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Day by Day: Uncooler by the second, and happy about it.
Thu, 28 Dec 2006

Its been a little while and so many things have gone unsaid, but let me at least hope everyone had a very fyyyyne Christmas and look forward to good times to come. A quick post today as I consider getting back into the blog-swing of things.

We've spent a lot of time cleaning up around the house, moving things around and depopulating the future baby-room so I can attempt the very epic adventure: The Painting of The Room. I know this is a mundane event to many, but having to rediscover 'spackle' and polyfil and Alexa-goo for filling cracks and picture-hanging-holes: all things I've not done in quite some time. Yet, as I arm the gun-goo-dispenser and pretend to be manly I sometimes get this feeling of uncoolness.

Now - as so many would jump to point out - a guy who hosts barbecues featuring steaks and arcade machines or who asks Santa for a Sid Meier's game cannot climb much lower on the coolness ladder - but the feeling cannot help but present itself all the same - when you have a kid, you are by definition a square, forever to be texted '[]' by your nephew. Like, you could be a night-time DJ after your accounting job and still keep some hip but once the kid comes, I dunno, you've lost it :)

Now, this isn't a bad thing -- as I look at painting the room and dream about taking the future child running in a park, playing soccor, and showing him or her how to snort paint out their nose onto construction paper like a real punk, it just reminds me that deep inside all of us are the same. I mean, I was out looking at camcorders with a half dozen other dads-to-be during a Boxing Day sale, and sorting through boxes of hand-me-down baby clothes from my family. Weeeeird stuff. But once you have a kid, you remember the real priorities in life, and you think back to all those people back in the office who went on about their kids all day and you think -- yeah, hell yeah, thats the life for me.

We had 4 or 5 days of Christmas activities in a row, seeing lots of family and some friends and such. Ten years ago that would have driven me nuts, but now it seemed over all too fast, and I miss my family ... after having moved an hour or so away from then, it seems too far. Thats what I'm talking about.

Uncooler, but changed for the better. Creepy :)

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Personal: Casting off the Cement
Sun, 03 Dec 2006

Its come up in passing a couple times of late, so I thought - why not? - mention it here. Now, I've always been energetic and motivated, forever plowing ahead on whatever I wish or need to do. Its one of my super powers - everyone has some - that lets me get through the denouement part of a project and actually produce something. Right now, I'm full of energy and plugging away like mad. It feels good. Like past years good, when I knocked out a half dozen freeware apps on the side, just in my spare time, for something to do. Like when you were 10, and got a new pair of shoes, and just ran around the block to feel the wind in your hair. That good.

But looking back, I think there was a year or so where I wasn't so.. rejuvenated. The other day it was cold and raining hard and nasty, and Mother Nature was showing who was boss, and I smiled. Bring it, baby.

I didn't notice at the time, but by comparison and hindsight I'd have to say last year I spent walking uphill both ways through a snow-storm with cement boots. Now, I'm cool with that and slog ahead with the same old energy, but I think the whole delay in getting our lives moving on was a yoke of sorts. I didn't produce as much (and sad as I am, I measure myself in some part by how much 'stuff' I produce) and just wasn't as happy I think, though life was pretty good and I caught a bunch of BSG and Firefly. I guess I'm not suited to recognizing that sort of thing, but I know it was really effecting my wife. Anyway, so something was there and in the way, like friction.

This year isn't about that. I wrote in her Christmas card last year - "This is our year" among other things. I was, luckily, correct. While the days fly by, every one is full of exciting things, and each night I head to sleep looking forward to the next morning. With the baby coming (less than three months to go), life has reason, focus.. momentum. Carpe Diem indeed!

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Day By Day: Fitness, and How did IT get into this mess?
Sun, 19 Feb 2006

My wife is also a software developer, though she's the more well rounded of the two of us as she manages to keep her hobbies out of the technical realms, while I continue to stick my head into electronics or computing at ever opportunity... Yes folks, there is a woman who is both a Star Trek and software nerd - and she's all mine! She manages to take community classes in a wide variety of artistic and crafting topics, from painting to knitting to all sorts of things - it is important to keep that artistic soul alive. (I used to have an artistic soul but pounded it into seamless oblivion through advertising.. but thats another story :) Now, for years I've been meaning to pick up another human language (since knowing dozens of computer languages doesn't count ;), though my mind is not so adept at remembering vocabulary I don't use often. Learning fencing and such would be way cool, though I'm sure at my stress levels a sparring partner would be in serious trouble. I'm also a bit on the tubby from the endless hours of work ... what we developers and system-administrators dub "the IT gutt."

So why not join a gym or community centre? As mentioned before, I always try to park 15-20 minutes walk away from my destination, to get in half an hour of good natural exercise a few times a week, but I don't know if that helps much; certainly it doesn't balance off the hours sitting on the rump that all IT people do. I also like to drop my wife off at her classes to save her walking in an unlit area alone, so it occurs to me.. why not sign up to some sort of health facility while she's away knitting a new yarn baggie? It would allow for the sort of structure I need -- show up anytime, without being too rigid that I simply cannot make it. A community centre would even be cheap.

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Personal: Timelines. Some meandering thoughts.
Tue, 17 Jan 2006

(Aside.. an excellent read dismembering 'Web 2.0'. Also, why oh why did I ever separate 'arts' and 'entertainment' back on day-zero of creating this blog? Why have I not merged them yet? How does one differentiate between 'entertainment' and 'technology' when you're involved in both?)

One of these days I'm going to create a private-thoughts directory somewhere; occasionally I have a thought that might be amusing to note down should I want to read it 20 years from now but that isn't fit for the public -- internal dialog. Creating a private blog directory seems silly, since it just exposes such dialog to intrusions and security breaches. But who keeps a diary anymore? Where does one record internal dialog these days? Or is this why 90% of blogs stink? With so much personal information, where do we keep it all? How do we back it all up? (All these folks with digital cameras will have Bad Days when their hard drives die!) I cannot imagine how the computer newbies survive the onslaught of virii.. better to be computer illiterate than a newbie sometimes :)

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