among the switch heads

July 20, 2001

Today's Reading: A Conscious Stillness by Ann Zwinger and Edwin Way Teale

This Year's Reading: 2001 Book List

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Hideo Nomo

Stuck in traffic on I-495 this morning, I began to think of my car as a packet. A blocked packet. The packet never arrives. Requires retransmit. Aside from the fact that it took me an hour and half to make a 28 minute commute to work and I was late for the engineering meeting, the experience was sort of reassuring. On some level my brain is processing all the comm protocol stuff I've been reading this week. It's sinking in more than I thought. This is a big relief because I haven't had to think this much about I/O in at least 10 years. However, it's a lot like riding a bicycle. It comes back immediately.

One other thing I've discovered this week is that a great many people I've worked with over the years remember my good points and not just my flaws. At one point late in my career at Cosmodemonic Telecomm I was convince I had no good points left. I guess that comes with burnout.

Good things, large and small, work-related and unrelated, just keep on happening.

Good thing 1

People walked up to me on my first day and said "I read your book." Not only does that boost my ego, but it makes me realize that despite all the dotcom mania of the past few years, there's still hardware and operating systems and switches underneath it all. Real stuff.

Good thing 2

I ran into my cousin (first cousin once removed or second cousin - I can never keep that straight - my first cousin's son) Stephan in the little pizza shop near work. He's building kayaks at some factory nearby. Since he used to be a bike messenger, I congratulate him on having a safer occupation. It's nice yet odd to keep running into family all over the place. I guess that's what I get for never growing up. Long term readers will recall that in Massachusetts one must move to California at least temporarily to be considered a full adult. Moving to Arizona or Bosnia also counts, therefore BiB is the only official adult in my immediate family even though Kevin is the one who has actually reproduced.

Good thing 3

I bought a bonsai cypress tree. I've always wanted a pet tree, particularly a conifer. There's a bonsai place (Bonsai West) down the street from my office and after three days of passing their big 70% off banner (it really said "up to 70%" but the "up to" was in tiny letters) I stopped in at lunch time and fell in love with a $25 cypress tree (already exceedingly cheap by bonsai standards) marked down to $12. It came with detailed care instructions. Here's hoping I don't kill it.

Good thing 4

My boss and his wife hosted a reunion dinner with a former coworker who has attained fossil-like age and vigorous retirement consulting for a foreign government on how to make that tiny country into a major IT center. He was in good form as I expected. It also turns out that the fossil knows Tim Wakefield. How cool is that? Furthermore, I got to see my esteemed co-author for the first time since we finished the second edition of the Great American Driver Manual.

That list is only the tip of the "good thing" iceberg. Just being among switch heads is excellent fun. And the Red Sox are working their way back into a first place tie with the pinstriped evil ones despite being without the best pitcher in baseball (Pedro), Nomar, and their first string catcher (not to mention the fact that Derek Lowe seems to have been possessed by evil spirits). The bullpen will be tired tomorrow but Sox are in first tonight. So there.