Making it Cooler

I’m feeling much better now. Oh, yes. The Java programming final that was kicking my butt last week is over; I got a B on the final, and an A- in the class. The instructor assured me that only one student received an A on the final; still, after having stayed up until 2 in the morning a couple of days in a row, I wish I’d done better. Ah, well. Still, an A- is nothing to sneeze at, considering that I haven’t taken a programming class per se since 1984. Back then, BASIC still had line numbers (remember 10 GOTO 10?), Pascal was a rigorous teaching language, the IBM-PC was barely a twinkle in some engineer’s eye, and Larry Wall (inventor of Perl), Linus Torvalds (inventor of Linux), and Rasmus Lerdorf (inventor of PHP) were all shooting spitwads across their frog dissection lab stations in Mrs. O’Hare’s science class in PS-102 in Des Moines, Iowa.

Well, okay, I made that last part up. But the part about BASIC is true.

In other news, I’ve conquered a milestone or two with my Linux computer by getting it to print (mostly) to a printer that is attached to a Windows 98 computer, and getting it to talk to my Palm Pilot. I’ve been fussing with both of these challenges for months, and finally figured out the answers on my own. I feel darn near competent! All I need to figure out now is how to get my installation of WordPerfect to print; for some reason, WordPerfect uses its own weird set of drivers for Linux, and since Corel sold their Linux products to some other company, there is no more support for the program I bought. Dammit. But it is possible, I’m sure of it.

I’m not quite ready to dump Windows yet. but I’m getting there.

In other news: I’ve snagged a couple of minor PHP projects, and I’ll be writing a short series of articles about PHP for a web development company that promises me authorship credit, if not actual money. I got an e-mail from the graduate student I was working with a couple of months ago, and it looks like I’ll get to tromp through the mud collecting water samples again this month or next month. Next week I start my Chemistry and Math classes. The creative project that Evilpheemy and I is going pretty well (and would go better if he didn’t throw me massive curve balls every couple of weeks so that I could feel comfortable working on the source book – *ahem*).

So… Things are busy, but going well. The job hunt is going… well, it’s going. I’ve networked as much as I can conceive of, I’ve sent out at least five resumes a day, if not more, just about every day, and there have been no nibbles, no responses. Ah, well.

This last bit won’t make sense unless you know us and our cats.

You Are:
Allegra

Allegra’s theory is that everything should be discussed at length, while one is doing it. Allegra’s actions are usually accompanied by some sort of musical trill (simple mews are beneath her) – a sort of running commentary on her day-to-day activities. She is the perfect example of how a living creature can be not a solid, but a semi-liquid. Her movements are usually graceful and sinuous, albeit occasionally comical as she pours herself around the underside of the shelf on the cat tree. She prefers attention on her own terms – only when the unsuspecting human is sitting down and presents an available lap.

Take the "Which Crawford Cat Are You? Quiz

Ecological Engineering

The other day after church, Jennifer and I had lunch with her parents. Jennifer’s mother asked me about the classes I’m taking in chemistry and mathematics, and what I plan on pursuing in graduate school. "What, exactly, is an ecological engineer?" she asked me.

Well, according to the website for the website for the International Ecological Engineering Society, it is:

"the design of the human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both" (Mitsch & Jorgensen, 1989). Ecological engineering integrates various existing environmental fields such as classical ecology, agro-ecology, and restoration ecology. The skills of these fields are used to design low-impact systems for waste treatment, food and energy production, habitat restoration and other benefits.

Yes, it’s a big switch for me; but as my friend Craymore pointed out to me, "Big switches like that are just so you, Richard!" This is quite true, although I’m sure that the point could be made that the reason why I haven’t gotten very far in my life is that I haven’t managed to keep my focus on any one thing long enough to succeed at it.

Now, if the definition that I quote above were all the ecological engineering were, then it would be the habitat restoration that intrigues me the most in that list of possibilities. But, honestly, what really excites me are the possiblities for information technology in the field.

The use of computers in biology is something that has fascinated me since high school, when I participated in a contest to generate models of ecological systems. My own fishery model was never completed, unfortunately, but my solid waste disposal model/game was a hit in my AP biology class. And I was constantly modelling population dynamics in BASIC on my old TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Unfortunately, when I was in college, I let my interest in computer programming slide, and that proved to be a mistake for many reasons. It has only been in the past few years that my interest has been piqued again. And in the past few months, my interest in applications of computer technology to ecosystem engineering has grown, especially after a conversation I had in Westport, Ireland with a computer programmer who’s involved in that sort of work (although, honestly, I don’t remember all of that conversation, given the circumstances under which the conversation happened).

Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the biological sciences. Generally, when people talk about bioinformatics, they refer to computer technology in the "hard" areas of biological science: molecular chemistry and genetics, to name just a couple. I have seen references, however, to the application of bioinformatics to ecology and ecosystems, and that is where my interest is. I’m convinced that there is a place for the use of bioinformatics, especially when combined with GIS technologies, in ecosystem engineering. I’ve asked a local bioinformatics special interest group that I belong to for more information about the field, but I’m told that such an application hasn’t really been developed, and that it sounds more like a PhD thesis.

I’m not certain that I want to go as far as pursuing a PhD in the field of bioinformatics or any of the biological sciences. I do know,though, that there is a lot that I should learn, about bioinformatics, about computer programming, about biology and ecology and engineering.

Who knows, though? Perhaps this will just end up being yet another pipe dream that will end up on the heap with some other ideas I’ve had. I think I saw that Starbuck’s is hiring. Perhaps that is a more realistic goal for me.

Links of Worthiness:

I Knew Him When…

I’m not quite the gamer geek that my friends Purplkat and Evilpheemy are, but I’ve done my share. I know dozens of gamer geeks: people who spend significant portions of their lives playing role-playing games and come up with campaigns and characters to play. Most of my close friends are gamer geeks to one degree or another.

Every now and then, a gamer geek crosses the line and actually gets paid to do their thing. And I’m oozing with pride to be able to say that one of my best friends, Evilpheemy, second only to Jennifer, is about to cross that line! I’ve always known Evilpheemy as one of the most intelligent and creative people I’ve ever met, and I’m thrilled that he’s going to get a chance to write a supplement for one of his favorite settings.

This is a big break for Evilpheemy. He’s worked hard for it, and he’s earned it. So, to Evilpheemy, I say: Right smeggin’ on, you deep indigo hearted bastard from Purgatory!

Ah, a very relevant link: Black-Clad Gaming. Formerly underpup.net. Formerly pennydreadful.org. Why "Black Clad Gaming"? Well, thereby hangs a tale. Perhaps I’ll tell you sometime.

Final Exam

There’s really no excuse for this at all. I started this class back in June, so it’s been nearly seven months. Granted, there was a period of time when it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to reach the instructor at all, and there was confusion over who, exactly, was going to be teaching the class at all. But, honestly, that down time probably only lasted a month or so, if that.

And yes, there was a wedding in there. That occupied some time. But there were only a couple of weeks when I was unable to work on this class at all.

It’s an on-line class in Java programming that I’ve been taking through UC Davis. The final exam is due tomorrow, and I’m completely stumped. At this point, I’m very likely the only person who hasn’t completed the class, and I can’t come up with a good reason for why I haven’t finished it at this point. Honestly, I could have finished this class months ago. Perhaps I was lulled by the fact that it was so easy for so long. The basic elements of programming in Java were amazingly simple for me to pick up. Once the class moved into GUI’s, it became harder, but not impossible. I received an A+ on the last lesson assignment, and an A- on the midterm (in all honesty, I was a bit disappointed by that, though I know I shouldn’t be). And I’ve completed each assignment and done very well on them.

And so here is the final, and I can’t figure it out to save my life. It shouldn’t be that hard: display a graph of different functions on the screen based on two values input by the user and a function selected by clicking on a button. It isn’t that hard. And if I had another week, I could figure it out.

Problem is, I don’t have another week. I have less than 24 hours. And I can’t find any reason for this situation except my own lack of discipline, my own laziness, my own inability to follow through. Those same qualities have dogged me all of my life, and probably explain to some degree why I’m the 34-year-old unemployed web developer with minimal skills that I am now. (Honestly, there are times when I wonder how it is that I managed to pull off getting a Bachelor’s degree at all.)

