gaining family, losing tradition
spent half of the day yesterday and all of the day today with meredith_mccraw's fiancé Mark's family. this is the first non-nuclear mccraw-family xmas (except for kim delaying it slightly 8 years ago) in a very long time, like, since the 1980's. i wasn't sure how i felt about it beforehand, and afterwards, i just feel drained--i don't mind Mark's family but sitting around chatting for 6 + 12 hours was kind of too much. actually would have been fine with it on another day i guess, but it just wasn't quite as relaxing as i like xmas to be--no time for scrabble and napping, and i escaped to the bathroom to take a shower after dinner just to get some alone time.

i think we probably won't do double-family xmas again after the marriage--it was a pain for them to travel down here (from NYC and pittsburgh) and this was kinda a pre-marriage meetup anyhow. i wonder if this, though, is the end of our traditional xmases...which would be ok with me, because i am increasingly sour on the air travel. i love getting together with the whole family but as meredith_mccraw begins the childbearing, it's all going to change anyway so...yeah.

i guess i'm pretty blessed to have a family that i love both unconditionally but also practically, so maybe i should be sadder than i am. but i'm sure i'll still see plenty of everyone, somehow. just maybe not twice a year (thanksgiving/xmas) every year from now on. and maybe they'll come to me more, since they obviously don't mind travelling for the most part. so you know, maybe it's not antitradition but time for a new tradition of vegging out or volunteering at a soup kitchen or going skinny dipping. yeah. i'll work on that =)

in the meantime, i am very thankful for getting quality time with my quality family. i hope you got something you wanted for xmas--i have all of you and got a few nifty presents to boot. can't wait to give dark_knightly present #2 and casadedoom theirs. that's all the presents i bought this year (save for secret santa), and i'm good with that. yay less materialism & more spirit =)

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Goddamn
Being a Charger fan has been painful for nearly 30 years. Which is why I'm a bit cautious at the moment. But damn. The Titans really *needed* today. The Chargers didn't. And they looked damn good anyway. That was one helluva win.

I really do think this is a team that could go all the way. In typical Charger fashion, I think the biggest adversary they face at this point is none other than the Chargers. Same as it ever was.

Still. Go bolts.

/me cringes in anticipation of the evils soon to come...

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3rd tier – love and belonging
from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/3rd-tier-love-and-belonging/2009/12/25/

Short post today… for Mazlow’s Hierarchy of needs

I have one level covered! and that is love and belonging… I think my family and friends is the main thing that keeps me grounded and sane. I never question that I am loved…

Thank you!

The C Programming Language, by Brian W Kernighan & Dennis M Ritchie & HP Lovecraft

Exercise 4-13. Write a function reverse(s) which reverses the string s by turning the mind inside out, converting madness into reality and opening the door to allow the Old Ones to creep forth once more from their sunken crypt beyond time.

Current Music: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour -- The Golden Age

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State of the Marek

( Executive summary: better )

---

After Amy and I left the hospital, we went for a walk in Meyers Park, basically "right next door", at Stella's suggestion. She also said there was a little pony... thingy ("farm" sounds wrong) where you could ride ponies for a small fee.

We saw two girls in riding boots ahead of us and figured they might know where it was, and it was just up the path a bit. And theoretically they were closed on Christmas Day, but they were doing a few rides anyway, subject to the number of volunteers present. So Amy got to ride once around the place on a pony, and was happy as could be about that. Afterwards, we looked at the horses and ponies stabled there.

Then we ate dinner at KFC, and finally came back home.

---

Unrelatedly, when I connected my satnav to the PC with the USB cable and visited the "My Garmin" Dashboard, it said there was a new firmware revision available. I told it to update, but at about 40%, the Internet connection apparently cut out—at any rate, the progress bar stalled at that position, and shortly afterwards, I got an AIM system message telling me I was signed in at two locations, which typically happens when the Internet connection drops and gets reestablished, especially when it's due to the router rebooting itself.

