“St. Louis” by Orson
February 20th, 2010
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Orson drew a picture for me today. He calls it “St. Louis” because his house in the picture. Behold…
"St. Louis" by Orson
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The Road
February 4th, 2010
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I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
Wow.
I’ve never been this moved by a written work. It’s brilliant.
This isn’t a review. This isn’t a critique. I’m not a critic; I’m just compelled to write about how it made me feel.
I just finished it last night. I started it two days ago. It’s a quick read but it’s a tough read as well. While not reading it I found myself at work thinking about it; wondering what will happen to these two nameless people, genuinely concerned for their welfare.
The Road takes place on Earth in some not so distant future. A cataclysmic event has occurred that has left presumably the entire United States-possibly the entire planet-burned and destroyed. It’s bitter cold; no sunlight penetrates the thick, black cloud cover. There are almost no people left alive. Virtually everything has been plundered. There is almost no food, there are no living plants, and there are virtually no animals left alive. The people who are left are living on borrowed time. They’re freezing and they’re starving. Some have banded together in gangs and have resorted to slavery and cannibalism.
There is a man in this story; a father. He has a son. They have no names. The boy was born just after disaster struck. We don’t know what that disaster actually was; we just see the aftermath. The man had a wife but after a number of years surviving the hellish conditions and the gangs of raping cannibals she gives up. Nothing the mans says can change her mind. She believes the right thing for them all to do is to end their own lives. She convincingly argues the case. She says she’d take the boy’s life as well if it wasn’t for the father. She walks out one night and kills herself; leaving the boy and the man behind. The father can’t give up; he’ll find a way…somehow.
They head south for the coast. It might be warmer there. Probably not, but it’s something to hope for. As they walk along the road we see the destruction, the desolation, the hellish world in which they live. They struggle to stay warm and to find food. They live in constant fear of what the father calls “the bad guys”. These are the cannibals who would “eat your child in front of you”. They talk very little; there’s just so much effort placed in simply surviving. They don’t need to talk; they’re bound by a love that transcends words.
The father is sick. He knows he’s dying. He has to hang on, to give his son hope. To protect him. And possibly to put him out of his misery if there truly is no hope. It’s his duty.
They continue walking, beating a path to the coast. Along the way they run into some danger as well as some good fortune. They finally reach the coast but it’s not any better there. The journey ends for the father but there is a slight hint of hope for the son, and that’s what kept them going all along.
I was both incredibly inspired by this story and yet emotionally destroyed by it. I’ve never read anything like it. McCarthy is able to paint the most vivid landscape I’ve ever not seen with only a few, well-crafted sentences. The desolation of the world, the direness of their situation, I was there. I swear I was right there with them. I’ve never read a book that created mood like this. I worried the whole time for their safety and these aren’t even real people. Read more…
Popularity: 10%
DeltaWalker
January 23rd, 2010
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DeltaWalker Folder Comparison Window
Before I switched from Windows to a Mac I did a lot of research. One of the things I spent a considerable amount of time on was software. Could I find Mac equivalents for most, if not all, of my Windows software? I found that I could find a Mac equivalent for almost everything, save for a couple programs. One of those programs was a little file/folder comparison and sync utility called Beyond Compare. Believe it or not, this was almost a show-stopper for me because I literally use this program every day. I bought it back in 2005 for $30 and have been using it constantly ever since. I had been certain that a comparable program for the Mac would be easy to find but it just wasn’t. (I’ll refrain from using a bad “it must really be Beyond Compare” pun.)
So I compromised with a workaround; run Beyond Compare in a virtual machine and set all non-Windows local directories up as network shares. This works, but it means that I’m still dependent on opening Windows XP every time I need to sync directories. Every three months or so I’d check back again to see if Beyond Compare had been ported to the Mac or if a comparable competing product had been released. After a year and a half, I finally found that product. Read more…
Popularity: 14%
Baby Traci Thinking of Baby Trent
January 13th, 2010
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Christmas Reindeer Euthanasia
January 5th, 2010
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I had to put a rappin’ reindeer out of its misery this Christmas. The sad reality of life and death…
Popularity: 14%
2009: Year in Review
January 4th, 2010
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So 2009 came and went and 2010 is here. Overall 2009 was a positive year for me. Thanks to Traci’s decision last year to push herself to try new things I’ve now been exposed to some new people as well. It’s been nice connecting with people of a similar nature with similar interests again.
Personally I’ve grown quite a bit in 2009. I learned how to deal with an incredibly difficult person at work and how to better handle stressful situations there. I was also able to use what I learned and apply it to my personal life as well, reducing my overall frustration level. This person has now been effectively neutralized and poses very little actual threat anymore. I also came off a successful project right at the end of 2009 that, combined with my improved skillset, will help to solidify my role and hopefully ensure my longevity.
2009 ended with me in a very different place at work and in my career. My confidence level has increased dramatically and I’ve produced some work I’m very proud of. I’m also steadily moving back toward the type of role I’d played at CPI before I left. I’ve been at my new job for two years now and it pleases me to say that it’s feeling more and more like home. My career is back on track again and I feel like I can grow where I am. I’d love to be able to spend some time here; five or six years (or more) would be great. Read more…
Popularity: 17%
What a Difference Four Years Makes
November 12th, 2009
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Traci and Orson in 2005 and 2009. Sometimes the reality of it just blows my mind.
Traci and Orson, March 2005
Traci and Orson, May 2009
Popularity: 28%
Artwork From Orson
November 8th, 2009
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Orson drew me a picture a couple weeks back. It’s a drawing of our house. He drew a line on it and had me write in my name for him. I took this one to work and put it up in my cube.
From Orson
Popularity: 27%
No Rest for the Wicked
November 5th, 2009
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So just a little background; I started working for my current employer back in December 2007. Their reporting was a mess, as were some other things, but now we’ve got a brand-new, from scratch data warehouse. Our internal team worked with an external team to build it out and it transitioned over to us officially maybe a month or so ago. Now that we’ve got it, we’re uncovering a few things that need to be fixed or re-engineered. We expected that; it was a tight deadline and we were already aware of certain areas that would required our attention once the transition occurred. Read more…
Popularity: 28%
Categories: Data Warehousing, Personal, Writing business objects, data modeling, dimension tables, erd, etl, fact tables, orson, traci, trent
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