrote a 900-page book on Mac security. On the other hand, Morgen and I have the cutest baby in the world, and I am not one to exaggerate. And I find that playing with our baby (or, to be honest, even changing poopy diapers while he’s screaming his head off) is about 37.5 times more fun than writing that book was. So there’s that. Also, as is my custom, I ate large quantities of chocolate, which makes me feel a whole lot better. And I would have ended the year with an empty inbox if a couple of people hadn’t sent me messages right before midnight that I was really not going to interrupt my movie watching, wine drinking, and family time to deal with. (It’s empty now.)

In just over a week I turn 44. Back when I turned 30, I predicted that my 40s would be my decade of wealth and influence. I’ve made some meaningful strides in that direction, but I can now say I’m actively cultivating a plan to make that a reality. This could be a very big year indeed, but if I’m too distracted by the smiles and giggles of my wonderful son to achieve fame and fortune in the next 12 months, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world either.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2011/01/01/what-i-did-in-2010/feed/ 2 Having Our Baby in France http://joekissell.com/2010/01/13/having-our-baby-in-france/ http://joekissell.com/2010/01/13/having-our-baby-in-france/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:38:35 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/?p=1518

When Morgen and I announced that we’re expecting a baby, we were surprised and somewhat baffled at the large number of people who almost immediately asked, “So, are you going to have the baby in France?” That seems like such a silly question that I almost don’t want to dignify it with an answer, but I think that the frequency with which we’ve been asked and the strength of our reactions both say interesting things about what people assume.

Before I go any further, let me be completely clear and unambiguous. Yes, we’re going to have the baby in France!

I’ve been trying to think of a good analogy for how this question sounds to us. It’s almost like asking, “Do you mean to tell me that after everything you went through to get this job, and all the long hours you put in at work, you’re actually going to accept a paycheck from your employer?” That seems so nonsensical that I can’t fathom why anyone would ask, except to make a joke. But clearly the people asking whether we plan to experience childbirth in France aren’t kidding!

On a few occasions, I’ve inquired as to what prompted this question, and at other times I’ve had to make educated guesses. Although I don’t entirely understand this phenomenon yet, I’ve been able to piece together a few common threads.

But I Knew Someone…
A couple of times, people have mentioned to me that they knew (or knew of) a pregnant woman who was living overseas but who came back to North America to have her baby, and apparently this is a frequent enough occurrence that it’s built up some sort of precedent in the collective unconscious. I imagine the thinking goes, “If so-and-so did it, then she must have had a very good reason, and since you’re smart, you probably know what that reason is and will therefore do the same thing.”

Surely some significant percentage of these women had extenuating circumstances. Maybe they were living abroad on a short-term basis anyway, and felt this was a logical reason to curtail their stay. Perhaps they were living in underdeveloped areas with poor medical facilities and were uncomfortable with the associated risks. Or maybe their situation was such that there was an important legal, financial, or logistical reason not to stay put when they gave birth. I can’t say, but since women have successfully given birth in all parts of the world for many millennia, it seems to me that flying to another country for the occasion would be a rare exception, rather than the rule! (Besides, even if we did want to do so for some reason, we couldn’t afford to—but more on that in a moment.)

The Homing Instinct
One reason people ask if we’re staying here to have the baby—and, undoubtedly, the main reason many women return to their country of origin to give birth—is the expectation that a woman will naturally want to be at home, and ideally surrounded by family and friends, when she delivers and in the early months of motherhood. That’s certainly reasonable as far as it goes, but it rubs us the wrong way because it implies that France isn’t our home!

We moved to France in mid-2007, and we’ve lived here ever since. I understand that some people move to another country temporarily or experimentally, leaving what they regard as their “real” homes behind, but we have no home other than our Paris apartment. If we ever were to move back to North America, it wouldn’t be a matter of going home, but instead of finding a new home. Although I don’t categorically rule out the possibility of doing that some day, the fact is that we’re happy here now, and see no compelling need to move anywhere else in the foreseeable future. So, we very much do want to be near home during and after the birth, and that doesn’t require us to go anywhere!

