I finally found a use for Twitter

Just last week, I came across three links that I didn't have time to follow up with while at work, but was interested in going back to later. I was about to compose about the 100th email to myself entitled "Links" (which I never read before they are archived to my old messages folder), when I remembered this whole Twitter thing. So for at least the short term, I'll be updating my Twitter feed with those links. Some of them will probably be made into blog posts; some of them will be forgotten forever once I've added the link. If you'd like to follow along, you can do that here.

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100 things, part ten

30. I've started looking into retirement planning, on the notion that my lazziez faire approach to finances won't guarantee that I can stop working at some point in my lifetime. Turns out I like having money much more than I like thinking about money and sorting out the details.
31. The green stuff that interests me more these days is brussels sprouts. They're tasty! I've recently had them three different ways: sauteed, grilled, and baked. They were all good. Thank you, tastebuds, for being less picky as I get older.
32. According to a life expectancy calculator I just ran through, I could live until I'm 102 years old. Holy crap. That seems like overkill to me. It means I could potentially live for another 67 years, which means I'm only just over 1/3 of the way there. Hey, I might even finish my 100 things list by then. If I'm still blogging at that point, I bet this will seem like such a quaint, old-school piece of the web, while all the kids are streaming their whole lives in 3D or whatever they get up to. Weird.

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I am excited about books

Books are such excellent companions that I frequently enjoy them more than people (not you, of course; you're perfect). Over the past few years, I haven't been reading as steadily as I used to. Prior to that, I was always in the middle of a book. As soon as I finished one, I'd wait an hour or sometimes a day or two to let it process and pick up another. Lately, it's been less regular than that. I read in spurts: three books one week, and then nothing for almost a month, which makes me feel unsettled and kind of antsy.

The past couple of weeks, however, life has slowed down enough that I'm able to dive back into books wholeheartedly. So of course I've gone overboard, but I'm just passionate about this reading thing, and am excessively pleased with the books on my to-be-read shelf (OK, to-be-read bookcase, but who's counting?)

Consider these to be a few of my resolutions for the new year:

• The Kingdom of Ohio, by Matthew Flaming
  I'm pretty biased toward liking this book because Matthew is a friend and former co-worker of mine. A little more than six years ago, Matthew and I started work the same week in a seedy office in Portland's Hollywood district. We sat about four feet from each other, coding away, until he left a year or a year and a half later. Anyhow, he's pretty rad and I'm very excited about his debut novel. Plus, I have a signed first edition. Kick ass!
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  This is on loan from my clumsy friend. She's got good taste in books, so one that makes her tear up when the author describes how it is to love books, well, I've just got to read that.
• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
  I love Jasper Fforde, and not just because his last name starts with the same consonant twice (but, seriously, how cool is that?) The Thursday Next series was so incredibly delightful, I can't wait to dive into his latest novel.
• Good Poems, collected and introduced by Garrison Keillor
  In the writing workshop I took last Fall, we read several poems, which reminded me that I hardly ever read poetry these days, unless Dale posts some on his blog. My sister gave me this book for Christmas, and I love it! It's so nice when I have five or ten minutes between other things and I can sit down with a poem. For me, a good poem is one that is like reading a picture on a postcard.
• Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory by Roy Blount Jr.
  This was also a Christmas present, from Ransom's parents. As I read the full title on Christmas morning, my excitement grew and grew. Isn't that a wonderful title? This promises to be a lot of fun to read, but as it's structured more like a dictionary, possibly not all in one sitting.
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  I only discovered a few years ago that I really enjoy Charles Dickens. My junior year of high school, I was convinced that I didn't like Dickens by a dreadful combination my own bad attitude, A Tale of Two Cities, and a teacher with whom I would later argue about her grading system moments before she had an aneurysm. (Incidentally, I was prompted to read Dickens again because because Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was a character in the second of the Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde.)
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  I'd like to see the movie, but won't until I've read the book.
• Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell
  Another book I picked up so that I can watch the movie in good conscience. I heard the movie was good, bought the book, and then read that only half of the movie was good. It'll be interesting to see if I'm still interested in the movie after I've read the book (I suspect I will).
• McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland by Pete McCarthy
  I picked this up for Jesse and I to read together. It looks fun, and combines two topics that interest us both: travel and beer. Sounds like the perfect bedtime story to me!
• The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
  This has been sitting unread on my bookcase for a woefully long time, and I have no idea why I haven't read it yet. I clearly purchased it in the midst of some flurry of activity and then promptly forgot it. It's on the list now, though. It will be read. Sarah Vowell is awesome.
• There are also two books I would like to read for work: Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by David H. Pink. I have the first one, and read a preview of the other on my Kindle; they're both pretty good. I won't make any promises about reading these this year, though. My reading time is so wonderfully not work, I frequently have a hard time merging them.

I could go on, but this post is getting long, the day is nearly over, and I'm more excited to find out what happens with Peter Force and Cheri-Anne Toledo in the book I'm reading (hint: it's the first one on the list).

