Hunting The Muse

This will sound pretty

This will sound pretty funny coming from a blogger, but sometimes I get so frigging tired of talking about myself.

"So Curt, how many people

"So Curt, how many people do you think should be in our creative writing group?"

"Let's see... well, either 5-7, or maybe 9-12 depending on the group dynamic."

"Hmm, what is it Curt hates about the number eight?"

I saw Buffy last night

I saw Buffy last night and it was all about working at a fast food restaurant under flourescent lights. Not what I needed to see after declining a cushy salaried position!

Flame-retardant chemical builds up in

Flame-retardant chemical builds up in humans - The article is actually boring, but I like what the headline implies. Yes, you too can become fireproof!

This Modern World by Tom

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow - Well, how about that. He's got a blog. I might even consider putting this in my sidebar.

Salon.com Comics | This Modern

Salon.com Comics | This Modern World - I learn more about Enron from Tom Tomorrow than I have in any news articles.

So, I said no

So, I said no to the salaried position. Yeah, it sort of surprised me too. It definitely surprised the folks that made the offer. It wasn't really a decision against Pacificorp. It was more against being a consultant.

What I'm frightened about is that if I'm going to live with these standards, I am unsure if I will ever be able to say yes to a salaried computer position again. Right now it actually leaves me feeling more motivated to try and find salaried work (or at least more part-time work) to ease my fears. But there is probably a more direct way to learn from what I'm frightened about. Actually, I can think of plenty of salaried technical positions I'd say yes to - however, none of them are around here or are available right now. Many corporations are still in that spiteful "I'll show THAT dotcom worker who's boss!" mentality and it's no fun. I'm not sure they'll ever get over it.

It looks for now like the freelance position will work out, so we'll see. We agreed on a rate today, and that felt good - a rate I feel pretty solid about. It feels fair for now, considering it would be my first freelance gig. But for some reason this has all left me feeling a lot more pressure about employment. I must have just gotten into that mode.

Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

Least favorite phrase: "In THIS

Least favorite phrase: "In THIS economy..."

you're huddled here in

you're huddled here
in this tower
the ground shakes
in time to your sobs

debris falls and strikes me
i am pelted by sharpness
the pain is deep
but the wounds close quickly

you ask me to leave you
and i try,
at times

when i am gone,
i know your sobs subside
i see the tower stop shaking

but you are still inside
and the tower must not stand

i enter you
you shake again
my presence stabs you
more debris strikes us

you beg me to leave
but the tower must not stand

I try and shield you from the rubble
but not too much
I am struck often
but the wounds close quickly
for I know it is light outside

the tower must not stand
but you rage at me 
for pulling it down around you
why do you enter me? you ask
to ruin everything and hurt me?

i claw at the mortar
i rip at the stone
i push over walls and 
pull down ceilings
i smash brick and lava and rock 
we cough in the dust and dirt
as I gently try to explain

i want to find what will remain
when we are done

Well, I don't really

Well, I don't really like how this decision-making process is going. What I've basically come down to is that I don't have enough information to be able to choose against the consulting agency. I definitely feel less complicated and more excited about the part-time freelancing gig, but it's not firm, and that by itself is still probably not enough for me to get to where I need to be financially in the short term. So unless tomorrow plays out in a really odd manner, I am probably going to say yes to the salaried position and then just try and make myself as available as possible to the other opportunity.

I pull thickly the

I pull thickly

the mud of meaning
my rake of intent

gets caught on slime and trash

I pull thickly

my voice hoarse, wet
my throat full

I pull thickly

"it's a pond!" 
i say brightly,
defiantly

it floods me with trash

I dredge

I snag on discovery, I stop.

My throat is tighter

i stop.

Fatherhood - new entry! Hate

Fatherhood - new entry! Hate those Laos wenches. ;-)

Wow, what a day.

Wow, what a day. What a couple of days.

