I really had a good weekend. I can say now that I really don’t like Colorado Springs, but a city I really don’t like is made a hell of a lot better by good people to visit. It’s a huge, low-density, car-friendly, pedestrian-unfriendly city, especially the north part where I spent most of the time. I’m really not used to commercials blaring at me, and there, neon and big signs are everywhere. It’s overwhelming to me, exhausting.

I spent Saturday night and all of Sunday with robin_roe, and met her roommate as well. It’s pleasant to have someone to geek with and just be able to chat about anything and everything. I was looking forward to meeting her other roomie, T., but she wasn’t home this week. I did, however, chat with T.’s long-distance romance, claire_stretch, and had a surprisingly wonderful and deep first chat.

Today, I met up with evinboy, who is every bit as handsome as pictures would suggest, and even more charming than he is online. We didn’t spend enough time together to really get to know each other, but I can easily see becoming really fast friends.

Luck and timing work for me, usually, and this time, Evin and his mother happened to be heading north, near where I wanted to go, so it saved me a Greyhound trip and instead replaced it with wonderful conversation with two great people.

My brother’s apartment, where I am now, is really nice. I wish I had had a place this good when I first was out on my own, though I probably wouldn’t be in such a wonderful spot now if I had. The place is spacious and well laid out, and I think Chelsea is probably the perfect room-mate. One of the few times where being roomies with a friend is a good, good move.

Tomorrow, I head back home, six hours on the road headed west into the sun, so I’ll probably end up with a splitting headache, but I’ll be really glad to be back. I don’t like Denver or Colorado Springs nearly like I like walkable, intense cities like San Francisco and Portland.

Wednesday is back to work in an intese way. I need to finish taxes on top of regular work, and I’m really not looking forward to that. On the upside, December is usually quiet with people preoccupied with the holidays. I intend to make very good use of that.

Something about this trip — I’m not sure what — has made me really deeply appreciate how wonderful my life is. I feel amazingly blessed.

Looks like I won’t be able to travel this winter for a bit. Stupid IRS. Money’s tight, not negative, but tight. I want a crowbar to fit more into my budget.

When I’m looking at software, I evaluate a lot of criteria. Usually, it’s all in my head, since I’m good at keeping a feel for what others might use hard numbers for. Things I look at include:

• Arrogance. Does the software try to invent a new organizational system, or does it just submit to the perfectly workable way that everyone else does it: libraries in /usr/lib, config files in /etc. Has it ignored installation issues entirely, and assumes it’ll run out of the directory it’s unpacked in? (This is a red flag for me: anything that demands special treatment like this is usually going to demand special attention every single time the system boots, every time it’s installed on a new machine in the cluster, it’ll need babysitting every step of the way. As a sysadmin who has plenty to attend to, this is not acceptable unless the software saves me a lot of time. That hasn’t happened yet, either.)
• Simplicity. Can I get an overview of how the code works in a few minutes? Some idea of what parts are magic, and what parts are easy? Is there magic everywhere, or just in a few performance critical spots? Boring is good. Really. If the way everyone else does stuff works, please don’t reinvent the wheel. I grok the way everyone else does it already.
• Modularity. If the interesting part of your application is pretty independent of the rest, do I have to install it all?* Orthagonality. Are unrelated parts tangled together? Can I use the pieces in ways you didn’t intend? This is a good thing if so.
• Standards compliance. That thing about arrogance? Yeah, that. Only more so.

So it was thirty below or so out last night. That might explain why it was just 40°F in my house this morning.

Fell asleep at 21:30 last night. Woke up twelve hours later sans headache. Opened my eyes and it returned. Fuck.

Out of thread, compile still going, head pounding: Bedtime.

<pre> 2305 root 19 0 156m 153m 1572 S 81.6 15.1 0:55.71 usermod</pre>

Damn you, whetherwoman, codingparadox, chiclet, snakedancer and commonvee

Open iTunes/iPod or Windows Media Player to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrasing it is.

How many songs? 21,951 from 2,536 artists in 2,241 albums.

Sorted by song title. First Song: !@#*, by Rusted Root. Last Song: Zydeco, from Cirque de Soleil

Sorted by time. Shortest Song: Fingertips 11 and 16, by They Might Be Giants, each at 4 seconds. Longest Song: Nothing Lasts, by Schpongle, at 1 hour, 7 minutes, 2 seconds.

Sorted by album. First Song: La Salle De Bain, by 椎名林檎, from りんごのうた. Last Song: Gianna by Factor6, from ZX Spectrum is Alive.

Top Five Most Played Songs:

1. With 93 plays, Mad World, covered by Gary Jules
2. With 70 plays, Wish You Were Here, a cello cover, by who I don’t know.
3. With 57 plays, Heaven Is A Halfpipe, by OPM
4. With 54 plays and considerable embarassment, All The Things She Said, by Тату
5. With 54 plays, Where You End, by Moby

First 5 song that comes up on Shuffle:

1. Nothing Else Matters, covered by Apocalyptica, live edition from Disc 2 of the special edition Cult album.
2. Youri Toufar sung by Sheila Ryan, from her album Samrad Linn
3. So Long, by the Goo Goo Dolls, from A Boy Named Goo
4. the theme to Schindler’s List, by Itzak Perlman
5. Cocoon, by Björk, from Vespertine Live

Search….

• “sex”: 51 songs, the first being Sex Changes, by the Dresden Dolls
• “death”: 30 songs, the first being Creeping Death, covered by Apocalyptica
• “love”: 957 songs, including much by Laura Love, the first being Marvin, I Love You, from the Dr. Demento show
• “you”: 1,881 songs, Wish You Were Here came up first — yes, it’s still sorted by play count.
• “fuck”: 10 songs, first is Don’t You Fuck, by Arling And Cameron. Other artists I can’t suggest on daytime radio include Ani Difranco, Tenacious D, and RX/ThePartyParty.

If you find this fascinating for some reason, you should look at my Last.fm page a bit.

Hearing from someone you love unexpectedly really helps make a mediocre-to-bad day better.

I have had the (second) most horrible headache off and on since 1400 on Friday. I spent most of this afternoon asleep or trying to be, and now it’s dulled down to a dull throb and some mild visual hallucinations.

Why a headache? I mean, I’d rather have the flu and the joint pain that entails. Sounds much better to me. Anyone out there want to trade?

I wish I wasn’t terrified of making personal phone calls.

I am at once sad and very very happy.

I realized today what a tiny tolerance I have for firm plans that get abandoned. My dad is going to Denver today to visit my brother. I was supposed to sign a birthday card for Thomas before he left and drop off some spices for his new kitchen. Mom said that dad would be leaving within an hour, so I say I’ll be there shortly, I finish my coffee, go home, get the spices and show up at the house to find that dad has already left. I think I get a bit disproportionately upset at this, but I feel so disregarded– they knew I was coming, and didn’t even give a second thought when dad left and I hadn’t been by yet. No phone call, not even trying to meet up. If I hadn’t gone home to get the spices I would have met up, too… I feel thwarted for going the extra mile.

I’m not sure what feeling is more intense or more wonderful: being in love and loved, or knowing that friends who deserve, are healed by and are growing with loving and being loved are.

These tears are happy tears.

Hott.