Dry eyes.
I've got extremely dry eyes.
Is it from allergies? From dry air? From too many long hours spent in front of too many monitors?
Hard to tell. But my eyes are hurting anyway. I put the drops in, and they are soothed for about half an hour, and then they start hurting again.
I'm drinking my water.
I'm not dehydrated.
I'm just ... dry-eyed.
Cheryl says that the goldenrod is blooming, as is some other poofy-looking plant (can't remember its name). And I'm sniffling from something. So the little antihistamine pills are a-poppin', too.
Could be the antihistamines, I suppose, drying me out too much.
Hard to look at the monitor now. It's too bright. Too painful.
Time to put my head under a nice, cleansing shower, and then put my head into a nice, soft fur-infested pillow.
And sleep.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Strange Dreams
There's something wrong with my brain. Circuits aren't working correctly, my memory is going. I've been worried about it, and as with anything that causes worry, it manifests itself in the most ... interesting ... dreams.
Last night was a doozy.
It was a reunion party, a reunion of all my old High School friends, in some kind of weird apartment/house with circular stairs leading up to the second story, and I came down the stairs past all these achingly familiar faces, smiling at them all but unable to remember their names.
Got down to the living room on the bottom floor and they were all standing around talking to each other and having a wonderful time; and suddenly Cheryl was there, and they asked her why I was acting so odd, so distant, and she explained to them that I had suffered some kind of brain damage or something; and then I laid down on the floor and assumed a motionless pose while trying to remember any of their names; and everyone walked around me, continuing to enjoy the party.
It feels like brain damage, this inability to remember things. It may be due to all the medications taken for allergies or headaches; it may be due to complete laziness on my part, owing to my focus on work and family exclusive of most everything else. I've always had problems remembering things, especially when in front of crowds. Going to church can be a real challenge because even after three years of being at the same place with all the same people, it is difficult to remember their names.
And lyrics! Even with the songs posted on the walls, even after singing them over and over again, year after year, my brain can't remember them. When I'm doing the children's class in the morning, after all this time, I still need the words in front of me to do our traditional closing song. And I've known it since before we left Seattle.
I'm hoping it's just laziness, some little switch that hasn't been turning on inside my brain because I've forgotten how. But it hasn't turned on, even after hours and hours of practice.
It used to be easy to memorize things, back during high school. All that was required was repetition. Now the repetition doesn't seem to help.
Which reminds me of how I used to write songs. Songs - and stories - can't be written when life gets too busy. My brain does not multitask well. The best songs or stories I've ever written were done during times when there was really nothing else going on in my life. The few months spent in Joplin, Missouri, back in 1987 (?) were probably the most productive because it was just me and my guitar and my little typewriter. Ever since then, though, it's been difficult to find any quality time to just stop everything and think.
Some people manage to do it, even with family and job and church and other social activities. I don't know how they do it. To come up with anything of a creative nature, my brain requires nearly an entire day of nothingness, no activity, just so the circuits can settle down and clear out all the day-to-day panicky thoughts and the concerns of the moment that keep me from thinking straight.
That also explains my reticence in taking on a more managerial position in the company: it requires too much thought, and intrudes too much on my other goals. When in charge of others, their concerns become my concerns, and they don't stop the moment the car leaves the parking lot. They carry over into the evening, and the weekend, and there is no opportunity to clear the mind and relax.
These past two weeks have been the worst. Two eighty-hour weeks in a row, and there is little left of my brain to offer.
And it's raining outside.
Last night was a doozy.
It was a reunion party, a reunion of all my old High School friends, in some kind of weird apartment/house with circular stairs leading up to the second story, and I came down the stairs past all these achingly familiar faces, smiling at them all but unable to remember their names.
Got down to the living room on the bottom floor and they were all standing around talking to each other and having a wonderful time; and suddenly Cheryl was there, and they asked her why I was acting so odd, so distant, and she explained to them that I had suffered some kind of brain damage or something; and then I laid down on the floor and assumed a motionless pose while trying to remember any of their names; and everyone walked around me, continuing to enjoy the party.
It feels like brain damage, this inability to remember things. It may be due to all the medications taken for allergies or headaches; it may be due to complete laziness on my part, owing to my focus on work and family exclusive of most everything else. I've always had problems remembering things, especially when in front of crowds. Going to church can be a real challenge because even after three years of being at the same place with all the same people, it is difficult to remember their names.
