SODO is beautiful at night.

After work, I rode up to the UD and went to a couple bars, ending up at the Big Time to watch the UW/ASU game with bike kids. Then off to the Awful Shark for the next to the last episode of BSG. Not wanting to go home, I rode over the hill to a bike kid party at the Center for Wooden Boats shop. I saw people I knew, but couldn’t get to them as when I got off my bike a girl immediately started hitting on me, asking me to explain how shifting worked and whatnot. Her friends came down from the street and started talking about taxi’s so I excused myself and went inside. There wasn’t any beer about, and folks started dancing. I wasn’t feeling being social, so I rode over to the Hurricane, had some dinner and read a little. The bus boy asked me what my gear ratio was. That was a first. Afterwards I rode down to SODO and toiled about a bit, exploring the alleys in between the large industrial buildings appreciating the older, smaller ones scattered about.

I’m building another fixie. I purchased most of the parts today. I got a 59cm IRO Mark V frame off ebay, most of the drivetrain parts from IRO, and some tires from Universal Cycles. I guess I need to dig up some clips and lights. My left thigh is bruised from bracing against the top tube to skid stop the 32mm Schwalbe’s on my Schwinn fixed. I’m going with a higher gear ratio, 170mm 46t x 16t on 700cm x 23mm. The Schwinn should be 40t x 17t on 27″ x 32mm. I don’t want to change the Schwinn, I like it being brutish and tough. But I’m also looking forward to a lighter more urban fixed gear as well. Don’t tell my mom though, she thinks I have enough bikes already.

In the office upgrading hardy boxes to intrepid tonight in preparation for jaunty’s release. It’s mostly smooth, except that I didn’t realize nagios2 was so old until it disappeared, so I think writing a nice chef nagios3 recipe is probably next on my plate.

More of my earlier hypothetical story.

> You really need to read your messages before you sent them, because
> your tone is often negative.

Actually I put particular thought into the wording of this because I have a nervous problem with being a burden on people. Short of using an emoticon which I can’t decide on the appropriateness of with business people, “What’s up?” is the most passive phrase I could think of to express that it wasn’t a big deal. Being interpretable as slang to most, it denotes a personal nature and ideally this would be disarming.

Having grown up socializing electronically I’m pretty familiar with conveying meaning in a textual format, but those colloquial techniques don’t seamlessly apply to all electronic communication and must be used cautiously when interacting with people who may be unfamiliar with them. I tend to assume non-technical people are in this group, because it’s usually people who are involved in the open source community, and thus somewhat technical, that are most familiar. This is markedly different than generational context like chatting over text or instant message, because it develops from a community.

On a personal note, you can consider anything I say to have no negative connotations, my esteem lends to the BlameYourselfFirst mantra. Any sarcasm is another programmed response at lowering expectations and thus putting people at ease. I’m sorry I came off any other way.

I talk about this because it’s pretty interesting… communication is pretty interesting. I have really strong feelings, I often say this. This also makes me pretty nervous about my ability to communicate this with others. I’m usually pretty sure that people don’t get what I mean. Which isn’t to say they don’t, I just feel that way. Or fear that way perhaps.

I’m not sure I’d want to open much of a personal door with business people I don’t know, but I also tend to have a difficult time not doing that. I was consoling a old buddy over IM tonight who was having problems with his girl, and got to telling old stories he hadn’t heard, and how I’ve dealt with the consequences of them since.

Which, to devague that a little, was that I’ve compromised too much in the past in relationships. I haven’t always been asked to. Perhaps more often than not I did it naturally to ‘fix things’, even before they were broken, but I’ve since figured out that all this ranting about who I am does represent something that needs to be protected to maintain my own happiness.

Alright well, work needs my attention more than this and keeps distracting me.

I saw wordle go through Matt’s flickr so tried it out. The image was created from the rss feed for this blog.

First the griping; they don’t let you save the image but say that if you somehow manage to, then you have to attribute them and apply a Creative Commons license. If you’re going to bother with CC licensing, why not have a save option? Seems defeatist or such.

But it’s pretty interesting which words come up a lot. No surprise seeing “things”, which is my common word for vaguery. So much so that I’ve started using “bits” for a touch of variance. Otherwise, except for bowling popping up out of nowhere it’s pretty centric around.

Let’s say that hypothetically you sent an email saying something like,

My HSA still doesn’t have the 2/28/09 Employee or Employer deposits yet. What’s up?

And someone hypothetically wrote back,

You really need to read your messages before you sent them, because your tone is often negative.

Deposits are going in tomorrow.

