AC Capehart capehart

I’m writing this after the fact (by a couple of days) instead of as it was intended (by a couple of hours). Still interesting (to me). I’m on a vacation of sorts, in Southern Maryland, or SOMD as I’ve taken to calling it1. I decided not to bring my laptop because I had a certain confidence there would be no Internet connectivity where we were staying. My cell phone broke, so today, I’m really disconnected.

Today I was driving around south-east Baltimore along some busy-ish highway (695?) (97?) when the two lanes of traffic I was in went down to one due to construction. The signs said that the right lane was closed in 1/2 mile, merge left. I was already in the left lane, so in good shape. As other drivers heeded the warning and worked their way left, the left lane became more crowded and slower.

For those that don’t know, Google’s now offering a webmail service. The “advantage” to google’s mail is that you get a gig of storage, and you get google’s search interface to your stuff. The idea being — why bother to trash stuff or sort/organize it. Just archive it all and search for what you need. Maybe that’ll work. I dunno. But, since “gmail” is still in “beta”, it’s by invitation only.

I had written something like this earlier, but it disappeared into the ether with a 500 Error from blogger.com. What follows is a re-creation, doubtless somewhat more organized, but less impassioned than the original.) I don’t like folding laundry. And I don’t understand folding proteins. But, thanks to Folding@Home I’m now doing my part toward their goal to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases. But, it’s not the hidden-bio-geek in me that’s enjoying this.

I’d been getting a bit weary of the perpetual gray of a dusky-overcast Altoona. It snowed yesterday, and it’s sunny today. It may be freakin’ cold out, but at least it’s a much prettier view out the office window today. (There, I did it. I hate reading other people’s long blog entries. What have they got to say that can’t be said in a paragraph or two, and why would I want to read all that?

OK, I kinda meant to have complained, or at least thought (in the blog) about money, job, life etc. But that just hasn’t come up as strongly as it could have in the past few days. I’m sure one will come soon though. But today I want to rant. I guess this is kind of a rant about job because if I were in an office with other geeks, especially other linux admin/java geeks, I might just get answers to my problems instead of having to google them (with limited success.

I just finished a book by Norma Jean Almodovar entitled Cop to Call Girldescribing aspects of her two careers — first as a traffic cop with the LAPD and subsequently as a call girl. And, to a lesser extent her activism concerning the decriminalization of consensual sex laws. I borrowed it from bk partly because I’m moderately fascinated by sex work and those that do it and partly because it did seem like an unusual transition.

OK, not really much hope — hope and fear being opposite sides of the same coin. I guess I do fear that I will not continue to blog. I’ve tried journaling several times in my life, without much success. Fortunately, as there is not much hope, there is also not much fear. If I don’t continue to blog, then I’m exactly as out of touch with people as I already am.

Day 12 The moulding went down pretty quickly, the carpet edges were a bit more trouble, but I decided to use what we had rather than wait for stuff that fit better. I still have clean up to do, but I’m done. bk helped me move the sleeper sofa and the dining room table back in. I’m done. I’ve gotta clean up, but I’m done. I can’t believe it. And what’s more, I think it looks nice.

Day 11: As predicted, I needed to get up early to return the various rentals. So, I got up at 7:00 (after setting the alarm for 6:30) and made it to United Rentals out Avon Extd. with 10 minutes to spare. I dropped off the floor machine and told them what a mess I’d left the brush in. They thanked me for my honesty and said “Don’t worry about it.” I was thrilled.