Music For Beards

The Fall 2011 semester begins on Monday. After a summer of wisdom tooth extraction, homemade mojitos, a sweltering AC-free house, waking up early weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend to spend the day getting sunburned and gritty at the autocross course and LOVING every second of it (at least in hindsight), I am now unplugging from as many distractions as I feel is necessary and focusing on my last semester of web development.

I can’t spend 4 months living in a cave but I did disable my Facebook profile so really, what’s the difference. It’s only been one week and I am already noticing that people are just fucking LAZY. I have made phone calls, sent emails, and everyone is always surprised, like this idea of active communication is totally beyond our comprehension any more. Wow.

I think Facebook has its merits. It’s a fantastic social networking tool for businesses and individuals. It pays your ideas forward. It’s growing all the time. Hell, it’s getting people 4 years in jail. But I don’t like how it totally reaped me of real human contact. Besides, I am paying for school to reap me of human contact goddammit. I’m creating a monopoly on self-imposed solitude.

Anyway, for the Fall semester I am finishing. Which means taking:

PHP
SQL
Javascript and AJAX
Photoshop I (snoooooooore)

For the record, Photoshop I is required. Yes, there are ways out of it. But fuck it. I’m using the class to brush up on new CS5 features, and [mostly] to bolster my grade. And at least have one class out of four where I feel remotely superior to the material. It will help me as I pull out my hair in the rest of the classes.

Though I will say, I am glad that I suffered through Java first, because I cracked my PHP book last week and it was like this glorious moment of realization when people said “Oh, don’t worry, not all programming languages are that rigid.” There are four ways to do things! And it doesn’t matter which one you use! Holy shit! This is awesome!

I am seriously considering buying these, though, and setting up a magnet board. Because I like magnets and I am a geek.

It’s also worth noting that my husband is taking 4 classes as well. He’s learning to program C++ and Java, then pursuing Geographic Information Systems. He is crazier than I am.

So if you need us, we will be sitting in our own filth, crunching code for our classes, while the cats and dogs turn feral and attack the neighbors.

My friend Sedg, who is a kindred spirit for music as well as home construction, shared this insight on Facebook yesterday that I think is a perfect summing up of Us v Them when it comes to housing. This is why I decided to purchase a 40 year old brick ranch with only one floor above ground and no AC, and why I have chosen to spend my time as a home owner systematically renovating my dwelling as well as doing extensive xeriscaping and vegetable growing in our nearly half-acre corner lot. My realtor thought we were nuts; I call it heaven.

What I find fun is how some people think this sort of old bungalow is atrocious. But thank goodness there are plenty of gigantic white vinyl covered barns with flimsy metal garage doors sticking out to the street, wall to wall teddy bear colored carpet, and that feeling of plasticized sterility for them to live in. They can also enjoy their treeless 0.09 acres of sod that still has lines in it. And should a creative spark every come to them… The HOA will be there to nip it in the bud.