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I recently took a trip to Seattle, and reminded myself of a useful practice I’d developed a while ago. When I’m traveling, I collect import URLs for that trip in my browser — URLs for my organization’s travel booking/information system, airlines, hotels, maps, conference information, etc. — and put them in Safari’s Bookmarks Bar.

It’s pretty easy to collect them:

1. Right-click on the Safari Bookmarks Bar. (If it’s not on, enable it with View > Show Bookmarks Bar.)
2. Choose “New Folder” from the pop-up contextual menu.
3. Enter the name of the folder in the sheet that slides down from the Safari browser window. I usually name it something short (because despite having widescreen displays, I want to conserve space in my Bookmarks Bar) that reminds me of the trip.
4. Visit a site that I want to bookmark for the trip.
5. Add a bookmark for that site, either by:
• clicking the “+” button in the Safari toolbar when I’m there, and then choosing which folder to put it in from the list of folders in the pop-up menu, or by
• clicking the proxy icon in the URL field, and dragging it onto the folder in the Bookmarks Bar.
6. Repeat the last two steps for each site relevant to the trip.

The resulting bookmarks can be rearranged, if necessary, in Safari’s bookmarks editor. (It’s the “open book” icon in the Bookmarks Bar.)

The entire group of pages can be opened all at once by clicking-and-holding on the folder in the Bookmarks Bar. When the menu drops down for the folder, choose the last command: “Open in Tabs.” This opens all of the sites bookmarked in the folder in separate tabs in the Safari window. I find that it’s useful to have them all open while I’m traveling to my destination, since that way I can see them even if I can’t get an Internet connection — free Wi-Fi is not always available.

When I’m done with the trip, I can delete the entire folder or just some of the bookmarks it contains. To delete the folder quickly, right-click on its name in the Bookmarks Bar and choose “Delete” from the contextual menu.

Yesterday, I traded in “Fighterjet.”

I feel pretty raw about signing away the title for my 1998 Subaru Legacy GT 2.5 Limited. (Frankly, I’ll never remember the correct order “GT,” “2.5,” and “Limited” are supposed to go in, even after 10 years — 3273 days, to be exact — of car ownership.) Looking back, I took delivery on July 1, 1998.

What do you say about a car you owned for 122 months? A vehicle that was there to transport you through the highs and lows of life?

Well, the brochure for our new car says, “Few things connect to your life at more points than your car.” Amen. I’ll take a stab at a few notes in haphazard arrangement, below.

This will all seem melodramatic, and it is. There are, I’m sure, people who don’t get attached to their cars. My wife and I are not those people. However, I am beginning to realize that you can only really get attached to one car, and thereafter you realize you simply can’t do that again. This is my struggle this morning, and my usual tendencies to hang on are amplified by how long I had that Subaru.

Fighterjet was the first car I ever picked out and bought myself. The two cars before it dropped into my lap, by the generosity of my family, and being young, I did my level best to destroy them quickly. The Subaru had 40-some miles on it when I bought it, partly because I drove it a few times and partly because the test drive area around the dealership was so large.

Every girlfriend I had in my adult life rode in Fighterjet. One of them helped me choose it. The car outlasted all but one of them.

My wife and our first son rode in Fighterjet. In fact, it was the car that Aaron and I had to rescue from the snowy parking lot at work — its door had been jammed open by ice so the alarm was sounding — so that I could collect the bags we’d left at home and return to the hospital with them. The baby was born a day later, and perhaps we’ll be more prepared in the future.

Fighterjet didn’t have LATCH anchors. Oops.

When I bought Fighterjet, I didn’t have any music in MP3 format. Having an iPod connection was unheard of, because the iPod wouldn’t ship for years yet. But it had a CD player and a tape player, not to mention weather band radio. (Weather band radio is really dull.)

Luckily, I had obtained my first digital camera nine months before Fighterjet, so I was able to document the car pretty well.

The month I brought Fighterjet home, I went to Macworld Expo in New York City. It was the first of five such expos in New York (and that was a particularly whirlwind trip), but it was even more memorable for a big product introduction: the original bondi blue iMac. Fighterjet, meanwhile, was “Rio red.”

