Monthly Archives: January 2004

Anniversary

Eight years ago today, I posted the essay A Fan’s Guide to the Midwest League; thus was born the website with the same name.

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Back to Work

Last week was a vacation week. Got back to my desk yesterday and spent most of the day cleaning up loose ends. Today we’re resurrecting the CRM upgrade, as it looks like we’re not going with a vendor implementation after all.

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Denny

McLain’s a talented, funny, apparently intelligent guy.  If he’d gone in for honest work, it seems likely he could have parlayed his baseball fame into a broadcasting career and gotten sufficiently rich to make most folks happy.  Instead, he turned rotten and blights some of Michigan’s favorite memories.

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Our Long Summer: XML, DTDs, and hostile vendors

One debate was never resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. The web team was fully convinced that the SOAP interface ought to have a fully-specified DTD, while the back end vendor was equally certain that this was a red herring. It was very much like they were talking about two different things called SOAP; the usual result was that the key players on each team talked right past each other, and wouldn’t acknowledge it. Very very strange days. Glad they’re past.

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The Wonderful Sea Voyage

Alison’s musical space is an odd one–somewhere between New Age and Bluegrass, with a Jazz inflection and a nod to R&B.  Interesting, impressive, and often delightful stuff, but in a place that’s likely to stress your musical prejudices….

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The Web App: nearly ready for unveiling

Then I took the reconciled lists, attached some proposed priorities (“Fix now!”, “Going to generate complaints,” “Annoying & probably easily fixed,” and “Next project”), and passed that version of the list to our staff. I’m awaiting comments, but don’t expect anyone to ask for significant changes. Then I’ll pass it to Tony so he’ll be ready when we meet.

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You Gotta Believe

The day after we moved her home, the nurse from the hospice called to inquire whether Mom understood how sick she was; her caretakers were convinced she wasn’t showing the proper gravity or something.  I assured Marilyn that Mom was well aware of her prognosis.  Mom, an occasionally witty but never particularly cheerful person, was quite certain that she’d not survive if she let the illness defeat her spirit; she was, by insisting on relentless optimism, fighting on, even in her last days.

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Posted in Baseball CrankSpace, Family Mirror, Passing On | Tagged | Leave a comment

A New Year

Thank goodness.  2003 was not a good year….

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