Jesse says...

Captions to come soon…

And check out Gürken’s photos for other images, including the GNUstepper Dinner.

Tomorrow I fly out to Belgium, but when I get there, I will have lost almost a complete day. Still, I’m hella excited!

I’m so psyched! I bought my ticket, accommodations have been arranged, and I just bought a new laptop bag (described as the bag nocturnal snowboarders might use)… I’m ready to go to to FOSDEM 2007! Now I just need to wait a month and a half…

I fly out to Chi-town tomorrow for RailsConf! Woot!

I guess there are supposed to be somewhere around 550 people there — not bad for the first year! (And of those 550, I get to be number 222 — yes!)

I can’t believe I’ll have gone to two web development conferences within a week of each other. I’m a lucky guy — thanks, MRM!

A few of the photos I took… I shall be stealing some of Jamey and Megan’s soon…

Well, I’m home. I’m abso-fricken-lutely-tired, my body is sore, my brain is fried, my wallet (and bank account) is empty, my entire everything hurts. But I’m home. And I got to see my baby, who I missed and who missed me (and yet still acts surprisingly “two” — just enough to drive me crazy). Give me the weekend to get some drawings scanned, to figure out how to transfer all my Zaurus sketches over, to dump my digital photos, to steal some of Jamey and Megan’s photos and make them my own, to come back to the land of the living, and, in all probability, get horribly sick (don’t know how I managed to survive a week without getting sick… it’s unheard of for me… I must still be pumping the adrenaline and stress… I’m bound to crash soon, and my immune system with it…)

Got into London last Saturday/Sunday… not sure when, the time is lost on me. But, so far it’s been good. Did the touristy thing, did the art thing, and tomorrow we’re doing the Stonehenge thing… should be good.

K — gotta check out of this cafe.

Well, I just woke up. It was nice to be able to sleep in on a weekend. It doesn’t happen often, so when it does I really cherish it. But I have a lot of catch up to do here, so here we go:

First, yesterday was the day. Another birthday come and gone. I’m officially at 25 now. There are only a couple of really significant things behind being 25: I can now rent cars without crazy additional fees, my car insurance rates will drop considerably, and I will never be able to join Fabrica or be on The Real World (I don’t need the drama of The Real World anyway). The party went well. It wasn’t tons and tons of people, but it was enough, and the people who were there made for a great time. I laughed a lot, I played some great video games, I ate some awesome cake and ice cream, and I got a lot of much-needed human contact and conversation.

Second, I’ve been meaning to write about the whirlwind trip to New York. Jamey and I flew out last Saturday morning, shot tons of photos for a freelance project we’re doing, and flew back that evening. We spent something like 6 1/2 hours in the city, and about 13 hours in planes or at an airport. It was quite fun though, and even more fun since I got to hook up with Aline to hang out during that time. It was great to see her: she looks awesome and seems really happy and at ease there (most of the time!). Thank you for the birthday presents, Aliney!

Third, I finally got an iPod. It makes me happy. My FM adapter just died though, so I need to kick some ass about that one: the damn thing didn’t even survive a month, and at $40 a pop, that’s not a “subscription model” I want to be a part of.

Fourth, I’m really digging on Ruby on Rails (and Ruby in general). Plus, the awesome friend that is Jen hooked me up with some space on her server that already has Rails installed, so I’ll be crushing on that for a while, I’m sure. Even though Flash 8 has some fricken sweet features, I think there may be fewer and fewer reasons for me to build SWFs when Rails has some beautiful Ajax support.

Fifth, another of my recent crushes is del.icio.us. I’ve known about it for a while, and always thought it sounded neat, but only recently have I witnessed the true power of that which is del.icio.us. If you have not checked it out, do yourself a favor.

Sixth and last, I’m building… something. It’s not art, it’s not software. But it’s cool, and I hope you’re going to want it. Stay tuned to our irregularly scheduled program…

In no particular order, and without much commentary or explanation, cause this is half for you and half for me:

Las Vegas.

I’ve considered renaming my blog “Message in a Bottle”, after the Police song.

If you’re reading this and you’ve lent an ear (and you know who you are), it is because of you that my days are just that much more bearable. (And it’s times like these that I appreciate English’s inability to differentiate between singular and plural second person.)

Ali’s second birthday is coming up… I’m so excited! She was scared of the fireworks, but I think next year will be different.

I miss knowing what my future will hold. Actually, I pretty much know what it will hold, I just need to tweak the system. It’s worked before… I’m sure I can tweak it again. Sometimes thoughts like that make me feel like I’m in a video game, and that I’m half aware of it. Sometimes I think it’s that “blessing” thing I’ve mentioned before.

It’s weird when a thought takes over your mind, making it difficult to think about much else. I guess that would be called obsession… is that okay if I just call it “focus”, or at worst “good distraction”.

If you remember an orange juice themed site, and remember the writing on those walls, I sometimes feel like I’m in much the same place. It’s hard to say though, because things are so different. I remember wanting to record my thoughts, so that I could remember that time… I’m still playing that game.

Oh, and that comment about that thing that you abhor that you didn’t want to talk about anymore… sorry about that. Don’t read too much into it.

I really like Jason Mraz. Really. He’s a damn fine musician. Thanks, Michael, for that one.

If you care enough to want more context, I will care enough to reply.