My life today

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topic 2 · 264 responses · 10 recent replies

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~mikeg Fri, May 7, 1999 (05:34) #101

i was interviewing for another job, just to make sure that I didn't want it more than the one I have an offer for. i'm going to take the original job, but the guy said that if I didn't like it in six months then I should give him a call! :-) Nice to be wanted :) oh, the agent is an agent in the sense of a recruitment agent - I think you guys call them headhunters or some such thing.

~wolf Fri, May 7, 1999 (11:16) #102

cool!

~mikeg Fri, May 7, 1999 (16:21) #103

less than two weeks before my finals, i have caught a cold. when will this life leave me alone???

~stacey Fri, May 7, 1999 (16:57) #104

c'mon Mike... Buck up! Yer almost done!!!!!

~aschuth Fri, May 7, 1999 (19:19) #105

Beware of those headhunters. Some deals got neat percentages in for them. I know some folks over there, before you sign with one, mail me.

~mikeg Sat, May 8, 1999 (13:41) #106

tired and pissed off

~KitchenManager Sat, May 8, 1999 (13:50) #107

and what instigated you to be me today?

~mikeg Sun, May 9, 1999 (03:24) #108

:-)

~aschuth Sun, May 9, 1999 (13:36) #109

Yeah Mikey, what happened? BTW.: Hey, anybody here from Drool ? Wonder if you possibly could get interested in a new topic: "Eligible Bachelors" , dedicated to handsome young men with good manners and lotsa cash in their pockets! (Wonder why this idea pops up here and now, any idea? ;=} )

~KitchenManager Mon, May 10, 1999 (00:50) #110

none, none at all...

~aschuth Mon, May 10, 1999 (05:47) #111

(But what do you think of this idea? Perhaps we could get Mikey another contract, too! ;=} Yeah, I mean, these gals ougtha lick their fingers - young, handsome, maybe even well mannered, soon serious dosh on the bank, nice car within the quarter - everything! If I weren't happy for him, I even might get jealous. All I ever was was young.)

~KitchenManager Mon, May 10, 1999 (13:31) #112

(amen, brother!)

~mikeg Mon, May 10, 1999 (18:19) #113

ah, but i'm taken Alexander, so the gals could only look but not touch ;)

~aschuth Tue, May 11, 1999 (06:29) #114

Well, they'll never know what they missed! BIG MONEY!! BRIT ACCENT! Isn't that what they are after? (Wer, at least you know some business well. I just fly blindsided from one disaster into next...)

~aschuth Tue, May 11, 1999 (06:30) #115

(...without any idea about nuthin'!)

~wolf Fri, May 14, 1999 (22:10) #116

i thought that was the way it was supposed to be done!

~aschuth Sat, May 15, 1999 (08:40) #117

With us ethnic German, Wolf, it's always this way, true. We land in a mess and struggle our way out. Sometimes quite a messy thing. There may be smarter approaches... But not for us, I'm afraid. Say, Wer, come to think of it - Roland sounds like a German family name to me...

~KitchenManager Sat, May 15, 1999 (15:12) #118

not to mention William...the most archaic spelling of Roland is Danish...

~aschuth Sun, May 16, 1999 (08:48) #119

So, your family is Danish, Wer? In Bremen is a famous medieval statue, the Roland. He was a "Herold" for Charlemagne, whom we know as "Karl der Gro�e", and held a ravine against the saracens somewhere in Spain, all by himself, and warned the train behind him with his horn signals. He died, but his effort and loyalty made him a legend. (There is a passage in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which always seemed to me to be a reenactment of this: When Boromir falls, his hornsignals warns the companions.)

~KitchenManager Sun, May 16, 1999 (13:47) #120

my family is American, before that, who knows? I'm a mutt.

~aschuth Sun, May 16, 1999 (18:43) #121

So? Who here isn't? Hey, we had North Africans here *2.000* years ago. Russians occupied the area *around 1800* when they pushed Napoleon back. Plus spoken language in my state, especially this county, knows many distorted french words because they came over to knock us up *all the time*. Before the North Africans and their Roman officers this was *Celtic land*. In the town I was born in they had a major industrial site to produce salt from the springs we have here. Not far from it were two major fortifications and a great c lt place. Afterwards, Germanic tribes settled here. To keep this area for the empire, the Romans built the limes, a long wall through Germany (sound familar?). When all that was over, the Hunns passed through. Tell a german about being a mutt. What a joke! (It took an Austrian to not get it, and make a cult of the opposite.)

