Trying to be better about keeping up with my life, as part of the function of this blog is to serve as a personal journal of my activities and experiences. That's right, it's not all about you, the reader. Deal.
Well, last weekend we had out first summer cookout of the season, with great attendance. Thanks to everybody who came out. For those who didn't, we'll have another one real soon. Tasha has more pictures online at her flickr site. And I have lots of leftover beer.
This past week has been pretty intense at work. I've been churning out web application code at my day job. It feels like a death sentence returning to J2EE and WebWork / Spring / Hibernate after doing Ruby on Rails development, but I'm finally back in the swing of things (though I do find myself writing wierd java/ruby hybrid syntax sometimes, which is annoying - I guess I'm all ready for JRuby, which actually is pretty damn exciting).
A quick shout-out to Google Calendar, which is getting hella lot right. Tasha and I use it to coordinate her busy schedule with my bad memory. Since I can subscribe to her calendar, and she to mine, we have no excuse for forgetting each others' events. We really crossed the rubicon a few weeks ago when *I* actually reminded *her* of one of her events that conflicted with another. That kind of blew both of our minds. Plus, I've got GCal syncing up with my cell phone, and the WAP view is pretty clean for those without WinMobile. Google deserves all kinds of credit for their apps - I'm regularly using Google Docs to collaboratively edit articles with friends and maintain our household budget spreadsheet, GTalk with Adium, and of course Google Reader
On Thursday a bunch of us rolled out to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens to see Son Volt, which was a lot of fun. Ran into many friends and I kind of enjoyed the songs from the new album for the first time (I'm a sucker for live performances). The gardens are a beautiful place to see a show - low key and laid back, though a little pricey.
Tasha is in Brooklyn this weekend at the Renegade Craft Fair with her craft mafia comrades. She's getting to network with Etsy folks. I think this confirms that my wife is more successful on teh interwebz than me, a Comp Sci major. Even though I'm being shown up, I'm awful proud of her - she works hard and deserves all her success.
Since Tasha was out of town and Tela hasn't been spending a lot of time with the family this week, I decided not to attend beCamp this weekend. Instead, I got to go shooting with some new friends and do some jamming with other new friends (can't remember the last time that happened). Not a bad substitute. And I did register for the Ruby Hoedown, which is far more exciting to me anyway. I can't wait to get inspired on non-Rails Ruby projects!
One more note: Jim recommended Cormac McCarthy's The Road to me, predicting that I'd finish it in a few nights. It actually only took me 1.5 nights. The book is a horrifying view of a dying Earth where a father and son try to stay alive in a world beyond desperation. It gave me a very similar feeling to Children of Men: overwhelming anxiety coupled with fascination at the breadth of the human spirit. Somehow, imagining the worst we can do to one another under the most horrifying conditions sets the stage for the most touching, poignant, and human stories. I highly, highly recommend the Road (so does Oprah - don't let that dissuade you).
So that brings us up to the present. Side note: we passed the 3 year anniversary mark at the beginning of the month, so yay. Today's mission: do some cleanup, work on some side projects, and throw some discs at some baskets. Hope everybody reading this is doing well!
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