I May Be Weird

I'm not certain, I may be weird. I can't put my finger on any one thing... But here's some recent reasons I've thought I may be odd.

I've been reading a book recently called Flatland. I LOVE it. It is an excellent book. When people have seen me reading it recently, they asked what it is. I usually respond, "It's a Victorian science-fiction story about a two-dimensional world consisting of geometrical figures." Blank stares. I usually stupidly continue with, "It's a social-allegory based on then-present society told in a setting making strong use of geometry and mathematics." More blank stares. I might need to think about stopping after the first blank stare.

Related to the above reason only indirectly...the above book is mentioned in the book described in this story. We went out for a night on the town with another couple. We went to see Walk The Line, and followed it up with a trip to a coffeehouse and a bookstore. (By the way, Walk The Line was absolutely, mind-blowingly, skin-tingly incredible!) In the bookstore, we're all wandering around looking at our own interests. Eventually, as we're checking out while the store is closing, this exchange occurred between myself and the husband of the other couple:

Him:You're buying a book on mathematics?!
Me:Wait a minute. A guy who just bought a book on STALIN is giving me crap about buying a book on mathematics?!

For the record, I was indeed buying a book on mathematics. An extremely interesting title called Introducing: Mathematics which covers in broad sweeps mathematics in history, its evolution, different aspects of math, current trends, et cetera. An excellent little tome. I highly recommend it. I even more highly recommend the entire Introducing series.

I placed an order on Amazon recently. Here were some of the contents in random order:

• Corelle Livingware Urban Black 16-Piece Set, Service for 24
• Jeeves & Wooster - The Complete Third Season
• Robert's Rules of Order: Newly Revised [Hardcover]
• Sango Gold Dust 2 1/2-Quart Covered Casserole, Black
• The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, 4th Edition
• Sango Gold Dust Covered Storage Bakers, Set Of 2, Black
• Robert's Rules for Dummies
• Sango Gold Dust Ice Cream Bowls, Set Of 4, Black

I guess I really felt a need for a lot of dishes as well as a way to maintain order with so many dishes trying to turn our Wodehouse Appreciation Society meetings into anarchy! Is that odd? I can't tell.

I think Doctor Who is Good Television^tm! All 27 seasons and running!

When I find a bug in a vendor's operating system's driver, I get excited. Seriously.

I think writing code can be fun.

I HATED American Pie and all of that bullshit string of movies, but Super Troopers makes me laugh so hard I cry.

You've not lived until you've had a well-made Reuben sandwich. The fact that there is no good place in Louisville to get a well-made Reuben makes me sad. The fact that there was for a short while and now they are closed forever makes me want to cry.

When I walk into a new place, I find myself looking for cameras, points of egress, number of guards, places to hide, et cetera. But I've never used that knowledge in a larcenous fashion.

I collect dice.

Grits is good food. And so is fried chicken and waffles.

I'll spend countless hours of my life researching the mathematics behind dice, their use in games, and other useless minutia about how dice work. When I have a "breakthrough" and understand something that was gibberish before, I get a rush of excitement.

I code dice probability math in Perl and release it as a CPAN module.

I actually bothered to contact other CPAN dice-module authors to discuss a unified module API with a common dice notation syntax.

This is just the short list of why I think I might be a bit off... To continue would mean too many more reasons, and me missing dinner. So that's all for now.

Pasta Exhaustion

It has been a rough week. I won't go too much into detail about the funeral — Smacky has covered that well enough already — but suffice to say it was sad yet amazing. Smacky's friends are good people, and I feel honored they would allow me to mourn with them. It's unfortunate we don't see them often enough.

Work has been about the same. Projects never lighten up, and I feel like the kid drinking from the Stanley Spadowski fire-hose. But I'm doing some really cool work with storage networks, high-availability clusters, and more. In fact I spent nine hours straight today building a cluster in Budapest. Despite a few typos (and having had only four hours of sleep the night before), it went swimmingly, even with the new NFS share clustering I had to come up with the day before the build. Good stuff.

Last night was the 3RD for February. Several of the Clan Geek regulars made it, as well as a great number of Smacky's friends who were still in town after the funeral. We had an over-flowing house, the weather was lovely, and the food was amazing. I did over-spice the sausage for the normals in the crowd. Apparently the red sauce with meat was brutal, but it was pretty mild to me. The red sauce was great, the wine was lovely, and the company was divine. It was probably the best 3RD yet. If you are family or a friend of ours, we'd love to have you out for a 3RD...check out the link for details.