~mikeg Wed, May 26, 1999 (18:18) #122

Today I finished my last university exam, i bought a car, Manchester United won the soccer treble and it's only two days until Carolyn arrives.....great day :)

~stacey Wed, May 26, 1999 (19:05) #123

woo woo!

~KitchenManager Wed, May 26, 1999 (21:08) #124

that does sound like a good day! (who am I kidding...sounds like a helluva week!!!)

~aschuth Thu, May 27, 1999 (03:29) #125

Go Mikey!

~KitchenManager Tue, Jun 1, 1999 (13:25) #126

~wolf Mon, Jun 21, 1999 (08:19) #127

any updates for us mike?

~MarciaH Thu, Jul 1, 1999 (21:21) #128

Lady from Drool - a little late perhaps, and not in your favorite category agewise, but here I am. Shall I take any messages back to the nubile maidens of Drool? I am going to have to read all of these little topics, am I not, to find out where I need to defend myself or the intelligent and witty women of Drool (I know, if they were so W & I why did they choose "Drool" for the name of their conference?!) I trust all of you have survived the deep gloomies I read about in going through this topic. Cheers for Mike!

~KitchenManager Fri, Jul 2, 1999 (03:00) #129

my life today...two new calls on potential job offers, with an interview in the morning!

~MarciaH Fri, Jul 2, 1999 (03:57) #130

Good luck wer! We're pulling for you! Let us know how it went!

~aschuth Fri, Jul 2, 1999 (04:11) #131

~KitchenManager Fri, Jul 2, 1999 (16:11) #132

and also with you!

~wolf Fri, Jul 2, 1999 (17:53) #133

that's cool wer, but i thought you already have a new job? oh, and what alex said...

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 3, 1999 (02:34) #134

it was a three week temp, Wolf, am working at LI again...

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 3, 1999 (20:10) #135

My life is lovely today, just as all should be for everyone. I am smiling!

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 3, 1999 (20:16) #136

...that and I have three backed-up drains and no one is fixing them, so it is up to me. Right!

~wolf Sat, Jul 3, 1999 (23:44) #137

you can do it marcia!!

~MarciaH Sun, Jul 4, 1999 (00:01) #138

Alas, my dear, apparently I did do it (though I'd guess it is the male of the species who really did.) I just need someone to undo it!

~wolf Sun, Jul 4, 1999 (13:36) #139

haha!!

~MarciaH Sun, Jul 4, 1999 (15:30) #140

The Marines landed in my house last night and opened the laundry drain, but I am still washing stuff in a bucket in the Kitchen. Do you think, if I let him do the washing-up, the drain would be fixed faster?!

~wolf Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (00:33) #141

~MarciaH Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (01:57) #142

~wolf Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (13:44) #143

ah, but you'll look back and laugh (hopefully!) our 4th was quite lovely. we began by stuffing ourselves shamelessly, then we hit the local minor league baseball stadium and watched our captains take a victory (after a string of losses). the fireworks display was the best in town!

~MarciaH Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (14:09) #144

Cheers for you, Dear! I am glad you had a great 4th. The hairy chest-beater has been working on the drain and it is so full of fumes out there that I am again closed in the Bedroom with the computer. Can't do anything but play all day! ...suffer...suffer I plan to laugh as soon as he removes that plug in the trap which used to open onto the driveway but he enclosed extending the garage even further. Now he will have to catch whatever comes out in a shovel and newspapers and bail it over the door sill Should tell him "I told you so!" but I am a more noble creature than that...maybe...*smirk*

~wolf Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (15:50) #145

i understand your plight....we redid the floor in the main bath and had to remove the toilet...it was stinky! it was funny to see the porcelain throne in the middle of the back yard!

~stacey Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (16:26) #146

Thank you for the gory 4th details... I now feel privileged not to have touch a drain, toilet or anything else otherwise considered clogged all day! B's parents had their annual 4th bash and I again reveled in turning everything red white and blue! Today I went for a run and then decided a day off should not go to waste... I skated up to the Cherry Creek Arts festival and wandered around for awhile. Tired... Taking the skates every year prevents me from spending money frivolously... only if I REALLY want it would I skate it the 20+ miles home!

~MarciaH Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (17:34) #147

Stacey, you skated 40 miles?! Your thighs should be able to crack walnuts! Good for you! I'd really have to want something to go though that exercise for it. Hiking on a hot lava field is something I can really get into.

