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FooleryLooking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more, and float upward in our heedlessness, singing Gratia Dei sum quod sum. |
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Wednesday, April 1, 1998
In case you didn't notice, today was April Fools Day. Lots of journalers traded journals for the day. Some good parodies! But perhaps too inside unless you already read the other journal. I especially liked the job my buddy Luke McGuff did on Tangerine! And Zach and Carlie did a great job on various aspects of Wally, whom I thought was inimitable (try saying "inimitable" three times fast!). Also a notably foolish page: Al Schroeder finally went public with his list of favorite journals.
My most vivid memory of actually playing an April Fools prank was the classic "salt instead of sugar", played on my father. He'd have coffee immediately on coming home from work, and he used a lot of sugar!
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I had a very nice lunch today with X----, a man who contacted me from my yahoo ad. We have corresponded a few times, since December, in fact! But this was our first face-to-face meeting. X---- prefers to remain anonymous at this time. In fact, he seemed quite relieved when I told him he had that option! I do try to ask, but I usually name folks if they are associated with me in a public way, for example attending a Cacophony event. X---- does have some issues in this area, so much so that I went back and anonymized this even more after posting it.
We ate at the Pro Club, a health club and gym that caters to Microsoft folks, although others join as well. (Contractors don't get memberships as part of their benefit package.) I've been there before for dance class but this was my first time eating in the "courtside bistro". It was actually a very nice casual lunch place, but I wouldn't call it a bistro, exactly.
X---- is a busy man, with lots of activities and projects. I think he is by way of being a polymath! He does XXXX and XXX, and he is musically talented as well. I enjoyed hearing about his business and another project he is currently working on. I was looking at him and thinking of Schubert, but I think that was due to his wearing a similar style of glasses. Those small lenses seem to be fashionable right now. I'm very familiar with Schubert's face, because one of the first products I worked on at Microsoft was a CD-ROM about his Trout Quintet.
Indeed, X--- is so busy that he seemed torn about meeting me when we talked on the phone last night, and conflicted about whether we'd be going out again at the end of lunch. I told him that only he could set those priorities for himself. But life shouldn't be all work, after all!
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Notes on this month's design: I started with the font, a mock-indian one called Prakrta (and no, I don't know how to pronounce that!). I wanted something springlike, so I grabbed an image off my CD-ROM clipart and image archive (look for it at Costco) of a field of purple tulips. Image Composer can use WordArt, so I was able to do the text-in-a-circle thing.
In another housekeeping task, I updated my Science Fiction and Fandom page, removing some dead links and adding some very cool resources.
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All the preceding was written in the early part of the evening. Normally I have dance class then, but the teacher was taking a week off between sessions. There was a 9:30 dance with live band as there usually is, though, so I walked down to the Century Ballroom then. My friend Tom Lawrence showed up, as well as some classmates from lindy class at the Russian Center. Also a guy (I forget his name) that I danced with in November. I hadn't seen him in several months, and while we were dancing I asked him where he had been. He said he'd been on board ship for 107 days! This was the short bearded man with ponytail that I had trouble following before. Guess what: I still did! The only person I've ever seen successful with this lead is my friend Joan. I dragged my lindy classmates onto the floor; it was their first time at the ballroom and they were reluctant at first, but they did fine on the slower songs. Tom gave me a ride home, as he often does.
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