And lyrics! Even with the songs posted on the walls, even after singing them over and over again, year after year, my brain can't remember them. When I'm doing the children's class in the morning, after all this time, I still need the words in front of me to do our traditional closing song. And I've known it since before we left Seattle.
I'm hoping it's just laziness, some little switch that hasn't been turning on inside my brain because I've forgotten how. But it hasn't turned on, even after hours and hours of practice.
It used to be easy to memorize things, back during high school. All that was required was repetition. Now the repetition doesn't seem to help.
Which reminds me of how I used to write songs. Songs - and stories - can't be written when life gets too busy. My brain does not multitask well. The best songs or stories I've ever written were done during times when there was really nothing else going on in my life. The few months spent in Joplin, Missouri, back in 1987 (?) were probably the most productive because it was just me and my guitar and my little typewriter. Ever since then, though, it's been difficult to find any quality time to just stop everything and think.
Some people manage to do it, even with family and job and church and other social activities. I don't know how they do it. To come up with anything of a creative nature, my brain requires nearly an entire day of nothingness, no activity, just so the circuits can settle down and clear out all the day-to-day panicky thoughts and the concerns of the moment that keep me from thinking straight.
That also explains my reticence in taking on a more managerial position in the company: it requires too much thought, and intrudes too much on my other goals. When in charge of others, their concerns become my concerns, and they don't stop the moment the car leaves the parking lot. They carry over into the evening, and the weekend, and there is no opportunity to clear the mind and relax.
These past two weeks have been the worst. Two eighty-hour weeks in a row, and there is little left of my brain to offer.
And it's raining outside.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Over Time
It's been a long, long week, and it's only Monday.
Last week was a killer - 81 hours on the clock! And that's just the amount of time spent at the office. Today will only be another 12 or so, but that's the way it goes when one is doing two jobs at once.
I'm still getting the hang of the 'new' job, and mostly what I'm getting is the sense of pointlessness of all the statusing and metrics-oriented activities that this job entails. Or, at least, those activities that some people seem to associate with this particular job.
I consider a 'Tech Lead' job to be one in which a Technical person leads other Technical persons (aka engineers) on the One True Path to Enlightenment - getting the work done so the product does what is supposed to do. That doesn't have anything to do with sitting in meetings listening to people go on and on about budgets and schedules and forecasts and Earned Value and other accountantly terms.
The True Facts of this job are that there is no money in the budget and no schedule left and still tons of work to do. All the worrying and fretting in the world won't change those facts. Yet some of these management types sit in these meetings worrying and fretting about the financial decisions as though they have some relative importance. The only decision that needs to be made is, are we going to finish this project, or are we going to stop?
If we're going to keep going, then they just need to shut up, get out of the way, and let us get our work done. Spending six hours out of an eight-hour day in meetings is not how things get done!
But until those little 'issues' get fixed, it looks like I'll be spending roughly three-quarters of my day twiddling my thumbs instead of fixing and testing code, which explains why I'm still here at midnight - trying to get something done!
Last week was a killer - 81 hours on the clock! And that's just the amount of time spent at the office. Today will only be another 12 or so, but that's the way it goes when one is doing two jobs at once.
I'm still getting the hang of the 'new' job, and mostly what I'm getting is the sense of pointlessness of all the statusing and metrics-oriented activities that this job entails. Or, at least, those activities that some people seem to associate with this particular job.
I consider a 'Tech Lead' job to be one in which a Technical person leads other Technical persons (aka engineers) on the One True Path to Enlightenment - getting the work done so the product does what is supposed to do. That doesn't have anything to do with sitting in meetings listening to people go on and on about budgets and schedules and forecasts and Earned Value and other accountantly terms.
The True Facts of this job are that there is no money in the budget and no schedule left and still tons of work to do. All the worrying and fretting in the world won't change those facts. Yet some of these management types sit in these meetings worrying and fretting about the financial decisions as though they have some relative importance. The only decision that needs to be made is, are we going to finish this project, or are we going to stop?
If we're going to keep going, then they just need to shut up, get out of the way, and let us get our work done. Spending six hours out of an eight-hour day in meetings is not how things get done!
