TABROOM
The rewrite continues apace. I still feel stuck in the cellar, as it were, working on foundational framework issues instead of the ooh-pretty of an actual page. But building software is often like making a building; the stage where it looks like a giant pit of dirt seems to go on forever, but once you see a support beam sticking in the air, it starts looking like a real building very quickly after that. Or at least, so I hope.
I had a fun time today upgrading the ol’ laptop to the latest version of the Linux distro I run. In the process, somehow this version of Chromium combined with my particular Radeon drivers inverted all the colors of all pages and plugins inside the browser. I mostly use Firefox anyway, but still.
I gather the Reddits have noted that my logo-hover Easter egg is feeling dumpy. One enterprising user complained that I waste time on these things, and haven’t updated my “90s style website”. Please. Tabroom’s current design is firmly rooted in the early 2010s era web. And this may shock you, but overhauling a site’s design does take a touch more time and effort than throwing up a goofy quote under a logo; and if the latter gives me a moment of happiness amidst a very large todo list, then why begrudge me of it? More to the point, the outward appearance is not as important a priority as the inward functionality, which has changed an awful lot.
But while Tabroom’s design is not of the 90s, I did a core chunk of my growing up then. So I have switched to a quote from that era, a core cinematic masterpiece of the transition between the 80s and 90s.
THE HUMAN SIDE
I’ve been coralling and cataloging the vast swathes of photos I’ve taken over the years into something approaching order, and might even print some of them out so I can enjoy them, after hiking hundreds of miles and spending so much time taking them in the first place. It’s amazing what following through can do.
Since I go away for some of the heavier holidays, I enjoy the lighter ones with family. This was my third Halloween trick or treating with my nephew. The first time around he was inert, a 10 month old being hauled around and gawked at. Last year he was just barely able to say “Ap-eee Allow-een” but not really “Trick or treat!”
This year he still didn’t quite understand the purpose of the ritual — his parents don’t give him much in the way of sweets and sugar, so the purpose of the outing is more the experience. His mother mostly hopes for Reese’s cups that she can abscond with. But he’s now nearly three years old, and he has Opinions about what he wants to do, and they did not include the ritual of trick or treat. He is mostly interested in pressing buttons that make noise. Halloween lawn ornaments looked to him like the type of thing that should do that. Cue an evening spent chasing him running into people’s lawns to keeping him from bashing their stuff. But we managed to depart before his first major meltdown and get him to bed almost on time, so it was a good night.
I have sharply reduced my news and social media intake due to Events. I’ve grown very tired of the competing fear stories, true or not — one’s energy is finite, and there’s a certain gradiosity we do cultivate in our debaters and speechies that Being Informed matters, and that it is essential that we stay on top of these questions of great policy. So right now my phone is a much less consulted device, and my book reader is front and center. It’s helped me write more, too.
WHERE ARE YOU
This month, I’m headed to Venice for Thanksgiving then a brief sojourn to Amsterdam before returning to Austin for the Longhorn Classic. Venice is now an old friend, that city that I should probably hate but instead have loved. It’s a good time to go back to some old favorites, I think, and be at peace in remote shores.
I haven’t planned anything yet for my birthday, but I can promise you it will not be spent here moping.