Just a quick post to let you all know I’m still alive. I went for a bike ride with a friend yesterday, and it was the first time I’ve been on my bike in months. We didn’t go all that far… just along the Los Gatos creek for a bit, and we took it easy. Still, I’m clearly out of shape and went too long without biking, because I am reminded of yesterday’s excursion every time I sit down. *wince*
Things have been a little hectic the past couple of weeks, so my apologies for the silent treatment. The main bit of news is from work: the project I’ve been on for the past two and a half years has finally released code to our production servers. Wooo-hooo! At the moment, we’re in our so-called stabilization phase where we’re letting the users bang on the application and shake out any of the last remaining bugs (our QA people were very good, so we have had a remarkably small number of bugs). I have to say, this particular project has been a very long haul for me (if this is any indication, my beard has started to turn gray and the hair on my head is noticeably thiner than it was when we started), so it is a big relief for me to finally see it finished. Partly to celebrate the release, and partly to start to prepare for the next phases, I am actually up in Oregon this week meeting with various parts of the team.
To try to have a little fun this week, I took a little extra vacation time over the weekend and went up to Seattle to visit with my friend, André (aka Ozymandias). We bummed around a rather chilly and damp town, strolled around the Fremont neighborhood during the tail-end of their Solstice festival (and got an eye-full of some unfortunate fashions… hint: kilts are in for the men folk, but total nudity will do in a pinch… or not).
On the way back down to Oregon for my meetings this week, I was going to swing by Mount Saint Helens (I have been coming to the area for years and have never made it there), but the weather was less than cooperative. Combine the lack of visibility with some camera problems (hint: if you have digital SLR, don’t try to clean the sensor yourself), and I’m afraid you’ll have to do without pictures of me trotting around the north-west. Sorry… maybe next time.
Oh, incidentally, I just discovered that my e-mail address here at tailrecursive was forwarding to the wrong mailbox… so if you sent me anything recently and I didn’t respond, that is probably why. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Ok. So, I haven’t posted in a long, long time. But I saw this message when I checked out the administrative interface on WordPress:
[Missing Picture]
Akismet, by the way, is the WordPress plug-in I use to catch and throw out the spam comments I get on this blog. That’s right, if I didn’t have Akismet, I would have had to delete more than 13,000 comments by hand. Yikes!
[Edit: Removed image link after I lost the image file on the site... oops!]
The Register just posted an article on the old Epson HX-20. I don’t know if you remember these things, but I sure do. I wanted one of those things so badly when I was a kid: very portable, a full keyboard, and a killer battery life. Of course, today I’m mainly just amused by the ad photos. What’s with the riding cap on the flight attendant… is she going to compete in dressage when she gets to her destination? If so, how is the Epson going to help?
In California, it sometimes seems to be the case that Nature has a switch: flipped one way, it’s winter outside… cold, drizzly, dark; flipped the other way, it’s summer… warm, clear, and sunny. On Monday, Nature flipped the switch. As a result, I have the itch to be outside, and my wild lilac is blooming… making me and my bee-ish neighbors ecstatic.
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Attention Neil deGrasse Tyson and the rest of you anti-Plutonians, the New Mexico legislature is fixing to show you what’s what. You may have fancy degrees and all that, but the legislature has the power of the resolution.
Seriously, I’m starting to wonder if the main purpose of a state legislature is to look asinine. I think one of the problems here is that people seem to think that Pluto’s being reclassified somehow makes it a less interesting object… like this reclassification is somehow an insult to Pluto and Clyde Tombaugh. Really, it’s a very strange reaction to have; and it’s an even stranger thing to feel the need to legislate. Don’t these people have real problems to be dealing with?
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been noticing some odd things going on… an accelerated heart rate, general nervousness and irritability (more so than usual, that is), and a lot of anxiety (to the point where I have trouble breathing). I was putting a lot of this down to general work-related stress (and I’m sure some of it is… combined with lack of exercise), but then I did a little monitoring of my behavior and habits and realized something startling: with the exception of morning orange juice, I was drinking only caffeinated beverages. Basically, I’ve been saturating my bloodstream with caffeine; and while it’s really neat to be able to see into the future and be the kwisatch haderach and all, I doubt it’s worth the medical side-effects.
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Several of my friends are posting about books that they have read recently. I’ve decided to be a sheep and add a side-bar widget to my blog to show what I am currently reading. Unfortunately, that means changing my theme a little, but that’s ok. Expect the look to change a bit as I settle on something reasonable. Click on the book to find out what I think of it… assuming I post a "review."
OK… I admit, I should be working right now, but I ran across this web comic and nearly blew tea out my nose. I think it will appeal to those of you who read my none-too-frequent posts.
It’s been a while since I posted anything, and this is largely due to the fact that I haven’t been doing anything of note lately. Work has been quite difficult for this past month or so, and I haven’t had a lot of energy for other things.
Still, I do have (for me) exciting news: Casa del PJ finally has a new roof! I have had serious problems with leaks over the guest bedroom pretty much ever since I moved in. It would leak, I’d call in a roofer, it would be fine for a season, and then it would leak again (always after the warranty period, of course). This time, I called in the big guns, and they replaced my old tar and gravel roof with a science-fictiony membrane that is guaranteed for life.
Basically, my roof (which is a flat roof [sort of] with a surrounding parapet) is covered by a single piece of something rubbery that is supposed to last the rest of my life. I think of it as a swimming pool with downspouts. Of course, now that I have a new roof, California is heading into what looks like a drought. So, I have no idea if this new roof will deliver the goods. We shall see. If nothing else, the white membrane will keep the house cooler in the summer; and it will be worlds easier to sweep off the detritus that collects up there every fall.
Stay tuned for my exciting homeowner updates!