NB: This is something I wrote on my inauguration of my Dad’s website just a few minutes ago. I figure I’d post it on my website as well.
Greetings! I will be the first person to admit that this website should have come out years ago, but there’s no time like the present to start something (albeit late.)
I welcome you to my father’s website. I guess I could refer to him as Arthur, but that would just make it down-right awkward for me since I’ve never called Dad by his given name; after all, a proper well-educated Catholic child would never commit such atrocity.
Since I’ve had a sense of recollection there has been three persons in my life I could always somehow find my true-north with; it goes without saying that Dad is one of them. Mom and my grandfather Francisco complete the triad but their stories are best left on my website. Today, I’ll focus on Dad and the mission of this, his little space on the web.
Past the essentials – love, affection, sustenance, and rides when I couldn’t drive – I could always count on Dad for two other gifts which most people tend to take for granted from their father-figures. Dad has this amazing sense of logic that always seems to destroy mental clutter and bleach the stains of insolvency; in a way, I would like to think that a lot of my own logical development and profundity is borne from this irreplaceable font. The other gift which Dad has never ceased to provide is his amazing narrative prowess. It is this gift of his which will provide most of the power for this website.
If someone were to ask me what is Dad’s trick to his mastering this narrative ability, I could honestly answer that it is not just one thing. You see, if there is something that I have learned from my father is that there are a few ground rules that must be observed when it comes to the art of narrating and the science of interpreting.
- The first rule is respect. If you cannot respect your audience, then you should not expect your audience to respect you. There are many intellectuals and pundits out there who have great panache and rhetoric, but at the end of the day, their strength is diluted by this weakness. There is no need to point out examples: all you have to do is watch your favorite hard-news program or read your preferred news source, be it online or in its traditional, dying paper format.
- The second rule is honesty, and not just intellectual and factual honesty, but honesty from the narrator’s perspective. Anyone can proclaim to tell you the truth, and odds are that at the instance of proclamation few will doubt and question your statement; however, later when a “truth” is subject to subconscious examination, that is where we find the greatest trap we could set ourselves with: the quicksand of inaccuracy, inconsistency, and – yes, at times – malice.
- The last rule is humility. This might be the hardest rule to follow. Everyone – from the most junior scribe to the Pulitzer-winning journalist – at one time or another will be afflicted with need to stand above the masses and bask in the perceived excellence of their work. There is nothing wrong with being proud of a product that you commit yourself to, however, it should never remove the most significant aspect of the product: the message which it conveys. This is where humility is required; after all, we are all just messengers: the narrative should speak for itself.
Those of us who know my father know that he is a rather humble man. Humility, however should never be interpreted as the lack or inability to be bright, bold, and unwavering in any and all matters. Narrative and interpretations need not be boring, but they must not lack respect, honesty, or humility.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, Dad has always had great insight into how to explain the nature of events and the interpretation of anecdotes. He will be the first person to tell you that his interpretation is not the ultimate presentation in any topic; having said that, I would at least venture far enough to tell you that you probably would be pushing your luck in finding a more palatable or summary explanation of whatever topic you may engage him in, be it societal or theological.
Dad is not a stranger to humor; trust me: he can be outrageously funny and quite daring in his colored commentary… But even that has its own time and place. Once again, that “humility” theme is kicking and screaming. You could say that its one of my father’s greatest traits that I’ve yet to master. Then again, I find it sad when a son cannot find the ability to gush to others about his parents. (Note to self: tell Mom’s story soon!)
In his future musings you will become a witness to someone who follows those three rules that I mentioned earlier. They are not hard to follow if you can be objective, but I’ve only been able to find few other people who could match or surpass Dad’s gift for oratory. I might be biased and I make no apologies, but I know I can set this bar high because I am not the one who has set it there: Dad has, and continues to do so.
It is with this these words that I welcome you to his website. Yes, it will always be a work in progress, but dare I say progress might never have been this froth with great narrative as the one I am certain you will find here.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad!
ian!
As a fetus, we move to the forces of natures
tethered on our mother’s umbilical cord:
wince left, shift right.
We are born and given even more stimulus
and we move even more:
our reflexes tested, our heads lifted for milk.
Down the road, our senses are lobbied and mandated.
Want some candy? Get your ass over here!
Come here, sexy. Yes, you, babe.
And so we continue moving, whether we want to or not.
And then one day, as fate works on us, something occurs;
you fall, misstep, are roughed up.
