iBanjo

(Here’s the text of an email I just sent to the Subversion developer and user community mailing lists:)

I’ve been part of this community for a very long time, and I want to let folks know that I’ve decided to change jobs. It means I won’t be working on Subversion full-time for Collabnet anymore.

Before any weird rumors start, allow me to elaborate.

I have no grievances with Collabnet — it’s a wonderful place to work. The company deserves huge kudos for taking the time (and risk) to pay people to work on open-source software for all these years.

What’s really going on is more personal; I’m ready to move on. It’s tough to work on the same product for 50 hours a week for five years, and I’m close to burning out. I need a change. I need to work on something new for awhile. Opportunity recently presented itself (at Google, in case you’re wondering), and the job offer felt like the the next thing (and Right Thing) for both me and my career.

Ironically, this shift is happening right at the same time that Collabnet is ramping up its investment in Subversion — more people working on it, more support, more marketing. So please don’t interpret my departure as “Collabnet losing interest in Subversion”, the situation is actually quite the opposite.

In truth, I’m not particularly worried about either Collabnet or Subversion. I consider this project to be a huge success. What started out as just me, Karl, and Jim at a whiteboard (back in April 2000) has blossomed into a huge community of developers and users. Development keeps happening, and the lists are full of users supporting each other. It makes me proud!

I’m not going to disappear completely, mind you. I’m simply stepping my involvement down a notch. Instead of “obsessed guy constantly mailing the lists and driving features”, I’ll become a typical svn developer who participates in my free time. I won’t have time to read the users@ list anymore, but I’ll still be chatting on the dev@ list and in #svn-dev on irc.freenode.net.

Thanks, everyone! Witnessing the birth of a completely self-sustaining open-source project has been rather miraculous to watch. (Lucky me, I have another miraculous birth to witness in the very near future… 🙂 )

It’s been almost three weeks since my father passed, and I’m desperately keeping busy, trying to catch up on weeks of computer and music work. Whenever I stop to breathe, I still feel depressed. I guess that’s normal, though… I expect the depression to last a while.

Still, there’s nothing like a bit of escapism to help distract from the sadness of reality. Why read a book, when you can live the book? I’m referring to MMORPGs, of course. My new favorite game is Guild Wars, which, unlike other online games, does not require a monthly subscription. You just buy the game, then pop online and go adventuring with friends. If anyone out there also plays, let me know, so we can do some online socializing and questing together. I’ve been playing with one friend recently, and it’s really great to do a VoIP voice call while playing … either through Skype or Google Talk. It makes a huge difference.

T minus six weeks till baby. After that, I doubt I’ll have time play games anymore. I’ll probably be too sleep-deprived anyway.

It’s hard to know where to start.

For these last few days, everything has been so strange and disorienting. It’s as though the fabric of reality has been torn or twisted. I keep wondering if I’ve been transported to parallel universe: one of those strange fictional worlds where the Germans won the war, where animals can talk, or where dad goes to the hospital and never comes home.

I’ve had a hard time sleeping these last few nights. I keep waking up in the middle of the night, tears in my eyes, trying to believe the new reality. But despite all the grief, the pain, the infinite night… amazingly, unexplanainably, the sun keeps coming up.

I was shocked when I first saw it rise on Friday morning. The audacity of such a thing was insulting. My universe lying in pieces, and yet the sun did not stop… not for me, nor anyone else. And when the same thing happened on Saturday morning… the rays of light coming in my bedroom window, I finally realized that this was not some fictional universe. It was the same universe I’ve always been in. The sadness was real. The heartbreak was real. The sun was real. But also, the love was real.

Dad’s entire life was about making people happy. This is not an exaggeration or euphemism: it was his actual self-admitted goal. Nothing made him happier than nuturing others. He exuded compassion wheverever he went, took care of everyone. As a psychologist, he even made a living out of it.

Growing up in my house, my parents’ roles were reversed from the stereotypes. Mom was often the breadwinner, the one who encouraged us to study, and achieve, and be confident. Dad, however, was the nuturer: a giant cloud of unconditional love. He would cook for us, bundle us in warm clothes, give us backrubs, spoil us whenever he could. He was the ultimate mother. But at the same time, he was strong… incredibly strong, because he was open about his feelings. He showed us how the deepest strength flowed from vulnerability.

Strong, nuturing, funny… could you ask for a better role model? When I grow up, this is who I want to be. And I know I’m not the only one who has thought that before. He wasn’t just a father and role-model to me and my brother, but also to all four of his siblings. As they have told me, he was a “beacon” to them — a beacon of sanity, humor and joy.

