Month: August 2005

# I read all the Anne Rice books between Interview and Violin (which I didn’t finish).
# I almost went there, 8 1/2 years ago, when I almost went to Texas. or at least HA & I talked about driving out.
# I recently read a book called _The Impact of Inequality_ and noticed that Louisiana/New Orleans are both the most unequal and the least healthy, lowest social capital, etc., etc.

Otherwise, I’m just the same Google News refreshing-fool as anybody else.

Yesterday we got rain, not just a few drops, but off and on most of the day. It felt good; we haven’t really had any rain this August. The corn and tomatoes definitely perked up.

But it feels like the verge of fall. The air has a different weight to it, and the days are definitely shorter. I started to notice the shortening of days back at the beginning of August, but now it’s in full force.

A week ago, it would’ve given me a sense of dread and panic, the thought of the summer coming to an end. Today, I feel at peace, and almost anticipation.

Yesterday was a very good day. We put subfloor down in the back bedroom, and it went so smoothly, moving the stuff in that room, fitting the sheets of OSB, taking them out again, putting down the moisture barrier, putting back in the OSB and screwing it down. It felt like we were working as a team…which has not always been the case in this process. And before that, we had a lovely breakfast (we had good meals all day, really), C finished some computer work — without too much craziness, and I gave him very zen advice in the process which he actually took — and it was just a friendly pleasant day.

Which makes me feel like it was a good idea to take a vacation this time, and that I’ll get the right balance of work and relaxation.

Also, over the weekend I made my own sun-dried tomatoes, in the oven, and I’m going to be doing more, as the Roma tomatoes are just going nuts. Made me feel all homebody-ish. 🙂

Today we will do the subfloor in the hall, maybe something else, but even if not I’ll be pleased. Tomorrow I’m going with Tim to pick up the carpet tile while C spends the day with his dad. I’m not really thinking much farther than that, although I have a vague sense of what else is on tap.

I’m giving up FreeGeek. I just don’t have enough emotional and mental capacity for it, not to mention not really enough actual free time. It’s probably not a great time for me to be doing so as far as the future of the group is concerned, but I can’t worry about that now.

I also cleaned off my laptop’s desktop (!) and cleaned out my email. Now I won’t feel overwhelmed every time I turn on my computer.

today we went up to Tacoma and got “carpet tile”:http://carpettilenw.com which we will be putting down, hopefully soon, in a lovely variety of colors and patterns.

this week we’re going to give the whole “buttoning up the house” thing another go, with me on vacation between now and Labor Day. I’m going to ride to the YMCA tomorrow, to see about getting a membership. either that, or finding a good gym around here.

what I really wanted to say today, in my farewell letter, was that trying to be in freegeek almost wrecked my marriage, and excerbated my depression. but I thought that was TMI…so I’m telling the whole internet, instead.

I know what I want to do when I have more energy, but I don’t want to talk about it yet. feels too much like jinxing it.

y’know, one always hears that game sites are one of those things that can be “cool” in terms of its design, with the flash and the bizarre navigation, etc. but after watching C try to navigate through the ‘Nam 67 video game site, in search of patches, I think that’s just BS. mystery meat navigation and gratuitious flash are just as annoying as ever. (I’ve had the same experience look for SimCity 4 stuff, too.)

just saying, anyway.

today I was looking through one of my old boxes of papers, in search of a grant I helped write back in 1997, that I always thought of as being like my “senior project” for the Children’s Museum. I found a bunch of other stuff from old jobs, including pay scales, reference letters, and things I designed, but no luck on the grant. I must’ve tossed it about the time I decided that web/graphic design was where I was headed professionally.

::sigh::

’cause of course now I’m looking at grantwriting again, and I know if I saw one of my old projects with Jackie O (yes, really, only she was a statuesque black woman) or Tanya, I’d have the feel of it again. kinda like writing fantasy; it was just something that once I got into it, flowed from my fingers. or something.

there was a path I could’ve gone down, and didn’t, and I’m inclined to say it’s just chance rather than any particular determination that I made for myself. except that I became very clear that I didn’t want to do general fundraising, and most development gigs seemed to be a combo of grantwriting and other fundraising, so I found myself looking at those jobs less and less.

and so here I am.

I’m officially turning off the snapping links blog, and I’m not going to worry about how often I’m updating my photo gallery. (current answer: not often.)

The important pieces of the site, to me, are this blog and the media diet listings. The blog is self-evident, I suppose, as my ongoing ramble about the world. Media diet, OTOH, has been updated only erratically, but I realized yesterday (reading _Dark Hero of the Information Age_ on the bus) that I want to spend more time exploring what I’m gleaning/learning from my quasi-random reading habits. I’m starting to think about how I might make explicit the connections I’m seeing between the things I read, and to see gaps where I want to increase my understanding. (It occured to me that I need to find a good biography of John von Neumann.)

That, and I still want to use it as an example of programming for myself, try out object-oriented PHP and AJAX. (mmm, buzzwords….)

So. Not that you care, really, but I thought I should get it in writing. 🙂

Yesterday Kat called while I was at B&B with C & Tim (it was a good conversation) — someone she had been very close to, back in Cal, had died. She was wishy-washy about wanting company, but instinctively I knew I should be there.

He was someone I only met once, but even with that I remember fondly: the 3 of us went to Mt. Rainier together the week that Kat & I graduated from college.