Of course, even though we’ve made lots of good friends here in Paris, it’s true that most of our family members, and older friends, will be inconveniently located on other continents. We’ll miss having them here (as we always do) and very much hope to arrange visits in one direction or the other (hint!) as soon as we can. But those relationships didn’t prevent us from moving here in the first place, and we think of this special event as just another part of our lives that, unfortunately, we can’t share with all of our loved ones.

Citizenship
Other people worry about citizenship. I’m an American; Morgen is Canadian by birth but also has U.S. citizenship. If our child is born abroad, our friends worry, will he or she be able to be an American and/or Canadian citizen? Yes, absolutely. Although laws regarding citizenship vary from one country to the next, the general principle is that a child inherits the parents’ citizenship(s). In some cases, the child also acquires citizenship of the country in which he or she is born, if different. In our particular circumstances, U.S. citizenship for the child will be automatic, and Canadian citizenship more or less a formality. (According to legislation passed recently in Canada, a child born outside the country to a Canadian parent can have Canadian citizenship but can’t pass that citizenship on to his or her own children, unless they’re born inside Canada.)

French citizenship is a bit trickier. Since we’re not French citizens, the child isn’t automatically French, but can obtain citizenship at the parents’ request, if still resident in France, at age 13. (That’s just one path, however; see other options also exist.) So, in theory, our child could eventually have citizenship in three countries. Apart from having to deal with a considerable amount of paperwork, juggling passports, and the irritation of potentially not being able to pass on Canadian citizenship to a future generation, I see nothing to worry about there. (In fact, quite the reverse: if we want our child to have the option of French citizenship, giving birth here is certainly the simplest way to get it! And we do think that’s a tremendous advantage.)

In fact, I can think of only one notable way in which we as expatriate parents may be limiting our child’s future options by giving birth here in France. As things currently stand, one cannot become President of the United States unless born on U.S. soil (even if born to American parents and therefore a U.S. citizen from birth). I’ve always found this rule somewhat baffling, and one occasionally hears talk about a movement to relax it. (For example, when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California, he tried for some time to build support for changing the rules so that he could one day run for President, but the effort failed to generate much public enthusiasm.) I wish I could say I will feel very sorry about imposing this career limitation on our offspring, but I think other potential occupations are sufficiently numerous and interesting that none of us need lose any sleep over the matter.

Insurance and Healthcare
Yet another reason for asking us this question, and the one that leaves me most puzzled, is the idea that having our baby in France somehow puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to healthcare. Nothing could be further from the truth!

First of all, there’s the minor matter of health insurance. In a nutshell: we have it here, but we don’t have it (and couldn’t, at this point, get it) in the United States. Perhaps that would be immaterial to someone with enough cash to pay for expensive medical procedures out of their own pockets, but that’s not us!

Like most people in France, we’re enrolled in the national health insurance program, l’Assurance Maladie (a part of the country’s social security system); we also have a mutuelle, or third-party “top-up” plan that pays for pretty much anything not covered by the standard insurance (such as a private room at the hospital). None of this is free; a considerable percentage of our income goes to pay for our health coverage. But it’s less expensive, on the whole, than what we paid in the United States for private health insurance. And crucially, the whole notion that one may be denied insurance coverage, or lose existing coverage, due to a preexisting condition or treatment that turned out to be inconveniently expensive, is utterly unknown here. Nor do French people worry that they’ll encounter sudden, massive increases in their insurance rates or bump into an arbitrary cap on benefits.

But back in the States, we’d be up a creek. I have no employer that could enroll us in their corporate insurance program, so we’d have to purchase private insurance. Alas, my wife has a pretty obvious preexisting condition! Even if we somehow managed to get health insurance, it probably wouldn’t cover pregnancy or delivery. And God forbid that there should be any expensive complications; we could be paying off hospital bills until the child goes to college! Perhaps the healthcare reforms being contemplated in the United States will eventually change all this, but our baby can’t wait for the politicians and insurers to come to their senses. (Even in Canada, which has a variety of socialized healthcare, my wife wouldn’t be able to get coverage until she’d reestablished residency, which would mean a three-month wait.)

