Seasonal Affective Disorder or just general-purpose malaise?

Now that I'm back to working from home this past month, it's been really weird for me. Much as I hate commuting it forces you into a daily routine, which is somewhat comforting particularly in the winter time. Ironically that's also when I hate the actual process of commuting the most. The combination of working by myself in my apartment and being really unable to get anywhere except by bus makes for a pretty depressing situation sometimes.

I mean I'm here... and I'm working. I could work elsewhere but that means trudging through and then standing in the cold to go to a café where I could maybe spend 2-3 hours without severely overcaffeinating myself, then I'd need to trudge home. It doesn't sound like a big deal but being out in the cold can seriously tire you out. Just the process of being out and staying warm is exhausting sometimes.

I've been working too much and being lazy too much, and my apartment's still not fully organized. Having a car will help because I can go pick up some essentials that are missing, but even the process of looking for a car is made more difficult by my location. Being far from public transit and not already owning a car, it's difficult to go searching for one by my usual means (craigslist), and I refuse to go to a lot. 

The overall result is just this general-purpose malaise that the weather certainly isn't helping. During Chicago winters I usually stay in as much as possible, taking occasional breaks to go out and drink alcohol to keep myself warm. I fear this winter won't be too different from that. We'll see.

Hibernate 'til spring, space cadets.

RubyConf 2008

I'm finally back in Chicago after a long weekend in Orlando, FL, at RubyConf '08. As my first large-ish conference I really don't have a lot to compare it to besides Great Lakes Ruby Bash earlier this year, but I've gotta say it was a pretty great time. There's something about Ruby programmers, I think, or maybe it's something about us that makes us want to become Ruby programmers. It's really very simple: we're doing this because we love it.

We do. Programming PHP was a job to me. Programming python was a slightly more enjoyable job but it still felt like work. Programming in Ruby feels as relaxing to me as painting does. It's not just a job to me, and I'm passionate about it; I get the feeling that I'm definitely not the only one and that's pretty cool.

All around a pretty good crowd and a pretty good weekend. A lot of scotch and bourbon was consumed. I'm glad I made the decision to avoid the free beer Saturday night on account of everybody was way too hung over the next day and I felt just fine. Had a good time anyway, paid far too much for some bourbon at the hotel bar, and observed the bizarre crowd at the hotel bar. I don't think any of those people were prepared to see the hotel lobby filled 24/7 with bearded nerds on laptops, but whatever. We're cooler than the tanning bed convention folk anyway. 

Once I get some of my thoughts together on the conference and the world I'll write some more. Ciao ciao space cadets!