And then there was his marriage — it’s hard to find words to describe it. He and mom may have been marriage counselors by trade, but their wisdom didn’t come from psychology books. It came from experience… they lived the perfect marriage. In my entire life, I have never seen two people more in love. After forty years, still holding hands and looking at each other as if they had just started dating… it’s almost unbelievable. This, again, is another role model. Theirs was the marriage that every one of us dreams of and strives for. Very few people in this world are ever so lucky.

The night before his surgery, dad and I had a long talk in the hospital. We spoke mainly about my own imminent parenthood: what it’s like to become a father, how the world changes, the frustrations and rewards of parenting. Will I know what to do when my child arrives? As always, dad was both candid and comforting. He said that being a parent destroys your confidence and also makes you more confident than ever, all at the same time. He said not to worry, that I’d know what to do.

It turns out that dad was right. These past few nights, when I bolt up in bed, I’m surrounded by images of my own childhood.

• Sleeping next to dad in the waterbed, waiting for mom to bring my
  newborn brother home from the hospital
• Standing in the shower-stalls of the YMCA, while dad dries my
  head with a towel
• Sitting on dad’s back while he does his daily push-ups, both of us
  listening to his favorite Beatles album
• Making jokes with dad about all the silly, harmless monsters that
  might crawl through my bedroom window
• Teaching me how to make tuna salad
• Watching him point out the constellations in the sky, then looking
  through his telescope
• Following him upwards as he as scales the side of a huge sand
  dune. Summer after summer.
• Swimming in the waters of Maine, watching our skin turn blue from
  the cold
• Exploring the Tower of London together
• Listening to him explain the difference between regular and
  cross-pack sardines

All of these vivid images swimming around my head in the middle of the night… they’re pictures of compassion, moments of intense love. This is my roadmap for parenting. Everything I need to know about raising a child, dad has already given me.

I’ve always felt cheated that my own grandfather passed away just before I was born, that I never got to meet him. And now history has horribly repeated itself. But this time, when my child asks “what was your father like?”, I know what I’m going to say.

I’ll say: look at all these people around you — all these family and friends, all the people who knew dad, and the the incredible bonds between them. We’re like a giant jigsaw puzzle which fits together so tightly, that when you remove one piece, you can still see its outline in the empty space. All of the love dad left behind, the relationships he nutured… they define his shape. You can still see him and feel him.

And still,
every morning,

miraculously,
the sun keeps coming up.

A rather large spider has taken up residence in the driver’s side-view mirror of our car.

When you come out to the car in the morning, he has an elaborate web going from the side-view mirror to the side window. When you begin to drive, he notices the heavy wind and immediately starts dismembering the web. He crawls up and down the web, flailing violently in the breeze, removing the strands. Amazingly, he doesn’t blow away. After about five minutes, the web is gone, and as soon as you come to a stoplight, he zips back into the rearview mirror to hide out for the rest of the day. The next morning, the web is back again.

This has been going on for over a week. Wife has dubbed him “spidey”, our official driving companion.

When I was 17 years old, just graduated from high school, I was awarded a summer internship working at a DoE laboratory. It was my first “real” job (beyond washing dishes and bagging groceries), and the lab was nice enough to arrange a car pool for me. Every day, a nice 50-something-year-old meterologist who lived near me would pick me up and take me to to the lab with him.

During our morning commutes, he would often ask me about my interests, how I liked high school, and what I planned to do as I entered college. I have a distinct memory of one particular conversation in which I said, “Well, you know, I guess college will be just like high school, but a little harder, and I won’t be living at home anymore. No big difference, I guess.” He just laughed and said, “Oh my, you have no idea.”

“What do you mean, I have no idea…?”

“Enjoy the summer. The rest of your life is about to begin, you’ll understand someday.”

Sure enough, I went off to college and jumped right in. I made a bunch of friends in the dorms, dove into classes, and loved it. At first, it was a bit odd, being out of my parents’ house… sort of like going off to summer camp. Except that camp kept going on, and on, and on, and on… and then I lost track. After three months, I went home for christmas break, and sure enough, the guy was right. Something was different. It was weird and uncomfortable being at home. It wasn’t quite “home” anymore. I had changed, or life had changed, and some sort of bridge had been crossed when I wasn’t looking… I couldn’t backtrack. A year later, I couldn’t even imagine what life was like before college.

These days, I’m experiencing dejavu. With a baby due soon, I’m getting all sorts of similar messages from friends and relatives: “your life is about to change forever”. It’s kinda weird. I guess I’m coming up against the next “rest of my life”. Perhaps someday, I’ll be incapable of remembering life without kids.

This week’s tuna comes to us from the waters of Portugal, then
distributed by a company in Genova, Italy. The brand is As do
Mar, and it’s titled Tonno Trancio Intero.

As you can see from the packaging, it claims to be “hand worked”
(lavorato a mano), packaged in olive oil.

