2004 - The Twilight Report

Tonight on the way home, Town Hall station was sweltering awful humid hotness on both sides of the platform like the innards of Hades in a bad mood. It does not bode well for the weekend when it is supposed to top off at 43 degrees in parts of the city^{⋘note 1⋙}. Since I got a train pass that goes out to Bondi Junction this week ^{⋘note 2⋙} I might go and hide in the mega mall with the AC for at least part of the weekend and maybe go see a movie.

I started writing this journal to keep my writing skills fresh. That was in 2004 and seems like forever ago. I didn't have any delusions of being some grate writer or anything^{⋘note 3⋙}, but I think being able to communicate clearly is a pretty worth while skill even if one is simply a particularly cleaver monkey banging out source code on the keyboard. Then this year I started posting more photos because I've been taking more photos. Now I am thinking that balance is in order.

I am relieved at the ease of migrating my email server today. It took a long time to copy inboxes and folders and stuff, but the actual configuration and updating of the DNS MX records was a relative breeze. Since I ditched sendmail dealing with my SMTP server has been difficult but possible, a significant improvement over trying and impossible. The new server^{⋘note 4⋙} is going to save me a lot of money which is a good thing given that we are all going to lose our jobs and subsist on stealing gasoline in the desert using revved up muscle cars. I'm still losing money on it, which is okay, because I get a lot of utility out of it.

What was 2004? It was a year of stolen and disputed elections in Georgia and the Ukraine, the rise and fall of Howard Dean and John Kerry, the first private space flight and the end of the "X-Prize," disaster in Darfur, prisoner abuse in Iraq, expansion of the European Union, the death of Ronald Regan and a month of flags at half mast, the return of Greek Olympics and a very smug presidential victory. In less political but tragic terms, the worst natural disaster in my memory has occurred in Asia as Tsunami death tolls top 135,000 according to CNN.com.

For me, the year started out as a bleak one in the coldest New York winter I have ever experienced. My mother came to visit me for her birthday. We stayed in Manhattan and it was bitterly cold.

Lowel and Johanna

I took a lighting class at Dutchess which was a blast. Some of my friends from Black and White II were taking the class and I met some other cool people. It was so much fun working with those people, including the teacher, Lowel Handler.

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In Short, 2004 was A Great Year and I have high hopes that 2005 will be even better.