While I'm very disappointed with the inclusion of anti-choice language in the health care bill I will say I'm pleased we have something. It sure as hell ain't perfect but it is a hell of alot better than the status quo.

I spent the past two days trying to nail down a problem with an application called wkhtmltopdf. It's just a small app built on top of Qt that allows you to generate a PDF from a webpage. I use it in a webapp I built and it was working just ducky. Then I upgraded to OS X 10.6 and it started failing in a huge horrible way. It would just suck up lots cycles and spit out errors until I sighup'd it. It took me two days but I finally figured out the problem. Apple must have changed the way in which user nobody works under 10.6 in some weird way that prevents it from accessing the font cache. No font cache - no pdf. When I run the web server as myself it works just as I expected it to. Of course, that's really fucking dumb.

Oh, when I build the app against the Qt 4.6 beta it doesn't lock up... it just takes a hell of a long time and creates a nicely laid out pdf wherein all the text is replaced with capital As in boxes. I really do blame Apple for this.

Nice. Real nice.

EDIT: Also, Hey Apple thanks for completely horking the X11 libs and making it nearly impossible to update them to a current version forcing people to use the xquartz ports. I think I want to downgrade from 10.6

I've managed not to die for another year. :)

I don't like Michael Pollan. There, I said it!

I want to thank everyone who left a note following my announcement a few days ago. I also want to thank everyone who has been there for me over the past few months - even those just sending good thoughts my way. Its been a hard slog and I still have some crappy times ahead of me (paperwork &c.) but I have, so far, succeeded in what I set out to do - namely, not become a gibbering idiot. I owe a lot of that to all my friends and family that have been so wonderful and understanding in all of this. Thanks again, I have a lot of really amazing people in my life.

On a happier note, I'm *really* looking forward to 4 days in New Orleans. Its great city and I'm really looking forward to building some new and improved memories of that place. I'll update people when I get back. I have a slew of great restaurants that I'm planning on going to (Jaques-Imos, Cochon, Stella, etc) and what will hopefully be a great concert.

Astute observers may have noticed that my posting frequency has been significantly reduced for some months now. Some of you may have wondered about this - others of you already know why. In any case, for the sake of oversharing I thought it has come time to actually explain this prolonged absence.

On May 27 my wife of two years and companion of seven, Tricia, left me. Its a sordid tale the details of which are both tragic and utterly banal at the same time. I'll not be going into them here but will simply say that she had her reasons and, while I don't agree with them, I have no choice but to accept them. Over the past few months I've been trying to do just that. Shortly after this happened I came to realize that I don't have any control over what happens to me but I can control how I react to these events. As such, I made a conscious decision to not become "that guy". Who "that guy" was changed from hour to hour but the idea was that I wasn't going to let this destroy me. As much as I loved (and still love) my wife I had no choice but to learn to live without her. I wouldn't, and couldn't, let this wreck any more of my life than it already had. So I've spent the past few months focusing on maintaining my performance at work, spending more time with my friends, keeping my house together, and not letting the little things slip. Stupid things like making my bed everyday, keeping the clothes from piling up, making sure the cats were fed and the boxes cleaned, became focal points that helped me impose some structure on the shit storm that was swirling around me.

It has mostly worked. I'm not 'over' Tricia. I still miss her and I accept that I will for a very long time. She was an important part of my life and someone that I care about very much. I can't just turn off those feelings of love and affection like a light switch. In fact, I don't know if I ever want to turn them off. I want to reshape these feelings into something healthier and positive rather than let it become a festering wound. I've had enough of that in my life and I don't really need anymore.

I will say that I am still angry. Not to the point of being mean or vindictive and not to the point where it's ruling my life. Its just something that is there (albeit fading as time passes). While this was traumatic, Tricia didn't act with any sort of malicious intent. This is just what she felt she needed to do and I've always encouraged her to do what she thought was right for her. Bravo for life's little ironies. Anyway, I'm not generalizing what happened to anyone else either. I'm not going to be cynical about all women, people, or relationships because of what happened with one woman in one relationship. That's just a kind of crazy I don't want to subscribe to.

In the meantime I've been social, reconnecting with a lot of people, meeting new people and generally getting on with the whole process of living. It has had its up and downs. I have good days and bad days. Lately I've been having more good days than bad so I'm feeling alright about where I am. Its not where I ever thought I would be but I rarely end up there anyway.

I'll be here off and on. I do keep track of people on here, but I don't know how much motivation I'll have to use LJ more frequently than I have been.

Next week I'll be taking a short vacation in New Orleans to see The Dead Weather at the House of Blues. I'm looking forward to that. Beer, fried, music. What more could you really want?

Its been a long time since I wrote anything in here. Maybe once I get some sleep and my brain re-engages I will address this problem. All I will say is that this has been the worst and best summer of my life.

So I bought a duck. A dead duck but a duck nonetheless. Being that it was dead I decided my best move was to eat it. I dismembered it and pan seared the breasts. Very tasty but I was left with a lot of duck - including two legs. I was looking at the legs and, like any red blooded american male, the first thing I thought of was deep frying them. Southern fried duck. How could it be bad? How could it go wrong?

Turns out it can go wrong in a number of ways.