But until those little 'issues' get fixed, it looks like I'll be spending roughly three-quarters of my day twiddling my thumbs instead of fixing and testing code, which explains why I'm still here at midnight - trying to get something done!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Summer Stock
I couldn't resist. It was only $8.99 at Costco.
This is why some people cannot be trusted to go shopping, even with a list. If the route includes a walk past the bargain DVD bin, I am sunk. There are so many classic movies available! And they MUST be viewed!
But can anyone in their right mind walk past Judy Garland and Gene Kelly and Marjorie Main and Hans Conried and Phil Silvers? In a musical? I think not!
I had heard about the movie for years but never took the trouble to rent it, even though it was touted as one of Judy's best. After watching the Making Of tidbits, it's a downright miracle that it was ever made!
First off, it was supposed to be a 'reunion' movie, a years-after rehash of the old Judy Garland / Mickey Rooney "Let's do a Show!" routine from the Andy Hardy series. The story is practically the same, only the specific situation has changed.
But apparently nobody thought Mickey Rooney had the chops - or the popularity anymore - to handle it, so they went looking for someone else. And it was Judy who got one of her old friends to jump in. [Apparently, she had helped Gene Kelly when he was just starting out, and they remained close over the years.]
Can't imagine it without Gene and his choreography. It would've been a much, much different - and much inferior - show had he not come along.
But the show almost didn't happen, because it was during a period of Judy's life when she was struggling with depression and anxiety, and stressing out over her weight; and it would be gracious to say that she was a bit unstable. Her co-stars were annoyed and frustrated by her inability to show up on time, or to work regular hours, or to even show up at all some days. However, they all pulled together to make it happen, going far past the extra mile to encourage her and lift her up when she really needed it.
They talked about (in the Making Of) how they all tried to make her laugh. Apparently when she laughed, her depression would subside. And then things would get better.
And whenever she sang, all her troubles were gone, and it was magic. Her friends all said that all the annoyance and frustration was worth it once she started performing.
Most importantly, the head of MGM didn't lose faith in her even when she was falling apart. He said (in effect) that she had made them so many millions of dollars, they could afford to cut her some slack.
The one thing about the picture that really grabbed me, was the scene where she has just got her tractor, and she's singing "Howdy, Neighbor!" as she's driving down the country lane behind the wheel of that beautiful, new tractor, past the fields and the orchards and farms.
It's uncanny. It reminds me of Mom. That's the way I picture her when she was a kid, back on the farm in Indiana, sitting up on the tractor with a big smile on her face, waving at everyone, happiest person on the planet. She certainly gets the same look in her face sitting on the tractor over at Uncle Joe's. And I'm sure she gets that same look on her face as she's cruising around the grounds down in Texas.
I can watch that scene over and over again, and think of Mom the whole time.
Happy tractorin', Mom!
This is why some people cannot be trusted to go shopping, even with a list. If the route includes a walk past the bargain DVD bin, I am sunk. There are so many classic movies available! And they MUST be viewed!
But can anyone in their right mind walk past Judy Garland and Gene Kelly and Marjorie Main and Hans Conried and Phil Silvers? In a musical? I think not!
I had heard about the movie for years but never took the trouble to rent it, even though it was touted as one of Judy's best. After watching the Making Of tidbits, it's a downright miracle that it was ever made!
First off, it was supposed to be a 'reunion' movie, a years-after rehash of the old Judy Garland / Mickey Rooney "Let's do a Show!" routine from the Andy Hardy series. The story is practically the same, only the specific situation has changed.
But apparently nobody thought Mickey Rooney had the chops - or the popularity anymore - to handle it, so they went looking for someone else. And it was Judy who got one of her old friends to jump in. [Apparently, she had helped Gene Kelly when he was just starting out, and they remained close over the years.]
Can't imagine it without Gene and his choreography. It would've been a much, much different - and much inferior - show had he not come along.
But the show almost didn't happen, because it was during a period of Judy's life when she was struggling with depression and anxiety, and stressing out over her weight; and it would be gracious to say that she was a bit unstable. Her co-stars were annoyed and frustrated by her inability to show up on time, or to work regular hours, or to even show up at all some days. However, they all pulled together to make it happen, going far past the extra mile to encourage her and lift her up when she really needed it.
