It’s been a process, not an event.

Ren has posted many times about taking over working on the walls, but the sink, medicine cabinet, and light fixture in our bathroom were always squarely in my court, which left me with sweaty palms, more than a few choice curse words, and a distinct feeling that I was going to do more damage than installation on this project.

So, today, when I finished hooking up the P-Trap and flushing the lines, and realized that not only was the sink providing water, but it was all draining out without leaking all over the floor in a rot-inducing puddle, I realized that I needed to do what any other self-respecting internet-connected person would do:

Post to my blog. And you read it. Sucker.

I’m talking to one of my users, who asks the status on a project, saying that she hasn’t heard from the developer (we’ll call him Developer A) we were waiting on in a month.

So I asked Developer A what was going on. He says, “I think we’re waiting on Developer B.”

So I asked Developer B what was going on. He says, “We’re done with our thing. Now we’re waiting on Developer C.”

So I asked Developer C. His response: “Oh, yeah, uh, I got held up by prod issues. I’ll work on it today.”

I feel like I just played the pass-it-on game, you know, where you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you, and they to the next person, and so on, and then something comes out the other end. “We’re working on it” went all the way down the line and became “A yak farted in Afghanistan.”

Someday I’ll write a program that can automate this, too.

Ren: It’s Dave’s birthday on Saturday.
Ben: How old is Dave going to be on Saturday?
Ren: He’ll be 29.
Ben: Wow! That’s almost 30!

’nuff said.

…but Wordpress just got updated for WLC. Now we can track the latest versions using Subversion, which means I just might stay on top of the upgrade process.

Alex would simply not chill out this morning, so we went for a drive. The weirdest thing about having kids is the realization that you, no matter what it is you’d like to be doing, may at any moment need to pack up, get in the car, and randomly travel to nowhere just to get some peace.

I’m currently in a Jewel parking lot. Why? Because the kid is asleep, and the absurdity of sitting in a Jewel parking lot for 45 minutes is completely outweighed by the quiet and ability to drink my morning coffee in peace.

*sigh* This truck is the most expensive fucking bassinet ever.

On March 30, 2007, at 5:18pm, 20″ of baby Alexander, weighing 7lbs, 10oz, was jostled into this world. He’s doing the baby thing and already delighting everyone. His brother Ben is thrilled to have him ( which was definitely improved by the Darth Vader Light Saber Alex ‘picked out’ for Ben ), and so are we.

You’ve been highly anticipated, little man, so as Primus put it: Welcome to this world!

I have a pretty stressful job. Generally, the result of my performance is a significant factor in the protection of billions of dollars. Yeah: Billions.

Meanwhile, back home, I have a family whose value cannot be measured in dollars. They are the reason I can work my stressful job, as well as the reason I do so; the income from my stressful job is what covers our house, car, food, yada yada.

The problem is that time, not cash, is what’s valuable to a family. And time is what my stressful job wants from me: as much time as it takes to handle the problems we face. In short, more time than any definition of a standard work-week can possibly cover.

Sure, it’s a badge of honor of sorts; if you can survive and not go apeshit while still getting things done, that means that either you’re pretty damn good at what you do or you’re a damn fine bullshit artist. Either way, you’re damn something.

I often hear about work-life balance, as companies try to avoid attrition by putting a friendly face on “we’ll pay you less to lower our demands on you.” The reality is, though, that simple economics often wins out: time is the scarce commodity, so a premium must be paid to get time.

Of course, there’s a flipside to everything. One of the great things about having a stressful job is that it’s always, always a challenge. I don’t have slow weeks or slow days. When I work, I constantly learn how to work better, and to push my skills further, because otherwise I’d drown.

One thing I fear is that if it weren’t so hard, I’d get bored. I just wish that there were a middle ground where there was a safety valve that I could use to let it go when I hit my limit.

So, I’ve been tagged by Ren. Here’s my thing.

1. Ten years ago: In 1996 I graduated high school with 39 other good midwestern kids. I also started college. I worked as a janitor, cleaning a church and school. I also totaled my first car in a spectacular moment of stupidity.

