[something clever and obscure here]

There's an IQ prerequisite, but there's no secret handshake. -Reality Bites

Dude, I went to Texas this weekend. And Louisiana. And Mississippi. And Alabama. Harlan and I flew out there to get his car and drove back. A mini-roadtrip. just like the good ol' days.

Today is payday. Yee-doggie.

For all of the IT professionals who are snobby coders like myself, you should go to the Daily WTF. It's a place to share those snips of spaghetti-coded inefficiency/inanity that some not-so-great computer programmer has created. It's a place to share frustration and disbelief when it's just not appropriate to scream "You SUCK!" Warning: It's a very techie site.

If memory serves me correctly, today is the one-year anniversary of my blog. Ah, those were the days. I was getting ready for a year of road trip adventures. It's too bad that I never have time to reminisce.

My last post from my phone didn't get displayed, but it wasn't significant anyway. What has been significant lately? I'm still here in Orlando. I've been working hard. The team of people I work with are an RDT, a rapid development team. When we have a request, we respond with changes in the application in minutes and hours, rather than weeks and months. I like the stress of high expectations, but there are drawbacks to constantly working in that environment, especially working 60 hours a week for 3 months in that environment. It takes a very organized mind to manage a life like that, and I fall slightly short of very organized. I'm constantly treading water, and I have one day off a week to catch up. It's not the work that's suffering, it's the outside-of-work things that need to get done, like oil changes and laundry (a pedicure would be really nice as well). At this moment I feel some anxiety rising that I have to leave for work NOW and get some final changes made to one of my products. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, and I love it, but it is stressing. STRESSING, I SAY! whew. bye.

God bless America and may everyone else be condemned to Hell.

I'm in Best Buy and I've decided what i need more than anything else--a sponsor.


(more on this later)

live stats for the UNC-Wake Forest game

Today, I said, "That's a meme!"
Robin replied, "What's a meme?"

When you're faced with the same question, you can refer to this website for excellent answers.

I'm starting to have a normal schedule at work. I'm not working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. This allows me to breathe a little bit and start to work on the things that I've been putting on the backburner. My regularly-used excuse has been that I've been working all the time and don't have time to do anything else.

I know that it's a common human trait to make excuses, and even though I know this and hate it, I still do it. I don't have any New Year's resolutions, but if I did, perhaps one of them would be "don't make excuses". I'm far better at not making excuses than I used to be, but old habits sneak up on you sometimes if you aren't vigilant.

My friend Ben said that I was one of the most accountable people he'd met. I think maybe he met me on a good day. I still lapse into the mindset of "here's why it's not my fault" occasionally. Persons who know themselves well don't have to make excuses for why they have failed at something, because accepting that failure will not shake the foundations of who they are. I know that the reason that I make excuses is because I don't like to admit personal failure. Being able to admit personal failure is a trait that should come with age. If someone truly grows up, then part of that growth is learning about themselves and their limitations. When you know yourself, you aren't threatened by the truth of who you actually are.

I was tickled pink to hear Bruce Schneier talking about the Firefox browser this morning on NPR's Morning Edition. He's a crypto-god, by the way, and you should be reading his monthly newsletter. He also built a Windows utility called Password Safe, which encrypts all of the passwords you use and allows you access to these using just one password.

I woke up again this morning thinking about programming. Some people wake'n'bake. I wake'n'code.

It sucks to do Amazing Things with your technical wizardry when there are no techies around to appreciate it. I want to have someone say, "Good Job, Amelia, that's phenomenal! You must be very clever," but it's kind of like me watching David Matarangelo do a quadruple axle: "Ho, hum. That's nice."

Happy 3rd day of 2005.(1-3-5)

I was shopping around for new laptops this weekend online. I've got a Sharp, and I've been very pleased with that brand. My particular laptop looks like it has had a hard life, but that's because I've been rough with it. It rarely goes in a padded computer case, instead it just gets thrown in my backpack. It's very scratched up and is missing a few pieces of the case, but it still works.

I was looking at the refurbished models and I found two which I consider to be very good deals. The desktop replacements are ultra-powerful, but they weigh 8-10 lbs. They're only semi-portable, though, so you should get one of the ultra-lightweight ones(this one weighs two pounds) for portability. I'm not planning on buying one of these for myself, but I did have fun dreaming about them.

Harlan and I are both still working for FEMA. I'm interested in seeing if I can go to Malaysia to help with the tsunami recovery. I asked my mom if she would mind me being 10,000 miles away. She said she would worry every day, but that she thought she could handle it. It's still an idea in its infancy, though.

Speaking of ideas, a great idea farm is halfbakery.com.

I've spent most of the day in bed. I think it's a super way to spend a Saturday, a battery-recharging day. I so rarely laze around.

There's been football on every channel, but now at least I've found some great basketball. GTech and Kansas are playing in overtime, and with seconds to go, it looks like Kansas may win it. I'm pulling for GTech, though. I gotta go for the ACC.

I'm going for a walk.