Posted by Joel
Sun, 30 Apr 2006 17:40:33 GMT
Somehow, this has become something of an all-out burst of motivation to improve myself. As well as keeping within my diet yesterday without trouble, I completely cleaned up, organized, and decorated my room which had previously been in disarray. There were still things Michael had left in this room before he went back to Illinois.
One of those things I was able to absorb as my own: a large Mark Rothko poster. Oh yes, and I'd also managed to clean all of my clothes. Personal hygiene and cleanliness are to be new priorities.
I am excited about the prospect that I may be turning over a new leaf.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:07:00 GMT
After the interview yesterday I didn't do much worth note, besides struggle to further my ends in my project until I inevitably got distracted. But I did make a decision.
I'm going to really try to get in shape. And I mean the whole thing. I had to tell David and Katie that I wasn't going to go out to eat as much as before or drink beers every day. I realize I'm going to alter my reputation as someone that can be counted on to go out for a good time riddled with various forms of indulgent consumption into one of a health nut prude.
And after somehow announcing my intention to sacrifice and carrying through with it while they went to Magnolia, I felt more convicted to do it. I'm doing it the old fashioned way. Eating less, only eating healthy foods, and exercising with some regularity (I'm not sure if I mentioned that we did go running on Wednesday). I don't intend to "reward" myself with fatty foods or in any other way break the cycle until I'm down to my target weight.
Which isn't so much a target weight, as a target appearance, as I don't even have a scale. But I'm guessing around 150-155 pounds would be ideal. That's over 30 pounds to lose.
A lot of my inspiration comes after quitting smoking, which I was also very attached to, much like I am the out-every-night lifestyle. Still, I was able to do it, and when I did, the second I threw away my last pack of cigarettes, over six months ago now, I knew I wasn't ever going to look back and that I was just sick of it and through with it. And that's how I feel about being overweight.
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Posted by Joel
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:26:00 GMT
Yesterday I went out and bought some clothes. Then I went down to some punkish hair salon in the Castro and got a haircut. I cut it short again, so yay. Here is a picture of me looking like a dork, evidently endorsing a cup of coffee:
I'm pretty used to the long-to-short conversion by now, having done it a few times, that really I feel very comfortable with both hairstyles. It's always a relief to shed it off, though, because long hair tends to make me feel like a loser.
Some strange activity started outside while I was getting the haircut, so when it was done the stylist and other employees ran outside with me to find out what was going on out there. A couple blocks away was full of smoke and visible fire. Fire trucks were putting it out, and the whole area was blocked off by police, with people stand in the street gawking. Evidently some guy's car had blown up and taken out some other cars and property around Castro and 17th. So that was kind of crazy.
Anyway, the main motivation for this is of course being more presentable to potential employers or clients. I went to the interview today which I felt went really well. I might very well be becoming an employed real working man in a normal job. Would be a relief after the startup business, where you get paid in informal equity instead of dollars despite doing all the work.
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Posted by Joel
Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:22:00 GMT
Thoughts of work, money, and freedom have been dominating my thoughts for the last few months and some realizations were made yesterday.
The main one is regarding my project, which I feel has gotten unruly and out of hand in terms of design and expectations. It used to be a clearer, simpler idea, but as it abstracted and my vision grew more grandiose I think I may have taken on an impossible task in philosophical experimentation. As such, I may return it to its original purpose.
I lined up an interview for tomorrow, most likely for a proper job programming Rails for a pretty big company, we'll see how that goes.
We went to La Rondalla for Katie's birthday. It was an alright time. I became entranced by the thought of a life of a Mariachi player at La Rondalla. And beyond that, the middle aged woman bussing our tables. I felt like an aristocrat and it disturbed me. How stupidly lucky we are, and how little we appreciate it. I can say that and still deep down feel like I am annointed to being the way I am because I'm better than other people, ultimately due to some innate predisposition which, by definition, I can't be held responsible for. What a joke. But perhaps that core narcissism is what keeps us going.
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Posted by Joel
Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:41:00 GMT
I went to repark my car but got there too late :( I decided to remake my resume, and am now fairly satisfied with it. I applied for big jobs like Google and Apple again out of purist optimism, and then for a couple smaller ones, but we'll see if I take any, as I'm mainly looking into continuing the consulting lifestyle for now.
