clboss

Actually Making clboss.net Part of the World Wide Web

It was the Summer of 1995 and I was part-time in grad school when I first encountered the Internet. Dialing into the university’s server with my 28.8k connection, I used a book (remember those?) to find telnet sites, multiple user domains, and chat rooms. Part of the adventure (and frustration) was finding which sites were dead and which ones weren’t. All of it, every single bit of it, was command line.

One day, hanging out in the computer lab, I sat down in front of one of the newer computers that had an icon labeled ‘Netscape’. Being a bit adventurous, I clicked it.

Since then, the world has become a much, much smaller place.

Ever since elementary school, I have craved information. I could never get my fill of everything from thing that nearly everyone knows like state capitals to what year the oldest tower at the Kremlin was constructed (1491, is the answer, one I’ve been lugging around since 6th grade). My favorite Christmas present? A World Almanac, every Christmas. I am the Trivia King.

It was addictive. It’s still addictive – a World Wide Web filed with information that serves up a link where you can go for more information and another link for more information and on and on and on. It was made for someone like me.

With that in mind, I must sheepishly admit that my site doesn’t ‘web’ to anywhere. Seems kind of pointless, doesn’t it? Let me fix that…

hackaday.com – My ‘day job’ is working as technician. I’m a bit of a jack of all trades, but, as the saying goes, master of none. Hackaday is a site I visit every day for knowledge and inspiration. There’s a little bit of everything ‘maker’ on this site. More than one of my projects have benefitted from a visit here.

xkcd.com – Another favorite site, this one filled with nerd humor. Believe it or not, I’ve learned quite a bit from this site as well.

stackoverflow.com – You may find this difficult to fathom, but part of my job is dealing with information. It was just in past couple of years that I discovered that the best way to wrangle information is to build the tools for parsing it myself. Stackoverflow is my go-to source clues on to solve my Python problems.

Out of a Small Tragedy, a Moment of Triumph

I’ve yet to mention, but I have four daughters – ages seventeen, twelve, twelve (yes, twins), and almost ten. Today saw the younger three and myself clearing brush from our property. The youngest, Kate, is always eager to help, so it wasn’t the least bit surprising when she wanted to prune branches with a hand saw like her sisters. With a penchant for being as responsible as she is helpful, I agreed to let her.

Things progressed fine for over an hour when Kate suddenly announced that she had cut her finger. A glance at the finger told me it wasn’t just a nick. I took her in the house and ran her finger under the faucet which revealed two significant cuts. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always calm in a crisis, but that’s when the way forward isn’t clear. The action needed here was clear. After a brief moment’s hesitation, the decision was made to take her to the emergency room.

I tried to play it down, especially since I knew stitches were in her future, but Kate’s anxiety went through the roof once she learned we were headed to the hospital. I held her hand, talked to her in soothing tones, and generally tried to keep her mind off things. The admission process was quickly navigated and we were taken to our room.

Our small town hospital provides quick service and our doctor visited and had a plan of action within a few moments. While all the adults in the room knew that stitches were coming, Kate still wasn’t in the know, but she was still quite anxious. When talk in the room turned to giving her a shot to numb the pain, Kate began to sob uncontrollably. As her father, it was time to move to action.

I grabbed her hand.

Parenting four daughters isn’t easy nor is it fun. It’s challenge after challenge where you’re called upon to have the right answers or do the right thing. I’ll be the first to tell you – quite often I miss the mark when it comes to parenting. Even more often, I feel completely and totally inadequate.

When I grabbed her hand, Kate turned her head to look at me. While the emotions on her face changed to fear and pain and anxiety, they always came back to one emotion. Her eyes met mine with a deep emotion I had never seen before. Her gaze pierced my soul and made me feel worthy. Recounting the story to Ms. Boss later, she finally put the words to feelings.

“She trusted you. She trusted you completely.”

Kate did well as they put five stitches in her finger. She was joking by the time we were discharged. On the way to lunch afterwards, Kate and I filled Ms. Boss in on what had happened. I handed the phone to Kate so she could say a few things. One of the last things she said – “Dad was a good dad today” – was all I could ever ask for.

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 3

The original plan for this blog envisioned a string of thoughtful, well-crafted essays that speak about my life experience. Instead, dear reader, must endure a barrage short snippets – such as this one -that capture fleeting thoughts and lack any kind of depth. I am, after all, the generation that grew up on Sesame Street. I blame my parents for giving birth to me during the Seventies.