~wolf Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (18:59) #148

wait a sec...stacey, you ran, then skated 20 miles because you didn't want to waste the day? girl, you're nuts! i'll never be that ambitious. glad to hear you had a good 4th (sans clogged drains)... marcia, hot lava fields?

~MarciaH Mon, Jul 5, 1999 (21:38) #149

Ummm! I live on the side of the world's most active volcano. My son is a geologist; I went along on his field trips when he was in college and I still love to hike in there. Nothing quite like watching a volcano erupt close up to stir your soul!

~stacey Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (02:05) #150

hmmm... crack walnuts... never tried THAT before! I suppose I could practice while Mr. B's away... Wolfie, you gotta understand, I have difficulty sitting still. So... when I think of all the composure I'll have to gather just to spend a full day at work tomorrow, I just want to run around in circles until I flop over from exhaustion. That way tomorrow when I'd usually be feeling claustraphopic and antsy, I'll just get up to get a drink of water and my legs will ache so much I'll WANT to sit down! WOW! Lava fields... cool! How 'active' is an active volcano? How much impact does the activity have on your life?

~aschuth Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (14:44) #151

~aschuth Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (14:48) #152

~aschuth Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (14:54) #153

~aschuth Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (14:55) #154

How I can sympathize with you...! Cool date, too!

~aschuth Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (14:58) #155

What I was on about? Just saw myself in a mirror... Topic 2 of 64 [porch]: My life today Response 152 of 152: (null) ((null)) * Wed, Dec 31, 1969 (18:00) * 0 lines Scared me so bad, I got enough for today. Y'all have sweet dreams!

~stacey Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (15:00) #156

ouch. at least my fingers aren't sore today!

~wolf Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (15:09) #157

i can't sit still for long either, but if i keep my hands and mind busy, i'm alright. am going to the gym today after a two week hiatus (and a 3 lbs comeback). marcia, i imaging being that close to an erupting volcano would be enough to let me know my heart still beats (not to mention the necessity of bringing extra pants)! good for you, though. it sounds exciting, but i don't think i could handle it. that was really great support for your son. probably the only excuse you could find to do something like that and not be called crazy, huh? and alex, can't get everything out in one post, eh?

~MarciaH Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (20:46) #158

The only time it has not been fun to live on this volcano is when I am called to do disaster relief work. A lovely little subdivision was buried quite completely by lava a few years ago, and other than feeding them, the only help I was able to offer was my arms around them when they fell apart watching their homes burn and disappear, one by one. It is heart-rending and something etched so clearly in my memory I can still see it when I close my eyes.

~MarciaH Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (20:53) #159

As for moral support for my son on his field trips, He has been wonderful about that. When he was young, he was my excuse to ride on merry-go-rounds; when he got older I got to go on some very interesting hikes (ever eat Jiffy Pop cooked on a hot lava flow?!). I knew I had a good thing when he and a group of his age students included me on their graduation hike. I over did it and became very dizzy, disoriented and frightened. He took me aside and sat me down and calmed me down. Then is when I knew th t 20 years of nurturning this incredible individual had not been a waste of time, though I never doubted it!

~wolf Tue, Jul 6, 1999 (21:59) #160

hear hear!

~stacey Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (15:01) #161

your story gives me the chills Marcia... there's been a lot of talk at our house lately about how children are a pretty frightening endeavour... you did lots of things right!

~MarciaH Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (15:18) #162

~wolf Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (19:49) #163

~MarciaH Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (20:03) #164

~wolf Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (22:29) #165

i think that's great, marcia, and no offense was taken at all, no apologies needed!! *hugz* it's hard to be a kid these days when adults put so many responsibilities in their lap. i mean, my son is 10 and already i'm worried about his showing me he is responsible. good grief, we should let them be kids already!! i admit i'm hard on him being the first child and my daughter is the baby and mama's pet by her choice. i luv my kiddo's *gush*

~MarciaH Wed, Jul 7, 1999 (22:36) #166

Take a bow, dear! You are doing the right things, too. What is really neat is having adult children whose independent brains you can pick forever. What a concept! *Hugs*

~aschuth Thu, Jul 8, 1999 (06:44) #167

"Pick their brains" - you sure they enjoy it as much as you do?

~MarciaH Thu, Jul 8, 1999 (15:37) #168

Unless he is better at faking this than any other, he also enjoys it. Of course, there is a lot of mutual picking going on - everyone benefits, but youi have to choose the right time and right place. Late evenings alone are best.

