drewd The Adventures of Carlos d’Avis

Seattle and Coffee: Who am I to resist?

I avoided coffee addiction for much of my life. I refused to drink it as an aid to staying awake during college (and subsequently fell asleep far too much during class). I stuck to tea while I worked at Harvey Mudd for two years after graduation. My coffee consumption was limited, for the most part, [...]

Quick Brain Dump

Finding a new place to live is hard. Seriously.
This is why I love Web 2.0:

Hi, Carlos d’Avis.
Hammer (MCHammer) is now following your updates on Twitter.
Check out Hammer’s profile here:
http://twitter.com/MCHammer
Best,
Twitter

Sometimes, mostly while eating triple cream Brie, I have a difficult time with the dilemma presented at Paganello two years ago, “Would you rather spend the [...]

Dinner with Gwyneth

There is a young woman who is living the dream. And that young woman is Gwyneth Stokes. She worked in Zug, Switzerland last summer, riding horses and nannying for a lovely Swiss family out in the countryside. She ran around in the mountains, admiring the beautiful lake, and her social activity eventually initiated a connection [...]

Tea in Kensington, Mud in Wimbledon

My intent is to accelerate the process of documenting my trip to Europe by providing vignettes accompanied by photographs. Here is my first attempt.
I stayed in London with a Hook teammate from Paganello 2007. My gracious host was Alexander Dunnett, more commonly known as Stylish. This peerless fellow studies Energy Systems Engineering at Imperial [...]

Giant Rabbits + Communist Dictatorship = Crazy Delicious

I have had this post waiting in the wings for some time now. I keep trotting out this fantastical story to friends—it even came out at Thanksgiving. I figure the time is right to support my wild leporid tale with hard facts.
I first read of Karl Szmolinsky in an interview in Viceland. This champion breeder [...]

Start Your Day Right

Check out this series of photographs of people and their breakfasts by John Huck. The photographs are beautifully taken, sure, but the subject matter is just so compelling. One photo presents only cigarettes and coffee as a woman’s repast. I feel sad that she doesn’t eat more but the emotion is quickly followed by self-reproach [...]

Site Maintenance / Regionals Post Delay

I am officially finished with Fantastico as a website auto-installer. I wished to update WordPress and Gallery2 for my blog and that of Claire and Whit. Did my Bluehost Fantastico have WordPress 2.3 available? No.
Did attempting to run the Fantastico Gallery2 updater overload my CPU quota and break my Gallery2 installation? Yes. Yikes:
500 Server Error
A [...]