One of the first things I learned how to cook: scrambled eggs. One of the last things I learned to cook correctly: scrambled eggs. I can eventually get things right – it just takes thirty-five years or so.

NPR (yes, I’m an NPR listener) aired a story on Mark Zuckerberg and the future of Facebook today and it caused me to think: this thirty-one year-old boy (he’s fourteen years younger me and addressed his shareholders wearing a t-shirt, I think I can get away with that comment) has made BILLIONS and changed American society forever. I wonder if anyone has ever counted up how many lives he has ruined in the process?

Speaking of NPR, I heard an interview with a Taoist scholar a couple of days ago. I was busy driving the down the street and wasn’t listening that close so I may have not gotten the full gist of what he was saying, but the concept he laid down that got my attention was this: this world is full people and their problems running into other people and their problems. That’s so true.

My favorite breakfast? Anything that Ms. Boss makes. Barring that, a truly good morning starts with coffee and toast made from homemade bread and butter. Since bread is incompatible with my current lifestyle, a simple smoothie will have to do.

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 2

Tell your wife you love her. Do it now. You’ll never know when it’s too late.

My journal and I have a deal – there’s no such thing as a backspace key. What’s on the page stays on the page. This is completely and totally the opposite of how I write professionally (not a writer, just everyday correspondence) where I’ll scrutinize a single paragraph for fifteen minutes. I’m trying to split the difference here. I get three looks and it’s posted, perfect or no. It’s the only way I’ll ever generate any content. Perhaps we can make a game of ‘spot the grammatical error’.

Brisket. Brisket is my favorite thing to eat as well as my favorite thing to cook. It can not and must not be overcooked lest it become plain old roast beef. Slow and gentle is the way to go for tenderness.

The ironic thing about the last little tidbit is that I just realized my wife has been trying to tell me something similar for years… and barbecue sauce has nothing to do with it. Have I mentioned that I’m and obdurate male?

So I was sitting there drinking my normal morning breakfast (Cherry Berry Smoothie with Green and Protein Powder) when a random thought popped in my head about the news media. Would we be better off today if there was no profit in delivering the news? Would America be much different without the 24/7 news cycle or instant access to multiple sources? Then it ocurred to me that this one has been tried before – Pravda. Even when no one profits, media is still profitable.

Speaking of the former Soviet Union, I checked my web stats the other day and found that the part of the world that has visited my site the most is… Ukraine. Now, I’m not naive enough to believe even for the briefest of moments that my page was accessed by some Ukrainian national who can identify with the ramblings of a middle-aged American male instead of a web-crawling robot, but just in case… Pryvit! Prijemno poznajomytysia!

Random Semicoherent Thoughts – Volume 1

When I posted regularly on ‘well-known media site’, I often wrote about an activity I often engaged in. In each posting, I inserted ‘random semi-coherent thoughts’ that didn’t seem to jive with the narrative. Since my life is filled with such thoughts, it seems wise to begin that practice here. Think of them as thoughts that have yet to evolve into blog posts.

I once was a ‘card-carrying member’ of a political ideology. That isn’t the case any more. The climate of polarizing ‘groupthink’ in today’s America unsettles me. I prefer to make my own decisions and not have the masses make them for me.

The most startling thing about being forty-five is that I managed to make it this far. By no means reckless, I can point back to multiple times where decisions I made should have been fatal.

I don’t mean to wax political, but it’s hard to avoid that topic in an election cycle like 2016. What I will say is this – politics is so messed up this year that the presidential candidate that I like the most is the one whose ideals I identify with the least.

Again with the politics – the party that I’ve voted for all my life recently ran thirteen – THIRTEEN – candidates for the Congress in the spring primary. Unlike most Americans, I actually spent almost two hours looking over their issue papers. I voted for the one who annoyed me the least. I’m actually thinking about voting for a third party candidate in the fall.

I have quite a few interests in my life, too many actually. One of them is photography. Last night, while I was writing my post, the sun broke through the clouds as it was setting pouring golden light all over the trees on my wooded lot. I had no idea where my camera was, but grabbed my phone instead. It was a complete and total fail. It pays to be ready in life or you will miss moments that may never return.

I talked about having many interests. It’s true. I’d fashion myself as an erstwhile Leonardo daVinci except not quite as smart… or artistic… or inventive… or creative… or Italian… or medieval… or rich. Come to think of it, I’m nothing like Leonardo daVinci.

