Gittin' it done

I was just about to go to bed when I realized it's been a while since I have written anything substantial about what's going on with me.

I'm feeling quite content that, although I have not finished anything on my to-do list this weekend, I have made noticeable progress on a few of the large items and still had time to take a three hour walk under the post-typhoon clear skies, were are unfortunately joined by incredible heat. It is also unfortunate that (for me at least) clear and sunny days such as today are far from ideal days for taking hundreds of photos as I am prone to. Besides the heat and uncomfortableness which accompanies stopping for more than 30 seconds at a time, I have not yet mastered high-light photography. Perhaps my camera simply doesn't have the gadgetry needed to adjust for brightness and still keep the colors of the subject, but I'm guessing I just haven't figured it out yet.

In other news, I have begun the process to get Mfop up on sourceforge. I've been feeling quite guilty lately that the level of support for people having problems has dropped dramatically. One user has been waiting forever for me to add some new functionality, which despite my best efforts, I just can't get to work correctly. Perhaps putting it up there on sourceforge will encourage someone else to take over and beef it up a bit.

I'm also looking for a new place to host it. If anyone knows a hosting company that will allow me to run procmail, or some other method of passing the email to the Mfop program, let me know. I've written to several asking, but haven't received any replies. Having a catch-all email address so that I could give each user their own email, such as mfop.user1@mfop.com or mfop.user2@mfop.com, would be a plus as well.

I splurged and bought the mfop.com domain a while back, so I can get it off of bastish.net, and not worry about disrupting everyones service if I ever have to move hosts for my own domain, which I am also looking into for various reasons. I'm a little afraid of the cost though. My site is now about 1.5 GB. (I have free hosting on the server I maintain at work). Part of the preparation for that has been to re-upload all the 2 MB photos from before I used Gallery, which re-sizes them for me (something I was always too lazy to do in the past). I'm hoping that by doing this I can get the site down to about 800 MB. Still quite expensive though...

Just as I have started exercising my body again recently, I have also started exercising my brain again by reviewing all the basics that I have not had cause to use since high-school. Mainly I'm just trying to remember all the basic math and algebra that only shows up on tests. Then, once I have gotten that GRE out of the way, I can forget it all again, and start concentrating on more important things.

I'm hoping to go back to school again in the fall. I haven't figured out where yet, though I've recently branched out and started looking at schools in Europe as well (I was originally focusing on schools back home in the US). I don't know if I'm already too old to be going back to school, but if you have read any of this site before you know I'm pretty miserably discontent with where I am now.

Last year I was pretty set on being in school this fall, but started to feel that I was just quitting and running away from a situation I didn't like, rather than facing it and trying to make it better. Now I have no problem with running away. Other than feeling that I'm too old already (which I know is not true) I'm glad I did wait, as I have a clearer idea of what I want to study. Hopefully I'll become a smarty pants in something related to Human Computer Interface / Interaction Design.

In the past I have contemplated returning to school for things computer related, but sometimes that seems like what I least want to pursue. I often think that computers are the devil. I waste so much time and life because of them, and desperately long for the day when I can move to some country house with no electricity. Unfortunately I know that ain't gonna happen, and since I have spent some time working with computers the last couple years, and am quite good at it, and despite my loathing, I do also enjoy creating with them.

What I never paid much attention to in the past however, was how much I really want the "design" aspect to be involved in whatever I wind up doing with the computer. Wile I like the back-end design, logic, problem-solving and trouble-shooting, involved in my job now, I find that what I really enjoy the most (and probably need the most work in) is designing the interface, seeing how people use it, and how it should be changed. I've also really just started exploring my "artistic" side in this last year, and I've been investigating graduate programs that would allow me to integrate that with the logic scientific aspects of HCI.

Of course, I find what I am interested in changes quite frequently... we'll see what I'm saying next week.

Now it's already 1:30 and I have to be up at 6:30 to go to the gym, so I guess you'll never get to hear about all the other things I accomplished this weekend.