Category: Just Shelley

I am now caught in the crossfires of two memes: one having to do with books and a deserted island; the other having to do with music. Rather than answer each individually, I’ve decided to combine them into one post, thereby blurring the trail and breaking the ‘meme hex’.

I was passed the music meme by Dori Smith, Jewel at Jewel’s Web Graphics and Dougal Campbell. Answering the questions given:

Total volume of music files on my computer: 344M. Yes, just 344M. The only music I have on my machine is what I’ve loaded to create one of my few attempts at mixing, or what I’ve downloaded from iTunes. I never listen to music from my computer.

The last CD I bought It’s been so long since I’ve bought a CD, I’m not sure what the last one was. I think it might have been the Norah Jones: Feels Like Home. I can definitively say that the last song I downloaded was this.

Song playing right now The song “Sixteen Tons”, written by Merle Travis and sung by Tennesse Ernie Ford; in ad on television, where GE attempts to make coal mining into something sexy and environmentally sound. I hate the message, am jaw dropped amazed at the hutzpah of both the campaign and visuals –but love that song.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me This is a tougher one.

Every time I start out on a trip I play Gimme some loving’ by the Spencer Davis group. Not sure why, but I know that my trip will be jinxed if I don’t play this song when I start.

The Beatle’s song Michelle is not a favorite song, but it had a significant impact on me–it was the reason I changed my name from Michelle to Shelley. And if we are to ever meet some day, whatever you do, do not hum, mouth, whisper, or play this song.

As for other songs, there are so many that I love and are important to me. I guess the ones I have particularly enjoyed listening to recently are Breathe (2am) by Anna Nalick; Me & Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin (”Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”); and Cat in the Window by Petula Clark–a personal anthem.

Now, on to the books.

I was passed the book meme by Loren Webster and Ken Camp. I gave a lot of thought to this meme–perhaps more than one should.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

There are so many beautiful books I would want to memorize, to preserve against destruction. However, when faced with a society that could condone the burning of books, truth has to matter more than beauty. But what is the ultimate book on truth? This one I couldn’t figure out, because I don’t think it’s been written yet.

After all, look around: at the killings in Iraq; untreated AIDs in Africa; our own homeless. Humanity hasn’t grown enough to write the ultimate book on truth.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character

Yes, indeedy! I have had a crush or two among the weblogging community, and though the gentlemen aren’t fictional, they are most definitely characters.

The last book you bought?

All these memes must assume you have a great deal of discretionary income. Either that, or they’re planted by Amazon. Anyway, I believe my last book purchased was 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of St. Louis. I usually only buy hiking books; anything else I check out from the library.

What are you currently reading

I just started what promises to be a wonderful book, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maquire.

Five books you would take to a deserted island

I thought about this for a long time, running all the books I have read and enjoyed through my mind. I have several favorite books, but also knew if I was stuck with any book for any length of time, I would grow weary of it at first, and then loath it in the end.

Like the other pragmatic souls who have answered this question, I would want one of the books to be a survival guide. Most people have mentioned the Army Survival Manual, but I rather like what I’ve read about the SAS Survival Guide.

When I was searching for a survival guide, I found an interesting survival book list at Amazon, which included books such as Wilderness Survival, The Worst Case Scenario Survival Book, The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide, and The Zombie Survival Guide. The latter book proves there is no subject that can’t end up as a book.

Ultimately, though, I decided that if I were going to be stuck on a deserted island, I would want the one survival guide and four large journals with blank, unlined pages. I would then use the journals to write my own books; and if I were to get tired of them over time, I would carefully erase the pages, one by one, and write new stories.

My thank you for those kind enough to pass the memes on to me, and apologies for the lateness of the answer. As for who to turn these memes to in turn, like my books on the island, I leave the spaces for these names blank and let those who are interested fill in their names.

So I’ll pass this on to the last five people who have left comments (with a web site–sorry Dan and Ed):

Denise Howell
Frank Paynter
Kafkaesquí
Scott Reynen
Dave Winer

Oddly enough, the venting in my last two posts has put me in a better mood. Regardless of what happens next month, or even next week, I have a piece of software to rollout and a cute cat snuggled up on my lap sharing space with a TiBook.

A cute cat who assures me that no, I don’t suck. Well, I don’t, as long as I get off my butt and provide the overdue noon goodie, that is.

We each have a moment in our nights, a point on the clock, where if we’re still awake, we might as well just stay awake. For me it is 4:30.

Good morning, everyone.

At least I managed to finish the metadata plugin. And I didn’t even need to drink the Mountain Dew.

I love to code. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I forgot how much I love to create software.

As I added years of experience, companies would increasingly pull me away from the computer and put me into a suit and a room and tell me to tell them what to do and their ‘junior’ people would do the coding because I was too valuable ‘just to code’.

Infrastructure was the word and architecture was my game, and I was, and am, good at this. I can spot bad tech a mile away, and can speak ‘user’, as well as ‘programmer’ and ‘manager’–a multi-lingual capability that proved itself of high worth again and again. But these gifts of mine rarely gave me a chance to just sit and code; to create something born of inspiration and need.

Coders will understand when I mention the ‘Aha!’ moment; when you hear from the other side of a cubical wall a cry of triumph–usually followed by the person bouncing out of their chair and in a hyperkinetic frenzy, walking about, dancing about–rapid swoosh of slinky being balanced from hand to hand, and shit-eating grin wide across the face. There were no cubical walls around me, and I scared my cat I think, but today I had one of those moments. And I re-discovered that I love to code.

I never realized until recently how much my experience at Skyfish.com had burned me out. It was the ultimate position someone like me dreams about: I had complete creative control of the architecture of the product, good rapport with the using community, a great team, and I still had time to code. I even had a CTO who I liked, though he was a pain in the butt at times.

But then the dot-com bust happened, and very nasty politics entered our game. The worry about our future and the anger at the power players, not to mention 16 hour days, eroded the joy so much, it’s taken me years to rediscover the person who sat down at a VAX terminal one day and typed in her first line of BASIC–and I’ll be damned, it worked!

I finished the metadata extension to Wordform today, and it works nicely and even though it’s not particularly fancy coding–using my code to glue together bits and pieces from others’ open source software–seeing it all come together, simply and with few moving parts, generated a rush of pure joy. That can’t be me, old, tired me that just experienced that moment. Can it?

We’ve been critical lately about ‘hackers and painters’, but this coder found the experience to be as satisfying as accomplishing a tough hike; as exhilarating as coming home from a day of shooting only to discover one perfect photo among the discards; as sure as knowing that something I’ve written is exactly right.

I did this. Whether people love it or hate it, doesn’t matter. The experience goes beyond money or, to use the coin of this realm, hypertext links; it even goes beyond being attractive to a member of the sex of preference and getting a mention in the New York Times. I did this.

Never take a coder for granted, or look at us with disdain or indifference; seeing in our aging bodies, the geeky children with vague ghosts of pocket protectors overlying whatever fashion sense we’ve learned to adopt as protective coloration. In moments like this, we almost have all the power of the universe in our fingertips because we make things work.

I love to code. That’s all. End of message.