So, a week ago I landed an interview for Thursday the 24th, last night. That was a couple of days after having that annoying telephone conversation wtih the recruiter where I had most of the skills they wanted on paper, but didn't have a couple of their brand names. Then the next day they mentioned that another consultant they had placed over there had taken a look at my resume and thought I might be a good fit. Then on Tuesday, upon inquiring about a separate position through the same consulting agency, they mentioned that a bunch of people were going to be over there that afternoon to take a technical test as part of the interview screening process - it didn't sound like I was invited.

Then a few minutes later, I got the call that asked what I was doing in twenty minutes. They had three potential consultants going over there to take the test, as part of a larger group all applying for the job either directly or through other agencies, and the consulting agency had had a cancellation and a last-minute opening. So I blazed over there and took the test.

Then yesterday, they said they wanted to interview me. I must have done solidly on the test because I later found out that the other two agency consultants weren't asked to interview as of yet.

So last night, I went ahead to the entirely different interview, at that small four-person design firm. After a brief bit of minor nervousness at the beginning (I hate the "tell me about yourself" questions), I got on a roll and it felt pretty good. It seemed like they weren't quite sure about me as a fit for the salaried position, as I might have been a bit too technical, but they then mentioned that they also needed a perl programmer for freelance work, which sounded great. I left my card.

So today I went to my interview through the consulting agency, and it felt strangely easy. Three cool, non-geeky guys about my age softballing me behavioural questions. It was only about twenty-five minutes, half of which was them asking me if I had any questions. Joked around with them a bit, and took off.

I went and played piano for a couple of local music-theatre directors, which didn't go too well, and came home. I had told the consulting agency that I would be out all afternoon, because it is Friday and I just needed to recover from all the expended energy and didn't really want to deal with a bunch of negotiating. They started calling me after lunch to tell me I had gotten the offer. It sounds like I was first choice - first guy interviewed. Kind of surprising because I guess that means I performed best on the test, which I hadn't been expecting at all.

I put it off for a bit and sent an email to the design firm telling them the situation - the president wrote me back and told me she was impressed by me and wanted to pursue freelance opportunities. It sounds like there is a good chance of getting around 500 hours of work through them this year. I have to figure out my rates.

Then I felt a bit more recharged and called the consulting agency - there was a snag with what I was expecting the salary to be. The salary offer was about 6% below what I was asking, which was what I made at my last job, but the last job was only three months and didn't really count. What sucks about it is that it's the same salary I was making two years ago. Economy or no economy, it's hard to feel like I'm spinning my wheels in terms of career growth.

So that's it. Emotionally I feel really good, noncomplicated, hopeful, and excited about the freelance opportunity. Ten hours a week, decent rates? Sign me up! I don't need a lot of money and would rather have the free time. But I have also seized on the idea of getting a house and piano this year. And for that I need a salaried job. So I might take both. If I can do it. It sounds like that would involve some social sacrifices, but that might be okay... I'm not doing much. The salaried job sounds kind of annoying in some ways - just from feeling grumpy about life. I might have to be there by 8 (ugh), parking is expensive, just sounds like a bummer all around. But the people seem cool, the agency has been decent so far, and the technology sounds interesting (and valuable to my resume). So maybe I'll do both.

I have a lot of thinking to do this weekend, though. For some reason I am not sure I feel solid about my house/piano goals. It would be really nice.... but.... gosh, I just don't know.

I love this referer stuff.

I love this referer stuff. I just got a hit from someone doing a google search for "three months after a breakup wanting to get back together again". In case that person is still reading, my advice to you is, don't do it!!!

Arts - this is an

Arts - this is an article about Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its "deeper meaning" that I got a kick out of. Although the quotes at the end aren't near as good as some of the other lines that have been on that show.

Looks like I landed an

Looks like I landed an interview tomorrow, at the place that wanted me to take that test. This is the same company that was the subject of that conversation I had with the recruiter a few blog entries back, the one with all the brand names. So things are definitely heating up...

