Couple Grammes of Soma

OK, so I tried to not need to do this. But it’s better than other options.

My mentally insane brother misses me. Poor guy. I miss him too.

On Sunday May 4th I folded up and threw away a post-it-note that had been in my favorite book since 7:45ish PM August 11th, 2006. It had been in place for approximately 1 year, 7 months, 22 days, 14 hours.

So as things turn out, I am not getting married.

Now while I realize not everyone is interested in this, I also don’t care. hmm, yes I think that was a bit bitter. Not to worry, I’m keeping it in check overall.

It will most certainly take more than the past few days for me to stop thinking about that post-it-note. I don’t believe that is at all hard to understand, I mean I ran across that note at least five times a week for 85 weeks. 425 times, at least.

It’s a strange although not entirely unfamiliar feeling I have, trying to think of what to put in all this space that is empty now. From what I know of mental problems, and desperation, positive thoughts would be a good start. I can do that. But I also don’t want to coldly refuse to morn the loss of something precious to me.

What predictable, and yet tenacious, questions crawl into my conciousness. Will I? Can I? How? Why did? What did? Is it?

Yes, I’m quite sure it is my son.

I’m glad someone told me something I didn’t want to hear a few months ago. It’s helping now. I was rather peeved at “their nerve” when I heard it originally. But it was true and I couldn’t fault them for that.

“Put your spine in your back” is right. I mean that with no disdain whatsoever. I’m sure that both of us are actually winners here. This outcome may not have been the preference, but it is real, and that is a tremendously valuable thing.

It will be hard to trust, in the future. I can say that with some certainty. But then again, to trust another’s heart is no more secure than trusting your own. So frankly that shouldn’t really be blown out of proportion. Sincerity counts with me.

So what exactly is to become of this old bag of bones I see in the mirror? One things for sure, I’m getting fat.

I’ve resolved to hold off on dramatic decisions for a month. I think that should be long enough for me to stop thinking only of disappearing and start thinking at least a bit about the long term and how I want to get there, and where exactly there is.

On a positive note, I have not become a recluse. True it is only Wed. Give it time they say, right?

“If I go to the rain, you’ll never see me again” and other melodramatic quotations coming to a soppy boy near you.

It’s a touch strange to me that one morning (in about 3 minutes) 600 days and 14 hours of “us” can be made totally null. Null is a strong word, but still. Impressed I am with how unsure the best laid plans of mice and men are. At least I haven’t lost my temper.

I’m just not sure which one of us is supposed to meet at the river.

I wont hold on to you when there’s nothing to hold.

So tonight I have a few things I’d like to accomplish.

• Study
• Wash Clothes
• Complete wireframe markup for Artist site
• Recover musician site graphics and reslice
• write my first hCard for this site
• Bask in the light of my 22inch wide-screen monitor
• Sleep

Hopefully a few of those will happen.

Man I am so intrigued by XML and microformats. I’ve installed the Operator extension for Firefox and it’s amazing how many people’s sites I visit have vCards encoded into their copyright link in the footer. It’s a small little hyperlinked piece of text, commonly their name, or company name, but the extension scans the page for them and I can select the drop down and go read it. Really handy. It’s so stealth. One I saw even had a stinking picture encoded in it. Completely invisible browser side. But when I export the contact, guess what, I get a picture!!

I need to figure out how to get my water turned on. Pooh.

Recently I’ve been trying to take more pictures. I really like having a dSLR. It’s so much fun to actually have some control over how a picture turns out. At the same time I don’t spend a cent on developing film. I average about 400 pictures every time I take my camera somewhere. 92% of those are terrible and not worth looking at. But I think that percentage will keep going down.

I’ve been kind of intimidated by the idea of buying another lens. There are so many different things to consider. Especially difficult for me since I know so little about what would help me take better pictures. Vi mentioned getting a lens with a bigger aperture. I didn’t even know what that was at the time, but now that I’ve been doing some checking I think that is exactly what I will do. Canon 50mm f/1.4. Low light, selective focus, bang!

On another note, I joined an open source project. It’s a fork of activeCollab 0.71. I’m excited!

Do this, plan that, play those, see them, go there…

MOVE OUT! of state???

I’ve been trying out Pidgin. I like it much better than the old Gaim interface. Icons make a big difference to me.

Is there really any reason even to bother worrying about stuff?

I’ve decided I will stop slacking. We’ll see what comes of that.

Today I was asked if I knew anything about Apache web server. Later it was revealed that in fact I knew nothing about using Apache to serve requests to a Tomcat cluster. Good to know. Poor guys got stuck with an app they didn’t build and can’t figure out how to deploy the thing. Frustrating no doubt.

I’m getting a lot more familiar with Drupal. I can see why some people would be frustrated trying to accomplish something with it under pressure and in a short time. Having a relaxed pace to get familiar with it has been nice. Lots of little things to figure out along the way as always. I must say it’s quite a bit more complicated than installing WordPress. That may only be because I was also configuring the server it was running on and setting up the database myself. That stuff makes a difference. PHP configurations and all that jazz I’ve never touched before. Good to know how.

Administering a server remotely through a shell is nice to know how to do. I cannot do anything complicated yet, but I did get a new user added and configured a virtual host for them with the help of a Linux pocket guide from Reilly’s, and the already configured virtual hosts above the new one.

Windows Vista is exactly like the Mac commercials make it out to be. Kinda funny.

I managed to sign up for activeCollab beta testing before they closed it out. I really hope I get to test it out. I have a feeling I’m going to redo a lot of the interface though. It’s not fluid…. though neither is this site. I think fluid layouts feel more friendly. Like they notice you and your window size. Not apathetically ignore you, as those kids in high school did when you walked by.

I’m dying to learn python. Dying. I can feel it’s power whiz by me, just out of my grasp, every time it’s mentioned. I need to start small and just learn it. Just learn it.

The same goes for PHP. If I could code my own PHP I could do ANYTHING I want. I keep reading about SOAP, LDAP, REST and all that stuff and I can not even write PHP! Well I can but just not very quickly. And I have no idea why the stuff I get to work works. The syntax is still elusive. Bleh.

That’s today for now.

I installed activeCollab today. I like it. The future seems bright with an API and timetracking on the way in the next version. Looks like they’ll even support importing Basecamp data.

So I’ve set a goal for the summer. While I cannot participate in the Google Summer of Code, I have decided to make every effort to design and submit a CSS Zen Garden style sheet. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it’s quite the undertaking. Any ideas for a theme?

First I must:

• Finish Thomasmooremusic.net
• Finish Prudencewhittlesey.com

I also want to start making some icon sets. I have yet to find the tool of choice.

It seems I’ve got a great opportunity to start learning RSS and XML as well as bzr and PHP. By learning I mean actually make stuff that uses it. Tonight I fixed a broken section of code 1st try. Oh yeah.

You run for cover [and still find none]

1. Move out
2. Reg Aux Pio
3. Reg Pio
4. For Lan - Silent?
5. Min Ser
6. Fre Lan/Own Bus?
7. Move Out Sta - WA, MN
8. Tur 26

I had forgotten what it was
to know the difference
between
just as it does
make some sense
the difference
between
you have not
and that is why we are
I’ve been taught
and it isn’t very far
the difference
between
what it always does
how i am
closed i was
before it all began
I’m troubled by this self
sense
of less than
value
and though i always will
sometimes I just forget
it seems I had forgot
the difference
between
where I was
and
where I often am
-me