Pictures for May 2nd & 3rd

Pictures from the Irwindale faire May 2nd and 3rd have been uploaded:

www.renaissancefaire.net/20090...ex.htm
www.renaissancefaire.net/20090...ex.htm

Enjoy,
Richard

Pictures for April 25 and 26

Pictures for the weekend are posted to my site.

www.renaissancefaire.net/20090...lt.htm
www.renaissancefaire.net/20090...ex.htm

Enjoy.
Richard

Irwindale opening day pictures

Are up:

www.renaissancefaire.net/20090...lt.htm

Enjoy

The best of times - the worst of times

These days I have many friends and I have gone to great lengths to live a happy and useful life. I maintain a solid sense of ethics, I genuinely like people and overall, in spite of some aches and pains, life is good.

Sometimes, though, life has thrown a few curves balls my way. I survived, and out of each negative experience I learned something and became a stronger person. I rejected the entire concept of becoming bitter, of wanting revenge or of hurting others. Instead, I maintain my own integrity and, when harmed by others, simply shrug it off and move on with my life. Why pollute my universe and my space with their foulness?

I think the most difficult time of life for me was the nine years that Claudia, my late wife, was chronically ill. Her illness began as asthma ... and she smoked and wouldn't stop. The asthma turned into COPD and then severe lung disease. The medications to help her breath led to complications including diabetes and edema. She got a severe gash on her leg when something feel out of the refrigerator, and that never did heal. Her hospital stay resulted in three very nice cases of MRSA which required intravenous antibiotics, and I was the person who changed her IV. She had nine hospitalizations, stopped breathing dozens of times, and went through two long comas. She passed away in February 2005.

But I survived and I learned I could look death and disease in the eye and overcome it all.

Long before I was married I became friends with someone. She was smart, she was beautiful and she seemed like such a nice person. Shows how little I knew. After a few months, she confessed to a drug problem, a bad one, and I spent the next month working her off her addiction. Christmas came and I wanted to spend the day with my friend, newly off drugs. She told me to go away, she didn't need me anymore...

I survived and learned I could handle being used and the cruelty of others.

When I married Claudia she had a son who was fourteen years old. He learned he could make his mother cry, which would cause her to work on me to do things for him. As she became more and more ill, he learned that by making her sick he could get even more from me. When I put my foot down, attempting to resolve the situation, he made her so sick, via his unkind words, that she stopped breathing and wound up in the hospital. Thus I was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. After she passed away, he continued to attempt to use me, but when he realized he was not going to get anything ... I haven't heard from him since.

I survived and learned that sometimes other people create their own hells and no matter what I do that won't change unless they want it to change.

When I was in high school, I had a physical education teacher who felt it was important to make anyone who didn't live up to his standards feel small and worthless. He was exceptionally good at this, and the two years I spent in his class were among the worst of my life. This was verbal abuse, backed by his authority as a teacher.

I survived and learned that others can be evil and cruel, but I don't have to listen to them and accept their judgments.

I went to elementary school in San Bernardino, back in the days when they just started the grand integration project. I was beat up every single day on the way home from school (by the white boys) and not a single adult would listen or help.I finally approached the biggest, meanest black student in the school and we made a deal. I helped him with his homework and he made sure everyone left me alone. We became very good friends and I remember him as perhaps my best friend in my childhood.

I survived and learned to reject prejudice and that sometimes others can help me and I can help them back.

After Claudia passed away, I was left with literally a mountain of debt, higher than the sky, or so it seemed at the time. I had medical debts, credit card debts, a student loan, debts with friends and lord knows what other debts. I put together a plan and, in the space of just a few years, paid it all off. Now I have 5 car payments left and a bit on my student loan, and I am done. By the end of this year, no debt.

Again, I survived and learned I could get myself into debt and get myself out of debt.

A few years ago, I learned I had carpal tunnel syndrome. It became severe and my hands were totally numb. I could literally stick pins in them and not feel anything. I worked with my minister for spiritual advice, my doctor for medical advice and my chiropractor for his advice. Now I have full feeling in my hands and there is not a sign of carpal anywhere. Basically this was the result of a lot of spiritual counseling and a few lifestyle changes, as well as a good chiropractor.

I survived and learned that I can defeat illnesses in my own body.

I have learned many things in my life. I learn from the good times and I learn from the bad times.

The most important lesson I have learned is life is too short to let the bad times overcome the good times, and that my own personal integrity is the most important thing that I have.

I hope this little article has some value to you.

Tribe is not free by any means

In my mind, Tribe has by far the best implementation and feature set of all of the social networking sites I've worked with. It is far more usable than MySpace (Ugh!) and I prefer the layout of Tribe over FaceBook by far. All things being equal, I would happily post away on Tribe forever.

Unfortunately, as I am positive everyone on Tribe understands, the social networking system has been grossly unstable for a long time (exceeding a year). I've seen downtime that stretches for days on end, I've lost data, and I've had many friends mysteriously disappear after some database restore.

But that's to be expected, right? I mean, after all, it's FREE isn't it?

I hate to throw water on some people's parades, but Tribe is most certainly not free by any means; not for anyone regardless of whether or not they are a premium member or unpaid member. Allow me to explain before you haul off and flame me.

You see, there is a three-way relationship on all social networking sites.

