Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Noah's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, March 11th, 2012
7:11 pm	Random stuff going on... There's been a lot going on, and I can't remember which bits I've mentioned. So an update, in no particular order... Krissy's book is out and is intense and amazing and difficult to read and in all other ways exactly what you'd hope for. My book Rebuilding Rails is coming along nicely, for any Ruby programmers out there. You can get a few chapters free by signing up for the email list. The kids continue to grow like weeds, though today we're all sick. Poor Shanna has been moping on the couch or napping pretty much all day, which is not her usual M.O. Calli is getting stronger and faster, but still shows no particular need to talk. She understands pretty complicated sentences, she just doesn't seem to want to talk much. Fair enough. I discovered a few days ago that my orange tree, which I planted in the back yard and has been giving us oranges for a few years, had a grapefruit (or pomelo?) branch grafted onto it when I got it. Which explains several things. But this year the foreign branch is finally mature enough that's it's starting to really produce, which was rather a surprise. The first few, we thought the neighbors had chucked over the fence. Where else would they have come from? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
8:12 am	Memento mori Disclaimer: today isn't my birthday. That's not until June. I respond the same way to birthdays. I think the first time I did was when I was about 16. Have I mentioned that I'm currently building a giant highly-open-sourceable project for work while also writing a technical ebook in my 'spare' time? (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
5:53 pm	"when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create." - _why (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 25th, 2011
4:02 pm	Shanna's Unicorns Shanna takes most of her unicorn characters when playing around from "She-Ra". They wind up with names like Star, Starwind and Stardancer. Today she had a new one, and was apparently out of She-Ra-esque "Star" names... The baby doll *riding* the unicorn got a different name as well. So we were treated to Crystal Dancer and her unicorn named "Starbucks". (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
11:19 am	Random status update Calli is using a few more words - "apple" is her latest favorite, which comes out as "ap-buh". I went to my first parent-teacher conference yesterday. Shanna is doing well, just starting to make some friends at school, and is generally exactly who we thought she was :-) I got to shoo a snake out of our bathroom with the aid of a broom and some cardboard the other day. Hard for me to be sure, but the back patterns looked a lot like an Eastern Garter Snake, according to Google Image Search. Certainly I'd be surprised if it were anything venomous. There are only a few of those in the states, and the ones in CA are quite distinctive. We think it just slithered in when we had the front door open. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
8:42 pm	Steve Jobs is dead. You did well by me, Steve. Thanks for everything. I'm sorry you had to go so soon. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
8:29 am	For those who didn't catch it... Though I think everybody did... http://tenacious-snail.livejournal.com/780300.html (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
9:40 pm	Tenacious_snail is dead to me And since you're all my adoring fan club and/or cult, that means she is dead to all of you. I won't ask you to take sides. That would be petty. Rather, after her betrayal, you will be cutting her out of your life based on her manifest unworthiness. That is all. Current Mood: bitchy (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 9th, 2011
1:52 pm	Hrm. Somebody I know on Facebook uses the tagline "really X" where X is their name. Suddenly I find myself tempted to use the tagline "only slightly Noah" everywhere. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
12:52 pm	Workplace randomness My current workplace, Ooyala, was a little odd to interview at because it has a recruiting video (scroll down to see) of people who already work there, so I had met a bunch of my interviewers and random people in the hall before showing up. So I kept seeing people I felt like I knew walk by... It kept feeling weird, like I was interviewing in my living room or something. Then on my interview I randomly met a guy who I know socially and who has dated my wife. And a guy I used to hang around with at CMU. Ooyala actually has a sizeable CMU contingent. More recently, I referred another friend who got hired, and now works there. So I should just decide Ooyala is going to be a social hangout of random people I know. Today at lunch, it turned out that a girl I dated years ago was interviewing there. I'd had no idea, I just saw her across the table. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 29th, 2011
