I’ve been playing with CSS recently for a side project, BikeAlive. It’s interesting, although the CSS differences between IE and Firefox are just plain stupid. Microsoft is an asshole for putting people in this situation methinks. The desktop publishing aspects, and being able to talk to my Mom about them were interesting. Eventually I figured out that IE ignores margin-top in a div element, but will respect padding-top. Making the change fixed my layout issues.

I watched Son of Rambow tonight. It was cute. I found The Brethren interesting, insomuch that I’ve been thinking lately about right and wrong on a deeper level than previously. After a long hard breakup some time ago I spent a while recovering and contemplating how one decides what’s right and the balance issues with trusting the opinion on specifics of someone you care about. I’ve since come to terms with the fact that there is only a socially accepted right and wrong that comes from compromise and agreement, but not necessarily fact.

Mom is here, and as she meets more people I see anew the reactions of my friends when they see that they can be themselves around my mother and she’s not going to huff or chastise them for their choices. I talked to Matthew yesterday about age a little bit, and he’s commented a couple times about how after a certain point, we’re all adults. Developmentally (social), I think our growth generally slows at some point in our early twenties. I’d be reluctant to advertise ourselves as all being adults, but that’s a product of my definition of being an adult probably requiring more compassion, patience, and thought than you get from the unculled masses.

Brush my teeth, I’ve got letters to mail.

Lots of recent topics to remember.

People often say that actions speak louder than words. Whilst growing up, I was told lots of lessons that didn’t make sense until I actually learned them. One of them amounts to this. I’m much less interested in what people believe than that they’ve thought about what they believe, and consequently what legs those beliefs stand on.

I regularly worry about, well, fitting in. Insomuch as that I worry that I’m not as smart, or as capable, or whatnot as others. What’s of particular interest is that I used to more, and that as time’s gone on, I’ve realize that the level of comprehension that I believed others to be at was always actually quite higher than reality, and where they really were I easily achieved some time ago without realizing it.

I was thinking tonight about the consequences of believing you are awesome. Do you continue to grow or challenge yourself if you somehow believe you are some sort of pinnacle of humanity? Doubtful. So I would figure that the people that question themselves are actually more likely to be the ones achieving much of interest at all. The other’s are probably busy filing software patents (ha!).

Then, I wonder about the difference between people who worry about how awesome they are and those that don’t care. At first glimpse it seems that many that don’t care do so because they do in fact think highly of themselves. But you have to assume that there is a level of [achievable] complacency where one is totally indifferent to their awesomeness.

There’s something to be said about believing you are fallible and maintaining a bar, or goal, higher than your present self evaluation. The trouble is in thinking far too low of yourself, or too high. Once again, like most everything, it’s a question of balance.

Anna has an interesting post and poll about language of love. The poll is difficult like an okcupid question and probably would be more interesting if one could rank them. I communicate my care in many ways and there’s different emotions that come with those actions, but they’re all under the same umbrella.

What is your primary “language of love”? (More than one ok)

Quality time (doing things together or being in the same space)
Communication (verbal or nonverbal)
Physical touch (laying-on-of-hands, touching backs, sex, etc)
Words of affection, praise, or validation
Acts of Service (Doing tasks for people)
Giving gifts to people
None of the above is a “language” that I communicate love in

Quality time forms bonds. The experiences you have are shared and produces a feeling having lived together, in the sense that life is lived, not specifically that you share a house/apartment.

Communication helps you better understand someone, and it’s fundamental to getting something that is bothering you out in the open, where it usually dissapates immediately. At least in my experience… with reasonable people; which admittedly hasn’t always been the case in previous lives.

Physical touch tends to be the most emotional for me. Which is mostly why I vote for the monogamous party. There’s certainly a corner of happiness and contentedness reserved for lying around with someone you love.

Words of affection for me seem to be a product of my feelings. I’ve made inroads at filtering them, as I worry they’ve contributed to making relationships into unmanageable constructs that were doomed to implode in the past. I say things that I feel, and sometimes that’s socially inappropriate, kinda maybe.

I’m always doing things for people, it’s a weakness that’s gotten better as I’ve moved my time towards peopel that can take care of themselves for the most part. I like being useful though, so I don’t mind helping at all.

Gifts, I don’t know about. If there’s anything in this list I’m iffy about it’s gifts. It seems too easy to lose the love and care that should be inhereit in the gift to the material. Mom loves christmas, Dad could care less. I’m in the middle in a convoluted way. Christmas is difficult because people want to know what I need. Well I have everything I need. Oh, then what do I want? Well, at the moment? I don’t know, nothing? It’s odd how hard it is to specify something less than $100 that I want that I haven’t gone out and picked up on a whim.

Also, what’s up? Nothing Really. Now time to work already.

A nice relaxing weekend. Mostly hanging out in bed watching Battlestar Season Two. I got some bicycle maintainence done tonight though. The first coat of non-primer paint went on the bike frame. It was too heavy, but turned out alright. I’m still struggling to get a wide, yet light, spray out of the gun. I got the front wheel on the fixed-gear trued up enough you don’t notice it on the on the brakes. I hadn’t touched it since the accident two weeks ago. I also got the squeak/creak out of it; loose left crank. I didn’t put the knew tire on the front I bought for it. Instead I took apart on the other 58cm Schwinn frame, because I want to use it’s fork for the rebuild, as I had cranked up the other fork pretty hard before I figured out how to get the rusted threaded headset out. I put the rubber on the front for the new bike to adjust the fork spacing. I’ve got to sand the fork down and start painting it soon.

I did buy a pair of clipless shoes and pedals online last night too. While at REI I tried on a 48 and it fit alright, so I ordered up some online that looked alright. I hate SIDI’s because they’re pure bicycle shoe, and I hate anything that’s pure and lacks that utility value. Those will go on the new bike. I’ll re-use the cranks I’m sure, but I’m still debating what to do with the rest of the drivetrain. I probably should put new chainrings and a free wheel on it. That’s not much cost, but replacing the derailluers and the shifters sounds like it might start to get pricey.

Got a new cast on Thursday: fiberglass short arm with spica. I hate the position of the spica, my wrist hurts more in this cast than the last. The cast people are Harborview seemed a bit concieted, spending a lot of time talking down about residents; their cast making skills and generally being wet behind the ears. I also got some crappy attitude all around about how I shouldn’t use my hand while it is in a cast. I didn’t even tell them about camping with the cast, just that it sometimes hurt if I picked up something with that hand. I was there for a long time, hours, my resident called for a CT scan after the xrays and then dissappeared. After napping for 45-60 minutes the cast technicians found a hand doctor for me, so I also got to cancel the next days appointment.

Life goes on.