We all know those people who "escape" the business. The go on to some other profession where they don't make as much, but they claim to be happy.

That's fucking defeatist.

You know, this profession takes a lot out of people. And I'm not incredibly thrilled right now. What the fuck do you do? I'm not quitting, because I'm just not that weak. Where do you go from here?

I could go get some Unix admin or Perl hacker job, but you know, I've fucking done that. And I'm frankly fucking good at both. I don't want to step down from where I am and go do the same shit in perpetuity. What's the next thirty years going to be? More of the same old "fix the broken computer thingy", or "help the stupid customer understand their expensive hardware"?

If there were a word, like, ennui, combined with belligerent, that's about where I'd be. Fuck. You. World.

After a year, more or less, of solid working, I am finally going on vacation. We'll be on Maui until the 25th, for our wedding anniversary (happy 1!).

Been borrowing a Nikon D70, and totally fell in love. I can't shoot Canon anymore. The Nikon just feels more real to me. So, I bought a D200, and in Maui we're going to be shooting both. Hopefully we'll have enough glass to get some nice pictures.

I love my wife.

I'm not normally inclined to quote myself, but today is A Special Day.

Lastly, I'd like to mention it, because it's been bothering me some. Next time you're out in the car or otherwise in public, and you flip somebody off, cut them off, make a face at them, whatever.. Think for a second before doing so, "just how stable is this guy? I mean, is he going to flip out or anything?" Let me just say that you never know the guy you're tweaking there isn't psychotic. That is to say, he might be. And you might just be the little push he needs to go apeshit. And maybe, just maybe, he's got a trunk full of guns, and maybe he's had a long day. Certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, and you won't be the last, either. Just give it a thought.

I really wonder what compels us to treat eachother the way we do. It's not enough to tell somebody they're wrong. We frequently do so, and then remind them of it. And after we've reminded them of it, we remind them why we don't like it, and that we ourselves are superior -- we sure wouldn't have done that. Somehow, we need to re-visit the well of discontent and simultaneously claim the higher moral ground.

In addition to other events which I won't chronicle here, an example of this can be found at Wikipedia. It is hard to believe that a project with the openness of Wikipedia would have an institutionalized punishment body, and that users would repeatedly request that other users be punished. It's gone beyond dispute resolution in society. We don't just want to fix a problem or end a dispute, we want to bring people to justice. We want to have witness and victim testimony in the "penalty phase" of trials.

It all makes me sick. I think I've grown out of the phase where we bully people and make them eat dirt in the sandbox. Why hasn't anyone else?