And update on things in a few days. I promise.

Happy Birthday!

But anyway, since this is the sixth time that I am going out, it means that I’ve done most of the “standard” stuff. I’ve been to the “big” sites and stuff.

Actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t probably done a lot of the big touristy stuff.

Anyway, this time I think I want to do entirely new things. I don’t know what yet. So if anyone has ever been out to the bay area, and has ideas for things to do that I haven’t done, please let me know.

That having been said, this blog is in for a mini resurgence, because while I am in Europe, I plan on writing every day to give an update of what I’ve been doing. A sort of travel blog if you will. I might even post pictures, although I’m not really much of a picture taker. But this is sort of a big deal trip, so I should document it in some way.

So be ready for that, and maybe a little bit before I head out.

But since I have it, and since a certain Kelly is planning on moving in with me, we have decided that it is time to rip out the bathroom and put in a nice one that is actually functional. Which sounds great, and I’m honestly very excited. But there is a small problem with this plan. My house is 101 years old, which means that when you start tearing into things, everything goes crazy, no matter who good a plan you had. In fact, it seems like the more of a plan that you have, the worse things actually go. And in this case, the plan isn’t that great. It is basically rip out the entire bathroom, rip out a large portion of the kitchen that is below the bathroom, and have Nathan be a vagrant for a couple of months. Yeah, I’m a little nervous.

We are planning on starting this Friday with hauling away all of the crap that was in my basement that was moved to the garage so that we can haul all of the crap we rip out of the house into the garage. It is going to be one hell of a project.

And like I said, I’m a little nervous. But I think that is to be expected when your house is about to be ripped apart and then put back together. But I’m also very excited, because I know that the people involved either do good work or hard work, and the combination of the two will cause me to end up with something very nice. But I might be spending a few nights in my car as I wear out my welcome elsewhere.

So I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided that there is nothing to keep me from going back and trying to do some of the things that I skimped on, because I’m pretty sure that they would make me a better programmer at a day to day level. (Although lets be honest. It doesn’t really take much ability to program the sorts of websites that they ask us to do here. But again, just doing a passable job at boring things has left me unsatisfied.)

I think my project is going to be writing a compiler. For those of you who don’t know, a compiler is a program that turns computer programs into something that computers can actually use. And I took a class on compilers, and I’ve even technically written a compiler before. But I didn’t do a very good job, and I definitely think I can and want to prove to myself that I am able to do it.

Then again, it might turn into another instance of me deciding I don’t want to bother with it and stopping. Only this time there isn’t even a grade as a punishment, so who knows? But I will give it my best.

And what does this mean for me? Another year of possible copyright infringement on the late, great Mitch Hedberg.

So thanks everyone who has been along for the ride so far. I think we’re around 7 or 8 years of this, and hopefully we’ll have some more together. But now, I have a meeting.