• On Life and Love

    WinRAR to 7zip

    I finally got sick to death of WinRAR’s nag screen when I loaded or manipulated archives and installed 7zip. I’m pleased with it so far, even though I had to install a slightly older version to get integration with WinMerge.

  • On Life and Love

    Sunny furniture adventures

    All I wanted — in the short term — was a nice coffee table. I didn’t want bells or whistles or fancy carvings. I started with trying to refinish my current coffee table, which ended in disaster when I realized that I was spending my time (and my Friday night) trying to gently chisel off glued and nailed panels of wood from the sides of the table. You can’t gently chisel that mess. The sanding afterwards would have been painful. Screw that. So bright and early on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, G and I set out to see what Charlotte has to offer in terms of…

  • On Life and Love

    Wishful thinking

    Sometimes — often after a boring or frustrating experience at work — I wish that I were somehow gainfully unemployed so that I could more easily do the things I wish to do but am not doing. Writing, coding, reading, running, researching. Then I realize — usually with a sigh — that I must not want these things badly enough if I can’t manage to do the few things I want to do in the 5 – 7 non-working hours I have a day. It’s about that time to sit down and prioritize again.

  • Uncategorized

    Missing: spiritual discourse

    A visit to my favorite local UU church this past weekend led to the realization that I probably won’t be getting my spiritual fulfillment from a church any time soon. The two things that draw me to church are: the peaceful environment; the people — my friends and their parents and the various children; and the promise of some spiritual tidbit being intellectually examined in a way that leaves me enriched in some way when it’s over. I don’t think I can get that from a standard sermon. The last really requires discussion, not a lecture/sermon, and optimally a discussion with some of those people I’m there to be with.…