cyclotram

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

A semi-brief non-photo interlude

So you might've noticed I've done a lot of wordless photo-only posts lately. I've been on deadline for the last, oh, few months really, and this blogging thing has seemed oddly burdensome. I've got a bunch of unfinished posts in the Drafts folder, and photos for even more posts that I haven't gotten around to tweaking and uploading yet. It kind of feels like work, in a lot of ways.

So I thought I'd take a break from the usual pseudo-useful, quasi-informative stuff for a minute and just dump a few personal notes and observations and whatnot.

* Last winter, I began to understand why old people head south for the season. Cold, dreary winters are cumulative, I realized - the seasons are a progression, not a cycle; you don't completely get your life back after the winter finally ends, and at some point you just can't take it anymore. If that means holing up in an RV park outside Yuma for a few months, playing shuffleboard and griping about Kids These Days, well, it's not a terribly attractive option, but it's either that or endure 9 long months of cold and rain for the 66th freakin' time. I can sympathize.

* In fact, more recently I realized that big software projects are a lot like cold winters. You put your life on hold for a while, and soon forget all the little things you used to do before crunch time set in. It's a real struggle to get your life back afterward, if you ever do.

* Somehow every year we manage to find time to watch the Tour de France. It's not always gripping TV, but even when it isn't it's still three weeks of riding around sunny France, now in HD. I think it's like what some people see in fishing shows, I guess.

* One bitter irony this year. You might've noticed my occasional cat photos here starting about a year ago. What I haven't mentioned is that the poor guy's very sick, and his kidneys have about had it. He's not likely to be around much longer. The irony is that feline kidney failure results in anemia due to a lack of red blood cells. This is treatable by giving the cat EPO, the very same substance that riders regularly get kicked out of the Tour for abusing. It would all be rather amusing if my cat wasn't fixing to kick off.

* There was a time when I would've done a bunch of overwrought posts about the recent situation in Iran (search the archives for "Belarus" to see what I mean). That was before I became so averse to saying "me too". It's not that I don't care, or don't understand what's going on; it's a country I've been fascinated by for quite some time now. I guess I feel I need to mention this because I was posting nothing but bridge & flower photos at the time, and I'd like to point out that my interests are rather broader than you might think from reading this humble blog. So whatever.

* Until the election in Iran, I thought Twitter was hopelessly lame. Then I saw what it was good for, and concluded it was just me that was lame, not the service. I still think MySpace is teh st00pid, though.

* Did I mention I'm at Tugboat? Well, I am. If you hurry, you could make it down here and attempt to identify me, if you care, unless I leave first, which I almost certainly will. I have photos to take, after all.

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