So I've been totally effing swamped at work. As a result I haven't got a whole lot to report, and what I do have to report is pretty dang boring. My world the last couple weeks has been mostly just me, my cats, and my nurbs.

I managed to avoid getting any Action Items on Thursday and, being a dude who works at home, fucked around all day. But don't worry nine-to-fivers, karma's coming to get me this weekend. The client's near deadline on their North American SAP Integration Project and somehow my dorky little drawing program* is mission-critical. Go figure.

But I'm such a loser - even when I'm 'fucking around' it can still be loosely considered to be 'professional development.' I've been fiddling around with Amazon Web Services . I think this stuff is great for small application developers. You can build a server appliance from the OS on up to your custom applications and deploy it on as many [virtualized] servers as you need, with 'practically unlimited' bandwidth and storage. Everything is metered but the prices seem pretty reasonable. Server time starts at 10 cents per hour, which is about $75/mo if you leave it on.

You can also mark your application bundle as requiring payment, with pretty flexible pricing options. The plan seems to be that you'd sell a turnkey solution to the general public, but I could see negotiating pricing with a client and using Amazon to collect setup & support fees.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this knowledge, but I figured I'd share with you geeky types.

- Z


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• Somehow I've become a graphics programmer. You'd think that would be an easy field to be in, and I admit it's kind of fun sailing through meetings about browser incompatibilities, database architecture, legacy integration, and usability bugs without getting any action items. But when all you ever say on-site is variations on 'yeah I understand where you're coming from but that's not really my problem,' the client starts to wonder why they're paying you.** But when a bug really is mine and the answer is something like 'woops - forgot to overwrite C0 in the Type 2 tint transform function when converting an RGB separation to CMYK, ha ha silly me' it tends to remind them. I can read PDF documents with a text editor, and that freaks me out.

• Although yesterday when trying to get the [somewhat difficult] web app developer to do something the client urgently needed, I whipped off an SQL query over the phone while a roomful of people just kind of stared at me. I think they were making fun of me but I sort of didn't have a whole lot of patience at the time.

I just drove home from the Captiol Region and holy crap I haven't seen traffic this bad since I left the New York metro area. Granted the weather could have been more cooperative but I've certainly driven in worse without shitting myself. To call it a 'bloodbath' would not give enough credit to the little joys of mass murder.

I almost died a few miles past Syracuse. There was a slowdown in the right lane that everyone was passing on the left. Afterwards, the two drivers ahead of me had gotten over to the right lane; I opted to stay in the [now clear] left lane. I had half-passed the car in front when I saw it jerk away from me. I thought I'd be in the clear when he came fishtailing back, but he overcorrected faster than I thought and swerved directly at me diagonally across the Thruway. I swerved onto the center shoulder, which was wider at that point, avoiding the other car by maybe six inches tops. I hit the unpaved slush and held on for dear life. I managed to keep control and not fishtail. I corrected, got back in my lane, and booked the FUCK out of there. Watching in the rearview I saw Homeboy had kept it on the road and was driving right down the middle.

Then I spent an hour in a traffic jam- the kind where you'd really like to put the car in park until it all clears up, except you can't because it's moving about 5mph for 20ft every two minutes.

I thought I was home free when I passed Rochester until I saw a whole row of flashing lights across the eastbound lanes. They'd closed the eastbound lanes at the Pembroke exit overpass and were directing all traffic off the exit, around, and back onto the entrance. I had to exit for gas and the ticket taker said there was a 7-car accident. When I got back on the road, eastbound traffic was stopped past the Clarence rest stop. Thank God I dodged that bullet, yipes.

Trip: 300mi, 7hr, average speed 42.8mph.

- Z