All of a sudden, you can’t move as well as could minutes ago;
this is when you really miss moving the most.
This is when ingenuity becomes the creme that rises to the top.
In pain, I defy my muscular disaster:
I slither down my dressed bed, until my knees hit my cold tiled floor.
My knees become pivot points and I manage to spin 180 degrees;
I try to get up, yet I fall.
Was there any blood? No. Then here we go.
For a moment I’m reduced to crawling on my knees;
it’s fun to think that I once did this much more graciously.
Left, right, left, right; from my room to the kitchen.
Now I can appreciate why Mom always swept the floors constantly.
And before you know it, I’ve arrived to where I wanted to go.
Believe it or not, I was proud of that accomplishment.
Even when your own body tells you that you can’t,
your brain and willpower in the end directs the show.
Days later, I’m back on my feet; hobbling left, moving slightly faster than before.
Oh, but I move, and I will move others again;
and long after I am gone, even after the these words disappear,
something I do today will move others tomorrow.
Movement is all about willpower.
We are intricate machines, but we remain useless without guidance.
Willpower is a form of guidance. I will not be left offline.
I will not be left strewn on the floor.
I will power my move. Now move!
The flavor of Granny Smith apples
My taste buds brought to attention by the watercress in my salad
The sting of wasabi mixed with my double black soy
The prose of a Shakespeare comedy
The intent in the command voice of a drill instructor
A mother’s imperative remark to her pestering child
The perfect application of white in a field of black
The air-shattering effect from the firing of a high-powered rifle
The first and second beats of a drum roll
The logic in a well written constitution
The perfect delivery of a message
The implicit effects of bulletproof code
Hearing you break my monotony with a simple hello
Your stern look when I’m caught self-deprecating
Watching you come toward me when you could go elsewhere
All the crispness that make my life even more pleasant
Standing in bloom amongst your peers
sharing the same common descriptor,
yet holding your own.
You are part of this composition in which we all belong,
yet you are so much different from the rest.
In your own beauty you defy being known as just another shiny pebble:
you are the brightest gem of the lot.
Everything grows in this city by the ocean: exotic and intoxicating creatures of great magnitude,
yet the most amazing creation in these parts is not native;
she hails from the other coast of our great land,
and has traveled great distances to land here.
By some miracle I just happen to find myself near your radience:
the aroma of your bloom is nothing less than tantilizing.
I just feel grateful that I can witness you,
even more blessed for having you in my life.
The proverbial bird has been released
And the missing has since begun…
I pass by her street and all I can sense is my missing her even more.
I hope all the bards were correct in their assertion that the bird to whom I gave my heart might perchance return.
Soundtracks are best played to a great Hollywood production: to the one you cherish the most.
As for all the things I have told her, all I know is that they will somehow always be true.
Even though the sun orbits light years away from my perch on Earth, I still manage to feel her warmth;
but truth be told, I would much rather burn up with her than barely float alone.
Ah, to be blinded by the lights of a picture show;
the pleasure of wanting to see more and more…
Alas, I hope I will be able to once again.
I am a big fan of the open source community. I’ve been enthusiastic about its growth and implementation in the real world since 1995 when two acquaintances invited me to check out a tradeshow at a convention center in Panama (where I was living at the time). At the show, I saw a lot of stuff that I was already playing with, primarily networking technologies, Novell Netware services, and some great gaming hardware when all of a sudden we bumped into a stand for GNU-Linux. I had heard about *nix, and in particular, Slackware, which a former co-worker had been fiddling around with (he had arrived from the States when I met him at PCC, so he had an advantage over me when it came to having the coolest and newest geek toys…) That day I purchased my first copy of a Linux Distribution, and yes, it was Slackware. I tried to install it on my kick ass Packard (B|H)ell 486 and well, I had some struggles, but I got it to work, but there wasn’t much I could do, and since I really had to focus on other stuff like, work and my IT chores at home, my initial dabblings in Slackware were limited. Yes, parents do take advantage of us geeks, don’t they… It’s okay, dad… Honest!
A year and a half later, I moved to Miami and one of the first things I did after I set up my bedroom and rebuilt my PC (because I had shipped it disassembled for fear of damage) was to go check out CompUSA (for the first time ever) and buy a copy of book on Red Hat 5, which included two discs with the (in)famous fedora on their covers. By that time I had two hard discs and I had purchased a better motherboard for my computer so I could choose which boot device I wanted to use without messing with boot.ini or whatever boot manager RH5 had back then. It was a more pleasant experience, and for a while, I’d experiment with it, and leave all the heavy work to Windows 95.