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100 things, part nine

27. One of my favorite things about the holidays is the whole walnuts, pecans, almonds, and hazlenuts you can buy at the store. (Luckily, Jesse likes the Brazil nuts.) They're so yummy, not to mention fun to crack.
28. Grocery stores are like some kind of strange vortex for me. I frequently avoid them, but at times that's not possible, or I can't think of anything else to do. The thing is, I don't even know what happens in there. I'll be reading the label on a can, or looking around at all the stuff on the shelves (there's so much stuff!) and the next thing I know, I've been shuffling through the aisles like a zombie for three hours and I've got six things in my cart.
29. There's something kind of nice about a fresh new year, even though it's still on a continuum with the previous days. For instance, the same things I didn't have done at work on December 31 are still not done, and I'll still have to do them, but for some reason, the ticking of a clock from one second to the next brings with it this crazy hopefulness that everything will be better in the new year. This year brings ten times the hope--a whole new decade to wish upon! Anyhow, 2009 seemed to be a pretty bummer year for a lot of people, so here's hoping that the '10s are the raddest yet. For everybody.

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Time

I am intrigued by the notion of time. We hear a lot about it and certainly pay a lot of attention to it. Time is relative. Time heals all wounds. Love in the Time of Cholera. What time is it?

In high school Spanish, I learned that while Americans run late, Spaniards walk late and their watches walk on time or not. Yo anduvo tarde. (Although looking up the verb andar, I see that it can mean "to go" as well as "to walk." Nonetheless, "I'm going late" vs. "I'm running late" still has a different feel to it.)

A few years ago, I did a project involving time zones for work, and found out all sorts of interesting things. In the US, every state observes Daylight Savings Time, except Hawaii and Arizona, except for the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Time zones the world over are full of exceptions. Check out Indiana. In 2005, several Indiana counties moved to Central Time; the rest of them are on Eastern Time. I heard reports that some people who lived on the border of those counties had trouble when suddenly the place they worked and the school their kids went to were in different time zones. That's just nuts.

What I love most about time zones is the thought of people arguing about what time it is. Imagine politicians and farmers and whoever else passionately debating about how we should all set our clocks. It's pretty absurd to have a strong opinion about something as intangible as what time it is (or should be) right now. On the other hand, it's entirely practical. The combination makes me giggle.

I was reminded of all this today by my friend Nancy. She wrote an article about time, a subject she enjoys even more than I do. Nancy has traveled and lived in Africa, which came as a shock to her after growing up in New York City. It's a good read; I recommend it. Oh, and as a bonus for you Linux users out there, the article includes a definition of the word "Ubuntu."

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Because the world needs more pictures of Theo

When I clicked "buy" to send off a chunk of money in trade for a new laptop, I justified it by telling myself I am a programmer and my five-year-old laptop is slow and outdated. I need a new laptop, I thought. Professional pride demands it.

It's too soon to tell exactly how I will end up using the new machine, since I just got it on Friday. I was sick on Saturday, so I spent the day watching TV shows on Hulu. I can't say my old laptop didn't handle that with aplomb. However, one thing it didn't have was an integrated camera, with which I can take photos of my cat, who tends to be on my lap when I compute. His head is currently on my wrist, bobbing up and down as I reach for keys that cause my right hand to shift. Obviously, the thing that has been lacking in my life was enough ways to take pictures of my cat. Goodbye buyer's remorse, hello Theo cam.

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Write Around Portland

I just finished a writing workshop through Write Around Portland. Write Around Portland is a non-profit that aims to help people find their voices when they might not otherwise have an outlet to do so. From their website:

"Our traditional workshops are held in partnership with social service agencies. They are offered at no charge to people living with HIV/AIDS, veterans, survivors of domestic violence, adults and youth in addiction recovery, low income seniors, people in prison, homeless youth and others who may not have access to writing in community because of income, isolation or other barriers."

They also offer a paid workshop that helps raise funds to support their traditional workshops, which made me very happy. One of the things I loved about this workshop was the the fact that I didn't have to do anything to prepare for it. Every Monday, I showed up at Powell's with a pen and my notebook. We would all gather around a table in a Powell's conference room, back where books are held or sorted and employees quietly do their jobs. Usually, a man out on the street played the violin and the sounds drifted up to our little room where we thought up things to write while munching on Goldfish crackers and apple slices.

We would all wander in, sit down, and be given two prompts. We could either use one of those prompts, both of them, or nothing at all. The goal was to write freely for eight minutes or ten minutes, or however long the moderator chose. Then we would read aloud, receive feedback (all positive, since these were not finished pieces), and start over. Usually, we got through three or four short pieces a night.

Here's a very short one I wrote. I was quite glad when the time for writing was over because I had no idea what I was going to write next. The two prompts were "shame," and "the edge of a cliff."

Cliff felt no shame. Why should he? He was merely going about his business. So what if some lady ran into him with her shopping cart? How could Cliff help that?

The six-cart pile-up that ensued required cleanup on aisle ten. In fact, aisle ten was temporarily closed. Shoppers were forced to detour, and nobody would be able to fill their baskets with condiments, pre-packaged nuts, or canned fish for at least twenty minutes.

Other shoppers glared at Cliff as they blocked the aisles, grumbling about the inconvenience.

"I hope you're happy," one woman said to Cliff.

"I'm just glad nobody was seriously hurt," said another.

Cliff shrugged as he stooped his large frame to retrieve the groceries from his basket, which had spilled around his feet. The mayonnaise jar was cracked.

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