Exploring the ZEN LIKE DETACHMENT to my life.

So,

I renewed my paid live journal account for another year. I'd like to think that eventually I will find a way to justify the cost. I've been using another blog place for more work/discipline related entries. Posting there is also sporadic, but more consistent than at Live Journal. Part of the issue is again spreading myself too thin (multiple blogs), but also not having a clear idea of what I want to accomplish with that blog.

So, among other things, the reason I'm posting today is I went to visit my uncle in the hospital this weekend. He had an aneurism almost two weeks ago. No one bothered to tell me, until I called a couple of days ago to let my parents know I was going to visit this weekend. I made as minimal a deal as minimal a deal as I could about the lack of communication. I think that this clearly illustrates where I get my challenges in being a thoughtful and proactive communicator from. (That would be my family).

We go to the hospital last night and the parking deck at Duke has the FULL sign up. My dad didn't see the less than obvious signs directing us to overflow parking so I had to try and point those out and convince him that might be the way to go. It didn't help that some jerk in a Taxi was sitting in the only unblocked-off entrance. Had he not been there we might have discovered that we actually could have gotten in, and allowed my dad to drive around hunting for a spot as he is so fond of doing.

After some frustration I managed to direct him to follow the signs, but the overflow parking involved a little too much walking for his taste, so he apparently decided visiting my uncle was unattainable at that point and proceeded to take us to dinner instead.

Now my parents know that I don't like Barbeque all that much, and by "know" I mean they have a completely inadequate understanding of the complex nature of my like-dislike relationship with pork. My dad is someone with very polar likes and dislikes, and my mom has dealt with that for so long that she has forgotten that not everyone is such a picky eater. It doesn't help that my brother too is a bit more like our dad than he likes to admit. I have been working to improve my relationship with food for a while now. I try new things unapprehensively for the most part. I liked food a little too much for a while actually. I am at the point were it is hard for me to have a true love-hate relationship with anything because that would require caring more than is neccesary, and I've learned not to do that so much these days.

I actually do like non-pork Barbeque, and in the past year I have even been known to like Eastern North Carolina style pork Barbeque if it is fixed right. My parents don't really get this concept and since communication isn't a forte in our family I am not going to even attempt to explain to them the complexity of my preference, since the preference is highly inconsequential. My mom was worried that I wouldn't want to eat where dad was taking us and I figured it would suffice to say that it was 'fine'.

So we got to this place, which is actually a highly reputable Barbecue hole-in-the-wall that many Durham, if not North Carolina natives will be very familiar with. There was a bit of a line to get in, but nothing outrageous. We sat down and I couldn't find an option on the menu that included their Barbeque with other things I wanted to eat, (I am still not fond of most North Carolina "Slaw", which is a popular side with Barbeque) which I thought would be a good way to demonstrate that I will eat Barbeque/pork to my parents. I got a different combination plate, and I will say that the food was sufficiently mediocre to put me off. Apparently my parent's dinner wasn't up to par either.

But it was edible, so I ate it.

We went back to the hospital and had better luck with parking, much better. The signs were still up, but no morons blocking the entrance. Of course, we arrived just as Duke was having their "Quiet Time" by the time we got back. I had brought my laptop to get some work done while my parents drove over and in the even there was waiting. My step-aunt was holding out pretty well. On the up-side I got nearly a full hours worth of work in and I got to scoff at the content of a "Wed Development Professional" magazine that was there in the lobby.

My uncle was doing well considering. He wasn't completely lucid, and couldn't respond to introspective questions. He did recognize people. This is where my Zen like attachment kicked in. I realized how much more I look like my dad's side of the family when I am clean shaven. Normally I attribute my appearance mostly to my mom's family. I could totally see myself in the future, laying in that hospital bed after having a stroke, or aneurism, or something similarly severe. I'm totally OK with that. It is going to happen, assuming I don't die from what sent me to the hospital to begin with.

This isn't the first time this uncle has been in the hospital. He had a heart-attack several years ago. We'll just have to see how he recovers.

Of course last night I had an odd dream, the only part I remember clearly about it was the part where I was looking at this large grid of squares. Some were empty and some were things I had done, or were things I am apparently supposed to do in my life.

For the rest of the weekend I get to try and ignore the Nascar my dad has going on the TV, and try to figure out the best way to use live journal to who knows what ends. All while I work on other things, which are progressing slowly, but well I suppose.

Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals

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So roughly a week ago I picked up Chrono Trigger DS. I had avoided getting the game for a long while for the simple reason that I had played and beaten it so many freaking times that it seemed silly to re-purchase it. But buyer's impulse + I'm-never-going-to-hook-up-my-SNES-again combined (insert Dual Tech joke here) to get me to pick it up.

It's amusing and yet also disappointing to play this game again. And ironically, it's both for the same reason: I have played and beaten this game so many times I know it near exactly by heart. So on one hand it's funny that even after all these years I still recall every strategy, every chest location, every puzzle solution. However, on the other it does take some of the enjoyment out of it. Hell, I can recall where every enemy encounter occurs.

The game does have some new content, though it does fall short a little. Easily the best part of the new content is the final boss fight that is unlocked after completing the second optional set of dungeons. It is a) surprisingly difficult compared to the rest of the new content, as even with characters in the late 60s the boss was doing significant damage (and he's fast too), and b) makes a very clear connection to Chrono Cross. Hell, Square-Enix even created some new sprites for the final boss and the scenes before and after, which is nice considering all the other "new" enemies are simply re-colors.

Overall? Well it's still Chrono Trigger. Nothing's going to cause it to be bad, that's for damn sure. The new content is mostly a "do once, never do again" type of thing, but since the replay value of CT is mostly the extra endings, that's not a big deal. Ultimately I can always have the unrealistic yet somewhat pleasant hope that this is just one more sale that might convince Square-Enix to give another thought to Chrono Break (or whatever it would be called).

This Is the New That, Everything You Know Is Wrong, Things Are Completely Different Now Because We Say So, and Other Such Popycock

Today I went to a presentation put on by two very intelligent and well meaning industry professionals, arranged by similarly intelligent and well meaning coworkers, and was completely disappointed. It is hard to say exactly when things went wrong, but sometime before Y2K hit it seems like a particularity insidious strain of nonsense took root.

Things are constantly changing. I get that, but when exactly did it become news? As I was sitting through the presentation, on Search Engine Optimization, I got an odd feeling like I knew this material. On the bus back to main campus it dawned on me that it seemed really similar to a web strategy proposal I had written for my previous employer over two years ago. None of the ideas were new, and yet these "gurus" were spouting the same things off to a reasonably captivated audience like it was leading-edge information. I twittered about it, and later when I went through my old files I found that I was right. Several of the attendees tweeted about how "interesting" it was. I don't know if I was the only cynic, but on the surface at least I think everyone else was at least putting up a good front unless they really bought it.

Given the time frames, the ideas are at least three years stale. My proposal was from 2007, and I'd started working on it in late 2006. Very few of the ideas put forth were original, they had been gleaned from more groundbreaking work which had to have been at least a year in the making when I found it. Change is not profound, let it go.

I try to not encourage my own ego too much, but if I'm that far ahead of the curve then clearly I'm in the wrong group of peers. I've been working really hard to curtail my judgmental nature lately, but there are days when I feel like I am back sliding... like when I describe a person as "being like a puppy". You know, the puppy you think you want until he chews everything up, and you realize they don't come pre-house broken. I know that I make mistakes too, but cleaning up after other people constantly is bound to make one cynical at some point. Its kind of hard to be an IT Rockstar when you're also having to be an IT Janitor.

So if you find yourself in a meeting and wonder why people are so amazed at the most obvious thing, don't feel alone. I'm sure there are times when I find things to be totally and indescribably awesome when in fact they are really nothing special. I'll just try to keep smiling when other people are impressed and not ruin it for them.

Thank you for calling. Good Bye. *click*

The state department aggravates me. I applied for a passport over a month ago, the check has cleared the bank, and yet, I still have no passport. According to all of their automated information it should take "7 to 10 business days" for the application to show up online. After about two weeks no information about my passport shows up on their website, 4 weeks later, their website is "temporarily unavailable due to routine maintenance," and has been for the past week...... Beg your pardon? A week for routine maintenance tells me that there's something else going on guys....

But of course that's not the worst part, you're instructed to call them if you don't see your passport show up after two weeks, when you call you of course get harassed by the automated system at least twice (possibly more often) to check things online (which are down), and after navigating the fun maze of menus, you get to wait about for a customer service representative. I have yet to speak to one of these alleged humans at the other end of the line; shortly after being put on hold (about 5 seconds), you are told that "all customer service representatives are busy assisting other callers, please call back at a later time." *click*

AGGGGH!!!! That's more frustrating than waiting on hold! You might as well have told me that everyone else that did manage to get through (if that's even possible) are more important than me!