I spent four years out of my life dropping out of Frisch, completing the process in 1999. Now, I have to live with the shame of my yearbook claiming I'm a member of the last class of the second millennium. Recently, the Frisch Alumni Coordinator emailed me a request for an entry for the upcoming "The Class of 1999 Reunion Memory Book," which is planned for the October 2009 class reunion. Unfortunately, the form she emailed me contains a license for The Frisch School to edit material submitted to within an inch of its life (as was done a decade ago for yearbook submissions), a license I'm not willing to grant. (See the last class of the second millennium for background.) Therefore, I have decided to post the requested information here myself, under a simple reprints-allowed license. I'd rather not have my words mangled in the name of "editing for length, clarity and content," and if my refusal to relicense my work prevents me from getting a page on the Reunion Memory Book, that's a cost I'm willing to live with. I'll accept piracy of my work by The Frisch School the day that The Frisch School accepts piracy of its work by me. If you'd like to see piracy universally allowed (so we don't have to deal with these stupid one-way roads), you may want to vote for me in 2020. (Here's what I have to say about Intellectual Property, specifically.)
20090903 - Cheryl Leiser broadcasts this email, asking alumni to provide entries for a "Memory Book," to be distributed at the reunion.
20090908 - I send Cheryl Leiser this email, providing a link to my memory page entry, and turning down the request for a permissive modification/redistribution license.
20090908 - IP address 24.190.135.70 (an IP address used by CableVision as a static IP for Cable Internet access for educational institutions in and around Bergen County, connecting out of CableVision's NOC in Hackensack; 24.190.135.70 in particular looks like some sort of firewall device (most likely, Frisch's main "router"), and MaxMind's database is flat-out wrong) accesses my memory page entry. After about 10 minutes, it accesses this page (which at this point doesn't include anything from the horizontal line above and down). Nearly two hours later, it accesses the memory page again, visiting this page again a bit less than two minutes later.
20091001 - Cheryl Leiser calls and asks me to clarify what is meant by my drug reference ("In my spare time I: do drugs. I don't do drugs. Finding the only logical possibility is left as an exercise for the reader."). I explain what I had assumed to be obvious: namely, that the only logical conclusion possible is that I don't have spare time. She apologizes for not "getting it," and explains that my drug reference will offend people who don't know me who read my entry in the Memory Book (since the Memory Book "leaves the building"), without further clarification of my stance against drugs. I thank her for bringing up her complaint, and tell her to expect a revision with my attempt at a clarification of my stance against drugs for people who didn't get my (apparently not-so-obvious) logical riddle.
20091001 - I send Cheryl Leiser this email, informing her of the availability of a new version (at the same URL) addressing her complaint and fixing a few unrelated bugs at the same opportunity. Within two minutes, IP address 24.190.135.70 visits the memory page, and again just under two minutes later.
20091015 - IP address 24.190.135.70 visits the memory page again.
20091022 - IP address 24.190.135.70 visits the memory page five more times.
20091027 - Cheryl Leiser calls me to request permission to remove the "spare time" question from my entry. I object to such a drastic proposal on such short notice. She responds that "higher levels" only got involved very late, and that they didn't approve my entry, even with my heavy editing (from nearly a month earlier). She says the deadline is "tomorrow morning" (or else she'll have to leave me out of the Memory Book). I tell her that taking it out entirely will require major reengineering, and there's no way in the world that I can have a new version ready for her by her deadline. We agree that if she doesn't hear from me by the following morning, she'll have to leave me out of the Memory Book. She doesn't hear from me by the deadline, and leaves me out of the Memory Book.
20091109 - I put this chronology up at frisch.bigfatdave.com in response to a query as to the whereabouts (and whyabouts) of my Memory Book entry.
20100319 - I fix my spelling of "millennium" (from millenium). (It's pretty easy to see why I've never won a spelling bee, eh? I'm clearly not one of God's smartest creations, but anything's excusable when you have a blog.)