Two good reasons to kill a few afternoon hours on the patio. She’s one of the few people I’m ever glad to see with a guitar out there. I wish she’d done more than noodle a bit and hand the instrument back to her dad.
I don’t get tired of palm trees at sunset.
It’s hard to take pictures of birds. Mean old men stay still longer.
This bird posed for a few shots
The meanest and coldest of the Cigar Guys.
Intense business conversation. Why’d he remove/hide his shoes?
Original author: substitute
The Diedrich coffee houses offer free wireless internet access. When access fails, it is often the result of the wireless access point failing to give out addresses and other information. This document describes the procedure for connecting during such service failures.
The arrival of free wireless Internet access at the 17th St. Costa Mesa Coffeehouse was welcomed, but reliability has been spotty. In most cases, a failure to connect is the result of the wireless router’s DHCP server behaving unpredictably. One can see a strong signal, but cannot get to any Internet sites, and service that has been working properly can suddenly stop. To make matters more confusing, other laptops will have connected just fine but not your particular one. Here’s how to fix that.
This is the first issue of this document, version 0.01, August 2005.
If you cannot reach the Internet but have a wireless signal, follow the instructions in this document. If that does not work, you are S.O.L.
The Diedrich coffeehouses offer free 802.11b wireless access to the Internet. They do this by installing open access points made by Linksys, which are connected via NAT to the DSL router; upstream is handled by Covad Communications. In theory, anyone with a standards-compliant wireless card can easily connect to the network and enjoy Internet access along with a beverage or pastry. In practice, it is common to connect and find the network inexplicably unable to route out to the Internet.
Open your operating system’s network configuration program. On the Mac OS X system this is the Network Preferences Pane in System Preferences; on Windows it will be the Network Control Panel. Other operating systems are not discussed here, since the general information below should be sufficient for users of Unix-like systems.
Find the screen for your wireless adapter’s TCP/IP connection settings. Change the configuration method from “DHCP” to “Manual”. Insert the following settings:
IP Address: 192.168.199.200 (see note 1 below)
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Router Address: 192.168.199.1
DNS Server Addresses: 64.105.132.250 64.105.166.122
Note 1: If this does not work, choose an address ending in 201, 202, 203 etc. until your operating system stops telling you that the address is already in use.
Make sure that you have applied these new network settings. At this point you should be able to browse the web, read email, etc. If you still cannot do so, go back to your network settings and change everything back to DHCP the way it was before. You are S.O.L.
DHCP: DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It is a system by which a pool of Internet addresses can be handed out as needed to client computers by a server. A client set to connect via DHCP sends out requests in a predefined manner to the server, which then returns the appropriate configuration information to the client.
802.11b: The 802.11b standard defines a wireless network access method with a maximum network throughput of 11 MB/sec. It is of the “Wi-Fi” wireless access standards the most available and most compatible.
S.O.L.: Shit outa luck. Go do something else today.
I would like to thank Lauren Maddox for letting me rant at her tonight about how messed up the wireless is there.
The Diedrich Coffee 17th St. Coffee House Wireless Internet HOWTO is © Copyright 2005 substitute.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
He arrives in an old Suzuki Sidekick,white with pink and blue pinstripes, and strides in resplendent in a mane of dyed and teased Male Pattern Doofus, plucked eyebrows, and one of an assortment of costumes including but not limited to: captain’s hat with corncob pipe and blazer; medieval/druidic tunic and Roman strap sandals; loud blue-green aloha shirt with slacks and espadrilles; or New Age t-shirt covered in Native American imagery and/or crystal faeries.
His life is mysterious. Before Bree snapped and robbed a bank he used to talk to her a lot, but even a freaked-out Crowleyan transgendered blues singer found him too outrĂ© and would sink back into her studies of Left Hand Magick with an apologetic smile. A particular exchange I overheard one day became legendary. They were discussing movie actors and their pay, and that female stars were paid less, and he said: “Well, of course, there’s one business where the women get paid more, and that’s… [pause for effect]… [slowly and deliberately licks top teeth] poooornography.”
His nickname comes from the blue-green aloha shirt outfit, which looks like an aquarium just exploded on him.
I present to you a genuine California eccentric:
I bet this guy just found out from the MTV News or something that popping your collar means you’re ready for hot sweaty bumpin’ uglies RIGHT NOW.
Or maybe he’s just worn his shirt like this since 1982.
changeng sings and Carlos glowers. Envy does terrible things to the soul of a monkey.
I fled from the worst “Irish” band ever to the new Diedrich to see changeng play. He’s as good as ever, including a fine interpretation of Trio’s “Da Da Da” for toy piano and a disco medley followed by Eminem/Vanilla Ice mashup. He seems to pick the songs that make people laugh but also sing along, which is a very fine line. It was nice to see Sandi too. I rarely get over to that place. joyfulagitator and I were sitting on the couch when a guy walks in and she immediately says “Well, he’s a complete asshole.” I looked around and saw him, and got the same instant impression. About 3 minutes later I remembered him; he’s the guy from the 12-step group who challenged me to a fight for absolutely no reason a few years ago, and went insane when I refused. As I was leaving I heard him say to one of his group “Yeah, I’m just a cop magnet. Even after I’m sober. Why’s that?”
He plays mostly sixties covers, as you’d expect from a guitarist of his age. He did cover Richard Thompson’s “From Galway to Graceland” which was a nice surprise. Turns out he idolizes Thompson. He told me his 16-year-old son shares his love for the RT and is trying to play in a similar style, and is “scary good” after just a few years. Won’t let the kid at his Chapman Stick because he’s afraid his son will outdo him and he’ll have to jump off the Pier.
He’s a good guitar player, but uses so much reverb and delay/loop stuff that you’re hearing what he picked last week. At times he stops playing for a bit and the music just goes on. My own theory is that he dropped, like, a POUND of acid in 1974 and the rest of the world sounds this way to him. And he thinks he’s playing like Richard Thompson on Small Town Romance while we all talk like we’re underwater.
Anyway he’s a very nice guy.
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