a recap
Since getting back from burning man, it seems like everyone that I camped with is on this livejournal place. I mean, I knew that moominmolly and cuthalion had active livejournals, but it seems now that this is the hip place to be. So I figured I may as well try to get back to it.
On the way back from nevada, I made a list in my little moleskine of the things that were awesome. but i thought, hm, maybe i should catch the internet up on what i've been doing between november of last year and burning man.
so, here's what happened (with details after the cut if you are so inclined):
Grandpa died
Got a new job doing Ruby on Rails for science
I moved and got back togehter with Alice
My childhood friend shot himself
Went to Rails Conf in portland
Had my 2^5 birthday
Started playing D&D4E
Went to Burning Man
Stopped playing WoW (mostly)
i left off with the death of my grandfather. i wrote and erased a few things about his death and the time since, but it was jumbled and not very coherent. my thoughts bounce around from what i actually feel to what i think i should feel to what i think is socially appropriate to what would be respectful.... so, i'll just leave it at that. confused but accepting.
somewhere around the time that grandpa jack died, i got a new job. i now work for the center for computational biology at msu writing research software in ruby on rails. it's about the best job i can think of, really. i like the platform, i like the work, and my boss(es) are smart, engaged people doing interesting things. it's really great.
during january, i moved from my crazy ramshackle house near the tracks to a nice second story 3 bedroom in suburbia. it doesn't have charm or a creepy basement, but it does have a deck and a garage. also, alice and i decided to move back in together, so she's here too. i keep telling people that it feels all grown up and civilized. i miss the train and being able to make as much noise as i want, but otherwise it's actually pretty nice. alice and i are both happy with it (though we would like more space, really).
in february a childhood friend of mine committed suicide. he was 23 or 24. i had spoken to him last at my grandfather's funeral, he looked happy. it was a good lesson in communication. he was apparently pretty miserable, and i didn't really talk to him very much. he's like a lot of childhood friends that we all have (i assume), not much left in common, see him every now and then. a smile and a handshake and a how are things, what are you up to. but that's as far as it goes, i didn't really know what state his life was in. the suicide was a surprise to pretty much everyone. he went out to his mom's grave (she died of spinal cancer when he was 8 or 9), and shot himself. the funeral and wake were very sad. his father and brothers were in a sort of grief haze. it was hard, but hardest for them.
railsconf was in may. work sent me there, and it was a good time. i had never been to a conference before and i was expecting something like a classroom environment. or something. i didn't really know. anyway, it was more like hanging around with a bunch of smart dorks, seeing some good (and bad) presentations, and going out drinking and chatting. It was great fun and got me really fired up about rails and participating in a burgeoning community. in the irc channel i met a guy named 'dav' who agreed to collaborate on a burning man rails project. i contributed an embarrassingly small amount of work to the project, but it culminated in the "burners" facebook app. it is used by about 10 people, and the server keeps crashing, but it's a start. anyway, we were supposed to meet at black rock city, but we never did meet up. i can't decide if we just forgot to set up who would meet who where or if he's grumpy with me flaking out on the development. either way, it was fun for me and i'm sorry i wasn't more helpful.
i turned 32 in june. i never got tired of telling people that i was two to the fifth years old. i would follow that up with the fact that i expected to get only one more power of two from life, maybe two if i am really lucky. either way, it was a special day. my birthday was very chill. but after hearing some other stories of more exciting birthdays, i have resolved to do something exceptional for my 33rd birthday. hey, how many more palindrome birthdays will i have? Maybe four? Well, anyway, something should be done. i am open to suggestion.
the weekly bozeman boardgame party was going well, but the core players were interested in trying out a table-top rpg. they felt like they were missing out on a critical piece of the geek experience by not having played d&d in high school. i tried to get a d&d 3.5 game together, but the rules were unnecessarily complex and kind of annoying (in my opinion). 4th edition came out with some significant streamlining in the ruleset, and i decided that we should give it a whirl. it took us quite a while to get the characters done and to get rolling, but once we did we played for about 16 hours that weekend. everyone was surprised at how much fun it was. there were lots of opportunities to amplify what we find the most fun about game night: inside jokes, emergent goofy drama inside the game, luck, and a coop gameplay. we will probably play a lot more before we get tired of it.
went to burning man in august, we did some extra work on the yurt to firm it up (3 or 4 weekends of work), but our dreams of a tower went un-finished. next year maybe. the event itself was great. the theme was a little weak, but the experience was great. i'll do a post just about burning man later, but the best thing was seeing the folks from last year and meeting the new glory-holers. what a fantastic group of people.
finally, it seems that world of warcraft has lost its shine for me. i have been playing more or less steadily since it came out in 2004, mostly in the same guild (Rotten Luck). The guild hopped servers in 2007 from Silver Hand (a launch rp server) to The Scryers because of overcrowding and a threatened server split. Rotten Luck is a great guild and is still active (has been active since launch day 11/23/2004) and I am proud to be a part of such a great group, but the game is just not doing it for me anymore. honestly, every time i play it, i am *still* in awe of the game and its atmosphere, scope and sheer perfection of execution. but even though i haven't done everything the game has to do (i was never a WoW overachiever), i have other things i want to do with my time these days. so, here's to you WoW, see you when the next expansion hits...
and that about catches you up. next on the roster is a post about burning man and the cool things that happened to me there.