In this hypothetical situation, you didn’t have a scheduled HSA payment bounce because the 2/28 deposit didn’t go in, and you didn’t send that email on the 9th, and you didn’t get that response on the 12th. Let’s just say that, and ignore it.

Would you start using emoticons in work email? Googling for “smileys in work email” and “emoticons at work” returns only stupid graphic emoticon web spam in the top results.

If I had thought about this beforehand, I would have a really hard time not responding with a “Actually, you need to not be so negative and assume I’m a jerk. Jerk.” or some snipe remark about charging interest until the deposit is there + a late fee. Because I’m sarcastic as hell, but I’d never for a moment consider myself negative. Maybe compromise on being a ‘realist’ or such, but not negative.

Blah. The world sucks.

I slept a solid nine hours last night, maybe ten. Obviously I was tired, but I don’t like that sort of sleep generally, because of the dreams it produces. I rarely dream outside of those episodes. I had a dream about moving into my fathers house. At least David, Tori and Mom were helping. I don’t think Dad was there, which may have been part of what made it disturbing, in a Dad died sort of way. We were cleaning the house, maybe the basement, David was arguing over how to make another batch of some solvent Tori had cooked up. The only food in the house was beef, and somebody made some. I think I had some, which was upsetting too, until someone asked if I wanted to go to Squid. Which is geographically bizarre, but in the state of dreaming not wholly surprising. Meh.

I thought I mentioned this recently, but on a ride someone came up to me and expressed they thought this journal was cool. That’s been on my mind a bit. Last night a few of us met one of my current and previous coworkers (we started as students together too) Eric at Acme Bowl. What an insane venue. I walked in and immediately felt like I had come home to suburban America. It’s giant. 51,000 square feet gives you 40 lanes, 7 pool tables, private dining rooms, a bar plus it’s own seating section.

ACME combines a cutting-edge urban/industrial environment with the social entertainment of bowling.

Yeah, it’s nothing like bowling lanes are supposed to be. Mom commented on how it doesn’t smell like a bowling lane. We were put in a special area for by the hour bowling and private bowling parties that at the end of about eight lanes had five projection televisions. Two of which were playing music videos, mostly hip hop full of scantily clad woman and the likes. The others had various sports on, including poker. The sound from the music videos was blaring and there were all sorts of lighting effects.

Back to the point. Occasionally though, an old video would come up. Once of which was Head Over Feet by Alanis Morissette. I got thinking about the lyrics, and people identifying with lyrics. While browsing some compilations that included her songs on iTunes, I noticed iTunes Essentials, Gay Pride: Girls 2. I couldn’t figure out if this was “music by gay girls”, or, “hey, if you are a gay girl you might like this” or what, and I found this article. Alanis shows a little surprise that she has a large gay following.

When I heard about your and Ryan’s breakup, I said, “Well, that sucks, but at least some incredible music will come out of it.” Did you have a similar realization?
Wow. Once the record was finished, it dawned on me that so much beautiful art comes from transmuting pain. It’s always been the case. But there are two great life forces that have the power to move worlds: anger and love. For me to become empowered postdepression, I have to move through anger. So [the new track] “Straitjacket”? Angry.

So keeping an online journal. Many people tell me it’s great that I do, and they’re almost always (if not always?) people who don’t themselves. I think it’s a privacy concern out of the gate, although I think it’s unfounded and unfortunate. The only time I’ve had any other response to my journal being online than “that’s great” was once or twice with an ex-girlfriend who was worried about what her friends who read my blog talking about my feelings would think about her. This was insanely convoluted and I’ll leave it at that. One of the things I like about writing an online journal is that people can not only read the things I’m thinking about, but hopefully see that we think about some similar things. Growing up I always felt like everyone else had it figured out because nobody else I hung out around talked about what they were thinking about. I didn’t either at first, out of fear of being weird and alone. Eventually I started writing and with no negative consequences coming out of it, I ended up where I am today.

This post is like how I tell stories, too many are getting mixed into each other. I was talking to Mom in the truck last night about keeping an online journal and where other people find their connections and express themselves. I mentioned that watching that Alanis Morissette video made me think about how people connect with music and lyrics. She agreed that there’s some relief and not feeling alone about how you feel in identifying with someone’s lyrics.

Brain dump in five minutes, go.

Meant to come into the office and look at some Samba code I’m having problems with, but plans have been made for food, biking, and bowling already tonight. Whew. It’s good though, sometimes I need to make sure I get out on the weekends.