It's nice to have

It's nice to have clear goals, but it is also extremely easy to have our goals become creatures of their own. Sometimes goals have a very tenuous connection to our emotional needs. How often do we make a goal based off of one session of brainstorming, one mental space that we are in based off of one passing desperate need or guilt trip, only to find out later that we have been working towards something we don't care about anymore? When we make a goal, how can we maintain our emotional connection to it? What's the fastest way to keep checking in with it to make sure it still fits in with our other priorities and needs?

There's two opposing skills that need to be mastered here - one is identifying exactly what we need to do given an emotional need and then accomplishing it, and the other is identifying the emotional need in the first place. When the need is clear, it requires a methodical ability to create strategy and put it into place, and then it requires sustained effort, willpower, and discipline to accomplish it. But the skills needed to identify the emotional need in the first place are far different.

Sometimes these emotional needs are obvious. It might be that there's a huge serendipitous moment where it feels like the universe is just telling you what to do. Or perhaps you've been denying a basic need for a long time and you're at the edge of an abyss - change your life Or Else. At those moments, the emotional needs are loud. But we can't count on serendipity, and we should hope we don't get pushed to the edge of the abyss. We can't always wait for the loudness.

More often, our emotional needs are less obvious. And to identify them we have to go into this counterintuitive space of "proactive receptivity". It can almost seem like an oxymoron, but really it's nothing more than disciplined listening. Do you feel vaguely dissatisfied about something? Stop, breathe into it. Maybe go as far as turning off the lights, lighting candles, and lying down. You have to find a space between directed thought and falling asleep - let your mind wander, but give it a general direction. Keep asking yourself questions and see what comes up.

I've done this often, and have used it as part of my brainstorming to come up with goals. What is confusing for me is that they can still change so quickly. Either I am growing really quickly, or I have been non-integrated for a long time, (or perhaps both), but what I am getting stuck in lately is that it seems various different - even opposing - emotional needs seem to thrust themselves forward into places of greater priority. So for me, I haven't quite figured out the balancing point between listening, and having actual goals that consistently feel appropriate.

And so I have to choose a directon to err towards - I've very clearly chosen the direction of making sure I am *not* working towards goals that feel disconnected to an emotional need. But in this time of non-integration, it means that I'm not extremely attached to any projects or life directions - everything keeps changing. Different job opportunities, different areas of focus, different friends, different social projects... at times, it can feel like that I'm just not so good at the discipline and sustained effort, the accomplishment... but the more gentle way of looking at it is just knowing that things feel in flux for me right now... I am either growing or integrating, and I'm not quite there yet, not quite at a place where I can slow down and accept something consistent.

I hope that the churning slows down soon - I fully intend that soon, some consistent truths and commitments will rise to the surface for me - things that feel gentle and staid, permanently connected to myself and my emotions. I don't need many, because I love variety. But a couple of central things to commit to - it would be nice.

The below entry (which

The below entry (which I wrote using instablog) is a good example of how instablog is useful. I was able to include other files with one keystroke, run the output of a shell command with another, correct several html problems with a global string substitution when I got PRE confused with CODE, and edit it straight from my terminal when I realized I should have added Aaron's link.

Someone found my instablog

Someone found my instablog utility helpful. That's cool. Maybe I'll write up a short webpage on how to do it. Or heck, I'll just write it here.

I use tcsh - I made an alias named "blog" like this:

alias blog 'vim /home/siffert/blogs/`date +%y%m%d%H%M.blg`'

Then, in my .vimrc, I put these commands:

autocmd! BufWritePre,FileWritePre	*.blg	set bin
autocmd  BufWritePre,FileWritePre	*.blg 	'[,']!instablog
autocmd  BufWritePost,FileWritePost	*.blg	set nobin

Finally, I wrote a short perl utility called instablog. Here is the code.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Carp;
use Blogger;

my $b = Blogger->new(appkey=>"59E3D4AB5F4CD29FDF043D3E38DA5CC5CD2716C603");