Hearing about the color of my car, Kristi laughed and said, “Oh, it’s pull-me-over red!” I got exactly one ticket with Fighterjet.

The Sabres had only been to the Stanley Cup Finals once in their history when I started driving Fighterjet. Now, they’ve been there twice. And had a few conference finals appearances, too. (Did Aaron and I drive Fighterjet to that playoff game with Philly? The one that created the wall of sound in the atrium of HSBC Arena? Correction: Aaron says it was this game against Ottawa.)

I drove to a lot of Ultimate games in Fighterjet. Cleaning it out, I had a regulation Frisbee in the trunk. Along with a wiffle bat and some wiffle balls — you never know when an impromptu game would break out.

I spent one long day in Fighterjet, stuck on the New York State Thruway (I-90) for about 15 hours, one winter. There was a big snowstorm. Some of you lived through it with me, and others have probably heard me talk about it, so I don’t think I need to say more. At least that time, I was prepared.

That incident taught me that if you can’t tell your car from other snow-covered cars in the vicinity, you should probably stay home.

Fighterjet drove through a lot of snow, and barely broke a sweat over it. There were a few close calls, though. Once, I hydroplaned through the turn from 96 onto 332 — no wheels gripped, they only slipped. There was one Christmas morning, driving to Cuba, where we spun 180 degrees together; thank goodness the next car was so far behind us. Another morning, going to work and sliding slowly, sideways, into and kissing a (thankfully) snow-packed guardrail.

I didn’t have a cell phone when I bought Fighterjet.

Baxter was in Fighterjet when I hit my second deer with the car, and, as a dog, he was pretty freaked out by the sudden ordeal. I really thought that was the end of the line, but the insurance didn’t total the car. I haven’t taken Baxter with me to get take out since, as I recall.

The car got its name from the view I got sitting in the driver’s seat, looking back through my regular and oddball lane-changer mirrors. It reminded me of the rearview cameras you see in fighter jet films on TV, looking back on the tail of the plane. Dumb, yes, but I couldn’t think of a better name.

I can’t remember how many sets of tires I put on the thing. The first one involved a lot of anxiety while reading reviews on the Tire Rack Web site. The Dunlop Sport SP2s, later, were utter flops.

Fighterjet helped me move between apartments and houses. Thrice. And, I think it helped move Lloyd’s family once, and maybe others. I forget.

I drove it to Pittsburgh and the Adirondacks and other places, but I also think of destinations I never went.

After giving up this car, I wonder how many cars I have left in me. How many more will I own? My sense of mortality is briefly heightened.

I miss Fighterjet, but it was time to move on. I feel like I’ve abandoned a friend — but that’s silly. Hopefully that feeling will fade, because, after all … it was just a car.

Despite my general feeling of ambivalence toward Apple WWDC 2008 this year, I have woken up on the day after the conclusion of my trip with a feeling of confidence.

I’m sure that will wear off in the coming hours, days, and months, but my state of mind right now is very positive. I wanted to remember I had it. Perhaps the biggest single contributor to this feeling is enduring of 22 hours of travel — and 37 straight hours awake — on the way back. Survival can really lift your spirits.

I woke up this morning with a craving for music by Mike Doughty, so I played “Looking at the World from the Botton of a Well”. It hit the spot. (“27 Jennifers” is on the WWDC 2008 iMix, but it doesn’t fit my mood nearly as well.)

It was great to see everyone this year — some old friends and some new friends. The relationships truly make the conference for me, now that I’ve been to so many sessions that just change incrementally each year. This is true even if I didn’t follow everyone to Dave’s afterwards; maybe that’s for another year.

I was surprised at the amount of movement within and between organizations … so many people I know have different jobs (and even homes) since I last saw them in 2006. The Mac landscape is changing. Even with its growth, it could be maturing. That kind of positive sign can breed confidence, too.

It was especially meaningful to me to be able to visit some friends of the family on the first weekend, and then my best friend’s family on the second.

Does anyone else think that Apple has some ulterior motive for promoting Viva la Vida, the track on the new iTunes ad featuring Coldplay? That maybe its lyrics are indicative of something going on at Apple?

“When I ruled the world,” indeed.

