Beautiful
“The world is not a prison house, but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.” — Edwin Arlington Robinson, poet
And what is stress, anyway?
I have the best job in the world. Yesterday, I walked through a NASA building, looking at mockups and presentations about the Curiosity rover. I snapped pictures of the actual SAM module that will sit on Mars a year from now. I returned to my office just in time for a teleconference with a large consumer electronics firm about a Goddard technology that they want to license. Just another day at the office. Ironically, at lunch I attended a brown-bag session held by my company […]
StreamSuki
Yesterday, I launched StreamSuki, an index of free, legal, English-language streams of Japanese animation. I spent many long hours building it, and I’m not sure why. I was downright obsessed with the technical implementation. I wanted to get it right, and to launch it. I did so at the expense of other, more pressing matters (like, er, keeping my house clean). It turned into a pretty big project. It automatically indexes 9 different […]
Tired
As I mentioned on Twitter, I’m pushing through a punishing schedule. I teach on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings, and I was out supporting a conference for work last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Combine this with a few social obligations, and for the past week I’ve been home almost exclusively to sleep. I leave the house at 7:00am and return at 9:00pm. One perverse advantage: the dishes don’t pile up, because I never eat at home. Granted, I signed up for all […]
Autumn Depth
Autumn is finally here! Much as I’ve enjoyed the Indian Summer, I wondered how long it would last. Now, we have brisk days, a low sun, and beautiful fall colors. I listened to Career Tools (a podcast about professional behavior) as I drove in to work this morning; I’ve been catching up on early episodes I either missed or skimmed. This morning’s episode focused on early layoff advice–what to do when you […]
The Iron Man Anime: Comic Book Silliness
I’m two episodes into the recent Iron Man anime, and I’m having trouble. The story builds slowly, so I’m reserving judgment there. My main problems with the show are two-fold: There are only two major characters: Tony and the nervous female reporter Nanami. Pepper has only appeared once to my memory, and that was on a video phone call. That is one of the interesting elements of the show: Tony is […]
GigaOM
Theree are so many sites and services out there that I feel Ike I’m always late to the party. A perfect example is GigaOm, a tech blog that I’d always ignored under the assumption that it was another Techcrunch–breathless articles about new smart phones or social networks. I then saw GigaOm’s founder on This Week in Tech, and he impressed me with his knowledge and deep thought. So […]
Brother, can you spare a dime?
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m broke. Almost literally. Lots of assets, no cash. This was driven home to me yesterday evening, after work. I stopped by a gas station on my way home to fill up my truck with gas. My debit card didn’t work, and neither did any of my credit cards. All denied. To be fair, several of those cards I paid over the weekend just as their due date came up, so […]
Status
Well. I’m back from South Africa, and my finances are my new worry. I’m tapped out. There’s simply no way I can afford a new home, even with a minimal down payment or closing costs. I’ve decided to wait for a while, despite having found the (almost) perfect house. It’s just immature to put myself into more debt right now. But it’s all right. My Halloween party will […]
South Africa, Day Five: Safari
This is the sixth in a series of blog posts about my recent trip to South Africa. I’m posting them a week after they happen. For all 825 photos from my trip, see my Flickr photo set. This was my full day of safaris. The itinerary: 5:00am Wake-up call 5:30am Gather in the dining area for snacks (hot coffee, iced coffee, hot tea, iced tea, water, milk, cake, scones, etc.) 5:45am […]