(no subject)

Today is Setting Orange, day 59 in the season of Confusion, 3268.

I've been mostly quiet (or at least not posting anything resembling substance) lately as there's been some stuff going on in my life that I just don't feel comfortable sharing with an anonymous audience of some unknown number. I still desperately want my "me" time, but it's not to be this weekend either. This is okay though, since instead I'll get to spend some time with points when he passes through on his meander back home.

I did spend several hours alone a couple of weekends ago driving Skyline Drive on a whim. I loaded up some music and left my house around 4 pm and drove west to Front Royal, where I picked up Skyline Drive and drove down to Skyland, then back up to Thornton Gap and out 211 to Warrenton and then home for a total of about five hours. It was overcast and raining, so I didn't see the sunset at all; I did however get a stunning view of fog-filled valleys and mountaintops shrouded in low-hanging clouds. I didn't bring my camera since it was raining, but in retrospect I wish I had. I doubt I could've done it justice with my meager photography skills though.

I spent several hours last night chatting on AIM with brian1789 while he slowly froze on Devon Island. I felt a bit bad watching him pile on layer after layer of clothing while I sat around in my 85°F office in a tank top. Not bad enough to want to trade places, mind you, but kind of bad nonetheless. =) From a peek at the webcams, it looks like the weather is pretty miserable now; I don't envy him at all.

Motivation levels fluctuate wildly. Some days I can dive right in and get everything done, other days I just can't seem to get into the right mindset to be really productive. I'm not sure where today is. Yesterday I spent focusing on a single task, which was good; finished that up today. Today I'm finding that I need to go pick up the sed & awk book because knowing them would've come in handy this morning. Not to mention that I really need to pick up the pace of learning perl. And then I should learn to use Mason. And a whole host of other things which are swirling around in that "it would be great to learn X" way. Now I just have to make myself focus. Oh yeah, and finish that online class that I signed up for which is ending on Sunday. Think I can do six weeks of homework in three days? I think I can, actually, as none of it looks like anything I don't already know, but I have to finish and get the certificate so I can get reimbursed. I have no one to blame but myself, as I've just not had the energy levels needed to pay attention to it.

Speaking of which, time to get back to working on creating a graph of these stats...