- The social network company (FaceBook, Myspace, etc) supplies the, well, the social network.
- The end users, you and me, put up content on that social network
- Advertisers purchase ads (directly or indirectly via networks like Google Adsense) and thus the social -network company gets income

What you and I, the end users, pay is with our time and our content. We happily post dozens, hundreds even thousands of blog entries. We write articles, add comments, upload images (and in some social networks videos), define events and create groups to bring people with similar interests together. It's actually an incredible way to keep in contact with your friends (and others), and it is rapidly changing the way the world works. I mean, a few years ago, who would have thought something called a "Flashcrowd" would exist?

All of these postings are on web pages which show advertisements (unless, in some social networks, you've bypassed that by paying premium prices). The way most modern advertising networks work (such as Google Adsense) is they examine the page and determine, based upon the content, what ads to run. In theory, for example, if you had a page about clothes, then Google would display ads related to clothes. The theory is that if someone is reading about clothes and you show an ad about clothes, they are more likely to click on the ad (and presumably purchase the product, although I've always thought that connection is not as clear-cut as some people think).

The social network makes money directly from these advertisements. Thus, the more contents the users (you and I) create, the more money the social network makes.

The point of all this is you really are paying for the service. You are paying with your time and your content. As a web designer, I charge anywhere from $50 to $150 an hour, depending upon the size of the job. Even if you take the low end, considering I've spent several hundred hours updating tribe with content, I paid, indirectly as a barter, thousands of dollars [of time] directly to tribe.

In my humble opinion, the effort we users, you and I and everyone else, puts in to add new, fresh, money-making content, demands that we receive premium service. It demands stability, it demands the system be available, and it demands that no content is ever lost.

And before you flame me that I don't understand or that I'm being too harsh or that I'm ignorant ---

I do this kind of thing for a living. I am the IT director for a major, multi-billion dollar retailer, I've been a vice president of a company twice and I've done consulting work for hundreds of other companies. I done everything from designing operating systems to writing the water control system for Las Vegas Valley and New Haven Connecticut to designing the actual cluster software in an operating system to doing disaster recovery (after the disaster) for several major companies. I'm certified a dozen times and I manage a gaggle of computer geeks. I sell on the internet and actually make money, and yes, I really do understand how this all works at all levels.

My SLA (service level agreement) demands 24x7 up-time, and my systems cannot be down (unplanned) for more than an hour, no more than 4 times per year. That is, by the way, even if there is a 7.8 earthquake. Even if our primary datacenter is leveled, I am required to be able to bring it all up on the disaster recovery site, at least the critical systems, in an hour or less.

In summary, I do not accept the excuses and the "oh, it's free so why are you complaining" comments.

It's not free by any means. In fact, it is extraordinarily expensive. And we deserve the absolute best, because we enable these social networks to make money and stay in business.

Period.

[Original is at: www.onlinemind.com/tanstaafl_tribe.asp ]

Tribal at the Nile

Photos: www.renaissancefaire.net/triba...le.htm

February 1st, 10:27am - four years after the worst day of my life

Four years ago on february 1st at 10:27am my wife Claudia passed away after an illness lasting over nine years. She died from sepsis, due to side effects from medications needed to handle a smoking related condition called COPD.

It's interesting to me that it seems like a whole different life. I spent twleve and a half years with that lady and when I look back I just see a big blur with an occasional memory. She was my best friend and my soulmate.

The memories of her are good, but the memories of those twleve years are mostly bad. She was sick enough to require constant medication deliverd via IV, and I was the person who changed her IV twice a day. This was for an antibiotic to fight MRSA, which she picked up three times from the hospital.

Time marches on. I've had a lot of counseling from my church over her passing and I've taken my own steps to help ease the grief. None of it has been 100% successful.

In addition to the counseling, what has helped is traveling, photographing bellydance shows and going to the faire.

Anyway, I scattered her ashes on catalina island, and this weekend, Sunday, I'll quite probably go there, just to visit. It's become a once a year tradition for me.

If someone would like to come along, let me know.

Catharsis

My ears perk up whenever I hear that Monica DangerPantz is involved in something. Everything this extremely talented lady touches is good. She's an excellent dancer, one of the very best, and she has the ability to pull in people and performers to create a wonderfully entertaining show. The opportunity to see a show she has worked on in which she also dances, well, it is not to be missed.

When she told me she was putting on a show called Catharsis I just had to go. Yes, it was the same day as my showcase; I postponed mine until the following month. Yes, it was on a Sunday in the evening, and I normally don't go to evening Sunday or weekday shows because it makes me very tired at work the next day (and, so I'm told, grumpy). And yes, it was in Hollywood, which is an hour drive for me.

But anything touched by Monica is worth the sacrifice.

The show was fantastic. From the opening performances by She'enedra, Olu, Politti and Subee Djinn to the performances of Monica and her student troupe, Heather Shoopman, Superkate, Sherri Wheatley and Elysium dance Theatre, I just sat there, enthralled by the wonderful energy and creativity I watched on stage.

I was honored to be able to take pictures of the show.

www.renaissancefaire.net/catharsis.htm

I'm told there well be future shows by Monica and B.E.L.A. (Bellydance Eclectic Los Angeles); I will almost certainly be there.

Thank you Monica and thank you to all the performers and everyone else who helped create such an enchanting evening.

And, of yes, I actually got to talk to Sherri Wheatley. She's a very nice lady (not to mention an incredible dancer).