SuperWonderBang

About 10 years ago, I was playing a lot of harmonica. I was completely self-taught and might have had a smidge or two of talent. My dad always encouraged my musical proclivities and bought me a sweet setup with a Shure Green Bullet mic and a Peavey Classic 30 amp.

Well, a year later the mic had been stolen, but I held on to that amp for years. I used it here and there as my musical interests waxed and waned. However, somewhere over the course of the last 4 or 5 moves (some of which have been overseas), that amplifier has gone missing.

Yes, it is a nice amplifier and worth a big chunk of change (nearly $500 street price). However, it had some sentimental value as well. It had a lot of sentimental value. What’s more is that its loss is indicative of a deeper personal issue with which I struggle. I often find that I have very little sentimental attachment to people or things. I don’t seem to give a lot of love. Damn, that sounds really sappy, but it’s been a problem in my life.

Losing this amp is just a clear indication of how little concern I seem to give to things that should be important to me.

Technorati Tags: loss

I ate dinner tonight at McDonald’s for the first time in over a year. Yes, the fries were really fucking good. There is no doubt about that.

However, between the bilingual signs (in a small town with a very small Hispanic population), the hip music, the pointers to all their new “nutritious” options, and the giveaway exercise DVDs when you buy a salad, I completely forgot that I was at a damn burger joint.

I had a big fat Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese that almost certainly will give me a headache and cause at least some plaque buildup on a major artery. On the other hand, it was delicious. The whole experience in the restaurant, though, made me feel guilty for eating the thing that made McDonald’s famous.

In their attempt to appeal to the hip, health-conscious consumer and to dispel the bad pub from “Super Size Me,” McDonald’s seriously risk alienating their core demographic. It hasn’t happened yet. This particular location is filled to the brim with hearty manual laborers every day around lunch. Big, burly men getting out of their huge diesel trucks emblazoned with landscaping and construction logos surely have not yet abandoned the original burger joint. It could happen and not because of lethargy or neglect, but because of the micromanagement of a demographic that’s not theirs to begin with. As the old axiom goes, “Dance with the one what brung ya.”

Technorati Tags: mcdonalds, business, food, restaurants, health, burgers

Looks like I got listed on 25peeps after signing up weeks ago. Who knows what goes through the heads of those folks? Click here to give me a referral.

Technorati Tags: 25peeps, geekdom

I’m done with teaching. That sounds very perjorative, and while for the past month or two, it has felt that way, I really don’t feel negative about it long term. Due to some ongoing, long term mental health issues that I continue to battle, I have had to stop teaching. The daily pressure was just too much for me, I guess. I haven’t fully dissected it.

What it does mean is that I am back to web development and like many forward-looking web developers, I am riding on the Rails. I already have my home-cooked project and am reading tons of blogs. When I lay down at night, the ideas percolate in my brain like days of yore.

One of the first things I did was to go looking for a text editor that made writing Rails and Ruby code easier. There were few solutions out there, but many suggestions. I won’t rehash what others have covered except to provide a list (e.g., Eclipse, jEdit, Cream, emacs, vim, ArachnoRuby, RadRails). None of these gave me what I really wanted.

I finally chanced upon a new project, RIDE-ME (Rails IDE - Minus Eclipse). Written in C# on the .NET platform, it is quickly becoming exactly what I, a long-time Windows programmer, am looking for. It’s new, and there are bugs, but instead of just complaining, I have joined the effort and am submitting bugs to their Trac system in an effort for this to become THE Rails IDE on Windows. Be sure to check out the development blog and help these guys out.

As for my return to the webdev world, I am currently doing some PHP contract work. It’s some good work that’s been a great reintroduction after being out of the fold for two years. The pace has been great for me to get back into fighting shape and it’s been a great chance for me to do some large-scale PHP programming which was something I lacked on my resume previously.

All in all, this recent turn of events is turning out to be fairly positive for me.

Technorati Tags: webdev, ide, ruby, rails

It’s nerdy and essentially silly, but 25peeps.com is catchy. Essentially, it’s a popularity contest to get a few links. At some point, it’s going to devolve into sex like anything else on the Internet.

It doesn’t make any money, that I can tell, and it doesn’t offer anything but traffic. Just a fun little diversion while I should be grading essays.

Technorati Tags: social, linkage, popularity

Once again, our school goes through the deaths of its students. I’m not going to go into details as I did the last time, but two more of our students have died in a plane crash.

It’s a devastating thing to happen anytime, but here among the holidays, as many of us enjoy the company of families, there are at least two families very close to me going through hell. I simply cannot imagine the depth of grief suffered by those left behind. I hope I never have to experience the death of my children. It’s simply not something that should happen.

I was speaking to a student today who is a fairly religious person. As many students do, he is getting older and beginning to question all that he thought was certain just months before. We talked about how God could let something like this happen. His girlfriend offered platitudes, “God does everything for a reason.” His response was “There’s no reason a 17–year-old kid needs to die.”

I’m not terribly interested in the religious value of the debate, but I am interested in this idea of how events like this make us question our most central and core beliefs. It sometimes makes them stronger, sometimes it shatters them. It will be a signpost for everyone close to the situation, a moment in time that no one forgets.

I thought I needed a place that was just mine. A place where I could do MY thing. The group blog used to be a great idea. Now, with all the linking back and forth and trackbacks and such, it makes sense for us all to do our thing.

So, let’s get on with the show.

I will still be posting over there, but I think most things will go here. Perhaps, all the political ranting will stay over there.