[Update: @schollem pointed out that some U.S. states, including California, don't allow insurance companies to treat pregnancy as a preexisting condition. That's good to know, although Morgen and I have each had the experience (with different insurance companies, both in California) of being turned down for new private policies on the basis of other preexisting conditions that were utterly trivial. Although we managed to appeal those decisions successfully, it makes me think insurance companies are looking for any possible excuse not to provide coverage, and something tells me they'd try extra hard in our case!]

Leaving aside the issue of money, France consistently ranks first in the world (or very close) in healthcare quality. Although I realize everyone has different experiences, we’ve received uniformly helpful, prompt, and competent medical care here. We like our obstetrician and midwife a great deal (they even speak English, a lovely bonus), and our clinic even has a really expensive machine that goes “Bing!” which inspires a great deal of confidence.

(Update) Language Issues
Right after I initially posted this, @cutestmidget brought up a good point:

REALLY interesting post! only 1 thing missing – the reason I ask the question : “do you feel your french is good enough?”

i’m fluent but it’d worry me that things might go wrong & all french wld fly out of my head (& that’s me with a french hubby!)

Our French is passable but nowhere near fluent, and especially sucky under pressure! I can easily imagine that if we felt completely unable to communicate with our healthcare professionals, that alone might make us consider traveling to an English-speaking country to give birth, despite all the other issues. However, we’ve both had various medical procedures done here and managed to get through everything OK even with the language barrier, and since the medical group we’re with has several English-speaking practitioners (two ob/gyns and at least one midwife) we like and trust, this issue doesn’t cause us any undue stress.

But I guess my feeling is that if you choose to live in a foreign country, dealing with the language is just one of those things you sign up for. We’ve had to face other stressful situations in which our lack of fluency made things worse, but if we weren’t willing to put ourselves through that, I don’t think we’d be living here at all.

(I was sorely tempted to give a smart-ass response, such as: “Morgen knows all the French she needs to give birth—the words for ‘push’ and ‘epidural’ and ‘Aaaaaeeeeiiiioooowwww!’—so she should be in good shape!” But that would be completely insensitive and wrong, so I’d never say that…)

The Hexagon of Life
I’d be lying if I said we weren’t the least bit apprehensive. But I think most of our anxiety is of the same sort all future parents feel, and not specific to being in France. What it all comes down to for us is that we live here. Moving here was difficult, and staying here often is, too. But we endure all the hassles, by choice, because we love Paris so much! We expected that the rewards of living here would far outweigh the inconveniences, and we’ve found that to be true. We’re excited about passing on to our child our fondness for all things French, and envious of the many opportunities he or she will be afforded by her multicultural, multilingual upbringing. And there’s no better place than Paris to get celebratory pastries after the blessed event!

]]> http://joekissell.com/2010/01/13/having-our-baby-in-france/feed/ 16 What I Did in 2009 http://joekissell.com/2009/12/31/what-i-did-in-2009/ http://joekissell.com/2009/12/31/what-i-did-in-2009/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:00:55 +0000 Joe Kissell http://joekissell.com/?p=1403

New Year’s resolutions are for people of a more optimistic disposition than I. This time of year, what I typically feel is not enthusiasm about what I might achieve in the coming months but rather disappointment at how far behind I am on various projects, how many things on my to do list for the previous year are still undone, and how much work and stress await me in the new year. In 2009, I had a rather spectacularly long and ambitious to do list, and sure enough—despite my best efforts—lots and lots of those things are about to be pushed right onto next year’s list.