$b->BlogId(YOUR_ID_HERE);
$b->Username(YOUR_USERNAME_HERE);
$b->Password(YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE);

my $txt = "";
my $id = "";
while () {
    if (/^##Id: (.*?)$/) { $id = $1; }
    else { $txt .= $_; }
}

if ($id == "") {
    $id = $b->newPost(postbody=>\$txt,publish=>1) || croak $b->LastError();
}
else 
{
    $b->editPost(postbody=>\$txt,postid=>$id,publish=>1) || croak $b->LastError();
}

print "##Id: $id\n$txt";

It requires Aaron's Blogger.pm package.

The end result? I type "blog", an editing window comes up, I type and type, I hit :wq, and it posts to my blog. If I vi the file afterward and make changes, it will change the entry on my web page the same way. Neat!

Got another pre-interview tomorrow, over

Got another pre-interview tomorrow, over at Hall Kinion... they also say that it looks like things are heating up a bit. Today I have to do some music, go grocery shopping, and go to choir rehearsal.

So, if you could

So, if you could date a tv character, who would it be?

For me, the hands-down winner is Anya from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She's quirky, she's neurotic, she's high-maintenance, she is totally incapable of lying to herself, and somehow manages to come across as naive and innocent all at the same time. She'll say out loud the truth that everyone else is trying to avoid, but without being condescending about it in any way - as if she really doesn't realize that they are trying to lie to themselves - she is just trying to help! I just love her.

What gives me pause, though, is that her character is clearly drawn as one who has wisdom without experience - in many ways a child. The innocence of a child can be seen as wise, but only through the eyes of an adult. Anya is an emotional innocent. She does have an intellect and many many years of external experience, but emotionally, she is still a child.

The other thing that gives me pause about having strong feelings for her is that she is imaginary.

Well, this is the

Well, this is the maiden voyage of a tiny new project I think I just completed. One of my goals for this year was to be able to work a little more on Real Writing. I don't really care what form the Real Writing is in, it's just to exercise my muscles a little bit more. Maybe to work towards becoming a columnist, maybe a creative writer, I don't know.

One of the things that has bugged me about blogging is the silly little tools. I can blog through AIM but it has a really small character limit - anything over two paragraphs and the rest of my text gets cut off. Then I have to go to the actual blogger.com interface, which is typing things into a large form "textarea" box, which I hate.

Neither of these things has any sort of real editing capabilities. And that bugs me.

The other thing I wanted to start working on again is my hacking muscles. Just a bit of learning there, a bit of perl hacking there, a bit of extra technical creativity everywhere.

So I just spent a few minutes and I finally wrote my "instablog" utility. And I figured out how to integrate it with vim, and automatically journal it. What does this mean? It means that at any time I want to write a longer blog, I can open up my terminal window, type "blog", and a vim window will open, with all its wonderful tools. Windowing, escape mode, the ability to capture complete lines or sentences, multiple-level undo, spell-check, whatever. I write so much more faster this way because I don't have to use the frigging mouse, and EVERYTHING is out of the way. And then when I'm done, I just hit ZZ (or :wq, which is how everyone else seems to do it), and it automatically gets posted here.

No browsing to web-based tools, no length restrictions (well, there's 65,000 characters, but I won't get there in one entry), no silly textarea box frustrations, and I can edit my writing to my heart's content before I send it off. AND, if I see an error, I can just simply edit the text file in vi, click save again, and it will automatically update that particular blog entry by ID number.

Yay me! It seems to work! At least, I think so. I haven't clicked save yet. Here goes!

Well, with twenty minutes notice,

Well, with twenty minutes notice, I was told to go to a potential employer and take a test. Luckily I was already decked out in my powerful EDDIE BAUER clothes, so I was just able to throw on a coat and go. It went pretty well, I thought, although I was in a room with twenty other programmers all trying to take the same test. Guess we'll see how it goes. My impression is that I'm not an incredibly senior programmer, so there might be five others out of that twenty that just aced the test, even though I still feel like I did pretty well. If I get called back for this job, right when we're at the trough of the unemployed market where there's all these other skilled programmers I am competing against, I'll feel pretty good. So we'll see...