I’m falling down the rabbit hole again, as usual with all of the best intentions. I feel better about where I’m going with life and relationships with the last month of thought about it. I’m not entirely sure if that changes a whole lot for anyone else, but my problems are generally centered around how I feel, so it does make a difference.

I feel bad about past relationships occasionally, like I’ve left a strewn mess behind me. But I can’t take responsibility really, because I do express how I feel honestly and try to act accordingly. I guess I worry that my feelings are a burden on other peoples lives, and sometimes I worry they’re too whimsical.

Which I don’t think is true, but I’m more apt to blame myself than anyone else.

Here’s to acting on feelings though.

I once dated a girl who’s sarcasm was impossible to read. In retrospect, it probably was meant to be that way. I haven’t met very few people who claimed to be able to tell the difference. It makes it hard to look back at the things she said and take anything from them. She once attributed some changes in my life to choice she made. It sounded serious, but it could have been a joke. Grain of salt, blah blah blah.

It’s an almost perfect night out. I was riding my fixed down Airport Way between the Awful Shark and Georgetown, listening to The Bends. I’ve talked and thought in the past about how many of the things that have transpired since I’ve moved to Seattle totally shifted my views of the world, industry, culture and myself.

Fifteen years ago, the list of things I didn’t know, couldn’t comprehend and hadn’t done was tremendous. The Bends hadn’t even been released yet. That’s not a particularly epic event to transpire in my life, but I associate Radiohead with memories of the nineties. People in Seattle don’t seem to listen to Radiohead either, at least not with the fervor reserved for a band Dan Bejar has touched; maybe I’m just getting old for reals, in the ways that count.

By day, I’m a fan of systems. I pierce them with a hard glare until their secrets are revealed to me. This usually takes time of examining the parts. There comes a time when you look back and realize that you now see the artful beauty of a system that is much more than the bolts and threads that went into it.

The parts that make up who I am are no longer the bolts they once were. Once let loose on the world, bits from everywhere leak in and your personality is weaved into a tapestry of life. I can [and will] tell you endless stories of how I got here. I can also, now more than ever, tell you what direction I’m heading in tomorrow. No more, as I have no destination in mind. If you try to pick the threads out to see where they came from… well, that’s a long story.

Poor commute execution again on my part. No fender on the bike, cotton long underwear, totally wet. But the sunshine is leaking in through the window behind me and it’s making me smile.

Thinking about Dad’s list of three while waiting for a virtual machine to copy to backup. I’ve always had trouble with looking forward to things, and making future plans. I fear disappointment, it’s a vulnerable feeling. It’s one of those feelings that people don’t talk about enough, and it leads us too often to feel alone. Thinking that nobody else feels the way that we do. Which is absurd if you ponder it, but when you feel, it’s a different story. The risk of loss is generally something I’m okay with, that is when it’s something material. I’m particularly vulnerable to fearing the loss of people in my life. Not so often in a “they’ll get hit by a bus” way, but insofar as they are individuals, who make their own choices and I must accept them.  It’s not that I want people to be who I want them to be, I don’t feel that way and think it’s ludicrous. The value of the people in our lives are that they are individuals, which is what makes those who we identify with more special.

I’ve declared and accepted my future lately. That is that it isn’t going to be what I assumed it would eventually be. I simply wouldn’t be happy settled down. When I’ve had conversations about it in the past about what life would be like, I’ve left them with an ill feeling. I’ve identified that, it’s heavy compromise. One might argue that this is a part of growing up. I declare it isn’t. I don’t do very much right, I do most things how I feel is right. Which is right enough for me. Of course this indicator comes at a cost. I’m okay with that, I’ve always been okay with that.

The meaning of life is learning to live by your heart, right?

Sung to Piano Man by Billy Joel. Because I need more sleep apparently.

It’s nine on clock on a tuesday
The regular crowd shuffles in
Theres an IT dude sitting next to me
Making love to his acks and his syns

He says, son, can you blog me a memory?
Im not really sure how it goes
But it’s smart and and a feat and I knew it complete
When I spent all day watching tubes flow

He says, son, can you blog me a memory?
But it’s smart and and a feat and I knew it complete
But its sad and its sweet and I knew it complete
When I spent all day watching tubes flow

La la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Write us a blog, youre the hacker man
Write us a blog, youre the hacker man
Write us a blog tonight
Well, were all in the mood for a memory
And you’ve got us flowin alright

Now john in the NOC is a friend of mine
He gets me my fiber for free
And he’s quick with a joke or to give you a coke
But theres someplace that he’d rather be
He says, bill, I believe this is killing me.
As the smile ran away from his face
Well I’m sure that I could be a garbage man
If I could get out of this place

