Archive for the Travel Category

Posted on Travel

Whew 2020 was a busy year!

And I didn’t post a single time during it. But it wasn’t because nothing happened—things happened! So many things that I didn’t feel comfortable setting aside the time to stop and blog.

I got back from a month in Europe, which was really cool and, it turns out, convenient. Europe is neat, and I lucked out in a lot of ways. Traveling is fun, but the actual process of traveling itself is kind of grueling, especially when you’re tall. I haven’t really left my apartment in almost a year now, and I’ve found that I don’t really mind it. But maybe that’s just because I’ve been too busy to really notice.

As loyal readers (hey, that’s me!) will surely know, I do computer programming, and in 2020 I was successfully lured into accepting a job – I’m an employee for the first time in twelve years – and it’s been interesting and strange. To think that this is what it’s like for people, getting paid on a set and immobile schedule.

My Snapmaker 2.0 arrived, and it is awesome. I’ve used it to 3D print some things, and done some CNCing. I haven’t tested the laser cutter yet.

As you also know, I am prone to challenging myself to do ridiculous things just to see if I can, and in most cases, stubbornly following through. To that end, I wrote a terrible novel in a month. It wasn’t enjoyable, forcing myself to spew out ~1700 words a day, but it turns out doing things poorly is isn’t as difficult as you might think.

I started listening to Spout Lore, a podcast. Which makes me an official podcaster. Or a podcastee. Or a podcatcher. I don’t know how it works; whichever one listens to podcasts. I also wrote a Spout Lore fanfic, and made a new website for them. Check it out if you like cool podcasts.

I programmed the website for a neat Vodka Soda company, which had some interesting technical challenges that I’d like to break down at some point. It was designed by Sheldon Rennie, who is a cool designer that you should use if you need cool designs.

I joined a D&D game that lasted like nine months. It just ended. For the first few, after each session, I wrote out what happened from my character’s perspective. I stopped doing that somewhere around 45,000 words, but I would like to tell you a bit more about him if only so I can use it as easy reference. A new campaign is starting soon.

There’s a bunch of work stuff that I can’t really talk about, but I also got a pull request accepted into Apache Superset. Now you can do RLS (row level security) with it!

Yeah I’ve been to Edinburgh so what
Posted on Travel

Dear Diary, we are friends.

Guys I am so full of three emotions right now. But enough of that. Here is an unrelated post. It also contains no useful, technical, or interesting information.

May 18, 2008 —

I don’t remember much of the flight. There are some vague memories of cloud fields pale and blue, and then I was getting off the plane. It was 8 am and both the people I’d met so far had been friendly and even helpful. Probably because it was so early. You know how people love mornings.

I explored Hobart. Everything was closed and there was no one to bee seen. I thought this strange. Where was everyone?

And there in the distance I saw a gathering; a mass of people so dense and deep I found myself backing cautiously away.

…

It was 8:32 am and I’d decided that Hobart was a pretty sweet city. But will it still be sweet when its presumed occupants magically appear?

…

I smoked my head coming out of the internet room. It was a doorway meant for midgets.

 

Posted on Travel

Random thoughts from a far away land

I’ve often thought of winter as God’s mistake. I imagine him looking down on our little world from his throne on the moon. Sitting tall and proud, I imagine him seeing the trees lit with their red, orange, and yellow leaves and mistaking them for flame – a massive fire spanning whole hemispheres at a time.

Shocked by the result of his lapsed attention, his pride stung, he reacts. Overcompensating with cold and snow all to fight an imagined inferno.

He does this, I imagine, year after year. Never learning from his mistakes.

The snows of winter to quench the fires of autumn.

I don’t believe in a god and have never actually imagined that. I’ve imagined imagining it. Hopefully that counts?

I figured Saturday was a good time to post this, since people tend toward busy on the weekend – especially on its first day – not stuck at work like during the week, traversing the web to pass the time 😛

 

Posted on Travel

Unexpected roads

There was a time when I would walk great distances, in places unfamiliar to me, on paths or along routes I’d never taken.  The distance I could travel limited only by the decreasing length of day.  I was of the possibly mistaken mind that finding one’s way to and through places one does not know comes easier when lit.  The ability to see where you are going is most useful when you have something to recognize, but the sun surely lent warmth.

I made it my goal to always be back before dark.  To be within range of wherever I was staying.  More than once I failed.

More than once, when following trails I unexpectedly found myself at a point where the path ended and a road began.   Whether disgorged before reaching my destination, or someplace other than where I had started, it was always an unsettling experience, if not an altogether unpleasant one.  Caused, I presume, by the incongruence between where I was and where I had expected to be, in conjunction with the self-imposed time constraints.  I was always running late.

In such occasions it is difficult to say that I had no idea where I was.  I had no idea where the roads eventually led, or even that they had existed prior to their discovery, but I always had a general idea of my position in relation to my surroundings.  I knew the ocean was this way, and in which direction lay the little town I’d passed hours earlier.

Backtracking is another word for quitting; I forged ahead.

In the end I always seemed to get where I was going, and isn’t that what travel is all about?

 

An unrelated point of interest (for me, at least):  Bradicon! has produced 2233 icons in the last 3 days.