Yes, I know this blog is in the default WordPress scheme with hardly any modifications whatsoever. I like the starkness of black text on white background – it brings focus on the words. I also know that the software would allow me to have pink, fluffy unicorns on the page if I so chose – which would render this particular blurb completely meaningless.

The Weekend I Got A Blog and a Dog…

This past Friday morning saw me sitting at my desk doing what my employer pays me to do when a text from Ms. Boss (my wife, if you haven’t figured that out by now) arrives. A friend of a friend, it seems, writes a blog and featured a post she felt compelled to share.

‘I would love to see you and support you in doing something like this,’ urged Ms. Boss.

Knowing that Ms. Boss is a) wiser than me, and b) someone I don’t wish to disappoint, I took her up on the offer – and went all in. No, I didn’t go to Blogspot or a similar space where they would gladly host me for free, I went all out and purchased my own domain name and parked it on a web host. This is because I a) am occasionally filled with hubris, and b) am an obdurate male. Thus, ‘The Life of C.L. Boss’ entered my life.

Saturday rolls around and a small crisis looms at Boss household. After months of resisting our daughters’ pleas to get a dog, we finally gave in the previous Monday. We found the dog for us – quiet, calm, small, housebroken – it was almost too perfect. In fact, it was too perfect – the people who gave us the dog hounded and pestered us until they got the dog back. Ms. Boss and her brood were quite beside themselves. We spent Saturday looking in vain at shelters. On Sunday, we found the newest member of the Boss clan. Thus, ‘Ozzy’ entered our lives.

Other than the fact that the two words rhyme, I have discovered early on in my relationship with the two that a ‘dog’ and a ‘blog’ have some eerie similarities.

1) Both need care and attention: Unlike our cat, Ozzy needs cared for quite a bit during the day. It doesn’t help that he isn’t quite housebroken yet. While a blog won’t poop in your house, it also needs love lest it devolve into a mess.

2) Both take time: I wasn’t much of a dog person growing up. The one dog I had growing up was either extremely low maintenance or my parents shouldered a lot of burdens I wasn’t aware of. A blog? Let’s just say I haven’t been able to put as much into it as I would have liked early into the progress.

3) I have no idea what I’m doing: Ms. Boss and I have scoured the Internet looking for sources on how to take care of our dog. While some of it has worked, we’re still cleaning up our fair share of accidents. As far as the blog goes, I have a few vague ideas of where I’m leaving from, but I haven’t found the right star to steer towards yet (see yesterday’s haiku).

4) It’s still early in the game: A scant two days have passed since both the dog and the blog came into my life. Who knows? Ozzy could grow up to be the bestest dog ever. ‘The Life of C.L. Boss’ could be the bestest blog ever written. Both are unlikely, but the possibility remains if I can put the proper effort into it.

For now, I’ll remain ever vigilant for the next great idea… as well as poop on the floor.

Haiku 1

I like haikus. I see them as a challenge – conveying meaning in seventeen syllables isn’t always easy. I will occasionally write them and post them to other social media. My time today for writing has been limited, I might as well give it a whirl here.

a journey begins

uncertainty lies ahead

knowledge lies behind

Hello world!

Hello world, indeed.

For those of you not familiar with all things technical, a ‘Hello World!’ program is the first program that you learn in any computing language. When run, it’s sole purpose is printing those words on a screen. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. After that, well, it’s up to the programmer. Who knows what kind of journey they want to take?

It’s with that first clue we open the journey of discovering who I am and what I’m all about. An when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘you’ and ‘I’. I’m forty-five years old (HA! – another clue!) and I’m still trying to figure what I’m all about. Every year, every experience, every morsel of information I gain changes me, molds me, reshapes me until something just the tiniest bit different. It’s the spaces created by those changes that result in growth… and ultimately what makes life worth living.

If you want a theme for this blog, there it is: life. My life. My experiences. What’s meaningful or interesting to me.

To the few humans that read this, ‘hello’. Thank you for caring.

C L

P.S. Is ‘C.L. Boss’ my real name? Yes and no.

‘C’ is for someone very important in my life.

‘L’ is for a group of someones – only one of whom I ever met – that are very important my life.

‘Boss’? ‘Boss’ is for someone I love unconditionally who has molded me, shaped me, and influenced me in so many ways – it is impossible to overstate her importance in my life. I hope great things come out of this blog and I dedicate all those great things to her.