Thursday, November 17, 2005

Deprecate

Two years since I've been a serious programmer. In the interim, I've done some toy programming, a little perl grease for the wheels of an otherwise working website for example. But no real programming, no real projects. Such is life when you're writing your dissertation. Anyway, I dusted off my Java IDE today, got the latest version of everything, and was ready to dive in to my latest idea.

I should have looked before I dove in. I nearly broke my neck on all the new stuff. I mean, aspects, annotations, generics, unit testing, oh my. Back when I started my graduate student career I did not understand how my advisor could become so behind the times (she has a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT, and shared an office with RMS, surely she'd never let her coding skills slip, right?). But now I understand. I'm going to let myself go. This next generation of my ideas will likely be implemented by someone else, a snot-nosed know it all, I hope. One that will never understand how I could let my skills lapse.

But that's the circle of life. Right up until I eat that know it all for being a little too snide. Then it's more of, say, an ellipse of life.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Traffic

I'm cruising home, along the interstate. We're all moving along at a pretty speedy clip. So I don't have time to deal with what's happening. There's a huge, enormous, beyond words large flock of birds flying over the freeway. It stretches from one edge of my windshield to the other, and goes on for the two or so minutes they're in sight before I drive under them. I want to stop the car, get out and just ogle it. It is beautiful. I don't know what kind of birds they are, they're smaller than, say ducks. But they're beautiful.

The next night, they're there again. And the next. At some point, I stopped noticing them.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Lift

I jumped onto my desk. Just now. Just to prove I still could. It was a standing leap, maybe about three feet. Let's see, it seems like my desktop is just a little below hip-level on me. Not bad, not bad at all.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Lyric

I have high expectations of my music. I want the words to evoke, invoke, and revoke. I want to be transported to another realm by the poetry involved in good songwriting. That's why I like Ani diFranco. She's got a good voice, but if you listen to what she's saying, it's a whole other level. "I'm going to get my feet wet until I drown", "I used to be a hero ... you are like a phonebooth that I somehow stumbled into". Seriously man, it makes me feel all inadequate that I cannot express myself so cleverly. But that's why I'm not a famous singer.

That and I cannot sing. I have been told that singing with me is great and low pressure, since you don't have to worry about the right notes. But you do have to worry about my made up, in-between notes that are neither sharp nor flat.