Wednesday, March 24, 2004

I’ve surprised myself by being rather alert today. Considering that I’ve spent a grand total of maybe four waking hours in my apartment over the past three days, I’m impressed with myself. I should be one of the walking dead right now.

Work continues to go well, now that I’m not starting it off with more fun personal pursuits. Brief though they might be each day, they set a tone. Now, working all day isn’t a Herculean effort.

I’ve spent a few hours over the last two days working on a clone of the flagship product made by my last company. I never did understand why it took them so long to develop it. Actually, I think I do: they pre-optimized everything, which slowed down development drastically. Everything had to scale enormously, and speed suffered.

Anyvay, my clone is now feature-complete. It certainly doesn’t do everything CrossPoint did, but it does the basics: Entering tasks, moving them around, updating percent completes, and having all the parents’ percent completes update appropriately.

Pretty cool.

He hit the ground floor with both feet, then stepped forward to give her room. She landed like a cat, light and graceful, then zagged past him and yanked open the heavy steel door that led outside.

They crept out into the brisk air of early autumn and the chorus of man-made noises that peremeates the modern city. Thomas shivered for a moment, then found himself sliding to his left and stumbled to the cold pavement. He threw a hand out and managed to catch himself on the rough brick of the apartment complex, and only half-fell to the ground. His eyes were unfocused, and his breath came only in deep, ragged gasps.

Doodlehopper was by his side in an instant, her face clouded with concern as she peered down at him. “You okay?” she asked. “Went too fast on the stairs, huh?”

He shook his head, but couldn’t catch enough breath to answer just yet. She stayed motionless, waiting patiently. A small part of his mind wondered why she wasn’t impatient to keep moving.

After a few moments he had enough breath to say, “Can’t…take it all…in.” He looked up at her, his expression like that of a child who’s just realized he can’t find his parents. Openly scared and confused. “What’s going on?” he asked.

The girl’s face broke into a compassionate smile. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s find somewhere to hole up, and I’ll talk.”

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