"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me.
 Than a frontal lobotomy
 I may be drunk, but at least I'm not insane."
    Some country song

True story:

I'm 99.99999997% done with this thing I've been working on It works perfectly, but it causes a bazillion memory leaks when you use it. (Why are memory leaks bad? I'll save that for another entry :-). Anyway, I think the problem is that my work is giving some of the exisiting code a Hissy Fit. I can't be sure because the exisitng code in this section is confusing as all get out. I mentioned to my mentor that I thought this code was crazy and here's what he wrote me back:

"That code was written by ______, who did seem to be a bit crazy.One Monday when we got to work there was email from ______ saying that he had decided to get married, and was moving to Canada, and wouldn't be showing up for work anymore."

And you thought your co-workers were strange.

"Once upon a midnight dreadry, while I pondered, weak and weary,
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
 As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."
    Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

Coding a feature is a lot like chasing a mirage: it always looks like you're almost there, but you never quite seem to reach you destination. I've been going gangbusters trying to finish off this one thing for over a week, and every (10-12 hour) day it seems like I'm almost there. Sigh... On the other hand its a fun feature to work on.

Random Moment: My office is just off a two story atrium which has a glass ceiling. It rained almost all day today, but for just a few minutes it really started to pour. The sound of the pouring rain on the atrium's glass ceiling was... incredible. I walked out into the atrium and just stared at the sky for a while.

Then I went back to work.

"A million young poets
 Screaming out their words
 To a world full of people
 Just living to be heard."
    John Melloncamp, Check It Out

We had a meeting of all the people on Access and Excel this morning to go over where we are after the first of our three milestones. The guy who was running the meeting had made a similar presentation to the Senior VP of Office and a bunch of other big wigs a few days earlier, and was passing their comments back down to us. I was in my usual meeting torpor: just alert enough to appear interested, but really I was inside my head shuffling mental paperwork preparing to Get Things Done once the meeting ended.

One comment did get passed up to me at my mental desk by the parts of my brain that were just sort of hanging out and watching the meeting. Apparently our senior VP is very excited about one particular feature of Access: mine. Upon hearing this I promptly spilled my mental paperwork all over my mental floor.

Do you think this means I need to fix all the bugs the testers keep finding in my code?

Nah...

"...'Hannibal, be a good dog and bring that back here!'
    Hannibal stands on the sidewalk in front of Doc's house, still grinning. Nyah-nyah, he says without having to say anything; its all in the grin and the regally serene sweep of the tail. Nyah-nyah, you've got girls and Eddie Bauer shorts, but I've got your Frisbee and I'm leaking canine spit all over it, and in my opinion that makes me the Grand Wazoo."
    Richard Bauchman, The Regulators

I first read that three days ago and it still cracks me up. Say what you want about Steven King's choice of subject material. The fact of the matter is that he just has a way with words.

Why do people write under pseudonyms? In King's case I suspect its because he's obsessed with the author being separate from the rest of a person's being. That's why we get all those Author with Split personalilty stories out of him: The Dark Half, Shooter's Knob, Wordprocessor, of the Gods, The Shining, etc.

I think I'd like to have a pseudonym. I'm about to be published on a global scale. Think about how many people will buy the next release of Office (or at least have it forced on them buy sadisticly clever Microsoft Marketing Maneuvers :-)? From now on I am officially coding under a pseudonym. What will it be? Well... uh... Oh! I'll use my 70s Name. For those of you who don't know this is the name you get when you join the name of your first pet with the name of the first street you lived on. So my pseudonym will be Wiley Saddleback. So should any of you find yourself using Smart Tags or On-Object UI in the next release of Access you'll have Wiley Saddleback to thank.

"When we got back to the po-lice station OB said he was gonna put us in the cell. He said, 'Kid, I'm gonna put you in the cell I want your wallet and your belt.' I said, 'OB I can understand you wanting my wallet so as I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?' He said, 'Kid... we don't want any hangings.' I said, 'OB did you really think I was gonna hang myself for littering?' OB said he was making sure, and friends OB was 'cause he also took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown. And he took out the toilet paper to I couldn't bend the bars, roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll, and have an escape. OB was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice, remember Alice? Its a song about Alice..."
    Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaraunt

The quotes I use to open my posts (In case you were wondering) are usually a private joke between me, myself, and I. However, this quote is for my dad who seems to think I'm going to be drafted(*) and sent to Afganistan. Because we all know that when America is in trouble the first troops they send into any hot zone are their crack platoon of scrawny, pale, eyeglass-wearing, Star Wars loving, software engineers. I suppose as long as our enemy agrees to resolve the conflit through some sort of Shoot 'Em Up type video game we'd kick their butts.