But this year, I decided to undertake a little exercise to help me feel a bit less guilty and dispirited about all those undone tasks. I sat down and wrote a list of what I did manage to accomplish in 2009. And you know what? I think I actually did OK. Despite life’s usual range of complications—administrative problems, illnesses, travel snafus, unexpected bills, and a million other things—when I look at this list, I kinda go, “Dang! That is not a bad showing for a year’s work.”

I thought I’d share my list here—not to brag (hey, if I’d pulled off everything on my to do list, that would be something to brag about!) but to offer a bit of perspective. If you’re the sort of person who, like me, gets depressed at the realization that you haven’t done “enough” (whatever that means), try making your own list of accomplishments. I’ll bet you’ll discover you’ve done much more than you thought, and I hope that helps you feel better about yourself!

So here’s what I did in 2009 (or at least what stands out in my memory), in no particular order:

And, in case you were starting to think life was all work and no play for me in 2009, I also wasted spent plenty of time interacting with my favorite media…

And, of course, there were many intangible accomplishments. I made new friends, and got to know existing friends better. I saw and did lots of interesting new things here in Paris. I took long walks with my wife. I spent time with my son. I played with my cat. I smelled flowers and watched sunsets. I ate large quantities of chocolate. I also end the year with an empty inbox.

This hasn’t been my favorite year, not by a long shot. I’ve experienced enormous amounts of stress and anxiety, and on the whole, I’m happy for 2009 to be behind me. But all things considered, I’d have to say I’ve filled the past 365 days rather adequately.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2009/12/31/what-i-did-in-2009/feed/ 2 MacTech 25: Who, me? http://joekissell.com/2007/06/08/mactech-25-who-me/ http://joekissell.com/2007/06/08/mactech-25-who-me/#comments Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:24:00 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/111

When I turned 40 in January, I declared that the next 10 years would be my Decade of Wealth and Influence. (My 30s were, at least in theory, my Decade of Risk. That’s a story for another day.) Six months in, I can’t say I’m making much progress in the wealth department, but much to my surprise, at least some people seem to think I’m influential. I’ve been named one of MacTech’s 25 most influential people in the Macintosh community—I even get my picture in a printed magazine. Weird. My blurb in the article, featuring a now somewhat outdated bio (I really should update my “about” page a little more frequently), is on this page.

The article, cribbed as it was from (an earlier version of) my description of myself on this site, doesn’t say why it is that people think I’m an influential figure. And I find the whole thing curious, in a way, because even though I write an awful lot about Macs, I don’t really write with the goal of changing anyone’s mind about anything. I help people to get their work done and solve problems, and I report some news, but in terms of offering actual opinions, I haven’t said much beyond “you really really really need good backups.” Even Interesting Thing of the Day, which now has well over 150,000 feed readers, is merely expository in nature, not hortatory. Not that I’m complaining or anything; it’s just that I honestly don’t know who I’ve influenced to do what. But, you know, I’m OK with being famous for being famous.

Anyway, I’m in really good company: four other TidBITS personalities are on the list, along with numerous other Mac movers and shakers I respect a great deal. I’m honored to be counted among the Mac illuminati.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2007/06/08/mactech-25-who-me/feed/ 0 My Birthday Present http://joekissell.com/2006/01/09/my-birthday-present/ http://joekissell.com/2006/01/09/my-birthday-present/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:59:10 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/62

Morgen has the misfortune of having been born on December 25, meaning that her birthday celebrations always get intertwingled with Christmas festivities, so she really doesn’t get a special day all to herself. I have a somewhat lesser, but similar problem: my birthday typically falls during the five days of Macworld Expo. Such is the case this year; today’s my birthday—39, thus putting me, alas, into my late late 30s—and also the opening of the Expo. (Gosh, how time flies—it seems like just a year ago that I turned 38.) This is a mixed blessing: on the plus side, I have numerous friends and colleagues in town for the show, and I’ll get to feed some of them cake and ice cream tonight. On the minus side: I have to clean the house today. One should never have to clean the house on one’s own birthday.

