I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder. - Emma Thompson
At the wedding over the past weekend there was a theme that was spoken to during the ceremony. People were asked, "What have you learned about love? What about it will you share with the newly weds?" Mostly these this question was answered by older people with a little more experience than me, but since I'm somewhere between one third to one half of the way through my life I feel I've earned the right to answer.
This marriage was for one of my longest friends. She was an old girlfriend from high school; I was her first boyfriend. I think the first time she started dating the groom was to make me jealous, though that could be complete fantasy on my part (for the record, they broke up, and started up dating again later and are amazing for each other). Looking just a little way from me at the reception table there was another of her other ex-boyfriends. We're all friends these days. Isn't that the way it should be? Everyone as friends.
A look across the table was yet another ex-girlfriend of mine from high school and college. I've barely seen her since things ended, but as the night was going on and she talked and laughed I couldn't help but smile and remember happy times. Though are relationship wasn't long it helped lift me past a darker time in my own emotional angst. Hearing her laugh. Watching her smile. The glow from her was bright. She talked of all the great things she was doing and I felt so overwhelmingly happy for her achievements.
A look to the side on the table brought my eyes to yet another long time friend from high school. A woman that I never dated, but always held a playful crush on. Her eyes sparked. Her devious grins glowed. Her belches made me laugh.
My heart was warmer and fuller at the wedding than it usually is. It was wonderful.
I am so allured to enjoy wrapping myself in sorrow it's actually strange and exhilarating to enjoy wrapping myself in happiness.
My first rule of love is that it is always increasing. When you love someone it's forever. When you fall in love it doesn't fade. People are so used to thinking of everything like pie with just a limited number of slices to give out, but love is a fire. It grows and spreads. There world is full of the silly thought of "falling out of love" which is really just someone who fooled themselves into thinking they were in love or fooled themselves into thinking it had gone away.
So that's the first thing I have to share about love. Relish in everyone you have loved, you'll love them forever. Relish in everyone you do love. You'll love them forever. Relish in the thought of those to come. You'll love them forever too.
Thumpity-thump (06/29/2008)
Too much of nothing, makes a man feel ill at ease. - Bob Dylan
Thumpity-thump. Thumpity-thump. Thumpity-thump. Generally when I got to bed I open up my windows and close the door. I have this one roommate who has the habit of either working until 3am or playing computer games until 3am in the study right outside my room. I have to keep the door closed to keep the loud cursing from waking me up. The cursing happens both when he is working and when playing games. Some nights, when work is especially bad or the raid is going especially wrong, the angry yelling is enough that I also turn on the fan in my room for white noise.
Said roommate was gone last week. He generally keeps the cat locked in his room over night and I thought, "Oh! This week I will leave my door open and the cat will come and cuddle with me!" The first time I kept the door open and the can never came into my room. Sad.
The second night I was sleeping soundly. Around 5am I was woken up with a loud thumping. Thumpity-thump. Thumpity-thump. Then it was quiet. A slight meow. Thumpity-thump. I lean up and there is no cat in my room. My desk chair is spinning in circles. I lay back down. One or two minutes pass it happens again. Thumptity-thump. I leaned up to see the cat on my desk chair. The chair was spinning in circles and she had the look of of a spinning Olympic figure skater with her head always looking at me and the chair spun. Once again I leaned up and she bolted.
I crawled out of bed and closed my door. No more cats.
Stopping in the Middle of a (06/24/2008)
When you re-read a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. - Clifton Fadiman
Really miss riding BART to work. I know that's been over four years since my daily train commute, but I loved the peace and quiet for 30 minutes to myself each direction to focus on what I could focus on. I mostly spent that time reading. Now that I'm commuting by car I have switched over to podcasts and audiobooks and it's nice. It's not as good as it was, but it's nice.
Adzar has a twelve minute walk each way to work and I suggested that he should start listening to podcasts or audiobooks. He was a bit taken aback, since he's standard reading pattern has him stopping at the end of a section or chapter. He couldn't get his mind around the idea of just pausing in the middle of things. I guess I've grown used to it. Even when I road the train I would often watch movies in 20-30 minute segments on my ride.
I just finished listening to Ringworld and now I'm moving on to Slaughterhouse-Five.
Moving About the Office (06/21/2008)
You can't please everyone so you gotta please yourself. - Ricky Nelson
Right now at my office I sit in a pretty cool mazes like cube structure. At my first job everything was done as open areas with tables and since that's the work environment I grew up in I think it's gone a long way to influencing the work environment that I want to stay in. The team has been growing pretty ridiculously big at the office. I've currently got twelve people in the office reporting up to me through the chain and it's beyond the ability of our little five person maze cube to support.