2. Five years ago: In 2001 I graduated college, worked for SGI, performed in “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum”, had my directorial debut ( David Mamet’s “A Life With No Joy In It”), and went on a date with someone I met online. Not a great moment.

3. One year ago: I got married, went to a conference in NYC( I love New York), got officially hired at my current job (from being a contractor), bought a condo, started trying to sell a condo, and learned that there are some people who don’t even realize what assholes they really are.

4. Yesterday: Worked. Did a lot, but it’s all pretty dull if you’re not a part of it.

5. Today: Worked more. See #4.

6. Tomorrow: Going to pick up my tux and go rehearse for Tony’s wedding.

7. Five snacks I enjoy: Guinness, nachos, chocolate chip cookies. I’m sure there’s others but I can’t think of them right now.

8. Five bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs: Morphine, Underworld, Nine Inch Nails, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, U2

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000: buy a Ferrari Enzo and a garage in Europe to store it in, dabble in the Energy markets, give my wife the ring she really wanted, buy a place in New York, buy a summer home on Honshu.

10. Two locations I’d like to run away to: New York or Tokyo.

11. Five Bad Habits: working too much, drinking too little, not barbecueing enough, not eating enough veggies, not exercising

12. Five things I like doing: Hanging out with the fam, reading, playing video games, music, traveling

13. Five TV shows I like: Law & Order (CI/SVU too), Soccer games in HD, Time Warp Trio, Psych, House

14. Famous People I’d like to meet, living or dead: *shrugs*

15. Biggest joys at the moment: Dude. I’m gonna be a dad. That rocks.

16. Favorite toys: I just got LEGO Star Wars for the PS2.

17. Five people to tag: I’m the asshole who always kills the chain letter. This is no exception.

In geek circles, there’s been a lot of talk about DRM, fair use, the DMCA, and copyright. Here’s my take.

The screen on my Apple IIc flashed up a hi-res graphics splash screen for a program called Nibbles Away, one of the classic bitwise copy programs for that era. With Nibbles, it was possible to copy the 440k floppy disks in an exact way, preserving even the ordering of data on the media (Which was a then-common copy-protection scheme). At the time, the idea of fair use was being challenged and clarified, and even teachers in schools were getting in trouble for making photocopies of things to hand out to students. Gradually, the right balance was struck, but the one thing that didn’t stick was the use of technology to prevent copies. Time and time again, the digital protection schemes were either worked-around or defeated… Or were they? There were some successful DRM schemes even then…games that no one could figure out how to copy. The interesting thing is, those uncopyable games always seemed to disappear, as the companies who sold them went out of business. Why? Because after the initial market splash of a new game, there will always be other games to grab attention — unless you catch new attention through further distribution.

For years, the very industries that have been pushing DRM have been thriving on a secondary market that depends on the behind-the-scenes copying of their products. Friends tell other friends to check out a game, and they take the copy home and love it. They go and buy the strategy guide, and when the sequel comes out they buy that too. Sure, the first game was lost revenue, but you now have a fan, which is worth far more than one sale.

These businesses fail to recognize that in a saturated market, excitement over your product by those who can’t or won’t buy it can drive sales to people who can and will.

They say that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. In the marketplace this holds very true: companies that are hated are still in the public eye and still make sales. Companies that people are indifferent toward will begin to fade.

Me? I won’t buy DRM-enabled music. Which means I don’t keep up with the latest bands, because I don’t shop the DRM-based outlets (like iTunes). Which means I don’t hear new releases I might buy. Which means not only do I not buy new music online, I don’t buy it on CD either. My excitement about music has been dimmed by DRM, and my indifference to media companies is growing. So not only do I not pirate movies or music, I don’t buy them at all.

Thanks to DRM, I’m one of many customers that these industries are in the process of losing, and it’s going to take a toll when our addiction to popular media is broken by indifference to the sales channels.

So, apparently the founder of YouTube is taking advantage of the sale of his company to go back to school, get a grad degree.

That’s excellent. Some folks would buy an Enzo instead. (To be fair, though, if it were me, I’d do both…)

In any case, I tip my hat to you.