Now I hope the device isn't completely broken; when I clicked "Cancel", it warned that this may leave my device inoperable. It did act a bit strange after I disconnected and reconnected the USB cable (the display lit up and the battery level meter went away, which makes sense since it was charging and connected to an external power source, but normally it switches to external storage mode when you connect a USB cable and you can't interact with it any more), but eventually switched to storage mode. So... acting slightly weird, but I hope it's still basically OK. *knocks on wood.*

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Speaking at PSUT in Amman, Jordan
The nice people from the Jordanian chapter of the IEEE gave me this award after my two hour marathon talk. They were really nice and I suggest visiting the IEEE chapter in Amman.

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Doing Hos is Hard Work
Etch-a-Sketch doesn't involve much hill climbing. GPS-a-Sketch in San Francisco does, however:


Merry Christmas from me and whatever_art to you!

*
In other news: not going anywhere for Christmas. Staying in San Francisco, hosting a 10 person orphan dinner. But then going to the Caribbean on a 7 night cruise over New Year's with parents, Sierra, my brother Cole and his girlfriend. Should be fun. :)

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o/

11:06 < monsted>  _________________
11:06 < monsted> < Merry Christmas >
11:06 < monsted>  -----------------
11:06 < monsted>         \   ^__^
11:06 < monsted>          \  (oo)\_______
11:06 < monsted>             (__)\       )\/\
11:06 < monsted>                 ||----w |
11:06 < monsted>                 ||     ||

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Scratchbot Sees With Its Whiskers

Current Music: Public Enemy -- Terminator X Speaks With His Hands

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Christmas Eve

Stella had arranged for Amy and me to spend Christmas Eve with the Gerulats.

Viola and the Elders were also there.

First, we had some biscuits and tea, then we went over to the living room where we read the "Christmas Story" (read by Luca; Bettina said that at her age, she had difficulty reading the small print in the subdued lighting) and sang some songs.

Then it was time for the presents. So that Amy wouldn't be without any, Stella had wrapped up a doll and some clothing for her and put it in the boot of the car, and earlier on I took Amy on a tour of the house while Peter fetched the presents from the car and placed them underneath the tree.

So Amy was quite surprised when she got something, too—and not just from us, but also a Kinder Egg and some lollipops from the Gerulats (and I got a book from them).

The big present of the evening was a Wii, which they then spent a bit of time setting up, after which everyone got to make a Mii.

Then it was time for dinner. There were lots and lots of different things on the table: a delicious combination. And even if you only tasted a bit of each dish, you would have been full, I think. Stella joined us just before dinner, I think.

Soon after dinner, around nine o'clock, I decided to go home: just before dessert started, but it was late and I was full and Amy was tired.

So we drove home and put Amy to bed, and now that she's sleeping, Stella is wrapping presents and basically preparing for our Christmas tomorrow morning.

I had a good time there and I'm glad Stella arranged for us to be there. And Bettina said she wouldn't mind if we joined them next year, too. So we shall have to see about that :)

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failure and success
i look out the train window and see only a single car in the graveyard and one guy standing nearby, staring at the ground, holding a bouquet and holding himself, a still life with far more stillness than life. and i get to re-reflect on how lucky i am--nearly all of my loved ones are still with me. friends, i've lost one in my life. relatives, i've lost only the ones i don't know very well (and i am blessed with more friends and more family than the average fool..) i guess you can't be lucky forever, statistics say that my friends circle has gone too long--we're way ahead of the MTBF curve, but i'll keep hoping that shit doesn't happen. success!

inbox 172 is the best it's looked for months ande a hundred smaller than when i started working on it two hours ago, but all of those 172 deserve action, further thought, and likely some reply (some from as far in the past as 2 years ago :/). it probably speaks to something about my involvement in LJ that over a hundred of those (mostly older ones) are LJ comment threads to which i intended to reply to with some depth. i count this as a failure, but hey, i can fix it anytime, right? i can stop drinking anytime, too...