Oh, la la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Now bryan is a systems administrator
Who never had time for a wife
And hes talkin with burt whos still in support
And probably will be for life

And the secretary is practicing security
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, theyre sharing a job they call loneliness
But its better than workin alone

Write us a blog, youre the hacker man
Write us a blog, youre the hacker man
Write us a blog tonight
Well, were all in the mood for a memory
And you’ve got us flowin alright

Its a pretty good uptime for a tuesday
And the manager gives me a smile
cause he knows that its me that made the redundancy
to unclog the tubes for a while
And the servers, they sound like a carnival
And the keyboard smells like a jolt
And they sit in their cubes, usin my tubes
And say, man, what are you doin here?

Oh, la la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Every once in a while I get an email saying someone has created an account here, but I rarely see comments as a result. What am I missing?

I’m trying to make graphs for some new data collection I’ve done against couchdb HEAD, but last time I tried the result was pretty disappointing. I blame open office’s chart wizard. Jaunty has oo 3.0, so I’m trying to pull those packages right now. That’s slow, which means I probably will go to bed, or maybe I’ll just stay up writing. Going to Jaunty on a lone desktop is probably a mistake at this point, but testing we shall have.

I gave up and set up a payment plan for out of state tuition. Everything I’ve read from the forms implies I’m in plenty of time for a judgement deadline there, but I’ve also read a number of bits requiring payment within seven days of adding the class. So that will just happen, and hopefully we’ll get the rest resolved over the next month. Having to dig up so much paperwork for the SCCC residency forms is frustrating.

Getting shared library errors on the desktop already while trying to run vim. I guess I need to commit to this upgrade.

It’s a stark reminder to read the insight in my older blog posts. I’m going back through reading the product of the last six months of living.

Part of me wishes I could find some direction in other peoples writings, but I know that my problems are my own.

Reading these passages assures me that I actually know exactly how I feel, what I want, and what I think. There’s very little fluctuation in what I’ve been saying for some time now. I’ve been worried that I what I think could be wrong. I’ve been wrong plenty before. I worry too much about how other people are going to feel about this, and I don’t believe it’s done me any good.

Book: You got a plan?
Mal: Hiding ain’t a plan?
. . .
[Mal mentions that he could have left River behind.]
Book: It’s not your way, Mal.
Mal: I have a way? That better than a plan?

I may not have ever had a plan, and at this point I’m pretty sure I won’t. I do have a way, and I’m going to keep living it.

After nice weather was abruptly ended during my commute home with a downpour, I searched a bit for some place new to eat on Yelp, including a brief review of Squid’s comments, once again reminding me that I am not most people, and in fact am often upset by the priorities of most people. In the end, Tori and I ventured out in warmer clothes under drier skies for dinner at Smarty Pants for chow. Somehow field roast gets you drunk. So it goes.

I distinctly separate the things I think and the things I feel into two parts of me. While they affect each other, I’ve come to accept my feelings as a part of me that changes over time in reaction to experiences, but that I don’t change. On the other hand, I believe that the things I think are open for reinterpretation and manipulation to progressive ends.

I made the comment over the weekend that I view my father’s stoicism with negative feelings. I express the way I feel, and more often than not worry mostly about other people having to deal with the consequences of my feelings. Thinking back to early relationships, I remember years going by of not telling people of how I felt. Out of fear? Probably feelings of insignificance. Not probably, definitely. For those that feel and haven’t constructed complex defense mechanisms, or even those that have, the vulnerability of these kinds of feelings are awfully strong. Distracting, disorienting.

I never got over transgressions by my first girlfriend. It took me a while to come to terms with that. That may be why I have a problem with being stoic, I’m prone to it, and don’t feel okay about it. I don’t ask a lot of girlfriends, mostly I want them to like me and want to be around me. I’ll never have the skills/tricks/ability to manipulate a situation otherwise. I say that because of how I feel.

I’m an independent person though. I take care of myself and I have no expectations of anyone else doing anything for me. That’s as black and white as it gets. I get the benefit of appreciating what does get done for me because of it. The cons? Loneliness? I don’t know. I’ve never been any other way, it’s hard to say. Perhaps that I end up in dramatic situations more often than I should? I hold on too long?

Perhaps it doesn’t matter in the end. I will continue to do what I do, even when it’s one step forward, two steps back, because I simply don’t know any other way to act. I’m honest and straight forward, perhaps to a fault. You do the things that feel right, and do what needs to be done. Perhaps that’s ever bit a part of where I come from.