Ubi caritas et amor, deus ibi est.

I just got back from the best funeral I have ever been to. It lasted two hours and felt like 15 minutes (DFA may disagree, his ass began to hurt after awhile and it was about 250 degrees in the funeral home). Elaine was a fantastic, amazing, wonderful woman and we sent her off with fabulous memories as well as a great deal of sorrow. I am also reminded of what's really important in life and that is building and nurturing the relationships we have with those we love.

I also got my rehearsal notes tonight for the choir practice I missed Monday night. The text above is one of the pieces we are singing in our next concert - "Where charity and love are, God is there." Elaine didn't believe in organized religion, but she personified this truth. Charity and love were the very core of who she was and the world is a lonlier place with her gone. I only hope that I can keep her memory with me and be half as warm, loving and welcoming as she was.

It was mentioned that "Elaine" means "light" and that's exactly what she was. I only wish her light could have shone a lot longer than it did. I wish I could have been reminded of the important things in life without losing one of those important people.

Eulogy

the mother of one of my oldest and dearest friends passed away this week. ive known people who have died before and this feels different. its a generation too close. grandparents, pets and people on the news die. not parents. not parents who have kids that I remember being born. not parents of my friends who are my age. not a parent who was my friend too.

so tonight we went through pictures - which was fun and then I remembered she wasnt coming back. it felt like she was just on vacation or out at the store or something. now im home and my clothes smell like her house. Elaines house. nobody elses house has that smell. cigarette smoke and laundry. its a good smell. the description doesnt do it justice. its weird the things you notice and the things you dont.

and there are her children. they are too young to have lost their mom. 30s, 20s teens. i cannot imagine what they are going through and there is nothing i can do for them. i want to take them in and hold them close and tell them its ok and rock them to sleep like I know their mom used to do. but thats not my place. and its not ok. it hurts and it will hurt for some time. and no one will rock them to sleep. not just because they are grown but because the one whos place it is to rock them is gone. its silly the things you think about and the things you dont.

ok so i should focus on the good stuff. she loved her kids. she loved being a mom – thus the many many pictures of the children - boxes full of pictures. so many home movies documenting just the everyday stuff - playing in the yard, dancing in the kitchen, just hanging out. she looked forward to grandchildren and saved clothes and toys for future generations. she was proud of her icelandic heritage and saved the treasures of past generations. she was a sharp-witted, funny woman who enjoyed being with people and was fun to be around. her home felt like home to anyone who entered it and so many were welcome. she will be missed by more people than she could ever know. she will be missed.

Curry Night Is The Best Night

I love curries. All kinds. Vegitarian. Meatitarian. Omnitarian. Curries are what make life wonderful. Well, curries and sex. Yes. Curries and sex are what make life great. Take care, because mixing the two is not as great as it first sounds...

Now where was I? Ah yes, curries. Last night was curry night. Smacky grabbed a few last-minute essentials from the grocery on her way home, and I started fixing up a feast.

We had green-chile papadams with coriander chutney and mixed pickles. Followed by a light and fluffy basmati rice, aloo mattar, and chicken vindaloo. Served with nan (pre-made frozen...shockingly good...just reheat). Both were just perfectly palate-burning...a bit lower than my usual level of spice since Smacky has to enjoy it as well.

Probably the best curries I've ever made. Maybe next weekend I'll work on my biryani recipe, as the other thing in life that is wonderful is biryani. Yes. Curries, sex, and biryani...

Exhausted. Brain Is Mush.

I spent most of my day today deep in the bowels of building a new veritas cluster at work. Big day. We got it mostly done, just a few bits to clean up, and then it should be ready for production. While I must admit that Veritas Cluster Services does have some interesting tidbits to it, I find it tedious and dangerous compared to M/C Service Guard. The hell I had to go through today to create this cluster is unbelievable. And it is relatively straight-forward IP->Disk->Mount->Application in its design. I'd hate to think how awful it would be to maintain a complex one!

Otherwise, just trying to lighten the load. We've started giving stuff away to friends and family, before a huge donation to charity sometime in the next four weeks. This will hopefully clear out the house enough for us to actually renovate a little, and maybe even give me enough room for starting up doing stained glass. Sheesh.

Need a break. I think we're going to do nothing this weekend except relax. That sounds nice.