DgtizeD

I just upgraded to the trunk of typo again. Unfortuneatly it appears that broke my quote controller, which was why the site was down for a few days. However I think now my quotes code is slightly more robust. I still need to figure out a nice way to include it within the typo database instead of in db/quotes.yml.

On other fronts, I appear to be job hunting at the moment, though prospects for the summer at least seem to relatively good. The “where I am going to live for summer/fall” and “how I am going to graduate with a masters in december” problems both seem to have much less clear solutions at the moment. Not certain about fall employment either, though that is slightly less of a concern.

I aquired a fun new toy last week, a brand new Canon Digital Rebel XT, so hopefully some nice shots from that will be forthcoming presently.

I finally did some digital housekeeping I had meant to due for ages while procrastinating on various assignments. I reorganized all of my unix home directory dotfiles so they all live inside of a directory that is checked out of a SVN repository. Moving to a new box now involves a simple checkout of the code and running the setup.sh file to set up the symbolic links. It also exports a dotfile called .site-config into the home directory which exports information on where all the dotfiles are symlinked from. This allows me to let various auxiliary dotfiles remain inside of the source controlled directory. It also allows other programs like emacs to grab the location from the environment. I used to have a setup similar to this in which I just checked out the home directory itself, but that approach results in a number of annoying issues, chiefly namespace clobbering. When I get everything further along perhaps I will post it as an example. Most documentation one finds seems to describe how they setup there different dotfiles, but not how they manage them between hosts.

It’s probably one of those things that works best for the person that created it, but I would be curious to see how others have managed to solve this problem.

Cable men came today and hooked up my internet. My desktop hadn’t even been online since May 22nd or something. It hadn’t even been unpacked until a week ago or so. I’d forgotten how loud it is.

Somehow of late I feel as if I am living too many lives. I feel as if I am a chameleon changing my skin at every turn. On the one hand I work with some very focused individuals who are very motivated towards what they are researching. On the other I interact with people at the coffeeshop who have a much more laid back attitude to life, they seem to focus on the moments when they can break away from it all and sit contently sipping their coffee, chatting with friends and strangers alike.

I like focusing on tasks at work and finishing them, exhibited by the number of early morning bursts of creativity I have had. Not to mention the slow but steady daytime progress. Yet I also enjoy the calmness, the freedom of not pushing so hard at life. These are alternatives that do not mix well. So I struggle trying to balance the two.

I want that adrenaline burn of a long burst of coding, the satisfaction of many tasks completed, that feeling of being in the zone and able to accomplish anything. Yet I know from experience that it only lasts so long, too many nights of that and I spend too long wishing I had tasks I liked better, or time to step back for a while. Time to be me. Moments to sit back and watch the world go by in wonder. Time to do whatever I so choose, time to be content with the moment.

These are freedoms that some would view as selfish yet, from the reverse they are freedoms that some would consider essential to who they are, and what gives them some form of satisfaction, some reason to believe in life.

I feel as if I must choose, discarding one or the other to maintain some balance in society. So I walk on my own not entirely part of anything.

I don’t fit life. Somethings never change…

Sunday the cable man comes to hookup the internet. In the meantime I am still using my work connection or stealing my neighbors signal for all my internet needs. This summer has been very odd for home internet use. I don’t think I have gone so long with so little after hours internet use. It’s not like I haven’t been wasting my after work hours, just I have been wasting them with people instead of a screen.

I don’t entirely know what I think of that. It’s definitely a change for me, not that I am not social, but I am used to spending a considerable amount of screen time, even as a method of socializing. However I think it all stems out of realizing that I am going to be living here for a while longer, and thus need to expand my circle of aquaintences. It’s an odd process. I’m really only used to doing this in the context of arriving in a new school, but now I am approaching it from the perspective of joining a community, a scene, become a regular, whatever you want to call it.

It’s a nice feeling to enter a bar and have the bouncer recognize my face and wave me on through, it’s pleasant to chat amiably with the barista’s at the local coffeeshop, or to say hello to the same people on the street. Certainly I have always tried to integrate nicely with my community, but it has always been predominatly in an acedemic settings, which is somehow different.

I remember for a long time being terrified of the real world, in terms of meeting people, particularly after my experience working in boston. It really works the same way in the end though. They are all communities, all groups of people, from highschool, university, to the community, it’s all the same in the end. Perhaps the places to meet people change, it’s less frequent to see the same people in the same place. It’s still quite easy to meet people though. They are all reaching out, not with the same urgency as freshman entering a dorm, but reaching nonetheless.

Kinda gives me hope…

So I have been delaying publicly writing for a while now. I had various reasons that I procrastinated.

1. I wanted decent content on my site, ie something semi worthwhile
2. I needed a decent system to publish from
3. So I was going to write my own, but that required too much time
4. I needed something that I felt comfortable developing extensions, but that required the above reason
5. I needed a stable server to host it from
6. I wanted textile for my markup
7. I wanted an interesting first post

Some of these happened, some of these failed to happen, and hopefully some of them will happen. Anyway, the whole point of this is that after a while I simply determined I just needed to do it. Which in the long run is generally really all that actually needs to occur.

I’m hoping that my writing will improve. That needs will necessitate me fixing that which I dislike about typo or my layout or any other random problems that plague my satisfaction with this site. I make no promises on updates or content, or anything of else of like ilk. This is for my enjoyment and interest, and if it happens to agree with you then that will be an excellent bonus, but not the purpose of this site. Perhaps I will even let others know of the existance of the site, though one or two might have already guessed. Anyhow this is my first article, it’s pointless, it’s substandard, I don’t really particularly like it, but at least it’s a start.