No matter. I find it a fantastic visual treat and now the haunting music is stuck in my head. I would not be surprised if it were featured at WWDC 2008 in a few weeks.

I had no idea, until reading the Democrat and Chronicle’s Our manufacturing roots sprout jobs article, that Rochester had the second-largest regional economy in New York State. They state that a recent study showed that “the goods and services produced here totaled $38.4 billion in 2005, surpassing the more populous Buffalo region and trailing only New York City. And a new U.S. Commerce Department study pegged the value of Rochester’s annual exports at $4.6 billion, making it the second-largest exporter in the state and 40th-largest in the nation.”

Rick Falkvinge responds to the European Commission about the inadvisability of mixing DRM and law (in English, despite the preamble in Swedish, even though he is the “founder and leader of the Pirate Party movement and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party”).

[Via Waffle.]

The price of a barrel of oil closed today at $100.01. The number, by itself and not adjusted for inflation, is historic. I like history. So I’m writing this post about it. And now I’m done.

With the first accumulated snow and ice of the season over the weekend, and the snow today, I’ve noticed that our sump pump has started up again. It’s barely been doing anything since May, thanks to the exceedingly dry weather conditions we’ve had through the spring and fall.

Considering how much water it has moved since we had the new one installed, I’m amazed at how little it pumped over the summer. That really shows me how dry it has been in our area.

If it keeps up, I’m sure it’ll fade from our consciousness, but at the moment it’s noticeable each time it starts up.

I’ve never seen the streets around Rochester as clogged from the effects of falling as they were today for my commute home. (Those of you who recall that I was stopped for 15 hours on I-90 by a 1999 snowstorm will also realize that I didn’t see many of the streets around Rochester that day. Ahem.)

A storm moving in from the midwest hit in time for our evening rush hour. It’s not normally much of a rush hour, particularly for me. At either end of the day, with or without a storm, I can typically get to or from the office in about 15-20 minutes. Seattle this isn’t.

Today, with snow falling at a good clip for the first workday accumulation of the year — our first real accumulation at all was over the weekend — my travel time increased to about 45 minutes. We had probably gotten a few inches, maybe 3-4, before I went out to my car at the end of the day.

I’m pretty sure I was one of the lucky ones, as I was going against the grain on several routes that were miserably backed up. A friend reported that his girlfriend had left at 3:30 p.m., to arrive home at 5, going from Gates to Irondequoit.

It took me a while just to get off-campus simply because of the stacked traffic. I had never seen lines of this like. I saw northbound traffic on East River Road piled up from Jefferson Road down to at least Bailey Road. Southbound East River also had a lineup down through the middle of the three exits from campus, which never happens to this high-volume two-lane road. Westbound Jefferson Road going to the widened Ballantine Bridge was probably bumper to bumper well past campus. Yet eastbound Jefferson traffic also appeared to be stalled, which is much rarer. I couldn’t see much more than those roads, but it was a sight to behold.

The nearby roads were so clogged with slow-moving or stopped cars, I went out through an entrance that had a signal light as that at least gave me a way to get out. I exited onto East River Road to head south, and hit heavy bumper to bumper congestion for nearly the entire length until I turned off at Lehigh Station Road.

I stayed on Lehigh Station for most of the remaining trip. While it was slow, the only portion that was backed up was around the East Henrietta Road crossing. The real traffic I encountered while going east was seen on the north-south routes, so I dodged it. I made it safely home to be greeted by Lije’s attempt at saying, “Hi!” for the first time from his perch in Christen’s arms.

I’m just hoping that everyone else had a safe, if completely out-of-the-ordinary, trip home.

I don’t think there was anything that could have been done to make the situation better; the storm, as an act of nature, just hit at a time that made evening travel difficult. Add in that the first snowfall of the year typically slows things down more than the same storm would in February, and you’ve got a recipe for a really interesting commute.

This morning while I was walking Baxter, I looked up ahead and saw a plane rising from the airport. Almost as soon as I spotted it, I saw its lights push through the low-hanging cloud deck, like a bright needle through some gauzy thread.

Continuing to watch, the plane appeared and disappeared a few times, its running lights stitching through the thick clouds.