They talked about (in the Making Of) how they all tried to make her laugh. Apparently when she laughed, her depression would subside. And then things would get better.
And whenever she sang, all her troubles were gone, and it was magic. Her friends all said that all the annoyance and frustration was worth it once she started performing.
Most importantly, the head of MGM didn't lose faith in her even when she was falling apart. He said (in effect) that she had made them so many millions of dollars, they could afford to cut her some slack.
The one thing about the picture that really grabbed me, was the scene where she has just got her tractor, and she's singing "Howdy, Neighbor!" as she's driving down the country lane behind the wheel of that beautiful, new tractor, past the fields and the orchards and farms.
It's uncanny. It reminds me of Mom. That's the way I picture her when she was a kid, back on the farm in Indiana, sitting up on the tractor with a big smile on her face, waving at everyone, happiest person on the planet. She certainly gets the same look in her face sitting on the tractor over at Uncle Joe's. And I'm sure she gets that same look on her face as she's cruising around the grounds down in Texas.
I can watch that scene over and over again, and think of Mom the whole time.
Happy tractorin', Mom!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Modern Technology
Modern Technology is just amazing. I'm sitting at my dorky-looking homebuilt computer desk (so embarrassing I won't be posting any pictures of it) watching the NASA video of the current shuttle mission, listening in on the incredibly boring (to anyone but space/engineering geeks like me) radio transmission and watching as they take the bolts off the truss they're attaching to the International Space Station, all the while cruising several internet sites and typing on my blog.
This is so commonplace. It doesn't amaze anyone anymore. It's like being amazed that a cell phone can also take pictures.
But I grew up in the Seventies, watching the moon landings and the Skylab missions and the long, long build-up of the Shuttle, and all of this was just pie-in-the-sky science fiction dreaming back then. We knew there would be all this awesome technology, but we really weren't quite sure what it would be like, and because it was something we hadn't grown up with, it could never be "normal".
Remembering my absolute joy when my first 8080 microprocessor booted up with my very first program, after weeks and weeks of soldering and wiring and programming and staring at little red LEDs which let me know what was going on, it is impossible to feel blase about sitting in this little office with seven computers.
My 8080 ran at a blistering 2 mHz, resulting in something on the order of 500,000 instructions per second. My first Z-80 ran at 4 mHz, with an unbelievable 2 million instructions per second. My first 8086 ran at 8 mHz. The computers in my office range from 166 mHz to 2.6 gHz. That's well over a billion instructions per second!
(That doesn't answer the question of why Windows is still so slow, but we always move forward to meet the technology, straining our resources, so there is always room for improvement.)
The latest acquisition in the fast computer is a DVD writer. Now I can sit here and make backups of up to 8 gigabytes of my data (mostly photographs). Or create and distribute my own movies.
I can go to Target and buy a pack of 50 plastic disks that allow me to store 400 gigabytes of data.
Or I can purchase a little disk drive that allows me to read and write 500 gigabytes of data.
When all this computer technology started - for me, at least - there was no way to store data permanantly. The 8080 was attached to a 1,000-byte memory chip, but the data would disappear the moment power was removed. So all my programs had to be entered via a set of 25 switches on the front panel. Every time it was turned on.
The first game I wrote (in BASIC on the Math & Science Center mainframe) was stored on punch-tape. I still have the punch-tape, but there are no readers available now except in museums.
When Marc Montoni and I were using his TRS-80, we could write programs to a cassette tape drive, very slowly, but at least we didn't have to retype them every time.
In the electrical engineering lab in college, we used to play Ultima on the Apple IIe, and the game fit on a single 5-1/4 inch disk. What was that, 160kbytes?
Working at the insurance company during college, we stored our entire dBase II program and database on a 5 megabyte hard drive. And backed up to 8-inch floppies.
The first IBM XT we got had a 10 megabyte drive.
Now I have a 512 megabyte flash disk in my pocket. I've had it for three years; it's ancient history. One of my friends went to a seminar and they were giving away 1 gigabyte flash disks like they were key rings.
I'm still in awe.
This is so commonplace. It doesn't amaze anyone anymore. It's like being amazed that a cell phone can also take pictures.
But I grew up in the Seventies, watching the moon landings and the Skylab missions and the long, long build-up of the Shuttle, and all of this was just pie-in-the-sky science fiction dreaming back then. We knew there would be all this awesome technology, but we really weren't quite sure what it would be like, and because it was something we hadn't grown up with, it could never be "normal".