As usual, the rumors have been flying about what Steve Jobs might introduce at his keynote address tomorrow morning. Will we see the first Intel Macs (my guess: no), new iPods (my guess: probably), or iLife ’06 (my guess: inevitably)? I find myself feeling strangely indifferent about all these things. I’m not in the market for a new Mac right now, I’ve become numbed to the endless iPod releases, and I’ll upgrade my copy of iLife to the next version, whenever it comes out and whatever its features are, because I always do. But what I am counting on for tomorrow, with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation, is that Steve will, for the umpteenth time, announce something that makes one or more of my books obsolete.

Intriguingly, this post on MacMinute this morning pointed out that there’s a message in the lower-left corner of the Mac.com home page stating that all .Mac services will be down from 7 a.m. through noon tomorrow. Apple always takes the Apple Store offline during the keynotes when there’s a new hardware announcement, so if I were a betting man, I’d wager that some significant changes to .Mac will be announced tomorrow. Thus, chances are that the (e)book that will be urgently in need of an update as of noon tomorrow (yet again!) will be Take Control of .Mac. I don’t have the remotest idea what changes may be in store, but whatever they are, they’re sure to make my life interesting for the next few weeks.

So I guess that’s going to be my birthday present from Apple this year: another rewrite. Gee…thanks! But really, next time just send me an iPod. That’s much easier to wrap.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2006/01/09/my-birthday-present/feed/ 0 Happy Birthday to Me http://joekissell.com/2005/01/09/happy-birthday-to-me/ http://joekissell.com/2005/01/09/happy-birthday-to-me/#comments Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:31:39 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=25

Today is my 38th birthday. My father’s birthday was yesterday, January 8—the same day as Elvis (who would have been 70 this year). I, on the other hand, have the dubious honor of sharing a birthday with Richard Nixon.

This is, intentionally, one of those low-key birthdays. No party, cake, cards, or presents; maybe we’ll go out to see a movie or something, but that’s about it. Morgen and I put all our holiday/birthday efforts into the Patagonia trip instead, which is perfectly fine with me. I had a big celebration when I turned 30, and another when I turned 33 1/3—a third of a century! But these years between significant milestones don’t seem to require much fanfare.

This is a milestone of sorts, however: my official transition into my mid-late thirties. Morgen, having just turned 30, doesn’t need to say she’s in her early thirties; it’s just plain 30. In our family, we say that the “early” years of a decade are the ones ending in 1, 2, and 3; the “mid” years are 4, 5, and 6; and the “late” years are 7, 8, and 9. But then we subdivide further for clarity: the earliest year of any triplet is “early,” the middle year “mid-,” and the last year “late.” Thus a 21-year-old man would be said to be in his early early twenties; a 46-year-old woman would be in her late mid-forties, I’m in my mid-late thirties, and so on. It’s the late late years I think none of us looks forward to, but the reward just ahead is getting to use “early early” again.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2005/01/09/happy-birthday-to-me/feed/ 1 Driving Miss Loretta http://joekissell.com/2004/12/07/driving-miss-loretta/ http://joekissell.com/2004/12/07/driving-miss-loretta/#comments Tue, 07 Dec 2004 23:23:12 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=22

As if rescuing chickens were not enough, I’ve just had yet another of those surreal experiences that seem to make my world go around.

Morgen is the Development Director for a nonprofit organization called Death Penalty Focus, and for months she’s been planning a major fundraiser that will take place this evening: a comedy event called “Stand-Up for Justice.” Several big-name comedians are participating. Actor Mike Farrell (Providence, M*A*S*H), who’s the president of the organization, will be acting as emcee, and will be joined by a number of other V.I.P. guests—including M*A*S*H costar Loretta Swit.

So yesterday Morgen called me from work in a panic to ask me if I could do her a favor. Would I be willing to be a chauffeur? I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, so she said, “We need someone to pick up Loretta Swit from the airport and drive her to her hotel.” The whole notion that a mere mortal should perform such a task was difficult for me to accept, but I agreed.