Strange day, I went out

Strange day, I went out and was social again today, but then I had a weird energy hit near the end of my outing... I might have just had too much activity after a rather inward week last week. Then I went to Peter and Kira's house and let them make me salad. That was nice of them. :) Very low-key and relaxing. I think I'll sleep late in the morning...

Hrm, maybe I could give

Hrm, maybe I could give myself daily todo-list icons as a personal progress report, like this -

Can't see much except how busy it is... good idea? yeah? nah....

Here's an example of my

Here's an example of my todo list application. I make some todo list items, make some of them dependent on the others, and I get this graph:

Then, I decide I can't write a song until I have an idea, so I add that todo item before the other as a pre-requisite, and I automatically get this:

Neat, huh?

So I went to church

So I went to church again today, sang with the choir. It is really hard to pay attention to the sermon when you can't watch their lips move. Staring at the back of the minister's head just isn't quite as interesting. But from what I was able to make out, the sermon was about compassion. He was talking about how compassion is an experience that we have when we realize that someone else's situation could happen to us, a bit of fear, and through that coming to a feeling of identification with the other person. For some reason that really bothered me, and I even found it kind of offensive. It's a bit of a red flag for me that my reaction is so intense, because it feels tight, so I have to chew on that a bit. But I don't like hearing that my love-based feelings ultimately come from fear or insecurity. What an unpowerful way to live, you know? When I feel compassionate for someone, the first feeling that comes to mind is excitement - maybe it's skipping ahead a bit, but I feel like I can see the light for them, how it can be better, like I want to show them how they can find relief and more power for themselves - I am genuinely excited for them. Now, I don't have the energy to do that to everyone, which is the guilt problem a lot of us have with our compassion - but I get around that by thinking I will be more effective helping or inspiring those who I really identify with - where my efforts will more easily have an effect. It's just more efficient that way. A little effort helping more people is better than a lot of effort helping few. But the point is that when I see people have trouble, I'm not motivated to help them to vicariously shield myself from their problems happening to me. That just feels wrong, like it's reflexive, or hiding, or allowing fear to still have some power over you. "Gotta protect myself from that bad feeling..." It's tight and it's bullshit.

I think a lot of people see pain as an edge of a cliff that you have to veer away from. That way of thinking just doesn't make sense to me anymore... which I'm really thankful for.

I was talking to my

I was talking to my friend Harmony today, about the big pseudo-relapse I had this week about the ex. What was nice is that at the end of the talk I realized I felt really good about everything. To explain...

Last week I was just feeling really down. And it concerned me because it was one of those non-situational downs; I couldn't immediately find a good reason for why I felt down. You tell a lot of people about those sorts of feelings and they immediately say, "Gosh, sounds like clinical depression! Let me tell you about my therapist! You should read about THESE pills and THESE pills and THESE!...." So I sort of kept it to myself, because I've already been through that whole thing.

Then this week I started to feel like I was really missing the ex. We were in the middle of a break. We had been talking semi-regularly since the breakup (she is still in Ireland), mostly to "process the breakup" and figure out what we needed. And all of a sudden I really missed her, started remembering all these things I liked about her, about hanging out with her, about how we interacted, and I missed her.

So I thought about it... and I callled. And she was a bit colder than I thought she would be. And it kind of got to me, and all sorts of feelings started to tumble out and I realized that this whole time since we've broken up, I've been a bit frozen, more frozen than I realized I was. And I thought about it more, and I realized that the whole breakup was about me feeling like I had power taken away from me. It was some sort of manhood thing. So I really shut her out in ways that I hadn't realized, that were understandable, but unintentional. Because she had cheated on me - not as much physically as emotionally. And all of a sudden, three months later, I must have thawed, and remembered all these ways I like her and miss her, ways I hadn't thought about for a while.

