Tone Parsons

My birthday is coming up soon (monday). It’s a big one… it starts with a number greater than three and less than five and ends with a zero.

So… I decided to get myself something nice… how about a new watch!

All I’ve ever owned was a Timex. The most I’ve ever spent on a watch was $50. I decided it was time to upgrade a bit, so I purchased the Festiva 16011/5. I wanted something that was all stainless steel (my skin and whatever the metal a Timex is made of don’t get along too well… the metal loses) and showed the day and date on it.

This one worked just fine for me.

It was normally $125, but there was a sale… 25% off… and an additional 15% off on top of that (which made it much cheaper to buy it in the store than to get it online).

Sure… it’s not a Citizen, Seiko or a Bulova, but it’s also not OMG expensive.

I like it.

I came to the conclusion yesterday that I needed to stop doing something. For the past 11 years, I’ve authored another website, but it just isn’t what it was any more. So… I decided to shut down whitewomanblackdog.com.

I feel like I burried one of my children.

That site has been a huge part of my life for a long time. Some of it was funny, some was thought provoking, and some just filler.

Back when I started it, there were very few sites out there. It began in the fall of 1995 on a server at Eastern Washington Univeristy. I was vice president of the local chaper of the ACM (as I was a computer science major). One of the perks was that I would be able to create a website. There weren’t that many sites on the web back then… most didn’t have images, frames didn’t exist yet, and clever use of tables were the key to an interesting looking page. Getting my site indexed on Yahoo took 2 hours after I submitted it (back then, someone from Yahoo, a real human being, would look at the page and then email you back saying where they added it).

It began as “Tone Def’s Hopepage in Amazing 2D”.  Later it became “Bioland” (hosted by freshmeat.net), and finally, in 1999, I purchased the domain name.  I still own the domain for a few years and will probobly renew for another decade when it expires (I’m just not ready to let go).

Perhaps it will return someday (my wife bet that it would be back up within 3 months… she knows how I feel about it).

Big thanks to Angie, Eve, Curtis, Scott, and all the rest who kept it going for so long… prodding me along when I fell behind.

Remember way back in march when I told you about the new data center I was supposed to design?

What? You don’t remember that? Well, I guess I did post it on my other site, (you know… the one I never EVER update any more) but lets pretend I posted it here (and that you remember it) and we’ll continue along.

The data center I designed has been built, and we’re moving servers into it. In fact, we’ve been doing that for the past week and will be done by the end of this week.

Here’s some photos (click the thumbs to enlarge, mouse over for a description):

There’s still plenty to do. I have to clean up the rats nest of wires (so they’re all bundled and pretty and stuff), and we have to get all the extra junk out of there, install monitors in the control room (that big black thing full of holes for monitors), etc.  I did buy a cool 46″ LCD display for the big cabinet in the center.

We also have to pack up our crap… they’re moving our cubes to the new building this friday.

Busy, busy, busy!

I’ve been having a problem recently… there’s another Tone Parsons in town. Every place I go, I have issues. He’s replacing my information with his own.

A few weeks ago, I pre-ordered a few copies of Battlefield 2142 and his information (address and phone number) had overwritten mine in their database (they fixed it). Today, I dropped my car off at the shop and sure enough… the other Tone Parsons had been there too.

WTF!?!

Here’s what I know about the other Tone Parsons so far:

• He plays computer games
• He gets his car worked on at the same place I do
• He doesn’t pay his power bill (that was fun getting straightened out)
• He’s younger than I am
• He’s black (I’m white)

Today though, I got his phone number. I’m thinking the two of us need to get together over a beer and discuss who own’s the name. Since I’m older (I know this for a fact… I ran into someone who went to high school with him… and they’re about 15 years younger than I am), I feel that the name should belong to me.

So here we go… The name Tone Parsons © by me, 1966 – 2006. All rights reserved.