meteors, fs KnowNow, birthday,

[Kragen Sitaker]

We didn't have much free time this weekend; on Saturday, I caught up
on my sleep after getting four to six hours per night for most of the
week, while Beatrice went to WiWoWo; that night, we watched "Bullshot
Crummond", a play in Walnut Creek; our ex-roommate Angela Goodsell
acted in it, so we saw many old friends we hadn't seen in a while.
Then we went to a party with a bunch of Bab5 people, with photos at
http://pics.nikita.ca/parties/2002-11-16/

We left that party a bit before noon on Sunday after some
tasty chocolate-chip pancakes.

Sunday night, Beatrice went over to a friend's house to play computer
games.  I stayed home and rested.

Beatrice and I went out to watch the meteors on my birthday, which was
Monday, along with a bunch of friends.  We enjoyed the meteors very
much, despite the bright moon and the cold; the hot chocolate with
cinnamon and the wonderful brownies helped.

Many people called me on my birthday.  I enjoyed that, too.

One of the calls had special significance.  My father, who works for
Guidant, told me that pacemakers had just been approved as a treatment
for congestive heart failure.
http://www.guidant.com/condition/heartfailure/icwpa.shtml

My grandmother is very sick of congestive heart failure (NYHA class
II/III); not only does she tire quickly, she can't think very clearly,
most likely due either to hypoxia or drug side effects.  This new
treatment could help her get much better very quickly.  I could get my
grandma LaVelle back.  That would make a wonderful birthday present.

The meteor trip began around midnight, and though I'd planned to get
some sleep beforehand, I didn't.  We returned home around 4:30, and
then I got up at 6:30 Tuesday to go to work; instead, I went back to
bed and slept for another hour, then went to work.

So, on Tuesday, I drank six cans of Red Bull at work to keep me awake
and functioning.  I didn't know Red Bull contained caffeine.  That's
480 mg of caffeine, or about three to five cups of coffee, about 10%
of the lethal dose.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I felt a little jangly
that day.

Tuesday night, I went to Toastmasters, where I gave my second speech
of the Toastmasters basic speech training program, almost impromptu.
(I rehearsed for about half an hour beforehand.)  I spoke about the
evils of patents, focusing especially on pharmaceutical patents.

In preparation for this speech --- and to calm my caffeine withdrawal
symptoms --- I drank a can of Coca-Cola, my first since January.

The speech itself went pretty well, despite my lack of sleep and
preparation; my audience definitely noticed some disorganization and
choppiness, but enjoyed the speech anyway.

Today I worked from 7:00 to about 18:30 in preparation for a major
software release by my employer, AirWave.  I plan to get up a little
later tomorrow.

Tonight I heard that KnowNow has released most of the stuff I worked
on when I was there as open source under an Apache-style license!
Now, at long last, the public can benefit from all the work I did
during those dizzy days, and KnowNow's customers will benefit from all
kinds of things growing KnowNow-compatibility features.

I told my co-worker Darrell about KnowNow stuff on the way home today
(we often carpool); I had forgotten how cool it seemed.  The old
excitement started coming back.  From my mailbox, it looks like I'm
not the only one who feels that way.
http://sf.net/projects/mod-pubsub
http://cvs.developer.knownow.com/index.cgi/mod_pubsub/

All in all, many good things have happened in the last week.

On the downside, the new Homeland Security Act passed, which frightens
me.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.