Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

All the guy wants is a complaint form

Oh man. This is an apalling TV news report about police in South Florida. Watch the video. I'm so glad I haven't run into any cops this bad in a long while. I find it really hard to keep my mouth shut when being pushed around by "public servants."

Posted by espd at 4:41 PM | 
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Microsoft I-pod (sic)

What if Microsoft redesigned the packaging of the iPod? A fun little video parody.

Posted by espd at 3:07 PM | 
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Exciting announcements

Velma and I both accepted new jobs yesterday (at difference places, of course; it just so happened that we both accepted on the same day). But we're both very excited about the new positions. Go on over to Velma.org for her announcement details. As for mine, I'm afraid I need to wait a couple more days until the i's are all crossed and the t's all dotted.

We went out to have martinis last night to celebrate. But interestingly enough, we had something even cooler to celebrate. We're getting hitched.

Posted by espd at 11:45 PM | 
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So, why no posts lately?

Contrary to what it appears like, I haven't been neglecting the blog. I haven't posted in a while, but it's not a case of "Sorry no posts lately" syndrome that so many blogs fall into when their authors become too busy or too bored.

I actually couldn't post because doing a single new post would have screwed up my whole blog.

I've been hard at work at the conversion of from Blogger to Movable Type (finally!). During the process, making a new post would have blown everything up.

It's taken a couple weeks so far because 1) I ran into numerous technical difficulties because none of the various instructions out there on how to do this conversion were complete, including the ones from both Blogger and Movable Type (and some of the how-tos on the web even contain outright errors), and 2) I have amassed nearly 700 posts and reader comments over the past few years, and I wanted to make sure none of them got lost or messed up.

Subsequently, I had to redo the import about nine times, doing a lot of trail and error.

There's still a lot to do. I have to catagorize all the old posts, which I have to do individually for all 657-or-something posts. And I really have to re-skin the templates, because the default-installed design is just terrible. I'm actually going to try to temporarily pretty it up later tonight with a better template I saw elsewhere.

If you're really interested, here's what the new (ugly) blog looks like so far. I'm going to post to both for now, until I have things sorted out.

Posted by espd at 6:40 PM | 
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"Yo, your mom's gonna love that menorah."

The West Coast answers SNL's Narnia Rap (a.k.a. "Lazy Sunday") with "Lazy Monday."

filed under: video, humor, music

Posted by espd at 4:00 PM | 
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The “Whatever happened to...” project

MARCH 2009 UPDATE: I found a few more people in the past year.

APRIL 2008 UPDATE: Several people on the list below have contacted me as a result of this post. It works!

ORIGINAL POST: One loses track of many people in the course of one’s life. People get off at this stop, miss the train at another. The train of life chugs on.

Did you ever wonder whatever happened to those people? The ones who influenced you in some minor way. Or perhaps in a very significant way.

I admit it. I’ve Googled the names of one or two old girlfriends. C’mon who hasn’t? I’ve looked up old friends, teachers, people I used to work with. I’ve even Google people from the seventh grade, fercryinoutloud.

At some point a few years ago, I tried finding a few people who were influential in my life, but whom I’d lost touch with long ago.

It’s amazing that it’s so hard to locate some people with Google. You’d think they’re names would come up somewhere...

Alas, I only had decent luck with a few, and then quickly got distracted by the 237 other things that occupy my so-called free time. In fact, I started this list and this blog post 14 months ago, and I’m only getting around to posting it now.

The plan
Operating under the assumption that everyone will eventually Google themselves, I’m posting the names of people whom I’ve lost touch with and wondered about. Since Google will index this page eventually, I hope they will see their name in Google, with a link to this page.

The list
The names are in no particular order. I’ll probably add to it over time. I’ll also update this page when I find out whatever happened to any of these people.

If you know any of these people (or maybe are one of these people), I’d really like to hear from you.

– Mark Bult

Jim Filiault FOUND
JP Walz FOUND
Sean English
Ashley Mooser [K. Ashley Mooser] FOUND (now Ashley Spencer)
Brian J. Boxall
Rocky Mullin FOUND via Yahoo! Groups, Facebook
Stephanie Jorgl FOUND
Shelley Hurt? Hunt? (I can’t remember) (from La Voz... “You’re loved, pumpkin!”)
Mike Mogensen (City of Palo Alto Recreation) FOUND, but no response from email
Michelle Spivey
Danielle Malanczuk
Darren & Andrew ____ (have to look up their last name)
Ki Hong (from 777 S. Mathilda, Sunnyvale, CA, circa 1980?)
Laurie Parker (from Saint Andrews, circa 1975)
Paul F. Page (journalism teacher, Saratoga High School, circa 1988)
Kristi Rux FOUND when a friend Googled her
Tami Paulsen FOUND
Carlo Carbajal FOUND
Ed Svoboda
Corina Doody
Sharon Fernekees FOUND
Karen Fernekees FOUND
Julie Fernekees FOUND

Labels: formative influences, friends, misc. personal, people, whatever happened to

Posted by espd at 10:27 PM | 
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Caught up on new photos

In case anyone cares, I caught up last weekend posting to the photoblog. I know one person who noticed, anyway (hi Sarah!), since her son Sage showed up in yesterday's entry and she sent me an email. No, it wasn't a death threat. Sarah is one of Velm's bestest friends and we visited her and her tykes in December in Missouri.

Posted by espd at 11:39 AM | 
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How to make a comic

Comic artist Kazu Kibuishi (Copper, and others) has posted a cool tutorial showing his process of creating a comic, from pencilling to inking to coloring. I figured Aaron, Jason, and Ynnej would be particularly interested in this.

Posted by espd at 11:33 AM | 
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