On the way to work every day I pass through this construction zone with one a guy working one of those giant lollipop-looking Slow/Stop signs. Its always the same big guy holding the sign, and every morning he is smiling and tipping his hard hat to EVERY car that goes by. The really weird part is that I think he means it. He's been at this for three weeks, its starting to get cold in the morning, and he's still just as perky (though that's really not the right word for a big hairy construction worker). I wonder what he knows that I don't?

(*): Alice's Restaraunt is, among other things, a song protesting the draft. Ask your parents about it or just try listening to the radio on Thanksgiving some year.

"Oh the times, they are a'changing..."
    Bob Dylan

Two planes have crashed into both of the World Trade Center towers in NYC and another plane has been crashed into the pentagon. The only thing that matters to me is that all my family and friends in both New York and DC are accounted for.

"Down the decades every year
 Summer leaves and my birthday's here
 And all my friends stand up and cheer
 And say 'Man, you old'
 Gettin' old..."
    Paul Simon, Old

Well I've been wrong before, but I do believe today is Nick's birthday. If I had been better prepared I would have posted a picture I've got of Nick with (somewhat) long hair. Maybe next year. Happy Birthday, Nick!

"A car goes by me like a flash, he can't do that to me!
 I'll chase him and I'll show him I can go as fast as he
 And sure enough I pass him like a rabbit out a thicket
 And I learn its a patrol car as he writes me out a ticket."
    Sunday Driving

You know, I almost sort of miss east coast drivers.

Sure there was the constant threats of being run off the road, rear-ended, T-boned, or of becoming an unknowing partner in some other psycho's vehicular murder-suicide pact, but at least the people were involved with the act of driving. Here in Seattle people just seem so disconnected. It makes driving so much less staisfying.

Take the simple act of merging in from a lane that ends. We'll start with the case where someone is coming into your lane. On the east coast you are GOD in this position. You can either grant another drivers wishes to be in your lane or crush all their hopes with the slightest movement of your foot. East coast drivers understand this. When you let them in they give you a greatful wave. When you shut them out they curse you for the malignant diety that you are. When the roles are reversed you understand that your fate is largely in the hand of other drivers and you show them your gratitude or raw hatred as appropriate.

Drivers around here are completely blind to this struggle. When you want to get over they make no effort to give you more or less room, and when you let them into your lane they give you no indication that you've gone out of your way to do something nice for them. Maybe its the fact that EVERYSINGLE PERSON IS YAPPING ON A CELL PHONE, or maybe its because they're all on their way to Starbucks for a fix and their brain is operating with minimal functionality owed to a a lack of caffine. Either way its depressing.

My friend Vic has a novel solution to this issue. He drives a lovable-yet-beat-up vehicle which is definitly the exception in the land of MsMillionaires. So when he wants to change lanes he just finds the most expensive-looking car in the other lane, gets slightly ahead of it, and starts pulling over. Mr. Expensive Car ALWAYS makes room for Vic!

Niether of is have found a way to make the other drivers appreciate you letting them into your lane. My latest theory is that (time permitting) you should continue to follow them to their destination, get out and explain your grievance to them, and then either graciously accept their thanks if they offer it or kick the crap out of them.

"HA-ha!"
    Nelson, The Simpsons

U.S. Won't Seek Microsoft Breakup

The Justice Department and 18 states told Microsoft today that it won't seek a break-up of the software giant as the government prepares to return to trial court next week. The move formally ends the historic attempt to dissolve one of the most successful companies in U.S. history as a remedy to correct damage done to the computer marketplace and prevent future harm to competition.

By James V. Grimaldi,
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2001; 11:06 AM

"Wha-wha-wha-WHAT?!?"
    Sheila Brovslosky, South Park

Wowsers. What a weekend! Pictures have been posted in the photo album. Heather and Gwen: you are the best! I was still kind of running high after they left so I managed to clean our entire house, do three loads of laundry, and still have time to cook dinner and play several hours of volleyball. I rule!

I got some terrifying news tonight. The guy who's me one year in the future? The guy who has done EVERYTHING I've done just before I do it? He's ENGAGED! This is not good...