I’m at Javaone right now in a concurrency session, and I have so much stuff that I want to talk about after this past month but I have Javaone all this week, then I’m in san diego until the 6th. I might update a bit, but nothing serious. An exerpt:
Today i participated in a coding challenge and came in 6th.. weak. I mean, most people would say “Wow, 6th out of a couple hundred or thousand is good right?” Wrong. No prizes after 4th place. Weak.

—–

I saw the best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

with thanks to allen ginsberg.

—–

My dad is dying. He has been diagnosed with cancer for the third time, and it’s metastasized through his body. The doctors don’t know how much longer he has, probably 6-9 months. We’re going home to see him in a few weeks. I’m a little bit numb. I went through the whole range of emotions the last time that he was diagnosed, thinking that that was the end, but to hear it and have it be so final, and so immediate… I feel terrible, there’s a knot in my stomach that won’t go away.

I have been trying to get him to tell me the story of his life, learn all there is about him, who he was, who he is, and all the things that have gone before he got married at age 40. He’s 70 now, and has struggled pretty hard the last few years against cancer, retirement, boredom, health issues…

And I still don’t really know him.

—–

Well, a ton of stuff happened, it’s wednesday already and I’m just now getting to my weekend wrapup.. had a nice BBQ on monday, friends came over and we hung out, Kelly sprained her ankle, and a good time was had by most.

Yesterday I found out my dad is back in the hospital, his lungs are filling up with fluid and the doctor’s don’t know why.

And Kelly’s Grandma had a stroke.

My Car’s in the shop, a shitload of stuff is wrong, leaking coolant at the intake manifold, serpentine belt needs to be replaced, a ton of little stuff, needs a new battery blah blah blah.

I also remembered what FP stands for (finally) but I’m going to hold off and write about it later.

—–

I’m on the LR home and it’s been bugging me that I can’t think of what the FP in my previously mentioned post means. Sometimes I have ran dom thoughts and I usually carry around a notebook (paper, not PC) to jot down these little transient thoughts. I was driving when I had that thought, and figured that a little note with some initials would be enough for me to remember what I was thinking about. Knowing how mushy my brain is should have made me write it down.

I finally finished some scripts for Ealasaid to start cataloging her books, and I’m going to use them too, as soon as I.. get to it.. you know what I mean. I don’t know how well they’re going to do though, I didn’t test them that much. That always runs me into trouble, because I have this happen at work too, where I don’t have any time or energy to test stuff and it always ends up being something that I get dinged on.

One of the stops that I almost always stop what I’m doing to observe is St James – it is right across the street from St James park, where many homeless people hang out. Today there was someone being arrested in the middle of the park. The police had driven their cruiser over grass and walkway, and there was also a couple of mounted police. Enough randomness…

—–