Two days in a row? Well, I guess that’s what happens when I wake up before 4am and don’t feel like heading to work just yet.
Which is kind of odd. Yesterday was an interrupted day at work, as the roof workers drove a screw into one of the main power conduits that supplies a half-dozen offices at work, including mine. In spite of that, I still managed to have a good day, finishing up a feature that I spent all last week working on. And because of the heavy rain here yesterday afternoon and evening, they won’t be working this morning, so I should get in there and get more work done while the office is relatively quiet.
Or I could be plowing through the 150 emails in my inbox. If you’re waiting on a reply from me, sorry. I’m more than a little behind on email. But instead of doing something more “productive,” I’m taking a few minutes to post a little something here.
- Jim sent word yesterday of A “Simulated” WMD Threat here in the Twin Cities. Seems a bunch of zombies were dancing, and well, what’s not threatening about that? They’ve been released from custody, but it’s unclear whether charges are pending or not. [jim]
- At work I’ve been trying to find some automated refactoring tool because I keep screwing up fairly simple refactorings becauuse there’s a reference in some other file that I don’t notice until too late. So I tried Eclipse with the Eclipse CDT, and I have to agree that Eclipse “Sucks,” especially if you’re coming from a Mac C++ perspective. Yeah, I know, I know, there’s no money in tools, but damnit, I’m working for a ginormous corporation that would probably be happy to pay if I could find a tool that actually worked. I just can’t find anything to buy. I’ve also tried Aquamacs plus Xrefactory. I don’t think I can begin to explain how frustrating it is to see books like Fowler’s and Feathers’ and think
This is cool stuff!
only to discover that there exist exactly zero automatic tools to help me get it right.
One thing I’ve noticed about doing less-frequent updates around here is that when I do try to write something, even if it’s a simple I’m still alive
post, it’s more difficult. The creative juices have been stagnating, more than flowing, and it’s tough to get them moving again.
The worst part is that there’s actually been a fair amount of what I believe the scientists call “crap” going on around here lately, and at least one of my half-dozen readers would probably like to hear about it, but I just don’t have the urge to put any of it down here in words. There’s a short example below, and let’s just say that it’s fairly typical of how things have been going. Things work out in the end, but like eating a bean burrito with Guatamalan Insanity Pepper sauce, it’s more likely due to some inevitable physical process than any intelligent action on my part.
- Last Thursday was not a good day. I spent most of the morning with roof work going on over my head, and then trying to turn off filterkeys on my Windows XP machine at work. Of course by the time I found that article, I’d already broken the keyboard and restarted the system uncleanly (not entirely related), so I spent lunch watching CHKDSK count percentage points while the roof workers were taking their lunch break and it was quiet enough to think. When that was done, the workers started running the kondirator over my head again. A bug I should never have written, and which should have taken a few minutes to fix ended up eating an entire day because it only happened on Windows. Have I mentioned I don’t much like that OS?
- Feel like looking at some art? Look at a couple nekkid ladies and Choose a nude. [flutterby]
- Finally, there will be a reprise of The Original Zombie Pub Crawl: 329 Days Later, on September 9th. Mark your calendars?
Well, it’s been a pretty good weekend. I think everything is in order for that website a client has been wanting for a while. Got a good man on the job. We’ll see how they like the results tomorrow morning, but I’m no longer worrying about getting it done (or rather, worrying about not having it done). I also finished typing up my vacation notes (link below). I still need to pay the bills that accumulated last week, but since I’m in a webby kind of groove, I figured I’d update here as well.
And that’s about it for the weekend. It was pretty darned hot outside. Or so I hear. I spent the whole time inside with my air conditioning. A couple movies were watched. I made a little progress in the history book I’ve been reading since getting back from Austria (not related, it was just next in the queue), and I did a load of dishes and a few other minor domestic tasks. No trip to mom’s. No Saints games. No nothing outside the house. And it was an excellent weekend. I wish I had more like this. Or that this weekend had a few more days in it.
- David Goodman had A letter to Tessa Jowell, MP for West Norwood and Dulwich talking about national IDs in the UK. As Dan said when pointing to it:
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
– Lazarus Long (Robert A. Heinlein) [flutterby] - Last wednesday I ate lunch at Long John Silver’s and let me tell you, it was an ordeal. It took until today before I could even write about it. After I sat down at the one table that had a little elbow room, I noticed a noise coming from my right. Turns out it was an older gent, eating with his mouth open, and about every three chews, he’d noisily suck his dentures back into place or something. It was a big smacking sound that seemed to echo around the joint, and his wife, seated across from him didn’t seem to notice anything at all amiss.
