Wil Shipley is a bright guy with a blog. He has many funny things to say about the rest of the world too … but mostly I’m a reader for his insights into software development.
Mostly, he seems to agree with my own preconceived notions … but he says them better and from a more experienced background … so I like to read his stuff.
I really want to go to this:
July 10-15, 2008 His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will give an historic six-day teaching on
The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lam Rim Chen Mo), Tsong-kha-pa’s masterpiece on the stages of spiritual evolution. It will be the most extensive teaching of this text that His Holiness has presented in North America.
It’s in Bethlehem, PA. That’s a good use of a week’s vacation, right?
— UPDATE —
Tickets purchased: We’re in row 30, on the aisle, for the whole 6 day teaching.
— UPDATED UPDATE —
Of course, now I need to try to make my way through that particular treatise prior to the teaching:
His Holiness has stated that he greatly appreciates when attendees come to his teachings having prepared ahead of time by reading the text from which he will teach.
I just printed out three pieces of dead tree, put them in envelopes, and sent them to Washington.
I got back from my class at about 1 in the morning on Saturday. Thanks to redmed for picking me up at the airport.
Went to check out mattresses at the furniture store new the new apartment. Mattresses are EXPENSIVE. Anyone have any thoughts on what a reasonable human who wants to sleep really well would purchase? Hammock? Bedroll? $7,000 mattress with two remote controls?
We also scoped the new apartment and decided that several other pieces of furniture are not needed. We’ll probably be donating the couches, a window mount air conditioner, and a few other things. If you want something that I have … speak up. If we actually don’t want it, redmed gets veto rights on this sort of thing), we can work something out.
Hung out with Dan in the evening. Word to the wise: Do NOT see “Dragon Wars.” It’s like, in the bottom three worst movies that I’ve seen in my whole life. Not “good” bad … but “bad,” bad.
Went apple picking with myfanwy and friends today. What fun! Meanwhile, my realtor had an open house at my place. Apparently, three people showed up. How bad does the market suck right now? Do I really need to consider paying someone to manage this house as a rental property?
Gah.
We plan to use the standard cat relocation protocol for the move next weekend. The cats will be calmly (ha!) placed in their carriers and driven (MROW! MRRRRROW! MAAAAAU! Mau? MRROOOWWWWW!) to the apartment. They will then be placed in the guest bedroom (MAAAAAU!) with sufficient food, water, and litterbox access for a few days. This way they’ll be introduced to a single room, and they won’t have to endure the terror of men with boots taking all the piece parts of “home” away.
I, on the other hand, will not be so lucky.
I would prefer a similar protocol for myself. Just surprise me, stuff me in a car, and stick me in a room in the new place. Leave me the playstation, a pizza, and a six pack. Come get me when it’s over.
I posted a long time ago about the karate demonstration that my school held in support of the tomorrow fund, to help out families of kids with cancer. Dan made a video of the event, and pushed it up to YouTube:
If you watch until 5:58, you can see me.
Things are going great out here at class. At the end of the day, I’m consistently too mentally fried to do more than watch a dumb kung-fu flick and go to bed. The instructor hangs out in the lab until 9 or so in the evening, and some people seem to be working on pet projects … but simply absorbing the course material leaves me in a state where I read my comics and fall asleep.
Immersive training is the way to go. We’re way out in the woods here, with no distractions. We go from 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening, with breaks for lunch and a walk. I grab a quick “sit” out by the pond, or I walk the labyrinth … and then it’s back to it. We’ve made our way through a 450 page technical book, doing 30 chapters worth of exercises. I’m totally confident that I’ve got the grounding to build a small to mid-sized application for OS X … plus a detailed understanding of what’s hard vs. easy for the large stuff.
The attendees are also awesome. I’m accustomed to sneering a little bit at technical training, because of the propensity of people to go “because my boss made me.” There are none of those deadheads here. Instead, there are several guys who have decided to change their lives … and they’re spending thousands of dollars to come out and get the tools to make their dreams of being a software developer come true. It’s actually inspiring.
Next week, back to reality – to the move – to the day to day of stuff. But for now I’m going to sleep in this huge-ass bed and then wake up and learn some more awesome stuff tomorrow.
P.s: technolope: I want to hang with you and see how much visualization we can fit on my laptop in, like, three hours of hacking. You would not *believe* the libraries that Apple just gives away on these things.
Consider that there is no way to happiness.
Rather, it is happiness itself that is the way.
Change your thoughts, Change your life – Wayne Dyer
Just watched “Azumi.” The question you have to ask yourself before watching this film is “do I like swords?” If you like swords more than you like reality, drama, acting, or any notion of realism … you’ll like this movie. If not, not so much.
What? Me?
I like swords a lot.
In other news, my home for the week is *way* off the grid. We have walking trails up to 5 miles in length, serious luxury accommodations in old school farmhouses, waterfalls, and a T1 connection.
I plan to get up early and get some quality meditation time in.