The years passed, and before you knew it, I needed storage space for my MP3s. Good bye, RH5; hello fdisk.
Since then, and until 2003, I had pretty much lived a Microsoft life. I played with Windows NT, Windows 2000, and finally Windows XP. I thank God till this day that I was flat broke to buy Windows ME (snicker snicker snicker). And then one day, the bug bit me again. This time it hit me with a tornado. Since that moment, I started spending a lot more time with the Debian distribution, and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. The only times I cringed was when I wanted to make a device work and well, I’d have to find a way to do it… A little frustrating at first, but I learned to like it and now its one of my favorite things to do if it crawls up to me unannounced. At work, I’d implement a Fedora based solution for both our client laptops and servers, just to make sure I could “keep my hat on”, so to speak… That, and well, FIU had a mirror available within its network 
Then came this friendly Debian fork called “Ubuntu”. I started playing with Hoary Hedgehog (5.04) and I fell in love with it. I actually almost succeeded in converting one of my best friends to it until she decided that she really didn’t have the time to check it out. She’s still a geek tho, event her official job description calls her a Chorus Director . Wassup, Lupita!
Two jobs later, I was still preferring Ubuntu for my Linux needs, and to an extent I still do; but after having to use a Mac every day for web development/design and publishing, I decided earlier this year to get a Mac. I’m glad someone over in Cupertino had the vision to scrap System 9 and start with a solid *nix foundation, even if its BSD. I got my Mac about 2 weeks ago, and boy was I impressed. I didn’t’ buy the latest or greatest, but I did buy a barely-used, awesome Intel iMac from a friend (which made it even better because I’d rather help him than a company make ends meet – not that there’s anything wrong with capitalism 
)
What does this have to do with haberdashery? Lots, in a non-vestment kind of way.
Since I started at my new job, I decided to grow with the experience… I’m currently studying for my Linux Professional certification, and while we’re an open source shop at work… a RH enterprise shop to be exact. Sure, I’m familiar with RPMs and how RH folks prefers to launch things with service daemon [start|stop|status|whatever] versus /etc/init.d/daemon [start|stop|status|whatever] and how there’s always the yum versus apt-get debate. I live in the best of both worlds: I build mission critical daemons. Binaries are okay, but sometimes you want that extra “ummph”.
Two weekends ago, I decided to backup my /home folders and install CentOS on boh, my AMD x64_86. The hat is now back on. It was an interesting experiment… I settled initially on CentOS 4.6 because that was the version we were using at the office, but a few days later, after it took me about 2 hours to get my nvidia on board Ethernet adapter to work, I installed CentOS 5.2. So far, so great. I finished building my development server (on boh) for my various web projects… On Saturday, I finally implemented bind for localized DNS… happiness! As Moni would say, “gosh, you’re a geek”. Yes I am.
As for Ubuntu: it hasn’t gone too far, yet. I use Sun’s VirtualBox on my Mac to run things I can only find in the Linux world.
If I had to recommend a Linux-based end-user desktop solution to a bunch of people right now, I’d defer immediately to Ubuntu. The fact alone that Mark Shuttleworth is about to fund the further development of Linux into the mainstream, makes it even more well-positioned for it to become a standard. As for servers, yes, you can (and should) use Debian or Ubuntu Server Edition… But CentOS isn’t such a bad option either, and its starting to grow on me.
Wow, time flies, its been 13 years already, but it never gets tiring 
Okay, yet again I’ve decided to reboot the blog. The last time I posted on it, unkonventional was leasing its hosting assets with a certain provider, I was working in Coral Gables, and life was okay…
Four Five months later, some things haven’t changed (much); I still do web development for a living and I can’t seem to get away from good music, great movies, and whatnot. Other things have; obviously I’ve moved unkonventional to a great hosting provider, I now work in Doral, my phone has changed, and I’ve become more aggressive about managing my hypertension. Whatelse? I still love GNU-Linux, but I’ve decided to let it take charge of my servers; my workstation is (as of last night) a kickass iMac. I still pinch myself at the thought that I wouldn’t have even caught myself thinking jokingly of regularly using — much less owning — an Apple computer. Oh the wonders of the *nix world.
Anyhow, there are things I do want to blog about… I’m excited about many things, personal, professional, and political (the three “Ps”, go figure…) I’ll add more later, but for now, I better get back to setting up my workstation and finalizing this blog.
ian!