So I spent the night in Seattle; in some ways, it was like that day last summer when I came up with my own burden of trauma. Not so much talking about it, but being good company, talking about whatever, watching a bittorrent of an old Daily Show, a DVD of Dead Like Me episodes, playing with her cats. Though we did talk about death and philosophy over dinner, and it reminded me of my own philosophies, and brought me back to the core of what I really believe. (I’m a materialist with an existentialist bent, which is less depressing than it sounds.)

She left me at a coffee shop this morning where I could telework (yay wifi!), and I know she’s going to be okay, and I know I did the best thing I could. And for me, it was also a bit of an escape away from my usual; I need that sometimes too.

Dorothea writes rather eloquently about “the learning process of systems librarians”:http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/archives/2005/08/10/learning-how-to-learn/ — and I’ll second that rather enthusiastically for web developers, designers, etc.

These lists are pointless (mine emphatically included!). They?re outdated as soon as they appear. They tempt people to think that if they take a few tech classes and learn a few incantations, they are magically anointed [….]

web designers! 😉

I was having a conversation with somebody at work this morning and talking about how long I’ve been here, which’ll be 5 years come December, and afterwards I thought about how much I’ve learned, and in how many different directions, since I started in 2000.

I’ve picked up PHP, mySQL, plus enough XSLT to be dangerous. I’ve gotten increasingly deeper into accessibility and CSS-based design. I’ve learned some basic information architecture, usability, done user testing of various sorts. I’ve trained people to use software and web interfaces, explained blogging to my boss, figured out how to modify other people’s programs. I’ve had several years of supervising experience, including training someone old enough to be my father. 🙂 And every time I think I’ve gotten to a plateau in my learning, I’ve found a new frontier.

It’s challenging, but it makes for a sense of personal challenge. That was the other thing in the conversation: I was saying something about how the web is still changing, as are people’s expectations of it, and the other person asked, “so, you like this job?” and I had to answer enthusiastically: yes.

Which I guess puts last night’s install-a-thon debacle into a little more perspective…it’s all part of the learning process. Honestly, now that I’ve tried it once, I have suggestions and ideas for next time, same as I do at work: places where I can see how to increase efficiency and reduce frustration, to make the process itself exciting and joyful. Will need to think about that and articulate it somehow….

Tonight I got spanked by technology. We were having a FG install-a-thon, during our usual tech group meeting time, and everybody else got their box working…. But I went through four computers and didn’t get a single one set up. Power failures, two bum CD drives (I think). And almost every time, before I even got to the point of failure, I fought like hell to get the damn drives in, and in one case, a stick of RAM as well.

So I just bailed, called C, and went home. (Although I did take the time to at least put all the computers back together.)

Now I’m trying not to let it color my whole self-perception, trying to avoid feeling like a failure in general. And I was really looking forward to it, to being a geek chick; instead I felt like a dumb newbie. When I got home, I discovered a long scratch on my thumb, too. ::sigh::

oh, happiness.

today turned out much better than I would’ve possibly imagined, honestly.

we helped a friend and her little girl get someplace this morning, and then all went to Fred Meyer’s together. that was cool, not too stressful.

Rode down to FGOly on my own, early, for a little geek time. That was fun too, getting deep into trying to get the PCI tester box running with another volunteer. Not that we did or anything, but I felt reasonably competent in my problemsolving, if a little flighty in my order of play trying to do things. (it was satisfying, in a way, to be able to say, “of course, duh” when someone (a guy, obviously) asked if we’d set the right boot order in the BIOS.

So, okay, nerds in the peanut gallery: we have this older model Dell with a wiped hard drive, and it recognizes the CD drive as existing, but consistantly refuses to acknowledge that there’s an operating system on the boot disk in the drive, either a Debian CD or the Windows 98 it came with. We tried:

* checking the jumpers on the drive, which were set wrong, but setting them correctly didn’t seem to help
* switching drives
* switching the IDE cable and port

Is it even possible that it would be a really old BIOS problem, or should we just consider it scrap/parts and move on?

</digression>

That was all before the meeting, which was what I’d been nervous about. But it went exceptionally well. I felt like we’d talked about all the important stuff, and come to a few decisions, and agreed on a few things. There was a moment of intense tension, a couple of them really, but it skated through pretty well anyway. I have hope.

C & I dropped by the friend’s house again to arrange more transportation stuff, but it turned out that someone had been able to fix her car, which is fabulous. Not that one doesn’t like being helpful, but sometimes it’s a relief not to have to be.

The ride up the hill kicks my ass every single time I do it, but I always feel good about it afterwards, esp. if there’s a shower involved. I wish I could find a way to do that every damn day. Maybe I should’ve rented that locker at the transit center, or maybe I should contact the bus people about it even now, see if my bike will fit.

C went out with some friends, so I called G…and that just put the day entirely over the top. I miss him so much sometimes, because he’s a pal and confidant different from anybody else I know. sometimes talking to him I feel totally in sync. thank goodness for free minutes on the weekend.

And I made broiled chicken, and was totally decadent by just having chicken and hard cider for dinner, because I didn’t feel like bothering with potatoes or veggies or anything.

It’s going to be a full week, I can feel it. I want to jump into house planning stuff again, with both feet this time, and work is going to be busy (1 day in Puyallup), and there’s the geeks still….

But I feel hopeful, positive; if I can just hold the nagging voices of despair at bay. (maybe the meds are just kicking in again…that’d be nice.)