And so I did. The trip was completely uneventful; Loretta was perfectly nice, and that was pretty much that. I have had only a few close encounters with celebrities in my life, and I don’t really grasp the protocol and etiquette appropriate for interacting with the rich and famous. I’m not one to be star-struck, and I have no interest in autographs, pictures, and the like. I just want to be sure I don’t make a fool of myself or cause offense, and I think I succeeded in that.

Plus, now Loretta Swit can tell all her friends that she met that famous author Joe Kissell. “He was very down-to-earth,” she’ll say. “If I hadn’t known he was famous, I would have thought he was just an ordinary guy.”

]]> http://joekissell.com/2004/12/07/driving-miss-loretta/feed/ 0 Chicken Rescuer http://joekissell.com/2004/11/15/chicken-rescuer/ http://joekissell.com/2004/11/15/chicken-rescuer/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2004 05:31:25 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=19

I have no words for how weird this is, but the following actually happened today.

At about 4:00, I decided to go out for a walk and do a few errands—you know, check the post office box, pick up a light bulb at the hardware store, buy some cat litter, that sort of thing. It was a lovely afternoon and this was going to be a very ordinary, refreshing walk. So I walked out the door, down to the end of the block and around the corner, and there on the sidewalk, scratching around in the dirt next to a small tree, were two chickens. They seemed perfectly happy and quite at home on the sidewalk in what is normally a pretty quiet residential neighborhood of San Francisco. They weren’t causing any particular trouble as far as I could tell, and they were friendly enough. But they were, I mean, chickens.

I have been to many places where it would not seem at all unusual to see a chicken on the sidewalk. A farming town in the midwest, say, or a small village in Costa Rica. But in San Francisco, where you can find anything—anything—on the street, I have never, ever seen a live chicken, to say nothing of two live chickens. And I simply had no idea what one was supposed to do upon encountering such animals that clearly did not belong there.

Perhaps, I thought, these chickens, which were not yet fully grown, belonged to the elementary school across the street. I saw two young children in front of the school with their father, and I asked them if they had any idea who the chickens belonged to. They did not. And none of us knew what the protocol was for dealing with an unexpected chicken discovery in San Francisco.

One option, of course, would have been to carry on with my walk; this is, I’m quite certain, what the majority of San Franciscans would do. I had an ethical problem with that course of action, however: nearby dogs were expressing a profound interest in the chickens, and had the birds chosen to escape by crossing the proverbial road, they would undoubtedly have been run over by an SUV. But what am I going to do, take the chickens home, keep them in my bathtub, and put up “Found: Chickens” posters all over town?

I called my wife. She suggested I call Animal Care and Control. So I did. They did not seem especially surprised to hear that there were feral chickens gallivanting about Glen Park, and assured me they would dispatch someone to fetch them. How long, I asked—should I wait? No, they said, there were at the moment only two officers attending to the animal control needs of the entire city, and it could be a while. I said that by that time, the chickens could have wandered anywhere. So they said perhaps I could put them in a box and bring them on in to the shelter myself. Ermmm. OK.

I enlisted the aid of the children, who were still standing there gawking at the chickens, to watch them for a few minutes while I went back around to corner to get a box. On my way, I called City CarShare to reserve a car; conveniently, one was available just a few blocks away.

This left only the small matter of rounding up the chickens, which had by this time gone their separate ways, and putting them into the box. I had never, before today, had the pleasure of chasing down and apprehending a chicken. This was considerably more challenging than I had imagined. For being small and practically brainless, they’re surprisingly fast, and they also have the annoying ability to levitate out of the way right when your hand comes in for the catch. And of course, I’m trying not only to chase down the chickens, but to do so in such a way as to prevent them from running out into the traffic when trying to evade me. That was an extremely interesting experience. I eventually succeeded.

So off we went to the animal shelter, the poor chickens cheeping nervously the whole way. The woman I met at the front counter of the shelter was not remotely fazed by my delivery. I got the distinct impression that nothing short of a unicorn would raise an eyebrow there. I handed over the chickens, gave my name and contact info, and that was that.