~aschuth Thu, Jul 8, 1999 (16:03) #169

So it's that one geology-doin' son? And you pick his brains when you're alone? I see. (*Leaning forward in my leather chair, looking over thin-rimmed spectacles*) And how does this make you feel?

~MarciaH Thu, Jul 8, 1999 (16:13) #170

The Geology-doin' one, yup! The best session we had was when he took me camping in Yosemite and I had brought a little "medicinal" brandy along. He seemed to need a nip or two (doesn't take much for my family); then I could not turn him off. It got so funny that I interrupted his musings with inside-the-sleeping- bag giggles until we both fell asleep. I highly recommend it!

~MarciaH Fri, Jul 16, 1999 (21:48) #171

Drain is still clogged so I live in the bedroom with the computer and The Spring. Escapism is all I can handle when the male animal says he will fix it and it has not been! Otherwise, things are lovely here and in Geo as well.

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (09:54) #172

I am about to go take an HTML skill test over the web for a temp job at Dell...everyone keep their fingers crossed!!!

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (10:40) #173

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (11:20) #174

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (11:31) #175

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (11:50) #176

.....Perhaps next time...?

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (12:55) #177

don't feel so bad anymore...the recruiter said 60 percent is competent and 80 percent is exceptional...

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (13:17) #178

*smile* Thank you for that reassurance.

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (13:19) #179

May we have a little celebration later? I know where there is a nice private place with flowers, soft grass and soft breezes....

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (13:22) #180

does it have net access?

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (14:36) #181

We can arrange for that. I am most accommodating, if that is your desire...

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (19:15) #182

*holding my tongue on behalf of the other participants while smiling*

~MarciaH Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (19:18) #183

We'll find something else for that tongue...it must be tiresome holding it...!

~KitchenManager Sat, Jul 17, 1999 (19:56) #184

~stacey Mon, Jul 19, 1999 (18:32) #185

~KitchenManager Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (00:28) #186

~KitchenManager Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (15:14) #187

and, I didn't get the job, so I am open to any and all suggestions!!!

~stacey Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (16:20) #188

hula dancer...

~KitchenManager Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (15:44) #189

methinks the grass would become too entangled in the hair for me to be very effective...

~MarciaH Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (19:37) #190

Ah, My Dear, it is not grass...it is shredded Ti leaves, and they entangle in nothing. Very tough and glossy. (I think that is a splendid idea...!)

~MarciaH Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (19:38) #191

Can you believe it? My drain is finally open again! I guess that means I have to cook again instead of posting and researching for Geo...*sigh*

~aschuth Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (11:23) #192

Somber. (Now I only need to find out what that word means...)

~KitchenManager Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (12:47) #193

Somber=wer

~MarciaH Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (12:49) #194

quiet=Marcia

~aschuth Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (12:58) #195

~KitchenManager Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (13:10) #196

~KitchenManager Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (13:11) #197

~aschuth Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (13:12) #198

Wasn't there something Stacey said once about that? If I only could remember...

~KitchenManager Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (13:13) #199

mayhaps it is screwed somewhere...

~aschuth Tue, Aug 3, 1999 (13:15) #200

Mayper she remembers - Stacey? Hulloh! Miss Vura! Hulloh! (Bye Wer, gotta run now.)

Recent replies

~terry 2026-04-17 reply

See if there is GEO now.

~terry 2026-04-18 reply

My life today is fixing this bbs I just clicked next in the last topic and it landed here. This is all miraculous that this bbs is no longer an archive but a living, breathing entity again. Still waiting for some friends to show up.

~terry 2026-04-19 reply

Late night working on usability and accessibility I could use some help doing this if anybody else wants to help test please email me or let me know here in this thread

~terry 2026-04-20 reply

● Works. Test cases show expected behavior:

┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ input │ result │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ https://austinspring.com/ │ clickable link │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │ inline image (click opens full) │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ spring │ named link │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ cat │ inline image (markdown) │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ https://evil.example/foo.jpg │ plain text (not whitelisted) │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ terry@austinspring.com │ plain text (bare email, not auto-linked here) │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ flickr, wikimedia URLs │ inline images │
└──────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────┘

All four pages returned 200. Try posting a test reply in porch/2 with:
Check this:
And a link: https://austinspring.com/
You should see the image render inline and the URL become clickable.

~terry 2026-04-20 reply

All four pages returned 200. Try posting a test reply in porch/2 with:
Check this:
And a link: https://austinspring.com/

~terry 2026-04-20 reply

https://austinspring.com/

~terry 2026-04-20 reply

We have some new features today.

