Mike Ryan

Relaunch 2018

mikeryan — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 21:04:00 +0000

Relaunch 2018 mikeryan Tue, 02/27/2018 - 3:04pm

At long last I've upgraded mikeryan.name to Drupal 8. In the process, I've migrated all my Drupal- (and other tech-) related posts over to virtuoso-performance.com, leaving this site for personal commentary. Since it's been a long while since I've done such commentary, this site looks awfully thin at the moment. We'll see whether or not my aspiration to blog more often comes to fruition...

Wired #triplefail

mikeryan — Mon, 19 May 2014 16:12:34 +0000

Wired #triplefail mikeryan Mon, 05/19/2014 - 11:12am

I've subscribed to the Wired print edition for years. I knew they had an iPad edition for a while (being total Apple fanboys), but I've got a Google Nexus 10 tablet. In the latest issue I saw "Get the digital edition of WIRED for your tablet at bit.ly/tabletWIRED (note the all-caps magazine name, which doesn't actually work - you need to go with all lower-case - I'm not even counting that one). Great, I thought, they finally have Android support. Here I pick up with the feedback I attempted to send from http://www.wired.com/about/feedback (clicked under TABLET):

Went to the tablets page on my Nexus, only to find that you support the Kindle Fire but not other Android tablets. Clicked the FAQ link to try to find your excuse, got 404'd. #doublefail

Submitting that gave me a WSOD at https://w1.buysub.com/servlet/Transaction.

Wired

The Choice

mikeryan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:02:05 +0000

The Choice mikeryan Wed, 10/29/2008 - 6:02pm

When the party nominees emerged, I was for the first time in my life satisfied with the choice before me. I've been voting in Presidential elections since 1980, and had never before seen both parties nominate candidates who I respected, and expected to serve well. Neither was perfect - for someone who leans increasingly in the libertarian direction, John McCain's eagerness to apply governmental power abroad, and Barack Obama's enthusiasm for applying it domestically, were off-putting. But I felt they were both competent men of good character - and in 2008 that means more than ideological compatibility.

Nevertheless, I did not dwell long on my decision. Whatever happens Tuesday, I fully expect at least basic competence for the next four years. Both candidates are capable of going down in history as good Presidents. But it's Obama who has the potential to be a great President.

One reason is simply the biggest element that separates good leaders from great ones - inspiration. John McCain may be able to effectively manage the country through the next four or eight years; he might accomplish many positive things; but I don't see him nurturing the optimism to pull us out of our economic doldrums, I don't hear him leading us back to international respect, and I don't feel a national consensus forming behind him. Barack Obama has that ability - the capacity to form a new American consensus, a direction forward into the 21st century.

The other major reason Obama can be one of the great Presidents is - yes - his race. Slavery, segregation, and discrimination have a long and ignominious history in our nation - that is the biggest contradiction to our status as a worldwide beacon of liberty. No single event will do more to redeem that legacy, to culminate the progress we have made, than the election of an African-American President. Consequently, of course, the Presidency would be an even greater burden on Obama's shoulders than on most - a failed administration would be severely damaging. Although I do believe he has the personal skills to succeed, the morass of Iraq and the depths of a new Depression could very well sink his Presidency. Those same risks, of course, await McCain, and I have not seen any evidence in this campaign that he would weather them any better.

And, speaking of the compaign, let me turn back to John McCain. As I said before, I started out with respect for him - he was a legitimate maverick within his party (and both parties could certainly use more of those), and whether I agreed with him or not he did seem to vote for his principles, not for misguided partisan loyalty. But, as he's abandoned the rational immigration policy he had supported, as he's compromised on torture, and mostly as he's sunk to the same ugly style of campaigning that was used against him in the 2000 primaries... It's become hard to maintain that respect.

P.S.: What do the McCain and Obama home pages have in common? They're both about Barack Obama...

Politics

NOLA Day 7 - 5/2/08

mikeryan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:27:40 +0000

NOLA Day 7 - 5/2/08 mikeryan Wed, 06/11/2008 - 9:27pm

Friday was our last work day. This one was, again, helping out a FUUNO church member, who is having a new home built by Habitat for Humanity:

We worked on the framing inside:

Here's Cherie with our crew and a quilt one of our party made for her:

We went to JazzFest again, starting with Richard Thompson:

After that, it was over to the Fais Do Do stage for Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band. We still can't purge "Ain't no party like a Chubby party, 'cause a Chubby party don't stop" from our ears:

But... The highlight of JazzFest was the one, the only... Mr. Stevie Wonder:

Not many artists can pack two hours full of hits and still leave stuff on the table... Highlights included a jazz digression (Giant Steps) and an incredible harmonica jam with Frederic Yonnet, not to mention a guest appearance by Irma Thomas (see last photo above).

NOLA Day 6 - 5/1/08

mikeryan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:58:33 +0000

NOLA Day 6 - 5/1/08 mikeryan Wed, 06/11/2008 - 8:58pm

Thursday morning we continued our drywalling and firestopping in the Ninth Ward. Sorry, looks like I didn't get any more photos... In the afternoon, we returned to JazzFest. First up: Randy Newman, who performed a great set - of course, Lousiana 1927 was featured, but he also had some good new material. Including the audience participatory I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It).