serendipity in austin meetups has been intense. i've seen a lot of folks i came to see--chicafantasma, jessimonsta, shaynabelle, missingwatch, rondanskin, meredith_mccraw and junkmenudo_rss was my first 36 hours or so, and the serendipity was finding that a long-known and little-chatted acquaintance is growing an orchard--so i stopped by with jeff between a couple of social obligations and found some encouragement for doing this whole tree-growing thing on the cheap and easy--just try a lot and stick with what works. hopefully toasthaste will help me formulate a slightly more in-depth plan.

additionally i got a bonus meeting with xomox and shubbe while i was wandering around campus killing some time. it's always great to see them even if our paths are so-far separated for the most part these days!

thenn there was some dinner with green_pheasant and missing of linearb who was scheduled to be there with us, but we caught up with him later on, so at least there's that! then what was one of my favorite events of the whole trip, a couple of hours of heart-to-heart talking with my old writing group (incl audissius, deannaroy, and signor_ferrari, capped off nicely at sheilagh's solstice festivities where i got an hour of the squeak and xacat show (plus of course sheilagh and others i never managed to connect with in my post-silverchat days, like litch). tuesday was a lot calmer until the evening, which featured a highly nonsuck happy hour with the old (what, 10 years now, bermanism?) DRK101 crew, in which we roped in sheilanova plus some others who are always great to see and get drunk with...

weds was largely friends older than LJ (i met gavino, scott, and jeff in 1994. holy crap.), relaxing and eating everything i'd so far missed (barbecue and blue bell for the win!) before a nice relaxed evening with chicafantasma. we dined on breakfast tacos this morning and realized my credit card had been left at the bbq place, and then i got on the train anyway, cos it was leaving. ohwell. stage 2 of xmas trip, with $5 in my pocket and nothing more. we'll see how this goes!

next time i should make a conscious effort to meet up with more of my rarely-seen friends whom i miss a lot--bigreddot, bikers_are_hot, neutron, mr_skullhead and the GYMO crowd, plus the nucleartacos crowd, and more. fortunately next time is soon--see you folks in march, i hope!

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Christmas 2009 Food Log
This post is a note to myself about food for Christmas 2009.

Day 1: salt-baked roast chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts. 3 trips to the grocery store. also, best drop biscuits.

Day 2: sliced-potato leftover chicken frittata with Gruyere. (almost a spanish Tortilla but I decided the tortilla wasn't going to be big enough, so added chicken and leftover potato.)

Day 3: shopping. aged gouda. lunch, potato with parsley, and giant raviolum, a Swabian specialty. Dead Like Me S01E01. Vinaigrette green salad involving cloud of parmesan.

Day 4: vegetarian dinner, "the Melissa": beet, zucchini, quinoa, sautéed almonds and garlic chips with a roasted red pepper, tomatoes, and mozzarella. Dead Like Me S01E02.

Day 5: 4-egg French omelette with leftovers from before. Long walk. Watched Avatar.

Day 6: breakfast: potato salad with apples. No-knead bread, baked salmon, potato and celery root puree. Bread with 75% hydration, 2% salt, 1/3 inch live yeast, 600g 1050 flour rose overnight and baked in Romertopf. Crumb not open enough, insufficient ovenspring. Will try lower temperature for longer time, deeper slashing, longer bench rest. Anise, Fennel, etc seeds requested for subsequent loaf.

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I keep thinking the bottom of the barrel has been breached, but no, there's always more.

Slumming on lolfbmoments.com:

• "Ladies and Gentlemen... my sister is a whore."
• "Werewolf."
• "Thundercats."
• "Sunglasses."

Current Music: The Coathangers -- Dont Touch My Shit

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tweetledee or tweetledum?