I was impressed upon first opening the can at the distinct
lack of aroma. The oil drained clearly (almost no fish
sediment) and had almost no smell at all. This was not your typical
low-quality olive oil which tends to overpower the fish and come away
smelling like a rotten seabed. No, this oil was delicate enough for
me to use in cooking dinner, without over-fishing my stir fried
vegetables!

The tuna itself appeared to be white tuna, and was packed extremely
densely. It took a bit of force to break through the dense fibers
with my fork:

Coming near the nose, the fish had a slightly spicy, salty aroma,
but then after a few minutes of airing, it opened up into a more
subtle herbaceous bouquet — perhaps that of distant seaweed. The
olive oil had barely any flavor exchange with the fish, which was a
pleasant surprise to this old can-diver.

On the tongue, a very quiet start, not too strong at all. A heavy,
meaty texture, with a definite (though not overwhelming) tuna flavor,
followed by a clean finish. This stuff would be perfect for hors
d’oeuvres, edible even by those who typically loathe fishy dishes. It
wouldn’t offend a flea. Overall, I give it 3 1/2 fins, an excellent
find.

The back of the box says

“Il Trancio Intero di Tonno As do Mar e da sempre un prodotto
dalle caratteristiche eccezionali grazie alla perfetta pulizia
eseguita da mani esperte, all’ antica lavorazione artigianale e alla
selezione delle parti piu adatte per ottenere un Trancio Intereo dal
gusto unico.”

…which, according to Babelfish, means

“The Entire Trancio of Tonno As I give to Mar and from always a
product from the exceptional characteristics thanks to the perfect one
pulizia executed from expert hands, to the ancient handicraft working
and the selection of the parts piu adapted in order to obtain a
Trancio Intereo from the only taste.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

I just received a “safety recall” letter from Honda, regarding my Civic Hybrid.

My first thought was, “uh oh, I wonder what part is dangerous? What needs replacing?”. But amazingly, the letter says that the car’s software has a bug which leads to eventual failure of the catalytic converter. The letter instructs me to bring the car into the nearest Honda dealer, where they will patch the software for me at no cost.

I wonder how long it will be before I can just ask the car to download software updates itself, just like my computer does.

It’s actually a bit scary. The first week after we brought the Civic Hybrid home (back in 2003), I was driving about 20 mph down a quiet side-street, and the car suddenly shut off. The motor stopped, lights went out — as if I had yanked the key out of the ignition completely. I couldn’t accelerate, only steer, brake, and gently pull to the side for a rolling stop. I restarted the car, and it was fine again. After immediately bringing it to the dealer, they apologized and said that the problem was in the software, that the software had accidently shut down everything. They claimed that they reintsalled the whole operating system, and that it would be fine now.

I’ve not had any problems since then. But still, programmers used to make dumb jokes about “if cars were computers, they’d explode spontaneously everyday” and such. It’s not so silly anymore. My car has an operating system, and I’m not so sure I trust it anymore.

So I succumbed to (1) my gadget addiciton and (2) the cultural rule that all imminent fathers must buy video cameras. Bought a Panasonic PV-GS150, and it really is neat. It has three CCDs, so the color quality is way better than other cameras in its price range. We did a lot of comparisons in the store, and the difference is dramatic.

So after filming two minutes of cats and wife shaking fist, I plugged the camera into the Mac’s firewire port and clicked the ‘import’ button. The video got slurped right into iMovie. Now I just need to figure out how to edit the stuff. Though in the long run, I guess I’ll be doing the editing on my XP music-studio box. The machine actually belongs to me, is faster, and has way more disk space.

However, Mark and Marg were kind enough to do an iChat videoconference with me as a test. It worked really smoothly over 802.11b… though they claimed the audio cut out for them now and then. I’m not sure if that’s an indication that I need to a faster DSL upload speed, or if I ought to just go buy an 802.11g router.

Blueberries. Fresh. The taste of July.

Enough said.

Apple has finally caught onto the popularity of podcasts. A podcast is similar to a weblog — instead of amateur journalism articles being posted to a web page, it’s an amateur radio show posted a series of mp3 fies. Both blogs and podcasts are syndicated through RSS feeds, and can be “subscribed” to through aggregation programs that automatically download the latest broadcasts.

In any case, Apple just released iTunes 4.9, which now has the ability to subscribe to podcasts. After installing, I searched the podcast directory for “bluegrass” and found a radio show released by the Bluegrass Preservation Society. It’s basically one guy in the mountains of West Virginia who records local bluegrass bands and narrates a show around them. The music is fantastic. And the guy has a nice cat named Buster, who he claims runs the booth controls for him!

As requested on his radio show, I sent the guy an email, letting him know he had a new fan in Chicago, and he wrote back a really nice response. I recommend you download an episode of his radio program, it’s great stuff.