So I told her about all that, and I'm glad I did, because it turns out I had come across to her like that it was really easy to get over her - my boundaries were extremely clear and no-nonsense and matter-of-fact. And it made her feel like I not only really wanted to break up (which was true), but that it was so easy that I must not have loved her all that much in the first place... after all, why would it be so much harder for her than for me? She was having so much trouble and it sure didn't seem like I was. And I was able to tell her that it was just because I had been frozen, feeling unsafe... it wasn't that I didn't love her. Rather, it was that I loved her so much. That other perception of hers felt off... and I felt unnaturally cold. It needed correcting. And now our relationship, despite still being broken up, feels a little bit warmer, more accurate. We're back on break now.

But I was concerned. I'm liking her more now. And I feel less inclined to ask someone else out on a date now, even a light date. Still want to see friends just as much, but these other people that seemed.... interesting just two weeks ago, now I just want to avoid them. So I was concerned - was I having complete second thoughts about breaking up? Was I wanting to get back together with her? I didn't exactly feel like that; I haven't been imagining having long kissing or make-out sessions with her or anything, but what's with this other stuff?

So then it hit me... with Harmony's help. I forget who said it first, but it hit me - I think it means I am past Rebound Stage. I got past Rebound Stage without actually getting into a Rebound situation with a girl. And then I felt good. And then Harmony just buzzed for a couple of minutes about how incredible she thinks my thoughtfulness and self-commitment is, and I felt even better.

Yay me! I'm past Rebound Stage! And I figured more of me out! Hooray!

I swear, I don't know

I swear, I don't know how real hackers do it. What did I do today? All I did was

• figure out how to dynamically generate a jpg from my php code in my todo list (here) - I had already written the code a long time ago, and just figured remembered that I could have img src=(path to a script that generates an image rather than the image itself), so that's the only new part
• downloaded a user authentication library for php that didn't work
• made a "user" table in postgresql and got confused for a half hour when it seemed I could log in using the wrong password before realizing that postgresql uses "trust" by default
• tried to convert a mysql script to posgresql (not done yet)
• downloaded the specs to java's servlet 1.3 and jsp 1.2, decided not to print them out (500 pages???)

and it felt like I did a lot of hacking.

Meanwhile, I'm sure there's someone else out there who wrote a complete secure register/login/cookie/database system, or installed resin, or wrote a complete tomcat servlet or EJB in one night...

I just got a hit

I just got a hit from a google search for Nordstroms in Columbus, OH.

Living On $200/Day

So, my latest mental project is to figure out how to convince a very large aggregate group of people to give me around $200/day, without me being sued, and without me working the entire time they're giving me the money.

There's a variety of ways to break it down. The first is that that's just convincing 200 people to buy a $29.95/month membership. Which I could do if I had breasts and a webcam. And the willingness to use my webcam for my breasts. Unfortunately, that's largely out.

The other side is convincing 70,000 different people (every year) to just give me a buck. That's tipping. That's a whole ton of backbreaking work at marketing, or making my creativity viral somehow, like a song that automatically copies itself and merrily sings to people to give me money. I still like tipping, but...

There's also creating a service to enable people to move more of their own already-existing money-flow online, and then taking a cut. Although I'd probably get sued. Unless I can decentralize it somehow.

I have had the glimmerings of an idea for a "decentralized affiliate" service, but that's just a gleam in my eye right now. Hmm.

Any other ideas?

food folks & heiferman -

food folks & heiferman - De-Throned DotCom CEO takes job at McDonald's.

I'm not on the top

I'm not on the top of Matt's fav blogs list anymore. :(

I am thinking of starting

I am thinking of starting a new creative writing mailing list/workshop. It's mostly for collaborative writing projects such as what you'll find at StorySprawl or Detective Pogue (see sidebar), except with a bit more effort and higher quality. Still bizarrely creative, though. If you are interested, email me, siffert at this domain.