I don’t know what fate will befall the chickens. The woman at the shelter opined that they may have escaped from a coop in someone’s back yard. They were very, very scruffy, so if they had been pets, they were not at all well cared for. Perhaps someone will call to inquire after their missing chickens, or perhaps they will be euthanized. I’d be sorry for that to happen, but not sorry enough to adopt them myself. I don’t think my landlord would cotton to the idea, and I doubt they’d get along too well with my cat. But in any event, I saved the chickens from an immediate fate of death by canine or car, and I can now add “chicken rescuer” to the many other job titles on my résumé.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2004/11/15/chicken-rescuer/feed/ 10 T'ai Chi Redux http://joekissell.com/2004/11/09/tai-chi-redux/ http://joekissell.com/2004/11/09/tai-chi-redux/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2004 05:09:11 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=16

Morgen and I just got back from a t’ai chi class. As I’ve been studying t’ai chi off and on for about eight years, this is not in itself a remarkable fact. But the circumstances under which we’re now studying are kind of interesting.

We had been studying at the Inner Research Institute for about a year, and though we liked it at first, we had reached a point of frustration for multiple reasons. Our teacher, Dmitri, was great, but there were other things about the school’s approach and methodology that caused us some consternation. Plus, ever since we moved to our current home nearly two years ago, the school was much harder to get to, and the thrice-weekly classes, especially given the commute, were putting a real strain on our schedules. Apart from our pedagogical, stylistic, and logistical issues with the school, our income had dipped to a dangerously low level, and we couldn’t justify the expense anymore. So around September of 2003, we reluctantly decided to drop out.

At that time, we said to ourselves that Dmitri should really start his own school, in which case we’d be very happy to study with him.

So a couple of months ago, Dmitri called me and said that he had just been thinking to himself that maybe the time was right to strike out on his own, when he unexpectedly ran into a former student at the BART station. This woman runs a Montessori preschool a few blocks from our home, and she said Dmitri was welcome to use the space in the evenings to teach t’ai chi if he were so inclined. He took that as a sign, made up some posters, and started classes a few weeks later.

Since about the beginning of October, we’ve been back in class, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We’re having a great time, and you can’t beat the five-minute walk to get there. We invariably leave with very sore legs, but I couldn’t be happier. It’s been too long since I felt that kind of pain on a regular basis. I don’t exactly look forward to the classes, and the actual repetitions of some of these moves can be grueling, but as I limp out of there, I always think to myself, Wow, this feels good. Maybe it’s just the endorphins, or maybe it’s the ch’i, but in any case the sensation is one of meaningful, useful, body- and character-building pain, coupled with a kind of relaxation I can’t seem to achieve any other way.

If you happen to live in San Francisco, you’re welcome to join us: 6–7 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays, 647 Chenery St. in Glen Park (about a block from the Glen Park BART station). Cost is $60 per month (two classes per week). Everyone is welcome, from absolute beginners to advanced students. We do the Yang style short form (Cheng Man-Ch’ing tradition), and will also be doing push-hands probably after the beginning of the year. More info: call Dmitri at (415) 285-1453.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2004/11/09/tai-chi-redux/feed/ 0 Pictures of Zora http://joekissell.com/2004/11/08/pictures-of-zora/ http://joekissell.com/2004/11/08/pictures-of-zora/#comments Tue, 09 Nov 2004 02:54:37 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=15

Just yesterday I was telling Morgen that we might want to consider investing in a new digital camera for our trip to Patagonia. The one we have now is about five years old, which must be 35 in computer years. One of the things that has improved on many of the newer models is shutter lag—the delay between when you press the button and when the picture is actually snapped. Our current camera is pretty bad in that regard, making it all but useless for capturing action shots, such as a kitten jumping at a toy. As a result, most of the pictures I’ve taken of Zora that actually manage to get her face in the frame show her napping, about to nap, or just having awoken from a nap. But I’ve put a few fairly good images here: pictures of Zora. A sample:

Zora, ~4 months old

]]> http://joekissell.com/2004/11/08/pictures-of-zora/feed/ 4 Normal Life http://joekissell.com/2004/11/04/normal-life/ http://joekissell.com/2004/11/04/normal-life/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:15:35 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=14

What kind of person would go to the effort of starting a new blog and writing entries for a few days, only to abandon it for more than a month? The kind of person who badly needed the flexibility not to do something every single day.