That was bad enough, but then a family sat down to my left. I’m not sure exactly where they learned this behavior, but first the dad would take a bite of food, and ask his wife or daughter something. Before answering, the female would take a bite of food, and then talk through their taco (the place shares space with a Taco Bell) while answering and asking the followup question. It was as if they couldn’t talk without something in their mouths to spew around the joint.
Sweet mother of see-food! Has Emily Post revised the rules, and I wasn’t informed? In any case, I scarfed down my fried seafood and fried potatoes as quickly as I could, and got the heck out of there. LJS is never what I would call stomach-settling food, but this was the closest I’ve ever come to losing my lunch (literally) when I wasn’t already ill. Ugh. - Says here Photography makes you happier. Or rather, looking through your old photographs. Wednesday night I breezed through my photos from Melk with another of the guys who was over there who was in town visiting his parents and stopped by for a beer, since they live just three blocks from me. It was a pretty darned good way to spend an evening. [dpweblog]
- The Washington Post looks at Congressman Paul’s Legislative Strategy? He’d Rather Say Not. I like Dr. No, especially when he says things like he’s afraid of being bombed by the federal government in another Waco. But mostly because he’s very consistent in his beliefs. [endwar]
- Did you know that the term Thagomizer, which originated in a Far Side cartoon, has been officially adopted as an anatomical term by paleontologists, including the Smithsonian? I didn’t. [accordionguy]
- I finally finished my writeup of Dave’s Austrian Vacation 2006. Check it out if you’re interested in what I did for that week in June when I wasn’t around.
I’d meant to update earlier in the week, but at work they’ve been putting a new roof on the building, and part of that process is moving hot tar around right next to where the air-intake for the ventilation system is. As a result, I’ve come home from work with a big headache both days so far this week, and Monday I felt worse about driving than I do after most evenings at the bar.
So anyway, I’m later than I’d hoped with the update. And I still haven’t finished uploading the vacation photos from Austria. But I’m still chugging along, and when I finish typing this, I’ll be adding a few more photos. And possibly this weekend I’ll get around to writing some text to go with them. Just don’t hold your breath.
- Ever wonder what Making Castoff involves, and just exactly why books are printed in the fonts they are? Go read the article and learn. Hey, I found it interesting. [kottke]
- Hurra Torpedo’s version of Jim Steinman’s Total Eclipse Of The Heart is one damn fine video. I’m pretty sure Bonnie Tyler’s version has nothing on it. [backup brain]
- Why do people worry about national ID? Well, there was that little to-do in Rwanda, where Hutus killed Tutsis, based on the tribal identification on their ID. And now Iraqis turn to fake IDs as protection because Shiites want to appear to be Sunnis and vice-versa (depending on where they are). Of course, that would never happen here. [claire]
- Joey’s got the word on an Exciting New Doritos Flavour! Apparently it’s something like
electric shock to the yarbles
ornut-kicking good
flavor. Maybe one of my readers who actually speaks Japanese can help with the translation. [accordionguy] - Hey Jim, are you going to be Taking the Mickey anytime soon?
What’s next, Buzzcocks beanie babies?
Well, if that’s next, I know what you’re getting for Christmas… [boing boing]
Well, it’s been a pretty darned good weekend. I got all the tasks I’d set before myself done except for the website for the client from last year. Plus I even showed up to work and put in a half-day yesterday. And the website’ll get done. Just Not Quite Yet. I figure after an eight-month delay by the client, if it takes me an extra week or two to finish it off, that’s probably not the end of the world. Or if they don’t like the delay, they can give the job to someone else. Maybe not the most business-savvy attitude, but I don’t think I ever claimed to have that… I feel a little bad about not getting the site done, but that’s well tempered by the day I had today.
I started off this morning with a visit to Mom. She had a lunchtime barbecue to go to, so I was up early, and out early, dropping off the bottle of brandy that will last her and her roommate the next couple weeks of (prescribed by the doctor, donchaknow) evening cocktails. Then it was home for lunch and to mow the lawn, followed by a nap while I watered the new sod that was looking a little dry and sad. When I woke up two hours later, the sod was soaked, and it was time to water the garden and the sod in the back yard. Pretty exciting, eh? Well, with that out of the way, I continued with the busy day, eating dinner, and then spent the evening out on my new (well, new-ish) patio, surrounded by my freshly-mown-lawn, with a six-pack of beer, and a newish Dortmunder book (which was, as usual, excellent — kudos to Don Westlake yet again), while watching the neighbors come, go, and set off various bits of fireworks in the alley.
