MacBook Air [1991]
- On June 14, 2014
- By Brian J. Matis
- In Photo a day / Technology
Ever since my MacBook Pro died a few months ago, I’ve been without a Mac (and have just been using my desktop PC instead.) While my PC is pretty awesome, not having a Mac has caused great discord for me.
But today, I picked up a 13″ MacBook Air. Now all is right with the world again.
Photo-a-Day: Year 6, Day 165 – Total Days: 1,991
Nada-Rasta [1990]
- On June 13, 2014
- By Brian J. Matis
- In Concert / Event / Photo a day
You can tell it’s officially summer in San Luis Obispo when the Concerts in the Plaza start up. It’s a great thing about this town — local bands playing every Friday evening downtown at the Mission. The concerts are free and a lot of fun for all ages. Plus there’s bratwurst and beer stands!
Today was the first one of the season, and Nada-Rasta was playing. I’d never heard them before, but I’m glad I have now. Nice blend of Rock, Reggae, and Ska.
Photo-a-Day: Year 6, Day 164 – Total Days: 1,990
Bonus Photos below:
#663399Becca [1989]
- On June 12, 2014
- By Brian J. Matis
- In Photo a day
I don’t know Eric Meyer personally and I’ve never met him. In fact, it’s a name I haven’t thought of in over a decade. But when he came up today on a blog I read (Daring Fireball), I was reminded of how I first learned CSS (Cascading Style Sheets – the main technology/language for controlling how web pages look) from a book of his and the extensive writing he had done about the topic online.
But sadly, the reason he came up was because today was his six year old daughter’s funeral.
Six. Cancer.
She died this past Saturday on her sixth birthday.
What unimaginable heartbreak. And when I learned of it I followed links to his blog and saw how now, instead of the articles advocating web standards and discussing CSS techniques that I remember from a decade ago, he’s been pouring his heart out over the tragedy and struggle to save his daughter’s life.
I also learned that his daughter, Rebecca’s, favorite color was purple. So several web luminaries and bloggers took it upon themselves to use the hashtag #663399Becca (#663399 being the way you define the color purple on the web) and to make other gestures like write their post about this with the font in purple or change the background color of their site to purple.
So for my photo of the day I went on a short quest to find something purple, as my own small gesture. Besides, it’s my favorite color, too.
I’ll end this with something Jason Kottke wrote on his blog, that I know will resonate with many:
“Sometimes parents tend to get caught up in the minutia of parenthood: the logistics of getting from one place to another without losing your shit, the weary deflection of the 34th “why?” question of the afternoon, and all the rest. At least, I know I do. You forget to lift your head up to appreciate what you have. Author Elizabeth Stone once wrote that having kids was deciding to “have your heart go walking around outside your body”. Steve Jobs put it similarly: your children are “your heart running around outside your body”. That’s the truest sentiment I’ve ever read about parenting; it feels exactly like that to me. Reading Eric’s writing about Rebecca, a girl so close in age to both my kids, has affected me greatly. That could be me. My kids suffering. My heart, broken and dying. Imagining one of them…I can’t even do it, the tears come hard and fast, washing away any such thoughts.”
Also worth reading:
- https://twitter.com/meyerweb
- http://www.zeldman.com/2014/06/10/the-color-purple/
- https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=133804
Photo-a-Day: Year 6, Day 163 – Total Days: 1,989