Various.

[icebluenothing]

Let's see ... bunch of things I've been wanting to mention on LJ.

• I actually worked for a living on Friday. Got a call from someone at Superior Technical Resources last Thursday, asking if I was willing to work a one-day contract for spaceandtech.com to help them with some vexing Javascript and CGI issues. I said sure. It was a lot of fun; I enjoyed breezing in, fixing their problems, and leaving. It's like being a superhero. Or having a great one-night stand. Pretty office, with curving white walls and natural wood panelling and glass surfaces, downtown near the waterfront. It gave me a little taste of the web developer lifestyle again, and I realized I miss it. (Of course, this was also my first time using the unstable piece of crap that is Microsoft Front Page. That wasn't quite so much fun.)
• Been spending a fair amount of time with madness237 lately, thanks to hanging out at ulrich's place. He seems neat. It's good to hang out with someone who has as much of an obsession with cult horror flicks as I do. He wants to make a movie next year based on my story "The Leak," and I think I'm gonna let him. He's also introduced me to what he calls the best translation ever of the Tao Te Ching, and I'm inclined to agree.
• I'm probably going to be leaving town for a month, and spending the time living with my sister Cheryl. She's 16½ years older than I am, and consequently we didn't grow up together, and I've never had a chance to spend as much time with her as I'd like. I'll be helping her with work on her house and garden, taking some time to write, and just getting a break from my life for a while.
• Main thing holding me back from heading down to Olympia is my truck, at the moment. Noticed the day before yesterday, right after I got an oil change, that my brake light wasn't going out, anymore, when I released the parking brake. The truck feels to me like there's a lot of resistance when I drive it, as if the parking brake is jammed. I've taken the truck to a Walt's Auto Care Center, and despite dire predictions from retcon and wendolen, the guy there thinks this sounds relatively minor/inexpensive. I hope to God he's right. They'll call me tomorrow.
• Spent a fair amount of today playing around with the Amazon.com Web services SOAP and XML APIs. They're easier to use than I thought they'd be, but don't seem nearly as flexible and useful. *shrug*
• Also spent a big chunk of today on IM, much to the shock of many. I've now found a Trillian skin I don't hate looking at, so this might become a more regular and less world-shaking ocurrance. We'll see.