• 20:31 ah ha! @ralovely I get it the free ride is over time to pay the pied piper! google storage at $5 a yr #
• 09:14 .@webmink exactly shareware doesn't have to be closed. needs to focus on being EASY and convenient #
• 09:21 RT @opengovnews: #gov20 DorobekInsider: Government 2.0 from down under url4.eu/yKVk (see privacy vs transparency sections) #
• 09:28 RT @t nice @Google blog post on "The meaning of open" tr.im/googopen (ht @umairh) - now how about opening it up for comments? #
• 10:09 RT @JPbarlow Anything that does
  not nurture its surrounding ecosystem will eventually be destroyed by it. - Deepak Chopra #
• 10:13 so this commitment of a blog post a day for 30 days on happiness is already worthwhile - even if it just ends up being public navel gazing #

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LiveJournal Major Notes: Get your holiday fix!

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

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Tweaks

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Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

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Positive Psychology – navel gazing
from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/positive-psychology-navel-gazing/2009/12/23/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology#Learned_optimism

ah HA!  what I want to do has a name!

“Learned optimism

Learned optimism is the habit of attributing one’s failures to causes that are external (not personal), variable (not permanent), and specific (limited to a specific situation). For example, an optimistic person attributes his/her failures to external causes (the environment or other people), to variable causes which are not likely to happen again, and to specific causes that will not affect his/her success in other endeavors.

This explanatory style is associated with better performances (academic, athletic, or work productivity), greater satisfaction in interpersonal relationships, better coping, less vulnerability to depression, and better physical health.^[16]“

though um but some factors are internal or “personal”… I just have to remember most of the internal portions can be fixed w introspection and acknowledgment.  I find most things I can fix simply thru introspection and figuring out the causes.  The ones I find to be more challenging are HABITS.  Things I do even when I don’t want to.  For example, when I was a child I bit my nails til they bled.  Now I have conquered that habit (still bite inside of my cheek though…)  And I am typically good at wiping things out in their entirety.

It is difficult though because I have a habit which in many ways is good – questioning myself and my motives.  But this habit of self observation can easily turn against me. I do listen and consider every criticism I receive – even when I don’t want to.  It makes the public life I live a bit difficult at times   I do try to focus on the not “permanent” part and the”specific” part on learned optimism.  I think though one piece to help with the “personal” part is to remember it is impossible for me to always understand THE OTHERS perspective.  I mean it is tough enough to understand my own.  TO understand someone else’s means to address at least two layers of filter.

hmm maybe the idea of something not being “personal” isn’t so far off afterall…  when you consider the faulty data.

So perhaps i will resolve to ignore certain types of critiques until I notice at least several different types of people making a similar comment. I think that will also make me happier.

after all – you never know when you look like someone’s exgirlfriend…

ponder…

what is happiness? safety perhaps?
from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/what-is-happiness/2009/12/23/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

says

“Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.^[1] A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.”

But I think what struck me most was dictionary.com had

“Antonyms:
1. misery.”

and that was it… just misery… i couldn’t help but think of so many others that might fit…

but realized I was getting distracted.  So again went back to the concept of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs…  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
I realized how much I associate happiness with fulfillment on all those levels.

From

1. Physiological – like loving Austin and the house I live in and the food I eat
2. Safety -mmmm most of my resources here are actually based on the higher levels
3. Belonging – my varied social networks, my family – very happy here!
4. Esteem – Being asked to present at an event, wearing an outfit I created/invented
5. Self Actualization – my work, thinktanks

While writing this post, I realized these happiness posts are becoming experiments in thinking out loud – unlike my normal posts.  For example, this post makes me realize the obvious.  The reason I want a normal job is because the main aspect lacking in my life right now is “Safety.”  Contracting doesn’t cut it for me because right now most of my “Safety” is created on the other levels’ resources.

I think I like this 30 day writing process – vulnerable as it is.

Epic win
New World Metro. Getting some OJ, perusing the beers on the way out, and I find Monty Python's Holy Grail. That's a win all by itself (yeah, it's prolly crap beer, but I'm a python fan boy, so sue me). But it gets better.

They carded me. Me! Aging old metalhead, I'll be 40 in a month. NZ drinking age is 18 (though the policy admittedly is often carding anybody who looks less than 25). I don't think I've been carded for at least 5 years, maybe even a decade. Ok, yeah, the guy who did it must be on some serious crack to think I look 25, but still. Win! The old geezer has some juice in 'im yet! :)

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Christmas Doom from the Many-Angled Ones.

