Life
I suppose not many people read this anymore, and given the infrequent nature of my posts I can't blame them. My last post here got a single response. It was a Russian porn-bot.
However, this site contains years of my life. Not in their entirety, of course. But a peculiar reflection of one side of my life, like seeing yourself in a tinted and curved car window. And I sort of like that. I like the idea that somewhere on the Internet, a map of the negative space left by my motions and emotions. To understand who I am from this might be like trying to understand a snake by looking at its path through the sand.
I have not posted here in months. My life is not the same as it was the last time I put anything of myself on here, not by a long shot. If I want this document to continue I should put a bit of myself back into it. So here it goes:
Work has been pretty cool and occasionally frustrating. In addition to my getting-paid-for-testing-software, I've been teaching myself programming and database administration, and I hope to put together a web site pretty soon. I've been setting aside a bit of money to buy a few months of real web hosting (big server that you administrate remotely over SSH, rather than some web-app-GUI-thing) and in the mean time I've been teaching myself Java, Ruby, Rails, HTML5, and all that lot using a shitty old Dell desktop that someone was throwing out as a server.
I'm enjoying this because it will be a chance to do something and finish it, to build something that other people can look at and say "Oh, cool. I will use this and enjoy this and contribute to this. I am glad that somebody built this thing." It's fulfilling. It's also good for my day job.
I went back to Virginia to do my taxes yesterday. Northern Virginia was strange and oppressive - not just the weather, but the families and loud children and the cars. Before taxes, Kristin and I went to Unique and she got a pretty great jacket and a skirt and I got some books and a copy of Girl, Interrupted, which I recall liking in high school but haven't seen since.
Actually doing my taxes wasn't as bad as I feared (though I'd be getting a good deal more money back if my parents hadn't claimed me as a dependent...) but being back there was hard. I hadn't had to sit down and talk something I didn't like with my parents for an extended period for years. I was struck by a really overwhelming sense of psychological nausea combined with nostalgia. It was like a headache of the soul.
But then Kristin and I went and got Pho with Hunter and Helen, and dropped by and said hi to Alex and Phil. That was a lot of fun. I've missed seeing that crowd more often.
I've been thinking a lot recently about apathy and politics and my place in things. I will have more to say on this at some point in time (if I don't post it here, come ask me in person.) I was originally going to post it all on here tonight but I need to do my nightly chapter-in-my-Ruby-book.
I've also been volunteering with a group that does an earn-a-bike program for Annapolitan children. I've learned a lot, the people involved are pretty cool, and it's overall been pretty great. I mention this because if you're in the Annapolis area and need a bicycle, we can probably set you up for pretty cheap.
However, this site contains years of my life. Not in their entirety, of course. But a peculiar reflection of one side of my life, like seeing yourself in a tinted and curved car window. And I sort of like that. I like the idea that somewhere on the Internet, a map of the negative space left by my motions and emotions. To understand who I am from this might be like trying to understand a snake by looking at its path through the sand.
I have not posted here in months. My life is not the same as it was the last time I put anything of myself on here, not by a long shot. If I want this document to continue I should put a bit of myself back into it. So here it goes:
Work has been pretty cool and occasionally frustrating. In addition to my getting-paid-for-testing-software, I've been teaching myself programming and database administration, and I hope to put together a web site pretty soon. I've been setting aside a bit of money to buy a few months of real web hosting (big server that you administrate remotely over SSH, rather than some web-app-GUI-thing) and in the mean time I've been teaching myself Java, Ruby, Rails, HTML5, and all that lot using a shitty old Dell desktop that someone was throwing out as a server.
I'm enjoying this because it will be a chance to do something and finish it, to build something that other people can look at and say "Oh, cool. I will use this and enjoy this and contribute to this. I am glad that somebody built this thing." It's fulfilling. It's also good for my day job.
I went back to Virginia to do my taxes yesterday. Northern Virginia was strange and oppressive - not just the weather, but the families and loud children and the cars. Before taxes, Kristin and I went to Unique and she got a pretty great jacket and a skirt and I got some books and a copy of Girl, Interrupted, which I recall liking in high school but haven't seen since.
Actually doing my taxes wasn't as bad as I feared (though I'd be getting a good deal more money back if my parents hadn't claimed me as a dependent...) but being back there was hard. I hadn't had to sit down and talk something I didn't like with my parents for an extended period for years. I was struck by a really overwhelming sense of psychological nausea combined with nostalgia. It was like a headache of the soul.
But then Kristin and I went and got Pho with Hunter and Helen, and dropped by and said hi to Alex and Phil. That was a lot of fun. I've missed seeing that crowd more often.
I've been thinking a lot recently about apathy and politics and my place in things. I will have more to say on this at some point in time (if I don't post it here, come ask me in person.) I was originally going to post it all on here tonight but I need to do my nightly chapter-in-my-Ruby-book.
I've also been volunteering with a group that does an earn-a-bike program for Annapolitan children. I've learned a lot, the people involved are pretty cool, and it's overall been pretty great. I mention this because if you're in the Annapolis area and need a bicycle, we can probably set you up for pretty cheap.