DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Last week my old friend Bruce pointed out an article in the Chronicle about the closing of a boarding house in the Marina district of San Francisco. While the loss of an historic institution is of general interest, this story caught Bruce’s attention because he used to live there. And he sent me the URL because I used to live there, too.

It was my first week in the City, and at my first post-college job. I’d needed a temporary place to live until I networked enough to find more appropriate accomodations. The Marine View Residence was available and convenient. And unusual.

Rent was charged weekly and included two hot meals a day. The other residents were wholly unlike my new co-workers, and although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I had a lot more in common with the people at breakfast than with the suit-and-tie victims at lunch.

The room I could afford was tiny, and I had to share a bathroom. The neighbor with whom I shared the bathroom often had overnight guests; most mornings I’d wake to the sound of them showering — running water and two male voices through the thin wall.

I found a picture of my old room at the Marine View, taken in late 1989. The room is admittedly nondescript, more interesting for the junk strewn around than for the structure itself. Picking out the highlights… there’s a CD player on the desk, connected to a pair of Sony V6 headphones (which I used until recently, when they began to rot). There are papers stacked on the desk, the floor, and the bed; this is a filing system I employ to this day. There’s a pair of dress shoes on the floor, a symbol of the thing I loathed most about my first job, aside from the work and the people of course.

There is what appears to be a pair of light blue briefs on the nightstand. I wish I could claim I’ve never worn light blue briefs, but the idea that those belonged to someone else is even more disturbing.

The most interesting thing about the picture is the thing that isn’t seen — there is no computer in the room. Believe it or not, there was a three-year period in which I owned no computer at all. Today, I own eight.

I regret that I’d closed the curtains for this picture. In a Hollywood movie, or a nicer apartment for that matter, the curtains would open to reveal a glorious View of the Marina skyline. But in fact, for $700 all I got, besides the sagging bed, two meals a day, and three colors of hair on the soap, was a view of the backsides of neighboring buildings.

I’m nostalgic for it all the same. I haven’t thought about the place in years, but still. I remember the way my neighbor would leave the bathroom window open, and I’d step in barefoot onto 30°F tile and curse his existence once again. I remember going on “photo safaris” around San Francisco on the weekends, shooting rolls of film of all the popular landmarks. I remember learning where the various neighborhoods are and thinking I really had a handle on San Francisco. I remember walking 1.5 blocks from the bus stop to the front door after work, and feeling pain in my legs because the street is so steep. I remember having opinions about coin laundromats.

It’s important to look forward. But it’s fun to remember where you’ve been.

“People come up and ask me how good of a concierge I am,” Mc______ said. “I say, ‘How much money do you have?’”

Today’s Chronicle Magazine contains a great article on hotel concierges: Masters of their UniverseBig-city concierges are the “gatekeepers” of the tourist industry — they book tables at all the best restaurants, reserve seats at all the new shows, and broker tickets for everything worth seeing that charges admission.

In return, they eat for free, see all the new shows for free, and stockpile gift baskets and presents from every upscale storefront in town. The article claims these folks aren’t well-paid, but with all the graft, oops, I mean non-cash compensation, I believe they’re doing well.

The article describes a few of the archetypes of the profession — for example, the gracious Robert Spinrad, who would be offended if someone tried to tip him before he’d had a chance to be of assistance. And at the other end of the spectrum is Scott Mc______, who (as illustrated in the article anyway) seems to not even want to talk to people who haven’t paid $20 for the privilege.

Another fascinating Mc______ quote: “Legal, moral, and safe is a gray zone.” The implication is that Mc______ is arranging immoral, illegal, and unsafe entertainments for hotel guests. His employers at the Marriott can’t be too happy about that.

The article failed to pursue one compelling story, when it quoted a Public Relations executive who said, “[Concierges] are a very powerful group. Certain mediocre restaurants have stayed alive for years because of [them].”

So it’s not enough that hotels pay concierges to assist hotel guests, nor that guests tip concierges for advice… the concierge will still send the hapless traveler to whatever restaurant provides the biggest kickback. You just can’t trust anybody any more, not even if you’re paying for expertise. As Scott Mc______ claims, “I can take my big concierge money hose and direct it wherever I want.”

I’m not an expert, but I believe this is what contaminated sourdough starter looks like.

Ed Wood of Sourdoughs International is an expert, and he writes, “If there is a slightly unpleasant odor and if the layer of “hootch” is at the bottom or in the middle of the fermenting culture, it indicates that contamination has occurred.”

Then again, he also writes that contamination “sometimes, although rarely, occurs.” It’s happened to me both times I’ve used his cultures. Two out of two seems a lot more frequent than “rarely.”

I am struck by the similarity in composition between a contaminated sourdough culture and a septic tank. Both contain stews of fermenting bacteria. Both separate into three layers: solids on the bottom, liquid in the middle, and a scum layer on the top. Both smell kind of funky. They are different in color, though.

It took more than one phone call, but I finally upgraded my backup software today.

Ever-conscious of the impact of my actions on the environment, I opted for the downloadable version rather than asking the vendor to ship me a CD-ROM.

But I’m still not redeemed from stupidity — I haven’t installed the upgrade yet. My data will still be there tomorrow… right?

Joel Spolsky writes about cascading system failures. Here’s his conclusion, after spending four days recovering data and rebuilding systems:

Backups aren’t good enough. I want RAID mirroring from now on. When a drive dies I want to spend 15 minutes putting in a new drive and resume working exactly where I left off.

I had the same revelation a few years back: disk drives are cheap, but downtime is expensive, and data is priceless. If you’ve ever lost data, you know viscerally what I mean.

Using RAID under Linux is easy — RedHat’s graphical installer provides a RAID option. The disk utility will format RAID volumes prior to the OS installation. But of course, if you use Linux, you already knew that.

Using RAID under Mac OS 9 (and soon, OS X) is easy, with SoftRAID. SoftRAID is a 3rd-party disk-driver that is faster than Apple’s. It provides mirroring (RAID 1) and striping (RAID 0).

My main workstation uses a striped RAID volume to store replaceable data (that is, applications) for fast access. My data volume is mirrored across two drives for safety; if one drive fails, I’ll lose no data. In fact I might not even know a drive died, because the OS would keep running.

I do wish my TiBook had room for a second disk drive, though — RAID requires a minimum of two disk drives.

Hmm, at the moment, I am embarrassed to say, I have no backup solution for my laptop. I will rectify that with my next phone call. In the meantime, somebody, please kick me… I know better than to use a computer that’s not getting backed up, really I do.