On the way back from nevada, I made a list in my little moleskine of the things that were awesome. but i thought, hm, maybe i should catch the internet up on what i've been doing between november of last year and burning man.
so, here's what happened (with details after the cut if you are so inclined):
Grandpa died
Got a new job doing Ruby on Rails for science
I moved and got back togehter with Alice
My childhood friend shot himself
Went to Rails Conf in portland
Had my 2^5 birthday
Started playing D&D4E
Went to Burning Man
Stopped playing WoW (mostly)
i left off with the death of my grandfather. i wrote and erased a few things about his death and the time since, but it was jumbled and not very coherent. my thoughts bounce around from what i actually feel to what i think i should feel to what i think is socially appropriate to what would be respectful.... so, i'll just leave it at that. confused but accepting.
somewhere around the time that grandpa jack died, i got a new job. i now work for the center for computational biology at msu writing research software in ruby on rails. it's about the best job i can think of, really. i like the platform, i like the work, and my boss(es) are smart, engaged people doing interesting things. it's really great.
during january, i moved from my crazy ramshackle house near the tracks to a nice second story 3 bedroom in suburbia. it doesn't have charm or a creepy basement, but it does have a deck and a garage. also, alice and i decided to move back in together, so she's here too. i keep telling people that it feels all grown up and civilized. i miss the train and being able to make as much noise as i want, but otherwise it's actually pretty nice. alice and i are both happy with it (though we would like more space, really).
in february a childhood friend of mine committed suicide. he was 23 or 24. i had spoken to him last at my grandfather's funeral, he looked happy. it was a good lesson in communication. he was apparently pretty miserable, and i didn't really talk to him very much. he's like a lot of childhood friends that we all have (i assume), not much left in common, see him every now and then. a smile and a handshake and a how are things, what are you up to. but that's as far as it goes, i didn't really know what state his life was in. the suicide was a surprise to pretty much everyone. he went out to his mom's grave (she died of spinal cancer when he was 8 or 9), and shot himself. the funeral and wake were very sad. his father and brothers were in a sort of grief haze. it was hard, but hardest for them.
railsconf was in may. work sent me there, and it was a good time. i had never been to a conference before and i was expecting something like a classroom environment. or something. i didn't really know. anyway, it was more like hanging around with a bunch of smart dorks, seeing some good (and bad) presentations, and going out drinking and chatting. It was great fun and got me really fired up about rails and participating in a burgeoning community. in the irc channel i met a guy named 'dav' who agreed to collaborate on a burning man rails project. i contributed an embarrassingly small amount of work to the project, but it culminated in the "burners" facebook app. it is used by about 10 people, and the server keeps crashing, but it's a start. anyway, we were supposed to meet at black rock city, but we never did meet up. i can't decide if we just forgot to set up who would meet who where or if he's grumpy with me flaking out on the development. either way, it was fun for me and i'm sorry i wasn't more helpful.
i turned 32 in june. i never got tired of telling people that i was two to the fifth years old. i would follow that up with the fact that i expected to get only one more power of two from life, maybe two if i am really lucky. either way, it was a special day. my birthday was very chill. but after hearing some other stories of more exciting birthdays, i have resolved to do something exceptional for my 33rd birthday. hey, how many more palindrome birthdays will i have? Maybe four? Well, anyway, something should be done. i am open to suggestion.
the weekly bozeman boardgame party was going well, but the core players were interested in trying out a table-top rpg. they felt like they were missing out on a critical piece of the geek experience by not having played d&d in high school. i tried to get a d&d 3.5 game together, but the rules were unnecessarily complex and kind of annoying (in my opinion). 4th edition came out with some significant streamlining in the ruleset, and i decided that we should give it a whirl. it took us quite a while to get the characters done and to get rolling, but once we did we played for about 16 hours that weekend. everyone was surprised at how much fun it was. there were lots of opportunities to amplify what we find the most fun about game night: inside jokes, emergent goofy drama inside the game, luck, and a coop gameplay. we will probably play a lot more before we get tired of it.
went to burning man in august, we did some extra work on the yurt to firm it up (3 or 4 weekends of work), but our dreams of a tower went un-finished. next year maybe. the event itself was great. the theme was a little weak, but the experience was great. i'll do a post just about burning man later, but the best thing was seeing the folks from last year and meeting the new glory-holers. what a fantastic group of people.
finally, it seems that world of warcraft has lost its shine for me. i have been playing more or less steadily since it came out in 2004, mostly in the same guild (Rotten Luck). The guild hopped servers in 2007 from Silver Hand (a launch rp server) to The Scryers because of overcrowding and a threatened server split. Rotten Luck is a great guild and is still active (has been active since launch day 11/23/2004) and I am proud to be a part of such a great group, but the game is just not doing it for me anymore. honestly, every time i play it, i am *still* in awe of the game and its atmosphere, scope and sheer perfection of execution. but even though i haven't done everything the game has to do (i was never a WoW overachiever), i have other things i want to do with my time these days. so, here's to you WoW, see you when the next expansion hits...
and that about catches you up. next on the roster is a post about burning man and the cool things that happened to me there.