Although I sometimes have Interesting Thing of the Day articles prepared well ahead of time (and my server is smart enough to post them on their scheduled date without my intervention), more often than not I’m working late into the night on the following day’s article, because ordinary work hours are often filled with other activities. And that every-single-day deadline can get very wearying after a while. So when I set up this blog, it was with the explicit intention that I would allow myself the freedom to go an indefinite number of days without posting anything. And that feels good.

The past four or five weeks have been filled with a continuous string of small crises, which together felt like a big crisis. My new cat was sick for a while (she’s better now); I was sick for a while (I’m mostly better now); strange and aggravating bugs showed up on my Web site (they’re fixed now); and of course there was that whole election thing (still a problem, but nothing I can do about it now). On top of all that, I was working hard to finish the first draft of my next (and long-overdue) ebook, Take Control of Mac OS X Backups. When I get into an intense writing phase, everything else seems to disappear into the background. My In Box fills up, unpaid bills accumulate, phone messages go unanswered, and in general life gets put on hold.

On Tuesday evening as Morgen was slipping into a state of depression in front of the TV, I was putting the finishing touches on my manuscript, which is now in the hands of my editor for the first of what will undoubtedly be several rounds of editing and rewrites. But at least the hardest and longest part is done. And the election, though it produced disappointing results from the local through the national level, is also over with. So now I have a cat on my lap, the afternoon ahead of me, and only an average amount of daily work to do. What I think of as normal life.

And yet I’m also aware that the pattern of my life as long as I can remember has been long stretches of crisis mode—late nights dealing with urgent projects, assorted small mishaps, and other “abnormal” events—punctuated by very brief intervals of normality. This obviously shows that I have a skewed sense of what “normal” means; a state can hardly be normal if it occurs only rarely. But I’m going to indulge in this fantasy for a few days or however long it lasts.

My great plan for today is to do the dishes, fold the laundry, go for a walk, answer all that delinquent email, pay those bills, and perhaps get a start on writing here about some of the many things that have been on my mind during the last month. And maybe put in a few hours of productive revenue-producing work, just for good measure. In other words, to have a go at experiencing normal life for at least a day.

]]> http://joekissell.com/2004/11/04/normal-life/feed/ 2 Zora http://joekissell.com/2004/10/02/zora/ http://joekissell.com/2004/10/02/zora/#comments Sat, 02 Oct 2004 23:52:17 +0000 Joe Kissell http://alt.cc/jk/?p=13

After many months of thinking about it, Morgen and I finally adopted a kitten today. Zora is a 3-month-old brownish-gray tabby. I’ll put some pictures here at some point; I figure adjusting to a new home is traumatic enough without having to deal with camera flashes.

We were really tempted by a bunch of others, but somehow Zora charmed us the most. Hats off to the San Francisco SPCA for an outstanding orientation program for new kitten owners (“Kittengarten”) and all-around helpfulness.

One of our biggest worries was what we would name a cat. Every animal that come in gets a more or less arbitrary name, and some of them are pretty awful. For example, the woman handling the adoption showed us a picture of her dog Gus, who had originally been named Sushi. On the other hand, some names seem to fit just right—such as a black male cat we also liked named Mojo (which sounds like the beginnings of our names put together). Zora was in the same class; it seems to me like the right mix of fearless, playful, and contemplative. She’s clearly a very smart cat, and she’s already shown progress toward developing the crucial skill of falling asleep on my lap while I read a book.

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