Overtime by Charles Stross.

Current Music: A Place to Bury Strangers -- Keep Slipping Away

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tweetledee or tweetledum?

• 15:25 wow a social network that has managed to lure me in again @plancast a good way to share calendar events #
• 15:50 @cdixon hey your links are broken on your blog "link to full post" take me to different post... #
• 16:22 awesome @BUNCH enjoying your blog as well! let me know when you do the post on personas! #
• 19:21 anyone else notice that google is no longer expanding storage for gmail? I am at 75% ! I need another backup option.... #

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How to use Facebook with a feed reader

I almost never actually visit the Facebook web site: I follow it through a feed reader (in my case, NetNewsWire) along with all of my other feeds.

Besides the obvious benefits to this, one great side effect is that you never, ever see the output of applications (e.g., quiz results) or the other useless noise like "so-and-so is now friends with someone else you already know". The only drawback I've found is that you also don't see notifications about photos that your friends have uploaded. (You do see links that they post, however: just not Facebook-hosted photos. It's a bizarre omission.)

Anyway, I just had to explain to someone how to accomplish this feat, which made me realize how completely non-obvious Facebook has made this. Finding these feeds is a complete pain in the ass. They've really gone out of their way to hide the URLs you need to use.

So. You have to subscribe to three or four different feeds.

1. Posts: Find the Posts feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/posted.php. On the upper right of the page is a gray box, and at the bottom of that box is a link entitled "My Friends' Links" with the RSS logo next to it. Copy that URL. Subscribe to it in your feed reader. This is the RSS URL for any links and (external) images that your friends post.

2. Notes: Find the Notes feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/notes.php and repeating the above. This is the RSS URL for things that your friends post via the "Notes" app, which is (I guess) the more blog-like way of posting long things to Facebook.

3. Notifications: Find the Notifications feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php and repeating the above. This is the RSS URL for things like "so-and-so commented on your status". You might not care to subscribe to this one because you can get all of these kind of notifications in email.

4. Status Updates: This is the RSS URL for the "What are you doing?" Twitter-like part of Facebook. This is the one you probably care about, and it is trickier, because Facebook no longer links to the feed URL! Nice one guys. You have to construct this URL by editing one of the above URLs. E.g., take the "Notes" URL and change the part of the URL that says "friends_notes" to "friends_status". Keep the parts of the URL before and after that, including the magic numbers at the end.

There. Wasn't that SIMPLE?

Previously: How to use Livejournal with a feed reader.

Current Music: The Coathangers -- Bury Me

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Marek not doing so well

( Cut for those who don't want to read every little update about his situation )

---

In unrelated news, Amy and I went out to a "Schweinske" restaurant in Harburg today. We arrived just a bit too late to take advantage of their noon meal deals, so I had a "Schweini" meal (the "Schweini" is their version of a hamburger: a slab of "Kasseler" style pork in a bread roll with some special sauce), and Amy had spag bol. Though she mostly ate the fresh bread rolls and less of the spaghetti. Also, she wanted a high chair but she's really growing too big for them: she had a hard time fitting her shoes through it while getting in and out.

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Happy Solstice

Happy Solstice, everyone!

I'm glad that the days here in the northern hemisphere will start getting longer again, now.

(Future-dated to the minute of the solstice since I'd probably forget to post this evening. Edit: Back-dated since I actually forgot it and posted it the next day, thinking it was that day!)

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German joke - Deutsches Wortspiel

Als wir bei Ireens und Emilys Geburtstag waren, hat Ireen einen Witz erzählt, den ich so genial fand, dass ich ihn hier aufschreiben wollte.

Was lebt am Strand und spricht undeutlich?

( Ein Seestern mit Sprachfehler? Ein Krebs mit Essen im Mund? )

Herrlich!

Current Mood: amused

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