Some Days in the Life - May 4, 1999

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Besides, it's an opportunity for Mason to see the mighty Atlantic in a storm. We'll have to go out of our way to get a view of it. Maybe out to Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth. We can eat clam strips or lobster or the like and stare out at a violent sea doing violent things.

My family and I did that trip once, when Amy was up visiting. It was impressive. I think she appreciated it. I certainly did. There is a primal nature to a storm when you're right on the Atlantic. It's like you're on an outcropping extending into weather itself, letting the raw edges of weather lash you, while twenty foot waves pound the shore and rocks before you.

All while you eat well made fried seafood. What a state.

Yes, Mason and I are going to be spending a good amount of time in Maine. We'll hit New Hampshire, of course, but deep down I'm a Maine person. I like being a Maine person. I like how Maine works. I understand people in Maine, miserable bastards though they may be. And trust me -- we are. We know that tourism is important to the economy of the state. That doesn't mean we have to be nice to tourists. Fortunately, Maine tourists seem to thrive on the abuse we give them, assuming it's all part of "the local color."

The Maine viewpoint is simple. You're either from Maine or you're from "Away," a quasimythical place that combines all the best aspects of Hell, Wartime Germany and the land of the stupid people. Someone from Maine -- born and raised there -- understands the distinctions innately. It's a little like how Texans act about Texas, except in Maine we don't care if you know it or not. Caring about an outtastater's opinion of Maine is a little like caring about a fish's opinion of a sailboat. It would be nice if the fish liked the boat, but you're not going to spend any time convincing the fish about it. Mostly, you just want the fish out of your way.

Mason should have a good time because he'll be with natives. We can take the curse off it. When accompanied by Mainers, tourists are treated like "slow" children. Tolerated and spoken slowly to, and generally not trusted with firearms or motor vehicles.

The tourist on his own is taking his pride into his own hands. Just remember -- you can't win. We won't let you win. It's as simple as that. Once you get past that, you can enjoy Maine a great deal.

Especially during storms when you're right on the ocean. Wow.

I'm wrestling with MacOS X Server, which is the retarded younger brother of... well, everything. It's NextStep, only unpolished. It's BSD, only weirdly laid out. It's the Macintosh, except when you try to do anything.

It's really quite remarkable, and I quite like the thing. However, it has gaps. I'm learning a Hell of a lot while trying to fill them in. Over the last couple of days, I've been hammering on Virtual Hosts.

Virtual Hosts are what allow one server (like Roulette, which is our happy home) with one IP number to have several different domains on them. I've got three that I know I'm going to be hosting in the near future. One, roundrobin.org, will follow my happy learning how to do the SSI thing. The other is an online magazine called Insanity, which will be a home for Dark Gaming and the like, online.

So, we registered the Insanity domain name (which isn't yet ready to go "live" but we're getting there) and I set to setting up the virtual domain, with the Annotations "main" domain. Simple.

Heh.

First, it didn't work at all. I built the VirtualHost container in the Apache.conf file (the MacOS X Server version of the httpd.conf, which is to say they assume MacOS X Server users won't recognize httpd as Apache, so they renamed it. Which is all fine and good except all the docs refer to httpd.conf, but I digress). I restarted Apache.

Hm. Insanity was working, but Annotations had disappeared.

So, I tried again, configuring both servers as Virtual Hosts.

Both worked, but -- and I swear I'm not making this up -- served the other domain. Annotations served Insanity, and Insanity served Annotations. This was not good.

I checked the files. Nothing was wrong. Certainly, the DocumentRoots were right. They were just... reverse.

So, I went back a couple of steps. I looked into multihoming on multiple IP numbers. That proved to be... problematic. So I kept hammering. Nothing. Either Annotations would completely vanish, or Insanity and Annotations homed to the opposites.

This gets you frustrated after a while.

Finally, today, I got it working the right way. I reconfigured the main server as "Localhost." I then created two virtual hosts -- Annotations and Insanity -- and they both came up the right way.

The down side is, very old browsers won't work right with this. I need to find a magical way to make sure things like Internet Explorer 2.0 default to Annotations. Then I can put an "internal" Annotations link to Insanity on Annotations's front page, and serve it that way. (Easier than putting a backlink on Insanity, which isn't mine to muck with in that way.)

I feel really good about getting this to work, though. It's way cool to hack your Apache configuration and get it to do what you want after mild hair tearing. It gives me hope that someday I too will be a Unix God. Or at least a minor Saint. Or a Soldier of Unix. Or something.

It's sprinkling. Not really rain, but a far sight better than dry. There is something wonderful when the water falls from the sky. Something that reminds you that life started in water, that water drives us. It is our most basic need after air. It is the majority of what our body is made of. It is Spring, which is why cascading pure water is called a spring the same as the season of rebirth is. Or at least, it's why I want it to be called that.

Rain is a wonderful thing. We're supposed to get more over the next few days. A lot more. Bring it on.

There's more evidence of leaves on the trees, too. Mason may get to see a green Wolfeboro after all. That would be very nice -- Wolfeboro is pleasant without leaves, but when filled with green and the signs of life all around us, Wolfeboro is magical and alive. The best of New England on the shores of the lake. If someone's going to make the trip, they should see the best possible face the town can put on.

I didn't sleep well at all last night. I went down early, and had sort of a muddled sleep. I didn't want a nap to turn into a full out large bore Sleep, so I set an alarm. That didn't work. I was in the middle of a dream when it went off (I don't recall what) and I ended up almost sleepwalking to hit snooze a couple of times (the alarm was elsewhere in the apartment). Finally, I made the decision -- which I remember clearly, though it was still within a dream -- to shut that damn thing off.

Got up well after ten. And then I couldn't sleep the rest of the night, at all. I was half-asleep when my normal alarm went off. I was about five minutes late getting into work today (which isn't a big deal as I was here two extra hours last night and besides, I'm on salary. If I get what I need to do done, I'm cool). I fully expect to have an early night tonight.

After waking up, I met with my cowriters online and we talked about the Delacorte Award we're finalists for. It's apparently a big deal -- our contacts reacted with raised eyebrows when they heard about it. We're nervous now. The 12^th is a long time away. And we don't know if there are two finalists or two hundred. And yes, it's an honor just to be nominated... but winning really rocks! The prize is a ton of cash by a first novel's standards (only part of it an advance against royalties), hardcover and softcover publication, and (as it's a prize winner) a pretty darn good advertising/pushing package, I'm sure. Far better than we could get for just a midlist acceptance. But even if we don't win, a lot of the Honorable Mentions get published as well, and the words "Delacorte finalist" will help us get it looked at by other companies if not. It's a win-win for us.

But we want this. I want this so badly I can taste it. Legitimacy in writing. An award that says full out that we're a cut above. Hardcover books, which I can give to my nieces when they're old enough. A strong career path. A crappy television tie in on Fox Kids. An inevitable scandal. Yes!

If we get this, I swear to God I will turn into Eric Cartman from South Park. I will be utterly obnoxious. I will do a Baboonesque Victory Dance in front of the school. I will, officially, suck.

That would be very nice. Which likely means it won't happen.

But it's an honor just to be nominated.

A few more changes to the index page. I've added a "last modified on <X> date at <Y> time" function to the Index Page, plus I've reformatted the navigation bar to be a bit cleaner, especially on alternate browsers. Let me know what you think. Oh, and my real copy of Adobe GoLive just got in, so I'm off to install it. Unlike other packages, this one is chock full of books and the like, so the box is warranted. It does have a wasteful superfluous cardboard box-sleeve, however.

Oh, and while I'm in Cartman voice... the MacOS X Server documentation totally sucks ass.