Today on austinspring.com — biggest push since relaunch.

What shipped:

Serif post bodies + readability pack. Max 68ch line length, real paragraph spacing, proper blockquotes, code blocks with
amber gutter, inline images with shadow. Posts finally read like something you'd actually want to read. This was the best
single change of the day.
4-theme cycler in the bottom-right corner: Default (midnight navy), Midnight (deeper black), Warm (vintage cream paper on
walnut nav), and a new Ember (warm charcoal + burnt orange — blacksmith's-forge-at-dusk vibe). One click cycles through.
There's a separate Aa SIZE pill for font size. Both persist across sessions.
Auto-linking + inline images. Type https://austinspring.com/ in any post and it's clickable. Paste a bare imgur / flickr /
wikimedia / giphy / unsplash / reddit / github image URL and it renders inline, click-through to full size. Works in new
posts, on the recent feed, everywhere.
Tier 8 ops layer. /healthz endpoint so I can tell at a glance whether the DB and FTS index are alive. Public JSON API
under /api/v1/ (conferences, threads, search). Weekly export of every cached thread to JSON under /bbs/export/. Nightly
checksum drift check that alerts me if files disappear. Weekly restore drill that picks a random thread and diffs it against
the B2 backup. Nightly auto-commit to a local git repo. If the droplet catches fire I can rebuild from source, JSON export,
or B2 and be live in under an hour.

What the day actually felt like:

Deployed Tier 8 cleanly. Tried to click into a /porch thread — Internal Server Error. Tracked it down to two latent bugs
that had been sitting there for days, silent. A .get() call on a sqlite3 row (rows don't have .get, they need bracket
access). And a helper I referenced in a template context processor but never actually wrote. Both fixed.

Then: "why don't bare URLs become clickable?" Easy fix — the markdown pipeline already uses linkify. But while I was in
there I discovered that every post was rendering as literal <p> text in the browser. The mentions-linkify filter was
escaping its already-rendered HTML input before adding ~handle links. This had been shipping broken and I hadn't noticed.
Killed the double-escape. Posts suddenly look like posts.

Then the theme saga. Four themes — eye-searing. Refined to three — still off. Ripped them all out and baked in a single
polished dark palette borrowed from wholetech.com. Then changed my mind, wanted a theme cycle back. Ported the cycle button
from wholetech.com. But the button was invisible — camouflaged against the dark background. Brightened it. Still invisible.
Wrong corner. Moved it from inside the nav to DOM-injected on body. Still wrong corner. Found a stale CSS override left over
from an earlier version. Nuked all the orphaned rules, clean rebuild. Added the Ember theme. Bumped the muted-text contrast
twice because timestamps and post-numbers were still washing out.

Thirty-plus round trips to get one button into the right corner with the right color. The pattern is always the same: the
hard part isn't the new thing, it's the residue from the old thing.

— terry
austinspring.com/bbs/

~terry 2026-04-21 reply

~sage can you summarize what's gone on in this topic since day 1 and what's the funniest thing you've read?

~sage 2026-04-21 reply

AI Sage — friendly AI helper, not a human.

Hey Terry, happy to give you the rundown.

This thread spans three decades of people's actual lives — starts back in '96 with you asking something simple ("How is your life going today?") and it just became this anchor where folks would check in through all of it. The early years have this raw, unfiltered energy: people dealing with finals and relationship ghosts, office ambushes on Electric Minds, someone arguing with Educational Testing Service until they admitted a test question was broken. There's KitchenManager showing up over and over through genuinely dark periods — "every day is becoming the kind where I'd prefer being on death row" — and people just... sitting with that. Not trying to fix it, just being there.

The funniest bit is definitely Alexander and the others in '99 figuring out they're all the same person. Alexander keeps asking these beautifully oblique questions, Stacey gets exasperated that nobody will just tell her what Alexander's mysterious success was, and then for like twenty posts they're all joking that everyone at Spring is secretly one narcissist named Alexander. The commitment to the bit is incredible.

But the real thing running through everything is Marcia. She's posting from Hawaii next to an active volcano, dealing with disaster relief, fixing drains, thinking about kinky positions she'll never get to try, and she keeps coming back here saying "Spring is where my heart and love is." That's the thread's spine.

Glad you got this alive again. The fact that people were willing to show up year after year says something.

Reply to this post and a human (terry@) will see it. I can be wrong — verify anything important.

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