November 29, 2003
Family Reunions
Took a family break for Thanksgiving, and also committed a wanton act of family reunion.
I finally met Erik at his place in New Paltz, me with a tinge of sinus infection keeping me down and sleepy for most of the visit. We had a delicious (non, in my case)-turkey dinner with his flatmate and his (flatmate's) girlfriend.
The family reunion bit kicked in when we went to my Aunt Janet's on Friday. I suppose it was a strange Thanksgiving situation. Some sense of duty says go to mom's, but an overwhelming sense of curiosity makes me meet this woman that I have not seen in ten years, even though she is family and has only lived a short two-hour drive from our house in New Jersey. And of course, I wanted to see how Sarah grew up, the baby cousin that was 7 years old when I last saw her.
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| Janet and Sarah |
Sarah is all grown up, a freshman in college at Penn State. On the jokingly unfortunate side, Sarah has turned out to be a sorority chick. I can't help but wonder if, had we hung out in her formative years, I could have had some influence to keep her from the most awful of fates. I am left in some accepting state of personal failure.
Still, it was a pleasant day-after-Thanksgiving dinner. No family politics, even with parties and issues involved. I suppose playing dumb, pretending I don't know all the back story is the best way to go. I guess adults would be surprised at what kids understand.
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| Driving back to Syracuse |
The short visit/reunion/whatever done, it was back to New Paltz, and ultimately (today) back to Syracuse. A blizzard on the way stranded about 10 cars on the Thruway. I wasn't very comfortable with the Suby-Jet's handling...front wheel drive cars make me nervous, but arrived without landing in any ditches.
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| Now for some home-cookin' |
Arriving home in 0C chill, I got the fire pumping, the fan blowing, cooked a meager dinner of tea and toast on the woodstove, picking up a tip in country cooking from Annie's mum, learning that throwing together a bunch of sentence fragments can be a better gauge of mental state than anything else.
For now it is breath in, study, breath out.
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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Stealing the Network
I first bumped into the Stealing the Network series when reading the exploits of Joe Grand, one of the book's many hacker authors.
The 'Stealing the ...' series of books follows a rather disparate group of computer hackers as they help a former NSA spook (many of them unwittingly) gather the money he needs to retire.
The stories themselves are not fantastic fiction. The writing is uneven and choppy, the characters are stereotypical and not very well thought-out. What is fascinating about this book series is the technical accuracy of the exploits (at some points *too* accurate, with screen shots and step-by-step instructions).
It's a great series to read if you're a system administrator, or just getting into the wonderful field of computer security.
Rated 
by reid
on March 06, 2011
by reid
on March 06, 2011
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Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman is one of those authors that somehow avoided my radar. Until now...
Close to the Machine is less a book than a collection of loosely related personal anecdotes from Ellen's time as a very rare thing -- a successful female bisexual independent computer programming consultant.
In the course of her work and relationship life, she learns hard lessons about programming, running a business, being lonely, and loving the wrong people. I found it particularly poignant being a crypto-nerd with difficult times in relationships and a more-or-less NDA'd, secret work life.
This book is a must-read for anyone into running their own business, programming, or anyone dating a person that is a business-a-holic or programmer.
Rated 
by reid
on November 23, 2009
by reid
on November 23, 2009
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The Long Trip Home
I had the joy of dining with the author in Florida. We went to a little Brazilian BBQ where he spoke with our waitstaff in (what I can only assume was) flawless Portugese.
Brian Wyllie spent 1969-1971 living in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. His recent book outlines his trip back to the United States via Bolivia, Peru, and the Carribean chain, by way of bus, train, and sailboat. The format comes spattered with observations from the modern day, and makes me think, "this must be what John McPhee's journal looks like."
The trip sounded like a fantastic one, but I was left wanting more detail...where did the gun (being snuck through customs in a variety of places, no doubt) come from? And how did Geneve's hair smell? Alas, we'll have to wait for another book to find the answers.
Rated by reid
on April 16, 2009
by reid
on April 16, 2009