Mark Crump

One of the dangers of blogging professionally is that paid writing takes the place of this poor thing.

So, here’s the short update:

Playing guitar again, texas blues stuff this time.

Still writing.

My predictions:

New iPhone

• Teardrop shape
• slightly larger screen
• Same processor as iPad 2
• not announced, but 1GB of ram
• 32 and 64 GB models
• Released third week of October

iOS 5

• Release Candidate released day of event
• Public release two days before new iPhone launches
• Nuance voice capture and Siri integrated

Steve Jobs

• No Steve Jobs

I was listening to the latest The Talk Show with Gruber and Dan Benjamin and they opined that if Jobs came out at the next Keynote, he wouldn’t open the event. They also said anything Jobs came out and spoke about would derail the message of the presentation.

I agree with the latter opinion: Steve Jobs will not come out and demo anything. He will not be part of the “one more thing.” My money is on him not showing up to show Apple can give a good presentation without him being there. This, not his health, will be the factor.

However, I disagree that Jobs won’t be the first on the stage. It makes the perfect place for him to do so, and it would go like this:

Hi everyone, I would like to thank everyone for their expression of well-wishes as I move to focusing on being Apple’s new Chairman of the Board. Apple is in great hands with Tim Cook as CEO, and it’s my privelege to introduce him now as Apple’s new CEO. Thank you. 

I wouldn’t consider myself a gigantic sports fan. However, I’ve probably watched 3/4 of this year’s Sox games and taken in five or six Pawsox games. I didn’t watch the Bruins much until the playoffs, but I usually caught a Pats game at my folk’s on Sunday.

The reason I turn to the sports page first thing in the morning has nothing to do with my love of sports; it has everything to do with my hatred of everything else in the news. The sports section softens the blow.

When I read the sports pages, the worst I’ll read is that Lackey gave up 5 runs in the first. Or that Wakefield was denied his 200th win, again. Or that Patriots gave up 40 in the first quarter. In other words, stuff that doesn’t matter to me much.

Sure, I get excited when my local teams win. I have a “that’s too bad” moment when they lose.

When I start my day on the main page of Boston.com, I see the stock market tumbling, a double homicide in one town, a kid killed up north, a riot or two, more combat deaths. Stuff that I have little control over but still affects me in some way. In this economy, the stock market and jobs reports have a direct impact on my life, but something I am powerless to do anything about.

So, I read the sports pages. It’s better than the alternative.

Its funny, the big things that I would expect me to miss Dad don’t. I cruised through his birthday ok and Father’s Day. Every Sunday I sit in his chair and talk to Mom without it affecting me. I use his camera frequently.

It was using his grill at Mom’s that hit me.

When I’d go over for dinner and he’d grill, Mom would send me out to make sure he was ok. He was, and we would shoot the shit about nothing while he worked the grill. This Sunday, when I had the plate of food and pushed open the back door, I felt his absence. 

Then, I felt him shoot the shit with me.

It wasn’t the whole TOS fiasco. Generally speaking, I’m not concerned about what happens to files I have online*. I understand most online encryption systems have backdoors that will yield to a subpoena. I’m not too worried about getting caught into a net of subpoenas.

After giving it a lot of thought, it was the glitch where they removed the password authentication from logins for four hours. At this point, the only thing remaining in my Dropbox folder is my encrypted 1Password file. Was I affected by it? Nope. Did I have some data I’d rather not fall into prying hands? Yeah, a few things. I’d even likely treat it differently if they had gotten had hacked.

The reason is, the fact that error wasn’t caught in QA told me all I need to know about their QA levels. A corporation that makes those types of errors will create future errors (or, may have created errors that we never found out about).

In the end, I cut my losses. I think Dropbox is having a ton of growing pains as mobile becomes heavilly used.

I just didn’t trust them to fuck up like this again.

* Except photos.

I have reached my end with Wordpress. It’s not that I hated Wordpress, it’s just become obvious it wasn’t what I needed. So, after giving it almost no thought whatsoever, I moved to Tumblr. I did this for a few reasons:

Shutting down writersmark.com and moving to markcrump.com gave me a chance to start new. While I couldn’t easily migrate the content, I also decided I didn’t really give a shit. Ninety percent of the posts were outdated. Only a few tips and tricks are relevant. I could just start over here.