I spent a few hours going over design things in chats and text files for my project, but then Carl came over to help move some of Katie's stuff into the apartment. Then we all went to Magnolia and had a great time. At Magnolia I got a call from a client and ended up putting in some late night work once I got home.
Also, screw splitting up posts by category. RSSPECT is really cool. I didn't like the main premise, but the AnySite thing is really damned cool. RSSPECT is made doubly cool by the fact that it is made by the same man who makes those delightful Dinosaur Comics, one of the few comics I actually read daily.
Look! An RSS feed for Perry Bible Fellowship! And Bob the Angry Flower!
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Posted by Joel
Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:49:00 GMT
Got some Cafe Abir, watched the Sopranos, did some contract work, did some major project work and pushed my changes up for those who know where to find it.
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Posted by Joel
Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:07:00 GMT
The only thing of note for yesterday is that I went to the Maker Faire. It was truly a geeky experience. It had a few really cool gems, but besides those was merely just ok.
Interestingly, I walked a few inches from Apple co-founder and personal-computer-inventor Steve Wozniak. He was in the Segway Polo booth. I remarked to David I'd like to try riding a Segway, but once I saw the Woz I thought to myself, "is that him?" I remembered that he owned a few Segways. I was a bit struck but then I said to David, "That guy looks like Steve Wozniak," but he didn't believe me. Still, we didn't stop and say hello, or even try to ride a Segway. :(
Anyway, when I got home I looked it up and sure enough it was him. There's pictures of him on Flickr, but here's one David took at random (he had no idea he was Woz). And that was my exciting brush with celebrity.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:00:00 GMT
In the future, I think I'm going to post articles split up into various categories. That way, if you're my friend, you can read about my boring day, and if you're some guy reading a Rails blog I just inadvertantly trackbacked, you can see what I have to say without hearing what I had for breakfast. I know the true pro route is to separate personal and professional blogs (if you even have a personal blog), but isn't that what categories are for? I'm just starting to realize, though, that perhaps the "life" category shouldn't be mixed with other ones which might be of interest to outside parties. Bear with me.
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Posted by Joel
Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:29:00 GMT
Yesterday I didn't go out at all really besides to get some Eddie's. Eventually in the afternoon I did my laundry. David ordered some pizza and we had that for dinner. We were just relaxing, but then Katie got upset at us for watching the Godfather during the spousal abuse scene, which just made everyone kind of awkwardly retreat into their own thing.
So I worked on my project and I did a lot. I worked out a lot of the details of the design that had been bugging me, made some crucial decisions about what to keep and what to ditch, and got some real implementation done.
My project uses lots of bi-directional self-referential multiple associations. What that means is that it has normal trees, but they allow for multiple parents as well. Due to the complexity of some, I have some implemented as a habtm, and others implemented as a has_many :through. I was surprised to find this morning, after having implemented a has_many :through solution which worked greatly, an article about it in one of the Rails blogs I read. We had implemented it exactly the same way, too, even with the "edge_as_association" terminology. Truly a case of simultaneous discovery. And here I thought I was so smart. Oh well, at least I got to add a useful comment.
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Posted by Joel
Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:16:00 GMT
Yesterday was marked by a staggering lack of productivity. The only thing which could even slightly be considered productive is finally switching to Adium over iChat. Once you install your message style of choice it becomes quite pleasant to use. The Growl support is great, and the minimalist contact list options are nice, although I tend to hide the contact list when not in use.
Anyway... I got up late, for some reason, slept through my alarm. Didn't do much of anything. Watched the new South Park, which was kind of gross.
David told me that my living situation was going to get shaken up again. Katie is moving in since she can't find a place yet, which I don't really have a problem with. But he said that come June or later he might be planning on moving out with Katie, and he was giving me ample notice to find another roommate or other living arrangements. I can't say this really screws things up for me though as I'm so stress-free and unattached to this place at the moment.
A while later we went to Alameda to meet with some friends. Another Italian restaurant (I just had steak and a beer this time), and we went to Carl's house. He was intent on bringing us on a dive bar experience, so we ended up all driving out and going to some place called the Pop Inn.
It was definitely a miserable little bar, with a bunch of old guys and waitresses sitting on their stools laughing with one another or being sullen by themselves. Only Bud was on tap. After some initial discomfort, I began enjoying the adventure out of our demographic.
The girls complained enough so we left and went to a more appropriate bar for our age group and had an ok but unmemorable time there.
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