Primarily the problem is that ducks actually use their legs. So not only is the meat tougher its also a much stronger flavor which didn't work well with the minimalist seasoning I used. I have a couple more ducks coming in and with these I'll confit the legs and then southern fry them.

BTW: The duck breasts were good. One was slightly less rare than I like. The sauce was mushrooms, shallots, and pears in a seriously reduced chicken stock with some red wine. Need to bump up the acidity a bit next time.

Does anyone reading this know flash? I'm working with someone that wants to embed a call to a javascript function into a flash based navigation bar he's using. I'm guessing its not working as expected. I know this is possible (http://blog.codefidelity.com/?p=15 and http://blog.codefidelity.com/?p=16) but I could use some help on this.

Anyone?

So lately when I give blood it makes me tired and cranky. This is sad because it really used to energize me in some sort of weird way. Fortunately, this time it seems to have made me pleasantly lightheaded and relaxed. I guess my humours *were* out of whack.

So as some of the older geeks may remember Flynn's Arcade from the movie Tron. This was where Jeff Bridge's character, Kevin Flynn, worked. Early this morning I received a fed ex package containing a small envelope. In there were two tokens for Flynn's Arcade stamped on the obverse and 'Home of Tron' on the reverse. Additionally, there was a USB drive with a single file on it. An animated gif displaying scrolling html code that has been enciphered in some way.

I've been targetted by a viral marketing campaign! Woo! A number of other people have also received these and I've found a total of 4 gifs. I think I have a partial translation of #3. It looks like a simple substitution cipher.

If you want to see them and my notes they're at http://www.tyranny.com/tron2
If you want to see what's happening in the blogosphere google 'Flynn's Arcade Tokens'

This would all be going a lot faster if I had more than 4 hours of sleep last night.

I'm thinking about refinancing my house. Right now my APR is 6.575% and I can refi at 5.2%. This will knock around $169 off my monthly payments. It will take 18 to 22 months to recoup the closing costs from the savings. If I take the extra money and use it as a prepayment I can pay off the loan 8.5 years early and save 33% on the interest over the life of the loan.

Thoughts?

Chris

I did just write 800 lines of PHP code to handle a simple web site authentication task.

To be fair that included support libraries I'll be using later (exception handlers, some PDO method wrappers, some ui element functions, and a run time options loader).

Now to determine how ajaxy this whole thing is going to be.

Writing a will is weird. At least its pretty damn short.

Saturday morning I had the worst leg cramp I've ever experienced. Ever. Its unnerving because I've had maybe 3 or 4 over the past month after a decade (or two) hiatus. I think its mostly stress and the associated bad diet. Either way, this was the worst I've ever experienced. Usually I can get them under control by pulling my toes towards my knee but I couldn't get my foot to move at all. I leapt out of bed and tried standing on my foot to get it to move but I couldn't get it to budge at all. I punched my calf a few times and that had no effect. In all it only lasted around 30 or 45 seconds but it was excruciating and was kind of terrifying. I was completely helpless. Eventually something just shifted and I was able to move my foot and the cramp subsided.

My calf is still really sore and walking is painful.
WTF body? Get with the "don't disintegrate" program already!

Aside from that it was a good weekend. Went to Yo Rita on Carson street and ate tacos stuffed with deep fried softshell crab, menudo (tripe, hominy, spices), duck, and salmon with huitlacoche (aka corn smut). I also had an amazing 'corn dog' which was actually chorizo dipped in a blue corn batter. 4 tacos and the corn dog appetizer was perfect for two people. The next day I played pinball and ate at Dish for the first time. Last night was good beer (including a really tasty belgian red ale from Ommegang) and belgian fries at Point Brugge. Damn fine times.

I'm strangely touched by the passing of Robert McNamara.

Anyone in Pittsburgh know of anything interesting going on?

I got the pre. So far I like it. We'll have to see over the next few days but I think it will be a fine phone. I also got the unlimited everything plan. Since this is going to be my only phone, and because my usage has been through the rought lately, I think this will work out. Sprint will let me change the plan without starting the service contract period over. So if its too much I can back down.

So I think I've decided to look at what plan would be best for me and then figure out the phone. I can get the Sprint unlimited everything plan for $100 less a 15% CMU employee discount. If I dump the land line I think this might be my best option overall. It shoudl end up being a wash in terms of cost and hopefully be more functional. So the question is a blackberry or the pre? I can get a curve 8330 for like $49 versus $199 for the pre. But the pre is pretty sexy at the moment. Maybe one of the other blackberries?

Any opinions on them or other sprint phones?

Note: I've had sprint before and not had a problem with them in the area I'll be using it the most.

For various reasons I think it would be a fine time to get me a new phone. I'm looking for something that is good for texting so I'm looking for something with a physical keyboard. I also need something that actually has decent call quality and battery life as I might be getting rid of my landline. I don't want to have to recharge my phone on a daily basis. I'm also cheap. I'm not opposed to getting an iPhone but its not really high on my list at the moment. The whole apps thing doesn't have a lot of appeal for me at the moment. Something with real GPS would be good and the occasional web browsing. I've been thinking about the Pre but I'm also looking at some Blackberries. Does anyone have any opinions?

A big issue is going to be the monthly fee. I'm paying $55 (with taxes) right now. I'd like something that's not too far from that. Maybe $70 or so. Ideas?

edit: turns out I get a 15% discount from sprint and verizon.