And that was followed by a trip to the Fais Do Do stage for CJ Chenier:

On the way back, I was admiring this old-school neon sign on Canal Street:

NOLA Day 5 - 4/30/08

mikeryan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:12:50 +0000

NOLA Day 5 - 4/30/08 mikeryan Wed, 06/11/2008 - 8:12pm

So, that Wednesday we moved on the the Lower Ninth Ward. A group called lowernine.org is working on rebuilding homes in the most heavily devastated neighborhood in New Orleans, and we did our small part Wednesday and Thursday. Here's the house we were working on:

Walking between the lowernine.org headquarters and the house above, we met this puppy named Money:

Now, although it seemed like there was barely one or two occupied houses per block, some essential services are provided (primarily for the benefit of the work crews, I think):

Inside the house, Sarah was focused on drywall while I worked on installed firestops:

Finally, at the end of our Wednesday shift, our fearless lowernine.org supervisors demonstrated teamwork in this window repair.

NOLA
Travel

NOLA Day 4 - 4/29/08

mikeryan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:40:46 +0000

NOLA Day 4 - 4/29/08 mikeryan Tue, 06/03/2008 - 8:40pm

Back to work for the 2nd day. Checking in at FUUNO, we caught Christ and Noe (among others) in action:

Back in Jyaphia's kitchen, we finished the destructive part of the work (always fun), and did some constructive work (framing around the waste pipe):

And, of course, we had to pose in front of our hard work:

Later that evening, the whole group went out to celebrate Lois's birthday at the Pyramid Cafe. I captured this surrealistic snapshot of Noe:

NOLA
Travel

NOLA Day 3 - 4/28/08

mikeryan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:17:31 +0000

NOLA Day 3 - 4/28/08 mikeryan Tue, 06/03/2008 - 8:17pm

So, on Monday we got down to work. The volunteers gathered at FUUNO, and split into three groups. One group worked at the church, and one went to another location that I don't recall. Here are some before photos at the church (afraid I didn't get any after), where they are building a commercial kitchen (you can see the sanctuary through the framing in the last photo):

Sarah and I (along with the inimitable, and very tall, Donald) went to Jyaphia's house. She does a lot of cooking for the church and its programs, so our mission was to help expand her kitchen by knocking out a wall to the pantry so the refrigerator could be pushed back into it. Here's the nearly-before photo (I was a little behind in snapping it), with Donald taking some pokes at the wall:

NOLA
Travel

NOLA day 2 - 4/27/08

mikeryan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:36:39 +0000

NOLA day 2 - 4/27/08 mikeryan Tue, 06/03/2008 - 7:36pm

On to our 2nd day in New Orleans (at this rate, I should have the week finished by Christmas!). First thing, of course, we visited Cafe du Monde (no visit to NOLA is complete without a plate of their beignets, wallowing through ankle-deep powdered sugar). In the morning we attended services at FUUNO, then in the afternoon we went to JazzFest. We arrived just as the crowds burst, and I remembered the lesson I should have taken home from my 2006 visit - don't wear sneakers unless the forecast is bonedry. The Fairgrounds quickly turned into ankle-deep mud. We took refuge first in the CD tent, then made a dash for the Blues Tent. We caught a bit of Roy Young there:

At the lower right, what you're looking at is a pond where one would expect an aisle to be - a large garbage can was floating in it.

We didn't get to see much of Roy, as we were eager to see the great Irma Thomas:

Late in the set she was joined by the nearly-as-great Marcia Ball:

From there, on to Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint:

And we finished the day with the incomparable Al Green (yes, he's still got it!):

NOLA day 1 - 4/26/08

mikeryan — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:39:40 +0000

NOLA day 1 - 4/26/08 mikeryan Mon, 05/12/2008 - 7:39pm

Sarah and I got back a week ago from a week in New Orleans, and I've finally got a little time to start writing about it. Arlington Street Church, where Sarah is very active, has a partner church in NOLA - First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans, in the Broadmoor neighborhood. She's a member of the PC³ (Partner Church Coordinating Committee), which organizes regular trips to help rebuild. This was Sarah's fourth of the five trips taken so far, and my first.

This trip was, not entirely coincidentally, the week spanning the two weekends of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (JazzFest to all who know and love it). Sarah's first JazzFest, my second (I went in 2006 - the first one after Katrina).

We stayed at the Annunciation Mission, close to First Church on Claiborne. They provide food and lodging for volunteer groups - a clean, safe place to stay, with three square meals a day, for only $20/night.

We arrived Saturday, and wandered around a bit. My friend Jim Duffy has a bit of an obsession with old serial murder cases, and had been telling me about the Axeman of New Orleans, who terrorized the city in 1918-19. We took a ride past one of the sites mentioned in the Wikipedia article, Upperline and Magnolia - the article wasn't specific about which corner the victims lived on, but we snapped a photo of the oldest building at the intersection:

Pardon my indulging in sepia...

Oh, and we caught lunch at Ted's Frostop, known (these days, anyway) for the giant upside-down root beer out front (toppled by Katrina).

It ended up raining hard that Saturday, so we visited the New Orleans Museum of Art. Highlights were the George Rodrigue exhibit (all the Blue Dogs you would ever hope to see), and works by Judy Cooper.

More to come...

NOLA
Travel