I found Wordpress really didn’t handle blogging from my iPad or iPhone well at all. The native app crashed, 3rd party apps only sorta worked. Tumblr has a great iPhone app and I can email posts directly.

Finally, I tend to use the Tumblr iPhone app as a sort of mini RSS reader; it’s great to just skim through content. I’m looking forward to hooking into that network.

What I’m really doing is trying to eliminate as many barriers as possible to just get on with the writing.

When Steve Jobs took his second medical leave early this year, there was much wailing and screaming from people that Jobs needed full disclosure on the issues and ignoring his request for privacy. As a tech writer, it was easy for me to honor his request for privacy. I simply said, “What if this were my dad? Would I want details of his illness treated with all the decency and honor the National Enquirer treats celebrity marriages?”

The question was not rhetorical. Like Jobs, my dad had pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, my dad lost his battle February 26th. I didn’t think I’d be able to hold it together to give a eulogy, so this is what I would have said.

My dad fought cancer with pride, dignity, faith, and a healthy amount of German stubbornness. The statistics for pancreatic cancer are grim: most die in the first six months, only five percent survive past five years. Dad made two, and arguably they were the best years of his life.

Our family was never great at staying in touch. Months would go by without as much as a phone call. Dinners were few and usually around holidays. That changed when he got sick. Almost every Sunday I’d go to their house for dinner. Dad and I took a road trip of the type we’d often talk about and never do. We spent nearly a week on the road, going to Steamtown in PA, a train convention in lower NY state, and then up to see his sister in Syracuse. I think he needed to get away from being a cancer patient for a bit. He and I made a deal: I wouldn’t fuss over him, but he had to be honest on how he was feeling. That was a moot point. He had more energy than I did. Doing all the driving wiped me out and he’d be up, ready to go. We had made plans to go to Altoona to see trains at Horseshoe Curve, but, sadly, the chemo kicked the crap out of him and he just wasn’t up for it.

I’m going to remember a lot of laughs and good times for years. He and I devouring about 15 racks of baby ribs. His love of spicy chili and Mom’s hating it. We had more patience with each other than we normally would. Dad and I had horrid tempers, and not long after his diagnosis we accidentally dropped an air conditioner out the window. Normally, this would cause an eruption; instead he and I laughed our asses off. My dad had a most unusual obsession with the Wegman’s food chain; a store he had only been in twice. He’d bring his Wegman’s bag to his local supermarket just to piss them off.

His love of photography presented a challenge getting photographs together for his wake. As the dedicated photographer, there weren’t a heck of a lot of photos of him. Instead, however, looking through several thousand slides and prints, I was able to view the world through his eyes. I was able to see his love of family (and see my baby pictures for the first time), his love of nature, and his love of auto races.

Dad was the single-most influential person in my life. Every hobby I have, came from him. My love of reading, photography, trains, and technology came from him. He bought me a Commodore 64, and then my first Macintosh. We were both involved in the printing business; even worked at the same company at one time.

Jim fought the disease with everything he had. He fought it with everything I had, and he fought it with everything Mom had. While dad was truly blessed with amazing medial care, it was Mom who enabled him to be as successful as he was. She made sure he got everything he wanted and needed to be win his battle, but more importantly, she made sure he got everything he didn’t want, but needed to win. Thank you, Mom. You made a difference.

I feel his presence every day. Every picture I take with his camera, I feel like he’s looking through the lens with me — and Dad, I hoped you liked the view in that bar in CT. Photography is coming very easy to me this time. Before, I fought with the technical aspects. Now, I feel like he’s whispering in my ear the things I should be doing. It hits me he’s gone when I think, “this photo came out well; I wish I could show Dad.” But, in a way, I know he’s seeing them.

The last dream I had about him, he was in my Mom’s car, pulling away from the house waving good be. I like to think that means he knows we’re going to be ok and he’s moved on to his next stage. I said this on your deathbed, and I’m going to say it again: Thank you, Dad. You were the best friend I had, and the best Dad I could have hoped for. Thank you for everything.

Shot in Boston, St. Paddy’s Day 2011

2011 is shaping up to be a year of great challenge, both personal and professional. Usually, these statements sound hyperbolic, but there are few things in my life that will remain the same at the end of it.

That which does not kill us, does indeed make us stronger.