Here's an article I mostly agree with, about the art of programming.

I'm starting to realize I'm actually an above-average guitarist, and getting better (because I keep practicing). I never got this good when I was younger; it's like age and years of singing performance did something that made guitar easier. I'm starting to really understand the instrument, and my fingers and hands and voice can all do the right things with it.

Moral fiber. So, what is moral fiber? It's funny, I used to think it was always telling the truth, doing good deeds, basically being a fucking boy scout. But lately I've been seeing it differently. Now I think moral fiber's about finding that one thing you really care about. That one special thing that means more to you than anything else in the world. And when you find her, you fight for her. You risk it all, you put her in front of everything, your life, all of it. And maybe the stuff you do to help her isn't so clean. You know what? It doesn't matter. Because in your heart you know, that the juice is worth the squeeze. That's what moral fiber's all about.

(The Girl Next Door was advertised as another stupid teen movie, but it's actually pretty intense and deals with a lot of dark moral issues. Also: tons of hot girls, and a nice groovy-thumpy soundtrack.)

I showed up at the office yesterday and my job fell on me like a ton of bricks. I have four or five genuinely high-priority issues I'm trying to juggle, and they're all really hard. These weeks happen; the big improvement over my last job (besides getting paid what I'm worth) is that the problems are real and hard and interesting, instead of just tedious and driven by anxious overreactive people who have no perspective about how unimportant their website really is and who won't take any responsibility for making it impossible for anyone to get their stuff done on time. Not that it pissed me off.

The more astrology-minded folks talk about my age as the "Saturn Return"--when you're in the 27-29 range supposedly Saturn is in the same position it was when you were born, and it's a time of change and growth (and often pain and suffering, I guess) for many or most people. I've been growing a lot over the past five years or so, so I can't really say this is conspicuously different; I'd attribute any difference just to my being older. 2004 was actually pretty stuck and static, and I did a certain amount of work trying to get my life moving and in general it didn't pay off. I did date a nice girl for a little while, but things didn't pick up until I decided to change jobs (followed almost immediately by my being laid off). 2003 was phenomenal; to some degree I spent 2004 mourning the loss of what was good in 2003. 2005 has been pretty top-notch, overall, with a lot of me just being me, which is probably enough adventure and activity for a lot of people. Is this a special time? I don't know. I wouldn't chalk it up to Saturn. I've done a lot of work to get to this point, and every week and month a bunch of my threads come closer to converging.