At the moment, I’m feeling pretty darned mellow. Today was more relaxing than the entire time I spent on vacation, and I actually felt like powering up the computer to type this before calling it a day. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind, but for now, I’m a pretty darned happy camper. I hope your independence day was as fruitful and independent as mine. Seeya when I have something more to say.
- Remember, I’ve been adding to my Vacation 2006 photos all weekend, and there are still more to come. I think there’s at least a couple in there that convince me I know how to drive a camera once in a while, including one of some wild monkey love that I particularly like at the moment. And there’s still some narrative to come with the photos. I’ll need to tell at least one of those
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
stories before I forget all the details.
Well, it’s time to update again. I’ve been trying to catch up on a number of things around home this weekend, and “blogging” has made it to the top of the list.
And it’s been a pretty long list this weekend. I really wish I had more time-off at work so I could take tomorrow off and continue to plow through all the various things I need to do, but that’s not in the cards. The biggest item is a customer that I hadn’t heard from since last October, who’s finally gotten all the things to me that I need to finish putting together a website for them. They contacted me again just before I left on vacation, and I told them that there was no way I was going to be able to get things done before July 4th (which of course meant a half-dozen phone messages when I returned from vacation). Well, that deadline is approaching, and I need to start putting the pieces together so I can finally invoice that work. It might actually make the difference between a profit and a loss on the business for 2006.
Speaking of which, if you (or someone you know) is reasonably clued about Dreamweaver, and is looking for a bit of freelance work, please contact me. I won’t have a lot of work to spread around, but I need a part time designer/web mechanic to take care of things now and again, and all my current contacts for that sort of thing don’t have the free time. People say the economy is still slow, but I’ve had enough trouble finding help for various jobs that I’m convinced it’s in pretty good shape.
And that’s going to do it for now. I’ve decided that I’m going to try and continue blogging at least weekly (rather than weakly) through the rest of the summer. That might be too ambitious of a plan, but it just might be workable. I think it’s worth trying, at least.
- Rather than uploading them here, I’ve been posting my Vacation 2006 photos on Flickr. It’s taking me a lot longer to process them than I had hoped, and I don’t feel like messing about with the photo scripts here on my server. Hopefully this is just temporary, but folks wanted to see them, and flickr was the quickest way to do that.
- There were two protests in Vienna when I was there on June 21. The website for the larger is www.bushgohome.at, but it’s all in German, so probably will be of minimal interest to most of my readers (a few will appreciate it, though). For me, the biggest pain was the Bush Space set aside for the “protection” of the President.
- A Flickr search for Vienna Protest Bush turns up a fair number of photos, but there was the smaller protest downtown with hundreds of people, and then the larger protest at Westbahnhof Wien, which was near where I was staying. In spite of between one and two thousand police mobilised, and fifteen to twenty thousand protesters out, and traffic completely shut down for at least a half-kilometer radius, there were no incidents between protesters and the police. At least three stages were set up before the protest, two with bands, and one with shouting speeches. Within two hours after the start of the protest, everyone had dispersed, and things were pretty much back to normal.
- It was interesting to see how the larger protest in Vienna developed, especially when compared to Friday’s Critical Mass for the storybooks here in Minneapolis where police arrested a number of bicyclists. The Austrian prediliction for “Ordnung” seemed to work out pretty well for them. Yes, the protest was an immense pain in the ass, but in spite of that, it was very conrolled. Even when there’s disorder, it’s planned, and … well … orderly. Here in Minneapolis, I’m usually reminded of Mayor Daley’s quote during the 1968 convention:
The police are not here to create disorder. They’re here to preserve disorder.
[jim] - This Photo gallery of Dust art is pretty cool. Scott Wade draws pictures in the dust on the back windows of his and his wife’s cars.
- Here’s a list of ten guidelines of How to Photograph Pets. Cool tips. [dpweblog]
- Looking to get into blogging in a small way? TC Metblog is looking for new authors! I’ve been contacted about joining the crew there, but I think for now I’m going to stick to trying to keep things updated around here. [metro mpls]