"Chicago, Chicago! It's someone's kind of town!"
After four days in airport Wyndham, I can safely say that outskirts Chicago is not my kind of town. I was in town for RailsConf and got to meet a lot of friends without the pressure that comes when it's my conference we're at. But the surroundings: cultural wasteland. Best meal we had was a 20m drive away, fantastic Indian food, but it made Rael ill. That's the best that can be said for the area around O'Hare, other than: avoid, avoid, avoid.
Now I'm in downtown-ish for YAPC. That's a Perl conference. It's been fun moving between Rails and Perl worlds, but now I get to catch up with a whole new group of friends. I hadn't realized how long it'd been (2 years) since I'd seen them last. The food has improved with proximity to the city centre: great ribs last night and tonight I'm going to try my luck with The Best Chicago Pizza. Fingers crossed.
The longer the summer goes on, the less well I deal with being away from my family. I miss my kids. I miss my wife. I miss having a hallway that has no ice machine and no throng of badge-wearing disciples babbling excitedly about multiRAID failover strategies for transparent application blah blah blahs. I'm ready for a day by the pool, a day with a book, a day without the laptop.
I think that day will probably be in November.
The first two of these books are the dessicated husks of read books, books whose knowledge and delight have been sucked out. The last two books are sucks in progress, so to speak.
Suck is the right word to use when talking about Heinlein, too. I mistakenly thought the book was good. Obviously I need to eat more Omega-3 or smoke less crack or whatever, because it is teh suck. Bigtime. I think I wrote more in my notes on the book.
The parenting book was awesome, recommended in every respect except the bits around sex and alcohol. I'm not as Texan.
Atheism is fantastic, but slow going. It's very reminiscent of my first philosophy class, only without the "brain in a vat" and with a lot more of "if they say this, then they're logically inconsistent because ...".
Cities is also good. It's a 1984 economics book. She starts by pointing out how stagflation goes against every economic theory, then offers her own (that cities are the centerpieces of economies in ways that nations are not). It's interesting to learn about economics from (the first chapter is a summary of the other theories and it's VERY readable) and also just to explore this idea of cities central to economies. She's got another book where she goes into it in more detail, but I'm enjoying this one plenty.
I'm a bluegrass fan, and as such after the first five million times you hear "make you squeal" followed by a toneless attempt at the Dueling Banjos intro, you lose the ability to be embarrassed by your music.
I think I prefer Mena's measure: what do you have that your spouse refuses to play in your presence? Or, as she said, "I told him it was shit and he had to play it when he was alone." I'll cop to a fondness for Bryan Adams that makes Jenine do a good impersonation of Mena. "Heaven" cuts me to the heart, whereas for Jenine it cuts the cheese. Vive la difference.
But for "most fucked up thing in my collection that even I'm embarrassed to admit I have", it has to be "Ghouls With Attitude - Disc 2". Lots of cheesy 60s horror TV show themes that I can't even play for kids on Halloween because they all say "that's shit! Play it when you're alone!"
Firefly, duh. I'd have traded the last four seasons of X-Files for four seasons of Firefly, gladly. And man, I was passionate about X-Files. All of it, not just the bits that were Scully. But I'd give the left nuts of Mulder and Scully just to have had more Firefly. Movie was great, but 3 hours compared to a TV season's worth ... no comparison. How you know Hollywood's boned: more great watchable obsession-worthy television happens than film. (Veronica Mars, I'm looking at you)
San Jose, the fat ugly little brother to tortured busy and rich San Francisco. San Francisco drives a Lexus and drinks designer coffees. San Jose drives a Kia and thinks a Starbucks coffee is the highlight of a day. San Francisco has a job in banking and takes camphone pictures of the kids at soccer practice. San Jose has a job cleaning the bank and bought an X-Box 360 to keep the kids busy when they come home from school.
Anyway, I'm in a Sunnyvale hotel now. The hotel room at the ultra-budget Grime Inn I'm at smells like a taxi-driver's breath mints, and the in-car navigation system got me lost leaving the airport (Never Lost my ass).
Welcome to the sphincter of Silicon Valley, population: Nat.
Hello to you if you're here via my review of the Vox preview. Hello to you if you're not, as well.
Family reunions down at the bay just below our house. That's where the first Torkingtons pitched their tent when they came to New Zealand, nearly starving because they didn't know about the shellfish in the harbour. Every year the descendants of those people gather and eat, drink, and be merry for a day.
Some boys are notorious for being savage with pets. Not my boy. He just rushed over to my chair, all in a panic. "Dad! Dad!" he said.
"What's up, mate?" I asked.
"The cat's following me!" He cast a frightened look back over his shoulder. The fat family cat wandered slowly past the kitchen island and walked into the laundry where its food was.
"Ah." I gave him a hug. He was trembling. I thought I'd use a bit of Socratic method to help him realize the cat wasn't out to get him. "What do you think the cat wanted?"
"I don't know. My toes?"
"Why would Bob want your toes?"
"They look like mice. Cats eat mice. Maybe Bob wanted to eat my toes."
I stifled a laugh. "I don't think cats get to be as fat as Bob by confusing toes with mice."
"Whatever, Dad. I was scared."