So, it's kind of amazing

So, it's kind of amazing how creative visualization can work really easily at some times and not at all at other times. Of course, it's probably just that it's all random and our lives are so chock full of random occurrences that virtual patterns are of course going to appear. Anyway. I was in this a cappella singing group all last fall. I was into it more for the friends than the music, which meant my musical standards were far lower than they normally are - and some of these people weren't that good. Eventually I lost patience, and it corresponded to my friend Peter saying he wanted to start singing again - he and I have been in pro groups together. So I convinced the group to disband everyone except for the guy with the deep bass voice and the killer solo voice, and we started as a foursome. Peter still felt limited by them, and so did I to a degree, but my standards were still low. After our second rehearsal, I said, "I'm even 5% considering what would happen if you and I just started one ourselves," and he responded, "I am SO GLAD you said that," and I said, "The only problem is I really want them as friends." So two days later, the other two called me up and said they were dropping out of the group. Pling! I didn't even try that hard to dream THAT one.

So here's a test....

So here's a test....

Wow, got a job interview.

Wow, got a job interview. Next Thursday.

And... I just got my

And... I just got my last unemployment check. Benefits ran out.

"Hey, we might have a

"Hey, we might have a job for you."

"Great, what do you need?"

"Do you have java servlet experience?"

"Yes, I do."

"1.1 and 1.2, application server, session management, templates, databases, source management?"

"Hey, yeah! On all of those!"

"Ok, call you back."

ring...

"Hey, me again - do you have IDE experience?"

"Yeah, I've been doing that lately. They're all pretty similar."

"XML experience?"

"Yup, have that too."

"Call you back."

ring...

"Do you have experience with TIBCO, COGNOS, and BEA WebLogic?"

oh, shit..."TIBCO is an IDE for XML, and they are all similar. I have XML and IDE experience, not with TIBCO itself. WebLogic is a branded application server - I helped develop one of those in-house, but haven't had a project that used WebLogic itself. I don't know what Cognos is."

"Sorry, we'll have to keep looking!"

this market pisses me off.

I just found out that

I just found out that the USA Patriot Act is an acronym standing for Uniting and Strengthening America - Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. ech.

Well, I just found something

Well, I just found something out that makes me feel like a bit of an idiot. :) I've been a free member of match.com for quite a while now, and every once in a while I contact people - however, I never realized that while you can post profiles for free, you have to join and spend money to contact someone. So I have probably written people who joined for free, and who had no way of getting back in touch with me. I think I might write a few of them that haven't responded just in case they wanted to.

ssskkkkknnngngngngggkkkkkkk

ssskkkkknnngngngngggkkkkkkk

nothing really important to write

nothing really important to write today. I am feeling bleah. Maybe it's just vitamins, I have been bad about that lately. Just feeling disconnected from my goals again. I've been hanging out too much with my todo list (although it's making progress) and not enough with my journal. I have a choir rehearsal tonight but I am thinking of not going.

I went to Eddie Bauer

I went to Eddie Bauer today to return a belt. It started separating itself into two layers. Lately I've been looking at my khakis over on my nightstand tables, only seeing two, and swearing to myself that I must have bought three. But I've been wearing my cords lately, no khakis. So I figured I must have only bought two. Anyway, while at Eddie Bauer I asked them to tell me how many pairs of pants were on my receipt, because I can't make any sense out of their little codes. They said five, I said, "Huh, I could've sworn I only came home with four." So they said, "Oh! Well, let's just give you another one!" No questions, no anything. So I got another pair and brought it home, checked my closet, and there of course was my third pair of khakis, hanging in the closet as it has been all along. Sigh. I guess I will take them back.

What is annoying is that I tried them on today at the store to make sure I got the right size, and the 33-inch waist felt most comfortable. The pair I bought before Christmas was a 32-inch waist. argh!