And this bothers me. Earlier this week I enrolled at a local community college in a math class and a chemistry class. Bonehead level, both of them; I did rather poorly in both subjects when I was an undergraduate at UC Davis, so I hope that by starting at a basic level I might be able to make a better showing for myself this time around. Though I worry that my own inability to follow thorugh will dog me again, and I’ll wind up in the same sort of situation all over again; and then what? I suppose that then I will simply accept that I’m not meant for any sort of challenging career, that this computer programming thing should just remain a hobby for me, that this whole ecosystem engineer thing is a pipe dream, that I should simply be looking for full-time work that I at least won’t suck at. I’m a good driver. I could do delivery work, and UPS pays fairly decently. Honestly, education costs too much money to waste if I don’t have the discipline or ability to follow through with it; and I can’t help wondering if at this point in my life it’s a little late to try to instill the skills of follow through and discipline that I’d need.

In the meantime, though, I’ll finish up as much of this final exam as I can, and then submit what I’ve got done when the deadline is here. I know that I’ll get a passing grade; but knowing that if I’d gotten my ass in gear long ago I could done much better will be painful.

So, Where's My Resolution?

Earlier this week my doctor gave me a new mouthpiece for my nebulizer. Since I’m feeling a bit wheezy and tight this evening, and my regular inhaler didn’t seem to do the trick, I broke out the new mouthpiece and started breathing away. This new mouthpiece has a little rubber valve on the bottom of it that flaps down when I breathe out; this little rubber flap tickles my lower lip, actually. That, and the cloud of medicated steam that arises from the mouthpiece and obscures my vision gives my face a whole set of distractions while I’m writing this entry.

All of a sudden, it’s 2002. Many people are proclaiming 2001 to be one of the worst years in recent history, what with the terrorism and the recession and the war and so on. NPR even played a song called, "Thank God it’s over", and just about every speech and toast that I’ve seen for 2001 has made a point of saying something like, "Thank God that year’s over."

In the grand scheme of things, perhaps this year was worse than others, but I really don’t think it was all that bad. Here’s a pro/con chart of 2001 for me:

Cons Pros
  • Got laid off
  • Built a beautiful house
  • Married my best friend
  • Took a month long vacation in Ireland and Great Britain
  • Wrote a novel
  • Got laid off from a job that I wasn’t enjoying all that much anyway
  • Lost nearly 20 pounds
  • A new god daughter was born
  • A new nephew was born

Is it selfish for me to say that, on the whole, this was a pretty good year for me? It’s not that I’m insensitive to the tragic events of September 11 and to the lives of those who were forever altered by them. But I also don’t want to minimize the importance of the good things that happened to me. In the future, I want to remember 2001 primarily as being the year in which I married Jennifer, not the year in which tragedy struck and war began.

Getting laid off from my company was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I was starting to feel very frustrated there; I was doing web development, which I enjoy, but I was only doing front end work, which I find frustrating after a time when I really want to code PHP and Perl and build back end software. It was also hard for me to figure out who was benefitting from my work besides the company; after all, as far as I could tell, our product had very little actual usage. I’ve kept in touch with former co-workers that I liked and that I’d become friends with; and something tells me that, in a way, I’m kind of lucky that I got laid off when I did. And getting laid off gave me a chance to go back and look at some other things that I want to do with my life, and with Jennifer’s support I’m starting up classes at a community college in bonehead chemistry and math to begin the long road towards becoming an ecosystems engineer (while continuing to look for new work; I’m not slacking off there, but I am primarily considering contract and part time work now, not full time work). This has been a good thing. I still enjoy web development and programming, and I think that the future holds bioinformatics applied to ecosystems for me.

As for New Year’s resolutions; well, I admit that I don’t really make them anymore. I decided several years ago that January 1 was as arbitrary a date as any for making global life changes, so I figured I’d make March 25 resolutions instead. But, really, I don’t actually see a need to make any resolutions, whether for the new year or even for March 25. I’m pretty happy with the person that I am, I’m pretty happy with the direction that I’m going in. Many years ago I set out some goals for myself, for the person that I want to become and the things that I want to accomplish. I’ve achieved many of those goals, I’ve set some new ones, and I’m well on my way to accomplishing many of the other goals. So I guess I have to say that the only resolution I want to make is to stay the course.

Some of you had a good 2001, some of you had a really bad one. All of us were deeply affected by the events of September and October. While we shouldn’t forget or minimize tragedy, we should also not dishonor the good things that happened to us as well.

Have a healthy and prosperous 2002.