8:46 am	I don't have the faintest clue what I can do to help... But perhaps repost. (Naomi Dunford's site) Naomi Dunford runs a site called "ittybiz" with small business and computer business advice, especially about marketing. I read it regularly -- she gives a lot of very interesting tips, and even better explanations of why things are so. She is foul-mouthed and a bit flirty and a very good writer. If I ever start instructional writing, I may only hope to approach how engaging she is. She is receiving death threats. Apparently only for being a successful woman on the internet. I can't think of any other reason people would be especially pissed off at her -- she gives an awful lot of time to giving away free useful stuff. I don't know what to do about that. She is hiding, finding an appropriate support group and posting about it, but it's not clear that she knows either. But she has decided to spread the word, loudly. And I am going to lend my small internet voice in support. Go read what she has to say. It's worth your three minutes. I'll still be here when you get back. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 8th, 2011
9:23 pm	Have returned safely. All is well. Now, just need to get the house recovered, things back in order, kids un-jet-lagged, et cetera. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
8:40 am	Oh, hey -- I'm away for a bit The family and I are now in Europe, and will be for about a month if all goes as scheduled. Entry's a bit rough with two jet-lagged young'uns, but so far we've continued as planned - England, briefly, and arrived in France yesterday. We're now able to settle in slightly better since we're in a place we can stay longer than one day :-) I will likely be less-available in all online forms for awhile. But you knew that. I'd post the same to Facebook, except I mostly don't respond there anyway. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
9:48 am	Huh. Well, don't use Drain Doctor in Fremont for anything big. They're remarkably vicious. The lengths they are going to to try to convince me that my wife is lying to me are... creative. The lengths they're going to to lie about the licensing board and California law are... well, let's say mercenary. It's conceivable that they're even right, though I'm getting *really* tempted to go to the trouble of trying to get their license revoked. Because *man* do I not want anybody else to have to deal with them. However, I'm going to need to get through this negotiation with them first. Because *man* do I not want to do this *without* the leverage of trying to get their license revoked. Not that they're doing a damn thing for me at the moment, of course. To be fair, the lady involved (Katherine? Kathleen? Something like that) *did* eventually play me a recording of Krissy saying she didn't want an inspection, obviously *well* after the thoroughly botched installation had occurred, something like, "ma'am, we can schedule an inspection", "I don't want an inspection, just take out the god damn water heater!" Oy. On the plus side, one way or another, I'm pretty sure we'll be done with the labor-intensive parts of dealing with this within a few days. Then it's just a matter of whether we pay several thousand dollars for a hideously botched job and completely inappropriate water heater or not. But I think we'll only be dealing with American Express on that one. It's possible that American Express also employs some unpleasant people, but so far we've done pretty well with the customer service folk. Realistically, they can't just take the water heater back. Then they'd have effectively already conceded the argument with American Express in our favor. They're impressively unpleasant in doing so, though, which is a pretty good sign that that's their real weapon, such as it is. But I'm me, and I had to offer. I don't actually want to steal the parts they brought. I just don't want to pay for worse-than-useless labor. I paid rather a *lot* for them to significantly reduce the value of my home. I'm always impressed with people as mercenary as the lady in question. She was awful, fussy, made imprecations about my wife and our character, talked about how we didn't have a prayer, and then when it was clear that she wasn't going to make any financial progress with me this morning, got me quickly and efficiently off the phone. I have trouble imagining being so thoroughly aggressive, nasty and unpleasant, lying and cheating for a living, and then just turning it off with a switch. The woman's got talent. That said, please don't buy from her. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
8:42 am	Man, I haven't posted in forever Started a new job in late March. It's been good. I've been there for (checking a calendar) just over six weeks now. It's really, really busy, and a whole bunch of new stuff, but I'm also doing very well. So, y'know, just about optimal for a new job. The kids continue to grow like weeds. Shanna remains an amazing little human and it's a constant struggle to remember that she's not even three yet. She remains kind, loving, perceptive, funny and generally wonderful, while being the sort of rebellious and infuriating that you'd hope for from a healthy not-quite-three-year-old. Calli is sitting up and crawling and understanding a few words. She's *just* starting to sign a little bit -- the occasional "milk" and "potty" that you'd expect to be on the short list. One of her favorite games is to babble verbally until she hits on "da da da" and then I'll point to me and say "dada", point to her and say "Calli" and she'll burst into giggles. It's as cute as it sounds. The house is slowly improving. Rototilling in the back yard, new plants, painting in several places, furniture moving everywhere. For anybody who doesn't know, dangerpudding is moving into our extra bedroom, which should be a good thing all 'round. She loves the kids, Arizona's not working out as well as she'd hoped, we find her to be great company, and everybody loves lower rent. So yeah, things are good. Mostly life is quietly continuing, and Krissy and I are paddling at just about top speed trying to keep up with it. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 18th, 2011