Well, I have been putting

Well, I have been putting it off for far too long, but I am now making the switch. I am going to start using an IDE for my java development work. For a long time it looked like the choice was between Sun's Forte or Borland's Jbuilder. However, Jbuilder was only free for 60 days, while Forte's free version didn't have half the features its paid version had.

Then I realized that Forte was based off of netbeans, which is entirely open source and more full-featured. And I heard about IBM's "Eclipse", which is their competing sponsored open-source IDE (Sun sponsors netbeans). And they hate each other. Netbeans is solid, but Eclipse is supposed to beat its pants off within the next couple of versions.

It looks like Intellij's IDEA is the real monster though - it costs money but everyone loves it. But for now - (and you know how that can last forever) - I have decided on.... netbeans. Steep learning curve, dead ahead!

tonight turned into paper-sorting night.

tonight turned into paper-sorting night. I didn't realize I had so much stacked up until I saw the big cardboard box almost full of papers that I can actually recycle. And I'm only about halfway done. I hate sorting papers. I don't know how other people do it. Everything I find is something that turns into a todo item - like filling out my BMI forms to be a song publisher. Right now it's just a stack of papers, but it COULD be three hours of research and work. What would you choose?

Well, it looks like we

Well, it looks like we are retooling my a cappella group, which is exciting. Right now we've got:

• me
• Peter (sings lead on vagabond blues in above link), a versatile baritenor with a couple different stylistic strengths
• Todd, a bass that is reasonably pitch-accurate, musically knowledgable, versatile, and can sing down way below a low C
• Rich, an extremely versatile soloist with a clean voice - can't read music, but is very quick and musically adept.

Additionally, there's a local soprano and a semi-local 2nd tenor that are interested. The tenor is interesting because he has a vocal degree and quite a bit of arranging experience. So we might be flying. Guess we'll see soon!

Man, scrabble can get competitive.

Man, scrabble can get competitive. I just checked the first two moves of the first game of the series to determine the world scrabble champion. Here it is - BOTH guys used all their tiles on their first moves.

aaaaack! I am in todo

aaaaack! I am in todo list hell again! I don't know how I keep doing that. I get so overwhelmed by all my ideas that I start to feel sluggish and don't want to do any of them. I have to shake some energy into myself, and quickly. Or shake off some ideas. Maybe I should just delete my todo list. :)

More job stuff today -

More job stuff today - a possible opportunity at Pacificorp, and it looks like there might be a short-term thing going on with a travel company that needs some database work, so that's cool. I might make a couple thousand that way. Enough to make up for a couple months of unemployment insurance, or one month of expenses, depending on how you look at it. Yes, that was a wry turn of phrase.

For some reason the phone

For some reason the phone has been ringing off the hook today with headhunters calling me and other job opportunities. One was from an artist in New York City that has an idea for a website - I probably won't be able to do the project, but I found out he is a painter, and we got to talking, and it turns out he actually likes my idea of combining piano preludes with paintings for a combination cd/coffee-table book. I just need to record a couple of my compositions and then we'll show each other our stuff to see if there's any synergy. I'd say the odds are against it because creativie impulses are so individualized, but you never know!

hooray! blogbot is back up!

hooray! blogbot is back up!

I actually saw my first

I actually saw my first drug needle on the ground of a city street today. Right across the street from the unitarian church. I wasn't sure what to do. My ickiness instincts told me to leave it there, but I probably should have picked it up.

Salon.com Comics | This Modern

Salon.com Comics | This Modern World - hehehe... tom tomorrow does it again.

I have so many resolutions

I have so many resolutions that I can't keep track of them all - however, I think I might have managed to figure out how to make them feel more fun than they used to - they used to feel like todo lists and responsibilities. Anyway, I've identified a lot of "life projects" and scoped out the year a bit. Today I rearranged the apartment - Peter helped a lot - so I have a space for creating music and prose. I'll be doing some composing and arranging this year. It'll be a good year. Good start already.