So the whole team is moving to a different area of the building. I looked at the cube farm over there and said to the guy in charge of facilities, "tear it all down." So he did. Furious work with a screw driver and some other tools of the trade and he pulled down all the walls between the cubes finally ending with one giant pit area. I walk into it and just think, "wow I love it." It's bad monitor placement for everyone, but since we're so overwhelmed with work all the time, most of us don't find a good opportunity to play a lot of solitaire.
What I find funny is that I've started a serious trend at the office with the move. Multiple other groups are tearing down walls. No one has gone as aggressive as me, but it's really common to see the other groups of people working in a 2-3 person cube instead of stranded.
I found it funny when I went to the office in India. Everyone there works in a four-person pit, but all the cube walls are half-height. So you can stand up and see the entire length of the office. It's just a tone more social there.
Chico, Yo! (06/08/2008)
Nobody ever grew despondent looking for trouble. - Kin Hubbard
I was in Chico last weekend. Maybe two weekends ago. It was yet another wedding. Turns out, all of my friends from Sacramento get married and all of my friends who moved away from home are single. Following beer commercial logic I have determined that if I had stayed in Sacramento, I would be married, but since I have chosen to stay in the bay area, I'm single. Makes sense I guess.
The bride and groom's first date involved ridiculous amounts of champagne and Indiana Jones movies. It seemed reasonable that the wedding should as well.
The night before the wedding, we did what people do. We went running around Chico, looking for trouble. There was lots of playing in the creek, at the statue garden and especially on the zip line.
During the wedding itself, the Sacramento crowd spent the night on the dance floor.
The Chico crowd sat in the back by the bar and drank like it was there job.
Goodnight MacBook Pro (06/03/2008)
Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor. - Cory Doctorow
I've had the MacBook Air for the past many months but the old MacBook Pro has been sitting around my house. I wasn't able to give it up because of one ridiculous feature. Each month I download music. My system is simple. I start at the Amazon music store (cheaper and no DRM) and if I can't find the song there I move over to Apple iTunes Store. The thing is, I can't stand DRM. In reality, I would probably never encounter a single issue if I bought all DRM music for the iPod. I have handed my life over to Mr. Jobs and it's unlikely I will have a need to walk away. Yet, since my earliest days involved using my old Archos Jukebox (AWESOME!) I have always had this fear of Apple's DRM.
So the one thing I could use my old MacBook Pro for was to boot camp into Windows, and run an old version of iTunes and MyFairTunes to convert protected M4Ps from Apple into unprotected M4As. Yes yes, I realize that I am not in compliance with the DMCA, but it is fair use. Please test me in court. It's just like the analog hole that Steve always talks about, only more convenient.
So the problem is that the MacBook Air has a tiny little hard drive and I have been unwilling to spare ten or twenty gigs to install boot camp or Parallels. Also, I tried Parallels and it has major problems with my Air. It is seriously hosed now and won't install. So I carved out some time on Sunday to give VMWare a try and installed the VM onto an external drive. Hallelujah! Success! I have a wondering XPSP3 VM on my external drive that can run an old versions of iTunes and MyFairTunes. I reformatted the MacBook Pro in preparation to give it to an extremely lucky friend.
I am all aflutter for next week when Steve is going to give me my 3G iPhone and more important to me, the ability to get my corporate e-mail on my iPhone! Think of how much more my work can take over my personal life and how much more my friends and family can despise me! I am very excited about it!
O True Apothecary! (06/01/2008)
I dreamt a dream to-night. - Romeo (Romeo & Juliet)
While memorial day weekend was fun for me, it was not very restful. I went up the Berkeley and Piedmont to spend it with various friends. With two small children, there was much wrestling and running and biking and hammering and train riding and crying. Exhausting. Playing so long and so close with bundles of germs made got me sick, though their parents claim that I am patient zero.
Most of the week I spent working half days and sleeping long nights. Though there was a big push to get something launched by this weekend so there were also quite a few late nights throughout the week. Thursday night we had reached the last twenty minutes. That moment when you think everything major has been fixed and all that is left is a few minor tweaks. Those last twenty minutes can sometimes last for days and this one certainly has. At around 3am on Thursday night I'd done everything I could. Things weren't working, but I needed to go to bed to try and recover somewhat for the 8am touch point call. I lay in bed and closed my eyes.
I'm not sure if it was the exhaustion or the illness or NyQuil, but the inside of my eyelids were flooded with images. It was a truly weird and somewhat terrifying experience. Each image would flash for about half a second and then be replaced by another in a flood of stop motion. A horse head twisting inside out into a person who would jump off a cliff into a lake that would light on fire that someone was roasting marshmallows on which were actually pillows that cat would crawl onto before being chased away by a dog would sit down at a table and start reading a book that would flap its pages and fly away...