2:24 pm	Shanna reading back Not really. She's got this one mostly memorized. This was last August, before there was a Calli in our lives :-) It's interesting seeing this many months ago. I don't think of her speech as having improved much in that time, but it really has. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
7:01 am	Shanna S: Ponyo and Sosuke lost their father, so they had to get a *new* father. N: Where did they get the new father? In a store? S: No, he was just *hiding* in the store! (Ponyo and Sosuke are characters from the movie "Ponyo" by Studio Ghibli. Like most movie characters, they play only marginally-related roles to their originals when acting as Shanna's imaginary friends). (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
3:59 pm	Last Week - Brezsny Last week, Brezsny told the Gemini: You're not scared of acquiring more clout and luster, right? You won't get nervous if you suddenly have to deal with more success than usual, right? You won't run away if a power spot you've been cultivating for yourself finally starts providing you with the opportunities and responsibilities you'd been hoping for, right? I just hope you're ready to handle the good stuff that's available, Gemini. Please don't confuse this enjoyable stress with the other kind. Well, fair enough. I'm part of multiple undertakings, but one in particular, that looks a lot like that. Let's see how it goes, shall we? I can hope. Certainly it would be a fine substitute for my current situation if it happens - a trade of one kind of stress for a better one. And to Leo, my moon sign, he said: The depths are calling to you, Leo. Can you hear their subtle melodies? Don't worry: I'm not referring to the icky, stinky, creepy depths; I don't mean that you'll have to lose yourself in a chaotic miasma, or wander speechless in a claustrophobic maze. No: The deep place I'm talking about is maybe the cleanest, most well-lit abyss you've ever had the complicated pleasure to explore. I'm not saying there'll be no hairy riddles to deal with; but I am saying that even the hairy riddles will be interesting, at least a little fun, and helpful in your efforts to purify yourself. No clue on this one. Maybe it's somebody else's. Or maybe I'm behind on my rituals of self-purification -- also entirely possible. I shall be on the lookout. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 28th, 2011
4:24 pm	Friday, yet Brezsny This week, Brezsny told the Gemini: An interviewer asked me if there's any special ritual I do before writing these horoscopes. I told her that I often say a prayer in which I affirm my desire to provide you with these three services: 1. that what I create will be of practical use to you; 2. that it will help you cultivate your relationship with your inner teacher; 3. that it will inspire you to tap into and use the substantial freedom you have to create the life you want. I hope I'm doing a good job, Gemini, because in the coming weeks your inner teacher will be overflowing with practical clues about the art of liberation. Good. Right now, other than family stuff, I'm trying to learn as much as possible about setting up small businesses online. I'm not sure what that will come to, if anything. But so far, that's been the direction of my greatest professional growth in recent times. So I should keep it up and find out how best to strike out on my own, even if that turns out not to be my best actual strategy -- if I can do it for me, I can do it for other people. So I hope that's the right direction. But so far, so good. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
3:51 pm	Brezsny on Thursday - why not? This week, Brezsny tells the Gemini: It will be good week to let your mind go utterly blank while slouching in front of a TV and sipping warm milk, or to spend hours curled up in a ball under the covers on your bed as you berate yourself with guilty insults for the mistakes you've made in your life. NOT! I'm kidding! Please don't you dare do anything like that. It would be a terrible waste of the rowdy astrological omens that are coming to bear on you. Here are some better ideas: Go seek the fire on the mountain! Create a secret in the sanctuary! Learn a trick in the dark! Find a new emotion in the wilderness! Study the wisest, wildest people you know so that you, too, can be wildly wise! Man, the slouching in front of the TV with warm milk thing was starting to sound good. Damn it ;-) Now I have to decide who are the wisest, wildest people I know. (Comment on this)