What he said.

By hand. By which I mean physically swimming just off the Arctic Ice Shelf (a much scaled down representation of it).

I. Have. No. Idea.

It's been weeks (possibly months) since I took my bike out and today I was finally well enough, in the country and presented with decent weather and a willing riding partner.

We rode out to Ceres via Du Toit's Kloof and returned via Bain's Kloof. Nothing floods my system with adrenaline more effectively than Bain's Kloof. I think it's the combination of an uneven surface (the road seems designed explicitly to tackle the overpopulation process), the fact that you have to take it slowly (which means you're in a low gear and your throttle is more sensitive which, coupled with the previous issue makes for a challenging ride) or the fact that a significant portion of the ride is spent looking over sheer edges with nothing more than the occasional thoughtfully placed rock protecting you from a spectacular (but ultimately terminal) sudden change in potential energy.

Generally just a great ride.

The nice thing about a ride like this is that you are forced to focus on one thing: not dying (or some variation thereof).

I read an article recently which proffered an interesting technique for suppressing the urge to relieve yourself: think of sex. Apparently this is sufficiently distracting to buy you some time.

I buy that theory because riding is like that for me: while I'm on the bike anything that's been on my mind, or troubling me, or just generally consuming mental cycles disappears. It's just me and the road (and my riding partner, when I remember).

I've been sitting on this for absolutely ages. Enjoy.

Release 1.0
=====================

  - Support for Java 1.5 improved. Rox will now load different marshalling implementations
    based on the Java runtime version. Under version 1.5 and higher support for generics
    and enumerated types is transparent.
  - Rox now supports optional automatic mapping of HTTP GET requests onto your XML-RPC
    method handlers. See the com.flat502.rox.server.CgiRequestUnmarshaller class
    for more details.
  - Connections from HTTP/1.0 clients are correctly terminated after a response has been
    returned (unless they're using HTTP/1.1-style keepalives).
  - Responses will now mirror the HTTP version of the request and HTTP 1.1 headers
    will not be included in these responses.
  - HttpRpcServer now supports an idle client timer. This is disabled by default. If
    set clients that are idle for a period exceeding the timeout specified are
    forcibly disconnected.

Wide awake and feeling like writing, but not a hell of a lot of interest to put down here. So I thought I'd dump a few random odds and ends that have occurred to me at various points.

I am amused to discover that I tend naturally towards adjusting my car radio's volume in increments that result in an even number. It feels odd to leave the volume on 17, for example. I'll either push it up to 18, or down to 16. Often I'll find myself thinking about something else, bouncing between two volume settings because neither is quite right. Eventually I'll snap out of it and mentally slap myself because the volume setting I want is the odd number between the two settings I'm unhappy with.

I think I make trouble for myself because I struggle with anything that seems like stasis. It's fine for a period and then there's an inflection point and change, any change, develops a certain allure. I have a good friend who, I suspect, struggles even more with this. Unfortunately, there's always that "Oh, fu..." moment when your feet leave the diving board.

I bounce between being narrowly focused on tiny meaningless (in the grand scheme of things) trivialities (like putting together a pure Ruby HMAC-SHA1 implementation for a set of tools I want to give to some customers) and wondering what the hell it's all about. I'm not religious, not by any stretch. I wouldn't call myself spiritual, I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. I believe we're all made up of the stuff of stars, and that in due course we return to that state, and that when that time comes that's it. Finito. The end. No "next". This used to bother me. A lot. But it doesn't really any more. There are things in Life that just are, and you either accept them or you grind to a halt. It does, however, make explaining things like "moral imperatives" tricky. I don't have a good one for that. But just because you can't explain everything (yet) doesn't make your position unsound. So don't, at this point, try to step in and tell me some ethereal being of light and pixie dust is the force behind that imperative. Frankly, evolution and societal dynamics are a lot more compelling even if they are fuzzy as hell.

Bit of a tangent there. I'll close that lid and open another box. What else is in here ...

I've become a little more wary of what I post here. I just don't have the knack of the "next generation" for total transparency. Or perhaps I fear that the people around me don't have the coping mechanisms. It's almost certainly a combination of the two. These things are never that simple. But it would be quite liberating to be able to just dump here without any concern about who might be reading it, or what they might think. I know a bunch of people who read this, people I work with, people I share a significant fraction of my genetic code with, people who's genetic lineage recently intersected with mine, and a smattering of random people I've collected along the way. I suspect the last group has grown ever so slightly too, given that I recently caved and added this site to my Facebook profile. At least, Google Analytics tells me there's been a bit of a "surge" in traffic recently. Yes, you're reading me, I'm watching you.

A couple of times I've given serious thought to starting a completely anonymous blog. Kinda like a "secret diary" so I can get in touch with my inner thirteen year old girl. An ex-colleague and I even discussed doing something like this just so we could discuss all the taboo topics that invariably come up between guys over a pool table in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe one day I'll get around to it.

This has dragged on for longer than I expected, and I should probably wrap it up before it gets any more out of hand.

To quote another good friend of mine, "Just ignore me. I'm rambling."

I real mishmash of lyrics floating around in my head at the moment, and since it seems I haven't posted lyrics for some time I thought I'd dump them all here and let you sort them out. Mostly it's just a case of snippets running through my mind (no doubt casting nervous looks about; my mind is probably a pretty scary place to spend any significant time).

"In another place, in another time, I'd be drivin trucks my dear" from Live.

Melbourne has surfaced a number of times recently.

Maroon 5 have made a reappearance recently.

Caught the aural equivalent of a whiff or two of Vertical Horizon earlier this evening which budded into an overgrown tangle of nostalgia. Funny how closely particular music always seems to be tied to a particular time, or set of events. What sets you off?

And the collection just wouldn't be complete without the ubiquitous Counting Crows (sleep certainly didn't come easily last night, and the chorus seems to resonate right now, I just haven't quite figured out why).