Remembering my absolute joy when my first 8080 microprocessor booted up with my very first program, after weeks and weeks of soldering and wiring and programming and staring at little red LEDs which let me know what was going on, it is impossible to feel blase about sitting in this little office with seven computers.
My 8080 ran at a blistering 2 mHz, resulting in something on the order of 500,000 instructions per second. My first Z-80 ran at 4 mHz, with an unbelievable 2 million instructions per second. My first 8086 ran at 8 mHz. The computers in my office range from 166 mHz to 2.6 gHz. That's well over a billion instructions per second!
(That doesn't answer the question of why Windows is still so slow, but we always move forward to meet the technology, straining our resources, so there is always room for improvement.)
The latest acquisition in the fast computer is a DVD writer. Now I can sit here and make backups of up to 8 gigabytes of my data (mostly photographs). Or create and distribute my own movies.
I can go to Target and buy a pack of 50 plastic disks that allow me to store 400 gigabytes of data.
Or I can purchase a little disk drive that allows me to read and write 500 gigabytes of data.
When all this computer technology started - for me, at least - there was no way to store data permanantly. The 8080 was attached to a 1,000-byte memory chip, but the data would disappear the moment power was removed. So all my programs had to be entered via a set of 25 switches on the front panel. Every time it was turned on.
The first game I wrote (in BASIC on the Math & Science Center mainframe) was stored on punch-tape. I still have the punch-tape, but there are no readers available now except in museums.
When Marc Montoni and I were using his TRS-80, we could write programs to a cassette tape drive, very slowly, but at least we didn't have to retype them every time.
In the electrical engineering lab in college, we used to play Ultima on the Apple IIe, and the game fit on a single 5-1/4 inch disk. What was that, 160kbytes?
Working at the insurance company during college, we stored our entire dBase II program and database on a 5 megabyte hard drive. And backed up to 8-inch floppies.
The first IBM XT we got had a 10 megabyte drive.
Now I have a 512 megabyte flash disk in my pocket. I've had it for three years; it's ancient history. One of my friends went to a seminar and they were giving away 1 gigabyte flash disks like they were key rings.
I'm still in awe.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Boys Will Be Boys
Speaking of books - I was speaking of books a moment ago, wasn't I? - Cheryl got James the Dangerous Book for Boys, which is a real hoot. Wish I'd had the book when I was a kid. Sort of a "Everything You Need to Know in Order to be A Real Boy" kind of thing. Unless you were growing up in the Thirties, in which case you already knew all that stuff. Morse Code. Knots. Battle history. How to Build a Tree-House. Even the Windtalker's code!
Not that James needs any more encouragement to be dangerous. He likes to do dangerous things already. And drag his brother along with him. Whereas Adam is usually content to sit in his room and dream up new games and strategies and characters. The inclusion of this book in our Library should make things verrrry interesting.
Books always make our lives more interesting, don't they?
Certainly the Harry Potter series has made our lives interesting. I don't know what Cheryl is going to do now that the final book is done, after spending all that time talking with folks over the Internet about it, and reading everyone's ideas of what was going to happen next. It's all over! What's left to talk about?
Perhaps they'll try to guess what JKR is going to write next. I'm rather curious to know if her next book will be as good as the first one, if her success was due to her writing skills, her "voice", her characterizations, or the story itself. Will she remain in the genre of fantasy, or move on to something different?
Not that James needs any more encouragement to be dangerous. He likes to do dangerous things already. And drag his brother along with him. Whereas Adam is usually content to sit in his room and dream up new games and strategies and characters. The inclusion of this book in our Library should make things verrrry interesting.
Books always make our lives more interesting, don't they?
Certainly the Harry Potter series has made our lives interesting. I don't know what Cheryl is going to do now that the final book is done, after spending all that time talking with folks over the Internet about it, and reading everyone's ideas of what was going to happen next. It's all over! What's left to talk about?
Perhaps they'll try to guess what JKR is going to write next. I'm rather curious to know if her next book will be as good as the first one, if her success was due to her writing skills, her "voice", her characterizations, or the story itself. Will she remain in the genre of fantasy, or move on to something different?
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