Long day, days, at the office. I feel responsible for not working on things that I’ve placed as high priority/important because I get caught up in other projects and want to do a good job.

Like my clipboard has been dieing more and more on my XP desktop, and when trying to test an SSL Cert I realized I needed to do it externally, and figured, install ubuntu, run firefox remotely over an ssh tunnel!

A few hours later I had things sorted out (compiz-fusion doesn’t like xinerama for dualhead. Use twinview. Coredumps make not for good error messages, this is why we hate binary drivers). All in all, having a linux desktop again has made things so much easier. I can once again keep track of ssh connections, since I have compiz cube running again it’s easy to keep each project on a set of virtual desktops. Plus I can still run synergy and use my windows laptop. Today I set up the rt command line utilities as well, which I think will be more useful than the mail TakeAction stuff.

I know much more has been on my mind than computers, but it’s mostly fading thoughts in dreams and musing on the bus to and from downtown. Moving is coming up quick and the room is all clean.

After ranting about dimdim the other day, the CMO emailed me and called me to talk about it. Swell guy, he said the CTO was going to call, but he never did. Oh well. Maybe I’ll look at the state of dimdim again in a week or two and see if they’ve changed or it was just fluff. Works to be done in the interim.

At about 3pm today I realized I had no idea if I had eaten lunch or not. I just had no idea if I had posted about my grandparents being in town either, but that’s a little more believable. I think that I’ve been smelling unchicken soup everywhere that it’s a sign that there’s some wacky and medically wrong with me. Well… We know the wacky part is right.

Went to the Twilight for dinner the other day and Ken B. was there with Kirsten’s sister Reese. Apparently she’s a CS major AND had heard of Why the lucky stiff‘s poignant guide to Ruby. World’s a crazy place, like I said, it feels normalish though. Times sure do change…. gettin’ old.

More soup and sleep for me I think. Gotta build up some reserves for this weekend and I’ve still got a couple puppet recipes to write this week. Perhaps having a personal rule about not installing software anymore without writing a recipe was a bad idea.

Good times were had today with the grandparents. I met them down at their hotel in Seatac and after canceling their other hotel plans we met Tori and Ken at Linda’s so I could have some breakfast. They really enjoyed meeting them and the waiter was super nice to them, with gram leaving super satisfied at how easy it was to get a good cup of black tea. A stop by Metrix so they could print boarding passes and we drove around, ending up at Widemile so I could show them the office. I showed Grampie the data center and he reminisced about showing his father the training aids he had made back when he was a flight instructor and it all just leaving his dad confused.

We bailed on downtown as police were showing up on the streets for some Saint Patty’s day event and we drove around SODO and Georgetown. Then off to West Seattle to take some photos, and I saw Jim Mercure on Alki taking photos so we stopped to chat with him. Back to Georgetown to GLC for food where they were again super satisfied with the service, food and tea. These being my meat and potatoes grandparents, enjoying some split pea and vegan ham soup. Of course they had to ask what vegan ham was. Not what was in it, what it was.

Taking it easy, I drove out to Redmond, through Carnation and Fall City. I called Liz and she was around so we stopped by her place in North Bend to chat and have some coffee. Then back to town to meet Grampie’s cousin Ann at Araya’s for dinner. Ah, the real test. This was only the second time in their entire lives they had Thai food, let alone vegan thai food. They seemed happy and wanted to know what that good stuff was called. Oh that? That’s tofu.

I just dropped them back off to Seatac, they’re flying off to Spokane tomorrow and getting a ride to Montana.

I’ve been really busy with work. I’ll let everyone know what I’m up to soon, but it’s all good stuff. And Moving! Gotta move at the end of the month, don’t know where I’ll find the time.

I’m convinced that writing an okc profile is one of the best exercises in self-evaluation I’ve done, or that one could do. I think about it a lot, and more than once have sat down wanting to re-write it elsewhere, solely for the such purposes.

Another night on the hill leaves me thinking about the past, ex-girlfriends, and mostly overshadowed by perception. God damn that perception seems to have a rigid hold on so many things, but I give it a lot of credit because I get a lot of credit where I don’t put effort because I’m so … disconnected.. that I come off as cool and relaxed I suppose? I don’t know how to interpret the subtle actions of others that don’t communicate verbally, and combined with recent reminiscing about recent and past arguments that seem outright foolish, I’m leaning more and more on side that it doesn’t really matter. People need to chill out.

I need to evaluate hobbies a little bit, and how people get tied up in scenes. We do, and normally I dislike scenesters, but I have to consider how much of one I probably am.

So I’m moving to Georgetown with Tori and Ken Caruso. We’ll be moving in 4/1 and finishing off the month in our current houses. Somehow the Awful Shark became the Loft again. Life’s no fun if you have to assign tasks to people like buying toilet paper and doing dishes, but it’s also pretty terrible when such things don’t get done. When you wake up the day after cleaning the kitchen and it’s trashed again overnight, and realize you’ve been here before, you sort of have to kick yourself in the ass for falling into the same ruts again. It’s been a long time coming though, I’ve just been keeping my head down through the gun play (true story) and everything else, mostly because it’s been such a hard winter for me dealing with all the post accident crap.

We’re pretty excited to explore a new area though. Anthony mentioned recently how bizarre it is that each Seattle neighborhood is sort of like it’s own town and it’s true. Plus the house has a nice basement which will basically end up being the lounge/computer/movie area, which we have high hopes for.

Anyhow, I’m waking up now (up late doing some work) so I should get to work.

Little tidbit from mom:

My usual weather update: sleet and freezing rain. Another winter like this one and you will definitely be having your mother as a neighbor! The chickens were funny this morning. Went running out of the coop when I opened the door and went skating. Falling over and sliding into each other. Needed a good laugh. Thank the Gods of Kobol for chicken.

grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

I feel like the serenity prayer encompasses important parts of living better than anything else I’ve read. Of course it normally starts with “God,”. I don’t expect shit from this God and take responsibility for my life anyways. Tori and I joked about changing it to “Gods of Kobol” or such to insert a sci-fi reference, but I found it loses no meaning and sits better with my just by remove the reference to god altogether.

you know, fucking running out of labels. I know everyone said some day being a geek would be cool. I don’t know if they entirely meant hip cool, or that geeks run the world now, kinda. All the same, I see a lot of people these days that call themselves geeks. I guess ‘computer geek’ would be more accurate for what people always thought I was, but I don’t take to that well because I don’t think I fit any stereotype of computer geek. Yes, I know a lot of random computer shit, and much of it is to impressive depths if you’re the type that cares about it at all. But I know how to fix a lot of things, some to small degrees, others to much deeper ones. It all depends on how much I needed to spend time on it at the time. I kind of figured that was the significant part of my geekdom. M-w by way of wikipedia says “The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as “a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual”. I don’t know, I still feel thats accurate, but somehow people seem to feel like they’re geeky if they’re really into something random.

One size never does fit all I suppose, and people are just going to have to not stereotype and care enough to ask if they want to know what I really think.

Finally did go snowshoeing today, been talking about it since coming back from visiting Maine over Christmas vacation. That was awesome. Having the suburban back is definitely super. Actually an awesome weekend, went to a couple good food places in Georgetown, cleaned up the yard, dump run, bought snowshoes. Good times.